140
The Human Life of God
Ml
affirmation, as Dr. Bushnell said, is the human- ity of Christ. We are left with a perfectly orthodox doctrine of two natures, but we no longer have a clear and simple gospel of One Person to preach to doubting men.
n
The wor- ship of the Vii'gin Mary.
The cry of But the heart of Christendom has never
a human ^^ rested content with this distant, vague, uncer-
Saviour. tain view of the real manhood of our Lord.
There has always been a protest against it.
There has always been an effort to escape from
it.
AVe can see a strange and indirect but indubitable evidence of this deep inward dis- satisfaction, in the rise and growth of an im- passioned devotion to the human mother of Jesus. The worship of the Virgin Mary was a reprisal for the obscuration of the humanity of her Son. In the thought of her true womanly tenderness and affection, her real and unquestionable sorrows, her simple and familiar joys, her intimate, genuine, unfailing sympathy with all that makes our mortal life a bitter, blessed reality to us, the souls of the lowly and the lonely found that peace and consolation
The Human Life of God
141
which they could no longer find in the con- templation of the distant Second Person of the Trinity through the telescope of theology. That which Jesus Himself was to John and Peter, to the household of Bethany, to the penitent publican, and to the woman which was a sinner, Mary became to the baffled and confused faith of a later age, — an approachable mediator of the divine mercy, a helper who could really understand and feel the need of those who cried for help, a warm and living image of the Eternal Sympathy in flesh and blood. In the light of mediaeval dogmatics Mariolatry appears not without its justifica- tion. And for my part, I should not wish to be bound to the Christology of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, without finding the com- pensation which their followers found in per- sonal devotion and confidential trust, flowing instinctively and irresistibly towards the blessed Virgin.
But, after all, this was only a substitute for The search the real thing. It gave to faith the image of a lovely and adorable humanity in closest union with God ; but it did not give back the old vision of the human life of God. And so through all the ages we see men turning, now in solitary thought, now in great companies, to
^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^
Presented by" ^T'i'Sy'i O rVR. . S'V VO r\ cf .
o
The Xej"fo"7' ^«52-l933, doubt ^" ^Se of
THE GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT
~>
■H|2)^^°
THE GOSPEL FOR AN AGE OF DOUBT
BY
HENRY VAN DYKE
D.D. (PRINCETON, HARVARD, YALE) , LL.D. (UNION) "V^ -^( / fC-' '
PASTOR OF THE BRICK CHURCH IN NEW YORK
MAY 24 iij,
SIXTH EDITION REVISED WITH A NEW PREFACE
" But if any speak not concern i77g Jesus Christ, J look upon them as tombstones and sepulchres of the dead, on which are written only the na?nes of men."
St. Ignatius, Epist. ad Phil.
Neiu gork THE MACMTLTAN COMPANY
LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1898
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1896, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped September, 1896. Reprinted December, 1896; January, October, 1897; September, 1898.
Xortoooti iprrss
J. S. Cashing & Co. — Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
PREFACE
TO THE SIXTH EDITION
Two years have passed since this book was first printed. A new edition is now prepared for popuhar use by leaving out the appendix and making the volume smaller.
In writing a new preface, I am glad of the opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the many friends who have given the book a welcome in different parts of the world, and liave translated its message into other languages. 1 wish to acknowledge also the benefit received from those intelligent critics who have pointed out some of its faults and shortcomings, and to make some brief reply to those other critics who have misconceived its purpose and misrep- resented its meaning. But most of all I would like to say a word to make the spirit and aim of the book more clear, and so to bring it into touch with the personal life of those into whose hands it may fall.
It was w^ritten in the form of a course of lectures on preaching, on the '' Lyman Beecher
xiv Preface
Foundation," and delivered before the divinity students of Yale University. But the aim of these lectures was not to teach the art of making sermons. It was to accentuate the truth that the question, What to preach, comes first, and the question, How to preach, comes afterwards. A man must have a distinct message, clear and luminous to his own soul, — a message which comes to him with a joyful sense of newness and demands utterance, — he must feel the liv- ing fitness of this precise message to the needs of the world, before he can learn to deliver it with freedom and power.
The study of theology as a science is a very important study. The training of men in the art of preaching is a very valuable discipline. But the vital experience of faith is deeper and broader than the theories of theology. The art of preaching is worth little unless it serves to enrich and ennoble the larger art of living. Religion is the secret of this larger art of liv- ing. And the power of religion to inspire and guide men to purer, stronger, happier, more beautiful lives, does not depend upon the modes and forms in which it is preached, but simply upon the concrete gospel, the good news about God and tlie world, which it brings into their hearts.
Preface xv
The audience in the Yale chapel appealed to me less as students of theology, than as young men with a life to live and a work to do in the modern world, in the present age. Around them I felt the pressure of those great, myste- rious forces which are silently changing the current of human thought and the face of human society. Behind them I saw the wider circle of the young men and women of the new generation, the children of this age, born into the turmoil and confusion, the intellectual stress and storm, of a period of transition. It was to this wider circle that I really wanted to speak, through the divinity students who composed the immediate audience. I wanted to tell the men who were studying for the ministry that they must not let themselves be educated out of sympathy with the modern world; that they must understand the trials and difficulties of the present age in order to serve it effectively; that they must keep in touch with living men and women, outside of the circle of faith as well as within it, if they wished to help them.
But more than this. I wanted to show that there is a message of religion especially fitted to meet the needs of our times. There is an aspect of Christianity which comes to the world to-day as glad tidings. There is a newness in
xvi Preface
the old gospel which shines out like a sunrise upon the darkness and despondency that over- shadow so much of modern life. This aspect of Christianity centres in the person of Jesus Christ, as the human life of God. This new- ness of the gospel lies in believing in Him as a real man, in whose sonship the Fatherhood of God is revealed and made certain to all men. And the power of this message to enrich and ennoble life lies in the fact that those who receive it are set free from a threefold bond- age : first, from the heavy tliought that they are creatures of necessity whose actions and destiny are determined by heredity and en- vironment ; second, from the haunting fear that the world is governed by blind chance or brute force ; and third, from the curse of sin, which is selfishness. To see Christ as the true Son of God and the brother of all men, is to be sure that the soul is free, and that God is good, and that the end of life is noble service.
This is the message that I wanted to deliver in this book, as the true gospel for an age of doubt.
The title has been misunderstood by some of the critics who have read it, apparently without going any further into the book. They have
Preface xvll
taken it as if it were an arraignment of the present age for irreligion and infidelity. They have resented it as if it were a confession of tlie decline of Christianity. They have found fault with the writer for a want of sympathy with the intellectual perplexities of the men and women of to-day, and a lack of insight into their spiritual life and moral purposes.
It seems strange that any one should make such a criticism. The answer to it may be found in the first chapter, where I have tried to draw the distinction between doubt and infidelity. But in order that there may be no room for mistake, I will say what I mean again, and yet more clearly.
In calling the present "an age of doubt," I do not mean that it is the only age in which doubt has been prevalent, nor that doubt is the only characteristic of the age. I mean simply that it is one of those periods of human history in which the sudden expansion of knowledge and the breaking-up of ancient moulds of thought have produced a profound and wide- spread feeling of uncertainty in regard to the subject of religion. The remarkable achieve- ments of the critical method as applied to philosophy, history, and literature, have led men to ask Avhether it may not be applied in
xviii Preface
the same way to theology, and to take it for granted that the result must be destructive. The difficulty of adjusting the new discoveries of science to the established forms of theo- logical doctrine, has produced in some reluctant and irritable minds a disposition to resent all scientific research, and to denounce it as atheis- tic. But in a far greater number of minds it has begotten a misgiving, that if religion needs to defend itself by denying facts it must stand on a very insecure foundation. There is a large class of people, thoughtful, earnest, sin- cere, w^ho live under the shadow of this misgiving. They want religion. They are attracted by its spiritual ideals, by its moral inspiration. But they hesitate to accept it, at least in its Christian form, for fear that it may not be reasonable. The questioning temper holds possession of their minds. Their attitude toward religious things is interroga- tive. The secular spirit insensibly gains do- minion over their thoughts and feelings. They grow weary of asking questions which seem to find no answer. The influence of the great mass of popular literature in which religion is practically ignored, tends to foster the impression that it is a subject in regard to which certainty is neither necessary nor attain-
Preface xix
able. The existence of God, the reality of the soul, the prospect of immortality, — these appear like insoluble problems to many of the children of this age. They are troubled and depressed and impoverished by the Avant of faith, but they accept indecision as the only rational attitude, and try to do the best that they can without believing in
" The truths that never can be proved."
This is what I mean by an age of doubt. Who that knows the young men and women of to-day, can deny that multitudes of the very best of them are feeling the influence of this kind of doubt, and suffering under it? Who can fail to see that in many ways this kind of doubt is an evidence of spiritual sincerity, of moral earnestness, of a desire to be true to the truth at all costs ? Who can forget that the sadness, the despondency, the pessimism of many of those who have surrendered faith at the call of what they conceived to be an intel- lectual duty, is in itself a proof that religion is necessary to complete human life and make the world endurable ?
This is a doubting age. But it is not there- fore an age to be despised or despaired of. It is a hopeful age, an earnest age, an age of gen-
XX Preface
erous feeling and noble action. What it needs is a clear answer to its doubt, and a poAverful remedy for its sadness. This ans^Ye^ and this remedy are found in the person of Jesus Christ. His life is a fact which cannot be explained without God. His character is a standing proof of the reality of the spiritual world. A universe of matter and force could never have produced such a person. His teaching is a direct witness to things which are unseen and eternal. Those who will receive it shall find His words a fountain of living waters springing up Avithin them unto everlasting life.
It is not to be supposed tliat any one can write or speak so as to make everybody perceive and accept this truth. All human preaching comes far short of the fulness of the gospel. Even Avhile Christ was on earth there were many who doubted, and held fast to their doubts. But T am sure that the most helpful, the most con- vincing message for a doubtful age is that which centres in His person, and seeks to make Him evident as the final and immutable revela- tion of God.
Tliat is what this book tries to do. It is in fact nothing more than an endeavour to prove these two things: Christ is a real person; Christ is God manifest in the flesh.
Preface xxi
But it differs from otlier arguments for the Divinity of Christ in at least one point. It accepts without reserve or qualification the per- fect humanity of Christ. The cliapter in which this view of the person of Jesus is expressed has been criticised as dangerous. I cannot alter it, because it represents my most profound convictions. To me it seems not dangerous, but safe, — far more safe, indeed, than any other view, because it corresponds more closely w4th the facts. The life which Christ lived on earth was a veritable human life. The person who lived it Avas the Son of God. But in order to live that human life He had to become man, not in a dramatic sense, but actually and en- tirely. There were not two wills and two minds working within the person of Jesus. The mind that was in Christ was a single mind, and His will was the expression of an undi- vided personality. He was subject to igno- rance, to limitation, to weakness, to temptation, even as we are. The only point of difference between Him and us is that we sin, but He sinned not. The Godhood that was in Him was such as manhood is capable of receiving. There is no evidence in His life or in His character of the omniscience and omnipresence and onniipotence that would have separated
xxii Preface
Him from us. His existence among men was simply the human life of God.
It seems to me that this is the view of Christ Avhich is given in the New Testament. I have tried to express it clearly, because it opens the way to the dissolving of many doubts, and makes His Divinity at once easier to be be- lieved, in and more precious in its significance. And if it does this for one reader who has been troubled by unbelief in the Divinity of Christ, if it shows one seeker after God how to find Him in the man Christ Jesus, the chief purpose of the book will be accomplished.
The same considerations and desires have controlled my treatment of the doctrines of fore- ordination, sovereignty, and election. There has been no intention to enter into theological controversy. Indeed, if I had intended to do this, the report of tlie critics upon the result would fill me with curious confusion. For they seem to be unable to decide upon which side of the controversy the book is to l)e reckoned. One of them calls it '' a violent and unfair attack upon Calvinism " ; another says that "it presents the doctrines of the West- minster Confession so winningly that they are accepted almost before they are recognized."
Preface xxiii
The compliment and the reproach are alike undeserved. In point of fact I was not think- ing at all of Calvinism or of the Westminster Confession, but only of the New Testament, and of how directly it meets the wants of our age with the liberating teachings of Christ. Nothing has been more effective in begetting and increasing doubts than the idea that Christian doctrine required us to believe that all events, good and evil, were foreordained by God, and that some men were eternally chosen to be saved, without regard to their faith or works, while all the rest were left to inevitable destruction. There is no trace of such an idea in the mind of Christ. On the contrary. He is the great liberator of men from the bondage of fatalism, and His invitation to all the weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him is a divine assurance that whosoever will may have ever- lasting life.
After years of doubt and iuAvard conflict I have arrived at great peace and comfort in the unreserved acceptance of these teachings of Jesus. I do not believe that all things that happen are determined beforehand. The soul is free. The evil that men do is all their own; God has not foreordained it. His only pre- destination is to good, and if men will accept
xxiv Preface
their divine destiny, God will help them to fulfu it. Election is not the arbitrary choice of a few to receive blessings from which the many are excluded. It is the selection of certain races and men to receive great privileges to fit them for the service of all mankind in the divine kingdom. This is m}^ faith in regard to these questions. I have made no secret of it. The recent agitation concerning ministerial honour in creed subscription seemed to require that it should be frankly confessed. If such a faith were inconsistent with any ecclesiastical obligations, I should be prompt to renounce them. But it is evident that there is no incon- sistency. A man may hold this faith and preach it, as a loyal Christian, in the fellow- ship of the Presbyterian Church.
It remains only to add a word of explanation in regard to a criticism of this book which goes deeper than any of those of which I have spoken. A Avriter, for whose opinion I have great respect, has said that the volume does not give due place and proportion to the truth of the Atonement ; that it fails to set forth Christ as " the Lamb of Ood which taketh away the sin of the world."
If this were altogether true, 1 should be very
Preface xxv
sorry. 1 certainly believe that Christ is the only Saviour of sinners ; that He died to re- deem men from tlie curse of sin, and that the attractioii of His cross is most potent upon the human heart. I have tried to say this very distinctly in the second chapter and at the close of the fourth chapter.
But that the criticism is partly true I must admit. The Atonement does not appear in its due place and proportion in this book. It would not have been possible without pro- longing the volume to a much greater length and turning aside from the purpose for which it was written. It was not intended to be a complete statement of Christian truth. It was meant only to present that aspect of the gospel which seemed to be especially adapted to the wants of an age of doubt. I was thinking of the men and women whose minds are confused and troubled by modern speculations, Avho are oppressed by the intellectual difficulties of belief, who feel the benumbing influence of the secular spirit, and who stand sadly in doubt in regard to the reality of the whole spiritual life. I wanted to say something to help them, some- thing to make it easier for them to believe in Christ, and, through Christ, in God.
I know very well that it is not enough for
xxvi Preface
men to be delivered from doubt. They need also to be saved from sin. But before this can have any meaning to them they must begin to believe in a Divine Being and in their own spiritual relationship to Him. What does sin mean to a man Avho doubts whether there is a personal God, and thinks that his soul may be only a name for a certain secretion of the gray matter in his brain, and has no sure expectation of a life beyond death ? What he needs first of all is a gospel which will bring him news of a real spiritual world, a gospel whose simplicity and directness and personal force will make the first adventure of faith possible. It was of such men as this that I was thinking, when this book was written.
I know very well that the book is incom- plete. It touches only one aspect of the great- est of all subjects. It needs a sequel, to make it harmonize more fully with the truth as it is in Jesus, and to bring it into touch with another side of the need of humanity. Very soon, I hope to be permitted to follow this volume on " The Gospel for an Age of Doubt," with another, on " The Gospel for a World of Sin."
"Thui.e," York Harbour,
July 10th, 18'J8.
CONTENTS
lECTTJRB I. |
An Age of Doubt .... |
PAGE 1 |
11. |
The Gospel of a Person |
. 41 |
III. |
The Unveiling of the Father |
. 81 |
:v. |
The Human Life of God |
. 123 |
y. |
The Source of Authority . |
. 167 |
YI. |
Liberty |
. 203 |
VII. |
Sovereignty |
. 245 |
VIII. |
Service |
. 281 |
Index |
. 319 |
AN AGE OF DOUBT
" Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith ! She reels not in the storm of warring words, She brightens at the clash of ' Yes ' and ' No,' She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, She feels the Sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer thro' the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songiess egg, She finds the fountain where they wail'd ' Mirage ' ! " — Tennyson, The Ancient Sage.
AN AGE OF DOUBT
There is one point in wliicli all men resem- The person- ble each other : it is that they are all different. «J.«f''«^^'«'^
•^ of the age.
But their differences are not fixed and immuta- ble. They are variable and progressive. Types of character survive or perish, like the forms of animal life. Some predominate ; others are subordinated.
Thus it comes to pass that underneath all the diversities of individual life, we may dis- cern, not with the clearness of a portrait, but with the vague outlines of a composite photo- graph, the features of a Zeitgeist, a spirit of the time. Generations differ almost as much as the men who compose them. There is a personal equation in every age.
To know this is a necessity for the preacher. Even as the physician must apprehend tlie idio- syncrasy of his patient, and the teacher must recognize the quality of his pupil, so must the preacher be in touch with his age. 3
Literature as an index of life.
4 An Age of Doubt
In endeavouring to arrive at this knowledge, contact with the world is of the first conse- quence. For one who desires to make men and women what they ought to be, nothing can take the place of an acquaintance with men and women as they are. It seems to me that one of the best means of obtaining this ac- quaintance is through literature, — not that highly specialized and more or less technical variety of literature which is produced ex- pressly for certain classes of readers, but liter- ature in the broader sense, as it appeals to cultivated and intelligent people in general, including contemporary history and criticism, poetry and fiction, popular' philosophy and di- luted science. This kind of literature is the efflorescence of the Zeitgeist. It is at once a product, and a cause, of the temperament of the age. In it we see not only what certain men have written by way of comment on the movement of the times, but also what a great many men are reading while they move. It expresses, and it creates, a sjjirit, an attitude of mind. '' I do not imagine," saj^s a keen observer, " that I am announcing an altogether novel truth in affirming that literature is one of the elements of the ethical life, — the most im- portant perhaps ; for in the decline, more and
An Age of 'Doubt 5
more evident, of traditional and local influences, the book is taking its place as tlie great ini- tiator."!
For this reason I believe that a course in The vaine modern novels and poetry miofht \Yell be made ^-^ ^^»«'*"'
i- J f^ reading.
a part of every scheme of preparation for the ministry. The preacher who does not know what his people are reading does not know his people. He will miss tlie significance of tlie current talk of society, and even of the daily comments of the newspapers, which are in fact only a cheap substitute for conversation, unless he has the key to it in the tone of popular literature. It is from this source that I have drawn many of the illustrations for this lecture. If they appear unfamiliar or out of place in a theological seminary, I can only say that they seem to me none the less, but perhaps the more, significant and valuable o]i that account. For I think that one of the causes by which, as John Foster wrote seventy years ago, " Evan- gelical Religion has been rendered unaccepta- ble to persons of cultivated taste," ^ has been a certain ill-disguised contempt on the part of
1 Paul Bourget, Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine, Paris, 1895.
2 John Foster, Essays, " On the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion," p. 188.
6 Ail Age of Doubt
persons of orthodox opinions for what they are pleased to call, "mere belles-lettres.^' And though I do not fancy that there is any sym- pathy with that frame of mind in this place, yet the occasion seems opportune for saying in a definite way that the preacher who wishes to speak to this age must read many books in order that he may be in a position to make the best use of what Sir Walter Scott called '' the one Book." He must keep himself in touch with modern life by studying modern litera- ture, which is one of its essential factors.
A douhting Ag goon as we step out of the theological cir- cle into the broad field of general reading we see that we are living in an age of doubt.
I do not mean to say that tliis is the only
feature in the physiognomy of the age. It
I has many other aspects, from any one of whicli
! we might pick a name. From the material
\ side, we might call it an age of progress ;
\ from the intellectual side, an age of science ;
from the medical side, an age of hysteria ; from
the political side, an age of democracy; from
the commercial side, an age of advertisement ;
from the social side, an age of publicomania.
An Age of Doubt *?
But looking at it from the spiritual side, wliicli is the preacher's point of view, and considering that interior life to which every proclamation of a gospel must be addressed, beyond a doubt it stands confessed as a doubting age.
There is a profound and wide-spread un- rne ques- settlement of soul in regard to fundamental ^^'^!^[y truths of religion, and also in regard to the nature and existence of the so-called spiritual faculties by Avhich alone these truths can be perceived. In its popular manifestations, this unsettlement takes the form of uncertainty rather than of denial, of unbelief rather than of disbelief, of general scepticism rather than of specific infidelity. The questioning spirit is abroad, moving on the face of the waters, seeking rest and finding none.
It is not merely that particular doctrines, such as the inspiration of the Bible, or the future punishment of the Avicked, are attacked and denied. The preacher who concentrates his attention at these points will fail to realize the gravity of the situation. It is not that a spirit of bitter and mocking atheism, such as Bishop Butler described at tlie close of the last century, has led people of discernment to set up religion '^as a principal subject of
8 An Age of Loiiht
mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of re- prisal for its liaving so long interrupted the pleasures of the world." ^ The preacher who takes that view of the case noAv will be at least fifty years too late. He will fail to understand the serious and pathetic temper of the age. Respectful The questioning spirit of to-day is severe
but not bitter, restless but not frivolous ; it takes itself very seriously and applies its meth- ods of criticism, of analysis, of dissolution, with a sad courtesy of demeanour, to the deep- est and most vital truths of religion, the being of God, the reality of the soul, the possibility of a future life. Everywhere it comes and everywhere it asks for a reason, in the shape of a positive and scientific demonstration. When one is given, it asks for another, and when anotlier is given, it asks for the reason of the reason. The laws of evidence, the prin- ciples of judgment, the witness of history, the testimony of consciousness, — all are called in question. The ansAvers which have been given by religion to the most difficult and pressing problems of man's inner life are declared to be unsatisfactory and without foundation. The
J Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Beligion (London, Bell & Daldy, 1858). "Advertisement," p. xxiv.
An Age of Doubt 9
question remains unsolved. Is it insoluble? The age stands in doubt. Its coat-of-arms is an interrogation point rampant, above three bishops dormant, and its motto is Query?
Causes of scepticism.
If we inquire the cause of this general scep- ticism in regard to religion, the common answer from all sides would probably attribute it to the progress of science. I do not feel satisfied with this answer. At least I should wisli to qualify it in such a way as to give it a very different meaning from that which is implied in the current phrase '' the conflict between science and religion."
Science, in itself considered, the orderly and Science not
hostile to
reasoned knowledge of the phenomenal universe religion. of things and events, ought not to be, and has not been, hostile to religion, simply because it does not, and cannot, enter into the same sphere. The great advance which has been made in the observation and classification of sensible facts, and in the induction of so-called general laws under which those facts may be arranged for pur- poses of study, has not even touched the two questions upon the answer to which the reality £md nature of religion depend : first, the pos-
10 An Age of Doubt
sible existence of other facts wliich phj^sical science cannot observe and classif}^ ; and sec- ond, the probable exphmation of these facts. The task of What has happened is just this. The field in 'c/i miffed, but wliicli faith has to work has been altered, and enlarged. it seems to me enormousl}^ broadened. But the work remains the same. The question is whether faith has enough vital energy to face and accomplish it. For example, the material out of which to construct an argument from the evidences of final cause in nature has been incalculably increased by the discoveries of the last fifty years in regard to natural selection and the origin of species. The observant wan- derer in the field of nature to-day no longer stumbles upon Dr. Paley's old-fashioned, open- faced, turnip-shaped Avatcli lying on the ground. He finds, instead, an intricate and self-adjusting chronometer, capable not only of marking time with accuracy, but also of evolving by its own operation another more perfect and delicate instrument, with qualities and powers which adapt themselves to their surroundings and so advance forever. The idea of final cause has not been touched. Only tlie region which it must illuminate has been vastly enlarged. It remains to be seen whether faith can supply the illuminating power. Already Ave have the
An Age of Doubt 11
promise of an answer in many books, by mas- ters of science and philosophy, who show that the theory of evolntion demands for its com- pletion the recognition of the spiritual nature of man and the belief in an intelligent and per- sonal God.
The spread of scepticism is often attributed ^''^^ erpan- to the growth of our conception of the physical knowledge. magnitude of the universe. The bewildering numbers and distances of the stars, the gigan- tic masses of matter in motion, and the tremen- dous sweep of the forces which drive our tiny earth along like a grain of dust in an orderly whirlwind, are supposed to have overwhelmed and stunned the power of spiritual belief in man. The account seems to me incorrect and unconvincing. I observe that precisely the same argument was used by Job and Isaiah and the Psalmists to lead to a conclusion of faith. The striking disproportion between the littleness of man and the greatness of the stars was to them a demonstration of the ne- cessity of religion to solve the equation. They saw in the heavens the glory of God. And if man to-day knows vastly more of the heavens, does not that put him in position to receive a larger and loftier vision of the glory ?
12
A7i Age of Doubt
Devout men of pure sci- ence.
The arro- gance of sciencs falsehj so- called.
We observe, moreover, that it is just in those departments of science where the knowledge of the magnitude and splendid order of the physi- cal universe is most clear and exact, namely, in astronomy and mathematics, that we find the most illustrious men of science wdio have not been sceptics but sincere and steadfast believ- ers in the Christian religion. Kepler and Newton were men of faith. The most brill- iant galaxy of mathematicians ever assembled at one time and place was at tlie University of Cambridge in the latter half of this century. Of these " Sir W. Thomson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, Adams, Clerk-Maxwell, and Cayley — not to mention a number of lesser lights, such as Routh, Todhunter, Ferrers, etc. — were all avowed Christians." ^ Surely it needs no further proof to show tliat the pur- suit of pure science does not necessarily tend to scepticism.
No, we must look more closely and distin- guish more clearly in order to discover in the scientific activities of the age a cause of the prevailing doubt. And if we do this I think Ave shall find it in the fallacy of that kind of science Avhicli mistakes itself for omniscience.
1 George John Bomanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., Thonghts on Belie/ion (Chicago, 1895), p. 147.
An Age of Doubt 13
" What we see is the pretence of certain sci- ences to represent in themselves all hnman knowledge. And as outside of knowledge there is no longer, in the eyes of science thus curtailed, any means for man to come in con- tact with the realities, we see the pretence advanced by some that all reality and all life should be reduced to tliat which they have ver- ified. Outside of this there are only dreams and illusions. This is indeed too much. It is no longer science, but scientific absolutism. "^
" The history of the natural sciences," said Du Bois-Reymond in 1877, " is the veritable history of mankind." '^The world," saj^s an- other, " is made of atoms and ether, and there is no room for ghosts." M. Berthelot in the preface to his Origines de Valehimie^ modestly claims that " the world to-day is witliout mys- teries " ; meaning thereby, I suppose, that there is nothing in existence, from the crys- tallization of a diamond to the character of a saint, which cannot be investigated and ex- plained by means of a crucible, a blow-f)ipe, a microscope, and a few other tools.
This is simply begging the question of a Animmense spiritual world in the negative. It is an im- (assumption.
1 Charles Wagner, Yoiitli, translated from the French by- Ernest Redwood (New York, 1893), p. 28,
14 All Age of Doubt
mense and stupefying assumption. It is a claim to solve the problems of the inner life by suppressing them. This claim is not in any sense necessary to the existence of science, nor to any degree supported by the work which it has actually accomplished. But it is made with a calm assurance which imposes power- fully upon the popular mind ; and, being made in the name of science, it carries Avith it an appearance of authority borrowed from the great service which science has rendered to humanity by its discoveries in the sphere o. the visible. Results of The result of this petitio i^rinclpii in the
minds of those who accept it fully and carry it out to its logical conclusion, is a definite system of metaphysical negation Avhich goes under the various names of Naturalism, Posi- tivism, Empiricism, and Agnosticism. Its re- sult in tlie minds of those who accept it partially and provisionally, but lack the abil- ity or the inclination to formulate it, is the development of a sceptical temper. Its result in the miiuls of those avIio are unconsciously affected by it, through those profound instincts of sympathy and involuntary imitation which influence all men, is an attitude, — more or less sincere, more or less consistent and con-
this assump- tion.
An Age of Doubt 15
tinuous, — an attitude of doubt. The spirit of the age tacitly divides all the various beliefs which are held among men into two classes. Those which are supported by sci- entific proof must be accepted. Those which are not thus supported either must be re- jected, or may safely and properly be disre- garded as matters of no consequence.
Ill
Now this general scepticism, in all its The mirror shades and degrees, from the most clear, self- ^-^ ^^^^^^.tur^
^ ' and the
conscious, and aggressive, to the most vague, shadow of diffused, and deprecatory, is reflected in the '^^^"^^• productions of current literature. Never was literary art more perfect, more accomplished, more versatile and successful than in the pres- ent age. Never have its laAvs been more widely understood and its fascinations more potently exercised. Never has it evoked more magical and charming forms to float above an abyss of disenchantment and nothingness.
In the lay sermons and essays of Huxley and Tyndall and Frederic Harrison and W. K. Clifford, scepticism appears militant and trencli- ant. These knights-errant of Doubting Castle are brilliantly equipped as men of war ; and
16 An Age of Doubt
even when they fall foul of each other, as the}' often do, the ground of the conflict is an accu- sation of infidelity to the principles of unbelief, and its object is to drive the adversary back into a more complete and consistent negation.
Over the fragmentary but majestic life- philosophies of Carlyle and Emerson, lying in the disarray of stones hewn for a temple yet unbuilt, imaginative scepticism hangs like, a cloud. Over Carlyle, it is the shadow of a noonday tempest, full of darkness and tu- mult and muttering thunder. Over Emerson, it floats like a cumulus of evening vapours, luminous and beautiful, alluringly transfigured
"In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun." ^
In the vivid and picturesque historical studies of Renan and Fronde, scepticism is at once ironical and idealistic, destructive and dogmatic. In the penetrative and intelligent critiques of Scherer and ]\Iorley, it adheres witli proud but illogicrd persistence to the ethical consequences of the faith with whicli logic has broken : like a son disinherited, but resolved to maintain the riglit of possession by the strong arm.
1 ghelley, " Ode to a Skylark."
An Age of Bouht 1?
In the novels of unflinching and unblushing Fiction naturalism, — like those of Zola and Maupassant -^^^^"^y* and the later works of Thomas Hardy, scepticism speaks with a harsh and menacing accent of the emptiness of all life and the futility of all endeavour. In the psychological romances of Flaubert and Bourget and Spielhagen, George Eliot and Mrs. Humphry Ward, it holds the mirror up to human nature to disclose a face darkened with inconsolable regret for lost dreams. Far apart as Madame Bovary and Oosmopolis^ Prohlematische Naturen and Middle- march and Robert Elsmere may be in many of their features, do they not wear the same ex- pression, — the cureless melancholy of disil- lusion ?
Fiction in its more superficial form, dealing only with the manners and customs of the so- cial drama, and relying for its interest mainly upon local colour and the charm of incident narrated with vivacity and grace, betrays its scepticism by a serene, unconscious disregard of the part which religion plays in real life. In how many of the lighter novels of the day do we find any recognition, even between the lines, of the influence which the idea of God or its absence, the practice of prayer or its neg-
spondent.
18 An Age of JJoubt
lect, actually exercise upon the character and conduct of men ? Take, for exam^jle, Trilhy^'^ as the type of a clever book carelessly Avritten for the thoughtless public of a passing moment. It is incredibly credulous in regard to the dramatic possibilities of hypnotism. It is pitifully in- adequate in its concejjtion of the actual poten- cies of religion ; and it uses Christianity chiefly as a subject for caricature in the style of the illustrated newspapers, Avhich are called comic. Poetrtj de- Poctry has always been the most direct and
intimate utterance of the human heart. And it is in poetry that we hear to-day the voice of scepticism most clearly, ''making abundant music around an elementary nihilism, now stripped naked." ^ Listen to its sonorous chant- ings as they come from France in the verse of Leconte de Lisle, celebrating the sombre ritual of human automata before the altar of the un- known and almighty tyrant, who agitates them endlessly for his own amusement. Listen to its delicate and decadent lyrics, as Charles Baudelaire sings his defeat in life and his thirst for annihilation.
*'Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L'Espoir dont I'eperon attisait ton ardeur
'^ George Du Maurier, TrlVnj (Harpers, 1895).
2 Paul Desjardins, Le Devoir Present (Taris, 18'.)2), p. 05.
An Age of Doubt 19
Ne veut plus t'enfourcher. Couche toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied a chaque obstacle butte.
Resigiie-toi, mou coeur, dors ton sommeil de brute.
Et le Temps m'engioutit minute par minute Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur : Je contemple d'en haut le globe en sa rondeur Et je n'y cherche plus I'abri d'une caliute !
Avalanche, veux tu m'emporter dans ta chute?" i
Turn to England and hear its musical con- fession in the cool, sad, melodious tones of jNIatthew Arnold, no enemy of faith, but her disenchanted lover.
*' Forgive me, masters of the mind, At whose behest I long ago So much unlearned, so much resigned — I come not here to be your foe ; I seek these anchorites not in ruth, To curse and to deny your truth ;
Not as their friend, or child, I speak
But as on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own gods, a Greek,
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before a fallen Runic stone, —
For both were faiths, and both are gone." 2
There is a poem by Tennyson (who never broke with faith, though he felt the strain of
1 Charles Baudelaire, Flaws du Mai (Paris, 1888), p. 205. " Le gout du N^ant."
2 Matthew Arnold, Poems (New York, Macniillan, 1878), p. 337. " Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse."
20 An Age of t)ouht
doubt), in wliicli he describes with iiiteiiJ^e dramatic sympathy the finality of scepticism in the human souh It is called "Despair." A picture of There is another poem, called "Sea Dreams," doubt. ill which he gives a vision of the rising tide of
doubt as it threatens to undermine and over- whelm the beliefs of the past. The woman is telling- her husband the dream which came to her in tlie night as she Avatched by their sick child.
" But round the North, a hght, A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapour, lay, And ever in it a low musical note Sweird up and died ; and, as it swell'd, a ridge Of breaker issued from the belt, and still Grew with the growing note, and when the note Had reach'd a thunderous fulness, on those cliffs Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that Living within the belt) whereby she saw That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, But huge cathedral fronts of every age, Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see, One after one f and then the great ridge drew, Lessening to the lessening music, back. And passed into the belt and sw^ell'd again Slowly to music : ever when it broke The statues, king, or saint, or founder, fell ; Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left Came men and women in dark clusters round, Some crying, ' Set them u}) ! they shall not fall ! * And others, ' Let them lie, for they have fall'n.' And still they strove and wrangled: . . . . . . and ever as their shrieks
An Age of Douht 21
Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd Broke, mixt with awful light, and showM their eyes Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone, To the waste deeps together." i
It was but a dream, dispelled from the mind The pity oj of her to whom it came in the night-watches '^' by the crying of her little child, and soon for- gotten in the sweet reality of human love. Only a dream, but how many souls have felt the vague sadness, the haunting, helpless pity and fear of a like vision, looking out upon the landscape of man's inner life, and seeing the ancient landmarks slowly melted or swiftly swept away, the shrines of memory shaken and removed, the fair images of immortal de- sire and aspiration dissolving and disappearing in the onward waves, silently creeping, or surg- ing with mysterious and inarticulate music out of the waste deej) of doubt, —
" The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea." ^
Who can think of the sharp . anguish and dull grief that have fallen upon innumerable hearts through the loss of their most precious faiths ;
1 Tennyson's Poetical Works (Macmillan, 1890), p. 138.
2 Matthew Arnold, "To Marguerite." Foems (Macmil- lan, 1878), p. 184.
22 An Age of Douht
who can think of the gray, formless, ever-mov- ing, yet immovable flood of mordant gloom that has covered so many once bright and fertile fields of human hope and endeavour, so many once secure and peaceful homes of human trust and confidence, — who can tliink of these things, even though his own standpoint be still un- touched, his own faith-dwelling founded upon an untrembling rock far above the tide, with- out a sorrowful perturbation of spirit and a deep, inward sense of compassionate distress and dread ? We stand upon the shore, but we stand beside the sea. And we look out upon it, as Emile Littre sadly wrote, ^ like the women of Troy, whom the Roman poet ^^ictured gaz- ing at its mighty currents and engulfing Avaves:
" Pontum adsjjectabant Jiejites."
TV
Sympathy It is with no careless and exaggerating hand,
■ it is in no unsympathetic and condemning spirit, that I have tried to draw this picture of the sceptical age in which we live. Its faults, its perils, are mine and yours. The preacher who assumes a supercilious and damnatory attitude
1 ^mile Littr^, Conservation., Bevohition. Positivisme, Bemarqnes, p. 430.
An Age of Doubt 23
towards the doubts of the present time can do little to relieve, and may do much to increase them. If we desire to be true ministers to a doubting age, we must put ourselves in the posi- tion of Maurice, who said, " I wisli to confess the sins of the time as my own.''^ So far as current scepticism has its source in evil, it flows from faults of which we all partake, — tiie pride of intellect, the haste of judgment, the prefer- ence of the seen to tlie unseen, the impatience of ignorance, the vain demand of perfection in the finite comprehension of the infinite, and the disloyalty of reason to conscience.
But indeed this is not the point of view from Lessons of which we speak. This lecture is not an indict- ,^^^'',*^^''''"^" ment. It is a diagnosis. Doubt, as we are thinking of it, is not a crime, but a malad}^ And if we are to have any hope or power of staying its progress and healing its ravages, we must not only be sympathetic in our understand- ing of it, but we must also look through it, earnestly and patiently, to see whether there are not some favourable symptoms, some signs of enduring vitality, some promises of returning health and strength in the spirit of the age.
Of these it seems to me that there are three,
1 The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice (New York, Scribuers, 1884), vol. ii., p. 235.
24
An Age of Doiiht
Pessimism.
Cheerful scepticism almost ex- tinct.
SO evident and so important, that we ought not to overlook them. First, the acknowledged discontent and pain of unbelief ; second, the practical recoil of some of the finest minds from the void of absolute scepticism ; third, the persistent desire of many doubting spirits to serve mankind by love, self-sacrifice, and ethical endeavour. In other words, I would read the lesson of encouragement in the suffer- ings of doubt, in the doubts of doubt, and in the splendid moral inconsistencies of doubt.
Begin, then, with pain, which is not only a warning of disease, but also a sign of life. The pessimism which goes hand in hand with scep- ticism in this nineteentli century is a cry of suffering. The closely reasoned philosophies of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, with their prem- isses of misery and conclusions of despair, are only the scientific statement of a widely diffused sentiment of dissatisfaction and despondency in regard to life.^ Their spread, like that of some apparently new disease, is due to the fact that they give a name to something from which men have long suffered.
It seemed at one time as if the course of modern scepticism was to be free from sadness, a ])ainless malady. At the beginning of the 1 James Sully, Pessimism, pp. 2, 3.
An Age of Doubt 25
centuiy the tone of infidelity was jubilant and triumphant. Percy Bysshe Shelley walked into the inn at Montanvert and wrote his name in the visitors' book, adding " democrat, philan- thropist, atheist,*' — as if it were a record of victory and a title of glory. This cheerful type of scepticism still survives, here and tliere, in a few men who insist that the process of dis- enchantment is pleasant and jo^^ous, and that the optimism which belonged to faitli may re- main while the faith itself disappears. It is like the smile of the famous cat, in the child's story-book, Avhich broadened and brightened while the cat faded, until finally the animal was gone and nothing but the grin was left.
But for the most part modern doubt shows a The sorroiv sad and pain-drawn face, heavy with grief and ^ -^jl^^^'' dark with apprehension. There is an illustra- tion of this cliange in the life of George Eliot. In her girlhood she passed suddenly, by an un- conditional surrender, out of a warm faith in Evangelical Christianity into the coldest kind of rational scepticism. She w^rites of tlie dull, and now forgotten, book which wrouglit this change, Charles Hennell's Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity^ with strange and al- most fantastic merriment: "Mr. Hennell ouglit to be one of the happiest of men that he has
26 An Age of Doubt
done such a life's work. I am sure if I had written such a book I shoukl be invulnerable to all the arrows of all the gods and goddesses. The book is full of wit to me. It gives me that exquisite kind of laughter which comes from the gratification of the reasoning faculties. "^ But the arrows which she despised struck home, ere life was ended, to her own heart.
