{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11580/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11580","id":"gutenberg_11580","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11580","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Teachings"],"text":"THE TEACHING OF JESUS\n\nBY THE REV. GEORGE JACKSON, B.A.\n\n\n     \"_Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of\n     Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the\n     same hath both the Father and the Son._\"--2 JOHN IX (R.V.).\n\n\n1903\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO MY CHILDREN DORA, KENNETH, BASIL, ARNOLD MY WISEST TEACHERS IN THE\nTHINGS OF GOD\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe following chapters are the outcome of an attempt to set before a\nlarge Sunday evening congregation--composed for the most part of working\nmen and women--the teaching of our Lord on certain great selected\nthemes. The reader will know, therefore, what to look for in these\npages. If he be a trained Biblical scholar he need go no further, for he\nwill find nothing here with which he is not already thoroughly familiar.\nOn the other hand, the book will not be wholly without value even to\nsome of my brother-ministers if it serve to convince them that a man may\npreach freely on the greatest themes of the gospel, and yet be sure that\nthe common people will hear him gladly, if only he will state his\nmessage at once seriously and simply, and with the glow that comes of\npersonal conviction. Indeed, one may well doubt if there is any other\nkind of preaching that they really care for.\n\nMy indebtedness to other workers in the same field is manifold. As far\nas possible detailed acknowledgement is made in the footnotes. Wendt's\n_Teaching of Jesus_ and Beyschlag's _New Testament Theology_ have been\nalways at my elbow, though not nearly in such continual use as Stevens'\n_Theology of the New Testament_, a work of which it is impossible to\nspeak too highly. Brace's _Kingdom of God_, Stalker's _Christology of\nJesus_, Harnack's _What is Christianity?_ Horton's _Teaching of Jesus_,\nWatson's _Mind of the Master_, Selby's _Ministry of the Lord Jesus_, and\nRobertson's _Our Lord's Teaching_ (a truly marvellous sixpenny worth),\nhave all been laid under contribution, not the less freely because I\nhave been compelled to dissent from some of their conclusions. Like many\nanother busy minister, I am a daily debtor to Dr. Hastings and his great\n_Dictionary of the Bible_. And, finally, I gladly avail myself of this\nopportunity of expressing once more my unceasing obligations to the Rev.\nProfessor James Denney, of Glasgow. Now that Dr. Dale has gone from us,\nthere is no one to whom we may more confidently look for a reasonable\nevangelical theology which can be both verified and preached.\n\nIt only remains to add that in these pages critical questions are for\nthe most part ignored, not because the pressure of the problems which\nthey create is unfelt, but because as yet they have no place among the\ncertainties which are the sole business of the preacher when he passes\nfrom his study to his pulpit.\n\n                                                       GEORGE JACKSON.\n\nEDINBURGH, 1903.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nI\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n     Luke xxiv. 19. \"_A prophet mighty in word before God and all\n     the people._\"\n\n     John iii. 2. \"_A teacher come from God._\"\n\nII\n\nCONCERNING GOD\n\n     John xvii. 11. \"_Holy Father._\"\n\nIII\n\nCONCERNING HIMSELF\n\n     Matthew xvi. 15. \"_Who say ye that I am?_\"\n\nIV\n\nCONCERNING HIS OWN DEATH\n\n     Mark x. 45. \"_The Son of Man came ... to give His life a\n     ransom for many._\"\n\nV\n\nCONCERNING THE HOLY SPIRIT\n\n     John xiv. 16. \"_I will pray the Father, and He shall give you\n     another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the\n     Spirit of truth._\"\n\n     John xvi. 7. \"_It is expedient for you that I go away: for if\n     I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I\n     go away, I will send Him unto you._\"\n\nVI\n\nCONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD\n\n     Matthew vi. 10. \"_Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in\n     heaven, so on earth._\"\n\nVII\n\nCONCERNING MAN\n\n     Luke xv. 10. \"_There is joy in the presence of the angels of\n     God over one sinner that repenteth._\"\n\nVIII\n\nCONCERNING SIN\n\n     Luke xi. 2, 4. \"_When ye pray, say,... Forgive us our sins._\"\n\nIX\n\nCONCERNING RIGHTEOUSNESS\n\n     Matthew vi. 33. \"_Seek ye first ... His righteousness._\"\n\nX\n\nCONCERNING PRAYER\n\n     Matthew vii. 9-11. \"_What man is there of you, who, if his son\n     shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he\n     shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then,\n     being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,\n     how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good\n     things to them that ask Him?_\"\n\nXI\n\nCONCERNING THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES\n\n     Matthew xviii. 21, 22. \"_Then came Peter, and said to Him,\n     Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive\n     him? until seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto\n     thee, until seven times; but, until seventy times seven._\"\n\nXII\n\nCONCERNING CARE\n\n     Matthew vi. 25, 31, 34. \"_Be not anxious for your life ... nor\n     yet for your body.  ... Be not anxious, saying, What shall we\n     eat? or, What shall we drink? ... Be not anxious for the\n     morrow._\"\n\nXIII\n\nCONCERNING MONEY\n\n     Luke xviii. 24, 25. \"_How hardly shall they that have riches\n     enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to\n     enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter\n     into the kingdom of God._\"\n\nXIV\n\nCONCERNING THE SECOND ADVENT\n\n     Matthew xxiv. 30, 36. \"_They shall see the Son of Man coming\n     on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.... Of that\n     day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven,\n     neither the Son, but the Father only._\"\n\nXV\n\nCONCERNING THE JUDGMENT\n\n     Matthew xxv. 31-33. \"_When the Son of Man shall come in His\n     glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit on the\n     throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all the\n     nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as the\n     shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: and He shall set\n     the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left._\"\n\nXVI\n\nCONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE\n\n     Matthew vi. 20. \"_Where neither moth nor rust doth consume,\n     and where thieves do not break through nor steal._\"\n\n     Mark ix. 48. \"_Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not\n     quenched._\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\n    \"O Lord and Master of us all!\n      Whate'er our name or sign,\n    We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,\n      We test our lives by Thine.\n\n    We faintly hear, we dimly see,\n      In differing phrase we pray;\n    But, dim or clear, we own in Thee\n      The Light, the Truth, the Way.\"\n            WHITTIER.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n    \"_A prophet mighty in word before God and all the people._\"--LUKE xxiv.\n    19.\n\n    \"_A teacher come from God._\"--JOHN iii. 2.\n\n\nIn speaking of the teaching of Jesus it is scarcely possible at the\npresent day to avoid at least a reference to two other closely-related\ntopics, viz. the relation of Christ's teaching to the rest of the New\nTestament, and the trustworthiness of the Gospels in which that teaching\nis recorded. Adequate discussion of either of these questions here and\nnow is not possible; it must suffice to indicate very briefly the\ndirection in which, as it appears to the writer, the truth may be found.\n\nFirst, then, as to the relation of the teaching of Jesus to the rest of\nthe New Testament, and especially to the Epistles of St. Paul. There can\nbe no doubt, largely, I suppose, through the influence of the Reformers,\nthat the words of Jesus have not always received the attention that has\nbeen given to the writings of Paul. Nor is this apparent misplacing of\nthe accent the wholly unreasonable thing which at first sight it may\nseem. After all, the most important thing in the New Testament--that\nwhich saves--is not anything that Jesus said, but what He did; not His\nteaching, but His death. This, the Gospels themselves being witness, is\nthe culmination and crown of Revelation; and it is this which, in the\nEpistles, and pre-eminently the Epistles of Paul, fills so large a\nplace. Moreover, it ought plainly to be said that the Church has never\nbeen guilty of ignoring the words of her Lord in the wholesale fashion\nsuggested by some popular religious writers of our day. Really, the\nGospels are not a discovery of yesterday, nor even of the day before\nyesterday. They have been in the hands of the Church from the beginning,\nand, though she has not always valued them according to their true and\npriceless worth, she has never failed to number them with the choicest\njewels in the casket of Holy Scripture. Nevertheless, it may be freely\ngranted that the teaching of Jesus has not always received its due at\nthe Church's hands. \"Theology,\" one orthodox and Evangelical divine\njustly complains, \"has done no sort of justice to the Ethics of\nJesus.\"[1] But in our endeavour to rectify one error on the one side,\nlet us see to it that we do not stumble into another and worse on the\nother side. The doctrines of Paul are not so much theological baggage,\nof which the Church would do well straightway to disencumber itself.\nAfter all that the young science of Biblical Theology has done to reveal\nthe manifold variety of New Testament doctrine, the book still remains a\nunity; and the attempt to play off one part of it against another--the\nGospels against the Epistles, or the Epistles against the Gospels--is to\nbe sternly resented and resisted. To St. Paul himself any such rivalry\nwould have been impossible, and, indeed, unthinkable. There was no claim\nwhich he made with more passionate vehemence than that the message which\nhe delivered was not his, but Christ's. \"As touching the gospel which\nwas preached by me,\" he says, \"neither did I receive it from man, nor\nwas I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.\"\nThe Spirit who spoke through him and his brother apostles was not an\nalien spirit, but the Spirit of Christ, given according to the promise\nof Christ, to make known the things of Christ; so that there is a very\ntrue sense in which their words may be called \"the final testimony of\nJesus to Himself.\" \"We have the mind of Christ,\" Paul said, and both in\nthe Epistles and the Gospels we may seek and find the teaching of\nJesus.[2]\n\nIt is, however, with the teaching of Jesus as it is recorded in the\nGospels that, in these chapters, we are mainly concerned. We come,\ntherefore to our second question: Can we trust the Four Gospels? And\nthis question must be answered in even fewer words than were given to\nthe last. As to the external evidence, let us hear the judgment of the\ngreat German scholar, Harnack. Harnack is a critic who is ready to give\nto the winds with both hands many things which are dear to us as life\nitself; yet this is how he writes in one of his most recent works:\n\"Sixty years ago David Friedrich Strauss thought that he had almost\nentirely destroyed the historical credibility, not only of the fourth,\nbut also of the first three Gospels as well. The historical criticism of\ntwo generations has succeeded in restoring that credibility in its main\noutlines.\"[3] When, from the external, we turn to the internal evidence,\nwe are on incontestable ground. The words of Jesus need no credentials,\nthey carry their own credentials; they authenticate themselves.\nChristian men and women reading, _e.g._, the fourteenth of St. John's\nGospel say within themselves that if these are not the words of Jesus, a\ngreater than Jesus is here; and they are right. The oft-quoted challenge\nof John Stuart Mill is as unanswerable to-day as ever it was. \"It is of\nno use to say,\" he declares, \"that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels,\nis not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable\nhas been super-added by the traditions of His followers.... Who among\nHis disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the\nsayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character\nrevealed in the Gospels?\"[4]\n\n\nI\n\n\nAssuming, therefore, without further discussion, the essential\ntrustworthiness of the Gospel records, let us pass on to consider in\nthis introductory chapter some general characteristics of Christ's\nteaching as a whole.\n\nMark at the outset Christ's own estimate of His words: \"The words that I\nhave spoken unto you are spirit, and are life;\" \"If a man keep My word\nhe shall never see death;\" \"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My\nwords shall not pass away;\" \"Every one which heareth these words of Mine\nand doeth them \"--with him Christ said it should be well; but \"every one\nthat heareth these words of Mine and doeth them not\"--upon him ruin\nshould come to the uttermost. Sayings like these are very remarkable,\nfor this is not the way in which human teachers are wont to speak of\ntheir own words; or, if they do so speak, this wise world of ours knows\nbetter than to take them at their own valuation. But the astonishing\nfact in the case of Jesus is that the world has admitted His claim. Men\nwho refuse utterly to share our faith concerning Him and the\nsignificance of His life and death, readily give to Him a place apart\namong the great teachers of mankind. I have already quoted the judgment\nof John Stuart Mill. \"Jesus,\" says Matthew Arnold, \"as He appears in the\nGospels ... is in the jargon of modern philosophy an absolute\"[5]--we\ncannot get beyond Him. Such, likewise, is the verdict of Goethe: \"Let\nintellectual and spiritual culture progress, and the human mind expand,\nas much as it will; beyond the grandeur and the moral elevation of\nChristianity, as it sparkles and shines in the Gospels, the human mind\nwill not advance.\"[6] It would be easy to multiply testimonies, but it\nis needless, since practically all whose judgment is of any account are\nof one mind.\n\nBut now if, with these facts in our minds, and knowing nothing else\nabout the teaching of Jesus, we could suppose ourselves turning for the\nfirst time to the simple record of the Gospels, probably our first\nfeeling would be one of surprise that Jesus the Teacher had won for\nHimself such an ascendency over the minds and hearts of men. For\nconsider some of the facts which the Gospels reveal to us. To begin\nwith, this Teacher, unlike most other teachers who have influenced\nmankind, contented Himself from first to last with merely oral\ninstruction: He left no book; He never wrote, save in the dust of the\nground. Not only so, but the words of Jesus that have been preserved by\nthe evangelists are, comparatively speaking, extremely few. Put them all\ntogether, they are less by one-half or two-thirds than the words which\nit will be necessary for me to use in order to set forth His teaching in\nthis little book. And further, the little we have is, for the most part,\nso casual, so unpremeditated, so unsystematic in its character. Once and\nagain, it is true, we get from the Evangelists something approaching\nwhat may be called a set discourse; but more often what they give us is\nreports of conversations--conversations with His disciples, with chance\nacquaintances, or with His enemies. Sometimes we find Him speaking in\nthe synagogues; but He is quite as ready to teach reclining at the\ndinner-table; and, best of all, He loved to speak in the open air, by\nthe wayside, or the lake shore. Once, as He stood by the lake of\nGennesaret, the multitude was so great that it pressed upon Him. Near at\nhand were two little fishing-boats drawn up upon the beach, for the\nfishermen had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. \"And He\nentered into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put\nout a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes\nout of the boat.\" It is all so different from what we should have\nexpected; there is about it such an air of artless, homely simplicity.\nFinally, we cannot forget that Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews. Son of\nGod though He was, He was the son of a Jewish mother, trained in a\nJewish home, in all things the child of His own time and race. Whatever\nelse His message may have been, it was, first of all, a message to the\nmen of His own day; therefore, of necessity, it was their language He\nused, it was to their needs He ministered, it was their sins He\ncondemned. The mould, the tone, the colouring of His teaching were all\nlargely determined by the life of His country and His time.\n\nYet this is He concerning whom all ages cry aloud, \"Never man spake like\nthis man.\" This is He before whom the greatest and the wisest bow down,\nsaying, \"Lord\" and \"Master.\" How are we to explain it? Much of the\nexplanation lies outside of the scope of our present subject; but if we\nwill turn back to the Gospels again we may find at least a partial\nanswer to our question.\n\n\nII\n\n\n(I) I said just now that Christ's teaching was addressed in the first\nplace to the Jews of His own day. Yet the note of universality is as\nunmistakable as are the local tone and colouring. Christ may speak as\nthe moment suggests, but His words are never for the moment only, but\nfor all time. He refused almost sternly to go unto any save unto the\nlost sheep of the house of Israel; yet the Gospels make it abundantly\nplain that in His own thoughts His mission was never limited to the tiny\nstage within which, during His earthly years, He confined Himself. \"I am\nthe light of the world,\" He said; and in His last great commission to\nHis disciples He bade them carry that light unto the uttermost parts of\nthe earth. In the great High-Priestly prayer He intercedes not only for\nHis disciples, but for those who through their word should believe on\nHim. \"I will build My church,\" He declared, \"and the gates of Hades\nshall not prevail against it.\"\n\n(2) So, again, too, in regard to the form of Christ's sayings; to speak\nof their artlessness and homely simplicity is to tell only a small part\nof the truth concerning them. They are, indeed and especially those\nspoken in Galilee, and reported for the most part in the Synoptists, the\nperfection of popular speech. How the short, pithy, sententious sayings\ncling to the memory like burs! Let almost any of them be commenced, and\nas Dr. Stalker says, the ordinary hearer can without difficulty finish\nthe sentence. Christ was not afraid of a paradox. When, _e.g._, He said,\n\"Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,\"\nHe was ready to risk the possibility of being misunderstood by some\nprosaic hearer, that He might the more effectually arouse men to a\nneglected duty. His language was concrete, not abstract; He taught by\nexample and illustration; He thought, and taught others to think, in\npictures. How often is the phrase, \"The kingdom of heaven is like\nunto----\" on His lips! Moreover, His illustrations were always such as\ncommon folk could best appreciate. The birds of the air, the lilies of\nthe field, the lamp on the lamp-stand, the hen with her chickens under\nher wings, the servant following the plough, the shepherd tending his\nsheep, the fisherman drawing his net, the sower casting his seed into\nthe furrow, the housewife baking her bread or sweeping her house,--it\nwas through panes of common window-glass like these that Christ let in\nthe light upon the heaped-up treasures of the kingdom of God. No wonder\n\"the common people heard Him gladly\"; no wonder they \"all hung upon Him\nlistening\"; or that they \"came early in the morning to Him in the temple\nto hear Him\"! Yet, even in the eyes of the multitude the plain homespun\nof Christ's speech was shot with gleams of more than earthly lustre.\nThere mingled--to use another figure--with the sweet music of those\nsimple sayings a new deep note their ears had never heard before: \"the\nmultitudes were astonished at His teaching; for He taught them as one\nhaving authority, and not as their scribes.\" It was not the authority of\npowerful reasoning over the intellect, reasoning which we cannot choose\nbut obey; it was the authority of perfect spiritual intuition. Christ\nnever speaks as one giving the results of long and painful gropings\nafter truth, but rather as one who is at home in the world to which God\nand the things of the spirit belong. He asserts that which He knows, He\ndeclares that which He has seen.\n\n(3) Another quality of Christ's words which helps us to understand their\nworld-wide influence is their winnowedness, their freedom from the chaff\nwhich, in the words of others, mingles with the wholesome grain. The\nattempt is sometimes made to destroy, or, at least, to weaken, our claim\nfor Christ as the supreme teacher by placing a few selected sayings of\nHis side by side with the words of some other ancient thinker or\nteacher. And if they who make such comparisons would put into their\nparallel columns all the words of Jesus and all the words of those with\nwhom the comparison is made, we should have neither right to complain\nnor reason to fear. Wellhausen puts the truth very neatly when he says,\n\"The Jewish scholars say, 'All that Jesus said is also to be found in\nthe Talmud.' Yes, all, and a great deal besides.\"[7] The late Professor\nG.J. Romanes has pointed out the contrast in two respects between Christ\nand Plato. He speaks of Plato as \"the greatest representative of human\nreason in the direction of spirituality\"; yet he says \"Plato is nowhere\nin this respect as compared with Christ.\" While in Plato there are\nerrors of all kinds, \"reaching even to absurdity in respect of reason,\nand to sayings shocking to the moral sense,\" there is, he declares, in\nliteral truth no reason why any of Christ's words should ever pass away\nin the sense of becoming obsolete. And it is this absence from the\nbiography of Christ of any doctrines which the subsequent growth of\nhuman knowledge--whether in natural science, ethics, political economy,\nor elsewhere--has had to discount which seems to him one of the\nstrongest arguments in favour of Christianity.[8]\n\n(4) One other quality of Christ's words, which specially caught the\nattention of His hearers in the synagogue at Nazareth, should not be\noverlooked: \"All bare Him witness, and wondered at the words of grace\nwhich proceeded out of His mouth.\" The reference is, as Dr. Bruce\nsays,[9] rather to the substance of the discourse than to the manner.\nThat there was a peculiar charm in the Teacher's manner is undoubted,\nbut it was what He said, rather than the way in which He said it--the\nmessage of grace, rather than the graciousness of the Messenger--which\ncaused the eyes of all in the synagogue to be fastened on Him. He had\njust read the great passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah:\n\n    \"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,\n    Because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor.\n    He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,\n    And recovery of sight to the blind,\n    To set at liberty them that are bruised,\n    To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.\"\n\nThen, when the reading was finished, and He had given back the roll to\nthe attendant, and was sat down, He began to say unto them, \"To-day hath\nthis Scripture been fulfilled in your ears.\" This was His own programme;\nthis was what He had come into the world to do--to bear the burden of\nthe weary and the heavy-laden, to give rest unto all who would learn of\nHim.\n\nThis, then, is the Teacher whose words we are to study together in these\npages. He Himself is saying to us again, \"He that hath ears to hear let\nhim hear.\" See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. And again He says,\n\"Take heed how ye hear.\" Gracious as He is, this Teacher can be also\nvery stern. \"If any man,\" He says, \"hear My sayings and keep them not, I\njudge him not. ... He that receiveth not My sayings hath one that\njudgeth him; the word that I speak, the same shall judge him in the last\nday.\" We read of some to whom \"good tidings\" were preached, whom the\nword did not profit. Let us pray that to writer and readers alike it may\nprove the word of eternal life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING GOD\n\n    \"Our Father, who art in Heaven.\n                _What meaneth these words_?\n\n     God lovingly inviteth us, in this little preface, truly to\n     believe in Him, that He is our true Father, and that we are\n     truly His children; so that full of confidence we may more\n     boldly call upon His name, even as we see children with a kind\n     of confidence ask anything of their parents.\"--LUTHER'S\n     CATECHISM.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nCONCERNING GOD\n\n    _\"Holy Father.\"_--JOHN xvii. 11.\n\n\nIt is natural and fitting in an attempt to understand the teaching of\nJesus that we should begin with His doctrine of God. For a man's idea of\nGod is fundamental, regulative of all his religious thinking. As is his\nGod, so will his religion be. Given the arc we can complete the circle;\ngiven a man's conception of God, from that we can construct the main\noutlines of his creed. What, then, was the teaching of Jesus concerning\nGod?\n\n\nI\n\n\nIn harmony with what has been already said in the previous chapter,\nconcerning Christ's manner and method as a teacher, we shall find little\nor nothing defined, formal, systematic in Christ's teaching on this\nsubject. In those theological handbooks which piloted some of us through\nthe troublous waters of our early theological thinking, one chapter is\nalways occupied with proofs, more or less elaborate, of the existence of\nGod, and another with a discussion of what are termed the Divine\n\"attributes.\" And for the purposes of a theological handbook doubtless\nthis is the right course to take. But this was not Christ's way. Search\nthe four Gospels through, and probably not one verse can be found which\nby itself would serve as a suitable definition for any religious\ncatechism or theological textbook. Christ, we must remember, did not, in\nHis teaching, begin _de novo_. He never forgot that He was speaking to a\npeople whose were the law and the prophets and the fathers; throughout\nHe assumed and built upon the accepted truths of Old Testament\nrevelation. To have addressed elaborate arguments in proof of the\nexistence of God to the Jews would have been a mere waste of words; for\nthat faith was the very foundation of their national life. Nor did\nChrist speak about the \"attributes\" of God. Again that was not His way.\nHe chose to speak in the concrete rather than in the abstract, and,\ntherefore, instead of defining God, He shows us how He acts. In parable,\nin story, and in His own life He sets God before us, that so we may\nlearn what He is, and how He feels toward us.\n\nChrist, I say, built upon the foundation of the Old Testament. To\nunderstand, therefore, the true significance of His teaching about God,\nwe must first of all put ourselves at the point of view of a devout Jew\nof His day, and see how far he had been brought by that earlier\nrevelation which Christ took up and carried to completion. What, then,\ndid the Jews know of God before Christ came?\n\nThey knew that God is One, Only, Sovereign: \"Hear, O Israel, the Lord\nour God is one God.\" It had been a hard lesson for Israel to learn.\nCenturies had passed before the nation had been purged of its\nidolatries. But the cleansing fires had done their work at last, and\nperhaps the world has never seen sterner monotheists than were the\nPharisees of the time of Christ.[10] And He whom thus they worshipped as\nSovereign they knew also to be holy: \"The Holy One of Israel,\" \"exalted\nin righteousness.\" True, Pharisaism had degraded the lofty conceptions\nof the great Hebrew prophets; it had taught men to think of God as\ncaring more for the tithing of mint, and anise, and cumin than for the\nweightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith, making\nmorality merely an affair of ceremonies, instead of the concern of the\nheart and the life. But, however Jewish teachers might blind themselves\nand deceive their disciples, the Jewish Scriptures still remained to\ntestify of God and righteousness, and of the claims which a righteous\nGod makes upon His people: \"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil\nof your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do\nwell.\" Nor, accustomed though we are to think of the God of the Old\nTestament as stern rather than kind, were the tenderer elements wanting\nfrom the Jewish conception of Deity. Illustration is not now possible,\nbut a very little thought will remind us that it is to the Hebrew\npsalmists and prophets that we owe some of the most gracious and tender\nimagery of the Divine love with which the language of devotion has ever\nbeen enriched.\n\nNevertheless, with every desire to do justice to a faith which has not\nalways received its due, even at Christian hands, it is impossible for\nus, looking back from our loftier vantage-ground, to ignore its serious\ndefects and limitations. It was an exclusive faith. It magnified the\nprivileges of the Jews, but it shut out the Gentiles. God might be a\nFather to Israel, but to no other nation under heaven did He stand in\nany such relation. It was the refusal of Christ to recognize the\nbarriers which the pride of race had set up which more than anything\nelse brought Him into conflict with the authorities at Jerusalem. And\nwhen once from the mind and heart of the Early Church the irrevocable\nword had gone forth, \"God is no respecter of persons; but in every\nnation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to\nHim,\" the final breach was made; no longer could the new faith live with\nthe old. And even within the privileged circle of Judaism itself men's\nbest thoughts of God and of His relation to them were maimed and\nimperfect. He was the God of the nation, not of the individual. Here and\nthere elect souls like the psalmists climbed the heights whereon man\nholds fellowship with God, and spake with Him face to face, as a man\nwith his friend. But with the people as a whole, even as with their\ngreatest prophets, not the individual, but the nation, was the religious\nunit.\n\nSuch was the Old Testament idea of God. Now let us return to the\nteaching of Jesus. And at once we discover that Christ let go nothing of\nthat earlier doctrine which was of real and abiding worth. The God of\nJesus Christ is as holy, as sovereign--or, to use the modern term--as\ntranscendent as the God of the psalmists and the prophets. Their\nfavourite name for God was \"King,\" and Christ spake much of the \"kingdom\nof God.\" To them God's people were His servants, owing to Him allegiance\nand service to the uttermost; we also, Christ says, are the servants of\nGod, to every one of whom He has appointed his task, and with whom one\nday He will make a reckoning. But if nothing is lost, how much is\ngained! It is not merely that in Christ's teaching we have the Old\nTestament of God over again with a _plus_, the new which is added has so\ntransformed and transfigured the old that all is become new. To Jesus\nChrist, and to us through Him, God is \"the Father.\"\n\nIt is, of course, well known that Christ was not the first to apply this\nname to God. There is no religion, says Max M\u00fcller,[11] which is\nsufficiently recorded to be understood that does not, in some sense or\nother, apply the term Father to its Deity. Yet this need not concern us,\nfor though the name be the same the meaning is wholly different. There\nis no true comparison even between the occasional use of the word in the\nOld Testament and its use by Christ. For, though in the Old Testament\nGod is spoken of as the Father of Israel, it is as the Father of the\nnation, not of the individual, and of that nation only. Even in a great\nsaying like that of the Psalmist:\n\n    \"Like as a father pitieth his children,\n    So the Lord pitieth them that fear Him,\"\n\nit is still only Israel that the writer has in view, though we rightly\ngive to the words a wider application. But there is no need of argument.\nEvery reader of the Old Testament knows that its central, ruling idea of\nGod is not Fatherhood, but Kingship: \"The Lord reigneth.\" Even in the\nPsalms, in which the religious aspiration and worship of the ages before\nChrist find their finest and noblest expression, never once is God\naddressed as Father. But when we turn to the Gospels, how great is the\ncontrast! Though not even a single psalmist dare look up and say,\n\"Father,\" in St. Matthew's Gospel alone the name is used of God more\nthan forty times. Fatherhood now is no longer one attribute among many;\nit is the central, determining idea in whose revealing light all other\nnames of God--Creator, Sovereign, Judge--must be read and interpreted.\nAnd the God of Jesus Christ is the Father, not of one race only, but of\nmankind; not of mankind only, but of men.\n\n\nII\n\n\nIt was indeed a great and wonderful gospel which Christ proclaimed--so\ngreat and wonderful that all our poor words tremble and sink down under\nthe weight of the truth they vainly seek to express. By what means has\nChrist put us into possession of such a truth? How have we come to the\nfull assurance of faith concerning the Divine Fatherhood? In two ways:\nby His teaching and by His life; by what He said and by what He did. And\nonce more a paragraph must perforce do, as best it can, the work of an\nessay.\n\nTo the ear and heart of Christ all nature spoke of the love and care of\nGod. \"Behold the birds of the heaven,\" He said; \"they sow not, neither\ndo they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth\nthem. Are not ye of much more value than they?\" And again He said,\n\"Consider the lilies of the field\"--not the pale, delicate blossom we\nknow so well, but \"the scarlet martagon\" which \"decks herself in red and\ngold to meet the step of summer\"--\"Consider the lilies of the field, how\nthey grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you that\neven Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But\nif God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and\nto-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye\nof little faith?\" Or, He bade men look into their own hearts and learn.\n\"God's possible is taught by His world's loving;\" from what is best\nwithin ourselves we may learn what God Himself is like. Once Christ\nspoke to shepherds: \"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having\nlost one of them\"--how the faces in the little crowd would light up, and\ntheir ears drink in the gracious argument! You care for your sheep, but\nhow much better is a man than a sheep? If you would do so much for them,\nwill God do less for you? And once the word went deeper still, as He\nspoke to fathers: \"What man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask\nhim for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish\nwill give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good\ngifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in\nheaven give good things to them that ask Him?\" Why, Christ asks, why do\nyou not let your own hearts teach you? If love will not let you mock\nyour child, think you, will God be less good than you yourselves are?\n\nBut more even than by His words did Christ by His life reveal to us the\nFather. \"He that hath seen Me,\" He said to Philip, \"hath seen the\nFather.\" In what He was and did, in His life and in His death, we read\nwhat God is. We follow Him from Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazareth to\nGennesaret, from Gennesaret to Jerusalem, to the Upper Room, to\nGethsemane, and to Calvary, and at every step of the way He says to us,\n\"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.\" We are with Him at the\nmarriage feast at Cana of Galilee, and in the midst of the mourners by\nthe city gate at Nain; we see Him as He takes the little children into\nHis arms and lays His hands upon them and blesses them; we hear His word\nto her that was a sinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee; we stand\nwith John and with Mary under the shadow of the Cross; and still, always\nand everywhere, He is saying to us, \"He that hath seen Me hath seen the\nFather; if ye had known Me ye should have known my Father also.\" Within\nthe sweep of this great word the whole life of Jesus lies; there is\nnothing that He said or did that does not more fully declare Him whom no\nman hath seen at any time. To read \"that sweet story of old\" is to put\nour hand on the heart of God; it is to know the Father.\n\n\nIII\n\n\n\"Yes,\" says some one, \"it is a beautiful creed--if only one could\nbelieve it.\" Christ took the birds and the flowers for His text, and\npreached of the love of God for man, but is that the only sermon the\nbirds and flowers preach to us? Does not \"nature, red in tooth and claw\nwith ravine,\" shriek against our creed? And when we turn to human life\nthe tragedy deepens. Why, if Love be law, is the world so full of pain?\nWhy do the innocent suffer? Why are our hearts made to sicken every day\nwhen we take up our morning paper? Why does not God end the haunting\nhorror of our social ills? They are old-world questions which no man can\nanswer. Yet will I not give up my faith, and I will tell you why. \"I\ncannot see,\" Huxley once wrote to Charles Kingsley, \"one shadow or\ntittle of evidence that the great unknown underlying the phenomena of\nthe universe, stands to us in the relation of a Father--loves us, and\ncares for us as Christianity asserts.