The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Great Sermons, Volume 5:
Guthrie to Mozley, by Various
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Title: The World's Great Sermons, Volume 5: Guthrie to Mozley
Author: Various
Release Date: December 14, 2013 [EBook #44420]
Language: English
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[Illustration: cover]
_The World's Great Sermons_
VOLUME V
GUTHRIE TO MOZLEY
THE
WORLD'S
GREAT
SERMONS
COMPILED BY
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty;
Author of "How to Speak
in Public," Etc.
With Assistance from Many of the Foremost
Living Preachers and Other Theologians
INTRODUCTION BY
LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology
in Yale University
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOLUME V--GUTHRIE TO MOZLEY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK and LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
VOLUME V
GUTHRIE (1803-1873). _Page_
The New Heart 1
MAURICE (1805-1872).
The Valley of Dry Bones 23
MARTINEAU (1805-1900).
Parting Words 45
MANNING (1808-1892).
The Triumph of the Church 61
PARK (1808-1900).
The Prominence of the Atonement 87
SIMPSON (1810-1884).
The Resurrection of Our Lord 119
THEODORE PARKER (1810-1860).
The Transient and Permanent in
Christianity 147
MACLEOD (1812-1872).
The True Christian Ministry 177
MOZLEY (1813-1878).
The Reversal of Human Judgment 205
GUTHRIE
THE NEW HEART
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THOMAS GUTHRIE, preacher, philanthropist, and social reformer, was
born at Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland, in 1803. He spent ten years
at the University of Edinburgh and was licensed to preach by the
Presbytery of Brechin in 1825. In 1830 he was ordained minister of
Arbirlot. After a valuable experience in evangelical preaching among
the farmers, weavers and peasants of his congregation, he became one
of the ministers of Old Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, in 1827. Lord
Cockburn described his sermons in that city as appealing equally
"to the poor woman on the steps of the pulpit" as to the "stranger
attracted solely by his eloquence." He was a great temperance
advocate, becoming a total abstainer in 1844, and has been styled
"the apostle of the ragged school movement." Retiring from the
active work of the ministry in 1864, he still remained in public
life until he died in 1873. Through long practise, Dr. Guthrie
delivered his memorized discourses as tho they fell spontaneously
from his lips. His voice has been described as powerful and musical.
He was fond of vivid illustration, and even on his death bed, as
he lay dying in the arms of his sons, he exclaimed: "I am just as
helpless in your arms now as you once were in mine."
GUTHRIE
1803-1873
THE NEW HEART
_A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put
within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you an heart of flesh._--Ezekiel xxxvi., 26.
As in a machine where the parts all fit each other, and, bathed in
oil, move without din or discord, the most perfect harmony reigns
throughout the kingdom of grace. Jesus Christ is the "wisdom," as
well as the "power" of God; nor in this kingdom is anything found
corresponding to the anomalies and incongruities of the world lying
without. There we sometimes see a high station disgraced by a man of
low habits; while others are doomed to an inferior condition, who
would shine like gilded ornaments on the very pinnacles of society.
That beautiful congruity in Christ's kingdom is secured by those who
are the objects of saving mercy being so renewed and sanctified that
their nature is in harmony with their position, and the man within
corresponds to all without.
Observe how this property of "new" runs through the whole economy
of grace. When mercy first rose upon this world, an attribute of
Divinity appeared which was new to the eyes of men and angels.
Again, the Savior was born of a virgin; and He who came forth from a
womb where no child had been previously conceived, was sepulchered
in a tomb where no man had been previously interred. The infant had
a new birthplace, the crucified had a new burial-place. Again, Jesus
is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of a new testament,
the founder of a new faith. Again, the redeemed receive a new name;
they sing a new song; their home is not to be in the old, but in
the new, Jerusalem, where they shall dwell on a new earth, and walk
in glory beneath a new heaven. Now it were surely strange, when
all things else are new, if they themselves were not to partake of
this general renovation. Nor strange only, for such a change is
indispensable. A new name without a new nature were an imposture.
It were not more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the rapacious
vulture by the name of the gentle dove, than to give the title of
sons of God to the venomous seed of the serpent.
Then, again, unless man received a new nature, how could he sing the
new song? The raven, perched on the rock, where she whets her bloody
beak, and impatiently watches the dying struggles of some unhappy
lamb can not tune her croaking voice to the rich, mellow music of a
thrush; and, since it is out of the abundance of the heart that the
mouth speaketh, how could a sinner take up the strain and sing the
song of saints? Besides, unless a man were a new creature, he were
out of place in the new creation. In circumstances neither adapted
to his nature, nor fitted to minister to his happiness, a sinner
in heaven would find himself as much out of his element as a finny
inhabitant of the deep, or a sightless burrower in the soil, beside
an eagle, soaring in the sky, or surveying her wide domain from the
mountain crag.
In the works of God we see nothing more beautiful than the divine
skill with which He suits His creatures to their condition. He
gives wings to birds, fins to fishes, sails to the thistle-seed, a
lamp to light the glowworm, great roots to moor the cedar, and to
the aspiring ivy her thousand hands to climb the wall. Nor is the
wisdom so conspicuous in nature, less remarkable and adorable in the
kingdom of grace. He forms a holy people for a holy heaven--fits
heaven for them, and them for heaven. And calling up His Son to
prepare the mansions for their tenants, and sending down His Spirit
to prepare the tenants for their mansions, He thus establishes a
perfect harmony between the new creature and the new creation.
You can not have two hearts beating in the same bosom, else you
would be, not a man, but a monster. Therefore, the very first thing
to be done, in order to make things new, is just to take that which
is old out of the way. And the taking away of the old heart is,
after all, but a preparatory process. It is a means, but not the
end. For, strange as it may at first sound, he is not religious who
is without sin. A dead man is without sin; and he is sinless, who
lies buried in dreamless slumber, so long as his eyes are sealed.
Now, God requires more than a negative religion. Piety, like fire,
light, electricity, magnetism, is an active, not a passive element;
it has a positive, not merely a negative existence. For how is pure
and undefiled religion defined? "Pure religion and undefiled is to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction." And on whom
does Jesus pronounce His beatitude? "If ye know these things, happy
are ye if ye do them." And what is the sum of practical piety--the
most portable form in which you can put an answer to Saul's
question, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?" What but this,
"Depart from evil, and do good." Therefore, while God promises to
take the stony heart out of our flesh, He promises more. In taking
away one heart, He engages to supply us with another; and to this
further change and onward stage in the process of redemption, I now
proceed to turn your attention.
By way of general observation, I remark that our affections are
engaged in religion. An oak--not as it stands choked up in the
crowded wood, with room neither to spread nor breathe, but as it
stands in the open field, swelling out below where it anchors its
roots in the ground, and swelling out above where it stretches
its arms into the air,--presents us with the most perfect form of
firmness, self-support, stout and sturdy independence. So perfectly
formed, indeed, is the monarch of the forest to stand alone, and
fight its own battles with the elements, that the architect of
the Bell Rock lighthouse is said to have borrowed his idea of its
form from God in nature, and that, copying the work of a divine
Architect, he took the trunk of the oak as the model of a building
which was to stand the blast of the storm, and the swell of the
winter seas.
Observe, that although the state of the natural affections does
not furnish any certain evidence of conversion, it is the glory
of piety that these are strengthened, elevated, sanctified by the
change. The lover of God will be the kindest, best, wisest lover
of his fellow-creatures. The heart that has room in it for God,
grows so large, that it finds room for all God's train, for all
that He loves, and for all that He has made; so that the Church,
with all its denominations of true Christians, the world, with all
its perishing sinners, nay, all the worlds which He has created,
find orbit-room to move, as in an expansive universe, within the
capacious enlargement of a believer's heart. For while the love of
sin acts as an astringent--contracting the dimensions of the natural
heart, shutting and shriveling it up--the love of God expands and
enlarges its capacity. Piety quickens the pulse of love, warms and
strengthens our heart, and sends forth fuller streams of natural
affection toward all that have a claim on us, just as a strong and
healthy heart sends tides of blood along the elastic arteries to
every extremity of the body.
This new heart, however, mainly consists in a change of the
affections as they regard spiritual objects. Without again traveling
over ground which we have already surveyed, just look at the heart
and feelings of an unconverted man. His mind being carnal, is enmity
or hatred against God. This may be latent, not at first sight
apparent, nor suspected, but how soon does it appear when put to the
proof? Fairly tried, it comes out like those unseen elements which
chemical tests reveal. Let God, for instance, by His providences or
laws, thwart the wishes or cross the propensities of our unrenewed
nature--let there be a collision between His will and ours--and the
latent enmity flashes out like latent fire when the cold black flint
is struck with steel.
In conversion God gives a new spirit. Conversion does not bestow
new faculties. It does not turn a weak man into a philosopher.
Yet, along with our affections, the temper, the will, the judgment
partake of this great and holy change. Thus, while the heart ceases
to be dead, the head, illuminated by a light within, ceases to be
dark; the understanding is enlightened; the will is renewed; and our
whole temper is sweetened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. To
consider these in their order, I remark--
By this change the understanding and judgment are enlightened.
Sin is the greatest folly, and the sinner the greatest fool in
the world. There is no such madness in the most fitful lunacy.
Think of a man risking eternity and his everlasting happiness on
the uncertain chance of surviving another year. Think of a man
purchasing a momentary pleasure at the cost of endless pain. Think
of a dying man living as if he were never to die. Is there a convert
to God who looks back upon his unconverted state, and does not say
with David, "Lord, I was as a beast before Thee."
Now conversion not only restores God to the heart, but reason
also to her throne. Time and eternity are now seen in their just
proportions--in their right relative dimensions; the one in its
littleness, and the other in its greatness. When the light of heaven
rises on the soul, what grand discoveries does she make--of the
exceeding evil of sin, of the holiness of the divine law, of the
infinite purity of divine justice, of the grace and greatness of
divine love. On Sinai's summit and on Calvary's cross, what new,
sublime, affecting scenes open on her astonished eyes! She now, as
by one convulsive bound, leaps to the conclusion that salvation is
the one thing needful, and that if a man will give all he hath for
the life that now is, much more should he part with all for the life
to come. The Savior and Satan, the soul and body, holiness and sin,
have competing claims. Between these reason now holds the balance
even, and man finds, in the visit of converting grace, what the
demoniac found in Jesus' advent. The man whose dwelling was among
the tombs, whom no chains could bind, is seated at the feet of
Jesus, "clothed, and in his right mind."
By this change the will is renewed. Bad men are worse, and good men
are better than they appear. In conversion the will is so changed
and sanctified, that altho a pious man is in some respects less,
in other respects he is more holy than the world gives him credit
for. The attainments of a believer are always beneath his aims; his
desires are nobler than his deeds; his wishes are holier than his
works. Give other men their will, full swing to their passions, and
they would be worse than they are; give that to him, and he would be
better than he is. And if you have experienced the gracious change,
it will be your daily grief that you are not what you not only know
you should be, but what you wish to be. To be complaining with
Paul, "When I would do good, evil is present with me; that which I
would I do not, and what I would not, that I do," is one of the best
evidences of a gracious, saving change.
Children of God! let not your souls be cast down. This struggle
between the new will and the old man--painful and prolonged altho
it be--proves beyond all doubt the advent of the Holy Spirit. Until
the Savior appeared there was no sword drawn, nor blood shed in
Bethlehem, nor murderous decree issued against its innocents--they
slept safely in their mothers' bosoms, Herod enjoyed his security
and pleasure, and Rachel rose not from her grave to weep for her
children because they were not. Christ's coming rouses all the
devil in the soul. The fruits of holy peace are reaped with swords
on the fields of war; and this struggle within your breast proves
that grace, even in its infancy a cradled Savior, is engaged in
strangling the old Serpent. When the shadow of calamity falls on
many homes, and the tidings of victory come with sad news to many
a family, and the brave are lying thick in the deadly breach, men
comfort us by saying, that there are things worse than war. That is
emphatically true of this holy war. Rejoice that the peace of death
is gone.
By conversion the temper and disposition are changed and sanctified.
Christians are occasionally to be found with a tone of mind and a
temper as little calculated to recommend their faith as to promote
their happiness. I believe that there are cases in which this is
due to a deranged condition of the nervous system, or the presence
of disease in some other vital organ. These unhappy persons are
more deserving of our pity than our censure. This is not only the
judgment of Christian charity, but of sound philosophy, and is a
conclusion to which we are conducted in studying the union between
mind and body, and the manner in which they act and re-act upon each
other. So long as grace dwells in a "vile body," which is the seat
of frequent disorder and many diseases--these infirmities of temper
admit no more, perhaps, of being entirely removed, than a defect of
speech, or any physical deformity. The good temper for which some
take credit may be the result of good health and a well-developed
frame--a physical more than a moral virtue; and an ill temper,
springing from bad health, or an imperfect organization, may be a
physical rather than a moral defect--giving its victim a claim on
our charity and forbearance. But, admitting this apology for the
unhappy tone and temper of some pious men, the true Christian will
bitterly bewail his defect, and, regretting his infirmity more than
others do a deformity, he will carefully guard and earnestly pray
against it. Considering it as a thorn in his flesh, a messenger
of Satan sent to buffet him, it will often send him to his knees
in prayer to God, that the grace which conquers nature may be made
"sufficient for him."
I pray you to cultivate the temper that was in Jesus Christ. Is he
like a follower of the Lamb who is raging like a roaring lion? Is
he like a pardoned criminal who sits moping with a cloud upon his
brow? Is he like an heir of heaven, like a man destined to a crown,
who is vexed and fretted with some petty loss? Is he like one in
whose bosom the dove of heaven is nestling, who is full of all
manner of bile and bitterness? Oh, let the same mind be in you that
was in Jesus. A kind, catholic, gentle, loving temper is one of the
most winning features of religion; and by its silent and softening
influence you will do more real service to Christianity than by
the loudest professions, or the exhibition of a cold and skeleton
orthodoxy. Let it appear in you, that it is with the believer under
the influence of the Spirit as with fruit ripened beneath the genial
influences of heaven's dews and sunbeams. At first hard, it grows
soft; at first sour, it becomes sweet; at first green, it assumes
in time a rich and mellow color; at first adhering tenaciously to
the tree, when it becomes ripe, it is ready to drop at the slightest
touch. So with the man who is ripening for heaven. His affections
and temper grow sweet, soft, mellow, loose from earth and earthly
things. He comes away readily to the hand of death, and leaves the
world without a wrench.
In conversion God gives a heart of flesh. "I will give you a heart
of flesh."
Near by a stone, a mass of rock that had fallen from the overhanging
crag, which had some wild flowers growing in its fissures, and
on its top the foxglove, with its spike of beautiful but deadly
flowers, we once came upon an adder as it lay in ribbon coil,
basking on the sunny ground. At our approach the reptile stirred,
uncoiled itself, and raising its venomous head, with eyes like
burning coals, it shook its cloven tongue, and, hissing, gave
signs of battle. Attacked, it retreated; and, making for that gray
stone, wormed itself into a hole in its side. Its nest and home
were there. And in looking on that shattered rock--fallen from its
primeval elevation--with its flowery but fatal charms, the home
and nest of the adder, where nothing grew but poisoned beauty, and
nothing dwelt but a poisoned brood, it seemed to us an emblem of
that heart which the text describes as a stone, which experience
proves is a habitation of devils, and which the prophet pronounces
to be desperately wicked. I have already explained why the heart
is described as a stone. It is cold as a stone; hard as a stone;
dead and insensible as a stone. Now, as by the term "flesh" we
understand qualities the very opposite of these, I therefore remark
that--
In conversion a man gets a warm heart.
Let us restrict ourselves to a single example. When faith receives
the Savior, how does the heart warm to Jesus Christ! There is music
in His name. "His name is an ointment poured forth." All the old
indifference to His cause, His people, and the interests of His
kingdom, has passed away; and now these have the warmest place in a
believer's bosom, and are the object of its strongest and tenderest
affections. The only place, alas! that religion has in the hearts
of many is a burial-place; but the believer can say with Paul,
"Christ liveth in me." Nor is his heart like the cottage of Bethany,
favored only with occasional visits. Jesus abides there in the
double character of guest and master, its most loving and best loved
inmate; and there is a difference as great between that heart as it
is, and that heart as it was, as between the warm bosom where the
Infant slept or smiled in Mary's arms and the dark, cold sepulcher
where weeping followers laid and left the Crucified.
Is there such a heart in you? Do you appreciate Christ's matchless
excellences? Having cast away every sin to embrace him, do you set
him above your chiefest joy? Would you leave father, mother, wife,
children, to follow Him, with bleeding feet, over life's roughest
path? Rather than part with Him, would you part with a thousand
worlds? Were He now on earth, would you leave a throne to stoop
and tie His latchet? If I might so speak, would you be proud to
carry His shoes? Then, indeed, you have got the new, warm heart
of flesh. The new love of Christ, and the old love of the world,
may still meet in opposing currents; but in the war and strife of
these antagonistic principles, the celestial shall overpower the
terrestrial, as, at the river's mouth, I have seen the ocean tide,
when it came rolling in with a thousand billows at its back, fill
all the channel, carry all before its conquering swell, dam up the
fresh water of the land, and drive it back with resistless power.
In conversion a man gets a soft heart.
As "flesh," it is soft and sensitive. It is flesh, and can be
wounded or healed. It is flesh, and feels alike the kiss of kindness
and the rod of correction. It is flesh; and no longer a stone,
hard, obdurate, impenetrable to the genial influences of heaven.
A hard block of ice, it has yielded to the beams of the sun, and
been melted into flowing water. How are you moved now, stirred now,
quickened now, sanctified now, by truths once felt no more than
dews falling out of starry heavens, in soft silence upon rugged
rock. The heart of grace is endowed with a delicate sensibility, and
vibrates to the slightest touch of a Savior's fingers. How does the
truth of God affect it now! A stone no longer, it melts under the
heavenly fire--a stone no longer, it bends beneath the hammer of the
word; no longer like the rugged rock, on which rains and sunbeams
were wasted, it receives the impression of God's power, and retains
the footprints of His presence. Like the flowers that close their
eyes at night, but waken at the voice of morning, like the earth
that gapes in summer drought, the new heart opens to receive the
bounties of grace and the gifts of heaven. Have you experienced such
a change? In proof and evidence of its reality, is David's language
yours--"I have stretched out my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth
after thee as a thirsty land"?
In conversion a man gets a living heart.
The perfection of this life is death--it is dead to be sin, but
alive to righteousness, alive to Christ, alive to everything which
touches His honor, and crown, and kingdom. With Christ living in
his heart, the believer feels that now he is not himself, not his
own; and, as another's, the grand object of his life is to live to
Christ. He reckons him an object worth living for, had he a thousand
lives to live; worth dying for, had he a thousand deaths to die. He
says with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live."
In the highest sense alive, he is dead, dead to things he was once
alive to; and he wishes that he were more dead to them, thoroughly
dead. He wishes that he could look on the seductions of the world,
and sin's voluptuous charms, with the cold, unmoved stare of death,
and that these had no more power to kindle a desire in him than in
the icy bosom of a corpse. "Understandest thou what thou readest?"
It is a mark of grace that the believer, in his progress heavenward,
grows more and more alive to the claims of Jesus. If you "know the
love of Christ," His is the latest name you will desire to utter;
His is the latest thought you will desire to form; upon Him you will
fix your last look on earth; upon Him your first in heaven. When
memory is oblivious of all other objects--when all that attracted
the natural eye is wrapt in the mists of death, when the tongue is
cleaving to the roof of our mouth, and speech is gone, and sight is
gone, and hearing gone, and the right hand, lying powerless by our
side, has lost its cunning, Jesus! then may we remember Thee! If the
shadows of death are to be thrown in deepest darkness on the valley,
when we are passing along it to glory, may it be ours to die like
that saint, beside whose bed wife and children once stood, weeping
over the wreck of faded faculties, and a blank, departed memory. One
had asked him, "Father, do you remember me?" and received no answer;
and another, and another, but still no answer. And then, all making
way for the venerable companion of a long and loving pilgrimage--the
tender partner of many a past joy and sorrow, his wife draws near.
She bends over him, and as her tears fall thick upon his face, she
cries, "Do you not remember me?" A stare, but it is vacant. There
is no soul in that filmy eye; and the seal of death lies upon these
lips. The sun is down, and life's brief twilight is darkening fast
into a starless night. At this moment, one calm enough to remember
how the love of Christ's spouse is "strong as death," a love that
"many waters can not quench," stooped to his ear, and said, "Do
you remember Jesus Christ?" The word was no sooner uttered than it
seemed to recall the spirit, hovering for a moment, ere it took
wing to heaven. Touched as by an electric influence, the heart beat
once more to the name of Jesus; the features, fixt in death, relax;
the countenance, dark in death, flushes up like the last gleam of
day; and, with a smile in which the soul passed away to glory, he
replied, "Remember Jesus Christ! dear Jesus Christ! He is all my
salvation, and all my desire."
By conversion man is ennobled.
While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to be dissolved at
death into ashes and air, and vice changes man into a brute or
devil, Mammon enslaves him. She makes him a serf, and condemns him
to be a gold-digger for life in the mines. She puts her collar
on his neck, and locks it; and bending his head to the soil, and
bathing his brow in sweat, she says, Toil, toil, toil; as if this
creature, originally made in the image of God, this dethroned and
exiled monarch, to save whom the Son of God descended from the
skies, and bled on Calvary, were a living machine, constructed of
sinew, bone, and muscle, and made for no higher end than to work to
live, and live to work.
Contrast with these the benign aspect in which the gospel looks
on man. Religion descends from heaven to break our chains. She
alone raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping
head, and look up to heaven. Yes; it is that very gospel which by
some is supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of
man and his destiny, which lifts me from the dust to set me among
princes--on a level with angels--in a sense above them. To say
nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul which is
stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred and
venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! No longer
a form of animated dust; no longer the subject of passions shared in
common with the brutes; no longer the drudge and slave of Mammon,
the once "vile body" rises into a temple of the Holy Ghost. Vile in
one sense it may be; yet what, although it be covered with sores?
What, although it be clothed in rags? What, although, in unseemly
decrepitude, it want its fair proportions? That poor, sickly,
shattered form is the casket of a precious jewel. This mean and
crumbling tabernacle lodges a guest nobler than palaces may boast
of; angels hover around its walls; the Spirit of God dwells within
it. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct,
lies in the fact that the body of a saint is the temple of God,
a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his
prayers, and Jesus consecrated His presence! In popish cathedrals,
where the light streamed through painted window, and the organ
pealed along lofty aisles, and candles gleamed on golden cups and
silver crosses, and incense floated in fragrant clouds, we have
seen the blinded worshiper uncover his head, drop reverently on his
knees, and raise his awestruck eye on the imposing spectacle; we
have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that sooner would he
be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. How
does this devotee rebuke us! We wonder at his superstition; how may
he wonder at our profanity! Can we look on the lowly veneration he
expresses for an edifice which has been erected by some dead man's
genius, which holds but some image of a deified virgin, or bones of
a canonized saint, and which, proudly as it raises its cathedral
towers, time shall one day cast to the ground, and bury in the
dust; can we, I say, look on that, and, if sensible to rebuke,
not feel reproved by the spectacle? In how much more respect, in
how much holier veneration should we hold this body? The shrine
of immortality, and a temple dedicated to the Son of God, it is
consecrated by the presence of the Spirit--a living temple, over
whose porch the eye of piety reads what the finger of inspiration
has written: "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God
destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
MAURICE
THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, English divine and author, was born in
1805. He was the son of a Unitarian clergyman, and after studying
in Cambridge began a literary career in London, where his friend
Coleridge and others persuaded him to take orders in the Church of
England. In 1836 he was appointed chaplain to Guy's Hospital. In
1840 he was elected professor of English literature and history
and in 1846 of divinity at King's College, London, but lost both
positions in 1853 because of his radical views. He was professor of
moral philosophy at Cambridge from 1860 until his death in 1872.
MAURICE
1805-1872
THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES
_The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit
of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was
full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about. And behold
there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they were very
dry. And he said unto me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I
answered, "O Lord God, thou knowest."_--EZEK. xxxvii., 1-3.
We are naturally curious to know whether two contemporary prophets
ever conversed with each other. In Micah we found such evident
indications of sympathy with the mind of Isaiah as warranted the
supposition that he was his pupil. I can not trace any signs of
a similar relation, or indeed of any personal relation, between
Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Tho they were passing through the same crisis;
tho they had both to witness the evils which were destroying their
nation; both to share its miseries; tho the false prophets were the
common enemies of both; yet their circumstances, their character,
and their work were entirely distinct, in some points even
contrasted. Their very differences, however, show us that they were
both alike prophets and priests.
The Book of Lamentations exhibits the spirit of the individual man
Jeremiah more transparently than his longer book, which is so mixed
up with historical details, with anticipations of a ruin not yet
accomplished, with hopes, however faint and soon dispelled, of a
national repentance. Most of those whom the prophet had denounced
were banished or dead. Men could talk no more about the temple of
the Lord, could boast no more that the word of the Lord was with
them; the vessel which the potter was shaping had been broken to
pieces. The sadness of the prophet, which had been checked sometimes
by indignation, sometimes by the consciousness of a word which must
still be spoken, of a work which must be done, became complete and
absorbing. Heretofore his intense sympathy with his country might
seem to be qualified by his lively apprehension of its crimes;
now both feelings were blended into one. When he looked upon the
desolation of the city there sat upon his soul a weight of sorrow
and evil, as if he were representing his whole people, as if there
was no wrong which they had committed, no evil habits which they
had contracted, which did not cling to him, for which he was not
responsible. And this was no imaginary fictitious state of mind into
which he had worked himself. God had made him inwardly conscious of
the very corruptions which had destroyed the land. If he had made
any fight against them; if they did not actually overpower him and
enslave him, this was God's work and not his; the promise of the
covenant made with his fathers, which was as good for every one as
for himself, was fulfilled to him. And now he was realizing the full
effect of this discipline. The third chapter of the Lamentations,
beginning "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His
wrath," contains the climax of his experience. In the memorable
passages which follow, the history of a life is gathered up. "I
said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; remembering
mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul
hath them still in remembrance. This I recall to mind, therefore
have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
They are new every morning; great is thy faithlessness. The Lord is
my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord
is good unto them that wait for him. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and
keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his
mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to
him that smiteth him, he is filled full with reproach. The Lord will
not cast off for ever; but tho 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."
Anything more individual than these utterances it is impossible
to conceive; and yet it is just by these that one understands the
sacerdotal work to which Jeremiah was called. There was no longer
any temple. The priests as well as the princes had been for the most
part carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. But there was a man walking
about in the deserted city to which the twelve tribes had come
up,--in the midst of the ruins of the holy place into which the
sons of Aaron had gone with the memorial of their names on their
breastplates,--who really entered into the meaning of that function,
who really bore the iniquities of the children of Israel before the
Lord;--one to whom it was given to translate the ceremonies and
services of the divine house into life and reality. He had been
taught more perfectly, perhaps, than anyone who had served in the
temple, what was implied in its worship and sacrifices. He felt the
burden to which those sacrifices pointed, the burden of individual
and national sins. Yet, with that burden resting upon him, he could
enter into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. He was sure there
was a deliverance for his people as well as for himself; that there
could not be one for him if there was not also one for them. Thus
when part of his work was over, when he had nothing more to say in
the ears of kings or priests or people, this office,--which had been
so closely connected with his prophetical office, and which, if it
had depended upon outward conditions, must have been more entirely
at an end than that,--still remained in all its original power. And
the words of the prophet remained to explain to all generations the
spiritual character and acts of the priest.
The office of the priest must have seemed to be more utterly extinct
for Ezekiel than even for Jeremiah. He was forcibly removed from
all the associations of the temple while it was yet standing. When
he was called to be a prophet to the captives by the river Chebar,
he might have supposed that the earlier designation which belonged
to him as one of the Levitical family, had been extinguished in
the later one. Yet we have seen how he was instructed, at the
very commencement of his work as a prophet, that the glory of
Him who filled the temple was surrounding him in Mesopotamia as
it surrounded him when he went up to present the morning or the
evening sacrifice in Jerusalem. Such a vision was given him of
that glory as he had never beheld in the holy place. He found that
the earth,--that common, profane, Babylonian earth upon which he
dwelt,--was filled with it. All the powers of nature, the forms of
animals, man as the highest of the animals, the motions and order
of the outward world and of human society, were pointing towards it.
