that holiness shall eventually be supreme. His inference is that it
ought _now_ to be regarded as competent to settle the petty disputes
which arise among us. "If we are to judge angels, much more the things
that pertain to this life." We can only arrive at any dignity by
perseveringly seeking it. If the future kingdom of God is to be a
perfect kingdom, it can only be as its subjects carry into it
characters which have been strongly tending towards perfection. It is
not the future that is to make us, but we who are to make the future.
The kingdom of God is within us; if not there, in our own dispositions
and likings, it is nowhere. Heaven will be what its inhabitants make
it. Earth is not heaven only because men decline to make it so. We do
not know the forms which society will assume in the world to come,
when men will be grouped, not by families and blood-relationships, and
the necessary requirements of physical life, but according to their
character and moral value, their spiritual affinities and capacities
for usefulness. But though we cannot say exactly how men will be
grouped, nor how they will find expression for all that intense
emotion and eager activity which in this life creates adventure, war,
politics, speculation, inventions of all kinds, we do know that
wherever there are men there must be society; there must be men not
isolated and solitary, but working together and depending one on the
other; and that there will therefore be difficult complications of
interest and obscure relations of man to man very similar to those
which arise in this world; but that those difficulties will be removed
without passion and wrangling and the interference of force. A heaven
and an earth there will be; but "a new heaven and a new earth." The
outer framework will be very much the same, but the inner spirit and
life very different. But it is not the altered place or time that is
to produce in us this change of spirit; we are to find it there only
if we carry it with us. St. Paul takes for granted that the principles
which are to be perfectly and exclusively manifested in the world to
come, are now cherished by Christians. And as there will be no
differences in heaven which cannot be adjusted without appeal to an
authority which can silence and reconcile the disputants, so there
ought to be, among the heirs of heaven, no going to law now.
St. Paul, therefore, while he contrasts the subjects in which a
lawyer-like mind will find employment in this world and the next,
reminds us that those who are here trained to understand character,
and to discern where right and justice lie, will be in no want of
employment in the world to come. The matters which come before our
courts, or which are referred privately to lawyers, may often be in
themselves very paltry. A vast proportion of legal business is created
by changes from which the future life is exempt, changes consequent on
death, on marriage, on pecuniary disasters. But underneath such suits
as these the keenest of human feelings are at work, and it is often in
the power of a lawyer to give a man advice which will save his
conscience from a life-long stain, or which will bring comfort into a
family instead of heart-burning, and plenty in place of penury. The
physician keeps us in life; the minister of Christ tells us on what
principles we ought to live; but the lawyer takes our hand at every
great practical step in life, and it is his function (and surely there
is none higher) to insist on a conscientious use of money, to point
out the just claims which others have upon us, to show us the right
and the wrong in all our ordinary affairs, and thus to bring justice
and mercy down from heaven and make them familiar to the market-place.
And therefore many of the finest characters and best intellects have
devoted themselves, and always will devote themselves, to this
profession. It may attract many from less lofty motives; but it always
will attract those who are concerned to save men from practical folly,
and who wish to see the highest principles brought into direct contact
with human affairs. If the legal mind degenerates into a mere memory
for technicalities and acuteness in applying forms, nothing can be
more contemptible or dangerous to the character; but if it takes to do
with real things, and not with forms only, and tries to see what
equity requires, and not merely what the letter of the law enjoins,
and seeks to forward the well-being of men, then surely there is no
profession in which there is such abundant opportunity of earning the
beatitude which says, "Blessed are the peacemakers," none in which the
senses can better be exercised to discern between good and evil, none
in which men may better be prepared for the higher requirements of a
heavenly society in which some are made rulers over ten cities.
II. The second confirmation of his rebuke St. Paul brings forward in
the fifth verse: "Is there not a wise man among yourselves?" "A wise
man" was the technical term for a judge in the Hebrew courts.
To understand Paul's position we must bear in mind that among the Jews
there was no distinction between Church and State. The courts
appointed for the determination of the minor causes in each locality
were composed of the same persons who constituted the eldership of the
synagogue. In the synagogue and by the eldership offenders were both
tried and punished. The rabbis said, "He who brings lawsuits of
Israel before a heathen tribunal profanes the Name, and does homage to
idolatry; for when _our enemies_ are _judges_ (Deut. xxxii. 31) it is
a testimony to the superiority of their religion." This idea passed
over from Judaism to Christianity; and Paul considers it a scandal
that "brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the
unbelievers." And even a century after Paul's time the rule of the
Christian Church was "Let not those who have disputes go to law before
the civil powers, but let them by all means be reconciled by the
elders of the Church, and let them readily yield to their decision."
And as late as our own day we find an Arab sheikh complaining that
Christian Copts come to him, a Mohammedan, to settle their disputes
and "won't go and be settled by the priest out of the Gospels."
Did Paul then mean that such legal cases as are now tried in our civil
courts should be settled by non-professional men? Did he mean that
ecclesiastical courts should take out of the hands of the civil
magistrate all pleas regarding property, all disputes about commercial
transactions? Did he foresee none of the great evils that have arisen
wherever Church or State has not respected the province of the other,
and was he prepared to put the power of the sword into the hand of
ecclesiastics? We think no one can read either his life or his
writings without seeing that this was not his meaning. He taught men
to submit themselves to the powers that then were--_i.e._, to the
heathen magistrates of Rome--and he himself appealed to Cæsar. He had
no notion of subverting the ordinary legal procedure and civil courts,
but he would fain have deprived them of much of their practice. He
thought it might be expected that Christians would never be so
determinedly rancorous or so blindly covetous but that their disputes
might be settled by private and friendly advice. He gives no orders
about constituting new courts and appointing new statutes and forms of
procedure; he has no idea of transferring into the Church all the
paraphernalia of civil courts: but he maintains that if a Christian
community be in a healthy state, few quarrels will be referred for
settlement to a court of law. Courts of law are necessary evils, which
will be less and less patronized in proportion as Christian feeling
and principle prevail.
This rebuke is applicable even to a community like our own, in which
the courts of law are not heathen, but Christian; and the principle on
which the rebuke is based is one that has gradually worked its way
into the heart of the community. It is felt, felt now even by nations
as well as by individuals, that if a dispute can be settled by
arbitration, this is not only cheaper, quicker, and equally
satisfactory, but that it is a more generous and Christian way of
getting justice done. Those who hold office in the Church may not
always happen to be suitable arbitrators; they may not have the
technical and special knowledge requisite: but Paul's counsel is acted
on if disputes among Christians be somehow adjusted in a friendly way,
and without the interference of an external authority. Christian
people may need legal advice; they may not know what the right and
wrong of a complicated case are; they may be truly at a loss to
understand how much is justly theirs and how much their neighbour's;
they may often need professional aid to shed light on a transaction:
but when two Christians go to law in a spirit of rancour, resolved to
make good their own just claims, and to enforce by the authority of
law what they cannot compass by right feeling, this only proves that
their worldliness is stronger than their Christianity. St. Paul thinks
it a scandal and a degradation when Christians need to appeal to law
against one another. It is a confession that Christian principle is in
their case insufficient by itself to carry them through the practical
difficulties of life.
But some one will say to this, as to every unworldly, truly Christian,
and therefore novel and difficult counsel, "It savours of theory and
of romance; a man cannot act it out unless he is prepared to be duped,
and cheated, and imposed upon. It is a theory that if carried out must
end in beggary." Just as if the world could be regenerated by anything
that is not apparently romantic! If a greater good is to be reached,
it must be by some way that men have not tried before. The kingdoms of
this world will not become the kingdom of Christ by the admission into
our conduct of only that which men have tried and found to be
practicable, and void of all risk, and requiring no devotion or
sacrifice. If then, any one says, "But if there is to be no going to
law, if we are not to force a man to give us our own, we must
continually be losers," the reply of a well-known Kincardineshire
lawyer might suffice, "Don't go to law if yielding does not cost you
more than forty shillings in the pound." And from a different point of
view St. Paul replies, "Well, and what though you be losers? The
kingdom you belong to is not meat and drink, but righteousness." If a
man says, "We must have some redress, some authority to extort the
dues that are not freely given; we must strike when we are struck;
when a man takes our coat, we must summon him, or he will take our
cloak next," St. Paul replies, "Well, if this _be_ the alternative,
if you must either push your own claims and insist upon your rights,
or suffer by assuming the meekness and gentleness of your Master, why
do you not rather take wrong? why do you not rather suffer yourselves
to be defrauded? It may be quite true that if you turn the other
cheek, it also will be smitten. It may be very likely that a greedy
competitor will be so little abashed by your meekness, and so little
struck by your magnanimity in giving way to some of his demands, that
he will even be encouraged to greater extortions. It is quite probable
that if you act as your Master did, you will be as ill off in this
world as He was. But is that any reason why you should at once call
Him your Master and refuse to obey His precepts and follow His
example?" One thing is certain: that so long as men honestly accepted
Christ's words in their plain meaning, and followed Him in His own
way, making light of worldly loss, Christianity was believed in and
rapidly extended. It was seen to be a new moral power among men, and
was welcomed as such, until a large part of the world received it; but
its victory was its defeat. Once it became the fashion, once it became
popular, the heart of it was eaten out. As soon as it became a
religion without hardship, it became a religion without vitality.
