Some Facts of Religion and of Life
I.
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY.
2 Corinthians, xi. 3.—“The
simplicity that is in Christ.”
THERE is much talk in the present time of
the difficulties of religion. And no doubt
there is a sense in which religion is always difficult. It is hard to be truly religious—to be
humble, good, pure, and just; to be full of faith,
hope, and charity, so that our conduct may be
seen to be like that of Christ, and our light to
shine before men. But when men speak so
much nowadays of the difficulties of religion,
they chiefly mean intellectual and not practical
difficulties. Religion is identified with the tenets
of a Church system, or of a theological system;
and it is felt that modern criticism has assailed
these tenets in many vulnerable points, and made
it no longer easy for the open and well-informed
mind to believe things that were formerly held,
or professed to be held, without hesitation. Discussions and doubts which were once confined to
a limited circle when they were heard of at all,
have penetrated the modern mind through many
avenues, and affected the whole tone of social
intelligence. This is not to be denied. For
good or for evil such a result has come about;
and we live in times of unquiet thought, which
form a real and painful trial to many minds. It
is not my intention at present to deplore or to
criticise this modern tendency, but rather to
point out how it may be accepted, and yet religion in the highest sense saved to
us, if not without struggle (for that is always impossible in the nature of
religion), yet without that intellectual conflict for which many minds are
entirely unfitted, and which can never be said
in itself to help religion in any minds.
The words which I have taken as my text
seem to me to suggest a train of thought having
an immediate bearing on this subject. St Paul
has been speaking of himself in the passage from
which the text is taken. He has been commending himself—a task which is never congenial to him. But his opponents in the Corinthian Church had forced this upon him; and
now he asks that he may be borne with a little
in “his folly.” He is pleased to speak of his
conduct in this way, with that touch of humorous irony not unfamiliar to him when writing
under some excitement. He pleads with his
old converts for so much indulgence, because he
is “jealous over them with a godly jealousy.”
He had won them to the Lord. “I have espoused you,” he says, “to one husband, that I
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”
This had been his unselfish work. He had
sought nothing for himself, but all for Christ.
That they should belong to Christ—as the bride
to the bridegroom—was his jealous anxiety.
But others had come in betwixt them and him—nay, betwixt them and Christ, as he believed—and sought to seduce and corrupt their minds
by divers doctrines. “I fear, lest by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from
the
simplicity that is in Christ.”
What the special corruptions from Christian
simplicity were with which the minds of St
Paul’s Corinthian converts were assailed, it is
not necessary for us now to inquire. Their
special dangers are not likely to be ours. What
concerns us is the fact, that both St Paul and
Christ—his Master and ours—thought of religion as something simple. Attachment to Christ
was a simple personal reality, illustrated by the
tie which binds the bride, as a chaste virgin, to
the bridegroom. It was not an ingenuity, nor a
subtilty, nor a ceremony. It involved no speculation or argument. Its essence was personal
and emotional, and not intellectual. The true
analogy of religion, in short, is that of simple
affection and trust. Subtilty may, in itself, be
good or evil. It may be applied for a religious
no less than for an irreligious purpose, as implied in the text. But it is something entirely
different from the “simplicity that is in Christ.”
It is not to be supposed that religion is or can
be ever rightly dissociated from intelligence.
An intelligent perception of our own higher
wants, and of a higher Power of love that can
alone supply these wants, is of its very nature.
There must be knowledge in all religion—knowledge of ourselves, and knowledge of the Divine.
It was the knowledge of God in Christ communicated by St Paul that had made the Corinthians Christians. But the knowledge that is
essential to religion is a simple knowledge like
that which the loved has of the person who loves—the bride of the bridegroom, the child of the
parent. It springs from the personal and spiritual, and not from the cognitive or critical, side
of our being; from the heart, and not from the
head. Not merely so; but if the heart or spiritual sphere be really awakened in us—if there
be a true stirring of life here, and a true seeking
towards the light—the essence and strength of
a true religion may be ours, although we are
unable to answer many questions that may be
asked, or to solve even the difficulties raised by
our own intellect.
The text, in short, suggests that there is a religious sphere, distinct and intelligible by itself,
which is not to be confounded with the sphere
of theology or science. This is the sphere in
which Christ worked, and in which St Paul also,
although not so exclusively, worked after Him.
This is the special sphere of Christianity, or at
least of the Christianity of Christ.
In distinguishing these spheres I am well
ay/are that they are not contradistinguished.
The sphere of theology is not outside that of
religion, and even the simplest Christian experiences presuppose certain postulates which may
be matters of philosophical and theological controversy. The practical side of our spiritual life
cannot be disjoined from the intellectual, and I
have no wish to disjoin them, and still less to
depreciate the necessity and importance of theological science for fixing and defining the great
ideas upon which every form of the Christian
life rests. This would be entirely opposed to my
own point of view, which especially recognises
the value of rational inquiry into all theological
ideas whatever.
But admitting that the theological and religious spheres everywhere in the end run into one
another, it is none the less true that the facts of
the Christian life are infinitely simple in contrast
with the questions of theology, and that there
are hosts of difficulties in the latter sphere which
in no degree touch the former. It is my present
purpose to point this out, and to show in what
respects the religion of Christ—the life of faith
and hope and love which we are called upon to
live in Him—is really apart from many intellectual and dogmatic difficulties with which it
has been mixed up.
I. This is shown, first of all, in what I have
already said of the comparative simplicity of the
order of facts with which religion religion as set
forth by Christ deals. Nothing can be simpler
or more comprehensive than our Lord’s teaching.
He knew what was in man. He knew, moreover, what was in God towards man as a living
Power of love, who had sent Him forth “to seek
and save the lost;” and beyond these great facts,
of a fallen life to be restored, and of a Higher Life
of Divine love and sacrifice, willing and able to
restore and purify this fallen life, our Lord seldom traversed. Unceasingly He proclaimed the
reality of a spiritual life in man, however obscured by sin, and the reality of a Divine Life
above him, which had never forsaken him nor
left him to perish in his sin. He held forth the
need of man, and the grace and sacrifice of God
on behalf of man. And within this double order
of spiritual facts His teaching may be said to
circulate. He dealt, in other words, with the
great ideas of God and the Soul, which can alone
live in Him, however it may have sunk away
from him. These were to Him the realities of
all life and all religion. If there are those in
our day to whom these ideas are mere assumptions—“dogmas of a tremendous kind,” to assume
which is to assume everything—at present we
have nothing to do with their point of view. The
questions of materialism, or what is called agnosticism, are outside of historical Christianity altogether. They were nothing to Christ, whose
whole thought moved in a higher sphere of personal Love, embracing this lower world. The
spiritual life was to him the life of reality and
fact; and so it is to all who live in Him and
know in Him. The Soul and God are, if you
will, dogmas to science. They cannot well be
anything else to a vision which is outside of
them, and cannot from their very nature ever
reach them. But within the religious sphere
they are primary experiences, original and simple data from which all others come. And our
present argument is, that Christ dealt almost
exclusively with these broad and simple elements
of religion, and that He believed the life of religion to rest within them. He spoke to men and
women as having souls to be saved; and He
spoke of Himself and of God as able and willing
to save them. This was the “simplicity” that
was in Him.
Everywhere in the Gospels this simplicity is obvious. Our Lord came forth from
no school. There is no traditional scheme of thought lying behind His words
which must be mastered before these words are understood. But out of the fulness
of His own spiritual nature He spoke to the spiritual natures around Him,
broken, helpless, and worsted in the conflict with evil as He saw them. “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” He said at the opening of His Galilean ministry,
“because He hath anointed me to preach the
Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised.”Luke, iv. 18.
These were the great
realities that confronted Him in life; and His
mission was to restore the divine powers of humanity thus everywhere impoverished, wounded,
and enslaved. He healed the sick and cured the
maimed by His simple word. He forgave sins.
He spoke of good news to the miserable. All
who had erred and gone out of the way—who
had fallen under the burden, or been seduced
by the temptations, of life—He invited to a
recovered home of righteousness and peace. He
welcomed the prodigal, rescued the Magdalene,
took the thief with Him to Paradise. And all
this He did by His simple word of grace: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”Matt. xi. 28.
“If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”Matt. vii. 11.
This was the Christianity of Christ. This is
the Gospel. It is the essence of all religion—that we feel ourselves in special need or distress,
and that we own a Divine Power willing to give
us what we need, and save us from our distress.
Other questions outside of this primary range
of spiritual experience may be important. They
are not vital. What is the Soul? What is the
Divine nature? What is the Church? In what
way and by what means does Divine grace
operate? What is the true meaning of Scripture, and the character of its inspiration and
authority? Whence has man sprung, and what
is the character of the future before him? These
are all questions of the greatest interest; but
they are questions of theology and not of religion. I do not say that they have no bearing
upon religion. On the contrary, they have a
significant bearing upon it. And your religion
and my religion will be modified and coloured
by the answers we give or find to them. We
cannot separate the life and character of any
man from his opinions. It is nevertheless true
that our religious life, or the force of divine
inspiration and peace within us, do not depend
upon the answers we are able to give to such
questions.
It is the function of theology, as of other
sciences, to ask questions, whether it can answer
them or not. The task of the theologian is a
most important one—whether or not it be, as
has been lately said,Mr Gladstone, ‘Contemporary Review,’ July 1875, p. 194.
“the noblest of all the
tasks which it is given to the human mind to
pursue.” None but a sciolist will depreciate
such a task; and none but a sceptic will doubt
the value of the conclusions which may be thus
reached. But all this is quite consistent with
our position. The welfare of the soul is not
involved in such matters as I have mentioned.
A man is not good or bad, spiritual or unspiritual, according to the view he takes of them.
Men may differ widely regarding them, and not
only be equally honest, but equally sharers of
the mind of Christ. And this is peculiarly the
case with many questions of the present day,
such as the antiquity of man, the age and genesis of the earth, the origin and authority of the
several books of Scripture. Not one of these
questions, first of all, can be answered without
an amount of special knowledge which few possess; and secondly, the answer to all of them
must be sought in the line of pure scientific and
literary inquiry. Mere authority, if we could
find any such authority, would be of no avail to
settle any of them. Modern theology must work
them out by the fair weapons of knowledge and
research, with no eye but an eye to the truth.
Within this sphere there is no light but the dry
light of knowledge.
But are our spiritual wants to wait the solution of such questions? Am I less a sinner, or less weary with the burden of my own weakness
and folly? Is Christ less a Saviour? Is there
less strength and peace in Him whatever be the
answer given to such questions? Because I cannot be sure whether the Pentateuch was written,
as long supposed, by Moses —or whether the
fourth Gospel comes as it stands from the beloved apostle—am I less in need of the divine
teaching which both these Scriptures contain?
Surely not. That I am a spiritual being, and
have spiritual needs craving to be satisfied, and
that God is a spiritual Power above me, of whom
Christ is the revelation, are facts which I may
know or may not know, quite irrespective of
such matters. The one class of facts are intellectual and literary. The other are spiritual, if
they exist at all. If I ever know them, I can
only know them through my own spiritual experience; but if I know them—if I realise myself as a sinner and in darkness, and Christ as
my Saviour and the light of my life—I have within me all the
genuine forces of religious strength and peace. I may not have all the faith of
the Church. I may have many doubts, and may come far short of the catholic
dogma. But faith is a progressive insight, and dogma is a variable factor. No
sane man nowadays has the faith of the medievalist. No modern Christian can
think in many respects as the Christians of the seventeenth century, or of the
twelfth century, or of the fourth century. No primitive Christian would have
fully understood Athanasius in his contest against the world. It was very easy
at one time to chant the Athanasian hymn; it is easy for some still, but very
hard for others. Are the latter worse or better Christians on this account?
Think, brethren, of St Peter and St Andrew taken from their boats; of St Matthew
as he sat at the receipt of custom; of the good Samaritan; the devout centurion;
of curious Zaccheus; of the repentant prodigal; of St James, as he wrote that a
man is “justified by works, and not by faith only;”James, ii. 24.
of Apollos, “mighty in the Scriptures,” who “was instructed in the way of the Lord; and
being fervent in the spirit, spake and taught
diligently the things of the Lord,” and yet who only knew “the
baptism of John;”Acts, xviii. 24, 25.
of the disciples of Ephesus who had “not so much as heard whether there be any
Holy Ghost;”Acts, xix. 2.
think of all the poor and simple ones who have
gone to heaven with Christ in their hearts, “the
hope of glory,” and yet who have never known
with accuracy any Christian dogma whatever,—and you can hardly doubt how distinct are the
spheres of religion and of theology, and how
far better than all theological definitions is the “honest and good heart,” which,
“having heard
the Word, keeps it, and brings forth fruit with patience.”Luke, viii. 15.
II. But religion differs from theology, not
only in the comparatively simple and universal
order of the facts with which it deals, but also
because the facts are so much more verifiable in
the one case than in the other. They can so
much more easily be found out to be true or not.
It has been sought of late, in a well-known
quarter, to bring all religion to this test—and
the test is not an unfair one if legitimately applied. But it is not legitimate to test spiritual
facts simply as we test natural facts; such facts,
for example, as that fire burns, or that a stone
thrown from the hand falls to the ground. The
presumption of all supernatural religion is that
there is a spiritual or supernatural sphere, as real
and true as the natural sphere in which we continually live and move; and the facts which
belong to this sphere must be tested within it.
Morality and moral conditions may be so far
verified from without. If we do wrong we shall
finally find ourselves in the wrong; and that
there is a “Power not ourselves which makes
for righteousness” and which will not allow us
to rest in wrong. This constantly verified experience of a kingdom of righteousness is a valuable basis of morality. But religion could not
live or nourish itself within such limits. It must
rest, not merely on certain phenomena of divine
order, but on personal relations—such relations
as are ever uppermost in the mind of St Paul,
and are clearly before him in this passage. It
craves not merely facts but beings. Moreover,
the higher experience which reveals to us a Power
of righteousness in the world, no less reveals to us
the character of this Power as a living Will or
Being. Shut out conscience as a true source of
knowledge, and the very idea of righteousness will
disappear with it—there will be nothing to fall
back upon but the combinations of intelligence
and such religion as may be got therefrom;
admit conscience, and its verifying force transcends a mere order or impersonal power of righteousness. It places us in front of a living Spirit
who not only governs us righteously and makes
us feel our wrong-doing, but who is continually
educating us and raising us to His own likeness
of love and blessedness. We realise not merely
that there is a law of good in the world, but .a
holy Will that loves good and hates evil, and
against whom all our sins are offences in the
sense of the Psalmist: “Against Thee, Thee only
have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.”
So much as this, we say, may be realised—this consciousness of sin on the one hand, and
of a living Righteousness and Love far more
powerful than our sins, and able to save us from
them. These roots of religion are deeply planted
in human nature. They answer to its highest
experiences. The purest and noblest natures
in whom all the impulses of a comprehensive
humanity have been strongest, have felt and
owned them. The missionary preacher, wherever
he has gone—to the rude tribes of Africa, or the
cultured representatives of an ancient civilisation—has appealed to them, and found a verifying response to his preaching. St Paul, whether
he spoke to Jew, or Greek, or Roman, found the
same spiritual voices echoing to his call—the
same burden of sin lying on human hearts—the same cry from their depths, “What must
I do to be saved?” It is not necessary to maintain that these elements of the Christian religion are verifiable in every experience. It is
enough to say that there is that in the Gospel
which addresses and touches all in whom spiritual thoughtfulness and life have not entirely
died out. It lays hold of the common heart.
It melts with a strange power the highest minds.
Look over a vast audience; travel to distant
lands; communicate with your fellow-creatures
anywhere,—and you feel that you can reach
them, and for the most part touch them, by the
story of the Gospel—by the fact of a Father in
heaven, and a Saviour sent from heaven, “that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life.”John, iii. 15.
Beneath all differences
of condition, of intellect, of culture, there is a
common soul which the Gospel reaches, and
which nothing else in the same manner reaches.
Now, in contrast to all this, the contents of any special
theology commend themselves to a comparatively few minds. And such hold as
they have over these minds is for the most
part traditionary and authoritative, not rational
or intelligent. There can be no vital experience of theological definitions, and no verification of them, except in the few minds who
have really examined them, and brought them
into the light of their own intelligence. This
must always be the work of a few—of what
are called schools of thought, here and there.
It is only the judgment of the learned or
thoughtful theologian that is really of any
value on a theological question. Others may
assent or dissent; he alone knows the conditions of the question and its possible solution.
Of all the absurdities that have come from the
confusion of religion and theology, none is
more absurd or more general than the idea that
one opinion on a theological question—any
more than on a question of natural science—is
as good as another. The opinion of the ignorant, of the unthoughtful, of the undisciplined
in Christian learning, is simply of no value
whatever where the question involves—as it
may be said every theological question involves—knowledge, thought, and scholarship. The
mere necessity of such qualities for working
the theological sphere, and turning it to any
account, places it quite apart from the religious sphere. The one belongs to the common
life of humanity, the other to the school of the
prophets. The one is for you and for me, and
for all human beings; the other is for the
expert—the theologian—who has weighed difficulties and who understands them, if he has not
solved them.
III. But again, religion differs from theology
in the comparative uniformity of its results.
The ideal of religion is almost everywhere the
same—“To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God.”Micah, vi. 8.
“Pure religion” (or pure religious service) “and undefiled, before God and the
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to
keep himself unspotted from the world.”James, i. 27.
Where is it
not Always the true, even if not the prevalent
type of religion, to be good and pure, and to
approve the things that are excellent? “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report; if there
be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
think on these things” and do them, says
the apostle,Philippians, iv. 8, 9.
“and the God of peace shall
be with you.” Christians differ like others
in intellect, disposition, and temperament.
They differ also so far, but never in the same
degree, in spiritual condition and character.
To be a Christian is in all cases to be saved
from guilt, to be sustained by faith, to be
cleansed by divine inspiration, to depart from
iniquity. There may be, and must be, very
varying degrees of faith, hope, and charity; but
no Christian can be hard in heart, or impure in
mind, or selfish in character. With much to
make us humble in the history of the Christian
Church, and many faults to deplore in the most
conspicuous Christian men, the same types of
divine excellences yet meet us everywhere as we
look along the line of the Christian centuries—the heroism of a St Paul, an Ignatius, an
Origen, an Athanasius, a Bernard, a Luther, a
Calvin, a Chalmers, a Livingstone; the tender
and devout affectionateness of a Mary, a Perpetua, a Monica; the enduring patience and
self-denial of an Elizabeth of Hungary, a Mrs
Hutchinson, a Mrs Fry; the beautiful holiness
of a St John, a St Francis, a Fénélon, a Herbert,
a Leighton. Under the most various influences,
and the most diverse types of doctrine, the
same fruits of the Spirit constantly appear—“Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”Galatians, v. 22, 23.
All this sameness in diversity disappears
when we turn to theology. The differences in
this case are radical. They are not diversities
of gifts with the same spirit, but fundamental
antagonisms of thought. As some men are said
to be born Platonists, and some Aristotelians,
so some are born Augustinians, and some Pelagians or Arminians. These names have been
strangely identified with true or false views
of Christianity. What they really denote is
diverse modes of Christian thinking, diverse
tendencies of the Christian intellect, which repeat
themselves by a law of nature. It is no more
possible to make men think alike in theology
than in anything else where the facts are complicated and the conclusions necessarily fallible.
The history of theology is a history of “variations;” not indeed, as some have maintained,
without an inner principle of advance, but with
a constant repetition of oppositions underlying
its necessary development. The same contrasts
continually appear throughout its course, and
seem never to wear themselves out. From the
beginning there has always been the broader
and the narrower type of thought—a St Paul
and St John, as well as a St Peter and St
James; the doctrine which leans to the works,
and the doctrine which leans to grace; the
milder and the severer interpretations of human
nature and of the divine dealings with it—a
Clement of Alexandria, an Origen, and a Chrysostom, as well as a Tertullian, an Augustine,
and a Cyril of Alexandria; an Erasmus no less
than a Luther, a Castalio as well as a Calvin, a
Frederick Robertson as well as a John Newman.
Look at these men and many others equally
significant on the spiritual side as they look to
God, or as they work for men, how much do
they resemble one another! The same divine
life stirs in them all. Who will undertake to
settle which is the truer Christian? But look at
them on the intellectual side and they are hopelessly disunited. They lead rival forces in the
march of Christian thought—forces which may
yet find a point of conciliation, and which may
not be so widely opposed as they seem, but
whose present attitude is one of obvious hostility. Men may meet in common worship
and in common work, and find themselves at
one. The same faith may breathe in their
prayers, and the same love fire their hearts.
But men who think can never be at one in
their thoughts on the great subjects of the
Christian revelation. They may own the same
Lord, and recognise and reverence the same
types of Christian character, but they will
differ so soon as they begin to define their
notions of the Divine, and draw conclusions
from the researches either of ancient or of
modern theology. Of all the false dreams that
have ever haunted humanity, none is more
false than the dream of catholic unity in this
sense. It vanishes in the very effort to grasp
it, and the old fissures appear within the most
carefully compacted structures of dogma.
Religion, therefore, is not to be confounded
with theology, with schemes of Christian thought—nor, for that part of the matter, with schemes
of Christian order. It is not to be found in any
set of opinions or in any special ritual of worship.
The difficulties of modern theology, the theories
of modern science (when they are really scientific and do not go beyond ascertained facts and
their laws), have little or nothing to do with
religion. Let the age of the earth be what it
may (we shall be very grateful to the British
Association, or any other association, when it
has settled for us how old the earth is, and how
long man has been upon the face of it); let man
spring in his physical system from some lower
phase of life; let the Bible be resolved into its
constituent sources by the power of modern
analysis, and our views of it greatly change, as
indeed they are rapidly changing,—all this does
not change or destroy in one iota the spiritual
life that throbs at the heart of humanity, and
that witnesses to a Spiritual Life above. No
science, truly so called, can ever touch this or
destroy it, for the simple reason that its work
is outside the spiritual or religious sphere altogether. Scientific presumption may suggest the
delusiveness of this sphere, just as in former
times religious presumption sought to restrain
the inquiries of science. It may, when it becomes ribald with a fanaticism far worse than
any fanaticism of religion, assail and ridicule
the hopes which, amidst much weakness, have
made men noble for more than eighteen Christian centuries. But science has no voice beyond its own province. The weakest and the
simplest soul, strong in the consciousness of
the Divine within and above it, may withstand its most powerful assaults. The shadows
of doubt may cover you, and you may see no
light. The difficulties of modern speculation may
overwhelm you, and you may find no issue from
them. But there may be that within you which
these cannot touch. If you wait till you have
solved all difficulties and cleared away the darkness, you may wait for ever. If your religion is
made to depend upon such matters, then I hardly
know what to say to you in a time like this.
I cannot counsel you to shut your minds against
any knowledge. I have no ready answers to
your questions, no short and easy method with
modern scepticism. Inquiry must have its
course in theology as in everything else. It is
fatal to intelligence to talk of an infallible
Church, and of all free thought in reference to
religion as deadly rationalism to be shunned.
Not to be rational in religion as in everything
else is simply to be foolish, and to throw yourself into the arms of the first authority that is
able to hold you. In this as in other respects
you must “work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling,” remembering that it is “God which worketh in you.” You must examine
your own hearts; you must try yourselves whether there be in you the roots of the
divine life. If you do not find sin in your hearts
and Christ also there as the Saviour from sin,
then you will find Him nowhere. But if you
find Him there, Christ within you as He was
within St Paul,—your righteousness, your life,
your strength in weakness, your light in darkness, the “hope of glory “within you, as He was
all this to the thoughtful and much-tried apostle,—then you will accept difficulties and doubts,
and even the despairing darkness of some intellectual moments, when the very foundations
seem to give way, as you accept other trials;
and looking humbly for higher light, you will
patiently wait for it, until the day dawn and the
shadows flee away.
II.
THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD.
MATTHEW, vi. 9.—“Our Father which art in heaven.”
THE Lord’s Prayer touches all hearts by its
simplicity and comprehensiveness. Its
familiar words come home to us with a living
meaning in comparison with which all other
words of prayer are cold. The more we use
them, the more we feel what true, healthy,
happy words of prayer they are—how deeply
they reach all our spiritual necessities, and carry
them forth in one harmonious utterance to the
throne of grace. The prayer is also one of
more manifold and hallowed associations than
any other. It is the catholic prayer of Christendom—the few heaven-taught syllables which
unite the hearts of the faithful everywhere, and
amidst divisions of opinion and diversities of
service, in parish church and cathedral choir,
draw the hearts of God’s children together, and
inspire them with a common feeling of brotherhood as they say, “Our Father.” It is the
dearly-remembered prayer of childhood, when
the mind as yet only vaguely understands what
the heart with its deeper instinct owns; when
the human realities of father and mother interpret the solemn language, and make its awe pass
into sweetness. And in after-years, when we
may have learned many forms of prayer, and
sought a varied expression for the varied wants
of life, the old beautiful words come back to us,
as far more full of meaning—more adequate in
their very simplicity—than all we have otherwise learned; and we realise the truth so near
to the centre of all religion, that the child’s heart
is the highest offering we can offer unto God—holy and acceptable in His sight.
The opening words of the prayer—“Our
Father which art in heaven”—form the keynote from which all the rest starts, and to which
they lead up. Let us try in a simple, unsystematic way to find the meaning of the words.
This meaning in a certain sense is not far to seek.
The words of the text unfold three aspects of
truth.
I. Fatherhood.
II. Common Fatherhood.
III. Perfect Fatherhood.
The idea of Father is the generic idea of the text.
We are taught to pray to God as our Father. “After this manner ye shall pray,” our Lord
taught His disciples. He had been speaking of
the hypocritical prayers of the Pharisees in the
synagogues and in the corners of the streets; and
of the “vain repetitions” of the heathen, thinking “they shall be heard for their much speaking.” He unfolds a higher conception of prayer
as a living communion of spirit with spirit, of
children with a Father. There was nothing absolutely new in this conception of Divine Fatherhood. No novelty is claimed for the conception.
Even the heathen had spoken of the supreme
Deity as “the Father of gods and men.” The
idea of Fatherhood is supposed by some to be
an essential part of the primitive Aryan conception of God. And in the prophetical writings of
the Old Testament, the idea frequently appears. “Doubtless,” says Isaiah,Chap. lxiii. 16.
“Thou art our Father,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel
acknowledge us not. Thou, Lord, art our
Father.” “Have we not all one Father?” is
almost the closing utterance of Jewish prophecy.Malachi, ii. 10.
The idea of Divine Fatherhood, therefore, could not have presented any novelty; the
very language used by our Lord may not have
been heard for the first time. “Our Father
which art in heaven,” may have been customary
words of prayer to the Jews. We may have
in them an utterance of religious thought
common to the Jewish schools of the period.
Some have pleased themselves with this idea.
Some have even imagined that the Lord’s Prayer
in its several details was a familiar Jewish prayer.
Nor would it matter if it were. For here, as
with other parts of our Lord’s teaching, it is not
absolute novelty that is claimed for it. It is not
that the same things or similar things were never
said before by any teacher. But it is that no
one has ever said them, as He did, “with authority.” No one ever transfigured them, as He did,
with living light for the souls of men, or gave
them such a creative transforming power over the
wills of men. This is the Divine originality of
our Lord, that He illuminated all truth, traditionary or otherwise, concerning our relations to
the Divine, and imparted to it a force and life
of meaning that it never had before. The idea
of Divine Fatherhood, for example, became animated in all His speech and in all His acts into a
spiritual principle, such as neither Gentile nor
Jew had before felt it to be. In Christ, God
was seen not merely to be the creative Source of
the human race, “who hath made us, and not
we ourselves;” He was not merely a Divine
Power or Ruler; the Divine Personality—creative and authoritative—was not only brought
forth in Him into a clearer and happier light:
but more than this—it was made plain that God
loves men, and cares for them with a genuine,
moral affection. As a wise and good man regards his children—and in a far higher degree—God regards us. He not merely made us and
rules us, but He truly loves us; and all His actions
towards us—all His dealings with us—spring
from love. Love is the essence of the Divine
Fatherhood in Christ. It sums up all its other
meanings. We may love wrongly: a human
father may allow his affection to outrun his justice in dealing with his children. There is no
security for the balance of moral qualities in us.
But in God as revealed in Christ there is a perfect consistency of all moral attributes, and love
is the expression of this consistency. As St
John says, “God is love.”1 John, iv. 8.
The revelation of the Divine love in Christ is in a true sense the
revelation of all else. All other truth can be
conceived from this point of view. All leads
back to this source.
And this it was which men had hitherto failed
to see. They had been unable with a clear
vision to reach this Source, and to perceive how
all Divine action springs out of it. They had
never before got to the true point, from which,
and from which alone, all the other characteristics of the Divine fall into order. It had been
from the beginning of the world, and even continues to be, one of the hardest things for men to
believe that God really loves them. They lacked
then, and they often lack still, faith to look
beyond the appearances of nature and the issues
of life—frequently so full of evil—to a Light in
which there is no darkness, and to a Love of which
there is no doubt. The fowls of the air and the
lilies of the field of which our Lord speaks in
this chapter might have taught them better, if
they had been able to see all the Divine meaning
in them. But, after all, evil lay near to many
poor human creatures as a bitter burden too
heavy to be borne; and the lilies of the field
were far away, and the birds of the air sang not
for them in the branches. The lack of faith to
look beyond the darkness and evil of the world,
and to read the Divine meaning of good in all
nature and providence is, after all, for many men,
perhaps for most men, something rather to be
deplored than to be wondered at.
But this Divine truth has been brought near
to us all in Christ. In Him the great Source
of all being is perfectly good. He has a Father’s
heart. He loves all creatures He has made. “This is the message which we have
heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness
at all”1 John, i. 5.
“He
that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love”Ibid. iv. 8.
It
is only in Christ that the character of God
thus appears in perfect light and love, casting
out all darkness and fear, shining with the
lustre of a perfect spiritual harmony. There
is a supreme Will above us. God is our Creator, our Ruler, our Judge. But primarily and
essentially God is our Father in Christ. All
His purposes with us—all His rule over us—all His judgment upon us,—goes forth out of
His love, and because He desires our good.
He afflicts not willingly. If He punishes,
it is because He loves. This is the essential
revelation of God in Christ—the central idea of
he Divine from which all other ideas go forth.
They are, if not subordinate to this—for subordination is not a proper aspect under which to
regard the Divine attributes in relation to one
another—yet executive of this, which is the
supreme, essential, Divine fact revealed in Christ.
And it requires only a slight knowledge of
Heathenism and Judaism to know that neither
Gentile nor Jew fully understood this fact before “the Dayspring from on high visited us, to give
light to them that sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way
of peace.” When the humble Christian looks
up to God, and says, “Father,” with some real
insight and feeling, such as Christ Himself had
of what He says, he has a vision of the Divine
beyond all other visions. He sees God, if not “face to face,” yet heart to heart. The spirit
of bondage—the sense of fear—dies out of him;
the Spirit of adoption takes hold of him, and
all his being goes forth in the cry, “Abba,
Father.”
II. But God is not only a Father in Christ;
He is our Father—the Father, that is to say, not
of any class or sect or nation of men, but the
Father of all: “He hath made of one blood
all nations of men.”Acts, xvii. 26.
Not only so, but He
exercises the same paternal relation to all who
will only claim Him as a Father, and address
Him in the language of our text, “Our Father
which art in heaven.” This is the simple, undiluted meaning of the text, and we must not
let ourselves be robbed of its blessing and comfort by any theological glosses whatever. The
relation of Divine Fatherhood in Christ is universal, and may be claimed by all who will
honestly accept the position of Christ, and use
His language. This is the simple solution; and
there is no other solution of all the difficulties in
which the subject has been involved.
This community of Fatherhood in the Divine
was for the first time made manifest in Christ,
and realised in Him towards all men. In no
respect, perhaps, does the religion of the Gospels
more brightly vindicate its divine Original. All
distinctions of humanity, diversities of race, of
colour, of culture, disappear in Christ. In Him
there is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian nor
Scythian, bond nor free. Brāhman and Sūdra,
priest and beggar, master and slave, are all alike
before God. The Supreme stands in the same
relation to all. Jewish jealousy, Greek or Roman
aristocracy, Egyptian or Indian caste, vanish
before Him. There is no individual, no class of
individuals, no family or race or sect, no tribe or
nation—white, brown, or black—can claim any
special relation to Him. All are the same in His
sight—all may claim equal access to Him. This
is now a mere commonplace of Christianity. But
when it was for the first time fully disclosed in
Christ, it was intolerable alike to Jew or Gentile.
It required a special revelation to make it known
to the Apostle St Peter; it was but faintly apprehended by the early Jewish Churches planted by
St James and St Peter; it needed the great
Apostle of the Gentiles to hold it steadily before
the conscience, to fix it as a living germ of
thought in the intelligence of mankind.