And the central object, the highest object which he could behold,
tho there was an ineffable brightness beyond, was a Man upon a
throne, One who could command him, in whose name he was to go forth,
whose words he was to speak.
This was no isolated revelation or dream. The very name which the
prophet thenceforth bore, the name by which he was to know himself,
depended upon it. "Son of man, stand upon thy feet and I will speak
unto thee," were the first words which he heard after he fell upon
his face. That great title is bestowed upon him through all the time
in which he was prophesying. It was in many ways more suitable to
him than to those who had gone before him. There was now no Hezekiah
or Josiah to represent the Divine king. The witnesses for the
kingdom seemed to be at an end. Nebuchadnezzar was the lord of the
earth. At such a time the natural position of the Jewish seer became
a human position. The Israelite's glory was to be a "Son of man."
Yet he was not absolved from any of the obligations of the older
prophets; he was not to expect a more willing or attentive audience
among captives than they had found at home; briars, thorns would be
with him; he must dwell among scorpions. Lamentations and mourning
and woe filled his roll as much as that which Baruch wrote out for
Jeremiah. And he must eat this roll; it must become a part of his
very soul; its words must come forth living and burning out of
himself.
He must understand, besides, all the fearful responsibilities of
the prophet. He was to speak whether the men about him would hear
or whether they would forbear. There were times when his tongue
would cleave to the roof of his mouth, when he should be dumb and
should not be to them a reprover. But when God opened his lips,
the blood of those to whom he was sent was upon him; it would be
required at his hands if they died in their iniquity and he had
not warned them. He must submit to do all symbolical acts, however
strange and fantastical they might seem in themselves, which might
bring the feeling of coming judgments home to a sense-bound people.
He must act a mimic siege, he must eat defiled bread; he must cut
off his hair and weigh it in balances, if so the people could be
made to understand,--in spite of their false prophets who spoke of
coming peace and enacted their signs, which of course involved no
discomfort or humiliation to themselves,--that the city would really
be destroyed and the sanctuary laid waste. He was to persuade his
brother captives that they were a remnant in which the nation still
lived, a stock out of which it should hereafter grow and flourish,
even tho they were most rebellious, dreaming of good things which
would never come, not waiting for that good which God had designed
for them. There was to be the same end in all the punishments which
were coming upon the land and in all its deliverances. God was
saying in all "I am the Lord."
This sentence recurs again and again in the prophecies of Ezekiel.
It is the thought of his mind, the one which gives all the sublimity
and all the practical worth to his discourses,--that the knowledge
of God is the supreme good of man, and that the desolation of his
countrymen has come from their not liking to retain it. He is
transported in spirit to the temple. There the same vision of the
glory of God which he had seen by the river returns to him. The
light of it shows him, portrayed upon the wall of the temple round
about, the abominable beasts and creeping things, and the idols
of the house of Israel; what the ancients of the house of Israel
did in the dark, every one in the chambers of his imagery; how the
women were weeping for Tammuz; how the men were worshiping the sun
towards the east. Whether such abominations as these were actually
to be seen in the temple, or whether the prophet's eye opened by the
divine Spirit saw that they were possessing the hearts of those who
seemed to others, perhaps to themselves, to be worshiping the God
of their fathers, it is clear that the mind of Ezekiel was led back
to the place in which he had ministered, that he might be taught
how little the sacred building could preserve the truth which was
enshrined in it.
What Ezekiel has seen in the temple enables him to answer the elders
of Israel when they come to consult him in his own house. Just what
was going on among those who worshiped in Jerusalem, was going on
in the hearts of those who sought his oracles. They were setting
up idols there. They wanted to know what God would do with them or
against them; they did not want to know Him. And therefore Ezekiel
announces to them a great and eternal moral law, one of the most
varied application; "God will answer you according to your idols."
The truth which is presented to you, will be colored, distorted,
inverted by the eye which receives it. The covetousness which you
are cherishing will make the best and divinest word you hear, a
minister of covetousness. Your pride and your lust will make it a
minister of lust and pride. No bolder or more awful paradox was ever
enunciated than this, nor one which the conscience of everyone will
more surely verify. And there was this special proof of courage in
making such an announcement, that it must have destroyed Ezekiel's
reputation as a prophet. The elders came in terror, feeling that
they wanted guidance and expecting some ready-made answer, such as
the regular traders in prophecy could always furnish. The truly
inspired man answers, "I can tell you nothing,--nothing at least
that will not deceive you and become a lie in your minds. For you
bring lies in your minds, and except they be extirpated, they
must convert whatever is added to them from without, to their own
quality."
Ezekiel himself illustrates in another case this great principle.
No commandment had established itself more completely by the
experience of the people to whom it was addrest, than the second.
The idolatries of the land had accumulated with each generation.
Each had cause to complain of the last as bequeathing it a stock
of corrupt habits and traditions; the sins of the fathers had been
visited upon the children. These were facts not to be gainsaid. The
captives had leisure to reflect upon them. It might have been a most
profound and profitable reflection.
The use they made of it was to prove they were under a necessary law
of degeneracy. How could they help themselves? The fathers had eaten
sour grapes, and their teeth were set on edge. Who dared dispute it?
There was God's own word for it. Had he not told them the plan and
method of His own government? Such language addrest to one of the
favorite preachers or prophets of the people, would have silenced
him altogether. He would have said, "It is a mystery, no doubt; we
must take the words of the commandment tho we can not understand
them. God is Sovereign; He can do what He likes. If it pleases
Him that each generation should be more corrupt than the last, we
must submit and not dispute His will." Others there would be who
would complain boldly and with good reason of a will that compelled
to evil, but yet would lazily submit to it, supposing it to be
inevitable, tho feeling the absurdity of calling it divine. Ezekiel
boldly stands forth to dispute and deny the whole principle. He does
not dispute or deny the second commandment,--that was probably the
text of his discourse. But he will not let the second commandment
or any other words in the world be pleaded against the character of
God. Righteousness and equity he maintains to be the foundations
of the divine character and of the divine acts. He will tolerate
no resolution of them into a heathenish notion of sovereignty or
self-will. "The ways of God are equal," he says, "and your ways are
unequal." The sins of the father only descend upon the son, they
are only punished in the son, when the son accepts them, entertains
them, makes them his own. At any time he may turn round and
repudiate them and cleave to the God who doth not will the death of
the sinner, but desires that he should return and live. The doctrine
of the second commandment and of the whole law, is that a man is
righteous so long as he cleaves to the righteous God who has made
a covenant with him, unrighteous when he forsakes that covenant
and acts independently. Therefore the notion of any perpetuity in
righteousness, or in evil, is equally cut off. Every man has the
capacity of righteousness, the capacity of evil. Let him be ever so
righteous, he must become evil the moment he ceases to trust in God
and begins to trust in himself. Let him be ever so evil, he must
become righteous the moment he begins to trust in God and ceases to
trust in himself.
The enunciation of laws or principles seems more especially to
belong to Ezekiel, as the experience of personal evil and the
sympathy with national sorrow belong more to the tender and womanly
nature of Jeremiah. Nevertheless, Ezekiel was to be a priest in this
sense also, as well as in that higher sense of beholding the glory
of God and proclaiming His name. Suffering was not the destination
of one prophet; it was the badge of all the tribe. Ezekiel's life
was to be a continual parable, illustrative of the life of the
nation. A man scrupulously careful of the law, was to violate the
precepts of it respecting food, and to eat what was loathsome. A man
sensitive probably as to his reputation, and with that kind of lofty
imagination which makes attention to details and all petty acts
unspeakably painful, must submit, for the sake of his countrymen,
to such as seemed most ignominious to himself and perplexing to
them. Finally, the desire of his eyes must be taken from him with a
stroke, and he must not mourn or weep. Even at such a time he must
be a sign to the people, tho by doing so he should seem to refuse
the sympathy that he most wants, and should only lead the captives
to say, "Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us that thou
doest so?"
Apart from these sufferings which concern him individually and
domestically, the vision of the desolation of Israel became every
day more overwhelming to him. Nor was it only the desolation of
Israel. He who was called "Son of man," was not likely to speak less
of Egypt and Tyrus and the land in which he was himself dwelling,
than those older prophets who had so many more reasons for regarding
Judea as the one garden of the Lord. The arms of Nebuchadnezzar had
been turning the earth upside down and making it waste. Everything
must have seemed to him disjointed, incoherent, withered. Could it
ever be renovated? Was it possible even for that country which God
had blest above all others and man had curst above all others, to
breathe and live again?
This was the question which was proposed to the prophet on that day
when the hand of the Lord was upon him, and he was carried into
the valley which was full of bones. The vision, clear as it is in
itself, must not be read apart from the context of the prophecy.
You should remember where Ezekiel was dwelling; by what kind of
people he was surrounded; what was the condition of his own land;
what had come and was coming upon all lands; or you will not
understand the picture which now rose up before him. You should
think, too, of the man himself, of the heat of his spirit, of the
words which he had uttered in vain, of the acts which had only
made the captives stare vacantly, of the desolation of his house
and his heart. You should think of those other visions he had of
the ascending scale of creatures, of the mysterious order of the
universe, of the glory of God, before you place yourself beside
him in the valley, and walk with him round about it, and look at
the different bones, and see how each separately how altogether,
they expound to him the condition of the house of Israel. It was
dead,--that body from which he had believed that life was to go
forth to quicken the universe. It had none of the beauty of a corpse
in which there is still form, on which the spirit has left its
impression. There had been a time of gradual decay, a time when the
pulses of the nation beat feebly and faintly, but when they might
still be felt; a time after that when you knew it had ceased to
breathe, but when you could still speak of it as entire. But another
stage had come, the stage of utter dissolution, when each limb
looked as if it had nothing to do with any other, when you could
scarcely force yourself to believe that they had ever been joined
together. Can these bones live? what a thought to come into the
mind of any man gazing on such a scene! It could not have come from
himself, certainly, nor from any of these relics. God must have sent
it to him; He must have led him to dream that such a resurrection
was possible. And now the process of it is also revealed to him. The
prophet is commanded to speak. His speech seems a mere sound in the
air. But there is a noise and a shaking; then a frightful movement
of the bones towards each other, each claiming its fellow to which
it had once belonged. This strange effort at a union of dead things
betokens a power that has not yet declared itself. And soon the
sinews and the flesh come up upon them. They have acquired a form,
tho they have no life. "Then said he unto me, 'Prophesy unto the
wind; Thus saith the Lord God: come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain that they may live.' So I prophesied
as he commanded. And the breath came unto them, and they lived, and
stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army."
"Doth he not speak parables?" was the phrase by which the Jews
of the captivity exprest their dislike and contempt for the
troublesome and mystical prophet who was among them. "Doth he not
speak parables?" is a question which men, looking round with weary
hearts upon the condition of Christ's Church in various periods
of its existence, have asked themselves, with a very different
intention and spirit, when they have read this vision of the valley
of dry bones. "Is not this written," they have said, "for the ages
to come? Is not this one of parables concerning the kingdom of
God?" Yes, brethren, if we will first read it fairly and honestly,
as describing what Ezekiel says it described to him,--if we will
not search for a distant application till we have acknowledged the
immediate one,--we shall find that here, as everywhere, Ezekiel is
exhibiting facts which belong to other times as well as his own, and
laws and methods of a divine government which belong to all times as
well as his own.
And that I may not waste your time in enumerating different crises
of history in which the facts may be discerned, and by which the
law and the method may be tested, I say at once, they are all for
us; the vision and the interpretation are of this day. Do you not
hear men on all sides of you crying, "The Church which we read of
in books exists only in them. Christendom consists of Romanists,
Greeks, Protestants, divided from each other, disputing about
questions to which nineteen-twentieths of those who belong to their
communions are indifferent. And meantime what is becoming of the
countries in which these different confessions are established?
What populations are growing up in them? Does the present generation
believe that which its fathers believed? Will the next generation
believe anything?" Brethren, you hear such words as these spoken. I
do not mean to inquire how much there is of truth in them, how much
of exaggeration, what evidences there are on the other side which
have been overlooked; what signs of life there are anywhere in the
midst of apparent death. But this I must say; Christians in general
are far too eager to urge special exceptions when they hear these
charges preferred; far too ready to make out a case for themselves
while they admit their application to others; far too ready to think
that the cause of God is interested in this suppression of facts.
The prophets should have taught us a different lesson. They should
have led us to feel that it was a solemn duty, not to conceal,
but to bring forward all the evidence which proves, not that one
country is better than another, or one portion of the Church better
than another, but that there is a principle of decay, a tendency
to apostasy in all, and that no comfort can come from merely
balancing symptoms of good here against symptoms of evil there, no
comfort from considering whether we are a little less contentious,
a little less idolatrous than our neighbors. Alas, for this Church,
or for any church, if its existence now, if its prospects for the
future, are to be determined by such calculations as these! No,
brethren, our hope has a deeper foundation. It is this; that when
the bones have become most dry, when they are lying most scattered
and separate from each other, there is still a word going forth, if
not through the lips of any prophet on this earth, then through the
lips of those who have left it,--yet not proceeding from them, but
from Him who liveth for ever and ever, the voice which says, "These
bones shall rise." It is this; that every shaking among the bones,
everything which seems at first a sign of terror,--men leaving the
churches in which they have been born, forsaking all the affections
and sympathies and traditions of their childhood,--infidel
questionings, doubts whether the world is left to itself or whether
it is governed by an evil spirit,--are themselves not indeed signs
of life, but at least movements in the midst of death which are
better than the silence of the charnel-house, which foretell the
approach of that which they can not produce. It is this; that all
struggles after union, tho they may be of the most abortive kind,
tho they may produce fresh sects and fresh divisions, tho they must
do so as long as they rest on the notion that unity is something
visible and material, yet indicate a deep and divine necessity
which men could not be conscious of in their dreams if they were
not beginning to awake. It is this; that there are other visions
true for us, as they were for Ezekiel, besides the vision of dry
bones. The name of a Father has not ceased to be a true name because
baptized men do not own themselves as His children. The name of the
Son has not ceased to be a true name, because men are setting up
some earthly ruler in place of Him, or are thinking that they can
realize a human fellowship without confessing a Man on the throne
above the firmament. The name of the Spirit has not ceased to be
a true name because we are thinking that we can form combinations
and sects and churches without His quickening presence, because we
deny that He is really in the midst of us. It is this; that when
all earthly priests have been banished or have lost their faith,
tho there should be none to mourn over the ruins of Jerusalem, or
to feel its sin as his own, yet there is a High Priest, the great
Sin-Bearer, ever presenting His perfect and accepted sacrifice
within the veil, a High Priest not of a nation, but of humanity. It
is this; that tho all earthly temples, in which God has been pleased
to dwell, should become desecrated and abominable, tho all foul
worship should go on in the midst of them, and tho what is portrayed
on their walls should too faithfully represent what is passing in
the more secret chambers of imagery, tho at last the shrines that
have been supposed to contain the mystery which they set forth
should be utterly destroyed, and a voice should be heard out of the
midst of them, saying, "Let us depart,"--yet that this will not be
the sign that the Church of God has perished, only the sign that the
temple of God has been opened in Heaven, and that from thence must
come forth the glory that is to fill the whole earth.
MARTINEAU
PARTING WORDS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
JAMES MARTINEAU, an English Unitarian divine, was born at Norwich
in 1805. He was educated for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester
College, and in 1828 ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in
Dublin. Resigning his pastorate in Ireland, he took charge of the
Paradise Street Chapel in Liverpool, but on being elected to the
chair of mental and moral philosophy in Manchester New College
followed it to London 1853, succeeding J. J. Taylor as principal of
the institution in 1868.
His sermons, delivered in the course of four years in the chapel
of Manchester New College are specimens of combined eloquence and
philosophical profundity, yet are, perhaps, most valuable for their
ethical quality. He preached in Dublin, Liverpool, and London.
He was a lofty and earnest soul, given to mysticism, a master of
English style, and has been widely read. He died in 1900.
MARTINEAU
1805-1900
PARTING WORDS
_Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth, give I unto you._--John xiv., 27.
This is a strange benediction to proceed from the Man of Sorrows,
at the dreariest moment of His life; strange at least to those who
look only to His outward career, His incessant contact with misery
and sin, His absolute solitude of purpose, His lot stricken with
sadness ever new from temptation to the cross; but not strange
perhaps to those who heard the deep and quiet tones in which this
oracle of promise went forth--the divinest music from the center
of the darkest fate. He was on the bosom of the beloved disciple
and in the midst of those who should have cheered Him in that hour
with such comfort as fidelity can always offer; but who, failing in
their duty to His griefs, found the sadness creep upon themselves;
while He, seeking to give peace to them, found it Himself profusely
in the gift. It was not till He had finished this interview and
effort of affection, and from the warmth of that evening meal and
the flush of its deep converse they had issued into the chill and
silent midnight air, nor till the sanctity of moonlight (never to be
seen by Him again) had invested Him, and coarse fatigue had sunk His
disciples into sleep upon the grass, that having none to comfort, He
found anguish fall upon Himself. Deprived of the embrace of John,
He flew to the bosom of the Father; and after a momentary strife,
recovered in trust the serenity He had found in toil; and while His
followers lie stretched in earthly slumber, He reaches a divine
repose; while they, yielding to nature, gain neither strength nor
courage for the morrow, He, through the vigils of agony, rises to
that godlike power, on which mockery and insult beat in vain, and
which has made the cross, then the emblem of abjectness and guilt,
the everlasting symbol of whatever is holy and sublime.
The peace of Christ, then, was the fruit of combined toil and trust;
in the one case diffusing itself from the center of His active life,
in the other from that of His passive emotions; enabling Him in
the one case to do things tranquilly; in the other, to see things
tranquilly. Two things only can make life go wrong and painfully
with us; when we suffer or suspect misdirection and feebleness in
the energies of love and duty within us, or in the providence of
the world without us: bringing, in the one case, the lassitude of
an unsatisfied and discordant nature; in the other, the melancholy
of hopeless views. From these Christ delivers us by a summons to
mingled toil and trust. And herein does His peace differ from that
which "the world giveth"--that its prime essential is not ease, but
strife; not self-indulgence, but self-sacrifice; not acquiescence
in evil for the sake of quiet, but conflict with it for the sake
of God; not, in short, a prudent accommodation of the mind to
the world, but a resolute subjugation of the world to the best
conceptions of the mind. Amply has the promise to leave behind Him
such a peace been since fulfilled. It was fulfilled to the apostles
who first received it; and has been realized again by a succession
of faithful men to whom they have delivered it.
The word "peace" denotes the absence of jar and conflict; a
condition free from the restlessness of fruitless desire, the
forebodings of anxiety, the stings of enmity. It may be destroyed
by discordance between the lot without and the mind within, where
the human being is in an obviously false position--an evil rare and
usually self-curative; or by a discordance wholly internal, among
the desires and affections themselves. The first impulse of "the
natural man" is to seek peace by mending his external condition;
to quiet desire by increase of ease; to banish anxiety by increase
of wealth; to guard against hostility by making himself too strong
for it; to build up his life into a fortress of security and a
palace of comfort, where he may softly lie, tho tempests beat and
rain descends. The spirit of Christianity casts away at once this
whole theory of peace; declares it the most chimerical of dreams;
and proclaims it impossible even to make this kind of reconciliation
between the soul and the life wherein it acts. As well might the
athlete demand a victory without a foe. To the noblest faculties of
soul rest is disease and torture. The understanding is commissioned
to grapple with ignorance, the conscience to confront the powers of
moral evil, the affections to labor for the wretched and opprest;
nor shall any peace be found, till these, which reproach and fret us
in our most elaborate ease, put forth an incessant and satisfying
energy; till, instead of conciliating the world, we vanquish it; and
rather than sit still, in the sickness of luxury, for it to amuse
our perceptions, we precipitate ourselves upon it to mold it into a
new creation. Attempt to make all smooth and pleasant without, and
you thereby create the most corroding of anxieties, and stimulate
the most insatiable of appetites within. But let there be harmony
within, let no clamors of self drown the voice which is entitled
to authority there; let us set forth on the mission of duty,
resolved to live for it alone, to close with every resistance that
obstructs it, and march through every peril that awaits it; and in
the consciousness of immortal power, the sense of mortal ill will
vanish; and the peace of God well nigh extinguish the sufferings of
the man. "In the world we may have tribulation; in Christ we shall
have peace."
This peace, so remote from torpor, arising, indeed, from the intense
action of the greatest of all ideas, those of duty, of immortality,
of God, fell, according to the promise, on the first disciples. Not
in vain did Jesus tell them in their sorrows that the Comforter
would come; nor falsely did He define the blessed visitant, as
"the spirit of truth"--the soul reverentially faithful to its
convictions, and expressing clearly in action its highest aspirings.
Such peace had Stephen, when before the Sanhedrim that was striving
to hush up the recent story of the cross, he proclaimed aloud the
sequel of the ascension; and priests and elders arose and stopped
their ears, and thrust him out to death; he had his peace; else how,
if heaven of divinest tranquility had not opened to him and revealed
to him the proximity of Christ to God, how as the stone struck his
uncovered and uplifted head, could he have so calmly said, "Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge"? Such peace had Paul--at least
when he ceased to rebel against his noble nature, and became,
instead of the emissary of persecution, the ambassador of God. Was
there ever a life of less ease and security, yet of more buoyant
and rejoicing spirit than his? What weight did he not cast aside,
to run the race that was set before him? What tie of home or nation
did he not break, that he might join in one of the whole family of
God? For forty years the scoff of synagogues and the outcast of his
people, he forgot the privations of the exile in the labors of the
missionary; flying from charges of sedition he disseminated the
principles of peace; persecuted from city to city, yet he created
in each a center of pure worship and Christian civilization, and
along the coasts of Asia, and colonies of Macedonia, and citadels
of Greece, dropped link after link of the great chain of truth that
shall yet embrace the world. Amid the joy of making converts, he had
also the affliction of making martyrs; to witness the sufferings,
perhaps to bear the reproaches, of survivors; with weeping heart to
rebuke the fears, and sustain the faith of many a doubter; and in
solitude and bonds to send forth the effusions of his earnest spirit
to quicken the life, and renovate the gladness, of the confederate
churches. Yet when did speculation at its ease ever speak with
vigor so noble and cheerfulness so fresh as his glorious letters;
which recount his perils by land and sea, his sorrows with friend
and foe, and declare that "none of these things move" him; which
show him projecting incessant work, yet ready for instant rest;
conscious that already he has fought the good fight, and willing
to finish his course and resign the field; but prepared, if needs
be, to grasp again the sword of the Spirit, and go forth in quest
of wider victories. Does any one suppose that it would have been
more peaceful to look back on a life less exposed and adventurous,
on a lot sheltered and secure, on soft-bedded comfort, and unbroken
plenty, and conventional compliance? No! it is only beforehand that
we mistake these things for peace; in the retrospect we know them
better, and would exchange them all for one vanquished temptation
in the desert, for one patient bearing of the cross! What--when all
is over, and we lie upon the last bed--what is the worth to us of
all our guilty compromises, of all the moments stolen from duty to
be given to ease? If Paul had cowered before the tribunal of Nero,
and trembled at his comrade's blood, and, instead of baring his neck
to the imperial sword, had purchased by poor evasions another year
of life--where would that year have been now--a lost drop in the
deep waters of time--yet not lost, but rather mingled as a poison
in the refreshing stream of good men's goodness by which Providence
fertilizes the ages.
The peace of Christ, thus inherited by His disciples, and growing
out a living spirit of duty and of love, contrasts not merely with
guilty ease, but with that mere mechanical facility in blameless
action which habit gives. There is something faithless and ignoble
in the very reasonings sometimes employed to recommend virtuous
habits. They are urged upon us, because they smooth the way of
right; we are invited to them for the sake of ease. Adopted in such
a temper, duty after all makes its bargain with indulgence, and is
not yet pursued for its own sake and with the allegiance of a loving
heart. Moreover, whoever has true conscience sees that there is a
fallacy in this persuasion; for whenever habits become mechanical,
they cease to satisfy the requirements of duty; the obligations of
which enlarge definitely with our powers, demanding an undiminished
tension of the will, and an ever-constant life of the affections.
It can never be, that a soul which has a heaven open to its view,
which is stationed here, not simply to accommodate itself to the
arrangement of this world, but also to school itself for the spirit
of another, is intended to rest in mere automatic regularities.
When the mind is thrown into other scenes, and finds itself in the
society of the world invisible, suddenly introduced to the heavenly
wise and the sainted good--what peace can it expect from mere dry
tendencies to acts no longer practicable and blameless things now
left behind? No; it must have that pure love which is nowhere a
stranger, in earth or heaven; that vital goodness of the affections,
that adjusts itself at once to every scene where there is truth and
holiness to venerate; that conscience, wakeful and devout, which
enters with instant joy on any career of duty and progress opened
to its aspirations. And even in "the life that now is," the mere
mechanist of virtue, who copies precepts with mimetic accuracy,
is too frequently at fault, to have even the poor peace which
custom promises. He is at home only on his own beat. An emergency
perplexes him, and too often tempts him disgracefully to fly. He
wants the inventiveness by which a living heart of duty seizes the
resources of good, and uses them to the last; and the courage by
which love, like honor, starts to the post of noble danger, and
maintains it till, by such fidelity, it becomes a place of danger
no more. It is a vain attempt to comprize in rules and aphorisms
all the various moral exigencies of life. Hardly does such legality
suffice to define the small portion of right and wrong contemplated
in human jurisprudence. But the true instincts of a pure mind, like
the creative genius of art, frames rules most perfect in the act
of obeying them, and throws the materials of life into the fairest
attitudes and the justest proportions. He whose allegiance is paid
to the mere perceptive system, shapes and carves his duty into the
homeliest of wooden idols; he who has the spirit of Christ turns it
into an image breathing and divine. Children of God in the noblest
sense, we are not without something of His creative spirit in our
hearts. The power is there to separate the light from the darkness
within us, and set in the firmament of the soul luminaries to guide
and gladden us, for seasons and for years; power to make the herbage
green beneath our feet, and beckon happy creatures into existence
around our path; power to mold the clay of our earthly nature into
the likeness of God most high; and thus only have we power to look
back in peace upon our work, and find a Sabbath rest upon the
thought that, morning and evening, all is good.
But the peace which Christ left and bequeathed was the result of
trust, no less than toil. However immersed in action, and engaged
in enterprises of conscience, every life has its passive moments,
when the operation is reversed, and power, instead of going from us,
returns upon us; and the scenes of our existence present themselves
to us as objects of speculation and emotion. Sometimes we are forced
into quietude in pauses of exhaustion or of grief; stretched upon
the bed of pain, to hear the great world murmuring and rolling by;
or lifted into the watch-tower of solitude, to look over the vast
plain of humanity, and from a height that covers it with silence
observe its groups shifting and traversing like spirits in a city
of the dead. At such times our peace must depend on the view under
which our faith or our fears may exhibit this mighty "field of
the world"; on the forces of evil, of fortuity, or of God, which
we suppose to be secretly directing the changes on the scene, and
calling up the brief apparition of generation after generation. And
so great and terrible is the amount of evil, physical and moral, in
the great community of men; so vast the numbers sunk in barbarism,
compared with the few who more nobly represent our nature; so
many and piercing (could we but hear them) the cries of unpitied
wretchedness, that with every beat of the pendulum wander unnoticed
into the air; so dense the crowds that are thrust together in the
deepest recesses of want, and that crawl through the loathsome hives
of sin; that only two men can look through the world without dismay;
he, on the one hand, who suffering himself to be bewildered with
momentary horror, and in the confusion of his emotions, to mistake
what he sees for the moral chaos, turns his back in the despair of
fatalism, crying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"; and
he, on the other, who, with the discernment of a deeper wisdom,
penetrates through the shell of evil to the kernel and the seed
of good; who perceives in suffering and temptation the resistance
which alone can render virtue manifest, and conscience great, and
existence venerable; who recognizes, even in the gigantic growth
of guilt, the grasp of infinite desires, and the perseverance of
godlike capacities; who sees how soon, were God to take up His
omnipotence, and snatch from His creature "man" the care of the
world and the work of self-perfection, all that deforms might
be swept away, and the meanest lifted through the interval that
separates them from the noblest; and who therefore holds fast to the
theory of hope and the kindred duty of effort; takes shelter beneath
the universal Providence of God; and seeing time enough in His vast
cycles for the growth and consummation of every blessing can be
patient as well as trust; can resign the selfish vanity of doing all
things himself, and making a finish before he dies; and cheerfully
give up his life to build up the mighty temple of human improvement,
tho no inscription mark it for glory, and it be as one of the hidden
stones of the sanctuary, visible only to the eye of God. Such was
the spirit and the faith which Jesus left, and in which His first
disciples found their rest. Within the infinitude of the divine
mercy trouble did but fold them closer; the perversity of man did
but provide them to put forth a more conquering love; and tho none
were ever more the sport of the selfish interests and prejudices of
mankind, or came into contact with a more desolate portion of the
great wastes of humanity, they constructed no melancholy theories;
but having planted many a rose of Sharon, and made their little
portion of the desert smile, departed in the faith that the green
margin would spread as the seasons of God came round, till the
mantle of heaven covered the earth, and it ended with Eden as it had
begun.