St. Paul then shows no hesitation about pushing his doctrine to its
consequences. He sees that the real cure of wrangling, and of fraud,
and of war is not litigation, nor any outward restraint that can be
laid on the wrong-doer, but meekness, and unselfishness, and
unworldliness on the part of those who suffer wrong. The world has
laughed at this theory of social regeneration all along; a few men in
each generation have believed in it, and have been ridiculed for
their belief. At the same time, the world itself is aware, or should
be aware, that its own remedies have utterly failed. Has war taught
nations moderation in their ambition? Has it saved the world from the
calamities which it is said would ensue were any one nation to prefer
submitting to injustice rather than going to war? Have the outward
restraints of law made men more just or less avaricious? There has
been time to test the power of law to repress crime, and to compel men
to honesty and justice. Can any one say it has been so successful that
it must be looked to as the great means of regenerating society, of
bringing society into that healthy and ideal state which statesmen
work for, and for which the people inarticulately sigh? Does not St.
James come nearer the mark when he says, "Whence come wars and
fightings? Come they not hence, even of the lusts that war in your
members?"--_i.e._, from the restless ambitions, and appetites, and
longings of men who seek their all in this world? And if that is their
source, it is to that we must apply the remedy. Law is necessary for
restraining the expressions of a vicious nature, but law is
insufficient to remove the possibility of these expressions by healing
the nature. This can only be done by the diffusion of unworldliness
and unselfishness. And it is Christians who are responsible for
diffusing this unworldly spirit, and who must diffuse it, not by talk
and advice, but by practice and example, by themselves showing what
unselfishness is, rebuking covetousness by yielding to its demands,
shaming all wrong-doing by refusing to retaliate while they expose its
guilt.
While therefore it is a mistake to suppose that all the laws which are
to rule in the perfected kingdom of God can find immediate and
unmodified expression in this present world, it is our part to find
for them an introduction into the world in every case in which it is
possible to apply them. Those laws which are to be our sole rule when
we are perfect cannot always be immediately applied now. For example,
we all believe that ultimately love will be the only motive, that all
service of God and of one another will eventually spring solely from
our desire to serve because we love. And because this is so, some
persons have thought that love should be the only motive now, and that
obedience which is procured by fear is useless; that preachers ought
to appeal only to the highest parts of man's nature, and not at all to
those which are lower, and that parents should never threaten
punishment nor enforce obedience. But the testimony of one of the most
genial and successful of preachers is that "of all the persons to whom
his ministry had been efficacious _only one_ had received the first
effectual impressions from the gentle and attractive aspects of
religion, all the rest from the awful and alarming ones--the appeals
to fear." Take, again, the testimony of one of the wisest and most
successful of our schoolmasters. "I can't rule my boys," he says, "by
the law of love. If they were angels or professors, I might; but as
they are only boys, I find it necessary to make them fear me first,
and then take my chance of their love afterwards. By this plan I find
that I generally get both; by reversing the process I should in most
cases get neither." And God, though slow to anger and not easily
provoked, scourgeth every son whom He receiveth, not dealing with us
now as He will deal with us when perfect love has cast out its
preparative fear. So, in regard to the matter before us, there must be
an aiming and striving towards the perfect state in which there shall
be no going to law, no settling of matters by appeal to anything
outside the heart of the persons interested. But while we aim at this,
and seek to give it prevalence, we shall also be occasionally forced
back upon the severer and more external means of self-defence. The
members of Christ's Church are those on whom the burden falls of
giving prevalence to these Christian principles. It is incumbent upon
them to show, even at cost to themselves, that there are higher,
better, and more enduring principles than law, and the customs of
trade, and the ways of the world. And however difficult it may be
_theoretically_ to hold the balance between justice and mercy, between
worldly sharpness and Christian meekness, we all know that there are
some who practically exhibit a large measure of this Christian temper,
who prefer to take wrong and to suffer quietly rather than to expose
the wickedness of others, or to resent their unjust claims, or to
complain of their unfair usage. And whatever the most worldly of us
may think of such conduct, however we may smile at it as weak, there
is no one of us but also pays his tribute of respect to those who
suffer wrong, loss, detraction, with a meek and cheerful patience; and
whatever be the lot of such sufferers in a world where men are too
busy in pushing their worldly prospects to understand those who are
not of this world, we have no doubt in what esteem they will be held
and what reward they will receive in a world where the Lamb is on the
throne, and meek self-sacrifice is honestly worshipped as the highest
quality whether in God or in man.
Paul knows that the Christian conscience is with him when he declares
that men should rather suffer wrong than bring reproach on the
Christian name: "Know ye not that wrong-doers shall not inherit the
kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God." And yet
how little do men seem to take to heart the great fact that they are
travelling forward to a state in which nothing uncongenial to the
Spirit of Christ can possibly find place. Do they think of the future
at all? Do they believe that a state of things ruled by the Spirit of
Christ is to follow this? And what preparation do they make? Is it not
the height of folly to suppose that the selfishness and greed, the
indolence and frivolity, the dreamy unreality and worldliness, which
we suffer to grow upon us here, will give us entrance into the kingdom
of God? The seaman who means to winter in the Arctic circle might as
reasonably go with a single month's provisions and clothes suited to
the tropics. There is a reason and a law in things; and if we are not
assimilated to the Spirit of Christ now, we can have no part in His
kingdom. If now our interest, and pursuits, and pleasures are all
found in what gratifies selfishness and worldliness, it is impossible
we can find a place in that kingdom which is all unselfishness and
unworldliness. "Be not deceived." The spiritual world is a reality,
and the godliness and Christlikeness that compose it must also be
realities. Put away from you the fatuous idea that things will somehow
come all right, and that your character will adapt itself to changed
surroundings. It is not so; nothing that defiles can find entrance
into the kingdom of God, but only those who are "sanctified in the
name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."
_FORNICATION._
"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the
power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but
God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for
fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God
hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His
own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of
Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them
the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he
which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he,
shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without
the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not
your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God
in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."--1 COR. vi.
12-20.
X.
_FORNICATION._
In remonstrating with the Corinthians for their litigiousness, Paul
was forcibly reminded how imperfectly his converts understood the
moral requirements of the kingdom of God. Apparently, too, he had
reason to believe that they were not only content to remain on a low
moral plane, but actually quoted some of his own favourite sayings in
defence of immoral practices. After warning them therefore that only
those who were sanctified could belong to the kingdom of God and
specifying certain common kinds of wrong-doing which must for ever be
excluded from that kingdom, he goes on to explain how they had
misapprehended him if they thought that any principle of his could
give colour to immorality. The Corinthians had apparently learned to
argue that if, as Paul had so often and emphatically told them, all
things were lawful to them, then this commonest of Greek indulgences
was lawful; if abstaining from the meat which had been killed in a
heathen temple was a matter of moral indifference which Christians
might or might not practise, as they pleased, then this other common
accompaniment of idolatry was also a matter of indifference and not in
itself wrong.
To understand this Corinthian obliquity of moral vision it must be
borne in mind that licentious rites were a common accompaniment of
pagan worship, and especially in Corinth idolatry might have been
briefly described as the performance of Balaam's instructions to the
Israelites: the eating of things sacrificed to idols and the
committing of fornication. The temples were often scenes of revelry
and debauchery such as happily have become incredible to a modern
mind. But not at once could men emerging from a religion so slenderly
connected with morality apprehend what Christianity required of them.
When they abandoned the temple-worship, were they also to abstain from
eating the flesh offered for sale in the open market, and which had
first been sacrificed to an idol? Might they not by partaking of such
flesh become partakers in the sin of idolatry? To this Paul replied,
Do not too scrupulously inquire into the previous history of your
dinner; the meat has no moral taint; all things are lawful for you.
This was reasonable; but then how about the other accompaniment of
idolatry? Was it also a thing of indifference? Can we apply the same
reasoning to it? It was this insinuation which called forth the
emphatic condemnation which Paul utters in this paragraph.
The great principle of Christian liberty, "All things are lawful for
me," Paul now sees he must guard against abuse by adding, "But all
things are not expedient." The law and its modification are fully
explained in a subsequent passage of the Epistle (viii.; x. 23, etc.).
Here it may be enough to say that Paul seeks to impress on his readers
that the question of duty is not answered by simply ascertaining what
is lawful; we must also ask whether the practice or act contemplated
is expedient. Though it may be impossible to prove that this or that
practice is wrong in every case, we have still to ask, Does it advance
what is good in us; is its bearing on society good or evil; will it in
present circumstances and in the instance we contemplate give rise to
misunderstandings and evil thoughts? The Christian is a law to
himself; he has an internal guide that sets him above external rules.
Very true; but that guide leads all those who possess it to a higher
life than the law leads to, and proves its presence by teaching a man
to consider, not how much indulgence he may enjoy without
transgressing the letter of the law, but how he can most
advantageously use his time and best forward what is highest in
himself and in others.
Again, "all things are lawful for me;" all things are in my power.
