Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTUKE II THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OP THE WORLD In our last lecture we reached the conclusion that Christianity must have a peculiar view of the world by reason of the fact that it is a specific type of religion. But a difficulty arises when we examine Christianity as an historical system, and a doubt may suggest itself whether Christianity is indeed one religion at all. Is not, it may be asked, what we call the Christian religion in truth a succession or series of religions in which it would be difficult to find any common element but the name ? We must confess that there is a wide difference between the conception of God and the world involved in primitive Christianity and that of mediaeval sacramentalism, and again probably between both of them and the view held by enlightened believers of the present day. This impression of incoherent diversity is strengthened when we include in our survey the multitudinous sects which have lived and still live on the fringe of the central movement. I can imagine a man exclaiming, in no flippant spirit, that it is more difficult to discover what Christianity is than to believe it when it be discovered. The question, What is Christianity ? which has been debated for the last century, is therefore no mere historical problem: it is one of the utmost practical moment. To find an answer to it is a necessary preliminary to the discussion of the claims of the Gospel on our belief. The answers which have been given to this question seem to fall naturally into two classes which are distinguished from each other by the principles upon which they are based. The view which has been developed by liberal Protestantism is that Christianity consists in the teaching given by Jesus. For such writers as Prof. Harnack and Leo Tolstoy, to take examples from...