Not only so; but the Christian Church has
been continually liable to fall below this great
idea, and to let it become obscured. The equal
community of all in the Divine is a truth which
few Christian communities hold with consistency,
or carry out to its clear consequences. There
are widespread notions in all our Churches which
could not last a day if this truth were thoroughly
apprehended and applied. And the cause of the
misapprehension is not merely the pride of some—that love of exclusiveness so natural to the
human heart, or desire of power so dear to it,
which all organisations, ecclesiastical as well as
civil, naturally breed; but it is also the servility
of others. It is not only the Pharisee thinking
himself nearer to God, and giving thanks that
he is not as other men; but it is the publican
overdoing his humility, and not so much as lifting his eyes to heaven, save through some one
standing between him and heaven. Just as men
have difficulty in believing at all in the Divine
love, or that they have a Father in heaven who
has no thoughts towards them but thoughts of
good; so they have difficulty in believing that
their share is as direct and immediate as that of
any other in this love—in saying with all their
hearts, “Our Father.” They have difficulty in
recognising that they are as near to God, and
as dear to God, as any priest is or can be; that
they are as close to Divine blessing, and have an
equal share in it with any minister. They shrink
from the fulness of Divine privilege which they
have in Christ. They are content to stand afar
off, if only some transmitted ray of the heavenly
favour may reach them—some broken shower
of the Divine blessing may fall on them. This
spirit of religious servility lies deep in human
nature; and Christian Churches have too often
fostered it and used it, instead of trying to kill
it, and to educate the popular religious conscience into a full perception of spiritual life
and freedom. It is out of this servile spirit—this “spirit of bondage again to fear,” as the
Apostle terms itRomans, viii. 15.
—and not merely from pride
and a perverted love of power, that ideas of
human priesthood come, and tendencies so constantly reappear towards a mediatorial religion incarnated in human forms and symbols.
Continually men are sinking below the full conception of the Divine love; and as they do so,
the priest comes into the foreground and offers
to mediate between them and a God whom they
have ceased to comprehend. Priestcraft grows
as true religion dies. When men make much of
priests, they cease to believe in God. This is the
essential evil of ceremonial and priestly religion.
It implies doubt of the equal love of God towards
all men—of His equal care and concern for all—of the direct interest which all have in the
Divine Fatherhood—the immediate share which
all have in the Divine love.
The idea of a Priesthood is a valuable and a
true idea, in so far as it represents the reality of
a spiritual order, and the necessity of certain men
being devoted to educate other men in the perception of this order and in duty towards it in
so far, in short, as it shadows forth and brings
home to us the infinite help that there is in God
for all human creatures. In the struggles and
aspirations of life, and especially of the religious
life, we instinctively cling to others who seem
wise and good, and able to help us in our upward way. There is a wonderful faith in the
human heart, with all its waywardness—faith in
a Divine guidance, which others can interpret for
us better than we ourselves. This is the moral
meaning of a priesthood, and it is a true meaning. The idea of such help is deeply planted in
the religious soul. We would say nothing to
weaken it where it is combined with intelligence
and sense. But so soon as the idea of moral
help becomes translated into ceremonial power
or privilege, it passes into falsehood. The priest
then becomes not merely the representative of a
spiritual order, but the dispenser of spiritual good.
By some outward act done to him he is supposed
to stand nearer to God than others—he claims
to stand nearer to Him, and to hold the blessings
of God in his hand, to give according to his own
choice and discrimination. Of all this there is
not a trace in the Gospels. God is there equally
near to all. He is equally the Father of all who
will come to Him as children and claim His Fatherly affection. And, on the other hand, all men
are alike before Him—Pharisee and Sadducee,
priest or scribe, have in themselves no spiritual
advantage or divine right. If any are disposed
to say, “We are the children; others are outside
of the divine circle within which we dwell,”—Christ says, in reply, that He is able to raise up
children unto Abraham from the very stones of
the street.Matt iii. 9; John, viii. 39.
He everywhere passes by external distinctions, and brings
into prominent relief those essential characteristics of human nature which
bring men together, and make them common or alike before God—those spiritual
qualities which, in comparison with mere intellectual or social qualities, unite
them on the same level. Dismissing from view all the accidents of which men make
so much—distinctions of social or intellectual grade, of education or ability
or culture—He fixes attention on the broad moral features in which we are all comparatively one—sinners alike needing salvation, alike capable of
salvation. In His unerring sight, no one stands
before another; in His unerring, comprehending
love, no one receives to the default of another.
He is the Father of all. “Of a truth God is no
respecter of persons: but in every nation he
that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with Him.”Acts, x. 34, 35.
III. But God is not only “Our Father;” He
is “Our Father which art in heaven.” This
conveys to us the idea of perfect Fatherhood;
and this idea is an important complement of
those we have already considered. The effect
of our previous exposition is to bring the Divine
very near to man. God is a Father. He is our
Father. The Supreme Being is represented
under the nearness and dearness of a familiar
human relationship. We approach Him, as children a father. We are in the presence of One
who loves us, who cares for us, who desires only
our good. All this is fitted, if anything can be
fitted, to touch within us the instincts of spiritual affection, and awaken in our hearts that love
of God which ought to be the guide of our lives.
But mistake is apt to arise out of this very
familiarity with the Divine which we are taught
to cherish in Christ. We are apt to think of
God as altogether such an one as ourselves.
His heart of love so near to us, so open to us,
may be supposed to be a heart like our own in
its weakness as well as in its tenderness—subject to influence as well as open to entreaty.
We may carry up, in short, the idea of human
frailty, as well as of human affection, to the
Supreme. And it is needless to say that this
has been universally done in all human religions. An element of human passion is found
clinging to every natural imagination of Deity.
The Divine is pictured as subject to animal
instincts and gratified by animal sacrifices. The
most cruel and dreadful practices have sprung
out of this picture of a Divine being as not
only to be entreated of men, but propitiated by
them—moved by some ceremony which they
performed or some victim which they offered.
You have only to realise the picture to see
how irreligious it is. A God of such a nature
could be no God. A being pleased with sacrifices and burnt-offerings, whose disposition towards men was affected by the slaying of a
victim, and the sprinkling of its blood upon
an altar, is hardly a moral being at all. The
taint of weakness in its grossest form clings to
such a notion of Deity. You must get quite
out of the region of such notions before you
attain to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ—of a Father who is at the same time “Our
Father which art in heaven.” In Christ the
Supreme is seen to be a perfect Moral Will,
whose sacrifices are the reasonable services of
the creatures He has made.
The essence of the Divine Fatherhood in Christ,
as we have said, is love, but love which is
wholly without weakness; not any mere tenderness, or pitifulness, or affectionateness, but a perfectly good Will, at once just and loving, righteous
and tender, holy and gracious. It is only in our
imperfect perceptions that these moral attributes
are separable. Essentially in the supreme Will,
they are inseparable. A love which failed in
justice would be no true love, morally speaking.
A tenderness which lacked righteousness would
become mere good-nature, and issue in evils
probably worse than the most rigorous equity.
A grace which was without holiness would be
no blessing. To break up or separate these
moral conceptions in God is a fertile root of false
religion, and, we may add, of false theology.
The invocation of the Lord’s Prayer in its full
form, unspeakably tender as it is, blends inseparably all these moral conceptions. It brings
God into the closest personal relation to us, and
yet it raises Him infinitely above us. It reveals
a love near to us, and which we can fully comprehend, and yet a love transcending while it
embraces us. No closeness of relationship with
God brings Him down to our level. He remains
far above us. “Our Father,” indeed, but “Our
Father which art in heaven”—the Head not
merely of the lower world of visible beings in
which we live, and move, and make our daily
bread—but the Head as well of a higher world or
order of being. The expression “which art in
heaven” must mean this at least. It must mean
that there is a transcending sphere in which God
dwells. Such an idea of a higher world—a
world of spirit, and not merely of matter—a
supernatural order exceeding yet embracing
the natural order, seems necessarily implied
in religious thought. It is the teaching more
or less of all spiritual philosophy that such a
world is the true world of being—of substance
and reality—of which the visible material
world is only the transitory form or expression.
Nature is a veil or screen hiding God in His
essence from us, while revealing Him in His
operations. We must pierce the veil of sense,
and get behind the screen, of which our outward
lives themselves are a part, before we reach the
higher world, where God is the light which no
man can approach unto.
This conception of a higher life than the
present—a supernatural life in which all the
elements of good that we know here shall be
perfected, and all the elements of evil expelled—seems the essential foundation of religious
aspiration—of all lifting of the soul towards the
Divine. Apart from such a conception, prayer
seems a mockery, worship a delusion. Yet we
have lived to see an attempt to build religion
upon a mere basis of Nature—on the denial that
there is a higher world at all, and that man himself in his varied activities is the highest form of
being, above which there is nothing, or nothing
at least which we can ever know. Unless all
the past expressions of the religious instinct are
a delusion, this must be a delusion. Not in
himself, but above himself—in a higher, holier,
and perfect Being—has man in his best moments
hitherto sought the power of religious consolation and the bond of his spiritual life. It has been the awe of such a Being which has most
moved man to religious thoughtfulness, and inspired him with the dread of sin. He has never
been able to sustain his higher aspirations, or
to purify his inner life, by Nature. If there is
nothing beyond himself to which he can lift his
eyes, he will not lift them at all. The only
object of religion which can at once engage his intelligence and affection is a Father in heaven.
If we worship, we must worship a Glory that
is above us. If our hearts move in prayer,
they must move towards another Heart that
liveth for ever, in which there is all the love,
and far more than the love, that is in us,
and yet in which there is none of the weakness
which mingles with love in us. If we bow
in adoration, we must bow before a Personal
Presence—a throne at once of mercy and of
judgment, of righteousness and of grace—a Will
higher than our own, whither our wills, feeble
and wavering, yet amidst all these fluctuations
pointing beyond earth and flesh, may ascend.
Such a Will it is, such a Presence, such a Heart,
such an enthroned Personality, that is revealed
to us in Christ: a Father, yet a Judge; a Saviour,
yet a Lord; near to us, yet infinitely transcending us; “having respect unto the lowly,”Psalm cxxxviii. 6.
yet
“the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.”Isaiah, lvii. 15.
Towards such a
Presence and Person should we worship when
we pray “after this manner”—“Our Father
which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.”
In conclusion, let us bear in mind that we cannot claim God as our Father unless we are willing to be His sons. His will towards us changes
not. His name remains for ever the same.
But we cannot know His will, we cannot claim
His name, if we reject His love. To them who
reject His love, His will is no longer one of
love, but of wrath; His name is no longer a
name of endearment, but of terror. It is of
the nature of the Divine Love that it should
not spare the impenitent and unbelieving, the
contemptuously selfish and guilty, who say in
their hearts, “Who is the Lord that He should
reign over us?” It belongs to the idea of Divine
Fatherhood that it should cast from its embrace
those who disown its solicitations; who turn
away from its light and love the darkness,
because their deeds are evil. The more “Our
Father in heaven” loves us, the more fearful it is
for us by wilful sin to reject His love—the more
must we suffer if we do so. Brethren, it is the
very love of God which, despised, makes the
wrath of God. It is the very Fatherliness of
the Divine which makes it a “consuming fire” against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of
men.
III.
THE PEACE OF CHRIST.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the
world giveth, give I unto you.”—JOHN, xiv. 27.
THERE is a singular beauty and depth of
meaning in these words. Every spiritual
mind owns this directly, whatever difficulty it
may have in analysing and entering into all the
meaning. Like many words of St John, they
address more directly the spiritual instinct than
the spiritual intelligence. We feel them more
than we can explain them. They meet our
silent aspirations. They give an answer to our
deepest longings.
Christ came to give peace on earth. The
promise of the Advent was, “Glory to God in
the Highest, and on earth Peace.” The promise
might seem to have failed of its fulfilment.
Men strive for the mastery as of old, and amidst
the movements of human ambition, and the contradictions of human opinion, peace seems as far
off as ever. This is true, and yet the text is also
true. The peace which our Lord came to give—which He left with His own when He went
away—which He gives now—not as the world
giveth—to all that ask it, is not peace as men
often mean by the word. It is not external
quiet, or ease, mere composure or comfort such
as men desire and crave after. The Gospel is
nowhere said to be a Gospel of earthly comfort. The happiness which Christ promised is
not happiness in the sense of exemption from
trouble, or danger, or sorrow. On the contrary,
the Lord assured His followers that in the world
they would have tribulation. Even as He had
been tried and suffered, so would they. The
servant was to be as his Lord, the disciple as his
Master—in this respect and in others. Yet
they were assured of peace. The “weary and
heavy laden”—those on whom the burden of
care or sorrow might fall most heavily—were to
have “rest” unto their souls. Their peace was
to work through patience and suffering. It was
not only to be compatible with conflict and
danger and toil, but in and through these it
was to come; and while all things were shaken
around them, and “without were fightings, within were fears,”2 Cor. vii. 5.
“the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding” was to “keep their
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”Philip. iv. 7.
What we think of most naturally in connection with such a subject is our Lord’s own life—so majestic in its repose—so grand in its
peacefulness—with such a pervading depth of
calm in it, and yet so troubled outwardly.
And here no doubt is the key to the meaning.
Our Lord’s own life—His spiritual manifestation
in life and death—is the best interpreter of all
His profoundest sayings. For the Christian lives
only in Christ. He has no life apart from Him.
All Christian thought is hid in Him. All
Christian experience grows out of Him.
According to the terms of the text, our Lord
makes first an explicit promise of peace as His
gift to His disciples; and then sets in contrast
with His own gift the gifts of the world. “Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as
the world giveth, give I unto you.” We will best
bring out the meaning of the divine gift by placing in front the gifts with which it is contrasted.
I. Christ frequently draws in sharp and decisive terms the contrast betwixt Himself and
the world. We “cannot serve,” He tells us, “God and mammon.”Matt. vi. 24.
“If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him.”1 John, ii. 15.
It is nowhere said that the world is worthless,
or that mammon is unattractive. On the contrary, the very sharpness of the antagonism
drawn by Christ implies that what is called the
world has powerful attractions for man. It has
fair and promising gifts to offer him; otherwise
there need have been no such decisive contrast
drawn betwixt Himself and it, and no such
solemn warning that we cannot serve both Him
and it.
Now, what are the gifts of the world? What
is meant by the world, and the attractions by
which it lures man? There can be no doubt of
the general meaning. The world is the outside
life of man. Its gifts are possessions, dear to his
senses, his intellect, and even his heart. It rewards with its own. If we serve it, it will not
disown us. To the ambitious man, who knows
how to use skilfully the instruments of ambition,
it gives influence and authority. To the self-indulgent man, it gives the means of indulgence.
It tempts the sight with seeing, and the ear with
hearing. It ministers enjoyment in a thousand
forms. To the industrious, it yields the fruit of
industry; for the careful, it heaps up riches;
for the clever and adventurous, it presents endless resources of satisfaction and scope of enterprise.
It is needless to speak lightly of such things.
They have naturally a great attraction for all.
To get on in the world and receive of its best
gifts, is a legitimate aim. It is an incentive to
youthful aspiration and middle-aged ambition.
It is the inspiration of some of the most definite
and valuable forms of social virtue and domestic
happiness. It is the spur of social progress—the spring of industry and civilisation. Therefore there is and can be nothing wrong in so
far using the world. There is nothing to be disparaged in the things which the world gives, if
they are given for honest work. Our Lord nowhere hints that we are not to touch its gifts,
but rather to condemn and cast them from us.
But what He everywhere implies is, that these
gifts at the best are not enough for us. They
minister enjoyment—they are means of usefulness; but there is that in man which they cannot reach. It is, in short, the abuse and not
the use of the world which our Lord reprobates. It is when the heart so loves the world that it
has no room for other love; when the mind so
fills itself with the things of sense, or intellect,
or imagination, or passion, as to exclude the
sense of higher, Divine things, that judgment is
passed upon it, and it is clearly true that whosoever “loveth the world, the love of the Father
is not in him.”
It will be always difficult to persuade the
young that the world cannot satisfy them—that
its gifts, however fair and attractive, are, if not
delusive, yet inadequate to the higher wants of
the human soul. They seem so far from the
fulness that the world can give them. They
stand at such a distance from its giddy heights
of ambition, of pride, of pleasure, that they believe, or often do so, that they would be happy
if only they once reached those heights, and
could look back from them with a proud complacency on all that they had gained. Yet if
there is anything more frequently verified by
experience than another, it is the fact that the
very highest triumphs of the world do not give
happiness. And always the more is this the
case where the nature that has sought such happiness is a true and noble nature. The more
profound the springs of life, the more difficult
are they to reach. The more real the heart, the
less easily can it be filled. There are depths in
almost every human being that no merely outward gift can reach. The success after which
we strive fails to gratify. The joys which have
spurred us on perish in the using. The brightest of them wear out, and there is no spring of
renewal in them. The glittering height that
tempted from afar is found when reached to
be a barren level. The knowledge which was
dear in the prospect is fruitless in the possession.
The glory of the gift vanishes with its realisation. The “light that never was on sea or
land,” and has drawn the youthful spirit from
afar, fades into the common day. The very
capacity of enjoyment decays, and is ready to
vanish away. The eye is no longer satisfied
with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
The intellect is no longer tempted by inquiry;
and out of the very pride of aspiration comes
the weakness of exhaustion, or the despair of
truth.
Such are the world’s gifts at the best. Taking
the highest view, they fail because they leave the
spiritual side of our nature untouched. They
fail, moreover, in themselves, because, like all outward realities, however real, they do not last. The life goes out of them. It withers like the
grass, “and the flower thereof falleth, and the
grace of the fashion of it perisheth.”
II. Now the gift of Christ is the opposite of
all this.
(l.) It is primarily inward, while the gifts of
the world are outward. Our Lord knew what
was in man. He was Himself a man, profoundly
conscious of all the higher qualities and activities of our being. He saw that the root of human misery was the attempt of man to satisfy
himself with this world, or with things merely
external. This it was that made Him lay His
ban upon the world as His own special antagonist. It was not the outside in itself that He
condemned; nothing external, in so far as it
was merely external or natural, did He for a
moment interdict—for that would have been to
interdict His own work. But He denounced
the outward when it absorbed the inward and
took its place. The world in His view was the
displacement of the spiritual by the material—not matter itself, or any form of external advantage, glory, or beauty, but the heart materialised, the mere good of earth in room of the
higher good of the Spirit. No happiness, He
assured man, could be reached in this way. The
nature of man demands spiritual as well as natural food. It cannot live by bread alone. It cannot quench immortal longings by mere draughts
of sensual or even intellectual gratification.
These are good to give you what they have, but
you need more than they have; and God Himself can alone give you all you need. And I
who am the Revelation of the Father—of His
grace and truth—can alone satisfy the wants of
your souls. “Come unto me, and I will give
you rest.”Matt. xi. 28.
“Whosoever drinketh of this water
shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall
be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.”John, iv. 13, 14.
There is something in the very language of the text that
suggests the immediate relation of the soul to God, and the deep inwardness of
the gift which it promises. Peace is an inward resting. A mind at peace is a
mind not only calm and unruffled in its temporary mood, but profoundly composed
in its unseen depths. There is not merely quiet upon the surface, but a
deep-seated rest of the inner life—
“It is not quiet, it is not ease,
But something deeper far than these.”
The expression itself betrays something of
this deeper meaning even in its ordinary
application—as when we look abroad upon
the sea, or the silent hills as they sleep in the
tranquil folds of the evening light, and say, How
peaceful they are! we mean not merely that the
wind is down or the air is still, but that Nature
rests in her inner central depths.
It is such an inward reality—quiet within the
soul—a restful life beneath all other life—that
Christ gives to them that are His. It is something deeper than sense, or intellect, or passion,
or all the shows of that life which we can see, or
hear, or touch. It is no mere harmony of natural
powers—although it is also this; but it is a positive spiritual endowment—a gift from the Divine—something which at once settles and stays the
spirit on a foundation that cannot be moved,
though the earth be removed, and the waters
roar and be troubled. It is the consciousness
of God Himself as our loving Father, and of
the strength of the Divine Will which we have
chosen against all human selfishness and sin.
Christ did not concern Himself with man’s
outward life. He did not try to change the
direction of His external activities, although some
have conceived His mission after this manner.
He nowhere says to His disciples, “You are to
come out of the world.” At the close of this
very discourse His prayer for them is, not that
they should be taken out of the world, but that
they should be kept from the evil that is in it.John, xvii. 15.
He leaves alone man’s outward career; and
through the power of His mighty sympathy—of
His living affinity with all his true wants—He
lays hold of man’s inner life. Here was the root
of good or evil—of happiness or misery. Here
was the spring which, as it was sweet or bitter,
imparted health or disease, life or death, to all the
forces of human activity. And our Lord applied
the remedy here. He took of His own and gave
it unto man. He seized the root of his personal life and planted it in God. And this is
to do everything for man—to satisfy his most
restless craving, as well as give meaning to his
highest aspirations—to reduce all the discords
of his life to a unity; so that whatever may
befall him, “the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding,” shall keep his mind and heart
through Jesus Christ. From within outwards
the change is wrought. Settled in the Divine—at one with God—there goes forth from this
sure stay—this bright confidence—a silent yet
potent influence bringing every thought and
feeling and act into obedience to Him, gently
yet strongly binding all into that unity of the
spirit which is the bond of peace.
(2.) But further, the text enables us yet more
fully to understand the peace of which it speaks. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you.” The peace which Christ gives is His own.
Can we say more distinctly what this was?
whence it was? The peace of Christ was the
fulness of the Divine in Him. It came forth from
the perfect unity of the Father and Himself. It
was the expression of this unity—the natural
reflection of His entire self-surrender to the
Father’s will. His peace was unbroken because
His obedience was unmarred. It was His meat
to do the will of Him that sent Him, and finish
His work. His life on earth was the perfect life
of God—the incarnation of the Divine. He
dwelt in the radiant fulness of the Divine Presence, daily His delight rejoicing before Him;
and so resting with undimmed trust in the
Divine, He could have no fear. No shadow of
unrest could touch Him. None ever did touch
Him, save at the last, when the darkness of the
world’s sin so covered Him that He cried out in
agony. This momentary interruption of our
Lord’s peace shows more clearly than all else
its character and depth. For alarm could only
reach Him through the inner hiding of that Presence which had never before forsaken Him.
Unrest only came when the darkened burden of
His sin-bearing upon the cross obscured the light
of that ineffable love in which He had hitherto
dwelt, and left Him for the time as it were alone—without God.
The source of Christ’s peace, then, was union
with God. It was the enjoyment of His
nearness to God, and the fulness with which he
rested in the Divine love. The peace which
He gives is the same which He enjoyed. Our
peace, like His, can alone come from the living
unity of our will with the Divine Will; we must
be one with the Father, as He is. This unity
was in Him originally as the Father’s eternal
Son; it is in us derivatively through the Son. “The glory which Thou gavest me I have given
them; that they may be one, even as we arc
one: I in them, and Thou in me, that they may
be made perfect in one; and that the world may
know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved
them, as Thou hast loved me.”John, xvii. 22, 23.
In Christ we are made one with God, “who
hath reconciled us to Himself.”2 Cor. v. 18. Eph. ii. 13, 14.
“Now, in
Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off are
made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is
our peace, who hath made both one, and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition.” And
thus reconciled to our heavenly Father, we are
made partakers of His own nature—reinvested
with the fulness of His own image—consecrated
by His own Spirit. Christ is created within us
unto all good works. The old selfish nature is
destroyed. The new life of self-sacrifice, purity,
and love, lives and grows in us. The same nearness to God—or something of this same nearness—the same enjoyment in the Divine Presence
and in divine work—the “mind that was in
Christ” become ours in Him. “We apprehend Him of whom also we are apprehended.” We
enter into His life; we are “joint heirs in His
Sonship.” And as this higher life grows strong,
peace waxes more full. Perfect love casteth out
fear—the fear of the guilt that we own, of the
evil we have done, of the death that we deserve.
All sense of wrong, and the misery that comes
from it, fall gradually away. And while the
gifts of the world lose their attraction, and the
sense of all lesser enjoyment grows feebler by
experience, this increases in the very use of it.
The relish of the Divine is sweeter the larger it
is tasted. The joy of God is deeper the longer
it is known. The peace that passeth all understanding is yet the more understood the more it
is cherished.
(3.) This peace, we may further say, touches
every aspect of our spiritual being. From
within it radiates all around. It illumines the
reason, and quiets the conscience while it sustains the heart. There is light in it as well as
rest. It penetrates the intellect, and suffuses it
with its own strength. It gives stability amidst
the many fluctuations of our mental mood. It
stays the mind as in a stronghold, when assailed
by the arms of doubt. Yet, from its nature, it
comes to us mainly in the form of trust. It
is relief from a burden more than a solution of
difficulties. It is the haven of the spirit returning to God from weary and vain voyaging after
other good, more than satisfaction of the intellect
seeking after Truth. It is quiet fruition rather
than clear vision. It is affection rather than
knowledge. It is the soul cleaving unto God with
the strong pinions of faith and hope, amidst darkness and storm still holding on, rather than the
soul dwelling in clearness and seeing face to
face. It is strength in Another, and not in ourselves. And what is this to say but that it is religion and not science? It is the grasp of the absolute amidst the accidental, of the Immutable
amidst the mutable. It is the consciousness of an
abiding Love, to whose bosom we may ever fly
when all else threatens us—when we are broken
and wounded by the way, and our hearts are
beginning to fail us for fear. It is, in short,
nearness to God—the blessed assurance which
God Himself can alone give that He is there,
whatever our cold doubts may say—that the
everlasting arms are around us, even when we do
not feel their quiet and strong embrace.
In God such peace is ours through Jesus
Christ. In God alone. Elsewhere we may get
many things, but we shall not get this. The
world may give us its choicest gifts; but unless
we sink utterly away from God, we shall need
more than these. Religion, if it be a reality at
all, is the greatest reality. The peace of God
and of Christ, if it be not a devout illusion, is a
fact which should be at the root of all our life. It can never be something which we only need
at last, when we come to die, and having exhausted the gifts of the natural life we are
warned to prepare for another. No; it must be
ours now if we would enjoy it then. It must be
the pith of our common labour, and the inspiration of our daily happiness, if we should have its
joy at last, and finally enter into its fulness in
the presence of God—at whose right hand there
are pleasures for evermore.
“Now the Lord of Peace Himself give you
peace always by all means. The Lord be with
you all.” Amen.
IV.
LAW AND LIFE.
Galatians, vi. 7.—“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
THERE is a great order of justice in all lives—an underplan of equity upon which life
as a whole is built up—judgment being laid to
the line and righteousness to the plummet.Isaiah, xxviii. 17.
The traces of this divine measurement are not
always discernible. There are many confusions,
and what may seem great injustice, in individual
cases. There are lives which seem never to
have fair-play. Accidents of birth, or of physical or mental organisation, have disordered
4hem from the first, and left them without their
share of moral opportunity. I know of no
greater mystery in nature than such lives, which
have had no chance of good, and scarcely any
capacity for it. But this, like all other mysteries,
must be left to God. He will deal fairly in the
end, we may be sure, with such lives, and not
judge them above what they are able to bear.
They are safe in God’s love, if any are. His pity
reaches to the depth of all human frailty. But
taking moral life as a whole, it is plainly dealt
with on a plan of rigorous equity. Opportunity
and capacity are given, and service and fruit
are demanded in return. A great law of righteousness is seen working everywhere, and bringing forth results after its kind—of good unto
good, and evil unto evil—notwithstanding all
appearances to the contrary.
For the present, it is this element of law in life
which is our subject. It is not well for the
Christian mind to dwell exclusively upon the
mere goodness or clemency of God, and still less
to make such goodness any excuse for the poor,
weak, and vacillating endeavours which we sometimes make to do what is right in His sight.
The apostle never makes such allowance for
himself or others; and in the text, he has laid
down, in a figure indeed, but in a figure so
intelligible that the plainest mind may follow
it, the law of moral order—of action and
reaction—which never fails in human life. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap.” His argument in the passage is, that
every man must answer for himself and his own
doings to God. The shadow of responsibility is
never away from us—not even in the clearest
sunshine of the Divine love. The fact that every
thing we do bears its natural consequence is not
at all touched by the higher evangelical fact, so
often elsewhere expressed by him, that it is “not
by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy He saved us.”Titus, iii. 5.
Give all force to this higher fact. If it were not
for the Divine mercy, we should not only be, but
remain, miserable sinners, “without God and
without hope in the world.” But the other fact
is not the less true—not the less universal; and
for the present we will do well to follow his line
of thought in this respect.
The spiritual or evangelical tone of mind is
apt at times to overlook the sterner side of human life. It delights itself with the great possibilities of Divine grace, and the immense changes
from evil to good which are not beyond its scope.
But the Divine order is nevertheless a fact, and
it is highly important that we should not deceive ourselves regarding it. Should we deceive
ourselves, God is not mocked. His laws are not
altered by our self-deception. They work out
their issues with undeviating certainty. Every
man is only what he is really before God, and
his life is all along only what he makes it, with
or without God’s grace and help in doing so—“for every man shall bear his own burden.”Galatians, vi. 5.
No one can share with another the moral realities of his life, whatever these are. Our cares
and sorrows—such accidents of trouble as come
to us from without, and at times weigh heavily
upon us—others may share and help us to bear.Ibid. vi. 2: “Bear ye one another’s burdens.” The apostle
indicates the distinction of the two cases by a distinctive expression. His expression in verse 2 is βάρν;
in the 5th verse
φορτίον.
But we must bear alone the results of our own
conduct. We must reap the harvest which we
have sown, and eat the fruit of our own doing.
The issues of our free will are our own and no
other’s; and we need never try to shift this burden, if it prove a burden, upon another. We
must stand before God carrying the freight of
our own deeds, and receive according to these
deeds done in the body, whether they be good
or evil.
The language of the text plainly looks at
this sterner side of human life as something
which needs emphasis. We are apt to overlook
or underestimate it; and therefore the apostle
takes care that it shall be brought clearly into
sight, and that we shall be under no mistake
about it. The harvest is always after its kind. “He that soweth to his flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of
the Spirit reap life everlasting.”Galatians, vi. 8.
“Let
every man prove his own work.”Ibid, vi. 4.
The law tells
with equal force on both sides. That which is
sown to the Spirit is spiritual, and the harvest
thereof is everlasting life. The good seed brings
forth good fruit. The lives of the good teem
with an ever-accumulating wealth of goodness,
and the golden grain hangs more heavily in the
late autumn of their years. But this side of the
divine law needs not so much to be enforced as
the darker side. Men readily believe that if
they do well, God will deal well with them. Or
if there is a strange spirit of distrust sometimes
on this score—as with the man who hid his
talent in the parable—yet such a temper is less
frequent than the dearth of spiritual insight altogether. It is far more common for men to think
of God as likely to overlook sin than to fail
in rewarding good. The latter state of mind
may not be uncommon amongst serious people.
From the very depth of devout awe there springs
sometimes a strange distrust of God as a hard
taskmaster, reaping where He has not sown, and
gathering where He has not strawed. But even
this worst type of a perverted Calvinism is better—as it is certainly less frequent—upon the
whole, than spiritual deadness, or that natural
Epicureanism which takes its chance of good or
evil, and thinks that the Divine order is not so
unbending, after all—that life is not so grave
as religion would make it, or moral punishment
so sure as God threatens.
In our time there is but little fear that men
will sink into a superstitious dread of God.
The spirit of awe is not a prevailing spirit
in our modern life and literature. Men and
women alike are sufficiently alive to their rights;
and the talent, instead of being hid away in a
napkin, in fear of what the Lord will say, is
used in the face of all, with a free audacity which
plainly means that we know what we are doing,
and that we are not afraid of God’s reckoning
with us in the end as to the use of our gifts and
opportunities. The modern spirit, if it has not
lost the old reverence for God—for there may be
a true reverence beneath much freedom—has yet
ceased to be afraid of Him. It looks to Him
with a sure and bright confidence that honest
service of every kind will not fail of its reward.
It is only too self-confident; and its dangers are
all on the side of self-confidence. Is there, after
all, a Divine order? it is apt to say. Is wrongdoing, after all, of so much consequence? Is it
in the largest sense wrongdoing to yield free
indulgence to my pleasure-loving instincts—to
gratify, in such way as appears to me good, my
natural desires and appetites? Why should I
not do as I please and live as I will? This is
the tendency of modern life; and it is against
this tendency that the text, and many texts,
warn us.
It is very natural for men in high, health and
fulness of strength to think that they may do as
they please, and give free rein to the power of
natural passion or the gratification of worldly
instinct. But let them not be deceived. There
is a Divine order, although men may ignore it or
fail to recognise it; and no misconception of
theirs can alter or reverse it. Against this order
all life which is not right must break and go to
ruin. If we yield ourselves to fleshly indulgence,
we shall reap in the end corruption; and nothing
can save us from it. The laws of health are
invariable. Let us use our bodies well—restrain and discipline and refine them—and
they will be well. Let us use them ill, and make
them the instruments of unlawful excess, and it
will be ill with them. This may not appear
all at once. The laws of temperance and purity
may be broken for a time, or may seem to be
broken with impunity: and the strong man may
rise again and again with what looks like unbroken health from the disgrace of self-indulgence. But his heart deceives him in the moment
of his strength, and the day of retribution is
travelling swiftly onwards in the very morning
of his pleasures. It may be said without any
exaggeration that not a single sensual excess is
ever practised with impunity. It leaves some
weakness of body or foulness of mind behind
it—probably both. The divine rules of temperance and purity bind us, body and soul, in their
golden links; and let us break off any of these
links, or rudely dislocate them, and the order of
health is not merely disturbed, but the life for
whose protection it was given is deeply injured.
And let excess of any kind be continued, and the
golden security becomes an iron bondage. The
will which has ceased to restrain itself within
the Divine order gradually loses all due control,
and finds its only pleasure, which is at the
same time its greatest misery, in self-abandonment.
The world is full of lives thus broken and
flawed in a vain struggle with the Divine order
which rules them and will not let them go free.
