blessing come to us immediately from himself. Without ascending any
higher with the idea, it is plain that Christianity might have been made
a thing wholly between each individual man and Christ; all our worship
might have been the secret worship of our own hearts; and in eating the
bread, and drinking the cup, to show forth the Lord's death, each one of
us might have done this singly, holding communion with Christ alone. I
mean, that it is quite conceivable that we should have had Christianity,
and a great number of Christians spread all over the world, but yet no
Christian Church. But, although this is conceivable, and, in fact, is
practically the case in some particular instances where individual
Christians happen to be quite cut off from all other Christians,--as has
been known sometimes in foreign and remote countries; and although,
through various evil causes, it has become, in many respects, too much
the case with us all; for our religion is with all of us, I am inclined
to think, too much a matter between God and ourselves alone; yet still
it is not the design of Christ that it should be so: his people were not
only to be good men, redeemed from sin and death and brought to know and
love the truth, in which relation Christianity would appear like a
divine philosophy only, working not only upon individuals, but through
their individual minds, and as individuals; but they were to be the
Christian Church, helping one another in things pertaining to God, and
making their mutual brotherhood to one another an essential part of what
are called peculiarly their acts of religion. So that the Church of
England seems to have well borne in mind this character of Christianity,
namely, that it presents us not each, but all together, before God; and
therefore it is ordered that even in very small parishes, where "there
are not more than twenty persons in the parish of discretion to receive
the communion, yet there shall be no communion, except four, or three at
the least, out of these twenty communicate together with the priest."
Nay, even in the Communion of the Sick, under circumstances which seem
to make religion particularly an individual matter between Christ and
our own single selves; when the expected approach of death seems to
separate, in the most marked manner, according to human judgment, him
who is going hence from his brethren still in the world; even then it is
ordered that two other persons, at the least, shall communicate along
with the sick man and the minister. Nor is this ever relaxed except in
times of pestilence; when it is provided, that if no other person can be
persuaded to join from their fear of infection, then, and then only upon
special request of the diseased, the minister may alone communicate with
them. So faithfully does our Church adhere to this true Christian
notion, that at the Lord's Supper we are not to communicate with Christ
alone, but with him in and together with our brethren; so that I was
justified in regarding the Holy Communion as one of those helps and
blessings which we still derive from the Christian Church--from Christ's
mystical body.
It is the natural process of all false and corrupt religions, on the
contrary, to destroy this notion of Christ's Church, and to lead away
our thoughts from our brethren in matters of religion, and to fix them
merely upon God as known to us through a priest. The great evil in this
is, (if there is any one evil greater than another in a system so wholly
made up of falsehood, and so leading to all wickedness; but, at any
rate, one great evil of it is,) that whereas the greatest part of all
our lives is engaged in our relations towards our brethren, that there
lie most of our temptations to evil, as well as of our opportunities of
good, if our brethren do not form an essential part of our religions
views, it follows, and always has followed, that our behaviour and
feelings towards them are guided by views and principles not religious;
and that by this fatal separation of what God has joined together, our
worship and religious services become superstitious, while our life and
actions become worldly, in the bad sense of the term, low principled,
and profane.
If this is not so clear when put into a general form, it will be plain
enough when I show it in that particular example which we are concerned
with here. Nowhere, I believe, is the temptation stronger to lose sight
of one another in our religious exercises, and especially in our
Communion. Our serious thoughts in turning to God, turn away almost
instinctively from our companions about us. Practically, as far as the
heart is concerned, we are a great deal too apt to go to the Lord's
table each alone. But consider how much we lose by this. We are
necessarily in constant relations with one another; some of those
relations are formal, others are trivial; we connect each other every
day with a great many thoughts, I do not say of unkindness, but yet of
that indifferent character which is no hindrance to any unkindness when
the temptation to it happens to arise. This must always be the case in
life; business, neighbourhood, pleasure,--the occasions of most of our
intercourse with one another,--have in them nothing solemn or softening:
they have in themselves but little tendency to lead us to the love of
one another. Now, if this be so in the world, it is even more so here;
your intercourse with one another is much closer and more constant than
what can exist in after life with any but the members of your own
family; and yet the various relations which this intercourse has to do
with, are even less serious and less softening than those of ordinary
life in manhood. The kindliness of feeling which is awakened in after
years between two men, by the remembrance of having been at school
together, even without any particular acquaintance with each other, is a
very different thing from the feeling of being at school with each
other now. I do not wonder, then, that any one of you, when he resolves
to come to the Holy Communion, should rather try to turn away his
thoughts from his companions, and to think of himself alone as being
concerned in what he is going to do. I do not wonder at it; but, then,
neither do I wonder that, when the Communion is over, and thoughts of
his companions must return, they receive little or no colour from his
religious act so lately performed; that they are as indifferent as they
were before, as little furnishing a security against neglect, or
positive unkindness, or encouragement of others to evil. Depend upon it,
unless your common life is made a part of your religion, your religion
will never sanctify your common life.