Between these two sources of Christian peace, virtuous toil, and
holy trust, there is an intimate connection. The desponding are
generally the indolent and useless; not the tried and struggling,
but speculators at a distance from the scene of things, and far from
destitute of comforts themselves. Barren of the most blest of human
sympathies, strangers to the light that best gladdens the heart of
man, they are without the materials of a bright and hopeful faith.
But he who consecrates himself sees at once how God may sanctify
the world; he whose mind is rich in the memory of moral victories
will not easily believe the world a scene of moral defeats; nor was
it ever known that one who, like Paul, labored for the good of man,
despaired of the benevolence of God.
Whoever then would have the peace of Christ, let him seek first the
spirit of Christ. Let him not fret against the conditions which God
assigns to his being, but reverently conform himself to them, and do
and enjoy the good which they allow. Let him cast himself freely on
the career to which the secret persuasion of duty points, without
reservation of happiness or self; and in the exercise which its
difficulties give to his understanding, its conflicts to his will,
its humanities to his affections, he shall find that united action
of his whole and best nature, that inward harmony, that moral order,
which emancipates from the anxieties of self, and unconsciously
yields the divinest repose. The shadows of darkest affliction
cannot blot out the inner radiance of such a mind; the most tedious
years move lightly and with briefest step across its history; for
it is conscious of its immortality, and hastening to its heavens.
And there shall its peace be consummated at length; its griefs
transmuted into delicious retrospects; its affections fresh and
ready for a new and nobler career; and its praise confessing that
this final "peace of God" doth indeed surpass its understanding.
MANNING
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HENRY EDWARD MANNING, Roman Catholic prelate, was born 1808 at
Totteridge in Hertfordshire and educated at Harrow and Oxford.
After graduation in 1830, he studied for holy orders in the Church
of England and was ordained in 1833. The Tractarian Movement
was then at its height and Manning took a leading part in it.
Appointed Archdeacon of Chichester in 1840 he took a commanding
place as a preacher and leader. Newman's recession did not shake
his allegiance, but the decision in the Gorham case, which gave the
Crown the power of deciding doctrinal questions, drove him to seek
refuge in the Roman Catholic fold in 1851.
He was ordained priest by Cardinal Wiseman and to the end of his
life devoted himself to religious and philanthropic work in London.
He was appointed to succeed Wiseman as Archbishop of Westminster in
1865. He was made cardinal in 1875. As a preacher he was logical and
dogmatic, but his style is imaginative and his flights of eloquence
tinged with poetic coloring and passion. He died in 1892.
MANNING
1808-1892
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH
_We give thanks unto God, who maketh us always to triumph in Christ
Jesus, and manifesteth the odor of the knowledge of Him by us in
every place. For we are a good odor of Christ unto God, both in them
that are saved and in them that perish; in the one indeed an odor of
life, in the other an odor of death unto death._--2 Cor. ii., 14-16.
(Douay Version.)
Such was the confidence of the Apostle in the face of all that was
most hostile, mighty, and triumphant in the judgment of this world.
He was confident that through God his mission in the world was being
accomplished, that the Word of God was triumphing over all the
power of man. They may well have said to him, "What is this triumph
you speak of? If this be triumph, what is defeat? You were stoned
the other day in Lystra; you were imprisoned at Philippi; you were
scourged at Jerusalem; you were saved out of the hands of the people
only by Roman soldiers; you were confounded by the philosophers
at Athens; and you were refuted out of the holy Scriptures by the
Jews of Berea. If this is triumph, you are welcome to it." Such,
no doubt, was the lordly and confident language of men in the face
of the apostles of Jesus Christ then, and such is the language of
confidence with which the world looks on the Catholic Church at
this hour. It counts it to be a comedy played out, a stale medieval
superstition, and a name that is trampled in the earth. In every age
the Church has been militant and in warfare. It is under the same
law of suffering which crucified its divine Head. His throne was
a cross, and His crown was of thorns. Nevertheless He triumphed,
and He triumphs still, and shall triumph to the end. And so at
this moment, in this nineteenth century, in the century of modern
civilization, of light, of progress, of scientific affectation,
the Catholic Church is derided. They say to us, "Look at the
Catholic Church in Germany; look at it in Italy; the head of the
Church dethroned; and not a spot on earth for the incarnation to
set its foot upon. If this be triumph you are welcome to it." Our
answer is: "Yes, even now we triumph always and in every place.
The Catholic Church is triumphing now in America, and in Ireland,
and in the colonies of the British empire; aye, and in the midst
of the confusions in Spain, and in France through revolution after
revolution, and in the furnace of infidelity; aye, and in Germany,
in the midst of all that the might of man can do against it; and in
Italy too, where the head of the Church is morally a prisoner, it
is triumphing even now."
But how can I verify this assertion? It would be enough indeed to
quote the words of the apostle, but I hope to do more. The world
esteems the triumph of the Church to be in wealth, power, glory,
honor, public sway over empires and nations. There was a time indeed
when the world laid these things at the feet of the apostles of
Jesus Christ. There was a time when the Catholic Church and the
Christian world knew how to sanctify the society of men; but there
is this difference--the world then believed, and the world now is
apostate. Nevertheless, there is a triumph in the Christian world
and there is a triumph in the anti-Christian world; and what is it?
It is that the Church in every age and in every condition, and in
the midst of all antagonists, fulfils its mission and accomplishes
its work, and no power of man can hinder it. Men may, as we shall
see hereafter, to their own destruction, resist the mission of
the Church, but its work will be accomplished nevertheless, and
accomplished even in them; and its work will be a good odor of
Christ unto God both in those that are saved and in those that
perish. The world has neither tests nor measures by which to
understand what the mission and the work of the Church are; but they
who see by the light of faith have both. Let us examine, then, what
is its mission, what is its work, and how it is fulfilled.
First of all, the mission of the Church among men is this--to be
a witness for God, and for the incarnation of God in the face of
the world. Our Divine Lord said of Himself: "For this was I born,
and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony
unto the truth." As it was with Him, so it is with His Church; and
therefore He said to His apostles: "You shall be witnesses unto
me," and St. John said: "That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon, and our hands handled, of the word of life; for the
life was manifested, and we have seen it, and do bear witness, and
declare unto you, the life eternal which was with the Father, and
hath appeared unto us; that is to say, the manifestation of God in
the flesh, the incarnation of the Son of God." The Church was the
witness of this divine fact to the world, and it is witness to this
hour. I may say it is an eye-witness. It was eye-witness of what it
declares. It was an ear-witness of what it affirms. I may say in
truth that the Church of God, which testifies at this hour, saw the
Son of God, and heard His words, and was witness of His miracles.
So St. Peter expressly declares, speaking of His transfiguration:
"We have not, by artificial fables, made known to you the power and
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; but we were eye-witnesses of his
greatness. For he received from God the Father honor and glory,
this voice coming down to him from the excellent glory: This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And his voice
we heard brought from heaven, when we were with him in the holy
mount." More than this: it was a witness of the day of Pentecost,
and upon it the Holy Ghost descended. It heard the sound of the
mighty wind and it saw the tongues of fire. The Church therefore
testifies at this day as an ear-witness and an eye-witness of the
divine facts which it declares. And how can this be said? Because
that which the apostles saw and heard they delivered to others who
believed in them upon a full test and knowledge of their truth, and
those who received their testimony held it as a sacred trust and
declared it to those who came after. From age to age the testimony
of the apostles has descended unbroken. The intrinsic certainty of
their witness, resting on their own eye-witness and ear-witness of
the facts, has not diminished by a shade, jot, or tittle in the
lapse of time, and the external evidence of that fact has multiplied
and extended throughout all time and throughout the world. Therefore
the testimony of the apostles to these divine realities and truths
is as living and fresh at this day as it was in the beginning.
Then twelve men testified; now the nations of the world, united
in one body by faith and by baptism, take up and perpetuate that
testimony. And part of that testimony is this--that when the Son of
God ascended into heaven, as they saw Him ascend, He fulfilled His
promise that He would send the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Ghost, to
abide with them forever; that when one divine Teacher had gone up
to His Father's throne, another should come in His stead; that the
world should never be without a divine Person and a divine Teacher
in the midst of it; and that the Spirit of Truth by which they
were united to their divine Head in heaven should unite them also
to each other as His members in one mystical body, and should form
to Himself a dwelling-place in which to abide forever. As the soul
abides in the body of the man, so the Holy Ghost abides in the body
of the Church. It is the sanctuary in which He dwells; the organ by
which He speaks, so that the words of our Divine Lord are fulfilled
to the very letter--"He that heareth you heareth me;" for the voice
of the head and that of the body, as St. Augustine says, are one and
the same voice. As they make one moral person, so their voice is
identical, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit keeps the voice of
the Church always in perfect harmony with the voice of its divine
Head, fulfilling the promise of the Lord by His prophet: "My spirit
which is upon thee and my word which I put in thy mouth, shall never
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor
out of the mouth of thy seed's seed from this time and forever."
Thus, then, the mission of the Church is fulfilled always; whether
the world believe or disbelieve, whether it gainsay or assent, it
matters not; the testimony of the Church forever triumphs in every
place.
Another part of the mission of the Church is this--to teach the
doctrines of Jesus Christ in the midst of all the controversies and
contradictions of men. In the face of all the errors and heresies
of men there is one divine Teacher perpetually declaring the same
immutable truth. In the clamor and confusion of the human voices
of philosophers and human guides, of the scribes and Pharisees of
the new laws, there is one divine voice--articulate, clear, and
piercing--which cleaves through all the confusion, and is to be
heard above the clamor of men and of nations--the voice of that
one holy, Catholic, and Roman Church, spreading from the sunrise
to the sunset, immutable in its doctrine, teaching the same truths
identically in every place, and abiding always the same unchanging
teacher in every age. This is a fact legible in human history. I
need not offer proof of it from histories written by ourselves; it
is proved by histories and controversies of those who are most
opposed to us. There is an accusation which is repeated from age
to age against the Catholic and Roman Church; and what is it? That
it always persists in its old errors. I accept the accusation. Its
persistence proves its immutability, and that which they account
error we know to be the doctrine of Jesus Christ; because, as I have
already shown from the Word of God, neither can the Catholic Church
ever err in believing, nor can the Catholic Church err in teaching.
These are two impossibilities, and they descend from one and the
same divine truth. God, the Holy Ghost, abiding forever in the
mystical body of Christ, illuminates the whole body of the faithful
from the time of their baptism. From the time that the graces of
faith, hope, and charity are infused into their souls, they are
illuminated with the light of faith as the world is illuminated by
the splendor of the sun at noonday; and the faithful throughout
the world continue passively in their persistence in that one
baptismal faith wherewith they were enlightened from their earliest
consciousness. And further, they can never err in believing,
because the Church which teaches them can never err in teaching.
The episcopate throughout the world, which is the college of the
apostles multiplied and expanded among all nations, has always the
assistance of the Spirit of Truth to guide and preserve it, so that
the errors of men and infirmities of our intellect never prevail
over the light of faith by which the whole Episcopate and the Church
is sustained in the revelation of the day of Pentecost. And more
than this: nineteen general councils, from the first which declared
the coequality and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and
the Holy Ghost, down to the last which declared the infallibility
of the vicar of Jesus Christ,--those nineteen councils have been
the organ of the Holy Ghost, preserving the truth in all ages; and
the pontiffs, two hundred and fifty-seven in number, have also been
guided and assisted by the same Spirit of Truth; so that no doctrine
of faith and morals from their hand and from their lips has been out
of harmony with the revelation of Jesus Christ. For these reasons
the Church is fulfilling its mission, always and in every place, and
it can say in every age, with a divine certainty of knowledge and
with a divine authority of teaching: "It seemed good to the Holy
Ghost and to us."
Once more, and lastly: there is another part of the mission of the
Church which never fails, and is never baffled--and that is, that
the Church judges between the truth of God and the errors of men,
and gives decision with divine certainty what is truth, what is
falsehood, what is light and what is darkness. Here again the world,
in the confusion of its discordant witnesses, bears testimony to
our truth. The world disclaims altogether the presence of any divine
teacher in the midst of us. It derides the very notion. There is
not a sect or a communion, or a so-called church, which lays claim
to this divine guidance. They say infallibility exists nowhere but
in God. As the Pharisees said: "Who can forgive sins but God only?"
thereby acknowledging the divinity of Him who forgave the palsied
man. And while they say: "We have no infallibility in us; we do
not claim it; we deny its existence on the face of the earth," the
one Teacher, who never varies in His voice, says: "He that heareth
me heareth him that sent me." It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and
unto us that we should claim that infallibility, and we cite you
before the tribunal of God to answer for your denial of that truth.
We say further that no man knows that any revelation was ever made
to man except through our testimony. You never saw the Word made
flesh, you nor your forefathers; and you have no unbroken succession
of witnesses who trace upward these eighteen hundred years to the
day when the Holy Ghost descended with wind and fire; you are not
in contact with the original revelation of God. How can you rise
up and say: "This was revealed upwards of eighteen hundred years
ago," when you have no proof to give, except that which you borrow
from me, that the Son of God ever came into the world? You take my
witness for the fact of Christianity, and you then contradict me
when I teach you what the doctrines of Christianity are. And if
men appeal to the Scriptures, our answer is the same. How do you
know the Scriptures were ever written? How can you prove that there
ever was a book called the Word of God? You had it from me; you
snatched it out of my hand, and you then read it and interpret it
in contradiction to my teaching. How do you know that there were
four greater prophets and twelve lesser in the Old Testament; that
there were four evangelists and fourteen epistles of St. Paul in the
New? Who told you all these things? You had them all from me--from
me alone, to whom these Scriptures were committed in custody and
in guardianship; from me, who preserved and handed them on to this
day. You, who are denying the inspiration of this book and of that,
of this text and of that text, and who are gnawing away, as a moth
fretteth a garment, the whole written word of God, you rise up and
tell us: "This is the meaning of the holy Scriptures," and you
reject the holy Catholic faith.
Dear brethren, it needs great patience to hear these things;
nevertheless, the judge is always calm and patient while he is
fulfilling his work among men, and that because it is a grave
thing to be the odor of life unto life and of death unto death to
the eternal souls of men. And when men appeal to antiquity and tell
us that "this is not the primitive tradition," the Church answers:
Were you ever in antiquity, or anyone that belongs to you? I was
there, and as a perpetual witness antiquity is to me nothing but my
early days. Antiquity exists in my consciousness to this hour, as
men grown to riper years remember their childhood. Men of the world
know that the contemporaneous interpretation of a law is the most
authentic and certain interpretation. But I have the contemporaneous
interpretation of holy Scripture; and more than this, men who
practise before human tribunals know that the continuous usage of a
country is the interpretation of its laws written and unwritten. But
I have the contemporaneous and the continuous usage of the Church
of God. The seven sacraments are institutions of Jesus Christ and
every one of them interprets a cluster of truths. The existence
of the Church itself is an interpretation of the words: "Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it." The jurisdiction that I have
over the world, which the hearts of men recognize and to which their
consciences respond, is the interpretation of the words: "Receive
ye the Holy Ghost, whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven
unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."
But lastly there is another appeal which men make in this day. We
are now told that scientific history is the test of truth; and I saw
the other day in a document having great pretension from a certain
body of men who are troubling Germany and attempting to trouble even
England with the name of Old Catholics, that the way to know the
pure faith of Jesus Christ is to interpret history by science. Alas,
as I said before, the world is full of pretensions to science; but
those who claim to be Catholics, and who yet appeal from the living
voice of the Catholic Church to any other tribunal whatsoever, are
all of them identical in their principle, and that principle is
heresy. Luther appealed from the voice of the Catholic Church to
Scripture, and thereby became a heretic. There are others who appeal
to antiquity, and the appeal is the same--it is an appeal from the
living voice, from the divine authority of the Church, to something
of their own choice and creation. It matters not to what the appeal
is made. That which constitutes both the treason of the act and the
heresy of the principle is that they appeal from the living voice,
that is from the divine voice. This it is that is being done at this
moment by a body of men who profess to be and to intend to live and
die Catholics; and what is more, to purify and reform the Church by
staying in it. What is their appeal? Their appeal is to history, to
scientific history; that is, to history interpreted by themselves.
Luther was much more direct and much wiser. He appealed to a book
which is certainly written by the Holy Ghost; they appeal to I know
not what books, but to books certainly written only by men, and not
by the Spirit of God; to human history, the authenticity of which
and the purity of the text of which no one can guarantee; and even
this they interpret for themselves.
Now bear with me further if I dwell a few moments longer upon this.
At the time I speak, in the old Catholic city of Cologne there
is assembled together a number of these men--some four or five
hundred--with a handful of unhappy priests, perhaps six or eight,
of whom the greater part had already the note of unsoundness upon
them before they took their deadly step. And what are they? What
are these men who are rising up to purify the Church? What do they
believe? Some believe all the Council of Trent, but not the Council
of the Vatican. Some believe the Church to be infallible, but not
its Head; others propose to reject the invocation of saints, and
purgatory, and compulsory confession, and I know not what. Others
ask for either half or altogether rationalism. And who have they to
assist them? Excommunicated Jansenists from Holland, and members, I
grieve to say, of the Established Church from England; and those
chosen, as it were, by a happy fatality, one the most extreme of
old-fashioned high-church orthodoxy--an estimable and excellent man,
whose person I both respect and love; and another whose advanced
rationalism is such that even his own brethren can hardly forbear
protesting against him. So that we have assembled in this congress,
which is to reform and purify the Catholic and Roman Church of all
ages, men so irreconcilably in contradiction with themselves that
they cannot touch a religious doctrine without discord, and they
cannot find anything on which to unite except in opposition to the
one immutable truth. There was a day when all the Scribes, and all
the Pharisees, and all the Herodians, and all the hypocrites, and
all the men who could agree in anything else or at any other time,
were united together in one conspiracy, and tho their witnesses did
not agree together and their discordant voices could not be combined
they all had one will and one purpose against the Son of God and
against His truth. These men, I bear witness--many of them at
least--have no such intention; but we know from the Word of God that
neither had they who crucified our divine Master a knowledge of what
they did: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
"Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known
it they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." But they are
at this moment fulfilling the very words of the apostles: "And to
some the testimony of the Church is life unto life, to others death
unto death."
Such then, is the mission and the work of the Church--to bear its
witness, to teach and to judge; and in doing this, whether men
will believe or whether men will not believe, it is accomplishing
its triumph in the world. The world forgets that there is not only
salvation, but there is also judgment; and God, the just judge of
all, is putting men on their trial. The Church is fulfilling its
office by proposing the way of salvation to men, visibly to the
eye by its own presence, audibly to the ear by its own teachings,
clearly to the intellect by the evident truth of its doctrines. It
is putting men upon trial and applying the test to their hearts. It
tests their faith to see whether men will believe; it tests their
candor to see whether they will choose God above all things; it
tests their courage to know whether they are ready to take up their
cross and follow their divine Master. The Church says to the men of
this day: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever
shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel shall save it." And
in saying this God is separating between nation and nation and
between man and man. His "fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly
purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner, but the chaff
will be burnt with unquenchable fire." "He that believeth and is
baptized will be saved; but he that believeth not is condemned."
"We thank God, who always maketh us to triumph in Christ Jesus and
manifesteth the odor of him by us in every place;" for we now, at
this hour, in the midst of the nineteenth century, in the midst
of science and progress, are the odor of life unto life and the
odor of death unto death. For the purpose of God in the world is
this--to gather out, as He did of old, a people for His name. Among
the Gentiles of the old world He chose Israel; so now amongst the
nations of the new world He chooses those that believe. He knows the
number of His elect and He calls them by their name. He proposes to
them the way of salvation and puts all things necessary--truth and
grace--within their reach. God is putting them on trial, and the
Church in this is fulfilling its mission and accomplishing its work.
The world is on its probation now. It has been for generations
and generations driving God and Christianity out of its public
life. Christianity is cancelled from its public law; Christianity
is silent in the legislature; Christianity at this moment lingers
in education, but men are endeavoring to close the doors of the
schools against it and so to shut Christianity out of the knowledge
of the rising generation. Wo to the people the tradition of whose
Christian education is cut asunder! Wo to your children and to
your posterity, if they are brought up without the knowledge of
Christianity! The world is laboring with all its might, and all
its fraud, and all its riches, and all its public authority, to
accomplish this end. I do not say that the men who are doing it
know what they do; but I affirm that they are doing what I say.
Unbelievers like those who created the infidel revolution of France
in the last century knew well what they were doing. "Let us destroy
the accurst one," was the language in which they frankly spoke of
Jesus Christ. Men are more refined in the present day. They talk
only of the religious difficulty. "Let us evade or get around the
religious difficulty;" and, under this plea of evading the religious
difficulty, Christianity is to be excluded from our schools; that
is to say, because grown men choose to controvert and contradict
each other as to what is the truth of God, the little ones of
Jesus Christ are to be robbed of their faith. Again, the world is
separating its civil powers, its public authority from the unity of
the faith and of the Church everywhere. It is making it a part of
high and perfect legislation, of what we hear called in these days
"progress and modern civilization," to separate the Church from the
State, and the school from the Church. Progress has deposed the Head
of the Church; it has put in derision a crown of thorns upon his
head; and it believes that at last it has the whole world to itself.
This indeed is the triumph of the world. But meanwhile the Church
is triumphing, tho men know it not. The Church was never more
widespread than at this moment; never more luminous in the eyes of
men, never more explicitly known in its faith; never more united,
vigorous, pure, and confident in its work. Its kingdom is not of
this world: that is, it is not derived from it; the foundation of
its jurisdiction is in eternity; the source of its truth is in the
Holy Ghost, and its imperishable Head is the Son of God at the right
hand of the Father. His kingdom is in the world, but not of it. The
world may prosper and go its way; it may stop its ears against the
voice of the divine witness to the truth; nevertheless that witness
will be the odor of death unto death.
And England also is on its probation. I bear witness that in England
errors are vanishing away, as the snow melts before the sun--passing
away, as the hard frosts before the coming of the spring. The errors
which were once dominant, lordly, confident, and persecuting--where
are they now? At this day men are proclaiming that they are not
certain of what their forefathers bequeathed to them; that they
cannot precisely tell what was the doctrine which was intended in
the Thirty-nine Articles, and was incorporated in statute laws.
They are no longer certain of these things; and I bear them witness
that a gentler spirit and a kindlier disposition is working in the
hearts of many. In the midst of this darkness, truth is rising
again, and the old Catholic Church and faith, for which Ireland has
stood inflexible as a martyr, with the aureola upon her head, at
this day is multiplying the children of faith here and throughout
the world. Here too in Lancashire, where the faith of England has
never been extinct--where to this day the little children of our
flock are the descendants of those who were martyrs and confessors
some three hundred years ago--the lingering tradition of faith once
more is embodied in the perfect hierarchy of the Church of God, in
its perfect order, perfect unity, perfect jurisdiction, perfect
authority. And, what is more, the men of England have learned to
know it better. They have heard it speak; they have seen it worship;
they have even knelt together with us before the same altar, perhaps
hardly knowing what they did; and that because the Spirit of God is
working for His truth, and multitudes will be saved. We are only in
the twilight of the morning; but we can see Jesus standing on the
shore, and there is a net in the hands of His apostles let down in
the water. But when we are long gone to our rest, who can say what
shall be the great draft of souls which shall be miraculously taken
in England?
I must bear witness that in England there are tokens full of hope.
England never rejected the holy Catholic faith. A tyrannous and
guilty king, a corrupt and covetous court, men full of the conceit
of false learning, schemers and intriguers, men that hungered to
spoil the Church for their own enrichment--these tyrannized over
the people of England. The people of England held to their faith
and died for it. The people of England never rejected it. They were
robbed of it; they were deprived of their inheritance, and their
children were born disinherited of their faith; every century from
that hour to this they have gone farther and farther from the light
of the one truth. Poor English people! Bear with them--I speak as an
Englishman--bear with them; they know not what they do in believing
that we worship images, that we imbrued our hands in the massacre of
St. Bartholomew. Let the men who write these things look at their
own hands; there is blood enough upon them. But the English people
do not believe these things now; they are passed away. And there has
come in the place of these impostures a desire after truth--"Only
let me find it;" a craving after unity--"Can we never make an end
of these divisions?" a thirsting for the presence of Jesus Christ
upon the altar--"Where can I find Him?" And what are all these
aspirations? They are the evidences of the good odor of life unto
life.
And if so, then, dear brethren, you that have the inheritance of
faith are on your probation too. You are called to let the light of
your faith shine like the day. The silent, penetrating, convincing
light of a man who, knowing the faith, speaks it calmly, without
controversy, without bickering, without contention, sheds a grace
around him. As men that possess the greatest gift of God, and who
desire to make everybody else share it to the full, so let your
faith shine. And next, as you have faith, so you ought to have
the warmth of charity. Where there is light, there is warmth; and
where there is greater light there is greater warmth. Where there
is perfect truth, there ought to be perfect charity. You who have
the whole revelation of God ought to have the whole charity of God
in you. Let your neighbors who are round about, even those who are
not of the faith, feel that there is something in you--a warmth,
a kindness, a sympathy and generosity which they find in no other
man. And, lastly, let there be the fragrance of a holy life. This is
the good odor of Christ unto God, and this diffuses life unto life
wherever you go. You are upon this probation. Be worthy of the great
gift which has been given to you. You have it in its fulness. Be
then, worthy of its fulness, in faith and in charity.
And now, dear brethren, in the midst of all the lordly triumph of
the world, of all that which no doubt we shall hear to-morrow, be
of good heart. As they said to the apostles so they will say to us:
"If this be triumph, what can be defeat? We do not quarrel if you
are content with these victories." Overhead there is a throne, and
round about it are those whom no man can number; the powers and
prerogatives of Him who sits upon that throne are working mightily
in the world. There is one who sits above the water-flood, with all
its confusions, whose voice penetrates through all the jangling
contradictions of men. He is bringing to its fulfilment the purpose
which from all eternity He has predestined. He knows His own by
number and by name, and He will gather them out as the shepherd
gathers his flock, and He will separate the goats from the sheep.
He will reign until the whole of that work is accomplished. When
it is done, and when the last of His elect has been gathered in,
and the last of His redeemed has been made perfect, then He will
manifest Himself to all men, and the world shall then know that He
has triumphed always and in every place.
PARK
THE PROMINENCE OF THE ATONEMENT
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
EDWARDS AMASA PARK was born at Providence, R. I., in 1808. After a
short pastorate of two years he became professor at Amherst, and
subsequently at Andover Theological Seminary. He was one of the
well-known exponents of the New England Calvinism, and his teachings
had a wide influence over the ministers of his generation. His
sermons, frequently rewritten, were marked by elegance of style
and great moral force. Both as a preacher and teacher he showed
largeness of view, depth of thought, and a rare facility of clear
and powerful expression. He wrote a number of biographies and other
works. He died in 1900.