From bad they have gone to worse, ever downward in the course of self-indulgence, till they
can only look upward from an abyss of shame to
an irrecoverable ideal. At first it seemed a little
thing to yield. Why should they not taste the
pleasures which so many had tasted before them,
and from which apparently they had reaped no
harm? But the harm never fails if the evil is
really done. It works somehow—invisibly, if not
visibly. And the vengeance which may tarry in
one case comes swiftly in another. The temptations which some have struggled with and
mastered, prove demons of power over others,
and leave them no rest. And so the love of
indulgence grows more irresistible, and the path
of what was thought pleasure becomes the path
of misery and disgrace. We say with pity, What
a wreck such a man has made of his life! And
there is no wreck so pathetic, if we clearly think
of it. But the sequel is, after all, only as the
beginning; and the grain as the seed which was
cast into the ground. There has been a sure
process of sowing, growth, and maturity; and
the miserable spectacle of moral baseness is as
real a development as any natural growth. The
first choice of evil seemed of little moment—the excess of passion seemed only the excess
of youthful strength. But excess bred lawless
appetite, and appetite grew by what it fed upon,
and as it grew it ate like a canker into soul and
body. The tempted will Was drawn away of
its own lust, and enticed. “Then, when lust
hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin,
when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”James, i. 15.
This is merely one illustration. But, like all
Divine laws, the law of moral order “fulfils itself
in many ways.” The mean and avaricious life—the selfishness which hides itself under the
guise of over-prudence—deteriorates as surely as
the self-indulgent life, that seeks merely its own
gratification. The operation may be more slow
or more hidden in the one case than in the other.
The life that lacks all generosity and “minds only
its own things” may seem what is called respectable, and rise for a time in the world’s esteem;
but it is poor and ignoble at the best, and it gets
poorer with the advance of years. All finer
traits—nay, all sources of moral good—are gradually worn away. The world is more and more
with such a life, and more and more corrupts it.
Of meanness there come narrowness and ugliness of character, habits of jealousy and discontent which consume the very core of spiritual
dignity, and deaden at the root any high hope
or aim of happiness. No spirit, perhaps, is so
sure of its final reward of misery as the spirit
which has sought to grasp everything for itself,
without thought of others, or even the capacity
of using what it grasps or spending what it
accumulates. Its very accumulations become its
torment, while the sanctities of affection and the
sweetness of nature wither before its sight.
The case which seems most at times to defy
the law of divine order is that of criminal ambition—when a daring and unscrupulous nature
has triumphantly carried out some scheme of well-planned or of powerful craft, and seems securely
to enjoy the crown of his wickedness. Then, to
the commonplace observer the world seems a
chance, and man the plaything of the strongest
will. One has only to be bold enough in sin
to gain his ends. Amidst the gaze of vulgar
admiration the audacious criminal is mistaken
for a hero, and the incense of even religious
applause may rise around him. The hearts
of the good may misgive them as they see “the wicked boasting of his heart’s desire, and
blessing the covetous.”Psalm x. 3.
But here, where the
operation of the Divine righteousness looks as if
suspended for a time, there is working a sure
retribution, often hastening on to a terrible fulfilment. Out of the very heart of pride there
comes the impulse to a fall. The intoxication of
strength leads to the first step of weakness; and
the hero of the hour sinks amidst curses into
the obscurity of the impostor or the ignominy
of the felon. So long ago as the time of the
Psalmist, this fate of triumphant wickedness had
been sketched: “I have seen the wicked in
great power, and spreading himself like a green,
bay tree: Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was
not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be
found. Mark the perfect man, and behold the
upright: for the end of that man is peace. But
the transgressors shall be destroyed together;
the end of the wicked shall be cut off.”Psalm xxxvii. 35-38.
So we must believe, if we believe in God at
all. A God less than immutably righteous,
hating the evil and punishing it, as He loves the
good and rewards it, would be no God at all.
The absolute justice of the Divine, so far from
being, as with much popular religion it is apt to
be, a thought of alarm, is the supreme thought
of comfort to every rational mind, as it is the
root of all rational religion. “Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?” Where could
righteousness be found if not at the heart of all
life? And obscured as its manifestations may
sometimes be, and perplexing its developments,
it is never at fault. Appearances may belie the
eternal order. Vice may enjoy prosperity, injustice flourish, and the wicked be exalted. But
beneath all this apparent disorder, Divine righteousness is working out its due ends. The moral
evolution, like the natural, may be marked by
many imperfections; but the “survival of the
fittest” is the law of both alike. That which is
right and suitable remains in the end. Through
all complications and chances of evil, righteousness at last is brought forth as the light, and
judgment as the noon-day.Psalm xxxvii. 6.
For the Divine order, we are to remember, is
not merely a temporary manifestation now and
here, but a continuous development. The lines
of our higher life run onwards, and “it doth not
yet appear what we shall be.” Even if the
kingdom of divine righteousness were less clearly
apparent now, there is a future kingdom and
glory where the evil shall be redressed and the
good rewarded. To many religious people the
idea of retribution is mainly associated with the
future. They delight to dwell on the assurance that all will come right at last, whatever
wrongs may remain here. In the final reckoning
there will be no mistake. The imagery of the
Gospels is for them not a parable but a reality.
And on that great harvest-day, when the angels
shall go forth, sickle in hand, to gather in the wheat
and the tares, they rejoice to think that there will
be no confusion. God knoweth them that are
His, and He will separate betwixt the righteous
and the wicked with unfailing hand. However
the wheat and the tares may have been mingled
here, a clear partition will then be made; and
while the wheat is brought into the garner of
God, the tares shall be burned with unquenchable fire. Every man shall bear his own burden
in the light of that awful judgment.
Let us be sure that this great imagination
mirrors an eternal truth. The good and the evil,
if not here, yet hereafter, run on to their consummation. All shall finally reap as they have
sown, and at length stand revealed in their
true character, crowned with glory or shame—“glory, honour, and peace, to every man that
worketh good;” but “tribulation and anguish
upon every soul of man that doeth evil.”Romans, ii. 9, 10.
This is sure; but not less sure is it that the
process of moral retribution is daily working
itself out before our eyes. Long before we
gather into our arms the final harvest, we are
receiving according to what we have done, whether it be good or evil. In the end we shall
still be as we have been, only in more perfect
measure. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be
filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be
righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be
holy still.”Revelations, xxii. 11.
Let us not imagine that there will
be any different principles of moral order in the
end than at the beginning—God is always judging us as He will judge us at the last. The end
is not yet. The harvest still tarries. The cornstalk is not matured, nor the full grain shown
in the ear. But we are making our future every
hour, and with many of us the crop is fast
ripening into the eternal day.
Two practical reflections occur to us at the close:
(1.) Let us never trifle with conscience. Conscience is the revelation of the Divine order
and law of our lives. We may be mistaken or in
doubt about many things. But when conscience
clearly says of any temptation, No; it is not
right so to think or do,—then we may be sure
that our duty is plain. And misled or uninformed as we may sometimes be, the great lines
of conduct are always clear. We know at all
times that it is better to be good than to be bad—to think truly, to act purely and generously, “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.” If we yield to falsehood or impurity; if
we commit injustice; if we are envious of our
brother’s good, and would wrong him if we
could; if we give way to sinful passion, and
instead of bringing under obedience the body,
pamper and indulge it,—there is a voice within
us tells us we are wrong, even when we stifle it.
Wrong assuredly we are whenever we trifle with
duty or sink below our own sense of what is
good and right; when the law in our members,
warring against the law of the mind, brings us
into captivity to the law of sin which is in our
members.Romans, vii. 23.
Moral deterioration and punishment
follow with sure foot such declension and conquest. If we would avoid the evil, then let us
avoid it at the first. Let us shun its appearance,
resist its approach, and when it assails us, overcome it by good.
(2.) Let us further reflect that no life is
above the law of good, or can ever trample
upon it with impunity. There is a not uncommon delusion that lives of exceptional greatness, either in quality or position, may allow
themselves a licence which others dare not follow. A man of remarkable intellect or genius is
supposed sometimes to be above ordinary rules;
and his errors are spoken of with leniency, or
even a sort of admiration. Still more frequently,
perhaps, a man of exceptional position, born to
rank and fortune, is thought to be only doing
what might be expected in yielding to youthful
pleasures beyond others. But truly there are no
such exceptions to the great principles of moral
order which govern the world. These principles
never fail, and are never infringed without injurious consequences. For “he that doeth wrong
shall receive for the wrong which he hath done:
and there is no respect of persons.”Colossians, iii. 25.
If any life
is exceptionally endowed, or exceptionally privileged, that life, above all, should show forth the
excellence of the Divine order which has enriched it or placed it above others. Any other
thought betrays a secret scepticism of such an
order at all—and is a deception, however it may
seem justified. Whatever we may think, God is
not mocked.
Let us be sure, one and all, that our sin will
find us out; that there is one way of excellence,
as there is one way of happiness—and one alone—the way of self-denial and duty, doing whatever we do in word or deed in the name of
Christ, giving thanks unto God and the Father
by Him. May God lead us all in this way,
strengthen, stablish, settle us, till He finally
bring us to the rewards of His eternal kingdom.
And to His name be all the glory. Amen.
V.
THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.
John, ii. 10.—“Every man at the beginning doth set forth good
wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but
thou hast kept the good wine until now.”
EVERY one understands the natural meaning
of these words. The incident which gave
rise to them is one of the most striking in our
Lord’s life, and, like all its other incidents, has a
significant bearing upon human life in general.
As we read it, we seem to forget for a moment
the “Man of Sorrows,” and the tragic elevation
of a self-sacrifice which knew no pause and invited none in others—whose great key-note was,
“If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”Matthew, xvi. 24.
Here there is no shadow of the Cross. Neither the gloom of Calvary, nor the
loneliness of the “Son of man, who had not where to lay His head,”Ibid. viii. 20.
is
near to a picture bright with the assembly of
wedding guests and the cheer of wine for the
wedding festival. If we need any such lesson,
we are here taught that the presence of Christ is
not only for the darker, but also for the brighter
moments of our lives—that all we do in our
festive no less than our solemn hours should be
beautified by the companionship of Him who
was called with His disciples to the marriage in
Cana of Galilee—that, in short, the consecration
of His love should rest upon every aspect and
activity of our being.
But it is not any general lesson of this kind of
which I am now thinking. These words from
an early period have been taken by themselves and turned into a parable, speaking a
deeper meaning than lies upon the surface.
They have been taken as applicable to a great
contrast presented in the natural and the
spiritual life respectively. Men who delighted
in the language of Scripture, and studied it as
almost their only literature, have been pleased
to read in “the good wine set forth at the
beginning” the charm of the natural life in its
early freshness, finding its good at first; “and
when men have well drunk, then that which is
worse:” and again, in “the good wine kept
until now,” the different law of the spiritual
life, growing from weakness to strength, and
from difficulty to enjoyment, preserving its good
things to the last.See Trench’s Notes on the Miracles
of our Lord, pp. 108-110, and the quotations from mediaeval writers and others there
given.
It matters little that the parable is a fanciful
one. It is easy to see now that the words do
not convey any such meaning. They were used
apparently in their simple, direct sense, without
any hint of a higher application. This is an
obvious criticism which it requires no knowledge
to make. Yet the associations of the higher
meaning linger around the words, and we may
well take them to illustrate what seems in itself
a truth of great importance. No one need fear
that we shall forget our Biblical criticism in so
doing. After all, there are meanings imposed
upon texts by good people, and zealously held
by them, quite as fanciful as this, and having no
better foundation. No one need quarrel with
the spiritual fancies which have gathered around
some Scriptural texts, so long as they are used
merely for didactic or practical purposes. It is
only when the controversialist would turn them
to his purpose, and the theologian would wrest
the meaning of revelation to impose an antiquated dogma, that we must be careful to read
Scripture “as any other book,” and to hold
closely to its critical and historical meaning.
There is no fancy in the thought which these
words have been taken to express. There is a
natural life, and there is a spiritual life. The
law of the former is to set forth its good wine
at the beginning; afterwards comes that which
is worse. There is an immutable process of decay
in all mere natural enjoyment. On the contrary,
the law of the spiritual life is a law of increase.
There is a spring of constant renewal in it. The
good wine is kept to the last. Let us dwell
upon this contrast for a little.
I. The natural life is the life into which we are all born. It
is our life of sense, and passion, and intellect. Need I speak of the good of
such a life in its first healthiness and vigour. All its impulses are impulses
of gladness. It is like good wine to the palate. As a poet of our own day has
sung—
“How good, is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart, and the soul, and the senses for ever in joy!”
The “mere mortal life held in common by man
and brute “is full of exhilaration. It responds
to the great, happy life of Nature with vivid and
quick response. No healthy young brain and
heart but have known something of this mere joy
of living, when manhood is yet in its prime and “not a muscle is stopped in its playing.” No
restrictions can crush it altogether, and no
asceticism kill its uprising force in the boy or
girl as they look forth from the seclusion of
un wasted powers on what is always to them
the spring-time of an unworn world. And as
there is no joy more true, so there is none at
first more innocent than this. There have been
natures, indeed, that have shrunk from it—or so
we read sometimes in books of devotion and
biographies of the saints. There has seemed to
such natures a touch of sin in the very overflow
of youthful health and elation. The responsibilities of life have cast a darkening shadow
over its youthful opening. The feeling is not
so common as to be deprecated in a time like
ours; but nothing, surely, can be more free
from sinful alloy than the mere gladsome activity
of the young heart. It lies near to God in the
very freshness with which it owns the sweet
attractiveness of the life which He has given it,
and the bountiful earth on which He has made
it to dwell.
But I need not dwell on this charm of the
natural life. It needs no preacher to describe
it. There is no fear in the present age that
it will be undervalued or despised; rather the
contrary fear that we make too much of it,
and place the mere forces of nature before the
laws of the spirit. It is more my business and
more my subject to point out how the activities
of nature, so joyful in their first exercise, soon
begin to lose their freshness and vigour. They
waste in the using, and the glory of the mere
natural life dies down as it runs its swift course
from morning to noon and evening. Unless recruited from a higher source, or sustained by
a happy temperance, it wastes away with a
fated rapidity. The senses lose their zest, the
spirits their spring, the passions their elevation. “Mere mortal life,” the joy of grateful activity,
is never to the man what it was to the boy. It
may still bring delight, but seldom the old rapture. It may be still as “good wine,” but it has
lost the former relish. The “wild joy of living” vanishes with youth, never to be recalled; and the
pulse beats more feebly, even though the arm be
strong and the frame vigorous as ever. If we
gain in experience, we lose in enthusiasm; and
though both life and nature may speak to us in
deeper tones, and move us with a more solemn
gladness, we miss something we can never have
again with the lapse of years. The leaping
delight which once came from fresh fields or
mountain-side is no more. There is no longer
the same “splendour in the grass or glory in the
flower.” The old thrill of passion comes not.
We sigh over a vanished joy and a rapture that
is dead; and court it as we may, the rapture
never comes back again.
But “leaving the flesh to the fate it was fit for,”
it may seem that the joys of the intellectual life
grow rather than decay with advancing years.
There is a certain truth in this. As the intellect
gets older, it gets wiser up to a certain point.
It learns its own measure and powers, and no
longer frets itself, as in youth it often does, over
impossible achievements and ideal aims. It gets
more masterful within its own sphere, and does
its work with less strain, and often a more conscious enjoyment. Happily there is this ever-recurring spring of pleasure in the intellectual
side of our being. The joy of exercise, of mere
life and activity, survive here when it has run
to waste in the lower sphere of our sensitive
and passionate existence. But if this be true,
it is also true that the intellect loses while
it gains. Its stores accumulate, its work goes
on more easily; but here too, as elsewhere, enthusiasm vanishes. The mere delight in knowing passes away. The passion of knowledge for
its own sake survives in but a few breasts.
What seemed once within reach—the joy of
discovery all the more tempting by its difficulty—is found inaccessible. The vision is
proved to be a dream. The radiance which was
once so bright dies down or disappears. Truths
whose early dawning was as the exhilarating
flush of morning, become commonplace. Perplexities grow more painful; problems more
desperate. To the youthful intellectualist the
world seems an open secret. He has only to
pierce more deeply than others, and its meaning will lie plain before him. The veteran who
has gone farthest afield, and sought most strenuously for wisdom as for hidden treasure, compares himself to a child who has gathered a
few pebbles by the shore, while the great ocean
of truth lies unexplored. He chiefly knows how
little, after all, there is to be known. And so
the life of intellect, infinitely greater as it is
than any other sphere of our natural life, is
seldom a very sanguine or hopeful life. The
burden of thought saddens as it grows. Experience brings mastery; but it brings also difficulties and the consciousness of limits unfelt
before. Here too, therefore, there is a sense
in which the good wine is set forth at the
beginning; and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse. The glory and the
freshness fade. The shadows deepen as the
night cometh; and “turn whersoe’er we may,”
there is no longer the same intensity or buoyancy of intellectual sight. “The things which
we have seen, we now can see no more.”
And it is to be borne in mind that in all this
view of the natural life I have taken it at the
best. I have not identified it with the mere
worldly or carnal life, into which it necessarily
passes unless animated and controlled by some
higher principle. I have not spoken of the
world’s deceitful promises; or of the allurements
of sinful passion, “carrying light in the face, and
honey on the lip,” but, when men have well
drunk, “fears and terrors of conscience, and
shame and displeasure.”J. Taylor’s Life of Christ, in loco.
I have not done so,
because it seems to me unnecessary to draw the
picture in any darker colours than it sometimes
presents. The natural life, if divorced from
God, must always be a sinful life; but beyond
doubt it may also be, in many things, a great or
a beautiful life, with many springs in its mere
healthy activity. But taking it thus at the very
best, in its brightest fulness, it contains within
itself the elements of decay. Its highest activity is a process of exhaustion which finds
no renewal. When the wine is drained, there
is only the lees of its former strength and
brightness.
II. But is it different and better with the
spiritual life? Some will tell us, in the first
place, that we have no such evidence of a
spiritual life at all as we have of a natural
life—that at least the one is here and now,
a living experience to make the most of; and
the other a shadowy realm which we can
neither test nor verify. On such a question we
cannot enter into argument here. I am speaking to a Christian congregation, all of whom
profess to hold the reality of the spiritual life,
and the great unseen verities on which it sustains and nourishes itself. But surely we may
say of the spiritual life, no less than the natural, that it appeals to a living course of experience. It is also here and now—a series
of facts—as well as the other, if also reaching beyond the present to a higher and unseen
sphere of being. The spiritual side of human
life is a reality felt and enjoyed quite as truly
as the natural side. To thousands it is the
deepest reality, the true point of connection
with the great Life of the universe, the enduring
Power of which all forms of life are but the
manifestation. We cannot get quit of religion
by mere denial. Materialism itself, in order to
make any show of meeting the mystery of the
world, is found to clothe itself with spiritual
meanings and to assume a religious voice.
The character of the spiritual life is equally
verified in experience. In varying degrees and
with casual reversions, it is yet essentially a life
of growth—of growth from darkness to light,
from weakness to strength, from dimness and
poverty to beauty and hope and richness. This
is the law of the higher life. There may be exceptions in individual experience. The law may
be obscured by contradictory influences. But it
remains true that when the spiritual life survives in any healthiness at all, it adds to faith
knowledge, and to knowledge virtue, temperance, and patience, and to all these the
“love
which hopeth all things, and never faileth.”
(1.) The commencement of the spiritual life is
frequently spoken of as a transition from darkness
to light. The newly-born Christian, beginning
to realise his priestly dignity and holy privileges, is called upon “to show forth the praise
of Him who hath called him out of darkness
into His marvellous light.”1 Peter, ii. 9.
And this access
of light always attends the higher life. It is as
the opening of eyes to the blind. It is a new
gift of sight, so that we see a higher meaning in
duty to God, in the work and sacrifice of Christ,
and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Christ becomes
the “master-light of all our seeing.” A new
glory, other than the glory of nature, falls upon
life and thought. The sacrifice of the Cross
may have seemed before an unintelligible or
repellent mystery. As in the early time it
was “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the
Greeks foolishness,” so there are still, in divers
forms, the Jewish and the Greek types of mind—the one unable to see the divine dignity of
the great Sufferer, and the other unable to see
that there was any need for the suffering
at all. And all human theories and analogies
help us but dimly to understand the great
mystery. None read it, or can read it, fully.
But there grows from the depth of sinful experience, and the hopelessness of our own mortal
struggle with evil in our hearts and in our
lives, a meaning in the Divine sacrifice which
nothing else can give. The love and wisdom
of God shine from the Cross on our struggling
souls, and the power of God reveals itself in it
as alone able and mighty to save. And as our
spiritual insight grows, and we feel ourselves
continually so weak and yet so capable, so
grovelling and yet so aspiring—there comes an
ever deeper meaning into that Life which was
lifted up that all men might be drawn to it.
The ideal of all higher life is seen to be there—self-sacrifice for the good of the others; and
not only the ideal, which we may contemplate,
but the strength which we may appropriate,
and so receive help, that as He loved us and
gave Himself for us, we should also walk in
love, and live no longer unto ourselves, but unto
Him that died for us and rose again.
This life of self-sacrifice in Christ—into which
we have been redeemed by His suffering, of which
we are made capable by His grace—sheds for us
a higher light on this world of evil and suffering
than all the theories of philosophy, or the generalisations of science. What our minds may fail
to understand, our hearts enable us to realise. In all higher natures there is a subtle interchange betwixt the reason and the affections—a growth of intuition, partly intellectual and
partly moral, which gives a new eye to the soul,
and a better interpretation of the world’s mystery than aught else. More and more this light
of the Divine brightens within us and suffuses
the intelligence even in its subtlest questionings. Difficulties may remain. The hardness of
external fact, and the pitiless logic of scientific
induction, may sometimes seem to leave no
foothold for our grasp of the Spiritual. There
will come Jewish moods of mind, in which the
idea of a Divine sacrifice seems a “stumblingblock;” and even more frequently Greek moods
of mind, in which it will appear “foolishness;” and the strength and claims of the present existence will seem all that we can ever know.
But if we remain true to our higher self—to
the deeper elements of our experience—the
thought of the Cross will become an increasing source of illumination and comfort. It will
brighten our darkness as no other thought
can. It will uphold in moments of anguish,
when the strongest ties of the natural life
are broken asunder, and there remains for
this world only weakness and despair. It
will become “the light of life” the more
we dwell upon it, taking hold of our higher
reason as well as our more tender sympathies.
Christ Himself will be seen ever more clearly as “the way, the truth, and the life”—in whose
perfect mind and character are hid all treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. From the dreams
of modern philanthropy, and its schemes of religious humanitarianism—from the prophets of experience and the preachers of negation—we shall
turn to Him with a deeper rest, as the true Light
that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world—as the highest fulfilment of conscience
and of reason—the greatest reality of thought
and of life.
(2.) But the spiritual life is not only a growth
in light—it is a growth in practical strength and
capacity of duty. When man first awakens to
its reality, and begins to recognise a higher,
divine voice, calling him to nobler work than
he has ever done, he finds all his endeavours
after the higher life weak and hesitating. The
sense of a Divine ideal has been quickened
within him; and “to will is present,” but “how
to perform that which is good” he finds not.
The old nature of selfish affection and action
cannot be killed at once. Nay, it frequently
asserts its power; and the new nature, the higher impulses of
self-sacrificing love and duty, are driven under by the overmastering sway of
evil habit and desire. And so it is that the beginnings of the religious life
are so often hard, and even convulsive; and many good men are found to tell of
the struggles which they went through in entering upon its “narrow way.” That
which was worse was given at the first—despair and hopelessness of the good
which had yet laid hold of them and would not let them go. The cry of conflict
betwixt the Divine ideal in the heart and the love of sin which fights against
it and beats it back is heard in many a struggling soul. “wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”Romans, vii. 24.
But gradually this element of conflict and
oppression disappears with the cherished love of
the good. The grace of Christ becomes sufficient, and strength is made perfect in weakness.
The will gets stronger to do that which is right
and good, and to resist that which is wrong and
evil. Temptation grows powerless, the sense of
duty more clear and earnest, and the fact of
duty therefore more easy and continuous. The
evil no longer overcomes the good, but the good
the evil. The higher attributes of our nature
gather unity and force against its baser tendencies, and displace them with a steady consistency. Our complex being, disordered by sin,
becomes righted through the indwelling harmony of the Divine Spirit; so that all its activities go forth in a higher union of love and self-sacrificing obedience. The law of the members
ceases to invade the law of the mind; and “we
present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable
service.”Romans, xii. 1.
We are no longer “conformed to
this world,” but “transformed by the renewing
of our mind, that we may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”Ibid. xii. 2.
And all this growth of spiritual strength is at
the same time a growth of happiness. It is a
better state in all respects. As our endeavours
after the higher life become more successful,
they become less difficult—nay, they become full
of felicity. As we gain step by step on the
upward path, the remaining steps are not only
less toilsome,—there is a divine exhilaration
in the progress—a joyful sense of victory.
There may be descents—and deplorable and
painful ones—after we have reached a fair
height; but unless we lose hold of the good, or
banish it from our hearts, it will never lose hold
of us, but still bear us upwards. Unless we
quench the Spirit, He will still dwell within
us, strengthen us in the inner man, and carry
us forwards in the divine life until we attain the
measure of the stature of the perfect man in
Christ. With every advance comes an increase
of good. The “good wine” seems still kept “until now.” The enjoyment grows with the
growth of spiritual strength and grace. The
yoke of self-sacrifice, as it is fitted to every
point of the spiritual nature, is no longer felt to
be a yoke. The sense of burden falls away as
the pilgrim mounts higher on his heavenward
way. Here, as in so many other points, the
great Puritan parable is true to the best spiritual experience. The life of holiness is from
“strength to strength”—no mere toil of duty,
but the perfection of being—at once the highest
activity and the highest happiness.
(3.) But especially with increase of grace there
is an increase of moral beauty and hopefulness.
In these respects, perhaps, the natural and the
spiritual life contrast more than in any others.
The one sinks to the decay and weakness of old
age; the other rises to a perennial and more
perfect bloom. The one gets less hopeful; to
the other hope is as “an anchor of the soul, both
sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that
within the vail.”Hebrews, vi. 19.
Undoubtedly there is a process of moral decay
in all merely natural lives. As they get older,
they seem to harden. The confident fulness of
youth and of manhood disappears. The natural
virtues that seemed to cover or compensate for
the inner selfishness are less prominent. A
growing meanness of character comes forth.
This is the inevitable fate of all self-love
that is not supplanted by a higher motive, or
killed at the root by that love of Christ
which raises us to a higher sphere. On the
other hand, the higher life, once begun, not
only advances in strength, but in beauty. It
takes to itself more comeliness and harmony,
and grows more thoughtful, tender, gentle—and
wise in its gentleness. Who has not known
lives in whom these “beauties of holiness” have shone with a widely-diffusing lustre, whose
“conversation,” already “in heaven,” has been
to many an inexpressible good? When the
eye saw them, it gave witness to them; and if
we had ever doubted of the reality of a spiritual
world, and its higher worth and meaning, such
lives, we felt, were as “living epistles,” telling of
its power and verity.
Again, as the natural life advances, how poor
its prospects! Here more than anywhere—in
its outlook on the future—it may be said to
break down. When the spring and summer
are gone, and autumn advancing, there is
only a wintry weariness and gloom before
it. The strength of former hope dies out;
the affections on which it has fed grow sapless,
or are pitilessly rooted out. There is no light
beyond, and the darkness of the shortening
years falls fast. It may have been a strong
and beautiful life while it lasted; but its course
is done, and death awaits it. The evil days
have come in which it has no pleasure in them.Ecclesiastes, xii. 1.
There is an inexpressible sadness in this inevitable fate before the strongest and happiest
mortal existence. The good wine has all been
drained. It has sunk to the lees: that which
is worse has come to it at last, if not long
before.
The spiritual life, on the contrary, not only
grows strong in higher holiness, but in higher
hopefulness. The light burns brightly within,
while darkness deepens without. For the soul
has taken hold of an eternal life beyond death
and the grave; and from the very sense of mortality, and the falling away of all earthly hope,
there has sprung the consciousness of a higher
hope, which entereth into that within the veil.
The sure Foundation which underlies all the
shows of life is felt all the more sure when
these shows are vanishing. They perish, but
He endureth; and from the very experience of
change around and within, the soul cleaves with
a more living hold to Him who is “the same
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”Psalm cii. 27; Hebrews, xiii. 8.
As the
shadows fall and darkness gathers in the mortal eye, within the life that is hid with God in
Christ the day is breaking and the shadows
are fleeing away. There is a streak of dawning
light in the higher heavens as the night rapidly
shuts from view this lower earth.
What is the secret of this heavenly hope,
as of all spiritual growth? Above all things,
trust in God—the assurance that there is an
Eternal Love embracing us and educating us
to its own likeness. The roots of all religious
strength and peace, and hope and joy and
patience, seem to me personal. If I am only to
grow stronger or better by increase of knowledge—by growing clearness and certainty of conviction—then my progress must be very halting;
I may go backward rather than forward. For
youth, and not age, is the season of dogma;
and as men ripen in experience, they cease to
be opinionative. They become less sure than
they once were of many things. They leave
the issues of the future to God, and the fear
of hell may hardly mingle in their thoughts.
If able to hold an authoritative creed for themselves, they are thankful; but hesitate to apply
it to others, or to judge those who differ from
them. True spiritual growth is certainly not in
sharpness of opinion, but in largeness of trust—higher, more beautiful, and more embracing
thoughts of God and of Christ—thoughts born
not of the authority of any school or any Church,
but of humility and charity and holy obedience.
The conclusion of the whole therefore is,
that we look well to the springs of spiritual life
within our own hearts—that we give all heed,
by God’s blessing, to grow in grace and humility,
in mercy and self-sacrifice—that we put off the “old man” with his selfish desires, and
“be renewed in the spirit of our mind,” and put on the
new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Oh let us not waste
the days of our strength in the service of evil,
hoping that at last we can take up the higher
life as an easy task! The thought is impious, as
it is unwarranted. If there be a higher life at
all, it must always be our duty—it can only be
our happiness. All else must be vanity—must
be sin—however fair it may look. Let us not
deceive ourselves. The brightness of the natural
life is vanishing while we look upon it. The
glory of the spiritual is alone eternal. Let
us choose the better part while God is waiting
to be gracious; and all that is good in us the
voice of conscience—the summons of grace,—invite us to give ourselves to the divine service.
“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know
the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the
morning; and He shall come unto us as the rain,
as the latter and former rain unto the earth.Hosea, vi. 3.
VI.
DIVINE GOODNESS AND THE MYSTERY
OF SUFFERING.
Romans, viii. 28. “And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God.”
THE idea of God is the root of all religion, and
the love of God its great strength and comfort. Is there One above us who cares for us,
who orders all things for our good, and who is
therefore the object of our love?—this is the
question of questions. Religion cannot stop short
of such personal relations, however we may try to
fill our minds with vaguer, or what may appear
to some grander, thoughts. The idea of order is
not enough, magnificent as we may make it.
Behind the order we long to grasp a Will—a
moral Life answering to our life—a Love at
once near to us and supreme. Nor is there
any contradiction in the ideas, contradictory
as they have been sometimes made to appear.
It is nothing but the narrowness of human logic
that supposes order—or evolution, if we prefer
the word—at variance with Providence or the
operation of a Supreme Love. Rather, order is
Providence, and the law which rules our lives is
at the same time the Love which guides them—the working together of all things for good to
those who recognise the good and own it.
There is no thought more familiar in Scripture than the
thought of an Almighty or Sovereign Will, into whose grasp is gathered the
control of all things. The God of Scripture is a Supreme Person, who “doeth
according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?”Daniel, iv. 35
He directs
equally all the mightier movements of nature
and the minuter changes of life. His omnipotent governance upholds the course of sphered
worlds; and at the same time the very hairs
of our head are numbered by Him, and not a
sparrow falleth to the ground without His permission. “He telleth the number of the stars;
He calleth them all by their names.”Psalm cxlvii. 4
He also “healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up
their wounds.”Psalm cxlvii. 3.
“He divideth the sea with His power, and by His understanding He smiteth through
the proud. By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the
crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of His ways; but how little a portion is
heard of Him? but the thunder of His power who can understand?”Job, xxvi. 12-14.
We read much nowadays of the anthropomorphism of the Old Testament, and of the manner
in which science has extended our conception of
nature, and of the universal order which reigns
throughout it, binding all things into one. We
can never be too grateful for the real results
of science—for everything that expands our intelligence and at the same time sobers it; and
that larger and truer philosophy, which has
planted the great cosmical idea as almost a
commonplace in the modern mind, is to be
accepted as a blessing. It is impossible to exaggerate the good which has come to popular religion from the growth of scientific thought
and the expulsion of those spectres of arbitrary personality which were wont to lurk in the
obscurities of nature. But it may be doubted
how far the Bible was ever responsible for such
imaginations, or whether even modern thought
can conceive more grandly of the inscrutable
Power of which it speaks—which it everywhere
recognises—than the psalmist or the divine
dramatist whose language I have quoted.