Now consider, on the one hand, what might be the effect of going to the
Holy Communion with a direct feeling that, in that Communion, we, though
many, were all brought together in Christ Jesus. And first, I will speak
of our thoughts of those who are partakers of the Communion with us,
then of those who are not. When others are gone out, and we who are to
communicate are left alone with each other, then, if we perceive that
there are many of us, the first natural feeling is one of joy, that we
are so many; that our party,--that only true and good party to which we
may belong with all our hearts,--that our party,--that Christ's party,
seems so considerable. Then there comes the thought, that we are all met
together freely, willingly, not as a matter of form, to receive the
pledges of Christ's love to us, to pledge ourselves to him in return. If
we are serious, those around us may be supposed to be serious too; if we
wish to have help from God to lead a holier life, they surely wish the
same; if the thought of past sin is humbling us, the same shame is
working in our brethren's bosoms; if we are secretly resolving, by
God's grace, to serve him in earnest, the hearts around us are, no
doubt, resolving the same. There is the consciousness, (when and where
else can we enjoy it?) that we are in sympathy with all present; that,
coloured merely by the lesser distinctions of individual character, one
and the same current of feeling is working within us all. And, if
feeling this of our sympathy with one another, how strongly is it
heightened by the thought of what Christ has done for us all! We are all
loving him, because he loved us all; we are going together to celebrate
his death, because he died for us all; we are resolving all to serve
him, because his Holy Spirit is given to us all, and we are all brought
to drink of the same Spirit. Then let us boldly carry our thoughts a
little forward to that time, only a short hour hence, when we shall
again be meeting one another, in very different relations; even in those
common indifferent relations of ordinary life which are connected so
little with Christ. Is it impossible to think, that, although we shall
meet without these walls in very different circumstances, yet that we
have seen each other pledging ourselves to serve Christ together? if the
recollection of this lives in us, why should it not live in our
neighbour? If we are labouring to keep alive our good resolutions made
at Christ's table, why should we think that others have forgotten them?
We do not talk of them openly, yet still they exist within us. May not
our neighbour's silence also conceal within his breast the same good
purposes? At any rate, we may and ought to regard him as ranged on our
side in the great struggle of life; and if outward circumstances do not
so bring us together as to allow of our openly declaring our sympathy,
yet we may presume that it still exists; and this consciousness may
communicate to the ordinary relations of life that very softness which
they need, in order to make them Christian.
Again, with regard to those who go out, and do not approach to the
Lord's table. With some it is owing to their youth; with others to a
mistaken notion of their youth; with others to some less excusable
reason, perhaps, but yet to such as cannot yet exclude kindness and
hope. But having once felt what it is to be only with those who are met
really as Christians, our sense of what it is to want this feeling is
proportionably raised. Is it sad to us to think that our neighbour does
not look upon us as fellow Christians? is it something cold to feel that
he regards us only in those common worldly relations which leave men in
heart so far asunder? Then let us take heed that we do not ourselves
feel so towards him. We have learnt to judge more truly, to feel more
justly, of our relations to every one who bears Christ's name: if we
forget this, we have no excuse; for we have been at Christ's table, and
have been taught what Christians are to one another. And let our
neighbour be ever so careless, yet we know that Christ cares for him;
that his Spirit has not yet forsaken him, but is still striving with
him. And if God vouchsafes so much to him, how can we look upon him as
though he were no way connected with us? how can we be as careless of
his welfare, as apt either to annoy him, or to lead him into evil, or to
take no pains to rescue him from it, as if he were no more to us than
the accidental inhabitant of the same place, who was going on his way as
we may be on ours, neither having any concern with the other?