PARK
1808-1900
THE PROMINENCE OF THE ATONEMENT[1]
[1] Printed here by kind permission of Messrs. W. F. Draper & Co.,
Andover Publishing House, Andover, Mass.
_For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified._--1 Corinthians ii., 2.
Should the apostle who penned this eloquent expression resume his
ministry on earth, and should he deign to hold converse with us on
the principles of his high calling, and should he repeat his strong
words, I am now, as of old, determined not to know anything among
you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, some of us would feel an
impulse to ask him:
"Can your words mean what they appear to imply? You are learned in
Rabbinical literature; you have read the Grecian poets, and even
quoted from Aratus; you have examined the statuary of Greece, and
have made a permanent record of an inscription upon an altar in
ancient Athens; you have reasoned on the principles of Aristotle
from effect to cause, and have taken rank with the philosophers,
as well as orators of the world; and now, you seem to utter your
determination to abandon all knowledge save that which concerns the
Jew who was crucified. You once said that you had rather speak five
words with the understanding, than ten thousand words in an unknown
tongue; and here, lest the pithy language of this text should fail
of being truly apprehended, we desire to learn its precise meaning
in three particulars:
"In the first place, do you intend to assert that our knowledge is
controlled by our will? You determined not to know anything save
one. Can you by mere choice expel all but one of your old ideas, and
make your mind like a chart of white paper in reference to the vast
majority of your familiar objects of thought?"
"I am ready to concede," is the reply, "that much of our knowledge
is involuntary; still a part of it is dependent on our will. In some
degree, at some times, we may attend to a theme or not attend to
it, as we choose, and thus our choice may influence our belief, and
thus are we responsible, in a certain measure, for our knowledge.
Besides, the word 'know' is used by us Hebraistic writers to include
not only a mental apprehension, but also a moral feeling. When we
know Christ, we feel a hearty complacence in Him. Again, to 'know'
often signifies to manifest, as well as to possess, both knowledge
and love. We do not know an old acquaintance when we of set purpose
withhold all public recognition of him, and act outwardly as if
we were inwardly ignorant of his being. But I, Paul, say to you,
as I said to the Corinthians, that I shall make the atonement of
Christ, and nothing but the atonement of Christ, the main theme of
my regard, of my loving regard, and such loving regard as is openly
avowed."
Thus our first query is answered; but there is a second inquiry
which some of us would propose to the apostle, were he uttering to
us personally the words which he wrote to the Corinthians. It is
this:
"Should a Christian minister out of the pulpit, as well as in the
pulpit, know nothing save the Crucified One? Did you not know how to
sustain yourself by the manufacture of tents; and did you not say to
the circle of elders at Ephesus, 'These hands have ministered to my
necessities'? Did you not dispute with the Roman sergeants, plead
your cause before the Roman courts? Must not every minister cease
for a time to converse on the word of Jesus; and must he not think
of providing for his own household, lest he become worse than an
infidel?"
"I am willing to admit," is the reply, "that the pulpit is the
place where the minister should speak of Christ with more uniform
distinctness than in other places; but there are no places, and no
times, in which he should fail to manifest, more or less obviously,
his interest in his Redeemer. Wherever he goes he has a pulpit.
Whether he eat, or drink, or whatever he do, he must do all for
the glory of God, and the highest glory of God is Christ, and the
highest honor of Christ is in Him crucified. A minister must always
respect the proprieties of life; in honoring them he knows that
appropriate model Man who, rising from the tomb, wrapped up the
napkin that was about His head, and laid it in a place by itself.
Now the proprieties of life do require a minister to speak in the
pulpit on themes more plainly and more easily connected with the
atonement, than are various themes on which he must speak in the
market-place or in the schools. But all subjects on which he may
discourse do lead, sooner or later, more or less obviously and
easily, to the great work of Jesus; and he should converse on them
with the intent of seizing every hint they give him, following out
every line to which they point him, in the direction of the cross. I
have been in many synagogues, and in the temple, and on Mars' Hill,
and on a Mediterranean ship-deck; and once I was hurried along in a
night ride from Jerusalem to Cæsarea with four hundred and seventy
soldiers, horsemen and spearmen. I have resided at leisure with my
arm chained to a Roman guard in a prison at the capital of the Roman
Empire; but in all such places I have felt, and everywhere I do
feel, bound to speak out, and to act out, all the interest which
the fitness of the occasion admits, in the atonement of Jesus; and
not to manifest, and not to feel, any interest in any theme which
may lessen my regard for this, the chiefest among ten thousand!"
But there is a third question which some of us would propose to the
apostle, were he to speak in our hearing the words of the text:
"Should every man, as well as every minister, cherish and exhibit no
interest in anything but Christ? Should a sailor at the masthead,
a surgeon in the extirpation of the clavicle, a warrior in the
critical moment of the last charge, look at nothing, and hear of
nothing, but the cross? Must not everyone conduct business, and
sustain cares, which draw his mind away from the atonement?"
"I am ready to grant," is the reply, "that some duties are less
plainly and less intimately connected than others with the work of
Jesus; but all of them are connected with it in some degree, and
this connection may be seen by all who choose to gain the fitting
insight. The great principle of duty belonging to the minister in
the pulpit, belongs to him everywhere; and the great principle of
duty belonging to the minister, belongs to every man, woman, and
child. There is not one religion for the man when he is in the
temple, and another religion for the man when he is in the parlor
or in the street. There is not one law for ordained pastor, and
another law for the tradesman or the mechanic. The same law and no
different one, the same religion and no different one, are the law
and religion for the apostles, and publicans, and prophets, and tax
gatherers, and patriarchs, and children, and nobles, and beggars.
Every man is bidden to refuse everything, if it be the nearest
friend, who interferes with the claims of the Messiah; and therefore
every man, layman as well as clergyman, must keep his eye fixed
primarily upon the cross. He may see other things within the range
of that cross, but he must keep the cross directly at the angle of
his vision, and allow nothing else, when placed side by side with
the tree of Calvary, to allure his eye away from that central,
engrossing object."
Here, then, is our third question answered; and in these three
replies to these three queries, we perceive the meaning of our text
to be: that not on the first day only, but on every day likewise,
not in the religious assembly only, but in all assemblies, and
in all solitudes likewise, not the preacher only, but the hearer
likewise, every man must adopt the rule, to give his voluntary, his
loving, his secret and open regard to nothing so much as to the
character and work of his Redeemer.
Having inquired into the meaning of the apostle's words, let us
proceed, in the next place, to inquire into the importance of
making the atonement of Christ the only great object of our
thought, speech and action.
And here, did we hold a personal interview with the author of our
text, we should be prompted to put three additional queries before
him. Our first inquiry would be:
"Is not your theme too contracted? It is well to know Christ, but
in all the varying scenes of life is it well not to know anything
else? Will not the pulpit become wearisome if, spring and autumn,
summer and winter, it confine itself to a single topic? We have
known men preach themselves out by incessant repetitions of the
scene at Calvary,--a scene thrilling in itself, and on that very
account not bearing to be presented in its details, every Sabbath
day. How much less will the varying sensibilities of the soul
endure the reiteration of this tragic tale every day and at every
interview! Such extreme familiarity induces irreverence. The
Bible is not confined to this theme. It is rich in ecclesiastical
history, political history, ethical rules, metaphysical discussion,
comprehensive theology. It contains one book of ten chapters which
has not a single allusion to God, and several books which do not
mention Christ; why then do you shut us up to a doctrine which will
circumscribe the minds of good men, and result in making their
conversation insipid?"
"Contracted!"--this is the reply--"and you consider this topic a
limited one, whose height, depth, length, breadth, no finite mind
can measure? Of what would you speak?"
"We would speak of the divine existence."
"But Christ is the 'I am.'"
"We would speak of the divine attributes."
"But Christ is the Alpha and Omega; He searcheth the reins and
trieth the hearts of men; He is the same yesterday, to-day, and
forever; full of grace and truth; to Him belong wisdom and power and
glory and honor; of His dominion is no end. Of what, then, would you
speak?"
"We would speak of the divine sovereignty."
"But Christ taught us to say: Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
in Thy sight--and He and His Father are one."
"We would converse on the divine decrees."
"But all things are planned for His praise who was in Christ, and in
whom Christ was at the beginning."
"We would discourse on electing love."
"But the saints are elect in Christ Jesus."
"We would utter many words on the creation of men and angels."
"Now by our Redeemer were all things created that are in heaven and
that are in the earth, visible and invisible."
"We would converse on the preservation of what has been created."
"Now Christ upholdeth all things by the word of His power. What
would you have, then, for your theme?"
"We would take the flowers of the field for our theme."
"But they are the delight, as well as the contrivance of the
Redeemer."
"We would take for our theme the globes in space."
"But they are the work of His fingers."
"Then we would take the very winds of heaven for our theme, lawless
and erratic as they are."
"But Jesus taught us to comment upon these as an illustration of
His truth. His poetic mind gave us the conception that the wind
bloweth where it chooseth to blow; and we look on, wondering whence
it cometh, and whither it goeth, knowing only that it is the breath
of the wonderful, the counselor, who arouseth it as He listeth, or
saith, Peace, be still. What else, then, do you prefer for your
topic of conversation?"
"We prefer the laws of nature for our topic."
"But in them the Father worketh and Christ worketh equally."
"If it be so, we will select the fine and useful arts for our
subject."
"But all the materials of these arts and all the laws which
compact them, and all the ingenuity which arranges them are of
His architectonic plan. He is the guide of the sculptor, painter,
musician, poet. He is the contriver of all the graces which we
in our idolatry ascribe to the human discoverer, as if man had
originally invented them. The history of the arts is the history of
Christ's government on earth. Will you propose, then, some other
theme for your remark?"
"Do let us converse on the moral law."
"You may; but Christ gave this law and came to magnify it."
"Then let us comment on the ceremonial law."
"You may; but all its types are prophecies of Jesus."
"Then we will expatiate on virtue in the general."
"Do so; but Christ is the first exemplar, the brightest
representative of all abstract goodness, of all your virtue in the
general."
"Then we will take up the ethical maxims."
"Take them up; but they are embodied in Him who is the way, the
truth, the life."
"We will resort, then, to human responsibility for our subject of
discourse."
"But we must all appear before the judgment seat of that fair-minded
arbiter who is man as well as God."
"May we not speak of eternal blessedness?"
"Yes; but it is Christ who welcomes His chosen into life."
"Shall we not converse, then, on endless misery?"
"Yes; but it is Christ who will proclaim: Depart, ye cursed."
"The human body; we would utter some words on that."
"But your present body is the image of what your Lord wore once, and
the body that you will have, if you die in the faith, is the image
of what your Lord wears now; the image of the body slain for our
offenses and raised again for our justification. And have you still
a favorite theme which you have not suggested?"
"The pleasures of life are our favorite theme."
"Yes, and Jesus provided them and graced them at Cana."
"The duties of the household are our favorite theme."
"Yes, and Jesus has prescribed them and disciplines you by them,
and will judge you for your manner of regarding them. What would
you have, then, what can you think of for your choice topic of
discourse?"
"We love to talk of our brethren in the faith."
"But they are the indices of Christ, and He is represented by them."
"We choose to converse on our Redeemer's indigent, imprisoned,
diseased, agonized followers."
"And He is anhungered, athirst, penniless, afflicted in them, and
whatsoever we do to one of them we do to Him, and what we say of one
of them we say of Him."
"May we speak in the pulpit of slaves?"
"Of slaves! Can you not speak of Medes and Parthians, Indians and
Arabians? Why not then of Africans? Have they, or have they not,
immortal souls? Was Jesus, or was He not, crucified for them? Was
He ashamed of the lowly and the down-trodden, and those who have
become the reproach of men and the despised of the people? You may
speak of all for whom Christ died; as all men, bond or free, and all
things, globes or atoms, suggest thoughts leading in a right line
or in a curved line to the cross of Christ. All things, being thus
nearly or remotely suggestive of the atonement, are for your sakes;
whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come,--all are yours, for your
thoughts, for your words. If things pertain to the divine essence,
the whole of that is the essence of Jesus; if they pertain to the
divine relations, all of them are the relations of Jesus; if they
pertain to the noblest and brightest features of seraphs, all the
angels of God bow down before Jesus; if they pertain to the minutest
changes of human life, in all our vicissitudes Jesus keeps up His
brotherhood with us; if they pertain to the vilest and darkest spot
of our depravity, they pertain to Jesus,--for to speak aright of sin
is to be determined to speak of Christ and of Him crucified for sin.
"And is this the doctrine which men call a contracted one? Narrow!
The very suspicion of its being narrow has now suggested the first
reason why you should place it and keep it as the crown of all
your words and deeds--it is so large, so rich, so boundless, that
you need nothing which excludes it. And therefore," continues
the apostle, "I mean to know and to love nothing, and to make
it manifest that I care for nothing, in comparison with, and
disconnected from, the God-man, as He develops all His attributes
and all His relations on the cross."
But were the author of these laconic words in a familiar conference
with us, we might be tempted to address to him a second inquiry:
"Is not your theme too large? At first we deemed it too small, but
now it swells out before us into such colossal dimensions that we
change our ground, and ask: Can the narrow mind of man take in this
multiplicity of relations, comprehended in both the natures, and in
the redemptive, as well as all the other works of Christ? Do not
frail powers need one day as a day of rest, and one place as a
sanctuary of repose, from every thought less tender than that of the
atoning death itself? Must we not call in our minds from Christ and
Him crucified, so as to concentrate all our emotions on the simple
fact of Christ crucified?"
"Too large a theme!" this is the reply, "it is a large theme, too
large to be fully comprehended by finite intelligences. Men have
dreamed of exhausting the atonement by defining it to be a plan for
removing the obstacles which stand in the way of our pardon. It is
too large for that definition, as the atonement also persuades the
Most High to forgive us. Then men have thought to mark it round
about by saying that it is a scheme for inducing God to interpose in
our aid. But the atonement is too large for that defining clause,
as it also presents motives to man for accepting the interposition
of God. Then some have thought to define it exactly, by saying
that the atonement is both an appeal to the Lawgiver and also an
appeal to the sinner. Too large still is the atonement for that
explanation. It is an appeal to both God and man, but it is more. It
is an appeal to the universe, and is as many-sided as the universe
itself is to be variously affected. Can we by searching find out the
whole of atoning love? It is the love of Him who stretched out His
arms on the fatal wood, and pointed to the right hand and to the
left hand, and raised His eyes upward, and cast them downward; and
thus all things above and below, and on either side, He embraced
in His comprehensive love. It is a large theme, but not too large
to operate as a motive upon us. The immeasurable reach of a motive
is the hiding of its power. The mind of man is itself expansive,
and requires and will have something immense and infinite of truth
or error, either overpowering it for good or overmastering it for
evil. The atonement is a great theme, but not too great; and for
the additional reason, its greatness lies, in part, in its reducing
all other doctrines to a unity, its arranging them around itself in
an order which makes them all easily understood. We know in other
things the power of unity amid variety. We know how simple the
geography of a land becomes by remembering that its rivers, altho
meandering in unnumbered circuits around the hills and through
the vales, yet pursue one main direction from one mountain to one
sea. Now all the truths of God flow into the atonement. They are
understood by means of it, because their tendencies are toward it;
and it is understood by means of them, because it receives and
comprehends them.
"Consider more fully the first part of this sentence; all other
truths are understood by means of the atonement. It gives to them
all a unity by illustrating them all. Other truths are not so much
independent themes, as they are branches growing up or sidewise
out of this one root, and they need this single theme in order that
their relations may be rightly understood. What, for example, can
we know in its most important bearings, unless we know the history
and office of our Redeemer? Begin from whatever point we may examine
the uses of things, we can never measure their full utility until we
view them from the cross. The trees bud and blossom. Why? To bear
fruit for the sustenance of the human body. But is this an ultimate
object? The nourishment of the body favors the growth of the mind.
But is the human mind an end worthy of all the contrivances in
nature? Does the sun, with all its retinue of stars, pursue its
daily course with no aim ulterior to man's welfare? Do we adopt a
Ptolemaic theory in morals, that man is the center of the system,
and other worlds revolve round him? All things were made of God, as
the Being in whom they all terminate. Do they exist for elucidating
His power? This is not his chief attribute. His knowledge? There is
a nobler perfection than omniscience. His love? But there is one
virtue imbedded as a gem in His love, and His love is but a shining
casket for this pearl of infinite price. This pearl is grace. This
is the central ornament of the character of Jehovah. But there is no
grace in Jehovah save as it beams forth in Christ; not in Christ as
a mere Divinity, nor in Christ as a mere spotless humanity, but in
the two united, and in that God-man crucified. All things were made
by Him and for Him, rising from the cross to the throne. Without
reference to Him in His atoning love has nothing been made that was
made in this world. The star in the East led wise men once to the
manger where the Redeemer lay; and all the stars of heaven lead
wise men now to Him who had risen above the stars, and whose glory
illumines them all. He is termed the Sun of righteousness; and, as
the material sun binds all the planets around it in an intelligible
order, so does Christ shine over, and under, and into, and through
all other objects, attract them all to Himself, marshal them all
into one clear and grand array, showing them all to be His works,
all suggestive of our duty, our sin, our need of atonement, our
dependence on the one God, and the one Mediator between God and man.
"The first part of my sentence was, All other truths are understood
by means of the atonement. Consider next the second part: The
atonement is understood by means of other truths. It crystallizes
them around itself, and reduces them into a system, not only because
it explains them, but also because it makes them explain it. It is
not too large a theme, for all the sciences and the arts bring their
contributions to make it orderly and plain. Our text is a simple
one, because its words are interpreted by a thousand facts shining
upon it, and making themselves and it luminous in their radiations
around and over it. Listen again to its suggestive words:
"'For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.'
"Now, what is the meaning of this plain term 'Christ'? It means a
'King.' But how can we appreciate the King, unless we learn the
nature of the beings over whom He rules? He reigns over the heavens;
therefore we investigate the heavens. The whole earth is full of
His glory; therefore we study the earth. He is the Lord over the
angels; when we reflect on them, we catch a glimpse of Him in His
regal state. He is the King of the Jews and the Gentiles. When we
meditate on men, we enjoy a glance at Him who was born for this
end, that He might have dominion over our race. When we contemplate
the material worlds, all the vastness and the grandeur included in
them--the sphere of mind, all the refinement and energy involved
in it--we are overpowered by the reality, surpassing fable, that
He who superintends all the movements of matter and first spake it
into being and once framed, as He now governs, the souls of His
creatures--He is the King who atoned for us; and the more we know of
the stars in their courses, and of the spirit in its mysteries, so
much the deeper is our awe in view of the condescending pity which
moved their Creator to become one with a lowly creature acquainted
with grief for you and me. So much is involved in the word 'Christ.'
"But our text speaks of Jesus Christ. That word 'Jesus!' What is
the meaning of it? It means a 'deliverer,' and in the view of some
interpreters it means 'God, the deliverer.' Deliverer? From what? We
do not understand the power of His great office, unless we learn the
nature and the vileness of sin; and we have no conception how mean,
how detestable, sin is, unless we know the needlessness of it, the
nobleness of the will which degrades itself into it, the excellence
of the law which is dishonored by it. All our studies, then, in
regard to the nature of the will, the unforced voluntariness of
depravity, the extent of it through our race, the depth of it, the
purity of the commands aiming to prevent it, the attractions of
virtue, the strangeness of their not prevailing over the temptations
of vice--they are not mere metaphysics; they are studies concerning
the truth and the grace of Immanuel, who is God with us, and whose
name is 'Deliverer' because He delivers His people from their sins;
sins involving the power and the penalty of free wrong choice;
a penalty including the everlasting punishment of the soul; a
punishment suggesting the nature and the character of the divine
law, and the divine Lawgiver, in their relation to the conscience
and all the sensibilities of the mind; and that mind, as undying as
its Maker. All these things are comprehended in the word 'Jesus.'
"But our text speaks of Jesus Christ and Him crucified: and this
third term, 'crucified,' adds an emphasis to the two preceding
terms, and stirs us up to examine our own capabilities--to learn
the skill pervading our physical organism, so exquisitely qualified
for pain as well as pleasure; the wisdom apparent in our mental
structure, so keenly sensitive to all that can annoy as well as
gratify; and thus we catch a glimpse of the truth, that He who
combines all of our dignity with none of our guilt, and with all
of the divine glory, and who thus develops all that is fit to be
explained in man, and all that can be explained in God--He it is who
chose to hang and linger with aching nerve and bleeding heart upon
the cross for you and me. This cross makes out an atonement of the
sciences and the arts and brings them also, as well as devout men,
at one with God; all of them tributary to the doctrine that we are
bought with a price--that we are redeemed, not with silver and gold,
but with the precious blood of a man, who was God manifest in the
flesh. Too large a theme is the atonement? But it breaks down the
middle wall of partition that has kept apart the different studies
of men; and it brings them together as illustrations of the truth,
which in their light becomes as simple as it is great.
"The very objection, then, that the redemptive work is too extensive
for our familiar converse, has suggested the second reason why it
should be the main thing for us to think upon, and speak upon, and
act upon: It systematizes all other themes, and gains from them a
unity which becomes the plainer because it is set off by a luminous
variety; and for this cause," continues the apostle, "I intend to
know nothing with supreme love, except this centralizing doctrine
which combines all other truths into a constellation of glories."
There is still a third inquiry which we might present to the author
of our text, could we meet him in a personal colloquy:
"Your words all converge toward one point; will they not then become
monotonous, and inapposite to the varying wants of various, or even
the same, individuals?"
"A monotonous theme!" this is the reply: "What can be more
diversified than the character and work of Him who is at one time
designated as the omniscient God, and at another time as a Mechanic;
at one time as a Judge, and at another time as an Intercessor; now
a Lion, and then a Lamb; here a Vine, a Tree, there a Way, a Door;
again a Stone, a Rock, still again a Star, a Sun; here without sin,
and there He was made sin for us.
"Monotonous is this theme? Then it is sadly wronged, and the mind of
man is sadly harmed; for this mind shoots out its tendrils to grasp
all the branches of the tree of life, and the tree in its healthy
growth has branches to which every sensibility of the human mind
may cling. The judgment is addrest by the atonement, concerning the
nature of law of distributive justice, the mode of expressing this
justice either by punishing the guilty or by inflicting pain as a
substitute for punishment, the influence of this substitution on
the transgressor, on the surety, on the created universe, on God
Himself. There is more of profound and even abstruse philosophy
involved in the specific doctrine of the atonement, than in any
other branch of knowledge; and there has been or will be more of
discussion upon it, than upon all other branches of knowledge; for
sacred science is the most fruitful of all sciences in logical
deduction, and this specific part of the science is the richest of
all its parts.
"Here, then, is the first method in which you may keep up the habit
of making 'Jesus and Him crucified' the soul of your activity: Bring
to your help the force of a resolute determination. There is a
tendency in this resolute spirit to divert your thoughts from other
themes, to turn the current of your sensibilities into the right
channel, to invigorate your choice, to exert a direct and reflex
influence in confirming the whole soul in Jesus. God is in that
determination. He inspires it. He invigorates it. He works with it
and by it. There is a power in it, but the power is not yours; it is
the power of God. God is in every holy resolve of man."
In our interview with the apostle we should address to him a second
inquiry:
"In what method can we avoid both the fact and the appearance of
being slavishly coerced into the habit of conversing on Christ
and on Christ alone? You speak of taking your stand, adhering to
your decision; but this dry, stiff resolve-comes any genial spirit
from it? Will you not be a slave to your unswerving purpose? Your
inflexible rule, will it not be a hard one, wearisome to yourself,
disagreeable to others? You hold up a weighty theme by a dead lift."
"I am determined"--this is the reply--"and it is not only a strong
but it is a loving resolve. For the love of Christ constraineth
me; whom having not seen in the flesh I love; in whom, though now
I see him not, yet believing, I rejoice with the joy unspeakable
and full of glory. It is not a business-like resolution. It is
not a diplomatic purpose. It is not a mechanical force. It is an
affectionate decision. It is a joyous rule. It is the effluence of a
supreme attachment to the Redeemer.
"And this is the second method in which you may retain Jesus Christ
as the jewel of your speech and life: Cherish a loving purpose to
do so. A man has strength to accomplish what with a full soul he
longs to accomplish. Your Christian toil will be irksome to you, if
it be not your cordial preference; but if your undeviating resolve
spring out of a hearty choice of your Savior, then will it be ever
refreshed and enlivened by your outflowing, genial preference; then
will your pious work be the repose of your soul. There is a power in
your love to your work. It is a power to make your labor easy for
yourself and attractive to others. This is not your power; it is the
power of God. He enkindles the love within you. He enlivens it. He
gives it warmth. He makes it instinct with energy. God is in all the
holy joy of man."
In our conference with the author of our text we might suggest to
him our third and last inquiry:
"In what method can we feel sure of persevering in this habitual
exaltation of Christ? You speak of your stern purpose, but can you
depend upon the continuance of it? You speak of your cordial as well
as set resolve. But who are you? (forgive our pertinacious query).
Jesus we know. But His disciples, His chief apostles--is not every
one of them a reed shaken with the wind, tossed hither and thither,
unstable as a wave upon the sea?"
"I know it is so"--this is the reply. "Often am I afraid lest,
having preached the gospel to others, I should be a castaway. And
after all I am persuaded that nothing--height depth, life, death,
nothing--shall be able to separate me from the love of Christ; for
I put my confidence in Him, and while my purpose is inflexible and
affectionate, it is also inwrought with trust in the atonement and
the intercession. I do pursue my Christian life in weakness and in
fear and in much trembling. For all the piety of the best of men
is in itself as grass, and the goodliness thereof as the flower of
the field. Therefore serve I the Lord with all humility of mind
and with many tears and temptations. Yet I am determined with a
confiding love. I am troubled on every side; my flesh has no rest;
without are fightings, within are fears; in presence I am base among
you, my bodily presence is weak and my speech contemptible; and if
I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern my
infirmities. Still, after all, I am determined, my right hand being
enfolded in the hand of my Redeemer. I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed
unto Him against that day. For my conversation is in heaven, from
whence I am to look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious
body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue
all things unto Himself. I say the truth in Christ; I lie not; I am
the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle,
because I injured the Church of God; I am less than the least of all
saints. Still I am determined; for by the grace of God I am what I
am; and this grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but
I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I but the grace of
God which was with me; for I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me, and therefore I am determined.
"Borne onward, therefore, by your fixed plan, and no one can succeed
in anything without a plan, yet you must never rely ultimately
upon your determined spirit. Allured further and further onward
by your delight in your plan, and no one can work as a master in
anything without enthusiasm in his prescribed course, still you
must not place your final dependence upon your affectionate spirit;
for if you take, for your last prop, either the sternness or the
cheerfulness of your own determination, then you will know your
determination, and you are not to know anything save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Here, then, is the third method in which you may
give the fitting prominence to the best of themes: You must rest for
your chief and final support on Him and only on Him, from whom all
wise plans start, by whom they hold out, and to whom they all tend,
who is all and in all, Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
My Christian brethren, you are all apostles. Every man, every woman,
every child, the richest and the poorest, the most learned and the
most ignorant of you--who have come up hither to dedicate yourselves
and this sanctuary to your Lord, all being sent of Him to serve Him,
have in fact and in essence the same responsibility resting on you
as weighed on the author of our text. And he was burdened by the
same kind of temptations and fears which oppress your spirit. But he
was held up from failing in his work by a threefold cord; and that
was his resolute determination, as loving as it was resolute, and as
trustful as it was loving, to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. The last that you hear of him as an impenitent man is in
the words: "And Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughter
against the disciples of the Lord." It was Christ whom the proud Jew
last opposed. The first that you hear of him as a convicted man is
in the words: "Who art thou, Lord?" It was Christ whom the inquiring
Jew first studied. And the first that you hear of him as a penitent
man is: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" It was Christ to whom
the humble disciple first surrendered his will. And the first that
you hear of him as a Christian minister is: "And straightway he
preached Christ in the synagogs that he is the Son of God." And the
last that you hear of him as a Christian hero is: "I have fought
the good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith;
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." And
the secret of this victorious career is in words like those of our
text: "I adhered to my plan (when among the fickle Corinthians), I
was decided (when among the vacillating Galatians) to know nothing
(when among the learned at Athens and them of Cæsar's household at
Rome) save Jesus Christ (when I was among my own kinsmen who scorned
Him), and Him crucified (when I was among the pupils of Gamaliel,
all of whom despised my chosen theme); still I was determined to
cling to that theme among the Greeks and the Barbarians, before
Onesimus the slave and Philemon the proud master; for I loved my
theme, and, suffering according to the will of God, I committed the
keeping of my soul to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator."