What march of cosmical Force through endless aeons is more sublime than the rule of Thought,
alike in the courses of the stars, the waves of the
sea, and the pulsations of the heart? And if this
conception is anthropomorphic, are not all our
conceptions equally so? Man can only think at
all after his own likeness on any subject; and
whether the conception of mere Force, or of an
intelligent Will, bears least the stamp of human
weakness, may be safely left to the rational judgment of the future. It is the savage who, when
he hears the thunder amongst his woods, or
looks upon the riot of nature in a storm, trembles
before a mighty Force which he fails to understand. It is the Hebrew poet or Grecian sage
in whose own mind has risen the dawn of creative thought, who clothes this mystery of Power
with intelligence and life.
But the idea of the Divine which meets us
everywhere in Scripture is not merely sovereign
and intelligent; it is essentially beneficent. “The
Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are
over all His works.”Psalm cxlv. 9.
“Thy mercy, Lord, is
in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth
unto the clouds. . . . How excellent is thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of
men put their trust under the shadow of Thy
wings.”Psalm xxxvi. 5, 7.
It is needless to multiply quotations of this
kind. The God of Scripture is, beyond all question, not only supreme, but supremely good.
He not only performs all things, but He performs
all things well. There are many dark things in
the divine government—things that transcend
our comprehension, and in which we may be unable to see a consistent meaning; but the ideal
of the Divine in Scripture is never at variance
with our highest thoughts of what is right and
good. I am speaking now, of course, not of
incidents in the divine representation, or of all
actions attributed, or supposed to be attributed, to God. It is no part of an intelligent
criticism to deny the progress of moral any
more than of intellectual thought in Scripture. The Divine ideal, as unfolded in its
pages, is not to be judged by the imperfect
manner in which the early Hebrew mind
sometimes interpreted its meaning, or conceived
of it as acting. Its true representation is the
highest thought of Hebrew psalmist and prophet in their highest moments of inspiration.
And here there is nothing at variance with our
Ideal of all that is true and right and good.
Nay, rather, is not our thought continually falling below the Biblical thought, and needing to
be refreshed by it? Is not the very ideal which
some men now seek to turn against Scripture
mainly the product of Scripture, and only living
where the Bible is still a power in the education
of the popular conscience?
Not only so, but our brightest dreams of
human progress do not outreach the Biblical
conception of a kingdom of righteousness and
peace yet to be established. Obvious and grave
as are the disorders of the present world, there
is everywhere, according to this conception, an
underlying plan of good. The fulness of the
Divine thought only gradually unfolds itself in
action. There is a potency of good amidst all
the signs of evil. “Clouds and darkness” may
surround the Divine Governor, but “justice and
judgment” are the habitation of His throne, and “mercy and truth” go before His face.Psalms xcvii. 2, lxxxix. 14.
His
ways may be inscrutable, His footsteps not
known;Psalm lxxvii. 19.
but His mind is ever good towards all the creatures He has made, and who do not
disown His care. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as
keep His covenant and His testimonies.”Psalm xxv. 10.
Such an optimism is everywhere taught in
Scripture. The darkest enigmas of life and of
history are conceived only as shadows resting on
an upland which is stretching towards the clear
day. The higher levels of the Divine kingdom
are all luminous, and even those lower shadows
which now fall so heavily over many human
creatures are not spots of hopeless darkness.
They will be finally cleared away, and made to
disclose their meaning in the Divine plan for
all. The characters of evil which are now
hardest to read may yet be seen to have a
purpose of good. For we are but “the creatures
of a day.” It is but a span of the great cosmical life that is disclosed to us; and could we
see the end from the beginning, all would be
found in order. The enigmas which we cannot
explain may be intelligible to a larger faculty
and a wider horizon of knowledge. The complications in which we can see no meaning, or
only such a meaning as seems to fall below our
own highest thoughts of the Divine, may expand
into issues of beneficence that will gladden the
angels, when the great plan is complete and
the glory of final victory is poured backward
through all its ascending developments and
darkly-lying shadows.
Is this not, after all, a higher optimism than
that of any mere stoicism, which sees in all around
us the mere movement of fate, and which construes the evils of the world not as accidents
which may bear in the end some divine meaning, but as essential parts of the whole—necessary
steps in the cosmical development? It may or
may not be possible in such a view to hold that
the plan of the world is good after all, and to
reverence and admire, and even worship after a
fashion, all the outgrowth of its activities, as the
only Divine we shall ever know. But I confess
that the world seems hardly good to me apart
from the thought of a great Mind moving
through it all, and bringing good out of evil.
This may not help me better to understand
the amount of evil that I see. The existence
of evil is as hard upon one hypothesis of cosmical origin as another. It at least helps me
to bear with the evil, and to strive against it—to think that there is One to whom all evil is
hateful as it can be—nay, more than it can be—to the purest human intelligence, and whose
aim is to reconcile an evil world to Himself, by
forgiving men their trespasses, and sending a
new Power of good into the world for its redemption. Let me have no higher thought than the
cosmical life of which I am a part. I may not
despair under the burden of this thought; but
I can hardly be cheerful. I may accept the
world and my own part in it as so far good—good because it could not be otherwise in the
nature of things. And it is not the part of a
wise man to quarrel with the inevitable for himself or others. But why should I believe in good
as an idea at all on such an hypothesis? Whatever is, is and must be best in such a case. It is
the fittest in the circumstances. It is the point
in the eternal order which the cosmical life has
reached; and I know not on what ground I or
others can pronounce any actual point in this
development evil, save on the ground that there
is a Divine Idea behind the order and higher
than it. Whatever falls below this Idea, or is at
variance with it, is therefore evil. This is surely
the higher philosophy as well as faith—to believe
that all things are working together for good;
not merely because things are as they are, and
could not be otherwise, but because they are everywhere more and
more unveiling a supremely beneficent Mind—a God who “is Light,” and in whom “is
no darkness at all”1 John, i. 5.
—who is Love,
and before whose presence evil cannot dwell.
II. But turning to the more special view of the
subject, it may be asked, Is this, after all, a true
view on the Christian any more than any other
hypothesis? Is it consistent with facts that “all
things work together for good to them that love
God”? It would be endless and useless to argue
the general question of optimism. The question
has little practical value, and, besides, is hardly
that which is in view of the apostle. When he
says in the text, “and we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God,”
he assumes all of which we have been not unnaturally led to speak in the present atmosphere
of thought around us. He at least has no doubt
of a God who is over all, who doeth according to
His will, and who directs all creatures and things
which He has made for His own glory and their
good. It may be doubted how far the optimism
of St Paul would correspond to our modern
notions of a beneficent progress of the world,
and of the evolution here—on this earth—of
a kingdom of divine righteousness and peace.
But it cannot be doubted that he believed
in the reality of such a kingdom; and that
he and his fellow-believers were members of
it; and that all things in his life and theirs
were working together for their good as such.
He felt himself in the hands of One whose servant he was—whose will he was bound to obey;
and it is his consolation that in doing this he
was not only doing his duty, but securing his
happiness. He had no doubt of God’s good
purposes with him, and that amidst all the sore
perils of the Christian life which he had so heartily embraced, there was a divine plan of good
for him, and for all who with him had entered
upon it. The only question, therefore, is as to
the fact of this experience amongst Christians
generally. Do we know that all things that
make up our lives—that whatever happens to
us of apparent good or evil—is really for our
good? Do we find this true, as St Paul did? It
must be admitted that it is hard sometimes to
realise this. Much in life, on the contrary,
seems difficult to understand and to bear—nay,
at times seems too perplexing and darkened
to have any good in it, or at least any good
which we can ever know. There are probably such moments of depression in all lives,
and not least in the best. St Paul himself
was not free from them when the thorn in the
flesh was given to him, the messenger of Satan
to buffet him.2 Corinthians, xii. 7.
Even his strong faith sometimes drooped, and he passed under the shadow,
weak, forsaken, and afflicted. Yet even then he
rejoiced in tribulation, as “working patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope.”
It is sufficiently obvious that the good of
which the text speaks is not any form of mere
earthly good. There is no assurance here or
anywhere of prosperity to them that love God. Rather it is true that “whom the Lord loveth
He chasteneth.” In all true natures there is
a deep consciousness of suffering. The evils of
life bear upon them with equal force; and in
their case there is more tenderness under the
pressure. The very capacity of loving God implies a capacity of loving others, and a susceptibility of feeling which may be bitterly wounded
amidst the strifes of life or by the strokes of
bereavement.
It can hardly be questioned that in modern
times, and amidst the indulgences of our modern
civilisation, human nature has become more sensitive. Suffering smites it more acutely. Death
casts a deeper shadow. The early Christians
were a stern if also a tender race. Especially
they felt and moved in the unseen world as few
men and few Christians now do. They saw God
and Christ and the blessed angels as the companions of their trials in a way it is now hard to
imagine. If their dear ones were taken away,
even by cruel suffering, they could rejoice in the
assurance that they were taken from an evil
world, and were with the Father and the
Saviour in an eternal kingdom, where no hurt
would evermore come to them. This world was
to them very evil, “a world lying in wickedness,”
from which death was a happy escape. And so,
with their hold of the invisible, and their indifference to the visible, they came with St
James to “count it all joy when they fell into
divers temptations.”James, i. 2.
They passed to the very
opposite pole of experience which had characterised the ancient world. To the Greek, and
even to the Hebrew, death had been the realm
of darkness. To the Christian it became the
passage to a realm of endless light and life.
Facing it in the clear dawn of the resurrection,
many as well as St Paul could boldly say, “death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy
victory? . . . Thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”1 Corinthians, xv. 55, 57.
Nature and this mortal life sink out of sight. The
living Christ and the unseen Heaven whither He
had gone were for ever in their spiritual vision.
This feeling pervades the New Testament. It
looks out upon us from the peaceful and beautiful emblems of the catacombs, and more or less
lives in all Christian literature. In many of the
mediaeval lyrics it deepens to an intensity of
passion which throws the present world into a
shadow of constant gloom, and casts the light of
all joy and hope and rapture upon “Jerusalem
the golden, with milk and honey blest.”
But nature and life are far too grand realities
in themselves to remain at this point of depression. The world is not to be measured by the
narrow gloom of the mediaeval poet, who looked
forth upon it from his cloister, and had tasted
little of its excitement. It is too real and too near
to us, and in many things too noble and beautiful,
to be thus despised. It is not to be thought of as
merely full of evil to be got rid of to be changed
by some sudden glory revealed from heaven,
“with the voice of the archangel and with the
trump of God.” The imaginative supernaturalism which made of our earthly life a mere painful transit to the invisible, is no longer a working faith to the modern mind, which loves
nature and science, and art and civilisation.
And the change has followed—that men are
apt to be less patient under the trials of life.
The less distinctly they see into the future, the
more they prize the present. The less heaven is
realised by them, the more they love earth, and
the more bitterly do they feel the rupture of all
those ties which make their earthly home less
sweet to them, or darken it with ineffaceable
shadows.
It may seem to some as if I were merely
describing the growth of an unchristian temper,
with which the language of St Paul has nothing
to do. Of course, if men love the present life,
and prefer earth to heaven, they cannot expect
to find the good of which the apostle here
speaks. This is true; and yet we must be fair
to the modern no less than the ancient spirit.
The materialistic temper is always unchristian;
and words which have their root only in the
vivid apprehension of a spiritual life can have
no meaning to it. St Paul has himself admitted
that if the future life were cut off, the trials of
the present would be insupportable. It is only
the glory of the one that lightens the darkness
of the other. It is only the faith of immortality
that gives hope in bereavement, or comfort in
death. Let this be admitted. Yet there is truth,
and even Christian truth, in the higher appreciation of nature and life which has sprung up
in the modern mind. This earth and our being
in it are rightly valued at a higher rate than
they were by the mediaeval or the early Christian. The change of consciousness which has
transformed both, and made them more dear and
beautiful to us, is really a change after the mind of
Christ, so often higher than that of the Church.
The modern spirit has so far here returned to the
Divine ideal instead of having departed from it.
There is no necessary materialism in loving the
fair earth which He loved, and clinging closely to
those human ties which He Himself consecrated.
The difficulty is to love life and yet not fear
death—to bear all the burdens of life, and find a
divine meaning in them all—to count it all joy
when our health is good and dear ones are spared
to us, and yet also to count it joy when we fall
into divers trials. In other words, the difficulty
is to see a deeper reality in life than appears
upon the surface—to believe in a divine education for ourselves and for others, even when
there is confusion in our hearts and the smart of
an intolerable pang.
It is useless—it may be cruel—to say
to smitten and bereaved ones: Be composed.
Look beyond the present to the future. Think
of how St Paul endured steadfastly unto the end—of his joy in tribulation. It is the will of God
that you should be left alone, and His assurance
that this and all other things will work together
for your good. This is true; and yet for the
moment the mere fact of suffering, and its inconsolable bitterness, is even truer. It so fills the
heart that aught else cannot get near to it. And
there is nothing wrong, in such awful moments
of sorrow, when the soul wraps itself in the garment of misery and sits aloof, and the voice of
the preacher—even a preacher like St Paul—sounds hollow in the ear. There never can be
anything wrong in the mere utterance of nature—the forlorn cry of the wounded life which God
has so made that it cannot but cry when it is
stricken sore. It is needless to attempt explanation. “Words fail of meaning before the
dumb image of a sorrow that has itself no words.
Its stony silence is more pathetic than any voice.
But while we can explain nothing, and may
hardly obtrude consolation, the stricken soul may
at length find a meaning and comfort for itself.
God may speak to it with a deeper force than
nature when this force has spent itself, and the
silence of sorrow has left a sanctuary where the
Divine may be heard. The consciousness of
mercy may rise through all the overwhelming
consciousness of pain. The light of love may
break from behind the cloud of judgment, or
what seemed judgment. The Divine thought for
ourselves and for others may take a larger and
more beneficent shape than we had dared to
suppose. Good of the highest kind has sometimes come from what seemed the most painful
evil. From the very bitterness has sprung sweetness; and the wound which seemed to kill has
grafted new shoots of character, which have
grown into everlasting life.
What fresh depths of feeling and trust and
sympathetic love—what tenderness and gracious
helpfulness, and patience and courage—have
found their soil in what seemed a hopeless
sorrow! The weeping of the night has been
turned into the joy of the morning; and the
soul that has lain low has risen higher than
before to altitudes of virtue. For heaven has
been about it in its sorrow, and it has come
forth from its chamber of loneliness a better,
purer, and stronger being. We may fail to
realise it, yet
“All sorrow is a gift, and every trouble
That the heart of man has, an opportunity.”
We may not feel this consciously. Through the
blinding mist of our tears we may not see the
purpose of divine mercy. In the sense of understanding it, we may never see it. But the
purpose is, nevertheless, sure, and the opportunity of good given. And the good may come
to us in many ways we little know, moulding
for us new life and higher aims—breathing
into our whole being higher activities and a
richer strength of self-sacrificing duty.
It may be hard after all, I do not question, to
find the good worked in some lives by suffering.
There are those that seem to harden rather than
soften when the world goes wrong with them, or
some mystery of bereavement enters into their
lot. It would be wrong to form harsh judgments of any such. It is enough that we can
trace the thread of the apostle’s meaning in our
modern experience, and see how the chosen
purpose may work in many ways beyond our
first knowledge and feeling. We are bound,
besides, to remember the condition that is attached to the experience of the text. For all
growth of good there must be a fitting soil.
There must be a capacity of love in us in order
to recognise love in God and a purpose of divine
love in life. If we narrow our hearts instead of
opening them, and so shut ourselves within the
walls of our suffering that we cannot see beyond,
we may get only moroseness, and evil temper,
and impatient defiance from those strokes which
have smitten us, yet not that we should for
ever dwell in darkness. The light may never
arise on us, because we will not lift our eyes
towards it, although shining in the heavens.
Such selfish concentration is the very opposite
of love; and there is no good in it to any soul.
It hardens alike in prosperity and adversity. In
adversity it tortures as well as hardens. In order
to find good anywhere, we must look beyond ourselves. In order to find the highest good we
must look towards God, and let our hearts go
forth to Him with unfailing trust. We may not
be able to say with the patriarch, “Though He
slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”Job, xiii. 15.
It is of no
use repeating the language of Scripture if our
thought cannot rise to it. But we must feel
that it is not God’s good purpose to slay us in
any evil sense, or to bring our lives down to the
ground, only that He may raise us up again and
give us peace. “Though He cause grief, yet
will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict
willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”Lamentations, iii. 32, 33.
We must believe in Him as our Father, and not
merely as our Sovereign and Lord, assured that “He knoweth our frame,” and that He will not
make us to suffer above what we are able to
bear, but with every temptation will find a way
of escape.
There is no other hope for life—there can be
no other joy in death—than the assurance of a
God above us, who is Love, and who has no
thoughts but thoughts of love for all the creatures He has made—who has appointed our
days, and the means of training us to His own
service and glory. If we lose the conception of
a Divine Benevolence, supreme over all, making
all things work together for our good and the
good of all, we lose all that can lighten the burden of life, or even render religion itself to a
quickened heart anything but a misery. We
can only love a God who is Love—whom we
know seeks our good and the good of all. And
if there is such a God—as Christ declares there
is—in whom there is no darkness at all, no
hate or evil at all, but only love and order,
which is the soul of all love, how can we help
loving Him? What fear need there be in our
hearts? Evils may befal us—suffering and the
bitterness of wrong or shame await us. We may
look for light, but, behold, there is only darkness
and the shadow of death! Yet we are safe in
the arms of a Divine Love that will bear and
carry us through all. Nothing in such a case
can be truly adverse to us. Troubled on every
side, we are not yet in despair; cast down, we
are not forsaken. “To love God in Christ,” as
Bunsen said when dying, “is everything.” All
else God will care for if we only love Him. He
will make light to arise in the midst of darkness.
He will make the crooked places straight, and
the rough places plain. And, finally, He will
bring us to that eternal home where we shall
rest from our labours, and the wounds of the
stricken heart shall be for ever healed; “and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for
the former things are passed away.”
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you
from falling, and to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and
ever. Amen.”
VII.
DEATH, AND SORROW FOR THE DEAD.
1 Thessalonians, iv. 13, 14.—“But I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow
not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will
God bring with Him.”
THE most tremendous fact before every man
is death. “It is appointed unto men
once to die.”Hebrews, ix. 27.
The shadows of an unknown
future lie upon the brightest activities of existence, and the stillness of “night” awaits all the
healthful vigour of the “day.” It is not to be
wondered at that men have been fascinated by
the fact of death, and that they have sought to idealise it in many forms, some dark and gloomy,
others cheerful and hopeful; some mirroring
their sadness and terror, others their faith and
aspiration.
It is by no means true that the brighter forms
of imagery by which death has been depicted
have been confined to Christianity. The winged
genius brooding over the dead with thoughtful
gaze—the inverted torch—the soaring butterfly,—are all creations of pagan imagination, designed to illuminate the future or to soothe the
sorrowing. Euphemistic expressions such as
those in the text are as old as literature itself.
Sleep and death are twin children both in
Greek and Latin poetry.Hesiod, Theog., 212; Æneid, vi. 278.
Yet it will hardly be
denied that it is only in Christian literature and
art that the full idea of death as one of hopefulness and not of despair—of joy and peace,
and not of darkness and terror—has been
realised.
Pre-Christian genius rose above the mere
gloomy externals of dissolution. It was able to
look away from the lifeless body and the darkened sepulchre. It had no love for those insignia
of decay which have been rife at various times
in Christian sepulture, and pervaded many ruder
forms of Christian art. Ideas of rest, and in
some degree of welcome, were associated with
the grave. To the ancient Hebrew it was the
meeting-place of kindred—the last home of
fathers who had gone before. Abraham died
full of years, and was gathered to his people.Genesis, xxv. 8.
Jacob was buried in the place of his fathers
Abraham and Isaac, and where he had buried Leah.Ibid. xlix. 31.
Of David and others it is written that
they slept with their fathers.1 Kings, xi. 21.
The same ideas
occur in classical writers—the same thought of
a final rest where trouble shall no more come,
and of a sleep in which there shall be no
dreams.Plato, Apolog., xxxii.
But withal, the pre-Christian conception of death was joyless
and unhopeful. It embraced rest, but mainly as a negation of existing unrest.
There was no brightness nor assured happiness in the prospect. Hades was an
abode of desolation, clothed only with the dreary poplar and stunted asphodel,
where thin ghosts wandered in misery. The future life of the Hebrews, if it was
clear to them at all, was hardly more cheering. “In death,” says the Psalmist,
“there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?”Psalm vi. 5.
“The dead praise not
the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.”Psalm cxv. 17.
“The grave cannot praise Thee; death
cannot celebrate Thee: they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for Thy truth.”Isaiah, xxxviii. 18.
There is
not much to comfort or to inspire with hope
in such words as these. It is only in the light
of the Christian resurrection that the idea of
death becomes transfigured, and the image of
that sleep to which our mortal life sinks at last
becomes significant not merely of relief or insensibility, but of a higher life of blissful activity
to which it is destined to awaken.
I. There is nothing more marvellous in the
history of Christianity than the change which
it wrought in men’s consciousness of the future.
The change is one stamped into the very life
of humanity, however it may be explained.
Whereas men had previously thought of death
as only a great darkness, or a dreamless and
perpetual sleep, they began to think of it as a
change from darkness to light, and as a sleep
with a glorious awakening. The brightness and
joy were no longer here. This was not the true
life from which men should shrink to part. All
was brighter in the future; the higher life was
above. Death was not only welcome, but joyfully welcome. To die was gain. It was
“to
depart, and be with Christ; which is far better.”
This was not merely the experience of an enthusiastic apostle. It became the overwhelming
experience of hundreds and thousands. Death
was swallowed up in victory. “death, where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” was the triumphant echo from Jerusalem to
Rome, and from Antioch to Alexandria, in thousands of hearts, that had but lately known no
hope and shared no enthusiasm,—not even the
enthusiasm of a common country or common
citizenship.
What is the explanation of all this? What
was it that sent such a thrill of hopeful anticipation through a world dying of philosophic despair and moral perplexity and indifference?
Was it any higher speculation? any intellectual
discovery? any eclectic accident or amalgam of
Jewish inspiration with Hellenic thought? Men
had everywhere—in Greece and Rome, in Alexandria and Jerusalem—been trying such modes
of reviving a dead world, of reawakening spiritual hopefulness; but without success. No mere
opinion or combination of opinions wrought this
great change. Men did not learn anything more
of the future than they had formerly known; no
philosopher had discovered its possibilities or
unveiled its secrets. But there had gone forth
from a few simple men, and from one of more
learning and power than the others, the faithful
saying that “Christ is risen indeed.” “Now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.”1 Corinthians, xv. 20.
And it was this
suddenly-inspired faith that raised the world
from its insensibility and corruption, and kindled
it with a new hope—and the joy of a life not
meted by mortal bounds, but “incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”1 Peter, i. 4.
It was on the strength of this assurance that
St Paul sought to comfort the Thessalonian
brethren. They had been—from what causes are
not said—in anxiety as to the fate of their departed friends. They seem to have doubted
whether these friends would share with them in
the resurrection of the dead and the joy of the
second coming of the Lord. The apostle assured
them that they had no need to be in trouble.
The departed were safe with God, and the same
great faith in the death and resurrection of
Christ which sustained themselves was the
ground of confidence for all.
There is no other ground of confidence for the
future. In the light of Christ’s resurrection
alone does death assume or retain for us any
higher meaning than for the ancient world.
Apart from this faith, it is merely the cessation
of being. We may call it a “sleep,” as of old,
and welcome it as grateful rest after the long or
hard work of the day. We may be able to look
upon it with resignation; it may not have for us
the shadowy horror that it had for the youthful
world—for this reason, if no other, that life is
hardly so fresh and beautiful to us as it was to
those earlier races which have given us our highest literature. As the world has grown older, it
has grown more perplexed and thoughtful. Ours
is neither the bright serenity of Hellenic genius
nor the exuberant satisfaction of Hebrew prophecy. We do not spend our life in the same
sunshine of eager enjoyment. The world is less a
scene of content, except to the very young; and
this is in some degree owing to Christianity itself,
which has wrought deeper, and tenderer, and more
pathetic chords of experience into human life.
It may be easier, therefore, for us to die—to part
with this present life, and go down to the grave
wearied with its cares or tired of its perplexities.
It is a mistake to exaggerate in the interests of
religion the feelings with which men are supposed to meet death, as if it must always wear
to them apart from Christian faith an aspect of
terror. This is not verified by experience. As
mere rest—mere cessation from sensibility—it
may be welcome. In anticipation terrible, it
may yet in its occurrence be without alarm.
As we look towards it from the opening gates
of life, or the full enjoyment of healthy activity,
we may shrink from it; and it has aspects which
no philosophy can ever brighten. It is always
painful to part with friends and children, to
break up the clustering ties of sweet affection
and the home of family love. But the dying
one is often strangely prepared by natural fitness
for the coming event. The decaying physical
system adapts itself to its end, and the ebbing
life goes forth peacefully on its unknown way.
In itself, and merely for itself, death need not
be terrible, and often is not.
But it is the light of the higher life in Christ
which alone glorifies it. And unless this light has
shone into our hearts, I know not whence hope can
reach us. We may be resigned or peaceful. We
may accept the inevitable with a calm front. We
may be even glad to be done with the struggle
of existence, and leave our name to be forgotten
and our work to be done by others. We may
be able to say to ourselves, if not in the sense of
St Paul—“I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course”—I am ready to lie down
and die, and cease to be, if this is my fate. But in such a mood of mind there is no cheerfulness, no spring of hope. With such a thought
St Paul could neither comfort himself nor comfort the Thessalonians. Nay, for himself he felt
that he would be intensely miserable if he had
only such a thought. “If in this life only we
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable.”1 Corinthians, xv. 19.
Hope in death can only spring from the principle of personal immortality; and this principle
has no root save in Christ. It is not enough
that we shall live in the memory of our friends,
or that humanity shall live and flourish when
we are gone. I do not say that there is no
dignity in such thoughts, or even no consolation
in them to some minds. It is better to have
faith in the progress of humanity than no faith
at all. It is better to be remembered than forgotten, and to have the immortality of a good
name if no other. But men cannot find strength
or comfort in such generalisations. They crave
for a personal life—for communion with other
lives—and with Him who is life, and whose life
is the light of men. This, and this alone, is the
faith which makes men patient in trouble and
hopeful in death, which sanctifies bereavement
and illumines thought. Nature tells us nothing
of the future. Science knows, and can know,
nothing of it. On this side, no voice from behind the veil ever reaches man. No sparks of
immortal presage rise from the ashes of scientific analysis. All its suggestions leave us where
we are, or mockingly sift the sources of life only
to hint our mortality. If we quit the living
Christ, we quit all hold of the higher life. “If
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain.”1 Corinthians, xv. 14.
Heaven becomes
a dumb picture; and death—euphemise it as we
may—merely blank annihilation. We may say
of our dear ones, as we lay them in the dust,
that they have fallen asleep; but the gentle
words have no true meaning. The sleep is without an awakening. The higher and hopeful side
of the image is cut away. The night becomes a
perpetual slumber,Catullus, v. 4.
on which no morning shall
ever arise. It is only in the light of the resurrection that the phrase represents a reality,
and the idea of death is transfigured into a
nobler life. Let us believe that behind the veil
of physical change there is a spiritual Power
from which we. have come—one who is the Resurrection and the Life—in whom, if we believe, we
shall never die,—and we may wait our change,
not only with resignation, but with hope, and
carry our personal affections and aspirations forward to another and a better being, in which
they may be satisfied and made perfect.
II. In this belief, also, we may have comfort
for the loss of our friends. Nay, “if we believe
that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him.” This is the sure conclusion from our
higher faith—our dead ones are resting in Jesus.
The life of affection and of faithful duty which
has gone from us is with the Lord. The vesture
has been changed, but “the mortal has put on
immortality.” The faith, the hope, the love
which lived for us is no longer incarnated in
visible form beside us; but their spiritual quality
is imperishable, and they have only been transferred to another sphere of manifestation and
activity. They have gone from our sight; but
they not only exist in our memory—although
they also do this, shrined in its most sacred niche; they are with God. They
have passed into glory; and their personal lives subsist in immediate communion
with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all the saints of God
who have gone before them into bliss. There is
nothing for which there is less warrant in Scripture than any speculation as to the state of the
departed—their occupations or special modes of
activity; but it is everywhere implied that their
personality continues. They are in heaven the
same personal spiritual beings they were on earth,
only made perfect in holiness. They are beyond
our care and service; but they are with the
Lord, “which is far better.” He knoweth them
that are His, and God will bring them with Him.
It is this safety of the departed with God
which the apostle urges as a reason why we
should not sorrow for them as others “who have
no hope.” This is our faith, that our dear ones
are secure in God’s keeping; and it is unreasonable, therefore, that we should lament them as
if we had lost them for ever. Lament them we
cannot help doing; and no words of Scripture
forbid our doing. Neither here nor anywhere is
Christian teaching untrue to nature. And when
friends or loved ones are taken away, the cry of
nature cannot be restrained. The faithful and
fond heart bleeds beneath the stroke. The blank
may be felt irretrievably. The sense of loss, and
of wistful, unhealed regret, may never pass away.
The shadow of a great bereavement may lie ever
after on our lives. There is not only nothing
wrong in this—such a shadowed experience
may work as a hallowing influence, and deepen
within us many veins of tenderness and sympathy and love, yielding “the peaceable fruits
of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereby.” Let us not suppose for a moment that
the apostle would have us to deal harshly with
sacred memories, or to banish from our hearts
a chastening and holy sorrow. By no means.
He would only have us not to sorrow as if we
were without Christian hope—as if we doubted
or despaired that our dear ones were with God,
and safe with Him.
A sorrow which either refuses to accept facts,
or to cease from anxieties and regrets which are
no longer practicable, is an unchristian sorrow—for this reason, amongst others, that the duties of
life await those who have suffered most. And
these duties we can never put away from us.
They are ours, and they cling to us whether we
will or not. The dead have gone beyond our
solicitude. Nothing we can ever more do can
affect them. Let us cherish their memory, and
weep beside their tomb, and recall their virtues.
But let us also take comfort in the thought that
they have entered into their rest, and are beyond
all our trouble. Moreover, let us remember that
the living remain to us. They are our care.
They may be our anxiety. While dear ones
gone before are with the Lord, dear ones who
survive may be wandering away from Him—wounding Him by their lives, or putting His
cause to an open shame. Our main business is
not with the dead, but with the living, whom
we may succour and help and guide. Let the
love of the past be enshrined in our heart, and
the thought of the departed live in our memory—a sacred fire, consuming all frivolous and unworthy affections; but it is the work of the present hour, and the care of those who need our
care, which should engage our anxiety and task
our energy. Our concern is not for the child
resting on his father’s bosom and sheltered in a
happy home, but for him who is entering into
the world with its temptations, or who may be
astray in darkness and unable to find his way.
Our thoughts follow not the return home, but
the uncertain outset; not the peril that is over,
but the danger that still threatens; not the
soldier who has fought a good fight and brought
home the spoils of victory, but him who may be
still in the midst of the battle wrestling for very
life. And so it is always where there are still
difficulties to be overcome and duties to be done—good to be wrought either for ourselves or
others—that our concern should lie. It is not
sorrow in itself, but sorrow with anxiety, that the
apostle would have us cease to cherish for the
dead. They are happier in God’s care than in
our own. We cannot touch them by our solicitudes, nor soothe them by our ministrations, nor
move them by our prayers. So far from repining, we should therefore be thankful, if we
cannot rejoice, that they are beyond our feeble
keeping—that God has taken them to His
own everlasting arms, and set them in one of
those “many mansions” where He has prepared a place for them, and whence they shall
“no more go out.” “And I heard a great
voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell
with them, and they shall be His people, and
God Himself shall be with them, and be their
God. And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be
any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”Revelation, xxi. 3, 4.
Such a prospect is not one to make us sorrow
as others which have no hope. Should our eyes
no more behold loved ones who have left us,
and upon whom our lives leaned more than we
ever knew before their arms were finally unclasped from ours, and the shelter they made was
for ever taken away,—let us not yield to weakness or despair. But let us look beyond the
darkness to a higher light. Let us carry our
thoughts from earth to heaven; and again, when
the darkness is past, let us remember the duties
of the day—assured that in due season we, too,
shall reap if we faint not, and enter into our
rest. “And I heard a voice from heaven saying
unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labours;
and their works do follow them.”Revelation, xiv. 13.
“Therefore,
my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in
vain in the Lord.”1 Corinthians, xv. 58.
Such worthy aims and hopeful aspirations
should especially mingle with our sorrow when,
as now, we are led to recall the departure of the
wise and good; and our thoughts for the dead
are thoughts not only of love, but of reverent
affection and of deep respectful tenderness.
The late Princess,The Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who died at Baden-Baden, Sept. 23, 1872. The remarkable character of the Princess,
“her fine intelligence, and sweet, serene nature,” will be found
noticed in Mr Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, ii. 478.
sister to our gracious and
beloved Queen, was one whose memory is justly
blessed, as her life was not merely blameless, but
in a rare degree a true and beautiful life,—studious of all things high and pure, lovely and
of good report, thoughtful not only for her own
things, but for the things of others also. It is
the presence of such genuine and noble natures,
faithful to duty, firm in good, ever aspiring
through all weakness and imperfection, that helps
us more than aught else to realise a higher and
more enduring being, a spiritual sphere above
and beyond us, where the unfinished good will
be complete, and the aspiration become a fact;
where, moreover, hearts that have taken counsel
together here how to live well and do their duty
fitly, shall be joined in bonds never more to be
broken, and in yet loftier endeavours after all
that is true and right.