Yes, but for that very reason "I will not be brought under the power
of any." "The reasonable use of my liberty cannot go the length of
involving my own loss of it."[5] I am free from the law; I will not on
that account become the slave of indulgence. As Carlyle puts it,
"enjoying things which are pleasant--that is not the evil; it is the
reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is. Let a man
assert withal that he is king over his habitudes; that he could and
would shake them off on cause shown: this is an excellent law." There
are several practices and habits which no one would call immoral or
sinful, but which enslave a man quite as much as worse habits. He is
no longer a free man; he is uneasy and restless, and cannot settle to
his work until he obeys the craving he has created. And it is the very
lawfulness of these indulgences which has ensnared him. Had they been
sinful, the Christian man would not have indulged in them; but being
in his power, they have now assumed power over him. They have power to
compel him to waste his time, his money, sometimes even his health. He
alone attains the true dignity and freedom of the Christian man who
can say, with Paul, "I know both how to be full and to be hungry, both
to abound and to suffer need;" "All things are in my power, but I will
not be brought under the power of any."
[5] Godet.
Paul then proceeds more explicitly to apply these principles to the
matter in hand. The Corinthians argued that if meats were morally
indifferent, a man being morally neither the better nor the worse for
eating food which had been offered in an idol's temple, so also a man
was neither better nor worse for fornication. To expose the error of
this reasoning Paul draws a remarkable distinction between the
digestive, nutritive organs of the body and the body as a whole. Paul
believed that the body was an essential part of human nature, and that
in the future life the natural body would give place to the spiritual
body. He believed also that the spiritual body was connected with, and
had its birthplace in, the natural body, so that the body we now wear
is to be represented by that finer and more spiritual organism we are
hereafter to be clothed in. The connection of that future body with
the physical world and its dependence on material things we cannot
understand; but in some way inconceivable by us it is to carry on the
identity of our present body, and thereby it reflects a sacredness and
significance on this body. The body of the full-grown man or of the
white-bearded patriarch is very different from that of the babe in its
mother's arms, but there is a continuity that links them together and
gives them identity. So the future body may be very different from
and yet the same as the present. At the same time, the organs which
merely serve for the maintenance of our present natural body will be
unnecessary and out of place in the future body, which is spiritual in
its origin and in its maintenance. Paul therefore distinguishes
between the organs of nutrition and that body which is part of our
permanent individuality, and which by some unimaginable process is to
flower into an everlasting body. The digestive organs of the body have
their use and their destiny, and the body as a whole has its use and
destiny. These two differ from one another; and if you are to argue
from the one to the other, you must keep in view this distinction.
"Meats for the belly and the belly for meats; and God shall destroy
both it and them: but the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the
body, and God shall raise up the one as He has raised up the other."
The organs of nutrition have a present use; they are made for meats,
and have a natural correspondence with meats. Any meat which the
digestive organs approve is allowable. The conscience has to do with
meat only through these organs. It must listen to their
representations; and if they approve of certain qualities and
quantities of food, the conscience confirms this decision: approves
when the man uses the food best for these organs; disapproves when he
uses consciously and self-indulgently what is bad for them. "Meats for
the belly and the belly for meats"--they claim each other as their
mutual, God-appointed counterparts. By eating you are not perverting
your bodily organs to a use not intended for them; you are putting
them to the use God meant them to serve.
Besides, these organs form no part of the future spiritual body. They
pass away with the meats for which they were made. God shall destroy
both the meats that are requisite for life in this world, and the
organs needful for deriving sustenance from them. They serve a
temporary purpose, like the houses we live in and the clothes we wear;
and as we are not morally better because we live in a stone house, and
not in a brick one, or because we wear woollens, and not cotton--so
long as we do what is best to keep us in life--so neither is there any
moral difference in meats--a remarkable conclusion for a Jew to come
to, whose religion had taught him to hold so many forms of food in
abhorrence.
But the body as a whole--for what is it made? These organs of
nutrition fulfil their function when they lead you to eat such meat as
sustains you in life; when does the body fulfil its function? What is
its object and end? For what purpose have we a body? Paul is never
afraid to suggest the largest questions, neither is he afraid to give
his answer. "The body," he says, "is for the Lord, and the Lord for
the body." Here also there is a mutual correspondence and fitness.
"The body is for the Lord." Paul was addressing Christians, and this
no Christian would be disposed to deny. Every Christian is conscious
that the body would not fulfil its end and purpose unless it were
consecrated to the Lord and informed by His Spirit. The organism by
which we come into contact with the world outside ourselves is not the
unwieldy, hindering, irredeemable partner of the spirit, but is
designed to be the vehicle of spiritual faculties and the efficient
agent of our Lord's purposes. It must not be looked upon with
resentment, pity, or contempt, but rather as essential to our human
nature and to the fulfilment of the Lord's design as the Saviour of
the world and the Head of humanity. It was through the body of the
Lord that the great facts of our redemption were accomplished. It was
the instrument of the incarnation and of the manifestation of God
among men, of the death and the resurrection by which we are saved.
And as in His own body Christ was incarnate among men, so now it is by
means of the bodily existence and energies of His people on earth that
He extends His influence.
The body then is for the Lord. He finds in it His needed instrument;
without it He cannot accomplish His will. And the Lord is for the
body. Without Him the body cannot develop into all it is intended to
be. It has a great future as well as the soul. Our adoption as God's
children is, in Paul's view, incomplete until the body also is
redeemed and has fought its way through sickness, base uses, death,
and dissolution into likeness to the glorified body of Christ. This
body which we now identify with ourselves, and apart from which it is
difficult to conceive of ourselves, is not the mere temporary lodging
of the soul, which in a few years must be abandoned; but it is
destined to preserve its identity through all coming changes, so that
it will be recognisable still as our body. But this cannot be
believed, far less accomplished, save by faith in the fact that God
has raised up the Lord Jesus and will with Him raise us also.
Otherwise the future of the body seems brief and calamitous. Death
seems plainly to say, There is an end of all that is physical. Yes,
replies the resurrection of the Lord, in death there is an end of this
natural body; but death disengages the spiritual body from the
natural, and clothes the spirit in a more fitting garb. Understand
this we cannot, any more than we understand why a large mass draws to
itself smaller masses; but believe it we can in presence of Christ's
resurrection.
The Lord then is for the body, because in the Lord the body has a
future opened to it and present connections and uses which prepare it
for that future. It is the Spirit of Christ who is, within us, the
earnest of that future, and who forms us for it, inclining us while in
the body and by means of it to sow to the Spirit and thus to reap life
everlasting. Without Christ we cannot have this Spirit, nor the
spiritual body He forms. The only future of the body we dare to look
at without a shudder is the future it has in the Lord. God has sent
Christ to secure for the body redemption from the fate which naturally
awaits it, and apart from Christ it has no outlook but the worst. The
Lord is for the body, and as well might we try to sustain the body now
without food as to have any endurable future for it without the Lord.
But if the body is thus closely united to Christ in its present use
and in its destiny, if its proper function and fit development can
only be realized by a true fellowship with Christ, then the inference
is self-evident that it must be carefully guarded from such uses and
impurities as involve rupture with Christ. "Know ye not that your
bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of
Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." The
Christian is one spirit with Christ. There is a real community of
spiritual life between them. It is the spirit which possessed Christ
which now possesses the Christian. He has the same aims, the same
motives, the same view of life, the same hope, as his Lord. It is in
Christ he seeks to live, and he has no stronger desire than to be
used for His purposes. That Christ would use him as He used the
members of His own body while on earth, that there might be the same
direct influence and moving power of the Lord's Spirit, the same ready
and instinctive response to the Lord's will, the same solidarity
between himself and the Lord as between Christ's body and Christ's
Spirit--this is the Christian's desire. To have his body a member of
Christ--this is his happiness. To be one in will with Him who has
brought by His own goodness the light of heaven into the darkness of
earth, to learn to know Him and to love Him by serving Him and by
measuring His love with all the needs of earth--this is his life. To
be so united to Christ in all that is deepest in his nature that he
knows he can never be separated from Him, but must go forward to the
happy destiny which his Lord already enjoys--this is the Christian's
joy; and it is made possible to every man.
Possible to every man is this personal union to Christ, but to be
united thus in one Spirit to Christ and at the same time to be united
to impurity is for ever impossible. To be one with Christ in spirit
and at the same time to be one in body with what is spiritually
defiled is impossible, and the very idea is monstrous. Devotedness to
Christ is possible, but it is incompatible with any act which means
that we become one in body with what is morally polluted. If the
Christian is as truly a member of Christ's body as were the hands and
eyes of the body He wore on earth, then the mind shrinks, as from
blasphemy, from following out the thought of Paul. And if any
frivolous Corinthian still objected that such acts went no deeper than
the eating of food ceremonially unclean, that they belonged to the
body that was to be destroyed, Paul says, It is not so; these acts are
full of the deepest moral significance: they were intended by God to
be _the expression of inward union_, and they have that significance
whether you shut your eyes to it or not.
And this is what Paul means when he goes on to say, "Every sin that a
man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication
sinneth against his own body." He does not mean that this is the only
sin committed by the body, for of many other sins the body is the
agent, as in murder, lying, blasphemy, robbery, and thieving. Neither
does he mean that this is the only sin to which bodily appetite
instigates, for gluttony and drunkenness equally take their rise in
bodily appetite. But he means that this is the only sin in which the
present connection of the body with Christ and its future destiny in
Him are directly sinned against. This is the only sin, he means, which
by its very nature alienates the body from Christ, its proper Partner.
