The Galilean gospel

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THE GALILEAN GOSPEL.

THE

GALILEAN GOSPEL

BY

ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF APOLOGETICS AND NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, FREE CHURCH
COLLEGE, GLASGOW.

NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.

1882

I r-

Ci 1

PREFACE.

THIS book is not a miscellaneous collection of sermons,
gleaned from a ministry of sixteen years, and strung
together by a catching title. It is intended to serve a
definite purpose, and the greater part of the contents has
been written expressly for this publication. My aim has
been to convey as vivid an idea as possible of the Gospel
Christ preached, and above all of the evangelic spirit as
reflected in His teaching and life. I believe that this will
meet a want of our time, and will be welcomed by many.
While there is little in the actual Christianity of our day,
or in the state of the churches to awaken enthusiasm, it
is rest-giving to go back to the beginning of the Chris
tian era, and drink of the pure wells of truth opened in
Galilee in the days of the Son of Man. Reflecting on the
baleful controversies of centuries, and the tragic divi
sions resulting therefrom, on the theological schools and
their conflicting oracles, the sigh involuntarily escapes
from the breast, " Oh that I had wings like a dove, that
I might fly away to Jesus of Nazareth, and forget the
windy storms of human opinions and passions !" He
does not disappoint the weary heart. In His teaching is
eternal wisdom ; in Himself, perennial beauty. What
one has found he will desire to communicate to others, in
the belief that it must be good for all to know the authen
tic Gospel preached in Galilee, and the type of piety ex
emplified by the Preacher. Here, as in all things, Jesus
must be the model. Attempts may legitimately be made
to define, by historical examples, the characteristics of
evangelical religion ; but the surest and most direct road
to this knowledge is to study the words and ways of Him
who, just because He is at the fountain-head anterior to

VI PREFACE.

all divisions, is apt to be overlooked in our theological
definitions and historic studies. It is well to remember
whence the term evangelic comes. It is formed from the
Greek name for the Gospels : ra evayytXia, the Evangels.
The Evangels or Gospels have for their burthen the minis
try of Christ. That ministry is the gospel in its purity
and Divine poetic simplicity. That, therefore, is the
source whence our notions of evangelic truth and piety
must in the first place be taken. It will be well for the
church to remount to that source, and to have her ideas
of Christianity rectified by the standard, and her intui
tions restored where they have become obscured through
the moss of ages. When this has been done, it will be
acknowledged that evangelic piety does not belong ex
clusively to a sect or theological school, but is catholic
and unsectarian ; and also, that it is not to be identified
with the conservative spirit in religion. The days in
which we live are trying. Unbelief threatens to sweep
away all realised religious ideals, creeds, churches, clergy.
With some things one might be willing to part, under
stress of weather, to save the ship. It is well to know
what is ship and what is ballast. A recent writer on
Natural Religion proposes to throw overboard every
thing except that with which men like Strauss, Mill, and
Tyndall could agree, and to be content with nature, art,
and humanity as sufficient to satisfy the religious crav
ings of the soul. Even Christ and the Gospels may be
dispensed with. To us Christ and His Gospel are the
only things absolutely indispensable. While the spirit of
the age is falling away to the worship of the unknowable,
the beautiful, the scientific order of the universe, we would
say, " To whom shall we go, Thou hast the words of
eternal life." This book is a slight contribution to the
study of some of these golden words. It is written mainly
for the people. May it help them to a better knowledge
of the people's Friend. THE AUTHOR,

GLASGOW, November 1882.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. BEGINNING FROM GALILEE ... I

II. THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD . 2O

III. THE BEATITUDES 39

iv. THE BEATITUDES— continued . . 56

V. THE HEALER OF SOULS .... 73

VI. MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE . . 91

VII. THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST . Io8

VIII. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST . . . 128

IX. THE POWER OF FAITH .... 146

X. THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH . . 163

XI. CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR . . l8o

XII. THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE . . 197

XIII. THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT .... 214

IN PREPARA TION.

THE PAULINE GOSPEL,

[By the Rev. Professor A. B. BRUCE, D.D.
A Companion Volume to the " Galilean Gospel"

CHAPTER I

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

" Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sat in darkness
saw a great light ; and to them which sat in the region and
shadow of death light is sprung up." — MATT. iv. 15, 16.

GALILEE was the cradle of the Gospel. " The
word which God sent unto the children of Israel,
preaching peace by Jesus Christ, began from
Galilee," spreading thence throughout all Judea.*
It was a fitting birth-place for the kingdom of
heaven. First of all it had been pointed out by
the voice of prophecy as the place of dawn for
a new era of Hope. The fact is duly recognised
by the Evangelist, and with spiritual tact he
cites the oracle as one finding its fulfilment in
the events he is about to record. The appro
priateness of the citation is not to be denied,
though the circumstances contemplated by the
prophets were very different from those which
prevailed at the beginning of our Lord's public
ministry. The darkness which brooded over
the region to the west of the sea of Chinnereth,
in the days of Isaiah, was the desolation and

*Actsx. 36, 37.
A

2 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

misery caused by the devastating hosts of As
syria. The people in that quarter of the Holy
Land felt the curse of war first, because along
the way which skirted the lake the Assyrian
oppressor marched to conquest. To them, by
way of compensation, was to come first, also,
the promised redemption. And that blessing,
when it came, was to consist in the breaking of
the oppressor's yoke, the emancipation of a
down-trodden people from the cruel sway of
the eastern tyrant, by the power of a Messianic
Prince sent by God to deliver His people. Then
the people that sat in darkness should see the
dawn of a better day for the chosen nation,
bringing to the conquered and spoiled the bles
sings of liberty, peace, and prosperity.

Eight centuries later the position of Israel
was in many respects changed. Still she was
in bondage to a foreign yoke, but Assyria had
given place to Rome. And the yoke of Rome
was easy and her burthen light in comparison
with those of Assyria. Under her dominion a
submissive people, not restive under the symbols
of conquest, might enjoy the blessings of good
government, security for life and property, and
encouragement to industry. The deepest dark
ness brooding over the land now was not politi
cal, but moral and spiritual. The deliverance
most urgently called for was not emancipation
from a foreign yoke, but salvation from the

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 3

night of ignorance, and from the power of sin.
The need of Israel was not a political Messiah,
but one who could bring to her the light of
spiritual truth and the liberty of holiness. Such
a Messiah God gave to Israel in the person of
Jesus, who came to save His countrymen, not
from Rome, but from their prejudices and their
sins. He was the true Messiah to whom all
prophecy dimly pointed, in whom all prophetic
ideals found their highest fulfilment ; not less,
but all the more, the true Messiah, because His
r61e was spiritual, not political ; for all true,
lasting redemption must begin in the spirit.
He began his beneficent work in Galilee, not
because Galilee's need was the sorest, for there
were other parts of the land where the darkness
in some respects was deeper. But Galilee's
need was great if not the greatest ; the shadow
of death which lay over the Lake of Tiberias
was deep if not the deepest. Jesus might as
well begin His work there as anywhere. And if
He did begin there it was natural that the
Evangelist should note the fact and signalise its
correspondence with the word of prophecy ;
seeing therein a remarkable fitness, if not an
intentional fulfilment, a concurrence by no
means accidental, though its true reason might
lie below the surface.

But, apart from prophetic considerations,
there were other reasons which made it pecu-

4 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

liarly fit that the ministry of Jesus should com
mence in Galilee, or, to speak more exactly, on
the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.

I. Among these a place ought to be assigned
to the physical beauty of the scene. This, in an
cient times, for the aspect of nature is much
changed now, appears to have been very great.
The Jewish historian Josephus speaks of the
region in terms of glowing admiration ; repre
senting it as the ambition of nature, as possess
ing a climate adapted to the production of the
most diverse kinds of fruits, as bringing forth
all manner of fruits in greatest abundance, and
especially supplying the noblest of all, the grape
and the fig, during ten months of the year.*
Even yet, in spite of the desolation and the de
population which have followed in the track of
the Moslem, travellers speak with rapture of
the blue lake lying deep in the hollow, the
horizon line, the shrubs, the flowers, conspicuous
among which are the pink-coloured oleanders —

All through the summer night
Those blossoms red and bright
Spread their soft breasts t

along the little promontories indenting the shore
line. The inhabitants of Quito, high up among

*De Bell., Jud. iii. x. 8.

t Keble, "Christian Year," quoted by Stanley, " Sinai and

Palestine."

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE:. 5

the Andes, have a saying, " after Quito heaven,
and in heaven an opening to look down on
Quito." Somewhat similar seems to have been
the feeling of the ancient Jews with reference to
the region surrounding the Sea of Galilee ; and
even yet there is enough of beauty remaining
to bring the feeling within the reach of our sym
pathies.

That Jesus, who, from all His utterances, ap
pears a lover of nature, should have felt drawn
to this region we can well understand. But
apart from personal liking, there was a congruity
between the scene and the Gospel He was about
to preach. That Gospel was emphatically a
Gospel of hope, and it was meet that it should
be cradled in a region of beauty and sunny bright
ness. Conceive for a moment Christ commenc
ing His ministry in the neighbourhood of the
Dead Sea ! How unsuitable that land of death,
and sterility, and desert desolation to be the
birth-place of a gospel which was to remove the
blight and curse brought on the world by sin.
Let John the Baptist commence his ministry
there, but not Jesus. The proper scene of His
work is the lake, not of death, but of loveliness.
In either case the place was well chosen, viewed
as an emblem of the spiritual characteristics of
the ministry carried on therein, and of the
temper of the agent John's ministry was legal,
Christ's was evangelic ; John's temper was

6 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

severe, gloomy, despairing, Christ's was genial,
kindly, hopeful. Let John then, by all means,
go to the Dead Sea, with its salt-encrusted shore
and its barren rocks, and there, amid the grim-
ness of nature, preach repentance and the near
approach of a Messiah whose coming, as he
represents it, is awful news rather than good
news. But let Jesus come to the bright, sunny,
beautiful Sea of Galilee, and on its shore preach
His Gospel of peace, and love, and hope, and
show Himself as the sympathetic Son of man,
and herald a kingdom of grace to whose bless
ings even the most sinful and miserable are
welcome.

And let us join Him there. "Ye are not
come to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion," said
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews to his
countrymen, who stood in need of consolation,
and also of instruction in the true genius of
Christianity. In the same spirit, and with like
intent, we might say to Christians now, " Ye are
not come to the Dead Sea, but to the Sea
of Galilee." This is what we would say in
this sermon, and in this book. We desire to
bring you back to the Galilean lake, to the
haunts of Jesus and to the spirit of Jesus, to
the brightness and sunny summer richness, and
joy, and geniality, and freedom of the authentic
Gospel preached by Him in the dawn of the
era of grace. Some have not yet come to that

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 7

happy place ; many linger by the Dead Sea,
and are disciples of John, to their great loss.
For it is good to be with Jesus in Galilee. An
evangelic faith, and still more if possible an
evangelic temper, in sympathy with the Gali
lean proclamation, is a grand desideratum. It
is what is needed to redeem the evangel from
the suspicion of exhaustion or impotence, and
to rescue the very term " evangelic " from the
reproach under which it lies in the thoughts of
many.

2. A second point in the fitness of the locality
chosen by Jesus to be the scene of His ministry
was the mixed character of its population. This
was a feature of Galilee as a whole, as well as
of the parts immediately adjacent to the lake.
Hence the name " Galilee of the Gentiles," as
old as the prophet Isaiah. The northern part
of Palestine was a border country, and as such
was liable not only to experience in an unusual
degree the miseries of incessant warfare, but
also to have the purity of its blood, and of its
national manners, tainted by strangers taking
up their abode within it. Originally the name
seems to have been confined to the limited dis
trict in which were situated the twenty towns
given by Solomon to Hiram, King of Tyre,
which would naturally become filled with
foreigners, and so come to be called the district
or circuit of the Gentiles. In course of time

8 BEGINNING FROM GALILEfi.

the name was applied to the whole northern
territory, probably in consequence of the spread
of the foreign element among the inhabitants.
In the text Galilee stands as a synonym for
the northern tribes, and a Gentile mixture is
ascribed by implication to the whole region.
And what is indirectly asserted of Galilee in
general, is virtually affirmed of the crowded
populations along the shores of the lake. The
Evangelist means to emphasise the mixed
character of that population. He uses with
reference to it the expression Galilee of the
Gentiles, not merely because he finds it in
the prophetic oracle which he quotes, but be
cause that point seems to him a very significant
feature in the prophecy. He would have us
note as characteristic that Jesus began His
ministry in a locality occupied not by a pure
Jewish race, but by a motley multitude of
people of various nationality, Jewish, Syrian,
and Greek. For he, too, though in a less degree
than Luke, knows, and rejoices in the know
ledge, that the light which first shines in Judaea
is destined to lighten all the lands, and he finds
in the mixed character of the population on
which the rays of that light first fell, a prophetic
foreshadowing of the fact. If such was indeed
the Evangelist's thought, we must admit that it
was no mere idle fancy. We perceive it to be
fitting that Galilee of the Gentiles was selected

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. §

by Christ to be the cradle of a gospel destined
to universality. It was well that He who, ere
He left the world, said to His disciples, " Go
and teach all the nations," should commence
the work among a people amidst whom Jewish
isolation and exclusiveness appeared only in a
very mitigated degree. Not that He meant to
anticipate the time appointed for preaching the
Gospel to the outside world. He did not judge
it wise to do so, and He confined his own activity
strictly to the Jewish people, the exceptions
being such as proved the rule. Hence His avoid
ance of Tiberias, at the south end of the lake,
which was in the whole style of its buildings
and manners, a Greek city. But while ever
acting as a minister of God to Israel, He did
not shun opportunities of hinting, as it were in
parable or symbol, that a time would come
when the word of the kingdom would overflow
the boundaries of the elect people. Such a hint
He gave in the choice of the district called
in the language of prophecy, Galilee of the
Gentiles, as the scene of His labours. The
choice meant : " though I personally be a
minister of the kingdom to Jesus, My Gospel
concerns Gentiles. It is My vocation now to
disperse the darkness that broods over Israel,
but I came to be eventually the light of the
world."

3. A third feature recommending the environ-

10 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

ment of the lake to be the theatre of Christ's
ministry, was the density of its population. The
shores of the Sea of Galilee are now almost
wholly depopulated, only a few wretched villages
being thinly scattered along the coast. But in
our Lord's day these shores were crowded with
towns, inhabited by great multitudes of busy,
industrious people. Josephus writes : " The
cities here lie very thick, and the very numerous
villages are full of people on account of the good
ness of the soil, insomuch that even the smallest
of them contains above 1 5,000 inhabitants." *
There may be exaggeration, even gross exag
geration, in this statement, but no one in his
senses would make it, unless the region spoken
of were in a remarkable degree populous.

This populousness was an attraction to Jesus.
On one side of His nature He dearly loved soli
tude, but on another He delighted to mix in the
busy haunts of men. He did not care for the
thing called popularity, but He loved human
beings. He had an intensely human heart, and
He liked to be in the crowd, observing men's
ways and work, gaining acquaintance at first
hand with real life ; and all in order to get close
to men for their good, and to the largest num
ber possible. Some, crowds, indeed, Jesus did
not care to be in, but avoided, the crowd, for
example, to be found in the city of Jerusalem ;
* B. J. iii. 3, 2.

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. I I

the reason being that the people there were so
encased in self-conceit, and prejudice, and artifi
ciality as to be inaccessible to any influence not
wholly conventional and traditional, a risk to
which all cities of culture are exposed, and a
very serious risk it is. But happily the crowds
in the cities of the lake were not in this case.
They were simple, natural, open, receptive,
partly from their occupations, the chief being
that of fishermen ; partly because they were a
mixed race mutually modifying each other ;
none, or at least few, being able to boast of pure
Jewish blood, and custom ; a great advantage,
for nothing hardens like pride of blood, and race,
and rite. Nothing but the pride of virtue, the
worst pride of all. From this also the Galileans
were comparatively free, for the simple reason
that they had probably not much virtue to boast
of. Mixing of races is apt to bring along with
it corruption or degeneracy of morals. Of the
prevalence of such corruption in Galilee we have
an indication in the question of Nathanael to
Philip, " Can there any good thing come out of
Nazareth?"* as also in the note appended to the
name of Mary of Magdala — " out of whom went
seven devils." f

4. Strange to say, this very corruption formed
a fourth element in the fitness and attractiveness
of the region by the lake, as the scene of Christ's

* John i. 46. tLuke viii. 2.

1 1 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

ministry. It was meet that Jesus should go
down to Capernaum, and make it the place of
His abode, just because it was down not physi
cally merely — lying many feet below the level
of the Mediterranean in a great chasm, but
morally as well. That descent was the emblem
of a gospel which was to be distinguished by
the depth to which it could go in compassion
for human depravity, not less than by its world
wide length and breadth of interest and range
of destination. Not only was it meet that Jesus
should go down there for that reason ; He was
attracted to that low-lying region for the same
reason. The corruption of those populations
on the margin of the lake drew Him down.
Why ? Because the greater their corruption, the
greater their need of Him. Not only so, but
the greater their corruption, the greater the
possibilities of good in them once brought to
repentance. They to whom much is forgiven
love much. One out of whom seven devils are
cast, is capable of a sevenfold devotion. The
last in depravity can become by grace the first
in sanctity. Jesus knew these things to be true,
— it is from Him we learn them ; therefore He
went down to the side of the lake in high hope
of making among the people dwelling there
signal gains for the Divine kingdom.

From the foregoing particulars, taken together,
we already know something concerning the

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 13

nature of the " Galilean Gospel." It is a gospel
of geniality and joy, smiling as the region in
which it is preached ; of world-wide sympathy
with all classes and races of men; of tender
compassion and buoyant hope for the degraded
and depraved ; for publicans like Matthew, for
sinners like the Magdalene. It may be well,
however, that we try to form a somewhat more
definite idea of the Light that arose on the
people which sat in darkness.

The light was the whole ministry of Christ.
The Evangelist, thinking of all that Jesus said,
did, and was in Galilee, as about to be recorded
in his narrative, prefixes to the record this
reflection : The people that sat in darkness did
indeed see a great light. From the verse im
mediately succeeding our text, in which it is
stated that " from that time Jesus began to
preach, and to say : repent for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand," we might be tempted to
narrow the light to the doctrine of repentance
and pardon. But in reality it embraces the
whole doctrine of the kingdom, as a kingdom of
grace; and besides that, and above all, the
person of the King — "the Prince of Peace."
More than all he said, Christ Himself was
the Light. For "in Him was life, and the life
was the light of men." The sun that rose on the
land of darkness, with healing in its wings, was
"the Son of Man," the man Christ Jesus. He

14 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

was a sun to Galilee, to Judaea, and ultimately
to the world, in all the varied aspects of His
character and work. In Him appeared such an
one as the world had never seen before, recog
nisable by all who saw Him, and could appre
ciate His worth and work, as a great Deliverer.

Jesus was as a sun to Galilee specially in
four respects : —

First, as a man of intense sympathy, whose
heart was touched with pity by all forms of
human suffering. The evidence and the out
come of this pity were the healing miracles,
which might fitly be mentioned first in an
account of Christ's ministry because they would
be most readily appreciated by the people.
Matthew accordingly speaks of this aspect of
the ministry in the sequel of the chapter from
which our text is taken, telling how Jesus healed
all manner of sickness and all manner of
disease among the people. There were many
forms of disease to heal, some of a very aggra
vated and peculiar character. The prevalence of
painful, loathsome, mortal disease was one phase
of the darkness that brooded over the land.
Jesus felt for the victims, and His sympathy
was a ray of the light that streamed from Him
as a sun. It was so intense that thereby, as the
Evangelist elsewhere remarks, He took on Him
self men's infirmities and bore their sicknesses.
Of this sympathy Galilean sufferers got the

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 15

benefit, but not they alone ; it is a permanent
element in the light of Christ. It is an intima
tion that disease and death are not to last for
ever, a prophecy of the redemption of the body,
a hint that the purpose of God's gracious love
embraces in its scope the whole man, not the
spirit only. As such it is worthy of all accepta
tion.

A second element in the light of Christ was
the spirit of hopeful love with which He regarded
the most aggravated cases of moral depravity.
His yearning love for the sinful was wonderful ;
His hope for their recovery not less so. Both
were new, and came on those who witnessed
their manifestation as a surprise. The way of
the well-conducted in those days was to be at
once careless and hopeless respecting the bad ;
to shun their society, and to regard them as
finally given over to evil courses. Jesus did
neither of these things. He loved and He
hoped in connection with the lapsed ; loved and
therefore hoped ; hoped and therefore took
trouble to bring them to repentance ; having
fellowship with them, that by sympathy He
might restore them to goodness. And great
was the brightness with which this love and this
hope shone into the darkness. For nowhere
else did such lights appear. And the darkness
on which the love and hope of Jesus shone was
very deep. Sin was rampant in Galilee, as

1 6 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

well as disease ; sin especially in forms which
cause conscious misery and degradation. One
looking on the surface would say: Little hope
of reformation there. Jesus declined to say
that ; He dared to hope for new life even amid
vice and profligacy. And this love that refused
to despair is another permanent element in the
light of Christ, telling us that sin is not, any
more than death, unconquerable, and that even
the chief of sinners are not beyond redemption.
A third element in the light that arose in
Galilee to which we simply refer, is the wisdom
of Jesus, revealed in all His words, and more
particularly in His parables of grace, and in
His doctrine of the kingdom. Nothing is more
remarkable in this connection than " the Beati
tudes," forming the preface to the Sermon on the
Mount. Think of the kind of people who are
there pronounced happy : the poor, the hungry,
those that weep ! These are they whom the
world accounts miserable, and speaks of heart
lessly as unfortunate. And they are unhappy
in a sense. But Jesus says they are not there
fore necessarily wretched. Though unhappy they
may be blessed ; that is, partakers of a higher
kind of felicity, which he who has once tasted
it would not part with for all the happiness that
wealth, health, and friends can bestow. Com
fortable doctrine for the children of sorrow !
Blessed light amidst forms of darkness in

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. I 7

which this earth in all places and in all ages
abounds ! Poverty, hunger, tears, are every
where. But where they are Christian blessedness
may be, wealth of grace, abundance of right
eousness and wisdom, joy in the Holy Ghost.

Finally, another ray in the light of Christ was
what we may call His naturalness as a man and
as a teacher. In him appeared a man of free
untrammelled mind, totally exempt from the
spiritual fetters of the time. The appearance
of such a man is at all times a boon to be
welcomed ; but never was there greater need
for the light of moral originality than in the
days of our Lord. The want of that was the
darkest element in the darkness of the age.
The people of Galilee were afflicted with the
darkness of disease, and with the darkness of
sin ; but they were afflicted still more griev
ously with the darkness produced by blind
guides. That darkness was densest over Jeru
salem, but it was in Galilee too ; it was every
where in the Holy Land. All over Palestine,
north, south, east, and west, were to be found
those dismal teachers of the law who multiplied
rules, and split casuistical hairs, and made life
miserable, conscience uneasy, and God's law
contemptible. Through their baleful influence
the light within, the moral sense, was darkened,
and the shadow of death spread over the whole
country. What a boon at such a time the ap-
B

I 8 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE.

pearance of a man of free creative mind, with
fresh moral intuitions, unsophisticated in con
science, fearless in spirit, while averse from con
troversy and desirous to live at peace with all
men. His appearance is a republication of the
moral law, a restoration of the light of day in
the moral world, after a long night of supersti
tion, hypocrisy, and delusion, driving unclean
birds to their hiding places, and encouraging
honest souls to come to the light that their deeds
may be made manifest that they are wrought in
God.

Such a moral revolution Jesus wrought sim
ply by being a true man among many counter
feits, a free man among many slaves, a brave
man among many cowards, a natural man
among many artificial men. Such a revolution
he is able to work still, through the same
elements of His character, which are also a per
manent part of the light which He sheds on the
world. And there is need of such revolutions
from time to time. For Rabbinical darkness is
ever apt to reappear, in new forms but the same
in spirit ; and when it does reappear, there is
urgent need that the moral and spiritual intui
tions be restored in their purity and power.
Perhaps we should not greatly err if we said
that such is the need of our own time. What a
bright light would spring up to us were Christ
shown to our spirit as He appeared in Capernaum

BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 19

—the son of man, the man of tender sympathy,
of boundless love and hope, of divine wisdom,
and of absolute moral simplicity and originality !
Then should we know what genuine evangelic
piety is; then should we see the kingdom of
heaven in all the beauty of the Galilean dawn ;
then should we experience the power of the
Gospel in our own hearts to gladden and sanc
tify : in the church to beautify it with wisdom,
zeal, and charity; in society to turn its waste
places into fruitful fields, bearing an abundant
harvest of sobriety, righteousness, and godli
ness.

CHAPTER II.

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

LUKE iv. 16-30.

EVERY Christian would wish to know what
were the first words spoken by Jesus as a
preacher of the good tidings of the kingdom.
Two of the Evangelists seem to gratify this
natural curiosity. The " Sermon on the Mount "
comes in at a very early point in Matthew's
narrative, as if the intention of the writer were
to present it to his readers as the first discourse
pronounced by Christ after entering on His
public ministry. On this view, " the Beatitudes "
were the inaugural utterances of the Galilean
Gospel, and they are certainly well worthy to
strike the key-note of the heavenly music which
ushered in the era of Redemption. According
to the third Evangelist, not the Sermon on the
Mount, but the sermon in the synagogue of
Nazareth on the acceptable year of the Lord,
appears to have had the honour of being the
first embodiment in solemn speech of the good
news of God. Luke certainly does give to that
sermon the same place of prominence, near the

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 2 I

beginning of his narrative, assigned by Matthew
to the Sermon on the Mount ; and the fact is
not without significance, as indicative of the
distinctive character of his Gospel, as compared
with that of the first Evangelist. The spirit of
the two Evangelists is indicated by what they
place first ; all the more if what they set in the
forefront of their story did not occur so early
in the actual history. Judged by this test, the
bias of Luke was to regard Christ's work as
emphatically a ministry of love, and His words
as "words of grace." Matthew, on the other
hand, by the same rule, while not insensible, as
the Beatitudes show, to the gracious side of
Christ's doctrine, recognised in it a legal element,
which finds expression in the body of the great
discourse.

There is reason to believe that neither of the
sermons occupied the place of an inaugural dis
course. There is the less reason to doubt this
in the case of the sermon in the synagogue of
Nazareth, that the Evangelist himself allows us
to see he is aware that the ministry of Jesus did
not begin there and then, and in the manner
described. He knows of things previously
done, and we may assume said also, in Caper
naum.* Though he puts this scene in the fore
front, he knows that it is not actually the first
scene. It is important to note this fact, as it

* Ver. 23.

22 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

helps to obviate objections that might be taken
to the utterances and bearing of Jesus in his
native town, assuming the incidents recorded to
belong to the early period of His ministry. The
words, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears," involve a distinct claim to Messiah-
ship ; the references to the history of the pro
phets Elijah and Elisha indicate a preference of
heathens to Jews ; the reflections provoked by
the not unnatural surprise of the villagers at the
talents displayed in the discourse to which they
had listened seem to betray a certain tone of
impatience or irritation. These things, it may
be said, it has indeed been said, do not suit the
initial stage, but could only appropriately hap
pen at an advanced stage in the ministry.
They make the end the beginning, to the injury
of the history, and even of the character of
Jesus.*

All this may be granted without prejudice to
the good faith or the accuracy of the Evangelist.
For though, for some reason, he placed this
scene at the commencement of his story, he
does not mislead his readers. His narrative
is quite compatible with the supposition that
the events recorded really occurred at the late
period implied in the accounts of the first and
second Gospels ;•(• that is to say, after a ministry

* So Keim in his " History of Jesus of Nazareth."
t Matt. xiii. 54-58; Mark vi. 1-6.

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 23

of some duration in the neighbourhood of Caper
naum, including the working of many miracles
and the utterance of many weighty words, such
as the parables recorded in the thirteenth chap
ter of Matthew.

Why it was that Luke transferred to the be
ginning what actually belonged to a late time,
we shall see immediately. Meantime it will
serve a good purpose to endeavour to form as
clear a conception as possible of the probable
situation — the historical setting of the dis
course in the synagogue of Nazareth. And in
the first place, we remark that a visit to Nazareth,
accompanied by some such incidents as are
recorded by Luke, is clearly implied in the nar
ratives of all the three synoptical Evangelists.
All relate how Jesus came to His own native
place, entered into the synagogue there, and
delivered an address which created general
astonishment, yet failed to win for the speaker
a sympathetic believing reception from his
fellow-townsmen, but, on the contrary, had for
its final issue deep and permanent alienation.
The story in these its main lines has a sure place
in the evangelic tradition, distinctly though
briefly recognised even in the fourth Gospel.*
But in what circumstances did this visit to
Nazareth take place ? when did Jesus ascend
from the sea-shore to His native village, and in

* John iv. 43-45.

24 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

what mood ? The probable connection of
events was as follows. Jesus had laboured for
a while among the cities by the lake. His
words and works had produced a great impres
sion, which, however, had proved evanescent.
The Capernaum enthusiasm had been followed
by a crisis bringing a decline of interest in the
Galilean Gospel, and of affection for the Great
Evangelist. The effect on Christ's own spirit
was a deep sadness which found expression
variously: in complaints against the cities
wherein His mighty works were done,* and very
specially in the adoption of a new parabolic
mode of setting forth His thoughts. For the
parables are the reflection of a melancholy mood,
and the first parable, that of the sower, reveals
very clearly the cause of the melancholy in the
presence among the hearers of the word of the
kingdom of so many in whom that word would
bring forth no abiding fruit.f In yet another
way did the sadness of Jesus seek relief, viz., by
a visit to His native town. The visit did not
mean a change of plan, the selection of a new
sphere of work, the abandonment of a popula
tion that had deeply disappointed early expec
tations in favour of a people from whom better
things — more receptivity and constancy, were

* Matt. xi. 20-24.

t Vide on this my work on "The Parabolic Teaching of
Christ," p. 19.

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 25

hoped. Jesus knew man too well to expect for
a prophet special success in His own country;
He was aware, as the proverb he quoted in the
synagogue of Nazareth shows, that all experi
ence bore witness to the contrary. That visit
meant much the same thing as the occasional
retirement into solitary places in the evening
to pray, of which we read in the Gospels. It
was a weary heart seeking rest, not so much in
the sympathy of man, as in the bosom of His
Father, amid the haunts of childhood, and the
revived associations of by-past years.

But while Jesus did not go to Nazareth in
quest of a new theatre of operations, or of more
receptive hearers, He could not be there without
taking an opportunity of proclaiming to His
fellow-townsmen the good tidings He had been
preaching to the busy populations of the valley
below; especially if, as is not improbable, He
had not yet appeared among them as the Herald
of the kingdom. Even though it be true that a
prophet hath no honour in his own country, and
therefore does well not to rely too much upon
the support of those who have been familiar
with him from his earliest years, yet it were
unseemly for one who has received a prophet's
commission to deliver his message to the wide
public and to pass the acquaintances of his boy
hood over. Whatever comes of it, he must
preach to them also.

26 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

The needed opportunity was found in the
local synagogue. There any one, with the per
mission of the chief man, might without presump
tion read and exhort. The roll containing the
prophecies of Isaiah having been put into His
hands by the officer, Jesus opened it, and, lighting
upon the passage concerning the acceptable year
of the Lord, read it in the hearing of those present.
The section read might be the lesson for the day,
or more probably it was expressly selected and
adapted for the occasion. Adapted it certainly
was, if it was read as it stands in the Gospel, for
the text as given by Luke differs from the ori
ginal, by the omission of the clause concerning
the day of vengeance, and by the addition of a
clause from an earlier chapter of Isaiah, this
viz., " to set at liberty them that are bruised,"
which corresponds to the expression, " to let the
oppressed go free," in Isaiah Iviii. 6.