Let us not fail to be followers of so Christian
an example. Let such a loss, and every thought
of dear ones who have passed away, inspire us
with hope yet unattained, as well as with regret
for a past that can never be regained. Let us
awake from all indifference, and laying aside all
pride, vanity, or self-indulgence, give ourselves
faithfully and heartily to Christian work. All
have work to do, trusts to be discharged, aims
to be fulfilled, evil to be overcome, good to be
realised. Let us not weary in well-doing. How
often, alas! do we spend our days in idleness
and our nights in vanity. What small occupations engross us, what poor anxieties and ambitions torment us, what paltry pleasures absorb
us! The time is passing away, and we are
not redeeming it; the hour of death is drawing near, and we are not preparing for it. Let
us take care lest, a promise being left us of
entering into rest, any of us should come short
of it through unbelief or negligence. Let not
science nor the world steal our hearts from God;
but humbly feeling how little we know, and how
much we need, may we look upward both for
light and help. May we “hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,” and run
with patience the race that is set before us, so
that at last we may lay hold of eternal life, and
through the grave and gate of death may pass
to the inheritance of the saints in light, and
dwell for ever with the Lord, that where He is,
there we may be also. The departed saints shall
welcome our faithfulness for they await our
coming, and without us they shall not be made
perfect.
“Now the God of peace, that brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every
good work to do His will, working in you that
which is well-pleasing in His sight, through
Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and
ever. Amen.”
Preached in Balmoral Castle,
Sunday, Sept. 29, 1872.
VIII.
LIGHT IN THE FUTURE.
Revelation, xxii. 5.—“And there shall be no night there; and
they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.”
THE future is to us the unknown. We speak
of it as dark and inscrutable; and so in a
true sense it is. We know nothing in detail of
that future life which is promised us in Christ.
We cannot conceive it, or bring before our minds
any true image of it. The more we may try to
do so, the less do we probably realise the Divine
ideal. The picture may be splendid and attractive; but it is our own device. It is the reflection of our own imagination. It tells us nothing
which it has not borrowed from our own thought.
And it may be doubted whether all the pictures
of this kind men have formed do not rather tend
to lower than heighten the reality. They have
clothed and vivified the unknown; but they
have at the same time reduced its sublimity
and carnalised its joys. There are minds in a
time like ours which, in order to keep the idea
of a future life before them at all, find it necessary to unclothe the picture, and to sink all its
details in the conception of an illimitable good.
But it may be said, Does not the language of
such a chapter as this and the foregoing give us
some definite picture of the future celestial life?
I cannot think that it does, or that it is meant
to do so. We read of a new heaven and a new
earth—of the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming down from God as a bride adorned for
her husband, having the glory of God, and her
light like unto a jasper stone most precious;
with three gates on the east, and on the north,
and on the south, and on the west, and its walls
having twelve foundations, garnished with all
manner of precious stones; with a pure river,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb; and on the other side of
the river the tree of life, bearing twelve manner
of fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations. But the very accumulation of this
imagery, and its parallelism of numbers, is
enough to show us that it is not so much
designed to convey any clear image as to excite and stir our imagination to an indefinite
wealth of excellence exceeding all our vision and
grasp. It is rather of the nature of a child-picture, suggesting a transcendent reality, than any
indication of what that reality is in itself. The
colours are glowing and splendid; but the true
heaven—“the tabernacle of God with men”—is
behind all the colouring and material imagery.
The glory of the Divine presence is not in precious stones, nor crystal streams, nor fruitful and
life-bearing trees, whose leaves are for healing—beautiful and consecrated as are all these
emblems of the higher life. It is something
transcending our most glorious imaginings.
For “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love
Him. But God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit.”1 Corinthians, ii. 9, 10.
The heavenly Future is a
spiritual reality answering to a spiritual faculty
in us, as yet imperfectly developed. It may be
somehow foreshadowed by these material pictures—we can hardly tell; but it does not itself
consist in any of them. They cannot adequately
or even truly express it. As we pass them
before our minds, we may get some impulse
towards a larger or more fitting conception—and there are minds that can rest on such pictures, and delight in them; but we are never to
forget that they are only pictures, and that the
reality is something more than all—it may be,
something very different from them all.
But can we then know nothing definitely of
the future life? Is it to the Christian, no less
than it was to the pagan, a formless vision?
Are there no voices from it ever reach us? Cannot we say what it will be to the longing soul
that looks towards it, or the weary spirit that
sighs after it? This, at least, we can say, first
of all, which is more than the pre-Christian mind
could say with any certainty, that it is. If we
are Christians at all, we cannot doubt that there
is a future life. Or if it be too much to say that
we cannot doubt this—for there are moments
of intellectual perplexity in which we may doubt
anything—yet we know that it is a clear point
of Christian faith that Christ hath made known
to us eternal life in Himself. He hath assured us
of an abiding existence beyond the present. He “hath abolished death, and hath brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel.”2 Timothy, i. 10.
But not only do we know that there is a
future life in Christ—we know also that it is
a life of promised happiness. There are certain
things said of it which admit of no question.
The language of Scripture—if necessarily material and inadequate, as all language descriptive
of spiritual facts must be—is yet so far unequivocal. If it does not show forth all the reality
of heaven, nor even touch its purest essence—if
it be always loftily reticent of its employments—it yet leaves no doubt as to many of its incidents. There shall be no darkness nor evil, no
harm nor sin nor uncertainty, in the higher life.
There shall be an enduring felicity and clearer
insight in the presence of God. There shall be,
in short, “light in the future.” Dark to us now
as we look forward to it, it is yet in itself a
sphere of light. It is “the inheritance of the
saints in light.” The veil of darkness rests on
it to our mortal vision, and we can never get
behind this veil. We can never see the glory
that is within, however we may strain our highest sight. But the darkness really is not there,
but here. The shadows lie around us now. The
image of night is for the present, and not for
the future. There is effulgence within the
veil. “There shall be no night there; and
they need no candle, neither light of the sun;
for the Lord God giveth them light.”
Both the negative and positive statements of
the text suggest a few remarks.
I. The idea of night may not at first seem
something to be specially got rid of. There are
many beautiful and peaceful associations connected with it, as it invites us to relax the work
of the day, and to lie down beneath its shelter
in grateful rest. But all such imagery is to be
taken in its broadest meaning. And night is
in common speech the synonym of evil. It is
the season of uncertainty and fear, of perplexed
and timid wanderings, of weariness, sorrow, and
danger. Even when we lie down to rest, and
try to forget our daily cares, if there is any sin
or trouble or misery in our lives, it then finds us
out, and weighs most heavily upon us. Dark
thoughts come nearer in the darkness, and
stretch pale fingers of terror towards us in the
watches of the night. Men shun it as they shun
apprehensions of evil, and mix it up in their
thoughts with ideas of privation, calamity, and
suffering.
For this, of course, is the meaning of the
figure. In saying of heaven that there shall be
no night, it is implied that all the darkness and
evil of our present lives will be done away.
Here we are encompassed by many uncertainties,
and the mystery of suffering is never far from any
of us. The strongest, brightest, and happiest lives
may be prostrated any moment by some swift
inroad of disease, or shadowed by some sudden
cloud of misery. How often is it the darling of
a family, the best-hearted and the most helpful—how often the most self-sacrificing in a community, or the most wise and beneficent in a
State—who are taken away! It is well that,
when life is advanced and work done, there
should be an end. But the uncertainties of our
present state are strange beyond all thought,—youth in its bright promise suddenly smitten
down to the ground—work which none else
can do left unfinished—the thoughtful and radiant intellect in a few hours of suffering silenced—the maiden in her bloom, the wife in the morning of her love, the husband or father, the stay
of many other lives, removed as by a stroke.
Our beauty is made to consume away like a
moth; verily, man at his best estate is vanity.Psalm xxxix. 5, 11.
“We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for
brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope
for the wall like the blind, and we grope as
if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day
as in the night; we are in desolate places as
dead men.”Isaiah, lix. 9, 10.
A dreadful irony seems to mark
the world’s dreams of happiness. The most
radiant sky suddenly fills with clouds. We
are dumb, we open not our mouths. Words
are vain to measure our bewilderment or make
known our suffering. We can find no clue to
the darkened mystery. We gaze around, but
there is no gleam of light. We lift our heart on
high, but there is no voice from the calm heights.
Nature smiles upon the breaking heart, and
heaven is dumb to the despairing cry.
This is but a poor sketch of the pain and uncertainty that enter, more or less, into all human
life, and make so much of its experience. It is
little any one can say of that which all who
have any heart must often feel. The commonplace of life is its deepest tragedy, and its darkest mysteries look out upon us from its most
familiar scenes.
In the future heavenly life all this pain and perplexity will be no more. If we know anything
at all, we may be said to know so much as this.
In the city of God—the new Jerusalem—there
shall be no more suffering. Whatever now enters into our life, as dread, or anxiety, or misery,
shall have for ever gone. They that dwell
therein shall be secure with God Himself, and
abide in perfect peace. “God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain.”Revelation, xxi. 4.
Everything
characteristic of our present frailty shall have
vanished. No bodily ailment or mental anguish
shall any more be known—neither the lassitude
of exhaustion, nor the weariness of despair, nor
the madness of a misery which can neither be
borne nor put away. Only try to realise what
a life that will be in which there will be no
suffering, in which the energies will play without fatigue, and consciousness never be enfeebled
or darkened. We try in vain to realise it fully;
and we fall back again upon the language of this
book, as answering better to our imperfect conceptions than anything else. “What are these
which are arrayed in white robes? and whence
come they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest. And he said to me, These are they
which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
the throne of God, and serve Him day and
night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the
throne shall dwell among them. They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither
shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For
the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne,
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living
fountains of water; and God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes.”Revelation, vii. 13-17.
II. It is much that we know that the future
life will be thus free from suffering. It will, as
such, be an infinitely higher life than we can
now anticipate. But cannot we be said to know
something more of it than this? The text, and
other texts, assure us that it will not only be
free from darkness, but full of light. The night
shall not only have passed away, but the sun of
righteousness shall have arisen. There shall
be no need of our feeble lights of candle, or
sun—for the Lord God Himself shall give even
of light. Can we understand anything of what
is here meant? What is the higher insight
and knowledge that thus await us in the future?
Some have pleased themselves with the
thought that there will be a higher science in
the higher life—that “one of the great joys and
glories of heaven will consist in the revelation of
the marvels of creation by Him by whom all
things were made.” We can hardly tell as to
anything of this kind. It is a fair presumption
that man’s perfected powers in the higher life
will find scope and success in all directions. The
curiosity of knowledge can never be supposed to
die out of the human mind, but to grow and
expand with every increase of power and an
enlarged field for exercise. We cannot doubt,
therefore, that among the blessings of heaven
will be an augmentation of higher knowledge.
But as to its special character, we learn
nothing; and there is no reason whatever to
believe that such knowledge will come to us in
any way essentially different from the processes
of labour and patience by which it is acquired
on earth. In order not to degrade rather than
heighten the idea of the future life, we must
always carry into it a true idea of humanity—a
humanity, that is to say, not merely passive or
mystical, but also rational and inquisitive. We
can conceive of no state as one of happiness in
which man should cease to search for knowledge,
and by his own intellectual activity to add to
its stores. A state in which revelation superseded inquiry, or light came flooding all the
avenues of mind without exertion or research,
would be a very imperfect heaven.
We must remember, also, that heaven is everywhere in Scripture a spiritual rather than an intellectual conception. It is an idea of excellence,
and not of mere superiority. A higher knowledge must enter into it—because man, as an
intellectual being, loves and enjoys knowledge,
and we cannot think of any element of true
human enjoyment apart from it; but the supreme idea of the future as of the present life
set forth in Scripture, is always moral and
spiritual. Man is estimated according to goodness or badness, and not according to wisdom
or ignorance. A man is said to be fitted for
heaven not as he has grown in knowledge, but
as he has grown in spiritual insight and self-sacrifice—in faith, hope, and charity. And it is
the special characteristic and highest blessing of
heaven that the education which is begun here
is perfected there. When it is said, therefore,
that “the Lord God giveth them light,” it is the
light of a higher spiritual experience and excellence that, above all, is meant. In short, the
revelation of heaven, we may be sure, will be a
revelation of spiritual insight rather than of
intellectual discovery—an illumination of life
rather than of thought—a glory of character
rather than of science.
Those who have studied the lives of religious
men—of the higher and more spiritual order—must have noticed how frequently they are able
to rest in God when all seems restless and disturbed around them; how they seem to have a
clearer vision and a calmer strength in moments
of peril. This is because they abide with God,
and in His presence find light and peace. They
have got near to a Divine centre, in which they
have a source of light which is not darkened
although all else may be darkened around them.
It is easy to discredit this strength and clearness
of the religious life, because in their very nature
spiritual qualities are incommunicable. They
cannot be passed from mind to mind, like gifts
of external knowledge. They are from above—from the Father of Lights; subtle communications of the Spirit rather than processes of
thought. But they are beyond all doubt a real
experience and a real power in the world. Men
and women know that God has made to shine
into their hearts “a marvellous light”—that He
has given them to understand, if not the secrets
of their lives, or of the lives of others, yet that
in and by all that they suffer and all that befalls
them, they are being educated and blessed. Life
may be often dark to them as it is to others,
and the shadows may lie so thickly around their
path that they stumble and know not their way;
but there is also in their experience something
more than in that of others—a consciousness of
Divine guidance and of a Divine end—a ray of
light, it may be only a single ray, let down from
heaven, which saves them from hopelessness and
assures them that love has not forsaken them.
Now, all this is from the spiritual side of our
being—from the silent increase in us of faith
and humility. We cannot force it; we cannot
create it. No struggling with the problem of
existence will ever give it to us. It comes to
us in quiet moments. It comes from an unseen Source. It is with us, and we know not
how, when with patience we wait for it, and
from the depth of a darkness in which we ourselves can see no light the day dawns, and the
day-star arises in our hearts. Light thus grows
even here from spiritual life, and in the heavenly
state we may infer that this accession of light
will be greatly augmented. That abiding with
God, which is the strength of religion here, will
be there perfect. Faith will be realised, hope
fulfilled, and love unbounded. God Himself
will be with us, and be our God in conscious
vision. Out of this higher richness of spiritual
being, and this nearness to the Divine, there must
come a fulness of light which is now inaccessible.
God Himself will impart to the saints in light
from His own stores. “The Lord God giveth
them light.”
There seems reason to think that we shall
then not merely rest in God, free from all suffering and pain—our mortal life stretching behind
us as a toilsome way along which we have come
to a blissful end—but that we shall get from
the great Source of light a higher insight
into all the meaning of life. We may not be
able more than now to read all its mysteries,
even on their practical side, or to understand
how we or others have had to pass through
great tribulation. How far the history of the
moral discipline of humanity may be revealed
to us, or whether we may ever, from serener
heights, see therein a divine philosophy now
uncomprehended, we cannot tell. But so far we
may infer, that the discipline and plan of our
own life, and therefore also of other lives, will
be made clearer to us. We will come to understand the reality of a loving Will in all our
trials, the presence of a Divine Purpose encompassing us when we knew it not, and working
for our good when we had least thought of such
a boon. And this higher insight, we may be
sure, will not be there, any more than here, a
mere intellectual gift—a power to understand
all mysteries and all knowledge; but a spiritual
endowment—a light of life, radiating within us
from the Divine Father, near whom we dwell,
and from whom cometh, there as here, “every
good and perfect gift”
Need I say, further, that as all our worst
darkness here comes from sin, from the wilfulness with which we too often turn away from
good and choose evil, so it will be the absence of
sin in heaven which will make us open to the
light, and more than all intensify our spiritual
vision. Who amongst us has not felt the confusion that is born of sin—how it entangles our
motives, ensnares our hearts, and prevents us
from seeing our highest good? Who that is
true to himself does not know that there are
times when even the best draw a veil over their
consciences, and are content to rest in some
delusive form of selfishness that obscures from
them the Right and the True? This darkness of self-will lies close to all here—a hidden
spectre embraced too often as an angel of light—our own ignorance, fanaticism, or religious
pride, glorified as the truth—our own pleasure
as the Divine will. And who can tell the grades
of darkness from which many Christian people
are in consequence never delivered in this world?
Their very spiritual sight is blurred; and the
light that is in them being darkened, how great
is that darkness! But in heaven there shall be
no sin—no self-deceit of the conscience, no impurity of the affections, no perversity of the
will;—the “old man” will have perished in
death, and the new man alone survive, “which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.”Colossians, iii. 10.
Think what a flood of
light will come from this cause alone, when the
spiritual sight has been purged from every film
of self-delusion, and the vision of the Divine falls
with unbroken strength on our purified souls.
Then indeed shall we see face to face, and know
even as we are known.
Let us then, as we would rise to the light of
heaven, put away from us now all the works of
darkness. Let us live as children of the light
and of the day. If the future is to be to us a
future of light, the change must begin in us here. God must dwell
in our hearts by faith. We must walk in light, “as He is in the light.” “If we
say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not
the truth.”1 John, i. 6.
The light that is to grow into the perfect light of
heaven must be kindled in us now. It may still
be but a feeble spark, hardly glowing amidst
the more active embers of selfish desire, but the
breath of heaven is waiting to fan the feeble
flame into a glow that shall shine more and more
unto the perfect day. “Now unto Him that is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
IX.
GRACE AND FREEDOM IN CHRIST.
Galatians, iv. 10, 11.—“Ye observe days, and months, and times,
and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour
in vain.”
HERE, as so often, the aim of St Paul is to exalt the idea of religion, and to fix it in
its essence—to carry the mind away from mere
form and ritual to the reality of spiritual truth
and life. There is not only an unwonted force,
but an unwonted irony, in his words. Not that
irony is unfamiliar to St Paul; on the contrary,
it plays an important part in his writings, as all
who read his epistles with attention must know.
But there is something almost harsh here in his
tone. The Galatian perverts—to use an expressive modern term—had kindled his indignation.
The very strength of the love which he bore
to them, and which had once been so warmly
reciprocal, flashes forth in the changed circumstances with a scorn which has a scathing touch
in it, which wounds while it pierces.—“Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon
you labour in vain.”
The words, even if they stood alone, would
well deserve attention from their emphasis and
point. They come straight from the apostle’s
heart, and leave no doubt of the intensity of his
feeling. But similar words, although without
the touch of scorn that marks these, occur more
than once in his epistles. In the great Epistle
to the Romans, for example, which presents so
many points of resemblance to that to the Galatians, he says, in the fourteenth chapter,
“One
man esteemeth one day above another; another
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that
regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord;
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord
he doth not regard it.”Romans, xiv. 5, 6.
And again, in the
Epistle to the Colossians—a much later epistle
in the series—he says further, “Let no man
therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in
respect of an holiday, or of the new-moon, or
of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of
things to come; but the body is of Christ.”Colossians, ii. 16, 17.
It is impossible not to feel that there was
something vital and important in the thought of
the apostle which underlies these sayings. They
are quite as emphatic and authoritative as some
others upon which we build large conclusions of
doctrine. They plainly point to some temptation to which religious people—for the Galatians, even in their perversion, were strongly
religious—are liable; some principle to which
they would do well to take heed.
It is our present business to inquire after this
principle and the temptation connected with it,
and to see what good we can get from the
apostle’s words. Here, as always where they
are marked by such a straight personal reference, we will best reach the general principle,
and the lesson which it bears to us, by a consideration of the circumstances in which the words
were uttered, and the original meaning they were
intended to have. What did St Paul mean for
the Galatians when he spoke to them with such
indignant scorn of their observance of days, and
months, and times, and years; and added that he
was afraid, in consequence of this, that all his
labours amongst them in turning them to the
love and service of Christ might prove in vain?
I. Now, first of all, we may be sure St Paul did
not mean to reprove the Galatians because they
merely observed certain days and times—because
they esteemed certain seasons as more sacred
than others. We may be sure of this, because
we know that St Paul himself observed days
and times. One of the earliest intimations of
the first day of the week being consecrated and
set apart for Christian worship is found in connection with the apostle, as when we read in
the twentieth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
as follows: “And upon the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to break
bread, Paul preached unto them.”Acts, xx. 7.
There is
every reason to conclude that, so far as Sunday
was observed as a day of special worship in the
Christian Church, St Paul joined in its observance. From a very early time, although we have
no means of tracing clearly the usage, the first
day of the week was marked by the Christian
Church with unusual solemnity—the solemnity
of rejoicing thanksgiving—as associated with
the resurrection of our Lord from the grave. It
was the memorial of Christ’s great work finished,
and of the crown of success put upon it, when He
was “declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”Romans, i. 4.
But St Paul not only observed the first day of
the week, or Sunday; no doubt also, when he
had opportunity, he observed the Jewish Sabbath, or Saturday. Here, again, we have no
very distinct details; we must be content to
draw inferences from general facts. But these
facts are quite adequate for our purpose. St
Paul, in becoming a Christian, did not, any more
than the other apostles,—although he advanced
in many things beyond them,—cease in outward
things to be a Jew. His whole life and his
whole mode of thought were an unceasing protest against the necessity of Christians generally
being at the same time Jews. But he himself
knew when to protest, and when to observe.
On his very last visit to Jerusalem, after all his
new convictions were thoroughly formed and
enlarged, we are told that he went into the
temple with other four men to purify himself,Acts, xxi. 26.
Now, this was a far more definite Jewish act
than the ordinary keeping of the Jewish Sabbath; and there is no reason, therefore, to suppose that this observance was obnoxious to the
apostle.
It would have been very strange, indeed, if it
had. For it is beyond doubt that the “Twelve,”
as they are often called in contrast to St Paul—the original apostles of our Lord—all remained
Jews while they became Christians; they never
thought of abandoning their old form’s of worship. The first great struggle of the Christian
Church was not respecting the retention of such
things by those who had been Jews, but respecting the necessity of their imposition on those who
never were Jews. The question, in short, was
not as to whether a Jew could at the same time
be a Christian and retain his old religious habits—no one ventured to doubt this—but as to whether
a Gentile could become a Christian without first
becoming a Jew—a quite different thing.
It was this latter point that formed the great
struggle of St Paul’s life—in reference to which
he withstood St PeterGalatians, ii. 11.
—and which is the key
that opens his meaning here, and enables us to
see to the clear depth of the thought which
now, as often, animates him in his epistles.
The Galatian Church was not a Jewish, but a
Gentile Church. There may have been Jews in
Galatia, as there were certainly Judaisers after
the apostle’s first visit. But the first Galatian
converts were evidently Gentiles. They were,
in fact, as the name bears, Celts—a Celtic colony
which, during the migrations of this nomadic
and aggressive people, had settled in the district
then called Asia, and which we commonly call
Asia Minor. They had received the Gospel from
the apostle himself; they had welcomed it with
great eagerness, with something of that enthusiastic and unintelligent zeal which is a characteristic of the Celtic race to this day, in religion
as in other things. They were fired by the
apostle’s earnest passionateness in proclaiming
a crucified Saviour. They were carried away in
the excitement of a reciprocal earnestness. They
received him, he says, as “an angel of God,”Gal. iv. 14.
and they would have plucked out their very eyes
and have given them to him.Ibid. iv. 15.
This enthusiasm
seems to have been all the more that the apostle
was evidently labouring under some bodily infirmity at the time when he first carried to them
the Gospel. “Ye know how, through infirmity
of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you
at the first.”Ibid. iv. 13.
Plainly the conversion of the
Galatians had been a striking event in the
apostle’s experience, as well as in their own—one of those powerful waves of enthusiasm which
are seen at times to mark the rise and progress
of all real religion. Nothing had come betwixt
them and the dear Saviour whom St Paul had
exhibited before them, crucified for their sakes.
They had been swept right away from all the
accidents of religion to its very heart and
power in Christ. They were running well,Galatians, v. 7.
having entered into the full freedom of the
Gospel, and found their joy and strength in this
freedom.
But suddenly a change came over them. False
teachers had gone amongst them and perverted
their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ.
As quickly almost as they had responded to the
apostle, do they seem in their ignorant enthusiasm to have responded to the new teachers.
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from
him that called you into the grace of Christ unto
another gospel: which is not another; but there
be some that trouble you, and would pervert the
gospel of Christ.”Ibid. i. 6, 7.
Their gaze was averted
from the crucified One as by a new fascination. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you,
that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ
hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?”Gal. iii. 1.
They began with the
spirit; they had sunk to the letter, and hoped to
be made perfect thereby. Having known God,
or rather been known of God,—having felt the
nearness of the heavenly Father in Christ—they
had turned again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto they desired again to be in
bondage.Ibid. iv. 9.
How could they do so? the apostle
expostulates with them—the affectionate ardour
of his heart after them in Christ almost forgotten
for the moment in the depth of his contemptuous
indignation at their apostasy. “Ye observe days,
and months, and times, and years. 1 am afraid
of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in
vain.”
The apostle felt for the moment as if his
whole mission amongst them was lost. Had
they been Jews, it would have been nothing to
have retained the rites of Judaism. They would
then probably have realised, as the apostle himself did, that while these rites had a claim upon
them from many sacred memories and associations, they were yet, after all, non-essential.
They could not really help their higher religious
life. They might not have gone the length of
saying,, with the apostle, that they were “weak
and beggarly elements.” Neither St Peter nor St
James would have gone so far, nor perhaps have
approved St Paul’s language. They did not see
so far as he did, and possibly they thought there
was danger in his latitude. But their position was
withal as honestly Christian as his was; and while
he withstood St Peter to the face, when guilty
of the intolerance as well as the discourtesy of
not eating with the Gentiles at Antioch (an act
which was essentially unchristian in spirit, and
which could only be justified on an unchristian
basis of thought)—while he did this, he would
not have interfered with Jewish compliances,
so far as they were practised by Jews. This
would have been inconsistent with his own
standard of toleration, “Let every man be fully
persuaded in his own mind.”Romans, xiv. 5.
But it was quite a different thing for Gentiles,
after having once entered into the freedom of
the Gospel, to turn back to the beggarly
elements, which could be nothing to them unless supposed essential to their salvation. Why
should a Galatian keep Jewish days or observe
Jewish rites, unless he had raised such rites and
the observance of such days to the level of
Christ Himself? Why should he occupy himself
with “works of the law,” unless these works had
come to assume for him a vital religious meaning, and his spiritual life been made to depend
upon them as well as upon the grace of Christ—or even more?
Now, to do this was in the apostle’s view, or
in any right view, to abandon the Gospel altogether to remove, as he says, from him that
called them into the grace of Christ unto another gospel,Galatians, i. 6.
—a gospel of formal observance
which could really bring them no spiritual good.
This was why the apostle addressed them so
harshly. They had degraded Christ and His
grace. His blessed sacrifice, which had so
moved them at first, and into whose quickening
and consecrating power they had entered with
such glad enthusiasm, they had put comparatively out of sight, and sunk to the old Jewish
level. Christ as the sole source of salvation—the idea of grace as the supreme idea of religion—this was the great principle which lay beneath
the apostle’s thought; and the neglect of this
was the heresy and sin into which the Galatians
had fallen.
II. And here also is the great lesson of the subject for us. The apostle by these sharp words
would fix our thoughts upon the essence of religion as found in Christ, and in Him alone. It
is the inward reality of religion in contrast to
any of its external adjuncts—the justification of
the individual soul before God through the sacrifice of Christ—which always, more than aught
else, kindles his enthusiasm. As he says in the
Epistle to the Romans, “There is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus” hath made us free from all other
law—the law of works as well as “the law of
sin and death.”Romans, viii. 1, 2.
Or, as St John has it in his
Gospel, “This is life eternal,” that we know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He
hath sent.”John, xvii. 3.
For us, in short, no less than for
the Galatians, the heart and power of religion
is Christ; and the true religious life is to be
found, not in any accident of rite or keeping of
days, but in union with the heavenly Father in
Christ, and in the sacrifice of our own will to do
His will. Before our eyes, as before the Galatians, Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth
crucified, to the end that we might be moved by the sight of
Divine love, and have fellowship with His sufferings, and be conformed to His
death. Christ Himself—nothing more and nothing less—is the power of God and the
wisdom of God for our salvation. In Him “we have redemption”Ephesians, i. 7.
—at once the forgiveness of our sins
and the strength in our own life to die unto sin
and to live unto righteousness. By His grace—and by no other means—can our evil natures be
subdued, our hard hearts softened, our wills
rescued from the bondage of sensual appetite
and frivolous desire, and made vigorous for
duty. Nothing short of Christ can do all this,
and nothing else than Christ is needed to do it.
This was what the apostle himself had felt in
passing from Pharisaism to Christianity; and he
is jealous, therefore, of anything being placed
above the grace of Christ, or even near to it.
To fall back on anything besides this grace or
lower than it, is to run the risk of losing all—of removing unto another gospel.
It is true that religion in us, as in others, may
be helped by many accidents—by great doctrines which we cherish reverently, and by
divers rites and forms which we keep statedly.
These—doctrines and rites alike—may seem to
us so closely identified with Christ that we can
hardly separate them. And to meddle with
them may seem to be meddling with the very
essence of religion. There may be much that is
good and right in such an attitude of mind.
Neither here nor anywhere does St Paul, any
more than his Master, say anything against
an intelligent devotion to religious forms; a
Sabbath-keeping which is reasonable, however
punctilious—or a ritualism which is without
superstition, however elaborate. These things
have their appropriate sphere in religion—if only
we remember that they are not of its essence.
They do not, any of them, make religion. They
may greatly help it; and some may be more
helpful to us than others, and therefore better
for us, more prized by us, than others. But none
of them so belong to religion that unless we
have them we cannot be religious, or unless
other people have them they cannot be religious.
So soon as we begin to discriminate religion by
any such formalities, we are in danger of sinking
from the true evangelical position. To take up
the words of the apostle once more, we are in
danger of removing “from him that called us
unto the grace of Christ unto another gospel.”
We come under his merited rebuke, “Ye observe
days, and months, and times, and years. I am
afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you
labour in vain.”
With a view of bringing out the lesson more
clearly, let us take by way of illustration the
case, immediately suggested by the text, of
keeping Sunday. We have seen already that
the apostle could not mean to disdain such an
observance. He himself kept Sunday. There
is reason to think he kept the Jewish Sabbath
besides. He did the latter because he had been
bred a Jew—and Jewish rites had had a strong
hold of his religious life; and it is not easy, and
can seldom be a good thing, for a man to separate violently between his former and later
religious life,—to break off sacred associations
and try to dwell in an entirely new atmosphere
of feeling and thought. So in part St Paul remained a Jew. But he had learned of Christ to
regard all he did as a Jew in a right spirit. He
knew that he had “received the Spirit,” not “by
the works of the law,” but “by the hearing of
faith;” and having begun in the Spirit, he knew
that he could not be made perfect in the flesh.
St Paul’s Sabbath-keeping, therefore, was to him,
as a Christian, no longer an essential part of
religion. He did not suppose that keeping
the Sabbath, any more than the Christian Sunday, made him righteous or acceptable before
God—which the Jews did, and he himself had
formerly done. He had the true righteousness “which is of God by faith of Christ;” and
what was to him, therefore, the keeping of a
day?
And is not St Paul’s way in this matter a
good guide to us? Let us be assured of
our higher ground,—let us take care that we
are one with God in Christ—that the love of
God and of our brother is in our hearts—and
then our Sabbath-keeping will take care of
itself. We may keep the day more strictly, or
we may keep it less strictly, but we will keep
it to the Lord. The higher Spirit in us will
suffuse itself through our whole life. And
whatsoever we do in word or in deed, we shall
do it in the name of Christ, “giving thanks to
God and the Father by Him.”Colossians, iii. 17.
But let us
come down from this higher ground and attach
importance to special modes of keeping the
Sabbath,—let us speak of any outward ordinances, any specialties of observance, as absolutely divine law—our own view of which is not
only good for ourselves, but compulsory upon
others, without which they cannot be religious—what is this but to fall to the level of the
Galatian apostates—to remove unto another
gospel—to mix up the life of religion with
beggarly elements; in other words, to materialise and dishonour it? What is it but to
sink the life in the form, the essence in the
accident—to turn away from God and the soul’s
rest in Christ to the bondage of burdens which
neither we nor our fathers have been able to
bear? What is it but to confuse men’s sense
of religion—to falsify their ideas of sin, and
hence their ideas of righteousness; and so to
leave them a prey to the first form of superstition which may be powerful enough to lay hold
of them?
But let us take a still more general illustration,
no less in the spirit of our text. St Paul, we
have seen, when he became a Christian, did not
altogether cease to be a Jew; and this was still
more true of the other apostles. In this very
Epistle, as already adverted to, there is unhappy
evidence of the extent to which St Peter allowed
the old unsoftened Jewish spirit to assert itself
in his conduct, and of the manner in which St
Paul was forced to withstand him. “I withstood him to the face,”
St Paul says, “because he was to be blamed.”Galatians, ii. 11.
Of St James, the author
of the Epistle known by his name, and the head
of the Church in Jerusalem, there is reason to
think that he never ceased to be a Jew at all,
and that he only imperfectly understood the
freer Christian views of St Paul.
What a lesson is there in all this for us, who
have sometimes difficulty in recognising each
other to be Christians because we do not belong
to the same Christian communion or Church,
as it is called! What a monition as to the
right way in which we should regard all such
outward distinctions! These distinctions may
by no means be unimportant—they may have
much value for the life of religion in some; but
they are all of its accidents—none of its essence.
