all were not loyal; for He was betrayed into the hands of His enemies by
one of the intimates of the band, and was forsaken by all in the hour of
His supreme trial. He returned good for evil, blessing for cursing, and
died in the act of praying for His enemies. No one could bring any
serious accusation against Him, and he was declared innocent by the
judge who condemned Him to death. Yet He was sacrificed as one whose
life did not count; He was thrown as a sop to slake the blood-thirst of
a howling Jewish mob. In the annals of the law-court His name is not
mentioned, and there is no record of His trial and crucifixion to be
found in history.
Looked at from the standpoint of men of His time, His life was a
failure, and the delectable vision of a kingdom of righteousness on
earth, the coming of which He pictured in glowing, fluent colours, reads
like a dainty fairy-tale spun for children's amusement. Yet He himself
saw through the darkness into the white light of the future, and beheld
the crowning success of His mission. He saw the coming triumph of the
Conquering Cross, which should subdue all things unto itself, and in
place of the finest legend ever planted on human credulity by an artist
in words He saw outlined through the dissolving mists of time, solid and
well founded, the City Beautiful, with its shining streets, its many
mansions and translucent atmosphere, peopled with white-robed citizens
redeemed and ever blest; and the verdict of to-day is that the ministry
of Jesus Christ on earth was the turning point in the world's destiny.
No other personality has exerted such profound influence on the lives of
men as Jesus of Nazareth, the despised and rejected of His day.
The ministry of Christ on earth lasted about three years in all. Until
He was thirty years of age He was content to rest in deep obscurity.
Nazareth, with its quiet remote valley, was world enough for Him to move
in, and when His hour was come He found Himself. He opened His mouth
and taught the people. He passed from village to village, a travelling
storm-centre, exposing respectable old sins, ripping up time-honoured
religious hypocrisies, vexing the Pharisees, and confounding the vain
traditions of the elders. He laid down new laws of life and conduct for
men's observance, and unfolded the love of God to man in its plenitude
of tenderness and pity; even to waifs and strays and outcasts of city
slums who had never received a kind, hopeful word from the lips of their
own religious teachers. In fact, it was God breaking in upon history,
opening a new permanent way into heaven for lost men to return home by,
and to cull the wayside flowers of joy and happiness whilst homeward
bound.
Thus Jesus in three short years fearlessly and swiftly accomplished His
world-wide mission, and died triumphantly in full achievement of His
benign purpose.
Not half the story of those few full, crowded hours of His glorious life
has been collected and cast into history. It is a brief narrative of a
brief career; so little of His life comes in view. Just a few detached
incidents and a few disjointed conversations jotted down from the
mellowed memory of three or four old men years after the events occurred
furnish us an incomplete memoir of His earthly ministry--that is all we
have. There was no adoring pen of a ready writer like Boswell to fix on
the spot His sayings and doings. We possess only stray fragments of the
life-story gathered up from memory and hearsay, and on these gathered
fragments we found all our spiritual faith and base our eternal hope of
blessedness. The structure seems to have been casually and hastily put
together, but its design is the work of the Supreme Architect, and the
house was well built and the foundation securely placed, for it has
sheltered many millions of people through many generations of time. The
roof is still rainproof, and the walls stand firm in their pillared
strength. _It is the living words of Christ that form the stronghold of
the ages_. His words are seed-thoughts dropped into the hearts of men
which bring forth fruit manifold. Again they drop into other hearts,
and springing up yield fruit abundantly unto life everlasting; and so
generation after generation men fall under His gracious spell, and turn
to His words for guidance, for inspiration, for joy. You never reach
the end of Christ's words. They are growing words. There is always
something new springing out of them unexpectedly: new thoughts, new
laws, new problems, new solutions, new enemies, new friends, new hopes,
new consolations. The words of Christ are spending and being spent, but
they are never exhausted. They pass into new meanings, into new
currency, but they never pass away. They are the hope of all the ages.
The early Christians lived in a state of spiritual elation; they daily,
hourly, expected the Second Coming of Christ. It was the one article of
their religious creed. The end of the world was to be the next
important festival in the Church calendar, so they held in full near
view their heavenly home, which was already feathered for their
reception. At the sound of the Archangel's trumpet the heavens would
open, the dead rise from their graves, and they would be caught up in
the air to meet the Lord, and float off triumphantly into mansions of
eternal rest furnished for their home coming. They saw it all vividly
as a drama soon to be enacted, in which they each would play their
ordered parts. The present was a dream-life to them, a mirage quickly
to melt away. This hope of immortality was the first bright ray of light
the gospel of Jesus Christ shed upon mankind. Having minds heavily
charged with celestial visions, the common round of daily duties became
unreal to them. They had a short creed and no theology. They sat on the
brink of eternity, and the radiance streaming from its shining heights
bedazzled their minds with bewildering raptures.