Other sins indirectly involve separation from Christ; this explicitly
and directly transfers allegiance, and sunders our union with Him. By
this sin a man detaches himself from Christ; he professes to be united
to what is incompatible with Christ.
These weighty reasonings and warm admonitions, into which Paul throws
his whole energy, are concluded by the statement of a twofold truth
which is of much wider application than to the matter in hand: "Ye are
bought with a price to be the temple of the Holy Ghost." We are bought
with a price, and are no longer our own. The realities underlying
these words are gladly owned in every Christian consciousness. God has
caused us to recognise how truly we are His by showing us that He has
grudged nothing which can restore us fully to Him. He has bought us,
not with any of those prices the wealthy can pay without sacrifice and
without profound interest and feeling, but with that price which is
coined and issued by love, which carries in it the token and pledge of
love, and which therefore wins us wholly. In our relations with God we
have never to do with any merely formal transaction performed for the
sake of keeping up appearances, saving the proprieties or satisfying
the letter of law, but always with what is necessary in the nature of
things, with what is real, with the very God of truth, the centre and
source of all reality. God has made us His own, has won our hearts and
wills to Himself, by manifesting His love in ways that touch and move
us, and for purposes absolutely needful. God means that our attachment
to Him should be real and permanent, and He has based it on the most
reasonable grounds. He means that we should be His, not only because
we are His creatures or because He has an indefeasible right to our
service as the source of our life; but He means that our hearts should
be His, and that we should be drawn to live and labour for His ends,
convinced in our reason that this is our happiness and attracted by
His love to serve Him. He means this; and accordingly He has bought
us, has given us reason to become His, has made such advances as ought
to win us has not grudged to show His earnest desire for our love by
Himself making sacrifices and declaring that He loves us. It is a
thought the humble heart can scarcely endure that it is loved by God,
that it has been counted so precious in God's sight that Divine love
and sacrifice should have been spent on its restoration. It is a
thought that overwhelms the believing heart, but, believed in, it wins
the soul eternally to God.
We are not our own; we belong to Him who has loved us most; and His
love will be satisfied when we suffer Him to dwell in us, so that we
shall be His temples, and shall glorify Him in body and in spirit. God
claims our body as well as our spirit; He has a purpose for our body
as well as for our spirit. Our body is to glorify Him in the future
and now: in the future, by exhibiting how the Divine wisdom has
triumphed over all that threatens the body, and has used all the
present bodily experiences for preparing a permanent spiritual
embodiment of all human faculties and joys; and now, by putting itself
at the disposal of God for the accomplishment of His will. We glorify
God by allowing Him to fulfil His purpose of love in creating us. What
that purpose is we cannot wholly know; but trusting ourselves to His
love, we can, by obeying Him, have it more and more accomplished in
us. And it is the consciousness that we are God's temples which
constantly incites us to live worthily of Him. To say that we are
temples of God is not to use a figure of speech. It is the temple of
stone that is the figure; the true dwelling-place of God is man. In
nothing can God reveal Himself as He can in man. Through nothing else
can He express so much of what is truly Divine. It is not a building
of stone which forms a fit temple for God; it is not even the heaven
of heavens. In material nature only a small part of God can be seen
and known. It is in man, able to choose what is morally good, able to
resist temptation, to make sacrifices for worthy ends, to determine
his own character; it is in man, whose own will is his law, and who is
not the mere mechanical agent of another's will, that God finds a
worthy temple for Himself. Through you God can express and reveal what
is best in Himself. Your love is sustained by His, and reveals His.
Your approval of what is pure and hatred of impurity has its source in
His holiness, and by transforming you into His own image He discloses
Himself as truly dwelling and living within you. Where is God to be
found and to be known if not in men? Where can His presence and Divine
goodness and reality be more distinctly manifest than in Christ and
those who are in any degree like Him? It is in men that the unseen
Divine Spirit manifests His nature and His work. But if so, what a
profanation is it when we take this body, which is built to be His
temple, and put it to uses which it were blasphemous to associate with
God! Let us rather find our joy in realizing the ideal set before us
by Paul, in keeping ourselves pure as God's temples and in glorifying
Him in our body and in our spirit.
_MARRIAGE._
"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good
for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman
have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due
benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The
wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband, and
likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the
wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for
a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and
come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your
incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of
commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But
every man hath his proper gift of God one after this manner, and
another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows,
It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot
contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not
the wife depart from her husband: but and if she depart, let her
remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not
the husband put away his wife. But to the rest speak I, not the
Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be
pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the
woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be
pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the
unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your
children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving
depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under
bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what
knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how
knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? But as God
hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one,
so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. Is any man
called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is
any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.
Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the
keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the
same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a
servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it
rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is
the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free,
is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the
servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called,
therein abide with God. Now concerning virgins I have no
commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath
obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore
that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is
good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to
be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and
if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she
hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the
flesh: but I spare you. But this I say, brethren, the time is
short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though
they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and
they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that
buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world,
as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried
careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please
the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are
of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference
also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for
the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in
spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the
world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your
own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that
which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without
distraction. But if any man think that he behaveth himself
uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age,
and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let
them marry. Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart,
having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath
so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that
giveth her not in marriage doeth better. The wife is bound by the
law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead,
she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the
Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and
I think also that I have the Spirit of God."--1 COR. vii. 1-40.
XI.
_MARRIAGE._
There are two preliminary considerations which throw some light on
this much-contested passage. First, Paul had to speak about marriage
as he found it, as it existed among those to whom he wished to be of
service. Hence he makes no allusion to that which among ourselves is
the main argument for, or at least the one only justifying motive to,
marriage, viz., love. Marriage is treated here from a lower point of
view than it would have been had this letter been originally written
for Englishmen. The Church to which it was addressed was composite.
Jews, Greeks, and Romans, in what proportions it is not easy to say,
brought their peculiar and national usages into it. In the marriages
of the Jews and Greeks, love had, as a rule, little to do. The
marriage was arranged by the parents of the contracting parties.
"Faces strange and tongues unknown
Make us by a bid their own,"
is the remonstrance of the Greek maiden against the unnatural custom
which prevailed of allowing no intimacy, and scarcely any real
acquaintance, prior to marriage. The lack of warmth and personal
interest which characterizes the Greek plays arises mainly from the
circumstance that among the Greeks there was absolutely no such thing
as that love prior to marriage on which even our best works of fiction
uniformly depend for their interest. Among the Romans there was none
of this Eastern seclusion of women, and but for other causes marriage
among this section of the Corinthian population might have served as
an example to the rest.
Secondly, it is to be considered that not only had Paul to speak of
marriage as he found it, but also that he was here only giving answers
to some special questions, and not discussing the whole subject in all
its bearings. There might be other points which to his mind seemed
equally important; but his advice not having been asked about these,
he passes them by. He introduces the subject in a manner fitted to
remind us that he has no intention of propounding his views on
marriage in a complete and systematic form: "Now concerning the things
whereof ye wrote unto me." There had arisen in the Corinthian Church
certain scruples about marriage; and as the Church was composed of
persons who would naturally take very different views on the subject,
these scruples might not be easily removed. Among the Jews it was
believed that marriage was a duty, "so much so that he who at the age
of twenty had not married was considered to have sinned." Among the
Gentiles the tendency to celibacy was so strong that it was considered
necessary to counteract it by legal enactment. In a community
previously disposed to take such opposite views of marriage
difficulties were sure to arise. Those who were predisposed to
disparage the married state would throw contempt upon it as a mere
concession to the flesh; they apparently even urged that, Christians
being new creatures, their whole previous relationships were
dissolved. To Paul therefore appeal is made.
The questions referred to Paul resolve themselves into two: whether
the unmarried are to marry, and whether the married are to continue to
live together.
In reply to the former question, whether the unmarried are to marry,
he first states the duty of unmarried persons themselves (in vers. 2,
7-9); and afterwards (in vers. 25-39) he explains the duty of parents
to their unmarried daughters.
I. First then we have Paul's counsel to the unmarried. This is summed
up in the words, "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is
good for them if they abide even as I;" that is to say, if they remain
unmarried, Paul being probably the only unmarried Apostle. But if any
man's temperament be such that he cannot settle undistractedly to his
work without marrying; if he is restless and ill at ease, and full of
natural cravings which make him think much of marriage, and make him
feel sure he would be less distracted in married life--then, says
Paul, let such an one by all means marry. But do not misunderstand me,
he says; this is permission I am giving you, not commandment. I do not
say you _must_ or ought to marry; I say you _may_, and in certain
circumstances _ought_. Those among you who say a man sins if he do not
marry, talk nonsense. Those among you who feel a quiet superiority
because you are married, and think of unmarried people as
undergraduates who have not attained a degree equal to yours, are much
mistaken if you suppose that I am of your mind. When I say, "Let every
man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," I do
not mean that every man who wishes to come as near perfection as
possible must go and marry, but what I speak I speak by way of
permission; I permit every man to marry who deliberately believes he
will be the better of marrying. So far from thinking that every man
ought to marry, or that married men have somehow the advantage over
single men, I think the very opposite, and would that _all_ men were
even as I myself, only I know that to many men it is not so easy as it
is to me to live unmarried; and therefore I do not advise them to a
single life.