And so soon as we begin to look upon them as
essential—as marking religion in men, instead
of merely denoting the sections of the religious
community—we begin to fall to the Galatian
level. We come to think of our denomination—Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or something else—more than of Christ, and of the keeping of rites
more than of the hearing of faith. We leave
the Gospel of St Paul, and sink to that of St
Peter in the moment of his temporary aberration
at Antioch.
Suppose, for example, I am a Presbyterian.
I am so because I attribute importance to its
simple forms and ancient heroic spirit of religious independence. Besides, I have probably
been bred a Presbyterian, and become accustomed to its ways, and therefore I remain
attached to it reasonably on those grounds of
good sense which are really the highest grounds
in such matters. This is in the spirit of St
Paul. But suppose I am not merely myself a
Presbyterian, but insist upon others becoming
Presbyterians, because, forsooth, I have settled
that Presbytery is a divine law—something
without which a man’s salvation is in peril;
then I sink to the spirit of St Peter, which
St Paul rebuked. I lose sight of the reality
of religion in its accidental manifestation, and
am on the verge of superstition, if I have not
already passed it.
And if the illustration is reversed, it is equally
true. I may be an Episcopalian, heartily attached to Episcopal order and worship. This is
well. I may see advantages in this order and
worship which the Presbyterian Church does
not seem to me to offer. The preference rests
on a reasonable basis. St Paul would have had
no quarrel with it. But suppose I am not content with this ground, but take what religious
organs are fond of calling higher ground—but
which is really infinitely lower—and contend
that my Episcopacy is not only good for me, or
in itself reasonable, but something vital for all—without which there cannot be a Christian
Church or the logical courtesy of Christian recognition; suppose I begin to make much of
consecration and succession, and the grace of
rightly-administered sacraments, as if apart from
these the soul were in danger,—what is this but
to invert the true religious order not only to
fall away from the true evangelical spirit, but to
substitute the very letter for the spirit, and
change the substance into the form? What
would St Paul have said of those who do such
things? “Ye observe festivals—ye prate of
succession—ye wear vestments. I am afraid of
you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in
vain.”
The conclusion of the whole is, that we should
aim by the divine blessing to have always a
more inward sense of religion, a more living
hold upon God Himself and Christ our Saviour.
This is the root of the matter, that we know
God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. If
only we have this, all else will fall into its place.
We will know how to prize our religious forms,
our sacred seasons, without putting them for a
moment in the place of Him whose presence
alone consecrates any form, or makes sacred
any season. We will prize our own Church
and our own modes of worship without disparaging others, or thinking that they are necessary
conditions of salvation without which men cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Above all, we shall be strong for duty, and
patient in trial, and earnest in every good work.
It is only the inward reality of religion that can
sustain and help us in the stress of life. It is
only Christ Himself that can bless us when the
world fails us. It is only the living God who
can be our refuge when darkness enters into
our lives, and the stroke of unaccountable trial
may wound our affections and embitter our experience. It is the simplest religious thoughts
that then help us most; and we feel that if
God be with us, we need none else. He is
the health of our countenance and our God.
Let us, then, strive to be ever nearer to God, to
have more of His love and grace in our hearts;
so shall we find Him more in every accident
and accessory of worship, and so shall we have
more strength for duty, more patience in trial,
and a more assured hope that we shall at last
enter into His rest and be made partakers of
His glory. Amen.
X.
RELIGION—CULTURE—RITUAL.
John, vi. 63.—“It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
THERE are few words used more vaguely than
religion: and there are good reasons why the
word should not be restricted to any narrow use;
for there are few things of broader meaning, or
which cover wider spaces of human life and history. Religion is not only personal, but social
and national. It not only touches man in his
divinest moments, but it touches human nature
in all the higher phases of its activity—takes expression in great doctrines and great institutions,
and re-creates itself continually in many beautiful
forms of art and worship. It is the most pervading element of all civilisation; and even
those who disbelieve or contemn it in its ancient
idea, bring it in again in some new and altered
sense. So long as human life and society retain
any sacredness or worth, we may be sure that
they will never dispense with religion.
Yet it is well for us also to get behind the
more general meaning of the word, and to ask
ourselves what is the distinctive character and
essence of religion?—what it is to be religious,
and how we can become religious? How may
the Divine be brought home to us, and made a
living power within us, so that we shall not cheat
ourselves or others with the shadow, but enjoy the
substance, and be quickened unto eternal life?
The words of our Lord, more frequently than
any other words, let us into this secret—open, as
it were, for us the very door of heaven, and bring
us close to the Divine. They take us away from
all the accidents of religion to its essence, and
from all its shadows to its substance and reality,
so that we can never have any doubt as to
wherein it consists, and what is the true source
of its life and power. The words before us are
full of meaning in this respect; and this meaning
will be more apparent when we consider them in
their connection, and in the light which they
gather from the circumstances in which they
were spoken.
Our Lord had just performed one of His greatest miracles. The effect of his miracle-working upon the Galilean multitude was sudden and
decisive. They saw in Him the long-promised
Messiah. They said, “This is of a truth that
prophet that should come into the world.”John, vi. 14.
Plainly this was not the result of any spiritual
vision in them, or of any aspiration after the
diviner gifts of Christ; but their imagination
had been kindled by the miracle of the loaves
and fishes. Their sense of power was excited,
and of what they could do, with Jesus at their
head. And so they desired to “take Him by
force and make Him a King.” But our Lord
was grieved by their dull-heartedness and carnality. He had wished to awaken their higher
longings, and to lead from the “meat which perisheth” to the “meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”Ibid. vi. 27.
Their minds clung to the loaves
and fishes, of which they did eat “and were
filled.” They had no higher thoughts, and did
not care for any. And so our Lord left them,
saddened; and on the following day He was
found at Capernaum, having crossed over the
Lake of Galilee during the night. Thither the
people came seeking Him, but still with no
higher aims than before—inspired not by the
spiritual power of His teaching, nor even by the
Divine aspect of the miracle which they had
seen, but only because they had been fed in a
wonderful manner. Our Lord, moved by their
dulness, enters into a long explanation of His
mission; of His relation to the Father and to
them; of His character as the true bread, “which
cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto
the world.”John, vi. 33.
He tried to make them realise the
great fact of Divine revelation in Himself, as
having come not to do His own will, but the
will of Him that sent Him; and to quicken
within them that gift of faith which sees for
itself the beauty of the Divine, so that, seeing
the Son and believing on Him, they might have
everlasting life.Ibid. vi. 38, 40.
But they understood Him not—they murmured when He said, “I am the bread which
came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He saith, I came down from
heaven?”Ibid. vi. 41, 42.
Obviously our Lord’s higher teaching was of
little avail in such a case as this; and the more
He spoke to these Jews of the Bread of life, and symbolised the Divine food of the soul by His
own flesh and blood—His own incarnate and living presence amongst
them the more hopelessly did they wander from His meaning, and catch at the mere
vesture instead of the living substance of His thought. Many even of His
disciples—of that inner circle which had gathered around Him with some
appreciation of His spiritual mission and character—were astonished at His
doctrine, and said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?”John, vi. 60.
And “when Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto
them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up
where He was before?”Ibid. vi. 61, 62.
Do my words now offend you? Do
they present a difficulty to your faith? The
time is coming when your faith will be more
tried by my removal from you, and my resumption of that celestial state from which I have
come to abide with you for a season. You must
rise above the mere visible and carnal to the
Spiritual everywhere—and in the life of Divine
communion with me, through my words, enter
into that higher sphere in which truth is discerned and life is quickened. “It is the Spirit
that quickeneth” or maketh alive; “the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life.”
I. The great principle here expressed is, that
the sphere of the spirit is the only sphere of
religion in the highest sense. All outside this
sphere is unprofitable for divine quickening.
That we may become religious, or enter into communion with the Divine, we must be made alive.
Life within us must be quickened by a higher
Life above us. The spring or essence of all life
is in the Spirit, and spirits must touch before
life can be awakened. No mere contact of form—no mere community of opinion—no effort of
self-culture—no devotion to ritual—nothing
whatever that is outside, material, or intellectual
merely,—can make a soul alive, and reveal to us
God, or even the depths of our own nature. The
Divine Spirit alone can do this. The spirit in us
alone responds to a Spirit above us—to a new
Power of affection and will that goes right to the
heart, quickens it, and makes it living—or, as it is
said, revives it. There is a real process of revival
therefore at the root of all religion. And it is
the common instinct of this which gives such
power to what is called Revivalism. Men feel
that quickening must come to them—that it is
not enough that they do this or that—that they
cease to do evil and learn to do well—that they
raise their eyes towards a distant heaven which
they long to enter. They must be turned from
death to life; they must be seized by a force
which is not their own. A strong wind must
breathe upon the dry bones of their own best
endeavours, and make them live. The Spirit of
God must come and lay hold of their heart, and
infuse His own living presence everywhere, till
the quickening has gone beneath all the surfaces
of character and all the motions of will, and
started within them a new power of good, which
has its fruit unto eternal life.
No one who accepts our Lord’s teaching, or
the teaching of the New Testament, can doubt
the reality of this Spiritual influence or that it
is the source of all genuine religious life. The
Gospel is thus always a Gospel of revival. It
is the power of God to awaken us out of sleep,
and to quicken us to newness of life. The
Divine Spirit is alone able so to change and
move the human spirit as to make it alive with
the pulses of a new and nobler being.
But all-essential as this transcendant and
Divine side of religion is, we need not therefore
exaggerate it. It can never do good, but evil,
to isolate religion from the other forces of life
within which it works. The Divine Spirit is
the only source of religious life; but the Spirit
works in many ways. It never ceases from working. It is higher than nature; no mere processes
of nature can ever produce it; but it works
through every element of nature and of education. It is distinct, and always to be emphasised in its distinction; but it refuses to be
noted and measured by itself. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that
is born of the Spirit.” Religion is a mighty
power in human life. It is a power from on
high; and the dark chaotic depths of human
selfishness and sin are only moved to their
centre and reduced to order by this rushing
mighty wind. But it is nevertheless a force in
close harmony with all that is noble or reasonable in human life. It is no insanity of intellect,
or of fear, or of passion, such as many make it.
It is, on the contrary, the “spirit of power,” but
also “of love, and of a sound mind.”2 Timothy, i. 7.
A man’s
religion is not something to be separated from
himself, or added as an artificial product to his
nature. The Divine capacity is always in him,
waiting to be quickened, educated, and strengthened into a richer blessing; and religion is the
spiritual flower of his whole nature, the sanctification of all his activities both of mind and body.
Springing from a Divine impulse, it is yet never
a mere impulse or seizure from without, but a
power within, diffusing itself through his whole
being.
It is all the more necessary to bring out this
comprehensive aspect of religion in its development that we are now dealing with its Divine
source. Let us not exaggerate on the one side,
nor diminish on the other. Religion is never to
be conceived as mere superstition or Puritanism,
isolating itself in what are believed to be purely
Divine acts, apart from the realities of common
life and duty.—But neither is it in any case a
mere natural or humanitarian development.
The “flesh” cannot profit it. Always it springs
from God,—from no lower source. No combination of mere natural or educative influences
is able to produce it. In order to be religious,
it is never enough to try to be good—to
keep our hearts and our lives right if we can.
This is a great deal, and none who are trying
honestly so to do can be far from the kingdom
of God. Still, it is God Himself who alone can
bring us within His kingdom, and give us a
share in it. His Spirit must quicken and make
us alive. Let us think of religion as broadly as
we may, and interpret it as rationally as we can,
yet it is always something more than reason or
education or good conduct. It is a Divine life
within us; and nothing short of this Divine life
can make man really good, or raise him to a true
spiritual ideal.
This will appear more clearly if we glance for
a little at two other sides of our higher life sometimes confounded with religion.
II. There has been much said of culture in
our day as a power of good in human life. It is
such a power, beyond doubt. It is much for a
man to hold before himself some ideal of life
after which he strives, whether this ideal be
more intellectual or more aesthetic—more of .the
nature of a scientific vision to whose severe
order of fact he conforms himself—or more of
the nature of an artistic harmony to whose finer
tones he strives to subdue his spirit. Whether
we aim to model our lives by the lessons of
science or of literature, we may model them to
much good effect. No life through which there
shines the light of reason or of art is likely to be
an entirely ignoble life. A man who has any
thought at all, and still more a man who has
high thoughts, may do much to improve his
character, to educate, refine, and elevate his
aspirations and tastes, and to give his life that
touch of nobility which redeems it from the
common mass. Those instincts of truthfulness
and fairness, of sweetness and courtesy and
toleration, which lie so deep in the best characters, are sometimes, it must be confessed, more
directly evolved and more strenuously trained
in the schools of science and humanity than in
the schools of religion. The hardier virtues
which make men confide in one another, and the
sweeter graces which make life charming and
beautiful, are seen to flourish in some who make
no pretence to piety. The strength of human
friendliness—the directness, simplicity, faithfulness, so often the stay of human souls in dire
hours of peril—are to be found in those who, if
their lives really rest in the Divine, have no
conscious or desired resting there.
We must frankly allow all the good that may
thus come from self-culture. Probity, righteousness, verity, courtesy, charity, wherever they are
found, are good. Let us never entangle ourselves in the sophistries of an older theology, and
throw any veil of doubt over moral qualities
wherever they appear. Virtues can never be
splendid vices. So far as they are real, they are
always good, and not evil. They are really of
God, although there may seem no traces of their
roots in Him.
But first observe how very limited any such
good must be. It is only the few anywhere who
are in a position to contemplate the idea of
moulding to themselves a noble or beautiful
character. It is still fewer who, having possibly
risen to such an idea, are able in any degree to
carry it out. Life does not wait for our higher
moments. Many are deep in it, with all its
difficulties and temptations, before the ideal has
arisen in the heart. And even when it rises, and
the light which is more than that of common
day flashes across our horizon, how suddenly
does it often sink down again, and leave us where
we were, in darkness and moral struggle! How
often, moreover, is the ideal and the real in our
own lives and the lives of others a mournful
contrast—the performance mocking the promise,
and by the humiliating spectacle of inconsistency
so discouraging us, that we rise with an always
weaker effort to the task of self-culture! For one
man in whom the moral will is strong, and capable
of a strenuous and aspiring self-education, there
are hundreds in whom it is weak and vacillating. And how often is it sadly the case that
the artist-nature to whom dreams of heaven are
familiar—within whom the ideal lives with an
ever-freshening morning-life—is specially incapable of translating dream into fact, or incarnating poetry in life?
Ah! it is easy to speak of culture, and it is
never untimely to preach the higher life: but if
the preacher cannot look away from the feeble
wills before him, so often trembling between
good and evil, to a higher Will, and from men
who dream of heaven, but too often grovel in
the earth, to a Divine Spirit that quickeneth,
and out of weakness perfects strength, his hopes
for humanity must be clouded indeed. There
may be much in the progress of religion and
of the Church to excite distrust and even despair; but how much slower still is the progress of culture, and how constantly are we
reminded that the most smooth and smiling
surfaces of modern society, and what have
seemed the most high and honourable characters, cover depths of unsuspected baseness! In
all men, more or less, there is an evil spirit,
ready to ripen into an evil power, of which no
theory of culture takes account, and which no
gloss of culture can ever eradicate. Circumstances may never call it forth, convention may
decently veil it, social and intellectual influences
may restrain or disguise in fair colours the demons of lust and selfishness; but all experience
shows that they remain unsubdued under the
most favourable appearances, and that they are
ready to burst forth amongst the most polished,
no less than the least polished, members of
society. There is one Power which alone can
kill the power of evil that is in every man, and
that is the Power of good. The Divine Spirit
can alone touch and change our spirits, and
make those dead in sin alive unto righteousness.
Culture may work marvels in a few favoured
natures; but it is powerless alike to kill the
deepest evil there is in the world, and to evoke
the highest good. It is unable either to destroy
the badness of common natures, or to reach to the
spiritual depths of the finest natures. It leaves
even a Goethe—its highest type in many respects—but a refined sensualist.
But supposing that culture could do more
than it can to raise and purify man’s nature,
it is still, on any Divine view of the world,
a most inadequate discipline. If there is a
Divine Power behind the world, and man be the
offspring of that Power, he cannot have his full
and perfect life save in harmony with it. In
other and well-understood words, if there be a
God, it must be the “chief end of man to
glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” Apart
from the Divine, man’s life cannot grow into
any healthy, active, or permanently happy form.
If we are the children of a Father in Heaven, our
hearts can only rest in Him who made us and
formed us for Himself. In short—for it comes
plainly to this—if there be religion at all,
culture can never be a substitute for it. Our
highest life can never be evoked save in full
harmony with the highest Life of the world.
And is there not evidence of this even amidst
all the present imperfections of the Christian
life? Is it not after all the “image of God” in
humanity which is the noblest and most beautiful expression of humanity? There may be
virtues of power and traits of nobleness which
flourish apart from this image, or which seem
to do so. The Church may not always excel
the world. It may sometimes seem to fall below it. For the divine treasure is everywhere
in earthly vessels strangely marred and broken. But withal, are
not the finest types of human purity and goodness—of moral and spiritual
excellence—found within the Church? “Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”Galatians, v. 22, 23.
—are not these
the special fruits of the Spirit? Is it not
the thought of God, and of Christ, and of the
Holy Spirit, that alone calls forth in a man
all that is good in him? Is it not the Cross of
Christ that alone melts him to devout humility
or touches him to holiest tenderness? When the
soul, long wandering in darkness, has turned into
the light of the Divine love—when, amidst the
confusions of the world and the conflicts of sin,
it has sought and found rest with God and peace
with Christ,—is it not from such a centre of
Divine strength that there grows the most perfect beauty and strength of human character—such
sweetness and light as are found nowhere else in this world?
Otherwise there may be much excellent and even splendid growths of character;
but only out of this fulness of Divine sympathy, and this oneness with God in
Christ,—an atoning strength lying at the heart of our lives, and ever renewing
it with fresh grace,—comes the full maturity of the “perfect man.”
III. But there are others who, having no faith
in culture, would have us look to ritual. They
admit readily the inutility of all that man can
do for himself. They have no sympathy with
the self-aspiring efforts which many are making
to find a religion for themselves, or something
which will serve instead of religion. But what
man cannot do for himself, the Church, they say,
will do. Come within the fold of the true Church,
and all will be right. The Church, with its
holy sacraments and offices, is the source of all
spiritual life. Of course, there is a sense
in which this is true. The Church is the body
of Christ, the temple of the Divine Spirit; and
wherever the true Church is, there spiritual life
must be. If only we come within the reach of the
Divine influence, we must share in that influence.
If we come into the House, we shall share the
Father’s blessing and the children’s portion.
And, on the other hand, we have no right to
look for spiritual blessing if we refuse the ministration and offices through which the Spirit
works. A man can hardly fail to lose much
good by standing outside the Church.
But then, not to speak of infinite difficulties
about the Church, which no candid mind can
refuse to acknowledge, we must never confound
the Church with the life of which it is the embodiment. It is
impossible to begin religion with ritual, or, at least, to centre it there. We
cannot quicken or cleanse a soul by ceremony. This would be to reverse the
Divine order, and to make the outward more than the inward, the form more than
the substance. It is “the Spirit that quickeneth,” and no mere semblance or even
sacramental sign of the Spirit. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.”John, iv. 24.
Primarily, we
must seek God and find Him. Our souls must
thirst for God—for the living God—to see His
power and His glory. Even if we could be
assured as to the Church, and the true order
of Divine worship, we may have the symbol without the substance, the letter without
the spirit. It is impossible for any to deny this
without denying obvious facts of experience,
and even detracting from the supremacy of the
Divine altogether. For if the Divine is only to
be found in this or that outward form—if it
is inseparable therefrom, and is present or absent
according as the form or rite is present or absent—then, plainly, the very idea of religion is altered.
It is not a spiritual quickening, or it may not
be so. Devout seeming or ceremony may be
enough. And this is the latent danger of what
is known as Ritualism, that it draws men’s
thoughts away from the inward power of religion to its outward expression. It makes the
vesture to be taken for the substance. But the
most elaborate ritual, no less than the simplest
form, dissociated from the Divine, are of no
value. They can work no good. They can
change no heart. They can turn no will from
evil to God.
But it is not necessary for us to disparage
ritual, or pass any judgment on what is commonly
known as Ritualism. There may be as much
materialism, and of a coarser kind, in objection
to Ritualism as in devotion to it. And wherever there is an enthusiastic spiritual life, there
will always be a renewed interest in religious,
forms, and often an exaggerated feeling regarding them. It is always well to have a respect for
religious forms, and to desire that these forms
should be as comely and beautiful as may be in
harmony with the best feeling and taste of those
who use them. Do not suppose that spiritual
religion is necessarily shown in a bald Puritanism, any more than that it is necessarily present
in the most elaborate ritual. This is a mistake,
we fear, many commit. They think their religion is spiritual because it has few or no forms;
and the ceremonial which is dear to others is
an abomination to them. This by no means
follows. It is quite possible to be ritualistic
and yet spiritual, and it is equally possible to be
opposed to Ritualism and not to have a spark
of the Divine Spirit within us. All that we
say, and that our text implies, is, that ritual
itself is never life—that form cannot produce
spirit, however it may modify and cherish it.
Spirit is alone born of Spirit, as Life alone
springs from Life.
But this life is always ours if we will only
have it. The Divine Spirit is never straitened
in its work. It is with us now as always, waiting to be gracious, encompassing our life, addressing our intelligence, soliciting our affection.
It is nigh to us, even in our heart—save in so
far as we do not banish it by sin. Only receive it—welcome it. It will come in and
abide with you, and you will arise from the
death of your sins and walk forth in newness
of life.
Now unto Him who is able to save us—not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His power, by the washing of
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Saviour—unto Him be all glory and
power ever more. Amen.
XI.
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
John, viii. 12.”—I am the Light of the world.”
THIS is one of those short, pregnant statements
of our Lord characteristic of this Gospel, which
impress us at once by their brevity, their beauty,
and their largeness of meaning. Statements of a
similar kind—of equal terseness and force—occur to every one: “I am the Good Shepherd.”John, x. 11.
“I am the
Resurrection, and the Life.”Ibid. xi. 25.
“I am
the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”Ibid. xiv. 6.
What
divine audacity is there in such sayings! and
how little can we suppose them to be the sayings of a mere teacher or prophet! They have
no parallel in the words even of the greatest
teachers. One and all imply something which
the most powerful and enlightened, conscious of
their own capacities to communicate truth or
to do good, would scruple to arrogate to
themselves. They might claim respect for the
truth they speak, and summon man to attend to
it with a voice of authority. But no human
teacher merely would dare to make himself the
centre of all truth, and the centre of the world.
Yet this is what Christ expressly does. Not
merely what He says is true or good—not merely
are His words, words of authority. But He is
Himself the source of all Divine knowledge and
blessing. “No man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal Him;”Matthew, xi. 27.
“No man cometh unto the
Father, but by me,”John, xiv. 6.
—texts from the first and
the fourth Gospels which we have purposely
brought together in order to show that whatever
differences may otherwise characterise the Christ
of St Matthew and the Christ of St John, in
this respect they are alike, that they equally
claim to stand before all others with God. They
arrogate a pre-eminence which, if it has any
meaning at all, is superhuman and exclusive.
It is the same Divine voice which speaks in both—the voice of no mere Teacher, but of a Revealer—one who is in Himself Light and Life. “I am the Light of the world: he that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life.”
Not only is the manner of the text peculiar—having in itself a divine emphasis—but
the image of light employed in it is specially
made use of in this Gospel to characterise
our Lord’s work and mission. In a subsequent
passage in the twelfth chapter,John, xii. 46.
He Himself again says, “I am come a light into the world.” And in the opening of
the Gospel the mind of the Evangelist seems to dwell with a lingering fondness
on the same conception of the Divine Logos of whom he speaks so grandly. “In Him
was life; and the life was the light of men.”Ibid. i. 4.
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”Ibid. i. 9.
We may be sure that there is a fine propriety
in the use of this language. It is not merely
that light is the most beneficent element of nature,
and therefore one of the most striking symbols of
Divine goodness. This, no doubt, it is; and this
general meaning is also summed up in the use
of the figure by St John. Men have always
acknowledged with thankful reverence the glory
and the freshness of the dawn, and the bright
circuit of the sun, “rejoicing as a strong man
to run a race.” The rise of religious thought
in its higher forms is everywhere associated
with the clear heaven stretching in brilliancy or
calm beauty over the earth, and quickening its
bosom with life and movement and gladness.
It was the splendour of the sun shining in his
strength, and the moon walking in her brightness, which more than anything else in the
early years of our race awakened the depths of
wonder in the human imagination, and the secret
of trust in the human heart; and while we deplore, we can understand the special worship
of which they were the objects. All that man
imperfectly or ignorantly signified by this worship, is no doubt present in the thought of the
Gospel when Christ is spoken of as the “Light of
the world.” All ideas of beneficence, of hope,
of life, and of happiness in nature which had
gathered around the great source of light, to the
Jewish and other minds were embodied in the application of the symbol to Christ. He was thought
of as an illuminating centre for the world of nature as of men—as the “day-spring from on
high,” whose advent was to bless all creation.
But here, as everywhere in Scripture, it is the
moral meaning that is uppermost. Even the
most beautiful conceptions of Nature-religion
have little relation to the great realities with
which the Gospel deals. The idea of light,
long before the time of St John, had become
spiritual in its religious application; and when
Christ speaks of Himself as the “Light of the
world,” it is no darkness of nature that He has
in view, but the darkness that rests on men’s
thoughts and life—the darkness that all true
men feel more or less in themselves. Wherever
men have risen to the power of thought, and
are capable of looking “before and after,” there
comes home to them a deep sense of their ignorance. Their outlook is fast bound on all sides;
and “more light” is their instinctive cry amid
encircling darkness, or a twilight of uncertainty
more perplexing sometimes than darkness itself.
They look upwards, and long that the day may
break on their mental struggle, and the shadows
flee away from their hearts. The outward light
is not enough. The eye is not satisfied with
seeing. There is the conscious need of a higher
light than ever lit up sea or shore. The darkness of the world, in short, is a moral darkness,
in which man is often unable to see his true way
or choose his own good.
The words of Christ all refer to this spiritual
circle of thought. If we ourselves know nothing
of this deeper experience; if we are living the
mere life of nature, and pleased with this life; if
the darkness of sin and of doubt be no distress
to us,—then we will find His words without
meaning. The whole atmosphere of the Gospels will be strange to us; because everywhere
in the Gospels His life stands as a light against
a background of darkness—a strength and
hope amidst weakness and misery. Men are
pictured as ignorant, yet inquiring—as helpless, yet aspiring—as searching for a higher life,
while unable themselves to find it. He is all
they seek, and all they need. He is the answer
of God to all hearts, moved by the unrest of sin
or the search for truth,—upon whom there
has come the burden of thought, or the self-sacrifice of duty, or the tenderness of sorrow, or
the awe of death. It is this inner world of
thought and of spiritual aspiration which Christ
addresses,—a world where the vision reaches
below the outward sense, and takes, in the
mysteries of human existence—its pathetic blendings of failure and effort, of knowledge
and ignorance, of joy and suffering—its hopeless yearnings, despairing cries, and baffled
aims. To all who know anything of this world
of spiritual longing, the voice of Christ is a voice
of welcome and of unutterable meaning. “I am
come a Light into the world, that whosoever
believeth on me should not abide in darkness.”John, xii. 46.
There was a special truth in our Lord’s words
for His own time. Then the thoughts of men,
both Jews and Gentiles, were deeply stirred by a
spirit of unrest and inquiry. There were those “waiting for consolation” in many lands, and
raising their eyes with a dumb or articulate earnestness to the heavens above them. The advent
of Christ came as a response to this desire of all
nations—as a burst of light amid prevailing
darkness. Human thought was raised above
itself, and moved forward in a path of clearer
and higher knowledge. As the prophetic Scripture had foretold, speaking of our Lord’s coming,
“The people which sat in darkness saw great light.”Isaiah, ix. 2; Matthew, iv. 16.
It is not meant, of course, that there w T as no
knowledge of Divine truth in the world before
Christ. Apart from the fact of Old Testament
Revelation, and the spiritual life which flourished
within its circle, Christianity has no interest in
depreciating the advances which men had elsewhere made in spiritual knowledge. Our Lord
says nothing of these advances. His life nowhere touches at any clear point the tendencies of moral speculation, rife in His own day,
or which had descended from an earlier age.
Even those who take a purely human view of
His character, and in this light have examined
it most closely and brought its external features
into the sharpest relief, have failed to connect
Him definitely with any of the teachers in His
own land. The wildest imaginations have not
sought any point of connection between Him
and Hellenic or Roman culture. He has nothing to say therefore of former philosophy or
science or art. He lived and taught as if for
Him these were not. Yet He has nothing to say
against them, and His genuine doctrine is nowhere inconsistent with the fullest admission of
their true claims.
Beyond doubt, men had learned much both of
God and of duty before Christ. The higher
literature of the ancient nations contain many
glimpses of the Divine—many scattered truths
which are of sacred meaning still, and which in
many hearts may have served to lighten the
darkness of the world’s mystery and sorrow.
It is a poor piety which cannot afford to be
generous to all truth-seeking souls, and to
welcome light, from whatever quarter it may
come. It is a true view which regards Christ
as above all other teachers—standing alone
in His simplicity and grandeur. Far more
eminently than any other, “His soul was like
a star, and dwelt apart.” But it is also a true
view which regards Him as the fulfilment of
all previous aspiration and spiritual quest,—in
whom the thoughts of many hearts were revealed.Luke, ii. 35.
His star was seen not only in Bethlehem, but afar off in many lands. Many dreams
of unconscious inspiration pointed to Him. He
was “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well as
the glory of Israel,Ibid. ii. 32.
He gathered into one focus
not only the converging rays of the older Revelation, but the dispersed and vague hopes of God
and of a higher life which had been brooding in
many minds beyond its pale.
Let us admit to the full the value of all previous religious thought. This can hardly affect
our estimate of the teaching of Christ. It remains, withal, singular in its power of illumination. If Philosophy raised its voice, summoning men to divine contemplation and heroic
duty—if Alexandrian and Graeco-Roman culture
sought to woo men to the practice of many forms
of virtue—if Pharisee and Essene alike had their
special ideal of the religious life,—yet how inadequate was the result! Nay, how inadequate
was the ideal of one and all! To the common
mind, which peculiarly requires the impulse
and the strength of religion, the most aspiring
culture was and could be nothing else than a
dream. It remained unintelligible. It inspired
no sustaining enthusiasm. It gave no life, and
men were dead in trespasses and in sins. It gave
no light, and men sat in darkness. It awakened
no hope, and men were in the shadow of death.
Then, as always, philosophy was for the few, and
not for the many. It was eclectic, and not catholic. It was intellectual, and not spiritual. It was
a speculation, not a life. Even if its light had
been worth more, it had no power to reach the universal heart, and quicken it into spiritual movement. Say what we will for the highest forms of
ancient thought—and the mind is dull or uneducated that is not moved by their sublimity,
or touched by their insight and tenderness—yet
it was a darkened world upon which the light of
Christianity arose.
It is a strange and grand retrospect, to look
back on that second morning of the world, when
there was proclaimed by angelic voices, “Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill
toward men.”Luke, ii. 14.
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”John, i. 14.
After long preparation,
yet with apparent suddenness, the Divine Teacher
and Son of God came forth. From the quiet
home of Galilee, and the streets of Jerusalem,
the voice which “spake as never man spake” was heard in accents of celestial meaning. The
light shone in darkness, “and the darkness comprehended it not.”Ibid. i. 5.
: There was no immediate
response to the Divine message. There never
has been. But the power of a new Revelation
had gone forth into a few faithful hearts, and
gradually its kindling fame spread till it became
a visible lustre in the earth. Men and women
felt moved by a fresh illumination of duty and
of Divine impulse. God and life were set in a
new meaning, and seen in a radiance of clearness. The “Sun of Righteousness” which had
arisen in Judea shone forth in the east and in
the west, quenching in its living light opposing
darkness, and filling the world with a spiritual
beauty, and a strength of triumphant goodness,
unknown before.
How are we to explain this? What was there
specially in Christ’s teaching that gave light to
men’s minds and life to their hearts? To answer such questions fully would require many
sermons. We can merely indicate now two
comprehensive points of view in which the teaching of Christ has proved a light to human souls
beyond all other light.
(1.) Christ revealed to us God in a new or
at least more complete sense. He made clear in
His own life and words the Divine idea, as no
one had done before, and no one has ever
done since. Men had been struggling with
this idea from the first efforts of religious
speculation. It was still unformed and imperfect. Outside of Revelation it fluctuated
and took many shapes, now presenting itself
as a multiplicity of Divine energies, with more
or less coherence; and now retreating into a
vague Absolute or Necessity, encompassing all
being, but without thought or love for any.
Polytheism more refined or more sensualistic,
and Pantheism more or less abstract, divided
the thought of the Gentile world. On the
other hand, the idea of God had been to the
Hebrews one of growing clearness. He was the
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob—the
God of Israel, who had given the covenant on
Mount Sinai, who had led their fathers by the
way of the wilderness into the promised land—a “jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation”Exodus, xx. 5.
—and yet also “the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin”Ibid. xxxiv. 6, 7.
—a holy God, “of purer eyes than
to behold evil,”Habbakuk, i. 13.
even a Father whose pitying
mercy was able to measure all the depths of
our weakness. “Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.
For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth
that we are dust.”Psalm ciii. 13, 14.