After long and patient waiting the heavens did not open, no clarion
voice trumpeted the dead from their graves or welcomed saints into
paradise; the sordid, sin-stained earth remained their polluted
dwelling-place. The illusion of the millennium faded away and
disappointment frosted their early hopes, yet bravely they held on and
died in the faith. The Saviour's promise did not fulfil on the
comfortable lines they planned, but it would make good another way
equally great. The Church learnt to take long views of the promises,
and turned its thoughts to things terrestrial. The affairs of the
present grew interesting to them; they commenced setting their earthly
house in order, and when the Church settled down into the slow, steady
stride characteristic of every long march it became clear that she was
destined to rank amongst the permanent institutions of the world. She
formed new rules of life for her children's guidance, and thus faith in
Christ gradually lost the fragrant aroma of otherworldliness which first
perfumed it, and in lapse of time the plan of salvation became more
thought of than salvation itself. A vast ecclesiastical system was
organized, having endless intricate ramifications, and God was appointed
head of one department of it; and to-day heavy accretions of theology
accumulate and fasten deadly tight on the old Church like barnacles
crusting the bottom of a long floated ship, hindering its speed to port.
Verily the time has now come that the good ship of the Church be
careened, and the foul accretions of mediaeval theology stripped off and
the solid copper bottom of truth flash clean and bright in the sunlight,
and the truth as it is in Jesus recover its splendour and power as in
days of the early Church. His teachings shall yet win men to
righteousness, and the fruits of His lips bring peace and joy to those
who believe on His name.
The words of Christ have a future before them in moulding the growing
goodness of the world and in solving the hard problems of social reform
which vex humanity. He is the wise Reconciliator who can adjust society
and bring into harmony the classes of men now gnashing their teeth at
one another on opposing fronts. Jesus Christ is the true Political
Economist, but He taught far in advance of His times--truth always
marches a bit ahead of us. At present in social science we are only
just touching the hem of His garment, and healing virtue flows from it;
presently we shall approach nearer to Him, and, feeling the full throb
of His loving heart, we shall understand Him better, and His life-blood
will pour into our veins and complete the healing of the nations.
*XIII*
*THE LURE OF THE LIVING WORD*
The English State Church suffers from excess of theology and paucity of
gospel. Our narrow Church creeds, in which the gospel of Jesus Christ is
kept under cork by ecclesiastical cellar-men, must be broken that the
good wine of the kingdom may flow freely. The gospel of Jesus Christ in
the unwholesome captivity of rigid creeds is a feeble, mean,
contemptible gospel, quite unable to save mankind, which business it
undertook to achieve when coming into the world. If the teaching of
Jesus Christ is no larger or kindlier than these old crumbling creeds
show, it deserves to be scrapped, for there is no room in them for
Christ to have fair play. Christianity is not a formula, it is a
passion; it is not theology, it is truth. These dismal dogmas have not
enough spiritual nourishment in them to keep men's souls alive; men
starve on such unleavened food.
What are these antiquated creeds of the Church which strangle religion?
They are ancient dismantled strongholds where the fighting forefathers
of the faith housed themselves tightly and fought their foes
tenaciously. The modern fathers of the Church still inhabit these
tottering towers of refuge, although their day of usefulness is spent.
Loyal Churchmen still breathe lovingly the chilly, stifling atmosphere
of these spiritual dungeons of traditional Christianity.
We are living in a new age since August, 1914, and a new spirit
possesses the people. With this terrific war raging new standards of
values in religion, as in politics, have come into operation, shattering
old ideals evermore. To encourage and strengthen them in this era of
strain and conflict men need the larger, cleaner, diviner truth which
fell from the lips of the living Christ. We want these truths to win
through--the spoken words of Christ, with the free airs of heaven
blowing across them, bringing healthiness of life, sanity of faith, and
manifold charities, to all men who dwell on earth. The lure of the
Living Word alone can hold men firm in this age of upheaval, when the
old world has caved in and the plans of the new world are not yet
manifest. There is finer, simpler, fuller spiritual teaching in the
four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, touching our present need
than in all books of theology ever written and all Sunday sermons weekly
preached. It is these half-forgotten things that matter on which new
emphasis must be thrown.
