is;;] THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH 317 



kind of relation it is. The new motives that stir him 

 have power only in proportion as they are intelligently 

 grasped. He is not mechanically grafted into Christ, 

 but becomes a member of the mystical body only in 

 conscious submission to the Head. And the new strength 

 of grace by which he lives is not given magically by 

 physical infusion but morally to those that seek it by 

 prayer, and therefore with a real knowledge both of their 

 need and of the way in which it must be supplied. In 

 short, whatever of real living power there is in Christianity 

 is moral, and deals with man as a conscious, intelligent 

 personality, who is in no sense fulfilling the ends for which 

 God placed him on the earth, if he is not fulfilling them 

 in the free play of understanding and of will. A moral 

 growth such as Christianity sets before us means that 

 every step in advance is deliberately taken in pursuit of 

 a moral ideal already grasped in thought. It is, indeed, 

 a law of such growth that the ideal unfolds itself more 

 and more perfectly as we come nearer to it, just as the 

 towers and spires of a fair city display themselves with 

 increasing clearness of detail to the pilgrim who approaches 

 its gates. But the very first step of true advance towards 

 the goal implies a true, though it may be only a general, 

 knowledge of the ideal pursued. No kind of moral 

 action, be it Christian or not, is an affair of pure sub 

 jectivity. All morality implies purpose, and all purpose 

 is conditioned by antecedent knowledge of the thing 

 proposed. If we refuse to apply this law to the Christian 

 life, we degrade religion to a mere material thing, and 

 place it on one line with the functions of bodily growth. 

 For every part of life that goes on working, whether it is 

 understood or not, is physical, not moral. And so the 

 theorist who proposes as possible a life in God which is 

 not based on a knowledge of God, is really depicting 

 Deity in the manner of pantheistic materialism, as a 

 subtle principle of physical influence, which a man sucks 

 in as he does the breeze and the sunshine. 