This sublime conception of the Hebrew mind
was perfected in Christ. Every attribute of
spiritual excellence was brought out into clearer
distinction, and every element less exalted enlarged and purified. Hitherto the God of the
Hebrews had remained too isolated and apart. With all their growth of religious intelligence—the voice of the Divine always breathing more
clearly as we descend the course of their prophetic literature—there still clung certain restrictions to their highest conception. Jehovah was
their God in some special manner—the Giver of
their Law—the God of their Temple—who was
to be worshipped in Jerusalem. They had difficulty in enlarging the Divine idea so as to
embrace the human race,—in rising above
local privilege and national prerogative to the
thought of God as the spiritual Source and
Guide of all men alike. Christ fixed for ever
this great thought. “God is a Spirit,” He said; “and they that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth.”John, iv. 24.
“Neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem,”Ibid. iv. 21.
was there any
special virtue, so far as the Divine presence was
concerned. This presence was universal and universally spiritual, embracing all life, claiming
the homage and devotion, the faith and love,
of all moral intelligence—the presence of the
Father as well as the Sovereign of men.
The Divine idea was not only exalted in
spirituality and comprehension, but moreover
in moral beauty and tenderness. It had been
especially hard for men to realise the idea of
Supreme Goodness. There was so much evil
and wrong in the world and in themselves, that
they instinctively carried some moral as well as
local limits into their conception of the Divine.
Such limits appear more or less in the representations of Old Testament history. But in
Christ they fall utterly away. All elements
of vindictive jealousy, or of mere local protectiveness, disappear; and God, as at once
Law and Love, Truth and Grace, shines forth
with a lustre never to be dimmed. He is a
just God and a Saviour—a God of Salvation
by the very fact that He is a God of Justice—redeeming us because He loves us, but
also because His righteousness demands our
righteousness. Sinful and weak and miserable,
we can not only fly to His pitying bosom, assured that we shall find “mercy to pardon and
grace to help,” but “if we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”1 John, i. 9.
In this
combination of spiritual perfection, the God of
Christ is unapproached and unapproachable—the Sum of all truth and purity and love—perfect in goodness, because perfect in righteousness—the supreme religious Ideal, whom all
hearts may at once adore and love. As St John
says elsewhere, speaking of the message transmitted to him by his Master, “God is light, and
in Him is no darkness at all.”1 John, i. 5.
In all this clearer Revelation of the Divine,
Christ proved Himself the Light of the world.
Men’s thoughts were raised to God with a new
confidence—with a clearer and brighter faith.
The supreme Life became luminous to them as
it never had been before—as it never is where
the teaching of Christ is unknown or rejected.
Let us cast aside His teaching, and the idea of
God speedily again becomes obscure. Once
more we sink into the old Pantheistic abstractions, or fall away from the conception of the
Divine altogether, and seek to replace it by some
ideal of the Cosmos or of Humanity itself.
If Christianity is worn out, as some tell us,
there is certainly no prospect of anything higher
or better taking its room. Neither the audacities
of Science nor the dreams of Positivism, nor the
renaissance of a paganised culture, have been
able to suggest any Ideal of comparable force or
beauty to that with which Christ inspired the
world more than eighteen centuries ago. No
spiritual vision has ever equalled His, or is likely
to do so. No light has since come to man before
the splendour of which His is pale.
(2.) And this leads to the second aspect of this surpassing
Revelation. Christ has not only made clear the idea of God, but the idea of man.
The two ideas everywhere interchange, and react the one upon the other. The
glory of Christ is, that He seized so clearly the spiritual essence of both, and
set the great realities of the spiritual life in man in front of the Supreme
Spiritual Reality, whom He revealed. There is nowhere for a moment any doubt in
Christ as to what the true life of man is. He is here and now, a creature of
Nature, like all other creatures; but his true life is not natural, like that of
the fowls of the air or the lilies of the field. He is essentially a moral
being, with relations beyond nature, and wants and aspirations and duties which
connect him with a Divine or Supernatural order. From first to last this
spiritual conception underlies the Gospels, and makes itself felt in them. There
is no argument, because there is no hesitation. “Is not the life more than meat,
and the body than raiment?”Matthew, vi. 25.
The
possibility of a negative answer is not supposed. The claims of the natural order, some have even
thought, are unduly depressed. The spiritual
life seems to overshadow and displace them.
But this is only by way of emphasis, and in
order to rouse man from the dreams of a mere
sensual existence. “After all these things
do the Gentiles seek”Matthew, vi. 32.
—those who know no
better, to whom the meaning of the spiritual
and Divine order has not come. “But seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.”Ibid. vi. 33.
The spiritual must be held in its true place as
primary; after this the natural has also its place,
and to be recognised in addition.
But the great thought is, that man is the
dependent of a Divine kingdom, everywhere
transcending the visible and present world.
God has made him in His own image, and
loves him, however far he may have degraded
that image and wandered away from Divine good.
He claims man as His own—as rightfully belonging to the higher world of
spiritual intelligence, of which He is the Head. And so Christ came “to seek and
to save that which was lost.” Surely this is a higher conception of human life
than that of either ancient or modern secularism—a conception truer to the radical instincts of
human nature, ever looking beyond the present,
and owning the power of more than earth-born
thoughts. From the fact of sin itself and a sense
of wrong there comes a voice which speaks of
something better—of a life akin to angels and to
God. The very misery of man attests his greatness,Pascal, Faugère’s ed., ii. s. 2.
and that there is more in his life, which
“appeareth for a little moment, and then vanisheth away,” than the experience of a day. Towards this thought the yearnings of all larger
hearts, and the searchings of all higher minds,
had pointed for centuries. It was the dream
alike of Plato and of Cicero—of Egypt and of
Persia. Hebrew Prophecy and Psalmody had
grasped it more firmly as the Divine shone upon
them more clearly. Yet withal it remained a
comparative uncertainty before Christ. He, as
no one before Him had done, held forth before
men the conception of a higher life, greater than
all the prizes of earth, and more enduring than
all the accidents of time. That which was but
faintly apprehended by Gentile philosopher, or
even Jewish seer, was made manifest by the
appearing and resurrection of our Lord, “who
hath abolished death, and hath brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel.”2 Tim. i. 10.
Or, as St Peter says in his first Epistle,1 Peter, i. 3, 4.
“Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which, according to His abundant mercy, hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an
inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away.”
If light ever shone upon a darkened world, it
shone in this clear revelation of immortality, in
the assurance and strength of which a corrupt
and dying world rose to life again, and a new
glory was shed upon human thought and history.
What heart, upon whom the shadows of the
world have fallen, that has realised the transitoriness of earthly joys—the depth and sacredness of human affection too often vanishing
when wrought into the very substance of our
happiness,—does not warm into a nobler being,
in hope of an eternal life, where the weaknesses
of the present shall be perfected, its broken
ties reunited, and its wounds for ever healed?
Apart from this hope, what is there but darkness around and before us—the closed grave
within which our dear ones are laid, and a heart
breaking with the memory of a love that can no
more reach us? But if we believe that Christ
died and rose again—that He is, as He Himself
said, for us, and for all who believe in Him, “the Resurrection and the Life,”—then the light
shineth for us even in the dark places of our pilgrimage, until the eternal day dawn, and our
poor life, too—so marred and soiled with the
weakness of the flesh—shall be glorified together with those who have gone before, and
be for ever with the Lord.
The Divine Teacher who proclaimed and realised this undying hope for man, and fixed for
ever the consciousness of a spiritual life—did
He not truly say of Himself, “I am the Light
of the world"?
Let us close with two remarks.
If Christ is the “Light of the world,” Christianity is always a religion of light. Obscurantism of any kind is foreign to it. It shuts out
no real knowledge, no light of science, no beauty
of art or grace of literature. It welcomes all
truth. While we hold fast, therefore, to its living principles, let us never confound it with any
mere scheme of human thought, or institution
of human order. These schemes or institutions
may have many claims upon our respect: so far
as they commend themselves to our rational
assent, let us refuse them no honour. But
even the best ideas, and the best forms of the
Church, of past ages, are not to be identified
with Christianity itself. Opposition to them is
not necessarily opposition to the Gospel. The
abandonment of them is not necessarily abandonment of the truth that is in Christ. It is no part
of an intelligent faith, therefore, to resist new
ideas, or to shut itself obstinately within the enclosure of ancient traditions. Such a faith will
respect the old, but it will be open to light from
whatever source. So far as Christianity is true,
it must be consistent with all other truth. It
must accept all facts, whether these come to it
from within or from without. It need fear no
hostility from real science, and it will rejoice
that the thoughts of men grow more luminous as
to the Divine order of Nature or the growth of
human opinion and history. If there are ancient
dogmas at variance with the genuine advance
of knowledge, the enlightened Christian will be
ready to part with these dogmas. But having
the witness of the higher life in himself, he will
never let this witness go. He will hold to
the consciousness of a Divine order made clear
in Christ. All that is beautiful and heroic in
humanity, all the lights of truth and duty that
have shone in it from the first, are here brought
together. Any higher light that is in me witnesses to the “Light of the world.” And looking backwards on the past and forwards into
the future, who can see anything so capable of
blessing man truly or guiding him wisely and
well?
And let us, finally, remember that a religion
of light should be always a religion of living
earnestness. If Christ is “the Light of the
world,” “he that followeth me,” He adds, “shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life.” Have we, then, this light of life? Does
our light shine before men, that others, seeing
our good works, may glorify “our Father which
art in heaven"? Do we not rather, some of
us, walk in darkness, and love it, because our
deeds are evil? Let us not deceive ourselves.
We cannot have the light and yet abide in any
darkness of sin. Let us, therefore, cast off the
works of darkness, and put on the armour of
light. Let us show the reality of our faith by
the devotion and fruitfulness of our love. Then
the truth of the higher life will need for us
no argument. It will be seen in the power of
goodness working in us, and in the beauty of
a holiness that subdues all hearts. Amen;
XII.
THE CONTRASTS OF LIFE.
Ecclesiastes, xi. 7-9.
“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the
sun: but if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember
the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of
thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes:
but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”
LIFE is full of perplexing contrasts. Its lights
-^ and shadows intermingle in many a strange
and pathetic picture, and it is difficult sometimes
to catch its full meaning, and whither all its
changes tend. They seem the sport of accident
rather than the evolution of law. The tangled
spectacle baffles comprehension and hope, and
the spectator looks on amazed and distrustful.
Is there a moral purpose beneath it all? Do
not “all things come alike to all,” however they
may live—“one event to the righteous, and
to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean:”Ecclesiastes, ix. 2, 11.
time and chance to all
alike? “There is no remembrance of the wise
more than of the fool for ever.”Ibid. ii. 16.
Nay, is man better than the beast? “That which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts; . . . they have all one breath: so that a man hath no
preeminence.”Ibid. iii. 19.
The wheel of life goes on in endless maze; and our portion in it of good or evil,
of happiness or misery, is beyond our control. “The thing that hath been, it is that which
shall be; and that which is done, is that which
shall be done.”Ibid. i. 9.
Nature is a ceaseless routine,—duty, a laborious repetition—study, a wearying
toil—pleasure, an exhausting excitement. Who will show us any good? and why
should we not take life as it comes, without any high thought or anxious aims?
“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What
profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”Ibid. i. 2, 3.
This is not a high tone; but it is not always
an unnatural one in the face of many perplexities. A certain cynicism may lie near to
broad and sympathetic thoughtfulness; and the
Preacher seems not to have been free from traces
of such a feeling, as he surveyed the course of
his experience, and tried to interpret it. At
times the interpretation baffles him, and he
sees nothing in life beyond its incessant alternations and the wearying round of activities which
lead to nothing, and have no meaning beyond
themselves. We begin to wonder if he has
anything to tell us beyond the vanity of desire,
the disappointment of hope, and the negation
of all noble ambitions as well as lower enjoyments.
But there is a higher spirit also running
throughout the book, and rising into a clear
and consistent meaning. In all the changes of
life there is a purpose, obscure as it may often
seem. In the day of health man needs to be
reminded of his weakness. The mere enjoyment
of life should never terminate in itself, for there
is always more in life than the passing hour.
It is running on, and taking new shapes before
we are well aware. “Truly the light is sweet,
and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold
the sun.” But clouds may follow the sweetest
morning, and days of darkness will come in the
most rejoicing life. A man may live many
years and rejoice in them all, and his heart cheer
him in his youth. He may fondly take pleasure
as it comes, and find happiness in many happy
objects. But he is always to remember that
there is another side to life than that of enjoyment. And he should keep before him not the
half, but the whole of the picture. This of itself
will give a meaning to life which the mere experience of its transitory moments will never
give, and still less the abandonment of thought,
in which many pass their lives, taking what
comes of good and evil without ever trying to
unite them into a consistent picture.
But more than this. Life is not only to be
looked at on its darker as well as its lighter
side. It must further be regarded on its
moral side. It is not enough to be reflective,
and to remember the days of darkness. We
must get beneath all the superficial changes
of life to the great fact of responsibility which
underlies it, and alone gives it a complete
meaning. It is this fact, above all, which is
to be set against the fact of enjoyment as
its great counterpart, and the conjunction of
which with the other serves to glorify it and
raise it into an ideal. The moral element
is never absent from life. We must read it
everywhere if we would not fall below its true
end and purpose. Our highest moments of exhilaration should never dispense with it, or put
it out of sight. For it is always there, whether
we heed it or not. The handwriting is on the
wall while the feast is advancing, and the characters of judgment come forth when the wine-cup is drained, and the guests are disappearing
from the board. “Rejoice, O young man, in thy
youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days
of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine
heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know
thou, that for all these things God will bring thee
into judgment.”
Let us dwell shortly on the thoughts suggested by the text, so striking in the picture of
contrasts which it sets before us.
I. And first, it may be well to recall the reality
of the contrasts presented in life. Nothing might
seem less necessary, seeing how these contrasts
meet us everywhere in the world, and in our
own experience. But, full as life is of pathetic
meanings, we are often strangely insensible to
them. We may not regard them with indifference, but we fail to realise them. We may be
free from the ignorant contempt which looks on
all life as a chance, and its good and evil as
alike contingent and worthless; but how few are
able to enter with a sympathetic intelligence
into phases of life of which they themselves have
no experience! If we are well and happily circumstanced, we have difficulty in putting ourselves in the place of others who are otherwise.
We know that life is full of misery, but we
may have never known its burden, nor the
days of darkness, which are many. Instinctively we put away all thought of pain and
wretchedness, and sometimes even our imagination can lay but feeble hold of them. When we
stand in the calm strength of morning, with
radiance flooding the awakened earth, and “all
nature apparelled in celestial light,” we have
difficulty in recalling the night which has fled.
Or when in summer-time the sunshine broods
in every hollow of the hills, or sleeps in softness
on the sea, we can barely imagine the wintry
storm or the dreary gloom of an unlifted sky.
So the man who rejoices in health and strength,
with all his faculties of mind and body in full
play, can hardly imagine sickness and weariness, languor and depression nigh unto death.
The young man, in the pride of his youth and
eager hopefulness—how little can he understand
the old man, full of years and cares, and looking
backwards rather than forwards with burdened
eyes! The rich man, walking in the ways of his
heart, with no material want unsatisfied and no
wish unanticipated, may know that there are
not far from his door poor and miserable wretches
without bread enough to eat or raiment to cover
them—but how little can he enter into all the
difference between his own fulness and their
poverty! The well-born and happy girl to whom
no harm has ever come, who has been shielded
by domestic care and social convention from the
evil that is in the world—how little is she able to
know the very name of the misery under which
thousands of her sisters are perishing day by
day! The horrors of war are a byword; but
how little can any that dwell at ease realise
them truly—the agonies of the wounded, the
desolated homes, the bleeding hearts, the outraged sanctities, the inexpressible terror and
horror and suffering which follow in its train!
And yet these are all facts in life. Everywhere weakness mingles with strength, sickness
with health, poverty with riches, war with peace.
The darker colours are everywhere wrought into
the picture, and form a part of it as real as the
other. Whatever be our experience, we are never
to forget this. Especially if we are rejoicing
in the light, we are to remember the darkness.
This is the special caution of the Preacher, because it is that which is specially needed. The
experience of pleasure is more selfish than that
of sorrow—not always so, perhaps, yet commonly so. The strong man is apt to be insensible to weakness. He looks abroad upon life as
if it were all his own and he has only to gather
its ample treasures into his embrace. But all the
while, even in his own case, dire change may be
at hand. The springs of his strength may be
sapping, and many days of weakness before him.
The rich man may be near to poverty, while his
gains seem growing and his spending lavish.
The name of stainless honour may be gathering
an unheard-of shame; the pride of innocence
may be near to a fall; the light which has
lightened others may sink in darkness.
Life is made up of this endless play and
vicissitude of circumstance, often rising into
a tragic pathos. The artist finds in it his materials—the preacher his moral. The one gives
the picture—the other shows its lesson. Both
help us to realise it; and the work of imagination lies nearer to the work of religion than is
often allowed. No doubt it is possible to have
the imagination quickened, and even the heart
touched, without Christian sympathy being
kindled into action, or any labour of self-denial
for the good of others being ever undertaken.
It is marvellous how little what are called softhearted people sometimes do for the world, while
fond of talking of its wrongs and miseries;
how much, on the contrary, is sometimes done by
rough and plain people, who say nothing of their
sympathies or affections. All the same, the
imaginative and reflective elements lie close to
the religious in our nature; and undoubtedly one
of the greatest obstructions to spiritual culture
and progress everywhere is incapacity or deadness of sympathy. Men and women are apt to
be engrossed with their own little share of life.
They are unable to conceive life as a whole even
in their own case; its breadth of shadow as well
as of light—or how the one is meant to fit into
the other, and harmonise the whole to a higher
meaning than it would otherwise have. They
are content with the passing hour, especially if
it be an hour of enjoyment. They would put
away reflection, or sometimes it never comes to
them. They feel that the light is sweet, and
that it is pleasant for their eyes to behold the
sun; and beyond this their thoughts do not
carry them.
It is needless to say that this is an essentially
irreligious frame of mind barely a rational
one. One of the first instincts of religious reflection is to realise the possibilities of life,
and how perishable are all enjoyments, even if
they last “many years.” The Preacher warns
us to look ever from the present to the future,—from the light to the darkness,—and even
from the opening portals of life to a judgment
to come.
II. And this points to the second and still
higher view of life suggested in the text. It
is not merely full of vicissitudes which should
always awaken reflectiveness; but below all its
vicissitudes, and behind all its joys and sorrows alike, there lies a law of retribution which
is always fulfilling itself. It is only when we
rise to this view of life that we rise to a truly
moral or religious view of it. It is something, indeed, to have any serious thought at
all, and to remember how frequently the darker
colours are woven into the mingled web. No
one who knows anything of the world, and
the careless and selfish lives that many live,
will undervalue any degree of thoughtfulness.
For from the soil of a thoughtful sympathy
much good by God’s blessing may grow. But
as there may be thoughtfulness which runs out
into cynicism, so there may be thoughtfulness
which refuses to lift its eyes beyond the mere
round of human experience of joy and sorrow,
or which is even sceptical that there is anything
beyond this round of experience. The darker
side of life may be sufficiently felt, but the moral
use of it all may be dimly seen or not seen
at all.
It is the teaching of the passage before us,
however, as of all Scripture, that life is only
truly understood when realised as a moral development. It is not enough to rise above the
passing hour, or to take a reflective view of the
world and our own share in it. We must especially realise that all the moments of life have
a divine meaning—that they are linked together
by spiritual law—and are designed to constitute
a spiritual education for a higher sphere. This
is the true interpretation of the judgment which
God has everywhere set up against life, and
especially against its festive moments, as the
most dangerous and self-absorbing. And therefore, while the young man is invited to rejoice in
the days of his youth, and to walk in the sight
of his eyes, he is to know at the same time that for all these things God will bring him into
judgment.
It is wrong to forget the graver aspects of life
in its lighter enjoyments; it is the mark of a
poor, unimaginative, and selfish nature to do so.
But life has more in it than any superficial
moments of good and evil. It is essentially a
spiritual order, or development of spiritual principles, always at work, and under the operation
of which we are either growing into a higher
good or sinking into a deeper evil. How many
forget this! How do some views of religion
even disparage it, in the manner in which they
suppose life capable of dislocation, and delight
to set one side of it against another! While in
the world there is no more common delusion
than that we may give our youth to vanity and
rejoice with thoughtlessness, and yet catch up
the duties of life at some onward point more
vigorously than if we had not known youthful madness and folly. All such imaginations
are broken against the great retributive law
which runs throughout life and pervades every
phase of it If we give the rein to our pleasure-loving tendencies, and walk in the ways
of our heart, unmindful of higher things, the “lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life,” will take hold of us till we
not only do not think of higher things, but
do not care to think of them—or even despise
them as dreams of an impracticable Puritanism. There will grow from self-indulgence, deadness of heart; and from the love of pleasure,
atheism of desire; till the very beauty of the
natural life is worn away, and we fall into a
selfishness which is capable neither of satisfaction nor of hope. Of this we may be very sure,
that there is no unlawful gratification which
does not bring sooner or later its own punishment—that there is no enjoyment which we
have sought at the expense of temperance or
purity which does not enclose a sting ready to
burst forth and wound us in the hour of reaction,
if not in the very hour of intoxication. This
is an experience which never fails in some
shape or another—an essential element of moral
existence always asserting itself against every
attempt to crush and destroy it—the undying
witness of a higher meaning and a diviner end
in life, even when it has fallen below all trace
of a Divine ideal, and the Devil seems to have
taken it as his own. So long as any vision of
good survives, it will torment the evil-doer;
and when all self-torment ends, and the vision vanishes, surely this is the most frightful retribution of all. The dead soul is already given
over unto judgment, and only fit to be carried
to the place of darkness.
Moreover, it is to be borne in mind that life is
infinitely related to, as well as bound fast in,
moral law. Impulses to good or evil—above all
habits of good or evil—work outwardly, as well
as inwardly—work often through many lives, as
well as the one life, which has its own education
to make or mar. The retribution which may seem
delayed in the individual, is seen to assert itself
in the family, or in surrounding society. This,
indeed, is one of the darkest aspects of that law
of judgment under which all human life lies,
when in its inevitable operation it overwhelms
the innocent with the guilty, and stretches its
long-delayed penalty over victims who knew
nothing of the wrong. The evil seemed escaped,
but its curse was only wrought deeper than at
first appeared.
The voice of the Preacher, therefore, is no
empty voice, as he summons us in the days of
our youth, or of our riper age, to know that for
all these things God will bring us into judgment.
If it be a higher message, which summons us to
receive the good news of a higher life in Christ,
and to pass from all the weakness and helplessness of our own moral strivings to the fulness of
Divine grace and strength in Him, yet there is
also a true warning and message in the lower and
sterner key of the text. The one voice is truly
as much needed by us as the other. Nay, there
are those within the divine circle of faith who
would do well to remember it, and the whole
lesson of our passage—so tender and yet so
solemn—so discriminating in what it allows as
in what it condemns.
The light is acknowledged to be sweet, and
life pleasant. A man may live many years, and
rejoice in them all. There is no harm in that. It
is good for a man: the Preacher goes the length
of saying, in another passage, that there is “nothing better for a man, than that he should
eat and drink, and that he should make his soul
enjoy good in his labour.” A healthy naturalism
is nowhere condemned in Scripture—is nowhere
at variance with the demands of Divine law, or
the impulses of Divine grace. Neither are we
required to measure everywhere our share of enjoyment with a scrupulous caution, lest we pass
bounds. The young man is acknowledged in his
natural freedom. His heart is allowed to cheer
him in the days of his youth, and he may walk in the ways of his heart, and the sight of his eyes.
There are no tones in the passage of ascetic Puritanism, any more than of mere cynicism. Life is
good, and to be enjoyed; yet it is always grave,
and the account is alway running up against it.
The cynic is wrong who undervalues life either
in its joys or sorrows. The Puritan is wrong
who would stretch over it the shadows of an
artificial religion, and follow all its steps with
eyes of jealousy. The true view is at once earnest and genial, bright yet always thoughtful,
looking to the end from the beginning, and forecasting the future, yet without anxiety in the
experience of the present.
And this thoughtful insight, which is the
best guide for our own lives, suggests also the
highest view of life around us. The great advantage of looking below the mere surface to what
has been called the “moral granite” beneath,
which really makes the substance and power of
human experience, is not merely that it makes
us mindful of our own ways, and critical over
ourselves lest we fall into condemnation, but
that it helps us better to understand others.
It feeds in us the springs of sympathy, and helps
us to imagine difficulties other than our own.
There may be good below many a surface where
we see only evil. Wrong, no doubt, is always
wrong, and selfishness we are never in ourselves
or others to dignify with the name of amiable
weakness. But every full-hearted man knows
that there are forms of good more than his own—it may be better than his own—and that
there are often higher thoughts and higher aims
where he may fail to trace them.
A large and thoughtful view of life nourishes
this tolerance towards others, as well as watchfulness over ourselves. Tenderness, charity, hopefulness—all spring from it. It is the man who
grasps the deeper realities of his own life most
wisely who will be most loving, and hopeful, and helpful towards others. As he knows
how near weakness lies to strength in himself—failure to aspiration—selfishness to generosity—how inextricably the roots of sin and the shoots
of virtue are entwined in his own heart,—so he
thinks what good may lie near to what seems to
him evil in other lives, how strength may come
out of weakness, and God be glorified in ways
that he knows not of. Let us be hopeful for
others, while careful over ourselves, and leave
lives around us to the judgment of God, while
seeing always the awful finger of this judgment
pointing to our own.
And now, unto Him who hath given us the
promise of the life that now is, as well as that
which is to come, and whose grace can alone
strengthen us to live now so that hereafter we
may abide in His presence unto Him be glory
for ever. Amen.
XIII.
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.
1 Corinthians, xiv. 15-19.—“What is it then? I will pray with
the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will
sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
Else, when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of
thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? For thou
verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank
my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: yet in the
church I had rather speak five words with my understanding,
that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in a
tongue.”
THIS chapter, and particularly the verses we
have read, give us something of a real insight
into the character of the earliest Christian times.
They carry us back, across more than eighteen
centuries, and help us to see, as in a mirror, the
Corinthian Church, and what its worship was,
less than thirty years after the death of our Lord.
I say this with confidence; because the Epistles
to the Corinthians are admitted beyond all question, by all critics, however sceptical, to be the
genuine writings of the Apostle Paul. They
give us therefore, so far, a real picture of the
thought and life of their time. The Corinthian
Church, planted by the apostle, with its strange
enthusiasms and mingled beliefs, stands revealed
in them. And how very valuable and rare such
a picture is, may be estimated by the difficulty
we have in calling up before our minds any true
image of facts or institutions only one or two
centuries past. There are few things more difficult to do. Let us try, for example, to recall our
own Scottish Church of the seventeenth century—to bring clearly before us its mode of worship,
the attempt to displace which, in the summer
of 1637, gave rise to the memorable tumult
whose force spread through England as well as
Scotland, and changed our whole history—how
little would we be found agreeing in our reproduction of that worship, and the famous scene
connected with it; how scanty the materials for
their reproduction! How much harder still is it
to realise the form of that ancient Celtic Church
which prevailed in these islands before it was
supplanted by the Latin or Roman Ritual—the
Church of St Columba and of St Giles!This Sermon was also preached at the reopening of St Giles’s
Cathedral, or the High Church, after careful restoration, in the
spring of 1873.
Apart
from the difficulty which always exists of true
historic insight and appreciation, we cannot be
said, in either of these cases, to have adequate
means of recreating the image of the past. Facts
are wanting. But here at least we have before
us a series of undoubted facts. All that the
primitive Church was is not told us here. But
the features which are given are clear and unmistakable. The picture may not be complete;
because there was no intention of making it complete. But the lines are fresh and vivid, and
they are from the hands of a master.
Let us contemplate the picture first in its
details; then as a whole; and, lastly, draw
from it the meaning or lessons which it contains
for us.
I. The several details in the primitive Christian worship are here plainly indicated as four—to wit: (1.) Prayer; (2.) Praise; (3.) What is
called “Giving of thanks;” and (4.) Prophesying. These all receive attention, and to some
extent description.
(1.) Prayer takes precedence, if not in the
chapter, in the verses we have more particularly
made our text. And rightly so. For prayer is
a primary instinct of all worship. Wherever
there is any recognition of a Supreme Being, the
heart rises spontaneously in adoration, gratitude,
or supplication. The reality and intensity of
this spiritual feeling is its own justification.
And whatever difficulties it may involve to reason—however we may explain, or be content to
cease from explaining, the relation of the Divine
and the human will—the aspiration of prayer
will never fail while men look beyond themselves
to an invisible Power above them. Prayer was
a prominent feature of the worship of the Synagogue; and thence, no doubt, passed in its customary form into the service of the Christian
Church. But it took also a new spirit and
mould in doing so.
As described here, it was obviously of a twofold character. “I will pray with the spirit, and
I will pray with the understanding also.” The
prayer of the “spirit” and the prayer of the “understanding” were not the same. The language points to a pervading distinction which
runs through the chapter, and the general
nature of which is easily apprehended, whatever
difficulties its more special explanation may involve. The allusion is to the gift of tongues,
spoken of at the commencement and in the
close of the passage. This endowment was one
of the most remarkable of the early Church. It
appears to, have been common, to have been a
mark of the Divine presence, and yet to have
served no practical purpose of instruction or even
intelligent devotion. For the apostle says, in the
14th verse, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit
prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.”
The prayer of the spirit was, therefore, an ecstatic utterance, somehow edifying to the speaker,
but of no use to the Church. We are unable
to tell more particularly what it was. Such
phenomena of ecstasy have prevailed in later
times, and can well be imagined as a phase of
that powerful spiritual excitement out of which
the early Church came. In the nature of the
case, it is impossible to give any satisfactory explanation of a spiritual state which obviously
transcended reason and the working of ordinary
intelligence.
But the prayer of intelligence was plainly a
higher gift in which all could join, and the good
of which all could share. “I had rather speak
five words with my understanding,” the apostle
says, “than ten thousand words in a tongue.”
Great stress is laid here and throughout upon the
point of intelligibility. And there can be no doubt
that the prayers of the congregation—the “common prayers,” in which all participated—were
understood of all. Evidently, also, the prayers of
the early Church were free prayers, as yet unconfined to any set of words. The whole description
implies this. Men and women are depicted as
pouring forth their deeply-moved hearts before the
Lord, irrepressibly swayed by the fervour of their
feelings and their devout personal enthusiasm.
(2.) Praise is combined with prayer. “I will
sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the
understanding also.” And in the Epistle to the
Ephesians,Ephesians, v. 19.
we read more fully of the early
Christians speaking to themselves “in psalms,
and hymns, and spiritual songs” (odes);
singing and making melody in their hearts to
the Lord. This language of a later EpistleAbout five years later than 1st Corinthians, or about 62 A.D.
would imply that there was even thus early
in the Church some traces of a Christian hymnology—or certain forms of metrical composition—for the special expression of Christian sentiments or feelings. The Psalms, no doubt, were
sung or chanted as in the Synagogue; but the “hymns and spiritual songs” seem to have been
something in addition.
Such a point cannot be clearly settled. We
have no Christian hymns—other than those
taken from the Gospels—earlier than the second
half of the second century, or more than a century later than the Epistle; just as we have really
no forms of prayer which can be traced beyond
the same period. There are indeed liturgies,
which pass under the name of St James and St Mark;Neither of these liturgies, in their present form, can be
traced higher than the fifth or sixth century. The Liturgy of
St Mark, for example, directs that the “priest” shall repeat the
Nicene Creed; and it is well known that that Creed was not
generally used in the service of the Church till the middle of the
sixth century. See Dr Swainson’s volume on the Nicene and
the Apostles’ Creeds, pp. 133, 134.
and these liturgies, although they have
no genuine apostolic authority, may embrace
ancient fragments of common or congregational prayers. Even so the earliest Christian
hymns we possess may embody in fuller composition still earlier fragments of the Christian
lyre. Some have pleased themselves with the
thought, for example, that the germ of the well-known Te Deum Laudamus—traditionally attributed to the great Latin teacher, St Ambrose, of
the fourth century may be found as far back as
the time of Pliny and Trajan, in the beginning
of the second century, when the former reported
to the latter that the Christians of Bithynia “sang
hymns to Christ as to God.”In the well-known letter of the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan.
The conjecture is
not without some degree of probability; while
there are other hymns, or parts of hymns, such as
the Gloria Patri, the Gloria in Excelsis, and some
beautiful snatches of morning and vesper hymns,
of very high antiquity.See Bunsen’s Analecta Ante-Nicaena, vol. iii. pp. 86-90;
Bingham’s Antiquities, Book xiv.; also Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum. (Leipsic: 1871.)
Of those from the Gospels, the songs of Zacharias, of Mary, and of
Simeon—the well-known Benedictus, Magnificat, and
Nunc Dimittis of the Anglican service—I need not say anything. They had, no doubt,
from a very remote period, their place in the
worship of the Church. But the really significant fact is, that from the very first age there
were evidently in the Church distinctively Christian hymns or songs, sung in addition to the
Psalms of the Old Testament. The “new heart” given in Christ sought then, as it has always
done, utterance in lyrical forms of its own.
Fresh with new-born life, it was not content to
confine itself to the older channels of devotion.
It sought channels for itself, and consecrated
anew both words and music to celebrate the
ardour of its praise.