" I remember," Avrites Mr. F. W. H. Myers, "how at Cambridge I walked with her once in the Fellows' Garden of Trinity, on an even- ing of rainy May, and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of men, — the words God, Immortality, Duty, — pro- nounced, with terrible earnestness, how in- conceivable was tlie first, how unbelievable was the second, and how peremptory and abso- lute the third. Never, perhaps, had sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of imper- sonal and unrecompensing law. I listened and night fell ; her grave, majestic countenance turned towards me like a Sibyl's in the gloom ; it was as though she withdrew from my grasp, one by one, the two scrolls of promise, and
1 George ElioVs Life, as related in her Letters (New York, Harpers), vol. i., p. 119.
An Age of Doubt 27
left me the third scroll only, awful with in- evitable fate." 1
An inevitable fate, seen through the gloom The sad as- of falling night, — that indeed is the aspect of P''^""^'^'-^''- life which the literature of doubt displays to us. A gray shadow of melancholy spreads over the questioning, uncertain, disillusioned age ; languid sighs of weariness breathe from its salons and palaces. Bitter discontent mut- ters in its workshops and tenements. "Never, I believe," says Paul Desjardins, " have men been more universally sad than in the present time." And then he adds, with keen insight, " (3ur misery lies in feeling that we are less men than we were sixty years ago." ^ Human ife has been unspeakably impoverished and narrowed by the loss of faith. Comedy has become tragic, and tragedy has grown mean and sordid. 3 Men have lost the sound of a Divine voice in the story of their existence and learned to listen to it as
"a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."
1 R. H. Hutton, Modern Guides of English Thought (London, Macmillan, 1887), p. 262.
2 Le Devoir Present, pp. 17, 19.
3 See the plays of Ibsea : Ghosts, A DolVs House, The Wild Duck, etc.
ness of man.
28 An Age of Doubt
Love itself, the great purifier and eniiobler, has been transformed in the subtle analysis of sex- ual passion, from the sea-born Venus, pure and radiant with immortal youth, to a dirt-engen- dered goddess, concealing her secret ugliness with illusory and artificial charms, and presid- ing with malignant power over the lower cur- rents of man's being, — a veritable Cloacina of human life.^ The mean- The thought of '' the grandeur and misery of man," as Pascal conceived it, was painful but elevating. The conception of the insig- nificance and misery of man as scepticism pre- sents it, is painful and dispiriting. Born of blind force and unconscious matter, quickened by some mysterious cruelty to a consciousness of his own origin and a foreboding of his inex- plicable and fruitless destiny, he " drees his weird," between two fathomless abysses of gloom, as one who is indeed weary and heavy- laden. The music with which he accompanies his march towards the blank and dismal bourn, rolls and clashes through the literature of every land with deep and mournful discords, as if man had at last invented that strange organ of
1 Bourget, Psychologie Contemporaine, pp, 5, 8.
An Age of Doubt 29
expression which a satirist has called " the Mis- eropho7i.'' ^
'' This philosophy," says Stendhal, comment- The nausea ing upon the last reflections of his hero in Hoxige et Noi7\ " was perhaps true, but it was of such a nature as to make one long for death." And then the critic from whom I have quoted these words, adds his own commentary. " Do you perceive, at the close of this work, the most complete which the author has left, the break- ing of the tragic dawn of pessimism ? It rises, this dawn of blood and tears, and, like the clear- ness of a new-born day, it overspreads with crimson hues the loftiest spirits of our age, those whose thoughts are at the summit, those to whom the eyes of the men of to-morrow lift themselves, — religiously. I am come in this series of psychological studies to the fifth and last of the personages whom I propose to ana- lyze. I have examined a poet, Baudelaire ; a historian, Renan ; a romancer, Flaubert ; a philosopher, Taine ; I have just examined one of these composite artists in whom the critic and the imaginative writer are closely united ; and I have found in these five Frenchmen of
1 Anton Bettelheim, article in CosmopoUs, January, 189G.
30 All Age of Doubt
such importance, the same philosophy of dis- gust with the universal nothingness."^
If we turn to Russia, which has given us some of the most brilliant and influential, though undisciplined, writers of modern fic- tion, do we not hear, in an accent harsher and more formidable, the same conclusions, the same cries of nausea over the inextricable confusion and vain efforts of human life? If we turn to England, do we not see the same cloud of melancholy, less threatening, less angry, but no less dark, rising from the chasm which doubt has made between man's inner life and the world as scientific posi- tivism pictures it? How mournful is the voice in which W. K. Clifford proclaims, " The Great Companion is dead I " How dark with silent, passionate grief is that lonely wood in which " Robert Elsmere " feels him- self going blind to the dearest visions of his former faith. ^ How black the air in which " Jude the Obscure " breathes out the last throbbings of his insurgent heart in curses upon his sordid and desperate fate ! ^ Let a
1 Paul Bourget, Psychologie Contemporaine, p. 321.
2 Mrs. Humphry Ward, Bohert Elsmere (Macmillan, 1888), vol. ii. , chap, xxvi,
8 Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (Harpers, 1896).
An Age of Doubt 31
poet, with that sublime insight of genius which endures even amid the ruins created by its own destructive passion, speak the last word of doubt, — the epitaph of The City of Dreadful Night. The portentous fig- ure of " Melancholia " sits enthroned above her vast metropolis.
" The moving Moon and stars from east to west Circle before her in the sea of air ; Shadows and gleams glide round lier solemn rest. Her subjects often gaze up to her there : The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance, The weak, new terrors ; all, renewed assurance And confirmation of the old despair." ^
r
But why despair, unless indeed because Painf/ivef.
an arrju- ment of
man, in his very nature 'and inmost essence, is framed for an immortal hope ? No other hope creature is filled with disgust and anger by the mere recognition of its own environment and the realization of its ow^n destiny. This strange issue of a purely physical evolution in a profound revolt against itself is incred- ibly miraculous. Can a vast universe of atoms and ether, unfolding out of darkness into dark- ness, produce at some point in its progress, and that point apparently the highest, a feel- ing of profound disappointment with its par-
1 James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, xxi. 12.
32 An Age of Doubt
tially discovered processes and resentful grief at its dimly foreseen end? To believe this would require a monstrous credulity ! Athe- ism does not touch this difficulty. Agnosti- cism evades it. There are but two solutions which really face the facts. One is the black, unspeakable creed that the source of all things is an unknown, mocking, malignant Power, whose last and most cruel jest is tlie misery of disenchanted man.^ The other is the hope- ful creed that the very pain which man suffers when his spiritual nature is denied, is proof that it exists, and part of the discipline by which a truthful, loving God would lead man to Himself. Let the world judge which is the more reasonable Jaith. But for our part, while we cling to the creed of hope, let us not fail to '' cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt," and see in the very shadow that it casts the evidence of a light behind and above it. Let us learn the meaning of that noble word of St. Augustine : Thou hast made us for Thi/self and unquiet is our heart until it rests in Thee.
1 "It must have been an ill-advised God, who could fall upon uo better amusement than the transforming of Himself into such a hungry world as this, which is utterly miserable and worse than none at all." — David Friedrich Strauss, quoted in The British Quarterly Bevieiv, January, 1877, p. 146.
An Age of Doubt 33
Yes, the inquietude of the heart which Therenais^ doubt has robbed of its faith in God, is an ^"'^^^^/
' faith.
evidence that scepticism is a mahidy, not a normal state. The sadness of our times under the pressure of positive disbelief and negative uncertainty has in it the promise and potency of a return to health and happiness. Already we can see, if we look with clear eyes, the signs of what I have dared to call "the re- action out of the heart of a doubting age towards the Christianity of Christ and the faith in Immortal Love."^
Pagan poets, full of melancholy beauty and vague regret for lost ideals, poets of decadence and despondence, the age has born, to sing its grief and gloom. But its two great singers, Tennyson and Browning, strike a clearer note of returning faith and hope. " They resume the quest, and do not pause until they find Him whom they seek."^ Pessimists like Hart- mann work back unconsciously, from the vague remoteness of pantheism, far in the direction, at least, of a theistic view of the universe. His later books — Religionsphilosophie and
1 The Poetry of Tennyson (New York, Scribners, 1889), p. xiii.
2 Vida D. Scudder, The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets (Houghton, Mikin, & Co., 1895), p. 333.
D
34 An Age of Douht
Selhstersetzung des Christenthums — breathe a different si^irit from his Philosophie des Un- hewussten} One of the most cautious of our younger students of philosophy has noted with care, in a recent article, the indications that 'Hhe era of doubt is drawing to a close." ^ A statesman, like Signor Crispi, does not hesitate to cut loose from his former atheistic connec- tions and declare that "the belief in God is the fundamental basis of the healthy life of the people, while atheism puts in it the germ of an irreparable decay." The French critic, M. Edouard Rod, declares that " only religion can regulate at the same time human thought and human action." ^ Mr. Benjamin Kidd, from the side of English sociology, assures us that "since man became a social creature, the development of his intellectual character has become subordinate to the development of his religious character," and concludes that religion affords the only permanent sanction for progress.'^ A famous biologist, Romanes,
1 James Orr, The Christian Vieio of God and the World (New York, Kaiidolpli, 1893), pp. 456, 457.
2 The Methodist lieview, January, 1896. "The Keturn to Faith," by Prof. A. C. Armstrong, Jr.
3 Edouard Hod, Les Idees Morales du Temps Present (Paris, 1894), p. 304.
4 Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution (London, 1894), p. 245.
An Age of Doubt 35
who once professed the most absolute rejec- tion of revealed, and the most unqualified scepticism of natural, religion, thinks his way soberly back from the painful void to a posi- tion Avliere he confesses that " it is reasonable to be a Christian believer," and dies in the full communion of the church of Jesus. ^
All along the line, we see men who once thought it necessary or desirable to abandon forever the soul's abode of faith in the unseen, returning by many and devious Avays from the far country of doubt, driven by homesickness and hunger to seek some path which shall at least bring them in sight of a Father's house.
And meanwhile we hear the conscience, the The indomi- ethical instinct of mankind, asserting itself with splendid courage and patience, even in those Avho have as yet found no sure ground for it to stand upon. There is a sublime con- tradiction between the positivist's view of man as "the hero of a lamentable drama played in an obscure corner of the universe, in virtue of blind laws, before an indifferent nature, and with annihilation for its denouement," ^ and the doctrine that it is his supreme duty to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity. Yet many
^ Thoughts on Beligion, p. 196.
2 Madame L. Ackermann, Ma Vie (Paris, 1885), p. xviii.
table con- science.
crusade in FrcDice.
36 An Age of Doubt
of the sceptical thinkers of the age do not stumble at tlie contradiction. Tliey hold fast to love and justice and moral enthusiasm even though they suspect that they themselves are the products of a nature wldch is blind and dumb and heartless and stupid. Never have the obligations of self-restraint, and helpful- ness, and equity, and universal brotherhood been preached more fervently than by some of the English agnostics. The neio In France a new crusade has risen ; a cru-
sade which seeks to gather into its hosts men of all creeds and men of none, and which pro- claims as its object the recovery of the sacred places of man's spiritual life, the holy land in which virtue shines forever by its own light, and the higher impulses of our nature are in- spired, invincible, and immortal. On its ban- ner M. Paul Desjardins writes the word of Tolstoi, '•'•Ilfaut avow une dine; it is necessary to hav^e a soul," and declares that the crusaders will follow it wherever it leads them. " For my part," he cries, " I shall not blush certainly to acknowledge as sole master the Chris^ preached by the doctors. I shall not recoil if my premisses force me to believe, at last, as Pascal believed." ^
1 Le Devoir Present, 45.
An Age of Doubt 37
In our own land such a crusade does not yet The new
crusade i America.
appear to be necessary. The disintegration of ^''"^"^^^ ^^
faith under the secret processes of general scepticism has not yet gone far enough to make the peril of religion evident, or to cause a new marshalling of hosts to recover and defend the forsaken shrines of man's spiritual life. When the process Avhich is now subtly working in so many departments of our literature has gone farther, it may be needful to call for such a crusade. If so, I believe it will come. I be- lieve that the leaders of thought, the artists, the poets of tlie future, when they stand face to face with the manifest results of negation and disillusion, which really destroy the very sphere in which alone art and poetry can live, will rise to meet the peril, and proclaim anew with one voice the watchword, " It is necessary to have a soul! And though a man gain the whole world, if his soul is lost, it shall profit him nothing." But meanwhile, before the fol- loAving of the errors of France in literature and art has led us to that point of spiritual impov- erishment where we must imitate tlie organized and avowed effort to recover that which has been lost, we see a new crusade of another kind: a powerful movement of moral enthu- siasm, of self-sacrifice, of altruism, even among
38 An Age of Doubt
those who profess to be out of sympathy with Christianity, which is a sign of promise, be- cause it reveals a force that cries out for faith, and for Christian faith, to guide and direct it. Never was there a time when the fine aspira- tions of the young manhood and young woman- hood of our country needed a more inspiring and direct Christian leadership. The indica- tions of this need lie open to our sight on every side. Here is a company of refined and edu- cated people going down to make a college set- tlement among the poor and ignorant, to help them and lift them up. They declare that it is not a religious movement, that there is to be no preaching connected with it, that the only faith which it is to embody is faith in human- ity. They choose a leader who has only that faith. But they find, under his guidance, that the movement will not move, that the work cannot be done, that it faints and fails l)ecause it lacks the spring of moral inspiration which can come only from a divine and spiritual faith. And they are forced to seek a new leader who, although he is not a preacher, yet carries within his lieart that power of religious conviction, that force of devotion to the will of God, that faith in the living and supreme Christ, which is in fact the centre of Christian-
An Age of Doubt 39
ity. All around the circle of human doubt and despair, where men and women are going out to enlighten and uplift and comfort and strengthen their fellow-men under the perjjlex- ities and burdens of life, we hear the cry for a gospel which shall be divine, and therefore sovereign and unquestionable and sure and vic- torious. All through the noblest aspirations and efforts and hopes of our age of doubt, we feel the longing, and we hear the demand, for a new inspiration of Christian faith.
These are the signs of the times. Surely we The signs of must take note of them, surely we must labour and pray to understand their true significance, if we are to say anything to our fellow -men which shall be Avorth our saying and their hearing.
Renan made a strange remark not long be- fore his death : '' I fear that the Avork of the Twentieth Century will consist in taking out of the waste-basket a multitude of excellent ideas which the Nineteenth Century has heed- lessly thrown into it." The sceptic's fear is the believer's hope. Once more the fields are white unto the harvest. The time is ripe ; ripe in the sorrow of scepticism, ripe in the return of aspiration, ripe in the enthusiasm of
t?ie times.
40 An Age of Doubt
humanity, for a i-enaissance of the spiritual life.
Already the horizon brightens with the tokens of this renaissance. There is a new interest in religion as the most living of all topics. There is a ncAv sense of its vital meaning for the w^hole life of man. There is a new^ determination to apply it all around the circle of human respon- sibilities and test its value everywhere. There is a new cry for a Christ who shall fulfil the hopes of all the ages. There is a new love waiting for Him, a new devotion ready to fol- low His call. Doubt, in its nobler aspect, — honest, unwilling, morally earnest doubt, — has been a John the Baptist to prepare the way for His coming. The men of to-day are saying, as certain Greeks said to apostles of old, " Sirs, we would see Jesus." The disciple who can lead the questioning spirits to Him, is the man who has tlu' (io.spel for an Age of Doubt.
n
THE GOSPEL OF A PERSON
Subtlest thought shall fail and Tiearning falter, Churches change, forms perish, systems go,
But our human needs, they will not alter, Christ no after age shall e'er outgrow.
Yea, Amen ! O changeless One, Thou only,
Art life's guide and spiritual goal, Thou the Light across the dark vale lonely, —
Thou the eternal haven of the soul.
— John Campbell Shairp.
II
THE GOSPEL OF A PERSON
The prevalence and the quality of modern How shall
doubt, with its discontent and sadness, its self-misgivings and reactions, its moral incon- sistencies and fine enthusiasms, bring the preacher who is alive and in earnest, face to face with the most important question of his life. What can I do, what ought I to do, as a preacher, to meet the strange, urgent, com- plicated needs of such a time as this?
First of all, as a man. — and every preacher ought to be a man, though not every man is bound to be a preacher — as a man. it is nec- essary to lead a clean, upright, steadfast, use- ful life, purged from all insincerity, and lifted above all selfishness, and especially above that form of religious selfishness which is the beset- ting peril of those who feel themselves rich in faith in the midst of a generation that has been made poor by unbelief. Never has there been a time when character and conduct counted for 43
we serve the present age?
44
The Gospel of a Person
more than they do to-da}'. A life on a high level, yet full of helpful, healing sympathy for all life on its lowest levels, is the first debt which we owe to our fellow-men in this age.
But beyond this, is there not something per- sonal and specific which the conditions of the present demand from us, as men who have not only the common duty of living, but also the peculiar vocation of speaking directly and con- stantly to the inner life of our brothers ? We want some distinct and definite message, which is to be clearly formed in our thought and feel- ing and utterance, as the central, guiding, domi- nating force in all our efforts to realize the fine aspiration of the old hymn :
" To serve the present age, My calling to fulfil, — Oh, may it all my powers engage To do my Master's will ! "
Now the moment we look at the problem in this light, Ave see that there are various lines of activity open to us, and along all of these lines men are making promises and prophecies of usefulness and success. The cures Avhich are suggested for the malady of the age are many and diverse. Of some of them we need speak only in passing, to recognize that for us, at least, they are unsuitable.
The G-ospel of a Person 45
HeiT Max Nordan, for example, in his Reaction to
curious and chaotic book, Der/etferafion, diag- noses the sickness of modern times as the result, not of a loss of faith, but of a fatal increase of nervous irritability pioduced by the strain of an intricate civilization. He declares that the malady must run its course, but tliat in time it will be healed by the re- storative force of '' misoneism, that instinctive, invincible aversion to progress and its difficul- ties that Lombroso has studied so much and to which he has given this name."^
The name is certainly not a pretty one, nor do I think that, after the first feeling of pleas- ure in learning to pronounce a newly imported word has passed, the contemplation of its meaning will afford us any profound sense of satisfaction or hope. The picture of mankind as a magnified Jemmy Button, returning from his temporary residence in England to his na- tive Terra del Fuego^ and flinging away his gloves and patent-leather shoes, to relapse into a peaceful and contented barbarism, is not in- spiring. Who is there that would care to do- vote his life to the hastening of such a result? Who but the veriest quack, himself affected by the hysteria of the age, would think of curing 1 Max Nordau, Degeneration (New York, 1895), p. 642.
barbarism.
46 The Gospel of a Person
the convulsions of St. Vitus' dance in an over- strained humanity by throwing the patient into the stupor of typhoid fever ? Psychical Another and very different method of deal-
ing with the malady of the times is suggested by those Avho believe that Science itself, in the immense future advance which is predicted for it, will supply the antidote for the scepticism which has accompanied its previous course. New discoveries will be made which will sup- port the proposition : II faut avoir une dme. New arguments will be constructed which will give us a scientific demonstration of the un- seen universe and the future life. It is in this spirit that Mr. F. AV. H. Myers calls at- tention to the phenomena of mesmerism and hypnotism and telepathy, and suggests that the need of the age is a more cordial and general interest in the investigations of the Society of Psychical Research. ^ I do not think, for one, that these investigations are to be slighted or despised. They may be of great value. But it is difficult to believe that this is the source to which the preacher is to look either for his inspiration or his message. For, in the first place, it is highly improbable that science is about to make any such aston-
^ Science and A Future Life (Macmillan, 1893), pp. 34, 44.
The Gospel of a Person 47
ishing advance, either in methods or results, as some men anticipate. The best authorities admit this, and warn us that there are "limi- tations in the nature of the universe which must circumscribe the achievements of specu- lative research."^ Mr. Myers himself makes the same admission, and says that so far as our discoveries are confined to the physical side of things, there is no ground whatever for sanguine hope. Moreover, in the second place, whatever work may be done in this di- rection must be accomplished, not by preachers, but by scientists. The average preacher has no particular vocation, and no adequate qual- ification, for the task. Neither by tempera- ment nor by training is he fitted to judge of these matters. Now and then you will find a rare exception ; but as a rule nothing could be of less value than the scientific sermons of preachers who have only a bowing acquaint- ance with science. If the cure of modern scepticism is to be accomplished by the further progress of physical investigation, at least we must confess that this enterprise is not for us.
But there are two other ways of deal- ing with current doubt which demand closer attention. (3ne of tliem is tlie philosophic
1 C. H. Pearson, Xational Life and Character (Macmillan, 1893), p. 291.
48 The G-ospel of a Person
Thorough- method of a reductio ad ahsurdum. The logic
goliir/ rationalism.
of rationalism is applied to its own premisses in order to show that they are unfounded and unverifiable. The result of this attack, as it has been made with a relentless and masterly hand by Mr. Arthur James Balfour in his Defence of Philosophic Doid)t^ is to exhibit the startling fact that ''the universe as repre- sented to us by science is wholly unimaginable, and that our conception of it is what in The- ology would be termed purely anthropomor- phic." ^ The evidence for the existence of a world composed of atoms and ether is no more conclusive, tlie account which science gives of their nature and qualities is no more coherent, than the evidence and account which faith gives of a world created by a personal God and inhabited by immortal souls. Pure asfnosticism is thus forced into the service of Christianity and used to destroy all a priori objections to it. Giant Doubt is brought low by turning his own weapons against himself, even as Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, slew the Egyptian "with his own spear." ^
The "value of this service of philosophy is
1 A Defence of Philosophic Doubt (Macmillan, 1879), pp. 284, 285, 287-289.
2 1 Chron. xi. 23.
The Gospel of a Person 49
considerable. The Christian preacher ought not to be ignorant of its actual results, for they are such as to encourage him in preserv- ing his independence against the tyrannous claims of positivism ; nor unfamiliar with its methods, for they are fitted to train and disci- pline his mind by hard exercise and exact work. But it must be remembered that only a mighty man of valour, one who, like Benaiah, ranks above the host, and above the thirty captains of the host, can hope to play a leading part in this enterprise of ''carrying the war into Africa." It must be remembered also that the reduction of scientific naturalism to an absurdity falls far short of the establishment of religious faith as a verity. Grateful for all that philosophy can do, and is doing, to clear the way, the preacher must have a principle, an impulse, a line of action which will carry him beyond the nega- tive result of making unbelief doubtful, to the positive result of making belief credible.
At this point our attention is called to an- Theological other way of dealing with current scepticism, -^^^ *• "' ^^"" — the dogmatic method, which relies for the defence of faith upon the construction of a complete and consistent system of doctrine in regard to God and man, the present world and the future life. Faith, in other words, is to
50 The Grospel of a Person
be established by fortification, surrounded and entrenched with banquette and parapet, scarp and ditch and counterscarp of iron-worded proof, defended on every side by solid syllo- gisms, and impregnable against all assaults of unbelief. It is foolish not to recognize the great work which has been done along this line by wise and strong men in the past. Those who affect to despise it and make light of it, are simply ignorant of some of the loftiest achievements of the human intellect. The works of Augustine and Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, of John Calvin and Richard Hooker and John Owen, of Ralph Cudworth and William Chillingworth, of Richard Baxter and Samuel Clarke and Joseph Butler, of Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hodge and W. G. T. Shedd, are massive works. They impose a sense of wonder upon every thoughtful ob- server. Changed But concerning the attempt to conquer mod-
ern doubt by a system of dogmatic theology, certain things must be remembered. The con- ditions of warfare change from age to age. The vast fortresses of solid stone Avhose posses- sion was once regarded as the security of nations, are not ranked so high as they were a hundred years ago. The earthwork, the
The G-ospel of a Person 51
rifled cannon, the iron-clad ship, the torpedo, have wrought great changes. Deductive logic is just as strong as it ever was, but somehow or other men are not as much impressed by it. Induction is the method of to-day: and that is a subtle, evasive, mobile method. It cannot be shut in by a ring of fortresses. Already the dogmatic systems in which the inductive method is ignored or subordinated (whether made long ago, or constructed yesterday on ancient models) are out of date. They are good for the men Avho are within them, but on the outside world they have no more effect than Windsor Castle would have in prolocting England from a foreign invasion.
We feel sure that theology, in time, mu:;t The/uture and will vindicate its claim to be considered as ^ ^^ ^'^^ an essential factor in the intellectual life of man, by adapting itself to the changed condi- tions, and producing even mightier works by the new methods than those which it produced by the old. Already we see the promise of a renaissance of dogmatics in such books as Mul- ford's The Republic of Grod, Harris' The Self- Revelation of (rod, Orr's The Christian View of God and the World, and Fairbairn's The Place of Christ in Modern Theology. But we must remember that even those who anticipate and
52 The G-ospel of a Person
Great things predict this reconstruction of the old truth on theTewthe- ^^^® ^^^^ luiQ'S, most enthusiastically, recognize ologian. that it must be a long and difficult tast, and that the man who is to be a master-builder must have a magnificent equipment. How ex- hilarating at the first sight, but at the second sight how overwhelming and discouraging, are the demands of the age upon him who would fain be an epoch-making theologian, as they are stated, for example, in Mr. Balfour's Founda- tions of Belief, or in Dr. George A. Gordon's inspiring book The Qhrist of To-day. Truly it appears that such a man must realize the sup- position of St. Paul : he must speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. Who is sufficient for these things? It will take a long time for the best of us to learn all this. Perhaps the most of us may never go so far. Meantime, whether we are labouring towards that goal, or despairing of it, we need something divinely simple and divinely true that we can preach at once, di- rectly, joyfully, fervently to the heart of the age. A view of the world, a Welt-anschaimng, is de- sirable, perhaps in the long run necessary, for the mind of man ; but there is another thing
The G-ospel of a Person 53
which is more desirable and of prior necessit}', ^ starting- and that is a standpoint of practical conviction ^^-J)^ •g^^;^^ from which to obtain such a view. It may be first neces- but a foothold, only a single point of contact, *^ ^" but we must have it, and it must be solid as a fact. A complete and consistent theology is a consummation most devoutly to be wished for ; but before it can come there must be some- thing else, — a living, active power of faith in the soul. This power, as we believe, already exists in every human being. But there is only one thing tliat can awaken it and call it into action, and that is a gospel^ a message clear as light, which in its very essence is a force to quicken and stir the soul.
We look out upon the world and we see that Preaching some men have had such a gospel without be- ing in any sense finished and systematic theo- logians. St. Paul and St. Peter and St. John had it. St. Chrysostom and St. Francis of Assisi and Savonarola had it. John Wesley and George Whitfield had it. In different ages and under different conditions these preachers had the primal message which moves men to believe. And in our own age, under our own conditions, a like message has been proclaimed with power. Pere Lacordaire preached such a message in Notre Dame, and Canon Liddon in
64 The G-ospel of a Person
St. Paul's, to listening thousands. Bishop Brooks made it thrill like a celestial music through the young manhood of America; and Dwight L. ^Nloody has spoken it with vigorous directness in every great city that knows the English tongue. In many things, in ecclesias- tical relation, in theological statement, in dress, in manner, in language, these preachers are unlike. One thing only is the same in all of them, and that is the source of their power. Their central message, the core of their preach- ing, is the piercing, moving, personal gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and Sav- iour of mankind. This, in its simplest form ; this, in its clearest expression ; this presenta- tion of a person to persons in order that they may first know, and then love and trust and follow Him — this is pre-eminently the gospel for an age of doubt.
The Gospel The adaptation of our central message, thus conceived and thus expressed, to meet the peculiar needs of a time of general scepticism, is the theme of this lecture. 1 do not say that this is the whole of Christianity. I do not say that when the preacher has delivered this mes- sage in this form he has fulfilled all of his
The Gospel of a Person 55
duties. He may have to bear testimony against errors of thought and vices of conduct ; he is certainly bound to give encouragement and guidance to new efforts of virtue and new en- terprises of benevolence in every field. But his first and greatest duty, the discharge of which is to give him influence over doubting hearts and strength for all his other work, is simply to preach Christ.
This gospel meets the needs of the present The gospel time because it is the gospel of a fact. ^-^ ajact.
Personality is a fact. Indeed we may say that it is the aboriginal fact ; the source of all perception ; the starting-point of all thought ; the informing and moulding principle of all language. ^' All human observation implies that the mind, the ' I,' is a thing in itself, a fixed point in a world of change, of which world of change its^own organs form a part. It is the same, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow. It was what it is, when its organs were of a dif- ferent shape and consisted of different matter from their present shape and matter. It will be what it is, when they have gone through other changes."^
1 Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Frater- nity. Quoted by Huttoii, Contemporary Thought, I., p. 114.
66 The Crospel of a Person
Personality This fact of a rational, free, conscious, persist- dation. ^nt self is the foundation of all sensation and
of all reflection; it is the basis of physics as well as of metaphysics. By contrast it gives us our first notion of matter ; by resistance, our first notion of force ; by operation, our first notion of causality. It is a necessary assumption even in the philosophies of agnosticism, positivism, and materialism. They cannot move a step without it.
" They reckon ill who leave me out."
To deny personality is to deny the possibility of any kind of knowledge and reduce the uni- verse to a blank. ^
Moreover, it is not only true that the recogni- tion of our own personality lies at the root of perception and reasoning. It is also true that contact Avith other personalities, conscious, in- telligent, free, and persistent like ourselves, is the gateway through wliich we reach the reality of all external things. To a solitary mind the outward world may be only a dream. But the moment two minds come into contact and com- munication, it becomes at least a permanent possibility of sensation. \\y comparison and contrast with tiie sensations and cxpv^riences of
1 Alfred Williams Momerie, Personality, the Beginning and End of Metaphysics (Blackwood, 1889), pp. 23, 132.
The G-ospel of a Person 57
others, we verify our own. If it were not for this the whole universe would dissolve around us like the baseless fabric of a vision. The subtle analysis of modern science, transforming the apparently solid elements into invisible atoms, and these atoms into vortex rings in the impalpable and immeasurable ether, throws us back, more and more, upon personality, sub- jective and objective, as the only thing that remains sure and immutable.
Persons, then, are the most real and substan- Persons are tial objects of our knowledge. They touch us ^^^ ^^^^^' at more points, they affect us in more ways and with greater intensity, they fit more closely into the faculties and powers of our own being, than anything else in the universe. A person who has influenced us or our fellow-men leaves a more profound, positive, permanent, and real impression than any other fact whatsoever. We live as persons in a world of persons, far more truly than we live in a world of phenomena or laws or ideas.
Now, in an age that is characterized, as some German writer has said, by " a hunger for facts,'' the gospel of a person, if it is rightly appre- hended and preached, ought to have peculiar power because it is a factual gospel. We can come to those who are under the benumbing
58 The Gospel of a Person
spell of universal doubt and say : Here is a fact, a personality, real and imperishable. It is not merely a doctrine that was believed in Pales- tine eighteen hundred years ago. It is some one who was born and lived among men. It is not merely a theory of God and the soul and the future life that sprang up in the East in the first century and has strangely spread itself over the world. This religion is historical in every sense of the word, as the actual fulfilment of an ancient hope, and the starting-point of a new life. The reality Xhe person of Jesus Christ stands solid in the history of man. He is indeed more substantial, more abiding, in human apprehension, than any form of matter, or any mode of force. The conceptions of earth and air and fire and water change and melt around Him, as the clouds melt and change around an everlasting moan- tain peak. All attempts to resolve Him into a myth, a legend, an idea, — and hundreds of such attempts have been made, — have drifted over the enduring reality of His character and left not a rack behind. (The result of all criti- cism, the final verdict of enlightened common- sense, is that Christ is historical. He is such a person as men could not have imagined if they
The Gospel of a Person 59
would, and would not have imagined if they could. He is neither Greek myth, nor Hebrew legend. The artist capable of fashioning Him did not exist, nor could he have found the materials. A non-existent Christianity did not spring out of the air and create a Christ. A real Christ appeared in the world and created Christianity. This is what we mean by the gospel of a fact.
II
And here we come at once into sight of the The gospel second quality of this gospel which is pecul- iarly fitted to meet the needs of a doubting age.
If it be true that a person is a fact, it is no less true that a person is a force. Tlie world moves by personality. All the great currents of history have flowed from persons. Organi- zation is powerful ; but no organization has ever accomplished anything until a person has stood at the centre of it and filled it with his thought, Avith his life. Truth is mighty and must prevail. But it never does prevail actu- ally until it gets itself embodied, incarnated, in a personality. Christianity has an organiza- tion. Christianity has a doctrine. But the force of Christianity, that which made it move
60 The G-ospel of a Person
and lent it power to move the world, is the Per- son at the heart of it, who gives vitality to the organization and reality to the doctrine. All the abstract truths of Christianity might have come into the world in another form, — nay, the substance of these truths did actually come into the world, dimly and partially through the fragmentary religions of the nations, more clearly and with increasing, prophetic light through the inspired Scriptures of the He- brews ; but still the world would not stir, still the truth could not make itself felt as a univer- sal force in the life of humanity until
"The Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds, In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought." ^
I think we must get back, in our conception of
Christianity and in our preaching of it, to this
primary position. The fount and origin of its
power was, and continued to be, and still is, the
Person Christ.
(Jhristivas This was the secret of His ministry. He
ffospei. Himself was the central word of His own
preaching. He offered Himself to the world
as the solution of its difficulties and the source
1 Tennyson, In Memoriatny xxxvi.
The G-ospel of a Person 61
of a new life. He asked men simply to be- lieve in Him, to love Him, to follow Him. He called the self-righteous to humble themselves to His correction, the sinful to confide in His forgiveness, the doubting to trust His assur- ance, and the believing to accept His guid- ance into fuller light. ^ To those who became His disciples He gave doctrine and instruction in many things. But to those who Avere not yet His disciples, to the world. He offered first of all Himself, not a doctrine, not a plan of life, but a living Person. This was the sub- stance of His first sermon when He stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth and having read from the Book of Isaiah the prophecy of the Great Liberator, declared unto the people " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 2 This was the attraction of His univer- sal invitation, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."^ This was the heart of His sum- mary of His completed work when He said, " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."*
1 Henry Latham, Pastor Pastorum (New York, James Pott & Co., 1891), pp. 273-275,
2 St. Luke iv. 16-21,
3 St. Matt. xi. 28.
4 St. John xii. 32,
62 The G-o.^pel of a Person
We are not considering, at this moment, the tremendons implications of snch a personal self-assertion, unparalleled, I believe, in the founder of any other religion. We pass by for the present that famous and inevitable alternative, Aut Ohrisfus Beus, aut liomo non bonus est. The point, now, is simply this. As a matter of history, setting aside all ques- tion of the divine inspiration and authority of the Gospels, taking them merely as a trustworthy report of a certain sequence of events,^ it is plain that the force which started the religion of Jesus was the person Jesus. Christ w^as His own Christianity. Christ was the core of His own gospel.
Read on through the other books of the New Testament, the Acts and the Epistles, and you will see that tliey are just the record of the operation of this force in life and literature. It was this that sent the apostles out into the
1 The evidence for the historic trustworthiness of the Gospels may be found summed up in its modern form in Dr. Sahnon's Introduction to the New Testament, fourth edition (New York, Young & Co., 1889); in Bishop Liglitfoot's Es- says on ''Siqjernatural Religion'' (Macmillan, 1889); in Beyschlag's Neiv Testament Theology (Edinburgh, T. «& T. Clark, 1895), pp. 29-31, 210-221 of volume i. ; and in Prof- George V. Fisher's Grounds of Theistic and Christian Be- lief (Scribners, 1883).
The Gospel of a Person 63
world, reluctantly and hesitatingly at first, then joyfully and triumphantly, like men driven by an irresistible impulse. It Avas the manifesta- tion of Christ that converted them,^ the love of Christ that constrained them,^ the power of Christ that impelled them.^ He was their certainty* and their strength.^ He was their peace ^ and their hope.'^ For Christ they la- boured and suffered ; ^ in Christ they gloried ; ^ for Christ's sake they lived and died.^^ i'litjy felt and they declared that the life that was in them was His life.^i They were confident that they could do all things through Christ which strengthened them.^^ xhe offices of the Church — apostle, bishop, deacon, evangelist, — call them by what names you will — were simply forms of service to Him as Master ; ^^ the doctrines of the Church were simply unfold- ings of what she had received from Him as Teacher ; ^^ the worship of the Church, as dis • tinguished from that of the Jewish Synagogue and the Heathen Temple, was the adoration of Christ as Lord.^^
Now it was precisely this relation of the
1 Gal. i. 16. 6 Eph. ii. 14. " Gal. ii. 20.
2 2 Cor. V. 14. ' Col. i. 27. 12 phQ. iy. 13.
3 2 Cor. xii. 9. « Phil. iii. 8-10. i3 Eph. iv. 8-12. *2Tim. i. 12. ^ Gal. vi. 14. " 1 Cor. xi. 1, 23 ; xv. 8. s 2 Tim. ii. 1. 10 2 Cor. iv. 5, 11. i^ phil.ii.ll; 1 Cor. xii. 3.
64
The Gospel of a Person
early Cliurcli, in her organization and doctrine and worship, to the person Christ, held fast in her memory as identical with the real Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary, conceived in her faith as still living and present with His disciples, — it was this personal animation of the Church by Christ that gave her influence over men. Contrary to all human probability, against the prejudice of the Hebrews who abhorred the name of a crucified man, against the prejudice of the Greeks and Romans who despised the name of a common Jew, she made her Avay, not by concealing, but by exalting and glorifying, the name of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it seems as if her career of conquest Avas actually delayed until that name was taken up and written upon her banners. It was in Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians,^ tliat the missionary enterprise of the Church began, and it was from that centre, with that title, that she went out to her triumph.
The name of Christ was magical ; not as a secret and unintelligible incantation, but as the sign of a real person, know^n and loved. It enlightened and healed and quickened the heart of an age which, like our own, was dark 1 Acts xi. 26 ; xiii. 1-3.
TJie Gospel of a Person 65
and. sorrowful and heavy with douht. It was the charm Avhich drew men to Christianity out of the abstractions of philosophy,^ and the con- fusions of idolatry darkened Avith a tliousand personifications but empty of all true person- ality. The music of that name rang through all the temple of the Church, and to its har- monies her walls were builded. The acknow- ledgment of that name was the mark of Christian discipleship. To confess that "Jesus is the Christ " was the way to enter the Church. The symbolism of that name was the mark of Chris- tian worship. The central rites of the Church were baptism into Christ and communion with Christ. Fidelity to His name was the crown of Christian martyrdom. Unnumbered multi- tudes of men and women and children went down to death because they would not deny the Christ. Whatever the early Church was and did, beyond a doubt her character and her activity were but the resultant of the personal influence that flowed from Jesus Christ.2
When we 'urn to follow the liistory of Chris- tianity thro^Jigh the later centuries down to the
1 See Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, cliap. viii.
2 George B. Stevens, The Pauline Theology (New York, Scribners, 1892), pp. 321-323.
66
The Gospel of a Person
Thepersonai present time, we see that the same thing is true. The temporal power of the Bishop of Home doubtless grew out of the union of the Church with the Empire. The immense wealth and secular authority of ecclesiastics may be traced to social and political causes. But the inward, vitalizing, self-propagating power of Christianity as a religion has always come from the person of Jesus who stands at the heart of it. The attraction of its hymns and psalms and spiritual songs, the beauty of its holy days and solemn ceremonies, were derived from Him ^^'ho is the central figure in praise and prayer. The renaissance of Christian Art sprang from the desire to picture to the imagination the visible, adorable form and face of Him whom speculative theology had so often concealed or obscured. The penetrating and abiding fra- grance of Christian literature resides in those books, like The Imitation of Christy in which the sweetness of His character is embalmed forever. The potency of Christian preaching comes from, and is measured by, the clearness of the light which it throws upon the personality of Jesus. Read the roll of those in every age whom the world has acknowledged as the best Christians, kings arid warriors and philosophers, martyrs and heroes and labourers in every noble cause,
The Gospel of a Person 67
the purest and the highest of mankind, and you will see that the test by which they are judged, the mark by which they are recognized, is likeness and loyalty to the personal Christ. Then turn to the work which the Church is doing to-day in the lowest and darkest fields of human life, among the submerged classes of our great cities, among the sunken races of heathendom, and you cannot deny that the force of that work to enlighten and uplift, still depends upon the simplicity and reality with which it reveals the person of Jesus to the hearts of men. Christianity as a missionary religion would be fatally crippled if you took out of it the familiar story of Jesus and His love.