But this advice of Paul's proceeds, not from any ascetic tendency, but
from the practical bias of his mind. He had no idea that marriage was
a morally inferior condition; on the contrary, he saw in it the most
perfect symbol of the union of Christ and the Church. But he thought
that unmarried men were likely to be most available for the work of
Christ; and therefore he could not but wish it possible, though he
knew it was not possible, that all unmarried men should remain
unmarried.
His reason for thinking that unmarried men would be more efficient in
the service of Christ is given in the thirty-second and thirty-third
verses: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the
Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for
the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife," an
opinion quite similar to that which Lord Bacon pronounced when he
said, "Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public,
have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, who both in
affection and means have married and endowed the public." Given two
men with equal desire to serve Christ, but the one married and the
other unmarried, it is obvious that the unmarried man has more means
and opportunities of service than he who has a large family to
support. No doubt a good wife may stimulate a man to liberality, and
may greatly increase his tenderness towards deserving objects of
charity; but the fact remains that he who has seven or ten mouths to
fill cannot have so much to give away as if he had but himself to
support. Then, again, however alike in sentiment husband and wife may
be, there are sacrifices which a married man may not make. With the
unmarried man there need be no other consideration than this: How can
I best serve Christ? With the married man there must always be other
considerations. He cannot ignore or forswear the ties with which he
has bound himself; he cannot act as if he had only himself to
consider. The unmarried man has life and the world before him, and may
choose the most ideal and perfect style of life he pleases. He may
seek to realize, as many in recent times have realized, the exact
apostolic idea of how it is best to spend a human life. He may choose
to devote himself to the elevation of some one class of the community,
or he is free to go to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel. He
has no one thing to consider but how he may please the Lord. But the
married man has limited his range of choice, and has cut himself off
from some at least of the most influential ways of doing good in the
world. It is therefore to the unmarried that the State looks for the
manning of the army and navy; it is to the unmarried that society
looks for the nursing of the sick and for the filling of posts of
danger; and it is on the unmarried that the Church depends for a large
part of her work, from teaching in Sunday-schools to occupying
unhealthy and precarious outposts in the mission field.
But while Paul makes no scruple of saying that for many purposes the
unmarried man is the more available, he says also, Beware how _you_
individually think yourself a hero, and able to forego marriage.
Beware lest, by choosing a part which you are not fit for, you give
Satan an advantage over you, and expose yourself to constant
temptation, and pass through life distracted by needless deprivation.
"Far be it from me," says Paul, "to cast a snare upon you," to invite
or encourage you into a position against which your nature would
unceasingly rebel, to prompt you to attempt that for which you are
constitutionally unfit, and thereby to make your life a chronic
temptation. "Every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this
manner, another after that." And if any man fancies that, because
there are advantages in being unmarried, therefore that is the best
state for him, or if, on the other hand, any man fancies that, because
most men seem to find great happiness in marriage, he also needs
marriage to complete his happiness, both of these men leave out of
account that which is chiefly to be taken into account, viz., the
special temperament, calling, and opportunities of each.
The common-sense and wise counsel of this chapter are sometimes half
jestingly put aside by the idle remark that Paul, being himself
unmarried, takes a biassed view of the subject. But the chief merit of
the whole passage is that Paul positively and expressly declines to
judge others by himself, or himself by others. What is good for one
man in this respect is not good, he says, for another; every man must
ascertain for himself what is best for him. And this is precisely what
is lacking in popular feeling and talk about marriage. People start in
life, and are encouraged to start in life, on the understanding that
their happiness cannot be complete till they are married; that they
are in some sense incomplete and unsatisfactory members of society
until they marry. Now, on the contrary, people should be taught not to
follow one another like sheep, nor to suppose that they will
infallibly find happiness where others have found it. They should be
taught to consider their own make and bent, and not to take for
granted that the cravings they feel for an indefinite addition to
their happiness will be satisfied by marriage. They should be taught
that marriage is but one out of many paths to happiness, that it is
possible celibacy may be the straightest path to happiness for them,
and that many persons are so constituted that they are likely to be
much more useful unmarried than married. They should, above all, be
taught that human life is very wide and multifarious, and that, to
effect His ends, God needs persons of all kinds and conditions, so
that to prejudge the direction in which our usefulness and happiness
are to run is to shut God out of our life. There can be no doubt that
the opposite way of speaking of marriage as the great settlement in
life has introduced much misery and uselessness into the lives of
thousands.
It is this then which not only signally illustrates the judicial
balance of the Apostle's mind, but at the same time gives us the key
to the whole chapter. The capacity for celibacy is a gift of God to
him who possesses it, a gift which may be of eminent service, but to
which no moral value can be attached. There are many such diversities
of gifts among men, gifts of immense value, but which may belong to
bad as well as to good men. For example, two men travel together; the
one can go without food for twelve hours, the other cannot, but if
you repair his strength every five hours, he can go through as much
fatigue as the other. This power of abstinence is a valuable gift, and
has frequently enabled men in certain circumstances to save life or
perform other important service. But no one would dream of arguing
that because a man possessed this gift, he was therefore a _better_
man than his less enduring friend. Unfortunately, so simple a
distinction has not been kept in view. In the most powerful Church in
the world celibacy is regarded as a virtue in itself, so that men with
no natural gift for it have been encouraged to aim at it, with what
results we need not say.
But while there is no virtue in remaining unmarried, there is virtue
in remaining unmarried for the sake of serving Christ better. Some
persons are kept single by mere selfishness; having been accustomed to
orderly and quiet ways, they shrink from having their personal peace
broken in upon by the claims of children. Some shrink from being tied
down to any definite settlement in life; they like to feel
unencumbered, and free to shift their tent at short notice. Some dread
responsibility and the little and great anxieties of family life. A
few have the feeling of the miser, and prefer the possibility of many
conceivable marriages to the actuality of one. For such persons to
make a virtue of their celibacy is absurd. But all honour to those who
recognise that they are called to some duty they could not discharge
if married! All honour to that eldest son of an orphaned family who
sees that it is not for him to please himself, but to work for those
who have none to look to but him! There are here and there persons who
from the highest motives decline marriage: persons conscious of some
hereditary weakness, physical or mental; persons who, on a deliberate
survey of human life, have seemed to themselves to recognise that they
are called to a kind of service with which marriage is incompatible.
We may be thankful that in our own country and time there are men and
women of sufficiently heroic mould to exemplify the wisdom of the
Apostle's counsel. Such devotion is not for every one. There are
persons of a soft and domestic temperament who need the supports and
comforts of home-life, and nothing can be more cruel and ill-advised
than to encourage such persons to turn their life into a channel in
which it was never intended to run. But it is equally to be lamented
that, where there are women quite capable of a life of self-devotion
to some noble work, they should be discouraged from such a life by the
false, and foolish, and petty notions of society, and should be taught
to believe that the only way in which they can serve their Lord is by
caring for the affairs of a single household. No calling is nobler or
more worthy of a Christian woman than marriage; but it is not the only
calling. There are other callings as noble, and there are callings in
which many women will find a much wider field for doing good.
II. St. Paul's counsel to the married. Some of the Corinthians seem to
have thought that, because they were new creatures in Christ, their
old relations should be abandoned; and they put to Paul the question
whether a believing man who had an unbelieving wife ought not to
forsake her. Paul had shrewdness enough to see that if a Christian
might separate from an unbelieving wife on the sole ground that he was
a Christian, this easy mode of divorce might lead to a large and most
unwelcome influx of pretended Christians into the Church. He therefore
lays down the law that the power of separation is to rest with the
unbelieving, and not with the believing, partner. If the unbelieving
wife wishes to separate from her Christian husband, let her do so; but
the change from heathenism to Christianity was no reason for sundering
the marriage union. It frequently happened in the early ages of the
Church that when a man was converted to the Christian faith in middle
life, and judged he could serve God better without the encumbrance of
a family, he forsook his wife and children and betook himself to a
monastery. This directly contravened the law here laid down to abide
in the vocation wherein God's call had found him.
The principle, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was
called," is of wide application. The slave who heard God's call to him
to become His child was not to think he must resent being a slave and
assert his Christian liberty by requiring emancipation from earthly
servitude. On the contrary, he must be content with the inward
possession of the freedom Christ had given him, and must show his
liberty by the willingness and spontaneity of his submission to all
his outward conditions. It is not externals that make a Christian; and
if God's grace has found a man in unlikely circumstances, that is the
best evidence he can have that he will find opportunity of serving God
in those circumstances, if there be no sin in them. It throws great
light on the relation which we as Christians hold to the institutions
of our country, and generally to outward things, when we understand
that Christianity does not begin by making external changes, but
begins within and gradually finds its way outwards, modifying and
rectifying all it meets.