(3.) But besides “prayer” and “praise,” there
is a special part of the early Christian worship
described in the 16th verse as “giving of thanks” (eucharistia). It hardly admits of any doubt
that the reference is to the solemn eucharistical service which accompanied the
“breaking
of bread”—the central service of communion
round which all the other worships of the early
Church gathered. To speak of this service at
length, as it is depicted in the Epistles to the
Corinthians, would lead us away from our subject. We remark merely on the one feature of
it emphasised here. The eucharistical service
was designed to be understood of all. The intelligibility commended by the apostle throughout is here specially enforced. For unless the
thanksgiving was intelligible, how was it, he
implies, to be responded to? It was that part
of the Christian service, more than any other,
meant to evoke the assent of the congregation,
and to call forth their intelligent response; and
its meaning would be defeated, therefore, if it
partook of the nature of mere spiritual rapture
or ecstasy. “Else, when them shalt bless with the
spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of
the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks,
seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?
For thou verily givest thanks well, but the
other is not edified.” In short, when the solemn
thanksgiving was offered, which remains to this
day in all Churches so impressive a feature of
the communion service, it was to be in words
that all could follow, so that all with loud voice
might say Amen. There was nothing in the
early Christian worship more striking or beautiful than this loud-voiced Amen. “All the
people,” Justin Martyr1 Apol., 45.
says in the middle of
the second century, testified their assent to the
great thanksgiving prayer “with audible voice,
saying Amen”—an unerring witness of the antiquity of a beautiful usage, and of the clearly
intelligible character which in the first ages
characterised this most solemn act of Christian
worship.
(4.) The fourth element of worship, and the
prominent subject of the chapter, is “Prophesying.” We are in the habit of associating with
this word the idea of prediction. But neither
the English nor the original Scriptural expression necessarily contain this meaning. They
convey the idea rather of “speaking out;” and
what we mean by preaching is nearer St Paul’s
meaning, and indeed nearer the function of the
Old Testament prophets, than anything else.
The prophets were preachers of truth, righteousness, and judgment to come, far more than
they were predicters or foretellers. “He that
prophesieth,” says the apostle, “speaketh unto
men, to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” Prophesying was therefore no mere giving
of an oracle, but the utterance of earnest and
reasonable speech. It aimed at the mind and
conscience. Those whom it addressed were
intelligent auditors, “convinced of all, judged
of all.” The secrets of their hearts were drawn
forth, and their spiritual being awakened, so
that “all may learn, and all may be comforted.”
As prayer was the free utterance of devout
feeling in the early Church, so “prophesying” was the free utterance of the “word in season”—the Divine message which searched the intelligence, quickened the spirit, and sought to
exalt and purify the lives of those who heard it.
And is not this the ideal of preaching always?—no mere formal discourse, or theological argument, or polemical or moral essay, or sentimental rapture, but a living message from speaker
to hearers. If sermons were always living,
reasonable, and luminous with intelligence,
should we find them spoken of as they too often
are? Do not men always gather willingly to
listen to a true voice, and the words of free and
earnest thought, animated by faith, and winged
by the quickened impulses of the preacher’s own
heart.
II. But let us now turn from the details of
this feature of primitive worship to contemplate
it as a whole. What is the general impression
which it makes? Do we not feel, as we call it
up before us, how like in substance, how unlike
in form, it is to later modes of worship? Here
we have the several elements of worship to this
day—prayer, praise, preaching, the eucharistic
solemnity,—all with which we are familiar,
whether as Presbyterians, or Episcopalians, or
Congregationalists. In the Corinthian Church,
about the year 57 or 58, we see the Divine
original of our common service. We cannot
ascend to a higher source. No one has a right
to call upon us to descend to a lower. We are
content to stand by this early fountain-head of
Christian ritual, and to recognise thankfully
how much there is here which the piety, hope,
and sacred joy of eighteen Christian centuries
have consecrated. Shall any one venture to say,
in the face of this picture, that wherever men and
women are seen humbly engaged in prayer, and
praise, and thanksgiving in the name of Christ,
there can be any doubt of the Christian character
of the worship, and of its Divine sanction?
But the Corinthian ritual is not more like in
substance than unlike in form and detail to
our diverse modes of modern Christian worship.
The idea of an order of service is hardly found
in the picture. The features have the freshness,
but also something of the rudeness, of an original
sketch. All the subjects are present, but they
are indefinitely grouped—indistinctly, although
powerfully outlined. We get the impression
throughout of freedom, variety, unsettledness—a common and strong enthusiasm pervading
all hearts, and venting itself without restraint. “How is it then, brethren?” says the apostle;
“when ye come together, every one of you hath
a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a
revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things
be done unto edifying.”
There is plainly no trace of a formal worship,
or of that “uniformity” which, in later times, has
been deemed so important a note of the Christian Church. I hardly think that any existing
ritual, whether Presbyterian or Episcopalian,
Latin or Greek, would claim to be the counterpart of the picture here presented. No doubt
they would severally say with truth that this
is to be accounted for by the fact that the
order of Christian worship was as yet unformed.
With less truth they would probably add that
their special mode of worship represents this
order in its finally settled form. Statements of
this sort hardly admit of an answer. The historical student nowhere finds anything absolutely settled in the ever-advancing growth of
institutions, whether civil or ecclesiastical. All
that need be said now is, that this picture of
the primitive worship, however unsettled, is the
only picture that, on any Protestant view, can
claim a Divine original. Subsequent developments may be good or bad; but, at any rate,
they are not apostolic nor primitive. This is
the original whence they have grown. This is
the first sketch, whoever may have filled in the
picture.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing in the
chapter, as well as throughout the Epistle, is
the absence of any allusion to an order of clergy
or office-bearers appointed for the conduct of
worship. The “presbyter” or “elder” so often
mentioned elsewhere, especially in the later
pastoral epistles, is not even indicated. And
this is the more remarkable, that the apostle
here and elsewhere in this Epistle gives special
injunctions as to certain disorders which had
sprung up in the Corinthian Church. He says
distinctly that such and such things should not
be, but he nowhere says that presbyter or bishop
is to take order to prevent them in virtue of his
authority. No idea of presbyter or bishop, of
priest or prelate, seems to cross his mind.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that this
is no evidence that a Christian ministry or order
of clergy is not good in itself, or even of Divine
appointment. It would be unwarrantable, from
the absence of allusion on the part of the apostle,
to draw any such general conclusion. The real
sanction of the Christian ministry rests upon
that Divine necessity for order which is distinctly recognised and enforced in this very
chapter. At the same time we may, we are
bound to draw this inference, that an order of
clergy of this or that definite type, with such
and such grades of office, is not vital to the
validity of Christian worship. It is scarcely
possible to conclude less than this. For if the
idea of Christian worship is only true or complete when a certain order of clergy conduct it,
it is inconceivable that St Paul should not have
let drop some hint of this in all that he says
here or elsewhere as to the organisation of the
Church and its service. Not a word escapes
him to this effect. Whatever he says implies
the contrary. Two rubrics, and two alone, he
lays down, and both are inspirations of Christian
sense rather than formal impositions of authority. “Let all things be done unto edifying.”Ver. 26.
“Let all things be done decently, and in order.”Ver. 40.
III. Let us, finally, inquire as to the practical
meaning of the picture, or the lessons it bears
for us.
Plainly it bears, first of all, a lesson of tolerance. If there is no existing mode of Christian
worship that can truly pretend to be in all
respects apostolic rather than others—if our
several Churches so far preserve the apostolic
lineaments in their service, while none can claim
an exclusive identity with those lineaments—there is a clear duty of mutual respect and
charity resting upon all. We may greatly prefer
our own mode of worship, but we should have
the intelligence and elevation to recognise that
there may be good in other modes than our own.
This may be styled latitudinarianism; but there
is no harm in the word, nor, indeed, in the thing,
whatever some good people may think. There
is an unhappy craving nowadays after what
are called decided and definite views in this as
in other matters. The indefiniteness of the New
Testament does not satisfy. There must be the
voice of authority, and the clear-cut formula
ready at hand. And, strangely, the same cry is
heard with no less emphasis from the camp of
unbelief. Here, also, authority is the watchword,
and “uniformity” the borrowed flag flaunting
once more its old lie in our face. For ourselves,
we are content with New Testament freedom.
People forget that to be authoritative and definite—what they call decided—in religious
matters, where there are no data for decision, is
folly and not wisdom. It is just as much our
duty to hesitate when we do not see our way, as
it is to advance without flinching when the path
is open and clear. Suspense of mind may be
painful, but it may be the only course in many
cases for a wise, thoughtful, and fair mind.
Plainly we are not bound to affirm—nay, we
have no means of affirming—whether this or
that form of worship be the true or only right
form. There is no well-informed, enlightened,
and candid mind but would shrink from such
an affirmation. Our duty is therefore clear to
use our best judgment, but to concede to others
the same privilege. I have worshipped according to many forms in the West and in the East;
and I have never found any where I could not
find God, if my heart sought Him. Let us prize
our own worship more than any other if we will,
but let us never look with contempt or irreverence on worship other than our own. There is
no inconsistency nor laxity in such an attitude.
Nothing is further from true tolerance than indifference. When we belong to a Church, we
may have—we are right in having—a special
care for its worship; but let us never turn away
in scorn from our Christian neighbour or his
worship, while we love the gates of our own Zion
and the sanctuary where our forefathers prayed.
As to our own worship, the passage is full of
instruction. (1.) This worship should be always
intelligent. A ritual which is not plain and
comprehensible to all minds, reaching the soul
through all its forms, and flooding it with some
true light or interest through all its elements of
aesthetic grandeur or beauty, is so far imperfect.
It is making more of the form than the substance—of the sign than of the thing signified.
And this is a mark of corruption in all things,
as it is a tendency against which all worship
must more or less strive. When we see the
mode displacing the matter, and the ritual made
a substitute for the spiritual, there is always
danger—and that of the worst kind—of lapsing
from Christianity into a sort of paganism, and
placing an idol in His room who is a Spirit, and
must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
(2.) But while our worship should be always
intelligent and spiritual, it should also be always
seemly or decorous. “Let all things be done
decently, and in order.” While our reason and
conscience are addressed, and our higher feelings
evoked, our sense of order, propriety, and beauty
should not be offended. Our taste and sense of
art, in short, should be consulted as well as our
spiritual intelligence. What really interferes
with the one will outrage the other. This seems
the simple and right rule in all questions of
improving worship. Culture has its claims as
well as reason, and we are bound to beautify our
worship as well as to make it intelligible and
earnest. Some of the disorders which the
apostle rebukes in this Epistle were plainly the
result of mere confusion and unmannerliness.
Let not any think that when they are unmannerly in the House of God they are practising
evangelical simplicity. Rather they are disobeying a clear apostolic precept, “Let all things be
done decently.” So when we allow our worship to be unseemly in any respect; our prayers
to be informal, confused, and dogmatic; our
praise to be a harsh discordant noise, instead of
a grave, sweet-toned melody; our communion
service to be what it should not be—a series
of preachings rather than a devout contemplation with solemn thanksgiving and loud-voiced
Amen,—let us remember that the apostle is
not for us, but against us. And let us strive to
bring all things into harmony with his mind,
which in this as in other respects was the mind
of Christ, to which all our highest instincts, as
well as our common needs, should be bound in
blessed union.
(3.) Lastly, our worship should be always real and profitable.
“Let all things be done unto edifying.” The aim of all Christian worship is to
bring us nearer to God and to Christ—not merely to touch our heart, or soothe
our conscience, or improve our minds, but to “edify” us—that is, to build us up in faith and holiness
and comfort unto salvation. This is its highest
end—the improvement of our spiritual character and of our daily lives. If a Christian
Church be not a temple in the old sacrificial
sense, neither is it a mere lecture room or hall
for discussion. It is, or ought to be, a school to
bring us to Christ, that we may learn of Him
whatever is true and good and holy. If it
knows no altar save in a memorial or symbolic
sense, all its lessons should yet point to the
Great Sacrifice offered up once for all, and all
its ritual lead to the Cross as the power of God
and the wisdom of God for our salvation.
It is easy to think lightly of these things, or
in these days to speak lightly of them. But
life, for all this, does not lose its old seriousness,
nor death its great awe. And there is one Power,
and one alone, fitted to do battle with the evil of
the one and the sadness of the other. There
is one wisdom higher than all other wisdom,
and which can alone save us either from old
falsehoods or new follies,—the wisdom which is
from above. There is one righteousness which
is ours in Christ. All our worship should bring
this reality of spiritual truth, and righteousness
of grace and purity, more home to us, and help
us more to make it our own. There is no
higher life for us here or hereafter. The sacred
aim that binds all Churches and the Christian
centuries together, and hallows the worship alike
of monk and priest and presbyter, is to make
men more like Christ. What work can be so
great? The Church that most owns this work—whose worship most serves it—will be most
owned of God and most blessed by Him. And
those who have most of the mind of Christ are
most Christian, whatever be their special mode
of worship. Let us not deceive ourselves with
forms, when God demands of us reality; but let
us humbly use all our means of grace that we
may “put on the Lord Jesus,” and walk in love,
as He loved us and gave Himself for us. And
to His name be all the praise. Amen.
XIV.
CHRISTIAN UNION.
John, xvii. 21. “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art
in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent me.”
THERE has been an ever-recurring dream of a united Christendom. The dream has
never been realised. Even at the first—supposed
by many to be the golden age of the Church,
just as men in after-years are apt to idealise the
beginning of their life, and to suppose that such
a glow of happiness can never return—even then
there was no such union among Christians as
many people imagine. On the contrary, there
is the clearest evidence that there were parties
then, as there are parties now—divisions of
less or of greater moment—those who said that
they were “of Paul,” and those “of Apollos,”
and those “of Cephas,” and others—no doubt, holding all the rest as of inferior standing—who said they were “of Christ.”1 Corinthians, i. 12.
So
marked, in fact, were the Jewish and Pauline
types of Christianity in the earliest age, that
well-known theories of the formation of the
Church have been based on the recognition
of this great distinction; and what is called
Catholicism has been supposed to be not the
natural growth of the original genius of the
Gospel, but the conciliation of two antagonistic
Christian parties. Whatever truth there may
be in such a view, there can be no doubt to
any intelligent reader of St Paul’s Epistles that
the Apostolic Church, no less than that of
later ages, was a Church without uniformity
either of doctrine or of worship. As there were
diversities of gifts, there was then, as there have
always been, diversities of opinion, and equally
so, differences of administration and of devotional form and practice. The dream of Christian union in the first age, any more than
in any other age, vanishes the more closely we
are able to inspect it. The radical differences
which lie in human nature, Christian or otherwise, assert themselves before our eyes in the
pages of the New Testament.
The Church of the third and fourth centuries
realises the vision of Catholicism more perfectly;
but to the student it is no less a combination of
many parties and opinions frequently in conflict
with one another. It is customary, in reviewing
these centuries, to class one course of thought
and of action as catholic and orthodox, and the
rest as sectarian and heretical; but the more
intimately all the phenomena are studied, the
less tenable does such a view appear. There is,
no doubt, truth on one side and error on another;
but truth is not always on the same side; the so-called “heretic” has much to say for himself—has sometimes as good a standing in Christian
reason, and even tradition, as the reputed champion of orthodoxy.
Mediaeval Christendom, again—not to speak of
the Eastern and original branch of Christianity
then permanently separated from the Western
or Latin branch—presents a picture of varied and
frequently conflicting activity. The opposing
colours appear the more lively, the more familiar the picture becomes—Pope at variance with
Pope, prelate with priest, and monk with monk.
The “variations” of Protestantism have become
a byword. Long ago they were held forth, as at
this day they are sometimes still spoken of, as
an evidence that the true Church must be sought
elsewhere than amidst such a “chaos of sects.”
What, then, are we to say of Christian union?
Is it a dream? one of those illusions by which
men try to escape from the hard world of reality
into a world of beautiful possibilities where all
falls into imaginary order, and none but voices of
peace are heard. It is undeniable that some of
the noblest Christian hearts have cherished this
dream. Ever and again, from amidst the distractions of controversy and the miseries of unchristian strife, there has gone up the cry for a
united Christian Church which should face the
evils of the world, and the moral wretchedness
which comes from division and unbelief. In a
time like ours, which is big with all issues of
good and evil—with heavenward and earthward
aspirations alike with the throes both of a wider
faith and a deeper scepticism—the longing for Christian union has grown in many
quarters and taken various practical developments. It has sometimes seemed as if
the wave of reaction from a preceding period of indifference or of bitterness
would carry forward the growing enthusiasm till it issued in a mighty stream
bathing all the Churches and flooding them by its onward flow.
This aspiration after Christian unity, even if
it take erroneous forms, is a blessing to be
thankful for. It comes always of a certain
large-heartedness, mixed as it may be with prejudice or the illusion of a hope more fond than
rational. Large-heartedness—even if unwise or
fanciful—is more interesting, and indeed wiser,
than narrow-mindedness, or that scope of heart
and intellect which can never see anything but
the difficulties of everything, and is rich in the
multitude of its small experiences. It is a good
sign of our time, upon the whole, that so many
in all Churches have had, and still have, dreams
of Christian union, and that the voices of peace
rather than of war have been heard from so
many sides of the Christian Church.
But is the dream never to be realised? and
the voice of prophecy never to be fulfilled? It
is surely impossible to read such words as those
of my text without acknowledging that there is
a sense in which Christian unity should never
be absent from the Church—nay, that in so far
as it is absent, a true note of the Church is
wanting. What, then, is the meaning of these
words? and how do we rightly interpret them?
They are solemn as words can be—part, as they
are, of the sublime prayer which our Saviour
offered up for His disciples on the night in which
He was betrayed. They thrill with an affectionate aspiration and awe. They contemplate
a state not merely ideal in its happiness, but
capable of realisation—a true condition into
which all the disciples of our Lord—not only
those present, but all who through them should
believe in His name—were called upon to enter
as a token of their discipleship. “As Thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent
them into the world. And for their sakes I
sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them also which shall believe on
me through their word; that they all may be
one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee,
that they also may be one in us: that the world
may believe that Thou hast sent me.”
I. Plainly these words imply that a reality of
Christian union is attainable among Christians;
but plainly also, that the idea of union as
conceived by our Lord is something different
from the dreams which men have often had of
it. These dreams have proved impracticable
not merely because men are evil and prone to
disunion, but also in a great degree because men
are men, with different interests and tastes and
tendencies. The picture of Christian division
in the past, as in the present, has two sides. It
proceeds from two quite distinct causes, one of
which is a permanent, and therefore a good,
element in human nature—the other of which
alone is evil. Men have sought to bind the
one element as well as the other. Nay, they
have far more frequently sought union along the
line of intellect and opinion than that of feeling
and action. They have been more busy with
the formation of a common creed, and the obligation of common modes of Church government
and worship, than with the formation of a
catholic spirit, and the obligation of brotherly
concord and co-operation. So much so, that the
idea of Christian union has come almost wholly
to apply to the junction or incorporation of
Christian Churches. Churches are specially said
to unite when their ministers and members not
merely join in common worship and common
Christian work, but come under formal sanction
to do so—to hold the same doctrines, and to
follow no devious courses of opinion or ceremonial. Here, as so often, men have materialised
the principles of Christ. They have been intent
on doctrine, or ritual, or administration; while
He was intent only on spirit and character.
They have thought of uniformity, while He
thought only of unity. They are proud of what
they mean by uniformity as something higher
than unity; whereas it is something really lower—something which is by no means necessarily
a good in itself, and which can never be so if
enforced from the outside instead of growing
from the inside.
In short, there are two ideas of Christian
union, one of which is spiritual and essentially
Christian—so that where it is absent the Christian spirit is absent—and the other of which is
formal in one sense or another. It is of great
importance for us not to mistake which is the
true and only practicable idea. While we mourn
the past divisions of Christendom, we are at the
same time bound to learn from them, and especially to learn from, them in the light of these
words of our Lord. On the one hand we cannot doubt—no Christian can doubt with such
words before him-that unity is at once an
unfailing Christian obligation, and a fact of the
utmost moment to the life and progress of the
Church. Where it is wanting, the fulness of
Divine life must be wanting, and the free course
of Divine truth retarded. Only where it is present can the blessing and power of the Gospel
receive their true development and attain their
appropriate triumph. If in any respect our
separate ecclesiastical organisations are allowed
to obscure from us this great note of the Church,
and to plunge us into unseemly rivalry and contention, sectarian bitterness and controversy,
then they act injuriously. If not unchristian in
themselves, they are put to an unchristian purpose. But, on the other hand, it is no less impossible for us to doubt that the unity of which
Christ speaks is something essentially compatible with differences of ecclesiastical organisation,
and even of dogmatic opinion—that the bond of
Christian union with Him is not something outward, but something inward. The facts of
human nature, the facts of Christian history,
and specially the words before us in their true
meaning, clearly imply this.
Let us examine the words of our Lord in
proof of this. His prayer is, that His disciples
may be one in Himself and in the Father. “As
Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they
also may be one in us.” The ground of Christian unity therefore, in our Lord’s view, is participation in the life of the Father and the Son.
One Christian is united to another in so far as
they share together the life that is hid with
Christ in God. “I in them, and Thou in me,
that they may be made perfect in one.”John, xvii. 23.
“If
a man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto
him, and make our abode with him.”Ibid. xiv. 23.
Christ,
and Christ alone, is the centre of reconciliation
between God and man. In Him we find God,
and God finds us. And even so Christ is the
only true centre of union between man and
man. Out of Christ, and strangers to His grace,
we are not only separated from God, but from
one another—the spiritual unity of man with
man is broken, the bonds of brotherhood are dissolved; and notwithstanding the ties of affection,
and the sympathies of friendship, men have a
constant tendency to isolate themselves, evermore within the limits of their own selfishness,
and to mind only their own things. Such a
spirit of self-seeking is deep in the natural
heart of man, and shows itself in many ways.
But whenever we touch the life of Divine
love and self-sacrifice that is in Christ, the
hard and selfish heart melts away. The enthusiasm of humanity—of a common brotherhood in humanity—kindles within us at the
quickening touch. The love of self dies down,
or is no longer an absorbing passion consuming
our higher and better feelings. The love of
Christ constrains us; “because we thus judge,
that if one died for all, then were all dead: and
that He died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him which died for them, and rose again.”2 Corinthians, v. 14, 15.
The ground of all living unity, therefore,
amongst men, is Christ, and there is no other
ground. He is the centre which, when we touch,
all our enmity is broken and our discords healed.
Alienations, divisions, jealousies, fall away from
His peaceful presence. When we really come into
His presence, we find ourselves at one not only
with Him but with our brethren, who are also
His brethren. The spring of this union is
spiritual, and only spiritual. It may be helped or
confirmed by external aids, but it is itself in no
degree external. It may take external forms—it necessarily will do so; but it is not linked to
any of these forms. It is deeper than them all,
as the soul itself—communing spiritually with
the Father and the Son; it is wider than them
all—overflowing the whole life, and manifesting
itself in the whole service of both soul and body.
But the language of the text helps us to
understand still more clearly the character of
Christian union. It is not merely a union in
Christ as a common spiritual centre, but it is
such a union as subsists between God the Father
and the Son. Now, this union of Divine Persons
in the Godhead—whatever else it may be—is a
perfect consonance of will and affection, so that
the Father hath evermore delight in the Son,
and the Son in the Father. That there is more
than this accordancy of will and affection in the
Divine subsistence of the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit—three Persons in one Godhead—we
believe; and that the life of the Church in its
strength and harmony rises out of, and depends
upon, the adorable constitution of the Godhead
we also believe: but how all this is, or its reason
and method, we cannot comprehend.“It is better for us to confess at once that we do not understand the mystery of the Trinity, than rashly to claim for ourselves a knowledge of it. In the Day of Judgment I shall not
be condemned because I say I do not know the nature of my
Creator: if I have spoken rashly of Him, my rashness will be
punished; but my ignorance will be pardoned. . . . Sufficient
for us that the Trinity is; we are not rashly to seek to know the
reason of its being.”—Sermon in Appendix to Vol. V. Benedictine
ed. of Augustine’s works; quoted by Dr Swainson in his volume
on the Creeds. The author of the sermon is unknown.
There
is no difficulty, however, in understanding the
unity of spiritual affection which subsists betwixt the Father and
the Son, so that the Father Could say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased;”Matt. iii. 17.
and the Son could say, “I
delight to do Thy will, my God;”Psalm xl. 8.
“My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to
finish His work.”John, iv. 34.
Every one can appreciate
such a concord of will and affection, and recognise the light which it throws upon the bond
of Christian union on earth. Whatever deeper
character this bond may have springing out of
the organic union which we have with Christ,
and Christ with us, it must at least always be
a union of spiritual desire and affection. As the
Son evermore loves the Father, and the Father
the Son—as one holy concord binds them ever
in one—so the spirit of union in the Church
must be everywhere the same spirit of love and
moral consent. It must be a unity of heart with
heart, and will with will; a union, therefore,
characteristically of action, for all affection is
already action. This is the lowest conception we
can form of Christian union; but at the same time
it is the highest. For whatever may be higher
in the unity of Christ with God, and of Christians
with Christ and with one another, we can only
believe that this arises from its greater spiritual
secrecy—its more profound mystery of spiritual
truth. It is the spiritual depth of the Trinity that we fail to comprehend. So far from
its being anything more outward or tangible
than the unity of will and affection which we
can comprehend, it is only because it is something more utterly hid in the Divine Essence;
and, therefore, more perfectly and gloriously
spiritual that it evades our power of conception
and expression. A unity which is in any sense
less than a unity of affection, of will, and common effort, is not Christian, whatever it may
be. A combination which starts not from within but from without—from any consent save the
consent of hearts fused by a common love and
sympathy, and rejoicing in common action—is
not after the conception of Christ, nor likely to
have the blessing of Christ.
If this be the true view of Christian union, it
is clear that this union is not to be sought or
found in political movements or administrative
changes, or alterations of doctrinal or ecclesiastical stand-points. Such things may be good or
not. They have their own place and interest.
It might be well that many improvements
were made in our ecclesiastical arrangements,
and that our several Churches were drawn into a closer union of creed and organisation;
but the primary requisite is not outward but
inward change—a growing desire for the blessing of unity—a growing love for all Christian
brethren. This is the true line in which we
must look for the realisation of our Lord’s Prayer.
If our Churches were more externally united—this would probably be good; but not if union
were supposed to consist in such external adjustments, rather than in the union of heart with
heart, and life with life.
It is the preference of the outward to the inward which has been the bane of many recent
ecclesiastical movements, as of such movements
at all times. Instead of the eternal and divine
provision for Christian unity, in the redemptive
life and death of the Son of God, as the common treasure of all believing souls, some feature
in the constitution of the Church has been held
forth as of catholic or unifying efficacy. If
Scotland would only become Episcopalian—some
have said—it would enter once more into the
Catholic unity broken by our rude Reformers.
Or, again, if all Presbyterians would come together in the national Church, on a basis of popular privilege, then we would have a united
ecclesiastical power, fitted to struggle with social
evils, and to stem the tide of immorality and
unbelief. On the advantages or disadvantages of
such an ecclesiastical union, I need not dwell.
Its utility for any practical end of good would
certainly depend less upon its power than upon
its enlightenment and the breadth of its intelligence. What I cannot doubt is that such
ideas of union are not in the mind of Christ.
No teaching was ever less ecclesiastical than His.
Questions of polity did not move him. The
unifying principle with Him is not here nor
there—not in Episcopacy nor Presbyterianism—not in this form nor that—but in Himself.
Every Christian Church, of course, is so far
ready to allow this. The principle is conceded;
but all Churches alike fail to work it out.
Somehow Christ is always on their side. They
have Christ rather than others, and they have
the Church which he founded rather than others.
While Christ is the admitted source of all Christian blessing, yet somehow Christian blessing
is only to be really and fully found in their
way—in certain forms of outward appointment
which they have accepted and approve. They
are not content with saying that special modes
of ecclesiastical rite and government—special
views of Christian truth—are best, according to
their experience, for developing and maintaining
the full force of Christian thought and action.
This were a fair and rational position. But they
say—logically, all ecclesiasticism says—that a
certain definite order of thought, and worship,
and government is of rightful, and only of rightful, efficacy to insure catholic truth and unity.
But the Divine voice nowhere says this. Truly,
this is to make the grace of Christ no longer
free, and the unity which comes from Him no
longer spiritual—to link the one to historical
accident, and materialise the other by external
adjunct.
Ecclesiastical dogmatism, instead of helping
towards unity, only tends to deeper disunion.
Wherever external authority of any kind is
arbitrarily asserted, souls, instead of being drawn
together in the love of Christ, are always drawn
apart into the assertion of their own indefeasible
rights. The more tightly Church bonds are
held, the more deeply is individual opposition
excited, and the more violent are the ruptures of
Christian charity.
But it will be asked, how can Christian unity
exist apart from visible manifestation or “corporeity”? I answer, why should it not do so?
Can I not love my brother because I do not
agree with him about mysteries that neither of
us understand—because I prefer one mode of
worship and he prefers another? If I am much
of a man—not to say a Christian—I will love
him all the more because in some things we
differ. I will respect his honesty, and get nearer
to his heart while I do so. Unity of affection
will come the more from difference of mind.
But it will be said, again, is not the state of
our Christian Churches, standing aloof from one
another in mutual estrangement and contention,
a spectacle of offence to the Christian heart?
No doubt it is so. But the real offence consists
not in any intellectual, or administrative, or liturgical differences distinguishing our Churches;
but solely in their moral separation—their
unchristian alienations and jealousies. And
what does this prove?—not the need of ecclesiastical uniformity, but of inward grace and of
Divine charity. Divisions abound, and hearts
are separated, not because we are aggregated in
several Churches, and have different ecclesiastical
usages, but because we keep away from the
fulness of Divine blessing that is in the one
Shepherd and Bishop of souls, and do not stand
in awe and sin not—because our faith is weak,
and our love cold, and our holiness but a feeble
gleam amidst the darkness of sin. It is of the
poverty of Christian thought that notions of
uniform Church organisation are born; it is of
the weakness of Christian feeling that our distinctions, as Churches, are made a ground of
separateness. Did we enlarge our thought a
little, we should know that men must always
group themselves into distinct Churches; and
did we only open our hearts to the full reality
of Christ’s love, and the immeasurable bounty
of His fraternal pity, these distinctions would
be no walls of separation dividing us—but a very
river of Christian unity would overflow our souls,
the streams of which would enrich and gladden
the city of God.
Why should spiritual unity, apart from uniformity, seem unattainable? Why should it be
thought a thing incredible that Christian men
should forget sectarian animosities and ecclesiastical traditions; and feeling that the deadly
social evils around them are of overwhelming magnitude in comparison with all that
divides them, unite heartily on a practical basis
of Christian interest and sympathy—and with
combined force give themselves to the work of
the Lord? Why, indeed! But because faith in
the great realities of Divine truth, among many
who speak loudest of these realities, is weak
beside adherence to the accidents of denominational distinction—because, to use language suggested by that of a great thinker,Coleridge:
‘Aids to Reflection,’ p. 76. Pickering: 1848.
we are apt to love our party more than our
Church, and our Church more than our Christianity, and our Christianity more than truth—because the Christian spirit burns in us
dimly, and the love of many has waxed cold.
This is why the agencies of our several Churches,
with all their apparent energy, are, after all,
struggling but feebly against the agencies of
sin and evil. Christian men must feel more
than they yet do how immeasurably greater is
God’s love than their own comprehension of it,
and God’s truth than their own dogmatisms—how even wide differences, critical and speculative, are not only consistent with, but the very
condition of, a high-hearted practical co-operation. They must recognise more thoroughly the
sacred freedom of intellectual conviction, and
the equally sacred power of moral sympathy—the latter triumphing in the very oppositions
of the former. They must acknowledge more
heartily the claims of reason and the strength
of faith. And from this twofold root—and
from it more than aught else—will spring forth
the tree of Christian unity, whose leaves are for
the healing of the nations.
Many things warn all Churches that their one
power is in the fire of Christian love that animates them, and the fulness of Christian action
which comes from them. These Divine realities
are stronger than orthodoxy, and more powerful
than privilege. In any case, they are the only
weapons left in ecclesiastical hands—“As Thou,
Father, art in me, and I in Thee,” Out of this
nearness to the Divine came all Christ’s strength.
The strength of the Church—your strength and
mine—can only come from the same source.
Seek the centre of Christian truth and unity,
therefore, in God the Father and the Son. From
this Light of light and Life of life will flow
down endless blessings to yourselves and others.
Amidst changes of opinion, or advances of
thought, you will not be moved; amidst the
inroads of doubt—and even if you should have
to part with much you once cherished—you will
stand secure in the love of God and of Christ,
and in united action, not only for your own
Christian good, but the good of many others, who
will rise up to call you blessed.
Be it yours to hold the truth, but ever to hold
it in love; to remember that large-mindedness
is a Christian virtue as well as fervent zeal—that the love of Christ, and work in the name of
Christ, are more than all ecclesiastical symbols.
Let all in whom the Divine life is working—with whom the power of good is strong—receive your hearty welcome and sympathy. And
whether they think with you or not—whether
they worship with you or not—let your prayer
for them be, that they share with you the love
of a common Father and the grace of a common
Saviour,—“that they may be one with you, as
you are with Christ,”—that the world may believe not only that the Father hath sent Him,
but that He dwelleth in you in all love and
good works, to the praise and glory of His great
name. Amen.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.