Having read the unusually brief but peculiarly
impressive Scripture portion, Jesus sat down and
began to discourse on it, to the effect that He
was the anointed one referred to therein, and
that in His ministry and mission the promise
of the acceptable year was fulfilled. The eyes
of all were turned towards Him with eager ex
pectation, for doubtless they had heard the
fame of His work in Capernaum, and were
curious to see how the rising celebrity, a towns
man of their own, would acquit Himself. To an

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 2j

ordinary speaker the intense interest might have
been embarrassing, but Jesus rose above all
embarrassment and spoke with an inspiration,
eloquence, and felicity not to be resisted. The
immediate result was universal admiration. But
the average of mankind do not long remain in
this mood. Admiration soon gives place to
envy, and praise to depreciatory criticism. No
matter how superior the performance, occasion
for fault finding is sure to be found; if not in the
person himself, then in his environment. The
fault of Jesus lay in His being a Nazarene. He
was one of themselves, they knew Him from
boyhood, and all His kith and kin, and could
give the names of his father and mother, and
brothers and sisters. And so they passed from
admiration to surprise, and from surprise to
irritation. " How gracious the substance of this
discourse, and how graceful the manner. But
how should a townsman of ours have such rare
gifts ; nay, what right has he to be other than
commonplace like the rest of us, like the other
members of his own family? James and Joses
and Simon and Judas are all very ordinary
men, why should Jesus their brother be
extraordinary ? Is it credible that he should
be so extraordinary as he says ; not merely
unusually clever, as we cannot deny, but the
anointed one, the Messiah, spoken of by the
prophet ? It would require strong evidence to
convince us of this."

28 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

So thought the men of Nazareth, so spake
they to each other with the wonted freedom of
a Jewish synagogue. Jesus knew human nature
in general, and Jewish human nature in parti
cular too well, to be hurt or surprised at the
feelings visible in their countenances, and
audible in their words. The reception He had
got appeared to Him only a verification of the
truth of proverb-lore expressed in such sayings
as " Physician heal thyself," " No prophet is ac
cepted in his own country." These proverbs He
quoted to His audience, to show them how well
He understood them, and how much a matter
of course their ungenerous behaviour was in His
eyes. But while thus treating their unbelief as
natural, He did not allow them to imagine it
was blameless. On the contrary, He gave them
to understand that it was a moral defect that
brought along with it its own penalty. If a
prophet had no honour in his own country, it
was not the fault of the prophet, but of his
countrymen. For the prophet was not without
honour, save in his own country, and among his
own kin and in his own house. Whence this ex
ception to the universal esteem accorded to one
exercising the prophetic office ; what is its
meaning and import ? What but this, a moral
blindness that cannot discern nobleness through
the disguise of a mean or familiar environment.
Such blindness has for its inevitable penalty

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 29

that the prophet goes where he gets honour.
This unpleasant truth Jesus hinted to His
hearers by the citation of historical examples.
It was a truth which, in one form or another, He
had frequent occasion to repeat. Already He
had spoken it in effect to the men of Capernaum
when He said that if the mighty works done
among them had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would have repented in sackcloth and
ashes. Now He speaks it to the men of
Nazareth, not in anger, but in discharge of a
sad duty. Ere long He will have to speak it
to the whole nation of Israel, in parables of
Judgment, like the Barren Fig-tree, and the
wicked vinedressers, intimating the transfer
ence of privilege despised or abused, from the
elect race to the outside world of the Gentiles.
It was a truth which the Jews, in their pride,
could not bear to hear. The Nazarenes were
no exception. The ominous allusions to favours
conferred by Hebrew prophets on aliens touched
their prejudices and passions to the quick, and
raised in the synagogue a sudden tempest of
indignation, which threatened the bold speaker
with instant destruction.

The whole scene in the synagogue of Nazareth
from beginning to end is full of typical signifi
cance. Commencing with evangelic discourse,
and closing with death-perils, it may be said to
be an epitome of the history of Jesus. And for

3O THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

that very reason it is introduced here by the
Evangelist at so early a place in his narrative.
Luke, perceiving its significance, has selected it
to be the frontispiece of his gospel, showing by
sample the salient features of its contents. He
is not to be blamed for doing this, provided care
has been taken to prevent misapprehension as
to the true place of the scene in the history.
The frontispiece in a book is often taken from
an advanced page, from which certain words
are quoted to illustrate the picture, the number
of the page from which the quotation is made
being added for the guidance of the reader.
Luke has only availed himself of this literary
license, and not without due precautions: for
the reference to the works "done in Capernaum,"
so to speak, gives the historical page from which
the frontispiece is taken.

The only question is, has Luke selected his
frontispiece well ? He is not to be blamed for
having a frontispiece ; but he might be blame
worthy if he gave so prominent a place to a
scene not possessing the many-sided significance
required. In this respect, however, there is no
room for fault finding. The selection is most
felicitous at all points. Let us consider the scene
in detail more attentively that we may see this.

It is probable that for Luke's own mind the
emblematic significance of the scene lay chiefly
in these two features : the gracious character of

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 3!

Christ's discourse, and the indication in the
close of the universal destination of the Gospel.
These were things sure to interest the Pauline
Evangelist. That the former feature arrested
his attention, appears from the phrase which he
employs to describe the nature of Christ's
sermon, " words of grace," an expression all the
more remarkable that it is of rare occurrence in
the Gospels. It goes without saying that he
was fully alive to the prophetic import of the
final, tragic phase of the scene. In its hints of
a wider range for the ministry of grace than
the narrow bounds of Israel, the consequent
outburst of murderous rage among bigoted
villagers, and the escape and departure of Jesus,
the historian of the Acts of the Apostles could
not fail to recognise anticipations and fore-
shadowings of similar incidents in the mission
ary experience of Paul. In this view the
present narrative may be regarded as a frontis
piece, not only to the Gospel of Luke, but to
the combined historical work of which he was
the author.

It is a worthy frontispiece, in respect both of
the grace and of the universality of the Gospel.
In the first place, the text of Christ's discourse
was a most gracious one ; none more so could
have been found within the range of Old Testa
ment prophecy. It was made more gracious
than in the original, by the omission of the

32 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

reference to the day of vengeance, and by the
addition of a clause to make the account of
Messiah's blessed work as many-sided arid
complete as possible. Its graciousness was
further enhanced by the lifting up of the whole
ministry of Messiah from the political to the
spiritual plane. The mission of the anointed
one in the view of the prophet was to deliver
Israel from Babylonish exile, and so inaugurate
a new year of jubilee, bringing freedom to the
captive, and vengeance on the head of the
oppressor. The announcement of such deliver
ance was a veritable gospel, albeit a political
one, good tidings, indeed, to the meek, from a
most gracious covenant God mindful of His
people in their downtrodden estate. But there
is a worse bondage than that of Babylon, and
a higher liberty than that which releases from
an outward yoke. Christ had these in view
when he quoted the prophetic oracle. That is
not indeed expressly indicated. The words as
given are susceptible of either reference. But
there are times when old words receive new and
higher meanings, and there are times when old
meanings demand new words. Such a time
was that of Jesus. He came to fill old phrases
with a deeper, wider sense, to make the oppres
sor signify not Rome but sin, and captivity
enslavement by evil desires and habits; to make
poverty mean more than the lack of outward

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 33

goods, and a broken heart more than merely
worldly disappointment. The new era which
came in with Christ brought along with it two
great changes in human thought. It proclaimed
the importance of the individual man as a
moral subject, and it placed happiness and
misery within, not without ; in the heart, not in
outward possessions or position. Of old the
nation was the unit, and the individual man of
no account. Israel, as a whole, was God's son,
and the object of Divine care. But now, in the
new era, men are told that God cares for them
individually, for the poorest and the vilest, and
this message is itself an essential part of the
gospel which Christ preaches. When He speaks
of "the poor," "the broken-hearted," "the cap
tives," "the blind," "the bruised," He means,
not a community, but individual men and
women, much needing to hear some message of
hope and consolation. And what He offers to
them is not money or food, or freedom from an
external yoke, but something nearer themselves.
He gives them to understand that happiness
consists not in what a man has, but in what he
is, and that it is in the power of all to be such
in heart, that no matter what his outward lot,
he must need be inwardly blessed. Such were
the ideas of the new era which made it an era
in human history ; and it was with these ideas
in His mind that Jesus quoted the text from
c

34 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

Isaiah's prophecies. And surely it was a
gracious text when so understood ! There was
grace in it even when addressed by the prophet
to Israel as a whole with reference to her poli
tical condition ; how much more when used as a
gospel for the individual spirit, and offering to
each human being, however circumstanced,
peace, wisdom, self-mastery, release from the
fetters of ignorance, passion, and evil habit, into
a blessed subjection to the sway of reason,
conscience, and God.

If Christ's text was full of grace, His sermon
appears to have been not less so. It has not
indeed been recorded at length or even in out
line, but its drift is indicated, and its general
spirit characterised. " He began to say unto
them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears." He claimed for His ministry to be
a fulfilment of the prophecy, and of course set
forth the grounds on which the claim rested.
This He could not do convincingly without mak
ing a statement of doctrines and facts, the very
burthen of which was grace ; for it would require
an array of most gracious sayings and doings to
supply the materials of such a demonstration.
But He would be at no loss where to find the
necessary details of His high argument. He
had but to refer to His healing miracles and to
His dealings with publicans and sinners, to
show that His mission was to fight with and

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 35

conquer physical, social, and moral evil in every
shape, and so to inaugurate the acceptable year
of the Lord, the new era of redeeming love.

That Christ's discourse was of this tenor the
Evangelist indicates when he makes use of the
phrase " words of grace " to denote its general
character. That phrase, indeed, he reckoned
the fittest to characterise Christ's whole teach
ing as recorded in his gospel, and on that very
account it is that he introduces it here. But we
may assume that he possessed more information
concerning the contents of the discourse than he
has communicated, and that he employs the
expression " words of grace " to reflect the gene
ral impression made on his mind by the details.
The discourse, from all he could learn from
current evangelic tradition, was emphatically
gracious in its strain. The substance was redo
lent of grace, and the manner of the speaker
corresponded : the countenance lit up with the
sunshine of hope for the world, the eye moist
ened with the dew of sympathy, the whole
frame instinct with enthusiastic energy; all com
bining to make a powerful impression even on
stolid Nazarenes, whose admiration supplies the
crowning proof that the discourse was such as
is represented in the narrative. Doubt it not,
therefore, that sermon in the synagogue of
Nazareth was eloquent in the true sense of the
word. Eloquence means speaking so that all

36 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

that is within one finds utterance. All that
was within Jesus spoke out in that sermon, yea,
and all that was without Him too. Would that
all " preachers of the Gospel," so called, could
preach in His fashion, with the air of men that
had good news to tell ! A gospel is something
that makes the preacher himself happy, and
which therefore he has pleasure in communicating
to others. He therefore is no preacher of a gospel
who wears a gloomy countenance, and exhibits
a depressed bearing, and whose words sound
like words of doom, rather than words of grace,
as if he had come forth from a prison, or from
some sombre abode smothered among trees
whose branches shut out the fresh air and the
sunlight, to speak to his fellowmen. Judge not
Jesus by such a man ; in matter, manner, spirit,
this modern preacher differs toto coelo from the
genial, joyous, winsome preacher of Nazareth.

In so far as the grace of the gospel is con
cerned, then, Luke has undoubtedly shown tact
in selecting this scene to be the frontispiece of
his gospel. Text and sermon are most charac
teristic of Christ's whole ministry, as reported,
not only by the third Evangelist, but by all his
brethren. No better motto could be found for
that ministry than the prophetic oracle read in
the synagogue of Nazareth. If Jesus did not
actually preach His first discourse from it, He
might have done so, taking occasion therefrom

THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 37

to draw out a programme of His work as the
inaugurator of the acceptable year of the Lord.

In respect of the universal destination of the
Gospel, this scene is also sufficiently significant.
In this connection, indeed, what it supplies is
rather omens than distinct intimations. It is
hinted that prophets accustomed to receive
more honour every where than in their own
country, are apt to go where they get a good
reception. The anger produced by the hint
suggests the thought that prophets ill received
by their own people may be forced, whether
they will or no, to go elsewhere with their
message. The attempt on the life of Jesus
foreshadows the tragic event through which the
prophet of Nazareth hoped to draw to Himself
the expectant eyes of all men. The departure
of Jesus from His native town is a portent of
Christianity leaving the sacred soil of Judaea,
and stepping forth into the wide world in quest
of a new home. Significant traits all these
justly appeared to the eye of Luke the Pauline
evangelist.

The two features most prominent in this
frontispiece are just the salient characteristics
of the Christian era. It is the era of grace,
and of grace free to all mankind. And on
these accounts it is the acceptable year of the
Lord. It is acceptable to God, for God is
the God of grace above all things, and it is His

38 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.

pleasure to embrace in His gracious purpose,
not one chosen people, but all peoples that dwell
on the face of the earth. And for the same
reasons it should be acceptable to us. We
should rejoice in the era to which we belong,
because therein God's grace is manifest and
magnified. It is to our loss if we remain igno
rant of the characteristics of the era under which
we live, and belong in spirit to the old super
seded era of law and limited privilege. It is to
our shame if, knowing these characteristics, we
remain indifferent to them, and still more if we
trample them under foot.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEATITUDES.

MATT. v. 3-12 ; LUKE vi. 20-23.

THE Beatitudes contain Christ's doctrine of
happiness. A strange doctrine it must sound
to worldly ears ! It seems a series of paradoxes,
or even contradictions, amounting together to a
declaration that the miserable are the happy.
Nowhere does the boldness of the Preacher of
Galilee appear more conspicuously than in these
opening sentences of the Sermon on the Mount.
This Man has faith in the power of His Gospel
to cope with every ill that flesh is heir to. He
speaks as one who has good news for all classes
of men, and for all possible conditions. There
is no human experience which He regards with
despair. And his doctrine is as original as it is
bold, not to be confounded with that of any
philosophical school. It is not stoicism. The
Stoic preached submission to misery as the in
evitable, and offered to his disciples the peace
of despair. Jesus looks on evil as something
that can be transmuted into good, and for all

4O THE BEATITUDES.

sufferers has a hope, a reward, an outlook. It
is not optimism. The optimist denies evil, or
explains it away, and thinks to cure human
misery by fine phrases. Jesus admits the evil
that is in the world, and speaks of it in plain
terms ; only, unlike the pessimist, He declines
to regard it as final, insurmountable.

The kind of happiness Jesus offers is obvi
ously something novel and peculiar. When He
says, Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the
sorrowful, He means either that they are blessed
in spite of their misery, or that they are blessed
through their misery. In either case the blessed
ness must be something different from what the
world usually accounts happiness, something in
the soul, not in the outward state. Jesus invites
men to reach felicity by the method of inward
ness, representing it as within the reach of all
just because that is the way to it.

These aphorisms on happiness prefixed to the
Sermon on the Mount might have formed a part
of the sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth on
the acceptable year of the Lord. Only once
written in the evangelic narrative, they might
have been many times spoken. They would have
served well to show how the Scripture quoted
from Isaiah had been fulfilled, and to describe
the nature of the new era of Grace. They might
have been, possibly they were, notes sounded
by Jesus on the trumpet of the world's jubilee.

THE BEATITUDES. 4!

They are certainly among the most character
istic utterances of the new era of Hope.

It has been remarked of the Sermon on the
Mount that it seems to be a mixture of two
distinct sorts of doctrine, one specially suited
for the ears of disciples, and the other such as
might suitably be addressed to the multitude.
In the judgment of critics, the former kind of
doctrine predominates, so that the sermon may
be represented as a disciple-discourse with popu
lar elements interspersed.* There is a certain
amount of truth in this view, and the mixture,
discernible throughout, is traceable at the com
mencement. Some of the Beatitudes are for
mankind, and some are spoken specially for the
benefit of disciples. One set contains a specific
for the woes of humanity at large, another brings
consolation for the tribulations of saints. The
distinction is most apparent in Luke's version of
the sermon. There three Beatitudes are spoken
to the poor, the hungry, those that weep ; then
follows one comprehensive Beatitude for the
faithful servants of the kingdom suffering for
truth and righteousness. It was necessary that
there should be Beatitudes for both. No gospel
is complete which has not consolations both for
sinners and for saints, for ordinary suffering
mortals, and for faithful elect souls battling
with moral evil. It was natural that the Beati-

* This is the view of Keim.

42 THE BEATITUDES.

tudes for men in general should take precedence
of those for disciples. For the poor, the hun
gry, the tearful are the majority, the million ;
nay, the larger category includes the less, for
disciples are men, and have once been sufferers
and sinners like ordinary mortals, probably are
so still ; sufferings for righteousness being an
additional drop in their bitter cup. The first
group of Beatitudes thus concern all, the latter
group concerning only those whose vocation it
is to be the light of the world, and the salt of
the earth. We shall consider the two groups
separately, first the universal ones, and then the
special.

The universal Beatitudes are in number three,
the first, second, and fourth in Matthew's list.
Matthew's third Beatitude, "Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth," may be
regarded as a variation of the first. The meek
are the downtrodden and oppressed who have
no share in this world's greatness, and who
accept their situation in a mild and quiet spirit.
They are tempted to fret when they see evil
doers prospering, probably at their expense,
and to bear a bitter grudge against workers of
iniquity. But they bear what they cannot help,
and do not puzzle themselves about the mys
teries of Providence. And the promise to such
as live in this way is that in the long run things
will right themselves, and put the meek in the
place of the proud.

THE BEATITUDES. 43

The Beatitudes of the first group are am
biguous in form. In Luke's version of the
discourse they seem to refer to literal poverty,
hunger, and sorrow. Christ appears there say
ing, "Blessed be ye poor;" "Blessed are ye
that hunger now ; " " Blessed are ye that weep
now." In Matthew's version the terms em
ployed to describe the classes addressed in the
two first of these sentences have attached to
them qualifying phrases which make the charac
teristics spiritual, and so limit the scope of the
sayings, turning them in fact into special Beati
tudes pertaining to the children of the kingdom.
If the question be asked which of the two forms
is the more original, our judgment inclines to
that of Luke. Speaking generally, the more
pregnant kernel-like form of any saying of
Jesus is always the more likely to have been
that actually used by Him. The briefer, less
developed form is most in keeping with the
striking originality of His teaching. Christ, as
befits the Sage, loved short suggestive sentences,
revealing much, hiding much, arresting atten
tion, taking hold of the memory, provoking
thought, demanding explanation. Then the
very breadth of the announcements in Luke is
in favour of their being the authentic utterances
of Jesus. It is intrinsically credible that He
had something in His doctrine of happiness for
the many, for the million ; some such words as

44 THE BEATITUDES.

Luke puts into His mouth. The poor in spirit,
the mourners for sin, the hungerers for righte
ousness, are a very select band ; only a few of
them were likely to be found in any crowd that
heard Jesus preach. But the poor, the hungry,
the sad are always a large company ; probably
they embraced nine-tenths of the audience to
which the Sermon on the Mount was spoken.
Had He nothing to say to them ; to catch their
ears, and to awaken hope in their heavy-laden
hearts ? Who can believe it that remembers
that in His message to John Jesus Himself de
scribed His Gospel as one especially addressed
to the poor ? We may, therefore, confidently
assume that the Preacher on the Mount began
His discourse by uttering words of good cheer
to those present, to whom the epithets poor,
hungry, sad, were applicable, saying, in effect,
to such, " Blessed are ye whom the world
accounts wretched." It was a strange, startling
saying, which might need much exposition to
evince its truth and reasonableness, but it was
good to begin with ; good to fix attention, pro
voke thought, and awaken hope.

Proceeding now to consider the import of
these surprising declarations, we understand,, of
course, that our Lord did not mean to pronounce
the poor, hungry, and weeping blessed, simply
in virtue of their poverty, hunger, and tears.
The connection between these classes and the

THE BEATITUDES. 45

kingdom of Heaven and its blessings is not
quite so immediate. Yet Christ was not mock
ing His hearers with idle words. He spoke
gravely, sincerely, having weighty truths in His
mind, every one of which it much concerned
the children of want and sorrow to know. One
of these, the most immediately obvious, was
that the classes addressed were in His heart,
that He cared for them, sympathised with them,
desired their well-being ; in a. word, that He was
the poor man's Friend. This at least is implied
in the opening sentence of the sermon, "Blessed
are ye poor." The mere fact that this was the
opening sentence was most significant. It
showed how near the poor lay to the speaker's
heart, that at least they had the blessing of His
most earnest sympathy. Surely a thing not to
be despised ! In those days the poor were
many, and their state was very abject, and they
had few friends. They pined through a dreary
existence unheeded, their misery unalleviated
by the charities of Christian civilization. But
here was One who manifestly pitied and loved
them. He is a great prophet and sage, whose
words command the attention of all, and His
first word is to the poor ! Why, His love and
pity were in themselves a gospel unspeakably
soothing and comforting. Then how sugges
tive such love in such a Man : this union of
humanity with wisdom ! How much it imports

46 THE BEATITUDES.

that the Great Teacher is also the poor man's
Friend ! One might have feared that the poor
would be beneath His notice ; that He would
pass them by as people for whom He could do
nothing, and of whom He could make nothing ;
too engrossed with sordid cares to become the dis
ciples of wisdom. Surely the poor man's era is
coming; an era in which the poor shall not merely
be cared for, but learn to think new thoughts of
themselves and their state — learn that though
a man be poor he is still a man, and may
possess most real riches though destitute of
silver and gold.

This, accordingly, was a second truth Jesus
meant to suggest to His hearers when He
uttered these Beatitudes. The word, "Blessed be
ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," signi
fies that the children of want, though destitute
of this world's goods, are not necessarily without
a portion. There is the kingdom of God, it is
accessible to them. If not actually theirs now
it may be theirs, their poverty notwithstanding.
It is theirs in possibility and hope, if not in
present possession. Poverty excludes from
many earthly enjoyments, but not from the
blessings of the kingdom. These are within
the reach of the poor and wobegone not less,
to say the least, than of other men.

Under this aspect, the real point of the first
Beatitude lies in the implied assertion that
there is such a thing as the kingdom of God.

THE BEATITUDES. 47

Christ's purpose is to put a new idea, a
new object of desire and hope into the minds
of His hearers. He refers to the Kingdom
of God, as a friend of the poor in our time
might refer to Australia or the western
prairie-lands of America as a sphere in which
industry might find for itself ample and hope
ful scope ; saying to the subjects of his philan
thropic sympathies, "Why pine here in hopeless
misery ? Yonder in the far west are millions
of acres waiting for you, on which you may
settle, and by the labour of your hands raise
abundance of food for yourselves and your
children." So Christ says in effect : " O ye
poor, hungry, weeping ones, think not your case
is desperate. Blessedness is possible even for
you ; there is a kingdom of God, lift up your
thoughts to it, and it shall be well with you."

Of this kingdom of God Christ's hearers for
the most part had but the vaguest ideas, many
of them possibly had never heard of it before.
When they heard the Preacher mention it, they
may have asked themselves : Where is it, what
is it, this happy land, where the poor man can
bid good-bye to his misery ? and in all likeli
hood their thoughts of it were very crude and
very material. Even the disciples of Jesus,
many days after they joined His society,
cherished very inaccurate and gross conceptions
of the kingdom concerning which their Master

4 THE BEATITUDES.

so often spoke. The Sermon on the Mount,
therefore, we may be sure, did not convey full
and exact information to the miscellaneous
audience concerning the better land. At most
it put a new thought into their minds, started
an inquiry, let into darkened hearts a ray of
hope. But we know what the Speaker had in
view. He wished to lift His hearers up to the
thought that human life is more than meat, and
the body more than raiment, that there are two
kinds of riches, one material, another in the
heart of man. The kingdom of God of which
He spoke was not a far away land like the
north-west of Canada, to which so many of our
countrymen are now flocking, seeking escape
from bad seasons, and high rents, and ruined
crops, and empty stalls. It was within the
breasts of the men and women before Him, if
it 'was anywhere for them. It ivas there for
them all in germ and possibility. For had they
not all minds that might seek after wisdom,
hearts that might love righteousness, consciences
that might attain to tranquillity? And these
goods of the soul acquired, what joy was within
reach, nay, what joy was in actual possession !
The barrel of meal might be empty, and the
cruse of oil fail, but nevertheless the man who
was in possession of wisdom, righteousness, and
a peaceful conscience, could not be called poor.
He had^a treasure that might fill his heart with

THE BEATITUDES. 49

gladness, and enable him to bound over the
rocky places of life with the nimbleness of a
gazelle.

The kingdom of heaven thus conceived may
appear a very ethereal thing, a most insubstan
tial boon to offer to the needy and sad. What
are wisdom, righteousness, peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost to a hungry man ? What, indeed !
And yet what are they not, supposing a hungry
man actually to possess them ? What a boon
they would be to Ireland, if possessed by her
poverty-stricken, sad-hearted children ! They
would soon settle the Irish question, soon put
an end to assassinations, soon bring even ma
terial wealth into that unhappy land. Is the
doctrine that there is a kingdom of heaven really
then of no account ? Can we part with the
Beatitudes, which teach that doctrine, without
loss ? Nay, verily ! For the kingdom of
heaven is a synonym for the spiritual nature of
man. To say that there is a kingdom of heaven
is to say that man is a free, moral personality,
that he is a man and not a beast, that a man
is a man, in spite of poverty, and hunger, and
tears. It is what all the poets and wise men
have been saying from the beginning of time,
in one dialect or another. It is what all men
and nations have believed who have come to
much good. It is what our poor, sorrow-
stricken ones must believe to make their exist-
D

5O THE BEATITUDES.

ence on this earth tolerable, and their lives
worth living. States may pass away, churches
and creeds may pass away, and no very serious
consequences to the world happen. But if the
human race itself is not to perish, faith in a
kingdom of heaven, in the human soul, in the
spiritual nature of man, in manhood as distinct
from beasthood, must abide ; and he is no friend
of the poor who encourages them to treat this
truth as an idle dream with which they have no
concern. It has been said, " Justice is like the
kingdom of God, it is not without us as a fact,
it is within us as a great yearning."* Even if
that were all that had to be said, it were still of
the utmost importance to respect and cherish
the yearning. Jesus Christ was the friend of
the poor, not merely because He loved them and
pitied their miseries, but because He preached
the doctrine of a kingdom of heaven, and
preached it to them as a matter in which even
they had a vital interest, as offering a bliss not
inaccessible to the most poverty-stricken and
sorrow-laden.

But Jesus meant to say more than this to the
poor and sorrowful : more than " I feel for you ;
or, the bliss of the kingdom is possible for you."
He meant to say this further : just because ye
arc poor, and hungry, and sad, the kingdom of
heaven is nearer to you than to others. Your

* George Eliot in " Romola."

THE BEATITUDES. 5!

very misery may be the means of leading you
into the kingdom. That Christ really thought
so, His whole teaching and conduct show. He
certainly did not, as some pretend, regard
poverty in itself as a virtue, nor wealth in itself
as a sin. But He did teach that material pos
sessions and worldly felicity created difficulties
in the pursuit of eternal life from which poor
men by their very poverty were exempt. And,
accordingly, He sought disciples chiefly from
among the ranks of the poor, as believing
that they were most likely to be found there.
And the result justified the policy; for it was
mainly from the humbler class, of society that
the kingdom Jesus preached drew its first
citizens. The comfortable classes either held
entirely aloof, or languidly patronised the new
religious movement. And this experience con
stantly repeats itself in history. All spiritual
movements find their earliest and most enthu
siastic supporters among the same classes from
which Jesus drew His disciples — the poor, the
sorrowful, even the disreputable. The well-to-
do strike in when the movement has established
itself among the institutions of society and be
come respectable ; and their support is often a
very doubtful gain, having for its frequent effect
the conversion of a Divine cause into a merely
human custom, an Evangel into a Pharisaism.
It is not difficult to understand this, to see

52 THE BEATITUDES.

how it comes to pass that the last on earth
should be first in heaven, the remotest from
happiness and even from virtue the nearest
to the kingdom of God. Possession and
character breed self-satisfaction, which is fatal
to aspiration. He, on the other hand, who
has neither wealth nor character, is in no
danger of becoming self-complacent, and can
very easily be convinced that he might in all
respects be better than he is. Then the life
of poverty, sorrow, and passion is real to grim-
ness ; the vain show which conceals truth from
the eyes of the world is rudely torn asunder by
hard experiences. But to be in contact with
reality is always beneficial. It breeds earnest
thought, serious purpose, longings after some
thing that can yield true contentment, intense
desire to know the secret of human well-being.
Thus may the poor man come to have his ideas
of poverty and wealth greatly widened and
deepened, so as to embrace the inward state as
well as the outward. He attains to self-know
ledge through the discipline of want, and sees
that he is poor indeed, not because he has no
gold, but because he lacks the treasure of
wisdom ; and that he is hungry, not because he
is without the bread that feeds the body, but
because the soul has not received that which
it needs and craves. Then is he not only poor,
but poor in spirit ; then is he not only hungry, but
he hungers after righteousness ; then does he

THE BEATITUDES. 53

not only weep because of outward calamities,
but he mourns over the distance between the
actual state of his inner life and the spiritual
ideal revealed to his purged vision. And when
he has become poor, hungry, and sad in this
sense, then is the kingdom of heaven with its
riches and consolations not only near him, but
within him. For in these very states doth the
kingdom of God consist.

That poverty and sorrow should have these
beneficent results is by no means a matter of
course. Not all the poor are poor in the mystic
sense ; not all the hungry are hungerers in soul
•as well as in body; not all those who weep are
'mourners after a noble sort. These natural
states do, indeed, always more or less open up
the soul to spiritual influence of some kind.
But the influence may be demoniac rather than
Divine. Often, perhaps oftenest, it has been
such, giving birth to characters and movements
having affinity with the kingdom of Satan rather
than with the kingdom of God. These two
kingdoms and their Heads compete for the alle
giance of all whose lot on earth is hard, fully
alive to their spiritual susceptibilities, and to the
value of conquests from among those whose
tempers want and pain have made keen. Such
may become either saints or devils, according
to the power that gains the upper hand ;
commonplace they are not likely to be. With

54 THE BEATITUDES.

full knowledge of this, Jesus speaks to them
from the mount, striving to bring them under
His beneficent spell, and save them from the
malign fascinations of the wicked one.