"Mr. Darwin," says Admiral Sir James Sulli- The testi-
. . mony of a
van, " had often expressed to me his conviction doubter. that it was utterly useless to send missionaries to such a set of savages as the Fuegians, proba- bly the very lowest of the human race. I had always replied that I did not believe any human beings existed too low to comprehend the sim- ple message of the Gospel of Christ. After many years he wrote to me that the recent account of the mission showed that he had been wrong and I right . . . and he requested me to forward to the Society an enclosed cheque
68
The Gospel of a Person
for X5, as a testimony of his interest in theii good work." ^
Observe, we are not constructing an argu- ment. We are only tracing a force, — the force that flows from the person of Jesus Christ. The more closely, the more powerfully we can feel it in ourselves and in others, the more confi- dently we can come to a doubting age and say : Here is this force, intense, persistent, far- reaching. It has moved all kinds of men, from the highest to the lowest. What do you make of it ? What will you do with it ? Is it not the only thing that can lift and move you out of your doubt ? For scepticism is just the inertia of the soul which stands poised between contrary and mutually destruc- tive theories. From that state of impotence there is but one deliverance, and that is by force, the force of life embodied in a person.
in
But the force which proceeds from the person of Jesus is not mere power, blind and purpose- less. It moves always in a certain direction. It has a quality in it which produces certain
1 Alfred Barry, Some Lights of Science on the Faith (London, Longmans, 1892), p. 116.
The Gospel of a Person 69
results. And one of these results is an im- mediate and overwhelming sense of the reality and nearness of spiritual things. This is the third point of adaptation in the gospel of the personal Christ to tlie needs of a sceptical age. It carries with itself an evidence of things not seen, a substance of things hoped for.
An aura of wonder and mystery surrounded ^('^ mustery Jesus of Nazareth in His earthly life. All who came in contact with Him felt it ; in love, if they desired to believe ; in repulsion, if they hated to believe. In His presence, faith in the invisible, in the soul, in the future life, in (jod, revived and unfolded with new bloom and colour. In His presence hypocrisy was silenced and afraid, but sincere piety found a voice and prayed. This effluence of His char- acter breathes from the Avhole record of His life. It was not merely what He said to men about the eternal verities that convinced them. It was something in Himself, an atmosphere surrounding Him, and a silent radiance shining from Him, tliat made it easier for them to l)elieve in their own spiritual nature and in tlie Divine existence and presence. He drew out of their fallen and neglected hearts, by some celestial attraction, spontaneous, gentle, irresistible, a new efflorescence of faith and
70 The Gospel of a Person
hope and love. Where He came a spiritual springtide flowed over the landscape of the inner life. Blossoms appeared in the earth and the time for the singing of birds was come. The effect of Faith was not imposed on doubting hearts
His pres-
ence. hy an external and mechanical process. It
grew in the warmth that streamed from Him. It was not merely that men were at their best in His company, except, indeed, those who were at their worst through sullen resistance and malignant alarm at His power. It was tliat men were conscious of something far bet- ter than their best, a transcendent force, an influence from the immeasurable heights above them. And to withstand it they must sink below themselves, make new falsehoods and new negations to bind them down, grapple themselves more closely to the base, the earthly, the sensual. But if they yielded to that influence, it lifted and moved their thoughts inevitably upward. It was not merely what He told them of His own sight of spiritual things. It was what they saw reflected in His face and form of that loftier, wider outlook. He was like one standing on a high peak, reporting of the sunrise to men in the dark valley. They heard His words. But they saw also upon His countenance the glow
The Gospel of a Person 71
of dawn, and dazzling all about Him the incommunicable splendours of a new day.
This was the effect of the personality of Jesus, as He stood amid the shadows and un- certainties of human life ; an effect strangely overlooked and ignored, often even beclouded and hidden, in much that has been written about Him by theologians and historians. I do not dream that I can put it into words. But I know that it can be felt as a reality in the Gospels. And I turn back to one who saw Him face to face, one who touched His hand and leaned upon His bosom, for the expression of the soul-uplifting, faith-begetting Avonder of the person of Christ : The Word was made flesh and divelt among us, and ive beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-hegotten of the Father, full of grace and truth?-
Nor has this effect vanished from the world ^'^e i),flu- with the removal of the bodily presence of picture. Jesus. It has perpetuated itself by its own vital power, increasing rather than diminish- ing. It still flows from the picture of His life which is preserved in the Gospels, from the image of His character as it is formed in the minds of men. Eliminate, if you please, what is called the miraculous element. Make what
1 St. John i. 14.
72 The Gospel of a Person
allowance you will for the entlinsiasm and unguarded utterance of His disciples. There still remains that enthusiasm itself to be reck- oned with, an enthusiasm which was kindled by Him alone. There still remains the figure of the person of Christ, who never can be expressed in terms of matter and force, who never can be explained by natural and histori- cal causes, who carries us by His own inherent mystery into the presence of the spiritual, the divine, the supernatural.
Something of this spiritual light, I will ad- mit, — nay, I will maintain with joyous and firm conviction, — comes from every human personality, even the lowliest, in so far as it refuses to be summed up in terms of sense perception, in so far as it gives evidence, by its affections and hopes and fears, of ele- ments in man that are not of the dust. But in Christ tliis light is transcendent and unique, because He manifestly surpasses the ordinary attainments of humanity, because He cannot be accounted for by the laAVS of heredity and environment. The more closely we apply these, laws, the more clearly He shines out above them.^
"The learned men of our day," says M. 1 J. S. Mill, Essays on Iteliyion^ p. 253.
The Gospel of a Persoyi 73
Pierre Loti in his latest book, La Galilee^ "have endeavoured to find a liuman explica- tion of His mission, but they have not yet reached it. . . . Around Him, none the less, there still glows a radiance of beams wliich cannot be compi-chended." ^
Historically He appears alone, as no great Christ
1 1 1 r • solitary.
man lias ever appeared beiore or since. Heroes, teachers, and leaders of men have always been seen as central stars in larger constellations, surrounded by lesser but kin- dred lights. Plato shines in conjunction with Socrates and Aristotle; Cfcsar with Pompey and Crassus ; Luther with Melanchthon and Cal- vin ; Shakespeare Avith Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson ; Napoleon surrounded with his brilliant staff of marshals and diplomats ; Wordsworth among the mild glories of the Lake poets. In every case, if you search the neighbourhood of a great name, you will find not a blank sky, but an encircling galaxy. But Jesus Christ stands in an immense sol- itude. Among the prophets who predicted Him, among the apostles who testified of Him, there is none worthy to be compared or conjoined Avith Him. It is as if the heavens were sAvept bare of stars ; and suddenly, un- 1 Pierre Loti, La Galilee (Paris, 1895), p. 93.
74 The G-ospel of a Person
expected, iiiiaecompanied, the light of lights appears alone, in supreme isolation.
Nor is there anything in His antecedents, in His surroundings, to explain His appear- ance and radiance. There was nothing in the soil of the sordid and narrow Jewish race to produce such an embodiment of pure and universal love.^ There was nothing in the atmosphere of that corrupt and sensual age to beget or foster such a character of stainless and complete virtue. Nor was His own life, — I say it reverently, — judged by purely hu- man and natural laws, calculated to result in such an evident perfection as all men have wonderingly recognized in Him. The high- est type of human piety, the excellence of a beautiful soul, has never been reached among men without repentance and self-abasement. But Jesus never repented, never abased Him- self in shame and sorrow before God, never asked for pardon and mercy. Alone, among His followers who kneel at His command to confess their unworthiness and implore for- giveness. He stands upright and lifts a cloud- less face to heaven in the inexplicable glory
i Amory H. Bradford, Heredity and Christian Problems (New York, Macmillan, 1895), p. 266.
The Gospel of a Person 75
of piety without penitence. Moral perfection of this kind is not only Avithout a parallel ; it is also without an approach. Men have never attained to it, and there is no way for them to climb thither. We can only look up to that perfection, serene, sinless, unsurpassable, and feel that here we are in sight of something which cannot be expressed except by saying that it is the glory of eternal spirit embodied in a person.
IV
But the force which resides in the person The gospel of Jesus is not exhausted in the production of this profound impression of its own spirit- ual and transcendent nature. It goes beyond this result of a vivid sense of the reality of the unseen. It has in itself a purifying, cleansing power, a delivering, uplifting, sanc- tifying power. The Gospel of Christ is the gospel of a person who saves men from sin. And herein it comes very close to the heart of a doubting age.
The great and wonderful fact of this expe- rience, which can neither be questioned nor fully explained, is not involved in the theo- logical speculations which have gathered about
76
The Gos]jel of a Person
it. The person of Jesus stands out clear and simple as a powerful Saviour of sinful men and women. In His presence, the publi- can and the harlot felt their hearts dissolve with I know not what unutterable rapture of forgiveness. At His word, the heavy- laden were mysteriously loosed from the imponderable burden of past transgression „ He suffered with sinners, and even while He suffered He delivered them from the sharpest of all pains, — the pain of conscious and unpardoned evil. He died for sinners, according to His own word ; and ever since, His cross has been the sign of rescue for humanity. Whatever may be the nature of that sublime transaction upon Calvary ; whatever the name by wliich men call it, — Atonement, Sacrifice, Redemption, Propitia- tion ; whatever relations it may have to the eternal moral law and to tlie Divine right- eousness,— its relation to the liuman lieart is luminous and l)eautiful. It does take away sin. Kneeling at that holy altar, the soul at once remembers most vividly, and confesses most humbly, and loses most entirely, all her guilt. A sense of profound, unutterable relief, a sacred quietude, diffuses itself through all the recesses of the troubled spirit. Looking
The Gospel of a Person 11
Linto Christ crucified, we receive an assurance of sin forgiven, which goes deeper than thought can fathom, and far deeper than words can measure.
"We may not know, we cannot tell What pains He had to bear, But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there.
"He died that we might be forgiven, He died to make us good ; That we might go at last to heaven. Saved by His precious blood."
This is not theory, this is not philosophy, tliis is not theology^) It is veritable fact. 1'he person Jesus, living with men, dying for men^ has actually brought this gift of pardon for the past and hope for the future, into the heart of mankind. And from pure love of Him — e love which is first of all and most of all a sense of gratitude for this immeasurable service — have blossomed, often out of the very abysses of sin and degradation, the saintliest and sublimest lives that the world has ever seen.
Now this, as I know from my own experience, is the gospel for doubting men, and for an age of doubt ; the gospel of a Person wlio is a fact
78 The Ciospel of a Person
and a force, an evidence of the unseen, and a Saviour from sin. Can we preach it ? Will we preach it? Then one thing is necessary for us, a thing which might not be necessary, perhaps, if our message were of another kind.
All knowledge, of the world, of human na- ture, of books, will be helpful and tributary ; all gifts, of clear thought, of powerful speech, of prudent action, will be valuable and should be cultivated ; but one thing will be abso- lutely and forever indispensable. To know If we are to preach Christ Ave must know
throne Christ, and know Him in such a sense that we
thing need- can say with St. Paul that we are determined ■ not to know anything save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. 1 We must study Him in the record of His life until His character is more real and vivid to us than that of brother or friend. We must imagine Him with ardent soul, until His figure glows before our inward sight, and His words sound in our ears as a living voice. We must love with His love, and sorrow with His grief, and rejoice with His joy, and offer ourselves with His sacrifice, so truly, so intensely that we can say, as St. Paul said, that we are crucified by His cross and risen in His resurrection. 2 We must trace the power 1 1 Cor. ii. 2. 2 Qal. ii. 20.
The Gospel of a Persoii 79
of His life in the lives of our fellow-men, fol- lowing" and realizing His triumphs in souls redeemed and sins forgiven, until we know the rapture that tlirilled the breast of a St. Bernard, a St. Francis, a Thomas a Kempis, a Samuel Rutherford, a Robert McCheyne ; the chivalrous loyalty that animated a Henry Have- lock, a Charles Kingsley, a Frederick Robert- son, a Charles Gordon ; the deep devotion that strengthened a David Brainerd, a Henry Mar- tyn, a Coleridge Patteson. We must become the brothers of these men througli brotherhood with Christ. We must kindle our hearts in communion with Him, by meditation, by prayer, and by service, which is the best kind of prayer. No day must pass in which we do not do something distinctly in Jesus' name, for Jesus' sake. We must go Avhere He would go if He were on earth. We must try to do what He Avould do if He were still among men. And so, by our failure as well as by our effort, by the very contrast between our incomplete- ness and His perfection, the image of our Com- panion and our saving Lord will grow radiant and distinct within us. We shall know that potent attraction which His person has exer- cised upon the hearts of men, and feel in our breast that overmastering sense of loyalty
80 The Gospel of a Person
to Him, which alone can draw us to follow Him through life and death.
" If Jesus Christ is a man, — And only a man, — I say That of all mankind T cleave to Him, And to Him will I cleave alway.
"If Jesus Christ is a God, — And the only God, — I swear I will follow Him through heaven and hell, The earth, the sea, and the air."^
1 Richard Watson Gilder, " Song of a Heathen, sojourmng in Galilee, a.d. 32."
Ill
THE UNVEILING OF THE FATHER
He, who from the Father forth was sent,
Came the true Light, light to our hearts to bring;
The Word of God, — the telling of His thought;
The Light of God, — the making visible;
The far-transcending glory brought
In human form with man to dwell ;
The dazzling gone — the power not less
To show, irradiate, and bless ;
The gathering of the primal rays divine.
Informing Chaos to a pure sunshine ! "
— George MacDonald.
Ill
THE UNVEILING OF THE FATHER
In the famous fifteenth chapter of The De- ^ sceptic's dine and Fall of the Roman Umpire, the author, ^ll^Jlrgf^dof who was but a superficial sceptic though a Christian- profound historian, introduces an acci)unt of ^ ^' the rise and spread of the Christian Religion. He attributes its remarkable triumph over the established religions of the earth to a series of causes which he ironically describes as sec- ondary, and uniformly treats as primary. He exhibits them as in themselves sufficient to explain the peculiarly favourable reception of the Christian faith in the world, and sets aside the question of a possible divine origin as unnecessary. With serene self-satisfaction he traces the rapid growth of the Christian Church to the five following causes : I. The Zeal of the Ch'istians, derived from the Jews, — but purified from that narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses. 83
84
Tlte UnveiUny of the Father
II. The Doctrine of a Future Life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth. III. The Miraculous Powers ascribed to the primitive Church. IV. The Pure and Austere Morals of the Christians. Y. TJie Union and Discipline of the Christian Hepublic, which gradually formed an increasing and in- dependent state in the lieart of the Roman empire.^
Now this is a very fair, we may even say a brilliant, example of the kind of work which was done by the shallow and complacent scep- ticism of a century ago. But the moment Ave subject it to the more searching analysis of the scepticism of the present age, it dissolves into a thin and incoherent absurdity. For it is evident that, so far from giving an explanation of the growth of Christianity, Gibbon is simpl}^ describing some of the phenomena which ac- companied tliat growth. Wliat, for example, is " tlie zeal of the Christians " but an unillu- minating name for a contagious and irresistible enthusiasm Avhich spread through the world in connection with faith in Christ ? What is
1 Edward Gibbon, Esq., A History of the Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire (Loudon, John Murray, 8tli Edition, 1854), vol. ii., p. 152.
The Unveiling of the Father 85
" the union and discipline of the Christian re- public " but a description, without explanation, of tlie organic unfolding of a new, myste- rious principle of felloAvship. These alleged " causes," more closely examined, are in fact the very things that require to be accounted for. Instead of clearing up the mystery, they increase it.
By a singular fatality of language, the seep- The"ex- tical historian has embodied in the statement ^^^^^^ ^^ ^g of his position the demonstration of its insuf- explained. ficiency. In each of his causes, and in the relation that subsists between them, he has practically suggested a difftculty which de- mands another and a higher solution of the whole problem. Examine his words carefully.
By what means, human or divine, was the Questions zeal of the Christians ' purified from the narrow ^^^^^^j ^^^ and unsocial spirit of the Jews ' ? The natural answer. liistory of sects and schisms teaches us that their invariable tendency is to intensify rather tlian to eliminate bigotry and exclusiveness. Through what influence was the doctrine of a future life 'improved by every additional cir- cumstance that could give it Aveight and effi- cacy ' ? The inevitable course of its human development under the guidance of abstract philosophy has been towards vagueness, cold-
86 The UnvelUnri of the Father
ness, and uncertainty; under the guidance of concrete superstition, towards puerility and crass sensualism. On what grounds Avere mir- aculous powers ascribed to the early Church ? They must have been ascribed truly or falsely. If truly, tliere must have been some basis of fact for them to rest upon. If falsely, the Cliristians themselves were either ignorant, or cognizant, of the falsehood. Take the former supposition, and you present yourself with the inexplicable theory that what Pliny the Younger called superstitio prava iimnodica^ and imagined would be easily and certainly ex- tirpated, was able to hold its own against all the assaults of learning and philosophy. Take the latter supposition, and you are forced to the incredible assumption that a conscious decep- tion was the fountain of highest and strongest moral force that the world has ever felt.^ HoAV then did the " pure and austere morals of the Christians " come into existence ? From a lie, or from a truth? If from a truth, what was the nature of that truth, in Avhat form Avas it expressed, and how did it win credence ?
1 Carlyle, Heroes and Hero- Worship, sect. ii. : "A false man found a religion ? Why, a false man cannot even build a brick house ! If he do not know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay, and what else he works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish heap."
The tlnveiUng of the Father 87
And, finally, liow did ''the Christian republic" succeed in maintaining and increasing itself as an independent state in the heart of the Roman empire ? Every other attempt to do this par- ticular thing, by secret philosophic doctrine, or by open political organization, failed, and was violently crushed by imperial power, or silently dissolved and absorbed by imperial statesman- ship. How was it that this one invisible fel- lowship, this one visible organization, lived, and spread, and stood out at last, serene, com- plete, and magnificent, Avlien the time-worn ruins of the empire crumbled around it?
The answer to these questions is found in the The answer person of Christ. This is not a matter of choice. *^ Ghnst. It is a matter of necessity. For if He was, as all candid observers will admit, the originator and animator of Christianity, then to stop short of Him in our inquiry as to the causes of its existence and progress is to stop half-way, as if one should account for the flow of the Nile, after the fashion of the ancient geographers, by attributing it to the melting of the snows on the jNIountains of the ^Nloon, instead of tracing it to its great fountain in the Albert Nyanza.
Christ stands above and behind the Church, and all these secondary causes which have been
88 The Unveiling of the Father
Christ, the enumerated to account for her growth and Christian- po^ver flow directly from Him. He it was who ^iy- purified and humanized the zeal of Christians,
so that they emerged from the narrowest of races to preach the broadest and most universal of all relio"ions. He it was who cleared and enlarged their view of immortality, so that it became at once important and efficacious, the only doctrine of a future life that has exercised a direct and uplifting influence upon the pres- ent life. He it was who endowed the Church with whatever powers she possessed. He it was who cleansed and ennobled her moral ideals and gave her the only pattern and rule of virtue which has been universally acknowledged as self -consistent, satisfactory, and supreme. He it Avas who cemented lier union and strength- ened lier discipline to such an indestructible sol- idarity, that the tie which bound the individual soul to Him was regarded as superior to all earthly relations, and the fellowship which that common tie created, surpassed and survived all fellowships of race, of culture, of nationality.
These are simj)le historical facts. In stating them we make no assumptions and propound no tlieories. It is not necessary to take any- thing for granted or to adopt any particular theological or philosophical system, in order to
The TJnveAling of the Father 89
see clearly and beyond the possibility of mis- take that all the force and influence of Chris- tianity in the world have, as a matter of fact, flowed directly from Jesus Christ and from the faith which He has inspired in the hearts of men.
The one question of supreme importance, Who, then, then, if we would understand Avhat Christian- *^ ^*^^ ity really means, is, Who is this person who stands at the centre of it and fills it with life and strength? What did the first Christians see in Him that made them believe in Him so absolutely and implicitly and gave them power to do such mighty works? What has the church seen in Him through the ages that has bound her to Him as her living Lord and Mas- ter ? And what are we to see in Him if He is to be in deed and in truth the theme of our gospel? What think ye of Christ?
This question, you see, is vital and inevitable. ^^''^ ^^^wi- If we are to have a Christianity which is real j^^^ and historical, we must get into line with his- tory. If we are to have behind us the power which comes from actual achievements of our gospel in the world, we must understand the relation which it has always held to the person of Christ. If we are to be in any sense the followers of the first Christians, and to share the joy and peace and power of their religion, we
90
The Unveiling of the Father
The historic unsioer.
must take the view which the}^ took, of Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, the object of this lecture may be stated in a single sentence. It is to show that the first Christians saw, and that the Church has always seen, in Jesus Christ a real incarnation of God ; a true and personal unveiling of the Father ; God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. In other words, not only must we find in Jesus Christ tlie centre of Christian- it3% but we must also behold an actual divinity as the centre of life in Jesus Christ.
Christ's (Jodhood slowly re- vealed.
AVe are not to suppose that faith in Christ began with a clear and definite conception of His divinity. On the contrary, it is evident from the Avhole gospel record tliat the idea that Christ was divine gradually developed and un- folded in the minds of those who knew and loved and trusted Him. The idea of an incar- nation was foreign to the Hebrew mind. There Avas no race in the world that held so strongly to the thouglit that God was solitary, unsearch- able, and incommunicable. They believed that even His true name could not be pronounced by human lips, and that it was impossible for
process of faith.
Tlie Unveiling of the Father 91
human ejes really to behold His glory. And the very strength of this ancestral faith of theirs, standing as it must have done directly in the way of belief in an incarnation, is an evi- dence of the tremendous power and unquestion- able reality of the experience which forced the disciples, by slow degrees, to believe firmly and unhesitatingly in the divinity of Christ.
The process by which this result was accom- The gradual plished lies open to our thought in the New Testament. We must go back to the point in- dicated in the second lecture. It was the im- pression made upon the disciples by Clirist's own manifestation of Himself, His character, His actions, and His words, evidently consistent and unique, which led them at last to see in Him the object of divine faith and worship. He was not a mere man. That was evident and undeniable. He was higher than men ; holier than men ; He possessed an excellence and a power which made them feel in His presence that He was more than they were. What then was He ? There were but two directions in which their faith could move. The alternative was sharply set before the disciples on that memorable day at Csesarea Philippi, when Christ asked them first, ''AVhom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ? " and then, '' But whom say ye
92
The Unveiling of the Father
The new line of Chris- tian belief.
What it meant to he the Christ.
that I am ? " There were but two lines open to them. One was the line of popular superstition, which led them back into the past to see in Christ only the ghost of John the Baptist, or Elias, or one of the prophets come to life again. The other was the new line of Christian faith which led them forward to see in Jesus " the Christ, the Son of the living God." ^
New ? Of course it was new ! It had to be new, in order to fit the facts, which were such as had never been seen before. And just be- cause it was so new it had to unfold itself by degrees to the fulness of conscious apprehension of all that it involved.
It is evident that the disciples did not know at first what was meant by the Christhood, the Messiahship, the fulfilment of all ancient prophecy and sacred ritual in Jesus. But they learned the lesson as they kept company Avith Him. They heard Him speak with an author- ity which none of the prophets had ever claimed. Recognizing a divine inspiration in the Old Testament Scriptures, He distinctly set Him- self above them as the bringer of a new and better revelation. He accomplished, interpreted, and revised them. ^ Ye have heard how it hath been said by them of old time " — by Avhom ? 1 St. Matt. xvi. 13-16.
The Unveiling of the Father 93
By the lawgivers and prophets and psalmists whom Christ recognized as His own forernn- ners and foretellers. " But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you/' ^
Suppose that this were all ; suppose that the Ayiew power Sermon on the Mount were the whole of tlie
New Testament, what should we behold in it ? Not merely the amazing revelation of a morality more pure and perfect than any other the human heart has conceived, proceeding from the lips of an unlearned Nazarene peasant of the first century, but the absolutely overwhelming sight jf a believing Hebrew placing Himself above the rule of His own faith, a humble teacher asserting supreme authority over all human conduct, a moral reformer discarding all other foundations, and saying, " Every one that hear- eth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock."^ Nine and forty times, in the brief and fragmentary record of the dis- courses of Jesus, recurs this solemn phrase with which He authenticates the truth: Verily^ I say unto you. And every time that tlie dis- ciples heard it they must have gotten a new idea of what it meant to be the Christ.
J St. Matt. V. 43, 44, 2 St. Matt. vii. 24.
truth.
94
The Unveiling of the Father
A new rdation to humanity.
y
' Think also of the significance which the favourite Messianic title used by Jesus to de- SL'iibe Himself must have had to their minds. He called Himself "the Son of man.''^ Why? Was it because He was merely human? If that was all, surely it would not need to be asserted and emphasized again and again. Imagine any other man, the highest and the holiest, insisting upon the reality of his human life, dwelling upon it, repeating the assertion of it over and over. But this title was, in fact, the claim to a peculiar and supreme relation to the human race. Christ was not a son of man, but the Son of man, one who, in the luminous words of Irenaius, recapitulavit in se ipso longam hominum expositionem.^ And as such He as- sumed on earth and in His prevision of heaven a position Avhich no mere man could rightly take. " The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.'*^ ''The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." ^ ''When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy
1 In St. Matthew, 30 times ; in St. Luke, 25 times ; in St. Mark, 14 times.
- Irenseus, Adv. Ilcer., iii. 18. 1 : "He summed up in himself the long unfolding of humanity." The Syriac ver- sion of this passage is equally beautiful and significant; " He commenced afresh the long line of men."
^ St. Matt. ix. 6. ■* St. Mark ii. 28,
Tlie Unve'dlng of the Father 95
angels Avith Tlim, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory ; and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats." ^
Consider what this implied. It was a decla- ^ supreme
fation that Jesus expected, and was willing, to j^id^l^f/^ ake into His own hands the task of discrimi- world. mating between the good and the bad in the unsearchable confusions and complexities of the human heart, and of determinino:, without hesitation, without misgiving, without redress, the final destinies of the untold myriads of men ; " an office," it has been well said, " in- volving such spiritual insight, such discern- ment of the thoughts and intents of the heart of each one of the millions at His feet, such awful, unshared supremacy in the moral world, that the imagination recoils in sheer agony from the task of seriously contemplating the assumption of these duties by any created in- telligence." ^ When the disciples heard their Master declare that He would fulfil this office of Judge of the World, they must have begun to feel what it meant to be the Christ.
1 St. Matt. XXV. 31, 32.
2 H. P. Liddoii, The Divinity of Our Lord (London, 1885), p. 176.
96 The Unveiling of the Father
What it ;N'or do I suppose that they realized at first
The Son of tlie fiill intention of that second phrase in frofi. which their view of Jesus Avas expressed. The
Son of the living God^ — that also was an idea to be gradually apprehended and unfolded. And think what light must have fallen upon it from the conduct of Jesus as they followed Him from day to day. The more closely they knew Him, the more deeply they felt His sin- less purity and sovereign virtue. There was a certainty, an independence, a freedom from all effort and from all restraint in His goodness, such as no other good man has ever shown. He had the deepest knowledge of the evil of sin, yet no shadow or stain of it fell upon His own soul. He was on terms of closest inti- macy— an intimacy such as no saint ever dared to assume — with God. He conversed with the Father in a friendship which was utterly without fear or regret or misgiving. Now Avhen the disciples saw this, it must have put them upon deep thoughts, and the guidance to these thoughts was given by Christ's own words about Himself. He put Himself side by side with the Divine activity. " My Father worketh hitherto and I work."^ The Jews who heard Him say tliis, sought to kill Him, 1 St. John V. 17.
Ch7'ist'sow)i words.
The Unveiling of the Patlier 97
because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. And if the Jews thought this, what did His own disciples think? He claimed a Divine origin and mission : "I came forth from the Father ; " ^ " My Father sent me. " ^ He claimed a Divine knowledge and fellowship : '' No man knoweth the Father save the Son;"^ "O righteous P^ather, the world hath not known Tliee, but I have known Thee.''"^ He claimed to unveil the Father's being in Himself : '' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father in me."^
To what conclusion must such conduct and The
inevitable
such words as these lead the disciples in their conclusion. interpretation of the true meaning of the title *' the Son of God " ? A conclusion wdiich Jesus Himself, if He was as wise and good as all men admit, must inevitably have foreseen. A con- clusion which He Himself, if He had been only a holy man, better than His disciples but of the same nature, would certainly have guarded against and prevented at any cost. A con- clusion which is expressed in the attitude of
i St. John xvi. 28. ^ gt. Matt. xi. 27.
2 St. John xii. 49. ■* St. John xvii. 25.
5 St. John xiv. 9, 11.
The disci- ples believed that Christ ivas Divine.
98 T/te Unveiling of the Father
Thomas, kneeling at the feet of Christ and crying, ^'My Lord and my God.^i ^ conclu- sion which is finally and definitively embodied in the action of the apostles going out into the world to disciple all nations, and to baptize them " into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "^
n
There cannot be any question as to the state of mind which this action implied. It was the deep conviction, not necessarily reasoned out and formulated, but lying at the very root of conduct, that Jesus Christ the Son was the un- veiling of His Father God, and that the Holy Spirit wlio came upon the disciples was the Spirit of the Father and the Son. The part which the resurrection played in the clarifying and confirming of this conviction was impor- tant. But we must not misunderstand the meaning of the resurrection. It w\as not in any sense a new and different revelation of God, imagined or actually received. Whatever the form in which Jesus appeared to the dis- ciples during the forty days that followed His death. He was recognized as the same Jesus ; and the one effect of Mis appearance was 1 St. John XX. 28. - St. Matt, xxviii. 11).
The Unveiling of the Father 99
simply to confirm and deepen the truth of what He had said and done while He was with them. And with this confirmation the truth took shape and substance as an active and enduring power in human faith and life and Avorship.
There is no more room for doubt that the early Christians saw in Christ a personal un- veiling of God, than that the friends and fol- lowers of Abraham Lincoln regarded him as a good and loyal American citizen of the white race. And even if we could find no direct and definite statement of either of these views, the CA'idence that men held them could be clearly and certainly read in the facts of history.
Divine lionours were paid to Christ in the The early primitive Church. The first common prayer y^orsMpved of the disciples, when they were assembled to Christ. choose an apostle in the place of the traitor Judas, was addressed to Christ. ^ The Chris- tians were distinguished both from the Jews and from the heathen as those who called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. ^ The dying martyr Stephen showed what was meant by this phrase in his prayer, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit/'^ Saul of Tarsus, when he was con-
^' Acts i. 24. See Alford in loc. 2 Acts ix. 21 ; 1 Cor. i. 2. 8 Acts vii. 59.
100 The Unveiling of the Father
vinced by that strange experience on the road to Damascus that Jesus was not an impostor, but the Christ, at once addressed Him in prayer, '' Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"^ And Ananias, who received Saul into the Church, asked guidance and direction from the same Lord.^ Peter baptized the multi- tudes on the day of Pentecost in the name of Jesus Christ.^ John wrote of prayer to the Son of God as a familiar ground of confidence in Christian experience.* The apostolic bene- diction was : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all."^ The whole current of adoration and devotion in the New Testament leads up naturally and without surprise to the magnificent words of St. Paul, in which he speaks of " Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever."^
It should be frankly recognized that the first Christians assigned a certain subordination to the Son in relation to the Father ; but it must be admitted with equal candour that this sub- ordination was not in any sense a separation,
1 Acts ix. C. 2 Acts ix. 13. » Acts ii. 38.
4 I John V. 13-15. 5 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
6 Rom. ix. 5. Cf. Stevens, The Pmiline Theology, p. 201, for a succinct statement of the grounds on which this inter- pretation of the text is preferred.
The Unveiling of the Father 101
and that it really implied and involved a unity between them whicli made it possible and nat- ural and inevitable for the disciples to pay an adoration to the Son with the Father, which, if it had been offered to, or claimed by, the great- est and best of the apostles, would have been instantly repudiated by the whole Church as not only absurd but radically blasphemous.
It is an easy matter to trace the worship of Christ in the later development of Christianity. There are two sources of evidence : the Chris- tian hymns and liturgies ; the heathen attacks and the apologies which they evoked.
The earliest hymns of the Greek Church, the The testi- " Thanksgiving at lamplighting," '' Shepherd of ^hy^^^s. tender youth," " The Bridegroom cometh," the ''Hymn to Christ after Silence," celebrate the praise of the Lord Jesus. Syriac poetry, through its great poet, Ephrem Syrus, takes up the same strain of adoration to the Son of God, and its undying music may still be heard among the mountains of Armenia where the unspeakable Turk is exterminating a whole race for loyalty to the name of Christ. Latin hymnody, from its earliest origin in translations from the Greek like the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum, through its splendid unfolding in the poetry of Hilary of Poictiers, Ambrose of Milan, and
102 The Unveiling of the Father
Gregory the Great, to its sweet culmination in the two Bernards, him of Clairvaux and him of Climy, repeats the same burden :
" O Jesus, Thou the glory art Of angel worlds above ; Thy name is music to my heart, Enchanting it with love."
In every land and language, in German, in French, in English, the most precious and potent melodies of the Church are fragrant Avith the name of Christ. The testi- The early liturgies bear the same testimony
earhj litur- ^o the pre-cmineuce of the Lord Jesus in the fi'ies- doxologies and supplications of Christian faith.
The Apostolical Constitutions,^ the liturgy of St. James,2 tlie liturgy of St. Mark,^ the liturgy of St. Adieus and St. Maris,* unquestionably preserve the spirit of the early Christian wor^ ship; and they all are witnesses to the fact that the Christians praj^ed directly to Christ. In- deed, it lies upon the very surface of history that the growth of Christianity, as manifested
1 Apost. Const., Book VIII., chap. vii.
2 The Divine Liturgy of St. James, iii. : " Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, () Word of God," etc,
3 The Divine Liturgi/ of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark, v., xxii., etc.
4 Liturgy of the Blessed Apostles, composed by St. Adceiis and St. Maris, xiv.
The Unveiling of the Father 103
ill a sjDreading worship, was not simply the in- crease of those who were willing to adore God on the authority of Christ. It was distinctly and essentially the diffusion of an inward force which impelled men to blend the name of Christ with the name of God in their prayers, and to worship the Son Avith the Father. The beauti- ful Praj^er of St. Chrysostom, which closes the Litany and the Morning and Evening Prayers of the Protestant Episcopal Church, is addressed to Christ, " who dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in Thy name. Thou wilt grant their requests."^ There is not in the world to-day a single great liturgy, Greek, Roman, Armenian, French, German, Scotch, or English, which does not contain ascriptions of divine glory, and petitions for divine grace, addressed to Jesus Christ.
Heathen writers of very early date assure us The testis that this was the practice of Christians from /Ig^JJ^p'J^. the beginning. The younger Pliny reported to the Emperor Trajan that the people called Christians were accustomed to assemble before daybreak and " sing a hymn of praise respon- sively to Christ, as it were to God."^ In the
1 St. Matt, xviii. 20.
- A.D. 112. See the chapter on "Pliny's Report and Trajan's Rescript " in Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (New York, Putnam, 1893), pp. 196 ff.
Christians despised for worshipping
104 The Unveiling of the Father
public trials that followed there ^yas never any denial of this statement. It was admitted alike by those who apostatized under the pressure of persecution and by those who remained faithful to the name of Christ. The Emperor Hadrian wrote to Servian that of the population of Alex- andria ''some worshipped Serapis, and others Christ." Lucian, the pagan satirist, says in his biography of Peregrinus Proteus : " The Christians are still worshipping that great man who was crucified in Palestine." ^
In all the apologies for the Christian religion which were put forth during the persecutions Christ. under Hadrian, and his successors Antoninus
Pius and Marcus Aurelius, there was no at- tempt to refute the universal charge that the Christians worshipped Christ. ^ As if to con- firm this evidence by one of those indications which are all the more significant because they are so slight and so clearly unpremeditated, there still exists a rude caricature, scratched by some careless hand upon the walls of the
1 Luciani Samosatensis Opera. (Ed. Leipsic, 1829), Tomus iv., p. 173.
2 The First Apology of Justin Martyr., chap. xiii. : " Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ ; and that we reason- ably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove."
The Unveiling of the Father 105
Palatine Palace in Rome not later than the beginning of the third century, representing a human figure with an ass's head hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worsliip. Underneath is this ill- spelled inscription, —
" Alexamenos adore his God." ^
Thus the songs and prayers of believers, the accusations of persecutors, the sneers of seep tics, and the coarse jests of mockers all join in proving beyond a doubt that the primitive Christians paid divine honour to the Lord Jesus. I do not see how any man can be in touch with Christianity as a living form of worship in the world, unless he knows the reality and appreciates the force of this un- questionable fact.
Ill
Nor will it be possible to understand the Christ was intellectual and moral teachings of the Chris- tian religion, as they are recorded in the New Testament, unless we put ourselves at the focal point from which, as a matter of history, these teachings were first conceived and then un-
1 Das Spott- Crucifix der Bomischen Kaiser Paldste, Fer- dinand Becker (Gera, 1876). Das Spott-Crucifix vom Pala- tini Franz Xaver Kraus (Freiburg, 1872),
a nevj theology.
106 The Unveiling of the Father
folded. Tnid point was the vision of an un- veiling of the being and mind of God in Christ. It was not merely that Jesas said certain things about God which men had not known, or had forgotten. It was that they saw in the coming of Christ a personal revela- tion of the Divine Being. And this revelation touched and transformed every possible sphere of thought and feeling in regard to the prob- lems of religion. The personality of God was made distinct and luminous, not only by the recognition of an eternal Fatherhood in His nature, but by the light of the knowledge of His glory sliining in the face of a person.^ The righteousness of God was disclosed in a new aspect by the thought that He had sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin to condemn sin in the flesli.^ The good- ness of God was confirmed and made sufficient for all possible human needs by the conviction that He who spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all, would also with Him freely give us all things.^ The saving will and power of God were apprehended through the vision of Him in Christ reconcil- ing the world to Himself.^ The everlasting
1 2 Cor. iv. 6. 2 Rom. viii. 3.
8 Rom. viii. ;J2. ^ 2 Cor. v. 19.
God 10 as
The Unveiling of the Father 107
and inseparable love of God became the sure ground of hope only when it was seen em- bodied in Christ Jesus our Lord.^ The true meaning of filial obedience to God and of union with God was interpreted in the light of conformity to the image of His Son.- And the immense significance of immortality was comprehended in the possession of a life hid with Christ in God.^
Now the window through which men caught sight of these truths was, and could have been, ^chHst.^^'^^ nothiuQ^ else than faith in a real incarnation of God in Christ. The personal, moral, sym- pathetic view of God which distinguished the early Church was seen only through that open- ing.^ She saw the Divine Being beaming with a new radiance, she saw the wide landscape of human duty and destiny illuminated and trans- figured, she saw a new heaven and a new earth, when she saw in Christ all the fulness of the Godliead dwelling bodily. And it was in the
1 Rom. viii. 89. 2 Rom. viii. 29. ^ Col. iii. 3.
4 First Epistle of St. Clement, chap, xxxvi. : "By Him we look up to the heights of heaven. By Him we behold, as in a glass, His immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him are the eyes of our heart opened. By Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards the light." Bp. Lightfoot's Edition. (Macmillan, 1890.)
108 The Unveiling of the Father
strength and enthusiasm of this vision, that she concentrated all her moral and intellectual en- ergies on the one point of keeping that window open, and maintaining against direct assault and secret dissolution the real and personal Deity of Christ.