\" And, perhaps, if I looked for\nevidence only where Huxley looked, I should say the same; but I have\nseen Jesus, and that has made all the difference. It is He, and He\nalone, who has made me sure of God. He felt, as I have never felt, the\nhorrid jangle and discord of this world's life; sin and suffering tore\nHis soul as no soul of man was ever torn; He both saw suffering\ninnocence and Himself suffered being innocent, and yet to the end He\nknew that love was through all and over all, and died with the name\n\"Father\" upon His lips. And, therefore, though the griefs and graves of\nmen must often make me dumb, I will still dare to believe with Jesus\nthat God is good and \"Love creation's final law.\"\n\nBut while thus, on the one hand, we use Christ's doctrine of God to our\ncomfort, let us take care lest, on the other hand, we abuse it to our\nhurt and undoing. There has scarcely ever been a time when the Church\nhas not suffered through \"disproportioned thoughts\" of God. To-day our\nperil is lest, in emphasizing the Divine Fatherhood, we ignore the\nDivine Sovereignty, and make of God a weak, indulgent Eli, without\neither purpose or power to chastise His wilful and disobedient children.\n\"God is good; God is love; why then should we fear? Will He not deal\ntenderly with us and with all men, forgiving us even unto seventy times\nseven?\" The argument is true--and it is false. As an assurance to the\npenitent and to the broken in heart, it is true, blessedly true; in any\nother sense it is false as hell. He whom Christ called, and taught us to\ncall \"Father,\" He also called \"Holy Father\" and \"Righteous Father.\" Have\nwe forgotten Peter's warning--we do not need to ask at whose lips he\nlearned it--\"If ye call on Him as Father ... pass the time of your\nsojourning in fear.\" This is no contradiction of the doctrine of\nFatherhood; strictly speaking, it is not even a modification of it;\nrather is it an essential part of any true and complete statement of it.\nPeter does not mean God is a Father, and He is also to be feared; that\nis to miss the whole point of his words; what he means is, God is a\nFather, and, therefore, He is to be feared; the fear follows necessarily\non the true idea of Fatherhood. Ah, brethren, if we understood Peter and\nPeter's Lord aright, we should be not the less, but the more anxious\nabout our sins, because we have learnt to call God \"Father.\" \"Evil,\" it\nhas been well said, \"is a more terrible thing to the family than to the\nstate.\"[12] Acts which the law takes no cognizance of a father dare not,\nand cannot, pass by; what the magistrate may dismiss with light censure\nhe must search out to its depths. The judgment of a father--there is no\njudgment like that. And if it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands\nof the living God, for him who all his life through has set himself\nagainst the Divine law and love, it is a still more fearful thing\nbecause those hands are the hands of a Father.\n\nBut this is not the note on which to close a sermon on the Fatherhood of\nGod. Let us go back to a chapter from which, though I have only once\nquoted its words, we have never been far away--the fifteenth of St.\nLuke, with its three-fold revelation of the seeking love of God. The\nparables of the chapter are companion pictures, and should be studied\ntogether in the light of the circumstances which were their common\norigin. \"The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man\nreceiveth sinners and eateth with them.\" These parables are Christ's\nanswer. Mark how He justifies Himself. He might have pleaded the need of\nthose whom the Pharisees and scribes had left alone in their\nwretchedness and sin, but of this He says nothing; His thoughts are all\nof the need of God. The central thought in each parable is not what man\nloses by his sin, but what God loses. As the shepherd misses his lost\nsheep, and the woman her lost coin, and the father his lost son, so,\nChrist says, we are all missed by God until, with our heart's love, we\nsatisfy the hunger of His. The genius of a prose poet shall tell us the\nrest. We have all read of Lachlan Campbell and his daughter Flora, how\nshe went into the far country, and what brought her home again. \"It iss\nweary to be in London\"--this was Flora's story as she told it to Marget\nHowe when she was back again in the glen--\"it iss weary to be in London\nand no one to speak a kind word to you, and I will be looking at the\ncrowd that is always passing, and I will not see one kent face, and when\nI looked in at the lighted windows the people were all sitting round the\ntable, but there was no place for me. Millions and millions of people,\nand not one to say 'Flora,' and not one sore heart if I died that\nnight.\" Then one night she crept into a church as the people were\nsinging. \"The sermon wass on the Prodigal Son, but there is only one\nword I remember. 'You are not forgotten or cast off,' the preacher said:\n'you are missed.' Sometimes he will say, 'If you had a plant, and you\nhad taken great care of it, and it was stolen, would you not miss it?'\nAnd I will be thinking of my geraniums, and saying 'Yes' in my heart.\nAnd then he will go on, 'If a shepherd wass counting his sheep, and\nthere wass one short, does he not go out to the hill to seek for it?'\nand I will see my father coming back with that lamb that lost its\nmother. My heart wass melting within me, but he will still be pleading,\n'If a father had a child, and she left her home and lost herself in the\nwicked city, she will still be remembered in the old house, and her\nchair will be there,' and I will be seeing my father all alone with the\nBible before him, and the dogs will lay their heads on his knee, but\nthere iss no Flora. So I slipped out into the darkness and cried,\n'Father,' but I could not go back, and I knew not what to do. But this\nwass ever in my ear, 'missed,'\"--and this was the word that brought her\nback to home and God.[13]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING HIMSELF\n\n\n     \"Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was\n     Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is\n     no getting out of this trilemma. It is inexorable.\"\n\n                                     JOHN DUNCAN, _Colloquia\n     Peripatetica_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nCONCERNING HIMSELF\n\n    \"_Who say ye that I am_?\"--MATT. xvi. 15.\n\n\nI\n\n\nThis was our Lord's question to His first disciples; and this, by the\nmouth of Simon Peter, was their answer: \"Thou art the Christ, the Son of\nthe living God.\" And in all ages this has been the answer of the Holy\nCatholic Church throughout all the world. In the days of New Testament\nChristianity no other answer was known or heard. The Church of the\napostles had its controversies, as we know, controversies in which the\nvery life of the Church was at stake. Division crept in even among the\napostles themselves. But concerning Christ they spoke with one voice,\nthey proclaimed one faith. The early centuries of the Christian era were\ncenturies of keen discussion concerning the Person of our Lord; but the\ndiscussions sprang for the most part from the difficulty of rightly\ndefining the true relations of the Divine and the human in the one\nPerson, rather than from the denial of His Divinity; and, as Mr.\nGladstone once pointed out, since the fourth century the Christian\nconception of Christ has remained practically unchanged. Amid the fierce\nand almost ceaseless controversies which have divided and sometimes\ndesolated Christendom, and which, alas! still continue to divide it, the\nChurch's testimony concerning Christ has never wavered. The Greek\nChurch, the Roman Catholic Church, the various Protestant Churches,\nLutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,\nChristian men and women out of every tribe and tongue and people and\nnation,--all unite to confess the glory of Christ in the words of the\nancient Creed: \"I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten\nSon of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light\nof Light, Very God of very God.\"\n\nThis, beyond all doubt, has been and is the Christian way of thinking\nabout Christ. But now the question arises, Was this Christ's way of\nthinking about Himself? Did He Himself claim to be one with God? or, is\nit only we, His adoring disciples, who have crowned Him with glory and\nhonour, and given Him a name that is above every name? To those of us\nwho have been familiar with the New Testament ever since we could read,\nthe question may appear so simple as to be almost superfluous.\nHalf-a-dozen texts leap to our lips in a moment by way of answer. Did He\nnot claim to be the Messiah in whom Old Testament history and prophecy\nfound their fulfilment and consummation? Did He not call Himself the Son\nof God, saying, \"The Father hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all\nmay honour the Son, even as they honour the Father\"? Did He not declare,\n\"I and My Father are one\"? and again, \"All things have been delivered\nunto Me of My Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father;\nneither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the\nSon willeth to reveal Him\"? And when one of the Twelve bowed down before\nHim, saying, \"My Lord and my God,\" did He not accept the homage as\nthough it were His by right? What further need, then, have we of\nwitnesses? Is it not manifest that the explanation of all that has been\nclaimed for Christ, from the days of the apostles until now, is to be\nfound in what Christ claimed for Himself?\n\nThis is true; nevertheless it may be well to remind ourselves that\nChrist Himself did not thrust the evidence on His disciples in quite\nthis wholesale, summary fashion. It is an easy thing for us to scour the\nNew Testament for \"proof-texts,\" and then, when they are heaped together\nat our feet like a load of bricks, to begin to build our theological\nsystems. But Peter and Thomas and the other disciples could not do this.\nThe revelation which we possess in its completeness was given to them\nlittle by little as they were able to receive it. And the moment we\nbegin to study the life of Jesus, not in isolated texts, but as day by\nday it passed before the eyes of the Twelve, we cannot fail to observe\nthe remarkable reserve which, during the greater part of His ministry,\nHe exercised concerning Himself. When first His disciples heard His call\nand followed Him, He was to them but a humble peasant teacher, who had\nflung about their lives a wondrous spell which they could no more\nexplain than they could resist. Indeed, there is good reason to believe,\nas Dr. Dale has pointed out,[14] that the full discovery of Christ's\nDivinity only came to the apostles after His Resurrection from the dead.\nAt first, and for long, Christ was content to leave them with their\npoor, imperfect thoughts. He never sought to carry their reason by\nstorm; rather He set Himself to win them--mind, heart, and will--by slow\nsiege. He lived before them and with them, saying little directly about\nHimself, and yet always revealing Himself, day by day training them,\noften perhaps unconsciously to themselves, \"to trust Him with the sort\nof trust which can be legitimately given to God only.\"[15] And when at\nlast the truth was clear, and they knew that it was the incarnate Son of\nGod who had companied with them, their faith was the result not of this\nor that high claim which He had made for Himself, but rather of \"the\nsum-total of all His words and works, the united and accumulated\nimpression of all He was and did\" upon their sincere and receptive\nsouls.[16]\n\nAre there not many of us to-day who would do well to seek the same goal\nby the same path? We have listened, perhaps, to other men's arguments\nconcerning the Divinity of our Lord, conscious the while how little they\nwere doing for us. Let us listen to Christ Himself. Let us put ourselves\nto school with Him, as these first disciples did, and suffer Him to make\nHis own impression upon us. And if ours be sincere and receptive souls\nas were theirs, from us also He shall win the adoring cry, \"My Lord and\nmy God.\" Let us note, then, some of the many ways in which Christ bears\nwitness concerning Himself. In a very true sense all His sayings are\n\"self-portraitures.\" Be the subject of His teaching what it may, He\ncannot speak of it without, in some measure at least, revealing His\nthoughts concerning Himself; and it is this indirect testimony whose\nsignificance I wish now carefully to consider.\n\n\nII\n\n\nObserve, in the first place, how Christ speaks of God and of His own\nrelation to Him. He called Himself, as we have already noted, \"the Son\nof God.\" Now, there is a sense in which all men are the sons of God, for\nit is to God that all men owe their life. And there is, further, as the\nNew Testament has taught us, another and deeper sense in which men who\nare not may \"become\" the sons of God, through faith in Christ. But\nChrist's consciousness of Sonship is distinct from both of these, and\ncannot be explained in terms of either. He is not \"_a_ son of God\"--one\namong many---He is \"_the_ son of God,\" standing to God in a relationship\nwhich is His alone. Hence we find--and we shall do well to mark the\nmarvellous accuracy and self-consistency of the Gospels in this\nmatter--that while Jesus sometimes speaks of \"_the_ Father,\" and\nsometimes of \"_My_ Father,\" and sometimes, again, in addressing His\ndisciples, of \"_your_ Father,\" never does He link Himself with them so\nas to call God \"_our_ Father.\" Nowhere does the distinction, always\npresent to the mind of Christ, find more striking expression than in\nthat touching scene in the garden in which the Risen Lord bids Mary go\nunto His brethren and say unto them, \"I ascend unto My Father and your\nFather, and My God and your God.\"\n\nThis sense of separateness is emphasized when we turn to the prayers of\nChrist. And in this connection it is worthy of note that though Christ\nhas much to say concerning the duty and blessedness of prayer, and\nHimself spent much time in prayer, yet never, so far as we know, did He\nask for the prayers of others. \"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to\nhave you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for\nthee, that thy faith fail not.\" So did Jesus pray for His disciples; but\nwe never read that they prayed for Him, or that He asked for Himself a\nplace in their prayers. How significant the silence is we learn when we\nturn to the Epistles of St. Paul and to the experience of the saints.\n\"Brethren, pray for us\"--this is the token in almost every Epistle. In\nthe long, lone fight of life even the apostle's heart would have failed\nhim had not the prayers of unknown friends upheld him as with unseen\nhands. There is no stronger instinct of the Christian heart than the\nplea for remembrance at the throne of God. \"Pray for me, will you?\" we\ncry, when man's best aid seems as a rope too short to help, yet long\nenough to mock imprisoned miners in their living tomb. But the cry which\nis so often ours was never Christ's.\n\nIt has further been remarked that, intimate as was Christ's intercourse\nwith His disciples, He never joined in prayer with them.[17] He prayed\nin their presence, He prayed for them, but never with them. \"It came to\npass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when He ceased, one of\nHis disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also\ntaught his disciples. And He said unto them, When ye pray, say----.\"\nThen follows what we call \"The Lord's Prayer.\" But, properly speaking,\nthis was not the Lord's prayer; it was the disciples' prayer: \"When _ye_\npray, say------.\" And when we read the prayer again, we see why it could\nnot be His. How could He who knew no sin pray, saying, \"Forgive us our\nsins\"? The true \"Lord's Prayer\" is to be found in the seventeenth\nchapter of St. John's Gospel. And throughout that prayer the holy\nSuppliant has nothing to confess, nothing to regret. He knows that the\nend is nigh, but there are no shadows in His retrospect; of all that is\ndone there is nothing He could wish undone or done otherwise. \"I\nglorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou\nhast given Me to do.\" It is so when He comes to die. Among the Seven\nWords from the Cross we are struck by one significant omission: the\ndying Sufferer utters a cry of physical weakness--\"I thirst\"--but He\nmakes no acknowledgement of sin; He prays for the forgiveness of\nothers--\"Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do\"--He asks\nnone for Himself. The great Augustine died with the penitential Psalms\nhung round his bed. Fifty or sixty times, it is said, did sweet St.\nCatharine of Siena cry upon her deathbed, _Peccavi, Domine miserere\nmei_, \"Lord, I have sinned: have mercy on me.\" But in all the prayers of\nJesus, whether in life or in death, He has no pardon to ask, no sins to\nconfess.\n\nWe are thus brought to the fact upon which of recent years so much\nemphasis has been justly laid, namely, that nowhere throughout the\nGospels does Christ betray any consciousness of sin. \"Which of you,\" He\nsaid, \"convicteth Me of sin?\" And no man was able, nor is any man now\nable, to answer Him a word. But the all-important fact is not so much\nthat they could not convict Him of sin; _He could not convict Himself._\nYet it could not be that He was self-deceived. \"He knew what was in\nman;\" He read the hearts of others till, like the Samaritan woman, they\nfelt as though He knew all things that ever they had done. Was it\npossible, then, that He did not know Himself? Not only so, but the law\nby which He judged Himself was not theirs, but His. And what that was,\nhow high, how searching, how different from the low, conventional\nstandards which satisfied them, we who have read His words and His\njudgments know full well. Nevertheless, He knew nothing against Himself;\nas no man could condemn Him neither could He condemn Himself. Looking up\nto heaven, He could say, \"I do always the things that are pleasing to\nHim.\"[18] This is not the language of sinful men; it is not the language\nof even the best and holiest of men. Christ is as separate from \"saints\"\nas He is from \"sinners.\" The greatest of Hebrew prophets cries, \"Woe is\nme! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in\nthe midst of a people of unclean lips.\" The greatest of Christian\napostles laments, \"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of\nthe body of this death?\" Even the holy John confesses, \"If we say that\nwe have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.\" It is\none of the commonplaces of Christian experience that the holier men\nbecome the more intense and poignant becomes the sense of personal\nshortcoming. \"We have done those things which we ought not to have done;\nwe have left undone those things which we ought to have done:\" among all\nthe sons of men there is none, who truly knows himself, who dare be\nsilent when the great confession is made--none save the Son of Man; for\nHe, it has well been said, was _not_ the one thing which we all are; He\nwas _not_ a sinner.\n\nThis consciousness of separateness runs through all that the evangelists\nhave told us concerning Christ. When _e.g._ He is preaching He never\nassociates Himself, as other preachers do, with His hearers; He never\nassumes, as other preachers must, that His words are applicable to\nHimself equally with them. We exhort; He commands. We say, like the\nwriter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, \"Let us go on unto perfection\"; He\nsays, \"Ye shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.\" We\nspeak as sinful men to sinful men, standing by their side; He speaks as\nfrom a height, as one who has already attained and is already made\nperfect. Or, the contrast may be pointed in another way. We all know\nwhat it is to be haunted by misgivings as to the wisdom of some course\nwhich, under certain trying circumstances, we have taken. We had some\ndifficult task to perform--to withstand (let us say) a fellow-Christian\nto his face, as Paul withstood Peter at Antioch; and we did the\nunpleasant duty as best we knew how, honestly striving not only to speak\nthe truth but to speak it in love. And yet when all was over we could\nnot get rid of the fear that we had not been as firm or as kindly as we\nshould have been, that, if only something had been which was not, our\nbrother might have been won. There is a verse in Paul's second letter to\nthe Church at Corinth which illustrates exactly this familiar kind of\ninternal conflict. Referring to the former letter which he had sent to\nthe Corinthians, and in which he had sharply rebuked them for their\nwrong-doing, he says, \"Though I made you sorry with my epistle, I do not\nregret it, though I did regret\"--a simple, human touch we can all\nunderstand. Yes; but when did Jesus hesitate and, as it were, go back\nupon Himself after this fashion? He passed judgment upon men and their\nways with the utmost freedom and confidence; some, such as the\nPharisees, He condemned with a severity which almost startles us;\ntowards others, such as she \"that was a sinner,\" He was all love and\ntenderness. Yet never does He speak as one who fears lest either in His\ntenderness or His severity He has gone too far. His path is always\nclear; He enters upon it without doubt; He looks back upon it without\nmisgiving.\n\nThis contrast between Christ and all other men, as it presented itself\nto His own consciousness, may be illustrated almost indefinitely. His\nforerunners the prophets were the servants of God; He is His Son. All\nother men are weary and in need of rest; He has rest and can give it.\nAll others are lost; He is not lost, He is the shepherd sent to seek the\nlost. All others are sick; He is not sick, He is the physician sent to\nheal the sick. All others will one day stand at the bar of God; but He\nwill be on the throne to be their Judge. All others are sinners--this is\nthe great, final distinction into which all others run up--He is the\nSaviour. When at the Last Supper He said, \"This is My blood of the\ncovenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins\"; and again, when\nHe said, \"The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many,\" He\nset Himself over against all others, the one sinless sacrifice for a\nsinful world.\n\nThere is in Edinburgh a Unitarian church which bears carved on its front\nthese words of St. Paul. \"There is one God, and one mediator between God\nand man, the man Christ Jesus.\" I say nothing as to the fitness of any\nof Paul's words for such a place--perhaps we can imagine what he would\nhave said; I pass over any questions of interpretation that might very\njustly be raised; I have only one question to ask: Why was the quotation\nnot finished? Paul only put a comma where they have put a full stop; the\nnext words are: _\"Who gave Himself a ransom for all.\"_ But how could He\ndo that if He was only \"the _man_ Christ Jesus\"?\n\n    \"No man can save his brother's soul,\n      Nor pay his brother's debt,\"\n\nand how could He, how dare He, think of His life as the ransom for our\nforfeited lives, if He were only one like unto ourselves? There is but\none explanation which does really explain all that Christ thought and\ntaught concerning Himself; it is that given by the first disciples and\nre-echoed by every succeeding generation of Christians--\n\n      \"THOU ART THE KING OF GLORY, O CHRIST.\n       THOU ART THE EVERLASTING SON OF THE FATHER.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING HIS OWN DEATH\n\n\n     \"While there is life in thee, in this death alone place thy\n     trust, confide in nothing else besides; to this death commit\n     thyself altogether; with this shelter thy whole self; with\n     this death array thyself from head to foot. And if the Lord\n     thy God will judge thee, say, Lord, between Thy judgment and\n     me I cast the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; no otherwise can\n     I contend with Thee. And if He say to thee, Thou art a sinner,\n     say, Lord, I stretch forth the death of our Lord Jesus Christ\n     between my sins and Thee. If He say, Thou art worthy of\n     condemnation, say, Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus\n     Christ between my evil deserts and Thee, and His merits I\n     offer for those merits which I ought to have, but have not of\n     my own. If He say that He is wroth with thee, say, Lord, I\n     lift up the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between Thy wrath\n     and me.\"--ANSELM.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nCONCERNING HIS OWN DEATH\n\n     _\"The Son of Man came ... to give His life a ransom for\n     many.\"_--MARK X. 45.\n\n\nThe death of Jesus Christ has always held the foremost place in the\nthought and teaching of the Church. When St. Paul writes to the\nCorinthians, \"I delivered unto you first of all that which also I\nreceived, how that Christ died for our sins according to the\nScriptures,\" he is the spokesman of every Christian preacher and\nteacher, of the missionary of the twentieth century no less than of the\nfirst. It is with some surprise, therefore, we discover when we turn to\nthe teaching of Jesus Himself, that He had so little to say concerning a\nsubject of which His disciples have said so much. It is true that the\nGospels, without exception, relate the story of Christ's death with a\nfullness and detail which, in any other biography, would be judged\nabsurdly out of proportion. But this, it is said, reveals the mind of\nthe evangelists rather than the mind of Christ. And those who love that\nfalse comparison between the Gospels and the Epistles of which so much\nis heard to-day, have not been slow to seize upon this apparent\ndiscrepancy as another example of the way in which the Church has\nmisunderstood and misinterpreted the simple message of the Galilean\nProphet.\n\nBut, in the first place, as I will show in a moment, the contrast\nbetween the Gospels and Epistles in this matter is by no means so\nsharply defined as is often supposed. And further, granting that there\nis a contrast--that what in the Gospels is only a hint or suggestion,\nbecomes in the Epistles a definite and formal statement--it is one which\nadmits of a simple and immediate explanation. Christ--this was Dr.\nDale's way of putting it--did not come to preach the gospel; He came\nthat there might be a gospel to preach. This must not be pressed so far\nas to imply that it is only the death and not also the life of Christ\nthat has any significance for us to-day; but if that death had any\nsignificance in it at all, if it was anything more to Him than death is\nto us, if it stood in any sort of relation to us men and our salvation,\nmanifestly the teaching which should make this plain would more\nfittingly follow than precede the death. And they at least who accept\nChrist's words, \"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot\nbear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall\nguide you into all truth\"--they, I say, who accept these words can find\nno difficulty in believing that part of the revelation which it was the\ngood pleasure of the Father to give to us in His Son, came through the\nlips of men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Moreover,\nwhen we turn to the Gospels we see at once that the interpretation of\nChrist's death was just one of those things which the disciples as yet\nwere unable to bear. The point is so important that it is worth while\ndwelling upon it for a moment. So far were the Twelve from being able to\nunderstand their Lord's death, that they would not even believe that He\nwas going to die. \"Be it far from Thee, Lord,\" cried Peter, when Christ\nfirst distinctly foretold His approaching end; \"this shall never be unto\nThee.\" When, at another time, He said unto His disciples, \"Let these\nwords sink into your ears; for the Son of Man shall be delivered up into\nthe hands of men,\" St. Luke adds, \"But they understood not this saying.\"\nAnd again, after another and similar prophecy, the evangelist writes\nwith significant reiteration, \"They understood none of these things; and\nthis saying was hid from them, and they perceived not the things that\nwere said.\" So was it all through those last months of our Lord's life.\nHis thoughts were not their thoughts, neither were His ways their ways.\nThey followed Him as He pressed along the highway, His face steadfastly\nset to go up to Jerusalem, but they could not understand Him. Why, if as\nHe had said, death waited Him there, did He go to seek it? Think what\nutter powerlessness to enter even a little way into His thoughts is\nrevealed in a scene like this: Two of His disciples, James and John,\ncame to Him to ask Him that they might sit, one on His right hand, and\none on His left hand, in His glory. Jesus said unto them, \"Ye know not\nwhat ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be\nbaptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?\" And they said unto\nHim, \"We are able.\" What could Jesus do with ignorance like\nthis--ignorance that knew not its own ignorance? He could be \"sorry for\ntheir childishness\"; but how could He show them the mystery of His\nPassion? What could He do but wait until the Cross, and the empty grave,\nand the gift of Pentecost had done their revealing and enlightening\nwork?\n\nAt the same time, as I have already pointed out, it is altogether a\nmistake to suppose that Christ has left us on this subject wholly to the\nguidance of others. From the very beginning of His ministry the end was\nbefore Him, and as it drew nearer He spoke of it continually. At first\nHe was content to refer to it in language purposely vague and\nmysterious. Just as a mother who knows herself smitten with a sickness\nwhich is unto death, will sometimes try by shadowed hints to prepare her\nchildren for what is coming, while yet she veils its naked horror from\ntheir eyes, so did Jesus with His disciples. \"Can the sons of the\nbride-chamber fast,\" He asked once, \"while the bridegroom is with them?\n... But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from\nthem, and then will they fast in that day.\" But from the time of Peter's\ngreat confession at C\u00e6sarea Philippi all reserve was laid aside, and\nChrist told His disciples plainly of the things which were to come to\npass: \"From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that\nHe must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and\nchief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised\nup.\" And if we will turn to any one of the first three Gospels, we shall\nfind, as Dr. Denney says, that that which \"characterized the last months\nof our Lord's life was a deliberate and thrice-repeated attempt to teach\nHis disciples something about His death.\"[19] Let me try, very briefly,\nto set forth some of the things which He said.\n\n\nI\n\n\nFirst of all, then, _Christ died as a faithful witness to the truth._\nLike the prophets and the Baptist before Him, whose work and whose end\nwere so often in His thoughts, He preached righteousness to an\nunrighteous world, and paid with His life the penalty of His daring.\nThat is the very lowest view which can be taken of His death. No\nUnitarian, no unbeliever, will deny that Jesus died as a good man,\nchoosing rather the shame of the Cross than the deeper shame of treason\nto the truth. And thus far Christ is an example to all who follow Him.\nIn one sense His cross-bearing was all His own, a mystery of suffering\nand death into which no man can enter. But in another sense, as St.\nPeter tells us, He has left us by His sufferings an example that we\nshould follow His steps. It is surely a significant fact that the words\nwhich immediately follow Christ's first distinct declaration of His\ndeath are these, \"If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself,\nand take up his cross and follow Me.\" His death was the supreme\nillustration of a law which binds us, the servants, even as it bound\nHim, the Master. In the path of every true man there stands the cross\nwhich he must bear, or be true no more. Let no one grow impatient and\nsay this is no more than the fringe of Christ's thoughts about His\ndeath; even the fringe is part of the robe, and if, as the words I have\nquoted seem clearly to indicate, Christ thought of His death as in any\nsense at all a pattern for us, let us not miss this, the first and\nsimplest lesson of the Cross.\n\nThere are few more impressive scenes in the history of the Christian\npulpit than that in which Robertson of Brighton, preaching the Assize\nSermon at Lewes, turned as he closed to the judges, and counsel, and\njury, and bade them remember, by \"the trial hour of Christ,\" by \"the\nCross of the Son of God,\" the sacred claims of truth: \"The first lesson\nof the Christian life is this, Be true; and the second this, Be true;\nand the third this, Be true.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nBut though this be our starting-point, it is no more than a starting-point.\nIf Jesus was only a brave man, paying with His life the penalty\nof His bravery in the streets of Jerusalem, it is wasting words to call\nHim \"the Saviour of the world.\" If His death were only a martyrdom,\nthen, though we may honour Him as we honour Socrates, and many another\nname in the long roll of \"the noble army of martyrs,\" yet He can no more\nbe our Redeemer than can any one of them. But it was not so that Christ\nthought of His death. The martyr dies because he must; Christ died\nbecause He would. The strong hands of violent men snatch away the\nmartyr's life from him; but no man had power to take away Christ's life\nfrom Him: \"I lay it down of Myself,\" He said. The Son of Man _gave_ His\nlife. He was not dragged as an unwilling victim to the sacrifice and\nbound upon the altar. He was both Priest and Victim; as the apostle puts\nit, \"He gave Himself up.\" True, the element of necessity was there--\"the\nSon of Man _must_ be lifted up\"; but it was the \"must\" of His own love,\nnot of another's constraint. Not Roman nails or Roman thongs held Him to\nthe Cross, but His own loving will. It is important to emphasize this\nfact of the _voluntariness_ of our Lord's death, because at once it sets\nthe Cross in a clearer light. It changes martyrdom into sacrifice; and\nChrist's death, instead of being merely a fate which He suffered,\nbecomes now, as Principal Fairbairn says, a work which He\nachieved--_the_ work which He came into the world to do: \"The Son of Man\ncame ... to give His life.\"[20]\n\n\nIII\n\n\nAgain, Christ taught us that His death was _the crowning revelation of\nthe love of God for man._ And it is well to remind ourselves of our need\nof such a revelation. We speak sometimes as though the love of God was a\nself-evident truth altogether independent of the facts of New Testament\nhistory. \"God is love\"--of course, we say; this at least we are sure of,\nwhatever becomes of the history. But this jaunty assurance will not bear\nlooking into. The truth is that, apart from Christ, we have no certainty\nof the love of God. A man may cry aloud in our ears, \"God is love, God\nis love\"; but if he have no more to say than that, the most emphatic\nreiteration will avail us nothing. But if he can say, \"God is love, and\nHe so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son\"; if, that is\nto say, he can point us to the Divine love made manifest in life, then\nhe is proclaiming a gospel indeed. But let us not deceive ourselves and\nimagine that we can have Christ's gospel apart from Christ.\n\nNow, according to the teaching of the Gospels, all Christ's life--all He\nwas and said and did--is a revelation of the love of God. But the crown\nof the revelation was given in His death. It is the Cross which was, in\na special and peculiar sense, as Christ Himself declared,[21] the glory\nboth of the Father and the Son. And the apostles, with a unanimity which\ncan only be explained as the result of His own teaching, always\nassociate God's love with Christ's death in a way in which they never\nassociate God's love with Christ's life. \"God,\" says St. Paul,\n\"commendeth His own love toward us, in that ... Christ died for us.\"\n\nChrist's death, then, we say, establishes the love of God. But how does\nthis come to pass? How does the death of one prove the love of another?\nIf--to use a very simple illustration--I am in danger of drowning, and\nanother man, at the cost of his own life, saves mine, his act\nundoubtedly proves his own love; but how does it prove anything\nconcerning God's love? If the apostle had said, \"_Christ_ commendeth His\nown love towards us, in that He died for us,\" we could have understood\nhim; but how, I ask again, does Christ's death prove _God's_ love? The\nquestion is answerable, as indeed the whole of the New Testament is\nintelligible, only on the assumption of the Trinitarian doctrine of\nChrist. If Christ were indeed the Son of God, standing to God in such a\nrelation that what He did was likewise the doing of God the Father, we\ncan understand the apostle's meaning. On any other hypothesis his\nlanguage is a riddle of which the key has been lost. A further question\nstill remains to be answered. I said just now that if St. Paul had\nwritten, \"_Christ_ commendeth His own love towards us, in that He died\nfor us,\" we could have understood Him. But here, also, something is\nimplicit which requires to be made explicit. How does Christ in His\ndeath prove His love for us? Obviously, only in one way: by bearing\nresponsibilities which must otherwise have fallen upon us. There must\nbe, as Dr. Denney rightly argues, some rational relation between our\nnecessities and what Christ has done before we can speak of His act as a\nproof of His love. If, to borrow the same writer's illustration, a man\nlose his own life in saving me from drowning, this is love to the\nuttermost; but if, when I was in no peril, he had thrown himself into\nthe water and got drowned \"to prove his love for me,\" the deed and its\nexplanation would be alike unintelligible. We must take care when we\nspeak of the death of Christ that we do not make it equally meaningless.\nHow Christ Himself thought of it as related to the necessities of sinful\nmen, the next and last division of this chapter will, I hope, make\nplain.\n\n\nIV\n\n\n_\"The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many;\" \"This is My\nblood of the covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins.\"_\nThese are the two great texts which reveal to us the mind of Christ\nconcerning the significance of His death. There has been much discussion\nof their meaning into which it is impossible here to enter. But whatever\nquestions modern scholarship may raise, there can be little doubt as to\nthe sense in which Christ's words were understood by the first\ndisciples. \"His own self,\" said Peter, \"bare our sins in His body upon\nthe tree.\" \"Herein is love,\" said John, \"not that we loved God, but that\nHe loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.\" He\n\"loved me,\" said Paul, \"and gave Himself for me.\" It is open, doubtless,\nto question the legitimacy of these apostolic deductions, and to fall\nback upon Matthew Arnold's _Aberglaube;_ but who, it has been well said,\n\"are most likely to have correctly apprehended the significance which\nJesus attached to His death, men like John and Peter and Paul, or an\nequal number of scholars in our time, however discerning and candid, who\nundertake to reconstruct the thoughts of Jesus, and to disentangle them\nfrom the supposed subjective reflections of His disciples? Where is the\nsubjectivity likely to be the greatest--in the interpretations of the\neye and ear witness, or in the reconstructions of the moderns?\"[22]\n\nChrist gave His life \"a ransom for many.\" The truth cannot be put too\nsimply: \"God forgives our sins because Christ died for them;\" \"in that\ndeath of Christ our condemnation came upon Him, that for us there might\nbe condemnation no more;\" \"the forfeiting of His free life has freed our\nforfeited lives.\"[23]\n\n    \"Bearing shame and scoffing rude,\n     In my place condemned He stood;\n     Sealed my pardon with His blood;\n        Alleluia! what a Saviour!\"\n\nIf this is true, the New Testament has a meaning, and, what is more, we\nsinful men have a gospel. If it is not true, it is difficult to know why\nthe New Testament was written, and still more difficult to know what we\nmust do to be saved. It does not help to point us to the parable of the\nProdigal Son, and tell us that there is a story of salvation without an\natonement. The whole gospel cannot be put into a parable, not even into\nsuch a parable as this. Besides, if the argument proves anything, it\nproves too much. The parable is not only a story of salvation without an\natonement, it is a story of salvation without Christ; and if no more is\nneeded than what is given here, Christ Himself is no part of His own\ngospel, forgiveness can be had with no reference to Him. But it is not\nso the redeemed have learned Christ; it is not thus they have received\nforgiveness. They _know_ that it is \"in Him\" they have their redemption,\nthrough His blood; and apart from Him there is no salvation and no\ngospel.\n\nIt is time to bring our reasonings to an end. We are under the shadow of\nthe Cross; let us worship and adore. When Christ died on the tree\nnineteen hundred years ago, there were some that mocked, and some that\nwatched and yet saw nothing--nothing but a miserable criminal's\nmiserable end; a few there were that wept, and one there was who cried,\nwith lips already white with death, \"Jesus, remember me when Thou comest\nin Thy kingdom.\" And still does that Cross divide men. Where is our\nplace, and with whom are we? Not, I think, with them that mock; for\nthese to-day are a broken and discredited few. We choose rather the\ncenturion's cry, \"Certainly this was a righteous man.\" But is this all\nwe have to say? He who gave His life-blood for us, shall He have no more\nthan this--the little penny-pieces of our respect? If we owe Him aught\nwe owe Him all; and if we give Him aught let us give Him all--not our\nthanks but our souls. \"He loved _me_, and gave Himself up for _me_\"--\nthere is the secret of the Cross which no man knows save he who cannot\nspeak of it without the personal pronouns. Until then we are but as\nblind watchers that look and see not. \"Jesus, remember me\"--this is the\nword that becomes us best. Let us cry unto Him now, and He who heard the\nrobber's prayer on the Cross will hear and save us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE HOLY SPIRIT\n\n\n    \"Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,\n    And lighten with celestial fire;\n    Thou the Anointing Spirit art,\n    Who dost Thy sevenfold gifts impart.\n    Thy blessed unction from above\n    Is comfort, life, and fire of love:\n    Enable with perpetual light\n    The dullness of our blinded sight;\n    Anoint and cheer our soiled face\n    With the abundance of Thy grace;\n    Keep far our foes; give peace at home;\n    Where Thou art guide no ill can come;\n    Teach us to know the Father, Son,\n    And Thee of Both, to be but One:\n    That, through the ages all along,\n    This, this may be our endless song,\n        'Praise to Thy eternal merit,\n        Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!'\"\n                       Amen!\n                        BISHOP JOHN COSIN.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nV\n\n\nCONCERNING THE HOLY SPIRIT\n\n     _\"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another\n     Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit\n     of truth.\"_--JOHN xiv. 16.\n\n     _\"It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not\n     away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I\n     will send Him unto you.\"_--JOHN xvi. 7.\n\n\nIt was the night in which He was betrayed. Jesus and His disciples were\nspending their last hours together before His death. For Him the morrow\ncould bring with it no surprise. He knew that His hour was come--the\nhour to which all other hours of His past had pointed; and He was ready.\nBefore He left that Upper Room, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and\nsaid, \"Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son.\" But to the disciples\nthat night was a night of darkness, and terror, and confusion. They\nremembered how He had told them He must die; they knew the bloodhounds\nin Jerusalem were on His track; they could see the shadow's black edge\ncreeping nearer and nearer; and yet they could do nothing; they could\nnot even persuade Him that anything needed to be done. Nay, it almost\nseemed as if He were taking part with His enemies against them. \"It is\nexpedient for you,\" He said, \"that I go away\"--veiling in His pity the\nhorror of His going. \"Expedient\" for them? How could He speak like that?\nWas He not everything to them? If He went away, what was to befall them?\nThey would be as sheep in the midst of wolves, as orphans in an unkindly\nworld. Is it any wonder that sorrow filled their hearts?\n\nAnd not only to these His first disciples, but to many of His followers\nin later days, this word of Jesus has proved a hard saying. If only, we\nthink, He were with us as He was with Peter and James and John; if only\nwe could hear Him teach in our streets, or in our church, as once He\ntaught in the streets of Jerusalem and the synagogue at Nazareth; if\nonly He could enter our homes, as once He entered the home at Bethany,\nhow easy it would be to believe! But, now He is no longer here, the air\nis filled with doubting voices, and faith is very hard.\n\nSo sometimes we speak. But, have we noticed, this is never the language\nof the New Testament. To begin with, it is not the language of Christ.\nThere is an unmistakable emphasis in His words: \"Because I have spoken\nthese things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I\ntell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away.\" When Paul\nwas a prisoner in Rome, he wrote to the Philippians, saying, \"I am in a\nstrait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ;\nfor it is very far better; yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for\nyour sake.\" That is how a good man, in the prospect of death, naturally\nfeels towards those who are in any way dependent on him. But Christ's\nlanguage is the very opposite of this; He says, not that it is needful\nto abide, but that it is expedient to depart. And in every reference to\nChrist by the apostles after His Ascension, the same note is struck. It\nis hardly too much to say, as one writer does, \"that no apostle, no New\nTestament writer, ever _remembered_ Christ.\"[24] They thought of Him as\nbelonging, not to the past, but to the present; He was the object, not\nof memory, but of faith. Never do they wish Him back in their midst;\nnever do they mourn for Him as for a friend whom they have lost. On the\ncontrary, they felt that Christ was with them now in a sense in which He\nhad never been. There is no hint that any even of the Twelve would have\ngone back to the old days had it been possible. They had lost, but they\nhad also gained, and their gain was greater than their loss. \"Even\nthough we have known Christ after the flesh,\" they also would have said,\n\"yet now we know Him so no more.\" Read over again St. Luke's account of\nour Lord's Ascension: \"He led them out until they were over against\nBethany; and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And it came to\npass, while He blessed them, He parted from them, and was carried up\ninto heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with\ngreat joy; and were continually in the temple, blessing God.\" Christ had\ngone from them a second time, no more to return as before He had\nreturned from the tomb; yet now it is not despair but joy which fills\ntheir hearts: \"They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.\" When in the\nUpper Room, Christ had said, \"It is expedient for you that I go away,\"\nsorrow had filled their hearts; but, now that He is gone, their sorrow\nis turned into joy. How shall we explain this strange reversal?\n\n\nI\n\n\nIt is to be explained in part, of course, by the Resurrection of Christ\nfrom the dead, but mainly--and this is the fact with which just now we\nare concerned--by the gift of the Holy Spirit whom Christ had promised\nto His disciples to abide with them for ever. But now, what do we mean\nwhen we speak of the gift of the Holy Spirit? What is the Holy Spirit,\nand what is it that He does for us? Many of us, I think, must have felt\nhow extremely unreal, and therefore unsatisfying, the discussions of\nthis great subject often are. The doctrine somehow fails to find a place\namong the proved realities of our Christian experience. It remains, so\nto speak, outside of us, a foreign substance which life has not\nassimilated. And hence it has come to pass that there is no small danger\nto-day lest New Testament phrases about being filled with the Spirit,\nbaptized with the Spirit, and so forth, become the mere jargon of a\nschool which wholly fails to interpret the mind of Christ. Doubtless\nthere are faults on both sides, the faults of neglect and the faults of\nfalse emphasis, and for both the true remedy is a more careful study of\nthe teaching of Jesus.\n\nWhat, then, is the Holy Spirit, and what is it He does for us? \"I will\npray the Father,\" Christ said, \"and He shall give you another\nComforter,\" or \"another Paraclete.\" The word translated \"Comforter,\"\nwhich occurs so often in this discourse of our Lord, is found nowhere\nelse in the New Testament except in the First Epistle of St. John, where\nit is rendered \"Advocate\"; \"If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the\nFather, Jesus Christ, the righteous.\" And this, without doubt, is a more\nfaithful rendering of the word which Christ used than the more familiar\n\"Comforter.\" An advocate is one who is called to our side to be our\nfriend and helper, more especially to plead our cause in a court of\njustice; and this also is the meaning of the word \"Paraclete.\" Perhaps,\nhowever, the word \"Comforter\" may be retained without loss, if only we\nremember to give it its full and original meaning. To \"comfort\" is not\nprimarily and originally to console, but to strengthen, to _fort_ify;\nand the \"Comforter\" whom Christ promised to His disciples was not only\none who should soothe them in their sorrows, but should stand by them in\nall their conflicts, their unfailing friend and helper.\n\nFurther, Christ said God \"shall give you _another_ Comforter.\" That is\nto say, Christ Himself was a Comforter, and all that He had been to His\ndisciples the Holy Spirit should be also. And, if we examine the three\nchapters of this Gospel which contain this great discourse of our Lord,\nwe shall find this idea taken up, and repeated, and developed in passage\nafter passage. The Holy Spirit was to come in Christ's name, as Christ's\nrepresentative and interpreter. \"He shall not speak from Himself,\"\nChrist said; \"He shall bear witness of Me. He shall glorify Me; for He\nshall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.\" In the presence of\nthe Spirit Christ Himself would be present: \"I will not leave you\ndesolate,\" He said; \"I come unto you;\" \"I will see you again, and your\nheart shall rejoice.\" And, for the sake of such a presence, a presence\nwhich was to be not for a little while but for ever, it was best for His\nfriends that He should leave them.[25]\n\nIt is in these words, I believe, that we have the key to the New\nTestament doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the Spirit of\nChrist; He is sent by Christ; He comes to continue the work of Christ.\nHe is, as one writer has it, Christ's _alter ego_, or, as it was said\nlong ago, Christ's \"Vicar,\" or substitute, on the earth.[26] When,\ntherefore, we speak of the presence of the Spirit, what we mean, or what\nwe ought to mean, is the spiritual presence of Christ. In the Holy\nSpirit Christ Himself is present, wherever, as He said, two or three are\ngathered together in His name. In the Holy Spirit, given to be with us\nfor ever, He makes good to His disciples the great word of His promise,\n\"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\" This is the\nfact continually to be kept in mind--the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ;\nfor, if this be forgotten, then, as all experience shows, either the\ndoctrine is wholly ignored, or it is made the subject of that vague,\nunreal way of speaking, which, alas! is so often the bane of spiritual\ntruth.\n\nAt the same time, what has been said must not be interpreted so as to\nsuggest that the Holy Spirit is merely an impersonal influence. On the\ncontrary, the words of our Lord quoted above distinctly imply what we\ncall \"personality,\" and a personality separate from His own. If all that\nJesus really meant to teach was that He would manifest His own invisible\npresence to His disciples by spiritual influences, we can only conclude\nthat His words have been tampered with; as they stand, it is impossible\nthat this should exhaust their meaning. To teach, to bear witness, to\nguide, to bring to remembrance, to declare the things that are to\ncome,--these are the acts, not of a Power, but of a Person; and all\nthese things, Christ said, the Holy Spirit should do. Indeed, it is not\neasy to see how language could have been framed to set forth the idea of\na Divine Person, separate alike from the Father and the Son, more\nexplicitly than we find it in these chapters.[27]\n\n\nII\n\n\nWe turn now to the second part of our question: What is it that the Holy\nSpirit does for us? Christ's teaching on the work of the Spirit may be\ngathered up under two heads: (1) His work in the Church; (2) His work in\nthe world.\n\n(1) When we speak of the Spirit's work in the Church, it must be\nunderstood that the reference is to no particular ecclesiastical\norganization, but to the people of Christ generally, \"the men and women\nin whom the spiritual work of Christ is going forward.\" And among these\nthe Holy Spirit works in two ways.\n\n(_a_) He is the Spirit of truth, the Divine Remembrancer: \"He shall\nguide you into all the truth;\" \"He shall take of Mine, and shall declare\nit unto you;\" \"He shall teach you all things, and bring to your\nremembrance all that I said unto you.\" It is not, it will be observed,\nall truth, but all the truth of Christ, with which the Spirit deals--the\ntruth concerning Him, and the truth which He taught. Nor is it a new\nrevelation which the Spirit gives, but rather a more perfect\nunderstanding of that which has been already given in Christ. Here,\nthen, is the test by which to try all that claims the authority of\nspiritual truth. Does it \"glorify\" Christ? Does it lead us into a fuller\nknowledge of Him \"in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge\nhidden\"? \"Whosoever goeth onward,\" says St. John, in a remarkable\npassage, for which English readers are indebted to the Revised Version,\n\"and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God.\" In other\nwords, no true progress is possible except as we abide in Christ. If He\nbe ignored and left behind, though we still keep the name and boast\nourselves \"progressives,\" we have lost the reality. On the other hand,\nevery new discovery, every movement in the life of men, every\nintellectual and spiritual awakening which serves to make manifest the\nglory of Christ as Creator, or Revealer, or Redeemer, is a fresh\nfulfilment of His promise concerning the guiding Spirit of truth.\nPerhaps our best commentary is the history of the Church. In the New\nTestament itself we have the first-fruits of the Spirit's work. There we\nmay see, in Gospels and Epistles, how the Spirit took of the things of\nChrist and showed them unto His disciples. And all through the varied\nhistory of the Church's long past, that same Divine Remembrancer has\nbeen at work, calling us through the lips of an Augustine, a Luther, or\na Wesley, into the fullness of the inheritance of truth which is ours in\nChrist Jesus.\n\n(_b_) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of power. \"Behold,\" said the\nascending Christ, \"I send forth the promise of My Father upon you; but\ntarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high.\" And,\nagain, \"Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you.\"\nOf Jesus Himself it was said by one of His disciples \"that God anointed\nHim with the Holy Ghost and with power\"; and of His disciples Jesus\nsaid: \"He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall He do also;\nand greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.\"\nHere, again, our best commentary is the history of the Church, and\nespecially the first chapter of that history as it is written in the\nActs of the Apostles. This was the promise, \"Ye shall receive power,\"\nand this, in brief, the story of its fulfilment, \"With great power gave\nthe apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.\" Let\nany one read the early chapters of St. Luke's narrative; let him mark\nthe utter disparity between the \"acts\" and the \"apostles\"--between the\nthings done and the men by whom they were done--and then let him ask if\nthere is any explanation which does really bridge the gulf short of\nthis, that behind Peter and John and the rest there stood Another,\nspeaking through their lips, working through their hands, Himself the\nreal Doer in all those wondrous \"acts\"? When D.L. Moody was holding in\nBirmingham one of those remarkable series of meetings which so deeply\nstirred our country in the early 'seventies, Dr. Dale, who followed the\nwork with the keenest sympathy, and yet not without a feeling akin to\nstupefaction at the amazing results which it produced, once told Moody\nthat the work was most plainly of God, for he could see no real relation\nbetween him and what he had done. Is not this disparity the very\nsign-manual of the Holy Spirit's presence? \"Why,\" asked Peter, when the\nmultitude were filled with wonder and amazement at the healing of the\nlame man, \"Why fasten ye your eyes on us as though by our own power or\ngodliness we had made him to walk?\" Work that is really of God can never\nbe accounted for in that fashion. There is always a something in the\neffects which cannot be traced back to a human cause. Let \"our own power\nand godliness\" be what they may--and they can never be too great--they\nare all vain and helpless apart from the power of God. \"I planted,\nApollos watered; God gave the increase.\" Wherefore let the Church trust\nneither in him that planteth nor in him that watereth, but in God who\ngiveth the increase.\n\n(2) We come now to the Holy Spirit's work in the world. And, just as in\nspeaking of the \"Church\" it was not any visible organization which we\nhad in mind, so now by the \"world\" is not meant merely the persons who\nare outside all such organizations. There is, as we are often reminded\nnowadays, a Church outside the Churches; and, on the other hand, not a\nlittle of what Christ meant by the \"world\" is often to be found inside\nwhat we mean by the \"Church.\" The \"world,\" then, is simply the mass of\nmen, wherever they are to be found, who are living apart from God. Now,\nof this world Christ said it \"cannot receive\" the Spirit of truth; \"it\nbeholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.\" If, therefore, there is a\nministry of the Spirit in the world, it must be wholly different in kind\nfrom that spoken of above. And this is what we learn from Christ's\nteaching: \"He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of\nsin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.\" There is a ring of judicial\nsternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a\ncourt of justice--the indictment, the conviction, the condemnation. And\nyet one can well believe that there were hours in the after life of the\napostles when, of all the comforting, reassuring words which Christ had\nspoken to them in that Upper Room, there were none more helpful than\nthese. For they knew now that, when they stood up to bear their witness\nbefore a hostile world, they had a fellow-witness in men's hearts. They\ncould go nowhere--in Jerusalem, Jud\u00e6a, Samaria, or the uttermost parts\nof the earth--where the gracious ministries of the Spirit had not\npreceded them. He, the Paraclete, was not only with them, their\n\"strong-siding Champion,\" He was in the world also, in the hearts even\nof them who set themselves most stoutly against the Lord and against His\nAnointed, subduing their rebelliousness and reconciling them to God. We\nwho teach and preach to-day, do we think of these things as we ought?\nDoes not our message sometimes win a response which is at once a\nsurprise and a rebuke to us? We knew that the seed which we cast into\nthe ground was the word of God; but the soil seemed so poor and thin we\nscarce had looked for any harvest; yet the seed sprang up and grew, we\nknew not how. We had forgotten that over all that wide field which is\nthe world the Divine Husbandman is ever at work, at work while men\nsleep, breaking up the fallow ground, and making ready the soil for the\nseed. We need to learn to count more on God, to grasp more fully the\nglorious breadth of promise which He has given us in His Spirit, to\nremember that, not only in the Church, but in the world--which is His\nworld--that Spirit is always present to testify of God, to convict men\nof sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.\n\nAnd yet, while we encourage ourselves with thoughts like these, we dare\nnot forget that men may resist, they may grieve, they may quench the\nHoly Spirit. He is grieved whensoever He is resisted; He may be resisted\nuntil He is quenched. It was Christ Himself who spoke of a sin against\nthe Holy Spirit which \"hath never forgiveness.\" Is there any more\npainful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that\nman can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible\nand inevitable issues? \"Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and\nears,\" cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, \"ye do always resist the\nHoly Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.\" And the end for their\nfathers and for them we know. Wherefore the Holy Spirit saith: \"To-day,\nif ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD\n\n\n     \"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but\n     righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.\"--ST. PAUL.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nCONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD\n\n     \"_Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on\n     earth._\"--MATT. vi. 10.\n\n\nI\n\n\nOne of the most obvious features of the teaching of Jesus is the\nprominence which it gives to what is called \"the kingdom of heaven,\" or,\n\"the kingdom of God.\" And this prominence becomes the more striking when\nwe turn from the Gospels to the Epistles where the phrase is only rarely\nto be found. With Jesus the kingdom was a kind of watchword which was\ncontinually on His lips. Thus, _e.g._, St. Mark begins his account of\nthe preaching of Jesus in these words: \"After that John was delivered\nup, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God and saying, The\ntime is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and\nbelieve in the Gospel.\" In like manner, St. Matthew tells us that \"Jesus\nwent about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching\nthe gospel of the kingdom.\" Parable after parable opens with the formula\n\"The kingdom of heaven is like unto--,\" or, \"So is the kingdom of God as\nif--,\" or, \"How shall we liken the kingdom of God?\" When Christ sent\nforth the Twelve, this was His command, \"Go ... and as ye go, preach,\nsaying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.\" Again, when He sent forth the\nSeventy, He said, \"Into whatsoever city ye enter ... say unto them, The\nkingdom of God is come nigh unto you.\" And in the great Forty Days,\nbefore He was received up, it was still of \"the things concerning the\nkingdom of God\" that He spake unto His disciples. Every time a little\nchild is baptized we call to mind His words, \"For of such is the kingdom\nof God.\" Every time we repeat the prayer He taught His disciples to pray\nwe say, \"Thy kingdom come.\" In all, it is said, there are no less than\none hundred and twelve references to the kingdom to be found in the\nGospels.\n\nWhen, however, we turn to the Epistles what do we find? In the whole of\nSt. Paul's Epistles the kingdom is not named as often as in the briefest\nof the four Gospels. It is mentioned only once by St. Peter, once by St.\nJames, once by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and not at all\nin the three Epistles of St. John. Not only so, but at least until quite\nrecent times, the Church of Christ has in the main followed the lead of\nthe apostles, and has said but little of the kingdom of God. How is this\nto be explained? Does it mean that the whole Church of Christ, including\nthe Church of the apostles, has failed to understand the mind of the\nMaster, and has let slip an essential element of His teaching? So some\nrecent writers do not hesitate to declare. Burke once said that he did\nnot know how to draw up an indictment against a whole people; but these,\napparently, have no difficulty in drawing up an indictment against the\nwhole Church. \"With all respect to the great Apostle,\" writes one of\nthem, \"one may be allowed to express his regret that St. Paul has not\nsaid less about the Church and more about the Kingdom.\"[28] To which I\nhope one may be forgiven if he is tempted to retort that the great\napostle probably knew what he was about as well as his modern critic can\ntell him. We shall do well to pause, and pause again, before we accept\nany interpretation of the facts of the New Testament which implies that\nwe to-day have a better understanding of the mind of Christ than the\napostles had. For my own part, whenever I come across any writer who\ntries to correct Paul by Jesus, I find it safest to assume that he has\nmisread Paul, or Jesus, or both. Moreover, though we need make no claim\nof infallibility for the Church, yet, if we believe in a Holy Spirit\ngiven to guide the disciples of Christ into all the truth of Christ, we\nshall find it difficult to believe at the same time that the whole\nChurch has from the beginning missed the right way, and in a matter so\nimportant as this, failed to apprehend the thought of Christ.\n\nWe are not, however, shut up to any such unworthy conclusions. There is\nanother and sufficient explanation of the facts to which reference has\nbeen made. It was natural that Jesus, speaking in the first instance to\nJews, should move as far as possible within the circle of ideas with\nwhich they were already familiar. Now, no phrase had a more thoroughly\nfamiliar sound to Jewish ears than this of the kingdom of God. It\nneeded, of course, to be purified and enlarged before it could be made\nthe vehicle of the loftier ideas of Jesus. Still, the idea was there, \"a\npoint of attachment,\" as one writer says, in the minds of his hearers to\nwhich Jesus could fasten what He wished to say. But after our Lord's\nResurrection and Ascension, and especially after the fall of Jerusalem,\nthe whole condition of things was changed. A phrase which in the\nsynagogues of the Jews proved helpful and illumining, might easily\nbecome, among the populations of Asia Minor, of Greece, and of Italy, to\nwhom the gospel was now preached, useless, and even misleading. Is it\nany wonder, therefore, if the first Christian missionaries quietly\ndropped the old phrase and found others to take its place? Men who knew\nthemselves guided by the Spirit of Jesus would not feel compelled to\nquote the words of Jesus, if, under altered circumstances, other words\nmore fittingly expressed His thoughts.[29]\n\n\nII\n\n\nWhat did Jesus mean when He spoke of the kingdom of God? The idea as set\nforth in the Gospels is so complex, the phrase is used to cover so many\nand different conceptions, that it is practically impossible to frame a\ndefinition within which all the sayings of Jesus concerning the kingdom\ncan be included. The nearest approach to a definition which it is\nnecessary to attempt is suggested by the two petitions in the Lord's\nPrayer which are quoted above. The second petition explains the first:\nthe kingdom comes in proportion as men do on earth the will of God. For\nour present purpose, therefore, we may think of the kingdom as a\nspiritual commonwealth embracing all who do God's will. To much that\nChrist taught concerning the kingdom--its Head, its numbers, its growth\nand development--it is impossible, in one brief discourse, even to\nrefer. Here again, it must suffice to single out one or two points for\nspecial emphasis:\n\n(1) In the doctrine of the kingdom of God, we have set before us the\nsocial aspect of Christ's teaching; it reminds us of what we owe, not\nonly to Him who is its King, but to those who are our fellow-subjects.\nOf particular duties it is impossible to speak, though these, as we\nknow, fill a large place in the teaching of Jesus. But let us at least\nbring home to ourselves the thought of obligation, obligation involved\nin and springing out of our common relationship as members of the\nkingdom of God. The obligation is writ large on every page of the New\nTestament--in the Gospels, in the doctrine of the kingdom; in the\nEpistles, in the corresponding doctrine of the Church. It can hardly be\nsaid too often, that, according to the New Testament ideal, there are no\nunattached Christians. The apostles never conceive of religion as merely\na private matter between the soul and God. All true religion, as John\nWesley used to say, is not solitary but social. Its starting-point is\nthe individual, but its goal is a kingdom. Christ came to save men and\nwomen in order that through them He might build up a redeemed society in\nwhich the will of God should be done. We do, indeed, often hear of\nChristians whose religion begins and ends with getting their own souls\nsaved. This simply means that so far as it is true they are not yet\nChristian. To think only of oneself is to deny one of the first\nprinciples of the kingdom. Wesley taught the early Methodists to sing--\n\n    \"A charge to keep I have.\n      A God to glorify;\n    A never-dying soul to save,\n      And fit it for the sky;\"\n\nand some of his followers, both early and later, seem to have thought\nthat this was the whole of the hymn; but the verse goes on without a\nfull stop--\n\n    \"To serve the present age,\n      My calling to fulfil;\n    O may it all my powers engage\n      To do my Master's will!\"\n\nAnd until we who profess and call ourselves Christians have learned this\nlesson of service, and have entered into Christ's thought of the\nkingdom, with its interlacing network of obligations, we have still need\nthat some one teach us again the rudiments of the first principles of\nthe oracles of God.\n\n(2) Again, the kingdom of God, Christ taught, is _present_; it is not\nof, but it is in, this world, set up in the midst of the existing order\nof things. There are, it is true, passages in which Christ speaks of the\nkingdom as in the future, and to come. Thus, _e.g._, He speaks of a time\nwhen men \"shall come from the east and west, and from the north and\nsouth, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God\"; when \"the righteous\nshall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father\"; when they\nshall \"inherit the kingdom prepared for\" them \"from the foundation of\nthe world\"; and so forth. But there is no real contradiction between\nthis and what has been already said. The kingdom is a growth, a movement\nworking itself out in history, and therefore it may be said to be past,\npresent, or future, according to our point of view. In the sense that it\nhas not yet fully come, that its final consummation is still waited for,\nit is future; and so sometimes Christ speaks of it. But it is simply\nimpossible to do justice to all His sayings and deny that in His thought\nthe kingdom is also present. Its consummation may belong to the future,\nits beginnings are here already. When Christ calls it the kingdom of\n_heaven_, it is rather its origin and character that are suggested than\nthe sphere of its realization. In parable after parable He speaks of it\nas a secret silent energy already at work in the world. He called on men\nhere and now to seek it, and to enter it. So eagerly were the lost and\nthe perishing pressing into it that once He declared that from the days\nof John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffered violence. Not in some\nfuture heaven but here \"on earth\" He bade His disciples pray that God's\nwill might be done. \"When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven, be sure He\ndid not mean an unseen refuge, whither a handful might one day escape,\nlike persecuted and disheartened Puritans fleeing from a hopeless\nEngland, but He intended what might be and then was in Galilee, what\nshould be and now is in England.\"[30] \"Thy kingdom come\"--it is here on\nearth we must look for the answer to our prayer. And every man who\nhimself does, and in every possible way strives to get done, God's will\namong men, is Christ's co-worker and fellow-builder.\n\n    \"I will not cease from mental fight,\n       Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,\n    Till we have built Jerusalem\n       In England's green and pleasant land.\"\n\nThat is the spirit of all the true servants of Jesus.\n\n(3) But the most important fact concerning the kingdom in Christ's view\nof it is that it is _spiritual_. And, because it is spiritual, it failed\nwholly to satisfy the earth-bound ambitions of the Jews. For generations\nthey had fed their national pride with visions of a world obedient to\nIsrael's sway, and when one who claimed to be the Messiah nevertheless\ntold them plainly that His kingdom was not of this world, they turned\nfrom Him as from one that mocked. He and they both spoke of a kingdom of\nGod, but while they emphasized the \"kingdom\" He emphasized \"God.\" So\nwholly did men fail to enter into His mind that on one occasion two of\nHis own disciples came to Him asking that they might sit, one on the\nright hand, and one on the left hand in His glory. And even when He was\njust about to leave them, and to return to His Father, the old ambitions\nstill made themselves heard. \"Lord,\" said they, \"dost Thou at this time\nrestore again the kingdom to Israel?\" But with all such dreams of\ntemporal sovereignty Christ would have nothing to do; He had put them\nfrom Him, definitely and for ever, in the Temptation in the wilderness.\nHe completely reversed the current notions concerning the kingdom.\n\"Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God cometh, He\nanswered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation;\nneither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God\nis within you.\" And when self-complacent religious leaders flattered\nthemselves that, of course, the first places in the kingdom would be\ntheirs, He sternly warned them that they might find themselves\naltogether shut out while the publicans and harlots whom they despised\nwere admitted. Through all His teaching Christ laid the emphasis on\ncharacter. Pride, and love of power, and sordid ambitions, and all\nself-seeking--for these things, and for them that cherished these\nthings, the kingdom had no place. \"Blessed,\" Christ said, \"are the poor\nin spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.\" \"Except ye turn, and\nbecome as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of\nheaven.\" \"Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your\nminister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be servant of\nall\"--these are they that are accounted worthy of the kingdom of God.\n\nThe earliest account of Christ's preaching which has already been\nquoted, gives us the right point of view for the interpretation of\nChrist's idea of the kingdom as spiritual: \"Jesus came into Galilee,\npreaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the\nkingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe in the gospel.\" He had\ncome to establish a kingdom whose dominion should be for ever, against\nwhich the gates of hell should not prevail, and the foundation of it He\nlaid in the penitent and obedient hearts of men. This explains why\nChrist had so little to do with programmes, and so much to do with men.\nIf a man's right to the title of reformer be judged by the magnitude of\nthe revolution which he has effected, it is but bare justice to call Him\nthe greatest reformer who ever lived. Yet He put out no programme; He\nmade Himself the spokesman of no party, the advocate of no social or\npolitical reform. To the disappointment of His friends, as much as to\nthe confusion of His enemies, He absolutely refused to take sides on the\nvexed political questions of the hour. \"Unto Caesar,\" He said, \"render\nthe things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.