204 PROF. r. F. ROGET_, ON FREDERIC GODET, SWISS DIVINE, 



experience should weaken, no theory should undermme in him 

 the sense he had formed of the gravity of sin. Such a pledge 

 showed that with him the crisis in faith usual with young men 

 reading for the Church would not turn upon the ordinary 

 theme: scepticism. He thought that the sense of sin, which 

 lays bare the core of one's Christianity, is the moral essence of 

 all Christianity. It is an issue neither entirely emotional nor 

 wholly intellectual. The conscience of Godet was extra- 

 ordinarily exacting on this point and acutely alive to its 

 ideal of righteousness : .Jesus Christ. 



For Godet, the touchstone of Christ's Divinity is to be looked 

 for in His conduct. How to reduce to practice the divine 

 saintliness of Christ's human life became the centre of Godot's 

 religion, the test of his own moral life. 



His reasoning was very simple. As related to His day, 

 Christ must have been ahsolutclij righteous. The Gospel 

 Scriptures are authentic : consequently they are the repository 

 of absolute righteousness. By the labour of our conscience we 

 have to lay bare that righteousness, to transpose and apply it 

 to our own lives. To fail in this is to fall into sin. Intellect, 

 sentiment, and will, are all wanted for this effect : the recogni- 

 tion of the morality divine. All three are wanted to translate 

 it into terms of life. 



The religion of Godet is thus seen to be an intellectual, 

 emotional, and volitional communion with the holiness of God ; 

 the test of faith to be conduct — a conduct practical, to which 

 intellectual power, emotional power, and volitional power are 

 contributory in the Christian individuals, as they were in the 

 living Christ. 



We need not hesitate a moment in describing this religion as 

 aristocratic : the keener the intellect, the purer the emotions, 

 the stronger the will, then the more perfect is the religion of 

 the servant of Christ. It rests with the developing, the 

 refining, and the sanctifying of the three spiritual parts of man 

 on to complete conversion. 



Conversion is a progressive religion, a moralising of life. It 

 civilises as it Christianises. 



But no pride, no self-love ; only charity, humility, and 

 self-surrender. The Christian who through sui)erstition, 

 fanaticism, intolerant zeal, bears witness to his convictions, 

 then does so in a manner unfamiliar to Christ. With such 

 Christians, authority usurps in the heart the place of conscience. 

 In the etfbrts of conscience it is the moral guidance of reason 

 that should shine foremost. 



