in human affairs. There is a native tone of grandeur and authority
in His teaching. He speaks as a being related to the whole human
race. His mind never shrinks within the ordinary limits of human
agency. A narrower sphere than the world never enters His thoughts.
He speaks in a natural, spontaneous style, of accomplishing the most
arduous and important change in human affairs. This unlabored manner
of expressing great thoughts is particularly worthy of attention.
You never hear from Jesus that swelling, pompous, ostentatious
language, which almost necessarily springs from an attempt to
sustain a character above our powers. He talks of His glories as one
to whom they were familiar, and of His intimacy and oneness with God
as simply as a child speaks of his connection with his parents.
He speaks of saving and judging the world, of drawing all men to
Himself, and of giving everlasting life, as we speak of the ordinary
powers which we exert. He makes no set harangues about the grandeur
of His office and character. His consciousness of it gives a hue to
His whole language, breaks out in indirect, undesigned expressions,
showing that it was the deepest and most familiar of His convictions.
This argument is only to be understood by reading the Gospels with
a wakeful mind and heart. It does not lie on their surface, and it
is the stronger for lying beneath it. When I read these books with
care, when I trace the unaffected majesty which runs through the
life of Jesus, and see him never falling below His sublime claims
amidst poverty, and scorn, and in His last agony, I have a feeling
of the reality of His character which I can not express. I feel that
the Jewish carpenter could no more have conceived and sustained this
character under motives of imposture than an infant's arm could
repeat the deeds of Hercules, or his unawakened intellect comprehend
and rival the matchless works of genius.
Am I told that the claims of Jesus had their origin not in
imposture, but in enthusiasm; that the imagination, kindled by
strong feeling, overpowered the judgment so far as to give Him the
notion of being destined to some strange and unparalleled work? I
know that enthusiasm, or a kindled imagination, has great power;
and we are never to lose sight of it, in judging of the claims of
religious teachers. But I say first, that, except in cases where it
amounts to insanity, enthusiasm works, in a greater or less degree,
according to a man's previous conceptions and modes of thought.
In Judea, where the minds of men were burning with feverish
expectation of a messiah, I can easily conceive of a Jew imagining
that in himself this ardent conception, this ideal of glory, was to
be realized. I can conceive of his seating himself in fancy on the
throne of David, and secretly pondering the means of his appointed
triumphs. But that a Jew should fancy himself the Messiah, and at
the same time should strip that character of all the attributes
which had fired his youthful imagination and heart--that he should
start aside from all the feelings and hopes of his age, and should
acquire a consciousness of being destined to a wholly new career,
and one as unbounded as it was now--this is exceedingly improbable;
and one thing is certain that an imagination so erratic, so
ungoverned, and able to generate the conviction of being destined to
work so immeasurably disproportioned to the power of the individual,
must have partaken of insanity.
Now, is it conceivable that an individual, mastered by so wild and
fervid an imagination, should have sustained the dignity claimed by
Christ, should have acted worthily the highest part ever assumed on
earth? Would not his enthusiasm have broken out amidst the peculiar
excitements of the life of Jesus, and have left a touch of madness
on his teaching and conduct? Is it to such a man that we should look
for the inculcation of a new and perfect form of virtue, and for the
exemplification of humanity in its fairest form?
The charge of an extravagant, self-deluding enthusiasm is the last
to be fastened on Jesus. Where can we find the traces of it in His
history? Do we detect them in the calm authority of His precepts; in
the mild, practical and beneficial spirit of His religion; in the
unlabored simplicity of the language with which He unfolds His high
powers and the sublime truths of religion; or in the good sense, the
knowledge of human nature, which He always discovers in His estimate
and treatment of the different classes of men with whom He acted?
Do we discover this enthusiasm in the singular fact that, whilst He
claimed power in the future world, and always turned men's minds to
Heaven, He never indulged His own imagination or stimulated that of
His disciples by giving vivid pictures or any minute description of
that unseen state?
The truth is, that, remarkable as was the character of Jesus, it was
distinguished by nothing more than by calmness and self-possession.
This trait pervades His other excellences. How calm was His piety!
Point me, if you can, to one vehement, passionate expression of
His religious feelings. Does the Lord's Prayer breathe a feverish
enthusiasm? The habitual style of Jesus on the subject of religion,
if introduced into many churches of His followers at the present
day, would be charged with coldness. The calm and the rational
character of His piety is particularly seen in the doctrine which He
so earnestly inculcates, that disinterested love and self-denying
service to our fellow creatures are the most acceptable worship we
can offer to our Creator.
His benevolence, too, tho singularly earnest and deep, was composed
and serene. He never lost the possession of Himself in His sympathy
with others; was never hurried into the impatient and rash
enterprises of an enthusiastic philanthropy; but did good with the
tranquility and constancy which mark the providence of God. The
depth of this calmness may best be understood by considering the
opposition made to His claims.