\"\nBut on individuals He spent Himself to the uttermost. \"He is not only\nindifferent to numbers, but often seems disinclined to deal with\nnumbers. He sends the multitude away; He goes apart into a mountain with\nHis chosen disciples; He withdraws Himself from the throng in Jerusalem\nto the quiet home in Bethany; He discourses of the profoundest purposes\nof His mission with the Twelve in an upper room; He opens the treasures\nof His wisdom before one Pharisee at night, and one unresponsive woman\nby the well.\"[31] Always His work is done not by \"external organization\nor mass-movements or force of numbers,\" but from within: \"Repent ye and\nbelieve in the gospel.\"\n\nNow, this was the vary last kind of message that the Pharisees of\nChrist's day were looking for. They wanted the world put\nright--according to their own ideas of right--it is true; but to be told\nthat they must begin with themselves was not at all what they wanted.\nAre not many of us in the same case to-day? We are all eager for\nreforms, at least so long as they are from without. We have a touching\nfaith in the power of machinery and organization. We are quite sure that\nif Parliament would only pass this, that, and the other bit of\nlegislative reform, on which our hearts are set, the millennium would be\nhere, if not by the morning post, at least by the session's end. And\nthere is much, undoubtedly, that Parliament can and ought to do for us.\nNevertheless, was not Christ right? Instead of the old prayer, \"Create\nin me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,\" some of\nus, as one writer says, would rather pray, \"Create a better social\norder, O God; and renew a right relation between various classes of\nmen.\" We are ready to begin anywhere rather than with ourselves, at any\npoint in the big circumference rather than at the centre. \"I don't deny,\nmy friends,\" wrote Charles Kingsley to the Chartists, \"it is much\ncheaper and pleasanter to be reformed by the devil than by God; for God\nwill only reform society on the condition of our reforming every man his\nown self, while the devil is quite ready to help us to mend the laws and\nthe Parliament, earth and heaven, without ever starting such an\nimpertinent and 'personal' request as that a man should mend himself.\"\nYet without self-reform nothing is possible. \"The character of the\naggregate,\" says Herbert Spencer, \"is determined by the characters of\nthe units.\" And he illustrates thus: Suppose a man building with good,\nsquare, well-burnt bricks; without the use of mortar he may build a wall\nof a certain height and stability. But if his bricks are warped and\ncracked or broken, the wall cannot be of the same height and stability.\nIf again, instead of bricks he use cannon-balls then he cannot build a\nwall at all; at most, something in the form of a pyramid with a square\nor rectangular base. And if, once more, for cannon-balls we substitute\nrough, unhewn boulders, no definite stable form is possible. \"The\ncharacter of the aggregate is, determined by the characters of the\nunits.\" Every attempt to reconstruct society which leaves out of account\nthe character of the men and women who constitute society is foredoomed\nto failure. Behind every social problem stands the greater problem of\nthe individual, the redemption of character. We may get, as assuredly we\nought to get, better houses for the working-classes; but unless we also\nget better working-classes for the houses, we shall not have greatly\nmended matters. And no turn of the Parliamentary machine will produce\nthese for us. We can pass new laws; only the grace of God can make new\nmen. \"For my part,\" says Kingsley once more, speaking through the lips\nof his tailor-poet, \"I seem to have learnt that the only thing to\nregenerate the world is not more of any system, good or bad; but simply\nmore of the Spirit of God.\" \"_Except a man be born anew, he cannot see\nthe kingdom of God._\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING MAN\n\n\n    \"Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll\n    Round us, each with different powers,\n    And other forms of life than ours,\n    What know we greater than the soul?\"\n                       TENNYSON.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nCONCERNING MAN\n\n\n     \"_There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one\n     sinner that repenteth._\"--LUKE XV. 10.\n\n\nThis is one of many sayings of our Lord which reveal His sense of the\ninfinite worth of the human soul, which is the central fact in His\nteaching about man, and the only one with which in the present chapter\nwe shall be concerned. Other aspects of the truth will come into view in\nthe following chapter, when we come to consider Christ's teaching about\nsin.\n\n\nI\n\n\n\"The infinite worth of the human soul\"--this is a discovery the glory of\nwhich, it is no exaggeration to say, belongs wholly to Christ. It is\nsaid that one of the most magnificent diamonds in Europe, which to-day\nblazes in a king's crown, once lay for months on a stall in a piazza at\nRome labelled, \"Rock-crystal, price one franc.\" And it was thus that for\nages the priceless jewel of the soul lay unheeded and despised of men.\nBefore Christ came, men honoured the rich, and the great, and the wise,\nas we honour them now; but man as man was of little or no account. If\none had, or could get, a pedestal by which to lift himself above the\ncommon crowd, he might count for something; but if he had nothing save\nhis own feet to stand upon, he was a mere nobody, for whom nobody cared.\nWe turn to the teaching of Jesus, and what a contrast! \"Of how much more\nvalue,\" He said, \"are ye than the birds!\" \"How much then is a man\"--not\na rich man, not a wise man, not a Pharisee, but a man--\"of more value\nthan a sheep!\" \"What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole\nworld and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for\nhis soul?\" It was by thought-provoking questions such as these that\nJesus revealed His own thoughts concerning man. And, of course, when He\nspoke in this way about the soul, when He said that a man might gain the\nwhole world, but that if the price he paid for it were his soul, he was\nthe loser, He was not speaking of the souls of a select few, but of the\nsouls of all. Every man, every woman, every little child--all were\nprecious in His sight. It is man as man, Christ taught, that is of worth\nto God.\n\nConsider how much is involved in the bare fact that Christ came into the\nworld the son of a poor mother, and lived in it a poor man. \"A man's\nlife,\" He said, \"consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he\npossesseth.\" And the best commentary on the saying is just His own life;\nfor He had nothing. There is something very suggestive in Christ's use\nof the little possessive pronoun \"My.\" We know how we use the word.\nListen to the rich man in the parable: \"My fruits,\" \"my barns,\" \"my\ncorn,\" \"my goods.\" Now listen to Christ. He says: \"My Father,\" \"My\nChurch,\" \"My friends,\" \"My disciples\"; but He never says \"My house,\" \"My\nlands,\" \"My books.\" The one perfect life this earth has seen was the\nlife of One who owned nothing, and left behind Him nothing but the\nclothes He wore. And not only was Christ poor Himself, He spent His life\namong the poor. \"To believe that a man with \u00a360 a year,\" Canon Liddon\nonce said, \"is just as much worthy of respect as a man with \u00a36000, you\nmust be seriously a Christian.\" You must indeed. Yet that which is for\nus so hard never seems to have cost Christ a struggle. We cannot so much\nas think of mere money, more or less, counting for anything in His\nsight. The little artificial distinctions of society were to Him\nnothing, and less than nothing. He went to be guest with a man that was\na sinner. A woman that was a harlot He suffered to wash His feet with\nher tears, and to wipe them with her hair. \"This man,\" said His enemies,\nwith scorn vibrant in every word, \"receiveth sinners and eateth with\nthem.\" And they were right; but what they counted His deepest shame was\nin reality His chiefest glory.\n\nNow, what does all this mean but simply this, that it was for man as man\nthat Christ cared? Observe the difference in the point at which He and\nwe become interested in men. We are interested in them, for the most\npart, when, by their work, or their wealth, or their fame, they have\nadded something to themselves; in other words, we become interested when\nthey become interesting. But that which gave worth to man in Christ's\neyes lay beneath all these merely adventitious circumstances of his\nlife, in his naked humanity, in what he was, or might be, in himself.\nThis is why to Him all souls were dear. We love them that love us, the\nloving and the lovable; Christ loved the unloving and the unlovable. He\nwas named, and rightly named, \"Friend of publicans and sinners.\" Then\nwere bad men of worth to Christ? They were; for, as Tennyson says, \"If\nthere be a devil in man, there is an angel too.\" Christ saw the possible\nangel in the actual devil. He knew that the lost might be found, and the\nbad become good, and the prodigal return home; and He loved men, not\nonly for what they were, but for what they might be.\n\nIt would be easy to show that this high doctrine of man underlies, and\nis involved in, the whole life and work and teaching of Jesus. It is\ninvolved in the doctrine of God. Indeed, as Dr. Dale says, the Christian\ndoctrine of man is really a part of the Christian doctrine of God.[32]\nBecause God is a Father, every man is a son of God, or, rather, every\nman has within him the capacity for sonship. It is involved in the\ndoctrine of the Incarnation; that stupendous fact reveals not only the\ncondescension of God but the glory and exaltation of man. If God could\nbecome man, there must be a certain kinship between God and man; since\nGod has become man, our poor human nature has been thereby lifted up and\nglorified. The same great doctrine is implied in the truth of Christ's\natonement. When He who knew Himself to be the eternal Son of God spoke\nof His own life as the \"ransom\" for the forfeited lives of men, He\nrevealed once more how infinite is the worth of that which could be\nredeemed only at such tremendous cost.\n\nSuch, then, is Christ's teaching about man. And, as I have already said,\nit was a new thing in human history. Nowhere is the line which divides\nthe world B.C. from the world A.D. more sharply defined than here.\nBefore Christ came, no one dared to say, for no one believed, that the\nsoul of every man, and still less the soul of every woman and child, was\nof worth to God, that even a slave might become a son of the Most High.\nBut Christ believed it, and Christ said it, and when He said it, the new\nworld, the world in which we live, began to be. The great difference\nbetween ancient and modern civilizations, one eminent historian has\nsaid, is to be found here, that while ancient civilization cared only\nfor the welfare of the favoured few, modern civilization seeks the\nwelfare of all. And when we ask further what has made the difference,\nhistory sends us back for answer to the four Gospels and the teaching of\nJesus concerning the infinite worth of the soul of man.\n\n\nII\n\n\nAnd now, to bring matters to a practical issue, have we who profess the\nfaith of Christ learnt to set, either upon others or upon ourselves, the\nvalue which Christ put upon all men? Far as we have travelled from\nancient Greece and Rome, are we not still, in our thoughts about men,\noften pagan rather than Christian? Our very speech bewrayeth us, and\nshows how little even yet we have learnt to think Christ's thoughts\nafter Him. He declared, in words which have already been quoted, that \"a\nman's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he\npossesseth.\" Nevertheless, in our daily speech we persist in measuring\nmen by this very standard; we say that a man \"is worth\" so much, though,\nof course, all that we mean is that he has so much. Again, we allow\nourselves to speak about the \"hands\" in a factory, as if with the hand\nthere went neither head nor heart. If we must put a part for the whole,\nwhy should it not be after the fashion of the New Testament? \"And there\nwere added unto them in that day\"--so it is written in one place--\"about\nthree thousand souls\"--\"souls,\" not \"hands.\"[33] And we may depend upon\nit there would be less soulless labour in the world, and fewer men and\nwomen in danger of degenerating into mere \"hands,\" if we would learn to\nthink of them in Christ's higher and worthier way.\n\nLet me try to show, by two or three examples, how Christ's teaching\nabout man is needed through all our life.\n\n(1) There was, perhaps, never a time when so many were striving to\nfulfil the apostle's injunction, and, as they have opportunity, to do\ngood unto all men. More and more we busy ourselves to-day with the good\nworks of philanthropy and Christian charity. And what we must remember\nis that our philanthropy needs our theology to sustain it. They only\nwill continue Christ's work for man who cherish Christ's thoughts about\nman. Sever philanthropy from the great Christian ideas which have\ncreated and sustained it, and it will very speedily come to an end of\nits resources. All experience shows that philanthropy cut off from\nChrist has not capital enough on which to do its business. And the\nreason is not far to seek. They who strive to save their fellows, they\nwho go down into the depths that they may lift men up, see so much of\nthe darkened under-side of human life, they are brought so close up to\nthe ugly facts of human baseness, human trickery, human ingratitude,\nthat, unless there be behind them the staying, steadying power of the\nfaith and love of Christ, they cannot long endure the strain; they grow\nweary in well-doing, perchance even they grow bitter and contemptuous,\nand in a little while the tasks they have taken up fall unfinished from\ntheir hands. \"Society\" takes to \"slumming\" for a season--just as for\nanother season it may take to ping-pong--but the fit does not last; and\nonly they keep on through the long, grey days, when neither sun nor\nstars are seen, who have learnt to look on men with the eyes, and to\nfeel toward them with the heart, of Jesus the Man of Nazareth.\n\n(2) \"Whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to\nstumble, it is profitable for him that a great mill-stone should be\nhanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the\nsea.\" Once more is revealed Christ's thought of the worth of the soul.\nHow the holy passion against him who would hurt \"one of these little\nones\" glows and scorches in His words! Is this a word for any of us? Is\nthere one among us who is tempting a brother man to dishonesty, to\ndrink, to lust; who is pushing some thoughtless girl down the steep and\nslippery slope which ends--we know where? Then let him stop and listen,\nnot to me, but to Christ. Never, I think, did He speak with such solemn,\nheart-shaking emphasis, and He says that it were better a man should\ndie, that he should die this night, die the most miserable and shameful\ndeath, than that he should bring the blood of another's soul upon his\nhead. It must needs be that occasions of stumbling come, but woe, woe to\nthat man by whom they come, when he and the slain soul's Saviour shall\nstand face to face! Oh, if there be one among us who is playing the\ntempter, and doing the devil's work, let him get to his knees, and cry\nwith the conscience-smitten Psalmist, \"Deliver me from blood-guiltiness,\nO God, Thou God of my salvation\"; and peradventure even yet He may hear\nand have mercy.\n\n(3) Let fathers and mothers ponder what this teaching of Jesus\nconcerning man means for them in relation to their children. There came\ninto your home a while ago a little child, a gift from God, just such a\nbabe as Jesus Himself was in His mother's arms in Bethlehem. The child\nis yours, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, and it bears your\nlikeness and image; but it is also God's child, and it bears His image.\nWhat difference is the coming of the little stranger making in you? I do\nnot ask what difference is it making _to_ you, for the answer would be\nready in a moment, \"Much, every way\"; but, what difference is it making\n_in_ you? Does it never occur to you that you ought to be a different\nman--a better man--that you ought to be a different woman--a better\nwoman--for the sake of the little one lying in the cradle? Do you know\nthat of all the things God ever made and owns, in this or all His\nworlds, there is nothing more dear to Him than the soul of the little\nchild He has committed to your hands? What hands those should be that\nbear a gift like that! Perhaps we never thought of it in that way\nbefore. But it is true, whether we think of it or not. Is it not time to\nbegin to think of it? This night, as we stand over our sleeping child,\nlet us promise to God, for the child's sake, that we will be His.\n\n(4) Last of all, we must learn to set Christ's value upon ourselves.\nThis is the tragedy of life, that we hold ourselves so cheap. We are\nsprung of heaven's first blood, have titles manifold, and yet, when the\ncrown is offered us, we choose rather, like the man with the muck-rake,\nin Bunyan's great allegory, to grub among the dust and sticks and straws\nof the floor. In the times of the French Revolution, French soldiers, it\nis said, stabled their horses in some of the magnificent cathedrals of\nFrance; but some of us are guilty of a far worse sacrilege in that holy\nof holies which we call the soul. \"Ye were redeemed, not with\ncorruptible things, with silver or gold,\" but with blood, precious\nblood, even the blood of Christ. And the soul which cost that, we are\nready to sell any day in the open market for a little more pleasure or a\nlittle more pelf. The birthright is bartered for the sorriest mess of\npottage, and the jewel which the King covets to wear in His crown our\nown feet trample in the mire of the streets. The pity of it, the pity of\nit!\n\nIn one of Dora Greenwell's simple and beautiful _Songs of Salvation_, a\npitman tells to his wife the story of his conversion. He had got a word\nlike a fire in his heart that would not let him be, \"Jesus, the Son of\nGod, who loved, and who gave Himself for me.\"\n\n    \"It was for me that Jesus died! for me, and a world of men,\n    Just as sinful, and just as slow to give back His love again;\n    And He didn't wait till I came to Him, but He loved me at my worst;\n    He needn't ever have died for me if I could have loved Him first.\"\n\nAnd then he continues:--\n\n    \"And could'st Thou love such a man as me, my Saviour! Then I'll take\n    More heed to this wand'ring soul of mine, if it's only for Thy sake.\"\n\nYes, we are all of worth to God, but we must needs go to the Cross to\nlearn how great is our worth; and, as we bow in its sacred shadow, may\nwe learn to say: \"For Thy sake, O Christ, for Thy sake, I'll take more\nheed to this wandering soul of mine.\"[34]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING SIN\n\n\n    \"O man, strange composite of heaven and earth!\n      Majesty dwarfed to baseness! fragrant flower\n    Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth\n      Choking corruption! weakness mastering power!\n    Who never art so near to crime and shame,\n    As when thou hast achieved some deed of name.\"\n                  NEWMAN.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nCONCERNING SIN\n\n     \"_When ye pray, say.... Forgive us our sins._\"--LUKE xi. 2, 4.\n\n\n\nA recent writer has pointed out that sin, like death, is not seriously\nrealized except as a personal fact. We really know it only when we know\nit about ourselves. The word \"sin\" has no serious meaning to a man,\nexcept when it means that he himself is a sinful man. And hence it comes\nto pass that we can still turn to the penitential Psalms, to the seventh\nchapter of Romans, to the _Confessions_ of St. Augustine, or to the\n_Grace Abounding_ of John Bunyan, and make their words the language of\nour own broken and contrite hearts. For when Bunyan and Augustine and\nPaul and the psalmists spoke of sin, they spoke not the thoughts of\nothers, but their knowledge of themselves; they looked into their own\nhearts and wrote. That is why their words \"find\" us to-day.\nNevertheless, paradox though it may seem, our greatest Teacher\nconcerning sin, Himself \"knew no sin.\" Born without sin, living and\ndying without sin, Christ yet \"knew what was in man,\" knew the sin that\nwas in man, and from His own sinless height once for all revealed and\njudged and condemned it. Let us seek, then, to learn the mind of Christ\non this great matter.\n\nAnd once more, as I have had occasion to point out in a previous\nchapter, we must not look for anything formal, defined, systematic in\nChrist's teaching. We cannot open the Gospels, as we might some modern\ntheological treatise, and read out from them a scientific exposition of\nsin--its origin, its nature, its treatment. The New Testament is not\nlike a museum, where the flowers are dried and pressed, and the fossils\nlie carefully arranged within glass cases, and everything is duly\nclassified and labelled. Rather it is like nature itself, where the\nflowers grow wild at our feet, and the rocks lie as the Creator's hand\nleft them, and where each man must do the classifying and labelling for\nhimself. Museums have their uses, and there will always be those who\nprefer them--they save so much trouble. But since Christ's aim was not\nto save us trouble, but to teach us to see things with our own eyes, to\nsee them as He saw them, and to think of them as He thinks, it is no\nwonder that He has chosen rather to put us down in the midst of a world\nof living truths than in a museum of assorted and dead facts.\n\n\nI\n\n\nWhat, then, is the teaching of Jesus concerning sin? His tone is at once\nsevere and hopeful. Sometimes His words are words that shake our hearts\nwith fear; sometimes they surprise us with their overflowing tenderness\nand pity. But however He may deal with the sinner, we are always made to\nfeel that to Jesus sin is a serious thing, a problem not to be slurred\nover and made light of, but to be faced, and met, and grappled with.\nChrist's sense of the gravity of sin comes out in many ways.\n\n(1) It is involved in His doctrine of man. He who made so much of man\ncould not make light of man's sin. It is because man is so great that\nhis sin is so grave. No one can understand the New Testament doctrine of\nsin who does not read it in the light of the New Testament doctrine of\nman. When we think of man as Christ thought of him, when we see in him\nthe possibilities which Christ saw, the Scripture language concerning\nsin becomes intelligible enough; until then it may easily seem\nexaggerated and unreal. It is the height for which man was made and\nmeant which measures the fall which is involved in his sin.\n\n(2) Call to mind the language in which Christ set forth the effects of\nsin. He spoke of men as blind, as sick, as dead; He said they were as\nsheep gone astray, as sons that are lost, as men in debt which they can\nnever pay, in bondage from which they can never free themselves. The\nvery accumulation of metaphors bears witness to Christ's sense of the\nhavoc wrought by sin. Nor are they metaphors merely; they are His\nreading of the facts of life as it lay before Him. Let me refer briefly\nto two of them, (_a_) Christ spoke of men as in bondage through their\nsin. \"If,\" He said once, \"ye abide in My word ... ye shall know the\ntruth, and the truth shall make you free.\" And straightway jealous\nJewish ears caught at that word \"free.\" \"Free?\" they cried, \"Free? we be\nAbraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how\nsayest Thou, Ye shall be made free?\" Yet even as they lift their hands\nin protest Christ hears the clink of their fetters: \"Verily, verily, I\nsay unto you, every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant--the\nslave--of sin.\" \"To whom ye present yourselves as servants unto\nobedience, his servants--his slaves--ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin\nunto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.\" Apostle and Lord mean\nthe same thing, true of us as it was true of the Jews: \"Every one that\ncommitteth sin is the slave of sin.\" (_b_) Further, Christ says, men are\nin debt through their sin. In one parable He tells us of a certain\nlender who had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the\nother fifty; but neither had wherewith to pay. In another parable we\nhear of a servant who owed his lord ten thousand talents--a gigantic\nsum, vague in its vastness, \"millions\" as we might say--and he likewise\nhad not wherewith to pay. Further, in the application of each parable,\nit is God to whom this unpayable debt is due. Now, it is just at this\npoint that our sense of sin to-day is weakest. The scientist, the\ndramatist, the novelist are all proclaiming our responsibility toward\nthem that come after us; with pitiless insistence they are telling us\nthat the evil that men do lives after them, that it is not done with\nwhen it is done. Yet, with all this, there may be no thought of God. It\nis the consciousness not merely of responsibility, but of responsibility\nGod-ward, which needs to be strengthened. When we sin we may wrong\nothers much, we may wrong ourselves more, but we wrong God most of all;\nand we shall never recover Christ's thought of sin until, like the\npsalmist and the prodigal, we have learned to cry to Him, \"Against Thee\nhave I sinned, and done that which is evil in Thy sight.\"\n\n(3) But sin, in Christ's view of it, is not merely something a man does,\nit is what he is. Go through Paul's long and dismal catalogue of \"the\nworks of the flesh\": \"Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,\nidolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions,\ndivisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.\"\nYet even this is not the whole of the matter. Sin is more than the\nsum-total of man's sins. The fruits are corrupt because the tree which\nyields them is corrupt; the stream is tainted because the fountain\nwhence it flows is impure; man commits sin because he is sinful. It was\njust here that Christ broke, and broke decisively, with the traditional\nreligion of His time. To the average Jew of that day righteousness and\nsin meant nothing more than the observance or the non-observance of\ncertain religious traditions. \"For the Pharisees, and all the Jews,\nexcept they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition\nof the elders: and when they come from the market-place, except they\nwash themselves, they eat not; and many other things there be which they\nhave received to hold, washings of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels.\"\n\"Nay,\" said Jesus, \"you are beginning at the wrong end, you are\nconcerned about the wrong things, for from within, out of the heart of\nmen, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,\ncovetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing,\npride, foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within.\" Deep in\nthe heart of man evil has its seat, and until that is touched nothing is\ndone.\n\n(4) And, lastly, Christ says all men are sinful. Of course, He did not\nsay, nor did He imply that all are equally sinful. On the contrary, He\nsaid plainly that whereas the debt of some is as fifty pence, the debt\nof others is as five hundred pence. Neither did Christ teach that man is\nwholly sinful, in the sense that there is in man nothing that is good,\nor that every man is by nature as bad as he can be. Nor, let it be said\nin passing, is this what theology means when it speaks, as it still\nsometimes does, about the \"total depravity\" of human nature. What is\nmeant is, as Dr. Denney says, that the depravity which sin has produced\nin human nature extends to the whole of it.[35] If I poison my finger,\nit is not only the finger that is poisoned; the poison is in the blood,\nand, unless it be got rid of, not my finger merely, but my life is in\nperil. And in like manner the sin which taints my nature taints my whole\nnature, perverting the conscience, enfeebling the will, and darkening\nthe understanding. But with whatever qualifications Christ's indictment\nis against the whole human race. He never discusses the origin of sin,\nbut He always assumes its presence. No matter how His hearers might\nvary, this factor remained constant. \"If ye, being evil\" that mournful\npresupposition could be made everywhere. He spoke of men as \"lost,\" and\nsaid that He had come to seek and save them. He summoned men, without\ndistinction, to repentance. He spoke of His blood as \"shed for many unto\nremission of sins.\" The gospel which, in His name, was to be preached\nunto all the nations was concerning \"repentance and remission of sins.\"\nEven His own disciples He taught, as they prayed, to say, \"Forgive us\nour sins.\" And though it is true He said once that He had not come to\ncall the righteous but sinners to repentance, He did not thereby mean to\nsuggest that there really are some righteous persons who have no need of\nrepentance; rather was He seeking by the keenness of His Divine irony to\npierce the hard self-satisfaction of men whose need was greater just\nbecause it was unfelt.\n\n\"All have sinned;\" but once more let us remind ourselves, sin is not\nseriously realized except as a personal fact. The truth must come home\nas a truth about ourselves. The accusing finger singles men out and\nfastens the charge on each several conscience: \"Thou art the man!\" And\nas the accusation is individual, so, likewise, must the acknowledgement\nbe. It is not enough that in church we cry in company, \"Lord have mercy\nupon us, miserable offenders\"; each must learn to pray for himself, \"God\nbe merciful to me a sinner.\" Then comes the word of pardon, personal and\nindividual as the condemnation, \"The Lord also hath put away thy sin.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nIn what has been said thus far I have dwelt, for the most part, on the\nsterner and darker aspects of Christ's teaching about sin. And, as every\nstudent of contemporary literature knows, there are voices all around us\nto-day ready to take up and emphasize every word of His concerning the\nmischief wrought by moral evil. Take, _e.g._, a passage like this from\nThomas Hardy's powerful but sombre story, _Tess_:--\n\n     \"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?\"\n\n     \"Yes.\"\n\n     \"All like ours?\"\n\n     \"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to me like\n     the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and\n     sound--a few blighted.\"\n\n     \"Which do we live on--a splendid one, or a blighted one?\"\n\n     \"A blighted one.\"\n\nOr, turn to the works of George Eliot. No prophet of righteousness ever\nbound sin and its consequences more firmly together, or proclaimed with\nmore solemn emphasis the certainty of the evil-doer's doom. \"Our deeds\nare like children that are born to us,\" she says; \"nay, children may be\nstrangled, but deeds never\"--this is the note one hears through all her\nbooks. If we have done wrong, it is in vain we cry for mercy. We are\ntaken by the throat and delivered over to the tormentors until we have\npaid the uttermost farthing.\n\n    \"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,\n    Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit\n      Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,\n    Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.\"\n\nAnd this is all that writers such as these have to say to us.\nRetribution they know, but not Redemption. \"There are no arresting\nangels in the path\"--only the Angel of Justice with the drawn sword.\n\nBut this is not the teaching of Jesus concerning sin. He is not blind,\nand if we give ear to Him He will not suffer us to be blind, either to\nits character or its consequences; but He says that sin can be forgiven,\nand its iron bondage broken. Jesus believed in the recoverability of man\nat his worst. It is a fact significant of much that the first mention of\nsin in the New Testament is in a prophecy of its destruction: \"Thou\nshalt call His name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from\ntheir sins.\" And throughout the first three Gospels sin is named almost\nexclusively in connection with its forgiveness.[36] What Christ hath\njoined together let no man put asunder. Herein is the very gospel of\nGod, that Christ came not to condemn the world, but that the world,\nthrough Him, might be saved. \"Do you know what Christ would say to you,\nmy girl?\" said a missionary to a poor girl dying. \"He would say, 'Thy\nsins are forgiven thee.'\" \"Would He, though, would He?\" she cried,\nstarting up; \"take me to Him, take me to Him.\" Yes, thank God, we know\nwhat to do with our sin; we know what we must do to be saved.\n\nLet us go back again for a moment over the ground we have already\ntravelled. We are in debt, with nothing to pay; but Christ has taken the\nlong account, and has crossed it through and through. We are in bondage,\nwith no power to set ourselves free; but Christ has come to rend the\niron chain and proclaim deliverance to the captives. We are wrong, wrong\nwithin, wrong at the core; but again He is equal to our need, for\nconcerning Him it is written that He shall take away not only the \"sins\"\nbut the \"sin\" of the world. Is anything too hard for Him? Just as a\nlover of pictures will sometimes discover a portrait, the work of an old\nmaster, marred and disfigured by the dirt and neglect of years, and will\npatiently cleanse and retouch it, till the lips seem to speak again, and\nthe old light shines in the eyes, and all its hidden glory is revealed\nonce more, so does Christ bring out the Divine image, hidden but never\nlost, in the sinful souls of men. And all this He can do for all men;\nfor Christ knows no hopeless ones.\n\nOne of the saddest sights in a great city is its hospital for\nincurables. Who can think but with a pang of pity and of pain of\nthese--old men and little children joined in one sad fellowship--for\nwhom the physician's skill has done its best and failed, for whom now\nnothing remains save to suffer and to die? But in the world's great\nhospital of ailing souls, where every day the Good Physician walks,\nthere is no incurable ward. He lays His hands on the sick, and they are\nhealed; He touches the eyes of the blind, and they see; unto the leper\nas white as snow his flesh comes again as the flesh of a little child;\neven souls that are dead through their trespasses and sins He restores\nto life. But never, never does He turn away from any, saying, \"Thou art\ntoo far gone; there is nothing that I can do for thee.\" \"I spake to Thy\ndisciples,\" cried the father of the child which had a dumb spirit, \"I\nspake to Thy disciples that they should cast it out; and they were not\nable.\" \"Bring him unto Me,\" said Jesus. Then He rebuked the unclean\nspirit, saying unto him, \"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee,\ncome out of him and enter no more into him.\" Verily, with authority He\ncommandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey Him.\n\nTherefore let us despair of no man; therefore let no man despair of\nhimself. If we will, we can; we can, because Christ will. \"I was\nbefore,\" says St. Paul, \"a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious;\nhowbeit I obtained mercy.\" \"I am a wretched captive of sin,\" cries\nSamuel Rutherford, \"yet my Lord can hew heaven out of worse timber.\"\nThere is no unpardonable sin--none, at least, save the sin of refusing\nthe pardon which avails for all sin. \"'Mine iniquity is greater than can\nbe forgiven.'[37] No, Cain, thou errest; God's mercy is far greater,\ncouldst thou ask mercy. Men cannot be more sinful than God is merciful\nif, with penitent hearts, they will call upon Him.\"\n\nWe have all read of the passing of William MacLure in Ian Maclaren's\ntouching idyll. \"A'm gettin' drowsy,\" said the doctor to Drumsheugh,\n\"read a bit tae me.\" Then Drumsheugh put on his spectacles, and searched\nfor some comfortable Scripture. Presently he began to read: \"In My\nFather's house are many mansions;\" but MacLure stopped him. \"It's a\nbonnie word,\" he said, \"but it's no' for the like o' me. It's ower guid;\na' daurna tak' it.\" Then he bid Drumsheugh shut the book and let it open\nof itself, and he would find the place where he had been reading every\nnight for the last month. Drumsheugh did as he was bidden, and the book\nopened at the parable wherein the Master tells what God thinks of a\nPharisee and a penitent sinner. And when he came to the words, \"And the\npublican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to\nheaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a\nsinner,\" once more the dying man stopped him: \"That micht hae been\nwritten for me, Paitrick, or ony ither auld sinner that hes feenished\nhis life, an' hes naething tae say for himsel.\"\n\nNothing to say for ourselves--that is what it comes to, when we know the\ntruth about ourselves. And when at last our mouth is stopped, when our\nlast poor plea is silenced, when with penitent and obedient hearts we\nseek the mercy to which from the first we have been utterly shut up,\nthen indeed we\n\n      \"have found the ground wherein\n    Sure our soul's anchor may remain.\"\n\n\"Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but\naccording to His mercy He saved us.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING RIGHTEOUSNESS\n\n\n     \"I spend my whole life in going about and persuading you all\n     to give your first and chiefest care to the perfection of your\n     souls, and not till you have done that to think of your\n     bodies, or your wealth; and telling you that virtue does not\n     come from wealth, but that wealth, and every other good thing\n     which men have, whether in public, or in private, comes from\n     virtue.\"--SOCRATES.