Very significant is the place occupied by the
poor in the heart of Jesus, and in the history of
nascent Christianity. It gives a glimpse into
the nature of the kingdom of heaven, showing
it to be before all things a kingdom of grace ;
for what else can that be whose first care is
for the destitute and forlorn, the proper objects
of compassion ? It also teaches the church
a plain duty, and suggests an obvious lesson as
to the conditions of success in the performance
of the duty. It becomes the society that bears
the Christian name to remember that by the
will of the Master the poor are heirs of the
kingdom of heaven, and to endeavour to put
these heirs in actual possession of their inherit
ance. But for this purpose one qualification is
indispensable. The church must love the poor
with an unfeigned, earnest, disinterested love.
Those whose lives are hard are quick to discern
real from simulated sympathy. Jesus stood the
scrutiny of poverty's keen eyes. Need, sorrow,
guilt, despite the suspiciousness native to
them, were compelled to admit that this man
was the Friend of social abjects. And so He
gained their ear, and the movement with which
His name was associated was in consequence

THE BEATITUDES. 55

largely a poor man's, a publican's and sinner's
movement. If the same true love were in the
church of to-day she would become a poor
man's church, and the masses of our population
would seek admission to her fold. That so
many are without, not desiring to be within, is
a thing of evil omen. It means certainly that
the powers of evil are busy at work ; means
doubtless, also, that the children of light have
not been busy enough. But it means, there is
reason to fear, more than this — the lack of
Christ's spirit of sincere intense sympathy with
the labouring and heavy laden portion of
humanity. We wish to love, we say we love,
and we honestly think we do. But the keen
eyes of the hungry, the forlorn, the lapsed,
search us through and through, and find us
wanting. The church of to-day, in all its
sections, appears to these classes to exist, not
for them, but for the respectable, well-to-do,
middle classes, who can pay for pews, and who
care for appearances, and covet the good repute
of piety ; and to be pervaded by a spirit which
has more affinity with the Pharisees than with
Jesus. A melancholy fact, if true. In propor
tion as it is true, or is believed to be, the popu
lation outside the pale will treat the church as
a society of no consequence to them, severance
from which entails no loss, connection with
which confers no blessedness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEATITUDES — continued.

WE have now to consider the second group of
Beatitudes, spoken, as we have said, /or the
special benefit of disciples. They are four in
all, three of which relate to disciple-character,
the remaining one bearing on the lot of disciples
in this world.

" Blessed/' said Jesus, " are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy."

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God."

" Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall
be called the children of God."

In this triad of aphorisms the Preacher, in
the first place, indicated the distinctive moral
attributes of disciples, the essential virtues of
the kingdom of heaven.

In forming an estimate of any religion or
philosophy, critical importance must ever be
attached to its ethics. What duties does it
chiefly enjoin ; what moral qualities does it
most warmly commend ; what is its list of
fundamental virtues ? Jesus recognised the

THE BEATITUDES. 57

legitimacy of the test, and at once put His hearers
in a position for judging. " My religion," He
told them in effect, " respects and requires these
things above all, pity, purity of heart, peaceable-
ness." The answer is such as we should have
expected from one who regarded it as His
mission to preach good tidings to the poor.
The ethics of Jesus are in keeping with His
Gospel, whose burthen is grace. His message
to the world was : God is gracious ; the king
dom of heaven is for the poor, the sad, those
who have nothing to give, but can only receive
and be thankful. His demand of those who be
lieved this message was : Be ye like the God
whom my Gospel proclaims, practise mercy,
love peace, and pursue it earnestly, and follow
this your high calling with singleness of mind.

The qualities commended and implicitly en
joined in these Beatitudes need little explana
tion. The first, mercifulness, is best understood
when viewed in connection with the classes to
whom the first group of Beatitudes are addressed.
The spirit of pity breathes in these benignant
sentences, and Jesus bids His disciples cherish
His own spirit and show compassion towards
those who want and weep. The import of the
second requirement, purity, is less .obvious.
The term most readily suggests to our thoughts,
chastity, or more generally, holiness. But what
our Lord had in view was rather purity of mo-

5 THE BEATITUDES.

tive, singleness of mind, absolute devotion to
the interests and work of the kingdom. A
pure heart is a heart united in the love of God
and man, not drawn opposite ways by contend
ing affections ; by the love of righteousness on
the one hand, and by lusts and passions aiming at
selfish gratifications on the other. The opposite
of a pure heart is a double heart, the heart of
the " two-souled man " of whom St James
speaks, and whom he represents as unstable
in all his ways.* Purity thus defined was a
quality on which Jesus was wont to insist as an
indispensable requisite of genuine discipleship.
Only from such as had pure hearts, " good and
honest," noble in aim, and devoted to their aim,
did He expect any fruitfulness. All others
He expected to prove but temporary, or, at
least, unsatisfactory disciples ; like grain sown
on rocky ground, destined to be scorched by
the heat of trial, or in thorny soil, doomed to be
choked by the thorns and never to ripen.

The third requirement of disciples, that they
be peace-makers, is best understood when re
garded as the complement of the one going
before. St James writes, " The wisdom that is
from above is first pure, then peaceable."f So
here, He who is the wisdom of God incarnate,
having spoken of purity, proceeds next to
mention peaceableness. The saying of the

* James i. 8. t James iii. 17-

THE BEATITUDES. 59

apostle may be a reminiscence of the utterance
of the Master. In any case, the juxtaposition
in gospel and epistle of the two attributes
points to a latent connection between the two.
In aphoristic discourse, indeed, we may not too
curiously enquire into connections of thought.
Each sentence stands by itself, a complete whole.
Yet even in such discourse the subtle laws of
association are at work, influencing the order
of utterance, and causing one word to arise out
of another. We may therefore assume that
all these eight aphorisms are knit together by a
network of unexpressed relations hidden beneath
the surface. Nor is it very difficult to suggest
the links which connect the aphorism concern
ing purity with that concerning peace. The two
qualities mutually supplement and guard each
other. Peace helps to define purity, and purity
peace. Either tests the other, secures its genuine
ness, excludes the counterfeit. There is a purity,
a zeal for the kingdom, which is contentious;
and there is a peace which is bought by a com
promise impossible for the single-hearted servant
of God ; a peace which only they can take part
in making, whose supreme guide in conduct is
selfish prudence. Christ excludes both counter
feits by conjoining the two Beatitudes which,
taken as a couplet, enjoin on the one hand a
peaceable purity, and on the other, a pure
peaceableness. The former is a devotion purged

6O THE BEATITUDES.

from ambition, the latter a love of peace as
sociated with principle. Such a devotion may
give rise to division ; it did so in the case of
Christ Himself; but it will do so involuntarily
and with regret. Such a love of peace will en
deavour as much as is possible to live on terms
of good-will with all men, and to promote har
mony and concord all around ; but it will have
nothing to do with a peace which amounts to
a denial of the difference between the kingdom
of God and the kingdom of Satan. Thus to
blend together two attributes often found in
antagonism is the task and the art of wisdom.

The possessors of these three qualities Jesus
pronounced happy. Blessed, said He, are the
merciful, the pure, the peace-makers. The
declaration implies that the virtues commended
are rare, high, difficult, heroic, but it implies
more, even that the man who practises these
virtues is blessed in his deed, possesses felicity
as rare as is his excellence. The nature of his
felicity is indicated. Each virtue has its appro
priate reward, and contributes its quota to the
sum of bliss. The peculiar bliss of the merciful
is that they obtain mercy. This fact rests on
the law that like produces like in God and in
men. The merciful get the benefit of Divine
mercy, and awaken by their behaviour a merci
ful mood in their fellow-creatures. This law
occupies a prominent place in the teaching of

THE BEATITUDES. 6 I

Christ. And it is a real law of the moral
universe, however it is to be adjusted to our
theological systems. It fulfils itself, doubtless,
in ways inscrutable, but in some respects its
action is simple and intelligible. Thus, looking
at the law on the Godward side, is it not certain
that only the merciful man can believe in Divine
mercy ? Christ preaches a beneficent gospel of
grace, telling men that God is a loving Father,
who pities the poor, the sick, the sorrowful, the
sinful. But the pitiless man does not believe
this. In the first place, he does not wish to
believe it, for it would make him uncomfortable
in the midst of his heartlessness to think of
God as so entirely different from himself. But,
moreover, he cannot believe it, cannot so much
as conceive it. The gospel of Divine love must
needs appear to him an idle tale. The only
God he can believe in is a Being as hard, and
cold, and selfish as himself: a God who enjoys
His own felicity, and cares nothing for wretched
insignificant mortals ; an Almighty Tyrant, who,
to advance His own interest or glory, could
trample the whole human race under foot.
Such is the inevitable penalty of mercilessness.
Inhumanity has for its inseparable companion a
theology in which pity has no place.

The bliss of the merciful, on the contrary, is
that they can receive, with mind, heart, and
conscience, the great fact of God's mercy ; give

62 THE BEATITUDES.

it a central place in their creed, get heart's ease
from faith in it in view of life's sorrows, and
peace of conscience in view of moral short
coming. No small boon truly !

If the reward of the merciful be to enjoy the
comfort of God's mercy, the guerdon of the^pure in
heart is to enjoy the vision of God. The pure,
who with singleness of heart seek the. Divine
kingdom, "see" God, know Him as He is in His
moral being, have fellowship with Him so known.
This is a still higher felicity. Pardon, peace of
conscience, assurance of Divine favour, are
precious blessings, but to behold the beauty of
the Lord is the boon above all desired by faith
ful souls. This vision is vouchsafed to all the
pure, not in promise only, but in present posses
sion. They shall see God, doubtless, but they
do see Him even now. They cannot but see
Him. They can see Him in their own hearts,
in proportion to its purity. The reflection of
the sky is seen without fail in a still clear lake
in a summer day. Even so, in the heart de
voted to the true, and the good, and the fair,
undisturbed by the perturbing influence of
selfish, base, desire and passion, unpolluted by
by-ends and self-seeking, the image of God can
be clearly descried. Man's moral nature and
God's are essentially one. God is light, and in
Him is no darkness at all. The man of pure
heart is light also. For him self-knowledge is

THE BEATITUDES. 63

Divine knowledge. He knows God in the very
act of loving the good ; knows Him and has
fellowship with Him. " We have fellowship
one with another," says the Apostle John,
speaking of the Christian and his God ; the
reasorv being that God is light, and that the
Christian walks in the light. True it is that of no
Christian can it be said, as of God, that in him
is no darkness at all. The pure in heart all
have defects. Nevertheless their purity is real,
and so highly valued of God, that in Scripture
dialect the man of pure heart, or single mind,
is called perfect, his infirmities notwithstanding.
And as the purity may be maintained in the
midst of sins of infirmity, so the vision may be
very real and blessed before we reach the land
of uprightness, when all moral defect shall have
passed away.

The pure in heart may not have much share
in this world's honours and prosperity. These
things fall for the most part into the hands of
those who are guided by the maxims of selfish
prudence. The single heart is often constrained
by its love of the good to choose a path which
it knows quite well leads away from the prizes
coveted by men of the world. Such a choice
the world laughs at. Singleness of mind in
such cases appears to men of commonplace
morality, foolishness bordering on imbecility.
And from their point of view they judge rightly.

64 THE BEATITUDES.

Nevertheless waste not your pity on this fool,
as you call him. He obtains that which he
values more than all he misses. He loses the
world, but by way of compensation he attains
to the vision of God. He beholds God's face
in righteousness, and is satisfied when he awakes
with His likeness.

To the peace-makers is awarded the distinc
tion of being called the children of God. This
is what Christ Himself thinks of them. They
are, in His esteem, worthy to be called the
children of God. This shows us, by the way,
what idea He has of God. God, in the theo
logy of Jesus, is the great Peace-maker ; the
King of all whose thoughts are thoughts of
peace. The conception is in full accord with
the song of the angels, which connects the glory
of God in the highest with peace on earth ; and
with the doctrine of Paul, when he sums up the
cardinal interests of the kingdom of God in
righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
It is of the utmost moment that this idea of the
Divine character should prevail. Its currency
means the ascendancy of peaceable dispositions.
Let the God of Christendom be the God of
Peace, and men will no longer imagine that they
do Him service by religious controversy fatal to
charity and to the fellowship of saints. It is be
cause Christendom has extensively worshipped
another god that the Christian Church presents

THE BEATITUDES. 65

the melancholy spectacle of a house divided
against itself, a society once one and catholic
split up into innumerable sections, more or less
alienated from each other. The Church has
taken her watchword from Moses rather than
from Jesus, and said, "Jehovah is a Man of
war," instead of, "God is the God of peace."
Both mottos are true, but how much depends
on the relative positions assigned to them in our
creed !

The spirit of the world within the Church and
without is so much addicted to strife that the
peacemakers are not likely to be held in high
esteem. Yet there are times when even war
riors grow weary of battle, and then the peace
maker has his reward. Christ had this fact in
view when He pronounced this Beatitude. He
meant to express not merely His own judgment,
but the verdict of history. He encourages the
peace-loving to persevere in their efforts to com
pose strife by the assurance that a time will
come when the world will recognise their worth.
Looking back on the controversies of a bygone
age, the historian will see that while the mass
of men were ranged on this side or on that, and
were animated by the passions of their party,
and cared for nothing beyond party interests,
and loved to be called by party names, there
were some that breathed a serener air, and lived
for the whole and not for the part ; and, recog-
E

66 THE BEATITUDES.

nising the purity of their motives, and with the
mischiefs wrought by these past controversies
in full view, he will pay a sincere tribute of
respect to the peacemakers, as the redeeming
feature of an evil time. And when he speaks
of them what will he call them ? For each
party and fragment of a party the page of his
tory has its appropriate name ; but what name
shall be given to the men of no party, of wide-
ranging views, and irenical spirit ? The secular
historian shuns a religious dialect, and is not
likely to call such, after Christ, " the children of
God ; " but he says the same thing under differ
ent phrases.

" The children of God/' august name ! High
surely is the dignity of those on whom it is con
ferred ! But alas, so far as men are concerned,
it is for the most part a posthumous dignity,
conferred after the recipients have entered into
the peace of the grave. Even in their lifetime,
indeed, they are the children of God, whatever
they may be accounted. But their dignity is
concealed, and their persons are not respected.
A society divided into opposite camps loves
strong partisans, and dislikes the men of wide
sympathies. It expresses its dislike by names
far from complimentary. " Trimmers, time-
servers, traitors," such are some of the titles
given to the peacemakers by a world possessed
by the spirit of party. Sometimes the nick-

THE BEATITUDES. 67

names are deserved ; for a time of war brings
strong temptations to an interested neutrality ;
and there is no room for regret when sham
peacemakers are exposed, and their true charac
ter unmasked. But noble men are often con
founded with base counterfeits by a community
in a suspicious, jealous mood; and some are
reckoned Judases who, in the view of the Omni
scient, are the very children of the God of
peace.

Yet, even in such a case, the title is no barren
honour. The despised or suspected one has
always the consciousness of being on God's side
to fall back on, and therein finds true consola
tion. If his overtures of peace be rejected with
scorn, his peace returns to him, to bless his own
soul. This truth was illustrated in Christ's own
experience. The Jewish world of His time was
given up wholly to sect and party and partisan
animosities. Party spirit was everywhere, and
the Spirit of God nowhere. He was of no
party : Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, &c., —
from all alike He held aloof, and went on his
own way, concerned only for the interest of the
Divine kingdom, and the glory of His Father.
In consequence and of course He was heartily
hated by all the parties who were united only in
suspecting, vilifying, and conspiring against Him.
But He enjoyed unbroken tranquillity of mind
notwithstanding. Nay, His peace was estab-

68 THE BEATITUDES.

lished and enhanced by the contradictions of
men. The gainsaying of the parties was one of
the signs by which He knew himself to be the
Son of God. To be evil spoken of by men under
the dominion of party spirit was not less neces
sary to the proof of sonship, than to be well
esteemed by the children of true wisdom.

These remarks, into which we have been led
by our efforts to penetrate into the hidden sense
of the Beatitude pronounced on the peace
makers, help us to understand how Christ,
having uttered this word, proceeded next to
offer consolations to disciples suffering perse
cution. To the Beatitude containing these con
solations we now turn.

This last of the Beatitudes, bearing on the
lot of disciples in the world, is more expanded
than all the rest. Both lot and consolation are
described in varied forms of language, indicat
ing strong feeling on the part of the Speaker,
arising doubtless out of His own experience.

As to the lot of disciples, one would say
beforehand that the state of men who are by
character and vocation merciful, pure-hearted,
and lovers of peace, ought to be a very tran
quil one. But Jesus bids His faithful ones
expect far other fortunes. Their life He pro
nounces blessed, but He forewarns them it will
have its tribulations. These tribulations He
sums up under two heads — persecution and

THE BEATITUDES. 69

obloquy; evil speech and evil deeds to the injury
of their name and person, inflicted on them as
the advocates of truth and righteousness. It
needed considerable courage to speak so plainly
of the dark prospects of discipleship. But it
was ever Christ's way to deal frankly with can
didates for admission to His society. He ap
pealed to the heroic side of human nature, reck
oning that by this way He would keep out all
the wrong kind, and that men of the right sort
would not be scared. He knew that none but
the heroic could endure, and therefore He
expressed Himself in terms which served for
a preliminary test of temper.

But He had another reason for such plainness
of speech. He knew that the disciple's life, in
spite of all drawbacks, was a blessed life, full of
exhilaration and triumph, attended by a sense
of moral elevation and a buoyancy of spirit
which richly compensated for all drawbacks.
This in effect He told His hearers, in setting
forth the happiness of the persecuted. The
glowing sentences in which this is done form
the copestone of Christ's doctrine of happiness.
Here we reach the Alpine heights, the snow
capped peaks of Christian felicity. Who shall
ascend these mountain summits ? Those to
whom are given the feet of the chamois, so that
they can walk securely on the high places.

" Blessed are they who are persecuted for

7O THE BEATITUDES.

righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven." The promise is vague, for it is the
same which is made to the poor in the first
Beatitude. But it is not inappropriate, for the
persecuted are the poor of this world, who have
become poor for Christ's sake. Their poverty
is not a matter of natural lot, but of penalty for
fidelity to duty. And theirs is the kingdom of
heaven, not as in the case of the literal poor in
possibility merely, but in actual possession. In
proportion as they suffer loss for God, do they
enter into possession of the bliss of the king
dom. They have eternal life.

As if to assure His hearers that He meant
what He said, Jesus repeats his affirmation in
varied phraseology.

" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you
and persecute you, and shall say all manner of
evil against you falsely for my sake ; rejoice and
be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in
heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you."

" Rejoice and be exceeding glad,'' says the
Preacher. He does not command the impos
sible. Exultation is an attainable mood for
the persecuted. Nay, it is the characteristic
mood of the moral hero. He rejoices in hope,
is patient in tribulation, continues instant in
prayer, committing his cause confidently to
God. Depression, languor, ennui are states to

THE BEATITUDES.

which he is a stranger. These are the moods
of dwellers in the vales, whose lives are spent
in ignoble ease, not of the hardy mountaineer.

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72 THE BEATITUDES.

shrink not from the high vocation, with all its
drawbacks, animated by a Saviour-spirit, the
true mark of election, and understanding that
the elect are chosen not for their own sakes, or
to enjoy a monopoly of Divine favour, but to be
the pioneers of the kingdom of God, and to
labour for its coming over all the earth. For
such Christ's consolations are intended. They
have need of them, and they are such as suit
their case and temper. For the counterfeit
elect who, like Israel in her degeneracy, think
they are chosen for their own sake, no consola
tions are necessary, and none are supplied.
They are salt which hath lost its savour, and
the doom appointed for them by the Preacher
on the Mount is, "to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot of men."

CHAPTER V.

THE HEALER OF SOULS.

" They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick."— MATT. ix. 12.

ONE of the most remarkable facts in the life of
our Lord is that, by the censure of contempo
raries, He was obliged repeatedly to defend
Himself for loving the sinful. It is a fact by
which we may measure the moral progress of
the world under the influence of Christian civil
isation. Now, philanthropy is generally prac
tised and held in high esteem ; at the com
mencement of our era it created surprise, suspi
cion, disapprobation in the minds of well-con
ducted persons. The difference between now
and then is so great that one finds it difficult to
realise the fact stated, and specially difficult to
think kindly of the faultfinders, or to regard
them otherwise than as men of exceptionally
heartless and inhuman spirit. We almost hate
those self-righteous Pharisees for making it a
matter of reproach to Jesus that He was the
" Friend of publicans and sinners." Yet we do

74 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

Christ's censors injustice by looking on them as
rare monsters of inhumanity. They were sim
ply men whose thoughts and sympathies were
dominated by the spirit of their age. For the
love to the sinful and the miserable which sur
prised them so greatly was a new thing on the
earth, whose appearance marked the beginning
of a new era, well called the era of Grace. How
utterly new and foreign to the spirit of the
world it was we may learn by observing how it
struck the mind of a heathen philosopher who
lived in the second century of our era, some
hundred and fifty years after the sinners' Friend
passed away from the earth. Celsus was as
much astonished at this fashion of loving the
bad which the Nazarene had brought in, as were
the Pharisees, and he made it the ground of one
of his arguments against Christianity. Finding
the preachers of the Gospel in his time following
their Master's example, offering salvation to the
foolish and erring, to the unlearned and ignor
ant, to slaves, women and children, he asked in
amazement and disgust, "Whence this prefer
ence for those of least account and esteem ?"
In contrast to the strange practice of Christians,
the practice of Pagans in inviting to initiation
into their mysteries men of pure, exemplary,
wise lives, seemed to him simply rational. You
Christians, he said, address to men this call :
Whosoever is a sinner, whosoever is unwise,

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 75

whosoever is a babe, in short, whosoever is a
good-for-nothing, him the kingdom of God will
receive. Others, calling men to participation in
their sacred rites say : Whoso has pure hands,
and is wise of speech, whoso is clean from all
impiety, whoso hath a conscience void of offence,
whoso liveth a just life, let him come hither,
holding such language even when promising to
those invited purification from sin. Celsus
thought he did well to be angry with the Chris
tians for their perverse sympathies, and in like
manner the Pharisees believed they were fully
justified in finding fault with Jesus ; and, on re
flection, we can see that in either case the feel
ing was very natural, and even excusable. For,
as already stated, the love of the Son of Man
for social and moral outcasts, and of the Chris
tian Church following His example, was indeed
a new thing under the sun, and it is the fate of
all new things to be found fault with, and to be
obliged to offer apologies for themselves.

Never was apology more felicitous, or more
completely successful than that offered by Jesus
for his conduct in loving those who were called, by
way of unenviable distinction, "sinners" — sinners,
as'it were, writ in large capitals. That apology is
one of the finest things in the evangelic records.
It is remarkable alike for beauty and for wis
dom ; exquisitely simple, yet profoundly sig
nificant and suggestive. It consists essentially

76 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

of three sayings, each of which was spoken on
a different occasion, the first at Matthew's
feast, the second in the house of Simon the
Pharisee, the third on the occasion when
the three parables of the lost sheep, the
lost coin, and the lost son, were uttered.
Shortly put, the three sayings are : " The whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick;"
" they to whom much is forgiven love much ; "
" there is a peculiar joy experienced by all man
kind, sympathised with by all mankind, in find
ing things and persons lost." What an impulse
it would give to the life of the Church and to
her work at home and abroad, if her members
generally understood the scope, and felt the
force of those apologetic words of Jesus ; and
what joy believing men would find in their
faith, if these words held in their minds the place
of characteristic mottos, expressive at once of
the inmost spirit of God, and of the genius of
the Christian Religion ! The three words are
certainly well deserving of study. Let us con
sider the first of them now.

"They that be whole need not a physician,
but they that are sick." This word, like the
two others, serves two purposes — an immedi
ate apologetic purpose, and a permanent
didactic one. Viewing it first in the former
aspect, we remark that the point ot' the saying
lies not in what is stated, but in Avhat is implied

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 77

— in the suggestion that Christ was a Physician.
That understood, all becomes plain. For no
one is surprised that a physician visits the sick
rather than the healthy, and visits most fre
quently those that are most grievously afflicted
with disease. Nor does any one dream of
making it an occasion of reproach to a physician
that he shrinks not from visiting those whose
maladies are of a loathsome or dangerous
nature, offensive to his senses, involving peril
to his life. That he so acts is regarded simply
as the display of a praiseworthy enthusiasm in
his profession, the want of which would be
reckoned the true ground of reproach. Regard
Christ as a physician, and He at once gets the
benefit of these universally prevalent sentiments
as to what is becoming in one who practises
the healing art.

The defence is at once simple and irresistible.
And here we may advert to a very noticeable
distinction between two classes of our Lord's
parables : those, viz., on the one hand, in which
He describes and defends His own conduct,
and those on the other, in which He depicts the
conduct of the unbelieving and ungodly. In
the former class, the behaviour of the agents
appears perfectly natural and praiseworthy.
All feel that it is right in a physician to visit the
sick, and in a shepherd to go after a straying
sheep, and in a housewife to search for a lost

78 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

coin, and in a father to rejoice over the return
of a lost son. But when you turn to a parable
like that of the Great Feast, and read how all
the persons invited with one consent refused
to come ; or like that of the Vinedressers,
and read how when servants are sent to ask
the fruits, the husbandmen instead of ren
dering the fruits treat the messengers with
contumely and violence, you at once feel that
the actions described are unnatural and im
probable. Whoever heard of a whole company
of guests refusing to go to a feast ; or of a
band of workmen so outrageously violating their
covenanted obligations ? Whence this strik
ing difference ? It comes from this, that the
conduct of Jesus, however much blamed, was in
accordance with right reason, and could there
fore be easily defended by parallels from
natural life ; and that on the other hand, the
conduct of those who despised God's grace, and
denied His rights, however common, was con
trary to right reason, and therefore could not
easily be paralleled by scenes from natural life,
but must be represented in parables the opposite
of probable in the course of their story.1

Returning to the little parable of the physic
ian in our text, we remark, that had the critics
of Jesus but accredited Him with the character
of a Healer of spiritual maladies, they would

* Vide "The Parabolic Teaching of Christ" on these parables

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 79

not have been scandalised by His habit of
associating with the morally and socially de
graded. But that Jesus was a physician, was
just the thing that never occurred to their minds.
And why ? Because their own thoughts and
ways went in a wholly different direction,
and they judged Him by themselves. The
Rabbis and their disciples were students of
the law, and their feeling towards such as
knew not the law was one of simple aversion
and contempt. They expected Jesus to share
this feeling. Men are ever apt to make them
selves the standard of moral judgment. The
Rabbi expects all who assume the function of
a teacher to share his contempt for the mul
titude ignorant of legal technicalities and
niceties ; the philosophe confining his sym
pathies to the cultivated few, regards with mild
disdain the interest taken by philanthropists in
popular movements ; the mystagogue who in
vites select persons to initiation into religious
mysteries, adopts for himself, and expects all
others belonging to the spiritual aristocracy of
mankind to adopt along with him the sentiment
of the Roman poet : " I hate and abhor
the profane rabble." The mass of mankind
have eternal reason for thankfulness that Jesus
Christ came not as a rabbi, or as a philosophe,
or as a hierophant, with the proud narrow con
tempt characteristic of men bearing these

80 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

titles, but as a healer of souls, with the broad
warm sympathies and the enthusiasm of hu
manity congenial to such a vocation. The
fact exposed Him to the censure of con
temporaries, but by way of compensation it has
earned for Him the gratitude of all after ages.

For the fact, duly pondered, is full of didactic
meanings, as we now proceed to show.

I. It means, first, that Christianity is before
all things a religion of redemption. Much is
involved in this. If such be its character, then
to be true to itself Christianity cannot afford
to be nice, dainty, fastidious, disdainful ; but
must be willing to lay its healing hand on all
spiritual maladies, even on those which are most
repulsive or desperate. Rabbinism, philoso-
phism, mysticism, may consistently be reserved
and exclusive, but not the religion of Redemp
tion. It is bound to be a religion for the million,
for the "masses," for the great unwashed in
every sense, for the ignorant and erring, for the
slaves of evil desire and habit. Its proper
vocation is to find the lost, to lift the low, to
teach the ignorant, to set free those in bonds,
to wash the unclean, to heal the sick ; and it
must go where it can discover the proper sub
jects of its art, remembering that the whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick.

The church and the world have a common
interest in emphasizing this view of Christianity,

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 8 1

not merely against ancient Jewish and Pagan
modes of thought, but against other conceptions
of the Christian religion still more or less current,
such as, that it is a system of ethical maxims,
or of theological dogmas. Both these miscon
ceptions prevail among us. Some conceive of
Christ as merely an ethical teacher. Ask such
what Christ has done for the world, and they
will tell you : " He has taught the great truth
that true happiness is attainable only by self-
denial." Others very remote from these in their
creed, yet kindred in their spirit, think of Christ
largely as a theological doctor or revealer of
divine mysteries. Ask them what Christ has
done for the world, and they will tell you : He
has died on the cross for our sins, and He has
also taught us many doctrines we could not other
wise have known, such as the certainty of the
life to come, and the resurrection from the
dead. This is the view in favour with the pro
fessional theologian, as the other is that which
commends itself to the literary expositor 01
Christianity. To the one class we must in the
spirit of our text reply : " that self-denial is the
secret of true happiness was indeed one of
Christ's most characteristic sayings, but there is
another which was more characteristic still, viz.
'the Son of Man came to save the lost."' To
the other class we say : you err by mixing up
things of different nature without attending to
F

82 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

their respective values and their mutual rela
tions. It is rather misleading to speak of Christ
in the same breath as a Redeemer and as a
theological teacher, not because there is not
truth in both representations, but because the
facts stated are not of coordinate importance.
Christ is in the first place the Redeemer, only
in the second the Revealer, in the dogmatic
sense of the term. Christianity is primarily a
great blessed fact, the reconciliation of men to
God and to each other, not a system of dogmas.
What doctrines it does teach have their value
from the relation in which they stand to the
central fact. Revealed religion throughout,
from beginning to end of the Bible, has to do
with the manifestation of God, as the God of
grace, as one who is afflicted with the sins and
miseries of men, and in love and pity seeks to
remove them. Doctrines are important only as
springing out of, and illustrating that grand
self-revelation of God, in the drama of redemp
tion.

2. A second item in the permanent didactic
significance of our text is that Christianity is the
religion of Hope. In reference to the foregoing
proposition, viz., that Christianity is a religion
of redemption, it might be enquired : Is this
distinctive of the Christian religion ? Do not all
religions profess to heal men's spiritual diseases ?
If we grant the force of the objection to some

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 83

extent, we can still claim for Christianity that it
is to an unprecedented degree hopeful as to the
solubility of the problem. It takes a cheerful
view of the capabilities and prospects of man,
even at his worst. It does not by any means
take a light view of the state in which it finds
him. It regards him as a very sick patient,
sorely in need of a physician's help. But it
believes that he can be cured. It refuses to
despair of even the most desperate looking
cases. In this hopefulness it stands alone. In
this hopefulness it stood alone in ancient times.
Jews and Pagans alike despaired of the multi
tude. Habitual hopelessness regarding the
degraded masses was the radical source of the
surprise so frequently expressed by the Jews
at the conduct of Jesus. The surprise of Celsus
at similar conduct on the part of the Christian
church, had the same source. He was sceptical
as to the possibility of conversion. He said, "To
change nature is very difficult." The cultivated
of the ancient world, Jew and Gentile, looked
on the ignorant and immoral as Ethiopians
who could not change their colour, leopards
whose spots were indelible. Therefore they
neglected them, and were surprised that any
one should do otherwise. In such despair men
looking at the surface of society and of human
nature might not unnaturally feel justified.
For what presented itself to the eye was dis

84 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

couraging enough, a hard rocky surface of evil
habit, wherein it seemed impossible that any
crop of virtue could grow. It needed the eye
of a more than earthly love, and of a faith that
was the evidence of things not seen, to discern
possibilities of goodness even in the waste
places of society, beneath the rock reservoirs of
water, which might be made to spring up into
everlasting life.