His labors were everywhere insidiously watched and industriously
thwarted by vindictive foes who had even conspired to compass,
through His death, the ruin of His cause. Now, a feverish
enthusiasm which fancies itself to be intrusted with a great work of
God is singularly liable to impatient indignation under furious and
malignant opposition. Obstacles increase its vehemence; it becomes
more eager and hurried in the accomplishment of its purposes, in
proportion as they are withstood.
Be it therefore remembered that the malignity of Christ's foes,
tho never surpassed, and for the time triumphant, never robbed
Him of self-possession, roused no passion, and threw no vehemence
or precipitation into His exertions. He did not disguise from
Himself or His followers the impression made on the multitude by
His adversaries. He distinctly foresaw the violent death towards
which He was fast approaching. Yet, confiding in God and in the
silent progress of His truth, He possest His soul in peace. Not
only was He calm, but His calmness rises into sublimity when we
consider the storms which raged around Him and the vastness of the
prospects in which His spirit found repose. I say then that serenity
and self-possession were peculiarly the attributes of Jesus. I
affirm that the singular and sublime character claimed by Jesus
can be traced neither to imposture nor to an ungoverned, insane
imagination. It can only be accounted for by its truth, its reality.
I began with observing how our long familiarity with Jesus blunts
our minds to His singular excellence. We probably have often
read of the character which He claimed, without a thought of its
extraordinary nature. But I know nothing so sublime. The plans and
labors of statesmen sink into the sports of children when compared
with the work which Jesus announced, and to which He devoted Himself
in life and death with a thorough consciousness of its reality.
The idea of changing the moral aspect of the whole earth, of
recovering all nations to the pure and inward worship of one God
and to a spirit of divine and fraternal love, was one of which we
meet not a trace in philosopher or legislator before Him. The human
mind had given no promise of this extent of view. The conception of
this enterprise, and the calm, unshaken expectation of success in
one who had no station and no wealth, who cast from Him the sword
with abhorrence, and who forbade His disciples to use any weapons
but those of love, discover a wonderful trust in the power of God
and the power of love; and when to this we add that Jesus looked not
only to the triumph of His pure faith in the present world, but to
a mighty and beneficent power in Heaven, we witness a vastness of
purpose, a grandeur of thought and feeling so original, so superior
to the workings of all other minds, that nothing but our familiarity
can prevent our contemplation of it with wonder and profound awe. *
* *
Here is the most striking view of Jesus. This combination of the
spirit of humanity, in its lowliest, tenderest form, with the
consciousness of unrivaled and divine glories, is the most wonderful
distinction of this wonderful character. Here we learn the chief
reason why He chose poverty and refused every peculiarity of manner
and appearance. He did this because He desired to come near to the
multitude of men, to make Himself accessible to all, to pour out
the fulness of His sympathy upon all, to know and weep over their
sorrows and sins, and to manifest His interest in their affections
and joys.
I can offer but a few instances of this sympathy of Christ with
human nature in all its varieties of character and condition. But
how beautiful are they! At the very opening of His ministry we find
Him present at a marriage to which He and His disciples had been
called. Among the Jews this was an occasion of peculiar exhilaration
and festivity; but Jesus did not therefore decline it. He knew what
affections, joys, sorrows, and moral influences are bound up in this
institution, and He went to the celebration, not as an ascetic, to
frown on its bright hopes and warm congratulations, but to sanction
it by His presence and to heighten its enjoyments.
How little does this comport with the solitary dignity which we
should have pronounced most accordant with His character, and what
a spirit of humanity does it breathe! But this event stands almost
alone in His history. His chief sympathy was not with them that
rejoice, but with the ignorant, sinful, sorrowful; and with these we
find Him cultivating an habitual intimacy. Tho so exalted in thought
and purpose, He chose uneducated men to be His chief disciples; and
He lived with them, not as a superior, giving occasional and formal
instruction, but became their companion traveled with them on foot,
slept in their dwellings, sat at their tables, partook of their
plain fare, communicated to them His truth in the simplest form; and
tho they constantly misunderstood Him and never perceived His full
meaning, He was never wearied with teaching them.
So familiar was His intercourse that we find Peter reproving Him
with an affectionate zeal for announcing His approaching death, and
we find John leaning on His bosom. Of His last discourse to these
disciples I need not speak. It stands alone among all writings for
the union of tenderness and majesty. His own sorrows are forgotten
in His solicitude to speak peace and comfort to His humble followers.
The depth of His human sympathies was beautifully manifested when
children were brought Him. His disciples, judging as all men would
judge, thought that He was sent to wear the crown of universal
empire, had too great a work before Him to give His time and
attention to children, and reproved the parents who brought them;
but Jesus, rebuking His disciples, called to Him the children.