IV
Christian J am careful to put the statement in this
ffrew around fo^m bccausc I believe that it alone corresponds the Deity of with the facts, and because it is only by get- ting our minds into this position that we can hope to understand the course, the meaning, and the force of Christian doctrine. The early Christians looked at God through Christ : they did not look at Christ through a preconceived idea and a logical definition of God. The true development of tlieology, to put the matter plainly, was not abstract, it was personal and practical. The doctrine of the Trinity came into being to meet an imperious neces- sity. That necessity was the defence of the actual worship) of Christ, the actual trust in Christ as the Unveiler of the Father, which already existed at the heart of Christianity. It was recognized instinctively that the loss of this trust, the silencing of this worship,
The Unveiling of the Father 109
meant the death of Christianity by heart-fail- ure. Every speculation which threatened this result, every theory of human nature or of divine nature which seemed to separate the personality of Christ from the personality of God, was regarded by the Church as dangerous and hostile. P^very attempted statement of theological dogma which appeared to obscure or to imperil the reality and the eternal valid- ity of the unveiling of the Father in the Son, was resented, and a counter statement of theo- logical dogma was framed to meet it. This was the intellectual conflict of Christianity in the first centuries : a struggle for life centring about the actual Deity of Christ.
As we trace the progress of this conflict, ^^^^ conflict
with heresy its Vital importance emerges more and more
clearly. Often, I suppose, we cannot help feel- ing a sense of sympathy with the earnest pur- pose and the personal character of those men who were called heretics. Often we are con- scious of a certain distrust for the meta- physical and exegetical arguments, and of a grave repugnance for the physical and politi- cal methods, which were used by the orthodox to enforce their definitions. Athanasius was not an altogether lovely person. Some of the early Church Councils were almost as disor-
110 The Unveiliyig of the Father
derly and reckless as some of the regiments that have fought in various wars to defend the cause of human liberty and justice. But the question is not one of the manner of defence or attack. It is a question of the reality and significance of the cause attacked and defended. And here we see that Athanasius with all his faults v/as on the right side, and Arius with all his virtues was on the wrong side. Through all the con- fusion of metaphysical disj^ute about the exact meaning of substance and subsistence, nature and personality, ideal existence and real exist- ence,— terms wdiich, as I conceive them, must change their significance as the methods of human philosophy change, and must always represent imperfectly a mystery which is for us unsearchable and indefinable, — through all this confusion one fact shines out clear and dis- The Palla- tinct. The unveiling of the Father in Christ was, and continued to be, and still is, the Palladium of Christianity. All who have sur- rendered it, for whatever reason, have been dispersed and scattered. All who have de- fended it, in whatever method, have been held fast in the unity of the faith and of the know- ledge of the Son of God.^
1 Eph. iv. 13.
dium of Christian- ity.
The Unveiling of the Father 111
This point of view must condition the atti- Thedoc- tude of our minds towards the doctrine of the Trinity con- Trinity. No Christian man can be hostile or st-uctedto indifferent to it when he remembers its history, j^'^^^y ^j It may have been too much elaborated by minds <^^^"'i«^- over-curious in metaphysical distinctions. It may have been put in a position of undue pre- eminence by theologians whose energies were all absorbed in its construction and in the con- templation of the work of their own reason in the service of Christianity. But in spite of all excesses and errors, it stands as an enduring monument of the loyalty of the faith to its cen- tral conviction. In all its forms, from the sharply tri-personal Trinity of Athanasius, to the essentially tri-modal Trinity of Augustine, the great service which it has rendered is not abstract nor philosophical. It is practical. It has protected the conviction that the real nature of God is revealed in Christ ; it has jus- tified the consciousness that the Spirit of Christ, animating the Christian life, is the Spirit of God ; it has preserved the sense of real com- munion with God in Christ which is the nerve of Christian worship.
And yet the doctrine of the Trinity is not the gospel, nor is it the foundation of the gospel. It cannot be preached as a saving message to the
112 The Unveiling of the Father
souls of men, except in that form in which we find it in Phillips Brooks' noble Sermon for Trinity Sunday^ and Dr. George A. Gordon's powerful discourse on The Trinity the Ground of Humanity, It is the effort to apprehend a relation of the Being of God to the conscious experience of man ; a truth exhibited in the course of revela- tion and recognized in its mysterious unfolding both before and after all efforts to symbolize it in theological language ; in brief, it is the reaching out of the human mind, conscious of its limitations and conditions, towards a vision and worship of the Father in the Son through the Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is not the Palladium. It is the defence. I will con- fess that in its broad outlines it seems to me necessary and satisfactory. I will confess that no other answer to the profound questions which inevitably arise out of the contact be- tween the idea of God, and the experience of real life in all its manifoldness, appears to me half 80 reasonable or complete as that which asserts that " the various fundamental forms of society on the earth, the essential relationships of humanity, have their Archetype, their Eter- nal Pattern and Causal Source, in the nature of the Infinite." 1 I will confess that tlie form of 1 Gordon, The Christ of To-day, p. 101.
TJie Unveiling of the Father 113
this answer which contemplates the existence of these eternal relationship's in the Divine nature as most clearly and positively personal, is more conclusive to my mind than any other. But if other men think otherwise on this point, we are not therefore divided from each other, or from the Christian faith. The question is one of metaphysics. It is not a question of re- ligion. All modes of defining the Trinity as a doctrine must be kept subordinate to the pur- pose for which it exists. All attempts to ex- press it are valuable only in so far as they help us to keep in view the unveiling of the Divine nature which centres in Him who was mani- fested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory. ^
Now wherein is a message like this, the gos- The gospel
of the Incarnation
pel of a personal unveiling of God in the per- son of Christ, adapted to the needs of the adapted present age? ^^^'«^'-
1. It seems to me first of all that the course of modern thought has prepared the way for it by destroying the a priori objections to the In- 1 1 Tim. iii. 16.
to
^4: The Unveiling of the Father
carnation. Shallow.iignqsticism makes two as- sumptions which are contradictory. It assumes that man is unable to attain to the knowledge of God ; and tliat it is impossible for God to reveal Himself to man. But if we cannot know Him, how can we know that He cannot reveal Himself? This would be in effect the most intimate kind of knoAvledge. To take it for granted that an Incarnation of God is im- possible or incredible is to profess a most per- fect and exclusive understanding of the Divine nature. "At one time," says Mr. Romanes, " it seemed to me impossible that any proposi- tion, verbally intelligible as such, could be more violently absurd than that of the Incarna- tion. Now I see that this standpoint is wholly irrational. ... ' But the Incarnation is op- posed to common sense.' No doubt : utterly so ; but so it ought to be if true. Common sense is merely a rough register of common experience. But the Incarnation, if it ever took place, whatever else it may have been, was not a common event. ' But it is deroga- tory to God to become man.' How do you know? Besides, Christ was not an ordinary man. Both negative criticism and the positive effects of His life prove this ; while if we for a moment adopt the Christian point of view for
points towards it.
The Unveiling of the Father 115
the sake of argument, the whole raison d'etre of mankind is bound up in Him. Lastly, there are considerations per contra^ rendering an In- carnation antecedently probable." ^
2. Now these considerations to which Ro- manes alludes are not foreign to the intellect- ual atmospliere of our age ; they are native to it ; they are in fact the offspring of the times, born of the spirit which now leads the best thoughts of men.
The whole doctrine of development, as it is Evolution conceived by the deepest and clearest minds, looks forward to the discovery of an Incarna- tion which shall be at once the crown and the completion of the process of natural evolution. If nature is an orderly and progressive mani- festation of an Unseen Power ; if each succes- sive step in this manifestation realizes and exhibits something higher and more perfect, to which all that has gone before has pointed, and in which the potentialities of all previous developments are not only summed up, but raised to a new power ; if the mechanical struct- ure of inorganic substances contains a proph- ecy (only to be interpreted after the event) of organic life, and organic life is a basis for in- stinct and the elementary processes of intellect, 1 Thoughts on Beligion., p. 186.
116
The Unveiling of the Father
Personality the final revelation.
and the rude forms of thought and feeling in the lower animals foreshadow the unfolding of reflective reason and moral consciousness in man, — then surely this reflective reason and this moral consciousness, in themselves con- fessedly imperfect, must be only the founda- tion for a fuller and more perfect manifestation of that Unseen Power out of whose depths all preceding manifestations have come forth. And if the universal verdict of human science and philosophy is correct in assundng that the lower must precede the higher, and that or- ganic life is above inorganic life, and that rea- son is above instinct, and that virtue is above automatic action, then it is to be expected that the complete manifestation of that Unseen Power which makes for Reason and Righteous- ness will neither be omitted nor intruded before its time. It cannot come too soon, without vi- olating the order of evolution. It cannot fail to come, without destroying the significance of evolution.
But in what form can it come except in one Avhich at once sums up all that has gone before it, and advances to a new level ? If the uni- verse contains an unveiling of the might, and wisdom, and reasonableness, and righteousness, of its Primal Cause, then certainly it must con-
The Unveiling of the Father 117
tain at last an unveiling of His personality. This is the only thing that remains to be added. This is the only thing that embraces all the rest and raises it to a new power. The highest category known to onr minds is that of self-conscious life. Without the conception of a personal (xod, man's view of the universe must remain forever incomplete, incoherent, and unreasonable. Without the revelation of a personal God, the process of evolution as the unfolding of the real secret of the universe must remain unfinished and futile. Philosophy as well as religion pushes us forward to this conclusion. Personality is the ultimate reality. Personality must be the final revelation. But a person can be unveiled only in a personal form. Therefore all the presumptions of rea- son are in favour of an Incarnation of the Deity, not outside of nature, but in nature, to consummate and crown that visible evolution whereby the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. And all the processes of intelligence are satisfied, and rest and repose in the conviction that the Word, which was in the beginning with God and which was God and by whom all things were made, finally became flesh and dwelt among us, revealing His glory, the glory
118
The Unveiling of the Father
The gospel of the
Incarnation is histori- cally con- sistent.
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.^
3. Moreover, this view of Christ is adapted to the present age because it is historically con- sistent. We have seen that it underlies the very existence and growth of the Christian Church. The testimony of eighteen centuries to the impossibility of explaining the person- ality of Christ on humanitarian grounds is in itself an evidence of His divinity.
Lincoln was right when he said : " You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can- not fool all of the people all of the time." A thousand attempts to account for the life of Christ without admitting His divinity have been made. Not one of them has succeeded in winning the assent and approbation of any great mass of men for any great length of time. They have hardly survived the lives of those who have invented them. Each new naturalistic theory of Christ has discredited and demolished its predecessors. And if any one of them is alive and finds credence to-day, it is only because it is the latest, and it is but
1 See Lyman Abbott, The Evolution of Christianity (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894), "Christ is not the prod- uct of evolution, but the producer," pp. 240-242,
The Unveiliyig of the Father 119
waiting for its successor (as the theory of Socinus waited for the theory of Strauss, and the theory of Strauss for the theory of Renan) to be its judge and destroj^er.
Meantime historic Christianity, whicli l)e- The impre!,. holds God incarnate in Christ, stands as a rock of Chn's- around which the tides of opinion ebb and How, tianity. The Church has changed in some things, but not in this. It has modified, enlarged, dimin- ished, or abandoned some articles of faitli, but not this. If it be an error, it is such an error as the world has never seen anywhere else ; for it has not only stood firm through the fiercest and most persistent storm of criticism that has ever been directed against any human opinion, but it has also been the foundation of the strongest and saintliest lives that humanity has ever known. If it be a truth, it must be for every Christian preacher the central truth. For it is certain that this age of ours, with its ruthless critical spirit, with its keen histori- cal sense, will never respect the intelligence, though it may acknowledge the good inten- tions, of a man who professes to s})eak in the name of Christianity without proclaiming, as the core of his message, the Divine Christ.
4. And this gospel meets the need of our times because it is the satisfaction of humanity.
120
The Unveiling of the Father
The incar- nation satisfies the human heart.
More urgent and painful even than the ques- tions of the intellect in regard to the being and nature of God, are the misgivings of the heart in regard to His relations to us. If He is that remote and inaccessible Sovereign
" Who sees with equal eyes, as Lord of all, A hero perisli or a sparrow fall,"
what possible answer can we find in Him to the longings and desires of our souls for a Divine love ? what possible support can we find in Him for our struggles against outward temptation and indwelling evil ? what possible sympatliy can we find in Him for our hopes and aspirations and upward strivings, out of the quicksands of heredity and environment, towards liberty and light ? The religion of the Incarnation is the only one that brings us near to Him, assures us of our kinship with Him, and of His infinite, practical, helpful love for us. This faith alone bridges the chasm that divides the eternal self-existent Spirit from our finite, despondent, earthbound souls. This faith alone gives us any knowledge of the things that we most need to know about Him. Deism is like a message written in an inscruta- ble hieroglyph which conveys no clear meaning to the mind. Theism is like a message which is intelligible to the intellect, but unsatisfac-
The Unveiling of the Father 121
tory to the heart, because it has no personal address and no signature. Christianity is a per- sonal message, signed by the hand of a Father, and conveyed to us by the hand of the Son.
The comparison is imperfect. It falls far Christ is short of the truth. In Christianity the mes- J^ ^^ senger is the message. The love which sent and the love which delivered it are the same. Christ is Immanuel, God with us. The gospel of the Incarnation does not profess to remove all intellectual perplexities in regard to the existence of God and our own souls. It pro- fesses simply to establish such a conscious re- lation between our souls and God that our ethical needs shall be satisfied at once ; and thus it shall be infinitely easier, either to dis- solve, or to endure, our intellectual perplexi- ties. This relation is possible only in Christ. And it is possible in Him only when we receive Him as the unveiling of the Father. This re- quires an act of faith. But it is a faith which is simpler in its form, more natural in its method, and more profound in its spiritual re- sults than any other. For in the last analysis it is just an act of personal confidence in a person. And this does not demand perfect knowledge, but absolute trust.
122 The Unveiling of the Father
The Deity of To imagine that we can adapt onr preaching ^t^rengtho/ ^^ ^^^^ ^S^ ^^ doubt by weakening, concealing, our gospel, or abandoning the truth of the Deity of Christ is to mistake the great need of our times. It is to seek to commend our gospel by taking away from it the chief thing that men really want, — an assurance of sympathy and kinship with God. " One of the great marks of the youth of to-day," says Ernest Lavisse, — ''I speak of thinking youth, — is a longing for the Divine." 1 This longing is to be met not by slighting, but by emphasizing, not by clouding, but by clarifying, not by withdrawing, but by advancing, the true Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us take up the words of the ancient creed : " We believe in one Lord Jesus Christy the Son of God, only -begotten of the Father, that is of the substance of the Father, G-od of God, Light of Light, very God of God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father : by Whom all things were made which are in heaven and earth: Who, for us men and for our salvation, came doivn, and was iricarnate, and was made man, and suffered, and rose the third day, and ascended into the heavens, and shall come to judge the quick and the dead.'"^
1 Ernest Lavisse, La Generation de 1890. '^ Symbolum Nicaenum, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. ii. (Harpers, 1882).
IV
THE HUMAN LIFE OF GOD
" Behold Him now where He comes !
Not the Christ of our subtle creeds,
But the light of our hearts, of our homes,
Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs ;
The brother of want and blame,
The lover of women and men,
With a love that puts to shame
All passions of mortal ken.
****** *' Ah no, thou life of the heart,
Never shalt thou depart !
Not till the leaven of God
Shall lighten each human clod;
Not till the world shall climb
To thy height serene, sublime,
Shall the Christ who enters our door
Pass to return no more."
— Richard Watson Gilder, The Passing of Christ.
rv
THE HUMAN LIFE OF GOD
Nearly fifty years ago, Horace Bushnell, ^ff^^^at
.,(,... , . truth in
the most mystical of logicians, or the most logi- eclipse. cal of mystics, delivered before Yale University a magnificent discourse upon The Divinity of Christ. In that fine work of genius, wrought out of darkness and light, mystery and clear- ness, like an intricate carving of ebony and gold, I find these words : " Christ is in such a sense God, or God manifested, that the un- known term of His nature, that which we are most in doubt of, and about which we are least capable of any positive affirmation, is the human." ^
This sentence, it seems to me, is not of light, but of darkness. It does not represent that illuminating and harmonious kind of truth which comes directly from the divine revelation of Christ. It belongs rather to that obscured
1 Horace Bushnell, God in Christ (New York, Scribners, 1887), p. 123.
125
126
The Hmnan Life of G-od
Theolofjy has lost sight of Christ's hnmanitij.
and discordant manner of presenting truth which is the consequence of studying it too much at second-hand and too little at first- hand, too much in the speculations and reason- ings of men and too little in the facts of life wherein it was first manifested. Whatever may be said of this sentence as a statement of the result of dogmatic theology, — and in this sense I, for one, do not question its accuracy, — when we consider its plain meaning as an expression of Christian experience and faith, one thing is clear : It is utterly out of touch with the experience and faith of the first dis- ciples. It is in sharp and striking discord with the consciousness of the primitive Church. For if there is anything in regard to which the New Testament makes positive and undoubting affirmation, it is the complete, genuine, and veritable humanity of Christ. If there is any fact which stands out luminous and distinct in the experience of the early Christians, it is that they saw in Christ, not merely a myste- rious manifestation of the Divine in a form cal- culated to beget new doubts, and under con- ditions which must remain, inscrutable and incomprehensible, but something utterly differ- ent. They saw the mystery reduced to terms of simplicity, the revelation levelled to the
The Human Life of G-od 127
direct apprehension of man, the unveiling of the Father under conditions which were so familiar that they dissolved doubts and diffi- culties. They saw in Christ the human life of God.
The object of this lecture is, first, to trace How shall very briefly the way in which this view of ^ L^'f'J ? ^^ Christ has been beclouded so that His human- ity has appeared doubtful and less capable of positive affirmation ; second, to show how the primitive view of His person and life may be, and in the history of Christian faith often has been, recovered and restored to its pristine brilliancy and beauty ; and third, to try to express, though but imperfectly, the meaning and importance of this view for the present age.
Definition is dangerous. Necessary it may Obscuration be ; useful it undoubtedly is ; but our recogni- y-/^^^"^' ^^' tion of these qualities ought not to make us forget or deny the peril which the process cer- tainly involves. And this is the nature of the danger : the definition has an inherent ten- dency to substitute itself for the thing defined. The terms in which a fact is expressed creep into the place of the fact itself. The reality is
128
The Human Life of God
An illustra- tion from the history of Art.
removed insensibly to a remote distance behind the verbal symbols which represent it. The way of access to it is blocked, and its influ- ence is restricted by the forms of expression invented to define it.
I do not know where we can find a more vivid illustration of this process than that which is given, in many ways, in the history of art. The first effort of the artist is to represent something that he has seen or imagined. Oat of this effort and the work which it produces, grow certain methods and habits of representing landscape and architecture and the human figure. Out of these habits grow rules and formulas, not only for the hand but also for the eye. On these formulas schools are founded. In these schools the example of masters comes to have an authority which overshadows and limits the vision of facts as well as the repre- sentation of them. The Japanese artists, of certain schools, actually reproduce that infan- tile condition of sight in which all things appear flat, in a single plane, Avithout perspec- tive. The Giotteschi of Italy carried their disregard of anatomy to such a point that johits and articulations vanished from the human figure.
The Human Life of God 129
Now this same process of limitation by for- R^presenta- mill as may be observed, on the ideal side, in (J^^J the course of religious art. The first pictures of Christ, traced in colour upon the walls of the Catacombs, or carved in stone upon the sar- cophagi of the Christian dead, do not give us indeed tlie very earliest conception of Him ; for the Christian art of the first two centuries, if it ever existed, has long since perished. But that Avhich remains, dating from the third and fourth centuries, bears witness to an idea of the Christ Avhich was simple and natural and humane. He appears as a figure of youthful beauty and graciousness ; the good Shepherd Ijearing a lamb upon His shoulders ; the true Orpheus drawing all creatures and souls by the charm of His amiable music. ^ These are only sym- bolic representations, yet they evidence a con- ception of Him which was still in touch with the facts. A little later we find an effort to conceive and dejDict Him with more realism. His face appears in pictures which resemble the description given in the spurious Epistle of Lentulus : " A man of dignified presence, with dark hair parted in the middle and flowing down, after the custom of the Naza-
1 So in the paintings from the Catacombs of S. Agnese and S. Callisto.
130 The Human Life of God
renes, over both shoulders ; His brow clear and pure ; His unfurrowed face of pleasant aspect and medium complexion ; His mouth and nose faultless ; His short, light beard parted in the middle ; His eyes bright and lustrous."^ Tradition ^ But whcn wc pass on to the creations of so-
iiptv I tip ^
Christian Called Byzantine art, we find ourselves face to ^''^- face with an utterly different view of the Christ.
His countenance now stares out in glittering mosaic from the walls of great churches, huge, dark, threatening, a dreadful and forbidding face. The fixed and formal lines are repeated and deepened by artist after artist. Every feat- ure of naturalness is obliterated ; every feature that seemed to express awfulness is exagger- ated and emphasized. The wide-set eyes, the long narrow countenance, the stern, inflexible mouth, — in this ocular definition the man Christ Jesus has vanished, and we see only the immense, immutable, and terrible Pantokrator, who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. 2
When we turn to the intellectual life of the Church out of which this type of art grew, we
1 This is the imago Christi which we see in the painting from the Catacomb of S. Ponziano.
2 Tliis type was shown in the mosaic in the Cliurcli of St. Paul outside tlie walls, near Rome, hitely destroyed by tire.
The Human Life of God 131
see there the process explained. The early Dogmas Greek Fathers, like Trenyeus, went directly to ^-g^^ ^y the Holy Scriptures for their view of the per- Chinst. son of Christ, and frankly accepted all the features of the living, lovely portrait there dis- closed. They recognized without reserve the reality of Christ's human growth in w^isdom and stature and in favour with God and men ; the actual limitations of Christ's human knowledge as expressed in the questions that He asked and in His profession of ignorance in regard to the time of His second advent ; the intimacy of His sympathy with us in temptation, suffering, and deatii. But with the development of theological definition this direct view of Christ was modified, obscured, and at last totally eclipsed. Instead of looking at God through His revelation in Christ, the Fathers began to look at Christ through a more and more abstract, precise, and inflexible statement of the metaphysical idea of God. It became necessary to harmonize the Scripture record of the life of Jesus with the theories of the divine nature set forth in the decrees of councils and defined with amazing particularity in the writings of theologians. In the effort to accomplish this, two main lines of thought were followed. One line abandoned the belief in
132 The ilummi Life of Grod
The hiding Christ's real and complete humanity, and re- IfJesiis^^ duced His human life to a tenuous and filmy apparition. The other line distinguished be- tween His humanity and His Divinity in such a way as to divide Him into two halves, either of which appears virtually complete without the other, and both of which are united, not in a single and sincere personality, but in an out- ward manifestation and a concealed life, cover- ing in some mysterious way a double centre of existence. It is only fair to say that the ex- treme results of these two lines of thought were condemned by the Church in the heresies of Doketism and Apollinarianism, Eutychianism and Nestorianism. But it is equally fair to say that the influence of these theories was by no means checked nor extirpated. They continued to make themselves felt powerfully and perni- ciously ; now in the direction of dissolving the humanity of Christ into a mere cloud enveloping His Deity ; and again in the direction of dividing and destroying the unity of His person in the defniitions of His dual nature. Bending the It is not neccssary, nor would it be possible, deiiniiions. f^^' ^^ ^^ tracc tliis proccss in detail through all its complexities and self-contradictions. It will be enough to give two or three specimens
The Human Life of God 133
of the kind of work to which it led in dealing with two essential features of the picture of Christ which is given to us in the Gospels : His human limitation of knowledge, and His human growth in wisdom, stature, and grace. Both limitation and growth are unexempt conditions of manhood. Both are unquestionably attrib- uted to Clmst in the New Testament. Both are explicitly denied by theologians. Ephrem Syrus, commenting upon the Diatessaron of Tatian, says : '' Christ, though He knew the moment of His advent, yet that they might not ask Him any more about it, said, I hiow it not.''^ Chrysostom, in his explanation of St. Matthew xxiv. 36, paraphrases Christ's words in this extraordinary fashion : " For if thou seek after the day and the hour thou shalt not hear them of me, saith He ; but if of times and preludes, I will tell thee all exactly. For that indeed I am not ignorant of it^ I have shown by many things. — I lead thee to the very vestibule ; and if 1 do not open unto thee the doors, this also I do for your good."^ John of Damascus, defending the orthodox faith, declares that,
1 Evang. Concordant. Expos. (Aucher and Moesinger, Venice, 1876), p. 16.
2 St. Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Ixxvii. 2. The Nicene Fathers (New York, Christian Litera- ture Co., 1888), vol. X.
134 The Human Life of G-od
" Christ is said to advance in wisdom and stature and grace, because He grows in fact in stature, and through His growth in stature brings out into exhibition the wisdom which already existed in Him. ... But those who say that He really grew in wisdom and grace as receiving increase in these, deny that the flesh was united to the word from the first moment of its existence."^ Peter Lombard does not explicitly adopt, but quotes with evident ap- proval, the opinion that the person of the eter- nal Word put on a human body and soul as a robe, in order that He might appear suitably to the eyes of mortals, yet in Himself He was not changed by this incarnation, but remained one and the same, immutable. ^
A very full and clear exhibition of the dark- ness and unreality in which the patristic and mediaeval theologians involved the person of Christ may be found in Professor A. B. Bruce's great book on The Humiliation of Christ,^ and in Canon Charles Gore's two admirable vol- umes on The Incarnation^'^ from which I have
1 John Damascene, De Fide Orthod., Lib. iii. chap. xxii.
2 Peter Lombard, Sentt., Book iii., Dist. vi. § G.
3 Prof. Alexander Bahnain Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ (New York, Armstrongs, 1887).
4 Canon Charles Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God^ Bampton Lectures, 1891 (New York, Scribners, 1891). Dis-
The Human Life of Crod 135
taken some illustrations after verifying them. Professor Bruce sums up the matter by saying : " The effect, though not the design, of theories of Christ's person has been to a large extent to obscure some of these elementary truths, — the unity of the person, or the reality of the humanity, or the divinity dwelling within the man, or the voluntariness and ethical value of the state of the humiliation. That is, certain- ties have been sacrificed for uncertainties, facts for hypotheses, faith for speculation." ^
Canon Gore, in his Bampton Lectures, ^^^^ej/ian-
hood of
adroitly uses the Jesuit theologian De Lugo as jesus van- a man of straw through whom he may safely **^^*' and vigorously attack the false conceptions of Christ's person which are still current, and to a considerable degree dominant, in dogmatic the- ology. He says that De Lugo depicts a Christ "who, if He was, as far as His body is con- cerned, in a condition of growth, was, as re- gards His soul and intellect, from the first moment and throughout His life in full enjoy- ment of the beatific vision. Externally a way- farer, a viator, inwardly He was throughout a comprehensor, He had already attained. . . . It is denied that He can be strictly called
sertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation (New York, Scribuers, 1895). i The Hiimiliation of Christ, p. 192.
136 The Human Life of aod
' the servant of God ' even as man, in spite of the direct use of that expression in the Acts of the Apostles. He is spoken of at tlie institution of the Eucharist as offering sacrifice to His own Godhead."! Modern ex- Canon Gore condemns this picture by De false Chris- I^ugo as in striking contradiction to that which toiogy. w^Q New Testament presents. But the point
which I wish to make clear and distinct, is that, in spite of this contradiction, the picture has not been frankly and finally discarded in Chris- tian theology. It still exercises an obscuring and perverting influence upon the vision of Christ. It still produces, by imitation, repre- sentations of Him in which definitions dominate facts, and formulas hide or obliterate realities. We do not need to go back to the seventeenth century, nor abroad to the Jesuits, for our ex- amples. We may turn to Archdeacon Wilber- force's book on The Incarnation^ and find him representing the body of Clirist as miraculous in its freedom from sickness, its power over animals, its exemption from the necessity of death, and its inherent power of communicat- ing life to others.'^ In regard to the mind of
1 The Incarnation, p. 164.
2 Archdeacon Wilberforce, The Doctrine of the Incarna- tion (New York, Young, 1885), pp. 60-65.
The Hummi Life of aocl 137
Christ, he says that '^smce it would be impious to suppose that our Lord had pretended an ignorance which He did not experience, we are led to the conclusion [astonishing conclu- sion !] that what He partook, as man, was not actual ignorance, but such deficiency in the means of arriving at truth as belongs to mankind/'^ We may turn to the Dogmatic Theology of Dr. W. G. T. Shedd and read: "Jesus Christ as a theanthropic person was A double constituted of a divine nature and a human ^^^^ nature. The divine nature had its OAvn form of experience, like the mind in an ordinary human person ; and the human nature had its own form of experience, like the body in a com- mon man. The experiences of the divine nature were as diverse from those of the human nature as those of the human mind are from those of the human body. Yet there was but one per- son who was the subject-ego of both of these experiences. At the very time when Christ was conscious of weariness and thirst by the well of Samaria, He also Avas conscious that He was the eternal and only-begotten Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. This is proved b}' His words to the Samaritan woman : ' Who- soever drinketh of the water that I shall give 1 Ibid., p. 71.
138 The Human Life of God
him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. I that speak unto thee am the Messiah.' The first-mentioned consciousness of fatigue and thirst came through the human nature in His person ; the second- mentioned consciousness of omnipotence and supremacy came through the divine nature in His person. If He had not had a human nature, He could not have had the former consciousness; and if He had not had a divine nature. He could not have had the latter. Because He had both natures in one person, He could have both."^ We may turn to Canon Liddon's magnificent work on The Biviyiity of our Lord and find him writing : *' Christ's Manhood is not of Itself an individual being ; It is not a seat and centre of personality ; It has no conceivable existence apart from the act whereby the Eternal Word in becoming Incarnate called It into being and made It His Own. It is a vesture which He has folded around His person ; It is an instrument through which He places Himself in contact with men and whereby He acts upon humanity." ^
1 W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (New York, Scrib- ners, 1888), vol. ii., pp. 307, 308.
2 H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Bampton Lectures, 1866 (London, Rivingtons, 11th edition, 1885), p. 262.
The Human Life of God 139
And so, if we accept this picture of Christ, The human the manhood of Jesus fades, retreats, grows ^^^^ dim and shadowy. It wavers like a veil. It dissolves like mist. It descends again mys- terious and impenetrable, illusory and imper- sonal, to envelop Him whom we love and adore in its strange and unfamiliar folds. We grope after Him, but we can touch nothing but the hem of His mystic robe. We long for Him, but He approaches us, and comes into contact with us, only tlxrough an instrument. He is not what He seems. The Son of God behind that veil is beyond our reach. The Son of man, whom human eyes beheld and human hands touched, is not the real, living, veritable Saviour, but only the form, the garment, of an inscrutable life. And if, in our dire confusion, our reasoning faith still succeeds in holding fast to the Eternal Logos, our confiding faith is maimed and robbed by the loss of that true, near, personal, loving, sympathizing Jesus, who was born of a woman, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He is gone from us, as certainly as if the Pharisees had spoken truth when they said that His dis- ciples came by night and stole Him away. The thing of which we are most in doubt, and about which we are least capable of any positive
140
The Human Life of God
affirmation, as Dr. Bashnell said, is the human- ity of Christ. We are left with a perfectly orthodox doctrine of two natures, but we no longer have a clear and simple gospel of One Person to preach to doubting men.
n
The 10 or- ship of the Virgin Mary.
The cry of But the heart of Christendom has never
a human rested content with this distant, vague, uncer-
Saviour. tain view of the real manhood of our Lord.
There has always been a protest against it.
There has always been an effort to escape from
it.
We can see a strange and indirect but indubitable evidence of this deep inward dis- satisfaction, in the rise and growth of an im- passioned devotion to the human mother of Jesus. The worship of the Virgin Mary was a reprisal for the obscuration of the humanity of her Son. In the thought of her true womanly tenderness and affection, her real and unquestionable sorrows, her simple and familiar joys, her intimate, genuine, unfailing sympathy with all that makes our mortal life a bitter, blessed reality to us, the souls of the lowly and the lonely found that peace and consolation
The Human Life of God 141
which they could no longer find in the con- templation of the distant Second Person of the Trinity through the telescope of theology. That which Jesus Himself was to John and Peter, to the household of Bethany, to the penitent publican, and to the woman which Avas a sinner, Mary became to the baffled and confused faith of a later age, — an approachable mediator of the divine mercy, a helper who could really understand and feel the need of those who cried for help, a warm and living image of the Eternal Sympathy in flesh and blood. In the light of mediaeval dogmatics Mariolatry appears not without its justifica- tion. And for my part, I should not Avish to be bound to the Christology of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, without finding the com- pensation which their followers found in per- sonal devotion and confidential trust, flowing instinctively and irresistibly towards the blessed Virgin.
But, after all, this was only a substitute for The search the real thing. It gave to faith the image of a lovely and adorable humanity in closest union with God ; but it did not give back the old vision of the human life of God. And so through all the ages we see men turning, now in solitary thought, now in great companies, to
142 The Human Life of G-od
seek that vision. The renaissance of Christian art, with its beautiful pictures of the infancy of Jesus, with its piercing and pathetic representa- tions of the sufferings of Jesus, bears witness to the eagerness of that search. The revivals of Christian life, seen in such diverse yet cog- nate forms as the rise of the " Poor Men of Lyons " and the foundation of the " Brother- hood of St. Francis " are evidences of the same movement back to Christ. Peter Waldo outside of the Church, and Francis of Assisi within the Church, were awakened by the same vision of Jesus, " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and were inspired by the same desire to make His real human life the pattern of all piety The spirit and the example of all goodness. The Refor- mation, which was at once and equally an intel- lectual and a spiritual protest against the arro- gance of current theology and the coldness of religious life, supplies no better watchword to express its great motive than the saying of Erasmus : " I could wish that those frigid subt- leties either were completely cut off, or were not the only things that the theologians held as certain, and that the Christ pure and simi^le 7night he implanted deep within the minds of men.^'^
1 Erasmus, quoted in Gore, Dissertations^ etc., p. 180, Epistle 207.
oftheRefor mation
The Human Life of God 143
Modern Biblical scholarship, with its splendid apparatus of linguistic and historical learning, proceeding in part, at first, from a sceptical im- pulse, has developed in our generation, either through the conversion of sceptics in the process of research, or through the awakening of be- lievers to the necessities of their faith, into a reverent and eager quest for the historic Christ, the Jesus of the Gospels, the Lord of the primi- tive Church, that we may see Him as the first Christians saw Him, in the integrity of His per- son and the sincerity of His life, and receive from "Back to Him what they received, — a faith that dissolved doubts and an inspiration that conquered diffi- culties. Back to the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, — back to the facts that lie behind the definitions, back to the Person who embodies the truth, back to the record and reflection of that which the apostles "heard, and saw with their eyes, and looked upon, and their hands handled of the word of life," — this, and this only, is the way that leads us within sight of
" the heaven-drawn picture Of Christ, the hving Word."
Now it is a marvellous thing, and one for which we can never be grateful enough, that
144 The Human Life of Grod
when we come to the New Testament in this spirit, we find in it exactly what we need ; not an abstract formula, not a collection of definitions, but the graphic reflection of a Person seen from a fourfold point of view, and the simple record of manifold human experience under the direct and dominant influence of that Person. And the one fact that emerges clear and tri- umphant from the reflection and the record, is that the writers of the New Testament never were in doubt of the human nature of Christ and never hesitated to make the most positive affirmations in regard to it,
The Christ of the Gospels is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, mind of our mind, heart of our heart. He is in subjection to His parents as a child. He grows to man- hood. His character is unfolded and perfected by discipline. He labours for daily bread, and prays for Divine grace. He hungers, and thirsts, and sleeps, and rejoices, and weeps. He is anointed with the Spirit for His minis- try. He is tempted. He is lonely and dis- appointed. He asks for information. He confesses ignorance. He interprets the facts of nature and life with a prophetic insight. But He makes no new disclosure of the secrets of omniscience. There is no hint nor indica-
The Human Life of Crod 145
tion that He is leading a double life, reigning consciously as God while He is suffering appar- ently as man. His personality is simple and indivisible. The glory of what He is and does, lies not only in its perfection, but in the hard conditions of its accomplishment. Superhuman in His origin, as the only-begotten Son of God ; superhuman in His office and work, as the re- vealer of the Father and the redeemer of man- kind ; in His earthly existence the Christ of the Gospels enters without reserve and without de- ception into all the conditions and limitations Avhich are necessary to give to the world, once and forever, the human life of God.
When we turn to the Epistles to see how ^^^ Christ this view of Christ was affected by the recog- Epistles. nition of His divine glory and power as one who had been raised to the right hand of God and made head over all things to the Church, two things strike us with tremendous force. First, the identity of His person was not lost, nor the continuity of His being broken : the exalted Christ is none other than "this same Jesus." ^ Second, the reality and absoluteness of His humiliation are emphasized as the ground and cause of His exaltation.
How vividly these two things come out, for 1 Acts i. 11.
146 The Human Life of Giod
example^ in the writings of St. Paul. It has been well said that " the Christ whom Paul had seen was the risen Christ, and the conception of Him in His glorified character is the one which rules his thoughts and forms the start- ing-point of his teaching." ^ Corresponding to this present glory, Paul assumes an eternally pre-existent glory of Christ as the image of the invisible God, the medium and end of crea- tion.^ Now it is of this Person, divinely glori- ous in the j)ast as the One who is before all things and in whom all things consist,^ divinely glorious in the present as the One who is far above every name that is named, not only in this world but in that which is to come,* — it is of this Person that Paul writes, in words so strong that they touch the very border of the impossible : " For our sakes. He beggared Himself that we through His beggary might be enriched."^ And again: "He, existing in the form of God, did not consider an equal state with God a thing to be selfishly grasped and held, but emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of man."^ These powerful expressions, "self-
1 Stevens, The Pauline Theology, p. 206.
2 Col. i. 16. 3 Col. i. 17. 4 Eph. i. 21. ^ 2 Cor. viii. 9. e pijii. ii. o^ 7.
The Human Life of Grod 147
beggary," "self-emptying," seem to be directly designed to break up the conventional moulds in which dogmatic theology has attempted to cast the truth and let it harden. They bring back a vital warmth and motion into the facts of the Incarnation. Once more it glows and flows. Once more we see that it is not a mere exhibition of being but a process of becoming. The idea of self-beggary mightily overflows the mere statement that a human nature was added and united to the divine nature ; for that would have been no impoverishment but an enrichment. The idea of self -emptying The shatters the narrow dogma that the Son of God suffered no change in Himself when He became man. It was a change so absolute, so immense, that it can only be compared with the vicissitude from fulness to emptiness. He laid aside the existence-form of God, in order that He might take the existence-form of man. Whatever right He had to an equal state of glory with God, that right He did not cling to, but surrendered, in order that He might become a servant. And upon this real self- emptying there followed a real self-humilia- tion, wherein, being found in fashion as a man. He became obedient unto death, even the death
148 The Human Life of God
of the cross. ^ It was on account of this, — and by " this " we must understand the entire actual operation of the self-denying, self-hum- bling, self-sacrificing mind of Christ, — it was for this reason, St. Paul declares, that '' God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name."^ And I know not how to interpret such language with any reality of intelligence, unless it means that the present glory of the Son of God is in some true sense tlie result of His having become man and so fulfilled the will of God. The Epistle This view, which St. Paul condenses into a brotherhood. Single pregnant "wherefore," is expanded in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The object of this Epistle is to show the superiority of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, which are substantial and enduring, to the priesthood and sacrifice of the old dispensation, which were shadowy and transient. But the method which the writer follows is not to deny, but to assert the verity of Christ's humanity. Without this He could not be the true priest nor offer the true sacrifice. ''In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren. "^ " For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched 1 Phil. ii. 8. 2 Phil. ii. 9. 3 jieb. ii. 17.
of conde- scension.