Such love, and such hope were in Jesus, and
in their strength He persevered, visiting the
spiritually diseased, and calling the sinful to
repentance, and to faith in God's grace ; meeting
in the course of His ministry many disappoint
ments, but also achieving such signal successes
as fully justified His confidence. Such love and
hope the church needs now to enable her to
carry on her Lord's work, and to make a real,
powerful, abiding impression on the world that
lieth in sin and woe. She must have the physi
cian's heart, which makes him enthusiastic in
his profession, and the physician's confidence in
the resources of the healing art, which makes
him persevere in his efforts to save life to the
very last moment. And further, she must have
the physician's inventiveness, which is continu
ally exercised in finding out new means, new
methods, and new instruments of cure. Jesus
was inventive. He did not blindly imitate the
method in vogue for making men holy, which

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 85

was the practice of austerity, believed in as a
specific by all the moral physicians of the time ;
the Baptist, the Pharisees, the Essenes. He
saw that that method failed, and He tried
another as unlike it as possible. He came
eating and drinking, living like other people
that he might get near them and work on them
beneficially by human sympathy. It was a new
way, much found fault with, but it worked well,
as it always will and must. We, too, have need
to be inventive, not in the sense of innovating
on Christ's method, for it cannot be superseded
while the world lasts; but in the sense of finding
new forms under which the old method may be
applied. The method is sympathy, going along
with people as far as possible for their good.
What that means must depend on the thoughts,
feelings, and customs of the time. Our world is
a very different world from that in which the
Saviour lived, and living in it in his spirit will
demand new forms of accommodation, new ap
plications of the Pauline maxim, " all things to
all men." A holy inventiveness in pursuit of
the high ends of the kingdom of God, seems
urgently needed in our time. The mass of our
industrial class is becoming, according to all
accounts, more and more alienated from the
church, so losing the benefit of whatever helps
to right living church connection may supply ;
and we go on with our stereotyped modes of

86 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

worship and denominational organisations, leav
ing invention to outside parties, hardly ever
asking ourselves whether this is all God would
have us do ; possibly inclined to frown on
any one who, in his zeal is disposed to try
new experiments. Is this the temper which
becomes those who profess the religion of good
Hope ?

3. Once more our text teaches implicitly that
Christianity is fit and worthy to be the universal
religion. It is so just because it is the religion
of redemption and hope. A religion which
aims at the healing of spiritual disease, and
which has confidence in its power to effect the
cure, is entitled to supersede all other religions
and to become the faith of all mankind ; and
it will be well for the world when it has become
such in fact. The world everywhere needs this
religion, for sin is universal. In the fairest parts
of the earth it is found in its worst forms : "where
every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."
And wherever it goes, this religion leaves
men better than it found them, their spiritual
maladies at least partially healed ; therefore, it
cannot go to any part of the world where it will
not be a blessing.

It is not unlikely that the Pharisees had an
instinctive perception that the new love for the
sinful exhibited in the conduct of Jesus meant a
religious revolution, the setting aside of Jewish

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 87

cxclusiveness, and the introduction of a new
humanity, in which Jew and Gentile should be
one. They might very easily arrive at this con
clusion. They had but to reflect on the terms
they employed to describe the objects of
Christ's special care. Publicans were to them
as heathens, and " sinners " was in their dialect
a synonym for Gentiles. It might, therefore,
readily occur to them that the man who took
such a warm interest in the publicans and
sinners of Judaea could have no objection, on
principle, to fellowship with Gentiles, and that
when His religion had time to develop its pecu
liar tendencies, it was likely to become the
religion, not of Jews alone, but of mankind.

Whether the men who found fault with the
sinner's friend had so much penetration or not,
it is certain at least that Jesus Himself was fully
aware whither His line of action tended. He
revealed the secret in the words " I came not to
call the righteous but sinners." In describing
His mission in these terms, He intimated in
effect that in its ultimate scope that mission
looked far beyond the bounds of Palestine, and
was even likely to have more intimate relations
with the outside world than with the chosen race.
He knew too well how righteous his countrymen
accounted themselves to cherish the hope of
making a wide and deep impression upon them.
He deemed it indeed a duty to try, and He did

88 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

try faithfully and persistently, but always as
one who knew that the result would be that
described in the sad words of the fourth evan
gelist, " He came unto His own and His own
received Him not." And as He had an infinite
longing to save, and was not content to waste
His life, He turned His attention to more likely
subjects; to such as were not puffed up with the
conceit of righteousness, and would not take it
as an offence to be called sinners. Such He
found among the degraded classes of Jewish
society; but there was no reason why they
should be sought there alone. The world was
full of sinners ; why, then, limit the mission to
the sinful in Judaea ? Shall we say because the
Jews were lesser sinners than the Gentiles ?
But that would be to make the mission after
all a mission to the righteous. If it is to be a
mission to the sinful, let it be that out and out.
Let Him who is intrusted with it say, " the
greater the sinner the greater his need of Me."
That was just what Christ did say in effect
when he uttered with significant emphasis the
words, " I came not to call the righteous but sin
ners." It is, therefore, a word on which all men
everywhere can build their hopes, a word by
which the Good Physician says to every son of
Adam " look unto me and be saved."

Christianity being in its own nature, and in
Christ's intention, a religion for mankind, it is

THE HEALER OF SOULS. 89

the duty of Christians to endeavour to make it
in fact the religion of the whole human race.
The church, rightly viewed, is a missionary insti
tute for the propagation of the religion of re
demption throughout the world. Those who
have in fullest measure the spirit of Christ will
enter with enthusiasm into this great enterprise,
with the enthusiasm of love and of hope, desir
ing much that the spiritual maladies of men
may be healed, and believing in the possibility
of cure, even in the most aggravated cases. But
alas ! it is not easy to have in full measure the
spirit of Christ. It is easy and common to
patronise philanthropic enterprise with a languid
approbation or admiration ; it is not easy or
common earnestly to desire the conversion of
the world to the Christian faith, and to hope for
this as a probable result, not soon, but eventu
ally, of missionary effort. In the nominally
Christian world there is a deep-seated, wide
spread indifference to the religious condition of
heathen nations — a secret opinion that they are
well enough as they are. Even in the really
Christian world there is a widely diffused leaven
of Celsean scepticism as to the convertibility of
certain classes and races. We desire the con
version of all ; but we doubt its possibility, its
possibility not merely within a few years,, but
even during the lapse of ages. This doubt
causes our hands to hang down ; causes us to

90 THE HEALER OF SOULS.

suspect that the money spent on missions is
wasted, and if not to grudge what we give, at
least to wish that we could invest it in an enter
prise more likely to yield a return. We much
need a baptism into Christ's spirit of hope —
intelligent hope, not foolish in its expectations,
and ready to die out if the whole world be not
Christianised at once, but wise and patient, able
to wait long for the fulfilment of its desire, and
assured that however long fulfilment tarry, it
will come at last, bringing with it the effective
" healing of the nations."

CHAPTER VI.

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

" Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are
forgiven : for she loved much ; but to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little." — LUKE vn. 47.

THE general import of this text is that the
measure of a Christian's gratitude to Christ is
his sense of indebtedness for the forgiveness of
sin. The intenser the consciousness of rederrip-
tion the deeper the devotion. The form of the
sentence in which this truth is virtually taught
is due to the fact that Christ, in uttering it, was
concerned, not merely to enunciate a general
doctrine, but to defend a person under suspicion.
A woman of evil repute had come into the
chamber where He sat at meat, the guest of a
friendly Pharisee, and had behaved towards
Himself in a very demonstrative manner, per
forming acts indicative of intense emotion.
These acts had been grievously misunderstood
by the master of the house. Simon interpreted
them in the light of a past life of shame, and
saw in them simply the characteristic manifes
tation of lawless passion utterly regardless of

92 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

propriety. Jesus read his thoughts in his face,
and proceeded at once to correct his mistake
by suggesting the true explanation of the
woman's strange behaviour. What he said was
in effect this : " These acts mean love ; much,
intense, passionate love : there you are right,
Simon. But the quality of the love is not such
as you imagine. It is the love of a sinner, a
great sinner, doubtless, but of a sinner penitent
and forgiven. Forgiven are her sins, her many
sins, as they must have been, judging from her
present behaviour, for these are the acts of one
who loves much, and those love much to whom
much is forgiven ; even as those love little, who
like yourself have little sense of their need of
forgiveness."

Christ's words were not only apologetic, but
doubly apologetic ; for the woman in the first
place, but also for Himself. For He too had
been put on his defence by Simon's evil thoughts.
When the woman entered and acted as recorded,
the face of the host assumed an expression of
undisguised surprise that his guest could tolerate
such ongoings. He did not go so far as to
suspect the moral character of Jesus, but he
drew an unfavourable inference as to his pro
phetic pretensions, deeming it impossible that
one who knew, as a prophet must have done,
the character of the intruder, could give any
countenance to such flagrant breaches of de-

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 93

corum. Jesus therefore was in effect summoned
to the task of vindicating his tolerance without
prejudice to his prophetic claims. He had to
show how He might know all about the woman's
life, all that Simon knew, and more, and yet be
very willing that she should approach Him with
demonstrations of ardent affection. And what
He had to say on this score was in substance
this : " I am a prophet, Simon, and possess a
prophet's knowledge. I know all this woman's
history, not merely in virtue of a prophet's
supernatural power of omniscience, but more
especially through the moral insight which
comes from sympathy. I can divine the past
from the present scene. I see she has been a
great sinner. I see also that she is sincerely
penitent. I see that she feels herself indebted
to me for some words of mine which have helped
her to believe in the forgiveness of sin, and set
her on a course of moral reformation. All
those acts of intense affection, those hot tears,
those flowing ringlets turned for the moment
into a towel, those ardent kisses, mean grateful
love to a spiritual benefactor. And hence,
Simon, understand the interest I take in such
people, the pleasure I find in their company.
I like to be loved in that way, warmly, passion
ately, enthusiastically; not coldly and languidly,
after the fashion exemplified by yourself in the
present entertainment. I desire much love, and

94 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

that is why I have relations with the ' publicans
and sinners,' the people who have greatly erred.
I find that when converted they love me much ;
a fact quite intelligible, for it is natural that
those to whom much is forgiven should love
much, as natural as that those to whom little is
forgiven should love little. Of two debtors, the
one to whom is remitted five hundred pence
will certainly, other things being equal, be more
grateful to his generous creditor than one to
whom has been remitted only fifty pence."

It will be seen that rthe form of the sentence
which states the relation between forgiveness
and love requires to be differently put according
as it is used to defend the sinful woman on the
one hand, or to defend her benefactor on the
other. For the one purpose the appropriate
form is "much love implies much forgiveness ;"
for the other " much forgiveness leads to much
love."

It will also be seen how beautifully and
effectually the saying in either form serves the
immediate apologetic purpose for which it was
spoken. " She loved much, and for such a
woman to love such a man is very improper " —
so thought Simon. "She loves much, doubt
less; but what if it be the love of a penitent
conscious of much forgiveness ? Explained by
the penitence-hypothesis, where is the impro
priety of this impassioned demonstration ?" So

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 95

answered Jesus defending the woman. " Much
forgiveness, much love ; but who does not
wish to be much loved ? I certainly do. There
fore I, in my capacity of Physician of souls,
frequent the company of great sinners ; for I
find that when healed they love most." So
answered Jesus defending Himself.

We have now to consider the permanent
didactic significance of our text.

i. The first great lesson it teaches is that sin
is pardonable. " Her sins . . . are forgiven''
A very elementary truth, yet a very important
one. The early Church recognised its funda
mental importance by introducing it into the
Apostles' Creed. In that ancient symbol no
mention is made of atonement, still less is any
theory of redemption taught, whether by im
plication or in express terms. But into the
mouth of every one bearing the Christian name
is put this confession : " I believe in the forgive
ness of sins." It is a confession whose momen-
tousness is becoming more and more apparent
every day. There is reason to believe that ere
long it will be generally felt that, in comparison
with this elementary doctrine, all theories as to
the mode and conditions of forgiveness are but
details of secondary importance. For in these
times an increasing number of voices, scientific
and philosophic, are declaring, with the emphasis
of earnest conviction, that pardon is impossible,

96 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

is indeed a word without meaning. This article
of the Apostles' Creed can therefore no longer
be treated as a trite common-place, or as an
axiom so obvious that it scarce needs to be
formally stated. It needs to be asserted, yea,
even to be defended. We cannot here attempt
an elaborate defence, but we may indicate in a
few words the lines along which both the attack
and the defence may be conducted.

If sin be unpardonable, the obstacle must be
in God, in natiire, or in the sinner. To place
the cause in God, is to say in effect that the
Divine Being is malevolent and implacable, the
opposite in character of all that we esteem most
in men. The Pagan religions, the products of
the unassisted human mind in its efforts to find
out God, all more or less incline to this view.
If they do not represent the gods as absolutely
refusing to pardon offences, they certainly re
present them as very unwilling to pardon, diffi
cult to appease, and at length granting the
prayer of their suppliants with a bad grace.
Paganism is a perpetual eclipse of Divine Grace.
Many Christians live within the penumbra of
this baleful eclipse ; but it is impossible for one
living under Christian influences altogether to
fall away from the faith that " there is forgiveness
with God," and that " He delighteth in mercy ;"
though one has heard sermons in Christian
pulpits on these same texts coming very near

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. Q7

to the Pagan denial in the endeavour to prove
that mercy is not a distinct attribute of God.
One thing that tends to keep Christendom
right in its theology at this point is the ethics
which it has learnt from Jesus. We cannot
long regard mercy, placability, magnanimity, as
worshipful attributes in man, and continue wor
shipping a God who is devoid of them. On
the contrary, the tendency of such moral senti
ments must be to foster faith in a God who
rises above the human level of attainment in
these very respects, as far as heaven is above
the earth, as the Bible affirms the God of revela
tion does.

If the reason why sin is unpardonable be found
in nature, the meaning is that the laws of nature
are fixed and cannot be violated with impunity ;
so that if a man sin against these laws in any
way, as by intemperance, gluttony, or sensual
excess, he entails upon himself a permanent in
heritance of evil consequences. This is the
tone adopted on the present topic by modern
science. While the Pagan says in effect, "sin
cannot be forgiven, for God is implacable ;" the
man of science says, " sin cannot be forgiven,
for the order of nature is unchangeable." The
two positions seem far apart ; yet there is a
closer connection between them than appears at
first sight. The Pagan's thought of God is largely
taken from nature. His religion is in fact
G

98 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

nature-worship. And when he asks pardon of his
god, it is the physical consequences of sin he has
chiefly in view. These he desires to have can
celled ; and when, notwithstanding prayers and
sacrifices, they remain, the Deity appears to him
implacable. Natural religions are the complex
product of the observation of nature and of the
superstitious fear of an evil conscience. The
grim doctrine of science respecting pardon is
much the same view of nature expressed in a
non-religious dialect by men who neither be
lieve in a personal God, nor are troubled with
morbid moral feelings.

When it is affirmed, lastly, that a ground why
sin cannot be forgiven exists in the sinner him
self, the meaning must be that repentance is im
possible, and therefore also forgiveness. The
lion in the path, in this case, is the fixity of
character, the tyrannous power of habit, the
difficulty amounting to a practical impossibility
of changing the moral bent. The motto of
this gospel of despair is the word of the prophet,
"can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the
leopard his spots, then may ye also do good,
that are accustomed to do evil." * There is
much, very much, in human experience to
justify the saying, else it had not been found
in the Bible. But the oracle was never intended
to be a dogmatic assertion of the impossibility

* Jeremiah xiii. 23.

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 99

of conversion, and the inevitable doom of evil
doers to persevere to the bitter end in their
foolish and hurtful ways. In this light, never
theless, it is regarded by many even in the
Christian Church who treat all attempts to
change the bad as the idle efforts of a well-
meant but ill-informed benevolence, and con
fidently anticipate that all the results of such
efforts in the shape of alleged " conversions "
will turn out superficial and temporary.

Simon the Pharisee also, like all his class, was of
this way of thinking; and hence it never occurred
to him, never could have occurred, to seek an
explanation of the conduct of the woman who
entered his house in the hypothesis of repent
ance. He did not expect such people to under
go moral change ; he was sceptical of the reality,
depth, and permanence of any apparent change
in them for the better. And this judgment he
believed to be the judgment of common sense ;
any other way of thinking he would deem
visionary, romantic, foolish.

Yet his guest was decidedly of another way
of thinking. Jesus differed from Simon, and
not only from him, but from all who on any
ground doubt or deny the forgiveness of sin.
He believed, and he preached with passionate
earnestness, that human sin is pardonable, that
no insurmountable barrier to pardon exists in
any quarter. First, and above all, he affirmed

100 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

that there was no barrier in God. He declared
that there was joy in heaven over a sinner re
penting — such joy as men have in finding things
lost. But he maintained, moreover, that there was
forgiveness in nature as well as in God ; that is
to say, that even the physical consequences of
sin were cancellable more or less completely.
He endorsed the cheerful creed embodied in
the words of the Psalmist, " who forgiveth all
thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases,"
the diseases directly caused by sin not excepted.
He healed the palsied man, and he said, " be of
good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." The
healing was but an extension of the act of for
giving to the physical sphere. In the spiritual
sphere the act banished gloom, and awakened
hope ; in the physical sphere it restored energy
to palsied limbs. Forgiveness amounted to the
cure of a paralysis which afflicted at once both
mind and body.

This bright faith of Jesus was not a benevo
lent delusion. It was in accordance with the
facts of the universe. For there really is mercy
in the bosom of nature, as well as in the heart
of God. Nature is not a relentless monster that
refuses to give an erring man a second chance.
There is a healing power in her, a storehouse of
curative influence, an antidote possibly for every
disease. Her laws are fixed doubtless, but her
laws are not all against the sinner, though

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. IOI

many are, visiting transgression with dread
penalties. There are beneficent laws which
work in favour of the penitent, helping and
encouraging him in the work of self-amend
ment. To this extent and to this effect let us
affirm the creed of the ancient Church respect
ing the forgiveness of sin, assured not merely
of the 'goodwill of God our Father, but also of
the goodwill and kindly succour of the order of
the physical universe.

Jesus further believed that there was no in
superable obstacle to forgiveness in the sinner
himself. In other words, he believed in the
possibility of moral transformation. Sin he
knew and declared to be a bondage, but he did
not regard it as a fixed final doom. The soul
might shake off its fetters ; a powerful reaction
might take place in the conscience at any
moment, resulting in complete and permanent
emancipation. At this point he joined issue
directly with his host. Simon did not expect
such moral reactions. Jesus did. Hence the
difference in their judgments of the intruder.
To Simon she was simply a sinful woman prac
tising the arts of a courtesan ; to Jesus she was
an erring one, profoundly, passionately, peni
tent. In her case had happened what might
happen in any transgressor.

2. Yes, in any transgressor ; for a second item
in the permanent didactic significance of this

IO2 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

text is that much sin can be repented of, and
therefore forgiven. " Her sins, which are many,
are forgiven." Christ makes this affirmation in
view of all possible conditions of pardon, whether
in God, in nature, or in man. There is no reason
in this universe, He says in effect, why a griev
ous offender against moral law should not enter
into peace. Not in God ; there is forgiveness
with Him to any extent, He multiplieth par
dons, "with Him is plenteous redemption."
Not in nature ; for though in the ordinary course
of things many consequences of sin remain un-
cancelled, yet does the whole course of nature
conspire to ameliorate the condition of the
sincere penitent, and encourage him in his
new way. All things work together for his
good, even the uncancelled ills of his own state
and in the state of others injured by his misdeeds ;
the one working in him meekness and patience,
the other awakening in him a mighty desire to
be henceforth a blessing instead of a curse to
his fellow-creatures, and endowing him with an
intensity of benevolent purpose to which ordi
nary men are strangers. Not, finally, in the
sinner himself. Doubtless sin is a hard task
master, and one of the worst elements in the lot
of his victims is the fact that the longer they
continue in his service, and the more devotedly
they serve him, the more difficult is it to escape
from his thrall. But even in the very hardness

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 103

of the lot there is hope. When the prodigal's
misery is at its maximum, there is a chance of
his coming to his senses, and at least inclining
to return to his Father. The will by long
habit may be greatly weakened ; but there are
beneficent influences in attendance ready to help
the man who looks his sin straight in the
face, hates it, and longs passionately to be rid
of it.

Happy for the world if this part of Christ's
Gospel be true. It were a poor gospel which
said merely that repentance and pardon are not
in the abstract and in all circumstances impos
sible, that at least minor degrees of culpability
may be repented of and forgiven. For the
world does not consist, for the most part, of
little sinners. Men and women in vast numbers
go wrong greatly, tragically. A gospel which
excluded them would be altogether a one-sided,
mean, uninteresting affair, bringing a petty sal
vation to people of petty character, the elect
circle of moral mediocrity that supplies no
themes to the historian, the dramatist, the artist,
or the preacher. Think of a gospel under which
a Simon was taken and the sinful woman left.
Who could grow eloquent over such a gospel ?
Who would care to preach it, save frigid souls
of the Simon type ?

3. Yet another lesson our text teaches by
plain implication, viz., that a great sinner can

IO4 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

be a great saint. Of the great sinner who had
entered into Simon's house Jesus testified that
" she loved much ; " and from the opening
sentences of the next chapter, which refer to
the women who followed Jesus, we may infer
that she spent the rest of her days in minister
ing to the wants of her benefactor, a devotee in
the best sense. Now this doctrine that a great
sinner may become a great saint is necessary to
the complete vindication of the policy and the
morality of pardon. Forgiveness is good and
wholesome only if it lead to piety and purity.
The psalmist recognised this when he said :
" There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou
mayest be feared'' It is a very important ques
tion, therefore, whether this doctrine be indeed
true. Is it in accordance with the psychologi
cal probabilities or with the facts of history?
We cannot hesitate to answer in the affirmative.
It is indeed the case that a great sinner
repenting is likely to become, generally does
become, a great saint. The rationale of this is
simple. A great sinner, penitent and forgiven,
will love much. He will be characterised by
great devotion to Christ the Redeemer. But
devotion to Christ is the cardinal Christian
virtue, the mother of all the virtues. Again, a
great sinner means a man of much misdirected
energy, full of passion and life force. When he
is converted he does not lose this energy. The

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 1 05

driving power remains. All that takes place
in conversion is that the power receives a new
direction, and is utilised for new purposes.
Made free from sin it becomes the servant of
righteousness, and in this service gains distinc
tion equal to its former bad notoriety as the
servant of evil.

Jesus understood well this point in moral
philosophy, and habitually acted on it. It was
in part the key to his conduct in maintaining
close relations with social outcasts. No writer
with whom I am acquainted has seen this more
clearly than Bunyan, himself an admirable
illustration of the maxim "much forgiveness,
much love." In his sermon on "the Jerusalem
sinner saved," explaining the reasons why Jesus
would have mercy offered in the first place to
the biggest sinners, among which he includes
this, that " they when converted are apt to love
Him most;" he remarks: "If Christ loves to
be loved a little, He loves to be loved much ;
but there is not any that are capable of loving
much, save those that have much forgiven them."
Having cited Paul as an instance, he adds the
quaint reflection, " I wonder how far a man
might go among the converted sinners of the
smaller size before he could find one that so
much as looked anything this wayward. Where
is he that is thus under pangs of love for the
grace bestowed upon him by Jesus Christ ?

106 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE.

Excepting only some few, you may walk to the
world's end and find none." Then coming to
the scene in Simon's house the moral lesson
it suggests is thus put. "Alas ! Christ has but
little thanks for the saving of little sinners.
* To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little.' He gets not water for his feet by his
saving of such sinners. There are abundance of
dry-eyed Christians in the world, and abundance
of dry-eyed duties too — duties that were never
wetted with the tears of contrition and repent
ance, nor even sweetened with the great sinner's
box of ointment. Wherefore his way is often
times to step out of the way, to Jericho, to
Samaria, to the country of the Gadarenes, to
the'coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and also to Mount
Calvary, that He may lay hold of such sinners
as will love Him to His liking."

It were well that the Church understood her
Lord's mind in this particular, and followed His
example, bringing her energies to bear on the
victims of passion and vice, not merely in a
fitful, spasmodic way, and through irregular
agencies, but systematically, deliberately, and
persistently, steadily declining to be of Simon's
mind, or to give any encouragement to a
despairing, pessimistic, sinical tone of senti
ment respecting the lost and lapsed. Then
may she have~the satisfaction of hearing many

MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE. 107

singing this new song of deliverance to which
angels might bear a chorus —

" Weary of earth, and laden with my sin,
I look at heaven, and long to enter in ;
But there no evil thing may find a home,
And yet I hear a voice that bids me come.

*' It is the voice of Jesus that I hear,
His are the hands stretched out to draw me near,
And His the blood that can for me atone,
And set me faultless there before the throne.

" 'Twas He who found me on the deathly wild,
And made me heir of heaven, the Father's child ;
And day by day, whereby my soul may live,
Gives me His grace of pardon and will give.

" Nought can I bring, dear Lord, for all I owe,
Yet let my full heart what it can bestow ;
Like Mary's gift, let my devotion prove
Forgiven greatly, how I greatly love.

CHAPTER VII.

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

" I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one
sinner repenting, more than over ninety and nine just persons
which need no repentance." — LUKE xv. 7.

THIS thought, the last of the three which
together constituted Christ's apology for loving
the sinful, is the burden of all the parables in
the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel — those of
the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.
In these parables Jesus made His crowning
effort of self-defence, and gained a signal victory
for gracious love, against the frigid criticism of
ethical propriety. Noticable is the multiplica
tion of parables in this instance, not merely as
an index of creative wealth of mind, but as
serving the purpose of the apologetic argument.
Accumulation of instances suggested the thought
that all mankind, in all positions and relations
of life, knew and sympathised with the joy of
rinding things and persons lost. As one who
took pleasure in finding morally-lost men,
Jesus thereby ranged on His side the whole
human race — men, women, rich and poor, shep-

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. 109

herds, housewives, fathers, against His critics ;
so saying to them in effect — " Are ye not men,
have ye not the feelings of ordinary humanity,
that I should need to explain to you so simple
a matter."

Christ's defence of the generous interest He
took in the moral recovery of the outcasts, as
presented in these beautiful parables, is indeed
most complete. Who, after hearing it, could
any longer doubt that such interest, even in
the case of the lowest and vilest, was rational
and praiseworthy ? The worst that could be
said of those whom morally respectable persons
shunned was that they were lost — lost to God,
to righteousness, temperance, and wisdom, to all
the chief ends and uses of life. If so, why
should there not be joy in finding them ? All
men have joy in finding things lost — shepherds
in finding lost sheep, housewives in finding lost
pieces of money, fathers in finding lost sons.
The Son of man only follows their example
when He has joy over the finding of morally
lost men, and seeks occasions for such joy by
taking pains to bring such men to repentance.

The moral of these parables is attached to
the first of the three, and in an abbreviated
form to the second. It is to be observed that
it is not expressed exactly as we should have
expected. Christ was on His defence, and the
point to be made good was the naturalness and

I 10 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

reasonableness of His own joy over sinners re
penting, so that we might have expected the para
ble to wind up with a sentence like this : " Even
so, I also have joy over a sinner repenting more
than over ninety and nine just persons which
need no repentance." But that is not the way
He puts the matter. He speaks of a joy in
heaven, not of a joy in His own heart, though
that is what He has to defend, and what He
really means to proclaim. The reason of this
is to be found in the fact that Jesus stood alone
in His time in hoping for a spiritual change
among the outcasts, and in regarding such a
change, when it took place, with intense sym
pathy and unfeigned delight. He had no
neighbours, on earth, like the shepherd and the
housewife, to rejoice with Him. His nearest
neighbours were in heaven. His back is at the
wall ; He is one against the world, an abso
lutely neighbourless man, so far as earth is con
cerned ; and so He is fain to go to heaven
in quest of sympathisers, and, sure of finding
them there, to declare to his censors : Up in
heaven they understand me, there is sympa
thetic joy among the celestials over the repent
ance of even a solitary one of these people
whom ye despise, in whom I take what to you
appears so unaccountable an interest.

Thus far of the immediate apologetic purpose
of these parables and their moral. Let us now

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. I I I

consider the permanent didactic significance
of the text in which that moral is expressed.

i. The first lesson we learn therefrom is, that
the Divine Being takes an interest in the moral
fortunes of mankind. There is joy in heaven over
sinners repenting. The reference to heaven is
not a mere poetic ^z/ cT esprit, or piece of skilful
fencing on the part of a hard-pressed combatant.
It is that doubtless, but it is more. It is a
declaration of objective truth ; it expresses a
serious belief on Christ's part that His own
sentiments are shared and sympathised with by
God. The text above quoted, in short, forms
an important part of Christ's doctrine of God.
It is just such a doctrine as we should expect
to hear from His lips ; and it is a doctrine at
once credible and welcome. It commends itself
to our conscience, as Christ when He first pro
claimed it expected it to commend itself to the
consciences even of Pharisees. He had no
fear of being asked the question : how do you
know that the mind of heaven is as you re
present ? He boldly said what He knew every
body was forgetting, yet what He also knew
nobody would dare to deny when said. God-
taught souls know when to be strong in
assertion, and Jesus knew better than any. He
gave a good illustration of His insight in the
present case. His bold saying grows in self-
evidencing power the more it is reflected on.

I 12 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

It throws us back first on the question, how
ought we ourselves to feel in regard to the
moral phenomenon presented in repentance.
Who can ask himself this question in a serious
spirit, without feeling that it is reasonable and
worthy to have some pleasure, yea, not a little
pleasure, in seeing a foolish person turn wise, a
thoughtless person growing thoughtful, a wicked
man turning from his wickedness ? Can you
tell us anything connected with a fellow-crea
ture that may more reasonably give a good
man joy ? What outward event can befal him
comparable in importance to this inward event,
this happy beneficent change of mind ? Falling
heir to a fortune is the event on which men
are wont most rapturously to felicitate them
selves. But what if, as too often happens, the
lucky favourite of fortune behave' like the
prodigal, and waste his substance with riotous
living? In that case the prodigal's return,
penniless but wise, is a far more legitimate
occasion for congratulation than his forth-
going from his father's house with his purse
full of gold, and his heart full of vanity
and sensual desire. Whether the average
Christian would congratulate a brother more
cordially in the former case than in the
latter, may be doubtful ; for even religious
people, it is to be feared, sometimes set more
value on outward goods than on the goods

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. 113

of the soul ; on material wealth than on wis
dom. But one can see clearly enough that this
is not the worthiest or noblest style of feeling ;
that it is vulgar, worldly, a thing to be ashamed
of not only for a Christian, but even for every
man with any pretensions to culture. For all
persons of culture it is an axiom that wisdom
is better than wealth, and that a sinner repent
ing is a far more interesting phenomenon than
a poor man growing rich.

But if this phenomenon be interesting to all
right-minded men, why not also to God ?
Whatever is worthiest of man is worthy of God,
and vice versa. This also is self-evident to
every man who believes in a personal God.
There are men in our time to whom the assertion
that God takes an interest in the moral fortunes
of humanjty has no meaning, because God in
their dialect means a Being who has no thoughts,
no feelings, no purposes, no consciousness, no
mind, or a mind no more like ours, as Spinoza
said, than the dogstar is like the dog that barks.
On those who profess this philosophy our
argument will, of course, have no influence. But
we appeal to theists, and press on them the
question : Why should Christ's doctrine seem
incredible ? Why should they ask sceptically :

" And is there care in heaven ? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move ?"
H

I 14 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

Why not, if God be a living God ; a spirit,
not a blind mindless force ?