Never, I believe, did childhood awaken such deep love as at that
moment. He took them in His arms and blest them, and not only said
that "of such was the kingdom of heaven," but added, "He that
receiveth a little child in My name, receiveth Me;" so entirely did
He identify Himself with this primitive, innocent, beautiful form of
human nature.
There was no class of human beings so low as to be beneath His
sympathy. He not merely taught the publican and sinner, but, with
all His consciousness of purity, sat down and dined with them, and,
when reproved by the malignant Pharisee for such companionship,
answered by the touching parables of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal
Son, and said, "I am come to seek and to save that which was lost."
No personal suffering dried up this fountain of love in His breast.
On His way to the cross He heard some women of Jerusalem bewailing
Him, and at the sound, forgetting His own grief, He turned to
them and said, "Women of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for
yourselves and your children." On the cross, whilst His mind was
divided between intense suffering and the contemplation of the
infinite blessings in which His sufferings were to issue, His eye
lighted on His mother and John, and the sensibilities of a son and
a friend mingled with the sublime consciousness of the universal
Lord and Savior. Never before did natural affection find so tender
and beautiful an utterance. To His mother He said, directing her to
John, "Behold thy son; I leave My beloved disciple to take My place,
to perform My filial offices, and to enjoy a share of that affection
with which you have followed Me through life;" and to John He said,
"Behold thy mother; I bequeath to you the happiness of ministering
to My dearest earthly friend." Nor is this all. The spirit of
humanity had one higher triumph. Whilst His enemies surrounded
Him with a malignity unsoftened by His last agonies, and, to give
the keenest edge to insult, reminded Him scoffingly of the high
character and office which He had claimed, His only notice of them
was the prayer, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."
Thus Jesus lived with men; with the consciousness of unutterable
majesty He joined a lowliness, gentleness, humanity, and sympathy,
which have no example in human history. I ask you to contemplate
this wonderful union. In proportion to the superiority of Jesus to
all around Him was the intimacy, the brotherly love, with which He
bound Himself to them. I maintain that this is a character wholly
remote from human conception. To imagine it to be the production
of imposture or enthusiasm shows a strange unsoundness of mind. I
contemplate it with a veneration second only to the profound awe
with which I look up to God. It bears no mark of human invention. It
was real. It belonged to and it manifested the beloved Son of God.
But I have not done. May I ask your attention a few moments more?
We have not yet reached the depth of Christ's character. We have
not touched the great principle on which His wonderful sympathy was
founded, and which endeared to Him His office of universal Savior.
Do you ask what this deep principle was? I answer, it was His
conviction of the greatness of the human soul. He saw in man the
impress and image of the Divinity, and therefore thirsted for his
redemption, and took the tenderest interest in him, whatever might
be the rank, character, or condition in which he was found. This
spiritual view of man pervades and distinguishes the teaching of
Christ.
Jesus looked on men with an eye which pierced beneath the material
frame. The body vanished before Him. The trappings of the rich, the
rags of the poor, were nothing to Him. He looked through them, as
tho they did not exist, to the soul; and there, amidst clouds of
ignorance and plague-spots of sin, He recognized a spiritual and
immortal nature, and the germs of power and perfection which might
be unfolded forever. In the most fallen and depraved man He saw a
being who might become an angel of light.
Still more, He felt that there was nothing in Himself to which men
might not ascend. His own lofty consciousness did not sever Him from
the multitude; for He saw in His own greatness the model of what men
might become. So deeply was He thus imprest that, again and again,
in speaking of His future glories, He announced that in these His
true followers were to share. They were to sit on His throne and
partake of His beneficent power.
Here I pause, and indeed I know not what can be added to heighten
the wonder, reverence, and love which are due to Jesus. When I
consider Him, not only as possest with the consciousness of an
unexampled and unbounded majesty, but as recognizing a kindred
nature in human beings, and living and dying to raise them to a
participation of His divine glories; and when I see Him under these
views allying Himself to men by the tenderest ties, embracing them
with a spirit of humanity which no insult, injury, or pain could
for a moment repel or overpower, I am filled with wonder as well
as reverence and love. I feel that this character is not of human
invention, that it was not assumed through fraud, or struck out
by enthusiasm; for it is infinitely above their reach. When I add
this character of Jesus to the other evidences of His religion, it
gives to what before seemed so strange a new and a vast accession of
strength; I feel as if I could not be deceived.
The Gospels must be true; they were drawn from a living original;
they were founded on reality. The character of Jesus is not a
fiction; He was what He claimed to be, and what His followers
attested. Nor is this all. Jesus not only was, He is still the Son
of God, the Savior of the world. He exists now; He has entered
that heaven to which He always looked forward on earth. There He
lives and reigns. With a clear, calm faith I see Him in that state
of glory; and I confidently expect, at no distant period, to see
Him face to face. We have indeed no absent friend whom we shall so
surely meet.