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nCONCERNING RIGHTEOUSNESS\n\n    \"_Seek ye first_ ... _His righteousness._\"--MATT. vi. 33.\n\n\nRighteousness, as it was understood and taught by Christ, includes the\ntwo things which we often distinguish as religion and morality. It is\nright-doing, not only as between man and man, but as between man and\nGod. The Lawgiver of the New Testament, like the lawgiver of the Old,\nhas given to us two tables of stone. On the one He has written, \"Thou\nshalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,\nand with all thy mind \"; and on the other, \"Thou shalt love thy\nneighbour as thyself.\" In these two commandments the whole law is summed\nup, the whole duty of man is made known. It is well to emphasize this\ntwo-fold aspect of the truth at a time when we are often tempted to\ndefine religion wholly in the terms of morality, and, while insisting on\nthe duties which we owe to each other, to forget those which we owe to\nGod. If there be a God righteousness must surely have a meaning in\nrelation to Him; it cannot be simply another name for philanthropy.\nChrist at least will not call that man just and good who does right to\nall except his Maker. In the Christian doctrine of the good life room\nmust be found for God. At the present moment, however, it is the subject\nin its man-ward aspect that I wish specially to keep in view, partly\nbecause some limitation is obviously necessary, and partly also because\nit is this of which Christ Himself had most to say.\n\n\nI\n\n\nWhat, then, is Christ's idea of righteousness? In other words, what did\nHe teach concerning the good life? Now here also, as in His teaching\nabout God, Christ did not need to begin _de novo_. Those to whom He\nspoke had already their own ideals of duty and holiness. True, these\nwere sadly in need of revision and correction. Nevertheless, such as\nthey were, they were there, and Christ could use them as His\nstarting-point. Consequently, therefore, we find His ideas of\nrighteousness defined largely by contrast with existing ideas. \"It was\nsaid to them of old time ... but I say unto _you_.\" This is the note\nheard all through the Sermon on the Mount. The contrast may be stated\nin two ways.\n\n(1) In the first place, Christ said that the righteousness of His\ndisciples must exceed that of publicans and heathen: \"If ye love them\nthat love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?\nAnd if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not\neven the Gentiles the same?\" There are virtues exhibited in the lives of\neven wholly irreligious men. There are rudimentary moral principles\nwhich they that know not God nevertheless acknowledge and obey. It was\nso in Christ's time; it is so still. The popular American ballad, \"Jim\nBludso,\" and Ian Maclaren's touching story of the Drumtochty postman,\nare familiar illustrations of self-sacrificing virtues revealed by men\nof coarse and vicious lives. Nor ought we to deny the reality of such\nvirtues; still less ought we to follow the bad example of St. Augustine\nand call them \"splendid vices.\" Such was not Christ's way. He assumed\nthe existence and reality of this \"natural goodness,\" and with familiar\nillustrations of it on His tongue turned upon His disciples with the\nquestion, \"What do ye more?\"\n\n\"What do ye more?\" Yet in some respects, it is to be feared, the\nmorality of the Church sometimes falls behind that of the world. One of\nthe most painful passages in St. Paul's epistles is that in which he\ntells the Corinthian Christians that one of their own number had been\nguilty of immorality such as would have shocked even the conscience of\nan unbelieving Gentile. And it was but the other day that I came across\nthis sentence from the pen of an observant and friendly critic of\ncontemporary religious life: \"I am afraid,\" he said, \"it must be\nadmitted that the idea of honour, though in itself an essential part of\nChristian ethics, is much stronger outside the Churches than within\nthem.\" How far facts justify the criticism I will not stay to inquire;\nbut the very fact that a charge like this can be made should prove a\nsharp reminder to us of the stringency of the demands which Jesus Christ\nmakes upon us. There is no kind of sound moral fruit which is to be\nfound anywhere in the wide fields of the world which He does not look\nfor in richer and riper abundance within the garden of His Church.\n\nA great Christian preacher has given an admirable illustration of one\nway in which we may examine ourselves in this matter. He has grouped\ntogether a number of precepts from the writings of some of the great\nheathen moralists, such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, and then has\nurged the question how far we who profess to be the disciples of a\nloftier faith are true even to these ancient heathen ideals.[38]\nPerhaps, however, this is not a method of self-examination which is open\nto us all. But this, at least, we can do: we can test ourselves by that\nmoral law, which God gave to the Jews by Moses, and which Christ\nreinterpreted in the Sermon on the Mount. \"Thou shalt not kill, thou\nshalt not commit adultery\"--all these commandments in their literal\nmeaning we must observe; yet this is not enough; \"do not even the\npublicans the same?\" and Christ's demand is, \"What do ye more than\nothers?\" The murderous thought, Christ says, that is murder; the lustful\nlook, that is adultery. \"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love\nthy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your\nenemies, and pray for them that persecute you.\" As we listen to words\nlike these must not we also confess, \"Either these sayings are not\nChrist's, or we are not Christians\"?\n\n(2) Christ's idea of righteousness is further defined by contrast with\nthat of the Pharisees: \"Except your righteousness shall exceed the\nrighteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter\ninto the kingdom of heaven.\" What was the Pharisees' idea of religion?\nLet us take the words which Christ Himself put into the lips of a\nrepresentative of his class: \"God, I thank Thee, that I am not as the\nrest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.\nI fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get.\" This is a\nfull-length portrait of the finished Pharisee. Religion to him was a\nround of prescribed ritual, a barren externalism, a subjection to the\ndominion of the letter, which never touched the heart, nor bowed the\nspirit down in penitence and humility before God. The Pharisee's whole\nconcern was with externals; but Christ declared that he who is only\nright outwardly is not right at all. There is no such thing, He said, as\ngoodness which is not from within. The alms-deeds, the prayer, the\nfasting of the Pharisee were all done before men, to be seen of them;\nand so long as that which men saw was right and seemly, he was\nsatisfied. But Christ went back behind the outward act to the heart. A\nman is really, He said, what he is there. You may hang grapes on a\nthorn-bush, that will not make it a vine; you may put a sheep's fleece\non a wolf's back, but that will not change its wolfish heart. And men\nare what they are within. Just as to get good fruit you must first of\nall make the tree good, so to secure good deeds you must first make good\nmen. This was the truth which Pharisaism ignored; with what results all\nthe world knows. In the long history of man, it remains, perhaps, the\nsupreme illustration of the fatal facility with which religion and\nmorality are divorced when once the emphasis is laid upon the outward\nand ceremonial instead of the inward and spiritual. All experience helps\nus to understand how the system works. There is no deliberate intention\nof setting ritual above righteousness, but it is so much easier to count\none's beads than to curb one's temper, so much easier to fast in Lent\nthan to be unswervingly just, that if once the easier thing gets\nattached to it an exaggerated importance, fidelity in it is allowed to\natone for laxity in greater things, and the last result is Pharisaism,\nwhere we see conscience concerned about the tithing of garden herbs, but\nwith no power over the life, and religion not merely tolerating but\nactually ministering to moral evil. It was in the name of religion that\nthe Pharisees suffered a man to violate even the sanctities of the Fifth\nCommandment, and to do dishonour to his father and mother. The righteous\nman in their eyes was not he who loved mercy, and did justly, and walked\nhumbly with his God, but he who observed the traditions of the elders.\nSo that, as Professor Bruce says,[39] it was possible for a man to\ncomply with all the requirements of the Rabbis and yet remain in heart\nand life an utter miscreant. \"Outwardly,\" said Christ, \"ye appear\nrighteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.\"\nIs it any wonder that He should call down fire from heaven to consume a\nsystem which had yielded such bitter, poisonous fruits as these?\n\nBut let us remember, as Mozley well says,[40] there are no extinct\nspecies in the world of evil. The value for us of Christ's condemnation\nlies in this, that it is a permanent tendency of human nature which He\nis condemning. Pharisaism is not dead. Have I not seen the Pharisee\ndressed in good broad-cloth and going to church with his Bible under his\narm? And have I not seen him sitting in church and reading the\ntwenty-third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and thinking to himself what\nshockingly wicked people these men must have been of whom Christ spoke\nsuch terrible words, and never once supposing that there is anything in\nthe chapter that concerns him? No, Pharisaism is not dead; and when we\nread of those who devoured widows' houses and for a pretence made long\nprayers, using their religion as a cloak for their villainy, let us\nremember that Christ says to His disciples to-day, even as He said to\nthem centuries ago, \"Except your righteousness shall exceed the\nrighteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter\ninto the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nThus far we have considered Christ's idea of righteousness only in\ncontrast with other ideas. When we seek to define it in itself we fall\nback naturally on the words of the two great commandments which have\nalready been quoted: \"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy\nheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind;\" and \"Thou shalt\nlove thy neighbour as thyself.\" Righteousness, Christ says, is love,\nlove to God and love to man.\n\nBut to them of old time it was said, \"Thou shalt love thy neighbour.\"\nWhere, then, is the difference between the old commandment and the new?\nIt lies in the new definition of \"neighbour.\" The old law which said,\n\"Thou shalt love thy neighbour,\" said also, \"and hate thine enemy\";\nwhich meant that some are and some are not our neighbours, and that\ntoward those who are not love has no obligations. But Christ broke down\nfor ever the middle wall of partition, and declared the old distinction\nnull and void. In His parable of the Good Samaritan He taught that every\nman is our neighbour who has need of us, and to whom it is possible for\nus to prove ourselves a friend. As we have opportunity we are to do good\nunto all men. The same lesson with, if possible, still greater emphasis,\nChrist taught in the Upper Room: \"A new commandment I give unto you,\nthat ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love\none another.\" A love that goes all the way with human need, that gives\nnot itself by measure, that is not chilled by indifference, nor thwarted\nby ingratitude, that fights against evil until it overcomes it--such was\nthe love He gave, and such is the love He asks. And in that command all\nother commands are comprehended. Christ might have made His own the\ndaring word of St. Augustine, \"Love, and do what you like.\"\n\nWhen first men heard this law of the heavenly righteousness how wondrous\nsimple it must have seemed in contrast with the elaborate scribe-made\nlaw which their Rabbis laid upon them. Pharisaism had reduced religion\nto a branch of mechanics, a vast network of rules which closed in the\nlife of man on every side, a burden grievous and heavy to be borne,\nwhich crushed the soul under its weary load. This was the yoke of which\nPeter said that neither they nor their fathers were able to bear it. Was\nit any marvel that from such a system men should turn to Him who cried,\n\"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for My yoke is easy, and My\nburden is light\"? But if Christ's law of love is simpler it is also far\nmore exacting than the old law which it superseded. It has meshes far\nfiner than any that Pharisaic ingenuity could weave. Rabbinical law can\nsecure the tithing of mint and anise and cumin, the washing of cups and\npots, and many such like things; it can regulate the life of ritual and\noutward observance; and after that it has no more that it can do. But\nChrist's law of love is a mentor that searches out the deep things of\nman. The inside of the cup and platter, the things that are within, the\nhidden man of the heart--it is on these its eyes are fixed. It gives\nheed both to the words of the mouth and the meditations of the heart.\nAnd, sometimes, when the lips are speaking fair, suddenly it will fling\nopen the heart's door and show us where, in some secret chamber, Greed\nand Pride and Envy and Hate sit side by side in unblest fellowship.\nVerily this law of love is living and active, sharper than any two-edged\nsword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints\nand marrow, quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.\n\nThere is no room to do more than mention the fact which crowns the\nrevelation of this new law of righteousness. Christ's words about\ngoodness do not come to us alone; they come united with a life which is\ntheir best exposition. Christ is all His followers are to be; in Him the\nrighteousness of the kingdom is incarnate. From henceforth the righteous\nman is the Christ-like man. The standard of human life is no longer a\ncode but a character; for the gospel does not put us into subjection to\nfresh laws; it calls us to \"the study of a living Person, and the\nfollowing of a living Mind.\"[41] And when to Jesus we bring the old\nquestion, \"Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal\nlife?\" He does not now repeat the commandments, but He says, \"If thou\nwouldest be perfect, follow Me, learn of Me, do as I have done to you,\nlove as I have loved you.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nSuch, then, is the good life which Christ reveals, and to which He calls\nus. To say that to Him we owe our highest ideal of righteousness, is\nonly to affirm what no one now seriously denies. John Stuart Mill has,\nit is true, alleged certain defects against Christianity as an ethical\nsystem, yet Mill himself has frankly admitted that \"it would not be easy\nnow, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of\nvirtue from the abstract to the concrete, than to endeavour so to live\nthat Christ would approve our life.\" If Christ be not our one Master in\nthe moral world, it will at least be soon enough to discuss a rival's\nclaims when he appears; as yet there is no sign of him. But the point I\nam most anxious to emphasize just now is not simply that Jesus has put\nbefore us an ideal, the highest of its kind in the world, but that there\nis nothing of any kind to be desired before it. To be good as Christ was\ngood, here in very truth is the _summum bonum_ of life, the greatest\nthing in the world, that which, before all other things, a man should\nseek to make his own, There are times, perhaps, in the lives of all of\nus when we are tempted to doubt it--times when the kingdoms of this\nworld, the kingdoms of wealth and power and knowledge lie stretched at\nour feet, and the whispering fiend at our elbow bids us bow and enter\nin. But once again, if we be true men, the moment comes,\n\n    \"When the spirit's true endowments\n    Stand out plainly from its false ones,\"\n\nwhen the sacred, saving faith in righteousness returns, and we know that\nChrist was right, that for ever and for ever it is true that better than\nto be rich, or to be clever, or to be famous, is it to be true, to be\npure, to be good.\n\nYes, goodness is the principal thing; therefore get goodness, and with\nall thy getting--at the price of all that thou hast gotten (such is the\ntrue meaning of the words)[42]--get righteousness. Is this what we are\ndoing? Goodness is the first thing; are we putting it first? Day by day\nare we saying to it, \"Sit thou on my right hand,\" while we put all other\nthings under our feet? \"Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if\nI remember thee not; if I prefer not thee above my chief joy\"--is this\nthe kind of honour that we are paying to it? \"We make it our ambition,\"\nsaid St Paul, \"to be well pleasing unto Him.\"[43] Where this is the\nmaster ambition, all other lawful ambitions may be safely cherished and\ngiven their place. But if some lesser power rule, whose right it is not\nto reign over us, the end is chaos and night. \"Seek ye first His\nrighteousness;\" we subvert Christ's order at our peril. And this\nrighteousness must be sought. As men seek wealth, as men seek knowledge,\nas men seek power, so must we seek goodness. \"Wherefore giving all\ndiligence\"--in no other way can the pearl of great price be secured; it\ndoes not lie by the roadside for any lounger to pick up. \"With toil of\nheart and knees and hands,\" so only can the \"path upward\" and the prize\nbe won. \"Blessed,\" said Jesus, \"are they that hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness.\" Blessed, He meant, are they who long more than anything\nelse to be good; for all such longing shall be abundantly satisfied.\nExalt righteousness, and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to\nhonour when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head a\nchaplet of grace; a crown of beauty shall she deliver to thee.\n\nIt is fitting that a chapter on righteousness should follow one on sin,\nfor this may find some to whom the other made no appeal. At a meeting of\nChristian workers held some years ago in Glasgow, the chairman invited\nthe late Professor Henry Drummond, who was present, though his name was\nnot on the programme, to say a few words. He accepted the invitation,\nbut said he would do no more than state a fact and ask a question. The\nfact was this, that in recent revival movements, in which he had had\nlarge experience, there were few indications of that deep and\noverwhelming conviction of sin which had been so characteristic a\nfeature of similar revivals in past days. And this was the question, Did\nit mean that the Holy Spirit was in any way modifying the method of His\noperation? What answer the wise men of the meeting gave to the\nProfessor's question I do not know. But fact and question alike deserve\nto be carefully pondered. The Spirit, when He is come, Christ said,\n\"will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of\njudgment.\" \"Will convict the world of righteousness\"--have we not\nsometimes forgotten this? Have we not put the full stop at \"sin,\" as\nthough the Holy Spirit's convicting work ended there? Nevertheless,\nthere are many to-day whose religious life begins, not so much in a\nsense of their own sin and guilt and need, as rather in the\nconsciousness of the glory and honour of Christ. It is what they find\nwithin themselves which brings some men to Christ; it is what they find\nin Him which brings others. Some are driven by the strong hands of stern\nnecessity; some are wooed by the sweet constraint of the sinless Son of\nGod. Some are crushed and broken and humbled to the dust, and their\nfirst cry is \"God be merciful to me a sinner\"; some when they hear the\ncall of Christ leap up to greet Him with a new light in their eyes and\nthe glad confession on their lips, \"Lord I will follow Thee\nwhithersoever Thou goest.\"\n\nWhat, then, shall we say to these things? What but this, \"There are\ndiversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in\nall.\" Travellers to the same country do not always journey by the same\nroute; and for some of the heavenly pilgrims the Slough of Despond lies\non the other side of the Wicket Gate. After all, it is of small moment\nwhat brings a man forth from the City of Destruction; enough if he have\ncome out and if now his face is set toward the city which hath the\nfoundations, whose builder and maker is God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING PRAYER\n\n\n    \"Who seeketh finds: what shall be his relief\n    Who hath no power to seek, no heart to pray,\n    No sense of God, but bears as best he may,\n    A lonely incommunicable grief?\n    What shall he do? One only thing he knows,\n    That his life flits a frail uneasy spark\n    In the great vast of universal dark,\n    And that the grave may not be all repose.\n    Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,\n    But spread the desert of thy being bare\n    To the full searching of the All-seeing eye:\n    Wait--and through dark misgiving, blank despair,\n    God will come down in pity, and fill the dry\n    Dead plain with light, and life, and vernal air.\"\n                   J.C. SHAIRP.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\nX\n\nCONCERNING PRAYER\n\n     \"_What man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for\n     a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish,\n     will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to\n     give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your\n     Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask\n     Him_?\"--MATT. vii. 9-11.\n\n\nThere has been in our day much painful disputation concerning prayer and\nthe laws of nature. Whole volumes have been written to prove that it is\npossible, or that it is impossible, for God to answer prayer. I am not\ngoing to thresh out again this dry straw just now. Discussions of this\nkind have, undoubtedly, their place; indeed, whether we will or no, they\nare often forced upon us by the conditions of the hour; but they had no\nplace in the teaching of Jesus, and I do not propose to say anything\nabout them now. I wish rather, imitating as far as may be the gracious\nsimplicity and directness of the argument of Jesus which we have just\nread, to gather up some of the practical suggestions touching this great\nmatter which are strewn throughout the Gospels alike in the precepts and\npractice of our Lord.\n\n\nI\n\n\nFirst of all, then, let us get fixed in our minds the saying of Jesus\nthat \"men ought always to pray and not to faint.\" The very form of the\nsaying suggests that Christ knew how easy it is for us to faint and grow\nweary in our prayers. Men cease from prayer on many grounds. Some there\nare in whom the questioning, doubting spirit has grown so strong that\nfor a time it has silenced even the cry of the heart for God. Some there\nare who are so busy, they tell us, that they have no time for prayer;\nand after all, they ask, Is not honest work the highest kind of prayer?\nAnd some there are who have ceased to pray, because they have been\ndisappointed, because nothing seemed to come of their prayers. They\nasked but they did not receive, they sought but they did not find, they\nknocked but no door was opened to them; there was neither voice, nor any\nto answer, nor any that regarded; and now they ask, they seek, they\nknock no more. And some of us there are who do not pray because, as one\nof the psalmists says, our soul \"cleaveth unto the dust.\" The things of\nGod, the things of the soul, the things of eternity--what Paul calls\n\"the things that are above\"--are of no concern to us; we have sold\nourselves to work, to think, to live, for the things of the earth and\nthe dust.\n\nNevertheless, be the cause of our prayerlessness what it may, Christ's\nword remains true. Man made in the image of God ought always to pray and\nnot to faint. And even more than by His words does Christ by His example\nprompt us to prayer. Turn, _e.g._, to the third Gospel. All the\nEvangelists show us Jesus at prayer; but it is to Luke that we owe\nalmost all our pictures of the kneeling Christ. Let us glance at them as\nthey pass in quick succession before our eyes:\n\n\"Jesus having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened\" (iii.\n21).\n\n\"He withdrew Himself in the deserts, and prayed\" (v. 16).\n\n\"It came to pass in these days, that He went out into the mountain to\npray; and He continued all night in prayer to God\". (vi. 12).\n\n\"It came to pass, as He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him\"\n(ix. 18).\n\n\"It came to pass about eight days after these sayings, He took with Him\nPeter and John and James and went up into the mountain to pray. And as\nHe was praying the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His\nraiment became white and dazzling\" (ix. 28, 29).\n\n\"It came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when He\nceased, one of the disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, even\nas John also taught his disciples\" (xi. 1).\n\n\"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you\nas wheat; but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not\"\n(xxii. 32).\n\n\"And He kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing,\nremove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done....\nAnd being in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became as\nit were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground\" (xxii. 41,\n44).\n\n\"And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do\"\n(xxiii. 34).\n\nAnd if thus He, the Redeemer, prayed, how much greater need have we, the\nredeemed, always to pray and not to faint?\n\n\"But we are so busy, we have no time.\" Then let us look at another\npicture. This time it is Mark who is the painter. He has chosen as his\nsubject our Lord's first Sabbath in Capernaum. The day begins with\nteaching: \"He entered into the synagogue and taught.\" After teaching\ncomes healing: \"There was in their synagogue a man with an unclean\nspirit;\" him, straightway, Jesus healed. Then, \"straightway, when they\nwere come out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and\nAndrew, with James and John. Now Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a\nfever, and straightway they tell Him of her; and He came and took her by\nthe hand, and raised her up.\" So the day wore on toward evening and\nsunset, when \"they brought unto Him all that were sick, and them that\nwere possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at\nthe door. And He healed many that were sick with divers diseases and\ncast out many devils.\" So closed at last the long day's busy toil. \"_And\nin the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went out and\ndeparted into a desert place, and there prayed_;\" as if just because He\nwas so much with men the more did He need to be with God. _Laborare est\norare_, we say, \"work is prayer.\" And, undoubtedly, \"work may be\nprayer\"; but we are deceiving ourselves and hurting our own souls, if we\nthink that work can take the place of prayer. And if there is one lesson\nthat these earthly years of the Son of Man--busy as they were prayerful,\nprayerful as they were busy--can teach us, it is surely this, that just\nbecause our activities are so abounding, the more need have we to make a\nspace around the soul wherein it may be able to think, and pray, and\naspire.\n\nOne of the best-known pictures of the last half century is Millet's\n\"Angelus.\" The scene is a potato-field, in the midst of which, and\noccupying the foreground of the picture, are two figures, a young man\nand a young woman. Against the distant sky-line is the steeple of a\nchurch. It is the evening hour, and as the bell rings which calls the\nvillagers to worship, the workers in the field lay aside the implements\nof their toil, and with folded hands and bowed heads, stand for a moment\nin silent prayer. It is a picture of what every life should be, of what\nevery life must be, which has taken as its pattern the Perfect Life in\nwhich work and prayer are blent like bells of sweet accord.\n\n\nII\n\n\nAnother saying of Christ's concerning prayer, not less fundamental is\nthis: \"When ye pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven.\" How\nessential to prayer is a right thought of God it can hardly be necessary\nto point out. \"When ye pray say----\" what? All depends on how we fill\nin the blank. Our thought of God determines the character of all our\nintercourse with Him. If \"God\" is only the name which we give to the\nvast, unknown Power which lies behind the visible phenomena of the\nuniverse, if He is only a dim shadow projected by our own minds, or a\ncollection of attributes whose names we have learned from the Catechism,\nour prayers will soon come to an end. When Jesus prayed He said always\n\"Father\"; and the Father to whom He prayed, and whom He revealed, He it\nis to whom our prayers should be offered.\n\nThis is a matter the practical importance of which it would be hard to\nexaggerate. Think, _e.g._, of the questions concerning prayer which\nwould be answered straightway, had we but made our own Christ's thought\nof God. We are all familiar with the little problems about prayer with\nwhich some good people are wont to tease themselves and their friends\nand their ministers: Is it right to pray for rain, for fine weather for\nthe recovery of health, for the success of some temporal enterprize, and\nso forth? How shall we meet questions of this sort? Shall we draw a line\nand say, all things on this side of the line we may pray about, all\nthings on that side of the line we may not pray about? This will not\nhelp us. Rather we must keep Christ's great word before us: \"When ye\npray, say, Father.\" There or nowhere is the answer to be found. Just as\nevery wise father seeks to train his child to make of him his confidant,\nto have no secrets from him, to trust him utterly, and in everything, so\nwould God have us feel towards Him; as free, as frank, as unfettered,\nshould our fellowship with Him be. To put it under constraint, to fence\nit about with rules, would be to rob it of all that gives it worth, And,\ntherefore, I cannot tell any man, and I do not want any man to tell me,\nwhat we may pray for, or what we may not pray for. \"When ye pray, say,\nFather;\" and for the rest let your own heart teach you. But if we are\nleft thus free shall we not ask many things which we have no right to\nask, which God cannot grant? Undoubtedly we shall, just as a boy of five\nwill ask many things that his father, because he loves him, must refuse.\nNevertheless, no wise father would wish to check the childish prattle.\nThere is nothing that he values more than just these frank,\nuncalculating confidences, for he knows that it is by means of them that\nthe shaping hands of love can do their perfect work. And the remedy for\nour mistakes in prayer is not a set of little man-made rules, telling us\nwhat to pray for and what not to pray for, but rather a deeper insight\ninto, and a fuller understanding of, the glory and blessedness of the\nDivine Fatherhood.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nPassing now from these preliminary counsels concerning prayer, let us\nnote how great is the importance which, both by His precepts and His\nexample, Christ attaches to the duty of intercessory prayer. I have been\nmuch struck of late in reading several books on this subject, to note\nhow one writer after another judges it needful to warn his readers\nagainst the idea that prayer is no more than petition. What they say is,\nof course, true; prayer is much more than petition. But, unless I\nmisread the signs of the times, this is not the warning which just now\nwe most need to hear. Rather do we need to be told that prayer is more\nthan communion, that petition, simple asking that we may obtain, is a\npart, and a very large part of prayer. \"Who rises from prayer a better\nman,\" says George Meredith, \"his prayer is answered.\" This is true, but\nit is far from being the whole truth. The duty of intercession, of\nprayer for others, is writ large on every page of the New Testament; but\nintercession has simply no meaning at all unless we believe that God\nwill grant our requests as may be most expedient for us and for them for\nwhom we pray. Let me illustrate the wealth of Christ's teaching on this\nmatter by two or three examples.\n\n(1) We have all read Tennyson's question--\n\n    \"What are men better than sheep or goats\n    That nourish a blind life within the brain,\n    If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer\n    Both for themselves and those who call them friends?\"\n\nFor themselves and those who call them friends--but Christ will not\nsuffer us to stop there. \"Bless them that curse you,\" He said; \"pray for\nthem that despitefully use you.\" So He spoke, and on the Cross He made\nthe great word luminous for ever by His own prayer for His murderers:\n\"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.\"\n\n(2) Christ prayed for His disciples and for His Church: \"I pray for them\n... neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on\nMe through their word.\" \"I will pray the Father and He shall give you\n----.\" Only once are the actual words recorded, but they cover, we are\nsure, great stretches of Christ's intercourse with God. And when once in\ntheir work for Him they had failed, He puts His finger on the secret of\ntheir failure thus: \"This kind can come out by nothing save by prayer.\"\nDo we pray for our Church? We find fault with it; but do we pray for it?\nWe blame its office--bearers and criticize its ministers; but do we pray\nfor them? We go to the house of God on the Sabbath day; but no fire is\nburning on the altar, the minister has no message for us, we come away\nno whit better than we went. Whose is the blame? Let the man in the\npulpit take his share; but is it all his? Must not some of it be laid at\nthe door of his people? How many of them during the week had prayed for\nhim, that his eyes might be opened and his heart touched, that as he sat\nand worked in his study he might get from God to give to them? Dr. Dale\nused to say that if ever he preached a good sermon, a sermon that really\nhelped men, it was due to the prayers of his people as much as to\nanything he had done himself. If in all our churches we would but\nproclaim a truce to our bickerings and fault-findings, and try what\nprayer can do!\n\n(3) Christ prayed for the children: \"Then were there brought unto Him\nlittle children that He should lay His hands on them, and pray.... And\nHe took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying His hands upon them.\"\nIt is surely needless to dwell on this. What man is there who, if he\nhave a child, will not speak to God in his behalf? \"And all the people\nsaid unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we\ndie not.... And Samuel said unto the people, God forbid that I should\nsin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.\" God have mercy on him\nwho has little children who bear his name, but who never cries to heaven\nin their behalf! \"He blessed them,\" _i.e._ He invoked a blessing, God's\nblessing, upon them. And we are sure the prayer was heard, and the\nlittle ones were blessed. And will not God hear our prayers for our\nchildren? When Monica, the saintly mother of Augustine, besought an\nAfrican bishop once and again to help her with her wilful, profligate\nson, the good man answered her, \"Woman, go in peace; it cannot be that\nthe child of such tears should be lost.\" \"God's seed,\" wrote Samuel\nRutherford to Marion M'Naught about her daughter Grizel, \"shall come to\nGod's harvest.\" It shall, for the promise holds, and what we have sown\nwe shall also reap.\n\n(4) And, lastly, Christ prayed for individuals: \"Simon, Simon, behold,\nSatan asked to have you,--all of you,\" that is; the pronoun is plural--\n\"that he might sift you as wheat; but I made supplication for thee\"--\n\"thee, Peter\"; now the singular pronoun is used--\"that thy faith fail\nnot.\" The words point to a definite crisis in the experience of Peter,\nwhen the onset of the Tempter was met by the intercession of the\nSaviour. To me Gethsemane itself is not more wonderful than this picture\nof Christ on His knees before God, naming His loved disciple by name,\nand praying that, in this supreme hour of his life, his faith should not\nutterly break down. \"Making mention of thee in my prayers\"--does this\nnot bring us near to the secret of prevailing prayer? We are afraid to\nbe individual and particular; we lose ourselves in large generalities,\nuntil our prayers die of very vagueness. There is surely a more\nexcellent way. \"My God,\" Paul wrote to the Philippians, \"shall\nfulfil\"--not merely \"all your need,\" as the Authorized Version has it,\nbut--\"every need of yours.\" There is a fine discrimination in the Divine\nlove which sifts and sorts men's needs, and applies itself to them one\nby one, just as the need may be. And when in prayer we speak to God, let\nit be not only of \"all our need,\" flung in one great, careless heap\nbefore Him, but of \"every need of ours,\" each one named by its name, and\nall spread out in order before Him.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nAnd as Christ teaches us to pray for others, so also does He teach us to\npray for ourselves. Two points only in this connection can be noted.\n\n(1) Let us pray when we enter into our Gethsemane; for every life has\nits Gethsemane. Some there are who have not yet entered it; they are\nyoung, and their way thus far has teen among the roses and lilies of\nlife. But for them, too, the path leads to Gethsemane, and some day they\nalso will lie prostrate in an agony, under the darkening olive trees.\nAnd some there are to whom life seems but one long Gethsemane. In that\ndread agony God help us to pray! Nay, what else then can a man do but,\nas Browning says, catch at God's skirts and pray? But that he can do.