Theology is the great imposture planted on mankind as a substitute for
the teachings of Jesus Christ. When one leaves the words of Christ and
strays amongst the words of men, it is like a traveller switching off
the main line whereon his destination lies and losing himself on a
side-track. It is disaster to side-track on the journey of life. Keep
to the words of Christ and you keep on the main line. The gospel as
revealed in the teachings of Jesus is entirely free from the sacerdotal
imperative which nowadays imposes priest and ritual in the path of
spiritual worship and blocks the fair-way to God. Priests and rituals
and creeds are non-essentials; they are only wrappings: they are not
religion, nor the best part of it. We must distinguish between living,
breathing Christianity and the man-made ecclesiastical garments which
clothe it fashionably, because the difference between them is vital and
far-reaching. True religion, however, is seldom found stripped of all
temporary wrappings, but its spiritual vigour survives in spite of
Church-made millinery which encumbers it and impedes its healthy growth.
Strip the religion of Jesus Christ of its grave-clothes and put the pure
gospel in her mouth, and never tidings could be told to weary,
heavy-laden men to-day which would be hailed as half so welcome. The
one thing needful to make this world an earthly paradise, delightful to
dwell in, is for men to live face to face with God, without a screen of
ritual or image or priestcraft obstructing the view of our Heavenly
Father; it is the light of God's countenance that cheers the heart of
man, and strengthens him to live a good life in all sincerity of
purpose.
Ecclesiastics have built up the Church into a colossal business trust
which corners the Bread of Life and doles it to hungry mortals on terms
of its own making. The Church is a wealthy corporation with immense
property and privilege to safeguard and hold against all comers, and
these temporal possessions engage its keenest thought and ceaseless
activity. So it has important work to do other than saving the souls of
men. To maintain its temporal authority in the world it has tampered
with the teaching of Jesus Christ; by cunning craftiness of man the
gospel has been twisted into theology, and the way of salvation shrouded
behind a dense veil of ceremonial observances which the Church imposes
on people and declares necessary to the saving of their souls. Much
conflicting religious literature is issued annually by free-lances of
the Press to explain the downright simplicity of the truth as it is in
Jesus; and these conflicting opinions add other stumbling-blocks in the
way, for they baffle the brains of the gentle reader, beating up a thick
dust of doubt around him that his faith is smothered in a cloud of
perplexity which darkens the daylight of truth.
The words of Jesus, when read and pondered over, prove religion to be a
very simple matter. Yet this simplicity is its standing peril. So
little human wisdom is needed to understand the words of Christ that we
are apt to fear they do not mean what they say in plainest language--the
language runs too easy for the majesty and importance and solemnity of
the theme. We think there is an occult mystery lurking behind the
honest homely phrases. Language so often bewilders simple-minded people
that we are hard of belief when told we can find the way to heaven
ourselves without the aid of a bishop's pastoral staff to point it out.
The difficulty is to convince the plain man that he understands the
words of Jesus when he reads them, and that he feels his spirit touch
the Spirit of the Saviour of his soul without a priest between to make
the contact. The Church as a commercial organization would fall quickly
into bankruptcy if the gospel in its naked plainness was believed in
whole-heartedly.
Very superior people tell us that the teachings of Jesus are only the
beginning of God's revelation to man; they tell us that new revelations
are constantly flowing in upon us through the sacred channel of the
Church, and that the Church alone holds the key which deciphers these
confidential messages despatched from mysterious sources for our
edification. This is ecclesiastical bluff. The teachings of Jesus in
the gospels suffice the spiritual needs of men through all time--time
past, time present, and time to come. When God legislates once He
legislates for aye, for truth is unchanging and cannot be improved on as
the world grows older. No Divine after-thoughts will be added to the
written word nor supplementary revelation supplied to guide men through
the tangling maze of life. The Spirit of God is equal to all
emergencies arising between now and the sundown of time. New-fallen
light may illumine the written word in the forward quest of faith, for
every age makes its own theology and coins new language to express old
truths. The words of Christ are inexhaustible treasure locked in a deep
mine, and in that mine lies many a lode of truth untapped by the
diggers. The old gospel mine yields more and more treasure as the
searchers strike deeper and deeper into its secret heart. The last
nugget of truth has not yet been lifted from the treasure-house of God's
Word.
Back to the words of Christ: this is the one hope of a truly good
life--national or individual. If we forsake Christ and turn to the
teachings of the Church for our spiritual well-being, we suffer for our
folly in so doing. The real meaning of anything is to be found at its
beginning not in its latest developments. As religious systems develop
and grow old they grow corrupt, and on the earthly journey pick up error
with truth, and the two mixed together look equally sacrosanct to the
uninitiated, simple soul, and even the very elect are ofttimes deceived.
Water is purest at the spring-head; the farther it flows from the
fountain, the more contaminated it becomes. Back to Jesus Christ and
His teachings in the gospels. His words are the very life and light of
men.