This theology of Jesus is worthy of all
acceptation. A God who enters with intense
Christ-like sympathy into the moral life of men
is a God we can worship with all our hearts.
We want a God who is not merely high, like
the deity of Deism, but who humbleth Him
self to behold the things done in the earth.
We want a God to whom moral distinctions are
valid, and to whom, therefore, a change from evil
to good can be a welcome event, not a God like
that of Pantheism to whom, or which rather,
right and wrong are matters of indifference.
We want a God who finds His blessedness in the
work of redemption, not an epicurean God
whose felicity lies in keeping aloof from the
miserable lot of mortals. Celsus said that the
Incarnation degraded God. Paul speaks of
"the Gospel of the blessed God,"* implying
that the blessedness of God is compatible with
the self-humbling part assigned to Him in the
Gospel, yea, that He finds His blessedness
therein. The two ways of thinking mark the
difference between the Pagan and the Christian
modes of conceiving God. Who can hesitate
as to which is the more worthy to be believed ?
Yet strange to say the greater number even
of those who profess the Christian Faith do

* I Timothy i. 2.

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. r I 5

hesitate to believe earnestly and thoroughly
their own creed. There is an inveterate tend
ency to assert the majesty of God at the
expense of His sympathy, to believe in His
dignity and to doubt His grace. The very
texts which most emphatically declare the
Divine condescension are perverted into proofs
of the contrary doctrine. How often, for ex
ample, has the familiar word concerning God's
ways being higher than ours, uttered for the
express purpose of obviating incredulity in the
forgiving grace of God previously asserted with
much emphasis, been used by learned theo
logians to establish the dogma that God's
nature is so essentially unlike man's as to
be altogether inscrutable. The most recent
instance of this we have met with occurs in a
work by a well-known writer on the awful theme
of Everlasting Punishment. Protesting against
false inferences on this subject from the Divine
Love, the author remarks :" God's nature, char
acter, and method of dealing, is just the most
mysterious and difficult subject on which the
human mind can be exercised. He has Him
self expressly warned us in that passage of the
prophet Isaiah, which forms part of my text,
that His views and methods of proceeding are
different from our own ; ' My thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,

Il6 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

saith the Lord.' "* The caveat against sweep
ing optimistic inferences respecting the future
life may not be uncalled for, but the use made
of this precious Scripture text in support of the
caveat is nothing short of a mischievous per
version. Infinitely nearer to the true meaning
of the prophetic oracle is the interpretation put
upon it in a hymn worthy of a place in every
Protestant Hymnal, albeit of Catholic author
ship, containing such stanzas as these :

There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea :
There's a kindness in His justice,

Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven ;

There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,

And more graces for the good :
There is mercy with the Saviour;

There is healing in His blood.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind ;

And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

* "Everlasting Punishment," by E. M. Goulburn, D.D.
p. 56.

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. I I 7

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own ;
And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.*

2. The second lesson we learn from our text
is that the Divine interest rests not on the race
alone, but also on the individual. There is joy
in heaven over one sinner repenting. This is still
harder to believe. We can imagine the Divine
Being not unconcerned about the moral history
of the human race as a whole, and even going
the length of devising a redemptive plan for
bringing many sons to glory. But "one sinner
that repenteth " — does not that seem too minute
an object for the mind of Deity to rest on ?
Even we, men, find it hard to get up enthusiasm
about the repentance, however genuine, of one
solitary human being ; unless perchance it be
some one in high social position, or in some
way distinguished among his fellows ; a pro
fligate nobleman, a sceptical man of letters, an
unprincipled politician, or a fraudulent merchant.
When a sinner of such rank radically and
publicly repents, there may be an immense
amount of gossiping talk about the event, and
also some honest Christian joy over it. But

* "Hymns by Frederick William Faber, D.D." This
Hymn having, as yet, found a place in few Hymnals, to make
it better known we give it at length at the end of this chapter.

I I 8 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

when the one sinner repenting is a poor stupid
sot who wastes his earnings on drink, or an un
happy creature like her who came into Simon's
house and bathed Christ's feet with the hot tears
of godly sorrow, an ignorant navvy, a rough
sailor, a swearing tinker, a low brutal prize
fighter, how vain to attempt creating a sensa
tion by the tale ! What does it matter to the
world what becomes of such obscure degraded
persons, whether they turn over a new leaf, or
live and die in their sins ? How much more,
we are apt to think, must changes in the cha
racters of individual men, however conspicuous,
appear utterly insignificant as seen from heaven.
Even the conversion of an emperor could
hardly make a sensation up yonder, not to speak
of the repentance of a Jewish tax-gatherer, or a
beggar. Be the penitent a Nero or a Matthew,
the event must in either case pass without
notice.

Christ declares that the fact is not so, that,
on the contrary, repentance in every separate
instance is a source of satisfaction to the heart
of God. For when He speaks of one sinner He
does not have in view picked samples, sinners
socially distinguished. He is defending Him
self against the charge of having relations with
the lowest stratum of Jewish society, and the
relevancy of His defence requires that we
should understand the " one sinner " to be not

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. I 1 9

a distinguished sinner like Herod whom the
Baptist rebuked, or Caiaphas who heartlessly
sacrificed the unpopular Prophet of Nazareth
to political expediency, but any sinner picked
at random out of the rotting refuse of the
community.

It was to accentuate this truth that the
second parable was spoken, which after the
first may appear uncalled for. It was designed
to show that there might be joy over the
recovery of things of small value, even of a lost
coin of the value of a few pence ; such a coin
being a better emblem of publicans and sinners,
as they appeared to the Pharisees, than a sheep,
the emblem first selected. By that parable
Christ said in effect : " The repentance of even
one of these despicable ones, as you account
them, is a source of joy to the heart of God."

This doctrine of Christ's, that God takes an
interest in the moral history of individuals,
even the meanest, may appear strange ; yet
surely it is not incredible. For, in the first
place, if God really regards with sympathetic
interest the moral history of the race, why
should He not take similar interest in the
moral history of individuals ? The multitude
is made up of units. If we admit it to be
worthy of God to turn many to righteousness,
we ought not to wonder that He rejoices over
even one sinner turning from sin. The real

I2O THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

question is whether the idea of the redemption
of the human race be God-worthy. If it be,
there is no reason for scepticism as to the
Divine interest in the working out of the idea
in detail in the experience of individual men.
The company of the redeemed consists of
individuals having each his own spiritual his
tory ; the flock in the fold of single sheep, each
one of which has gone astray and been brought
back by the Shepherd.

But to understand and fully appreciate
Christ's doctrine, at this point we must con
sider carefully what it implies. Two great
thoughts are virtually contained in it, one con
cerning God, another concerning man. The
truth in effect taught concerning God is that He
is the Father of onr spirits. It is easy to see
what a light this throws on the question. We
can now understand how God can take a loving
interest in the repentance of any man, no
matter how obscure or degraded. We know
what a difference it makes to our own feeling
when a penitent is related to us by some close
tie of kinsmanship, that of a son to a father for
example. And through our own feelings we
can understand God's. God rejoices over the
repentance of any sinner, because in every such
case He sees a dead son come to life again,
a lost son found. What hope lies here for
those who have sunk so low as to have forfeited

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. I 2 I

a place in the sympathies of nearly all human
hearts ! For him who has exhausted human
patience, whom the most hopeful of men have
given up in despair, there is still hope in God.
Even this moral outcast, this sinner despaired
of, this wretch considered as good as damned,
may return to God with good hope, nay, with
certainty of welcome, taking with him words
similar to those put into the mouth of degraded,
degenerate Israelites, saying : " Doubtless, O
God, Thou art my Father, though, the congre
gation of Thy faithful ones be ignorant of me,
and even loving-hearted Christians acknowledge
me not. Thou, O Lord, art my Father, my
Redeemer from everlasting is Thy name."

The implied truth concerning man is that
every man, be he who he may, is, as a moral
personality, a being of unspeakable value. The
priceless worth of a human soul is one of the
great thoughts for which the world has to
thank Christ. Formally enunciated in other
places it is latent in this text. To say that
God rejoices in the repentance of a single
sinner is to say that every human being, as
endowed with reason and free will, and subject
to moral responsibilities and infinite possibilities
of good and evil, has a significance for Deity
which no thing, however vast, not the globe
itself, can possibly have. It is a doctrine in
which Christianity comes into sharp conflict at

122 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

once with the mercantile spirit, and with the
scientific tendencies of our age, both of which
treat man as of small account. The man of
keen business habits cares so little for the
higher interests of his fellow mortals that he
can enrich himself by trading on their moral
weaknesses, and fill his coffers with the pence of
tipplers, and drunkards, and opium eaters, and
even with the earnings of harlots. Even " Chris
tian " traders and " Christian " nations, so
called, can behave in this nefarious fashion.
And how cheap is human life when money-
making is concerned. The shipowner can send
a crew of sailors to sea in a rotten vessel
without hesitation, because he can make a little
profit so long as it keeps above water, and is
insured against loss even if it go down with all
hands. Modern science, likewise, cheapens
man's value. Its anthropological doctrine is
that man is made in the image of the ape, and
is destined to everlasting extinction at death ;
only a little superior to a dog even in his
moral nature, and not at all superior to a dog
in his destiny. In opposition to both, Christ
asserts the importance of man ; declaring all
souls to be precious, and deeming the repent
ance of the most insignificant of mortals an
event of solemn interest, because it means the
saving of a soul, the revival in one more
instance of the higher life of the spirit. The

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. 123

human race has a vital interest in the perpetua
tion, in spite of commerce and science, of this
Christian way of thinking. It tends to the
amelioration of society in every respect, as not
less surely the other way tends to its degrada
tion.

3. Yet a third lesson do we learn from the
moral appended to the parable of the lost sheep,
viz., that the aberrations of men, far from alien
ating the sympathies of God, form a source of
special attraction to Him. There is joy in
heaven over one sinner repenting more than over
ninety and nine just men that need no repentance.
The joy consists in the peculiar pleasure, known to
all, of finding things lost — a joy sensibly greater
than that of undisturbed possession. If this
joy, the reality of which in human experience is
indubitable, be, as Christ affirms, valid also for
God, then two inferences follow. First, a fallen
race is in some respects an object of more in
terest to the heart of God than an unfallen one.
That seems a very bold thought, and it is one
which may be easily perverted. Yet it is not
without warrant in Scripture. For, not to speak
f this text, Paul avers that sin entered that
grace might abound. Man fell that God might
lave scope for His redeeming love ; Divine
rrace has a career in a world full of sin. Such
the meaning of the apostle, and it is one with
all earnest believers in the creed that

I 24 THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

makes grace the highest attribute of the Divine
character can cordially sympathise.

The other inference is that the greater the
sinner the greater the Divine interest in his
change from evil to good. If there be a joy in
finding, as distinct from the joy of possession,
then the greater the loss, or the greater the
trouble of rinding, the greater the joy. A shep
herd would have a greater joy in recovering
a sheep that had strayed many miles from the
fold, than in recovering one that had wandered
only a short distance. This is no reason for
wandering — that were to sin that grace might
abound ; but it is a reason for special zeal in the
search after great wanderers, and for special
hopefulness as to their ultimate recovery. It
was one of Christ's reasons for going after
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. One
reason, we already know, was the intense love
He earned by saving those to whom much had
to be forgiven. But another was the mere
pleasure of finding those who had strayed
furthest from righteousness. This motive will
tell on all who share Christ's enthusiasm of
humanity. And, further, it will sustain them
amid the fatigues of the search after lost ones, to
think that God has an interest in the restoration
of those who have gone furthest away from
Him. Let them remember that God's honour
as the God of grace is advanced by beautifying

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. 125

the vilest, sanctifying the most unholy, lifting
the morally beggared out of the dunghill, and
setting them among the princes of His kingdom.
A physician likes to achieve great cures, and
the God, whose name from old is Redeemer, de
lights in working miracles of grace in a Paul,
an Augustine, or a Bunyan. While the world
lasts such miracles may be looked for — a source
of joy unspeakable to the Church on earth, and
to God in heaven.

By the kindness of the publishers we are enabled
to give here in extenso the Hymn quoted on page 1 16.
The text is taken from " Hymns by Frederick William
Faber, D.D." Second Edition. London : Thomas
Richardson & Son, Dublin and Derby. New York :
Henry H. Richardson & Co. 1871.

COME TO JESUS.

Souls of men, why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep ?

Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep ?

Was there ever kindest shepherd

Half so gentle, half so sweet
As the Saviour who would have us

Come and gather round His feet ?

It is God : His love looks mighty,

But is mightier than it seems .
'Tis our Father : and His fondness

Goes far out beyond our dreams.

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST.

There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea ;
There's a kindness in His justice,

Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven ;

There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good ;

There is mercy with the Saviour ;
There is healing in His blood.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this ;

There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind ;

And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own ;
And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed ;

There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

'Tis not all we owe to Jesus ;

It is something more than all,
Greater good because of evil,

Larger mercy through the fall.

THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST. 127

Pining souls, come nearer Jesus,

And O come not doubting thus,
But with faith that trusts more bravely

His huge tenderness for us.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word ;

And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

" Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." —
MATT. viii. 17.

THIS quotation from the prophetic Scriptures
forms the conclusion of one of those paragraphs
in Matthew's Gospel which relate not individual
miracles, but an indefinite number of them
taken en masse, and which create the impression
that Christ's miraculous agency as a healer of
disease was far more extensive than we should
infer from the narratives of particular acts.
" When even was come," we read, " they
brought unto Him many possessed with devils,
and He cast out the spirits with a word, and
healed all that were sick." It was the evening
of a Sabbath day, near the beginning of Christ's
ministry in Capernaum, which throughout had
been crowded with striking events. The first
was the appearance of Jesus as a preacher in
the synagogue, which doubtless of itself created
a stir among the people. But the sermon,
though attracting much attention, all the more
if, as is probable, it was a first one, was eclipsed

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. I 29

by deeds of a most unwonted character. During
the progress of the service, so Luke informs us,
one of the hearers, a demoniac, what in our
day might be called an epileptic, was overtaken
with one of the sudden attacks to which such
poor sufferers are liable, and speaking as the
mouthpiece of the demon uttered words depre
cating the influence of the prophet of Nazareth.
Jesus, suspending His discourse, addressed to
the poor sufferer, or the spirit that possessed
him, a word which was immediately followed
by a return to consciousness and sanity. As
tonished at His teaching, those present were
still more astonished at this display of power.

Leaving the synagogue Jesus returned home
to the house of Simon the fisherman and the
disciple of after days, to find the mother-in-law
of his host taken with a great fever, threatening
her life, and alarming friends. Some of these,
just come from the synagogue where they had
witnessed the marvellous cure of the demoniac,
had recourse in their anxiety to the stranger
who had come among them, thinking that He
who had power over the evil spirits might also
have power over diseases of every description.
They appealed not in vain. Jesus, full of sym
pathy and conscious of power, came to the
bed side, took the sick one by the hand and
lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she
arose and ministered unto them.

I3O THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

The fame of these miracles spread with
lightning rapidity through the town, and the
result was that in the evening of the same day,
when the sun was going down over the hills, a
great crowd of people assembled around the
house where Jesus resided, bringing their sick
to be healed. Mark in his graphic way states
that " all the city was gathered together at the
door." Many kinds of diseases were represented
in that motley assembly. But no poor sufferer
was disappointed. Jesus "healed all that were
sick."

Here was a truly Messianic achievement!
The first evangelist, who delights to grace his
narrative of the ministry of Jesus with citations
from the Hebrew scriptures containing oracles
that have at length found their fulfilment, will
certainly recognise in this wondrous scene an
occasion worthy of this honour. He bethinks
himself of that weird description of the suffer
ing servant of Jehovah in the writings of Isaiah,
and the text which appears to him most apposite
is : " Surely He hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows." Surely, indeed ! The
oracle is happily chosen. What strikes Matthew's
mind is the sympathy with human suffering
displayed in these healings. He could easily
have found other texts descriptive of the physi
cal side of the phenomenon, e.g., the familiar
words of the lO3d Psalm, "who healeth all thy

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

diseases" But it was the spiritual not the
physical side of the matter that chiefly arrested
his attention : therefore he wrote not " that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by David,
saying, 'who healeth all thy diseases,'" but
"that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ' Himself took
our infirmities and bare our diseases,' " trans
lating for himself from the Hebrew to make
the text better suit his purpose.

The evangelist has penetrated to the heart
of the matter, and speaks by a most genuine
inspiration. For the really important thing in
the events of that Sabbath evening, and in all
similar events, was the sympathy displayed,
that sympathy by which Jesus took upon Him
self, as a burden to His heart, the sufferings of
mankind. That was the thing of ideal signifi
cance, of perennial value, a gospel for all time.
The acts of healing benefited the individual
sufferers only, and the benefit passed away with
themselves. But the sympathy has a meaning
for us as well as for them. It is as valuable to
day as it was eighteen centuries ago. Yea, it
is of far greater value, for the gospel of Christ's
sympathy has undergone developments of which
the recipients of benefit in Capernaum little
dreamed. Christ's compassion signified to them
that He was a man to whom they might always
take their sick friends with good hope of a

132 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

cure. How much more it signifies to us ! We
see there the sin-bearer as well as the disease-
bearer, the sympathetic High Priest of humanity
who hath compassion on the ignorant, the
erring, the morally frail ; who, as a brother in
temptation, is ever ready to succour the tempted,
whose love to the sinful is as undying as Him
self, " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."
And surely we find all this in the scene in
Capernaum most legitimately ! Surely the
doctrine of Christ's sacerdotal sympathy with
sinners set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews
is a most reasonable development from the
healing miracles recorded in the gospels ! For
it cannot be thought that One who so took
men's diseases on His spirit would not also take
their sins to heart with at least an equally
tender and yearning sympathy. And how
much that implies ! An ideally perfect sym
pathy with sinners will make Him who experi
ences it feel as if He were a sinner Himself.
He will go about imputing the world's sin to
Himself, confessing it, desiring to take it away,
if by any means that be possible ; willing to
die if that will serve the purpose ; thankful if
the constitution of the universe will admit of
the extinction of the world's sin on any such
method.

But while we can easily, and do most readily,
read these thoughts into our text, it must be

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 133

acknowledged that the text itself contains no
allusion to them. What is present to the
evangelist's mind in quoting the prophetic
oracle is the revelation of gracious sympathy
with suffering made in the healing miracles.
It may be well that we should refrain from
contemplating the scene from the high dogmatic
standpoint, and content ourselves with enquir
ing what we may learn in the same line from
the healing miracles of which so many were
wrought in the town of Capernaum on that
memorable Sabbath evening.

These miracles, then, may be regarded in
three lights, in all of which they are full of per
manent significance : as a revelation of Christ,
as a prophecy of better days, and as an inspiration
to all who honour the name and cherish tlie spirit
of Jesus.

i. First, in the miracles of healing we see,
with Matthew, a revelation of the sympathetic
heart of Jesus. Students of Christian evidences
are aware that another view of these miracles
widely prevails, according to which they were
signs attached to Christ's doctrine to support
his claim to be regarded as a divinely accredited
teacher. Without saying that this view is alto
gether wrong or inadmissible, we would say
with much confidence that it is quite secondary
and subordinate. It seems to have been the
view in favour with the men of Nazareth when,

134 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

as hinted by Jesus, they expected Him to do
among them whatever mighty works they had
heard of His working in Capernaum. He had
healed a demoniac in the Capernaum synagogue ;
let him heal another in the Nazareth synagogue.
The fame of that memorable Sabbath evening
in the town by the lake had reached their
ears; let Him rehearse the achievements of
that night in His native town, and so prove
beyond dispute that He had a commission
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and
to perform the functions of Messiah. Strange
to say, Jesus wrought very few miracles of
healing in Nazareth, far fewer than in Caper
naum, although He could not but have had a
desire to show kindness to His fellow-towns
men, His former playmates and schoolfellows,
by healing the sick in their families. He
wrought fewest miracles where they were most
needed, if the chief end of miracles was to sup
ply evidence of Messianic claims. He can
hardly have been of the mind that such was
their chief end. Not only did He not work
many miracles in Nazareth, but it is recorded
that He could not. "He could there," says
Mark, " do no mighty work, save that he laid
his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed
them."* The reason was the lack of believing
receptivity. The Nazarenes, with their demand

* Mark vi. 5.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 135

for signs of Messiahship, and their cold, critical
temper, paralysed the arm of the Lord. Not
that Christ's power depended for its existence
on the faith of recipients of benefit, but that,
like every other spiritual power, it was apt to be
thrown back on itself by a chilling unsympa
thetic attitude. An orator is apt to fail when
addressing an unsympathetic audience ; a skil
ful musician seldom succeeds in bringing out of
his instrument its finest effects amidst dull, in-
appreciative listeners. Genius is a shy, retiring
spirit, which manifests itself only to faith and
love. Even so with the miraculous healing
power of Jesus. It existed independently of
popular moods, even as does the oratorical
power of the speaker, and the musical talent
of the performer ; but it manifested itself only
amid favouring circumstances.

And this very fact proves that the working of
healing miracles was not with Jesus a matter of
calculation, but rather of the spontaneous forth-
putting of endowment. He did not say, " Go
to, I will work a miracle at this point, to give
authority to what I have stated." He did not
cure the epileptic patient in the Capernaum
synagogue to back up the sermon, and make
the hearers regard it as the discourse of a
prophet, or divinely commissioned man. He
wrought that cure in spontaneous instinctive
response to the cry of suffering. The need of

136 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

the sufferer appealed to His sympathy, and
sympathy brought into play curative power.

According to this simple, natural view, the
miracles of Jesus were, not less than His preach
ing, a revelation of the grace that dwelt in Him.
His words in Nazareth, in Capernaum, every
where, were "words of grace ; " His works were
likewise works of grace ; equally with the words
a forth-flowing from the well of love within, not
mere signs attached to these to increase their
credit. In full accord with this view is the
general character of Christ's wonderful works.
They were not mere astonishing feats, prodigies,
magic transformations of dead pieces of wood
into trees, or of human beings into stone statues,
and the like. They were beneficent works, hav
ing a sufficient motive for their performance in
the desire of the doer to confer benefit.

One recommendation of this simple view of
Christ's miracles is, that with it we can walk in
company so far with men who do not believe in
the miraculous in the strict sense of the word ;
that is, in that which rises above nature, or is
contrary to nature. For it so happens that
there are not a few nowadays who are utter
disbelievers in the supernatural, who neverthe
less believe the evangelic reports of our Lord's
healing works to be in the main true. The
view they take is that these works, though very
surprising and unusual, were yet wrought ac-

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 137

cording to some obscure laws of nature belong
ing to the department of "moral therapeutics,"
which have as yet been very little studied. Christ,
by some happy endowment of His nature, was
en rapport with these laws, and hence it came as
easy to Him to heal disease by a word, as to
an ordinary physician to cure ailments for which
specific remedies have been discovered. Now
this theory of " moral therapeutics " may appear
to us a very far-fetched one ; but it has this one
merit at least, that it enables unbelievers in the
supernatural, without open inconsistency, to
admit Christ's healing works as matters of fact.
Thus far they can go with believers, and it is
well. But they can go further. With believers
they can regard these works as the direct out
come of Christ's sympathy. They do so regard
them, and they take pleasure in expatiating on
the intensely humane spirit revealed in these
works ; the deep, tender sympathy with the
world's woe, yearning to heal it, and by its very
yearning to a certain extent successful. This,
too, is well. It is good that at least the Re
deemer's love, if not His supernatural power,
should be admitted by men of all schools. And
that is a reason why we should accentuate the
view of miracles according to which they are a
self-manifestation of Christ's gracious love, as
distinct from the view according to which they
are signs attached to a system of doctrine to

138 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

accredit it as Divine. The latter view the ad
herents of a naturalistic philosophy cannot ac
cept, because it implies a strictly supranatural-
istic conception of miracles. But the former
they can and do accept, and just on that ac
count we should give prominence to it, while
declining to acquiesce in a merely naturalistic
conception of the Gospel miracles. For it is
well, we repeat, that the love of Christ should
be universally believed in, accepted as an essen
tial part of the catholic verity by the whole of
Christendom. It is well that Jesus should
stand out to the eye of the whole world as the
One Man who loved the human race with all
His heart, who burned with desire to consume
the world's sin and misery — to bear the sin as a
High Priest, to heal the misery as a Physician ;
and who, because of the ardour of His love,
accomplished feats which made men wonder
at the time, and which make men wonder
still.

2. The Gospel miracles are, secondly, a pro-
pJucy of better days for the world.

The days of miracles, we often hear, are past,
but Christ's mighty works nevertheless did not
happen in vain. They are a system of signs, as
well as a revelation and a monument of the
Saviour's love. They are signs that disease
does not belong to the true order of nature, and
prophecies of a good time coming when the true

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 139

order shall be restored. Such they seem to
have been in Christ's intention. Judging from
His conduct, there were two things which He
greatly desired — the extinction of sin, and the
extirpation of misery. These things He would
do if He could. The will was there at least if
not the power. Not only did He desire these
things, but He believed them to be attainable.
He laboured at both tasks in hope, achieving
some results by His personal efforts, but believ
ing far more to be possible. This mind of
Christ has much significance for a believer. To
unbelief, of course, it will appear simply the
hallucination of a deluded but amiable enthu
siasm, whose loving heart dreamt of impossi
bilities. But to faith, Christ's hope is a ground
of hope. Because He hoped believers look for
a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness, and along with it health and
peace. They regard the earth in its present
state as a mother groaning and travailing in
pain, comforted amid present sorrows by the
expectation of a glorious birth. Of all this
the Gospel miracles are a sign and prophecy.
They are indeed a sign and prophecy only to
those who believe, not to those that believe
not. To unbelief, will and power in Christ are
divided, to faith they are conjoined. He can
do all He desires. His desire is the indica-

140 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

tion of the will of heaven, whose power is felt
through all creation.

3. Once more the Gospel miracles are an
inspiration to all who honour the name and
cherish the spirit of Christ. They say to such,
" Go thou and do likewise." We cannot do
all Christ did, but we can adopt His aim, and
work for it according to our ability. We can
resolve to live for the good of man in every
sense, spiritual, social, physical, and strive to
give effect to our resolution as we have oppor
tunity. There may be cordial co-operation here
on the part of men whose theological attitudes
are wide as the poles asunder. All can be
disciples of Jesus in this who care for their kind.
The sum of the Christian religion is to believe
in God's love, and to love God and men. There
are many in our time who have dropped the
first item in this summary out of their creed,
and have ceased to believe in a God of love.
Their religion reduces itself to the cultivation of
a generous interest in humanity. Even they
can be fellow workers with Christ by giving
practical effect to their own meagre creed. Let
them do good as they have opportunity. Let
them cherish and propagate benevolent affec
tions, and act on them, not merely theorise
about them. All who do this serve Christ's
cause, even though it should be involuntarily.
Not only so, they share Christ's faith, more

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 14!

perhaps than they might care to acknowledge.
Christ believed that the world could be made
better, and He regarded it as a high duty to
care for the weak, the sick, the frail. There are
those who do not share these convictions. The
pessimist does not regard the world, or man
kind, as improvable. The world in his view is
a gigantic blunder, human life is not worth
living, man is a contemptible creature, and the
doom of the race is to grow worse and worse,
and eventually to perish. The Darwinist,
faithful to the theory of the survival of the
fittest, might consider it best for the interests of
mankind that the weak, the sick, the frail,
should be allowed to perish, or even be actively
dismissed from the world. Thereby at least
the physical condition of man would be greatly
ameliorated. These dark doctrines no professor
of the " religion of humanity " can accept. He
must look on the future of man with hope,
otherwise the nerve of his energies would be
cut. He cannot adopt the law of the survival
of the fittest as a principle in morals, for he
must feel that in so doing he would be sacri
ficing the spiritual to the physical, and destroy
ing the sacred instinct of sympathy which is the
conservative salt of society.

It is for those who are disciples of Christ in a
far higher sense to see to it that they are not
outstripped in the race of philanthropy by the

142 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

adherents of this modern religion. Let such
remember that the outcome of all true faith and
piety is humanity. " Pure religion and unde-
filed before God and the Father is this, To visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the world."*
The good Samaritan is the true Christian. The
man who can witness human want and suffering
and pass by on the other side may be very
religious, very orthodox, very scrupulously at
tentive to all proprieties and holy customs, but
he is not a Christian. Christ says to all such,
" I never knew you."

In the foregoing discourse we have deliber
ately abstained from entering on the high path
of theological contemplation, that we might
emphasise those aspects o'f Christian truth in
which the greatest number can agree. I We have
thrown the interests of the soul into the back
ground for the moment, that the claims of the
body might have an opportunity of asserting
themselves. The former interests are the higher,
but they are the subject of much dispute ; the
latter interests, if the lower, are those in con
nection with which there can be co-operation on
the part of men far from each other in their
theological opinions. And surely this co-opera
tion is very much to be desired. For while the
saving of the soul, in the high transcendental

* James i. 27.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 143

sense, is the supremely important matter, the
salvation of men even in the secular sense, the
improvement of their condition in this life is a
thing worth working for. For this end all may
worthily labour, each man in his own sphere
and after his own fashion ; men of science, phy
sicians, statesmen, manufacturers, ministers of
religion. The labour of so many fellow-workers
cannot surely be in vain, and we cannot doubt
that it is well pleasing to God.

Yet while we labour earnestly for the physi
cal and temporal well-being of man, we may
not forget that man is a being who belongs to
two worlds. He who bears this duly in mind
will see in Christ's miracles more than a revela
tion of His compassion for human suffering, a
prophecy of better times, and an example to be
imitated by all lovers of their kind ; even types
of higher miracles to be wrought in the sphere
of the spirit. Believers in the literal miracles
of the Gospel believe also in these spiritual
miracles ; in the reality of those recorded in the
pages of history, in the possibility of similar
miracles of grace still. So believing they will
desire and expect ever new manifestations of
Christ's power to heal souls, doubting not His
willingness, and profoundly conscious of the
world's urgent need. Humbly hoping in Him
who Himself took our infirmities and bore our

144 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

sickness, let the Church while the ages roll
take up her evening song and pray :

At even, ere the sun was set,

The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay ;

O in what divers pains they met !
O with what joy they went away !

Once more 'tis eventide, and we,

Oppressed with various ills, draw near.

What if Thy form we cannot see,

We know and feel that Thou art here.

O Saviour Christ our woes dispel :
For some are sick, and some are sad,

And some have never loved Thee well,
And some have lost the love they had.

And some are pressed with worldly care ;

And some are tried with sinful doubt ;
And some such grievous passions tear,

That only Thou canst cast them out ;

And some have found the world is vain,
Yet from the world they break not free ;

And some have friends that give them pain,
Yet have not sought a friend in Thee :

And none, O Lord, have perfect rest,
For none are wholly free from sin ;

And they who fain would serve Thee best
Are conscious most of wrong within.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 145

O Saviour Christ, Thou too art man,

Thou hast been troubled, tempted, tried ;

Thy kind but searching glance can scan
The very wounds that shame would hide.

Thy touch has still its ancient power,
No word from Thee can fruitless fall ;

Hear in this solemn evening hour,
And in Thy mercy heal us all.

CHAPTER IX.

THE POWER OF FAITH.

" I have not found so great faith no not in Israel." — MATTH.
viii. 10.

" O woman great is thy faith." — MATTH. xv. 28.

"If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say
unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall
remove, and nothing shall be impossible nto you." — MATTH.
xvii. 20.

" Thy faith hath saved thee." — LUKE v i. 50.

THESE texts, and others of kindred import,
show what a high place faith held in the esteem
of Jesus. Faith was in his view a great force.
It could work miracles; uproot mountains; bring
about mighty moral changes ; it was a necessary
condition of his own ability to do miraculous
works. Striking manifestations of faith were a
great source of delight to Him. He remarked
upon them ; He praised them ; He even went
so far as to express surprise and admiration on
witnessing them.