But the principle to which Paul chiefly trusts, he enounces in the
twenty-ninth verse: "This I say, brethren, the time is short: it
remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none,
and they that weep as though they wept not; ... for the fashion of
this world passeth away." The forms in which human life is now
moulded, the kind of business we are now engaged in, the pleasures we
enjoy, even the relationships we hold to one another, pass away. There
are no doubt relationships which time cannot dissolve, marriages so
fit and uniting spirits so essentially kindred that no change can
dissolve them, affections so pure and clinging that if the future does
not renew them, it loses a large part of its charm for us. But
whatever is temporary in our relation to the present world it is
foolish so to set our heart on, that death may seem to end all our joy
and all our usefulness. We may resent being asked to be moderate and
self-restrained in our devotedness to this or that pursuit, but the
fact is that the time is short and that the fashion of this world
passeth away; and it is surely the part of wisdom to accommodate one's
self to fact. In this life we now lead, and underneath all its
activities, and forms, and relationships, we have opportunity of
laying hold on what is permanent; and if, instead of penetrating
through the outward things to the eternal significance and relations
they bear, we give ourselves wholly to them, we abuse the world, and
pervert it to an end for which it was not intended. The man who is
sent abroad for five years would consider it folly to accumulate a
large collection of the luxuries of life, furniture, and paintings,
and encumbrances; how many times five years do we expect to live, that
we should be much concerned to amass goods which we cannot remove to
another world? This world is a means, and not an end; and those use
it best who use it in relation to what is to be. They use it not less
vigorously, but more wisely, not despising the mould which fashions
them to their eternal form, but ever bearing in mind that the mould is
to be broken and that what is fashioned by it alone remains. It is the
thought of our great future which alone gives us sufficient courage
and wisdom to deal with present things intensely and in earnest. For,
as a heathen long ago saw and said, "if God make so much of creatures
in whom there is nothing permanent, He is like women who sow the seeds
of plants within the soil enclosed in an oyster-shell." The very
intensity of our interests and affections reminds us that we cannot
root ourselves in this present life, but need a larger room.
_LIBERTY AND LOVE._
"Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all
have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And
if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet
as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known
of him. As concerning therefore the eating of those things that
are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is
nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.
For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in
earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there
is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in
Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by
Him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some
with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing
offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we
the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. But take
heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a
stumbling-block to them that are weak. For if any man see thee
which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not
the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those
things which are offered to idols; and through thy knowledge
shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when ye
sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye
sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend,
I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my
brother to offend."--1 COR. viii. 1-13.
"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no
man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. Whatsoever is
sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for
conscience' sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof. If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and
ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking
no question for conscience' sake. But if any man say unto you,
This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake
that showed it, and for conscience' sake: for the earth is the
Lord's, and the fulness thereof: conscience, I say, not thine
own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another
man's conscience? For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil
spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye
eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor
to the Church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not
seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be
saved. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."--1
COR. x. 23-xi. 1.
XII.
_LIBERTY AND LOVE._
The next question which had been put to Paul by the Corinthian Church,
and to which he now replies, is "touching things offered unto idols,"
whether a Christian had liberty to eat such things or not. This
question necessarily arose in a society partly heathen and partly
Christian. Every meal was in a manner dedicated to the household gods
by laying some portion of it on the family altar. Where one member of
a heathen family had become a Christian, he would at once be
confronted with the question, rising in his own conscience, whether by
partaking of such food he might not be countenancing idolatry. On the
occasion of a birthday, or a marriage, or a safe return from sea, or
any circumstance that seemed to call for celebration, it was customary
to sacrifice in some public temple. And after the legs of the victim,
enclosed in fat, and the entrails had been burnt on the altar, the
worshipper received the remainder, and invited his friends and guests
to partake of it either in the temple itself, or in the surrounding
grove, or at his own home. Here again a young convert might very
naturally ask himself whether he was justified in attending such a
feast and actually sitting down to meat in the idol's presence. Nor
was it only personal friendships and the harmony of family life that
were threatened; but on public occasions and national celebrations
the Christian was in a strait betwixt two; fearful, on the one hand,
of branding himself as no good citizen by abstaining from
participation in the feast, fearful, on the other hand, lest by
compliance he should be found unfaithful to his new religion. And even
though his own family was entirely Christian, the difficulty was not
removed, for much of the meat offered in worship found its way into
the common market, so that at every meal the Christian ran the risk of
eating things sacrificed to idols.
Among the Jews it had always been considered pollution to eat such
food. Instances are on record of men dying cheerfully rather than
suffer such contamination. Few Jewish Christians could rise to the
height of our Lord's maxim, "Not that which goeth into a man defileth
him." The Gentile converts also felt the difficulty of at once
throwing off all the old associations. When they entered the temple
where but a few months ago they had worshipped, the atmosphere of the
place intoxicated them; and the long-accustomed sights quickened their
pulse and exposed them to serious temptation. Others, less sensitive,
could use the temple as they would an ordinary eating-house, without
the slightest stirring of idolatrous feeling. Some went to the houses
of heathen friends as often as they were invited, and partook of what
was set before them, making no minute inquiries as to how the meat had
been provided, asking no questions for conscience' sake, but believing
that the earth and its fulness were the Lord's, and that what they ate
they received from God, and not from an idol. Others, again, could not
shake off the feeling that they were countenancing idolatry when they
partook of such feasts. Thus there arose a diversity of judgment and a
variance in practice which must have given rise to much annoyance,
and which did not appear to be approaching any nearer to a final and
satisfactory settlement.
In answer to the appeal made to him on this subject, it might seem
that Paul had nothing to do but quote the deliverance of the Council
of Jerusalem, which determined that Gentile converts should be
commanded to abstain from meats offered to idols. Paul himself had
obtained that deliverance, and was satisfied with it; but now he makes
no reference to it, and treats the question afresh. In the epistles of
the Lord to the Churches, embodied in the Book of Revelation, the
eating of things sacrificed to idols is spoken of in strongly
condemnatory language; and in one of the very earliest non-canonical
documents of the primitive Church we find the precept, "Abstain
carefully from things offered to idols, for that is worship of dead
gods." Paul's disregard of the decision of the Council is probably due
to his belief that that decision was merely provisional and temporary.
He had founded Churches which could scarcely be expected to go past
himself for guidance; and as the situation in the Corinthian Church
was different from what it had been in Antioch, he felt justified in
treating the matter afresh. And while in the early Church the
partaking of sacrificial food which Paul allowed was sometimes
vehemently condemned, this was due to the circumstance that it was
sometimes used as a test of a man's abandonment of idolatry. Of course
where this was the case no Christian could possibly be in doubt
regarding the proper course to follow. What a man may freely do in
ordinary circumstances, he may not do if he is warned that certain
inferences will be drawn from his action.
The case laid before Paul then belongs to the class known as matters
morally indifferent. These are matters upon which conscience does not
uniformly give the same verdict even among persons brought up under
the same moral law. On mingling with society, every one finds that
there are many points of conduct regarding which there is not an
unanimous consent of judgment among the most delicately conscientious
people, and upon which it is difficult to decide even when we are
anxious to do right. Such points are the lawfulness of attending
certain places of public amusement, the propriety of allowing one's
self to be implicated in certain kinds of private amusements or
entertainments, the way of spending Sunday, and the amount of
pleasure, refinement, and luxury one may admit into his life.
The state of feeling produced in Corinth by the discussion of such
topics is apparent from Paul's mode of treating the question put to
him. His answer is addressed to the party who claimed superior
knowledge, who wished to be known as the party which stood for liberty
of conscience, and probably for the Pauline axiom, "All things are
lawful for me." Paul does not directly address those who had scruples
about eating, but those who had none. He does not speak to, but only
of, the "weak" brethren who had still conscience of the idol. And
apparently a good deal of ill-feeling had been engendered in the
Corinthian Church by the different views taken. This is always the
trouble in connection with morally indifferent matters. They do little
harm if each holds his own opinion genially and endeavours to
influence others by a friendly statement of his own practice and the
grounds of it. But in most instances it happens as in Corinth: those
who saw that they could eat without contamination scorned those who
had scruples; while, on their side, the scrupulous judged the eaters
to be worldly time-servers, in a perilous state, less godly and
consistent than themselves.
As a first step towards the settlement of this matter, Paul makes the
largest concession to the party of liberty. Their clear perception
that an idol was nothing in the world, a mere bit of timber, and of no
more significance to a Christian than a pillar or a doorpost--this
knowledge is sound and commendable. At the same time, they need not
make quite so much of it as they were doing. In their letter of
inquiry they must have emphasized the fact that they were the party of
enlightenment, who saw things as they really were, and had freed
themselves from fantastic superstitions and antiquated ideas. Quite
true, says Paul, "we all have knowledge;" but you need not remind me
at every turn of your superior discernment of the Christian's true
position nor of your wonderfully sagacious discovery that an idol is
nothing in the world. Any Jewish schoolboy could have told you this. I
know that you understand the principles which should regulate your
intercourse with the heathen much better than the scrupulous do, and
that your views of liberty are my own. Let us then hear no more of
this. Do not always be returning upon this, as if this settled the
whole matter. You are in the right so far as regards knowledge, and
your brethren are weak; let that be conceded: but do not suppose you
settle the question or impress me more strongly with the righteousness
of your conduct by reiterating that you, whom your brethren call lax
and misguided, are better instructed in the principle of Christian
conduct than they. Once for all, I know this.