And herein is it to be your plan, my brethren, and your joy, not to
make this sanctuary the resort of wealth and of fashion, but rather
of humble suppliants, who by their prayers may divert all the wealth
and fashion of the world into the service of your Lord; not to make
this temple the resting-place of hearers who shall idly listen to
the words of an orator, but a temple of earnest coworkers with
Christ--thinking of Him, speaking of Him, loving Him first, and
last, and midst, and without end. As you come to this house of God
on the Sabbath, as you go from it, as your week-day recollections
gather around it, may you renew and confirm your plan to know your
Redeemer, and not only to shut yourselves up to the supreme love
of nothing except Christ, but also--His grace will be sufficient
for you--to worship and serve Christ in the central relation of Him
crucified. Knowing Him alone, He will sustain you as fully as if He
knew you alone. He will come to you in this temple as frequently
as if He had no other servants to befriend. He will listen to your
prayers as intently as if no supplications came up to Him from
other altars, and He will intercede for you as entirely as if He
interceded in behalf of no one else; for remember, that when He
hung upon the cross, He thought of you, and died for you, just as
fully as if He had been determined to think of no one, and to die
for no one, save you, whom He now calls to the solemn service of
consecrating your own souls, and your "holy and beautiful house" to
the glory of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
SIMPSON
THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
MATTHEW SIMPSON, Methodist Episcopal Bishop, was born at Cadiz,
Ohio, in 1810. He early distinguished himself as an orator, his
style being that of spontaneous unpremeditated eloquence, in which
he carried his congregation to heights of spiritual fervor and
enthusiasm. He visited Europe in 1878 as delegate to the World's
Evangelical Alliance in Berlin, which served to widen his reputation
as a public speaker. He officiated at the funeral of Abraham Lincoln
at Springfield, Illinois. His "Lectures on Preaching" delivered
before the divinity students at Yale have been widely read. He died
in 1884.
SIMPSON
1810-1884
THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD
_But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits
of them that slept._--1 Cor. xv., 20.
A little more than eighteen hundred years ago, as the light of the
morning was breaking around the walls of Jerusalem, there was a
guard placed about a sepulcher in a small garden near the walls
of the city. They were guarding a grave. Some strange scenes had
occurred on the Friday before. While a man whom they had taken from
the hills of Galilee and around the little lake of Capernaum had
been hanging on the cross crucified as a malefactor, strange signs
appeared in the heavens, and on the earth and in the temple.
It was rumored that he had said he would rise the third morning.
The third morning was coming, and as the light began to break in
the East, there came two women silently and sadly wending their way
among the tents that were pitched all around the city of Jerusalem;
they had sojourned all night in the tents, for as yet the gates of
the city had not been opened. They came to see the sepulcher and
were bringing spices in their hands. They loved the man who had been
crucified as a malefactor, because of his goodness, his purity, and
his compassion. They seemed to be almost the only hearts on earth
that did love him deeply, save the small circle of friends who had
gathered around him. There had been curses upon his head as he hung
on the cross--curses from the by-standers, curses from the soldiers,
curses from the people. They cried: "Away with him; his blood be on
us and on our children!" and on that morning there were none but a
few feeble, obscure, heart-broken friends that dared to come near
his grave.
A little more than eighteen hundred years have passed and on the
anniversary of that day, the morning of the first day of the week,
the first Sabbath after the full moon and the vernal equinox, at the
same season, the whole world comes to visit that grave. The eyes of
princes and of statesmen, the eyes of the poor and the humble in all
parts of the earth are turned toward that sepulcher.
All through Europe men and women are thinking of that grave and of
Him who lay in it. All over western lands, from ocean to ocean, on
mountain top and in valley, over broad prairies and deep ravines,
the eyes and hearts of the people are gathered round that grave. In
the darkness of Africa, here and there, we see them stretching out
their hands toward it. Along the coasts of India and the heights of
the Himalayas they have heard of that grave and are bending toward
it. The Chinese, laying aside their prejudices, have turned their
eyes westward and are looking toward that sepulcher. Along the
shores of the seas, over the mountain tops and in the valleys, the
hearts of the people have not only been gathering around that grave,
but they have caught a glimpse of the rising inmate who ascended in
His glory toward heaven.
The song of jubilee has gone forth, and the old men are saying, "The
Lord is risen from the dead." The young men and matrons catch up the
glowing theme, and the little children around our festive boards,
scarcely comprehending the source of their joy, with glad hearts
are now joyful, because Jesus has risen from the dead. All over the
earth tidings of joy have gone forth, and as the valleys have been
ringing out their praises on this bright Sabbath morning how many
hearts have been singing--
"Our Jesus is going up on high!"
Why this change? What hath produced such a wonderful difference in
public feeling? The malefactor once curst, now honored; the obscure
and despised, now sought for; the rising Redeemer, not then regarded
by men, now universally worshiped. What is the cause of this great
change?--how brought about? The subject of this morning, taken from
the associations of this day, call us to consider as briefly as we
may the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead and some of
the consequences which flow to us from that resurrection.
It is important for us to fix clearly in our minds the fact that
this is one reason why such days are remembered in the annals of
the Church as well as in the annals of nations; for our faith
rests on facts, and the mind should clearly embrace the facts
that we may feel that we are standing on firm ground. This fact
of the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of the Christian
system; for the apostle says: "And if Christ be not raised, your
faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins; then they also which are
fallen asleep in Christ will perish." If Christ be not risen, we
shall never see the fathers and the mothers who have fallen asleep
in Jesus; we shall never see the little ones who have gone up to
be, as we believe, angels before the throne of God. If Christ be
not raised, we are of all men the most miserable, because we are
fancying future enjoyment, which never can be realized; but if
Christ be raised, then shall we also rise, and them that sleep in
Jesus will God bring with Him. And that our minds may rest as to the
fact of Christ's resurrection, let us notice how God hath arranged
the evidences to secure the knowledge of this fact clearly to man.
The first point to which our attention is invited is the fact of
Christ's death. Were not this fact clearly established it would
be in vain to try to prove His resurrection from the dead. Christ
might have suffered for man in some obscure place; He might have
laid down His life as a ransom, and yet there would have been
no legal evidence of it. God allowed the wrath of man to become
the instrument of praising Him, in that He suffered Christ to be
taken under what was then the legal process--arrested first by
the great council of the Jews, and then by the authority of the
Roman governor, so that the matter became of public record--a
legal transaction. The highest power, both of the Jewish and Roman
governments, united in this fact of His arrest, His trial, and His
condemnation to death.
Not only was this permitted, but the time of the occurrence was
wisely arranged. It was at the feast of the Jews, the Passover, when
all the Jews came up to keep the Passover. They came not only from
Egypt but from all the country through which they were scattered.
Jerusalem could not hold the people that came together; they pitched
their tents all around the city, on the hills and in the valleys.
It was the time of full moon, when there was brightness all night,
and they came together with safety and security. The multitude,
then, was there to witness the scene, so that it might be attested
by people from all parts of Judea and from all countries round about
Judea.
Then, again, the form of the death was such as to be not a sudden
one, but one of torture, passing through many hours. Had the
execution been a very sudden one, as it might have been, the death
would have been equally efficacious, yet it would not have been
witnessed by so many; but as He hung those dreadful hours, from
nine until three, the sun being darkened, what an opportunity was
given to the people passing by to be imprest with the scene! The
crucifixion was near the city; the crowd was there; the temple
worship was in process; the strangers were there; and as one great
stream passes on some festive day through the great thoroughfare of
your city, so passed the stream of men, women, and children by that
cross on which the Savior hung. They wagged their heads and reviled
as they passed by. The very ones whom Jesus had healed, whose
fathers had been cured of leprosy or fever, whose mothers' eyes had
been opened; the ones who had been raised up from beds of sickness
by the touch of that Savior, passed by and reviled, and said: "He
saved others, Himself He cannot save." The multitude saw Him as He
hung suffering on the cross.
Then, again, the circumstances attending His death were such as
to invite universal attention. It was not designed that the death
should be a private one; not merely a legal transaction, a matter
soon over, but a protracted and agonizing spectacle--one to be seen
and known by the multitude; but, in addition, that man's attention
should be drawn to something to be connected with that wonderful
scene; hence God called upon the heavens and the earth, the air and
the graves, and the temple itself for testimony. It is said that
before the coronation of a prince in olden time in Europe--and in
some kingdoms the custom is still observed--there is sent forth
a herald, sometimes three days in advance, at different periods
according to the custom, to issue a challenge to anyone that dares
to claim the kingdom to come and prove his right, and to announce
that the coronation of this prince is to take place.
Methinks it was such a challenge God gave to all the powers of
humanity and to all the powers of darkness. There hung suffering on
the cross He who died for human wo, and as He hung God was about
to crown Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords on the morning of the
third day. He sends forth His voice of challenge, and as He speaks
the earth rocks to its center; that ground, shaking and convulsing,
was a call to man to witness what was about to occur.
Not only is there a voice of earth. Yonder the sun clothed himself
in sackcloth for three hours, as much as to say: "There may be gloom
for three days; the great Source of light hath veiled Himself, as in
a mantle of night, for three days. As for three hours this darkness
hangs, but as out of the darkness the light shines forth, so at
the end of the three days shall the Sun of Righteousness shine out
again, the great center of glory, with that glory which He had with
the Father from the foundation of the world." It was the herald's
voice that passed through the heavens, and that spoke through all
the orbs of light, "Give attention, ye created beings, to what is
to happen!" But it was not alone in the earth, which is the great
center, nor in the heavens, which is the great source of light, that
the tidings were proclaimed.
Look in yonder valley. The tombs are there; the prophets have been
buried there. Yon hillside is full of the resting-places of the
dead; generations on generations have been buried there; friends are
walking in it, and they are saying, "Yonder is a mighty judge in
Israel; there is the tomb of a prophet." They were passing to and
fro through that valley of death when the earthquake's tread was
heard, and behold! the tombs were opened, the graves displayed the
dead within, and there was a voice that seemed to call from the very
depths of the graves, "Hear, O sons of men!"
What feelings must have thrilled through the hearts of those who
stood by those monuments and bended over those graves, when, thrown
wide open, the doors bursting, and the rocks giving way, they saw
the forms of death come forth and recognized friends that once they
had known. What was to occur? What could all this mean? Then the
great sacrifice was offered. It was three o'clock in the afternoon
when Christ was to give up the ghost. Yonder the multitude of pious
people were gathered toward the temple. The outer court was full;
the doors and gates which lead into the sanctuary were crowded; the
lamb was before the altar; the priest in his vestments had taken the
sacrificial knife; the blood was to be shed at the hour of three;
the multitude were looking.
Yonder hangs a veil; it hides that inner sanctuary; there are
cherubim in yonder with their wings spread over the mercy-seat; the
shekinah once dwelt there; God Himself in His glory was there and
the people are bending to look in. No one enters into that veil save
the high priest, and he, with blood and in the midst of incense, but
once a year; but it was the mercy-seat and the eye of every pious
Jew was directed toward that veil, thinking of the greater glory
which lay beyond it.
As the hour of three came and as the priest was taking the
sacrificial knife from the altar and was about to slay the lamb,
behold! an unseen hand takes hold of that veil and tears it apart
from top to bottom, and has thrown open the mercy-seat, not before
seen by men. The cherubim are there; the altar with its covering
of blood is there; the resting-place of the ark is there; it is
the holiest of holies. Methinks the priest drops the knife, the
lamb goes free, for the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of
the world is suffering for man. The way to the holy of holies is
open,--a new and living way, which men may not close, which priest
alone can not enter; but a way is open whereby humanity, opprest and
downtrodden, from all parts of the earth, may find its way to the
mercy-seat of God. There was a call to the pious worshiper by voices
which seemed to say: "An end to all the sacrifices, an end to all
the suffering victims, an end to all the sprinkled hyssop that is
used in purification, for One has come to do the will of God on whom
the burden of man had been laid."
Now here were all these calls to humanity from all parts, as if to
announce the great transaction. While all this was occurring Christ
was on the cross, suffering the agony of crucifixion. How deep that
agony we need not attempt to tell you; it was fearful; and yet no
complaint escaped His lips, no murmuring was there. He bore the sins
of many in His own flesh on the tree. He heard the multitudes revile
Him; He saw them wag their heads; He remembered that the disciples
had fled from Him--one followed afar off, but the rest had gone; and
yet He complained not. Friends and kindred had all left Him and He
trod the wine-press alone. He drank the cup in all its bitterness
and no complaint escaped from Him. One left Him that had never
forsaken Him before. "The world is gone, the disciples I have fed
and taught have all fled and passed away,--all have forsaken Me."
But there was no time until that moment of fearful darkness came,
when all the load of guilt was upon Him and for our sins He was
smitten, that His spirit was crusht, and He called out, "My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" All else might go--it were little;
"Why hast thou forsaken me?" But it is over; the darkness is past;
the load is borne; and I hear Him say, "It is finished"; He bows His
head and dies.
Now there is publicity for the transaction. It demanded public
investigation, it received it. There was not only the mental agony
united with the agony of crucifixion, but there was the voluntary
giving up of His life; yet, lest there might be some suspicion, to
all this was added the proof of the fact of His death. When the
limbs of the others were broken and He was perceived to be dead, the
soldier thrust the spear into His side and there came out of that
side both water and blood.
There is a peculiarity in the sacred writings. A little incident
that seems to be mentioned without care becomes the strongest
possible proof, not only of the fact of Christ's death, but of the
nature of His death. When that sentence was written the human frame
was not understood, the circulation of the blood was not understood.
Anatomists had not then, as they have now, unveiled the human
system; the great science of pathology had not yet been clearly
taught to man; and yet in that sentence we have almost a world of
meaning. For it is well attested now that where persons die from
violent mental emotion, by what is termed a broken heart, a crusht
spirit, there is always formed a watery secretion around the heart.
It was not known then to the soldier who lifted up the spear and
pierced the body; but so much of that water had secreted around the
heart that he saw it issuing forth from the pierced side, unstained
by blood, which showed that the great heart had been crusht by agony
within.
When taken from the cross He was put in the sepulcher. His friends
had given Him up, His disciples had forsaken Him; some of them saw
Him die; they knew that He was crucified and they abandoned Him.
They were returning to their former employments; but His enemies
remembered He had said He would rise the third day, and they put
a guard around Him. The Roman soldiers were there; the king's
seal was on the stone rolled over the mouth of the sepulcher; they
made everything secure. Here again God ordered that we should have
abundant proof of Christ's crucifixion.
He was crucified on Friday, which was to them the last day of the
week, resting in the grave on our Saturday, which is their Sabbath,
and then comes the first day of the week, our Sabbath morning, made
our Sabbath because of Christ's resurrection from the dead. There
came an humble visitant to the tomb, Mary Magdalene; she had been
healed of much, forgiven much and she loved Him. Mary, the mother of
James, came also and beheld the scenes that occurred; but there had
been strange commotions elsewhere.
Heaven had been gathering around that grave. Angels had been
watching there; they had seen the Roman guard; they had seen the
shining spear and polished shield; they had seen that Christ was
held as a prisoner by the greatest powers on earth. Methinks I see
the angelic host as they gathered round the throne of God and looked
up into the face of Omnipotence, and if ever there was a time when
there was silence in heaven for half an hour, it was before the
morning light of the third day dawned. I hear them say "How long
shall man triumph? How long shall human power exalt itself? How long
shall the powers of darkness hold jubilee? Let us away and roll
away the stone; let us away and frighten yonder Roman guard and
drive them from the sepulcher."
They waited until permission was given. I see the angel coming down
from the opening doors of glory; he hastens outside the walls of
Jerusalem and down to the sepulcher; when they saw him coming the
keepers shook, they became like dead men; he rolls away the stone
and sets himself by the mouth of the sepulcher. Christ, girding
Himself with all the power of His divinity, rises from the grave.
He leads captivity captive, tears the crown from the head of death,
and makes light the darkness of the grave. Behold Him as He rises
just preparatory to His rising up to glory. Oh, what a moment was
that! Hell was preparing for its jubilee; the powers of earth were
preparing for a triumph; but as the grave yields its prey, Christ,
charged with being an impostor, is proved to be the Son of God with
power; it is the power of His resurrection from the dead.
There was Christ's resurrection from the dead. He became the first
fruits of them that slept. But to give the amplest proofs of His
resurrection He lingered on earth to be seen of men, and to be seen
in such a manner as to show that He was still the Savior Christ.
In my younger days I used to often wonder why was it that Mary
Magdalene came first to the sepulcher, and the mother of James that
stood there--why He should appear to them; but in later days I have
said it was to show that He was the Savior still; that the same
nature was there which had made Him stoop to the lowliest of the
low--the power that enabled Him to heal the guiltiest of the guilty;
that that power, that compassion, were with Him still.
Tho now raised beyond death and triumphing over hell, He still had
within Him the Savior's heart. Methinks I see, when Peter had run
in anxiety to tell the news, Mary remained there; she could not
fully comprehend it; the grave was open, the napkins were there;
it was said He was not there, but He was risen. And yet, there was
a darkness upon her; she could not fully conceive, it seems to me,
the resurrection of the dead. She stood wondering, when she heard a
voice behind her which said, "Woman, why weepest thou?" Bathed in
tears as she was, she turned round and saw the man standing, and
taking him to be the gardener, and supposing that he had taken the
body and carried it away as not fit to lie in that tomb or be in
that garden, she said: "If thou hast taken, him away, tell me where
thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." If He must not lie in
this tomb, if He can not lie in the garden, if as a malefactor He
must be cast out from man, tell me where the body is and I will take
it away. It was a proof of her affection.
A voice said, "Mary, Mary." Oh, she recognized it, and her heart
cried out: "Rabboni, my Lord and my God!" and then she would have
thrown herself at His feet and bathed those feet again with her
tears, but He said, "Touch me not, I am not ascended to my Father;
go and tell the disciples and Peter that I am risen from the dead."
See the compassion of the Savior! and then that message! "Tell the
disciples and Peter." Why send a message to him? Because he curst
and swore and denied the Master. The other disciples might have
said, "If Christ is risen, He may receive and bless us all; but
Peter is gone, hopelessly and irretrievably gone; he that forsook
his Master and denied Him, there is no hope for him." And yet said
Jesus, "Go and tell the disciples and Peter"--poor backslidden Peter.
Jesus knew his sorrow and anguish and almost felt the throbbings
of his broken heart, and He sent a message to Peter. He may be a
disciple still--may come back and be saved through the boundless
love of Christ. Oh, the compassion of the Son of God! Thank God that
Peter's Savior is on the throne this morning!
Not only was He seen by these, but He met with the disciples
journeying by the way and explained the Scriptures to them; and
as they met in the upper room He was there. When the doors were
unopened He came in their midst and said, "Peace!" breathed on them
and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Thus He met with them and
said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy fingers, and be not faithless but
believing."
Then afterward He was seen by five hundred, and from the Mount
of Olives, while the disciples were gathered around Him, He was
received up into glory. They saw Him and as He went He blest
them. The last vision that ever humanity had of the Son of God
ere he ascended to heaven was that of spreading out His hands
in blessing. Oh, my Savior hath thus gone up, and He dropt from
those outstretched hands a blessing which falls to-day like the
gentle dew all over the earth; it reaches heart after heart. It
hath reached patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, fathers, and mothers
and little children, and, thank God, the heavenly dew, as from
those outstretched hands, is coming down on our assembly this very
morning. On this glad day blessings are dropping from the throne of
God upon us from this risen Savior. He hath ascended up on high, the
gates have opened for Him, and He hath gone to His throne in glory.
Let us look at a few of the results that flow to us from these facts
thus sustained of His death and resurrection from the dead!
In the first place it established all Bible declarations. It had
been predicted that He should not stay in the grave, and when He
arose it put the seal to the Old Testament as the Word of God. The
prophecy in Him fulfilled gave glorious proof that the other parts
of it should be also fulfilled as the word of an unchanging God.
Again, in His resurrection we see a proof of His divine power. No
man hath been raised from the dead by his own power. All died, from
Adam to Moses, with the exception of Enoch and Elijah, who, because
of their devotion and acknowledgment of the divine head, themselves
became prophets of a coming Savior. He rose by His own power. He
conquered death itself, the grave, and the whole powers of humanity.
Jupiter is represented by an old classic writer as saying to the
lesser gods that if all of them combined together and should
endeavor to throw down his throne--if all power was arrayed against
him--he, by his own might, would be able to overcome them all.
What was fiction with the ancients becomes gloriously realized in
Christ. Take all the powers of humanity--the Jewish power, the
Roman power; the power of learning, of art, of public opinion; take
all the powers of earth and hell, death and the grave, and combine
them all against the Savior and, without one effort, without one
single apparent movement--the Sleeper lies in death, His eyes are
sealed, and, as if all unconscious, for the warning had not been
given before--in an instant those eyes were opened, that frame
rises, the grave yields up its prey, death retires conquered, and
Christ demonstrates Himself to be the ruler of the whole universe.
He made the earth to tremble, the sun to put on sackcloth, the very
air to grow dark, the graves to open, the dead to come forth, and
proclaimed Himself to be the conqueror of death and hell. So we have
proof of His being the Son of God with power.
In that resurrection from the dead we have a pledge of our own
resurrection. Christ has become the first-fruits of them that slept.
You know the figure of the first-fruits as understood by the Jews.
Their religion was connected with the seasons of the year--with
the harvest crops; one of their feasts was called the feast of the
first-fruits, and was on this wise: When the first heads of grain
began to ripen in the field, and there was thus a pledge of harvest,
they cut off those first ripened heads and went up to Jerusalem.
Before that the grain was not crusht, no bread was baked out of
it, and nothing was done to appropriate that crop to man's use
until those ripened heads of grain were brought up to Jerusalem
and presented to the Lord as a thank-offering. He was acknowledged
as Lord of the harvest and they were laid up as a kind of
thank-offering before God. They were the first-fruits. Then they
went away to the fields and all through Judea the sickle was thrust
in, the grain was reaped and gathered into sheaves, and when the
harvest was secured they baked the bread for their children out of
this first grain. They came up to the temple, where the first-fruits
had been laid, and they held a feast of thanksgiving and shouted
harvest home. The old harvest feast seems to be descended from this
ancient custom.
Christ rose as the first-fruits, and there is to be a glorious
resurrection. Christ came, the first man to rise in this respect,
by His own power, from the grave, having snatched the crown from
death, having thrown light into the grave, having Himself ascended
up toward glory. He goes up in the midst of the shouts of angels;
the heavens open before Him; yonder is the altar; there is the
throne, and around it stand the seraphim and the cherubim; and
Christ enters, the victor, and sits down upon the throne, from
henceforth expecting until His enemies be made His footstool. He is
the first-fruits of the harvest, but the angels are to be sent out
like the reapers, and by and by humanity is coming.
As Christ, the first-fruits, passed through the grave and went up
to glory, so there shall come forth from their sleeping dust in
Asia, in Africa, in Europe, and in America, from every mountain
top, from the depths of the sea, from deep ravines, and from plains
outspread--oh, there shall come in the time of the glorious
harvest--the uprising of humanity, when all the nations, waking from
their long sleep, shall rise and shall shout the harvest home! Thank
God! At that time none shall be wanting.
Oh, they come, they come, from the nations of the past and from the
generations yet unborn! I see the crowd gathering there. Behold the
angels are waiting, and as the hosts rise from the dead they gather
round the throne. Christ invites His followers to overcome and sit
down with Him on His throne, as He overcame and sat down with the
Father on His throne. In that is the pledge of our resurrection from
the dead. Can I not suffer, since Christ suffered? Can I not die,
since Christ died? Let the grave be my resting-place, for Christ
rested there. Is it cold? The warmth of His animation is in it. He
shall be beside me in all His spirit's power. Does the load of earth
above me and beneath which I am placed press upon me? Christ hath
power to burst the tomb, tho deep it be, and I shall rise through
His almighty power.
Yet, let the malice of men be directed against me; let me be taken,
if it must be, as a martyr and be bound to the stake; let the fagots
be kindled, let the flame ascend, let my body be burned; gather
my ashes, grind my bones to powder, scatter them on the ocean's
surface; or carry those ashes to the top of yonder volcano and throw
them within its consuming fire--let them be given to the dust--and
yet I can sing:
"God my Redeemer lives,
And ever from the skies
Looks down and watches all my dust,
Till He shall bid it rise."
Thank God! it may be scattered on the wings of the wind--Christ is
everywhere present; He has marked every particle and it shall rise
again by His own almighty power. And what is it to sleep awhile if I
am Christ's? To die, if I am like Christ in dying? and be buried, if
I am like Christ in being buried? I trust I shall be like Him when
He comes forth in His glory. I shall be like Him, for the apostle
says, "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"; "We
shall be changed from glory into glory, into the same image as by
the Spirit of God."
It would be a great change to be changed from glory to glory,
from saints to angels, from angels to cherubim, from cherubim to
seraphim, from glory to glory; but, thank God! we shall not stop
being changed; for the change shall go on from glory to glory
until we shall be transformed into the likeness of the Son of God,
brighter than angels ever shone, more glorious than were ever
cherubim.
We shall be near the throne; we shall sit beside Him, for He hath
made room for us there. Then, if we can calmly look at death and
face him, because his strength has been overcome, it reconciles us
to parting a little while with friends. A father or a mother may be
taken from us, but we shall see them again; they shall not sleep
forever. The little ones that drop from our arms, we can almost see
them this morning; some of us can almost feel them in our arms--can
see the glance of that beautiful eye and hear the sound of that
little prattling lip; they seem to be with us now, as a little while
ago they dropt from out of our arms. We followed them to the grave
and left them there, where the winter's storm has been howling
around them.
Sometimes loneliness like that terrible storm has swept over our
hearts and left them almost in despair; but through Christ's
resurrection we see our children yonder in glory, safe in the
Savior's arms. Their little forms shall rise all-glorious from the
tomb in the morning of the resurrection; we shall find them, for
Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
All this comes to us from the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
He died once; He dies no more; the condemnation of death is forever
gone; He sits on the throne of everlasting dominion; His kingdom
is an eternal kingdom; and as He died once and has risen to die no
more, so when we have died once and gone to the grave and entered
the dark valley and shadow of death, and we come up safely on the
other side, thank God! death is passed forever; we shall then put
our feet on the neck of the monster and shall be able to say:
"Oh death, where is thy sting?
Oh grave, where is thy victory?"
Looking at the resurrection of Christ we exclaim, Thanks be unto God
who hath given us the victory! Such is the eternity and blessedness
that awaits us. Thank God for a spiritual body! Here some of us long
to triumph over nature. We would grasp, if we could, angelic wisdom;
but our brows will ache with pain, our frames decay, our eyes grow
dim, our hearing fail. This flesh of ours will not stand hours of
painful study and seasons of protracted labor; but, thank God! when
the body that now oppresses us is laid in the grave a spiritual
body will be given to us, pure, ethereal, and holy. Oh, what an
extent of knowledge shall flash upon us; what light and glory; what
spirituality and power! Then we shall not need to ask an angel
anything. We shall know as we are known. Jesus will be our teacher;
the Everlasting God, the Man whose name is Wonderful, the Counselor,
the Prince of Peace. He Himself shall be our Leader. We shall know
then as also we are known.