This prominence of faith in the thoughts of
Christ is only what was to be expected in one
who preached a Gospel of grace. Grace and
Faith are correlatives. A Gospel of grace is a

THE POWER OF FAITH. 147

Gospel which proclaims a God whose nature it
is to give. The proper attitude of those who
worship such a God to the Object of their wor
ship is that of recipiency. God bestows His
gifts, we receive them with thankfulness. No
marvel then that Jesus, the Herald of the king
dom of grace, should speak much, and with
emphasis, of faith. It had been otherwise had
He been a mere Preacher of moral law. His
favourite word then had been not Faith but Re
pentance. This accordingly was the Baptist's
motto. Among the numerous points of differ
ence between John and Jesus this has to be
reckoned that the watchword of the one was
Repent, that of the other Believe. The difference
corresponded to their diverse conceptions of the
Divine character, the one regarding it from the
point of view of retributive righteousness, the
other from the point of view of love. The one said
" God is holy and his kingdom is drawing nigh,
prepare yourselves for its coming by reforming
your lives." The other said " God is good, and
He is approaching you with blessings in His
hand ; open your hearts to receive His benefits."
In the teaching of our Lord, we find no
attempt at a definition of faith. He used the
word in a simple popular sense rooted in Old
Testament usage, and took for granted that the
religious instincts of His hearers would help
them to understand sufficiently what He meant.

148 THE POWER OF FAITH.

But the import of the term as it occurs in the
Gospels might be expressed by the single word
" receptivity." An open mind receiving the an
nouncements of the kingdom as at once true tid
ings and good tidings, credible and worthy of all
acceptation, such was faith in the dialect of Jesus.
As thus defined, faith appears a very simple
thing, not beyond the capacity of a child. And
simple indeed it is, simple as the opening of
the mouth to inhale air, or to receive food.
Nevertheless faith is not a commonplace virtue.
It is a heroic attainment, implying qualities of
mind and heart by no means to be found in
every man you meet. Faith of some sort is
indeed as common as to breathe. In a sense,
all men, not merely the just, live by faith ; no
human being could subsist without it. The
husbandman sows in faith, counting on the
earth bringing forth of itself, first, the blade,
then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. The
sailor steers by faith counting on the^compass
pointing steadily to the pole. The emigrant
sets out on his voyage in faith, trusting to the
skill and care of the captain to bring him
through the perils of the deep to the far distant
port on the other side of the ocean. In such
instances faith is the easiest thing in the world,
comes to us instinctively, is without merit,
confers no distinction ; the exercise of it earns
no praise, for none but a fool would act other-

THE POWER OF FAITH. 149

wise. But it is different with religious faith.
In the sphere of religion faith is exercised about
matters which appeal to the higher nature of
man, and which it requires a certain moral
elevation to appreciate. Here too the things
about which faith is conversant are out of the
common course. We have to do writh the
unusual, the unexpected, the improbable, the
apparently impossible. The exercise of faith
on such objects demands high, rare qualities ;
power of original thought, imagination, freedom
of mind from the bondage of custom, audacity
to conceive and expect things out of the beaten
track. In short, a believer in the religious
sense, to be at all conspicuous for his faith,
would need to be at once a spiritually minded
man, having his heart set on lofty objects, and
in a sense a man of genius, poetic, romantic, a
dreamer of dreams, of free untrammelled spirit,
not custom-ridden in his ideas — such^a man as
Abraham who by faith made his life morally
and even intellectually sublime. The way of
faith is by no means a broad road trodden by
all travellers, wise or foolish ; it is an arduous
footpath rising over rocky precipices to snowy
alpine summits.

If the fact be so the unreserved admiration
of Jesus at signal manifestations of faith becomes
intelligible. And that the fact is so we can in
part learn from the instances recorded in the

T50 THE POWER OF FAITH.

Gospels ; those, especially, of the Roman cen
turion, and the Syrophenician woman.

In the case of the centurion faith reveals
itself as a power of conceiving great thoughts,
and of dwarfing into insignificance mountains
of difficulty. The idea of this soldier is, that
just as the hundred men under his command
are at his beck to come and go and do as he
pleases, so all the powers of nature are ready
to do the bidding of Christ. This is a sublime
conception of the power of the Lord, worthy to
be placed alongside the magnificent conception
of the divine government suggested by the
words of the iO3d Psalm :

The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens ;
and His kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye
His angels, that excel in strength, that do His command
ments, hearkening unto the voice of His word. Bless
ye the Lord, all ye His hosts ; ye ministers of His, that
do His pleasure.

The idea here is : God sitting on a throne as
Ruler of the universe, surrounded by a host of
ministering spirits waiting orders, who so soon
as they have received the word of command,
fly off as on the wings of the wind, or the swifter
beams of light, to execute their commission.
Much the same was the centurion's thought,
not borrowed from the Psalmist, but originating
in his own mind. What Jehovah was to David's
imagination that Christ the Son of man was to

THE POWER OF FAITH. I 5 I

the devout fancy of the Roman soldier — even
the emperor of nature, generalissimo of all
cosmicat forces, capable by a word of making
all the laws of the universe and all the elements
run his errands.

Was it not a great original idea ? But now,
observe, it was an idea, the credit of which be
longed to the centurion's faith. To conceive it
required more than a clever brain, even the
daring spirit of which faith alone is capable.
Granting that the analogy between Christ's
power and that of a military commander might,
for a moment, suggest itself to any thoughtful
mind, none but a man of strong audacious
faith would have been able to detain the thought,
and entertain it as a reasonable one, still less
to utter it aloud as just and true in the hearing
of the world. A man of weak faith would have
dismissed the idea as soon as it entered his
mind as a Utopian dream, or at least kept it
to himself, not venturing to utter it for fear of
being laughed at as a romantic fool. But herein
lay the strength of the centurion's faith, that
he not only could conceive the idea, and fami
liarise his own mind with it, and get the length
of venturing to utter it, but could utter it as if
he were saying nothing at all remarkable, but
the merest matter of course — a thing that might
occur to any one, and which he probably fancied
everybody understood and believed.

152 THE POWER OF FAITH.

Unbelief cannot entertain such grand ideas
of divine power. Its thoughts of all things
divine are mean, tame, conventional, custom-
ridden. So far from being able to originate
thoughts like that of the centurion, it can
not even receive them, for they are foolishness
unto it.

The centurion's faith showed itself, further,
as a power of dwarfing into insignificance moun
tains of difficulty. It saw no formidable ob
stacle in the way of the accomplishment of its
object. Weak faith makes difficulties, but
strong faith annihilates them. It takes up
mountains and throws them into the depths
of the sea. The Roman soldier's faith looked
on the healing of the sick slave as the easiest
thing in the world. " Speak the word only and
my servant shall be healed." Weak faith could
not speak in this wise. It might say, " Lord, I
have heard that Thou hast a marvellous power
of healing, and I have no doubt of Thy bene
volence: Come and visit the patient, and if pos
sible cure him." Weak faith can believe in
small miracles, but not in great ones. It is
therefore rationalistic, always mixing up natural
and supernatural causes, giving to the former
as large a place as possible, and shutting the
latter into a corner, so making miracles easier
and more credible. Strong faith makes no dis
tinction between great and small miracles. It

THE POWER OF FAITH. 153

attaches no importance to neighbourhood, or
contact, or any other natural means as condi
tions of cure. It says not like the nobleman of
whom St John tells, " Sir, come down ere my
child die," but like this simple soldier, " speak
the word and my servant shall be healed."

Such faith is never common. It was not
common in Israel, the home of miracles, physi
cal and moral. The faculty of faith had nearly
died out among that people in that generation.
It was a stupid generation, stupefied by custom,
prejudice, form, routine, pride. Scarce any
where was there a fresh eye, and a young open
heart, quick to discern and to welcome a new
living revelation of God and truth. They could
only believe in old revelations respectable for
their antiquity, and consecrated by tradition.
Therefore Jesus was very thankful to meet with
an occasional instance of faith, simple, pure, and
free enough to be able to recognise in Himself,
and in His teaching, and in His deeds of mercy,
something divine and worthy of all acceptation.
He hailed it as the children of Israel hailed a
well in the wilderness, who, when they found so
unlocked for a boon, in their gladness cele
brated the discovery with a song saying : —

" Spring up, O well : sing ye unto it,
The well which princes dug,
Which the nobles of the people hollowed out
With sceptre and with staves." *
* Numbers xxi. 18,

154 THE POWER OF FAITH.

The divine Pilgrim meeting, in his journey
through a moral wilderness, with a believing
soul like the centurion, was as one who had
come unexpectedly on a spring, and at sight of
it exclaimed : Spring up, O well ! welcome to
your crystal waters : Spring up in the desert for
solace to the thirsty traveller !

In the woman of Canaan faith again revealed
itself as endowed with genius, and as a power
of surmounting difficulty. The genius of faith
showed itself this time not so much as a faculty
of conceiving grand thoughts, but rather as a
talent for ready wit. The talent in either case
was congruous to the nationality of the person.
Great serious thoughts became the Roman,
ready wit the Syrian. The Syrian woman's
quick wit showed itself on this wise. To the
harsh objection, "It is not meet to take the
children's bread and to cast it to dogs," she re
plied, True, Lord, for also the dogs eat of the
crumbs falling from the table of their Master.
She accepts the position assigned to the Pagans,
that of dogs, but not of dogs without, of house
hold dogs, taking advantage of the diminutive
form of the term employed by Jesus, which was
commonly applied to domestic dogs, and so
turning His words against Himself. " Dogs—
so be it then, let us have the dogs' portion ; for
they have a portion, the crumbs that fall from
the table." It was a happy jeu desprit, indica-

THE POWER OF FAITH. 155

tive of a natural brightness of mind, and avivacity
of temper that, could assert themselves even in
the most unpropitious circumstances. But it
was more. It was a triumph of faith. Faith
gave the heart to utter if not to conceive the
genial word ; faith which could see into the
heart of the Stranger, and discern his goodness
in spite of rough words. But the flash of inspir
ation, not less than the courage to speak the
bright idea, came from faith. The woman could
never have hit upon so happy an idea unless
she had believed it possible for heaven's grace
to reach down to the level of Gentile dogs. But
for that conviction latent in her soul she had
not noticed the advantage Jesus gave her in the
use of the kindly diminutive, which implied that
those to whom the epithet referred had some
kind of connection with the household. And it
was no mean faith that was able to entertain
such a conviction. Among His own country
men Jesus was thankful to find a faith that was
able to believe in His power to benefit even
those belonging to the chosen people. He
hardly looked for more in a Jew than this
homeward-bound faith in a grace adequate for
Israel's need, but available for none beyond.
But here, in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, He
finds a faith of a much wider sweep. Here is a
poor woman who, with sorrow-stricken heart,
comes to Him seeking help for her afflicted

156 THE POWER OF FAITH.

child, believing that He is able and willing to
work marvellous cures, believing that He has
wrought many such cures among His own
people ; but believing, moreover, that His
power and His will to help are not limited to
Judea, that there is no reason why they should
be so limited, that heaven's grace cannot possibly
be thus hemmed in by geographical boundaries.
Here, in short, on this Pagan soil, is a faith that
anticipates Christian universalism, and makes
bold to affirm the great axiom afterwards enun
ciated by Paul: God is not the God of the Jews
only, but of the Gentiles also. No wonder
Jesus exclaimed, O woman, great is thy faith.
Of this faith, even more than of the centurion's,
it might truly be affirmed that the like was not
to be found in Israel. The quick wit was not
the most remarkable thing about it. The really
remarkable thing was that which made the
quick wit possible, the power to overturn parti
tion walls, and to level the mountain range of
election which separated Jews from Gentiles,
and so to make a straight way for the kingdom
of grace to enter with its blessings even into
Syrophcenicia. And all this with perfect
humility while with characteristic audacity.
" We are unworthy, we are dogs, we are aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, and we have
no merit and no claims : yet we dare to believe
that Divine love can reach even us poor un-

THE POWER OF FAITH. I 5 7

clean Pagans." This faith not only levels
mountains, but fills up a deep valley of humili
ation, whose existence it frankly recognises. It
performs, in short, all sorts of engineering feats
in the construction of a world's highway of
grace.

Christ's whole heart went forth in unaffected
admiration of this magnificent display of faith
in a most unexpected quarter. Of course He
granted the request ; but His ultimate compli
ance was more than an exceptional favour to
a Pagan, in homage to a most exceptional
spiritual insight. It was a virtual proclamation
of the great truth that before faith all barriers
must go down, that wherever there is recipiency
on man's part there is communication of grace
on God's part, no matter what the nationality
of the believing soul, even election notwith
standing.

Equal to His admiration of the genius and
courage of faith was the confidence of Jesus in
faith's power to bring into the soul, in all the
plenitude of moral influence, the kingdom of
heaven. He gave faith credit for power to
triumph over the greatest moral hindrances, to
bring peace into troubled hearts and consciences,
and to clothe the greatest sinner in the beauty
of holiness. We learn this from the story of
the woman who entered the house of Simon.
To this woman Jesus said, Thy faith hath saved

158 THE POWER OF FAITH.

thee, go into peace. The cheering word meant
much. The expression " saved " is not to be
restricted to the one blessing of forgiveness of
sins, though that is specially included, as it was
expressly mentioned just before. Jesus meant
to say that faith would do, had already done in
principle, for the sinful woman, all that needed
to be done in order to a complete moral rescue.
It was as if He had said, "You have faith, I see,
it is all right with you ; faith will do everything
for you, bring into your heart the blessing of
forgiveness, emancipate you from the bondage
of evil desire and habit, transform you from a
sinner into a saint ; go in peace : you are as
good as healed." Whence had He this con
fidence ? How was He not afraid to lay so
much stress on faith ? Why did He dismiss the
intruder without giving her a bundle of moral
cautions to carry in her memory, as helps
against future temptations ? Partly, we fancy,
because He had more faith in great principles
than in petty rules for keeping men right ;
partly also, doubtless, because He was gener
ous, and wished to hope the best for one who
had made a good beginning in a new life. But
chiefly, we apprehend, because he saw what
faith had done already. Had not the reception
by her of the good news filled the soul of this
woman with unutterable love to the Preacher,
and to the Father in heaven, whose grace He

THE POWER OF FAITH. 159

revealed ; had it not transformed her into a
poet, a heroine, a devotee, capable of setting
conventionalism at defiance in ardent demon
strations of penitence and gratitude ? Here,
before the eyes of all, was a new spiritual crea
tion, all due to faith, producing, through the
nature of the thing believed in, and its priceless
value to the recipient, intense love, which, by
deeds more eloquent than words, says, " O Lord,
truly I am thy servant : I am thy servant !
Thou hast loosed my bonds." Well might
Jesus say, " Thy faith hath saved thee," for no
more complete demonstration of the restorative
power of that faculty by which we let the Divine
grace flow into our hearts can be desired. True,
it was only a beginning. The good resolutions
of the hour had to be persevered in through a
life of virtue, and that, experience tells us, is no
easy matter. Excitement cools, enthusiasm
dies out, evil thoughts return, temptations pre
sent themselves, and relapses are probable. Yet
it is a great thing to begin, to go through a
great crisis of repentance, an agony of godly
sorrow, to look one's sin straight in the face,
to call it by its true name, to say, " By the help
of God I will bid farewell to these evil courses."
It is also a great thing to have taken, once for
all, into the mind the cheering creed that God
is a Being who helps those who desire to do
well ; that the Divine Spirit sympathises with

I6O THE POWER OF FAITH.

them in their struggles, makes intercession for
them in their weakness, lifts them up when they
fall, and, holding them by the hand, leads them
on to the land of uprightness.

Faith can do yet more than this — more than
make a beginning in the new life, and cling on
to God for help to persevere. It opens the soul
to healing influences of all sorts, stealing in from
every quarter, not in themselves gracious, but
serving the purposes of grace, coadjutors of the
gospel, fellow-workers with God. If, as there is
reason to believe, the woman that had been a
sinner became after the memorable scene in
Simon's house, a member of the company that
followed Jesus in His wanderings, what sooth
ing, peace-giving influences, what helps to godly
living were within her reach ! The beneficent
occupation of ministering to her benefactor, the
virtuous attachments springing up between the
persons who constituted the society of Jesus,
yea the very sights and sounds of nature, would
be as ministering spirits confirming the broken
and contrite heart in peace and purity. When
the heart is tender it is very impressionable,
and it receives impressions through every sense
of the body, and every faculty of the soul. The
birds sing to it songs of gladness, the winds
sighing amid the pines sympathise with and
console its sadness, the murmur of the brook

THE POWER OF FAITH. l6l

charms away bitter thoughts like the prattle of
childhood ; the delicate odour of wild flowers
awakens in some mysterious way old memories
of happier days, which open afresh the heart's
wounds yet heal them. Are these not all
ministering spirits, aids to, extensions of the
Gospel, a gospel in nature conspiring with the
written gospel to complete the soul's cure ?
Yes, and so are the outgoings of affection in
social life, and all opportunities of converse with
the thoughts of the wise and the gifted through
the spoken word or the written page, setting
before us the true, the honourable, the pure, the
lovely. These are all accessible to faith, and
only to faith. For faith we have seen signifies
receptivity, and without receptivity no healing,
soothing, sanctifying, influence can come to us
from nature, from society, from literature, or
from Christ. But where receptivity is there all
things work together for good. And for the
comfort of those whose lives have been made
tragic by sin, and by physical disease and
mental gloom, its too frequent accompani
ments, let it be said that the heart that has been
broken by contrition, and pain, and despond
ency, is the heart in which delicate sensibility
and receptivity to all beneficent influence is
likely to reach its maximum. " Blessed are they
that mourn for they shall be comforted." Moral
mediocrities like Simon, and the elder brother
L

I 62 THE POWER OF FAITH.

in the Parable, are " saved " from many risks
and sorrows by their virtues ; it is the waifs and
outcasts, the children of passion, who in all
senses are saved by faith.

With these thoughts of Jesus concerning
faith's power we all sympathise. As Protestants
we assign to faith a prominent place and vital
function in our creed. But it suffices not to
have a sound doctrine of faith. We must have
faith itself. The two things do not necessarily
go together. In spite of our orthodoxy on the
subject of faith's function, it may be a thing we
much lack. In that case we render very bad
service to our creed ; do what we can to bring
it into disrepute, and to make men become
disciples of the Baptist rather than of Jesus.
How little we know of the power of faith !
What a blessing to the church were a faith like
that eulogised by Christ ! It would open our
heart to the love of God and fill us with joy ;
it would emancipate us from the power of evil ;
it would deliver us from idolatry of the past
and make us hopeful of the future ; it would
purify our motives from the taint of worldly
wisdom ; it would make us creative in thought,
large in sympathy, saintly in character, heroic
in conduct. Lord increase our faith, and make
us acquainted with its power in all spheres of
life!

CHAPTER X.

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

"Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy ; son,
be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee. " — MATT.
ix. 2.

THERE are many points of interest connected
with the Gospel story of the healing of the
palsied man. There is the method adopted by
the friends of the sufferer to gain access to Jesus,
made difficult by the crowd surrounding the
house (not alluded to by Matthew) ; the com
bination of the forgiveness of sin with the cure
of the physical malady ; the offence taken by
scribes present, at the assumption of authority
to forgive sin ; and the spirited reply of Jesus
to His critics. But the most striking feature is
one not named, and seldom referred to in ex
positions of the narrative, or referred to only to
be explained away. It is that Jesus was moved
to heal the sick man by a regard to the faith of
his friends, displayed in their energetic efforts
to obtain access to His presence. " Jesus seeing
their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; son,
be of good cheer." The "their" evidently refers

164 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

to the friends, as distinct from the sick man.
To make the pronoun include him and to say,
with a well known writer on the miracles, " the
sick man was approving all which they did, or
it would not have been done," * is simply to
subject exegesis to the tyrannous control of
dogmatic prejudice. It is also to go against the
natural probabilities of the case. The nature
of the disease of itself excludes the supposition
that faith was in active exercise in the person
of the sufferer. It was a case of palsy. Mind
and body were both alike paralysed. The poor
victim was passive in the whole process, from
the formation of the purpose to bring him into
Christ's presence to the moment when the word
was spoken which issued in a cure. He could
neither think nor act, neither form a plan nor
carry it into execution, he could hardly even so
much as entertain a wish. He lay a helpless
lump of animated clay, living and that was
all.

It was therefore by a regard to the faith of
His friends that Jesus was 'moved to bless this
man. And when we say this, we bear in mind
that the blessing included not merely the
healing of disease, but the forgiveness of sin.
Both benefits were conferred for the sake of the
believing friends. For it is to be observed that
the spiritual benefit came first. The soul was

* Archbishop Trench, ' ' Notes on the Miracles. "

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 165

first healed. Only after the forgiveness of his
sin had been announced to him did Jesus say
to the sick one, " Arise take up thy bed and go
unto thine house."

We have here, therefore, a very emphatic
recognition of the value and power of interces
sory prayer, or if we may so express it, of
vicarious faith. Christ, God, we are taught,
hears prayers of believing men, offered up not
for themselves but for others, for neighbours,
friends, relatives, palsied in soul, who do not
believe, and who do not pray for themselves.
God has regard to the faith of this man
in His dealings with that man, and does
good to the one because of the generous loving
interest which the other takes in him. This is
a truth which may easily be abused ; it has,
we know, been very grievously abused. But
we may not allow the fear of abuse to deprive
us of the comfort contained in the truths stated.
We must insist on its validity within the proper
limits. It has its limits. No man can be saved
in the full sense of the word by another man's
faith ; personal faith is, as a rule, requisite in
order to salvation. God deals with men not
in mass only, but also individually. Yet, while
this is true it is also true that intercessory
prayer has a place in the Divine method of
dealing with the children of men. God deals
with men not merely as individuals, but as

I 66 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

social beings grouped together in families, tribes,
nations, and naturally drawn by the ties which
connect them, and by the affections springing
out of these, to take a loving interest in one
another's temporal and spiritual welfare. In
virtue of this truth, given on the one hand in
any family or brotherhood, a member thereof
palsied in soul by scepticism or vice, and on
the other hand, the other members of that
brotherhood duly exercised in his behalf, we
may expect one day to hear of that palsied one
being delivered from his spiritual malady, and
having a new song put into his mouth in praise
of Him who forgiveth iniquity, and healeth our
diseases, and redeemeth our lives from de
struction.

As this is a doctrine which men are slow to
receive, and still slower to act on, it may be
well to show how thoroughly rooted it is in
Holy Scripture.

That God has regard to the prayers, faith,
and piety of some men on account of other men,
is not doubtfully taught in one solitary isolated
text, such as that quoted from the gospels. It
is a principle which pervades the Bible. It
comes in very early, standing forth in bold
relief in the history of Abraham, the father of
the faithful. Abraham was a magnanimous,
philanthropic man, whose thoughts and affec
tions did not revolve in a narrow circle, with

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 167

self for its centre. He took a kindly humane
interest in all his neighbours, even in those with
whom he had very little in common. There
fore, when he learned that the wicked cities of
the plain were about to be destroyed, he
immediately addressed himself with the utmost
earnestness to the task of intercession for their
preservation. Nor \vere his intercessions un
availing. God had respect unto them. Abra
ham's prayers did not, indeed, prevent the
destruction of Sodom, but they procured a con
ditional promise of salvation in certain specified
circumstances. And the conditions are very
instructive, viewed in connection with our present
subject. God promissd to spare the city if there
were fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous men
in it ; Abraham bidding down to the last figure,
and no further, apparently from a feeling that
a city in which there were not even ten good
men, good even in the Pagan sense of being
virtuous and exemplary in their lives, was not
worth saving. There is thus a twofold recog
nition of the vicarious principle in this interest
ing portion of the patriarch's history. God
recognised the value of intercessory prayer in
listening to Abraham pleading for Sodom ;
He also recognised the value of vicarious right
eousness in declaring Himself willing to spare
Sodom and its sister cities of the plain for the
sake of ten worthy men ; willing, so to speak,

1 68 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

to impute or reckon to the credit of the unright
eous thousands the righteousness of the worthy
ten.

The history of this patriarch supplies yet
another illustration of the doctrine. " Abraham
had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the
other by a freewoman." Isaac, the son of Sarah,
was the heir of the promise, the elect son, so to
speak. Ishmael, the son of Hagar, was outside
the covenant ; but Abraham loved Ishmael, his
first-born, though not his heir, and his heart
yearned for the outcast. He could not endure
the thought of his extrusion from the home of
his childhood. While expecting with much
interest the birth of the heir of the promise, yet
he did not desire that the favoured one should
have a monopoly of Divine favour. Therefore
he ejaculated on Ishmael's behalf, the short
but most fervent and heartfelt prayer, " O
that Ishmael might live before thee ! "* And
God heard that prayer even for the non-elect
Ishmael, promising him a place in His " un-
covenanted mercies." God said : " Sarah thy
wife shall bear a son indeed ; and thou shalt
call his name Isaac ; and I will establish my
covenant with him for an everlasting covenant,
and with his seed after him. And as for
Ishmael, I have heard thee : Behold, I have
blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and

* Genesis xvii. 18.

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 169

will multiply him exceedingly, twelve princes
shall he beget, and I will make him a great
nation."*

As we follow down the stream of sacred his
tory, we meet with numerous other instances of
prevailing intercessory prayer. There is the
notable instance of Moses praying God to for
give the sin of idolatry committed by Israel
at the foot of Mount Sinai. " Oh," said the
noble-hearted leader of the chosen race, "this
people have sinned a great sin, and have made
them gods of gold. Yet, now, if Thou wilt for
give their sin — and if not (mark the character
istic self-devotion of the patriot : he hardly
dares to finish his prayer, but he dares to wish
himself accursed for his brethren's sake !), and
if not blot me. I pray Thee, out of Thy book
which Thou hast written." What now was God's
reply ? This : " whosoever hath sinned against
me, him will I blot out of my book." This
first, indicating the limits within which the
vicarious principle is confined. God will not
damn one man for the sake of another ; nor
will He save a man from damnation for the
goodness of another, while the man continues
in mortal sin — no, not though that other good
one should be the Lord Jesus CJirist. But then
it is added, " therefore now, go, lead the people
unto the place whereof I have spoken unto thee ;

* Genesis xvii. 19, 20.

I 70 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

behold mine angel shall go before thee."*
Israel is not to be destroyed after all ; she is
to be led into the promised land though she
has made herself an object of disgust to the
Divine mind, by her stupid, thoughtless be
haviour, she is to be borne with for Moses'
sake. She is forgiven out of regard to his
intercessions, and his self-effacing patriotism.

Further multiplication of examples is un
necessary. We may simply allude to the stress
laid on the mere memory of David at critical
times in Israel's history. When Sennacherib's
army lay around Jerusalem besieging it, God
wrought deliverance for Israel partly out of
regard to the prayer of the devout Hezekiah,
but partly also out of respect for the pious
memory of David the hero-king, the man after
God's own heart. The message sent through
Isaiah to the king concluded thus : "Therefore
thus saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assy
ria : he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an
arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor
cast a bank against it. By the way that he
came, by the same shall he return, and shall
not come into this land, saith Jehovah. For I
will defend this city to save it, for mine own
sake, and for my servant David's sake."f
What a respect is shown to David's name by
its being thus put on a level with God ! Mine
own sake, and David's sake.

* Exodus xxxii. 30-34. t 2 Kings xix. 32,

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 171

The doctrine we teach is thus unquestionably
Scriptural. It is, moreover, reasonable. It can
give a good account of itself before the bar of
philosophy. It is a wise, God-worthy policy
which encourages men to pray, live, and even
die for one another, by the assurance that they
pray not, live not, die not in vain. If it is
desired that men should take a generous inte
rest in each other, this is the way to get them
to do it. Tell men that there is no use in pray
ing for others, and sanctifying themselves for
others, that every man must pray for himself,
and be holy for himself, that no man can by
prayer or holy living do his brother any good ;
then, of course, men will cease praying for
others or troubling themselves in any way
about their fellow-creatures. For who would
pray for praying sake, or vex one's soul about
things which he cannot help ? And what sort of
world would this be were there no praying men
in it ; no Abrahams interceding for Sodoms ;
no Moses-like men ready to have their names
erased from the book of life rather than that
their country should perish ; no Pauls who could
wish themselves accursed from Christ for their
brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh ;
no Christ-like men bearing the sin and misery
of their fellow-men as a burden on their hearts ?
Why, it would be a world given up to univer
sal selfishness ; heartless as well as prayerless,

1 72 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

inhumane as well as godless, a sunless world
full of blind men knowing not whither they
went, stumbling against each other, and knock
ing each other over into the mire. Such the
world to a large extent is, even under the actual
moral order ; but bad as the world is, it would
be far worse were the vicarious principle to be
eliminated from the system of the universe.
Think twice before you vote for a decree to that
effect. He who desires it knows not what he is
doing. He desires the extinction of the sun with
its blessed light and heat, the abrogation of the
royal law of love exemplified and glorified by the
death of Jesus Christ. For these two laws — the
law of love, and the law of vicarious influence
which makes it possible, by earnest supplication,
to bring down blessings on the heads of fellow-
men — stand and fall together. If you wish to
rid your religious creed of intercessory prayer
and vicarious self-sacrifice, and all kindred ideas
appearing to you antiquated and barbarous, you
must understand that the sum of the Ten Com
mandments, Love God supremely and thy neigh
bour as thyself, must go after them. For how
can a man love God supremely who has not
shown himself capable of a love without stint,
and how can a man love his neighbour as him
self who never prays for his neighbour as he
prays for himself ?

To make the matter clear by a particular

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. I 73

case, look at this scene from the Gospel history.
See these four strong men carrying their palsied
relative on a couch into the presence of the
great Physician ; determined not to fail of their
purpose, uncovering the roof, since no other
mode of access is possible, and letting the sick
man down to the place where Jesus stands
preaching to the vast multitude. It is a pleas
ing, heart-stirring sight. There is nothing
fairer to look on in the world than such a dis
play of enthusiastic generous interest in the
well-being of a suffering fellow creature. But
that scene would not have occurred had the
law of this universe been : every man for him
self, no man's faith, prayer, or effort, available
for any but himself. For the poor sick man
could not believe, could not pray, could not
speak, could not even think ; and in the case
supposed his friends could not have believed,
prayed, spoken, thought, or acted for him. And
in such a world they would not have tried to do
so. The affections of men living in such a
world would ultimately become assimilated to
their surroundings. The laws of the universe
giving no encouragement to anything but
selfishness, there would soon be nothing but
selfishness in it. And so the friends would
have left the sick man to his fate, and minded
their own business.