The Humayi Life of Qod 149
witli tlie feeling of our infirmities : but was in all j)oints tempted like as we are, yet without sin." ^ " Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him."'^ This complete incarnation, this thor- The gioi-y ough trial under human conditions, this perfect discipline of obedience through suffering, was a humiliation. But it was in no sense a degrada- tion. On the contrary, it was a crowning of Christ with glory and honour in order that He might taste death for every man. "For it be- came Him, for whom are all things, and by Avhom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." ^ If the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches anything, it certainly teaches this. The humanity of Jesus was not the veiling but the unveiling of the divine glory. The limitations, temptations, and suffer- ings of manhood were the conditions under which alone Christ could accomplish the great- est work of the Deity, — the redemption of a sinful race. The seat of the divine revelation and the centre of the divine atonement was and is the human life of God.
1 Heb. iv. 16. 2 Heb. v. 8, 9. s Heb. ii. 9, 10.
160
The Human Life of Crod
III
A summa}^ of conclu- sions.
Current theology at fault.
11 a man theories not to he insisted upon.
Here, then, we may pause for a moment and try to sum up the conclusions to which the New Testament leads us in regard to the person of Christ.
I am sincerely anxious not to be misunder- stood. On the one hand, I would not conceal for a moment my conviction that current theol- ogy has failed, very often and very largely, to do justice to the meaning of the Incarnation on the human side, and that we must go back to the image of Jesus Christ as it is reflected in the Gospels to purify, and refresh, and simplify our faith. We should not vsuffer any reverence for ancient definitions of doctrine, however well founded, nor any fear of incurring reproach and mistrust as innovators, to deter us from that necessary and loyal return to the reality of tlie Person in whom our creed centres and on whom it rests. To find Jesus anew, to see Him again, as if for the first time, in the wondrous glory of His humility, is the secret of the revival of Christianity in every age. This is not innova- tion ; it is renovation.
On the other hand, we have no right and we ought to have no inclination to insist exclusively upon any particular theory as the only possible
The Human Life of Grod 151
explanation of the facts of the Incarnation. Every earnest and thoughtful man must feel that these facts are so deep and mysterious that the plummet of human reason cannot sound their ultimate recesses. With all our thinking upon this subject, there must ever mingle a con- sciousness of insufficiency and a confession of ignorance. But with this confession of igno- rance there must go also a clear recognition of those portions of the truth which are unques- tionably revealed in the New Testament. Three things are there made plain to faith.
1. God is so closely related to man, and the Three vital likeness of God in man is so real, that the Di- vine Logos is able to descend l)y a free act of self-determining love into tlie lower estate of liuman existence, and liiimbly Himself to the conditions of manhood without losing His per- sonal identity.
2. The essence of the Gospel is its declara- tion of the fact that this act of condescension, of self-humiliation, actually has been performed, and that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who has taken upon Him the existence-form of a servant, and lived a truly human life, and been obedient even unto death, in order to re- veal to the world the saving love of God.
162 The Human Life of God
3. The distinctive attributes of personality in Christ (self-consciousness and self-deter- mination) are not dual, as of two persons, the one divine and the other human, co-exist- ing side by side in a double life, but individual, and manifested as the life of one person. That person is the Son of God, who laid aside the glory which He had with the Father, and emp- tied Himself, and so became the Son of man ; and on account of this humiliation God hath highly exalted Him and crowned Him with glory and honour as the God-man forever. These points These are the points which are vital to the reality of the Gospel of the Incarnation. All theories which make these points clear, safe- guard the truth in its integrity and in its rec- onciling power. The question of the method of the divine humiliation and the human exal- tation of Christ, lies beyond these points. It is not necessary to insist upon any particular form of its solution. Indeed, it may well be that the profundity of the question, the inher- ent mystery of the facts of life and personality with which it deals, and the limitations of human thought and language, preclude the possibility of a complete and final answer at present. It must be frankly acknowledged that none of the solutions which have been pro-
de fended.
The Human Life of God 153
f)ounded hitherto are free from serious perplex- ities. But it must be recognized with equal frankness that the theories which have been put forward in modern times, with new earnest- ness and power, by men of unquestionable loy- alty to the Christianity of the New Testament, who have sought to find a clear and positive meaning for the great word ICenosis, which St. Paul uses to describe the self-emptying of Christ in the Incarnation, — theories which have been stigmatized as kenotic^ as if the name were enough to mark them as unorthodox, — are so far from being heretical that they have the rare merit of conserving and emphasizing a truth of surpassing value, undoubtedly taught in the Bible, and too much neglected, if not practically denied, during many centuries of theological speculation. It may be, as Julius Mliller held, that the distinctive attributes of V(^rious
. methods of
personality are, abstractly considered, identical safe-guard- in God and man, so that, by the divine self- limitation in the Incarnation, they are actually unified, like two circles which have a common centre. 1 It may be, as Dr. Fairbairn holds, that the Son of God, being the eternal repre-
1 For this statement of Miiller's view, which he gave in his lectures, I am indebted to Dr. George P. Fisher, who was one of his hearers.
ing them.
154 The Human Life of God
sentative of the filial relationship within the Godhead, the symbol of the created within the uncreated, needed but to surrender the form and status of the uncreated Son in order to assume, by the same act, the form and status which man as the created Son was intended to realize.^ It may be, as Godet holds, that the Incarnation was by deprivation, and that the Eternal Word renounced His divine mode of being, and entered into life, without omnisci- ence, omnipresence, or omnipotence, as an un- conscious babe. 2 It matters little in what form of words we try to express the transcendent truth. But it matters much, it is supremely important for the integrity of our Gospel and for its influence upon the heart of this doubting age, that we should liold fast to the fact that the life of Jesus of Nazareth is simply and sincerely the human life of God.
The time is at hand when this simple and profound view of Christ, which beholds in Him the God-man in whom Deity is self-limited and humbled in order that humanity may be divinely exalted and perfected, must break through the clouds which have obscured it, and become the leading light of religion and theol-
1 The Place of Christ in Afodern Theology, p. 476.
2 Godet, Commentary on John i. 14.
The Human Life of G-od 155
ogy. The life of Christ needs to be restudied and rewritten under this luminous guidance, in absolute and unhesitating loyalty to the facts as they lie before our eyes in the Gospels. ^ The doctrine of Christ's person needs to be recon- structed and restated in this light. It must include, as the creed of Chalcedon included, not only the truth of a Homoousia — a sameness of nature and experience — with God, which the past has vindicated ; but also the equal truth of a Homoousia with man, which the fut- ure is to unfold as the universality of Christ's manhood is exhibited through His progressive triumphs among all the races of men and all the modes of human life. The humanity of the incarnate Christ must stand out as clear, as pos-
1 "No action of our Saviour's earthly life, from Bethlehem to Calvary, exhibits divinity. He appears first as a helpless habe in the manger. He is subject to His parents. As the child grows, He w^axes strong in spirit and increases in wis- dom. Such an increase in wisdom implies increase in know- ledge, and less knowledge or greater ignorance to-day than to-morrow. Omniscience could not have been exercised by the Jesus who was growing in wisdom. If any say here, as we usually do, that the humanity grew but the divinity was omniscient, let us ask if there were two persons in Jesus. This Nestorianism is practically the creed of the present day with the Reformed Churches, They have gone over to a virtual duplication of the person of Christ." — Howard Crosby, The True Humanity of Christ (New York, Ran- dolph, 1880).
156 The Human Life of God
itive, as indubitable, as His Deity. Nay, more, it must stand where the New Testament puts it, in the foreground of faith. For it is only in this humanity that we can truly find the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. The old How Urgent and pressing are the needs of
definitions i • i
inadequate, o^^' o^n age which call US to this work! How far behind us, how effete and inadequate, are the terms and illustrations which were used in former ages to express the results of human thought in regard to the person of Christ ! Recall, for instance, that fine similitude of the heated sword which the Lutheran theologians borrowed from the Fathers to explain the union of the divine with the human in Christ! To them it was satisfactory because they re- garded heat as one substance and iron as another substance. In their view the divine nature penetrated and pervaded the human nature as the caloric fluid was supposed to per- meate a mass of metal. But in our world the caloric fluid does not exist. Heat is not a sub- stance, but a mode of motion in substances. In the light of modern science the old simili- tude fades into a meaningless comparison of things which cannot be compared.
We cannot accept the scholastic terminology of " natures " and '• subsistences " in the final
The Huma7i Life of God 157
and absolute sense in which it was once em- ployed. The philosophy of realism, which ascribed an objective existence to universals apart from individuals, is not the philosophy of to-day. Its language is not only foreign, but dead. The philosophy of being and not-being has opened to receive the philosophy of becom- ing ; and, in so doing, it has been utterly trans- formed.
Life is now the regnant idea ; personality its Life is the utmost expression. It is in the facts of life, ^^g^"^ its secret potencies, its mysterious limitations in germ and seed, its magnificent unfoldings in the process of development that we must seek our comparisons for the Incarnation. And the very search will bring us face to face with the conviction that life in all its manifestations transcends analysis without ceasing to be the object of knowledge.
In the living world the boundaries of imagi- ^^'^ ^"'^^
. life but can-
nation are not coterminous with the limits of ^ot define it.
apprehension. We know many facts and
forms of life whose modes of becoming we
cannot imagine. It is just as impossible for
us to conceive how the life of the oak, root and
trunk and branch and leaf, form and colour
and massive strength, is all folded in the tiny,
colourless, unshaped seed, as it is to conceive
158
The Human Life of God
how the life of God is embodied in the man Christ Jesus. But the difficulty of conceiving the manner of this infolding, this embodiment, does not destroy for us the reality of the life. Indeed, if we could explain it entirely, if we could trace it perfectly as in a diagram, if we could observe it completely, as in one of those beautiful models of flowers which a skilful artist 1 has recently made to illustrate his lect- ures on botany, we should know that it was not life, but only a picture of it. The picture is useful, but it is not vital. The metaphor has its value, but it falls far short of the truth. Self-heggary and self -emptying are but "words thrown out towards " an unimaginable but not unreasonable manifestation of the Divine Love as life. The reality to which they point us is the Son of God descending to live under all the conditions and limitations of energy and consciousness which are proper to the Son of man : the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, like unto His brethren in all things.
IV
The import- j^ would be hard to overestimate the signifi-
ance of this /. i • • i. i
view for the cancc of this vicw lor the present age, and the present age. importance of setting it forth as a living truth 1 William Hamilton Gibson.
The Humayi Life of God 159
in the language of to-day. It is the only view which gives us any ground of reality for our faith in the kinship of man with God. If the Son of God, who is the image of the Father, by laying aside the outward prerogatives of His divine mode of existence, actually becomes human, then, and only then, the divine image in which man was created is no mere figure of speech, but a substantial likeness of spiritual being. There is a true fellowship between our souls and our Father in heaven. Virtue is not a vain dream, but a definite striving towards His perfection. Revelation is not a deception, but a message from Him who knows all to those who know only a part. Prayer is not an empty form, but a real communion.
" Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet : Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."i
This view of the spiritual relation of man to The Unship
^ -. -T -I 1 *• 1 i-- • of man to
God cannot possibly have any foundation m g^^ fact, deep enough and strong enough to with- stand the sweeping floods of scepticism, unless it builds upon the rock of a veritable Incarna- tion. The discoveries of modern science, en- larging enormously our conceptions of the 1 Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism.
160 The Humayi Life of God
physical universe, have not only put man (as we said in the first lecture) in a position to receive a larger and loftier vision of the glory of God, but they have made such a vision in- dispensable. And they have emphasized, with overwhelming force, the form in which that vision must come in order to meet our needs and strengthen faith for its immense task. If we are not to be utterly belittled and crushed by the contemplation of the vast mass of matter and the tremendous play of force by which we are surrounded ; if we are still to hold that the vital is greater than the mechanical, the moral than the material, the sjDiritual than the physi- cal ; if we are to maintain the old position of all noble and self-revering thought, that " man is greater than the universe," — there is nothing that can so profoundly confirm and establish us, there is nothing that can so surely protect and save us from ''the distorting influences of our own discoveries," as the revelation of the Supreme Being in an unmistakably vital, moral, spiritual, and human form. The true Such a revelation at once rectifies, purifies,
view of God. . p
and elevates our view of God Himself. For if the Son of God can surrender omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence without destroy- ing His personal identity, then the central
The Human Life of Q-od 161
Essence of the Deity is neither infinite wisdom nor infinite power, but perfect holiness and perfect goodness. And so from the very h:)west valley of humiliation we catch clear sight of the very loftiest summit of theology, the serene and shining truth that God is Love.
In the light of this truth we behold also the The supreme highest perfection of man and the path which ^^^^g leads to it. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and the supreme pattern of love is the example of Christ. And whether we look at it from the divine side as the supreme self-sacrifice of God, or from the human side as the complete obedience of man, everything depends upon the genuineness and sincerity of this example. Un- less the Son of God truly became man, the Li- carnation cannot be, as Bishop Westcott calls it, "a revelation of human duties." What strength could we draw from His victory over temptation if He was not exposed as we are to the assaults of evil ? What consolation could we draw from His patience if He was not a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ? " Jesus Christ," says one of the greatest of French theologians, " is not the Son of God hidden in the Son of man retaining all the attributes of Divinity in a latent state. This
162 The Human Life of God
would be to admit an irreducible duality which would make the unity of His person vanish and withdraw Him from the normal conditions of human life. His obedience would become illusory, and His example would be without application to our race. No, when the Word became flesh, He humbled Himself, He put off His glory, being rich He made Himself poor, and became as one of us, only without sin, that He might pass through the moral conflict with all the risks of freedom." ^ When we see Him thus, we know what it means to follow Him and to be like Him. The value of Finally, the whole value of the Atonement,
the atone- .,. . ^ „
,nen<. 11^ its reconciling mnuence on the heart oi man,
in its exhibition of the heart of God, depends upon the actuality of the Incarnation. If He who died on Calvary was a mere theophany, like the angel of Jehovah who appeared to Abraham, then His death was merely a dra- matic spectacle. The body of Jesus was broken,
God suffers but God was not touched. But if the Father truly spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, then the Father also suf- fered by sympathy, making an invisible sacri- fice, an infinite surrender of love for our sakes.
1 De Pressens6, Jesus-Christ (Paris, 1865), Book I., chap. v., p. 254.
with and for us.
The Human Life of (rod 168
Then the Son also suffered, making a visible sacrifice, and pouring out His soul unto death to redeem us from the fear of death and the power of sin. And this becomes real to our faith and potent upon our souls only when we see the human life of God, agonizing in the garden, tortured in the judgment-hall, and ex- piring upon the cross. Then we can say
" Oh Love Divine ! that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear."
Then we can look up to a God who is not im- passible, as the speculations of men have falsely represented Him, but passible, and therefore full of infinite capacities of pure sorrow and saving sympathy. Then the dumb and sullen resentment which rises in noble minds at the thought of a Universe in which there is so ^^^^^ ^^ ^;J much helpless pain and hopeless grief, created thought of by an immovable Being who has never felt r,athy. ^ and can never feel either pain or grief, — that sense of moral repulsion from the idea of an unsuffering and unsympathetic Creator which is, and always has been, the deepest, darkest spring of doubt, fades away, and we behold a God who became human in order that He might bear, though innocent and undeserving, all our pains and all our griefs.
l64 Tlie Human Life of Crod
Thejnding ^pj ^l ^ j^^ believe in the human life
of the
human of God can stand before the doubting age, as
David stood before the disillusioned, downcast,
despondent Hebrew king, in Robert Browning's
splendid poem of " Saul." The word, sought in
vain among the glories of nature, among the
joys of human intercourse, the word of faith
and hope and love and life, comes to us, leaps
upon us, flashes through us.
" See the King — I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — know- ing which,
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now !
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst Thou — so wilt Thou!
So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown —
And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath.
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death !
As Thy Love is discovered almighty, almiglity be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being be- loved !
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
The Human Life of Crod 165
'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh,
that I seek In the Godhead ! 1 seek and I find it. O Saul, it
shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like
to me. Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand
like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!
See the Christ stand I "
THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
" But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labour writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, — "What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect. What rumour, tattled by an enemy. Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, — Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ ? "
— Sidney Lanier, The Crystal.
command- ment.
THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Preach Christ, is the apostolic watchword The new that rings to-day, with all the force and charm of a new commandment, through the heart of a Church, which has felt, more deeply than it has yet confessed, the age-pervading chill of a winter of doubt and discontent. The very- entrance of that mystic and reviving word has already brought a glow of enthusiasm into the Christian life, and caused new blossoms of hope and love, manifold and beautiful activities of help and healing, to appear in the earth. It seems as if some fresh and secret tide of vital- ity were flowing through the veins of Christen- dom, and breaking everywhere towards the light in deeds of charity and enterprises of mercy. Hospitals, asylums, red cross societies, rescue missions, salvation armies, spring into existence as if by magic. Never has there been a time when Christian men have tried to 169
170 The Source of Authority
The new ^^ ^o mueli fur their fellow-men in the name '''""'^^' and for the sake of Christ. Never has there been a time when they have recognized so clearly and fully that there was so much yet to be done. It is an age of secular doubt, as many other ages have been. But it is also an age of Christian beneficence, as hardly any other age has been. And this beneficence is not self-satisfied and complacent. It is self- reproachful, and, in its best expressions, nobly discontented with all that has been accom- plished hitherto. It seeks, not always wisely, but Avith splendid eagerness, for jDlans which shall lead beyond the relief, to the prevention of human suffering. It aims to bring about not only the immediate mitigation, but also the ultimate abolition, of war. It demands that cliarit}" sludl be translated into the terms of national, as well as of individual life. It will not be satisfied until in some real and palpable sense the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.^ Christ is the Now this renewal, this splendid expansion of Christian activities, evident by many signs to all thouglitful observers, depends for its power and permanence upon the setting forth of Christ, vividly, personally, practically, as the 1 Rev. xi. 15.
fountain.
The Source of Autliority 171
pattern of all virtue and the Trince of Peace among men. The sense of absolute confidence in Him as the perfect example of goodness, and of thorough loyalty to Him as the j\1 aster of noble life, is the hidden reservoir of moral force. The organized charities of Christendom are the distributing system. Not more instant and more complete would be the water-famine on ^Manhattan Island if the great dam among the Croton hills were broken and all the lakes and streams dried u[), than the drought that would fall upon the beneficence of the world if there Avere a sudden break in the reservoir of love and loyalty in Christian hearts to their moral Master, or a stoppage of the myriad and multiform feeders which keep it full by preach- ing Christ.
But in all this renewal and expansion of what The peril of
' ^ r-^^ • ■ • practical
is well and proudly called practical Christianity, Christianity there is, if I mistake not, a danger, or at least a serious possibility, of loss. The life of man is not only practical, it is also intellectual. His relations to his fellow-men are important, but his relation to truth is no less important. He cannot help acting ; neither can he help tliink- ing. When his thinking is divorced from his acting, when he has one standard for truth and a different standard for conduct, he is like a
172 The Source of Authority
house divided againi^t itself. If the Christian- ity of to-day, by dwelling exclusively or too much on the ethical side of the Gospel as a beautiful and beneficent rule of conduct illus- trated by a perfect Example, tends to ignore the intellectual necessities of man and fails to real- ize that it has a message to deliver in the realm of truth as well as in the realm of righteous- ness, it will not and it cannot meet the deepest wants of tlie present age. Indeed, it may even aggravate those wants and make them more painful. It may seem to give assent, by silence, to the desperate assumption of scepti- cism that the unseen Avorld is unknown and unknowable, even to the most perfect of men. It may foster the sad feeling that the reality of religion is beyond our reach and that we must content ourselves with the convenient dreams of virtue. It may preach, in effect, a Christ whose character and conduct are to be accej^ted as infallil)le, but wdiose thoughts and convic- tions in regard to God and the soul and the future life are mere fallacies and illusions. What fhes Preach Christ, if it is to be a true. watchword
to preach ^^^' ^'^i* ministry to the present age, must be (JhriHt? cleaicd and vivified and expanded in our con- sciousness. We must know what we mean by it. and we must try to know what we ought to
The Source of Authority 173
mean. We must ask ourselves again and again whether the thing that we do mean is always quite, or even approximately, the thing that we ought to mean when we use this precious and powerful phrase. It was commonly employed, say fifty j^ears ago, to describe by way of dis- tinction a presentation of Jesus wliich dwelt chiefl}^ or entirely upon His death as the vicari- ous sacrifice for sin. It is frequently employed now as if it meant little or nothing more than the graphic description of Clu-ist\s life and actions as the supreme type of virtue and love. But surely to preach Christ exclusively in either of these ways is to divide Him. It is not enough to have a Christocentric theology. It is not enough to have a Christocentric morality. We must not only put Him at the centre; but we must also draw the circumference so that it shall embrace the whole of human life.
If Christ is the Lamb of God that taketh A gospel /or
. the whole
away the sin of the world,-^ He is also tiie true ^^^.^j^ ^j- Light Avhich lighteth every man that cometh human no. into the world. ^ If He is the fulfilment of all dim prophecies of good, He is also the head and source of a new unfolding of spiritual vision. If He is the way and the life. He is also the truth. 3 If He is immortal love, regenerating 1 St. John i. 29. '^ St. John i. 9. ^ st. John xiv. 6,
174
The Source of Authority
the affections, He is also immortal wisdom re- organizing tlie tliouglits, and immortal power strengthening the wills, of men. If His heart is to be the norm of our feeling, His mind is to be the norm of our thinking. If He is the herald and founder of a new and celestial dominion upon earth, He is also the source of authority in the kingdom of heaven.
Tlip king- dom of heaven the keynote of (.'hrisVs teachiufj.
The idea of the kingdom of heaven, as an act- ual reign of God over living men, in which all ancient anticipations of good are accomplished and a new state of virtue and blessedness is es- tablished on earth, was foremost and dominant in the teaching of Jesus. ^ It was the keynote of His ministry. Everything that He said, everything that He did, was in harmony with this master thought.
It is passing strange to see how often and liow utterly this keynote has been changed in the variations which men have woven about the
1 The word " kingdom " is used in the Gospels more than a liundred times to express the new condition of human life which Christ came to announce and establish. In St. Matthew's Gospel the favourite phrase is "the kingdom of heaven." St. Mark and St. Luke use "the kingdom of God."
The Source of Authority 175
original theme of Christianity ; and how far False inter- we are, even 3^et, from hearing it clearly, and ^^^^"^^^^^^• sounding it with dominant fulness, in the music of religion. At times the kingdom of heaven has been identified with the visible church as an outAvard embodiment of power in the Avorld. And surely this interpretation is far enough away from the thought of Christ, who taught expressly that the kingdom was invisible and inward. At other times men have removed their conception from the present to the future, and looked for its realization in the life of the redeemed after death, or in the second coming of Christ to reign in millennial glory. And surely this interpretation is equally remote from Christ's teaching, at the very outset of His ministry and all through its course, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, that it had already come near to men, and was lying all around them, close to them, pressing upon them from every side so that many were already en- tering into it and dwelling within it.
The unreality and incompleteness of these The idea two opposite interpretations of the kingdom produced their natural results. The idea fell out of its true place in Christian thought. It became obscure, subordinate, and was finally
176 Tlte Source of Autliority
almost obliterated. No further illustration of this statement is necessary than that which may be obtained by consulting one of the most popular aids to the study of the Bible : Talbot's Analysis, revised by the Rev. Nathaniel West, and again revised by the Rev. Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, and set forth under the title of A Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible; or^ the Whole Bible arranged in Subjects.^ In the in- dex to this work there is but one solitary reference to the kingdom of God. When we turn to look at it, Ave find eleven verses, under the heading of " The Millennium ; the Growth of the Kingdom of God." The kingdom of heaven is dismissed with a general reference to the Parables. To any one who is really familiar with his New Testament, the insufficiency of such a treatment of one of its controlling ideas must appear evident and surprising. The idon But it may be said that in very recent times
there lias been an intense revival of interest in tliis idea and an immense amount of good work (h»n(' in the study and explication of it. This is true and it should be gratefully recognized. Such books as those which Dr. James S. Cand- lisli and Professor A. B. Bruce have written
1 Wilmore\s New Analytical Reference Bible (New York, J891).
hoffins to he restored
The Source of AutJiority 177
upon " The Kingdom of God," are most valua- ble gifts to Christian literature.^ And yet I will frankly confess that these books, and others like them, seem to me rather to point the way than to reach the goal. The fulness of the conception of the kingdom of heaven is not yet restored in current theology. Its regnancy in all spheres of human life is not yet com- pletely rounded. There is still a great deal of Avork to be done in this direction by the Christian thinker and the Christian preacher. The vision of the kingdom is obscured, the proclamation of the kingdom is weakened, be- cause it is still presented too exclusively as a kingdom of grace, and not with equal em- phasis as a kingdom of truth : it is set up too partially as a standard for the character and conduct of men, and not with equal clearness as a standard for their thoughts and convic- tions.
One reason of this one-sidedness, it seems to it must he
T . 1 ^ 1 1 ^ ' lA j_ ^ Studied in
me, lies m the lact that we have hitherto been all/our looking almost entirely to the first three Gos- Gospels. pels as the source of our knowledge of the true
1 The Kingdom of God, Biblically and Historically Con- sidered, James S. Candlish (Edinburgh, Clarks, 1884). The Kingdom of God, or Christ's Teaching according to the Synoptical Gospels, Alexander Balmain Bruce (New York, Scribners, 1889).
178 The Source of Authority
meaning of the kingdom of heaven. But the Fourth Gospel, if indeed it be, as the best modern schoLars say it is, "the most faithful image and memorial of Jesus that any man could produce," must be no less important, no less signilicant in the light which it throws upon this controlling idea of His mind. And when we turn to study it with this aim in view, we find at once that it gives us what we need. It completes and rounds out the record of the three other Gospels. It answers the ques- tions which they suggest. It keeps the prom- ises which they seem to make to our faith. And it is only when Ave take the fourfold narrative in its entirety that we begin to catch sight of the satisfying and convincing fulness of tlie idea of the kingdom of heaven. The kincj- xiils idea underlies the whole Gospel accord-
St. John. I'^to to St. John. It IS no less fundamental, no less necessary here than it is in the Synoptic Gospels. It is presented in different forms, because the type of the writer's mind and the purpose of his book are different. But it is the same idea. And this presentation of it is essential to its completeness.
In the Synoptics we have the conditions of entrance into the kingdom, a child-like spirit,^ 1 St. Matt, xviii. 3.
The Source of Authority 179
faith,^ repentance,^ and obedience. ^ In St. John Compared we have the spiritual birth by which alone ^syrlopUcs. those requisites are made possible.* In the Synoptics we have the laws of tlie kingdom.^ In St. John we have the new life in which alone those laws can be fulfilled.^ In the Synoptics we have the parables and pictures of the kingdom." In St. John we have the inmost sense of those parables, spoken directly to the soul, in words of which Christ Himself says ''they are spirit, and they are life."^ In the Synoptics we have the new order of liuman society in the imitation by the disciples of Christ's obedience to the will of God.^ In St. John we have the organizing principle of that new order in Christ's revelation of Himself to the disciples as the way, the truth, and the life.^^ In the Synoptics we have the supremacy of Christ's example over men's hearts. In St. John we have the supremacy of Christ's teach- ings over men's minds.
Of course, I do not mean to say that either
1 St. Matt. ix. 22 ; St. Mark ^ st. Matt, xiii., xxi., xxv.;
X. 52. St. Luke xiii., xvii., xix.,
2 St. Luke xiii. 3. etc.
3 St. Matt. V. 20. 8 St. John vi. 03; viii. 12-51.
4 St. John iii. 5. 9 St. Matt. xii. 50. ^ The Sermon on the Mount. ^" St. John xiv. 6.
6 St. John vi. 22-05.
180 The Source of Authority
Both views of these aspects of the kingdom is confined ex- neces^ary. ^.^^gjyg^y ^^ ^\^q source in which it is most fully and clearly exliibited.^ But this is what I mean. The Synoptics give us the first and simplest description of the nature of the king- dom. St. John gives us the fullest and clear- est revelation of the mind of the King. We cannot understand the former without the lat- ter. Wc cannot enter into the full meaning of the initial proclamation of Jesus, when He walked beside the Sea of Galilee crying " The kingdom of heaven has come near," ^ unless Ave go on with Him to the judgment-hall, and hear Him give His final answer to Pilate : '^ Thou sayest that I am a King ; to this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth ; every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." ^
When we stand at this point, when we ac- cept this declaration as the key to unlock and open the inmost meaning of the manifestation of tlie Father in the human life of the Son, we
' See Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. 185, on the personal claim of Christ in the Synoptics. See R. F. Horton, The Teaching of Jesus (New York, 1896), pp. 219-233, on relation between Synoptic doctrine of the kingdom and Johaunine doctrine of eternal life.
2 St. Matt. iv. 17. 3 St. John xviu. 37.
The Source of Autliority 181
begin to apprehend the inexhaustible scope and The king- significance of our call to preach Christ to an ^^ ^^.,,ii ^^.^ J age of doubt. It is a gospel not only for the fjrace. affections, but also for the intellect. It takes up His words as well as His works and makes them vital in the lives of men. It conceives and proclaims the kingdom of heaven as some- thing more than " the reign of divine love ex- ercised by God in His grace over human hearts believing in His love and constrained thereby to yield Him grateful affection and devoted service."^ It is also the reign of divine truth exercised through a faithful witness over the minds of men who subnut to His guidance and are led by Him into inward peace and unity of thouo-ht. And the source of authoritv in this kingdom of heaven, which is equally a realm of truth and a realm of grace, is Jesus the Christ, whose doctrine, as well as His example, is ulti- mate and supreme.
n
Let us observe in passing that we have pre- The Kin<:< -.•
. . 1 « teacher.
cisely the same basis to rest upon m our preach- ing of the doctrine of Jesus as in our preaching of His character and life. If historical criticism 1 Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. 4(3.
182 The Source of Authority
gives us good reason to believe, as all candid inquirers now admit, that the four Gosj^els con- tain a veritable picture of an actual personage who once lived on earth, there is equally good reason to believe that they have preserved for us a trustworthy account of His teaching in its sul)stauce and spirit. If we can justly claim The doctrine tj^^t His character is so perfect and transcen- dent that no man of that age, however gifted or learned, and least of all such men as the writers of the New Testament, could possibly have in- vented it ; we can make the same claim, with equal justice, for the body of doctrine which is attributed to Christ. In its coherence, its clarity, its sublimity, and its universality it altogether surpasses the mental abilities and the religious insight of the writers of the four Gospels. Indeed, it is frankly confessed that the disciples of Jesus were so far from being able to invent His doctrine, that they actually misunderstood and misinterpreted many of its truths when they first heard them. It was contrary to their prejudices and expectations. They did not put it into His mouth. He re- vealed it to their minds. Their faith in it rested upon His personal authority. And it was only as they kept company with Him and followed Him, receiving His word into
The Source of Authority 18B
their souls and translating it into their lives, that it became to them luminous and satisfy- ing and convincing.
We are entitled, or rather we are compelled, ^*» objective to regard the teaching of Jesus as an objective ^^" ^ ^' fact just as much as His life and character. The record of it bears on its face the over- whelming evidence of verity. All the results of literary criticism are squarely against the supposition that such a doctrine as that which is presented to us under His name in the four Gospels, could ever have been pieced together out of the thoughts and imaginations of widely separated and divergent minds, and attributed to an unknown and perhaps mythical Master. It is not a mosaic ; it is a living unity. It is not a creation of faith ; it is the creator of faith. The hypothesis that four men agreed, or hap- pened, to gather together out of the Hebrew prophets, and the heathen philosophers, and the mysterious and inexplicable inner conscious- ness of the new-born Christian churches, cer- tain beautiful ideas in regard to God and the soul and the future life, and ascribe tliem to Jesus, utterly breaks down at the touch of real- ity. The central, unif3dng, formative quality of the teaching of Christ is the one thing that
184 The Source of Authority
is most evident in the record. It is empha- sized by all the phenomena of growth, of vital development, of deepening power, which may be traced from the sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth to the discourse in the upper room at Jerusalem. It shines out unmistakably through all the living variety of impressions which it made upon various minds, and through all the consequent many-sidedness of the report which is given of it. Not more certainly did the character of Christ inspire and unite the lives of His followers than His doctrine illuminated and controlled their beliefs. The onl}^ view which meets the facts is that Jesus really lived, and really taught, thus and so, as He is presented to us in the (lospels. The form of This brings us at once to the most important le recon . fgr^^^^g jj^ j^\^q record of His teaching. It is not given to us in the form of an abstract system, a treatise on theology, or a summary of doc- trine, written down by the hand of Jesus. He Himself made no record of His words. Only once do we see Him writing, — in the beautiful episode which a later tradition has added to the eighth chapter of St. John's Gospel. Histori- cal or not, the incident is profoundly sugges- tive. For Jesus wrote not with a pen upon
The Source of Authority 185
enduring parchment, nor with a stylus upon imperishable brass :
" He stooped And wrote upon the unrecording ground." ^
He would not leave even a single line of manu- script where His followers could preserve it with literal reverence and worship it as a sacred relic. He chose to inscribe His teach- ing upon no other leaves than those which are folded within the human soul. He chose to trust His words to the faithful keeping of memory and love ; and He said of them, Avith sublime confidence, that they should never pass away.^ He chose that the truth which He declared and the life which He lived should never be divided, but that they sliould go down together through the ages.
And this is precisely what has come to pass, inseparable The Church in past asfes has often been inclined -^7'" ^^'*
^ '^ character.
to abstract the doctrines of Christianity concern- ing the person and work of Christ from their union with His human life, and to condense them into a purely formal system of dogma for the intellect. The Church in the present age shows at least a tendency to separate the image
1 Katrina Trask, "A Night and Morning in Jerusalem" (Hm-per's Magazine, April, 1896).
2 St. Mark xiii. 31.
186 The Source of Authority
of Jesus from the truths which He taught, and hold Him up to men merely as an ideal of holi- ness and goodness. But the one barrier that stands firm against both these false tendencies is the marvellous narrative of the Gospels, in which the life and the doctrine of Christ are woven together, one and inseparable, like a robe without seam. Words and How cau Avc Understand His grace, unless we eachothe7.^ acccpt His truth ? How can we appreciate His truth, unless Ave receive His grace ? At every step, His action is interpreted and explained by His words. He trusts in Providence, and He commands His disciples to trust, not merely be- cause submissive confidence is a beautiful and happy thing, but because He knows and declares that God is reall}^ a Father, worthy to be trusted.^ He prays, secretly and openly; secretly because He is sure that God hears Him always, and openly because He would fain give this as- surance to others.2 He seeks the sinful and the lost, not merely because such a ministry is lovely and gracious, but because He knows and declares that it is the will of God, and that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety-and-nine just
1 St. Matt. vi. 25-30. 2 gt. John xi. 41, 42.
The Source of Authority 187
men that need no repentance.^ He cares for the bodies of men and He relieves their wants, but He cares infinitely more for their souls and He teaches them to care more, because He knows that the soul is capable of immortality and more precious than all that this world can give. 2 He moves willingly and obediently to the cross, not because it is inevitable, not be- cause resignation is the crown of virtue, but because He knows and declares that this is the sacrifice appointed for Him as the Christ, the laying down of His life as a ransom for many, the lifting up by which He is to draw all men unto Himself.^ He goes down into death with unshaken courage, not because it is a fine thing to be brave, but because He knows and declares that He is returning to the Father and that He will bring those wdio love Him to be with Him where He is forever.*
Now these are declarations of great truths. The doctrine If we deny them, if we make them uncertain, iasisofiUs the life which was built upon them has no conduct. meaning, no substance, no power in it. It be- comes a splendid illusion, a heroic mistake.
1 St. Luke XV. 7.
2 St. John vi. 27; St. Mark viii. 36, 37.
» St. Mark ix 12 ; St. Matt. xx. 28 ; St. John xii. 32. * St. John xiv. 1-3.
188 The Source of Authority
But if we accept them, then, and only then, that life becomes the rock of our confidence, the substance of things hoped for and the evi- dence of things not seen.^ For it was on the knowledge of these things that Jesus actually founded His own character and His conduct. It was by believing thus and so, and by living up to His belief, that He was made perfect. And it was by teaching His disciples to believe thus and so that He would bind them to follow His example and inspire them to share His life. " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a Avise man which built his house upon a rock."^ "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you."^
1 " Nicht das Leben Jesu an sich in seinem geschichtlichen Verlaufe, sondern die Aiiffassung der religiosen Bedeutung desselben, auf welche die alteste N. T. liche Verkundigung ruht, bildet den Ausgangspunkt fur die biblische Theologie. Diese Auffassung war aber zunachst bedingt durch die Lelire Jesu, sofern dieselbe die autlientische Erlauterung liber die Bedeutung seiner Person und seiner Erscheinung gab, und daher muss eine Darstellung dieser Lehre den grundlegenden Abschnitt der biblischen Theologie bilden." — Berxhard Weiss, Lehrhuch der Biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testa- ments (2te Auflage, Berlin, 1873), p. 31.
2 St. Matt. vii. 24. 3 gt. John xv. 3, 7.
The Source of Authority 189
m
The importance which Christ ascribed to The His words as the authoritative revehition of "^.''/l,^''!'f.
oj Christ s
unseen verities to the coiifused and darkened teachiw). minds of men, cannot be denied or overlooked by any one who reads the Gospels candidly and intelligently. It is true, indeed, that He ex- pressly disclaimed the idea that His doctrine was created, or invented, or even discovered by Himself. He said, "My doctrine is not mine but His that sent me," ^ " All things that 1 have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." 2 But it is equally true that He claimed an absolute infallibility for the mes- sage which was revealed in Him, committed unto Him, and delivered by Him. This claim is made with equal force in the Synoptics and in St. John. " No one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father ; and Avho the Father is, save the Son, and he to Avhomsoever the Son Avilleth to reveal Him."^ " We speak that we do know, and bear witness of tliat we have seen."^ This is not the language that an honest and conscientious teacher would use to describe his religious opinions or his spiritual
1 St. John vii. IG. 3 gt. Luke x. 22.
2 St. John XV. 15. ■* St. John iii. 11.
original.
190 The Source of Authority
hopes. The wisest and the best of men have always hesitated to assume this tone of cer- tainty in regard to their deepest reflections upon the mysteries of being. But from first to last this tone marks the teaching of Jesus. " They were astonished at His teaching ; for He taught them as having authority, and not as the scribes."^ It «•>«• It is evident that He intended to speak thus.
For nothing is more striking in the manner of His teaching than the absence of all reliance upon corroborative testimony or traditional support.^ He did not seek to defend His posi- tions with a formidable array of great names. He did not make a long catena of quotations from learned sources. He gave out His doc- trine from the depth of His own consciousness as a flower breathes perfume, fresh, pure, origi- nal, and convincing. He certainly felt a Divine inspiration in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. The law and the prophets conveyed to Him the
1 St. Mark i. 22.
2 " Avec une certitude sereine, qui iie semble pas terrestre, il disait ces choses. II chantait, comme aucun propli^te n'avait su le faire, le chant des revoirs ^ternels qui a berc^ pendant des si6cles les souffrances et les agonies. Et ce chant-1^, voici que de nos jours, au triste d^clin des temps, les liomines sc meiireiit de ne plus Pentendre." — Pierre LoTi, La (hdiU'e (Paris, 1896), p. 94.
The Source of Authority 191
word of God. He used them on certain occa- sions to repel the assaults of evil, as in the temp- tation in the wilderness. He used them on other occasions to convince and convict the Scribes and Pharisees out of their own Scriptures. But He never rested upon them as the sole and sufficient basis of His doctrine. He was not a commentator on trutlis already revealed. He ^^^mj
revelation
was a revealer ot new truth. His teaching was not the exposition ; it was the text. And this higher revelation not only fulfilled, but also surpassed, the old ; replacing the temporal by the eternal, the figurative by the factual, the literal, by the spiritual, the imperfect by the perfect. How often Jesus quoted from the Old Testament in order to show that it was al- ready old and insufficient ; that its forms of speech and riiles of conduct Avere like tlie husk of the seed which must be shattered by the emergence of the living germ. His doctrine was in fact a moral and intellectual day- break for the Avorld. He did far more than supply a novel system of conduction for an ancient light. He sent forth from Himself a new illumination, transcending all that had gone before, as the sunrise overfloods the pale glimmering of the morning star set like a beacon of promise upon the coast of dawn.