Then rejoice in God. Dry up those tears. Cast away that downcast
look. Child of the dust, you are an heir of glory. There is a crown
all burnished for you; there is a mansion all ready for you; there
is a white robe prepared for you; there is eternal glory for you;
angels are to be your servants and you are to reign with the King
of Kings forever. But while you wait on earth, be witnesses for
God; attest the glory of your Master; rise in the greatness of His
strength; bind sin captive to your chariot wheels; go onward in your
heavenly career, and be as pure as your ascended Head is pure. Be
active in works of mercy; be angels of light; be names of fire; go
on your mission of mercy and convert the world unto God before you
go up higher. When you go, not only go forward to present yourself,
but may every one of you be able to say: "Here am I and those which
Thou hast given me."
THEODORE PARKER
THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THEODORE PARKER, American divine and reformer, was born at
Lexington, Mass., in 1810. He was educated at Harvard and graduated
from the Divinity School of that University in 1836. The following
year he was ordained pastor of Roxbury Christian Church, and first
attracted attention by his sermon on the "Transient and Permanent
in Christianity," preached in 1841. This sermon was ultimately the
cause of his practical exclusion from the Unitarian body, and in
1846 he became minister to the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society
in Boston.
In this pastorate he became well known to all denominations from
the remarkable sermons he preached for seven years in Music
Hall. He died of consumption at Florence, Italy, in 1860. His
powerful intellect and vigorous eloquence were exhibited in the
many controversial sermons he preached, both as a believer in the
nonsupernaturalism of present Christianity and as a practical
humanitarian. He figured as one of the leading abolitionists of New
England.
THEODORE PARKER
1810-1860
THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY
_Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass
away._--Luke xxi., 33.
In this sentence we have a very clear indication that Jesus of
Nazareth believed the religion He taught would be eternal, that
the substance of it would last forever. Yet there are some who
are affrighted by the faintest rustle which a heretic makes among
the dry leaves of theology; they tremble lest Christianity itself
should perish without hope. Ever and anon the cry is raised, "The
Philistines be upon us, and Christianity is in danger." The least
doubt respecting the popular theology, or the existing machinery
of the Church; the least sign of distrust in the religion of the
pulpit, or the religion of the street, is by some good men supposed
to be at enmity with faith in Christ, and capable of shaking
Christianity itself. On the other hand, a few bad men, and a few
pious men, it is said, on both sides of the water, tell us the day
of Christianity is past. The latter, it is alleged, would persuade
us that hereafter piety must take a new form; the teachings of Jesus
are to be passed by; that religion is to wing her way sublime,
above the flight of Christianity, far away, toward heaven, as the
fledged eaglet leaves forever the nest which sheltered his callow
youth. Let us therefore devote a few moments to this subject, and
consider what is transient in Christianity, and what is permanent
therein.
* * * * *
In actual Christianity,--that is, in that portion of Christianity
which is preached and believed,--there seems to have been, ever
since the time of its earthly Founder, two elements, the one
transient, the other permanent. The one is the thought, the folly,
the uncertain wisdom, the theological notions, the impiety of man;
the other, the eternal truth of God. These two bear, perhaps, the
same relation to each other that the phenomena of outward nature,
such as sunshine and cloud, growth, decay and reproduction, bear
to the great law of nature, which underlies and supports them all.
As in that case more attention is commonly paid to the particular
phenomena than to the general law, so in this case more is generally
given to the transient in Christianity than to the permanent therein.
It must be confest, tho with sorrow, that transient things form a
great part of what is commonly taught as religion. An undue place
has often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little
stress has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God,
and love to man. Religious forms may be useful and beautiful. They
are so, whenever they speak to the soul, and answer a want thereof.
In our present state some forms are perhaps necessary. But they are
only the accident of Christianity, not its substance. They are the
robe, not the angel, who may take another robe quite as becoming
and useful. One sect has many forms; another, none. Yet both may be
equally Christian, in spite of the redundance or the deficiency.
They are a part of the language in which religion speaks, and exist,
with few exceptions, wherever man is found. In our calculating
nation, in our rationalizing sect, we have retained but two of the
rites so numerous in the early Christian Church, and even these
we have attenuated to the last degree, leaving them little more
than a specter of the ancient form. Another age may continue or
forsake both; may revive old forms, or invent new ones to suit the
altered circumstances of the times, and yet be Christians quite as
good as we, or our fathers of the dark ages. Whether the apostles
designed these rites to be perpetual seems a question which belongs
to scholars and antiquarians,--not to us, as Christian men and
women. So long as they satisfy or help the pious heart, so long they
are good. Looking behind or around us, we see that the forms and
rites of the Christians are quite as fluctuating as those of the
heathens, from whom some of them have been, not unwisely, adopted by
the earlier Church.
Any one, who traces the history of what is called Christianity, will
see that nothing changes more from age to age than the doctrines
taught as Christian, and insisted on as essential to Christianity
and personal salvation. What is falsehood in one province passes
for truth in another. The heresy of one age is the orthodox
belief and "only infallible rule" of the next. Now Arius, and now
Athanasius, is lord of the ascendant. Both were excommunicated
in their turn, each for affirming what the other denied. Men are
burned for professing what men are burned for denying. For centuries
the doctrines of the Christians were no better, to say the least,
than those of their contemporary pagans. The theological doctrines
derived from our fathers seem to have come from Judaism, heathenism,
and the caprice of philosophers, far more than they have come
from the principle and sentiment of Christianity. The doctrine of
the Trinity, the very Achilles of theological dogmas, belongs to
philosophy and not religion; its subtleties cannot even be expressed
in our tongue. As old religions became superannuated, and died out,
they left to the rising faith, as to a residuary legatee, their
forms and their doctrines; or rather, as the giant in the fable left
his poisoned garment to work the overthrow of his conqueror. Many
tenets that pass current in our theology seem to be the refuse of
idol temples, the offscourings of Jewish and heathen cities rather
than the sands of virgin gold which the stream of Christianity
has worn off from the rock of ages, and brought in its bosom for
us. It is wood, hay, and stubble, wherewith men have built on the
corner-stone Christ laid. What wonder the fabric is in peril when
tried by fire? The stream of Christianity, as men receive it, has
caught a stain from every soil it has filtered through, so that now
it is not the pure water from the well of life which is offered
to our lips, but streams troubled and polluted by man with mire
and dirt. If Paul and Jesus could read our books of theological
doctrines, would they accept as their teaching what men have vented
in their name? Never, till the letters of Paul had faded out of
his memory, never, till the words of Jesus had been torn out from
the book of life. It is their notions about Christianity men have
taught as the only living word of God. They have piled their own
rubbish against the temple of truth where piety comes up to worship;
what wonder the pile seems unshapely and like to fall? But these
theological doctrines are fleeting as the leaves on the trees. They--
"Are found
Now green in youth, now withered on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise."
Like the clouds of the sky, they are here to-day; to-morrow, all
swept off and vanished; while Christianity itself, like the heaven
above, with its sun, and moon, and uncounted stars, is always over
our head, tho the cloud sometimes debars us of the needed light. It
must of necessity be the case that our reasonings, and therefore
our theological doctrines, are imperfect, and so perishing. It is
only gradually that we approach to the true system of nature by
observation and reasoning, and work out our philosophy and theology
by the toil of the brain. But meantime, if we are faithful, the
great truths of mortality and religion, the deep sentiment of love
to man and love to God, are perceived intuitively, and by instinct,
as it were, tho our theology be imperfect and miserable. The
theological notions of Abraham, to take the story as it stands, were
exceedingly gross, yet a greater than Abraham has told us, "Abraham
desired to see my day, saw it, and was glad." Since these notions
are so fleeting, why need we accept the commandment of men as the
doctrine of God?
This transitoriness of doctrines appears in many instances, of which
two may be selected for a more attentive consideration. First, the
doctrine respecting the origin and authority of the Old and New
Testaments. There has been a time when men were burned for asserting
doctrines of natural philosophy which rested on evidence the most
incontestable, because those doctrines conflicted with sentences in
the Old Testament. Every word of that Jewish record was regarded
as miraculously inspired, and therefore as infallibly true. It was
believed that the Christian religion itself rested thereon, and must
stand or fall with the immaculate Hebrew text. He was deemed no
small sinner who found mistakes in the manuscripts. On the authority
of the written word man was taught to believe impossible legends,
conflicting assertions; to take fiction for fact, a dream for a
miraculous revelation of God, an Oriental poem for a grave history
of miraculous events, a collection of amatory idyls for a serious
discourse "touching the mutual love of Christ and the Church";
they have been taught to accept a picture sketched by some glowing
Eastern imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality,
as a proof that the infinite God spoke in human words, appeared
in the shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man who ate, and
drank, and vanished into smoke; that He gave counsels to-day, and
the opposite to-morrow; that He violated His own laws, was angry,
and was only dissuaded by a mortal man from destroying at once a
whole nation,--millions of men who rebelled against their leader
in a moment of anguish. Questions in philosophy, questions in the
Christian religion, have been settled by an appeal to that book.
The inspiration of its authors has been assumed as infallible.
Every fact in the early Jewish history has been taken as a type of
some analogous fact in Christian history. The most distant events,
even such as are still in the arms of time, were supposed to be
clearly foreseen and foretold by pious Hebrews several centuries
before Christ. It has been assumed at the outset, with no shadow of
evidence, that those writers held a miraculous communication with
God, such as He has granted to no other man. What was originally
a presumption of bigoted Jews became an article of faith, which
Christians were burned for not believing. This has been for
centuries the general opinion of the Christian Church, both Catholic
and Protestant, tho the former never accepted the Bible as the
only source of religious truth. It has been so. Still worse, it is
now the general opinion of religious sects at this day. Hence the
attempt, which always fails, to reconcile the philosophy of our
times with the poems in Genesis writ a thousand years before Christ.
Hence the attempt to conceal the contradictions in the record
itself. Matters have come to such a pass that even now he is deemed
an infidel, if not by implication an atheist, whose reverence for
the Most High forbids him to believe that God commanded Abraham to
sacrifice his son,--a thought at which the flesh creeps with horror;
to believe it solely on the authority of an Oriental story, written
down nobody knows when or by whom, or for what purpose; which may
be a poem, but can not be the record of a fact, unless God is the
author of confusion and a lie.
Now, this idolatry of the Old Testament has not always existed.
Jesus says that none born of a woman is greater than John the
Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than
John. Paul tells us the law--the very crown of the old Hebrew
revelation--is a shadow of good things which have now come; only a
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; and when faith has come, that
we are no longer under the schoolmaster; that it was a law of sin
and death, from which we are made free by the law of the spirit of
life. Christian teachers themselves have differed so widely in their
notion of the doctrines and meaning of those books that it makes one
weep to think of the follies deduced therefrom. But modern criticism
is fast breaking to pieces this idol which men have made out of the
Scriptures. It has shown that here are the most different works
thrown together; that their authors, wise as they sometimes were,
pious as we feel often their spirit to have been, had only that
inspiration which is common to other men equally pious and wise;
that they were by no means infallible, but were mistaken in facts or
in reasoning,--uttered predictions which time has not fulfilled; men
who in some measure partook of the darkness and limited notions of
their age, and were not always above its mistakes or its corruptions.
The history of opinions on the New Testament is quite similar. It
has been assumed at the outset, it would seem with no sufficient
reason, without the smallest pretense on its writers' part, that
all of its authors were infallibly and miraculously inspired, so
that they could commit no error of doctrine or fact. Men have been
bid to close their eyes at the obvious difference between Luke and
John, the serious disagreement between Paul and Peter; to believe,
on the smallest evidence, accounts which shock the moral sense and
revolt the reason, and tend to place Jesus in the same series with
the Hercules and Appollonius of Tyana; accounts which Paul in the
Epistles never mentions, tho he also had a vein of the miraculous
running quite through him. Men have been told that all these things
must be taken as part of Christianity, and if they accepted the
religion, they must take all these accessories along with it; that
the living spirit could not be had without the killing letter. All
the books which caprice or accident had brought together between
the lids of the Bible were declared to be the infallible Word of
God, the only certain rule of religious faith and practise. Thus the
Bible was made not a single channel, but the only certain rule of
religious faith and practise. To disbelieve any of its statements,
or even the common interpretation put upon those statements by
the particular age or church in which the man belonged, was held
to be infidelity, if not atheism. In the name of Him who forbids
us to judge our brother, good men and pious men have applied these
terms to others, good and pious as themselves. That state of things
has by no means passed away. Men who cry down the absurdities of
paganism in the worst spirit of the French "free thinkers" call
others infidels and atheists, who point out, tho reverently, other
absurdities which men have piled upon Christianity. So the world
goes. An idolatrous regard for the imperfect scripture of God's word
is the apple of Atalanta, which defeats theologians running for the
hand of divine truth.
But the current notions respecting the infallible inspiration of
the Bible have no foundation in the Bible itself. Which evangelist,
which apostle of the New Testament, what prophet or psalmist of the
Old Testament, ever claims infallible authority for himself or for
others? Which of them does not in his own writings show that he was
finite, and, with all his zeal and piety, possest but a limited
inspiration, the bound whereof we can sometimes discover? Did Christ
ever demand that men should assent to the doctrines of the Old
Testament, credit its stories, and take its poems for histories, and
believe equally two accounts that contradict one another? Has He
ever told you that all the truths of His religion, all the beauty
of a Christian life should be contained in the writings of those
men who, even after His resurrection, expected Him to be a Jewish
king; of men who were sometimes at variance with one another, and
misunderstood His divine teachings? Would not those modest writers
themselves be confounded at the idolatry we pay them? Opinions may
change on these points, as they have often changed--changed greatly
and for the worse since the days of Paul. They are changing now, and
we may hope for the better; for God makes man's folly as well his
wrath to praise Him, and continually brings good out of evil.
Another instance of the transitoriness of doctrines taught as
Christian is found in those which relate to the nature and authority
of Christ. One ancient party has told us that He is the infinite
God; another, that He is both God and man; a third, that He was
a man, the son of Joseph and Mary, born as we are; tempted like
ourselves; inspired as we may be, if we will pay the price. Each of
the former parties believed its doctrine on this head was infallibly
true, and formed the very substance of Christianity, and was one
of the essential conditions of salvation, tho scarce any two
distinguished teachers, of ancient or modern times, agree in their
expression of this truth.
Almost every sect that has ever been, makes Christianity rest on
the personal authority of Jesus, and not the immutable truth of the
doctrines themselves, or the authority of God, who sent Him into
the world. Yet it seems difficult to conceive any reason why moral
and religious truths should rest for their support on the personal
authority of their revealer, any more than the truths of science on
that of him who makes them known first or most clearly. It is hard
to see why the great truths of Christianity rest on the personal
authority of Jesus, more than the axioms of geometry rest on the
personal authority of Euclid or Archimedes. The authority of Jesus
as of all teachers, one would naturally think, must rest on the
truth of His words, and not their truth on His authority.
Opinions respecting the nature of Christ seem to be constantly
changing. In the three first centuries after Christ, it appears,
great latitude of speculation prevailed. Some said He was God, with
nothing of human nature, His body only an illusion; others that He
was man, with nothing of the divine nature, His miraculous birth
having no foundation in fact. In a few centuries it was decreed by
councils that He was God, thus honoring the divine element; next,
that He was man also, thus admitting the human side. For some ages
the Catholic Church seems to have dwelt chiefly on the divine
nature that was in Him, leaving the human element to mystics and
other heretical persons, whose bodies served to flesh the swords of
orthodox believers. The stream of Christianity has come to us in two
channels,--one within the Church, the other without the Church,--and
it is not hazarding too much to say that since the fourth century
the true Christian life has been out of the established Church,
and not in it, but rather in the ranks of dissenters. From the
Reformation till the latter part of the last century, we are told,
the Protestant Church dwelt chiefly on the human side of Christ,
and since that time many works have been written to show how
the two--perfect Deity and perfect manhood--were united in His
character. But, all this time, scarce any two eminent teachers
agree on these points, however orthodox they may be called. What a
difference between the Christ of John Gerson and John Calvin,--yet
were both accepted teachers and pious men. What a difference between
the Christ of the Unitarians and the Methodists,--yet may men of
both sects be true Christians and acceptable with God. What a
difference between the Christ of Matthew and John,--yet both were
disciples, and their influence is wide as Christendom and deep as
the heart of man. But on this there is not time to enlarge.
Now, it seems clear that the notions men form about the origin and
nature of the Scriptures, respecting the nature and authority of
Christ, have nothing to do with Christianity except as its aids or
its adversaries; they are not the foundation of its truths. These
are theological questions, not religious questions. Their connection
with Christianity appears accidental; for if Jesus had taught at
Athens, and not at Jerusalem; if He had wrought no miracle, and
none but the human nature had ever been ascribed to them; if the
Old Testament had forever perished at His birth,--Christianity
would still have been the word of God; it would have lost none of
its truths. It would be just as true, just as beautiful, just as
lasting, as now it is; tho we should have lost so many a blessed
word, and the work of Christianity itself would have been, perhaps,
a long time retarded.
To judge the future by the past, the former authority of the Old
Testament can never return. Its present authority can not stand. It
must be taken for what it is worth. The occasional folly and impiety
of its authors must pass for no more than their value; while the
religion, the wisdom, the love, which make fragrant its leaves, will
still speak to the best hearts as hitherto, and in accents even more
divine when reason is allowed her rights. The ancient belief in the
infallible inspiration of each sentence of the New Testament is fast
changing, very fast. One writer, not a skeptic, but a Christian of
unquestioned piety, sweeps off the beginning of Matthew; another,
of a different church and equally religious, the end of John.
Numerous critics strike off several epistles. The Apocalypse itself
is not spared, notwithstanding its concluding curse. Who shall
tell us the work of retrenchment is to stop here; that others will
not demonstrate what some pious hearts have long felt, that errors
of doctrine and errors of fact may be found in many parts of the
record, here and there, from the beginning of Matthew to the end
of Acts? We see how opinions have changed ever since the apostles'
time; and who shall assure us that they were not sometimes mistaken
in historical as well as doctrinal matters; did not sometimes
confound the actual with the imaginary; and that the fancy of these
pious writers never stood in the place of their recollection?
But what if this should take place? Is Christianity then to perish
out of the heart of the nations, and vanish from the memory of the
world, like the religions that were before Abraham? It must be so,
if it rest on a foundation which a scoffer may shake, and a score of
pious critics shake down. But this is the foundation of a theology,
not of Christianity. That does not rest on the decision of councils.
It is not to stand or fall with the infallible inspiration of a
few Jewish fishermen, who have writ their names in characters of
light all over the world. It does not continue to stand through
the forbearance of some critic, who can cut when he will the
thread on which its life depends. Christianity does not rest on
the infallible authority of the New Testament. It depends on this
collection of books for the historical statement of its facts. In
this we do not require infallible inspiration on the part of the
writers, more than in the record of other historical facts. To me it
seems as presumptuous, on the one hand, for the believer to claim
this evidence for the truth of Christianity, as it is absurd, on
the other hand, for the skeptic to demand such evidence to support
these historical statements. I can not see that it depends on the
personal authority of Jesus. He was the organ through which the
Infinite spoke. It is God that was manifested in the flesh by Him,
on whom rests the truth which Jesus brought to light, and made clear
and beautiful in His life; and if Christianity be true, it seems
useless to look for any other authority to uphold it, as for some
one to support Almighty God. So if it could be proved--as it can
not--in opposition to the greatest amount of historical evidence
ever collected on any similar point, that the Gospels were the
fabrication of designing and artful men, that Jesus of Nazareth had
never lived, still Christianity would stand firm, and fear no evil.
None of the doctrines of that religion would fall to the ground;
for, if true, they stand by themselves. But we should lose--oh,
irreparable loss!--the example of that character, so beautiful, so
divine, that no human genius could have conceived it, as none, after
all the progress and refinement of eighteen centuries, seems fully
to have comprehended its lustrous life. If Christianity were true,
we should still think it was so, not because its record was written
by infallible pens, nor because it was lived out by an infallible
teacher; but that it is true, like the axioms of geometry, because
it is true and is to be tried, by the oracle God places in the
breast. If it rest on the personal authority of Jesus alone, then
there is no certainty of its truth if He were ever mistaken in
the smallest matter,--as some Christians have thought He was in
predicting His second coming.
These doctrines respecting the Scriptures have often changed, and
are but fleeting. Yet men lay much stress on them. Some cling to
these notions as if they were Christianity itself. It is about
these and similar points that theological battles are fought from
age to age. Men sometimes use worst the choicest treasure which God
bestows. This is especially true of the use men make of the Bible.
Some men have regarded it as the heathen their idol, or the savage
his fetish. They have subordinated reason, conscience, and religion
to this. Thus have they lost half the treasure it bears in its
bosom. No doubt the time will come when its true character shall be
felt. Then it will be seen that, amid all the contradictions of the
Old Testament,--its legends, so beautiful as fictions, so appalling
as facts; amid its predictions that have never been fulfilled; amid
the puerile conceptions of God which sometimes occur, and the cruel
denunciations that disfigure both psalm and prophecy,--there is a
reverence for man's nature, a sublime trust in God, and a depth of
piety, rarely felt in these cold northern hearts of ours. Then the
devotion of its authors, the loftiness of their aim, and the majesty
of their life, will appear doubly fair, and prophet and psalmist
will warm our hearts as never before. Their voice will cheer the
young, and sanctify the gray-headed; will charm us in the toil of
life, and sweeten the cup death gives us when he comes to shake
off this mantle of flesh. Then will it be seen that the words of
Jesus are the music of heaven sung in an earthly voice, and that
the echo of these words in John and Paul owe their efficacy to
their truth and their depth, and to no accidental matter connected
therewith. Then can the Word, which was in the beginning and now is,
find access to the innermost heart of man, and speak there as now
it seldom speaks. Then shall the Bible--which is a whole library
of the deepest and most earnest thoughts and feelings, and piety,
and love, ever recorded in human speech--be read oftener than ever
before,--not with superstition, but with reason, conscience, and
faith, fully active. Then shall it sustain men bowed down with many
sorrows; rebuke sin, encourage virtue, sow the world broadcast and
quick with the seed of love, that man may reap a harvest for life
everlasting.
With all the obstacles men have thrown in its path, how much has
the Bible done for mankind! No abuse has deprived us of all its
blessings. You trace its path across the world from the day of
Pentecost to this day. As a river springs up in the heart of a
sandy continent, having its father in the skies, and its birthplace
in distant unknown mountains; as the stream rolls on, enlarging
itself, making in that arid waste a belt of verdure wherever it
turns its way; creating palm groves and fertile plains, where the
smoke of the cottager curls up at eventide, and marble cities send
the gleam of their splendor far into the sky,--such has been the
course of the Bible on the earth. Despite of idolaters bowing to
the dust before it, it has made a deeper mark on the world than the
rich and beautiful literature of all the heathen. The first book
of the Old Testament tells man he is made in the image of God; the
first of the New Testament gives us the motto, Be perfect as your
Father in heaven. Higher words were never spoken. How the truths of
the Bible have blest us! There is not a boy on all the hills of New
England; not a girl born in the filthiest cellar which disgraces a
capital in Europe, and cries to God against the barbarism of modern
civilization; not a boy nor a girl all Christendom through, but
their lot is made better by that great book.
Doubtless the time will come when men shall see Christ also as He
is. Well might He still say, "Have I been so long with you, and yet
hast thou not known me?" No! we have made Him an idol, have bowed
the knee before Him, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" called Him
"Lord, Lord!" but done not the things which He said. The history
of the Christian world might well be summed up in one word of the
evangelist--"and there they crucified him"; for there has never
been an age when the men did not crucify the Son of God afresh.
But if error prevail for a time and grow old in the world, truth
will triumph at the last, and then we shall see the Son of God as
He is. Lifted up, He shall draw all nations unto Him. Then will
men understand the word of Jesus, which shall not pass away. Then
shall we see and love the divine life that He lived. How vast has
His influence been! How His spirit wrought in the hearts of His
disciples, rude, selfish, bigoted, as at first they were! How it
has wrought in the world! His words judge the nations. The wisest
son of man has not measured their height. They speak to what is
deepest in profound men, what is holiest in good men, what is
divinest in religious men. They kindle anew the flame of devotion
in hearts long cold. They are spirit and life. His truth was not
derived from Moses and Solomon; but the light of God shone through
Him, not colored, not bent aside. His life is the perpetual rebuke
of all time since. It condemns ancient civilization; it condemns
modern civilization. Wise men we have since had, and good men;
but this Galilean youth strode before the whole world thousands
of years, so much of divinity was in Him. His words solve the
question of this present age. In Him the Godlike and the human
met and embraced, and a divine life was born. Measure Him by the
world's greatest sons--how poor they are! Try Him by the best of
men--how little and low they appear! Exalt Him as much as we may,
we shall yet perhaps come short of the mark. But still was He
not our brother; the son of man, as we are; the son of God, like
ourselves? His excellence--was it not human excellence? His wisdom,
love, piety,--sweet and celestial as they were,--are they not what
we also may attain? In Him, as in a mirror, we may see the image of
God, and go on from glory to glory, till we are changed into the
same image, led by the spirit which enlightens the humble. Viewed
in this way, how beautiful is the life of Jesus! Heaven has come
down to earth, or rather, earth has become heaven. The Son of God,
come of age, has taken possession of His birthright. The brightest
revelation is this of what is possible for all men,--if not now, at
least hereafter. How pure is His spirit, and how encouraging its
words! "Lowly sufferer," he seems to say, "see how I bore the cross.
Patient laborer, be strong; see how I toiled for the unthankful and
the merciless. Mistaken sinner, see of what thou art capable. Rise
up, and be blest."
But if, as some early Christians began to do, you take a heathen
view, and make Him a God, the Son of God in a peculiar and exclusive
sense, much of the significance of His character is gone. His virtue
has no merit, His love no feeling, His cross no burthen, His agony
no pain. His death is an illusion, His resurrection but a show. For
if He were not a man, but a god, what are all these things? What His
words, His life, His excellence of achievement? It is all nothing,
weighed against the illimitable greatness of Him who created the
worlds and fills up all time and space! Then His resignation is no
lesson, His life no model, His death no triumph to you or me, who
are not gods, but mortal men, that know not what a day shall bring
forth, and walk by faith "dim sounding on our perilous way." Alas!
we have despaired of man, and so cut off his brightest hope.
In respect of doctrines as well as forms, we see all is transitory.
"Everywhere is instability and insecurity." Opinions have changed
most on points deemed most vital. Could we bring up a Christian
teacher of any age, from the sixth to the fourteenth century, for
example, tho a teacher of undoubted soundness of faith, whose word
filled the churches of Christendom, clergymen would scarce allow
him to kneel at their altar, or sit down with them at the Lord's
table. His notions of Christianity could not be exprest in our
forms, nor could our notions be made intelligible to his ears.
The questions of his age, those on which Christianity was thought
to depend,--questions which perplexed and divided the subtle
doctors,--are no questions to us. The quarrels which then drove
wise men mad now only excite a smile or a tear, as we are disposed
to laugh or weep at the frailty of man. We have other straws of our
own to quarrel for. Their ancient books of devotion do not speak
to us; their theology is a vain word. To look back but a short
period,--the theological speculations of our fathers during the last
two centuries, their "practical divinity," even the sermons written
by genius and piety are, with rare exceptions, found unreadable;
such a change is there in the doctrines.
Now who shall tell us that the change is to stop here; that this
sect or that, or even all sects united, have exhausted the river of
life, and received it all in their canonized urns, so that we need
draw no more out of the eternal well, but get refreshment nearer
at hand? Who shall tell us that another age will not smile at our
doctrines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about Christianity,
and make wide the mouth at men who walked brave in orthodox raiment,
delighting to blacken the names of heretics, and repeat again the
old charge, "He hath blasphemed"? Who shall tell us they will not
weep at the folly of all such as fancied truth shone only into the
contracted nook of their school, or sect, or coterie? Men of other
times may look down equally on the heresy-hunters, and men hunted
for heresy, and wonder at both. The men of all ages before us
were quite as confident as we, that their opinion was truth, that
their notion was Christianity and the whole thereof. The men who
lit the fires of persecution, from the first martyr to Christian
bigotry down to the last murder of the innocents, had no doubt their
opinion was divine. The contest about transubstantiation and the
immaculate purity of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Scriptures
was waged with bitterness unequaled in these days. The Protestant
smiles at one, the Catholic at the other, and men of sense wonder
at both. It might teach us all a lesson, at least of forbearance.