\nDeath may build its dividing walls great and high, such as our feet can\nnever scale; it cannot roof them over and shut us out from God. We\nremember how it was with Enoch Arden, stranded on an isle, \"the\nloneliest in a lonely sea\":--\n\n                \"Had not his poor heart\n    Spoken with That, which being everywhere\n    Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone,\n    Surely the man had died of solitude.\"\n\nWere it not for the doors opened in heaven what should man that is born\nof a woman do? But when in our Gethsemane we offer up \"prayers and\nsupplications, with strong crying and tears,\" it is after Christ's\nmanner that we must pray. I said just now that there are some to whom\nlife seems one long Gethsemane. Can it be because hitherto they have\nonly prayed, \"O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away\nfrom me\"? Not until with Christ we bow our heads and say, \"Nevertheless,\nnot as I will, but as Thou wilt,\" will the iron gates unfold and the\nshadows of the Garden lie behind us.\n\n(2) \"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.\" And if there be\nsome to whom my last word had little or no meaning, here, at least,\nChrist speaks to all. And this time I have nothing of my own to add by\nway of comment; but I copy out this passage from Charles Kingsley's\n_Yeast_, for every young man who reads these words to lay to heart: \"I\nam no saint,\" says Colonel Bracebridge, \"and God only knows how much\nless of one I may become; but mark my words--if you are ever tempted by\npassion, and vanity, and fine ladies, to form liaisons, as the Jezebels\ncall them, snares, and nets and labyrinths of blind ditches, to keep you\ndown through life, stumbling and grovelling, hating yourself and hating\nthe chain to which you cling--in that hour pray--pray as if the devil\nhad you by the throat--to Almighty God, to help you out of that cursed\nslough! There is nothing else for it!--pray, I tell you!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES\n\n\n    \"She, who kept a tender Christian hope,\n    Haunting a holy text, and still to that\n    Returning, as the bird returns, at night,\n    'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,'\n    Said, 'Love, forgive him:' but he did not speak;\n    And silenced by that silence lay the wife,\n    Remembering her dear Lord who died for all,\n    And musing on the little lives of men,\n    And how they mar this little by their feuds.\"\n                       TENNYSON.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nCONCERNING THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES\n\n     \"_Then came Peter, and said to Him, Lord, how oft shall my\n     brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?\n     Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times;\n     but, until seventy times seven._\"--MATT, xviii. 21, 22.\n\n\nThis would seem to be plain enough, even though we had nothing more from\nthe lips of Jesus concerning the duty of forgiveness. In point of fact,\nhowever, the lesson of these words is repeated a full half-dozen times\nthroughout the Gospels. It may be well, therefore, to begin by bringing\ntogether our Lord's sayings on the subject.\n\n\nI\n\n\nWe turn first to the Sermon on the Mount: \"Ye have heard that it was\nsaid, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy; but I say\nunto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you.\"\nThen, in the Lord's Prayer we have the familiar petition, \"Forgive us\nour trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.\" And it is\nsurely a fact full of significance that at the close of the prayer our\nLord should single out this one petition from the rest with this\nemphatic comment: \"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly\nFather will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their\ntrespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.\" The words\nquoted thus far are taken from the first Gospel. Similar teaching is\nfound in the second and third. Thus, in Mark, we read: \"And whensoever\nye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your\nFather also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses;\" and in\nLuke: \"If thy brother sin, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him.\nAnd if he sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times turn\nagain to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.\" Again, we have\nthe teaching recorded by Matthew, out of which Peter's question\nsprang--\"If thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault between\nthee and him alone; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy\nbrother\"--followed by the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, with its\nsolemn warning of inimitable doom: \"So shall also My heavenly Father do\nunto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.\"\nAnd, finally, all these words are made fast for ever in the minds and\nconsciences of men, by the great act on the Cross when the dying\nRedeemer prayed for the men who slew Him: \"Father, forgive them; for\nthey know not what they do.\"\n\nThe meaning of all this is unmistakable. No child could miss the point\nof the solemn parable to which I have referred. At the same time, it may\nnot be out of place to point out that there are not a few instances in\nwhich people may feel themselves wronged, which, nevertheless, do not\ncome within the scope of Christ's teaching about forgiveness. An\nillustration will best explain my meaning. It sometimes happens, both in\nbusiness life and in the Church, that two men, equally honourable and\ntrue, but with almost nothing else in common, are often thrown into each\nother's company. They have to deal with the same facts, but they look\nupon them with wholly different eyes, they approach them from wholly\ndifferent points of view. The results are obvious. There are not only\nwidely differing opinions, but occasional misunderstandings, and\nsometimes sharper words than ought ever to pass between Christian men.\nNow, to say broadly that one is right and the other wrong, that the one\nowes confession and the other forgiveness, is simply not true; what is\ntrue is that the men are different, different in temperament, different\nin training, different in their whole habits of thought and life. And\nwhat is needed is that each should learn frankly to recognize the fact.\nThis is not a case for rebuking, and repenting, and forgiving, but for\nmutual forbearance. There are multitudes of good people, people whose\ngoodness no one who knows them would ever question, whom yet we cannot\ntake to our bosoms, and treat as intimate personal friends. Even\nreligion does not all at once straighten out all the twists in human\nnature, nor rub down all its hard angularities. And, as I say, it is our\nsimple, common-sense duty to recognize the fact; and if sometimes we\nfind even our fellow--Christians \"very trying,\" well, we must learn to\nbear and forbear, always remembering that others probably find us no\nless trying than we sometimes find them. But where grave and undeniable\ninjury has been done, immediately Christ's teaching comes into\noperation. The injured one must banish all thought of revenge. Never\nmust we say, \"I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render\nto the man according to his work.\" Rather must we strive to overcome\nevil by good, and by the manifestation of a forgiving spirit to win the\nwrong-doer to repentance and amendment.\n\n\nII\n\n\nWhen, now, we take these precepts of Jesus and lay them side by side\nwith the life of the world, or even with the life of the Church, as day\nby day it passes before our eyes, our first thought must be, how little\nyet do men heed the words of Jesus, how much mightier is the pagan\nspirit of revenge than the Christian spirit of forgiveness. Indeed, of\nall the virtues which Christ inculcated, this, perhaps, is the most\ndifficult. True forgiveness--I do not speak of the poor, bloodless\nphantom which sometimes passes by the name:\n\n    \"Forgive! How many will say 'forgive,' and find\n    A sort of absolution in the sound\n    To hate a little longer,\"\n\n--not of such do I speak, but of true forgiveness, and this, I say, can\nnever for us men be an easy thing. Perhaps a frank consideration of some\nof the difficulties may contribute to their removal.\n\n(1) One chief reason why Christ's command remains so largely a dead\nletter is to be found in our unwillingness to acknowledge that we have\ncommitted an injury. That another should have wronged us we find no\ndifficulty in believing; that we have wronged another is very hard to\nbelieve. Look at the very form of Peter's question: \"How oft shall my\nbrother sin against me, and I forgive him?\" \"My brother\" the wrong-doer,\nmyself the wronged--that is what we are all ready to assume. But what if\nit is I who have need to be forgiven? But this is what our pride will\nnot suffer us to believe. That \"bold villain\" Shame, who plucked\nFaithful by the elbow in the Valley of Humiliation, and sought to\npersuade him that it is a shame to ask one's neighbour forgiveness for\npetty faults, or to make restitution where we have taken from any, is\nalways quick to seize his opportunity. And he is especially quick when\nacknowledgement is due to one who is socially our inferior. If an\nemployee be guilty of some gross discourtesy towards his master, or a\nservant towards her mistress, the master or mistress may demand a prompt\napology on pain of instant dismissal. But when it is the servant or\nemployee who is the injured person he has no such remedy; yet surely, in\nChrist's eyes, his very dependence makes the duty of confession doubly\nimperative. \"If,\" Christ said, \"thou art offering thy gift at the altar,\nand there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee\"--note\nexactly Christ's words; He did not say, \"If thou rememberest that thou\nhast aught against thy brother\"; alas, it is very easy for most of us to\ndo that; what He said was, \"If thou rememberest that thy brother hath\naught against thee.\" Whom did I overreach in business yesterday? Whose\ngood name did I drag through the mire? What heart did I stab with my\ncruel words? \"If thou rememberest that thy brother hath aught against\nthee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be\nreconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.\"\n\n(2) If the difficulties are great when we have committed the wrong, they\nare hardly less when we have suffered it. Thomas Fuller tells how once\nhe saw a mother threatening to beat her little child for not rightly\npronouncing the petition in the Lord's Prayer, \"Forgive us our\ntrespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.\" The child\ntried its best, but could get no nearer than \"tepasses,\" and\n\"trepasses.\" \"Alas!\" says Fuller, it is a shibboleth to a child's tongue\nwherein there is a confluence of hard consonants together; and then he\ncontinues, \"What the child could not pronounce the parents do not\npractise. O how lispingly and imperfectly do we perform the close of\nthis petition: As we forgive them that trespass against us.\" In the old\nGreek and Roman world, we have been told, people not only did not\nforgive their enemies, but did not wish to do so, nor think better of\nthemselves for having done so. That man considered himself fortunate\nwho, on his deathbed, could say, on reviewing his past life, that no one\nhad done more good to his friends or more mischief to his enemies. And\nthough we profess and call ourselves Christians, how strong in many of\nus still is the old heathen desire to be \"even with\" one who has wronged\nus, and to make him smart for it. Many of us, as Dr. Dale says,[44] have\ngiven a new turn to an old text. In our own private Revised Version of\nthe New Testament we read: \"Whosoever speaketh a word or committeth a\nwrong against God, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh a\nword or committeth a wrong against me, it shall not be forgiven him;\ncertainly not in this world, even if it is forgiven in the world to\ncome.\" Resentment against moral evil every good man must feel; but when\nwith the clear, bright flame of a holy wrath there mingle the dark fumes\nof personal vindictiveness, we do wrong, we sin against God.\n\nNowhere in Scripture, perhaps, have we such a lesson on the difficulty\nof forgiveness as in the reference to Alexander the coppersmith, in St.\nPaul's last letter to Timothy. Even if we read his words in the modified\nand undoubtedly accurate form in which they are found in the Revised\nVersion, we still feel how far short they come of the standard of\nChrist. \"Paul,\" says Dr. Whyte, \"was put by Alexander to the last trial\nand sorest temptation of an apostolic and a sanctified heart.\"[45] And\nwith all the greatness of our regard for the great apostle, we dare not\nsay that he came out of the trial wholly unscathed. Did ever any man\ncome out of such a fire unhurt--any save One? Yet it is not for me to\nsit in judgment on St. Paul; only let us remember we have no warrant\nfrom God to hate any man and to hand him over to eternal judgment even\nthough, like Alexander, he heap insult and injury, not only upon\nourselves, but upon the cause and Church of Christ.\n\n(3) And then to this native, inborn unwillingness to forgive there comes\nin to strengthen it our knowledge of the fact that forgiveness is\nsometimes mistaken for, and does, in fact, sometimes degenerate into,\nthe moral weakness which slurs over a fault, and refuses to strike only\nbecause it dare not. Nevertheless, though there be counterfeits current,\nthere is a reality; there is a forgiving spirit which has no kinship\nwith cowardice or weakness or mere mushiness of character, but which is\nthe offspring of strength and goodness and mercy, in short, of all in\nman that is likest God. And it is _this_ not that which God bids us make\nour own; and not the less so because in the rough ways of the world that\nso often passes for this.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIt would be easy to go on enumerating difficulties, but long as the\nenumeration might be, Christ's command would still remain in all its\nexplicitness, the Divine obligation would be in no way weakened. We must\nforgive; we must forgive from our hearts; and there must be no limit to\nour forgiveness. Nor is this all. The whole law of forgiveness is not\nfulfilled when one who has done us an injury has come humbly making\nconfession, and we have accepted the confession and agreed to let\nbygones be bygones. We should be heartless wretches indeed, if, under\nsuch circumstances, we were not willing to do as much as that. But we\nmust do more: \"If thy brother sin against thee, go, show him his fault\nbetween thee and him alone; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy\nbrother.\" We, we who have been wronged, must take the first step. We\nmust not wait for the wrong-doer to come to us; we must go to him. We\nmust lay aside our vindictiveness, and earnestly, patiently, making our\nappeal to his better self, by every art and device which love can\nsuggest, we must help him to take sides against the wrong which he has\ndone, until at last forgiving love has led him captive, and our brother\nis won. This is the teaching of Jesus. Let me suggest, in conclusion, a\nthree-fold reason why we should give heed to it.\n\nLet us forgive _for our own sake_. A man of an unforgiving spirit is\nalways his own worst enemy. He \"that studieth revenge,\" says Bacon,\n\"keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.\"\n\"If thou hast not mercy for others,\" says Sir Thomas Browne, \"yet be not\ncruel unto thyself; to ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon\ninjuries, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our\nenemies.\" There is no misery worse than that of a mind which broods\ncontinually over its own wrongs, be they real or only fancied. There is\nno gloom so deep and dark as that which settles on a hard and\nunrelenting soul. And, on the other hand, there is no joy so pure, there\nis none so rewarding, as that of one who, from his heart, has learned to\nsay, \"I forgive.\" He has tasted the very joy of God, the joy of Him of\nwhom it is written that He delighteth in mercy. Just as when a sea-worm\nperforates the shell of an oyster, the oyster straightway closes the\nwound with a pearl, so does a forgiving spirit heal the hidden hurt of\nthe heart, and win for itself a boon even at the hands of its foe.\n\nLet us forgive _for our brother's sake_. \"What,\" asks George MacDonald,\n\"am I brother for, but to forgive?\" And how much for my brother my\nforgiveness may do! All love, not Christ's love only, has within it a\nstrange redemptive power. We often profess ourselves puzzled by that\nhard saying of Jesus concerning the binding and loosing of men's sins.\nYet this is just what human love, or the want of it, is doing every day.\nWhen we forgive men their sins, we so far loose them from them; we help\nthem to believe in the power and reality of the Divine forgiveness. When\nwe refuse to forgive, we bind their sins to them, we make them doubt the\nlove and mercy of God. Have we forgotten the part which Ananias played\nin the conversion of Saul of Tarsus? St. Augustine used to say that the\nChurch owed Paul to the prayers of Stephen. Might he not have said, with\nequal truth, that the Church owed Paul to the forgiveness of Ananias?\nFor three days, without sight, and without food or drink, Saul waited in\nDamascus, pondering the meaning of the heavenly vision. Then came unto\nhim, sent by God, the man whose life he had meant to take: \"Ananias\nentered into the house; and, laying his hands on him, said, Brother\nSaul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou\nearnest, hath sent me.\" \"_Brother_ Saul\"--how his heart must have leapt\nwithin him at the sound of the word! It was a voice from without\nconfirming the voice within; it was the love and forgiveness of man\nsealing and making sure the love and forgiveness of God. Wherefore, let\nus take heed lest, by our sullen refusal to forgive, we be thrusting\nsome penitent soul back into the miry depths, whence, slowly and\npainfully, it is winning its way into the light and love of God.\n\nLet us forgive _for Christ's sake_, because of that which God through\nHim has done for us. When, day by day, we pray, \"Forgive us our\ntrespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,\" what we are\nasking is, that God will deal with us as we are dealing with others. Do\nwe mean what we say? Are we showing a mercy as large as we need?\nChrysostom tells us that many people in his day used to omit the words,\n\"As we forgive them that trespass against us.\" They did not dare to ask\nGod to deal with their sins as they were dealing with the sins of those\nwho had wronged them, lest they brought upon themselves not a blessing\nbut a curse. And would it not go hardly with some of us, if, with the\nmeasure we mete, God should measure to us again? Yet there is no\nmistaking Christ's words: \"If ye forgive not men their trespasses,\nneither will your Father forgive your trespasses.\" Therefore, let me\nthink of myself, of my own sin, of the forgiveness even unto seventy\ntimes seven which I need; and then let me ask, can I, whose need is so\ngreat, dole out my forgiveness with a grudging hand, counting till a\npoor \"seven times\" be reached, and then staying my hand? Rather, let me\npray, Lord,\n\n    \"Make my forgiveness downright--such as I\n    Should perish if I did not have from Thee.\"\n\n\"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and railing, be\nput away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another,\ntenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave\nyou.\"\n\n    \"O man, forgive thy mortal foe,\n    Nor ever strike him blow for blow;\n    For all the souls on earth that live\n    To be forgiven must forgive,\n    Forgive him seventy times and seven:\n    For all the blessed souls in Heaven\n    Are both forgivers and forgiven.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING CARE\n\n\n      \"My spirit on Thy care,\n      Blest Saviour, I recline;\n    Thou wilt not leave me in despair,\n      For Thou art Love Divine.\n\n      In Thee I place my trust,\n      On Thee I calmly rest;\n    I know Thee good, I know Thee just,\n      And count Thy choice the best.\n\n      Whate'er events betide,\n      Thy will they all perform;\n    Safe in Thy breast my head I hide,\n      Nor fear the coming storm.\n\n      Let good or ill befall,\n      It must be good for me,\n    Secure of having Thee in all,\n      Of having all in Thee.\"\n                H.F. LYTH.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nCONCERNING CARE\n\n     \"_Be not anxious for your life_ ... _nor yet for your\n     body_.... _Be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What\n     shall we drink? ... Be not anxious for the morrow._\"--MATT.\n     vi. 25, 31, 34.\n\n\nI\n\n\n\"_Take no thought for_ your life\" is the more familiar rendering of the\nAuthorized Version. And if the words conveyed the same meaning to us\nto-day as they did to all English-speaking people in the year 1611,\nthere would have been no need for a change. A great student of words,\nthe late Archbishop Trench, tells us that \"thought\" was then constantly\nused as equivalent to anxiety or solicitous care; and he gives three\nillustrations of this use of the word from writers of the Elizabethan\nage. Thus Bacon writes: \"Harris, an alderman in London, was put in\ntrouble, and died with _thought_ and anxiety before his business came to\nan end.\" Again, in one of the _Somer's Tracts_, we read, \"Queen\nKatharine Parr _died of thought_\"; and in Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_,\n\"_Take thought_ and die for Caesar,\" where \"to take thought\" is to take\na matter so seriously to heart that death ensues.[46] In 1611,\ntherefore, the old translation did accurately reproduce Christ's\nthought. To-day, however, it is altogether inadequate, and sometimes, it\nis to be feared, positively misleading. For neither in this chapter nor\nanywhere in Christ's teaching is there one word against what we call\nforethought, and they who would find in the words of Jesus any\nencouragement to thriftlessness are but misrepresenting Him and\ndeceiving themselves. Every man, who is not either a rogue or a fool,\nmust take thought for the morrow; at least, if he does not, some one\nmust for him, or the morrow will avenge itself upon him without mercy.\nWhat our Lord forbids is not prudent foresight, but worry: \"Be ye not\n_anxious_!\" The word which Christ uses ((Greek: merimnate)) is a very\nsuggestive one; it describes the state of mind of one who is drawn in\ndifferent directions, torn by internal conflict, \"distracted,\" as we\nsay, where precisely the same figure of speech occurs. A similar counsel\nis to be found in another and still more striking word which only Luke\nhas recorded, and which is rendered, \"Neither be ye of doubtful mind.\"\nThere is a picture in the word ((Greek: meteorizesthe)) the picture of a\nvessel vexed by contrary winds, now uplifted on the crest of some huge\nwave, now labouring in the trough of the sea. \"Be ye not thus,\" Christ\nsays to His disciples, \"the sport of your cares, driven by the wind and\ntossed; but let the peace of God rule in your hearts, and be ye not of\ndoubtful mind.\"\n\nIt cannot surprise us that Jesus should speak thus; rather should we\nhave been surprised if it had been otherwise. How could He speak to men\nat all and yet be silent about their cares? For how full of care the\nlives of most men are! One is anxious about his health, and another\nabout his business; one is concerned because for weeks he has been\nwithout work, and another because his investments are turning out badly;\nsome are troubled about their children, and some there are who are\nmaking a care even of their religion, and instead of letting it carry\nthem are trying to carry it; until, with burdens of one kind or another,\nwe are like a string of Swiss pack-horses, such as one may sometimes\nsee, toiling and straining up some steep Alpine pass under a blazing\nJuly sun. Poor Martha, with her sad, tired face, and nervous, fretful\nways, \"anxious and troubled about many things,\" is everywhere to-day.\nNor is it the poor only whose lives are full of care. It was not a poor\nman amid his poverty, but a rich man amid his riches, who, in Christ's\nparable, put to himself the question, \"What shall I do?\" The birds of\ncare build their nests amid the turrets of a palace as readily as in the\nthatched roof of a cottage. The cruel thorns--\"the cares of this life,\"\nas Jesus calls them--which choke the good seed, sometimes spring up more\neasily within the carefully fenced enclosure of my lord's park than in\nthe little garden plot of the keeper of his lodge. On the whole,\nperhaps, and in proportion to their number, there is less harassing,\nwearing anxiety in the homes of the poor than in those of the wealthy.\nAnd what harsh taskmasters our cares can be! How they will lord it over\nus! Give them the saddle and the reins, and they will ride us to death.\nSeat them on the throne, and they will chastise us not only with whips\nbut with scorpions. It is no wonder that Christ should set Himself to\nfree men from this grinding tyranny. He is no true deliverer for us who\ncannot break the cruel bondage of our cares.\n\n\nII\n\n\nLet us listen, then, to Christ's gracious argument and wise\nremonstrances. What, He asks, is the good of our anxiety? What can it do\nfor us? \"Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his\nstature? If, then, ye are not able to do that which is least, why are ye\nanxious concerning the rest?\" \"But, the morrow! the morrow!\" we cry.\n\"Let the morrow,\" Christ answers, \"take care of itself; sufficient unto\nthe day is the evil thereof; learn thou to live a day at a time.\" \"Our\nearliest duty,\" says a great writer of our day, \"is to cultivate the\nhabit of not looking round the corner;\" which is but another version of\nChrist's simple precept. And the saying, simple and obvious as it may\nseem, never fails to justify itself. For one thing, the morrow rarely\nturns out as our fears imagined it. Our very anxiety blurs our vision,\nand throws our judgment out of focus. We see things through an\natmosphere which both magnifies and distorts. We remember how it was\nwith Mr. Fearing: \"When he was come to the entrance of the Valley of the\nShadow of Death, I thought\"--it is Greatheart who tells the story--\"I\nshould have lost my man: not for that he had any inclination to go\nback,--that he always abhorred; but he was ready to die for fear. Oh,\nthe hobgoblins will have me! the hobgoblins will have me! cried he; and\nI could not beat him out on't.\" Yet see how matters fell out. \"This I\ntook very great notice of,\" goes on Greatheart, \"that this valley was as\nquiet while he went through it as ever I knew it before or since.\" And\nagain, when Mr. Fearing \"was come at the river where was no bridge,\nthere again he was in a heavy case. Now, now, he said, he should be\ndrowned for ever, and so never see that face with comfort, that he had\ncome so many miles to behold.\" But once more his fears were put to\nshame: \"Here, also, I took notice of what was very remarkable: the water\nof that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life.\nSo he went over at last, not much above wet-shod.\"\n\nAnd even though the morrow should prove as bad as our fears, Christ's\nprecept is still justified, for the worst kind of preparation for such a\nday is worry. Worry, like the undue clatter of machinery, means waste,\nwaste of power. Anxiety, it has been well said, does not empty to-morrow\nof its sorrows, but it does empty to-day of its strength. Therefore, let\nus not be anxious. Let us climb our hills when we come to them. God\ngives each day strength for the day; but when, to the responsibilities\nof to-day we add the burdens of to-morrow, and try to do the work of two\ndays in the strength of one, we are making straight paths for the feet\nof failure and disappointment. All the many voices of reason and\nexperience are on Christ's side when He bids us, \"Be not anxious.\"\n\nYet, true as all this is, how inadequate it is! When the tides of care\nare at the flood they will overrun and submerge all such counsels as\nthese, as the waves wash away the little sand-hills which children build\nby the sea-shore. \"We know it is no good to worry,\" people will tell us,\nhalf-petulantly, when we remonstrate with them; \"but we cannot help\nourselves, and if you have no more to say to us than this, you cannot\nhelp us either.\" And they are right. Care is the cancer of the heart,\nand if our words can go no deeper than they have yet gone, it can never\nbe cured. It is an inward spiritual derangement, which calls for\nsomething more than little bits of good advice in order to put it right.\nAnd if, again, we turn to the words of Jesus, we shall find the needed\nsomething more is given. The care-worn soul, for its cure, must be taken\nout of itself. \"Oh the bliss of waking,\" says some one, \"with all one's\nthoughts turned outward!\" It is the power to do that, to turn, and to\nkeep turned, one's thoughts outwards that the care-ridden need; and\nChrist will show us how it may be ours.\n\n\"Be not anxious,\" says Jesus; and then side by side with this negative\nprecept He lays this positive one: \"Seek ye first the kingdom of God.\"\nChrist came to establish a kingdom in which \"all men's good\" should be\n\"each man's rule,\" and love the universal law. When, therefore, He bids\nthe anxious seek the kingdom, what He means is that they are to find an\nescape from self and self-consuming cares in service. \"When you find\nyourself overpowered by melancholy,\" said John Keble, \"the best way is\nto go out and do something kind to somebody or other.\" And thousands who\nare sitting daily in the gloom of a self-created misery, with all the\nblinds of the spirit drawn, if they would but \"go out\" and begin to care\nfor others, would speedily cease their miserable care for themselves.\n\"When I dig a man out of trouble,\" some one quaintly writes, \"the hole\nhe leaves behind him is the grave in which I bury my own trouble.\"[47]\nThis is not the whole cure for care; but if the mind is to be kept from\nburrowing in the dark of its own fears and anxieties, it must be set\nresolutely and constantly on those nobler ends to which Christ in His\ngospel summons us all.\n\nThe care-worn, Christ says, must think of others; and, most of all, they\nmust think of God. \"Let not your heart be troubled ... believe.\" This is\nthe great argument into which all other arguments run up. This is the\nlarger truth, within whose wide circumference lie all Christ's words\nconcerning care. We are not to care because we are cared for, cared for\nby God. There is, Christ teaches us, a distribution of duties between\nourselves and God. We, on our part, make it our daily business to get\nGod's will done on earth as it is done in heaven; He, on His, undertakes\nthat we shall not want.\n\n    \"Make you His service your delight,\n    He'll make your wants His care.\"\n\nOnce more we see how fundamental is Christ's doctrine of the Divine\nFatherhood. It is not so much because our anxiety is useless, or because\nit unfits us for service, but because God is what He is, that our worry\nis at once a blunder and a sin. It is mistrust of the heavenly love that\ncares for us. The sovereign cure for care is--God.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nBut now a difficulty arises. Christ's doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood\nis, without doubt, fundamental; but is it true? A God who clothes the\nblowing lilies with their silent beauty, without whom no sparrow falleth\nto the ground, who numbers the very hairs of our head--it is a glorious\nfaith, if one could but receive it. But can we? It was possible once, we\nthink, in the childhood of the world; but that time has gone, and we are\nthe children of a new day, whose thoughts we cannot choose but think. So\nlong as men thought of our earth as the centre of the universe, it was\nnot difficult to believe that its inhabitants were the peculiar care of\ntheir Creator. But astronomy has changed all that; and what once we\nthought so great, we know now to be but a speck amid infinite systems of\nworlds. The old question challenges us with a force the Psalmist could\nnot feel: \"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the\nmoon and the stars which Thou hast ordained; what is man that Thou are\nmindful of him? and the son of man that Thou visitest him?\" The infinity\nof God, the nothingness of man: the poor brain reels before the\ncontrast. Is it thinkable, we ask, that He whose dwelling-place is\neternity should care for us even as we care for our children? So the\nquestion is often urged upon us to-day. But arguments of this kind, it\nhas been well said, are simply an attempt to terrorize the imagination,\nand are not to be yielded to. As a recent writer admirably says: \"We\nknow little or nothing of the rest of the universe, and it may very well\nbe that in no other planet but this is there intelligent and moral life;\nand, if that be so, then this world, despite its material\ninsignificance, would remain the real summit of creation. But even if\nthis be not so, still man remains man--a spiritual being, capable of\nknowing, loving, and glorifying God. Man is that, be there what myriads\nof worlds there may, and is not less than that, though in other worlds\nwere also beings like him.... No conception of God is less imposing than\nthat which represents Him as a kind of millionaire in worlds, so\nmaterialized by the immensity of His possessions as to have lost the\nsense of the incalculably greater worth of the spiritual interests of\neven the smallest part of them.\"[48]\n\nBut this is not the only difficulty; for some it is not the chief\ndifficulty. We have no theories of God and the universe which bar the\npossibility of His intervention in the little lives of men. There is\nnothing incredible to us in the doctrine of a particular Providence. But\nwhere, we ask, is the proof of it? We would fain believe, but the facts\nof experience seem too strong for us. A hundred thousand Armenians\nbutchered at the will of an inhuman despot, a whole city buried under a\nvolcano's fiery hail, countless multitudes suffering the slow torture of\ndeath by famine--can such things be and God really care? Nor is it only\ngreat world tragedies like these which challenge our faith. The question\nis pressed upon us, often with sickening keenness, by the commonplace\nills of our own commonplace lives: the cruel wrong of another's sin, the\nlong, wasting pain, the empty cradle, the broken heart. How can we look\non these things and yet believe that Eternal Love is on the throne?\n\nExcept we believe in Jesus we cannot; if we do, we must. For remember,\nJesus was no shallow optimist; He did not go through life seeing only\nits pleasant things; He was at Cana of Galilee, but He was also at Nain;\nover all His life there lay a shadow, the shadow of the Cross; He died\nin the dark, betrayed of man, forsaken of God; surely He hath borne our\ngriefs and carried our sorrows. And yet through all, His faith in God\nnever wavered. He prayed, and He taught others to pray. When He lifted\nHis eyes towards heaven, it was with the word \"Father\" upon His lips;\nand in like manner He bade His disciples, \"When ye pray, say 'Father.'\"\nHe took the trembling hands of men within His own, and looking into\ntheir eyes, filled as they were with a thousand nameless fears, \"Fear\nnot,\" He said, \"our heavenly Father knoweth; let not your heart be\ntroubled, neither let it be afraid.\"\n\n\"Learn of Me ... and ye shall find rest unto your souls;\" herein is the\nsecret of peace. But it is not enough that we give ear to the words of\nChrist; we must make our own the whole meaning of the fact of Christ.\n\"God's in His heaven,\" sings Browning; \"all's right with the world.\" But\nif God is only in His heaven, all is _not_ right with the world. In\nChrist we learn that God has come from out His heaven to earth; and in\nthe Cross of Christ we find the eternal love which meets and answers all\nour fears. Fear not,\n\n                   \"Or if you fear,\n    Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.\"\n\n\"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING MONEY\n\n\n     \"Now I saw in my dream, that at the further side of that plain\n     was a little hill called Lucre, and in that hill a\n     silver-mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that\n     way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but\n     going too near the brink of the pit, the ground being\n     deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain;-some also\n     had been maimed there, and could not to their dying day be\n     their own men again.\"--JOHN BUNYAN.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nCONCERNING MONEY\n\n     _\"How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the\n     kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter in\n     through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the\n     kingdom of God._\"--LUKE xviii. 24, 25.\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe most significant thing in the teaching of Jesus concerning money is\nthe large place which it fills in the records of our Lord's public\nministry. How large that place is few of us, perhaps, realize. Even\nreligious writers who take in hand to set forth Christ's teaching in\ndetail, for the most part, pass over this subject in silence. In\nHastings' great _Dictionary of the Bible_ we find, under \"Money,\" a most\nelaborate article, extending to nearly twenty pages, and discussing with\ngreat fullness and learning the coinage of various Biblical periods; but\nwhen we seek to know what the New Testament has to say concerning the\nuse and perils of wealth, the whole subject is dismissed in some nine\nlines.\n\nVery different is the impression which we receive from the Gospels\nthemselves. It is not possible here to bring together all Christ's words\nabout money, but we may take the third Gospel (in which the references\nto the subject are most numerous) and note Christ's more striking\nsayings in the order in which they occur. In the parable of the sower,\nin the eighth chapter, the thorns which choke the good seed are the\n\"cares and riches and pleasures of this life.