In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the question of ‘history’ in the Fourth Gospel, an interest exemplified in such books as A. J. B. Higgins's The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel and C. H. Dodd's Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel.1 The serious insistence of these studies on the historical element in the Gospel brings a much needed correction of the tendency to regard nearly everything in it as purely symbolic. On the request of the Greeks to see Jesus (John 12.20ff) Bultmann comments that the fact that the request is conveyed to Jesus by Philip and Andrew ‘must also have symbolic meaning’.2 And the tendency to close the door on inquiry into the historical element is illustrated by the word ‘only’ in G. H. C. Macgregor's comment: ‘The Greeks are brought on the stage only as a cue for Jesus' great discourse upon the necessity of his death and the universal salvation which will result from it.’3

In spite of all the gaps in the Church's tradition, it has become clear how strong the continuity of creed and liturgy, even of office and law, has been through the centuries.2 The history of diakonia, however, presents a strangely divergent picture. Admittedly Christ's command of love has been proclaimed in an unbroken line, but the actual loving deeds of the Church, their forms and institutions, show a striking discontinuity. Diakonia will break out with charismatic vigour and direct men for centuries to new ways of service, then it suddenly collapses and only a few venerable ruins remain. This has little to do with favourable or unfavourable political conditions. Diakonia never blossomed more richly than in the times of persecution under a Decius or Diocletian; and the Church was never relieved of more service than under Christian rulers through the secularisation of the West in recent centuries. Either it proves itself man's true help in time of need, or it dies a quick death (cf. Matt. 5.13).

That Christians must believe in miracles is indubitable, for their religion substantially rests upon the miracle of the resurrection. However there have been a number of criticisms of miracles as both unintelligible and unreasonable. This paper will attempt to answer these criticisms and to show that the notion of ‘miracle’ is intelligible and that to believe in miracles is reasonable.1 To do this, the following four criticisms must be answered in some way:

(1) The very concept of ‘miracle’ is a self-contradictory or in some other way incoherent notion.

(2) The empirical evidence given for miracles has always been inadequate to substantiate a rational belief.

(3) Judging from past experience, one can always rule out even the possibility of miracles.

(4) A miracle can never be shown incapable of a natural and scientific explanation, at least in principle.

Expositions of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist usually concentrate on their meaning as between God, the Church itself and the individual candidate or communicant. J. S. Whale, for example, in Christian Doctrine1 speaks of the Communion as (a) Memorial, (b) the Mediation of God's Presence, and (c) the Union of the Historical with what is beyond History. Or again, the Scottish Manual of Church Doctrine2 defines Baptism as follows: ‘The outward part in this Sacrament is washing with water in the Name of the Holy Trinity. The inward part is “engrafting” into Christ, regeneration, remission of sins, and giving up to God.’ The Lord's Supper is explained3 as a supreme act of worship, a commemoration, the oblation of all possible praise, the utmost act of prayer and intercession, and a supreme means of grace. Only at the very end of the Chapter on Ordinance do we find these words4: ‘Further still, Christ is the propitiation not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world. Laying hold of Him for its own need, the soul apprehends its debt to remember the need of the world without, for which Christ also died.’ This thought, which makes the Communion a reminder of the need to evangelise only, has a very strong flavour of pietism and ‘separateness’. One could find oneself at one with this even when celebrating in the secrecy of the Catacomb.

Church union schemes have for some years past tended to hinge upon a special service of ‘commissioning’ by which the ministries of various existing denominations should be unified. This pattern of unification, commonly associated with North India, has been attacked on the grounds that it gives ‘an impression of evasion and dishonesty’.1 It is held by many that it encourages some to believe that the commissioning is an ordination, and others to believe that it is not. And while this may be true of some present-day advocates of such schemes, it is not true of their origin. There was a quite clear theological interpretation to services for ‘unifying the ministry’, though in the opinion of this writer a false one. As we shall see, it was held that in a divided church there was no longer one ministry, but a number of parallel ministries, all defective until such time as they should be added together. It is the purpose of this survey to record the rise and fall of that idea amongst Anglicans, who have been particularly prone to it, over the past fifty years.