192 The Source of Authority
He did not rely upon reasoning for the proof of His doctrine. He put no trust in the com- pulsion of logic, in the keenness of dialectics. We look in vain among His words for an exhibition of the ''evidences of Christianity." He did not endeavour to demonstrate the ex- istence of God or the immortality of the soul. What He said was meant to be its own evi- dence. His method was not apologetic ; it was declaratory.
" He argued not, but preached, and conscience did the rest."
The result of this is marvellous and magnifi- cent. His teaching is cleared and disentangled from all that is temporary and transient in human thought. If He had reasoned with men, it must have been done upon the prem- isses and in the forms of philosophy current in that age. Otherwise He could not have reached their intelligence, His reasoning would have been of none effect. But because He passed by all these processes and left them on one side while His doctrine moved simply, di- rectly, and majestically to the heart of the truth, it comes to us to-day free and unencumbered by any of those theories of physical science, of psychology, of political economy, which the growth of knowledge has changed, discredited,
The Source of Authority 193
or discarded. His teaching is neither ancient Itisuni- nor modern, neither deductive nor inductive, ^^^^^ ' neither Jewish nor Greek. It is universal, enduring, valid for all minds and for all times. There are no more difficulties in the Avay of accepting it now than there were when it was first delivered. It fits the spiritual needs of the nineteenth, as closely as it fitted the spiritual needs of the first, century. It car- ries the same attractions, the same credentials in the Western Hemisphere as it carried in the Eastern. It stands out as clearly from all the later, as it did from all the earlier, philoso- phies. It finds the soul as inevitably to-day as it did at first. And the men of this age who hear Christ can only say, as His disciples said long ago, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'* ^
And yet how few are those words, compared -^< « small . , ," c 1 TT in compass.
With the utterances oi other teachers. How small in compass is the doctrine of Jesus as it has come doAvn to us. Eighty pages of a duo- decimo book will hold all of His recorded dis- courses and the story of His life. Other words He must have spoken while He was on earth, but I doubt not that they moved within the same circle. For even in the present record 1 St. John vi. G8.
194 The Source of Aiitliority
we find the same truths recurring again and again, expressed in different language, arranged in different sequence, as the evangelists re- trace, each from his own point of view, the memory of the things which Jesus taught to the multitudes and to His disciples. The lit- erature of the world holds no other doctrine so limited in bulk, so limitless in meaning.
The teaching of Christ differs from that of all other masters in its fontal quality. It is comprised in a little space, but it has an infi- nite fulness. Its utterance is closely bounded, but its significance is inexhaustible. The sacred books of other religions, the commen- taries and expositions on the Christian religion, spread before us a vast and intricate expanse, like lakes of truth mixed with error, stretch- ing away into the distance, arm after arm, bay after bay, until we despair of being able even to explore their coasts and trace their windings. When we come back to Christ, we find, not an inland sea of doctrine, but a clear fountain of living water, springing up into everlasting life.
Calm, pure, unfatliomable, it is never clouded and it never fails. The inspiration of other teachers rises and falls like an intermittent spring. To-day it is brimming full; to-mor-
The Source of Authority 195
row it is empty and dry. But the truth that flows from Jesus is constant and unvarying. The Spirit always rests upon Him. The Father is always with I Tim. Out of the deep serenity of His soul, as from some secret vale of peace high among the eternal hills, the vital spring of truth wells up forever, and forever the crystal stream runs down to refresh and revive the souls of men.
New meanings come out of the teaching of Always Jesus in every land and in every age. New stars are mirrored in its depths. New flowers blossom on its banks. New fields of love are fertilized by its waters. It is not that each succeeding century and race adds something of its own to the doctrine of Christ. It is that each finds in that source something which was meant to become its own, and so to satisfy its deepest needs. The old questions are repeated in new words, and the new answer comes in the old words. ^ The truth as it is in Jesus does not have to be changed and adapted to fit it for a world-Avide missionary enterprise. It needs only to be purified from the things that men
1 "Socrates asked questions wliich his disciples tried to answer ; Jesus provoked His disciples to ask questions which He answered." — James Stalker, Imago Christi (New York, Armstrongs, 1889), p. 270.
idicitti that is in Christ
196 The Source of Authority/
Lave mingled witli it, restored to the simplicity that is in Christ, and it proves itself as fresh, as satisfying, as life-bestowing to the thirsty soul in America or in the islands of the sea, as it did in Galilee or on the hillsides of Judea. The Sim- Wlieii wc ask oursclvcs why it is that the
doctrine of the Master has this enduring, self- renewing, fontal character, I think we must find the answer in the fact that it simply bears witness, witli a directness and inevitableness altogether unparalleled, to the actual existence of a spiritual world corresponding to the spirit- ual faculties and aspirations of men. It does not turn aside to discuss metaphysical problems or theological subtleties. The distinction be- tween the natural and the supernatural does not even appear in the teaching of Jesus. There may, or there may not, be such a distinction. If there is, He at least does not think it impor- tant enough to speak of it. The one thing of whicli He wishes to make men sure is that the same God who sends His sunshine and His rain upon the evil and upon the good, the same God whose bounty feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field with beauty, hears in secret the prayers of the penitent and believ- ing and rewards them openly. The question of t lie how and the where of the life after death
The Source of Authority 197
is not even touched in the teaching of Jesus. It matters little. The one thing that He de- clares with unfaltering certainty is the reality of that life. The one thing that He presses home upon the minds of men Avith calm inten- sity is the danger of losing it through sin and unbelief. The one thing that He tenderly and urgently pleads with them to do, is to make sure of its immortal blessedness through faith and love and obedience to Him. And so, at every point, He passes by the non-essential to touch the essential, He disregards the passing curiosity to satisfy the real anxiety, He neglects the shadows to reveal the substance of the unseen world.
Teaching like this is the only kind of teach- Words of ing that will always renew itself, ahvays have something more to bestow upon us. It cannot grow obsolete. It cannot be drained of its sig- nificance. It is like life. Nay, it is life, and it gives life.
rv
Let us understand, then, that if our Christi- Loyalty to anity is to satisfy our whole nature, if it is to tg„(.itiii'/. have its real and full meaning, and power to bring in the kingdom of heaven, it must in- clude this element. We must be as loyal to
198 The Source of AutJiority
the teaching of Jesus as we are to His example. We must count no pains too great to spend upon the study of that teaching as it lies in the records, and no effort too severe to make in order that it may be restored in its integ- rity and entirety, rounded and harmonized, within the very centre of our minds. And then we must preach it, simply, sincerely, cer- tainly, as the only doctrine Avhich can lead men out of the intellectual anarchy of doubt into the peaceful realm of truth. The age This is what the age is looking and longing
authoritij. ^^r. It cau find no joy in the kingdom of heaven unless it finds there a source of author- ity for the mind as well as for the heart. Au- thority is what the sociologist demands, in order that he may have a sure basis for the precepts of altruism. Authority is what the philosopher seeks, in order that he may have a fixed point of departure and certain limits of speculation. Authority is what the poet craves, as he clings to
" The truths that never can be proved,
Until we close with all we loved And all we flow from, soul in soul." i
Men are crying lo here ! and lo there ! We nuist find the source of authority in an in-
^ Tennyson, In Memoriam.
"^' authority.
The Source of Author ity 199
errant Book, or in an enlightened reason, or in an infallible Church, or perhaps in all three ; as if there could be three sources of one author- ity, or as if a channel could ever be rightly called a source! Let us not hesitate to pass through this confusion of tongues and of ideas, serene and untroubled, with the message of a more excellent Avay.
Christ is the Light of all Scripture. Christ t'hnst is the is the Master of holy reason. Christ is tlie "''"^^^'"^ sole Lord and Life of the true Church. By His word Ave test all doctrines, conclusions, and commands. (3n His Avord Ave build all faith. This is the source of authority in the kingdom of heaA^en. Let us neither forget nor hesitate to appeal to it always Avith un- trembling certainty and positiA^e conviction. If Christ did not knoAv and preach the truth, then there is no truth that can be knoAvn or preached. Unless Ave are sure of this, Ave Avould better go out of business entirely. It is inconceiA^able that the loftiest character in history should be the most mistaken man that <iA^er thought about the real basis and meaning of life. It is incredible that the noblest life in the Avorld should be founded upon a faith that was vain. It is impossible that a supreme devotion and a real likeness to Christ should
tm^k, to learn His creed
20 0 The Source of Authority
have been produced and perpetuated in the world without a veritable apprehension of that Avhich He knew and taught concerning God and man. (jur great To have tliis apprehension clearly formed
within us must be our ardent and joyful intel- lectual endeavour. We are not to rest content with the study of single words and separate phrases. The limitations of language, the con- ditions of transmission, will always expose us to error if we follow that course. The truth as it is in Jesus does not lie in fragments, but in the rounded whole. We must get back to the unity and integrity of the thoughts of Jesus, the creed of Christ. The broad outline of His vision of things human and divine, the central verities which appear firm and un- changeable in all the reports of His teaching, the point of view from which He discerned and interpreted the mystery of life, — that is what we must seek. And when we find it, we must take our stand there as men who feel the solid ground beneath their feet. Illustra- tions and confirmations we may gather from science and history and philosophy. But the rock of certainty is the mind of Jesus, ex- pressed in His living words and in His speak-
The Source of Authority 201
ing life. Beyond tins we need not and we cannot go. Here is the ultimatum. This is the truth, we say to men, because Jesus knew it, and said it, and lived it.
But one thing we may not, we dare not, for- We must get. The condition of apprehending, and how ^t^^j^Zwins much more of preaching, the truth revealed by doctrine. Christ is that we abide in Him. The word of Jesus in the mind of one who does not do the will of Jesus, lies like seed-corn in a mummy's hand. It is only by dwelling Avith Him and receiving His character. His personality so profoundly, so vitally that it shall be with us as if, in His own words, we had partaken of His flesh and His blood, as if His sacred humanity had been interwoven with the very - fibres of our heart and pulsed with secret power in all our veins, — it is thus only that we can be enabled to see His teaching as it is, and set it forth with luminous conviction to the souls of men.
And if ever we ourselves become afraid of Return to our own task, and shrink from it ; if the scep- ticism of our age appalls us and chills us to the very marroAV ; if we question whether a gospel so simple, so absolute, as that which is com- mitted to us can find acceptance in such a world, at such a time as this, — be sure it is
202 The Source of Authority
because we have gotten out of fellowship with Him who is our Peace and our Hope, our Light and our Strength. A Christless man can never preach Christ. We have been anxious and troubled about many things, and have forgot- ten the one thing needful. Peace we must have before we can have power. Let us straight- way return, in prayer, in meditation, in trust, in faithful simple-hearted obedience, to Him who is the only centre of Peace because He is the only source of authority.
" I have a life in Christ to live,
But ere I live it must I wait Till learning can clear answer give
Of this and that book's date ? I have a life in Christ to live,
I have a death in Christ to die ; — And must I wait till science give
All doubts a full reply?
Nay, rather, while the sea of doubt
Is raging wildly round about.
Questioning of life and death and sin,
Let me but creep within
Thy fold, O Christ, and at Thy feet
Take but the lowest seat,
And hear Thine awful voice repeat
In gentlest accents, heavenly sweet,
Come unto Me and rest ;
Believe Me, and be blest." ^
^ John Carxipbell Shairp.
VI
LIBERTY
" But, perfect in every part,
Has the potter's moulded shape Leap of man's quickened heart,
Throe of his thought's escape. Stings of his soul which dart
" Through the barrier of flesh, till keen She climbs from the calm and clear
Through turbidity all between
From the known to the unknown here.
Heaven's ' Shall be,' from Earth's ' Has been '?
" Then life is — to wake and not sleep.
Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep
Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep,
" Where, amid what strifes and storms
May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love — transports, transforms
AVho aspired from worst to best, Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms.' "
— Robert Browning, Reverie.
VI
LIBERTY There are three i3oints at which tlie teacli- Three great
iiig of Jesus comes into closest contact with tlie needs of the present age. Three problems of profound difficulty are pressing to-day upon all thoughtful men: the psychological problem of the freedom of the Avill; the theological prob- lem of the actual relation of God to the uni- verse ; and the moral problem of man's duty to his fellow-men in a world of inequality. Out of the depths of these problems dark and multitudinous doubts are forever rising, like the clouds of smoke and steam which issue from the labouring bosom of Vesuvius, while sub- terranean thunder is muttering and rolling underneath. Most of the intellectual perplex- ities and practical perils of our times come directly from these questions, to Avhich modern scepticism gives an answer of despair, or at best only a dubious and uncertain reply.
But the gospel of Christ, rightly appre- hended and interpreted, offers us a solution
pi'ohlems.
206
lAherty
crty, sover- eif/nty, and service.
Three great of these problems which is full of light and hope and moral certainty. There is a breath of the Spirit in His teaching, pure and strong, pouring like a clean wind out of heaven, to scoff away the obscuring vapours, and reveal the changeless verities and glories of the spiritual landscape. Three truths emerge in His doc- trine, and stand out clear and sharp as moun- tain peaks against the blue : the truth of human liberty, the truth of Divine sovereignty, and the truth of universal service. Of these three truths we must never lose sight, if our thinking is to be in accordance with the mind of Jesus. To these three truths we must bear witness, unhesitatingly, faithfully, and joy- fully, if our preaching is to be a gospel for this age of doubt.
No one who has looked steadily upon the face of modern life as it is reflected in popular literature can doubt that it is '' sicklied o'er " with the dark shadow of fatalism. It is evident in the writings of the learned and in the scrib- blings of the ignorant. Everywhere there is a tendency to explain the whole life of man as tlie product of heredity and environment. The student of physiology, tracing the strange and
Liberty 207
subtle correspondence between the processes of consciousness and the clianges and movements of the nervous system, makes the enormous assumption that the correspondence amounts to identity. All the hopes and fears, all the affec- tions and aspirations, which glorify this mortal life, are in their last analysis the result of cer- tain puckerings and tintinnabulations of the gray matter of the nerves. The actions which flow from them are as necessary as the fall of an apple when the stem is broken. The caress which a mother gives to her child, and the blow with which a murderer strikes his victim dead, are equally automatic and inevitable. They are the motions of delicately constructed puppets, and the triumph of modern investigation is the discovery of the string which moves them and the forces which pull it.
It is true that many of the teachers who steer Materialism
T T , ^ l^ • 1 disavovjed
US, more or less openly, towards tJns conclu- ^^^ taunht. sion are careful to disavow the idea that they are teaching materialism. The name is highly unpopular at the present moment, and there is hardly one of the men of science of to-day who has not protested with indignation that no one should dare to call him a materialist. They have devised subtle theories of some- thing called "mhid-stuff" which they hold.
208 Liberty
"svith W. K. Clifford, "is the reality which we perceive as matter." They distinguish, with Huxley, between matter and force, and a third thing which they call consciousness and which they admit cannot conceivably be a modifi- cation of either of the first two things ; but they go on to say that " what we call the operations of the mind are -functions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity." ^ In short, they give a materialistic explanation of the origin and processes of thought, and then protect themselves against the imputation of being materialists, by solemnly averring that they have not the slightest idea of what matter really is, nor the slightest intention of sug- gesting that it has any resemblance to the so-called mental operations which are prob- ably produced by one of its own forms of activity. licsponsibii- A scheme like this certainly has no room for
ill/ crowded
f,^i_ rree-wiU or personal responsibility. It makes
a man's character and action entirely depen- dent upon the amount and quality of nervous energy that has been transmitted to him by his ancestors and developed by the circumstances of his life. He lives, as Professor Tyndall 1 T. II. Iluxloy, ill The Fortnightly lieview, vol. xL, 793.
Liherty 209
says, in a realm of " physical and moral neces- sity," — though why he should be at pains to say "moral," I can hardly conceive. One ad- jective would serve as well as two, when they both mean the same thing. It requires but a little exercise of this nervous energy on our part, in the form of imagination, to trace it back to its previous form of heat stored up in cer- tain hundredweights of food and appropriated by digestion. From this point our cerebral activity skips lightly and altogether without volition along the various lines of animal and vegetable life, of chemical and physical trans- formations of energ}^, until we arrive at the idea of the sun. From this idea a certain un- controllable change in the gray substance of our brain produces the further notion that the arrangement of certain quantities of mat- ter and force Avhich took place in some in- explicable way long before the birth of the solar system was really the thing that settled the question whether you and I shoukl prefer telling the truth to lying, — if we do. Indeed, there never has been any question at all about it; it was fixed from the beginning. We have no more responsi])ility for it than we have for the colour of our eyes or the shape of our noses.
:210 Liberty
*' Thoughts I have found a brief and explicit statement tomaton." ^^ ^lie position to which this method of think- ing forces those who follow it, in an article ironically entitled " Thoughts of a Human Au- tomaton" in a recent English periodical. ^
'^ I am an automaton — a puppet dangling on my distinctive wire, Avliich Fate holds with an unrelaxing grip. I am not different, nor do I feel differently, from my fellow-men, but my eyes refuse to blink away the truth, which is, that I am an automatic machine, a piece of clockwork wound up to go for an allotted time, smoothly or otherwise, as the efficiency of the machinery may determine. Free-will is a myth invented by man to satisfy his emotions, not his reason. I feel as if I were free, as if I were responsible for my thoughts and actions, just as a ]3erson under the influence of hypnotism believes he is free to do as he j^leases. But he is not ; nor am I. If it were once possible for a rational being to question this fact, the dis- coveries of Darwin must have set his doubts at rest. . . .
"What is crime? A crime is an action tlireatened by the law with punishment, says Kant; and freedom of action or free-will
1 Henry Beauchainp, in The Fortnightly Review, English edition, Marcli, 1892.
Liberty 211
is a legally necessary condition of crime. But the law of heredity conclusively demonstrates that free-will and freedom of action stand in the category of lively imaginings. Therefore crime, as the law understands it, is non-existent, since no imputability can be recognized Avhen a man is not responsible for his actions. There- fore tlie law is not justified in inflicting pun- ishment. . . .
" Briefly to conclude. Religion can no more mix with science than oil with water. Science acknowledges no necessity for the existence of religion, and finally severs the bonds between morality and religion. Morality, altogether independent of religion, is entirely based upon self-interest. The suj)posed connection between religion and morality is an illusion most per- nicious to the general welfare and advance of mankind. Religion, as a superfluity, should be excluded from all educational institutions. Its place will be su]3plied by the creed of scien- tific philosophy — Determinism. The primary principle of Determinism, namely, that a human being is an automaton, and therefore not respon- sible for his thoughts or his acts, taken together with its corollaries, more than suflices for every intellectual need hitherto provided for by re- ligion. For the two great factors in the value
212 Liberty
of religion are its ethics and its sedative prop- erties, and in both these uses Determinism displays overwhelming intellectual superiority. Its ethics are more universal and its consolation more assured ; for they both rest on irrefraga- ble scientific truth. The Determinist is con- sequently never harassed by doubts — the Rock of Ages is fragile compared with the adaman- tine foundation of his creed." The creed of This curious claim of an automaton to have a " creed " Avould be deliciously humorous, if it were not so unutterably sad, and so detest- ably dangerous. For though, as a matter of fact, there are few men who will make, even under an assumed name, such a candid con- fession of faith in their own moral non-entity as that wdiich we have just read, there are many men who are, consciously or unconsciously, preaching the same black creed of Necessity in the subtle forms of literary art, and multi- tudes who are silently accepting it as gospel truth. Fatalism broods over modern fiction and the modern drama like a huge, shapeless spectre; and its influence is felt in all the judgments and conceptions and unspoken but clearly revealed sentiments of a society which finds its chief intellectual pabulum in novels and plays.
Liherty 213
Here is the famous French realist, Zola, of ''The
Human Beast.*'
whose books it is said that enough have been sold to build a pile as high as the Eiffel tower. He writes a novel called La Bete Humaine^ in which he shows how unswervingly the lines of evil run through the plan of life. He describes seven inevitable murders, occurring within eigh- teen months in close connection with a certain fated house, and closes his book with the descrip- tion of a railway train, crowded with soldiers, dragged by an engine whose driver has been killed, dashing at headlong speed into the mid- night. The train is the world ; we are the freight ; fate is the track ; death is the dark- ness ; God is tlie engineer, — Avho is dead.
Here is the leader of the Dutch Sensitivists, ''Footsteps T . ^ 1 • -.1 1 «/ Fate:'
Louis Couperus, who writes a romance called
Noodlot^ " Destiny ^^^ in which four human lives are tangled together in an inextricable and hor- rible coil. One of his characters pauses for an instant in the shameful career to wliich he is impelled. " He threw himself back in his chair, still feebly wringing his hands, and the tears trickled again and again down his cheeks. He saw his own cowardice take shape before him. He stared into its frightened eyes, and he did not condemn it. For he was as fate had made
Ghosts.
Tho small fatalists.
214 Liberty
him. He was a craven, and he could not heip it. Men called such an one as he a coward ; it was but a word. Why coward, or simple and brave, or good and noble ? It was all a matter of convention, of accepted meaning ; the whole world was mere convention, a concept, an illu- sion of the brain. There was notliing real at all _ nothing ! " i
Here is the Norse dramatist, Ibsen, — -the new Shakespeare by the grace of heredity. He writes a drama of life which he calls Grhosts, and shows how every player is haunted by dead ancestors who look through his eyes, speak in his words, and act in his deeds. Echoes of spent passion, shreds and patches of worn-out sin, rags and tatters of the past, — that is the stuff of Avhich life is fabricated, like a piece of shoddy cloth, in the great mill of circumstance which stands on the banks of the river of time and turns out the shabby lives of men and women.
Nor is this view of life confined to the great fcjreign masters of realism. It pervades almost all the minor schools of fiction ; it diffuses it- self insensibly through the work of the feeble and fatuous imitators. A keen and wholesome
1 Louis Couperus, The Footsteps of Fate (New York, Appletons), p. 05,
Liberty 2ir)
critic of our own literature, i\Ir. Cliarles Dudley Warner, put his finger ui)()ii the fact when he wrote : " It has come about that the novels and stories wliich are to fill our leisure hours and cheer us in this vale of tears have become what we call tragic. It is not easy to define what tragedy is, but the term is applied in modern fiction to scenes and characters that come to ruin from no particular fault of their own, — not even when the characters break most of the ten commandments, — but by an unappeasable fate that dogs and tliAvarts them. This is the romance of fatality, and if it is tragedy, it is the tragedy of fatalism."
It is not possible that such a theory of ex- istence should prevail without bringing sadness Melancholy and heaviness into the hearts of men. The "^^"^■^"^'^^*- modern melancholy of which w^e spoke in the first lecture is largely the result of this gen- eral sense of a godless predestination. It is Calvinism with the bottom knocked out. It robs life of all interest, of all joy, of all en- thusiasm. AVas it morphine that drove Guy de Maupassant, the most brilliant of the younger French novelists, to insanity ? Or was it his philosophy that drOve him to morphine as a refuge from the despair and ugliness of exist-
216 Liberty
ence ? Pessimism exudes from fatalism like sepia from tlie cuttlefish. What could be more dispiriting tlian to doubt the reality of all effort, to deny the possibility of self-con- quest and triumpli over circumstances, to find heroism an illusion and virtue a dream? What could break the spring of life more completely than to feel that our feet are tangled in a net whose meshes were woven for us by our ances- tors, and for them by tailless apes, and for them by gilled amphibians, and for them by gliding worms, and for them by ciliated larvae, and for them by amcebse, and for them by God does not know what ? It does not help the case in the least to do as some theologians have tried to do and bring back into the theor}^ by the aid of certain misconstrued and very much overworked passages of Scripture, the idea of a supreme Deity who has constructed the loom and devised the pattern of the net and decreed the weaving of every loop. The chain of Fate is not inade less heavy by fasten- ing the end of it to the distant throne of an omnipotent and impassive Creator. If our false sense of freedom comes from such a Be- ing, who is Himself free, it is all the more a cruel and bitter enigma. If moral responsi-
fatalism.
Liberty 217
bility has been imposed upon us by the same hand which has bound us to an inalteral)le destiny, it is all the more a crushing and mis- erable fraud. To baptize fatalism witli a Baptized Christian name does not cliange its nature. To hold fast to the metaphysical conception of God while accepting Heredity and Environment as His only and infallible prophets is simply to add a new ethical horror to the dismal delusion of life, and to fall back into the pessimism of Omar Khayyam.
" We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes, that come and go Round with this Sun-ilhimined Lantern, held In Midnight by the Master of the Show;
" Impotent Pieces of the (xame He phiys Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.
" The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.
" And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help — for it As impotently rolls as you or L"!
1 Buhdiyat of Omar Khayydm. Rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald, with an accDnipauimeut of draw- ings by Elihu Vedder (Boston, 1884), stanzas 72, 7o, 75, 70.
218 Liberty
II
Is determin- This is the solution which modern positivism, ismproie . ^j^^.j^^gj^g^l ^j, unchristenecl, offers for the prob- lem of the freedom of the will. Before we turn to consider the verj^ different answer which Christ gives to the same question, let us stay for a moment to ask whether this current and popular solution is of the nature of a demonstration, or of the nature of a doubt. Is it so clearly proven that science forces us to accept determinism ? Or is it an unveri- liable assumption, which is made under tlie influence of a general scepticism in regard to spiritual realities, and which leaves out of view quite as many and quite as important facts as those which it professes to explain? Are we compelled to admit it ; or is it only one of two alternatives, neither of which is scientifi- cally demonstrable, so that the choice between them must rest upon other considerations ?
I do not hesitate to say tliat the whole weight of sober and sane criticism inclines to the lat- ter conclusion. Determinism has not yet been established either by physiological, psychologi- cal, or metaphysical argument. rininnnphy 'Hic couimou assumptiou that the abstract "'^■' ""■ reasoning of Jonathan Edwards against the
Liberty 219
liberty of the will lias never been and cannoc be refuted, is based upon ignorance of the facts. An American philosopher, ^Ir. Rowland Haz- ard, has answered it with great clearness and force. Professor George P. Fisher says : " The fundamental point of Mr. Hazard's criticism of Edwards is full}^ established. It must l)e allowed that his confutation of that conception of the Avill which underlies the reasoning of the great theologian is sound and conclusive."^
The support which modern science is sup- Science s(h/s posed to give to the theory of determinism turns out, upon closer examination, to be alto- gether illusor3^ The soundest and most care- ful investigators utterly decline to commit themselves to that metaphysical dogma, or to bind out science as a maid-of-all-work in the service of fatalistic theology.
The most distinguished of living English Free-will a scientists recently said : " The influence of „„>ac/e. animal or vegetable life on matter is intinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demon- strated daily miracle of our human free-w ill, ^and
1 Rowland Hazard, Freedom of Mind in Willing (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889). Introduction by George P. Fisher, p. xxxi.
220 Liberty
in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely dif- ferent from any possible resnlt of the fortui- tons concourse of atoms. The real phenomena of life infinitely transcend human science." ^ The theory that consciousness is a function of the brain breaks down completely when it attempts to explain the phenomena of sleep. Why should all the other functions of the body be carried on without fatigue and with- out interruption while this alone demands rest and admits of intervals of cessation ? If con- sciousness is a function of nerve-matter, sleep abolishes it. How does it come back again without losing the sense of personal identity? Thought is Is it couccivable that the highest character, the loftiest genius, is purely an intermittent secretion of certain nerve-cells, and that dur- ing the hours of sleep, embracing one-third of its entire history, it is absolutely non-existent ? ''Function," says an eminent neurologist, "is a physiological term, and it is, I submit, im- proper to speak of states of consciousness as being functions of the brain. ... It is not the mind, but the physical basis of mind, which is a product of physical evolution. It is the
' Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson), in The FoHm(/htly Jieview, March, 18U2.
II '>t a secre (ion.
Liberty 221
organ of mind, not the mind of itself, wliicli being an evolution out of the rest of the body is representative of it.''^
The fact that the brain is a double organ, — The bruin that there are really two brains, only one of [llZind which is used, — cannot be explained on the theory that consciousness is merely the result of the vibration of nerve filaments, as the music of the ^olian harp is the result of the pas- sage of the wind over its strings. A distin- guished physiologist has cleverly shown that if this were the case a double brain would mean a double amount of thought, just as tAvice the number of strings would mean twice the quan- tity of music. 2 But the fact that this is not so, points clearly to the hypothesis that the brain is not an JEolian harp helplessly vibrating under external impulses, but a double organ with tw^o sets of keys, and the mind is like the player who can use either one of them to make the music. And this corresponds closely with our own sense of the process. For we are conscious not only of passive thoughts and
1 Dr. J. Hughlings Jackson, " Lecture on the Comparative Study of Diseases of the Nervous System " (British Medical Journal, August 17, 1889).
2 Dr. William H. Thomson, Materialism and Modern Physiology of the Nervous System (New York, Putnams, 1892), pp. 83 ff.
222 Liberty
feelings, evoked within ns by external canses, Ijut also of thoughts and feelings voluntarily directed and combined, woven together in crea- tive harmonies, and moving under the guidance of chosen ideals towards a symphonic complete- ness. Even the sense of discord and conflict which often rises Avithin us is an evidence that there is a player as well as an instrument. For it is inconceivable that an Jj^olian harp, ill- strung, should dislike its own bad music, and endeavour, or think that it could endeavour, to make a better, sweeter sound.
Heredity is undoubtedly a real and power- ful force. It supplies the outfit of life. But does it determine the use which we shall make of it ? The very extension of the doctrine by the investigations of science dissolves this narrow and absolute conclusion. We inherit from thousands, from hundreds of thousands, of ancestors. The blood of man}' families and tribes and races is mingled in our veins. What is it that decides which of these many lines Ave shall folloAv ? It must be either blind chance or free choice. All the phenomena of society, all the facts of consciousness, are in fa \- our of the latter supposition. We see men wliose lieritage is of the lowest and the worst, working their way up, by sheer strength of
Liberty 228
moral choice and effort, to a higher pUuie.
We see men whose heritage is of the loftiest
and the best, declining
"tliro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still," i
to the very depths of infamy. It is true that a man cannot bring out of himself anything that is not already there. But it is true also, by virtue of heredity, that there are many potential men in every man, and which of them is to emerge, he chooses for himself by a thou- sand silent moral preferences ; by yielding or by resisting; by the cowardice and corruption, or by the courage and purification of his own free-will.
Even those who write of liuman life from a Moral juda- professedly naturalistic standpoint cannot p-et "'^^^'^
^ 'J i o assume
rid of this conviction. Take Zola, for example, liberty. If he were consistent, he would speak with equal and impassive coldness of all his charac- ters, tangled together in the inextricable toils of heredity. I>ut he cannot help letting his hatred and contem})t for the selfish, the luxu- rious, the vicious, express itself in the very accent with whicli he describes them. He cannot help showing his admiration and affec-
1 Tennyson's poem, Will.
224 Liberty
tion for those who, like Benise and Doctor Fascah and Clotilde, rise out of the infamy which envek)ps the family Rougon-Macqiiart. Virtue and vice may be scientifically treated as if they were merely natural products like sugar and vitriol ; but when we come to talk of them from a human and humane standpoint, there is something within us which demands that we shall recognize a merit in being virt- uous, and a shame in being vicious, — qualities which can never belong to mere secretions, whether of plants or of nerves, — qualities which have no possible meaning unless there is a free-will in man, capable of choosing be- tween the evil and the good. The testi- Now that a free-will is possible, modern psy-
nuxieni oliology assures us, as the result of its latest re- ],!<ijr.hoi<jgy. searches. It does not attempt to demonstrate the existence of such a power by physiological investigation. It confesses that this demon- stration is impossible w^ith our present know- ledge. But it declares with equal candour that tlie contrary attempt to show that the sense of freedom is a delusion, is inconclusive. " The last Avord of psychology here," says Professor William James, ''is ignorance, for the forces engaged are too delicate and numerous to be followed in detaiL" He points out the ex-
Liherty 225
tremely reckless and inconsequent niiture of the reasoning by which the determinists seek to make mere analogies drawn from the course of rivers, and reflex actions, and other material phenomena, serve as proofs that the Avill is a mechanical effect. He exposes the bold as- sumption by which they ignore tlie testimony of consciousness in the presence of feeling and effort. He shows that the utmost whicli any argument for determinism can do is to present a possible hypothesis, which a man who lias already determined to hold fast to the idea that the whole universe is one chain of inevi- table causation may accept if he likes. But meanwhile the other alternative stands equally open. The moral arguments all point in that direction. The only course, in such a situa- Free-will is tion, is voluntary choice. "For scepticism it- self, if systematic, is also voluntary choice. If, meanwhile, the will be indetermined, it would seem only fitting that the belief in its inde- termination should b^ voluntarily chosen from amongst other possible beliefs. Freedom's first deed should be to affirm itself. . . . Thus not only our morality but our religion, so far as the latter is deliberate, depends on the effort wliich we can make. * Will you or ivonH you have it so f is the most pi-obing
Q
possible.
226 Liberty
question Ave are ever asked : we are asked it every hour of the da}^, and about the largest as well as the smallest, the most theoretical as well as the most practical, things. We answer hy consents or non-consents^ and not by words. What wonder if these dumb responses should seem our deepest organs of communication with the nature of things I What wonder if the effort demanded by them should be the measure of our worth as men ! What wonder if the amount Avhich we accord of it be the one strictly underived and original contribu- tion which we make to the world ! " ^
m
Christ says Here, then, modern science, careful, exact, real. ^ ^^ reverent, as distinguished from modern scep- ticism, leaves us before the two doors. And here Christ comes to us, calling us to enter through the door of liberty into the pathway of eternal life. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." 2 ''If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching. "^
1 William James, Psychology, vol. ii., p. 579. '^ St. Matt. vii. 7. 8 St. John vii. 17.
Liberty 227
Tlie whole life and ministry of Jesus is a ^^^ ^^f*^ ^f
1 • p ^ c -t TT- Jesus, a
revelation oi moral ireedom. His entrance reveiationoj into the world was voluntary. His continu- P'^^-^^ii^- ance in human life was voluntaiy. His death was voluntary. At the first crisis of His life He chose to go about His Father's business. In the temptation He chose to resist the allure- ments of the Evil One. On the Avay to the cross He chose not to call on God for the deliverance which He knew would come in answer to His call. He was, indeed, fulfilling an appointed task, treading the path which had been marked out for the feet of the Christ ; but He Avas fulfilling the task freely ; He was walking in liberty because He loved to do the will of God. The triumph of His virtue lay in the freedom of His choice.
There was a singular propriety in the text of The preach-
TT. r> ITT rj 11^- ing of Jesus,
His first public discourse. It was a declaration ^ gospel of of liberty, as well as of grace. It was an eman- ^i^^^'tu- cipation proclamation as well as a gospel of com- fort and help. ^' The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He hath sent me to pro- claim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are crushed, to proclaim the acceptable year of
sees taught Fate.
228 Liberty
the Lord."^ And what was the oppressive bondage from which He prochiimed release? Was it not the tyranny of a false doctrine of necessity over the minds of men, as well as the enslaving influence of sin over their inert and hopeless wills ? The Phari- Here Avere the scribes and Pharisees teach- ino' that the whole world was divided into two classes, — the chosen and the not-chosen, the rio-hteous for whom salvation was secure what- ever they might do, and the sinners for whom salvation was impossible whatever they might do. Here were the outcast, the lost, the neg- lected, shut out, by no choice of their own, but by their birth, by the occupations in which they were engaged, by their ignorance, by the very conditions of their life, from all part in the kingdom of heaven as the scribes and Pharisees conceived it ; not only the harlots and the publicans, but also Am Haarez^ ''the people of the land," with whom it was not fit- ting tliat a righteous person should have any dealings; 2 miserable souls, bound by inheri- tance to a desperate and unhallowed fate. Here came Jesus, taking His way directly to these lost ones, these outsiders, and telling them that all this doctrine of inevitable doom was a chain 1 St. Luke iv. 18. - Brace, Kingdom of God, 145.
Liberty 229
of lies, breaking the imaginary fetters from Jesus tavc/ht their souls and assuring them by His lirst word that they were free, even though they were ignorant of it. "Repent," He cried, "for the kingdom of heaven has approached unto you."i "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. "^ And what is tlie signili- cance of these words, "repentance" and "con- version,"— their real significance, I mean, not that which has been read into them by centuries of false and formal theology? They are not passive and involuntary words ; they do not rest upon the idea of qualifications which may or may not be in the possession of those to whom Christ speaks. They are active words, — words of inward movement and exertion. " Repent " means change your mind; make that simple effort of the soul for internal change which is the ultimate act of the free will , ^ put forth
1 St. Matt. iv. 17.
2 St. Matt, xviii. 3.
3 " Every intelligent being, capable of conceiving of higher ethical conditions than he has j-et attained, has in his own moral nature for the exercise of his creative powers an inti- nite sphere, within which ... he is the supreme disposer. ... A man who does not want to be pure and noble, may yet begin one step lower in the scale of moral advancement, with the wish to want to be pure and noble ; and, here comnieuc- ing the cultivation of his moral nature, ascend from this lower
230 Liberty
that power of fixed attention to the new motive
which is the central essence of liberty and the
creative force of the soul.^ "Be converted,"
as Christ spoke the word, is not passive ; it
expresses an action exercised by the soul within
itself ; it means simply " turn around " ; set
yourself in a new relation to God, to truth, to
Faith is yirtue. The name of this relation is faith. free.
'' Believe " is Christ's great word. It is the '•'open sesame''^ of the kingdom. "Believe in God, believe also in Me.'' ^ " He that belie veth hath everlasting life." ^ "All things are possible to him that believeth." ^ But it is never spoken of as a mere intellectual opinion, or emotional experience, an irresistible conviction wrought by external evidence in the mind, or bestowed without effort upon the soul. The Bible never says that faith is a gift. There is a voluntary element in it. It is something to be done by the exercise of an inward power. It is a com- ing of the soul to Christ ; it is a following of the
point, through the want to be pure and noble, to the free effort to gratify this want." — Rowland Hazard, Freedom oj Mind in Willing, "Of Effort for Internal Change" (Bos- ton, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889), chap. xiv.
1 "The essential achievement of the will when it is most • voluntary,' is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind." — Jamks, Psychology, vol. ii., p. fiOl.
2 8t. John xiv. 1. 3 gf joim vi. 47. ^ St. Mark ix. 23.
Liberty 231
soul after Him ; it is the first step in a long course of spiritual activit3\ It is a deed. The disciples said unto Christ, "What must Ave do that we may work the works of God ? " Jesus answered, "This is the Avork of God, that ye believe on Him Avhom He hath sent." ^
Now there is not a hint in all the teaching of All may Jesus that this first act of freedom is impossible *^ ^^^^' for any soul to whom He speaks. He has no idea of an eternal predestination binding some to belief and others to unbelief, a secret decree in- cluding certain men in the kingdom and exclud- ing others from all possibility of entering into it. It is true that He says, " No man can come unto Me except the Father draAV him "; ^ but what He means by this drawing He tells us in the par- able of the Lost Son, where it is the simple knowledge of the Father's abundant love that draws the prodigal back from the far country of sin; 3 and in the parable of the Publican in the Temple, * where it is the sense of the Divine mercy and forgiveness that makes the outcast man cry, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." There is prevenient grace in the doctrine of Jesus. But the grace is there. It has already come. All that man has to do is to meet it, to
1 St. John vi. 28, 29. » St. Luke xv.
2 St. John vi. 44. * St. Luke xviii. 10-14.
232
Liberty
Christ is God's call to faith.
No predesti- nation to death.
put himself into the upward swing of it, that it may lift and help him heavenward.
A calling and a choosing by God are neces- sary before any man can be saved. But Jesus does not speak of this choosing and calling as eternal. Christ Himself is the call, and all who answer it are chosen. '' If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." ^ " Him that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out.''^ The heavenly invitation is set forth in all its generosity and sincerity in the story of the Marriage P'east.^ The bidding went out into the highways and hedges, to the bad and to the good; and all who heard and accepted it were welcome. And if a single guest was turned away, it was only because his own conduct showed that he had not really taken the invi- tation honestly and accepted willingly all that was provided for him.