Such being the outcome of a system in which

1 74 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

the vicarious principle has no place, every man
who desires to see the world full of loving
hearts and kind deeds will be in favour of the
great law which makes it possible for men in
many ways to bear each other's burdens. Let
us thoroughly believe in that law, and in all
truths in sympathy with it. Let us believe that
God has a gracious regard to the world for
Christ's sake ; that He hears prayers of saints
for sinners, of Abrahams for Sodoms, of devout
parents for thoughtless disobedient children ;
that He has a tender feeling towards an un
worthy people for the sake of one eminently good
man ; that Israel is still beloved for the father's
sakes, that Scotland in spite of degeneracy is
dear for the martyrs' sakes, that there is hope
for Africa because Livingstone loved her dark-
visaged children and spent his strength and his
life in her unexplored wildernesses. We must not
fight shy of these ideas because the adoption of
them may appear to bring us into too close
contact with the creed of Rome. We must
remember that there is an evil to be dreaded in
an opposite quarter, viz., too close contiguity to
Socinianism. In the Socinian creed the one
grand law of the moral world is individual
responsibility. That is certainly a very great
law, but it does not stand alone. The moral
world, like the material, is upheld in a state of
stable equilibrium by the combind action of two

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 175

laws. As the planets are kept in their orbits
by the balanced counteraction of the centripetal
and centrifugal forces, so the moral universe is
maintained in harmony and settled order by
the complementary action of the two great laws
of vicarious love and personal responsibility,
stated by the Apostle Paul in these simple
terms : " Bear ye one another's burdens," that
being the law of love : " Let every man prove
his own work," that being the law of individual
responsibility.*

If this doctrine be, as we have seen, in accord
ance both with scripture and sound philosophy,
then there springs out of it a manifest practical
duty for all Christians. The duty is, without
ceasing, to desire and to pray for the health,
specially the spiritual health, of all men, and
more particularly of those who are near to us
by social ties, the care of whom Providence
most obviously lays upon us.

Intercessory prayer and loving effort of every
description, need never cease among us for
want of appropriate objects. There is no lack
of palsied souls in every neighbourhood. There
are multitudes whose spiritual powers, yea,
even whose physical powers, have been, or are
in course of being, destroyed by vicious habits.
Who does not know of instances of this kind ?
Let each of us assist in bringing such sick souls

* Gal. vi. 2-4.

I 76 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

under the notice of the Divine Physician.
There are also many correct enough in moral
habit, who are palsied in mind by the epidemic
malady of doubt, hovering, hesitating, with
pitiable impotence of will, between faith and
infidelity, Christianity and atheism. These
also we ought to bring to Christ's presence,
begging Him to give them a simple faith, and
a reinvigorated will, that they may accept his
gospel, and serve God with undivided mind
and heart.

Wherever there is such earnest loving interest
taken, there miracles of healing will be wrought.
Christ will say now as of old : "Son, be of good
cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. Arise, take up
thy bed, and go into thine house." Augustine
likens his mother's praying for his conversion,
during the years of his unbelief, to a widow of
Nain carrying her dead son on the bier of
thought, till Jesus should pass by and say,
"Young man arise." Mothers, Christian friends,
do not this in vain. Jesus does pass by ;
He did in the case of Augustine, uttering the
word of power. If all were known, it would
probably be found, that when palsied souls are
healed, devout souls have been bearing them
on their spirit at the throne of mercy. The
great Physician goes not only when He is
needed, but when He is desired. There are
places to which He does not go, because the

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. 177

people are whole-hearted and think they need
not a physician. There are likewise places
where there are plenty of sick souls, but few
who shew their faith and love by praying for
their salvation ; where, therefore, Jesus does not
many mighty works because of prevalent un
belief. But shew us a place where sick souls
and praying hearts coexist in great numbers,
where the need of the sinful is sore and the desire
of the good for their health is most fervent, and we
can tell you where there are likely to be the largest
number of men carrying their sick beds on their
shoulders. Clamant need and fervent prayer
combined attract Divine influence, as mountains
attract the clouds, or lightning-rods the electric
fire. Put a thousand Abrahams into a Sodom,
and the chances are that instead of being de
stroyed by fire from heaven it will be converted
into something like a city of God. If a com
munity be bad, and there be in it very few men
even professing piety, and these few, like Lot,
very indifferent in the quality of their piety, the
prospects may be gloomy enough. But no fear
of a community that has in it a sufficient num
ber of Abrahams, believing, praying, spiritually-
minded men ; not mere religious busy-bodies
making much fuss and noise with little out
come, but veritable men of God, beyond doubt
more concerned for the kingdom of God than
M

178 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH.

for aught else. In that community may be
many sick of the palsy, but "the prayer of
faith shall save the sick," and they shall be
healed.

This doctrine of the vicarious power of faith
is a most welcome feature of the Galilean
gospel. It puts it in the power of every man
to be a little Christ, filling up that which is
lacking of the afflictions of Christ for His body's
sake. If only those who bear the Christian
name could but realise the dignity of their
heroic vocation, and avail themselves to the full
of their opportunity. Richard Baxter in his
old age, looking back on a protracted and most
varied experience, expressed his profound sense
of " the radical, universal, odious sin of selfish
ness, and of the excellency and necessity of
self-denial, and of a public mind, and of loving
our neighbour as ourselves." To-day, in the
nineteenth century, as in the seventeenth, "a
public mind" is the great need of the Church
and of society. We need to have Christ-like
intercessors, and helpers, and burden-bearers
indefinitely multiplied. Let us pray for it.
Let each man pray for himself:

Lord, speak to me, that I may speak

In living echoes of Thy tone ;
As Thou hast sought, so let me seek

Thy erring children lost and lone,

THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH. I 79

O lead me, Lord, that I may lead

The wandering and the wavering feet ;

O feed me, Lord, that I may feed
Thy hungering ones with manna sweet.

0 strengthen me, that, while I stand
Firm on the rock, and strong in Thee,

1 may stretch out a loving hand

To wrestlers with the troubled sea.

CHAPTER XL

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

" No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment."
—MATT. ix. 16.

"Neither do men put new wine into old bottles.'' — MATT. ix. 17.
"This cup is the New Testament in my blood." — LuKExxii.2o.

CHRISTIANITY a new thing, an innovation, a
breach in the continuity of religious tradition —
such is the burden of these texts. In the last
the thought is expressly enunciated; in the
other two it is plainly implied. For as in the
saying, "The whole need not a physician but
they that are sick," the point lies in the
suggestion that the speaker is a physician, so
in these sayings the appositeness fully appears
only when it is understood that the speaker
means to claim for the cause with which he is
identified that it is a new thing. The gospel
He preaches is the new piece of cloth that must
not be put on an old garment, the new wine
that may not be put into old skins.

Very noticeable is the boldness with which
the novelty of Christianity is asserted in these
parabolic sayings. Most innovators strive to

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. l8l

hide the novel character of the movement with
which they are identified. In not a few instances
it is hid in part even from themselves. They
are the half unconscious instruments of a spirit
which cunningly conceals its tendency from its
mouth-pieces, that they may the more willingly
serve it. But even when not themselves de
ceived, innovators are apt to play the part of
dissemblers, hiding or extenuating the newness
of their cause, striving to make it appear as
like as possible to something already established,
with a view to obviate opposition, or conciliate
prejudice. Jesus was exempt from both these
infirmities. He had on the one hand a perfectly
clear understanding of the bearings and signi
ficance of His work. He was fully conscious
that that work was new, and how far and in
what respects it was new was not hidden from
Him. On the other hand He frankly admitted
and broadly asserted the novelty. His was
not the timid, apologetic, half-hearted, prudential
tone so common among those who have some
thing fresh to tell the world. He would not
degrade the piece of new cloth into a mere
patch on a worn-out garment, or conceal the
new wine in old skins that men might be led
to believe that it also was old. He had the
courage of his convictions ; freedom of spirit
equal to His insight. He knew what He was
about, and what He knew He would tell, and

1 82 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

what He said in word He would give effect to
in deed ; daring to carry out systematically in
conduct the principles of His religion, not con
tent with enouncing a barren theory.

It is of the utmost importance for the interests
of genuine evangelic piety that these facts should
be well laid to heart. Let us therefore linger
over them a little, considering, first, the fact that
the Galilean gospel was a great innovation, and,
secondly, the bold free spirit of the Divine
Innovator.

I. In what respect was the gospel of Jesus
new ? In several respects, and chiefly in these
following : —

i. In its idea of God. Jesus was the first to
teach effectively the Fatherhood of God. The
paternal conception of the divine character is
not wanting in the Old Testament. But it does
not occupy a dominant place there. The lead
ing idea is that of a Ruler. God is the Righteous
Governor, high and holy ; men are His subjects
dwelling far beneath Him on the earth His
footstool, and trembling before His majesty.
Such was the idea of the Divine Being, fostered
by the legal economy which came in and ob
scured the grace of the promise made to the
Fathers, as St Paul teaches. But Jesus came,
and a great theological revolution took place.
The legal conception of God fell into desuetude,
and a brighter view came to the front The

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 183

Lawgiver made way for the God of grace, the
Judge for the Divine Father. God did not
cease to be high and holy, but He became con
spicuously, what He had ever been in reality,
humble and good ; near as well as far off,
familiar as well as majestic, benignant not less
than holy, loving the sinful while having no
part ;n sin. Broadly put the difference was
this. The old traditional God of Jewish the
ology and worship was an Exactor, the new
God of Jesus was a Giver. The one demanded
obedience, the other conferred gifts even on
the rebellious, seeking to overcome evil with
good, and by His free unmerited favour
turn the disobedient to the obedience of the
just.

2. Along with the new idea of God came
naturally a new conception of the kingdom of
God. The idea of such a kingdom in general
was not new. It was an idea familiar to the
Jewish mind from time immemorial — from the
days of Moses, when Israel was first constituted
a nation. But Christ's mode of conceiving the
kingdom was new. The change here corre
sponded to the change in the idea of God. The
old kingdom of God was a kingdom of law, the
new kingdom of God was a kingdom of love.
The old kingdom was national, the new was
spiritual. Under the old the unit was the whole
people of Israel, under the new it was the in-

184 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

dividual. The kingdom of Old Testament
times was a righteous nation, keeping God's
law and subject to the rule of its Divine King.
The kingdom of New Testament times was
to be found wherever there was a renewed heart
believing in the Divine love, and yielding itself
to God's gracious influence. The kingdom of
Christ's preaching was within ; it did not re
quire numbers for its existence, yet it had room
for the idea of multitude ; for those in whose
hearts it took up its abode must needs form
themselves into a new society, and so give birth
to a new humanity, independent of nationality,
capable of extension over all the earth, having
within it the possibilities of a holy catholic
Church throughout all the world, worshipping
the Father in spirit and in truth.

The difference between the old and the new
at this point came out distinctly in the preach
ing of John the Baptist as compared with that
of Jesus. In John's conception of the kingdom
the ideas of law, righteousness, judgment are
prominent, and the sphere within which these
principles have play is the nation of Israel. In
Christ's the prominent watchwords are grace,
mercy, pardon, and the recipients of blessing
are the humble, the contrite, the poor ; Jews
chiefly at first, but Jews by accident ; for the
condition of admission into the kingdom is not
circumcision but faith. John speaks much of

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 185

the axe and the fan, of wrath and fire unquench
able ; Jesus of salvation for the lost, even for
the outcasts and pariahs of society. In all
these respects John is the representative of an
old era now drawing to a close ; Jesus of a new
era of grace now in its dawn.

3. These new thoughts of God and of the
kingdom of God were accompanied by a new
ivay of life, the typical feature of which was
neglect of fasting then practised by all religious
people. The 'society of Jesus fasted not, but
ate and drank like other men, not affecting
religious rigour, always of course within the
limits of godly temperance. That divergence
from custom was full of significance in refer
ence both to religion and to morality. On the
religious side it meant a conscience emancipated
from legal scrupulosity and superstitious fear ;
and on the ethical side, a heart filled with
humane sympathy. The Son of Man came
eating and drinking because He believed in a
God of love who could not be acceptably served
by ascetic austerities, but by thankful use of
His mercies. He came in this wise, further,
because He had no faith in fasting as a cure of
moral evil, but rather believed that sin was to
be exorcised by love. Believing this He assimi
lated His manner of life to that of those whom
He sought to save, as far as purity permitted,
that He might get near to them, win their con-

I 86 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

fidence, and so lay a foundation for beneficent
spiritual influence.

In both respects the change was a great
innovation, an epoch-making revolution. It
was the substitution of a religion of trust in
the place of a religion of fear ; the proclama
tion of self-sacrificing love as the great redeem
ing power, in opposition to the solitary hopeless
practice of mere self-torture. And it will be
apparent to all that the new way of life was in
harmony with the new thoughts of God and of
the kingdom of God. Belief in a God who is
a Father, and in a reign of grace, has for its
natural accompaniments a conscience purged
from dead works of legalism to serve the living
God with thankfulness and joy, and a life
regulated by the supreme law of love. These
things existed in perfection in Jesus. His dis
ciples were not yet perfected in them. But
they were under training for these high ends.
Their Master in all He did aimed at the
ultimate emancipation of their consciences from
legal bondage, and the bringing of their hearts
into complete subjection to the spirit of charity.
It was for this purpose He taught them to
abstain from fasting ; as also to disregard the
traditions of the elders in reference to cere
monial washings and Rabbinical rules for
Sabbath observance.

II. The courage of Jesus was not less con-

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 187

spicuous than His originality in thought and
conduct.

As He believed so He spoke publicly, habit
ually. All men knew or might know the
salient points of His doctrine. He spoke to
all of a God who was a Father, and of a
kingdom of grace open to all ; He proclaimed
these truths especially to those who had most
need to hear them, and were most likely to
welcome them, regardless of the reproach He
encountered by so doing. New ideas, especially
new religious or theological ideas, are often
cautiously vented only in the coterie or the
club, their authors shrinking from the conse
quences of publicity. Not thus did Jesus hide
His light under a bushel. He let His light
shine so that at the end of His career He could
make the manly protest : " I spake openly to
the world : I ever taught in the synagogue and
in the temple, whither the Jews always resort ;
and in secret have I said nothing." *

Outspoken in His teaching, Jesus was equally
unreserved in action. There was no attempt
on His part at concealment of nonconformity
to existing religious custom. All men knew
that He and His disciples did not fast, or
practise ritual ablutions, or comply with Rabbin
ical notions as to Sabbath observance. Such
departures from custom could not well be hid ;

* John xviii. 20.

155 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

but there was no attempt at hiding, so that any
who came into even casual contact with the
Jesus-circle could without the slightest difficulty
become acquainted with its peculiar way of life.
Conclusive evidence of this is to be found in
the frequent instances of offence taken at that
way recorded in the Gospels, that referring to
fasting being one of the number, but only one
of many.

Resolute in working out His principles in
conduct, Jesus was fearless in defence of His
conduct when assailed. Conciliatory in spirit,
and patient in explanation with a view to the
satisfaction of honest enquirers, He never
apologised for censured actions as if doubtful
of their propriety. Apology for His conduct
He did frequently offer, but His apologies
consisted not in acknowledging Himself at
fault, but in explaining the principle of His
action so that the apparent grounds of offence
might be removed. When asked, Why do we
and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thy disciples
fast not ? He did not reply : We have been
a little careless in this matter, but we will be
more attentive in future, we meant no harm, it
was only an inadvertency; or, We have not been
so entirely negligent of this duty as ye suppose ;
our remissness in the cases which came under
your notice was the result of special unforeseen
circumstances, and is not to be taken as an

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 189

indication of our habit or intention. He ad
mitted fully and frankly the neglect charged,
and proceeded to explain and vindicate it,
calmly, dispassionately, and with every desire
to conciliate, but yet without an atom of con
cession as to the rectitude of the conduct
impugned. " My disciples do not fast, the fact
is as you state it, they are not in the mood to
fast, in their present temper it is impossible for
them to do it. Moreover, fasting is foreign to
the genius of the religion they are learning
from Me, systematised fasting that is to say, for
occasional acts of fasting are not excluded ; and
this being so, it were a folly to force on them
an alien practice, for practice should harmonise
with the spirit of religion and be the natural
outcome of it. When the inward spirit and the
outward conduct are at variance, it is as when
a piece of new undressed cloth is put as a patch
on an old garment, or new wine is poured into
old skins. You know what the results in such
cases would be. They are such that none but
a fool would perpetrate these mistakes." Such
was the apology of Jesus : clear, rational, tem
perate, but firm and uncompromising.

One who puts his foot down so resolutely in
defence of departure from religious use and wont
is not likely to escape equally resolute opposi
tion. The patrons of old ways in religion are
always numerous, and in no other department

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

of life is the spirit of conservatism so bitter and
relentless. He therefore who dares toattempt
to introduce new thoughts about God and things
divine, or new modes of giving outward expres
sion to the spiritual life, does so at his peril.
Jesus was fully aware of this when He offered the
apology above paraphrased in defence of neglect
ing fasting. He understood human nature, and
appreciated as no man ever did before or since
the blind force of resistance offered by a super
stitious conscience to all attempts to rob it of its
idols. He foresaw the penalty He would have
to pay as an innovator, " a setter forth of strange
Gods." Hence the pathetic reference to coming
days when His disciples would have good cause
to fast, and would be in the sad mood of which
fasting is the fit expression. What a tragic
train of thought flashed with lightning swiftness
through Christ's mind at that moment ! " Fast ?
No, we do not fast, and in many other respects
we differ from you, first in spirit, and then, of
course, in outward act. But I know well that
we cannot thus differ from the customs of the
time with impunity. At the end of this way of
nonconformity I see a cross. When I come to
it my disciples will be able to gratify you by
compliance with your wishes. You will then
give them good occasion for fasting by taking
from them th'eir Beloved, and leaving them in
widowhood."

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR, IQI

The gloomy foreboding was not a mistaken
one. The cross did come; the Bridegroom was
taken from the sorrowing society of Jesus. That
was the price the Preacher of Galilee paid for
daring to make some things new in theology and
in religious life. But the price was not too high.
For that cross, the penalty of innovation, became
in turn a power of immeasurably increased inno
vation, enabling Him who had made some things
new in His life to make all things new by His
death. Of this truth also Jesus was aware, and He
proclaimed it when He said on the eve of His
Passion, instituting the Holy Supper, "This cup
is the new Testament in my blood." A new
Testament or covenant ! That is a much more
extensive innovation than the small detail of
neglecting fasting. It means the suppression of
the Sinaitic covenant with all that pertains to
it : its whole legislative system, its Levitical
worship, its festivals, sacrifice, priesthood. It
means the introduction of a new era, or aeon, a
new religious world. It means a new humanity
with a new heart to do God's will, a new spiritual
worship of God the Father who seeks no offer
ings but contrition and thankfulness, a new
sacrifice of nobler name, in which priest and
victim are one, available for the perpetual for
giveness of all sin. For all these boons were
included among the blessings of the new covenant
prophesied of by Jeremiah.* With the new

* Jeremiah xxxi. 31,

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

covenant were to come the law written not
merely on tables of stone, but on the heart ; the
knowledge of God simplified so as to be within
the reach of all, even the most illiterate and the
youngest ; and the perpetual forgiveness of the
gravest transgressions, as contrasted with the
annual forgiveness of the mere ignorances of the
people on the great day of atonement. All
these things did come through the death of
Christ. Therefore with reference to the oracle
of the new covenant, as to all other prophetic
oracles, He might truly say as He hung on the
cross, " It is finished."

" 'Tis finished — legal worship ends,

And gospel ages run.
All old things now are past away,
And a new world begun."

Well is it written of Jesus the Son of God in
the opening sentences of the Epistle to the
Hebrews that by Him God made the worlds, or
the aeons. By the Logos God made the worlds
of all sorts — the material worlds, and also the
ages of time. By Him did God especially make
the Christian world. All the changes that have
come in through the Christian religion — who
can reckon them up? — are due to Jesus of
Nazareth. Never was there such an innovator.
Who has a better right to say, " Behold I make
all things new " ?

What now is the duty arising out of the facts

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 193

we have been considering, for those who bear
the Christian name ? Surely to glorify Christ
as the Maker of the new world ! And how is
this to be done? First, by recognising to the
full extent the service rendered, by forming to
ourselves a broad comprehensive idea of the
vast change introduced into the world by the
action of our Saviour. It is possible to come
far short here. We know what miserably in
adequate ideas the Judaistic party in the Apos
tolic Church had of the bearing of Christianity
on existing institutions. They conceived of
Christianity as simply a reformed Judaism.
John the Baptist would have sufficed to bring
about all the change they were prepared for.
Christ might as well never have lived on this
earth. If they had got their way things would
have remained as if Christ never had lived. It
is melancholy to think what an amount of effort
on the part of Paul and others it required to
prevent so fatal a result. How much possible
good may be obstructed now by the same spirit
in the church !

Second, we may glorify Christ as the maker
of the new world by being ourselves children of
the new era, appreciating and using to the full
the liberty of a Christian man. This condition
though placed second really comes first, for
only out of an emancipated conscience and
enlarged heart can large conceptions of the

N

194 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

significance of Christianity spring. The man
who is not free in spirit will be a Judaist in
temper, degrading the Christian religion into a
new form of legalism. Above all things, there
fore, in order to glorify Christ the great Innova
tor, there is needed the power to understand
the liberty of the Christian, the heart to glory
in it, the will to assert it at all hazards and
within all spheres. These are not common
place attainments. There are times when they
are common. Such a time was the epoch of
the Reformation, when a magnificent tribute
was paid to Christ the maker of the new world,
not by empty phrases, but by extensive innova
tions rendered necessary by the decay of the
Christian spirit, amounting together to the
remodelling of the religious world. There are
other times when these attainments are very
rare, when the temper of the church at large is
legal, timid, blindly conservative, addicted to
the idolatry of old custom, superstitiously afraid
of all things new. And the most depressing
feature of such times is that such a temper may
often be-f found combined with firm adherence
to evangelic doctrine. The evangelic creed is
divorced from the evangelic spirit, and those in
whom the divorce takes place imagine them
selves to te par excellence the "evangelical party."
Antecedent to experience one would be disposed
to say that such a grotesque phenomenon was

CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR. 195

an impossibility. But painful experience teaches
us the truth that evangelic piety, like everything
else with which men have to do, may undergo
degeneracy. An eminent theologian, explain
ing the nature of Pharisaism, remarks, " The real
virtues of one age become the spurious ones of
the next. When, in the progress of the human
race, any new ground is gained, whether in
truth or in morals, the original gainers of that
ground are great moral minds ; they are minds
which were penetrated by true perceptions, and
by an inward sacred light, and they fought with
the society of their day for the reception of that
light ; they therefore stand high in the scale of
goodness. But it is totally different when, the
new ground being once made, a succeeding
generation has to use it. The use of it then is

no guarantee of moral rank A standard

once raised by the convulsive efforts of a fervent
minority, a mass of lower character is equal to
the adoption of it ; but the originators of the
standard are separated by an immeasurable
interval from their successors."* If this be,
as without doubt it is, a true account of the
nature and genesis of Pharisaism, then it fol
lows that there can be such a thing as an
evangelical Pharisaism, a traditional adoption
of the evangelic creed dissociated from the
evangelic spirit, and devoid of those virtues

* Mozley's University Sermons, p. 42.

I 96 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR.

with which that creed was combined in the
persons of those to whom it was not a tradition
but a first-hand intuition. The marks of this
spurious type of evangelic piety will be either
the distinctive vices of the Pharisaic character,
arrogance and censoriousness, the tendency to
claim a monopoly of spiritual worth and to
depreciate the piety of all outside the favoured
circle ; or, the less blameworthy infirmities of
an honest legalism, like that of John's disciples
— joylessness, proneness to austerity, petty
scrupulosity which magnifies matters of indiffer
ence into great principles, especially such as
have been rendered venerable by old custom.
It is not surely necessary to say that these
qualities are not evangelic. Of course, arrogance
and censoriousness are not. But neither is
bondage to the past, and the superstitious dread
of change. The standard of what is evangelic
must be sought in Christ, and He, as we have
seen, knew nothing of such bondage and fear.
He changed whatever needed to be changed,
and in so doing vindicated for all time the
rights of innovation, so far as that may be
demanded by the circumstances of the church
at any critical period of her history.

CHAPTER XII.

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

" Can the children of the Bride-chamber mourn as long as
the Bridegroom is with them ? " — MATT. ix. 15.

The children of the Bride-chamber, the com
panions of the Bridegroom, such is the title
given by Jesus to His disciples. The title is
intended to convey an important truth con
cerning disciple life. For here again the point
of the parable lies in what is implied : " My
disciples are as the companions of a bride
groom at a wedding feast." Understand that
and you cease to wonder that they do not fast.

"The children of the Bridechamber ;" what
a significant name, how much it tells us as to
the spirit that reigns in the Jesus-circle? That
little society are like a wedding party, accom
panying their friend to the place where he is
to be married to his bride. Their mood is one
of joy, and unrestrained mirth. As they move
along with light heart they make the welkin
ring with laughter and song. By no other
emblem could the idea of an absolutely un
qualified happiness have been more vividly or

198 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

strongly expressed. For the marriage-day is
the one brightest day in the life of mortals. It
is a bright, cloudless day for all, even for the
poor, the heavily burdened sons of toil. On
that day the very beggar forgets his misery,
and feels a joy that is not marred by painful
memories, or unpleasant anticipations, though
his bed be but the grassy margin of the high
way. Cares and sorrows come to all, in the
years which follow ; but they cast no shadows
on the bridegroom's path. On his wedding-
day he takes no thought of to-morrow ; his
bliss is as complete as if it were to be eternal.
Such was the bliss of Christ's disciples.

This bliss was not an accident, or an affair
of temperament. Joy is not so rife in this
world that we can witness it without feeling it
needful to enquire into its cause. When the
elder brother, approaching his father's house,
heard the sound of music and dancing, he quite
naturally asked, What these things meant ?
There is, indeed, in early youth such a thing as
a joy of mere existence: it is what constitutes
the peculiar felicity of childhood. There are
also some who are blessed with such a happy
temperament that even after they have reached
the years of maturity, and all through life, they
retain somewhat of the buoyancy and joyous
recklessness of boyish days. But such kitten-
like friskiness, and irrepressible elasticity are

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 199

not likely to be found among toiling, hard-
fisted, weather-beaten men like the companions
of Jesus, formerly fishermen and tax-gatherers.
If they are in the mood of men going to a
wedding, there must be powerful influences at
work tending to raise them above the mist and
gloom of care into the serene atmosphere of
joy where no clouds intercept the sunlight.
What is the secret of their joy ; what are its
component elements ?

In general, the joy of the disciples was the
natural effluence of the new life imparted to
those who joined the society of Jesus. It was
the joy of being in Christ's company, and in
part it was a reflection of the joy that was in
Christ Himself. For while Christ was in a
profound degree a man of sorrow, He was
also very emphatically a man of joy. His was
a threefold gladness. First, He had the joy of
His vocation, the deep satisfaction connected
with doing good to men. His desire to confer
benefit was a passion, and when opportunity
for gratifying it, such as He had just enjoyed
at Matthew's farewell feast, offered itself, it
afforded Him intense delight. Then in His
private or personal capacity He had the joy of
one whose religion is not the product of human
traditions, but is an absolutely original thing ;
a fountain of fresh intuitions of truth, issuing in
a stream of life which shapes its own course

200 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

and flows freely, unconstrained by the embank
ments of custom. Inexpressibly sweet at all
times is this joy of "religion new given," fresh
from the Fountain of light and life, the Father
in heaven ! Compared with this religion of
revived " intuitive and fresh perceptions," what
a dull hum-drum existence that of the Pharisees,
or even of the Baptist and his disciples, with
its methodised fasting and praying and alms
giving !

Specially sweet is such a free life of the spirit
in fellowship with God if it comes after an
experience of the tread-mill routine of religious
mechanism. What a dismal doom to have the
Rabbis for teachers and taskmasters ; to be
obliged to think Rabbinical thoughts of God,
and to practise Rabbinical morals ; lax on this
side, ridiculously strict on that ! The gospel
history gives us little information about our
Lord's connection with the Rabbinical schools
or schoolmasters. It is quite credible however,
that in His boyhood He had to endure such
instruction as they had to give. It may, as
Zinzendorf suggests, have been a part of His
humiliation state in early years to have His
head filled with "Rabbinical rubbish."* His
utterances during the period of His public
ministry exhibit familiarity with the doctrine
of the scribes. One thing, however, is certain,

* Vide " The Humiliation of Christ," 2d edition, p. 424.

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 2OI

that if Rabbinical rubbish got access by any
means, through books or by oral instruction or
by hearsay, to the head of the boy Jesus, it
never found the way to His heart. Even at
the early age of twelve He had a most un-
rabbinical way of speaking concerning God.
" Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business."* But just because the heart of the
holy child never could have any sympathy with
Rabbinical follies in doctrine and life, it would
be all the greater a trial to be obliged to give
them a place in His understanding, or to be
required by the proprieties of life even to seem
to regard them with respect. A boy may not
decently appear wiser than a gray-haired man,
yet how easy for any unsophisticated open-
hearted child — for a Peter, not to speak of a
Jesus, to see that the Rabbis were learned fools!
What a burden, what a bondage, what a humili
ation to see this, yet have to bear it all in
silence till the years of maturity arrived, when
it would no longer be unseemly to have openly
a mind of one's own ! And what a relief then
to escape for ever from the external sway of
these blind guides, or the yoke of deference to
their reputation, and to be free to utter the
long-cherished thoughts of the hidden inner life
in the form of a doctrine of God credible and
acceptable, making trust in Him for time and

* Luke ii. 49.

202 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

eternity possible and easy, and the worship of
Him a delight, and to shape conduct by broad
rational principles rather than by petty vexa
tious, arbitrary rules ! Of this felicity Jesus
had experience. He knew the joy not only of
religious originality, but also of religious liberty
from abhorred bondage.

Into these joys of Jesus the twelve more or
less entered on becoming His disciples. Their
joy was, doubtless, in all respects faint and
shallow compared with their Master's ; still, it
was the same in kind, if not in degree. They
shared in some measure His pleasure in doing
good and cherishing beneficent affections. The
Galilean mission was an education in philan
thropy. In the society of Jesus they were learn
ing betimes the sacred enthusiasm of human
ity, and were being gradually raised above
the narrow prejudices of their age and nation
against particular classes. Every meeting, like
that in Matthew's house with publicans and
sinners, was a new lesson in the grace of charity.
The very composition of the apostolic band
was a discipline for all its members in tolerance
and catholic sympathy. In the goodly fellow
ship were united fishermen, tax-gatherers, ex-
members of political parties, Galileans, Ju-
daeans.* Here was a holy catholic church in
miniature, having for its watchword, all old
* Vide " The Training of the Twelve," p. 33, 3d ed.

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 203

distinctions merged in the common relation to
the one Lord.

The disciples further had part in the joy of
fresh religious intuitions. They were not as yet
strong enough to be original themselves, but
they could in some measure appreciate the ori
ginality of Jesus. The utterances of His mind
were a source of delight to them, they hardly
knew why. It was such a pleasure as students
feel in listening to the prelections of a renowned
master in science, philosophy, or theology, or
lovers of poetry in reading a new poem full of
bright conceptions ; such a pleasure as all intel
ligent persons find in the talk of a man of
genius. They were dull, illiterate Galileans,
but they had honest moral instincts, and knew
wisdom when they met it. They soon per
ceived that Jesus was no ordinary rabbi, that
He spake with unique authority, that He had
"words of eternal life."