\" Chapter twelve contains a\nwarning against covetousness, enforced by the parable of the rich fool\nand its sharp-pointed application, \"So is he that layeth up treasure for\nhimself, and is not rich toward God.\" The fourteenth chapter sheds a new\nlight on the law of hospitality: \"When thou makest a dinner or a supper,\ncall not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich\nneighbours ... but when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed,\nthe lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed.\" Chapter fifteen tells\nhow a certain son wasted his substance with riotous living. Chapter\nsixteen opens with the parable of the unjust steward; then follow\nweighty words touching the right use of \"the mammon of unrighteousness.\"\nBut the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, when they heard these\nthings, \"scoffed at Him.\" Christ's answer is the parable of Dives and\nLazarus, with which the chapter closes. Chapter eighteen tells of a rich\nyoung ruler's choice, and of Christ's sorrowful comment thereon: \"How\nhardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.\" And\nthen, lastly, in the nineteenth chapter, we hear Zacch\u00e6us, into whose\nhome and heart Christ had entered, resolving on the threshold of his new\nlife that henceforth the half of his goods he would give to the poor,\nand that where he had wrongfully exacted aught of any man he would\nrestore four-fold. It is indeed a remarkable fact, the full significance\nof which few Christians have yet realized, that, as John Ruskin says,\nthe subject which we might have expected a Divine Teacher would have\nbeen content to leave to others is the very one He singles out on which\nto speak parables for all men's memory.[49]\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe question is sometimes asked how the teaching of Jesus concerning\nmoney is related to that strange product of civilization, the modern\nmillionaire. The present writer, at least, cannot hold with those who\nthink that Christ was a communist, or that He regarded the possession of\nwealth as in itself a sin. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to\nsympathize with the feeling that the accumulation of huge fortunes in\nthe hands of individuals is not according to the will of Christ. Mr.\nAndrew Carnegie is reported to have said that a man who dies a\nmillionaire dies disgraced; and few persons who take their New Testament\nseriously will be disposed to contradict him. But, inasmuch as all\nmillionaires are not prepared like Mr. Carnegie to save themselves from\ndisgrace, the question is beginning to arise in the minds of many,\nwhether society itself should not come to the rescue--its own and the\nrich man's. No man, it may be pretty confidently affirmed, can possibly\n_earn_ a million; he may obtain it, he may obtain it by methods which\nare not technically unjust, but he has not earned it. Be a man's powers\nwhat they may, it is impossible that his share of the wealth which he\nhas helped to create can be fairly represented by a sum so vast. If he\nreceives it, others may reasonably complain that there is something\nwrong in the principle of distribution. And unless, both by a larger\njustice to his employees, and by generous benefactions to the public, he\ndo something to correct the defects in his title, he must not be\nsurprised if some who feel themselves disinherited are driven to ask\nominous and inconvenient questions.\n\nThis, however, is a matter which it is impossible now to discuss\nfurther. Turning again to Christ's sayings about money, we may summarize\nthem in this fashion: Christ says nothing about the making of money, He\nsays much about the use of it, and still more about its perils and the\nneed there is for a revised estimate of its worth. Following the example\nof Christ, it is the last point of which I wish more especially to\nspeak. But before coming to that, it may be well briefly to recall some\nof the things which Christ has said touching the use of wealth. Wealth,\nHe declares, is a trust, for our use of which we must give account unto\nGod. In our relation to others we may be proprietors; before God there\nare no proprietors, but all are stewards. And in the Gospels there are\nindicated some of the ways in which our stewardship may be fulfilled. I\nwill mention two of them.\n\n(1) \"When thou doest alms\"--Christ, you will observe, took for granted\nthat His disciples would give alms, as He took for granted that they\nwould pray. He prescribes no form which our charity must take; we have\nto exercise our judgment in this, as in other matters. Obedience is left\nthe largest liberty, but not the liberty of disobedience; and they who\nopen their ears greedily to take in all that the political economist and\nothers tell us of the evils of indiscriminate charity, only that they\nmay the more tightly button up their pockets against the claims of the\nneedy, are plainly disregarding the will of Christ. If what we are told\nis true, the more binding is the obligation to discover some other way\nin which our alms-giving may become more effective. The duty itself no\nman can escape who calls Christ Jesus Lord and Master.\n\n(2) But wealth, Christ tells us, may minister not merely to the physical\nnecessities, but to the beauty and happiness of life. When Christ was\ninvited to the marriage-feast at Cana of Galilee, when Matthew the\npublican made for Him a feast in His own house, He did not churlishly\nrefuse, saying that such expenditure was wasteful and wicked excess.\nWhen in the house of Simon the leper Mary \"took a pound of ointment of\nspikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus,\" and they that\nsat by murmured, saying, \"To what purpose is this waste? for this\nointment might have been sold for above three hundred pence and given to\nthe poor,\" Jesus threw His shield about this woman and her deed of love:\n\"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on Me.\"\nThese words, it has been well said, are \"the charter of all undertakings\nwhich propose, in the name of Christ, to feed the mind, to stir the\nimagination, to quicken the emotions, to make life less meagre, less\nanimal, less dull.\"[50] Do not let us speak as though the only friends\nof the poor were those who gave them oatmeal at Christmas, or who secure\nfor them alms-houses in their old age. There is a life which is more\nthan meat, and all heavenly charity is not to be bound up in bags of\nflour. He who strives to bring into the grey, monotonous lives of the\ntoilers of our great cities the sweet, refining influences of art, and\nmusic and literature, he who helps his fellows to see and to love the\ntrue and the beautiful and the good, is not one whit less a benefactor\nof his kind than he who obtains for them better food and better homes.\nMan shall not live by bread alone, and they who use their wealth to\nminister to a higher life serve us not less really than they who provide\nfor our physical needs.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nMuch, however, as Christ has to say concerning the noble uses to which\nwealth may be put, it is not here, as every reader of the Gospels must\nfeel, that the full emphasis of His words comes. It is when He goes on\nto speak of the perils of the rich, and of our wrong estimates of the\nworth of wealth, that His solemn warnings pierce to the quick. Christ\ndid not live, nor does He call us to live, in an unreal world, though\nperhaps there are few subjects concerning which more unreal words have\nbeen spoken than this. The power of wealth is great, the power of\nconsecrated wealth is incalculably great; and this the New Testament\nfreely recognizes; but wealth is _not_ the great, necessary,\nall-sufficing thing that ninety-nine out of a hundred of us believe it\nto be. And when we put it first, and make it the standard by which all\nthings else are to be judged, Christ tells us plainly that we are\nfalling into a temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful\nlusts; we are piercing ourselves through with many sorrows. For once at\nleast, then, let us try to look at money with His eyes and to weigh it\nin His balances.\n\nChrist was Himself a poor man. His mother was what to-day we should call\na working-man's wife, and probably also the mother of a large family.\nWhen, as an infant, Jesus was presented in the Temple, the offering\nwhich His parents brought was that which the law prescribed in the case\nof the poor: \"a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.\" When He came\nto manhood, and entered on His public ministry, He had no home He could\ncall His own. In His Father's house, He said, were many mansions; but on\nearth He had not where to lay His head. Women ministered unto Him of\ntheir substance. We never read that He had any money at all. When once\nHe wanted to use a coin as an illustration, He borrowed it; when, at\nanother time, He needed one with which to pay a tax, He wrought a\nmiracle in order to procure it. As He was dying, the soldiers, we are\ntold, parted His garments among them--that was all there was to divide.\nWhen He was dead, men buried Him in another's tomb. More literally true\nthan perhaps we always realize was the apostle's saying, \"He became\npoor.\"\n\nWho, then, will deny that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance\nof the things which he possesseth? Yet how strangely materialized our\nthoughts have become! Our very language has been dragged down and made a\npartner with us in our fall. When, for example, our Authorized Version\nwas written in 1611, the translators could write, without fear of being\nmisunderstood, \"Let no man seek his own, but every man another's\n_wealth_\" (i Cor. x. 24).[51] But though the nobler meaning of the word\nstill survives in \"well\" and \"weal,\" \"wealth\" to-day is rarely used save\nto indicate abundance of material good. When Thackeray makes \"Becky\nSharp\" say that she could be good if she had \u00a34000 a year, and when. Mr.\nKeir Hardie asks if it is possible for a man to be a Christian on a\npound a week, the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. There is nothing\nto be done without money, we think; money is the golden key which\nunlocks all doors; money is the lever which removes all difficulties.\nThis is what many of us are saying, and what most of us in our hearts\nare thinking. But clean across these spoken and unspoken thoughts of\nours, there comes the life of Jesus, the man of Nazareth, to rebuke, and\nshame, and silence us. Who in His presence dare speak any more of the\nsovereign might of money?\n\nThis is the lesson of the life of the Best. Is it not also the lesson of\nthe lives of the good in all ages? The greatest name in the great world\nof Greece is Socrates; and Socrates was a poor man. The greatest name in\nthe first century of the Christian era is Paul; and Paul was a\nworking-man and sometimes in want. It was Calvinism, Mark Pattison said,\nthat in the sixteenth century saved Europe, and Calvin's strength, a\nPope once declared, lay in this, that money had no charm for him. John\nWesley re-created modern England and left behind him \"two silver\nteaspoons and the Methodist Church.\" The \"Poets' Corner\" in Westminster\nAbbey, it has been said, commemorates a glorious company of paupers. And\neven in America, the land of the millionaire and multi-millionaire, the\nnames that are graven on the nation's heart, and which men delight to\nhonour, are not its Vanderbilts, or its Jay Goulds, but Lincoln, and\nGrant, and Garfield, and Webster, and Clay.\n\nThis is not mere \"curb-stone rhetoric\"; I speak the words of soberness\nand truth. Would that they in whose blood the \"narrowing lust of gold\"\nhas begun to burn might be sobered by them! In the name of Jesus of\nNazareth, and of all the noblest of the sons of men, let us deny and\ndefy the sordid traditions of mammon; let us make it plain that we at\nleast do not believe \"the wealthiest man among us is the best.\"\n\"Godliness with contentment,\" said the apostle, \"is great gain;\" and\nthough these are not the only worthy ends of human effort, yet he who\nhas made them his has secured for himself a treasure which faileth not,\nwhich will endure when the gilded toys for which men strive and sweat\nare dust and ashes.\n\nIt is further worthy of note that it was always the rich rather than the\npoor whom Christ pitied. He was sorry for Lazarus; He was still more\nsorry for Dives. \"Blessed are ye poor.... Woe unto you that are rich.\"\nThis two-fold note sounds through all Christ's teaching. And the reason\nis not far to seek. As Jesus looked on life, He saw how the passionate\nquest for gold was starving all the higher ideals of life. Men were\nconcentrating their souls on pence till they could think of nothing\nelse. For mammon's sake they were turning away from the kingdom of\nheaven. The spirit of covetousness was breaking the peace of households,\nsetting brother against brother, making men hard and fierce and\nrelentless. Under its hot breath the fairest growths of the spirit were\ndrooping and ready to die. The familiar \"poor but pious\" which meets us\nso often in a certain type of biography could never have found a place\non the lips of Jesus. \"Rich but pious\" would have been far truer to the\nfacts of life as He saw them. \"The ground of a certain rich man brought\nforth plentifully,\" and after that he could think of nothing but barns:\nthere was no room for God in his life. \"The Pharisees who were lovers of\nmoney heard these things; and they scoffed at Him;\" of course, what\ncould their jaundiced eyes see in Jesus? And even to one of whom it is\nwritten that Jesus, \"looking upon him loved him,\" his great possessions\nproved a magnet stronger than the call of Christ. It was Emerson, I\nthink, who said that the worst thing about money is that it so often\ncosts so much. To take heed that we do not pay too dearly for it, is the\nwarning which comes to us from every page of the life of Jesus. Are\nthere none of us who need the warning? \"Ye cannot serve God and mammon;\"\nwe know it, and that we may the better serve mammon, we are sacrificing\nGod and conscience on mammon's unholy altars. And to-day, perhaps, we\nare content that it should be so. But will our satisfaction last? Shall\nwe be as pleased with the bargain to-morrow and the day after as we\nthink we are to-day? And when our last day comes--what? \"Forefancy your\ndeathbed,\" said Samuel Rutherford; and though the counsel ill fits the\nmood of men in their youth and strength, it is surely well sometimes to\nlook forward and ask how life will bear hereafter the long look back.\n\"This night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast\nprepared whose shall they be?\"--not his, and he had nothing else. He had\nlaid up treasure for himself, but it was all of this world's coinage; of\nthe currency of the land whither he went he had none. In one of Lowell's\nmost striking poems he pictures the sad retrospect of one who, through\nfourscore years, had wasted on ignoble ends God's gift of life; his\nhands had\n\n        \"plucked the world's coarse gains\n    As erst they plucked the flowers of May;\"\n\nbut what now, in life's last hours, are gains like these?\n\n    \"God bends from out the deep and says,\n      'I gave thee the great gift of life;\n    Wast thou not called in many ways?\n      Are not My earth and heaven at strife?\n    I gave thee of My seed to sow,\n      Bringest thou Me My hundred-fold?'\n    Can I look up with face aglow,\n      And answer, 'Father, here is gold'?\"\n\nAnd the end of the poem is a wail:\n\n    \"I hear the reapers singing go\n      Into God's harvest; I, that might\n    With them have chosen, here below\n      Grope shuddering at the gates of night.\"\n\nWherefore let us set not our minds on the things that are upon earth;\nlet us covet earnestly the best gifts; let us seek first the kingdom of\nGod; and all other things in due season and in due measure shall be\nadded unto us.[52]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE SECOND ADVENT\n\n\n    \"Lo as some venturer, from his stars receiving\n      Promise and presage of sublime emprise,\n    Wears evermore the seal of his believing\n      Deep in the dark of solitary eyes,\n\n    Yea to the end, in palace or in prison,\n      Fashions his fancies of the realm to be,\n    Fallen from the height or from the deeps arisen,\n      Ringed with the rocks and sundered of the sea;--\n\n    So even I, and with a heart more burning,\n      So even I, and with a hope more sweet,\n    Groan for the hour, O Christ! of Thy returning,\n      Faint for the flaming of Thine advent feet.\"\n             F.W.H. MYERS, _Saint Paul_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nCONCERNING THE SECOND ADVENT\n\n     \"_They shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven\n     with power and great glory.... Of that day and hour knoweth no\n     one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the\n     Father only.\"_--MATT. xxiv. 30, 36.\n\n\nThe doctrine of our Lord's Second Coming occupies at the present moment\na curiously equivocal position in the thought of the Christian Church.\nOn the one hand by many it is wholly ignored. There is no conscious\ndisloyalty on their part to the word of God; but the subject makes no\nappeal to them, it fails to \"find\" them. Ours is a sternly practical\nage, and any truth which does not readily link itself on to the\nnecessities of life is liable speedily to be put on one side and\nforgotten. This is what has happened with this particular doctrine in\nthe case of multitudes; it is not denied, but it is banished to what Mr.\nLecky calls \"the land of the unrealized and the inoperative.\" But if, on\nthe one hand, the doctrine has suffered from neglect, on the other it\nhas suffered hardly less from undue attention. Indeed of late years the\nwhole subject of the \"Last Things\" has been turned into a kind of happy\nhunting-ground for little sects, who carry on a ceaseless wordy warfare\nboth with themselves and the rest of the Christian world. Men and women\nwithout another theological interest in the world are yet keen to argue\nabout Millenarianism, and to try their 'prentice hands on the\ninterpretation of the imagery of the apocalyptic literature of both the\nOld Testament and the New. As Spurgeon used to say, they are so taken up\nwith the second coming of our Lord that they forget to preach the first\nSo that one hardly knows which to regret more, the neglect and\nindifference of the one class, or the unhealthy, feverish absorption of\nthe other.\n\nAs very often happens in cases of this kind each extreme is largely\nresponsible for the other. Neglect prepares the way for exaggeration;\nexaggeration leads to further neglect. Moreover, in the case before us,\nboth tendencies are strengthened by the very difficulty in which the\nsubject is involved. Vagueness, uncertainty, mystery, attract some minds\nas powerfully as they repel others. And, assuredly, the element of\nuncertainty is not wanting here. In the first place, this is a subject\nfor all our knowledge of which we are wholly dependent upon revelation.\nMuch that Christ and His apostles have taught us we can bring to the\ntest of experience and verify for ourselves. But this doctrine we must\nreceive, if we receive it at all, wholly on the authority of One whom,\non other grounds, we have learned to trust. Verification, in the nature\nof the case, is impossible. Further, we have gone but a little way when\nrevelation itself becomes silent; and, as I have said, when that guide\nleaves us, we enter at once the dark forest where instantly the track is\nlost.\n\nLet us seek to learn, then, what Christ has revealed, and what He has\nleft unrevealed, concerning His coming again.\n\n\nI\n\n\nAs to the _fact_ of Christ's coming we are left in no doubt. Our Lord's\nown declarations are as explicit as language can make them. Thus, in\nMatthew xvi. 27 we read that \"the Son of Man shall come in the glory of\nHis Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man\naccording to his deeds.\" In the great discourse on the Last Things,\nrecorded by all the Synoptists, after speaking of the fall of Jerusalem,\nChrist goes on, \"Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven;\nand then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the\nSon of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.\"\nAnd again, in the Upper Room, He said to His disciples, \"I go to prepare\na place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again,\nand will receive you unto Myself; that where I am ye may be also.\" The\nhope of that return shines on every page of the New Testament: \"This\nJesus,\" said the angels to the watching disciples, \"which was received\nup from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him\ngoing into heaven.\" The early Christians were wont to speak, without\nfurther definition, of \"that day.\" St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians\nhow that they had \"turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and\ntrue God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.\" _Maran atha_--\"our Lord\ncometh\"--was the great watchword of the waiting Church. When, at the\ntable of the Lord, they ate the bread and drank the cup, they proclaimed\nHis death \"till He come.\" \"Amen; come, Lord Jesus,\" is the passionate\ncry with which our English Scriptures close.\n\nFor all those, then, to whom the New Testament speaks with authority,\nthe fact of Christ's return is established beyond all controversy. But\nwhat will be the nature of His coming? Will it be visible and personal,\nor spiritual and unseen? Will it be once and never again, or repeated?\nWill Christ come at the end of history, or is He continually coming in\nthose great crises which mark the world's progress towards its appointed\nend? These questions have been answered with such admirable simplicity\nand scriptural truth by Dr. Denney that I cannot do better than quote\nhis words: \"It may be frankly admitted,\" he says, \"that the return of\nChrist to His disciples is capable of different interpretations. He came\nagain, though it were but intermittently, when He appeared to them after\nHis resurrection. He came again, to abide with them permanently, when\nHis Spirit was given to the Church at Pentecost. He came, they would all\nfeel who lived to see it, signally in the destruction of Jerusalem, when\nGod executed judgment historically on the race which had rejected Him,\nand when the Christian Church was finally and decisively liberated from\nthe very possibility of dependence on the Jewish. He comes still, as His\nown words to the High Priest suggest--From this time on ye shall see the\nSon of Man coming--in the great crises of history, when the old order\nchanges, yielding place to the new; when God brings a whole age, as it\nwere, into judgment, and gives the world a fresh start. But all these\nadmissions, giving them the widest possible application, do not enable\nus to call in question what stands so plainly in the pages of the New\nTestament,--what filled so exclusively the minds of the first\nChristians--the idea of a personal return of Christ at the end of the\nworld. We need lay no stress on the scenery of New Testament prophecy,\nany more than on the similar element of Old Testament prophecy; the\nvoice of the archangel and the trump of God are like the turning of the\nsun into darkness and the moon into blood; but if we are to retain any\nrelation to the New Testament at all, we must assert the personal return\nof Christ as Judge of all.\"[53]\n\nSo far I think is clear. It is when we come to speak of the time of our\nLord's return that our difficulties begin. It appears to me impossible\nto doubt that the first Christians were looking for the immediate return\nof our Lord to the earth. At one time even St. Paul seems to have\nexpected Him within his own life-time. Nor does this fact in itself\ncause us any serious perplexity. What does perplex us is to find in the\nGospels language attributed to Christ which apparently makes Him a\nsupporter of this mistaken view. _E.g._, we have these three separate\nsayings, recorded in St. Matthew's Gospel: \"But when they persecute you\nin this city, flee into the next; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall\nnot have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come\"\n(x. 23); \"Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here,\nwhich shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man\ncoming in His kingdom\" (xvi. 28); \"Verily I say unto you, This\ngeneration shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished\"\n(xxiv. 34). This seems plain enough; and if we are to take the words as\nthey stand, we seem to be shut up to the conclusion that our Lord was\nmistaken, that He ventured on a prediction which events have falsified.\nLet us see if this really be so. I leave, for the moment, the words I\nhave quoted in order to cite other words which point in a quite\ndifferent direction.\n\nTo begin with, we have the emphatic statement: \"But of that day and hour\nknoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the\nFather only.\" We remember also Christ's words to His disciples, on the\neve of the Ascension, \"It is not for you to know times or seasons, which\nthe Father hath set within His own authority.\" There is, further, a\nwhole class of sayings, exhortations, and parables, which seem plainly\nto involve a prolonged Christian era, and, consequently, the\npostponement to a far distant time, of the day of Christ's return. Thus,\nthere are the passages which speak of the preaching of the gospel to the\nnations beyond: \"Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the\nwhole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for\na memorial of her\" (Mark xiv. 9); \"This gospel of the kingdom shall be\npreached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and\nthen shall the end come\" (Matt. xxiv. 14). There is the parable which\ntells of the tarrying of the bridegroom till even the wise virgins\nslumbered and slept. \"After a long time,\" we read in another parable,\n\"the Lord of those servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them.\"\nWhat is the significance of the parable of the leaven hid in three\nmeasures of meal, and still more, of that group of parables which depict\nthe growth of the kingdom--the parables of the sower, the wheat and\ntares, the mustard-seed, and the seed growing gradually? Does not all\nthis point not to a great catastrophe nigh at hand, which should bring\nto an end the existing order of things, but rather to just such a future\nfor the kingdom of God on earth as the actual course of history reveals?\nAnd this, and no other, was, I believe, the impression which Christ\ndesired to leave on the minds of His disciples.\n\nWhat, then, are we to make of those other and apparently contrary words\nwhich I have quoted, but meanwhile have left unexplained? They\nconstitute, without doubt, one of the most perplexing problems which the\ninterpreter of the New Testament has to face,[54] and any suggestion for\nmeeting the difficulty must be made with becoming caution. I can but\nbriefly indicate the direction in which the probable solution may be\nfound. Our Lord, as we have already seen, spoke of His coming again, not\nonly at the end of the world, but in the course of it: in the power of\nHis Spirit, at the fall of Jerusalem, in the coming of His kingdom among\nmen. But the minds of the disciples were full of the thought of His\n_final_ coming, which would establish for ever the glory of His\nMessianic kingdom; and it would seem that this fact has determined both\nthe form and the setting of some of Christ's sayings which they have\npreserved for us. Words which He meant to refer to Israel's coming\njudgment-day they, in the ardour of their expectation, referred to the\nlast great day. In the first Gospel, especially, we may trace some such\ninfluence at work. When, _e.g._, Matthew represents our Lord as saying,\n\"There be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of\ndeath till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,\" it is\nevident, both from the words themselves and from the context, that he\nunderstood them to refer to the final return. Luke, however, speaks only\nof seeing \"the kingdom of God,\" and Mark of seeing \"the kingdom of God\ncome in power.\" And if these words were our only version of the prophecy\nthey would present no difficulty; we should feel that they had received\nadequate fulfilment in the events of the great day of Pentecost. We\nconclude, therefore, that of the three reports before us the second and\nthird, which are practically the same, reproduce more correctly the\nwords actually spoken by Christ; and that the account given in the first\nGospel was coloured by the eager hope of the early followers of Christ\nfor their Master's speedy return.[55]\n\nTo sum up in a sentence the results of this brief inquiry: Christ's\nteaching concerning His return leaves us both in a state of certainty\nand uncertainty. \"We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge\"--that\nis our certainty; \"Of that day and hour knoweth no one\"--that is our\nuncertainty. And each of these carries with it its own lesson.\n\n\nII\n\n\n\"Of that day and hour knoweth no one;\" and we must be content not to\nknow. There are things that are \"revealed\"; and they belong to us and to\nour children. And there are \"secret things,\" which belong neither to us,\nnor to our children, but to God. Just as a visitor to Holyrood Palace\nfinds some rooms open and free, through which he may wander at will,\nwhile from others he is strictly excluded, so in God's world there are\nlocked doors through which it is not lawful for any man to enter. And it\nis our duty to be faithful to our ignorance as well as to our knowledge.\nThere is a Christian as well as an anti-Christian agnosticism. To pry\ninto the secret things of God is no less a sin than wilfully to remain\nignorant of what He has been pleased to make known. The idly inquisitive\nspirit which is never at rest save when it is poking into forbidden\ncorners, Christ always checks and condemns. \"Lord,\" asked one, \"are\nthere few that be saved?\" But He would give no answer save this: \"Strive\nto enter in by the narrow door.\" \"Lord, and this man what?\" said Peter,\ncurious concerning the unrevealed future of his brother apostle. But\nagain idle curiosity must go unsatisfied: \"If I will that he tarry till\nI come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.\" \"Lord dost Thou at this\ntime restore the kingdom to Israel?\" But once more He will give no\nanswer: \"It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father\nhath set within His own authority.\" And yet, strangely enough, that\nwhich Christ has seen good to leave untold is the one thing concerning\nHis coming on which the minds of multitudes have fastened. It says\nlittle, either for our religion or our common-sense, that one of the\nmost widely circulated religious newspapers of our day is one which\nfills its columns with absurd guesses and forecasts concerning those\nvery \"times\" and \"seasons\" of which Christ has told us that it is not\nfor us to know. Christ has given us no detailed map of the future, and\nwhen foolish persons pester us with little maps of their own making, let\nus to see to it that they get no encouragement from us. Let us dare\nalways to be faithful to our ignorance.\n\nBut if there is much we do not know, this we do know: the Lord will\ncome. And, alike on the ground of what we know and of what we do not\nknow, our duty is clear: we must \"watch,\" so that whether He come at\neven, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning, He shall\nfind us ready. Christ's solemn injunction left an indelible mark on the\nmind of the Early Church. \"Yourselves know perfectly,\" St. Paul writes\nin the first of his apostolic letters, \"that the day of the Lord so\ncometh as a thief in the night ... so then let us not sleep, as do the\nrest, but let us watch and be sober.\" As St. Augustine says, \"The last\nday is hidden that every day maybe regarded.\" But what, exactly, is the\nmeaning of the command to \"watch\"? It cannot be that we are to be always\n\"on the watch.\" That would simply end in the feverish excitement and\nunrest which troubled the peace of the Church of Thessalonica. The true\nmeaning is given us, I think, in the parable of the Ten Virgins. Five\nwere wise, not because they watched all night for the bridegroom, for it\nis written \"they _all_ slumbered and slept,\" but because they were\nprepared; and five were foolish, not because they did not watch, but\nbecause they were unprepared. \"The fisherman's wife who spends her time\non the pier-head watching for the boats, cannot be so well prepared to\ngive her husband a comfortable reception as the woman who is busy about\nher household work, and only now and again turns a longing look\nseaward.\"[56] So Christ's command to \"watch\" means, not \"Be ye always on\nthe watch,\" but, \"Be ye always ready.\"\n\nSpurgeon once said, with characteristic humour and good sense, that\nthere were friends of his to whom he would like to say, \"Ye men of\nPlymouth, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? Go on with your work.\" He\nwho in a world like ours can sit and gaze with idly folded hands--let\nnot that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A lady once\nasked John Wesley, \"Suppose that you knew you were to die at twelve\no'clock to-morrow night, how would you spend the intervening time?\"\n\"How, Madam?\" he replied; \"why just as I intend to spend it now. I\nshould preach this night at Gloucester, and again at five to-morrow\nmorning. After that I should ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the\nafternoon, and meet the societies in the evening. I should then repair\nto friend Martin's house, who expects to entertain me, converse and pray\nwith the family as usual, retire to my room at ten o'clock, commend\nmyself to my heavenly Father, lie down to rest, and wake up in glory.\"\nThis is the right attitude for the Christian. The old cry must not fade\nfrom our lips, nor the old hope from our heart: _Maran atha_, \"our Lord\ncometh.\" But meanwhile He hath given to every man his work; and we may\nbe sure there is no preparation for His coming like the faithful doing\nof the appointed task. \"Blessed is that servant whom His Lord when He\ncometh shall find so doing.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE JUDGMENT\n\n\n     \"I often have a kind of waking dream; up one road the image of\n     a man decked and adorned as if for a triumph, carried up by\n     rejoicing and exulting friends, who praise his goodness and\n     achievements; and, on the other road, turned back to back to\n     it, there is the very man himself, in sordid and squalid\n     apparel, surrounded not by friends but by ministers of\n     justice, and going on, while his friends are exulting, to his\n     certain and perhaps awful judgment.\"--R.W. CHURCH.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nCONCERNING THE JUDGMENT\n\n     \"_When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the\n     angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory:\n     and before Him shall be gathered all the nations: and He shall\n     separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the\n     sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right\n     hand, but the goats on the left._\"--MATT. XXV. 31-33.\n\n\nHe, the speaker, will do this. It is the most stupendous claim that ever\nfell from human lips. A young Jewish carpenter whose brief career, as He\nHimself well knew, was just about to end in a violent and shameful\ndeath, tells the little, fearful band which still clung to Him, that a\nday is coming when before Him all the nations shall be gathered, and by\nHim be separated as a shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats. In\nthe world's long history there is nothing like it.\n\nThat Jesus did really claim to be the Judge of all men, it is, I\nbelieve, impossible to doubt. The passage just quoted is by no means our\nonly evidence. In the Sermon on the Mount, which foolish persons who\nlove to depreciate theology sometimes speak of as though it were the\npith and marrow of the Christian gospel, Christ says, \"Many will say to\nMe in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy\nname cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works? And then\nwill I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work\niniquity.\" Again, He says, \"Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My\nwords in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also\nshall be ashamed of Him when He cometh in the glory of His Father with\nthe holy angels;\" and again, \"The Son of Man shall come in the glory of\nHis Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man\naccording to His deeds.\" The fourth Gospel also represents Him as\nsaying, \"Neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all\njudgment to the Son ... and He gave Him authority to execute judgment\nbecause He is the Son of Man.\" And if still further evidence be\nnecessary it would be easy to show both from the Acts and the Epistles\nthat from the very beginning all the disciples of Jesus believed and\ntaught that He would come again to be their Judge.\n\nConsider what this means. Reference has already been made in an earlier\nchapter to Christ's witness concerning Himself, to His deep and\nunwavering consciousness of separateness from all others. But more\nstriking, perhaps, than any illustration mentioned there is that\nfurnished by the fact before us now. What must His thoughts about\nHimself have been who could speak of Himself in relation to all others\nas Christ does here? When men write about Jesus as though He were merely\na gentle, trustful, religious genius, preaching a sweet gospel of the\nlove of God to the multitudes of Galilee, they are but shutting their\neyes to one half of the facts which it is their duty to explain.