There is not a single word in all that Jesus said to suggest any other reason than this for the exclusion of a single person from the bless- ings of the kingdom. " Ye icill not come unto Me that ye might have life.'"* ''How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
1 St. John vii. 37.
2 St. John vi. T.
3 St. Matt. xxii. 1-14. ^ St. John V. 40.
Liberty 233
her wings, and ye would not.'''^ There is not one statement that anything else but mercy and grace has been eternally prepared by God for any human soul. In tliat awful parable of judgment which discloses the convincing picture of the final separation of the evil from the good, Christ says distinctly that the joy of the blessed has been prepared for them from the foundation of the world, but of the punish- ment of the cursed, He says with equal dis- tinctness that it was not prepared for them, but for the devil and his angels. ^ No one is ever lost because lie cannot do good, but only because he will not do what he can.
Christ recognizes the undoubted trutli wliicli Christ on lies in the doctrine of heredity ; but Pie ex- poses, and almost ridicules, the false and fatal extremes to which men think it out. To the Jews, who claimed that because they were Abraham's seed they must be free, He shoAved that they were in bondage to their own sins. They had cliosen to break away from the heredity of faith and rigliteousness, and Avere no longer the true children of Abra- ham. They had become the children of the devil, because they had '' willed to do his works." 2 lie said to His disciples wlio took
iSt. Matt, xxiii. 87. ^st. Matt. xxv. :U-41. 3 St. Jolm viii. 3:3-47.
The iveak- ness of viun.
234 Liberty.
up the cant of the day about hereditary sin and punishment, asked Avhether the blind man or his parents had sinned that he was born blind, " Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." ^ The true inheritance, the deepest inheritance which Jesus recognizes in the human race, is an inheritance from God ; a nature made in the Divine image, spiritual, free, responsible, and capable, though so sadly marred, though so far astray, of returning to communion with the Heavenly Father.
Undoubtedly Christ perceived and taught the immense difficulty of being good ; the in- firmity which long centuries of sin has wrought into the very fibres of the soul; the awful and almost inaccessible height of true holi- ness ; the enormous obstacles which lie in the way of attaining it. The gate is strait, and we must agonize to enter in by it. The road is steep, and we must toil to climb it. "J low hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God." 2 And yet "the kingdom of heaven suft'ereth violence, and men of violence take it by force. "^ There is an effort which succeeds even in this greatest of all endeavours, not in its own strength,
1 8t. John ix. 3. 2 gt. Mark x. 23.
8 St. Matt. xi. 12.
Liberty 235
but because it is sure of a Divine assistance. T/w (/race "With man it is impossible, but not with "■' ^"''" God."i To the human will, enfeebled and corrupted, so that it is like a sick man, barely able to turn Jiimself U[)on his couch, and look and long and cry for help, three great sources of strength are always open and accessible.
The first is prayer. "Men ought always to ^'-ayer. pray, and not to faint." ^ How sweet and serene is the voice that rings through the vain disputations and doubtful wranglings of the scribes and Pharisees, and calls every sinful soul to pray ! Pray I you may not be able to realize your ow'n ideal, but you can ask (iod to help you hold fast to it and struggle towards it. Pray !
" More things are wrought by prayer Tliaii this world dreams of." ^
Pray ! For God is not deaf, nor sleeping, nor gone upon a journey ; He has not bound you to an inexorable fate and bound Himself not to interfere with it. Pray ! The liberty of your o^vn soul, and the liberty of God Hinisi'lf, dwells in that word ; for when you stretch your feeble hand to Him, a Divine hand will meet it, and
1 St. Mark x. 27. 2 st. Luke xviii. 1.
3 Tennyson, llie Passimj of Arthur.
Spirit.
Christ our Helper.
236 Liberty
break your fetters, and lift you out of darkness and death into life and light. The Holy The second source of strength is the Holy
Spirit. It is inconceivable, morally impossible, that there should be such a Spirit, and yet that His influence should be withheld from those who need and implore it. '' If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask Him."i
The third source of strength is Christ Him- self. Does the sense of past guilt stand in the way of future effort ? He says, '' I have power on earth to forgive sins." ^ Does the soul feel dead and hopeless under the burden of evil habits ? He says, " I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." ^ Do the works of a true and vital righteousness seem far beyond our power? He says, ''Without Me ye can do nothing ; " ^ but, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the Avorld." ^ " He that believeth on ^le, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father."^ The whole
1 St. Luke xi. 13. * St. John xv. 5.
2 St. Mark ii. 10. 6 st. Matt, xxviii. 20.
3 St. John X. 10. 6 St. John xiv. 12.
Lihertij 237
life of Christ is summed iij) in tlie words, " liut as many as received llim, to them gave lie power to become the sons of God." ^
But this receiving, Ave need to rememl)er and The way of assert again and again, is not a i)assive thing. '^''^'^''''""'■^• It is an action of the soul, the opening of a door within the heart, the Avelcoming of a heavenly master. God does not save men as a watch- maker who repairs and sets a watch, but as a King Avho recalls his servants to their duty, as a Father who makes new revelations of His love to draw His lost children back to Himself. The dogmas of the schools in regard to the working out of what they call the scheme of redemption sound like the creak and rattle of some vast machine. The doctrine of Christ is like the soft breath of spring, evoking the songs of birds and the unfolding of new life. No fiery chariot of grace swoops down to snatch men to glor}'. But a living ^Messenger comes forth from God to ask men to turn and walk back with Him to their soul's home. The invitation itself is a guarantee of the power to accept it. With au- thority Christ commanded the Avinds and the sea and they obeyed Him. But with gracious plead- ing He invited the hearts of men, and those that were willing gladly heard and followed Him. 1 St. John i. 12.
238
Liberty
God helps those icho help them- selves.
Christus Liberator.
^*lf any man ivills to come after Me," i — that is the prelude of His message. He offers a leader- ship to men who can follow, a mastership to men who can obey. Out of this first movement He promises to guide and direct the whole de- velopment of the new life, — not a passive life of retirement, of ascetic meditation, of reflec- tion upon secret truth, — but an active life of service, of warfare against evil in the world, a life which translates truth into conduct.
Contrast the religion of Jesus in this respect with the Oriental religions, and with those forms of Christianity which have borrowed the garments of Buddha and speak with the accent of Mahomet. They despise and slight per- sonality. Christ respects and emphasizes it. They aim to reduce and evaporate responsi- bility. Christ aims to deepen and increase it. They point forward to a blank Nirvana in which the individual is lost and absorbed, or a Paradise in Avhich he is forever lapped in sensual ease and pleasure. Christ speaks of the perfecting of the individual through the Divine communion and service on earth, and liis entrance in heaven upon a new stage of tlie same communion, the same service, — " not in a blessed idleness, but in an exalted
1 St. Matt. xvi. 24.
Liberty 239
kingly work and activity/' And the entrance to this kingdom on earth, the continuance in its reahn of liberty, the attainment of its final glory, are all through an act of the will. The freedom which originated in God is only to l)e preserved by returning to God and abiding in Him.
" Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine." ^
That is the teaching of Jesus. That is the truth which, when it comes to men, makes them and keeps them free.
IV
It is impossible that we should be faithful The age
- needs this
preachers of Christ to the present age, unless message. we preach this truth. There may have been ages in which it was important to dwell upon other sides and aspects of the manifold reality of the spiritual world. But to-day this is the important side ; this is the aspect whicli de- mands a clear recognition and an unfaltering proclamation by those who mean to be true to Christ and loyal to the needs of humanity. I do not believe that there is a single passage in the Old Testament which contradicts Christ's 1 Tennyson, In Memoriam, Prooni.
240 Liberty
doctrine of the real liberty of the soul. But if there were such a passage, I would leave it forever alone, as belonging to that knowledge which was in part, and which was done away when that which was perfect had come. I do not believe that there is a single word in the writings of St. Paul which stands against this doctrine of the real liberty of the soul. I cut loose from the false interpretations which men have read into his words. I take the light of Christ's teaching in my hand, and I go back to interpret by tliat light the teach- ings of the great Epistle to the Romans with its glorious revelation of '^ the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eter- nal, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto obedience of faith.'' ^ I hear again the cry of the struggling, labouring, con- quering apostle : '' To toill is present with 7ne, but to do that Avhich is good is not. ... O wretched man that 1 am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Christ Jesus our Lord ;'"^ and I know that St. Paul also was a believer in the free- dom of the will, and that he received this 1 Rom. xvi. 26. 2 i^om. vii. 18, 24, 25.
Liheriy 241
gospel and the power to fulfil it, through tlie proclamation of libert}' in Jesus Clirist.
"This matter of free-will," wrote one of the Fr'^^-ii-m most orthodox of theologians, but a few years quesUan.'^'^ before his death, "underlies everything. If you bring it to question, it is infinitely more tJian Calvinism. ... I believe in Calvinisui, and I say that free-will stands before Calvin- ism. Everything is gone if free-will is gone ; the moral system is gone, if free-will is gone ; you cannot escape except by Materialism on the one hand or by Pantheism on the other. Hold hard therefore to the doctrine of free- will."!
Yes, and we may say more than tliis. Not only is the moral system gone, but the great attraction of Christ is gone, the power of His gospel to liberate men is gone, if free-will is gone.
The age has hypnotized itself. It is drift- The aye has
"^ T ^ T T 1 • r hypnotized
ing steadily towards fatalism. It denies tree- i^^^if dom, and therefore it is not free. It is in bondage to its own doubt. It is enslaved by its own denial. If there is such a thing as liberty, it can only be developed, as everything else has been developed, by action, by exercise.
1 A, A. Hodj^e, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes (Philadelphia, 1887), p. 184.
242
lAherty
Life is self-change to meet environment. Lib- erty is self-exertion to unfold the soul. The law of natural selection is that those who use a faculty shall expand it, but those who use it not shall lose it. Religion is life, and it must grow under the laws of life. Faith is simply the assertion of spiritual freedom ; it is the first adventure of the soul. Make that ad- venture towards God, make that adventure towards Christ, and the soul will know that it is alive. So it enters upon that upward course which leads through the liberty of the sons of God to the height of heaven.
" Where love is an unerring light And joy its own security." ^
This is the truth with which we are to go out a-gospelling in this age of doubt. We are to tell men that though much has been deter- mined for them by causes beyond their control, — their circumstances, their talents, their facul- ties, — one thing has not been determined, and that is what they will do with them. Much has been ordained before their birth, — their nation- ality, their family, their station in life, — but one thing has not been ordained, and that is whether they are to move from this starting- 1 Wordsworth, Ode to Duty.
Liberty 243
point towards life or towards death. They may be like men sunken in a nightmare dream of helplessness, muttering in their sleep, "If I am to be saved, I shall be saved ; if I am to be lost, I shall be lost," — but we must cry to them with the voice of the Spirit : '' Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."
VII
SOVEREIGNTY
" I say to thee, do tliou repeat To the first man thou iiia3^est meet In lane, highway, or open street —
" That lie and we and all men move Under a canopy of love, As broad as the blue sky above ;
*' That doubt and trouble, fear and j^ain And anguish, all are shadows vain. That death itself shall not remain ;
" That weary deserts w^e may tread, A dreary labyrinth may thread. Through dark ways underground be led;
" Yet if we will one Guide obey, The dreariest path, the darkest w^ay, Shall issue out in heavenly day ;
" And we, on divers shores now cast, Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, All in our Father's house at last."
KiCHAIJD ClIENEVIX ThENCH,
The Kingdom of God.
science.
VII
SOVEREIGNTY
The questions about the world Avhich science ^''^ ^o""- consiclers and answers, all have to do with 1"/.!!/' secondary causes. Beyond that sphere she does not need to go, and within that sphere her wis- dom is sufficient. We come to her like curious children. We "want to see the wheels go round." We want to know what the wheels are made of. She tells us, and there she stops. All that we have a right to ask of her is that she shall be true to facts, and that she shall confine herself to them. When the astronomer Laplace was reproached for not mentioning God in his treatise on the dynamics of the solar system, he answered, "I had no need of that hypothesis." And this reply was just, as Mr. John Fiske has pointed out, because " in order to give a specific explanation of any single group of phenomena, it would not do to ap- peal to divine action, which is equally the source of all phenomena."^
1 Christian Literature, January, 1896, "The Everlasting Reality of Religion," p. 300.
247
248 Sovereignty
The great But the moment we take tliis reasonable
Veytnd^^ ^^ ^^^^ modest position (and it is a great pity them. that theology has not been more ready to take
it), we perceive that curiosity in regard to single groups of phenomena by no means satis- fies or exhausts the activity of the questioning spirit in man. There is a deeper curiosity in regard to the relation of these single groups of phenomena to each other, and to ourselves, and to the possibility of a meaning, a purpose, an end, underlying all things and all theii workings. Out of this deeper curiosity rise the questions which are most urgent and vital — questions which, when we consider them ab stractly, are philosophical, and condition the unity of our intellectual life ; but when we con- sider them personally, they are religious, and upon their answer our spiritual peace and moral action absolutely depend. How are we to think about the things that we know ? What are we to believe in regard to the things that sciences tells us we cannot know, but which we stil! feel are necessary conditions of all intelligent and right conduct ? Is there an invisible wniiy beneath all the visible diversity of phenomena? What is the nature of that unity, personal oi impersonal, conscious or unconscious? Is there anything behind the mechanical working of
tioji of sovereignty.
Sovereignty 249
the world, now so wonderfully explained, which corresponds to what there is in us wlien we make and use a machine or an instrument, when we plant and cultivate a garden, or when we select and train a noble race of animals? Is there a final cause towards whicli things work together, and a supreme power which guides them to that end?
This is the question of sovereignty. We The ques can no more help asking it than we can help thinking.
We are in the world like voyagers on a ship. We inquire what the ship is made of; and science tells us, — iron and wood. .Vud wliat makes it float ? The buoyancy of the air which it contains. And what makes it go? Steam. And what makes the steam? The heat of the furnace. Then, if we are sufficiently inter- ested, science takes us down into the engine- room, and shows us all the condensers and pistons and cranks and wheels, more fully than they have ever been shown before ; and we are amazed and profoundly grateful. We come up again into the light of day. We look into the overarching heaven, the home of sunshine and storm, the deep mother of light and darkness. We look out upon the great and wide sea, full of mystery and terror. New questionings
Doubt
ii'isicers,
X.).
250 Sovereigyity
j[asthe spring to our lips. Where is the ship going?
Zarttainf ^^ there a captain on board ? Does he know, does he care, what is to become of it? Is he wise, is he faithful, is he a good captain ? Can he direct the vessel through tempests and dan- gers? Can he tell us how to work with him, how to act in times of peril and perplexity? Can we be sure of him, can we trust liim ?
Now to this questioning, scepticism gives a repl}' of desperate uncertainty ; and positivism answers with a stern and sullen. No ! The world is a derelict vessel, and we are master- less and lost mariners. This answer has been expressed by a French poet in powerful and pathetic verse.
" Jouet de I'ouragan, qui I'eniporte et le mene, Enconibre de tresors et d'agres submerges, Ce navire perdu, mais c'est le nef humaiiie, Et nous sommes les r.aufrages.
•' L'equipage affole manoeuvre en vain dans I'ombre; L'fipouvaiite est a bord, le Desespoir, le Deuil; Assise au gouvernail, la Fatalite sombre Le dirige vers un ecueil."i
But Christ gives a very different answer. It seems as if His very words Avere chosen to contradict this view of life as a helpless, hope-
1 L. Ackerman, Ma Vie, Poesies, etc. (Paris, 1885), " Le Cri,'' p. 180.
Sovereignty 251
less voyage, and humanity as a sliipwrecked Christ race. For what is it that He says to His y^^^"'"^'' disciples as they look out upon the mystery of existence ?
" Seek not what ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink, neither be ye as a ship that is tossed on the ivaves of a tempestuous sea {/ni] /xerecopi- ^eaOe), for your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." ^
The vessel is not driving masterless over the ocean. The Captain is on board. He is God. He is also our Father. For all who trust and serve Him, it is a sure voyage, a certain port, a safe harbour.
The doctrine of the presence and sovereignty The
c r^ t • TT- 11' r ii ■ sovereiffuty
01 (jrod in His world, m one lorm or another, is ^j- qq,j essential to the validity of any reasoning which attempts to go beyond the mere appearance of things. Without it we find ourselves, as one has well said, " put to permanent intellectual confusion." Without it the world lies before us, as Pope wrote in the first draft of liis Essay on Man^ —
** A mighty maze, and all without a plan."
1 St. Luke xii. 29.
252
Sovereignty
Christ's view of it.
Contrasted icith other vieics.
And if we follow the poet in that cold j^hilo- sophical deism which led him to revise his fa- mous line so that it now reads
" A mighty maze, but not without a plan," ^ Ave are still in the dark, still confused and hopeless, unless Ave go further and learn enougli of Him Avho made the plan, to trust Him even w^hen we cannot perfectly understand His Avork- ing, and to confide absolutely in ''His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and govern- ing all His creatures and all their actions." ^
This is Avhat Christ gives us : a Adew of God in His Avorld which requires faith to accept it, but which Avlien it is accepted, satisfies the rea- son and the heart better than any other view, clears away many of the intellectual and moral difficulties Avhich beset us, and becomes the in- Avard source not of doubt and distress, but of certainty and peace.
This is not true, Ave must admit, of some of the forms in which the doctrine of divine soa^- ereignty has been preached in Christ's name. They have often disregarded the facts of nat- ure. They have often outraged the moral instincts of humanity. They have created new obstacles to faitli. They have driven men
1 Pope's Essay on Man, part i., line 6. '^ The Shorter Catechism, question xi.
Sovereignty 253
back in dumb resentment to believe in the positivist's ''sombre Fatality," rather than in an absentee (Jod who has foreordained, by one and the same decree, all the evil and all the good, all the sorrow and shame and suffering that are in the world.
Not so with Christ's teaching. It is sane and sweet. It allays resentment and begets serenity. It gives a reconciling, harmonizing, atoning view of God's sovereignty. And if Ave can see it clearly and 23reach it faithfully, it will be to-day, as it was in His day, one of the great attractions of the gospel for an age of doubt.
II
Christ's doctrine of the divine sovereignty ChHsVs was both old and new. It Avas old because it recognized the truth, uttered so magniticently by prophets and psalmists, of God's right and poAver to rule the universe Avhich He has made. ''Thy throne, O God, is for ever and CA^er."! "The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens and His kingdom ruleth over all."^ "He doeth according to His Avill in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth : and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou? "^ 1 Psalm xlv. 6. 2 psalm ciii. 19. -^ Daniel iv. 35.
and nexo.
254 Sovereignty
A simpler But Clirist's cloctriiie Avas new because it
revealed the presence of the sovereign God in the physical universe more simply, more natu- rally, more intimately, than it had ever been revealed before. How gentle, how plain, how mildly luminous, is the language in which Jesus expresses this truth, compared with the flashing, rolling speech of the prophets I He uses the words of common life, transfigured Avith emotion, — the language of 13^10, rather than of epic, poetry.
God in His The manifestations of divine power in the Old Testament appear chiefly as mighty works, exceptional forthputtings of supernal force. It seems sometimes as if they came from a distance ; as if God had withdrawn from the world and had been called back to it by the peril and the cry of His people. But Clirist would teach us to feel that He has never gone away for an instant. He is always here. Nothing tliat happens is hidden from Him. Nor does He hide Himself from any avIio would behold Him. We may see Him every day, in the feeding of the birds, in tlie blos- soming of the flowers,
<' And every wayside bush aflame with God."
In all the processes of nature He is present and sovereign.
Sovereignty 255
This view of tlie relation of God to the nia- '^''*<^ <Uvine
terial world is not external and mechanical. It is inward and vital. God has not made the world and wound it up and left it to run l)y itself. He is in it, as really as a man is in the house that he inhabits, and all the potencies that move and animate it Hoav directly from Him. The Jews thought tliat (lod liad fahri- cated the universe in six days and sat down lo rest on the seventh, laying aside His work as a clock-maker Avould put down a linislied clock. But Christ said, "My Fatlier worketh until now, and I work." ^ Creation is not ended, it is going on all the time. ycsler(Lay Avas a creative day ; and so is to-day ; and so to-morrow will be. The divine thought is still Aveaving its beautiful garment on the roaring loom of Time.
But God's activity in the Avorld is not ca- pricious or disorderly. No one Avas more sen- sitive than Jesus to "the rhythmic element in nature, — the floAv of rivers, the procession of stars, the antiphony of day and niglit, tlie silent but inviolate order of the seasons." ^ Jt Avas He Avho expressed the law of growtli :
1 St. John V. 17.
2 H. W. Mabie, Essays on Nature and Culture (New York, 1896), p. 295.
immanence.
The divine orderliness.
256 Sovereignty
"first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear/'^ It was He Avho suggested the analogy of natural law in the spiritual world, appl3'ing the figure of gernn- nation to His own death and resurrection : " Except a corn of wheat fall into tlie ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. "^ Xhe parables which He used to describe the kingdom of heaven Avere drawn from nature and based on law. It was like "leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened," or "like a grain of mustard seed, Avhich a man took and sowed in his field ; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but Avhen it is grown it is the greatest among herbs." ^ He taught His disciples to look upon the regular and steadfast ordinances of nature as the proof that their Heavenly Father was mindful of them and would take care of them. You will not find any such su- perfluous phrase as " special Providence " in the teaching of Jesus. His thought was of a gen- eral and universal Providence, wide enough and deep enough to embrace the wants of all creatures and provide for them. God's chil-
1 St. Mark iv. 28. 2 gt. John xii. 24. 3 St. Matt. xiii. 32, 33.
Sovereignty 2o7
dren were not to trust in miracles and marvels for their daily bread ; tliey were not to l)e always looking and calling for the extraordi- nary, — manna from the sky, water from the riven rock. They were to rest rather upon the course of nature in quiet coniidence, and work with it in cheerful joy, knowing that He Avho clothes the grass of the field will much more clothe them,^ — and by the same power working in the same way.
Yet Jesus did not think of God as having Miracles not exhausted all possible modes of His activity J'"^",'/,!^ in those which are familiar to us. His pres- ence in the world is of such a personal kind that it necessarily brings with it the power of direct, personal, infinitely varied action. Out of this power spring those strange signs and wondrous works which we call miracles. Jesus never said that they were against nature. He never even said that they were supernatural. He claimed only that they were proofs of a divine mission, because they Avere such works as could only come from God. They were signs, just as all uncommon and extraordinary Sh/n^ »f acts are signs. But signs ot what/ ur per- sonality, of that power of choice in modes of
1 St. Matt. vi. 30.
God through law
'•It)'^ Sovereignty
action wliicli is the essential attribute of a free spirit. They Avere Avr ought in order that men miglit believe, not in order that they might be astonished; and just as truly in order that they might believe in the order of nature as in the Person who upholds it by His presence. The reign of ^* An energy," says i\lr. Ruskin, "may be natural without being normal, and divine without being constant." Jesus did not teach the reign of laAV. He taught the reign of God through law. And in order that men might be sure that the law did not bind God like a chain, but freely expressed His sovereign will, it was given unto Jesus to show men those rare works, unique and transcendent, like strokes of genius, which reveal, as if by flashes of light, tlie true relation between the sover- eign God and tlie universe which He is mak- ing and ruling.
It is always to this personal God that Jesus would direct the thoughts and confident affec- tions of men. How is it possible for any one to miss His meaning, and translate it into some- thing entirely different, as Matthew Arnold does in his misinterpretation of what he calls "the secret of Jesus" ? It is not merely the joy
TIte secret of Jesus.
in a
Sovereignty 259
and peace of self-renunciation that Jesns sets forth to His disciples. It is the inward qui- 7'/"^< etude and rest of self-surrender to a loving 7,\^^/,pJf' ^ Father who is also the Mighty God. And it is not from the sense of His resistless power, but from the consciousness of His love, of His Fatherhood, that peace comes. " Yea, Father, for so it Avas well-pleasing in Tliy sight." ^ '' Father, all things are possible unto Thee ; remove this cup from ^le : howbeit not what I Avill, but wdiat Thou wilt."'^ " Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit."^ This is the secret of Jesus. He does not teach bare sovereignty to Avliicli we must yield be- cause it is irresistible. He teaches sover- eignty of a certain kind, — the sovereignty of a Father, who is as much better, as He is more powerful, than all earthly parents or rulers, and who will never forsake His world, nor suffer His children to slip from His mighty hand.
in
But sovereignty of this kind necessarily im- plies distinctions in the manner of its exercise. It cannot possibly be conceived of in terms of
1 St. Matt. xi. 26. 2 st. Mark xiv. 30. 3 St. Luke xxiii. 46
260
Sovereignty
The highest kind of sovereignty discrimi- nates.
A loioer kind of sovereignty mechanical.
any single force or confined to any one mode of operation. It must be flexible and discriminat- ing. It must include within itself as many forms of rule as there are forms of being under its dominion. What, for example, should we say of a king who had but one way of dealing with all his subjects, young and old, Avise and ignorant, loj'al and disloyal, and who treated his servants under precisely the same condi- tions as his horses and his chariots ? Or what should we say of a father who attempted to reg- ulate and rule his children without reference to their character, and who made no distinction between them and the furniture of his house ? Yet this, in effect, is the theory of the divine sovereignty which has frequently been set forth by theologians as if it were the only one which did justice to the glory of God.
'* The will of God," according to this theory, " is the irresistible force. It is the source of all things, all persons, all events. From it they all proceed, under it they all act, by an invari- able necessity. This will lias already deter- mined from all eternity everything that comes to pass. Every character in the world, like every rock and every plant, is just what God willed it to be. Everything that happens, hap- pens because Ylv willed it and precisely as He
Soverei'i/itt// 261
willed it. The life of mankind is far from being in any sense a voyage, an adventure, a probation. It is simply the process of printing a history which has already been Avritten and set in type down to the last letter. The great press is in motion. Our souls are the blank pages. On one is printed a foreordained prayer. On another a foreordained blasphemy. Death is the folding knife. Judgment is the act of binding, in which the fair pages will be pre- served and the foul pages rejected and buruLMl. The sovereignty of God is exercised in seeing that the book goes through the press exactly as it was written, without the addition or sub- traction of a single syllable of the foreordained text."
But surely, even if this theory were true and The lower could be proved, it is not of a nature to give glorious aid and comfort to those who are zealous for the glory of God. It does not really exalt and magnify the divine sovereignty, but narrows and degrades it. It does not call for tlie per- fect wisdom and unlimited resources of a potent Ruler able to meet emergencies, to overcome oppositions, to guide and direct intelligent and free subjects like Himself, and to conduct a high enterprise, through all the difficulties tliat may arise, to a successful end. It calls for
262 Sovereignty
qualities of a lower kind and a strictly limited scope ; the exact knowledge and the applied strenofth of a skilful machinist ; not the broad intelligence, the swift genius, the inexhaustible patience, and the triumphant personal influ- ence of a great Captain, a Master and Lord of men. Which kind It is conceivable, of course, that God might chosen? have chosen to create a universe in which His sovereignty should be exercised in this one un- varying line of foreordained necessity. Being supreme. He has both the right and the power to make such a sphere, or spheres, for the rev- elation of His attributes as may please Him. But it is not liumanly conceivable that He should have made this particular choice which is ascribed to Him for His own glory. If He had chosen this kind of a universe, so far as we can see, it must have lowered and hidden His glory. It must have left Him with a field in which the highest qualities of personality could not possibly be exercised. It must have made all subsequent choice, and all approval or disapproval, and all truly moral government impossible. The existence of rewards and pun- ishments, the sense of merit or demerit among the creatures of such a world, would be inex- plicable. Nay more, it would be a cruel delu-
Sovereignty 263
sion, which, since it must come like everything- else, according to this theor}^ from the will of the Maker, Avould reflect a dark shadow of dis- credit upon His moral character. To claim that this sense of responsibility, like all other parts of the system, may be a necessity, a legal fiction which is essential to the working of a scheme far above our comprehension and there- fore above our judgment, makes it more awful, but not more admirable. If there is any valid- ity whatever in our moral instincts, we need not hesitate to say, that from our present i)oiut of view, which is for us the only one attainable, this theory of the absolute and unconditional sovereignty of God, exercised by one law of necessity over all creatures, is so far from Ijeing for God's glory that it is apparently for His shame and dishonour.
As a matter of fact, it has been, and still is, ^^^^ '^^•^'"
ml ties of
the most fertile mother of doubts. "A uni- absoiufi.'<m. verse in which all the power was on the side of the creator, and all the morality on the side of creation, Avould be one compared with which the universe of naturalism would shim' out as a paradise indeed." ^ The idea of an irresponsible God ruling by an eternal and inflexible fiat over responsible men, is a moral nightmare, 1 Foundations of Belief, p. 32G.
264 Sovereignity
under which liumanity groans, and from which it struggles to awake, even though it should have to open its eyes upon the blank darkness of an unsearchable night. Between the un- knoAvable God of agnosticism and the unlov- able God of absolutism, there is indeed little to choose. But the choice, such as it is, lies on the side of agnosticism. It is unspeak- ably better to doubt God's personality. His supremacy. His very being, than it is to doubt His eternal goodness and His moral integrity. Jesus de- But the teaching of Jesus is designed and
livers us
from them, ^ttcd to deliver us, if we will accept it, from both of these doubts. He reveals a God who is not only Lord of all, but who exercises His sovereignty in discretion, in justice, and in love. He does not look upon all His creatures with the same eyes. He discriminates. He distinguishes. He has regard to their differ- ences of nature and character. The human soul is of more value to Him than many spar- rows.^ How much is a man better than a sheep ? 2 By so much as he is more like God, spiritual, free, responsible, immortal. These qualities, which God Himself has created, God Himself respects. Every word of Jesus takes it 1 St. Matt. X. 31. 2 St. Matt. xii. 12.
Sovereignty 265
for granted that God is not an infinite Auto- (^'^d is a crat, a hard master, reaping where He has not •^"" "'^'•''^'''• sown, and gathering where He has not strewed, but a fair and equitable Lord, who takes into consideration all the conditions of His subjects and renders unto all their dues. The forces of nature obey His will inevitabl}^ and for them there is neither praise nor blame. Tlie souls of men are invited to love Him, and com- manded to serve Him, but they are left free to choose Avhether they will obey or disobey, and upon their choice the approval and blessing of God depend.
Who can question for a moment that this is The divine the view of the divine sovereignty which un- ^^/"mL'Jefr derlies all the parables of Christ ? The omnip- «" action. otence which He teaches is not sheer, absolute, unconditioned. It is a self-restrained power. It is able to limit itself, to act in such a way and under such conditions as God chooses to create. If He could not do this. He would not be truly omnipotent. If there were but one method in which He could manifest His will, and that the method of necessity, He would be forever shut out from personal relations, wliicli can only exist where there are different wills, capable of agreement or disagreemeut, of co- operation or conflict, of harmony or discord.
266 Sovereignty
Jesus believed and taught that God has actu- all}^ chosen to limit the autocratic exercises of His sovereignty by creating beings who have the power of yielding to His will or of resist- ing it. Th- origin p^-^^^ from this resistance flow all the evil,
of' erU not
in God. 3,11 the sorrow, all the misery oi the world.
God does not ordain sin. God does not even permit sin, in the sense that He allows it to exist witliout opposition and condemnation on His part. It may be a necessary feature of a world of free choice and moral probation. Jesus seems to imply as much when He says "It must needs be that offences come." But He adds at once, " Woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh."^ That man is not doing the will of God. He is a rebel, a traitor, an apostate. Sin is a perversion of the heart from its true purpose just as blindness is a perver- sion of the eye from its true f unction. ^ When the tares appear in the field, Christ does not leave us to suppose for a moment that they were planted by the same hand that sowed the good seed. He says, " An enemy hath done this."^ Satan, who is the embodiment of evil and the leader of all wlio are opposed to God,
1 St. Matt, xviii. 7. 2 gt. Luke xi. 34-36.
3 St. Matt. xiii. 28.
Sovereignty 267
is the great enemy, the adversary not only of souls, but also of the Divine will.
Turn for a moment to the narrative of the ^'^^^ ^^ ^^'e temptation of Christ. i He was led up by the ^Jmy^f "" Spirit into the wilderness to be temi)ted of the devil. But did the same Spirit lead the devil ? Was Satan acting under the divine sovereignty in the same sense, in the same way, that Jesus was? Set aside, if you will, the question of the personality of the evil une. There was a suggestion of evil l)efore the mind of Jesus. Did that suggestion come from tlie same source as the liol}^ strength that resisted it, — the all-creating, all-controlling will of God? Can the same fountain send forth sweet and bitter Avaters? Why then should the one be called cursed and the other blessed? Such a view simply obliterates all moral distinctions. It completely undermines and ruins the sig- nificance of Christ's life as a free obedience to the w^ill of God, and it utterly paralyzes His gospel as a divine call to men to enter freely into the same obedience.
Jesus teaches very distinctly that there are Two sphn-es two spheres in which the sovereignty ot God sovercUintii. is exercised, — in heaven and on earth. ^ These
1 St. Matt. iv. 1-11.
2 Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, vol. i., pp. 84,85.
268
Sovereignty
Triumphant in heaven.
Militant on earth.
Divine
omni-
ii"Aence.
two spheres are not conceived locally but spirit- ually. They are realms in which tlie power of God is working under different conditions. In heaven the Divine will is unopposed, and there- fore the empire of heaven is peace and holiness and unbroken love. On earth the Divine will is opposed and resisted, and therefore earth is a scene of conflict and sin and discord. For this reason the kingdom of heaven must come to earth, it must win its way, it must strive with the kingdom of darkness and overcome it. God's sovereignt}^ in heaven is triumphant. God's sovereignty on earth is militant, in order that it may triumph, — and triumph not in uni- versal destruction, but in the salvation of all who will submit to it and embrace it and work with it, — triumph not by bare force, as gravi- tation triumphs over stones, but by holy love, as fatherly wisdom and affection triumph over the reluctance and rebellion of wayward chil- dren.
It must be admitted frankly that this view of Divine sovereignty does not seem to be consistent with the theory of absolute divine foreknowledge of all volitions and all events. This has been urged as a fatal objection against it. But the objection cannot be pressed because
Sovereignty 269
it lies in a region where our ignorance is so great that dogmatism is, to say tlie least, unbe- coming. There may be some way of reconcil- ing the self -limitation of God's omnipotence with the certainty of His foreknowledge, Avhich is beyond the reach of our logic. Hut whether there be any such reconciliation or not, one thing is clear : we have not the right to make a logical statement of our ignorance of one divine attribute a reason for refusing to accept, frankly and sincerely, Christ's revelation of the mode in Avhich another divine attribute is exercised.
God knows everything. But when we say Forcknov- that, we mean simply that He knows everv- '''•'/-' ^""■''" thing which can be the object of knowledge, the facts. He knows all things as they are. He does not know them as they are not. The very perfec- tion of His knowledge consists in its exact correspondence Avith the nature of its object. If an event is certain, fixed, and foreorchiined, then God knows it as certain, fixed, and fore ordained. If it is contingent upon tlie free, self- determining, preferential action of a human will, then God knows that it is contingent, for He Himself has foreordained that it should be so.
God waits to hear whether His children will ^'"^ "'"''^• call upon Him in their distress; and if the^'
270
Sovereignty
call, He hears and helps them. If Jesus teaches anything, He teaches that prayer really in- fluences the purpose and action of God.
God waits to see whether His husbandmen will return to Him the fruits of His vineyard ; whether they will receive and honour the mes- sengers Avhom He sends unto them ; and if they are rejected. He sends other messengers ; and last of all He sends His Son, saying, "It may be they will reverence him." ^ But when this last mayhe does not come to pass, then judgment falls upon the wicked husbandmen, not because they have fulfilled the secret will of the King, but because they have rebelled against Him.
This conception of God in His world, not as the mere spectator of the fulfilment of His own immutabls decrees, but as the Lord of Hosts, presiding over the great scene of con- flict between good and evil in the souls of men who can only attain to real holiness through real liberty, and warring mightily on the side of good in order that it may win the victory, infinitely exalts and glorifies Him. We see Him in the teaching of Jesus, as the High Captain of the armies of love, working salvation in the midst of the earth, pleading Avith men to accept His mercy, warning them 1 St. Luke XX. 13.
Sovereignty 271
to escape from His judgments, sustaining the
good in their goodness, overthrowing the
wicked in their wickedness, bringing light
out of darkness and triumph out of defeat,
amid all strifes and storms maintaining His
kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost. His sovereignty embraces Sovereignty
human liberty as the ocean surrounds an island. /-Jlg,!/,'^^*
His sovereignty upholds liuman liberty as the
air upholds a flying bird. His sovereignty
defends human liberty as the authority of a
true king defends the liberty of his subjects,
— nay, rather, as the authority of a father tenderly and patiently respects and protects the spiritual freedom of his children in order that they may learn to love and obey him gladly and of their own accord. For this is the end of God's sovereignty : that His king- dom may come ; that His Avill may be done on earth, — not as it is done in the circling of the stars or in the blossoming of flowers,
— but as it is done in heaven, where created spirits freely strike the notes that blend in perfect harmony with the music of the Divine Spirit, where
" Thousands at his bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait."
272
Sovereignty
IV
But does not the acknowledgment that God has thus limited the operation of His sover- eignty on earth by conditioning His actions upon the character and conduct of other beings than Himself, throw us back into confusion and uncertainty? Does it not make the course of the world insecure and the end of all things doubtful?
It would do so if it Avere not for the other truth which Jesus reveals with equal clearness, that God is in the world guiding, ruling, and directing it, and that He has kept the suprem- acy in His own hands. His presence is the talisman of creation. He is the master of the ship ; His hand is on the helm ; and whether the sailors obey or mutiny, He will guide the vessel to her appointed haven.
The power of evil is a finite, transient, self- destroying power. It disintegrates, it dies, it passes away with the enfeeblement and de- struction of the soul that yields to it. But the power of goodness is eternal and incor- ruptible, because it is of God. Satan is the prince of this world, but his might is limited to tlie perverted and enslaved wills that sub- mit to him. He is not the ruler of nature.
Sovereignty 273
God is the master of winds and waves and earth and stars. The great battalions are on His side and under His control. If for one instant the cause of Christ were in real dan- ger, He could summon celestial hosts without number to His assistance. ^ But because He kncAV this, He knew also that His cause was never in danger. He knew that His kingdom was an everlasting kingdom. He knew that He had already overcome the world.
How" serene and splendid are the words with ''odt/te which He reassures His disciples, again and J,'','^^./' again! ''Fear not! Care not! Be not a/Li- ious! 0 thoii of little faith, wherefore dicht thou doubt f Have faith in Crod ! Upon this rock will I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ! Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom ! '' How glorious is the vision of that kingdom which Jesus unfolds as He looks for- ward to the new birth of earth and heaven in the perfect fulfilment of the pui-pose of God ! How absolute is the confidence wdth wliicli He rests upon God's power to work out all that may be needed to bring about that blessed consummation. The unwavering faith of Jesus in the permanence and world-Avide dilTnsioii and 1 St. Matt. xxvi. 53.
274 Sovereignty
ultimate triumph of His kingdom of truth and holiness and love, is not the least — some- times I think it is the greatest — evidence of His divinity and charm of His gospel. The inftpira- Communicated by His divine influence to the heroism. hearts of His disciples, this faith has been a force of incalculable potency and inspiration in the lives of men. The noblest deeds of hero- ism and self-sacrifice and liberation have been wrought in the strength of it. The greatest conquests over self and sin, the supreme vic- tories of righteousness and love and peace in human hearts, have been won through this faith. Deus vult — God wills it ! — is the war-cry that rouses the human will to its highest endeavour. The secret Here is a man struggling against evil, long-
ing and striving to rise to high and holy life. And if he is alone in the struggle, what assur- ance has he, what promise or hope of success ? He may fail, he may perish. But Avhen the great truth flashes into his heart that God is with him in the fight, that God is "not will- ing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance," 1 that God is the captain of his salvation and the leader of his soul, — then he is emancipated, then he triumphs, then he is joined to the Invincible. He cries 1 2 Pet. iii. 9.
of courafje.