Let us then, my hearers, by imitation of His virtues and obedience
to His word, prepare ourselves to join Him in those pure mansions
where He is surrounding Himself with the good and pure of our race,
and will communicate to them forever His own spirit, power, and joy.
CHALMERS
THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THOMAS CHALMERS, theologian, preacher and philanthropist, was
born at Anstruther, near St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1780. In his
thirty-fifth year he experienced a profound religious change and
became a pronounced, tho independent, evangelical preacher. On being
appointed to the Tron Church in Glasgow, he set about to face what
he called "the home heathenism." During the week days he delivered
his series of "Astronomical Discourses," in which he endeavored
to bring science into harmony with Christianity. His "Commercial
Discourses" were designed to Christianize the principles of trade.
But he reduced pauperism chiefly by fighting against intemperance in
Glasgow. On being transferred to St. John's Parish, the largest, but
poorest in the city, he made Edward Irving his assistant. In 1828 he
was called to the chair of theology in Edinburgh University.
But it was as a preacher that he exerted most influence by bringing
the evangelical message into relations with the science, the
culture, the thinking of his age. In doing this he carried his
hearers away by the blazing force of his eloquence. Many times in
his preaching he was "in an agony of earnestness," and one of his
hearers speaks of "that voice, that face, those great, simple,
living thoughts, those floods of resistless eloquence, that
piercing, shattering voice!" He died in 1847.
CHALMERS
1780-1847
THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION
_Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him_.--1
John ii., 15.
There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to
displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a
demonstration of the world's vanity, so as that the heart shall
be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object
that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object,
even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart
shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which
shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection
for a new one. My purpose is to show, that from the constitution
of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and
ineffectual--and that the latter method will alone suffice for the
rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that
domineers over it. After having accomplished this purpose, I shall
attempt a few practical observations.
Love may be regarded in two different conditions. The first is when
its object is at a distance, and when it becomes love in a state of
desire. The second is when its object is in possession, and then it
becomes love in a state of indulgence. Under the impulse of desire,
man feels himself urged onward in some path or pursuit of activity
for its gratification. The faculties of his mind are put into busy
exercise. In the steady direction of one great and engrossing
interest, his attention is recalled from the many reveries into
which it might otherwise have wandered; and the powers of his body
are forced away from an indolence in which it else might have
languished; and that time is crowded with occupation, which but for
some object of keen and devoted ambition, might have driveled along
in successive hours of weariness and distaste--and tho hope does
not always enliven, and success does not always crown the career
of exertion, yet in the midst of this very variety, and with the
alternations of occasional disappointment, is the machinery of the
whole man kept in a sort of congenial play, and upholden in that
tone and temper which are most agreeable to it; insomuch that, if
through the extirpation of that desire which forms the originating
principle of all this movement, the machinery were to stop, and to
receive no impulse from another desire substituted in its place, the
man would be left with all his propensities to action in a state of
most painful and unnatural abandonment. A sensitive being suffers,
and is in violence, if, after having thoroughly rested from his
fatigue, or been relieved from his pain, he continue in possession
of powers without any excitement to these powers; if he possess a
capacity of desire without having an object of desire; or if he have
a spare energy upon his person, without a counterpart, and without a
stimulus to call it into operation. The misery of such a condition
is often realized by him who is retired from business, or who is
retired from law, or who is even retired from the occupations of the
chase, and of the gaming-table. Such is the demand of our nature for
an object in pursuit, that no accumulation of previous success can
extinguish it--and thus it is, that the most prosperous merchant,
and the most victorious general, and the most fortunate gamester,
when the labor of their respective vocations has come to a close,
are often found to languish in the midst of all their acquisitions,
as if out of their kindred and rejoicing element. It is quite in
vain, with such a constitutional appetite for employment in man, to
attempt cutting away from him the spring or the principle of one
employment, without providing him with another. The whole heart
and habit will rise in resistance against such an undertaking. The
else unoccupied female, who spends the hours of every evening at
some play of hazard, knows as well as you, that the pecuniary gain,
or the honorable triumph of a successful contest, are altogether
paltry. It is not such a demonstration of vanity as this that will
force her away from her dear and delightful occupation. The habit
can not so be displaced as to leave nothing but a negative and
cheerless vacancy behind it--tho it may be so supplanted as to be
followed up by another habit of employment, to which the power of
some new affection has constrained her. It is willingly suspended,
for example, on any single evening, should the time that is wont to
be allotted to gaming be required to be spent on the preparations of
an approaching assembly.