Does this then not settle the question? If--the party of liberty might
say--if we are right, if the idol is nothing, and an idol's temple no
more than an ordinary dining-room, does this not settle the whole
matter? By no means, says Paul. "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity
edifieth." You have as yet grasped only one end, and that the weaker
end, of the Christian rule. You must add love, consideration of your
neighbour to your knowledge. Without this, knowledge is unwholesome
and as likely to do harm as to do good. In very similar terms the
founder of the Positive philosophy speaks of the evil results of
loveless knowledge. "I am free to confess," he says, "that hitherto
the Positive spirit has been tainted with the two moral evils which
peculiarly wait on knowledge. It puffs up, and it dries the heart, by
giving free scope to pride and by turning it from love." It is indeed
matter of everyday observation that men of ready insight into moral
and spiritual truth are prone to despise the less enlightened spirits
that stumble among the scruples which, like the bats of the moral
twilight, fly in their faces. The knowledge which is not tempered by
humility and love does harm both to its possessor and to other
Christians; it puffs up its possessor with scorn, and it alienates and
embitters the less enlightened. Knowledge without love, knowledge
which does not take into consideration the difficulties and scruples
of brethren, cannot be admired or commended, for though in itself a
good thing and capable of being used for the advancement of the
Church, knowledge dissociated from charity can do good neither to him
who possesses it nor to the Christian community. However the
possessors of such knowledge vaunt themselves as the men of progress
and the hope of the Church, it is not by knowledge alone the Church
can ever solidly grow. Knowledge does produce an appearance of growth,
a puffing up, an unhealthy, morbid growth, a mushroom, fungous growth;
but that which builds up the Church stone by stone, a strong, enduring
edifice, is love. It is a good thing to have clear views of Christian
liberty, to have definite, firmly held ideas of Christian conduct, to
discard fretting scruples and idle superstitions; add love to this
knowledge, exercise it in a tender, patient, self-denying,
considerate, loving way, and you edify both yourself and the Church:
but exercise it without love, and you become a poor inflated creature,
puffed up with a noxious gas destructive of all higher life in
yourself and in others.
Paul's law then is that liberty must be tempered by love; that the
individual must consider the society of which he forms a part; and
that, after his own conscience is satisfied regarding the legitimacy
of certain actions, he must further consider how the conscience of his
neighbour will be affected if he uses his liberty and does these
actions. He must endeavour to keep step with the Christian community
of which he forms a part, and must beware of giving offence to less
enlightened persons by his freer conduct. He must consider not only
whether he himself can do this or that with a good conscience, but
also how the conscience of those who know what he does will be
affected by it.
Applying this law to the matter in hand, Paul declares that, for his
own part, he has no scruples at all about meat. "Meat commendeth us
not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we
eat not, are we the worse." If therefore I had to consult only my own
conscience, the matter would admit of prompt and easy solution. I
would as soon eat in an idol's temple as anywhere else. But all have
not the conviction we have that an idol is nothing in the world. Some
are unable to rid themselves of the feeling that in eating sacrificial
meat they are paying an act of homage to the idol. "Some with
conscience of the idol," with the feeling that the idol is present and
accepting the worship, "eat the sacrificial meat as a thing offered
unto an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled." Their
conscience is weak, not fully enlightened, not purged of old
superstition; but their conscience is their conscience: and if they
feel they are doing a wrong thing and yet do it, they do a wrong
thing, and defile their conscience. Therefore we must consider them as
well as ourselves, for as often as we use our liberty and eat
sacrificial meat we tempt them to do the same, and so to defile their
conscience. They know that you are men of sound and clear spiritual
discernment; they look up to you as guides: and if they see you who
have knowledge sitting at meat in the idol's temple, must not they be
emboldened to do the same, and so to stain and harden their own
conscience?
It is easy to imagine how this would be exemplified at a Corinthian
table. Three Christians are invited, with other guests, to a party in
the house of a heathen friend. One of these invited Christians is
weakly scrupulous, unable to disentangle himself from the old
idolatrous associations connected with sacrificial meat. The other two
Christians are men of ampler view and more enlightened conscience, and
have the deepest conviction that scruples about eating at a heathen
table are baseless. All three recline at the table; but, as the meal
goes on, the anxious, scrutinizing eye of the weak brother discerns
some mark which identifies the meat as sacrificial, or, fearing it may
be so, he inquires of the servant, and finds it has been offered in
the temple: and at once he draws the attention of his Christian
friends to this, saying, "This has been offered in sacrifice to
idols." One of his friends, knowing that heathen eyes are watching,
and wishing to show how superior to all such scruples the enlightened
Christian is and how genial and free a religion is the religion of
Christ, smiles at his friend's scruples, and accepts the meat. The
other, quite as clear-sighted and free from superstition, but more
generous and more truly courageous, accommodates himself to the
scruple of the weak brother, and declines the dish, lest by eating and
leaving the scrupulous man without support he should tempt him to
follow their example, contrary to his own conviction, and so lead him
into sin. It need not be said which of these men acts the friendly
part and comes nearest to the Christian principle of Paul.
In our own society similar cases necessarily arise. I, as a Christian
man, and knowing that the earth and its fulness are the Lord's, may
feel at perfect liberty to drink wine. Had I only myself to consider,
and knowing that my temptation does not lie that way, I might use wine
regularly or as often as I felt disposed to enjoy a needed stimulant.
I may feel quite convinced in my own mind that morally I am not one
whit the worse of doing so. But I cannot determine whether I am to
indulge myself or not without considering the effect my conduct will
have on others. There may be among my friends some who know that their
temptation does lie that way, and whose conscience bids them
altogether refrain. If by my example such persons are encouraged to
silence the voice of their own conscience, then I incur the
incalculable guilt of helping to destroy a brother for whom Christ
died.
Or again, a lad has had the great good fortune to be brought up in a
Puritanic household, and has imbibed stringent moral principles, with
perhaps somewhat narrow ideas. He has been taught, together with much
else of the same character, that the influence of the theatre is in
our country demoralizing, that one day in the week is little enough to
give to the claims of spiritual education, and so forth. But on
entering the life of a great city he is soon brought in contact with
men whose uprightness, and sagacity, and Christian spirit he cannot
but respect, but who yet read their weekly paper, or any book they are
interested in, as freely on Sunday as on Saturday, and who visit the
theatre without the slightest twinge of conscience. Now either of two
things will probably happen in such a case. The young man's ideas of
Christian liberty may become clearer. He may attain the standpoint of
Paul, and may see that fellowship with Christ can be maintained in
conditions of life he once absolutely condemned. Or the young man may
not grow in Christian perception, but being daunted by overpowering
example, and chafing under the raillery of his companions, may do as
others do, though still uneasy in his own conscience.
What is to be observed about this process, which is ceaselessly going
on in society, is that the emboldening of conscience is one thing, its
enlightenment quite another. And were it possible to get statistics of
the proportion of cases in which the one process goes on without the
other, these statistics might be salutary. But we need no statistics
to assure us that Christian people by selfishly using their own
liberty do continually lead less enlightened persons to trample on
their scruples and disregard their own conscience. Constantly it
happens in every department of human life that men who once shrank
from certain practices as wrong now freely engage in them, although
they are not in their own mind any more clearly convinced of their
legitimacy than they were before, but are merely emboldened by the
example of others. Such persons, if possessed of any self-observation
and candour, will tell you that at first they felt as if they were
stealing the indulgence or the gain the practice brings, and that they
had to drown the voice of conscience by the louder voice of example.
The results of this are disastrous. Conscience is dethroned. The ship
no longer obeys her helm, and lies in the trough of the sea swept by
every wave and driven by every wind. It may indeed be said, What harm
can come of persons less enlightened being emboldened to do as we do
if what we do is right? Is not that, most strictly speaking,
edification? It is not as if we emboldened any one to transgress the
moral law; we are merely bringing our weak brother's conduct up to the
level of our own. Do we not act wisely and well in so doing? Again it
must be answered, No, because, while yielding themselves to the
influence of your example, these persons abandon the guidance of their
own conscience, which may be a less enlightened, but is certainly a
more authoritative, guide than you. If the weak brother does a right
thing while his conscience tells him it is a wrong thing, to him it is
a wrong thing. "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" that is to say,
whatsoever is not dictated by a thorough conviction that it is right
is sin. It is sin which in some respects is more dangerous than a sin
of passion or impulse. By a sin of passion the conscience is not
directly injured, and may remain comparatively tender and healthy; but
when you refuse to acknowledge conscience as your guide and accept
some other person's conduct as that which may dictate to you what you
may or may not do, you dethrone conscience, and sap your moral nature.
You shut your own eyes, and prefer to be led by the hand of another
person, which may indeed serve you on this occasion; but the end will
be a dog and a string.
Two permanent lessons are preserved in this exposition which Paul
gives of the matter laid before him. The first is the sacredness or
supremacy of conscience. "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind;" that is the one legitimate source of conduct. A man may
possibly do a wrong thing when he obeys conscience; he is certainly
wrong when he acts contrary to conscience. He may be helped to a
decision by the advice of others, but it is his own decision by which
he must abide. He must act, not on the conviction of others, but on
his own. It is what he himself sees that must guide him. He is bound
to use every means to enlighten his conscience and to learn with
accuracy what is right and allowable, but he is also bound always to
act upon his own present perception of what is right. His conscience
may not be as enlightened as it ought to be. Still his duty is to
enlighten, not to violate, it. It is the guide God has given us, and
we must not choose another.
The second lesson is that we must ever use our Christian liberty with
Christian consideration of others. Love must mingle with all we do.