\nSpeaking generally, we do well to distrust the dilemma as a form of\nargument; but in this case there need be no hesitation in putting the\nalternative with all possible bluntness: either Christ was God, or He\nwas not good. That Jesus, if He were merely a good man, with a good\nman's consciousness of and sensitiveness to His own weakness and\nlimitations, could yet have arrogated to Himself the right to be the\nsupreme judge and final arbiter of the destinies of mankind, is simply\nnot thinkable. And the more we ponder the stupendous claim which Christ\nmakes, the more must we feel that it is either superhuman authority\nwhich speaks to us here or superhuman arrogance. Either Christ spoke out\nof the depths of His own Divine consciousness, knowing that the Father\nhad committed all judgment unto the Son; or He made use of words and put\nforth claims which were, and which He must have known to have been,\nempty, false, and blasphemous.\n\nSuch is the significance of Christ's words in their relation to Himself.\nIt is, however, with their relation to ourselves that we are primarily\nconcerned now. Of the wholly unimaginable circumstances of that day when\nthe Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the nations be gathered\nbefore Him I shall not attempt to speak. As Dean Church has well\nsaid,[57] no vision framed with the materials of our present experience\ncould adequately represent the truth, and, indeed, it is well that our\nminds should be diverted from matters which lie wholly beyond our reach,\nthat they may dwell upon the solemn certainties which Christ has\nrevealed. Let us think, first of the fact, and secondly of the issues,\nof Judgment.\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe persistent definiteness with which the fact of judgment is affirmed\nby the New Testament we have already seen. Nor is the New Testament our\nonly witness. The belief in a higher tribunal before which the judgments\nof time are to be revised, and in many cases reversed, may be said to be\npart of the creed of the race. Plato had his vision of judgment as well\nas Jesus. And in the Old Testament, and especially in the Book of\nPsalms, the same faith finds repeated and magnificent utterance: \"Our\nGod shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before\nHim, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to\nthe heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people;\" and\nagain, \"For He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge\nthe world with righteousness and the peoples with His truth.\"\n\nHere, then, is the fact which demands a place in the thoughts of each of\nus--we are all to be judged. Life is not to be folded up, like a piece\nof finished work, and then laid aside and forgotten; it is to be gone\nover again and examined by the hand and eyes of Perfect Wisdom and\nPerfect Love. Each day we are writing, and often when the leaf is turned\nthat which has been written passes from our mind and is remembered no\nmore; but it is there, and one day the books--the Book of Life, of our\nlife--will be opened, and the true meaning of the record revealed. Life\nbrings to us many gifts of many kinds, and as it lays them in our hands,\nfor our use and for our blessing, it is always, had we but ears to hear,\nwith the warning word, \"Know thou, that for all these things, God will\nbring thee into judgment.\"\n\nIt is, indeed, a tremendous thought. When Daniel Webster was once asked\nwhat was the greatest thought that had ever occupied his mind, he\nanswered, \"the fact of my personal accountability to God.\" And no man\ncan give to such a fact its due place without feeling its steadying,\nsobering influence through all his life. Lament is often made to-day,\nand not without reason, of our failing sense of the seriousness of life.\nA plague of frivolity, more deadly than the locusts of Egypt, has fallen\nupon us, and is smiting all our green places with barrenness. Somehow,\nand at all costs, we must get back our lost sense of responsibility. If\nwe would remember that God has a right hand and a left hand; if we would\nput to ourselves Browning's question, \"But what will God say?\" if\nsometimes we would pull ourselves up sharp, and ask--this that I am\ndoing, how will it look then, in that day when \"Each shall stand\nfull-face with all he did below\"? if, I say, we would do this, could\nlife continue to be the thing of shows and make-believe it so often is?\nIt was said of the late Dean Church by one who knew him well: \"He seemed\nto live in the constant recollection of something which is awful, even\ndreadful to remember--something which bears with searching force on all\nmen's ways and hopes and plans--something before which he knew himself\nto be as it were continually arraigned--something which it was strange\nand pathetic to find so little recognized among other men.\" But, alas!\nthis is how we refuse to live. We thrust the thought of judgment from\nus; we treat it as an unwelcome intruder, a disturber of our peace; we\nblock up every approach by which it might gain access to our minds. We\ndo not deny that there is a judgment to come; but our habitual disregard\nof it is verily amazing. \"Judge not,\" said Christ, \"that ye be not\njudged;\" yet every day we let fly our random arrows, careless in whose\nhearts they may lodge. \"Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall\ngive account thereof in the day of judgment;\" yet with what superb\nrecklessness do we abuse God's great gift of speech! \"We shall all stand\nbefore the judgment-seat of God;\" yes, we know it; but when do we think\nof it? What difference does it make to us?\n\nWhat can indifference such as this say for itself? How can it justify\nitself before the bar of reason? Do we realize that our neglect has\nChrist to reckon with? These things of which I have spoken are not the\ngossamer threads of human speculation; they are the strong cords of\nDivine truth and they cannot be broken. \"You seem, sir,\" said Mrs. Adams\nto Dr. Johnson, in one of his despondent hours, when the fear of death\nand judgment lay heavy on him, \"to forget the merits of our Redeemer.\"\n\"Madam,\" said the honest old man, \"I do not forget the merits of my\nRedeemer; but my Redeemer has said that He will set some on His right\nhand and some on His left.\" Yes, it is the words of Christ with which we\nhave to do; and if we are wise, if we know the things which belong unto\nour peace, we shall find for them a place within our hearts.\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe issues of the Judgment may be summed up in a single\nword--separation: \"He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the\ngoats on the left.\" Stated thus broadly, the issue of the Judgment\nsatisfies our sense of justice. If there is to be judgment at all,\nseparation must be the outcome. And in that separation is vindicated one\nof man's most deep-seated convictions. As right is right and wrong is\nwrong, and right and wrong are not the same, so neither can their issues\nbe the same. \"We have a robust common-sense of morality which refuses to\nbelieve that it does not matter whether a man has lived like the Apostle\nPaul or the Emperor Nero.\" We can never crush out the conviction that\nthere must be one place for St. John, who was Jesus' friend, and another\nfor Judas Iscariot, who was His betrayer.\"[58] This must be,\n\n        \"Else earth is darkness at the core,\n    And dust and ashes all that is.\"\n\nWe must be sure that God has a right hand and a left, that good and evil\nare distinct, and will for ever remain so, that each will go to his own\nplace, the place for which he is prepared, for which he has prepared\nhimself, or our day would be turned into night and our whole life put to\nconfusion.\n\nSo far, Christ's words present no difficulty. To many, however, it is a\nserious perplexity to find that Christ speaks of but two classes into\nwhich by the Judgment men are divided. There are the sheep and the\ngoats, the good and the bad, and there are no others. To us it seems\nimpossible to divide men thus. They are not, we think, good _or_ bad,\nbut good _and_ bad. \"I can understand,\" some one has said, \"what is to\nbecome of the sheep, and I can understand what is to become of the\ngoats, but how are the alpacas to be dealt with?\"[59] The alpaca, it\nshould be said, is an animal possessing some of the characteristics both\nof the sheep and the goat, and the meaning of the question is, of\ncourse, what is to become of that vast middle class in whose lives\nsometimes good and sometimes evil seems to rule?\n\nNow it is a remarkable fact that Scripture knows nothing of any such\nmiddle class. Some men it calls good, others it calls evil, but it has\nno middle term. Note, _e.g._, this typical contrast from the Book of\nProverbs: \"The path of the righteous is as the light of dawn, that\nshineth more and more unto the noon-tide of the day. The way of the\nwicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble.\" Or listen to\nPeter's question: \"If the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the\nungodly and sinner appear?\" In both instances the assumption is the\nsame: there, on the one hand, are the righteous; and there, on the\nother, are the wicked; and beside these there are no others. The same\nclassification is constant throughout the teaching of Jesus. He speaks\nof two gates, and two ways, and two ends. There are the guests who\naccept the King's invitation and sit down in His banqueting hall, and\nthere are those who refuse it and remain without. In the parable of the\nnet full of fishes the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad are\ncast away. The wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest; then\nthe wheat is gathered into the barn, and the tares are cast into the\nfire. The sheep are set on the right hand, and the goats on the left\nhand; and there is no hint or suggestion that any other kind of\nclassification is necessary in order that all men may be truly and\njustly dealt with.\n\nAll this may seem very arbitrary and impossible until we remember that\nthe classification is not ours but God's. It is not we who have to\ndivide men, setting one on the right hand and another on the left; that\nis God's work; and it is well to remind ourselves that He invites none\nof us to share His judgment-throne with Him, or, by any verdict of ours,\nto anticipate the findings of the last great day. And because to us such\na division is impossible, it does not therefore follow that it should be\nso to Him before whom all hearts are open and all desires known. _We_\ncannot separate men thus because human character is so complex. But\ncomplexity is a relative term; it depends on the eyes which behold it;\nand our naming a thing complex may be but another way of declaring our\nignorance concerning it. We all know how a character, a life, a course\nof events, which, on first view, seemed but a tangled, twisted skein, on\ncloser acquaintance often smooths itself out into perfect simplicity.\nAnd there is surely no difficulty in believing that it should be so with\nhuman life when it is judged by the perfect knowledge of God. Life is\nlike a great tree which casts forth on every side its far-spreading\nbranches. Yet all that moving, breathing mystery of twig and branch and\nfoliage springs from a single root. To us the mystery is baffling in its\ncomplexity: we have looked at the branches. To God it is simple, clear:\nHe sees the hidden root from which it springs. So that, to go back to\nour former illustration, it is only our ignorance which compels us to\nspeak of \"alpacas\" in the moral world. To perfect knowledge they will\nprove to be, as Mr. Selby says, either slightly-disguised sheep or\nslightly-disguised goats.\n\nThere is a further fact also to be taken into account in considering\nChrist's two-fold classification. Since it is the work of infinite\nknowledge and justice it will have regard to all the facts of our life.\nGod looks not only at the narrow present, but back into the past, and\nforward into the future. He marks the trend of the life, the bent and\nbias of the soul. He chalks down no line saying, \"Reach this or you are\nundone for ever.\" He sets up no absolute standard to which if a man\nattain he is a saint, or falling short of which he is a sinner. And when\nHe calls one man righteous and another wicked, He means very much more\nthan that one has done so many good deeds, and another so many evil\ndeeds; \"righteous\" and \"wicked\" describe what each is in himself, what\neach will decisively reveal himself to be, when present tendencies have\nfully worked themselves out. There are two twilights, the twilight of\nevening and the twilight of morning; and therefore God's question to us\nis not, how much light have we? but, which way do we face? to the night\nor to the day? Not \"What art thou?\" but \"What wilt thou?\" is the supreme\nquestion; it is the answer to this which sets some on the right hand and\nsome on the left.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us close as we began, remembering that it is Christ who is to be our\nJudge. Therefore will the judgment be according to perfect truth. We\nknow how He judged men when He was here on earth--without respect of\npersons, undeceived by appearances, seeing things always as they are,\ncalling them always by their true names. And such will His judgment be\nhereafter. On the walls of the famous Rock Tombs of Thebes, there is a\ngroup of figures representing the judging of the departed spirit before\nOsiris, the presiding deity of the dead. In one hand he holds a\nshepherd's crook, in the other a scourge; before him are the scales of\njustice; that which is weighed is the heart of the dead king upon whose\nlot the deity is called to decide. The pictured symbol is a dim\nforeshadowing of that perfect judgment which He who looketh not at the\noutward appearance but at the heart will one day pass on all the lives\nof men. And yet an apostle has dared to write of \"boldness in the day of\nJudgment\"! Surely St. John is very bold; yet was his boldness\nwell-based. He remembered the saying of his own Gospel: \"The Father hath\ngiven all judgment unto the Son ... because He is the Son of Man.\" Yes;\nHe who will come to be our Judge is He who once for us men, and for our\nsalvation, came down from heaven, and was made man, and upon the Cross\ndid suffer death for our redemption. Herein is the secret of the\n\"boldness\" of the redeemed.\n\n    \"Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness\n    My beauty are, my glorious dress;\n    'Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,\n    With joy shall I lift up my head.\n\n    Bold shall I stand in that great day,\n    For who aught to my charge shall lay?\n    Fully absolved through these I am,\n    From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE\n\n\n    \"My knowledge of that life is small,\n      The eye of faith is dim;\n    But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,\n      And I shall be with Him.\"\n           RICHARD BAXTER.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nCONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE\n\n    \"_Where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves\n    do not break through nor steal._\"--MATT. vi. 20.\n\n    \"_Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched._\"--MARK ix.\n    48.\n\n\nThese are both sayings of Christ, and each has reference to the life\nbeyond death; together they illustrate the two-fold thought of the\nfuture which finds a place in all the records of our Lord's teaching.\n\nPopular theology, it is sometimes said, seriously misunderstands and\nmisinterprets Jesus. And so far as the theology of the future life is\nconcerned there need be no hesitation in admitting that, not\nunfrequently, it has been disfigured by an almost grotesque literalism.\nThe pulpit has often forgotten that over-statement is always a blunder,\nand that any attempt to imagine the wholly unimaginable is most likely\nto end in defeating our own intentions and in dissipating, rather than\nreinforcing, our sense of the tremendous realities of which Christ\nspoke. Nevertheless, much as theology may have erred in the form of its\nteaching concerning the future, its great central ideas have always been\nderived direct from Christ. It has not, we know, always made its appeal\nto what is highest in man; it has sometimes spoken of \"heaven\" and\n\"hell\" in a fashion that has left heart and conscience wholly untouched;\nnevertheless, the time has not yet come--until men cease to believe in\nChrist, the time never will have come--for banishing these words from\nour vocabulary. Unless Christ were both a deceiver and deceived, they\nrepresent realities as abiding as God and the soul, realities towards\nwhich it behoves every man of us to discover how he stands. In the\nteaching of Jesus, no less than in the teaching of popular theology, the\nfuture has a bright side and it has a dark side; there is a heaven and\nthere is a hell.\n\n\nI\n\n\nThat there is a life beyond this life, that death does not end all, is\nof course always assumed in the teaching of Jesus. But it is much more\nthan this that we desire to know. What kind of a life is it? What are\nits conditions? How is it related to the present life? What is the\n\"glory\" into which, as we believe, \"the souls of believers at their\ndeath do immediately pass\"? Perhaps our first impression, as we search\nthe New Testament for an answer to our questions, is one of\ndisappointment; there is so much that still remains unrevealed. We do\nindeed read of dead men raised to life again by the power of God, but of\nthe awful and unimaginable experiences through which they passed not a\nword is told.\n\n    \"'Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'\n        There lives no record of reply.\n           .       .       .       .       .\n    Behold a man raised up by Christ!\n        The rest remaineth unreveal'd;\n        He told it not; or something seal'd\n    The lips of that Evangelist.\"\n\nHow much even Christ Himself has left untold! At His incarnation, and\nagain at His resurrection, He came forth from that world into which we\nall must pass; yet how few were His words concerning it, how little able\nwe still are to picture it! Nevertheless, if He has not told us all, He\nhas told us enough. Let us recall some of His words.\n\nHe spoke of \"everlasting habitations\"--\"eternal tabernacles\"--into which\nmen should be received. Here we are as pilgrims and sojourners, dwelling\nin a land not our own.\n\n    \"Earth's but a sorry tent,\n      Pitched but a few frail days;\"\n\nand the chances and changes of this mortal life often bear heavily upon\nus. But there these things have no place. Moth and rust, change and\ndecay, sorrow and death cannot enter there.\n\n    \"The day's aye fair\n      I' the land o' the leal.\"\n\nAgain, Christ said, \"I go to prepare a place for you.\" Just as when a\nlittle child is born into the world it comes to a place made ready for\nit by the thousand little tendernesses of a mother's love, so does death\nlead us, not into the bleak, inhospitable night, but into the \"Father's\nhouse,\" to a place which love has made ready for our coming. \"Father,\ninto Thy hands I commend My spirit.\" _Into Thy hands_--thither Jesus\npassed from the Cross and the cruel hands of men; thither have passed\nthe lost ones of our love; thither, too, we in our turn shall pass. Why,\nthen, if we believe in Jesus should we be afraid? \"Having death for my\nfriend,\" says an unknown Greek writer, \"I tremble not at shadows.\"\nHaving Jesus for our friend we tremble not at death.\n\nFurther, Christ taught us, the heavenly life is a life of service. Every\none knows how largely the idea of rest has entered into our common\nconceptions of the future. It is indeed a pathetic commentary on the\nweariness and restlessness of life that with so many rest should almost\nhave come to be a synonym for blessedness. But rest is far from being\nthe final word of Scripture concerning the life to come. Surely life,\nwith its thousandfold activities, is not meant as a preparation for a\nParadise of inaction. What can be the meaning and purpose of the life\nwhich we are called to pass through here, if our hereafter is to be but\none prolonged act of adoration? We shall carry with us into the future\nnot character only but capacity; and can it be that God will lay aside\nas useless there that which with so great pains He has sought to perfect\nhere? It is not so that Christ has taught us to think: \"He that received\nthe five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou\ndeliverest unto me five talents: lo, I have gained other five talents.\nHis lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast\nbeen faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter\nthou into the joy of thy lord.\" God will not take the tools out of the\nworkman's hands just when he has learned how to handle them; He will not\n\"pension off\" His servants just when they are best able to serve Him.\nThe reward of work well done is more work; faithfulness in few things\nbrings lordship over many. Have we not here a ray of light on the\nmystery of unfinished lives? We do not murmur when the old and tired are\ngathered to their rest; but when little children die, when youth falls\nin life's morning, when the strong man is cut off in his strength, we\nknow not what to say. But do not \"His servants serve Him\" there as well\nas here? Their work is not done; in ways beyond our thoughts it is going\nforward still. [60]\n\nOne other question concerning the future with which, as by an instinct,\nwe turn to Christ for answer is suggested by the following touching\nlittle poem:\n\n    \"I can recall so well how she would look--\n    How at the very murmur of her dress\n    On entering the room, the whole room took\n          An air of gentleness.\n\n    That was so long ago, and yet his eyes\n    Had always afterwards the look that waits\n    And yearns, and waits again, nor can disguise\n           Something it contemplates.\n\n    May we imagine it? The sob, the tears,\n    The long, sweet, shuddering breath; then on her breast\n    The great, full, flooding sense of endless years,\n          Of heaven, and her, and rest.\"\n\nCan we quote the authority of Jesus for thoughts like these? The point\nis, let it be noted, not whether we shall know each other again beyond\ndeath, but whether we shall be to each other what we were here. At the\nfoot of the white marble cross which his wife placed upon the grave of\nCharles Kingsley are graven these three words: _Amavimus, Amamus,\nAmabimus_ (\"We have loved, we love, we shall love\"). After Mrs.\nBrowning's death her husband wrote these lines from Dante in her\nTestament: \"Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that\nfrom this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady\nlives, of whom my soul was enamoured.\" Will Christ counter-sign a hope\nlike this? I do not know any \"proof-text\" that can be quoted, yet it\nwere profanation to think otherwise. There are many flowers of time, we\nknow, which cannot be transplanted; but \"love never faileth,\" love is\nthe true _immortelle_. And whatever changes death may bring, those who\nhave been our nearest here shall be our nearest there. And though, as I\nsay, we can quote no \"proof-text,\" our faith may find its guarantee in\nthe great word of Jesus: \"If it were not so, I would have told you.\"\nThis is one of the instincts of the Christian heart, as pure and good as\nit is firm and strong. Since Christ let it pass unchallenged, may we not\nclaim His sanction for it? If it were not so, He would have told us.\n\n\nII\n\n\nI turn now to the reverse side of Christ's teaching concerning the\nfuture. And let us not seek to hide from ourselves the fact that there\n_is_ a reverse side. For, ignore it as we may, the fact remains: those\nsame holy lips which spoke of a place, \"where neither moth nor rust doth\nconsume,\" spoke likewise of another place, \"where their worm dieth not,\nand the fire is not quenched.\"\n\nIn considering this solemn matter we must learn to keep wholly separate\nfrom it a number of difficult questions which have really nothing to do\nwith it--with which, indeed, we have nothing to do--and the introduction\nof which can only lead to mischievous confusion and error. What is to\nbecome of the countless multitudes in heathen lands who die without\nhaving so much as heard of Christ? How will God deal with those even in\nour own Christian land to whom, at least as it seems to us, this life\nhas brought no adequate opportunity of salvation? What will happen in\nthat dim twilight land betwixt death and judgment which men call \"the\nintermediate state\"? Will they be few or many who at last will be for\never outcasts from the presence of God? These are questions men will\npersist in asking, but the answer to which no man knows. Strictly\nspeaking, they are matters with which we have nothing to do, which we\nmust be content to leave with God, confident that the Judge of all the\nearth will do right, even though He does not show us how. What we have\nto do with, what does concern us, is the warning of Jesus, emphatic and\nreiterated, that sin will be visited with punishment, that retribution,\njust, awful, inexorable, will fall on all them that love and work\niniquity.\n\n\"But why,\" it may be asked, \"why dwell upon these things? Is there not\nsomething coarse and vulgar in this appeal to men's fears? And, after\nall, to what purpose is it? If men are not won by the love of God, of\nwhat avail is it to speak to them of His wrath?\" But fear is as real an\nelement in human nature as love, and when our aim is by all means to\nsave men, it is surely legitimate to make our appeal to the whole man,\nto lay our fingers on every note--the lower notes no less than the\nhigher--in the wide gamut of human life. The preacher of the gospel,\nmoreover, is left without choice in the matter. It is no part of his\nbusiness to ask what is the use of this or of that in the message given\nto him to deliver; it is for him to declare \"the whole counsel of God,\"\nto keep back nothing that has been revealed. And the really decisive\nconsideration is this--that this is a matter on which Christ Himself has\nspoken, and spoken with unmistakable clearness and emphasis. Shall,\nthen, the ambassador hesitate when the will of the King is made known?\nMore often--five times more often, it is said[61]--than Jesus spoke of\nfuture blessedness did He speak of future retribution. The New Testament\nis a very tender book; but it is also a very stern book, and its\nsternest words are words of Jesus. \"For the sins of the miserable, the\nforlorn, the friendless, He has pity and compassion; but for the sins of\nthe well-taught, the high-placed, the rich, the self-indulgent, for\nobstinate and malignant sin, the sin of those who hate, and deceive, and\ncorrupt, and betray, His wrath is terrible, its expression is\nunrestrained.\"[62] \"Jesu, Thou art all compassion,\" we sometimes sing;\nbut is it really so? St. Paul writes of \"the meekness and gentleness of\nChrist\"; and for many of the chapters of Christ's life that is the right\nheadline; but there are other chapters which by no possible manipulation\ncan be brought under that heading, and they also are part of the story.\nIt was Jesus who said that in the day of judgment it should be more\ntolerable for even Tyre and Sidon than for Bethsaida and Chorazin; it\nwas Jesus who uttered that terrible twenty-third chapter of St.\nMatthew's Gospel, with its seven times repeated \"Woe unto you, scribes\nand Pharisees, hypocrites!\" it was Jesus who spoke of the shut door and\nthe outer darkness, of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not\nquenched, of the sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this\nworld, nor in that which is to come, and of that day when He who wept\nover Jerusalem and prayed for His murderers and died for the world will\nsay unto them on His left hand, \"Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the\neternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.\" These are\n_His_ words, and it is because they are His they make us tremble. He\n_is_ \"gentle Jesus, meek and mild\"; that is why His sternness is so\nterrible.\n\nThese things are not said in order to defend any particular theory of\nfuture punishment--on that dread subject, indeed, the present writer has\nno \"theory\" to defend; he frankly confesses himself an agnostic--but\nrather to claim for the solemn fact of retribution a place in our minds\nakin to that which it held in the teaching of our Lord. We need have no\nfurther concern than to be loyal to Him. Does, then, such loyalty admit\nof a belief in universal salvation? Is it open to us to assert that in\nChrist the whole race is predestined to \"glory, honour, and\nimmortality\"? The \"larger hope\" of the universalist--\n\n          \"that good shall fall\n      At last--far off--at last, to all,\n    And every winter change to spring\"--\n\nis, indeed, one to which no Christian heart can be a stranger; yearnings\nsuch as these spring up within us unbidden and uncondemned. But when it\nis definitely and positively asserted that \"God has destined all men to\neternal glory, irrespective of their faith and conduct,\" \"that no\nantagonism to the Divine authority, no insensibility to the Divine love,\ncan prevent the eternal decree from being accomplished,\" we shall do\nwell to pause, and pause again. The old doctrine of an assured salvation\nfor an elect few we reject without hesitation. But, as Dr. Dale has\npointed out,[63] the difference between the old doctrine and the new is\nmerely an arithmetical, not a moral difference: where the old put\n\"some,\" the new puts \"all\"; and the moral objections which are valid\nagainst the one are not less valid against the other also. I dare not\nsay to myself, and therefore I dare not say to others, that, let a man\nlive as he may, it yet shall be well with him in the end. The facts of\nexperience are against it; the words of Christ are against it. \"The very\nconception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent\nmisuse, of what our Lord Himself calls 'eternal sin.'\" If a man can go\non successfully resisting Divine grace in this life, what reason have we\nfor supposing that it would suddenly become irresistible in another\nlife? Build what we may on the unrevealed mercies of the future for them\nthat live and die in the darkness of ignorance, let us build nothing for\nourselves who are shutting our eyes and closing our hearts to the Divine\nlight and love which are already ours.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Behold, then, the goodness and severity of God;\" and may His goodness\nlead us to repentance, that His severity we may never know. This is,\nindeed, His will for every one of us: He has \"appointed us not unto\nwrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus\nChrist.\" If we are lost we are suicides.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\nFootnote 1: J. Stalker, _The Christology of Jesus_, p. 23, footnote.\n\nFootnote 2: \"The sources for our knowledge of the actual teaching of\nJesus do not lie merely in the Gospel accounts, but also in the\nliterature of the apostolic age, especially in the Epistles of Paul....\nEven had no direct accounts about Jesus been handed down to us, we\nshould still possess, in the apostolic literature, a perfectly valid\ntestimony to the historical existence and epoch-making significance of\nJesus as a teacher.\"--H.H. Wendt, _Teaching of Jesus_, vol. i, p. 28.\n\nFootnote 3: _What is Christianity?_ p. 20.\n\nFootnote 4: _Three Essays on Religion_, p. 253.\n\nFootnote 5: _Literature and Dogma_, p. 10.\n\nFootnote 6: See Harnack's _What is Christianity_? p. 4.\n\nFootnote 7: See A.S. Peake's _Guide to Biblical Study_, p. 244.\n\nFootnote 8: _Thoughts on Religion_, p. 157.\n\nFootnote 9: _The Kingdom of God_, p. 50.\n\nFootnote 10: \"Christian apologists,\" says Dr. Sanday, \"have often done\nscant justice to the intensity of this [monotheistic] faith, which was\nutterly disinterested and capable of magnificent self-sacrifice.\"--Art.\n\"God,\" Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, vol. ii, p. 205.\n\nFootnote 11: See R.F. Horton's _Teaching of Jesus_, p. 59.\n\nFootnote 12: A.M. Fairbairn, _Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 244.\n\nFootnote 13: On the subject of this chapter see especially G.B. Stevens'\n_Theology of the New Testament_, chap. vi.\n\nFootnote 14: _Christian Doctrine,_ p. 77.\n\nFootnote 15: Bishop Gore, _Bampton Lectures,_ 1891, p. 13.\n\nFootnote 16: J. Denney, _Studies in Theology_, p. 25.\n\nFootnote 17: For an admirable statement of the argument of this\nparagraph see D.W. Forrest's _Christ of History and experience_, chap.\ni. and note 4, p. 385.\n\nFootnote 18: Cp. Denney's note on St. Paul's description of Christ, \"Him\nwho knew no sin,\" in 2 Cor. v. 21: \"The Greek negative (mae), as\nSchmiedel remarks, implies that this is regarded as the verdict of some\none else than the writer. It was Christ's own verdict upon Himself.\"\n\nFootnote 19: _The Death of Christ_, p. 28.\n\nFootnote 20: _The Philosophy of the Christian Religion_, p. 408.\n\nFootnote 21: John xii. 27, 28; xiii. 31; xvii. 1.\n\nFootnote 22: G.B. Stevens, _Theology of the New Testament_, p. 133.\n\nFootnote 23: I quote once more from Dr. Denney.\n\nFootnote 24: J. Denney, _Studies in Theology_, p. 154.\n\nFootnote 25: See W.N. Clarke's _Outlines of Christian Theology_, p. 373.\n\nFootnote 26: \"It is the Holy Spirit who supplies the _bodily presence_\nof Christ, and by Him doth He accomplish all His promises to the Church.\nHence, some of the ancients call Him 'Vicarium Christi,' 'The Vicar of\nChrist,' or Him who represents His person and dischargeth His promised\nwork: _Operam navat Christo vicariam.\"_--Owen, _Works,_ vol. iii. p.\n193.\n\nFootnote 27: \"Our sources with the utmost possible uniformity refer to\nthe Spirit in terms implying personality.\"--Stevens, _Theology of the\nNew Testament_ (p. 215), where the whole question is discussed with\ngreat fullness and fairness.\n\nFootnote 28: John Watson, _The Mind of the Master_, p. 321. May we\nremind Dr. Watson of what he has himself written on the first page of\nhis _Doctrines of Grace_: \"It was the mission of St. Paul to declare the\ngospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the nations, and none of\nhis successors in this high office has spoken with such persuasive\npower. _Any one differs from St. Paul at his intellectual peril_, and\nevery one may imitate him with spiritual profit.\"\n\nFootnote 29: See, in confirmation of the argument of this paragraph,\nOrr's _Christian View of God and the World_, p. 401 ff., and Art. \"The\nKingdom of God,\" in Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_; Denney's\n_Studies in Theology_, Lect. VIII.\n\nFootnote 30: J. Watson, _The Mind of the Master_, p. 323.\n\nFootnote 31: F.G. Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, pp.\n88, 89.\n\nFootnote 32: _Fellowship with Christ_, p. 157.\n\nFootnote 33: See Trench's _Study of Words_, p. 100.\n\nFootnote 34: The chapter entitled \"Christ's Doctrine of Man\" is one of\nthe most suggestive chapters in Dr. Bruce's admirable work _The Kingdom\nof God_.\n\nFootnote 35: _Studies in Theology_, p. 83.\n\nFootnote 36: See Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, Art. \"Sin,\" vol.\niii. p. 533.\n\nFootnote 37: This is the R.V. marginal rendering of Gen. iv. 13.\n\nFootnote 38: R.W. Dale, _Evangelical Revival and other Sermons_, p. 66\nff.\n\nFootnote 39: _The Kingdom of God_, p. 203.\n\nFootnote 40: In his famous sermon on the Pharisees, _University\nSermons_, p. 32.\n\nFootnote 41: R.W. Church, _Gifts of Civilisation_, p. 71.\n\nFootnote 42: Prov. iv. 7: \"Get wisdom; and with all thy getting get\nunderstanding,\" which does not mean simply, \"Whatever else you get, be\nsure to get understanding.\" The marginal reference is to Matt. xiii. 44:\nwisdom, like the pearl of great price, is to be secured with, _i.e._ at\nthe cost and sacrifice of, everything else that can be gotten. (See J.R.\nLumby on \"Shortcomings of Translation,\" _Expositor_, second series, VOL.\niii. p. 203.)\n\nFootnote 43: 2 Cor. v. 9 R.V. margin.\n\nFootnote 44: _Laws of Christ for Common Life_, p. 59.\n\nFootnote 45: _Bible Characters: Stephen to Timothy_, p. 95.\n\nFootnote 46: _On the Authorized Version of the New Testament_, p. 14.\n\nFootnote 47: I am indebted for these two quotations to Bishop Paget's\n_Spirit of Discipline_, p. 66.\n\nFootnote 48: P. Carnegie Simpson, _The Fact of Christ_, pp. 116, 117.\n\nFootnote 49: _Time and Tide_, p. 224.\n\nFootnote 50: F.G. Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Problem_, p.\n219.\n\nFootnote 51: Emerson had surely overlooked this nobler meaning of the\nword when he wrote, \"They [the English] put up no Socratic prayer, much\nless any saintly prayer, for the queen's mind; ask neither for light nor\nright, but say bluntly, 'grant her in health and wealth long to live'\"\n(_English Traits_).\n\nFootnote 52: To those who are interested in the subject of this chapter\nProf. Peabody's book already referred to, and an article entitled \"The\nTeaching of Christ concerning the Use of Money\" _(Expositor,_ third\nseries, vol. viii. p. 100 ff.) may be recommended.\n\nFootnote 53: _Studies in Theology_, p. 239.\n\nFootnote 54: \"There is no subject on which it is more difficult to\nascertain the teaching of Christ than that which relates to the future\nof the kingdom.\"--A.B. Bruce, _The Kingdom of God_, p. 273.\n\nFootnote 55: J. Agar Beet, _The Last Things_, p. 46.\n\nFootnote 56: Marcus Dods, _The Parables of our Lord_ (first series), p.\n238.\n\nFootnote 57: _Cathedral and University Sermons_, p. 10.\n\nFootnote 58: John Watson, _The Mind of the Master_, pp. 203, 204.\n\nFootnote 59: See T.G. Selby's _Imperfect Angel and other Sermons_, p.\n211. Cf. Zachariah Coleman in \"Mark Rutherford's\" _Revolution in Tanners\nLane_: \"That is a passage that I never could quite understand. I never\nhardly see a pure breed, either of goat or sheep. I never see anybody\nwho deserves to go straight to heaven or who deserves to go straight to\nhell. When the Judgment Day comes it will be a difficult task.\"\n\nFootnote 60: See the very striking and beautiful chapter entitled \"The\nContinuity of Life\" in Watson's _Mind of the Master_.\n\nFootnote 61: See T.G. Selby's _Ministry of the Lord Jesus_, p. 279.\n\nFootnote 62: R.W. Church, _Human Life and its Conditions_, p. 103.\n\nFootnote 63: In a striking article entitled \"The Old Antinomianism and\nthe New\" (_Congregational Review_, Jan. 1887).","title":"The Teaching of Jesus","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":54886}