CHRISTIANITY AND WAR. 219 



the Church allows, that which on any showing is 

 alien from the Spirit of the Gospel. 



The solution of this double difficulty is to be 

 found, I believe, in a fuller recognition of two 

 great principles of God's dealing with man, which 

 at bottom are one and the same ; first, that the 

 Old Test men t is a progressive revelation; and 

 secondly, that Christianity is a principle of life and 

 growth, not a formal system of conduct. If I had 

 fifteen hours before me instead of fifteen minutes, 

 I might hope to show how those two principles 

 apply to the difficulties before us ; and how, in the 

 last analysis, the two are one. As it is, I can 

 only summarize. 



I. The Bible is a progressive revelation which 

 culminates in the Gospel of Christ. Not only in its 

 teaching on War, but in its teaching generally, the 

 Old Testament is preparatory and introductory 

 to the New. If, for instance, it could be shown 

 that the Old Testament taught a gospel of war, 

 and the New Testament a gospel of peace, how- 

 ever puzzled we might be by such an opposition, 

 we should still believe that it was somehow the 

 opposition between a lower and a higher revelation. 

 If this is not so, if the Bible has not respect to the 

 gradual education of mankind, if its utterances lie, 

 as it were, all in one plane, I can find in it only a 

 mass of contradictions and inconsistent moralities. 

 But as I listen to those calm words from the lips 