Yet, once more, these disciples participated in
a slight degree in the joy of spiritual freedom.
Away north in Galilee, remote from Jerusalem
the headquarters of the scribes, they probably
did not come very much under the malign influ
ence of Rabbinism. But even there the evil
thing penetrated. A man could hardly live
anywhere in the Holy Land without having
his shoulders galled by the heavy yoke. And
if the companions of Jesus escaped with a slight

2Q4 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

taste of the bondage, they had been called to
endure something analogous to the Pharisaic
regime in another quarter. Some of them at
least had been disciples of John before they
came to Jesus. Between the Scribes and John
there was certainly a wide difference — all the
difference there is between trifling and earnest
ness, hypocrisy, conscious or unconscious, and
downright sincerity. A hard, strict religious
system is always respectable and bearable when
it is found associated with such high moral qual
ities. Nevertheless it remains true that John's
way was hard and strict, and, in detail, very
much the same as that of the rabbis. John was
a noble prophet of moral law, and his earnest
ness in preaching repentance and righteousness
had an irresistible attraction for young ingenu
ous souls. And so they flocked to the wilder
ness to hear him preach and to become his dis
ciples, and to practise the better life under his
direction. And for a while John's yoke might
seem easy and his burden light, because of the
nobleness of spirit which redeemed and glorified
all its austerities. But by and bye it began to
feel irksome. The daily round of prayers and
fasts and purifyings grew to be monotonous and
wearisome, and the heart craved for something
different. Jesus came, and His look and tone
told the ascetics of the desert that He could
supply the want. Henceforth John decreased

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 205

in the esteem of his own followers, and Jesus
increased. John's work was done, he had
served his purpose, those that had been with
him had got good from him ; but the proof of
this was that they had grown tired of him, and
had recognised in Jesus the true Bridegroom of
the soul with whom it is good to be united in
eternal wedlock. And so they joined the
society of Jesus, and in His company experi
enced the joy of religious liberty, the joy of
deliverance from rules to principles, from
mechanical routine to spontaneity, from asce
ticism to the healthful activities connected with
the work of the kingdom.

The Pauline literature helps us to appreciate
the full significance of these elements of reli
gious joy — the joy of love, the joy si fresh inspi
ration, and the joy of liberty. There we find the
germs unfolded, and the doctrine writ large.
Paul passed through a tragic religious experi
ence which gave intensity to all the momenta of
his Christian consciousness. His experience
differed from that both of Christ and of Christ's
disciples. In the soul of Jesus no painful in
ward struggles occurred between contending
theories or principles — opposing ways of think
ing of God, man, duty. All through His life,
from early youth to mature manhood, He was
blessed, according to all indications, with the
unclouded vision of truth, and with an unbroken

2O6 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

serenity of spirit. The spiritual insight, which
for most men is a conquest, appears to have
been for Him as easy as the vision of the physi
cal world. The contrast in His case was not
between light and darkness within, but between
light within and darkness without. Within was
the tranquil contemplation of God, without was
the murky atmosphere of Rabbinic lore seeking
to penetrate into the sunlit mind and turn its
day into night ; but succeeding only in making
it conscious of the proximity of something un-
genial.

In the inner history of the twelve, likewise,
there does not appear to have been any great
crisis. They had not, indeed, always lived in
the light ; but spiritual illumination came to
them gradually, not like a sudden flash of light
ning, but with the gentle, stealthy approach of
dawn. The wisdom and the goodness of Jesus
charmed the simple fishermen of Galilee.
When they heard Him speak of a Father-God,
and of an idyllic life of trust, free from care
as that of the birds and the flowers, and of a
kingdom of heaven alone worthy to take the'first
place in men's thoughts, they felt that they had
never heard the like before: nothing so beauti
ful, and, strange as the teaching might seem,
nothing so true ; and with little hesitation they
forsook their handicrafts and joined His society,
that they might hear more of the same kind,

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 2O/

words of eternal life. And in His company
they did hear more, for in Him was a perennial
well of wisdom whose waters never failed, and
as they listened they grew insensibly wiser,
and passed through a lengthened twilight of
disciplehood into apostolic day.

In the case of Saul of Tarsus, on the other
hand, there was a tragic struggle between two
incompatible religious theories — Pharisaism and
Christianity, law and gospel, works and faith,
self-salvation and salvation by grace — issuing
in a great crisis wherein the crucified Galilean
came forth victorious over prejudice, and pride,
and venerable custom. This struggle left in
delible marks on Paul's Christian character.
It shaped his views of the gospel, it determined
his career, it gave a peculiar colour to his piety.
Because Paul had been a fanatical Pharisee, in
whom the spirit of self-righteousness had kicked
passionately against the pricks of a conscience
whispering that legalism was a failure, and at
length died hard, it came to pass that he was
after his conversion the kind of Christian that
we know him to have been. In particular, his
peculiar experience brought out into strong
relief the elements of Christian joy. First, the
joy of beneficent love finding scope in his voca
tion as the apostle of the Gentiles. Because Paul
had been a bigoted Pharisee, it followed that on
his conversion he adopted with enthusiasm the

208 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

programme of Christian universalism ; the
gospel for the world, not for Jews only, and for
all on equal terms. He swung with all the
force of his passionate nature from Jewish ex-
clusiveness to Christian catholicity. He had
tried to make the] law everything, and since it
could not be that, he treated it as nothing, or
less, mere refuse, and adopted as his watchword
righteousness by faith alone, and unto all
who believe. And with this grand, simple pro
gramme, he entered on his Gentile mission
burning with desire to make God's grace known
to all mankind, and finding in his abundant
success a continuous triumph. He felt his
apostolic calling to be at once a necessity and
a delight. Simply to know that it was God's
will that the heathen peoples should participate
in the riches of His grace, was to be under an
obligation to make this great mystery known
to all whom it concerned. And the obligation
was no burden, but rather a privilege and
an honour.

Paul experienced also in an intense degree,
the joy of first-hand intuitions of truth. He
did not learn his gospel from men, not even
from the companions of Jesus ; as he found it
needful to declare with great solemnity and
emphasis, in connection with the controversies
which arose between him and the Judaists.
God directly revealed His Son to his mind.

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 2OQ

The revelation came with such immediacy and
power, that he could liken it to nothing else
than that sublime act in the drama of crea
tion, when God said, " Let there be light, and
there was light." * What a joy unspeakable in
the fresh inspirations of heaven is implied in
such a bold comparison ! What would not one
give, what struggles would not one patiently
pass through, what trials by doubt and fear and
failure would one not gladly endure, to be par
taker at last of such a joy !

Once more, Paul knew the rapture connected
with the joy of Christian liberty. He had
served the law like a slave, had been mated to
it as a cruel husband, had been under its irk
some rules and restraints during a long
minority, had even been kept in gaol by it as a
merciless turnkey. The lash of the law's whip,
its unkind harsh words of threatening, its endless
pedantries, the dark, dank dungeon in which it
immured its prisoners — he had undergone them
all, till hope had died out in his soul, and he
could only groan out, " Wretched man, who
shall deliver me ? " Jesus came and delivered
him ; snapped his chains, dissolved the union,
dismissed the tutors and governors, opened the
prison. 'And now he was free, and who can
declare the joy of the freed man, to be done
with the law for ever; to be well rid of the

* 2 Cor. iv. 6.
O

210 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

tyrant, and happily wedded to the Lord Jesus
Christ, through the love of him to become fruitful
in all Christian graces and holy deeds ? It is
a joy with which no stranger may intermeddle,
of which no man, or party, shall be allowed on
any pretext to rob him. It has cost him much
and he will defend the treasure against all
comers.

We thus see that between Christ and Paul,
however distinctive their respective teaching
may be in its theological form, there is an essen
tial agreement in religious tone. The piety of
the great Master'and that of the great apostle
exhibit the same characteristics. And these
characteristics are the standing features of
genuine evangelic piety. We are not to sup
pose that the joys described were the preroga
tive of the first Christian generation, and are
now no longer possible. For, as we have al
ready learned, pure religion is not given once
for all. It is given, and then there is a falling
away from the spirit, if not from the letter of
the revelation, and then it has to be regiven.
The bridegroom is taken away by hostile influ
ences, and then the mood changes. Sorrow
takes the place of joy, which is restored by the
bridegroom coming again. The history of the
Church shows that it has ever been found diffi
cult to remain standing on the platform of free
grace. Downcome from that high level to a

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 2 I I

lower, from grace to law, from liberty to bond
age ; downcome first in practice then in theory,
seems almost inevitable. As it was with Israel
of old, so has it been in the experience of the
Church. The ransomed host of Jehovah stood
on the further shore of the Red Sea, rejoicing
in their new gained freedom, and sang in heroic
mood their song of triumph. But soon the
slavish spirit regained its ascendancy ; fear suc
ceeded to hope, murmurs to martial strains, and
the emancipated multitude in their hearts wished
themselves safe back in Egypt again. Some
thing similar befel the Apostolic Churches in
Galatia and elsewhere. They began in the
spirit and ended in the flesh ; they started in
the evangelic key of trust and joy, and lapsed
into the fear and gloom of legalism. Such
lapses have often occurred since then. And
every lapse brings a need for a restoration of
the intuition. And when this takes place, then
Christians once more become children of the
bridechamber, and keep spiritual high-tide.
Then is poured out anew on the Church the
spirit of Christian joy; joy in a creed that fills
the heart with light and hope, in the spirit of
adoption which calls God Father, in a wide fel
lowship of saints heedless of party barriers, in
beneficent deeds, in the spontaneity of the
divine life, in escape from all the bitter fruit of
the legal spirit — fear, depression, despondency,

2 I 2 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE.

narrowness of sympathy, sectarian exclusiveness,
bondage to custom, fetish worship of form,
jealousy of new things, despair of the future,
idolatry of the past, as if God were dead and
the devil only alive.

These two types or phases of piety, the evan
gelic and the legal, are not, as a rule, strictly
successive. They usually overlap each other,
and may be found side by side in the same reli
gious community. In every church there are
the disciples of John and the disciples of Jesus,
the children of the bondswoman, and the chil
dren of the free woman. Their ways are diverse,
their tempers incompatible, it is hard for them
to live together, and while they do so, they are
in constant conflict. The subject of controversy
varies from time to time. In Christ's day it was
fasting, in Paul's it was circumcision, in our own
time and neighbourhood it is modes of worship,
the materials of and aids to praise, and the like.
But the fundamental cause of strife is ever the
same — diversity of spirit and tendency making
fellowship irksome, and provoking in either
party the desire to cast the other out. But it
is the duty of all to curb their impatience, and to
bear with each other, imitating the gentleness
of Christ, who, while defending the conduct of
Himself, and His disciples, treated the prefer
ence of others for established religious customs
>as not less natural than the preference of old

THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE. 2 I 3

wine to new. This wise, benignant tolerance it
is the duty of the party of liberty to practise
towards their stricter brethren. On the other
hand, it is for the latter to remember the warn-
ing contained in the parables of the new patch
and the new wine. The new garment must be
homogeneous, the new wine must have new
bottles. Along with the fresh vision of truth
comes the need for new modes of manifesting
spiritual life. In spite of the impotent inter
dicts of an effete legalism the demand will
create a supply in a new religious literature, in
new songs of praise, in new methods of carrying
on the work of the kingdom, in a powerful per
vasive revival of church life. There is nothing
to fear, but everything to hope for from such a
revival. It may mar the plans of a partisan
ecclesiasticism, and scandalise religious Phari
saism, but it will bring fresh glory to Christ,
and rejoice the hearts of all honest Christian
men.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

"Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." —
Matt. xi. 6.

ALWAYS when our Lord used this epithet
" blessed,'' He meant to speak of some privilege,
felicity, or virtue, high and rare. The happiness
and virtue of which He speaks in this text were
rare indeed in His day ; we might even say had
no existence. There was not, so far as we know,
one person then living in Palestine of those who
came into contact with Jesus who did not find
some occasion of stumbling in Him on some
account and at some time or other. The Phari
sees, of course, and without exception, found
occasion of stumbling, but so did John the
Baptist and his disciples, so did Christ's own
disciples, so did the general populace. The
causes of stumbling were various, but among
the more outstanding were the lowliness and the
love of Jesus. The former was the chief stum
bling block to Christ's own disciples. They
could not reconcile the dignity of his claims as
the Messiah with the lowliness of his lot and of

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 215

his spirit as the Son of Man. Hence the offence
they took at the first explicit unmistakeable
mention of the approaching catastrophe at
Jerusalem. The love of Jesus, on the other
hand, was in different ways a chief cause of
misconception to the Pharisees and to the
Baptist. The Pharisees could not comprehend
why Jesus took so much interest in the socially
degraded and the morally disreputable. Unable
to sympathise with, or even to conceive, the
true source of that interest, the gracious love
and pity of the good Pastor and good Physician
of men, they ascribed it to evil passion, and
brought against the " friend of publicans and
sinners " a charge of vicious indulgence. To
John also the incomprehensible element in Him
whom he had proclaimed to be the Christ and
King of Israel was his grace, mercifulness,
patience. Only, in his case, it was not the atti
tude assumed by Jesus towards the socially and
morally lower orders that created perplexity, but
His patient bearing towards the subtler spiritual
vices of the religious class, of the very men who
blamed Him for loving sinners and publicans.
The Pharisees wondered at Christ's patience
with the rude ignorant mob, and the Baptist
wondered at his patience with them, whom he
characterised as " a generation of vipers." Alto
gether this was not the sort of Christ he had
expected. He was too humane, too tolerant,

2 1 6 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

too benignant, genial, and kindly. He had
looked for a Messiah with an axe and a fan in
his hand, to cut down, and sift, and deal swiftly
and effectually with unrighteousness in every
form. But lo ! He whom he had taken for the
Messiah came with no such insignia, but with
words of grace on his lips to the poor, the out
cast, the depraved, and with gentleness in his
heart towards all ; seeing the evil in society,
especially in religious society, clearly, and de
scribing it accurately on fitting occasions, but in
no mood to play the part of executioner of
Divine vengeance. Could this gracious, sympa
thetic, tolerant man be indeed the Christ? Such
were the thoughts out of which arose the mission
of enquiry referred to in the beginning of the
chapter from which our text is taken.

Christ's fault, in the eyes of his contemporaries,
was simply that He was like his work as the
first Minister, Herald, and Founder of the King
dom of God. That kingdom is a kingdom of
grace wherein God manifests Himself as a
benignant Father. The announcement of its
advent was therefore good news, the gospel.
And Jesus threw Himself with ardour into the
work of proclaiming the good tidings. And
that was the head and front of His offending.
That is to say, His offence was a gospel-like
spirit, an evangelic temper, and all that goes
along with that. A strange ground of fault-

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 217

finding we are apt to think, yet when the matter
is more narrowly looked into it may be found
not so strange. When the moral phenomenon
presented in the person of Jesus Christ is con
sidered on all its sides, it may be found to
contain elements that are apt to become occa
sions of stumbling even now, not chiefly to
avowed unbelievers or freethinkers, but very
specially to those who are the zealous patrons of
evangelic piety ; in which case it must cease to
appear surprising that this moral Wonder was a
puzzle to His own generation.

It may form a suitable close to these studies
on the Galilean Gospel, and supply a useful test
of the worth of current opinions as to what is
sound, normal, and commendable in religion, if
we now endeavour to frame as clear and com
prehensive a conception as possible of the
Evangelic Spirit as exhibited in the ministry and
character of Jesus, the exemplar and standard
in all that relates to practical Christianity.

The Evangelic Spirit, then, Jesus being the
pattern, possesses certain well marked charac
teristics.

i. First, and fundamental, is the charity
which, as we have seen, was the chief stumbling-
block to the contemporaries of our Lord. Jesus
loved men with a love at once deep and broad ;
intense in its ardour, extensive in its range. Of
the intensity of His love the all-sufficient evi-

2l8 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

dence is His behaviour towards the proscribed
classes of Jewish society. Only a very enthusi
astic love could have inspired and sustained
such behaviour. A feeble charity would never
have troubled itself about social or moral
abjects, but would have confined itself within
conventional limits ; a moderate degree of
chanty might have begun to care for them, but
it would have discontinued its efforts on dis
covering that these were not regarded with
favour by the influential portion of society, the
leaders of opinion and fashion. Nothing short
of a love rising to the heroic pitch could under
take the task of seeking " the lost sheep," and
persevere in it in defiance of indifference, or
even slanderous misrepresentation. Christ's
love was equal to this. It dared to fix its re
gards on the lowest class ; it went down to the
lowest depths of human depravity, and wound
its cords around those sunk in vice and misery,
that it might lift them into citizenship in the
kingdom of heaven.

The breadth of Christ's love is not so appar
ent in the Gospel story, as its depth ; for this
reason, that a regard to wise method in estab
lishing the kingdom of God on the earth required
Him to assume as His own personal part that
of a minister of grace to Israel, leaving to a
later stage the manifestation of the catholic
scope, and universal destination of the Gospel.

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 2 19

But to a discerning eye the world-wide breadth
of that love is revealed in its depth. No love
could go so deep down which was not capable
of embracing all mankind in its outstretched
arms. Love going so low could have no objec
tions on principle to go to the ends of the earth
in quest of citizens for the Divine kingdom.
Love that could disregard the caste barriers
which separated exemplary people from social
pariahs, would refuse to be hindered by barriers
of race or nationality from conveying its bless
ings to all who needed them and were ready to
welcome them. Christ's love to the outcasts of
Israel was an incipient revolution, the dawn of
the new era of a universal religion, and a new
humanity in which distinctions of race, culture,
and even morality, were to disappear, and re
gard was to be had solely to the wants and the
capacities of man. It was the form which
Christian universalism (as opposed to Jewish
exclusiveness) took in the initial stage of de
velopment. That being so, it follows that even
in the ministry of our Lord, philanthropy, wide
as the world, appears as an essential attribute
of the evangelic spirit. It belongs to its genius
to love not only deeply but broadly ; to be
human and humane, declining to be hampered
by conventional boundaries. Just there, where
a narrow class-spirit would fix the limit of
sympathy, it expects to find its most legitimate

220 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

and congenial objects of compassionate concern
— among despised publicans, moral lepers, men
of alien races with whom Jews have no dealings,
Samaritans, Syrophenicians, Romans ; among
profligates, Pagans, heretics, and all who, from
whatever cause, have lapsed from creed, and
synagogue, and recognised religious society.

2. Next among the chief attributes of the
evangelic spirit may be mentioned Hopefulness.
There was an irrepressible, inexhaustible, bound
less hopefulness in Jesus. One of His counsels
to His disciples was never to despair of any
one, never to imagine that a loan of love was
wasted.* He Himself hoped for the moral re
covery of the most degraded. It did not appear
to Him impossible that an Artesian well of
eternal life might spring up from beneath the
rocky surface of an inveterately evil life, like
that of the woman of Samaria. The same spirit
of hopefulness revealed itself in large expecta
tions as to the ultimate results of His ministry
in the world. He not only desired the Gospel
to be preached throughout the world, but He
expected it to produce world-wide effects. In
the small beginnings of His own ministry He
saw the great endings of the remote future ; in
the grain of mustard a tree, in the lump of
leaven a race pervaded by Christian influences,
in a little band of disciples the first fruits of a
great harvest of converts in all lands.

* Luke vi. 35. vid. revised version.

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 221

This large hopefulness was the natural out
come of Christ's love ; for " love hopeth all
things." But it may also be said that Christ's
spirit of hope helped Him to love. He took
pains with unpromising subjects because He
deemed the lowest capable of being transformed
into good citizens of the divine kingdom. The
indifference of the respectable and religious
people of Judaea, on the other hand, was due not
merely to heartlessness but to hopelessness. It
was in part the indifference of despair. The
ignorant and the immoral they looked on simply
as people out of whom no good could come,
concerning whom therefore it was useless to
trouble themselves. And quite consistently
they did not trouble themselves, and when they
saw Jesus taking trouble they quite naturally
found His conduct altogether incomprehensible.

The moral is that the men who are to do the
" mission work " of the Church should be men
with a large element of hope in their nature.
When such men are found, they should be
allowed to try their best in their own way,
untrammelled by the instructions of mission-
boards enamoured of red tape, or by the pe
dantries of ultra-judicious Presbyters whose
only talent is to criticise, and keep more ener
getic brethren right.

3. Such a hopeful view of man presupposes a
cheering creed concerning God. The hope of

222 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

Jesus had its root, not in a Pelagian theory of
the human will, but in a bright faith concerning
the grace of God. He believed in a God who
delighted to bless, and who could make the evil
good. And this faith of His is a third attribute
of the evangelic spirit. In the evangelic con
ception of God, grace occupies the foremost
place. At this point there is a radical anta
gonism between the evangelic and the legal
spirit. The antagonism appeared in the con
trast between Jesus and His Jewish contem
poraries in their respective views of God. For
whereas Jesus believed in a God of grace who
delighted to bless even the unworthy, and to
overcome evil with good, His contemporaries
believed in a God of law who was simply
righteous, rewarding men according to their
works. The two ways of thinking exist still.
There are those who earnestly believe in Divine
love, and there are those who do not in their
thoughts of God rise above law, or even arbitrary
irresponsible will. To the one, God is a Father, to
the other, He is simply a Judge. The one class
are led by what Paul calls the spirit of adoption,
the other by the spirit of legalism. The con
trast between the two classes is great ; they
can scarcely be said to profess the same religion.
The religion of the legalist hails from Sinai.
That of the evangelic believer hails from
Bethlehem. It came in with the era of grace,

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 223

and it learned its theology from Jesus of
Nazareth.

4. Where such love, hope, and faith are,
there must needs be joy, which therefore falls
to be named as another outstanding character
istic of the evangelic spirit as exhibited in the
Great Exemplar. It is not necessary here to
repeat the statements already made concerning
the spirit of gladness which prevailed in the
society of Jesus shared both by Master and by
disciple. All that is needful at present is to
emphasise the fact as an important feature in
the contrast between evangelic and legal piety.
Legal religion, as we know from the case of
John and his disciples, is joyless, gloomy, des
ponding. Therefore it fasts, and addicts itself
to all kinds of ascetic strict practices, striving
in that painful way to gain victory over sin, and
perchance win the approving smile of God.
Evangelic piety, Jesus and His disciples being
witnesses, on the contrary is cheerful, buoyant,
joyful. How can it fail to be, having a Father
in heaven, the peace of trust within, and a good
outlook for the future ? Its temper must needs
be that defined in the familiar triplet of the
apostle Paul: "rejoicing in hope, patient in
tribulation, continuing instant in prayer."
Doubtless there is a power of evil ever at work,
a law in the members warring against the law
of the mind — the only really formidable foe a

224 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

Christian has to dread, for outward trial is of
no account. But with regard to that enemy
within, the believing man's creed is this : all
matters relating to sin are too strong for me to
cope with, but as for our transgressions God
can purge them away. " With Him is plenteous
redemption,"

5. Along with joy goes, as we have also
learned, liberty, spontaneity in the manifestation
of religious life. No quality is more character
istic of the evangelic spirit than this. Christ
Himself, as we saw, boldly asserted His
liberty ; Paul followed His example ; and both
vindicated liberty as the privilege of every
Christian man. And in proportion as we are
the disciples of Jesus and Paul we shall claim
and exercise our liberty. The man who walks
in their footsteps can say with emphasis: "Thou
hast loosed my bonds," not merely (though
that first) with reference to the gross bonds of
sinful habits, but likewise with reference to the
finer bonds of religious habits and customs by
which many even saintly people are bound.
The evangelic spirit is characterised by a free
independent attitude towards all existing re
ligious usage, and the disposition to assert the
right to create for itself forms of expression
congenial to its own nature, and to innovate to
this extent. This freedom is not a matter of
self-will, it is a necessity of the spiritual life ;

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 225

it is imposed on the Christian by the effervescent
force of the new man within him. When
evangelic faith, hope, and love are strong they
will have their own way. Why should they
not? What has a better right to assert itself?
Such right cannot consistently be denied in a
Christian Church, for what does a church exist
for if not to foster and express Christian faith,
hope, and love ? No established church order
can legitimately interdict the exercise of this
right. Nay more, the attempt is foolish,
suicidal. The church which refuses scope for
the free congenial expression of the life of grace
must suffer the fate of old skins into which
new wine has been poured. The Head of the
Church has said once for all that the new
evangelic life of the kingdom must be self-
legislative, the new spirit must create its own
body, changing all that is not congenial, in
novating wherever it is necessary. And His
decree fulfils itself at all times when the Church
is filled with fresh energetic spiritual life. Only
when faith, hope, and love are languid, and the
legal spirit has taken the place of the evangelic,
does Christian liberty decline. Then tyranny
and servility take the place of liberty ; tyranny
in those who would bind the Church hand and
foot to the past, irrespective of all questions as
to the suitableness or adequacy of ancient
customs and opinions to present circumstances
p

226 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

and requirements ; servility in those who tamely
submit to their dictation.

From these observations, of which it were
easy to supply illustrations from past history
and current events, it may be inferred that it is
in connection with the exercise of religious
liberty that the evangelic spirit is most apt to
give occasions of offence. And this is probably
the truth. No parts of Christ's conduct were
more severely condemned than those in which
He asserted His right to bring religious practice
into harmony with religious conviction. If His
love was an offence to His countrymen His
liberty was at least equally so. They were
living in a huge spiritual prison built up by the
labours of successive generations of Rabbinical
masters, and as they looked through the bars
across the narrow windows of their cells, it
annoyed them to see Jesus and His companions
walking at large, enjoying the sun-light, and
the free fresh air of heaven. Why should they
not be prisoners too, what right had they to
disregard the traditions of the elders ? The
religious customs were of long standing, and
had come down to them hallowed by the ob
servance of pious ancestors ; what miscreants,
what profane men these must be who treated
them with contemptuous neglect ! While the
world lasts those who follow Christ's example
by using their liberty will provoke similar

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 227

hostility. For there are always many who arc
the slaves of custom, a great part of whose
religion it is to hold venerable usages in
reverend esteem. Not that all times are alike
in this respect. There are epochs characteristi
cally free and creative, and there are others
characteristically servile and imitative. And
strange to say these stand to each other in the
relation of cause and effect. The free ages
enslave those that follow. Luther, Calvin, and
their contemporaries take full advantage of the
liberty of a Christian man, and create a new
world ; and the result is a lordship over religious
faith and practice lasting for centuries. As
time rolls on the dominion of the past becomes
increasingly oppressive ; because as men recede
from the creative era, they become further and
further removed from its spirit, and come ever
more under bondage to the letter of its law.
Happily in all such cases the evil cures itself.
The yoke of the letter becomes intolerable, and
a new age of the spirit begins.

Christian liberty, however, does not stand
alone in giving offence. All the attributes of
the evangelic spirit, when appearing in vigour,
are apt to provoke hostility not merely in the
outside world, but within the kingdom. The
whole fruit of this spirit : love, hope, faith, joy,
liberty, is liable to interdict. Paul, speaking of
these or kindred qualities, remarks : " Against

228 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

such there is no law." But against all these
graces there is a law — the law of custom, con
ventional propriety, and average attainment ;
for men are as ready to condemn good exceed
ing their measure of grace as evil falling short
of it. This is conspicuously true with reference
to the first two in Paul's list of the fruit of the
spirit — love and joy. We know how the love
and joy of Jesus were found fault with. The
same qualities provoked manifold contradiction
in the case of Paul. His love to the Gentile
brethren which insisted on their admission to
the full benefits of Christian fellowship without
undergoing circumcision, was deemed extra
vagant, and His joy in freedom from the law
licentious. Both graces, as exhibited in His
conduct, appeared to many nothing short of an
outrage on the divinely-given law. When we
bear this experience of Paul's in mind we per
ceive the deep irony that lurks in his naive
observation already quoted. Against love and
joy, as he knew too well, there was a law with
severe penalties attached, which the law-makers
took good care to enforce. Peter, likewise,
found to his cost that there was a law of public
opinion against catholic love, and Christian
joy. It was a law too strong for him, though
not for the more heroic Paul. Hence, after
having tasted the joy of Christian liberty from
legal ordinances concerning the clean and the

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 22Q

unclean, he was obliged to return to the
bondage of Judaism at the bidding of bigots
from Jerusalem ; and after enjoying for a
season happy fellowship with Gentile brethren,
he was constrained ignominiously to with
draw from them and treat them as unclean
Pagans.

This restrictive spirit which condemned the
conduct of Jesus and His apostles has always
been active in the Church, counterworking the
spirit of God, and tending to make Church life
and Christianity two very different things ; nor
is it yet extinct. In Ireland disloyal subjects
combine to prohibit acts allowed by the law of
the land, by a process called boycotting. Some
thing analogous exists in the kingdom of
heaven. The spirit of the world in the Church
finds ways and means of discouraging the
culture of graces which God's law not only
permits but enjoins. The spirit of party and
the spirit of self-righteousness conspire together
to frown down all attempts to realise the scrip
tural ideal of Christian charity and Christian
joy. That ideal, as set forth in precept and
example, prescribes love wide, large, magna
nimous ; joy free, hearty, irrepressible. But
party spirit breeds contention and alienation,
and the spirit of self-righteousness fosters dead-
ness, dullness, mechanical routine, or self-
tormenting asceticism ; and he is an offender

230 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

who prefers to be a Christian rather than a
partisan or a devotee.

" Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended
in Me." Because of sinister influences ever at
work, he is apt to be a rare man, but in spite
of all drawbacks he is certain to be a happy
man. He shall participate in the happiness of
the Jesus-circle — the sons of the bride-chamber.
His is the spirit of adoption whereof Paul speaks
in such glowing terms ; the spirit of trust in
God as a Father and in His benignant Provi
dence, of noble carelessness with regard to
to-morrow, of hope respecting the future for
self, the church, the world, of buoyancy in trial,
of free, spontaneous service, of catholic fellow
ship with all good men. God putteth new songs
in his mouth which he is not afraid to sing ;
songs with such strains as this : —

" How blessed, from the bonds of sin

And earthly fetters free ;
In singleness of heart and aim,

Thy servant, Lord, to be.
The hardest toil to undertake,

With joy at Thy command,
The meanest office to receive

With meekness at Thy hand."

Or this—

" My heart is resting, O my God,

My heart is in Thy care ;
I hear the voice of joy and health,
Resounding everywhere.

THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT. 23!

' Thou art my portion/ saith my soul,

Ten thousand voices say ;
And the music of their glad Amen,

Will never die away."

What blessedness would come to the church
everywhere, or let us say in Scotland, were this
spirit of adoption poured out abundantly on her
members ! It would heal our divisions and
happily solve the ecclesiastical questions of the
present. For the spirit of adoption is a spirit
of catholicity. It believes earnestly in the com
munion of saints, and recognises comprehensive
Christian fellowship as at once a duty and a
delight. Paul was aware that this was one of
its characteristics, for after the first mention of
the privilege of sonship in his Epistle to the
Galatians, he remarks — " There (in God's family
of faith) is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."*
That is to say, irrelevant distinctions are
ignored, and unnecessary partition walls thrown
down, and the common relation to God is re
cognised as the one necessary and sufficient
bond of brotherhood. Such is the tendency of
the spirit of adoption. The tendency of the
legal spirit, on the other hand, is to multiply
fundamentals in doctrine and to erect scruples
into principles in conduct, and render the fel-

* Gal. iii. 28,

232 "THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT.

lowship of saints to a large extent a nullity,
a thing which one reads of in the Apostles'
Creed, but which no one expects to see actually
realised in church life.

Our heart's desire for our country is that the
evangelic spirit may be poured out on the
members of all the churches, bringing into their
hearts the scriptural measures of love, hope,
faith, joy, and freedom. What harmony pre
vails where these graces meet ! Angels visit
the heart where they dwell. The temper is
sweet, and peace flows through the soul like a
river. Such harmony, sweetness, and peace
were in Jesus. They found utterance in His
Gospel. His preaching drew its charm from
the music of His spirit. And that is the secret
of all pulpit power. It is easy to write essays
on religious topics, or to serve up the stock
phrases of a theological system ; but to utter
words of beauty that touch the heart, and catch
the fancy of all open-minded hearers, is given
only to such as are evangelic, not only in
creed, but in spirit, evangelic after the manner
of Jesus. May the number of such preachers
be multiplied in our time, and may the number
of those who delight to hear them be pro
portionally multiplied. Such preachers and
such hearers are the hope of the future, the
heralds and witnesses, in this late epoch, of the
Galilean Gospel preached by Jesus in the dawn
of the Christian era.