There are many things which are lawful for a Christian, but which are
not compulsory or obligatory, and which he may refrain from doing on
cause shown. Duties he must of course discharge, regardless of the
effect his conduct may have on others. He may be quite sure he will be
misunderstood; he may be sure evil motives will be imputed to him; he
may be sure disastrous consequences will be the first result of his
action; but if conscience says this or that _must_ be done, then all
thought of consequences must be thrown to the winds. But where
conscience says, not "You must," but only "You may," then we must
consider the effect our using our liberty will have on others. We lie
as Christians under an obligation to consider others, to lay aside all
pride of advanced ideas, and this not merely that we may submit
ourselves to those who know better than we, but that we may not offend
those who are bound by prejudices of which we are rid. We must limit
our liberty by the scrupulosity of prejudiced, narrow-minded, weak
people. We must forego our liberty to do this or that if by doing it
we should shock or disturb a weak brother or encourage him to overstep
his conscience. As the Arctic voyager who has been frozen up all
winter does not seize the first opportunity to escape, but waits till
his weaker companions gain strength enough to accompany him, so must
the Christian accommodate himself to the weaknesses of others, lest by
using his liberty he should injure him for whom Christ died. Never was
there a man who more fully understood the freedom of the Christian
position than Paul; no man was ever more entirely lifted out of the
mist of superstition and formalism into the clear light of free,
eternal life: but with this freedom he carried a sympathy with weak
and entangled beginners which prompted him to exclaim, "If meat make
my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth,
lest I make my brother to offend."
Our conduct must be limited and to a certain extent regulated by the
narrow-mindedness, the scruples, the prejudices, the weakness in
short, of others. We cannot say, I see my way to do so-and-so, let my
friend think what he pleases; I am not to be trammelled by his
superstition or ignorance; let my conduct have what effect it will on
him; I am not responsible for that; if he does not see it to be right,
I do, and I will act accordingly. We cannot speak thus if the matter
be indifferent; if it be a matter we can lawfully abstain from, then
abstain we must if we would follow the Apostle who followed Christ.
This is the practical law which stands in the forefront of Christ's
teaching and was sealed by every day of His life. It is enounced not
only by St. Paul: "Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ
died;" "Through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom
Christ died," but also in our Lord's still more emphatic words, "Whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that
he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Paul could not look on his
weak brethren as narrow-minded bigots, could not call them hard names
and ride rough-shod over their scruples; and to this delicate
consideration he was aided by the remembrance that these were the
persons for whom Christ died. For them Christ sacrificed, not merely a
little feeling or a little of His own way, but His own will and self
entirely. And the spirit of Christ is still manifested in all in whom
He dwells, specially in a humility and yieldingness of disposition
which is not led by self-interest or self-complacency, but seeks the
weal of other men. Nothing shows us more distinctly the thorough
manner in which St. Paul partook of the spirit of Christ than his
ability to say, "I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own
profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye
followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."
_MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY._
"Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ
our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle
unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine
apostleship are ye in the Lord. Mine answer to them that do
examine me is this, Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have
we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other
Apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only
and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a
warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and
eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and
eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man?
or saith not the Law the same also? For it is written in the law
of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth
out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith He it
altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is
written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he
that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have
sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall
reap your carnal things? If others be partakers of this power
over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this
power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the Gospel of
Christ. Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things
live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the
altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord
ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the
Gospel. But I have used none of these things: neither have I
written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it
were better for me to die, than that any man should make my
glorying void. For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to
glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if
I preach not the Gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have
a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the Gospel is
committed unto me. What is my reward then? Verily that, when I
preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of Christ without
charge, that I abuse not my power in the Gospel. For though I be
free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that
I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that
I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the Law, as under
the Law, that I might gain them that are under the Law; to them
that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to
God, but under the Law to Christ,) that I might gain them that
are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain
the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all
means save some."--1 COR. ix. 1-22.
CHAPTER XIII.
_MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY._
In the preceding chapter Paul has disposed of the question put to him
regarding meats offered in sacrifice to idols. He has taken occasion
to point out that in matters morally indifferent Christian men will
consider the scruples of weak, and prejudiced, and superstitious
people. He has inculcated the duty of accommodating ourselves to the
consciences of less enlightened persons, if we can do so without
violating our own. For his own part, he is prepared, while the world
standeth, to abridge his Christian liberty, if by his using that
liberty he may imperil the conscience of any weak brother. But keeping
pace, as Paul always does, with the thought of those he writes to, he
no sooner makes this emphatic statement than it occurs to him that
those in Corinth who are ill-affected towards him will make a handle
even of his self-denial, and will whisper or boldly declare that it is
all very fine for Paul to use this language, but that, in point of
fact, the precarious position he holds in the Church makes it
incumbent on him to deny himself and become all things to all men. His
apostleship stands on so insecure a basis that he has no option in the
matter, but must curry favour with all parties. He is not on the same
platform as the original Apostles, who may reasonably stand upon their
apostleship, and claim exemption from manual labour, and demand
maintenance both for themselves and their wives. Paul remains
unmarried, and works with his hands to support himself, and makes
himself weak among the weak, because he has no claim to maintenance
and is aware that his apostleship is doubtful. He proceeds therefore,
with some pardonable warmth and righteous indignation, to assert his
freedom and apostleship (vers. 1, 2), and to prove his right to the
same privileges and maintenance as the other Apostles (3-14); and then
from the fifteenth to the eighteenth verse he gives the true reason
for his foregoing his rightful claim; and in vers. 19-22 he reaffirms
the principle on which he uniformly acted, becoming "all things to all
men," suiting himself to the innocent prejudices and weaknesses of
all, "that he might by all means save some."
Paul then had certain rights which he was resolved should be
acknowledged, although he waived them. He maintains that if he saw
fit, he might require the Church to maintain him, and to maintain him
not merely in the bare way in which he was content to live, but to
furnish him with the ordinary comforts of life. He might, for example,
he says, require the Church to enable him to keep a wife and to pay
not only his own, but her, travelling expenses. The other Apostles
apparently took their wives with them on their apostolic journeys, and
may have found them useful in gaining access for the Gospel to the
secluded women of Eastern and Greek cities. He might also, he says,
"forbear working;" might cease, that is to say, from his tent-making
and look to his converts for support. He is indignant at the sordid,
or malicious, or mistaken spirit which could deny him such support.
This claim to support and privilege Paul rests on several grounds. 1.
He is an apostle, and the other Apostles enjoyed these privileges.
"Have we not power to take with us a Christian woman as a wife, as
well as other Apostles?... Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power
to forbear working?" His proof of his apostleship is summary: "Have I
not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord?" No
one could be an apostle who had not seen Jesus Christ after His
resurrection. The Apostles were to be witnesses to the Resurrection,
and were qualified to be so by seeing the Lord alive after death. But
it seems to have been commonly urged against Paul that he had not been
among those to whom Christ showed Himself after He rose from the dead.
Paul therefore both in his reported speeches and in his letters
insists upon the fact that on the way to Damascus he had seen the
risen Lord.
But not every one who had seen the Lord after His resurrection was an
apostle, but those only who by Him were commissioned to witness to it;
and that Paul had been thus commissioned he thinks the Corinthians may
conclude from the results among themselves of his preaching. The
Church at Corinth was the seal of his apostleship. What was the use of
quibbling about the time and manner of his ordination, when the
reality and success of his apostolic work were so apparent? The Lord
had acknowledged his work. In presence of the finished structure that
draws the world to gaze, it is too late to ask if he who built it is
an architect. Would that every minister could so prove the validity of
his orders!
2. Paul maintains his right to support on the principle of
remuneration everywhere observed in human affairs. The soldier does
not go to war at his own expense, but expects to be equipped and
maintained in efficiency by those for whom he fights. The vinedresser,
the shepherd, every labourer, expects, and is certainly warranted in
expecting, that the toil he expends will at least have the result of
keeping him comfortably in life. However difficult it is to lay down
an absolute law of wages, this may at least be affirmed as a natural
principle: that labour of all kinds must be so paid as to maintain the
labourer in life and efficiency; and it may be added that there are
certain inalienable human rights, such as the right to bring up a
family the members of which shall be useful and not burdensome to
society, the right to some reserve of leisure and of strength which
the labourer may use for his own enjoyment and advantage, which rights
will be admitted and provided for when out of the confused war of
theories, and strikes, and competition a just law of wages has been
won. Happily no one now needs to be told that one of the most striking
results of our modern civilisation is that the nineteenth century
labourer has less of the joy of life than the ancient slave, and that
we have forgotten the fundamental law that the husbandman that
laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.
And lest any one should sanctimoniously or ignorantly say, "These
secular principles have no application to sacred things," Paul
anticipates the objection, and dismisses it: "Say I these things as a
man? or saith not the Law the same also?" I am not introducing into a
sacred region principles which rule only in secular matters. Does not
the Law say, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the
corn"? It must be allowed to live by its labour. As it threshes out
the wheat, it must be allowed to feed itself, mouthful by mouthful,
as it goes on with its work. And this was not said in the Law because
God had any special care for oxen, but in order to give expression to
the law which must regulate the connection between all labourers and
their work that he that plougheth may plough in hope, may have a
personal interest in his work, and may give himself ungrudgingly to
it, assured that he himself will be the first to benefit by it.