Men often mistake the nature of religion through wrong teaching received
in early years or no teaching received at all, thus giving the
well-rooted weeds of error a long start to grow rampant in the human
soil. Some people think religion is an isolated activity, like
collecting old china, a hobby you can pursue, drop, and pick up again at
leisure. Other people imagine it is the conventional badge of good
society, giving tone to a life of fashionable respectability, like a
carnation slipped into your buttonhole which adds a finishing touch to
your evening dress. But they are not over careful, these conventional
people, to apply its tenets in the privacy of their homes; religion is
never enthroned as a domestic virtue. Lord Melbourne, the early
Victorian Prime Minister, was one day coming from church in the country
in a mighty fume. Finding a friend on the road, he unloaded: "It's too
bad. I have always been a supporter of the Church, and I have always
upheld the clergy. But it is really too bad to have to listen to a
sermon like that we had this morning. Why, the preacher actually
insisted upon applying religion to a man's private life!"
Their interior life is neither better nor worse for hitching on religion
as a supplementary virtue. Such good people would never miss an
opportunity of attending a missionary meeting at Caxton Hall or neglect
an early morning service at the parish church, but the maid-of-all-work
in the kitchen is not benefited by the religious fervour which perfumes
her ladyship with the odour of sanctity.
Religion is a state of mind giving purpose and direction to the whole
round of a man's activities. Religion is not like a red holly-berry in
a tumbler of clear water, a hard, insoluble object, pretty enough seen
through the crystal medium, but working no change in the water.
Religion resembles a drop of cochineal falling into the water; it
colours with rose hue the full contents of the tumbler; it tinges the
whole character and conduct of a man; it permeates his thoughts and
feelings and actions, changing the colour of his life for good and for
ever. Religion works a change--a radical change--that is the point. It
is not a question of drapery; it does not merely hang up a decoration
here and there to improve appearances, leaving the secret chambers of
the heart unclean. It makes a new man in Christ Jesus even out of the
coarsest raw material to be found on the human market.
The Church as established in our midst to-day cannot work a social
regeneration in the land, for it gives forth so little of the teaching
of Christ to the people. The gold of truth it circulates is mixed with
the dross of error of its own minting. It may bear the image and
superscription of Christ on it and pass the world's counter as genuine
metal, but it is counterfeit coin of the kingdom. The Church does not
grip the people. It is a fashionable institution of conventional
high-grade orthodoxy, but it is a thing apart from the people. Its
clergy socially are a multitude of pleasant, amiable, guileless folk
spread over the tennis-lawns and garden-parties of England on a summer's
afternoon, mingling good-humouredly with their neighbours, but
ecclesiastically they belt themselves in a compact phalanx of
self-centred, intolerant men with a purpose in life, or by preference
they are self-constituted "priests." They hold the Church as a close
borough, consume its revenues, swear by its creed, and maintain its
privileges. They are strong partisans; the same interest guides them
which governs the business man in upholding his trade interests--the
sacred rights of property. To defend their inherited rights they will
fight doggedly, and surrender only in the last trench.
Outside the charmed enclosure of the Church the clergy esteem their
Christian neighbours ecclesiastical inferiors, not to be consorted with
on equal footing, and they leave the Almighty to take charge of
outsiders here and hereafter. As a class long years of clerical
assumption has sapped the humanness out of their nature, and only a
priest is left in their skin.
There are honourable exceptions to this general rule. Many individual
clergymen are thoroughly alive with the spirit of Christ. They are men
of broad sympathies and of intense devotion to their work, but it is
surprising how tightly the Church as an institution grips those who
minister at her altars; the Church is the idol of their hearts, the
centre of their adoration. If the centre of their adoration could be
transferred to Christ; if they could love Christ as devotedly as they
love the Church of England, the result of their ministrations amongst
the people would be gloriously successful; if instead of coddling the
one respectable sheep that never strayed away they rounded up the
ninety-and-nine lost ones and settled them in the home pastures the work
would make their hearts ring with joy.
I have heard sermons by clergymen in which the Church and the Prayer
Book were exalted as the chief Divine oracles before which we all must
bow in blind submission as though Christ and the Bible existed not in
any corner of the preacher's mind; and the result of such degenerate
doctrine is that preachers add good Churchmen to their flock, but not
good Christians to the fold of Christ. A good Churchman thus becomes a
superior being to a common Christian, as though it were more important
to be a Churchman than a Christian. "Churchman" really is only the
trade name for a man who believes in the State Church. To be a
Churchman is good enough for some people.
Compare the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth with the harsh, unsympathetic
system represented by the Anglican creed which caricatures the Saviour
in our midst. The cruel system which refuses to bury an unbaptized baby
with its dead mother, or would refuse to allow a man or a woman to have
a chance of happiness in marriage because, through no fault of their
own, they have already suffered great unhappiness; that would refuse
relatives permission to carve the word "Reverend" on the tombstone of a
Wesleyan minister buried in a village churchyard because the dead man
was not of the Church of England.