Sovereignty 275
with Paul, " If God is for us, who is against us?"i
Here is a saint called to endure sharp and The heavy trials, to drink the bitter waters of affliction, to pass through the fires of pain, to go down into the dark valley of the shadow. Alone, it would be impossible ; human patience could not endure it, hunuxn courage could nut face it, human wisdom could not solve the niys- tery of goodness called to suffer. But with God, believing that He is sovereign, and tliat He is love, — how different it is ! Now you shall see the wondrous spectacle of a frail, gen- tle, mortal soul, strengthened by simple sub- mission to God's will, persecuted but not for- saken, cast doAvn but not destroyed, trembling but victorious. Sucli a soul cries : '' The will of God be done. It cannot be His will that I should lose my faith. It cannot be His will tliat I should deny Him. It cannot be His Avill that I should be lost, for He is good, He is my King, my Father, He will save me. It may be His will that I should suffer trial for the purif3-ing of my faith, for a more perfect fellowship with Christ, for a better reward in heaven. Even so, Father, for so it seemetli good in Thy sight. "
1 Rom. viii. 31.
strength of endurance.
God in history.
276 Sovereignty
"I welcome all Thy sovereign will, For all that will is love ; And when I know not what Thou dost, I wait the light above."
How radiant and magnificent is that truth as it appears in the history of the Church. The people of God have often been persecuted and oppressed, yet God has been on their side, and no weapon that has been formed against them has prospered. Here is Philip of Spain send- ing his great Armada to crush the Reformed Church of England and destroy religious lib- erty in the cradle. Like a huge flock of vul- tures with outspread wings and fierce talons and harsh innumerable cries of menace, that most terrific company of war-ships that ever darkened air and sea swoops towards its prey. But the wrath of God meets it on the ocean, and drives disorder tlirough its serried ranks ; the swift little ships of England pierce it, and break its wings, and riddle it with terror ; its onset is changed to flight, and as it flies, the angry blasts of heaven and the wild waves of wrath catch it again, and whirl it away, and scatter on a hundred rocky shores and lonely beaches the wrecks and fragments of the lost Armada. How often has that wondrous history been repeated ! How often has God proved His
Gud.
Sovereignty 277
sovereignty by preserving and rescuing iind delivering His people from overwhelming perils ! Even when it has seemed to ])e other- Avise, even when the Church has ajjpeared for- saken and helpless, when the billows of perse- cution have rolled fathom-deep above her head, when avalanches of falsehood have l)uried the truth out of sight, it has onl}- been for a time, and the end has been the victory ot" the de- feated. The blood of the martyrs has l)een the seed of the Church. The boastful shouts of Truth and error have been the advertisement of the silent truth. Error has had kings and generals, philosophers and orators, empires and armies ; truth has had God. Error has had swords and spears, ships and cannons, fortresses and dun- geons, racks and fires ; truth has had God. God and one make a majority. Unless the Church doubts, she cannot fear. Unless the Church denies, she cannot despair. In the dark- est days, when the confusion seems greatest, the conflict most unequal, she can look out on the great battle-field and cry
'* History's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and
the Word ; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the
throne, —
The victory is sure.
The final
coiisununa-
tion.
278 Sovereignty
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim
unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above
His own." ^
But is it for the Church alone, is it not for the whole world that this truth of God's sov- ereignty shines ? To our eyes the conflict of life and death, of good and evil, seems to be undecided, and we think it may be perpetual. The dust blinds us ; the uproar bewilders us ; as far as our sight can pierce we see nothing but the rolling strife, — sin always in arms against holiness, the created will always resist- ing and defying the creator. But Christ sees that the conflict is decided, though it is still in prog- ress. Christ sees that the victory is won, though it is not yet manifest. On the hill of the cross the captain of salvation met the cap- tain of sin and conquered him. Calvary is victory. Through death Christ hath overcome him that had the power of death, that is the devil. 2 Satan has received his mortal wound ; and if he still fights more fiercely, it is because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.^ The day is coming when he must perish ; the day is coming when sin and strife shall be no more ;
1 James llussell Lowell, The Present Crisis.
2 Heb. ii. U. » Rev. xii. 12.
Sovereignty 279
the day is coming when Christ shall put all enemies under His feet^ and shout above the grave of death, "O tliou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end " ; the day is com- ing when the great ship of the world, guided by the liand of the Son of God, sliall tloat out of the clouds and storms, out of the shadows and conflicts, into the perfect light of love, and God shall be all in all. The tide that bears the w^orld to that glorious end is the sovereignty of God.
O mighty river, strong, eternal Will, In which the streams of human good and ill Are onward swept, conflicting, to the sea, — The world is safe because it floats in Thee.
1 1 Cor. XV. 25-28.
VIII SERVICE
" Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Xot light them for themselves ; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues ; nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor — Both thanks and use."
— Measure for Measure.
VIII
SERVICE
That strange and searching genius, Nathaniel This uneven Hawthorne, in one of his spiritual phantasies has imagined a new Adam and Eve coming to the earth after a Day of Doom has swept away the whole of mankind, leaving their works and abodes and inventions, — all that bears witness to the present condition of humanity, — un- touched and silently eloquent. The represent- atives of a new race enter with wonder and dismay the forsaken heritage of the old. They pass through the streets of a depopulated city. The sharp contrast between the splendour of one habitation and the squalor of another, fills them with distressed astonishment. They are painfully amazed at the unmistakable signs of inequality in the conditions of men. They are troubled and overwhelmed by the evidence of the great and miserable fact that one portion of earth's lost inhabitants was rich and com- fortable and full of ease, while the multitude 283
284 Service
was poor and weary and heavy-laden with toil.i The sense of This feeling of sorrowful perplexity over the fife'Tbie- unevenness and apparent injustice of human qnality. life, which the prose poet puts into the heart of his new Adam and Eve, is really but a reflec- tion from the tender and pitiful depths of his own. Who is there that has not sometimes felt it rising within his own breast, — this pro- found sentiment of inward trouble and grief, this feeling of spiritual discord and wondering repugnance at the sight of a world in which the good things of life are so unequally distributed, in which at the very outset of existence, before the factor of personal merit or demerit, the element of work and wages, enters into the problem at all, so much is given to one man and so little to another man that they seem to be forever separated and set at enmity with each other by the unfairness with which they are treated ? The sympa- This Sentiment has been strangely deepened and intensified in the nineteenth century by innumerable causes, until it has become one of the most marked characteristics of the present age. Never before have men felt the sorrows
1 Hawthorne's Works, Riverside I^dition, 1884 ; Mosses from an Old 3Ianse, p. 297.
(hy of the
Service 285
and hardships of their fellow-men so widely, so keenly, so constantly as to-day. In one sense this is the honour and glory of our age. It is an evidence of quickened moral sensibilit3% a revival or renewal of the noblest capacities of our human nature.
But in another sense it is tlie greatest peril a n»bie of our age. For it has been seized by the spirit ^J^'ento of scepticism and transformed into an ally of ^nafincss. annihilating doubt. It has been used as an argument against the possibility of discovering a moral order in such a "hungry, ill-condi- tioned world" as this. Man's inhumanity to man has been employed to prove God's indiffer- ence or injustice to man. The feeling of sor- row and perplexity has been aggravated by Avild and whirling words into a passion of resentment against the present conditions of life. Rash and sweeping schemes for their total destruction have been proclaimed as a new gospel. Christianity has been first claimed as a supporter of these schemes, and then de- nounced and repudiated as the chief obstacle to their success. The cry goes up that the whole world is out of joint. " Everything is wrong and crooked and unfair : the race of man has been deceived and maltreated and oppressed by the creation of sucli an order of
What shall we do?
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life as the present. If God created it, so much the worse for God. But it is almost certain that He did not create it, almost certain that there is no God. The world of inequality is man's mistake. There is but one thing to do, and that is to break it all up, at once and utterly, and begin anew. Create a new world if possible. If not, then let the old wreck sink and be blotted out, for it is worse, infinitely worse, than the blank desolation of an uncon- scious chaos."
This cry of anger and despair rings to- day in the ears of all earnest and thoughtful men and women. The element of sincerity, of truth, of justice, that thrills unmistakably through its strange, fierce music, stirs our hearts to the core. We are filled Avith per- turbation and distress and deep anxiety to know the right and to do it, to understand the meaning of this exceeding great and bitter cry, and the duty to which it calls us. Is it indeed the utterance of true equity and wisdom ? Is it the voice of a new Adam, appearing after so many ages of delusion, with open ej^es to con- demn tlie old world, and with ruthless hand to break it in pieces ? Must we welcome him and hearken to him and believe in him, as the true judge and regenerator and leader of mankind ?
Service 287
The very form of the question points the Christ's way to the only Master who can answer it. «^«"''«'; «'"'
•^ / examjne.
Hawthorne's picture of the second Adam was a poetic dream. But tlie Apostle Paul uses the same figure to reveal a historic truth. "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit, llowbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is of heaven." ^ The new Adam has already come upon the earth, eighteen cen- turies ago. He was called Jesus. With pure and perfect heart He entered into the world, not desolate and depopulate, but thronged with the myriads of toiling, suffering men. With clear eyes He looked upon their different con- ditions, their manifold inequalities, their out- ward and inward joys and sorrows. With steadfast heart He set Himself to the divine task of beginning a new humanity and inaugu- rating the kingdom of heaven on earth.
He did not strive nor cry, neither Avas His His caim- voice heard in the streets. ^ He did not protest ",^*^/|^"' against the moral government of the universe, because one man was rich and anotlier poor, one strong and another weak, one happy and 1 1 Cor. XV. 45-47. - St. Matt. xii. 19.
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another wretched, one good and another evil. He did not say that God must be unjust be- cause He has given, in things spiritual as well as in things temporal, much to one and little to another. He did not teach His followers that the only way to help the world was to rebel against this order, and refuse to submit to it, and denounce it, and light against it. He did not even proclaim a social and j^olitical revolution. He was the most peaceful, orderly, obedient, loyal citizen of all that subject land of Palestine ; rendering unto Ciesar the things that were Ceesar's, discharging every duty of His lowly lot with cheerful fidelity, and labour- ing patiently for His daily bread. He knows He was not blind, nor dull of heart to feel
the secret. ^^le troubles of life. The problem of inequality lay wide open before Him. But it did not agitate nor distract Him. He neither raved nor despaired. He was serene and sane.
" He saw Hfe clearly and He saw it whole."
He looked through the problem to its true solution. He knew the secret which justifies the ways of God to man. He knew the secret by which an eternal harmony is to be brought into the apparent discords of life. He knew the secret by which men living in an unequal
Service 289
world, and accepting its inequality as the con- dition of their present existence, can still be- come partakers of a perfect, peaceful equity, and citizens of an invisible, imperishable city of God. That secret was none other than the highest, holiest doctrine of Jesus, the divine truth of election to service.
Before we set our hearts to take in the Christ's meaning and the fulness of this truth, let us 9o-v^ei/or
. the present
try to get them in tune for it by listening to world. some of the other teachings of Jesus which are meant to quiet and steady us in the contempla- tion of the unevenness of human existence.
And first of all He reminds us that our real happiness in this world does not depend upon our outward condition, but upon our inward state. '' The life is more than meat and the bod}^ than raiment." ^ ''A man's life consist- eth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."2 ^i^q j.^j^j Qf ^yealth is not the empire of peace. Joy is not bounded on the north by poverty, on the east by obscurity, on the west by simplicity, and on the south by servitude. It runs far over these borders on
1 St. Matt. vi. 25. - St. Luke xii. lu.
V
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every side. The lowliest, plainest, narrowest life may be the sweetest. Most of the disciples of Jesus were peasants, but they were as happy, as contented, even in this world, as if they had been princes. There was more gladness and singleness of heart in that frugal breakfast of broiled fish and bread beside the boats on the shore of the sea of Tiberias,^ than in the splendid feast in the house of Simon the Phari- see. Life has its compensations and its com- forts for all estates. Work means health. Obscurity means freedom. The best pleasures are those that are most widely diffused. The secret of I do uot mean to say that Jesus overlooked the bitter hardships of toil under bad masters, under false and cruel and oppressive laws. I do not mean to say that He would not have been full of pity and indignation at the sight of the crushed and crippled state of great mul- titudes of human beings in our modern cities. But I am sure that He teaches us to believe that the real source of human misery is not in poverty, but in a bad heart; that envy is not a virtue, but a vice ; that life is a great gift to all who will receive it cheerfully and contentedly, even in a world where its material things are unevenly distributed ; and that the true beati-
1 St. John xxi. 1-13.
happiness.
Service 291
tades are not monopolies reserved for the few, but blessings within the reach of all, and glori- ously independent of all outward contrasts in the lives of men. Indeed it seems as if He would go even beyond this, and remind us that some of these blessings could not be ours except in a w^orld of contrast and temporal inequality. Of the eight beatitudes which Jesus Himself pro- nounced, four at least, — the blessing of the mourners, and of the meek, and of the mer- ciful, and of the peace-makers, — imply the existence of differences and degrees among men ; and one — the blessing of those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake — is only possible in a world where evil is sometimes actually more powerful and prosperous than good.
I have not been able to find a single word of The compen- Christ that looks forward to a time in which ^..^ there shall be no more inequalities on earth, no more rich and poor, no more masters and ser- vants, no more wise men, and no more babes. But there are many words of His that pierce with mild and gracious light through all these outward distinctions to reveal the truth that this kind of inequality is superficial and illusory, that the babes rejoice in beholding those mys- teries which are hidden from the wise and pru-
earth.
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dent, that servants are often nobler and more free than their masters, that the poor may have treasures laid up in heaven which are beyond all earthly reckoning, and that this is the true wealth which brings contentment and peace. Peace on It is a great mistake to suppose that Jesus
preached a gospel which was melancholy and depressing for those who received it in this world. It is a great mistake to suppose that He taught men that they must resign them- selves to earthly misery and make the journey of life as a weary and mournful pilgrimage. He came to cheer and brighten the hearts of all who would accept His guidance and tread the path of virtue with courage and fidelity and hope. He came to give us rest in the midst of toil, and that refreshment which only comes from weariness in a good cause. He came to tell us not to despair of happiness, but to re- member that the only way to reach it on earth is to seek first usefulness, first the kingdom of God, and then the other things shall be added. He that loseth his life for Christ's sake shall not lose it but find it,^ — find it in deep inward contentment,
" And vital feelings of delight," 1 St. Matt. X. 39.
Service 293
which make up the true and incomparable joy of living.
Jesus does not differ from other masters in Thr sccrrt that He teaches us to scorn earthly felicity. ''^^''^''^''''"' The divine difference is that He teaches us how- to attain earthly felicity, under all circum- stances, in prosperity and in adversity, in sick- ness and in health, in solitude and in society, by taking His yoke upon us, and doing the will of God, and so finding rest unto our souls. That is the debt which every child of God owes not only to God, but also to his own soul, — to find the real joy of living.
" Joy is a duty," — so with golden lore Joy is a
The Hebrew rabbis taught in days of yore. duty.
And happy human hearts heard in their speech Almost the highest wisdom man can reach.
But one bright peak still rises far above,
And there the Master stands whose name is Love,
Saying to those whom heavy tasks employ
" Life is divine when duty is a joy."
The second point in the teaching of Jesus The icorui which is meant to rectify our views of the un- ^^^^g* evenness of the world, is His doctrine of a future life, — not a different life, but the same life mov- ing on under new conditions and to new issues. This world is not all. There is anotlier world, a better age, a more perfect state of being, in wliich
294 Service
the sorrows and losses of those who now suffer unjustly will be compensated, and in which — let us not hesitate to say it as calmly and as firmly as Jesus said it — those who have un- justly and selfishly enjoyed their good things in this Avorld will suffer in their turn. It is the fashion nowadays to sneer at such teaching as this; to call it " other- worldliness " ; to declare that it has no real power to strengthen or uplift the hearts of men. Jesus did not think so. Jesus made much of it. Jesus pressed home upon the hearts of men the con- solations and warnings of immortality. He showed the miserable failure of the man who filled his barns and lost his empty soul.^ He bade His disciples, when they suffered and were persecuted for righteousness' sake, " rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. "2 The errors Let US not impoverish our gospel by flinging
of' time call . £ - ^ - • x. ^^ •
for th" away, in our fancied superiority, tins precious
baiwceof truth. It is impossible to justify the present
c.e? ni y. fragmentary existence of man if we look at it
and speak of it as the whole of his life. Earth
has mysteries which naught but heaven can
explain. Earth has sorrows whicli naught but
heaven can heal. Yes, and earth has evils,
1 St. Luke xii. 16-21. 2 st. Matt. v. 12.
Service 295
black and secret offences of man against man, false and foul treasons against the love of God, crimes which take a base advantage of His pa- tience and long-suffering and hide themselves like poisonous serpents in the shelter of the very laws which He has made for tlie good of the world, sins all entangled with the present structure of society and beyond the reach of human law, undiscoverable iniquities, unpardon- able and unpunishable cruelties, — which naught but hell can disclose and consume. The errors of time call for the balance of eternity. Pa- tient labour, patient endurance, patient resig- nation in this present life shall be greatly rewarded in the life to come. Now is the day of toil and trial ; but the pay-day will surely dawn. Much of the best that is done in this world receives no earthly wages. Those to whom it is done, — the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, — " they cannot recompense thee ; but thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."^
Thus Jesus teaches ; and He shows us that This un- the present order of inequalit}^ so far from ^q^I'^\,/{J^_ being an obstacle to this result, is tlie very tionforthe means by which it is to be accomplished. The discipline of this uneven life is the education 1 St. Luke xiv. 14.
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by Avhich alone \yq can be prepared for the heavenly life. Jesus does not present Himself as a rectifier of life's unequal conditions of outward fortune. He distinctly refuses this office. " Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?"^ Jesus does not preach an equality which is synonymous with life on a Fraternity dead level. He does not preach equality at equality. ^11- He preachcs fraternity. And frater- nity implies differences, — older and younger, stronger and weaker, higher and lower. The elder brother is the heir; all that the father has is his ; but his sin lies in holding fast to his inheritance selfishly, in shutting out his younger brother, in forgetting and deny- ing that he is a brother at all.^ The distinc- tions of life are not meant to obscure, but to reveal and to beautify its best virtues. Out of dependence spring the sweet blossoms of grati- tude and loyalty. Out of mastership flow the refreshing streams of forbearance and justice and mercy. The apostle tells us that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.^ But Christ shows us the deeper truth that the right use of money is a means of all kinds of good. " It is more blessed to give
1 St. Luke xii. 14. 2 st. Luke xv. 25-32. 2 1 Tim. vi. 10.
Service 297
than to receive. "1 P2very gift of Providence to us is an opportunity and therefore a re- sponsibility, and the blessing does not come with the gift until we recognize the responsi- bility, and use the opportunit}^ The maninion of unrighteousness can oiily be destroyed by a process of transformation which transmutes it into the pure gold of the celestial treasury. ^ The name of that process is charit3\ And the translation of that name is wise and holy love.
Let us try to think distinctly. It is said Chrittianity nowadays that Christianity means communism, and that it is the dut}^ of all Christians to give away everything that they possess. It is strange that Christ never proclaimed this duty except to one man, and that man was not a Christian.^ Of course it must be admitted at once that this would l)e the duty of all Christians if it could be shown that it would be for the real ci'ood of their fellow-men. But this never has been shown. On the contrary, communism lias always turned out badl}'. It was tried in Jerusalem, in a limited way, when the early Christians sold all that they had and made a common purse ; but it led, in less
I Acts XX. u.J. ' St. Luke xvi. 19,
3 St. Mark x. L>1.
and Com- 7nunism.
298 " Service
than ten 3'ears, to confusion and strife, and sank the Jerusalem church into a condition of pauperism and dependence upon the other churches, which had avoided the well-meant but dangerous experiment. It was tried in France, under atheistic auspices, and its fruit was wide-spread misery and injustice. It was tried to some degree in England, under a sys- tem of poor laws which were based upon the idea that every man had a right to eat whether he would work or not, and it resulted in such disorder and demoralization that it had to be discarded as a menace to society. Love thy There is nothing in the teachings of Christ
neuji oui ^yi^i(3i^ would make us blind to these plain
as ivisely . ^
and well as lessous of history. On the contrary. He de- ^^^ sires and commands us to discover and do that
which Avill really bless and help our fellow- men. " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- self," ^ — the same kind of love, the same in- ward regard for the higher ends and aims of life, which is the saving grace of the indi- vidual soul, is to be the saving grace of so- ciety. And what kind of love is that? It is a wise and holy love, a love which puts character first and comfort second, a love which seeks to purify and bless and uplift the whole 1 St. Matt. xxii. 39.
Service 299
man. Such a love may be shown b}- withhold- ing as truly as by bestowing. False charity pampers self and pauperizes others. True char- ity educates self by helping others. Tlie so- called Christian who never gives is a false Christian. The Cliristian who gives carelessly, blindly, indiscriminately, however generously, is a very imperfect Christian. The Christian who gives thouglitfully, seriously, fraternally, bending his best powers to the accomplishment of a real benefaction of his fellow-men, bestow- ing himself Avith his gift, is in the true and only way of the following of Jesus.
Preach this truth. Preach it liome to the Evenj in-h-i hearts of men, without fear or favour for rich or poor. Preach it home to your own heart so close that it shall save you from the min- ister's besetting sins of spiritual selfishness and cant. Tell the Lady Bountiful that she is not called to discard her ladyhood, but to give her- self with all her refinements, with all her ac- complishments, with all that has been given to her of sweetness and light, to the ennobling service of humanity. Tell the Mercliant-Prince that he is not called to abandon his i)lace of influence and power, but to fill it in a princely spirit, to be a true friend and father to all wlio are dependent upon him, to make his i)r()sper-
letjo is i( cull to service.
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ity a fountain of blessing to his fellow-raen, to be a faithful steward of Almighty God. And then let us tell ourselves, as members of the so-called ^' educated classes," to whom God has given even greater gifts than those of rank and riches, — privileges of knowledge, opportunities of culture, free access to the stored-up wisdom of the ages, — let us tell ourselves with un- flinching fidelity that God will hold us to a strict account for all these things. If our salt loses its savour it shall be trodden under foot of men. If our culture separates us from hu- manity we shall be cast into the outer darkness. Our light must shine or be shamefully extin- guished. Every faculty and every gift we possess must be honestly and entirely conse- crated to the service of man, in Christ's name and for Christ's sake. This is the gospel for the present age, and for every age. This is Social re- the way in which the kingdom of heaven is to be established on earth. This is the way in which the inequality of this mortal life is to be transfigured and irradiated with a divine equity. " What we look for, work for, pray for, as believers, is a nation where class shall be bound to class by the fullest participation in the treasure of the one life ; where the mem-
f/eneration.
Service 301
bers of each group of workers sliall lind in their work the development of their character and the consecration of their powers : where the highest ambition of men shall be to be leaders of their own class, so using their special powers without waste and following the common tradi- tions to noble issues : where each citizen shall know, and be strengthened by the knowledge, that he labours not for himself only, nor for his family, nor for his country, but for GOD."i
II
Thus far the teaching of Christ leads us with incquaiitu
clear serenity in our understanding of the dif- ^^ia^riT'
ferences among men in the distribution of the
goods of this present world. But the deeper
problem still remains untouched. There is an
apparent inequality in the bestowal of spiritual
blessings. In the life of the soul also, it seems
that much is given to one and little to another.
Some men are born very close to the kingdom
of heaven and powerfully drawn by unseen
hands to enter its happy precincts. Other men
are born far away from the gates of light, and
it looks to us as if all the influences of their life
w^ere hindrances rather than helps to holiness.
1 B. F. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, The Incarnation and Common Life (London, Macmillan, 1893), p. 8?.
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Service
The doctrine of election.
The search- ing question.
False ' ansioers.
There is an undeniable contrast in the religious world which can only be interpreted as a divine foreordination, — that is to say, an act by which some men are set before others, given the pre- cedence, offered an earlier and apparently an easier opportunity of spiritual life. If God is sovereign, this act, by which the means of grace are unevenly dispensed, must be the result of a divine choice.
The formal recognition of this choice is the doctrine of election. It is an inevitable doc- trine. It is founded upon facts which admit of no denial. And it brings every thoughtful and earnest soul face to face with the question of questions, upon the answer to which the nature and reality of religion depend.
Is God arbitrary, is God partial, is God unjust ? Does He bless some of His children and leave the rest under an irremediable curse without a single reason which can be exhibited to human faith and justified in perfect love ? In the last and highest realm of life, the realm of the spirit, does He make it more blessed to receive than to give, and exercise His sovereignty in favour- itism, and establish heaven as a kingdom of infinite and eternal and inexplicable inequality ?
It is an idle thing to answer this question by an appeal to God's absolute right to dispose of
Service 303
all His creatures as He will. For the very Anarbi-
essence of true religion is the faith that He is ^'""''^ ^'"'"
such a God that He wills to dispose of all His
creatures wisely and fairly and in perfect love.
And the very essence of a true revelation, as
the message which calls religion into being, is
that it makes God's wisdom and fairness and
love manifest, and so hel^DS us to understand
and adore and trust Him, not only for ourselves
but for the wliole world.
It is an idle thing to answer this (|uesti(iii l)v >i'i?r/-espo>^
^ r~i ^ • ^ ' sihle God.
saying that God is under no obligation to be good to everybody, and therefore that He may be good to whomsoever He pleases. The idea of an irresponsible God is a moral mockery. Poisonous doubt exhales from it as malaria from a swamp. To teach that all men are God's debtors, and that therefore it is right for Him to remit the debt of one man, and to exact the penalty from another to the last farthing, is to teach what is logically true and morally false. Our hearts recoil from such a doctrine. If God has made us, and made us spiritual paupers, utterly incapable of anything good, we are not His debtors. Jesus teaches us that God asks of us only to give as freely as we have received.^ He demands only tliat which lie ■ 1 St. Matt. X. 8.
;04
Service
A God lohose glory is not goodness.
IJlection perverted in human theology.
Himself has made us able to pay. And He forgives like the good master in the parable, with a free pardon Avhich needs but the con- fession of helplessness and poverty to call it forth. 1
It is an idle thing to answer this question by an appeal to ignorance, and to say that God elects some men to be saved and leaves the rest of mankind to be lost simply for His own un- searchable and inexplicable glory ! For God's glory, as revealed by religion, is identical with His goodness. Faith, true and joyful and up- lifting faith, answers only to a gospel which makes that identity more clear and luminous, and shows that the divine election in the realm of grace is perfectly consistent with that wide and deep love wherewith God so loved the whole world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Now it is because men have forgotten this that they have found no answer, or a false and misleading answer, to the problem of inequality in the spiritual world. It is because they have torn the doctrine of election from its roots in the divine love, and petrified it with unholy logic, that it has lost its beauty, its perfume, I St, Matt, xviii. 27.
Service 305
its power of fruitfulness to everlasting life.
We must go back from the dead skeleton as it
is preserved in the museum of theology to the
living plant as it blossoms in the field of the
Bible. We must go back of Jonathan Edwards,
and back of John Calvin, and back of Augustine,
to St. Paul, and see huw, under his hiind, all
the mj'sterioQS facts of election as they are
unfolded in human history, break into flower
at last in the splendid faith that ''God hath
shut up all unto disobedience that He might
have mercy upon all." ^ We must go still
farther back, to Christ, and learn from Him
that election is simply the way in which God
uses His chosen ones to bless the world, —
the divine process by which the good seed is
sown and scattered far and wide and the
heavenly harvest multiplied a thousand-fold.
" I elected you," He says to His disciples and
to us, " I elected you, and appointed you, that
ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit
should abide. "2
Christ's doctrine of election is a living, C'lirist's doc- trine of fragrant, fruitful doctrine. It is the most election to
beautiful thing in Christianity. It is tlie very 'fervice. core and substance of the gospel, translated
1 Romans xi. 32.
2 St. John XV. 10.
306
Service
Christ as the elect servant.
Th'- disciple must he as his Lord.
from the heart of God into the life of man. It is the divine law of service in spiritual things. It is the supreme truth in the revelation of an all-glorious love ; the truth that God chooses men not to be saved alone, but to be saved by saving others, and that the greatest in the king- dom of heaven is he who is most truly the servant of all.
Is not this true of Christ Himself ? He is the great example of what it means to be elect. He is the beloved Son in wdiom the Father is well pleased. And He says " Behold, I am in the midst of you as he that serveth."^ Ser- vice was the joy and crown of His life. Service was the refreshment and the strength of His soul, the angel's food, the " meat to eat " of which His disciples did not know.^
Was not this the lesson that He was always teaching them by j)ractice and by precept, that they must be like Him if they would belong to Him, that they must share His service if they would share His election ! '' I have ap- peared unto thee for this purpose," He said to Saul, " to make thee a servant (^vTrrjpeTijv, a rower in the ship), and a witness both of those things which thou hast seen and of the things
1 St. Luke xxii. 27.
2 St. John iv. 32.
Service 307
in the which 1 will appear unto thee."^ The vision of Christ is the call to service. And if Paul had not boon obedient to tht; heavenly vision could Saul have made his calling and election sure? But he answered it with a noble faith. "It pleased God to reveal His son in me in order that I might preach lit in amorKj the nations."" Henceforward, wherever lie might be, among his friends in Cilicia, in the dungeon at Philippi, on the doomed vessel drifting across the storm-tossed Adriatic, in the loneliness of his Roman prison, this was the one object of his life, to be a faitliful ser- vant of Christ, and therefore, as Christ was, a faithful servant of mankind. ^
How can we interpret Christ's parables, witli- Parables of out this truth? The parables of tlie Pounds P^^^'^^'^_
Jl ana .service.
and the Talents are both pictures of election to service. They both exhibit the sovereignty of God in distributing His gifts ; they both turn upon the idea of man's accounta])ility for receiving and using them; and they botli declare that the reward will be proportioned to fidel- ity in serving. The nature and meaning of tliis is ex2)lained by Christ in His great descrij)- tion of the judgment, wliich immediately fol- lows the parable of the Talents in St. ]\Iatt]iew's 1 Acts xxvi. 16. 2 Gal. i. 16. » 2 Cor. iv. 5.
308 Servi
vice
Service, the
dom
Gospel.^ Many of those who have known Him will be rejected at last because they have not served their fellow-men. Many of those who have not known Him will be accepted because they have ministered lovingly, though igno- rantly, to the wants and sorrows of the world. Service is the key-note of the heavenly king- the king- dom, and he who will not strike that note shall have no part in the music. The King in the parable of the Wedding Feast ^ chose and called his servants, not to sit down at ease in the palace, but to go out into the highways and bid every one that they met, to come to the marriage. And if one of those servants had refused or betrayed his mission, if he had neg- lected his Master's business, and sat down on the steps of the palace or walked pleasantly in the garden until the supper was ready, do you suppose that he would have found a place or a welcome at the feast? His soul would have stood naked and ashamed without the wedding- garment of love. For this is the nature of God's kingdom, that a selfish religion abso- lutely unfits a man from entering or enjoying it. Its gate is so strangely strait that a man cannot pass througli it if he desires and tries
1 St. Matt. XXV. 31-46.
2 St. Matt. xxii. 1-13.
Service 309
to conie alone ; but if he will bring others with him, it is wide enough and to spare.
Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul, May keep the path, but will not reach the goal ; While he who walks in love may wander far. Yet God will hring- him where the blessed are.
IIow wonderfully all this comes out in the Theprai/er great intercessory prayer of Christ at the last ^-^^^j supper.^ That prayer is the last and highest utterance of the love wherewith Christ, liaving loved His own which were in the world, loved them unto the end. He prays for His chosen ones : " I pray for them : I pray not for the w^orld but for those whom Thou hast given Me." '^ Holy Father, keep them in Thy name wliich Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as We are. For their sakes I consecrate Myself, that they themselves also may be consecrated in truth. Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on Me through their word ; tliat they may all be one, even as 'i'hou. Father, art in Me, and I in Tliee, that tlicy also may be in Us ; that the world may ])elieve that Thou didst send Me." How the prayer rises, like some celestial music, througli all tlie inter- woven notes of different fellowships, the fellow- ship of the Father with the Son, the fellowship 1 St. John xvii.
Christ's ideal.
310 Service
of the Master with the disciples, the fello^^Bp of the disciples with each other, until at last it strikes the grand chord of universal love. Not for the world Christ prays, but for the disciples in the world, in order that they may pray for the world, and serve the world, and draw the world to faith in Him. And so, in truth, while He prays thus for His disciples. He does pray for the whole world. Circle beyond circle, orb beyond orb, like waves upon water, like light from the sun, the prayer, the faith, the conse- crating power spread from that upper room until they embrace all mankind in the sweep of the divine intercession. The special, personal, elective love of Christ for His own is not exclusive ; it is magnificently and illimitaljly inclusive. He loved His disciples into loving their fellow-men. He lifted them into union with God ; but He did not lift them out of union with the world ; and every tie that bound them to humanity, every friendship, every fellowship, every link of human inter- course, was to be a channel for the grace of God that bringeth salvation, that it might appear to all men.^
This is Christ's ideal : a radiating gospel : a kingdom of overflowing, conquering love ; a 1 Titus ii. 11.
Service 311
church that is elected to be a means of blessing- to tlie human race. This ideal is tlie very nerve of Christian missions, at lionu' and abroad, the effort to preach tlie nospcl lo every creature, not merely because the world needs to receive it, but because the C'hureli will be rejected and lost unless she gives it. 'Tis not so much a question for us Avlietlier anv of our fellow-men can be saved without Christianity. The question is whether we can be saved if we are willing to keep our Christianity to our- selves. And the answ^er is, No ! The only religion that can really do anything for me, is the religion that makes me want to do some- thing for you. The missionary enterprise is not the Church's afterthought. It is Clirist's forethought. It is not secondary and optional. It is primary and vital. Christ has put it into the very heart of His gospel. We cannot really see Him, or know Him, or love Him, unless we see and know and love His ideal for us, the ideal which is embodied in the law of election to service.
For this reason the spirit of missions lias Missiomt
, , ,, . , • c • essentitil to
always been the saving and puriiymg jiowcr ^7„.,-„^,„„. of the Christian brotherhood. Whenever and ity- wherever this ideal has shined clear and stronir.
812 Service
it has revealed the figure of the Christ more simply and more brightly to His disciples, and guided their feet more closely in the way of peace and joy and love. Missions In the first century it was the spirit of for-
the eurii- eign missious that saved the Church from the church. bondage of Jewish formalisjn. Paul and his
companions could not live without telling the world that Clirist Jesus came to seek and save the lost — lost nations as well as lost souls. The heat of that desire burned up the fetters of bigotry like ropes of straw. The gospel could not be preached to all men as a form of Judaism. But the gospel must be preached to all men. Therefore it could not be a form of Judaism. The argument was irresistible. It was the missionary spirit that made the Eman- cipation Proclamation of Christianity. Missions In the dark ages the heart of religion was
kept beating by tlie missionary zeal and efforts of such men as St. Patrick, and St. Augustine, and Columba and Aiden, and Boniface, and Anskar, who brought the gospel to our own fierce ancestors in the northern parts of Europe and wild islands of the sea. In the middle ages it was the men who founded the great missionary orders, St. Francis and St. Dominic, who did most to revive the faith and purify
keep the gospel pure.
Service 813
the life of the Church. And wlien the Refor- mation had lost its first high impulse, and sunken into the slough of dogmatism ; when the Protestant churches had l)econR' entangled in political rivalries and theological controver- sies, while the hosts of philosophic intidelity and practical godlessness were sweeping in apparent triumph over Europe and America, it was the spirit of foreign missions tliat sounded the reveille to the Christian world, and lit the signal fire of a new era — an era of simpler creed, more militant hope, and hroadcr love — an era of the Christianity of (lirist. The desire of preaching the gospel to every creature has drawn the Church back from liei- bewilderments and sophistications ek)ser to the simplicity that is in Christ, and so closer to that divine ideal of Christian unity in which all believers shall be one in Him. You cannot preach a complicated gospel, an abstract gos- pel, to ever}' creature. You cannot preach a gospel that is cast in an infiexil)le mould of thought, like Calvinism, or Arminianism, oi- Lutheranism, to every creature. It will not fit. But the gospel, tlie only gos[)el which is divine, must be preaclied to every creature. Therefore, these moulds and foi-ms cannot l»e an essential part of it. And so we work our way
One mes- sar/e and viany ways
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back out of the tangle of human speculations to^var{l that pure, clear, living message which Paul carried over from Asia to Europe, the good iiCAvs that God is in Christ, reconciling the Avorld to Himself.
This is the gospel for an age of doubt, and for all ages wherein men sin and suffer, question of preach- ^nd despair, thirst after righteousness and long for heaven. There are a thousand ways of preaching it, with lij^s and lives, in words and deeds ; and all of them are good, provided only the preacher sets his whole manhood earnestly and loyally to his great task of bringing home the truth as it is in Jesus to the needs of his brother-men. The forms of Christian preach- ing are manifold. The spirit is one and the same. New illustrations and arguments and applications must be found for every age and every race. But the truth to be illuminated and applied is as changeless as Jesus Christ Himself, in whose words it is uttered and in whose life it is incarnate, once and forever. The types of pulpit eloquence are as different as the characters and languages of men. But all of them are vain and worthless as sound- ing brass and tinkling cymbals, unless they speak directly and personally and joyfully of that divine love which is revealed in
f/ospel.
Service 315
Christ in order that all who will lielieve in it may be saved from doubt and sin and self- ishness in the everlasting kingdom of the lov- ing God.
This is the gospel which began to shine The only through the shadows of this earth at Bethlehem, Avhere the Son of God became the child of Mar}-, and Avas manifested in perfect splendour on Calvary, where the Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep. For eighteen centuries this simple, personal, consistent gospel has been the leading light of the best desires and liopes and efforts of humanity. It is the one bright star that shines, serene and steady, through the confusion of our perplexed, struggling, doubting age. He who sees that star, sees God. He who follows that star, shall never perish. It has daw*ned upon my heart so clearly and so con- vincingly that the one thing I have cared and tried to do in these lectures is to make it plain that this is the essence of Christianity, the only gospel that is worth preaching in all Avays to all men, that Jesus Christ is God who loves us in order that we may learn to love one anotlier. But if I have failed to make this view of reli- gion clear, if an imperfect utterance has be- clouded and obscured the message, at least let this last word be plain, at least let nothing hide
The last loord.
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from your soul or from mine, this supreme, saving truth of election to service.
The vision of God in Christ is the greatest
gift in the world. It binds those who receive
it to the highest and most consecrated life. To
behold that vision is to be one of God's elect.
But the result of that election depends upon
the giving of ourselves to serve the world for
Jesus' sake. Noblesse oblige.
Believers Let US not miss the meaning of Christianity
th2 servants ^^ ^^ comes to US and claims us. We are
of God's love choscn, we are called, not to die and be saved,
to the vjhole
ivorid. but to live and save others. Ihe promise ot
Christ is a task and a reward. For us there is a place in the army of God, a mansion in the heaven of peace, a crown in the hall of victory. But whether we shall fill that place and dwell in that mansion and wear that crown, depends upon our willingness to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus. Whatever our birthright and descent, whatever our name and profession, whatever our knowledge of Christian doctrine and our performance of Christian worship may be, — when the great host is gathered in the City of God, with tattered flags and banners glorious in their bloodstained folds, with armour dinted and swords worn in the conflict, with wounds which
Service 317
tell of courage and patient endurance and deathless loyalty, — when the celestial knight- hood is assembled at the Round Table of the King, our name will be unspoken, our crown will hang above an empty chair, and our place will be given to another, unless we accept now, with sincere hearts, the only gospel which can deliver us from the inertia of doubt and the selfishness of sin. We must enter into life by giving ourselves to tlie personal Christ who un- veils the love of the Father in a Human Life, and calls us with Divine Authority to submit our Liberty to God's Sovereignty in blessed and immortal Service to our fellow-men for Christ's sake.
VERBUM DEL
THE YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING, 1893.
By ROBERT F. HORTON, M.A.
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SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
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Outlines of Social Theology
BY
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