No doubt an age will come in which ours shall be reckoned a period
of darkness, like the sixth century,--when men groped for the wall,
but stumbled and fell, because they trusted a transient notion,
not an eternal truth; an age when temples were full of idols,
set up by human folly; an age in which Christian light had scarce
begun to shine into men's hearts. But while this change goes on,
while one generation of opinions passes away, and another rises up,
Christianity itself, that pure religion, which exists eternal in the
constitution of the soul and the mind of God, is always the same.
The Word that was before Abraham, in the very beginning, will not
change, for that Word is truth. From this Jesus subtracted nothing;
to this He added nothing. But He came to reveal it as the secret of
God, that cunning men could not understand, but which filled the
souls of men meek and lowly of heart. This truth we owe to God; the
revelation thereof to Jesus, our elder brother, God's chosen son.
To turn away from the disputes of the Catholics and the Protestants,
of the Unitarian and the Trinitarian, of old school and new school,
and come to the plain words of Jesus of Nazareth,--Christianity is a
simple thing, very simple. It is absolute, pure morality; absolute,
pure religion,--the love of man; the love of God acting without let
or hindrance. The only creed it lays down is the great truth which
springs up spontaneous in the holy heart,--there is a God. Its
watchword is, Be perfect as your Father in heaven. The only form it
demands is a divine life,--doing the best thing in the best way,
from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of
God. Its sanction is the voice of God in your heart; the perpetual
presence of Him who made us and the stars over our head; Christ and
the Father abiding within us. All this is very simple--a little
child can understand it; very beautiful--the loftiest mind can find
nothing so lovely. Try it by reason, conscience, and faith,--things
highest in man's nature,--we see no redundance, we feel no
deficiency. Examine the particular duties it enjoins,--humility,
reverence, sobriety, gentleness, charity, forgiveness, fortitude,
resignation, faith, and active love; try the whole extent of
Christianity, so well summed up in the command, "Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; and is
there anything therein that can perish? No, the very opponents of
Christianity have rarely found fault with the teachings of Jesus.
The end of Christianity seems to be to make all men one with God as
Christ was one with Him; to bring them to such a state of obedience
and goodness that we shall think divine thoughts and feel divine
sentiments, and so keep the law of God by living a life of truth
and love. Its means are purity and prayer; getting strength from
God, and using it for our fellow-men as well as ourselves. It allows
perfect freedom. It does not demand all men to think alike, but to
think uprightly, and get as near as possible at truth; not all men
to live alike, but to live holy, and get as near as possible to a
life perfectly divine. Christ set up no Pillars of Hercules, beyond
which men must not sail the sea in quest of truth. He says, "I have
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.... Greater
works than these shall ye do." Christianity lays no rude hand on the
sacred peculiarity of individual genius and character. But there is
no Christian sect which does not fetter a man. It would make all
men think alike, or smother their conviction in silence. Were all
men Quakers or Catholics, Unitarians or Baptists, there would be
much less diversity of thought, character, and life, less of truth
active in the world, than now. But Christianity gives us the largest
liberty of the sons of God; and were all men Christians after the
fashion of Jesus, this variety would be a thousand times greater
than now; for Christianity is not a system of doctrines, but rather
a method of attaining oneness with God. It demands, therefore, a
good life of piety within, of purity without, and gives the promise
that whoso does God's will shall know of God's doctrine.
MACLEOD
THE TRUE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
NORMAN MACLEOD, the eminent Scotch preacher, was born at
Campbeltown, in Argyleshire, in 1812. In his preaching he departed
from the rigid conventionality of the Scottish Church. His
large vision and broad culture gave unusual distinction both to
his writings and to his pulpit oratory. He was conspicuous for
philanthropic efforts, and frequently held evening services for
workingmen. He distinguished himself by his popular Christian
writing and by his pulpit oratory. He was practical and manly, of
godly nature, with extreme adaptability, and greatly esteemed by
Queen Victoria, who made him her chaplain in 1857. He died in 1872.
MACLEOD
1812-1872
THE TRUE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY[2]
[2] Printed here by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Wm.
Blackwood & Sons.
_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._--John xvii., 20, 21.
"These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and
said, Father, the hour is come!" The hour was indeed come for which
the whole world had been in travail since creation, and which was
for ever to mark a new era in the history of the universe. The hour
was come when, having finished the work given Him to do, He was to
return to His Father, but only after ending His earthly journey
along the awful path on which He was now entering, and which led
through Gethsemane, the cross, and the grave. At such a moment in
His life He lifted up His eyes in perfect peace, from the sinful
and sorrowful world, to the heavens glorious in their harmony and
soothing in their silence, and said, "Father!" One feels a solemn
awe, as if entering the holy of holies, in seeking to enter into
the mind of Christ as exprest in this prayer. Never were such words
spoken on earth, never were such words heard in heaven. I ask no
other evidence to satisfy my spirit that they are the truth of God
than the evidence of their own light, revealing as it does the
speaker as being Himself light and life, who verily came from God
and went to God.
But let me in all reverence endeavor to express a few thoughts,
as to the general meaning of this prayer, with reference more
especially to that portion of it which I have selected as the
subject of my discourse.
The one all-absorbing desire of our Lord, as here exprest--the
ultimate end sought to be realized by Him--is that God might be
glorified as a Father, and that by the world seeing His love
revealed in sending His Son into the world to save sinners. "God
is love," but "In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we
might live through him"--a love which, when spiritually seen and
possest by us, is itself life eternal; for "This is life eternal
that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent;" but "He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God
is love."
All "religion" accordingly, all good, all righteousness, peace,
joy, glory, to man and to the universe, are bound up in this one
thing, knowing God as a Father. Out of this right condition of love
to God, must necessarily come our right condition towards man,
that of love to man as a brother with special love, the love of
character, to Christian brethren. Such a religion as this was never
possest as an idea even by the greatest thinkers among the civilized
heathen nations; far less was it realized by any. Whatever knowledge
many had about God, they knew Him not as a Father to be loved and
trusted, and therefore obeyed. When St. Paul addrest the Athenians,
he could find such a thought exprest by a poet only, who had said,
"We are also His offspring." It is only in the line of supernatural
revelation of God to man, as given to and received by Abraham, "the
friend," and perfected by Christ the Son, that this knowledge of
God has been possest by man. But even among those to whom this true
revelation was given about God, how few truly knew Him!
The want of this religion, whatever else might exist that was called
by that name, was the complaint made by God against His people of
old, "They do not know me!" "They proceed from evil to evil," He
cries, for "they know not me, saith the Lord." "Through deceit they
refuse to know me, saith the Lord;" and again: "Thus saith the Lord,
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty
man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches;
but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and
knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness,
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I
delight, saith the Lord." (Jer. ix., 23, 24.)
This was the sorrowing cry of Christ, "O righteous Father, the world
hath not known thee!" This was His joy, "I have known thee, and
these have known that thou hast sent me!"
But if Christ desired that His Father's name should be glorified,
how was this to be accomplished? By what medium, or means? Now I
would here observe that God's method of revealing Himself to man has
ever been to do so by living men; and the Bible is a true record of
such revelations in the past. Christianity is not the philosophy of
life, but life itself; and is a revelation, not of abstract truth,
but of the living personal God to living persons as His children,
whom He hath created to glorify and enjoy Him for ever. The first
grand medium of this revelation is the eternal Son of God. The very
essence of God's character being love, He did not exist from all
eternity with a mere capacity of loving, but without an object to
love; like an eye capable of seeing light, but with no light to
see. The object of His love was His Son, who from all eternity
responded to that love and rejoiced in His Father. This eternal
Son, when manifested in the flesh, revealed His Father directly,
so that He could say, in all He was, and in all He did, and, in a
true sense, in all He suffered, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the
Father;" and men could say of Him, "We beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth;"
"The glory of God" was "in the face of Jesus Christ." Again, He had
also, as the Son of Man, glorified His Father; and, by His reverence
for, confidence in, and obedience to, Him, and by His joy in Him,
had indirectly revealed what he knew God to be to Him and to all
as a Father. "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished
the work which Thou gavest me to do." Such was His finished work.
But something more was yet to be accomplished. Ere He descends to
Gethsemane, He desires anew to have the joy of revealing a Father's
heart by revealing to the world His own heart of love as a Son to
that Father. Hence His prayer, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee." He does not prescribe the new circumstances in
which His long-tried and perfect filial confidence and love as a
Son were to be manifested. With the absolute consecration of true
sonship He leaves these circumstances to be determined by His
Father. Now, as on the cross, He commits His spirit, as a little
child, into His Father's hands. He desires only that in any way, by
any means, He may have the joy of showing forth the reality, the
endurance, and the triumph of His Sonship. His Father may fill His
cup according to His own will, the Son will drink it. The Father
may permit a crown of thorns to be placed on His brow, and every
conceivable horror of great darkness from the hate of men and devils
to be cast over Him like a funeral-pall; He may be rejected by all
His brethren and by the Church and by the State--"Amen!" He cries.
Let His body be broken and His blood shed, He will give thanks! One
thing only He prays for, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
glorify thee!" As a further end to be accomplished, He prays that
He may have the joy of making others share the same divine love and
joy, and therefore adds, "As thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
But while He as the Son was to be the first revealer of God the
Father, He was not, therefore, to be the only revealer. He was
the firstborn of many brethren in whom the same love was to be
reproduced, and by whom the same high duty was to be performed. If
the light of the glory of God shone directly in the face of Jesus
Christ, that light was to be transmitted to those who were to shine
as lights in the world, that others seeing them might glorify the
same God. For now, as ever, God in a real sense manifests Himself
in the flesh. Hence our Lord's desire that His brethren should, as
sons, reveal the Father, like Himself the Son. He says accordingly,
"As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them
into the world." Sent whom? Not apostles only, but those also who
should believe through their word; not ministers of the Church only,
but members also; all, in short, who were qualified to convince the
world that God was a Father, by convincing it of this truth, that
God had sent His Son to save sinners--the "faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation."
But the question is further suggested, What is this qualification?
What is this which men must possess in order to accomplish Christ's
purpose of inducing the world to believe? What is this evidence of
Christianity which they are to present to the eyes of unbelieving
men, by seeing which these are to know and glorify God as their
Father in Christ? We reply, it is the oneness of those who are to
be ambassadors from God and fellow-workers with Christ. "I pray for
them," He says, and not for them only, but "for them also who 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 may be one in us; that
the world may believe that thou hast sent me."
Now this leads me to consider more particularly the nature of this
oneness which is essential for such a successful mission as will
convince the world of the truth of Christ's mission from the Father.
What is meant by this oneness, or this union?
We are guided in our inquiry by three features which characterize
it. First, It is a oneness such as subsists between Christ and God;
secondly, It is a oneness which can be seen or appreciated; thirdly,
It is a oneness which is calculated from its nature to convince the
world of the truth of Christ's mission.
Now there are many kinds of union among men, which, however
wonderful or excellent, may be set aside as obviously not fulfilling
these conditions, and not such, therefore, as Christ prayed for.
There is, e. g., the unity of an army which marches as one man,
implicitly obeying its commander even unto death and without a
question. Yet, however grand this is, and however illustrative of
the character of good soldiers of Jesus Christ, it does not fulfil
the conditions specified. Nor does the wonderful unity of a State,
which makes and imposes laws, proclaims war or peace, administers
justice, and executes its judgments. In neither case is there any
union such as subsists betwixt God and Christ; nor such as is
in any sense adapted to convince the world that God has sent His
Son to save sinners. The same may be alleged of any outward and
visible unity of a body of men which might be called a Church. Its
organization might be as wonderful, and its members as disciplined,
and its power as remarkable, as those of an army; it might be held
together like a state by its laws and its enactments, its rewards
and punishments, and might energetically advance until it possest
the dominion of the world, and attracted such attention as that all
men might marvel at it; its members might assent to all the details
of a creed however large; the same rights and ceremonies and modes
of worship might be repeated throughout all its parts; and it might
be able to continue its organized existence from age to age,--yet it
would by no means follow that any such system, however remarkable,
possest that inward spiritual unity desired in Christ's prayer, no
more than the compact unity of Brahminism does, nor the still more
extraordinary unity of Buddhism, with its temples, its priesthood,
its creed, its rites and ceremonies, continuing unchanged during
teeming centuries, and dominating over hundreds of millions of the
human race. May not all these and many similar unities be fully
and satisfactorily accounted for by principles in human nature,
altogether irrespective of the fact of a supernatural power having
come into the world to which their origin or continuance is owing?
For there is a oneness in the churchyard as well as in the church.
There might be a oneness of assent amongst a deaf multitude with
regard to the beauty of music, because determined by the fiat of
authority, but not as the result of hearing and of taste; and the
same kind of oneness of judgment as to the beauty of pictures, on
the part of those who were blind. Unity alone proves nothing, apart
from its nature and its origin.
There is but one kind of unity or oneness which fulfils the
specified conditions, and that is, oneness of character or of
spiritual life--in one word, the oneness of love;--for this is the
highest condition of a personal spirit. It is such love as God had
and has to Christ; "That the love wherewith thou has loved me may
be in them;" such love as the Son has to the Father, and such as He
manifested to His disciples that very evening when, conscious of
His divine glory, and "knowing that he was come from God, and went
to God," He girded Himself with a towel and washed His disciples'
feet. Hence the declaration, "The glory," that is, of character,
"which thou gavest me I have given them, that they," through its
possession, "may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in
me." Hence again His saying, "They are not of the world, even as I
am not of the world;" and His prayer, "I pray not that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from
the evil." Such love as this, when in the soul of ordinary men, does
not originate in their own hearts, however naturally benevolent or
affectionate these may be. Our Lord in this prayer recognizes it
as inseparable from faith in His own teaching, and from personal
conviction of the truth which they themselves were to preach; for
they had received His words, and had "known surely that I came out
from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me"; and so
He prays, "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth."
Now, if we would divide, as with a prism, this pure light of love,
we might discern it as being composed, as it were, of at least two
colors, or features--first, love to God, exprest in the desire that
He should be known; secondly, love to man, exprest in self-sacrifice
that all should share this true love. But these very features we
discern as first existing in God the Father and in Christ the Son;
for God desires, from the necessity of His own nature, that He
should be known, and that all His rational creatures should see
the glory of His character, and, in seeing it, should live. God
has also manifested His love, according to the law of love, by
giving and by self-sacrifice, inasmuch as He "spared not his own
Son, but delivered him up for us all." In like manner, the Son
desired that His Father might be known, and to accomplish this He
became incarnate. He has manifested His love also in the form of
self-sacrifice, in that His whole life and death were an offering
up of Himself as a sacrifice unto God, and as an atonement for the
sins of the world, in order that all men might be made partakers
of His own eternal life in God. This, too, is the "mind" of the
Holy Spirit, for He glorifies the Son, that the Son may glorify the
Father, and glorifies Him in and by His true Church. Hence, wherever
true love exists in man, it will manifest itself in these two forms;
it will ever desire that God may be known, and will never "seek its
own," but sacrifice itself that this end may be attained. In such
oneness as this of mind, spirit, character--in one word, love--there
is realized the first condition of that oneness for which our Lord
prayed.
Secondly, This unity of character fulfils the second condition in
its being such as the world can in some degree see and appreciate.
Blind as the world is, it can see love in the form of self-sacrifice
at least, seeking its good, even tho it may not at once see in
this a revelation of such love as has its origin in the love of
God to man. The world's heart can perceive more things and greater
things than can its intellect. The child of the statesman or man
of science may not be able to comprehend the world-politics of the
one or the scientific discoveries of the other; but it can see and
feel the love revealed in the glance of the eye, in the smile on
the lips, or in the arms that clasp it to the bosom; and in seeing
this, it sees an infinitely greater thing than the politics of the
one or the scientific discoveries of the other. It sees, too, in
this, tho unconsciously, the love of the Father's heart which fills
the universe with glory, even as its eye, when opened to a little
light, sees the same light which illumines a thousand worlds. And
thus can the world see the light of love. Those who are in prison,
in nakedness, or in thirst, are quite able to see and to appreciate
the love that, for Christ's sake, visits them, clothes them, and
gives them drink. The wretched lepers in the lazar-house, into which
no one could enter and ever return to the world, could see and
appreciate the love of the Moravian missionary who visited them,
and who shut the door for ever between him and all he knew and
loved, that he might share and alleviate the horrors of his wretched
brethren whom he loved more than all. Blind as the world is, it can
see this or nothing; bad as it is, it can appreciate this goodness
or none.
Thirdly, Such a character is calculated also to convince the world
that God has sent Christ to save sinners. Observe again what is
our Lord's idea of the mission which was to convert the world; it
is this, that those whom He sends, even as God had sent Himself,
whether as apostles or as disciples, should give to their fellow men
what they have first received from their living Head, Jesus Christ.
They were to give "the words" which they received from Him, and
which He had received from God--they were to give "the truth" which
they received from Him, and which He Himself had glorified in His
life and death, that God had sent Him to be the Savior of the world.
They were also to manifest that life which they had received from
Him, and which He had received from God, and which in them was the
necessary result of their faith. Now, it is in the seeing of this
life in those who proclaim the truth that the truth itself appears
worthy of all acceptation, and that God verily, who has sent His Son
to save sinners, is love. It is thus, you perceive, that the mission
of the Church, whether of its ministers or its members, is not only
to preach glad tidings, but to show their reality in their actual
results; not only to preach salvation, but to preach it by saved
men; not only to preach eternal life, but to preach it by those who
possess it; not only to preach about a Father, but to reveal also
that Father through His regenerated sons, who themselves know and
love Him. Further, the idea of a Church is that of a society whose
members are united through faith in the same truth, and are in
possession of the same life. Such a society necessarily springs out
of faith and love, and its members cannot choose but unite outwardly
because united inwardly. Our Lord assumes its future existence and
provides for its continuance. A Church realizing Christ's ideal
would, therefore, possess, as its creed this, at least, of believing
Christ's words, and the truth that "God had sent his Son to be the
Savior of the world." For "every spirit that confesseth not that
Christ hath come in the flesh is not of God." "And whosoever shall
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in
God." Its initiatory sacrament, that of baptism, does but express
the nature of this society--viz., that its members are the children
of God the Father through Christ the Son, and by the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit--their character being a spiritual baptism into the
possession of "God's name," which is "love."
Another characteristic of it is their possession of that eternal
life which is exprest as well as maintained by the "communion" in
which its members meet together as brethren, their bond of union
being a common union with God in Christ and one another, through
the constant partaking of Him, the living bread; eating His flesh
and drinking His blood--that is, His whole life of self-sacrifice
and love becoming a part of their very being. Worship in spirit
and in truth is also necessarily involved in the idea of such a
society; and I might add, worship, not from a command merely, but
as a necessary result of spiritual character, becoming in a true
sense "infallible" as to religion; but religion in this sense,--that
of knowing God because of its members being able to say, "We know
that he dwelleth in us, and we in him, because he hath given us
his Spirit, and we know and testify that he sent his Son to be
the Savior of the world." Such a Church would likewise, in a true
sense, have an apostolical succession--that is, a succession of
teachers and members who had the apostolic spirit, or the oneness as
described by our Lord; for it would be able, from its possessing the
Spirit of God, to discern those who were like-minded, and to select
such as were specially fitted for the work of the ministry. This is
the ideal of the Church.
But has such a Church been realized? Has there ever been a visible
organized body of men who carried out this sublime purpose? Once,
indeed, there was. For we perceive, more or less clearly, all these
features in the early Church when it had received the Spirit on the
day of Pentecost, and when its members met together and "had all
things in common," and manifested such sonship towards God, and
brotherhood towards each other; and sent forth everywhere its public
minister and its members also to bring men into the same blessed
unity. But supposing the ideal had no more been realized since that
time than God's ideal as described by Moses had been fully realized
in the Jewish Church;--yet must the ideal, nevertheless, be ever
kept before the spiritual eye. For we do not produce high art by
keeping a low rather than a high standard before the artist; neither
can we reach to great things in the Church unless we keep a high
standard before its members. It is unnecessary here to inquire how
it came to pass that the Church, to such a great extent, lost this
ideal as one visible society, and became so corrupt as to substitute
innumerable vain appearances of spiritual realities for that which
alone could satisfy a true and righteous God. But as things now are,
the "Church" is broken up into various "churches" or societies,
striving more or less to realize the ideal. Each society does so
just in proportion as it is able to carry out our Lord's purpose
as to its ministry being one in faith, believing Christ's words,
in its knowing truly that He came from God to save sinners, and in
its seeking, from love to God and man, to make all men know their
Father, in the knowledge of whom is salvation.
But to confine myself to our own particular duties, let me remind
you, fathers and brethren, of our high calling as profest ministers
of Christ's Church. The cry of earnest souls, weary of their many
burthens, unsatisfied with their husks, conscious of being in a
distant land, and finding nothing which men can give to allay
their hungering and thirsting, is this: "Show us the Father, and it
sufficeth us!" Now supposing an earnest spirit, seeking after the
Father, comes to us as His profest ministers in order to discover
the truth of what we preach, he might very naturally say, "You
preach to me a Savior who came a long time ago into the world
professing to save sinners, and you tell me that He is coming again
at some future period to judge the world and to bestow salvation
upon many; but I want to know whether there is a Savior now; or
is it all empty space between that past and that future? You tell
me about salvation from the suffering of sin; I ask, 'Is there
salvation from sin itself, without which I feel there can be no
deliverance from suffering'? You tell me about a medicine that is an
infallible cure for 'this ineradicable taint of sin,' and describe
the terrible consequences of the disease to me if I be not cured,
and the blessed results of joyous spiritual health and peace; but
'Can you show me any person who has actually been restored from
disease to health by this divine medicine'? Is all this preaching a
mere idle theory of life? Or if not, where is the life itself? Art
thou thyself saved? If not--'physician, heal thyself'; for until
then thou canst not cure me." But suppose, further, that this same
person comes into close contact with the mind of the preacher, and
that the more he sees and knows it the more he discerns in the man
such thoughts regarding God, such a knowledge of Him, such a love
to Him, as convince him that here at least is a reality and not a
pretense; suppose that the more he discerns his whole inner life,
the things which give him pain and joy, the things which he desires
and loves, with his whole feelings towards his fellow-men--feelings
expressed in a life of action, which, in spite of infirmities and
shortcomings belonging to all human beings, the questioner cannot
but recognize as a kind of life he never saw before--a life, too,
which commends itself, from what it is, as being the most real
and the most satisfactory to reason, conscience, and heart: can
anything, I ask, be more calculated to convince him of the account
which its possessor gives him as to its origin, when he says, "The
life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave himself for me." "It is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am the chief." What then? What else must
be the result of such a vision of true life than the conviction
that God is our Father and that God is love, because it is evident
from observation as well as from testimony that He hath sent His
Son to save men, not in the past only, but to save them now--not
to save only those who are called "good," but to save those who
are the chief of sinners? If a man truly believes all this, then
does he know God, and in so doing possesses eternal life. But more
than this, how will his convictions be deepened if, in searching
for others who may have the same life, and if, tho failing to
discover any one visible body of Christians that show it forth in
the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace, he is yet able
to satisfy himself that there have been, during the last eighteen
centuries, and that there are now, in every church, in every land,
among all races of men, among those of different temperaments,
different culture, and amidst a variety of all possible outward
circumstances, men with like passions as himself, who have faith in
the same Lord, and are thereby possest of a true love of God and
of one another--how will this, I say, deepen in him the conviction
that God is a Father, because a Savior, who "gave his Son, not that
any should perish, but that all should possess everlasting life?"
Will he not be thus led to "believe the record that God has given
us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son?" I am persuaded
that a man of the highest intellectual culture and the greatest
learning, earnestly searching after God and Christ, and the truth
of Christianity, would be more convinced of the love of the one
as manifested in the truth of the other, by coming into contact
with one true soul which, without perhaps intellectual culture or
learning, yet truly loved God and man, than he would be by all the
volumes on the evidence of Christianity ever written, without such a
spiritual vision of a holy life.
On the other hand, supposing that no such evidence of the truth of
Christianity could be discovered in the preacher of Christianity;
nay, if his character contradicted his preaching; if, while
he preached love to God and man, he manifested neither, but
indifference, to say the least of it, to both; if, while he preached
the necessity and the excellence of the Christian life, he himself
revealed its very opposite--what effect would this have upon an
earnest spirit, but that Christianity was a mere ideal system
unsuited to the world, a philosophy of life that might be believed
in, but not a life itself that might be possest?
This want of personal character, however imperfect, yet real, may
account for the want of success in the mission of the Church to
convince the world, whether at home or abroad. We may give religion
but not godliness; the means of grace, as they are called, but not
the grace seen and exprest in the living man. We would thus hear of
Christianity without seeing it; hear about the love of God, and the
love of Christ as a Savior, without being convinced even by those
who send missionaries to India, who, altho they may individually
reveal this life, yet how often are looked upon as mere official
teachers; while the "Christians" from "Christendom" may, in coming
into contact with the heathen, show by their denial of Christianity
that it is a matter for the priesthood, not for all men; a book
theology, but not an actual power working in humanity: and of such
persons it may be said that they have profaned God's great name
among the heathen.
And this, too, may also account for the secret of success by many
a minister of whom the world knows nothing: "For greatest minds
are those of whom the noisy world hears least." They may not be
great in the ordinary sense of the word--great as thinkers, great
as orators, or great in the possession of any remarkable gifts; but
they are nevertheless great in the kingdom of heaven; great because
little children--great in meekness, in patience, in humility, in
love of God and man, and who carry this music in their heart,
"through dusky land and wrangling mart." What is the secret of their
power? What but an eternal reality! the reality of a godly, godlike
life obtained from God, and sustained by God, and seen in the eye,
felt in the hand, heard in the words--a light of life which shines
beside many a dying bed in many a home of sorrow, as well as in the
pulpit. This is a kind of life whose biography will be written with
the tears of the grateful orphan and widow, and of many a saved
soul which remembers its possessor as its spiritual father. Such a
ministry as this can no more fail than the love of God which gives
it birth. Let us thank God, therefore, that such a secret power as
this is within the reach of us all. We may not be men of talent,
and for that we are not responsible; but we may be good men because
little children towards God, and for that we are responsible: "I
thank thee, heavenly Father, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes."
And now, fathers and brethren, such is our high calling, to proclaim
the glad tidings that God has sent Christ into the world to save
sinners. Our chief authority for doing this is that we know it to be
true; and if so, no one can deprive us of the high privilege and joy
of proclaiming it. A glorious work is thus given us to do; we are
ambassadors for God, beseeching men to be reconciled to Him, and we
are fellow-workers with our Lord Himself. But this involves a great
responsibility, corresponding to the greatness of our calling. For
it is at once a glorious and a tremendous thought that Christ perils
the chief evidence of the truth of Christianity, not upon what we
say, but more upon what we are; and what we are is neither more nor
less than what God knows us to be. Our preaching may, nevertheless,
fail in some cases to convince the world, as it has done before; for
the glory of Christ Himself was not seen by Judas. Indeed the light
of life, when it shines, requires the single eye to see it. But in
so far as the ministry of men, as an instrumentality, can convince
the world, let our ministry be such as is calculated according to
Christ's purpose to produce this result. Let it consist of those who
can say, "We know whom we have believed." "We know and believe the
love that God hath to us." "We testify that he sent his Son to be
the Savior of the world."
But I must bring my sermon to a close.
Pardon me, my brethren, if I have appeared to address you in any
other spirit than that of one who would with you confess his sins
and shortcomings, and lament with shame and sorrow how much time and
power have been lost never to be regained; how many gifts and noble
opportunities have been neglected and perverted through unbelief and
sloth, which might have been used for our own good and that of our
fellow-men. Verily the day is far spent with many of us, and the
night is near in which no man can work. Whatever our hands find to
do must be done now or never. Let us pray that the living Spirit of
God, given to all who seek Him, and whose work it is to glorify the
Son, may take of His things and show them to our souls, and open
our spiritual eye to see the glory of God in the face of Christ, so
that we may be changed into the same glory. May we strive to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and be enabled so
to preach and so to live that the world may be convinced, by what
it sees and hears, of the reality of the love of God the Father in
giving us and all men eternal life through Jesus Christ His Son! May
He who makes us sons of God enable us, as sons, to be glorified in
the perfection and revelation of our characters, so that with our
elder Brother we may glorify His Father and our Father!
