arks regarding the authority and
method of Christian Ethics may be not inappropriate.

1. Christian Ethics is not directly concerned with critical questions
as to the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament writings.
It is sufficient for its purpose that these have been generally
received by the Church, and that they present in the Person of Christ
the highest embodiment of the law and spirit of the moral life. The
writings of the New Testament thus become ethically normative in virtue
of their direct reflection of the mind of Christ and their special
receptivity of His spirit. Their {31} authority, therefore, is
Christ's own authority, and has a value for us as His word is
reproduced by them. It does not detract from the validity of the New
Testament as the reflection of the spirit of Christ that there are
discernible in it distinct signs of development of doctrine, a manifest
growth in clearness and depth of insight and knowledge of the mind of
Jesus. Such evidences of advancement are specially noticeable in the
application of Christian principles to the practical problems of life,
such as the questions of slavery, marriage, work and property. St.
Paul does not disclaim the possibility of development, and he
associates himself with those who know in part and wait for fuller
light. In common with all Christians, Paul was doubtless conscious of
a growing enrichment in spiritual knowledge; and his later epistles
show that he had reached to clearer prospects of Christ and His
redemption, and had obtained a fuller grasp of the world-wide
significance of the Gospel than when he first began to preach.

One cannot forget that the battle of criticism is raging to-day around
the inner citadel--the very person and words of Jesus. If it can be
shown that the Gospels contain only very imperfect records of the
historical Jesus, and that very few sayings of our Lord can be
definitely pronounced genuine, then, indeed, we might have to give up
some of the particular passages upon which we have based our conception
of truth and duty, but nothing less than a wholesale denial of the
historical existence of Jesus[7] would demand of us a repudiation of
the Christian view of life. The ideals, motives, and sentiments--the
entire outlook and spirit of life which we associate with Christ--are
now a positive possession of the Christian consciousness. There is a
Christian view of the world, a Christian _Welt-Anschauung_, so