And now, to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, one God, be glory, dominion,
and praise for evermore. Amen!
MOZLEY
THE REVERSAL OF HUMAN JUDGMENT
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
JAMES B. MOZLEY, English divine and philosopher, was born at
Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, in 1813. He was educated at Oxford,
and is particularly known for his discourses on Baptism and
Predestination. Gladstone appointed him as professor of divinity at
Oxford. His Bampton Lectures on Miracles (1863) are still considered
of classical authority. Dr. Brastow, in speaking of his clear and
well-ordered thought, says: "He was intent upon getting at the heart
of all subjects investigated, and his slowness in clearing up a
subject and his deliberation and fastidiousness with respect to his
diction embarrassed him. The result was a mastery of thought and an
exactness and clearness and strength of speech that are more than an
offset for the difficulties he encountered; and one can hardly fail
to see that this patient, self-poised mental habit saved him from
one-sidedness and kept the balance of his judgement and made him
the safer guide. We see here the immense value of thorough mental
training." He died in 1878.
MOZLEY
1813-1878
THE REVERSAL OF HUMAN JUDGMENT[3]
[3] By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.
_Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be
first._--Matthew xix., 30.
Perhaps there is hardly any person of reflection to whom the thought
has not occurred at times, of the final judgment turning out to
be a great subversion of human estimates of men. Society forms
its opinions of men, and places some on a high pinnacle; they are
favorites with it, religious and moral favorites. Such judgments are
a necessary and proper part of the present state of things; they
are so, quite independently of the question whether they are true
or not; it is proper that there should be this sort of expression
of the voice of the day; the world is not nothing, because it is
transient; it must judge and speak upon such evidence as it has,
and is capable of seeing. Therefore those characters of men are by
all means to be respected by us, as members of this world; they
have their place, they are a part of the system. But does the idea
strike us of some enormous subversion of human judgments in the next
world, some vast rectification, to realize which now, even if we
could, would not be good for us? Such an idea would not be without
support from some of those characteristic prophetic sayings of our
Lord, which, like the slanting strokes of the sun's rays across
the clouds, throw forward a tract of mysterious light athwart the
darkness of the future. Such is that saying in which a shadow of the
Eternal Judgment seems to come over us--"Many that are first shall
be last; and the last shall be first." It is impossible to read this
saying without an understanding that it was intended to throw an
element of wholesome scepticism into the present estimate of human
character, and to check the idolatry of the human heart which lifts
up its favorites with as much of self-complacency as of enthusiasm,
and in its worship of others flatters itself.
Indeed, this language of Scripture, which speaks of the subversion
of human judgments in another world, comes in connection with
another language with which it most remarkably fits in, language
which speaks very decidedly of a great deception of human judgments
in this world. It is observable that the gospel prophecy of the
earthly future of Christianity is hardly what we should have
expected it beforehand to be; there is a great absence of brightness
in it; the sky is overcast with clouds, and birds of evil omen fly
to and fro; there is an agitation of the air, as if dark elements
were at work in it; or it is as if a fog rose up before our eyes,
and treacherous lights were moving to and fro in it, which we could
not trust. Prophecy would fain presage auspiciously, but as soon as
she casts her eye forward, her note saddens, and the chords issue
in melancholy and sinister cadences which depress the hearer's
mind. And what is the burden of her strain? It is this. As soon as
ever Christianity is cast into the world to begin its history, that
moment there begins a great deception. It is a pervading thought
in gospel prophecy--the extraordinary capacity for deceiving and
being deceived that would arise under the gospel; it is spoken of
as something peculiar in the world. There are to be false Christs
and false prophets, false signs and wonders; many that will come in
Christ's name, saying, I am Christ, and deceive many; so that it
is the parting admonition of Christ to His disciples--"Take heed,
lest any man deceive you"--as if that would be the greater danger.
And this great quantity of deception was to culminate in that one
in whom all power of signs and lying wonders should reside, even
that Antichrist, who as God should sit in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God. Thus before the true Christ was known to the
world, the prophecy of the false one was implanted deep in the heart
of Christianity.
When we come to the explanation of this mass of deception as it
applies to the Christian society, and the conduct of Christians,
we find that it consists of a great growth of specious and showy
effects, which will in fact issue out of Christianity, not implying
sterling goodness. Christianity will act as a great excitement to
human nature, it will communicate a great impulse, it will move
and stir man's feelings and intellect; this impulse will issue in
a great variety of high gifts and activities, much zeal and ardor.
But this brilliant manifestation will be to a large extent lacking
in the substance of the Christian character. It will be a great
show. That is to say, there will be underneath it the deceitful
human heart--the _natura callida_, as Thomas à Kempis calls it,
_quæ se semper pro fine habet_. We have even in the early Christian
Church that specious display of gifts which put aside as secondary
the more solid part of religion, and which St. Paul had so strongly
to check. Gospel prophecy goes remarkably in this direction, as to
what Christianity would do in the world; that it would not only
bring out the truth of human nature, but would, like some powerful
alchemy, elicit and extract the falsehood of it; that it would not
only develop what was sincere and sterling in man, but what was
counterfeit in him too. Not that Christianity favors falsehood, any
more than the law favored sin because it brought out sin. The law,
as St. Paul says, brought out sin because it was spiritual, and
forced sin to be sin against light. So in the case of Christianity.
If a very high, pure, and heart-searching religion is brought into
contact with a corrupt nature, the nature grasps at the greatness
of the religion, but will not give up itself; yet to unite the two
requires a self-deception the more subtle and potent in proportion
to the purity of the religion. And certainly, comparing the
hypocrisy of the Christian with that of the old world, we see that
the one was a weak production in comparison with the other, which is
indeed a very powerful creation; throwing itself into feeling and
language with an astonishing freedom and elasticity, and possessing
wonderful spring and largeness.
There is, however, one very remarkable utterance of our Lord Himself
upon this subject, which deserves special attention. "Many will say
to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name,
and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you." Now
this is a very remarkable prophecy, for one reason, that in the
very first start of Christianity, upon the very threshold of its
entrance into the world, it looks through its success and universal
reception, into an ulterior result of that victory--a counterfeit
profession of it. It sees, before the first nakedness of its birth
is over, a prosperous and flourishing religion, which it is worth
while for others to pay homage to, because it reflects credit on
its champions. Our Lord anticipates the time when active zeal for
Himself will be no guaranty. And we may observe the difference
between Christ and human founders. The latter are too glad of any
zeal in their favor, to examine very strictly the tone and quality
of it. They grasp at it at once; not so our Lord. He does not want
it even for Himself, unless it is pure in the individual. But
this statement of our Lord's is principally important, as being
a prophecy relating to the earthly future of Christianity. It
places before us public religious leaders, men of influence in the
religious world, who spread and push forward by gifts of eloquence
and powers of mind, the truths of His religion, whom yet He will
not accept, because of a secret corruptness in the aim and spirit
with which they did their work. The prophecy puts forth before us
the fact of a great deal of work being done in the Church, and
outwardly good zealous work, upon the same motive in substance, upon
which worldly men do their work in the world, and stamps it as the
activity of corrupt nature. The rejection of this class of religious
workers is complete, altho they have been, as the language itself
declares, forward and active for spiritual objects, and not only had
them on their lips.
Here then we have a remarkable subversion of human judgments in the
next world foretold by our Lord Himself; for those men certainly
come forward with established religious characters to which they
appeal; they have no doubt of their position in God's kingdom, and
they speak with the air of men whose claims have been acquiesced
in by others, and by numbers. And thus a false Christian growth is
looked to in gospel prophecy, which will be able to meet even the
religious tests of the current day, and sustain its pretensions, but
which will not satisfy the tests of the last day.
We are then perhaps at first surprized at the sternness of their
sentence, and are ready to say with the trembling disciple, "Who
then shall be saved?" But when we reflect upon it, we shall see
that it is not more than what meets the case; i. e., that we know
of sources of error in the estimate of human character which will
account for great mistakes being made; which mistakes will have to
be rectified.
One source of mistakes then is, that while the gospel keeps to one
point of its classification of men,--viz., the motive, by which
alone it decides their character, the mass of men in fact find it
difficult to do so. They have not that firm hold of the moral idea
which prevents them from wandering from it, and being diverted by
irrelevant considerations, they think of the spirituality of a
man as belonging to the department to which he is attached, the
profession he makes, the subject matter he works upon, the habitual
language he has to use. The sphere of these men, of whom the
estimate was to be finally reversed, was a religious one,--viz., the
Church, and this was a remarkable prop to them. Now, with respect
to this, it must be observed that the Church is undoubtedly in its
design a spiritual society, but it is also a society of this world
as well; and it depends upon the inward motive of a man whether it
is to him a spiritual society or a worldly one. The Church, as soon
as ever it is embodied in a visible collection or society of men,
who bring into it human nature, with human influences, regards,
points of view, estimates, aims, and objects--I say the Church,
from the moment it thus embodies itself in a human society, is
the world. Individual souls in it convert into reality the high
profest principles of the body, but the active stock of motives in
it are the motives of human nature. Can the visible Church indeed
afford to do without these motives? Of course it cannot. It must
do its work by means of these to a great extent, just as the world
does its work. Religion itself is beautiful and heavenly, but the
machinery for it is very like the machinery for anything else. I
speak of the apparatus for conducting and administering the visible
system of it. Is not the machinery for all causes and objects
much the same, communication with others, management, contrivance,
combination, adaptation of means to end? Religion then is itself a
painful struggle, but religious machinery provides as pleasant a
form of activity as any other machinery possesses; and it counts
for and exercises much the same kind of talents and gifts that
the machinery of any other department does, that of a government
office, or a public institution, or a large business. The Church,
as a part of the work, must have active-minded persons to conduct
its policy and affairs; which persons must, by their very situation,
connect themselves with spiritual subjects, as being the subjects
of the society; they must express spiritual joys, hopes, and
fears, apprehensions, troubles, trials, aims, and wishes. These
are topics which belong to the Church as a department. A religious
society, then, or religious sphere of action, or religious sphere
of subjects, is irrelevant as regards the spirituality of the
individual person, which is a matter of inward motive.
One would not of course exclude from the sphere of religion the
motive of _esprit de corps_: it is undoubtedly a great stimulus, and
in its measure is consistent with all simplicity and singleness of
heart; but in an intense form, when the individual is absorbed in
a blind obedience to a body, it corrupts the quality of religion;
it ensnares the man in a kind of self-interest; and he sees in
the success of the body the reflection of himself. It becomes an
egotistic motive. There has been certainly an immense produce from
it; but the type of religion it has produced is a deflection from
simplicity; it may possess striking and powerful qualities, but
it is not like the free religion of the heart; and there is that
difference between the two, which there is between what comes from
a second-hand source and from the fountain head. It has not that
naturalness (in the highest sense) which alone gives beauty to
religion.
Again, those who feel that they have a mission may convert it into a
snare to themselves. Doubtless, if, according to St. Paul, "he who
desireth the office of a bishop desireth a good work," so one who
has a mission to do some particular work has a good office given
him. Still, where life is too prominently regarded in this light,
the view of life as a mission tends to supersede the view of it as
trial and probation. The mission becomes the final cause of life.
The generality may be born to do their duty in that station of life
in which it has pleased God to call them; but in their own case the
mission overtops and puts into the shade the general purpose of
life as probation; the generality are sent into the world for their
own moral benefit, but they are rather sent into the world for the
benefit of that world itself. The outward object with its display
and machinery is apt to reduce to a kind of insignificance the
inward individual end of life. It appears small and commonplace. The
success of their own individual probation is assumed in embarking
upon the larger work, as the less is included in the greater; it
figures as a preliminary in their eyes, which may be taken for
granted; it appears an easy thing to them to save their own souls, a
thing, so to speak, for anybody to do.
What has been dwelt upon hitherto as a source of false magnifying
and exaltation of human character, has been the invisibility of
men's motives. But let us take another source of mistake in human
judgment.
Nothing is easier, when we take gifts of the intellect and
imagination in the abstract, than to see that these do not
constitute moral goodness. This is indeed a mere truism; and yet,
in the concrete, it is impossible not to see how nearly they border
upon counting as such; to what advantage they set off any moral
good there may be in a man; sometimes even supplying the absence of
real good with what looks extremely like it. On paper these mental
gifts are a mere string of terms; we see exactly what these terms
denote, and we cannot mistake it for something else. It is plain
that eloquence, imagination, poetical talent, are no more moral
goodness than riches are, or than health and strength are, or than
noble birth is. We know that bad men have possest them just as much
as good men. Nevertheless, take them in actual life, in the actual
effect and impression they make, as they express a man's best moods
and highest perceptions and feelings, and what a wonderful likeness
and image of what is moral do they produce. Think of the effect of
refined power of expression, of a keen and vivid imagination as
applied to the illustration and enrichment of moral subjects,--to
bringing out, e. g., with the whole force of intellectual sympathy,
the delicate and high regions of character,--does not one who can
do this seem to have all the goodness which he expresses? And it is
quite possible he may have; but this does not prove it. There is
nothing more in this than the faculty of imagination and intelligent
appreciation of moral things. There enters thus unavoidably often
into a great religious reputation a good deal which is not religion,
but power.
Let us take the character which St. Paul draws. It is difficult to
believe that one who had the tongue of men and of angels would not
be able to persuade the world that he himself was extraordinarily
good. Rather it is part of the fascination of the gift, that the
grace of it is reflected in the possessor. But St. Paul gives him,
besides thrilling speech which masters men's spirits and carries
them away, those profound depths of imagination which still and
solemnize them; which lead them to the edge of the unseen world,
and excite the sense of the awful and supernatural; he has the
understanding of all mysteries. And again, knowledge unfolds all its
stores to him with which to illustrate and enrich spiritual truths.
Let one then, so wonderful in mental gifts, combine them with the
utmost fervor, with boundless faith, before which everything gives
way; boundless zeal, ready to make even splendid sacrifices; has
there been any age in which such a man would have been set down as
sounding and empty? St. Paul could see that such a man might yet be
without the true substance--goodness; and that all his gifts could
not guarantee it to him; but to the mass his own eloquence would
interpret him, the gifts would carry the day, and the brilliant
partial virtues would disguise the absence of the general grace of
love.
Gifts of intellect and imagination, poetical power, and the like,
are indeed in themselves a department of worldly prosperity. It
is a very narrow view of prosperity that it consists only in
having property; a certain kind of gifts are just as much worldly
prosperity as riches; nor are they less so if they belong to a
religious man, any more than riches are less prosperity because
a religious man is rich. We call these gifts worldly prosperity,
because they are in themselves a great advantage, and create
success, influence, credit, and all which man so much values; and
at the same time they are not moral goodness, because the most
corrupt men may have them.
But even the gifts of outward fortune themselves have much of the
effect of gifts of mind in having the semblance of something moral.
They set off what goodness a man has to such immense advantage,
and heighten the effect of it. Take some well-disposed person,
and suppose him suddenly to be left an enormous fortune, he would
feel himself immediately so much better a man. He would seem to
himself to become suddenly endowed with a new large-heartedness and
benevolence. He would picture himself the generous patron, the large
dispenser of charity, the promoter of all good in the world. The
power to become such would look like a new disposition. And in the
eyes of the others, too, his goodness would appear to have taken a
fresh start. Even serious piety is recognized more as such; it is
brought out and placed in high relief, when connected with outward
advantages; and so the gifts of fortune become a kind of moral
addition to a man.
Action, then, on a large scale, and the overpowering effect of
great gifts, are what produce, in a great degree, what we call
the canonization of men--the popular judgment which sets them up
morally and spiritually upon the pinnacle of the temple, and which
professes to be a forestalment, through the mouth of the Church
or of religious society, of the final judgment. How decisive is
the world's, and, not less confident, the visible Church's note of
praise. It is just that trumpet note which does not bear a doubt.
How it is trusted! With what certainty it speaks! How large a part
of the world's and Church's voice is praise! It is an immense and
ceaseless volume of utterance. And by all means let man praise
man, and not do it grudgingly either; let there be an echo of that
vast action which goes on in the world, provided we only speak of
what we know. But if we begin to speak of what we do not know,
and which only a higher judgment can decide, we are going beyond
our province. On this question we are like men who are deciding
irreversibly on some matter in which everything depends upon one
element in the case, which element they cannot get at. We appear
to know a great deal of one another, and yet, if we reflect, what
a vast system of secrecy the moral world is. How low down in a man
sometimes (not always) lies the fundamental motive which sways his
life? But this is what everything depends on. Is it an unspiritual
motive? Is there some keen passion connected with this world at
the bottom? Then it corrupts the whole body of action. There is a
good deal of prominent religion then, which keeps up its character,
even when this motive betrays itself; great gifts fortify it, and
people do not see because they will not. But at any rate there is a
vast quantity of religious position which has this one great point
undecided beneath it; and we know of tremendous dangers to which it
is exposed. Action upon a theater may doubtless be as simple-minded
action as any other; it has often been; it has been often even
childlike action; the apostles acted on a theater; they were a
spectacle to men and to angels. Still, what dangers in a spiritual
point of view does it ordinarily include--dangers to simplicity,
inward probity, sincerity! How does action on this scale and of
this kind seem, notwithstanding its religious object, to pass over
people, not touching one of their faults, leaving--more than their
infirmities--the dark veins of evil in their character as fixed
as ever. How will persons sacrifice themselves to their objects?
They would benefit the world, it would appear, at their own moral
expense; but this is a kind of generosity which is perilous policy
for the soul, and is indeed the very mint in which the great mass of
false spiritual coinage is made.
On the other hand, while the open theater of spiritual power and
energy is so accessible to corrupt motives, which, tho undermining
its truthfulness, leave standing all the brilliance of the outer
manifestation; let it be considered what a strength and power of
goodness may be accumulating in unseen quarters. The way in which
man bears temptation is what decides his character; yet how secret
is the system of temptation? Who knows what is going on? What the
real ordeal has been? What its issue was? So with respect to the
trial of griefs and sorrows, the world is again a system of secrecy.
There is something particularly penetrating, and which strikes home,
in those disappointments which are especially not extraordinary, and
make no show. What comes naturally and as a part of our situation
has a probing force grander strokes have not; there is a solemnity
and stateliness in these, but the blow which is nearest to common
life gets the stronger hold. Is there any particular event which
seems to have, if we may say so, a kind of malice in it which
provokes the Manichean feeling in our nature, it is something which
we should have a difficulty in making appear to any one else any
special trial. Compared with this inner grasp of some stroke of
providence, voluntary sacrifice stands outside of us. After all, the
self-made trial is a poor disciplinarian weapon; there is a subtle
masterly irritant and provoking point in the genuine natural trial,
and in the natural crossness of events, which the artificial thing
cannot manage; we can no more make our trials than we can make our
feelings. In this way moderate deprivations are in some cases more
difficult to bear than extreme ones. "I can bear total obscurity,"
says Pascal, "well enough; what disgusts me is semi-obscurity; I
can make an idol of the whole, but no great merit of the half." And
so it is often the case that what we must do as simply right, and
which would not strike even ourselves, and still less anybody else,
is just the hardest thing to do. A work of supererogation would be
much easier. All this points in the direction of great work going
on under common outsides where it is not noticed; it hints at a
secret sphere of growth and progress; and as such it is an augury
and presage of a harvest which may come some day suddenly to light,
which human judgments had not counted on.
It is upon such a train of thought as this which has been passing
through our minds that we raise ourselves to the reception of that
solemn sentence which Scripture has inscribed on the curtain which
hangs down before the judgment-seat--"The first shall be last, and
the last shall be first." The secrets of the tribunal are guarded,
and yet a finger points which seems to say--"Beyond, in this
direction, behind this veil, things are different from what you will
have looked for."
Suppose, e. g., any supernatural judge should appear in the world
now, and it is evident that the scene he would create would be one
to startle us; we should not soon be used to it; it would look
strange; it would shock and appal; and that from no other cause
than simply its reductions; that it presented characters stripped
bare, denuded of what was irrelevant to goodness, and only with
their moral substance left. The judge would take no cognizance of a
rich imagination, power of language, poetical gifts and the like,
in themselves, as parts of goodness, any more than he would of
riches and prosperity; and the moral residuum would appear perhaps
a bare result. The first look of divine justice would strike us
as injustice; it would be too pure a justice for us; we should
be long in reconciling ourselves to it. Justice would appear,
like the painter's gaunt skeleton of emblematic meaning, to be
stalking through the world, smiting with attenuation luxuriating
forms of virtue. Forms, changed from what we knew, would meet
us, strange unaccustomed forms, and we should have to ask them
who they are--"You were flourishing but a short while ago, what
has happened to you now?" And the answer, if it spoke the truth,
would be--"Nothing, except that now, much which lately counted as
goodness, counts as such no longer; we are tried by a new moral
measure, out of which we issue different men; gifts which have
figured as goodness remain as gifts, but cease to be goodness." Thus
would the large sweep made of human canonizations act like blight or
volcanic fire upon some rich landscape, converting the luxury of
nature into a dried-up scene of bare stems and scorched vegetation.
So may the scrutiny of the last day, by discovering the irrelevant
material in men's goodness, reduce to a shadow much exalted earthly
character. Men are made up of professions, gifts, and talents,
and also of themselves, but all so mixed together that we cannot
separate one element from another; but another day must show what
the moral substance is, and what is only the brightness and setting
off of gifts. On the other hand, the same day may show where, tho
the setting off of gifts is less, the substance is more. If there
will be reversal of human judgment for evil, there will be reversal
of it for good too. The solid work which has gone on in secret,
under common exteriors, will then spring into light, and come out
in a glorious aspect. Do we not meet with surprizes of this kind
here, which look like auguries of a greater surprize in the next
world, a surprize on a vast scale. Those who have lived under an
exterior of rule, when they come to a trying moment sometimes
disappoint us; they are not equal to the act required from them;
because their forms of duty, whatever they are, have not touched
in reality their deeper fault of character, meanness, or jealousy,
or the like, but have left them where they were; they have gone
on thinking themselves good because they did particular things,
and used certain language, and adopted certain ways of thought,
and have been utterly unconscious all the time of a corroding sin
within them. On the other hand, some one who did not promise much,
comes out at a moment of trial strikingly and favorably. This is
a surprize, then, which sometimes happens, nay, and sometimes a
greater surprize still, when out of the eater comes forth meat, and
out of a state of sin there springs the soul of virtue. The act of
the thief on the cross is a surprize. Up to the time when he was
judged he was a thief, and from a thief he became a saint. For even
in the dark labyrinth of evil there are unexpected outlets; sin is
established by the habit in the man, but the good principle which
is in him also, but kept down and supprest, may be secretly growing
too; it may be undermining it, and extracting the life and force
from it. In this man, then, sin becomes more and more, tho holding
its place by custom, an outside and a coating, just as virtue does
in the deteriorating man, till at last, by a sudden effort and the
inspiration of an opportunity, the strong good casts off the weak
crust of evil and comes out free. We witness a conversion.
But this is a large and mysterious subject--the foundation for high
virtue to become apparent in a future world, which hardly rises up
above the ground here. We cannot think of the enormous trial which
is undergone in this world by vast masses without the thought
also of some sublime fruit to come of it some day. True, it may
not emerge from the struggle of bare endurance here, but has not
the seed been sown? Think of the burden of toil and sorrow borne
by the crowds of poor: we know that pain does not of itself make
people good; but what we observe is, that even in those in whom
the trial seems to do something, it yet seems such a failure. What
inconstancy, violence, untruths! The pathos in it all moves you.
What a tempest of character it is! And yet when such trial has been
passed we involuntarily say--has not a foundation been laid? And so
in the life of a soldier, what agonies must nature pass through in
it! While the present result of such a trial is so disappointing,
so little seems to come of it! Yet we cannot think of what has been
gone through by countless multitudes in war, of the dreadful altar
of sacrifice, and the lingering victims, without the involuntary
idea arising that in some, even of the irregular and undisciplined,
the foundation of some great purification has been laid. We hear
sometimes of single remarkable acts of virtue, which spring from
minds in which there is not the habit of virtue. Such acts point to
a foundation, a root of virtue in man, deeper than habit; they are
sudden leaps which show an unseen spring, which are able to compress
in a moment the growth of years.
To conclude. The gospel language throws doubt upon the final
stability of much that passes current here with respect to
character, upon established judgments, and the elevations of the
outward sanctuary. It lays down a wholesome scepticism. We do not
do justice to the spirit of the gospel by making it enthusiastic
simply, or even benevolent simply. It is sagacious, too. It is a
book of judgment. Man is judged in it. Our Lord is Judge. We cannot
separate our Lord's divinity from His humanity; and yet we must be
blind if we do not see a great judicial side of our Lord's human
character;--that severe type of understanding, in relation to the
worldly man, which has had its imperfect representation in great
human minds. He was unspeakably benevolent, kind, compassionate;
true, but He was a Judge. It was indeed of His very completeness
as man that He should know man; and to know is to judge. He must
be blind who, in the significant acts and sayings of our Lord as
they unroll themselves in the pregnant page of the gospel, does
not thus read His character; he sees it in that insight into
pretensions, exposure of motives, laying bare of disguises; in the
sayings--"Believe it not"; "Take heed that no man deceive you";
"Behold, I have told you"; in all that profoundness of reflection
in regard to man, which great observing minds among mankind have
shown, tho accompanied by much of frailty, anger, impatience, or
melancholy. His human character is not benevolence only; there
is in it wise distrust--that moral sagacity which belongs to the
perfection of man.
Now then, as has been said, this scepticism with regard to human
character has had, as a line of thought, certain well-known
representatives in great minds, who have discovered a root of
selfishness in men's actions, have probed motives, extracted aims,
and placed man before himself denuded and exposed; they judged
him, and in the frigid sententiousness or the wild force of their
utterances, we hear that of which we cannot but say, how true! But
knowledge is a goad to those who have it; a disturbing power; a
keenness which distorts; and in the sight it gives it partly blinds
also. The fault of these minds was that in exposing evil they did
not really believe in goodness; goodness was to them but an airy
ideal, the dispirited echo of perplexed hearts,--returned to them
from the rocks of the desert, without bearing hope with it. They
had no genuine belief in any world which was different from theirs;
they availed themselves of an ideal indeed to judge this world, and
they could not have judged it without; for anything, whatever it
is, is good, if we have no idea of anything better; and therefore
the conception of a good world was necessary to judge the bad
one. But the ideal held loose to their minds--not anything to be
substantiated, not as a type in which a real world was to be cast,
not as anything of structural power, able to gather into it, form
round it, and build up upon itself; not, in short, as anything of
power at all, able to make anything, or do anything, but only like
some fragrant scent in the air, which comes and goes, loses itself,
returns again in faint breaths, and rises and falls in imperceptive
waves. Such was goodness to these minds; it was a dream. But the
gospel distrust is not disbelief in goodness. It raises a great
suspense, indeed, it shows a curtain not yet drawn up, it checks
weak enthusiasm, it appends a warning note to the pomp and flattery
of human judgments, to the erection of idols; and points to a day of
great reversal; a day of the Lord of Hosts; the day of pulling down
and plucking up, of planting and building. But, together with the
law of sin, the root of evil in the world, and the false goodness in
it, it announces a fount of true natures; it tells us of a breath of
Heaven of which we know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth;
which inspires single individual hearts, that spring up here and
there, and everywhere, like broken gleams of the supreme goodness.
And it recognizes in the renewed heart of man an instinct which
can discern true goodness and distinguish it from false; a secret
discrimination in the good by which they know the good. It does not
therefore stand in the way of that natural and quiet reliance which
we are designed by God to have in one another, and that trust in
those whose hearts we know. "Wisdom is justified of her children";
"My sheep hear my voice, but a stranger will they not follow, for
they know not the voice of strangers."
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Transcriber's note:
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printed.
Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
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Page 116: The transcriber has supplied the missing closing
bracket--"and Him crucified (when I was among the pupils of
Gamaliel, all of whom despised my chosen theme)".
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