And, now, is it nothing to learn so to feel towards those around us; to
have thus gained what will add kindness and interest to all our
relations with others; and, in the case of many, will give an abiding
sense of the truest sympathy, and consequently greater confidence and
encouragement to ourselves? Be sure that this is not to profane the
Lord's Supper, but to use it according to Christ's own ordinance. For
though the thoughts of which I have been speaking, have, in one sense,
man and not God for their object, yet as they do not begin in man but in
Christ, and in his love to us all, so neither do they, properly
speaking, rest in man as such, but convert him, as it were, into an
image of Christ: so that their end, as well as their beginning, is with
Him. I do earnestly desire that you would come to Christ's table, in
order to learn a Christian's feelings towards one another. This is what
you want every day; and the absence of which leads to more and worse
faults than, perhaps, any other single cause. But, then, this Christian
feeling towards one another, how is it to be gained but by a Christian
feeling towards Christ? and where are we to learn brotherly love in all
our common dealings, but from a grateful thought of that Divine love
towards us all which is shown forth in the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper; inasmuch as, so often as we eat that bread and drink that cup,
we do show the Lord's death till He come.
LECTURE XXXI.
* * * * *
LUKE i. 3, 4.
_It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all
things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent
Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things
wherein thou hast been instructed_.
These words, from the preface to St. Luke's Gospel, contain in them one
or two points on which it may be of use to dwell; and not least so at
the present time, when they are more frequently brought under our notice
than was the case a few years ago. On a subject which we never, or very
rarely hear mentioned, it may be difficult to excite attention; and, as
a general rule, there is little use in making the attempt. But when
names and notions are very frequently brought to our ears, and in a
degree to our minds, then it becomes important that we should comprehend
the matter to which they relate clearly and correctly; and a previous
interest respecting it may be supposed to exist, which make further
explanation acceptable.
St. Luke tells Theophilus that it seemed good to him to write in order
an account of our Lord's life and death, that Theophilus might know the
certainty of those things in which he had been instructed; and this, as
a general rule, might well describe one great use of the Scripture to
each of us, as individual members of Christ's Church--it enables us to
know the certainty of the things in which we have been instructed. We do
not, in the first instance, get our knowledge of Christ from the
Scriptures,--we, each of us, I mean as individuals,--but from the
teaching of our parents first; then of our instructors, and from books
fitted for the instruction of children; whether it be the Catechism of
the Church, or books written by private persons, of which we know that
there are many. But as our minds open, and our opportunities of judging
for ourselves increase, then the Scripture presents itself to acquaint
us with the certainty of what we had heard already; to show us the
original and perfect truth, of which we have received impressions
before, but such as were not original nor perfect; to confirm and
enforce all that was good and true in our early teaching; and if it
should so happen that it contained any thing of grave error mixed with
truth, then to enable us to discover and reject it.
It is apparent, then, that the Scripture, to do this, must have an
authority distinct from, and higher than, that of our early teaching;
but yet it is no less true that it comes to us individually recommended,
in the first instance, by the authority of our early teaching, and
received by us, not for its own sake, but for the sake of those who put
it into our hands. What child can, by possibility, go into the evidence
which makes it reasonable to believe the Bible, and to reject the
authority of the Koran? Our children believe the Bible for our sakes;
they look at it with respect, because we tell them that it ought to be
respected; they read it, and learn it, because we desire them; they
acquire a habit of veneration for it long before they could give any
other reason for venerating it than their parents' authority. And
blessed be God that they do; for, as it has been well said, if we their
parents do not endeavour to give our children habits of love and respect
for what is good and true, Satan will give them habits of love for what
is evil: for the child must receive impressions from without; and it is
God's wisdom that he should receive these impressions from his parents,
who have the strongest interest in his welfare, and who have besides
that instinctive parental love which, more surely, as well as more
purely, than any possible sense of interest, makes them earnestly desire
their child's good.
But when our children are old enough to understand and to inquire, do we
then content ourselves with saying that they must take our word for it;
that the Bible is true because we tell them so? Where is the father who
does not feel, first, that he himself is not fitted to be an infallible
authority; and, secondly, that if he were, he should be thwarting the
providence of God, who has willed not simply that we should believe with
understanding. He gladly therefore observes the beginnings of a spirit
of inquiry in his son's mind, knowing that it is not inconsistent with a
belief in truth, but is a necessary step to that which alone in a man
deserves the name of belief--a belief, namely, sanctioned by reason.
With what pleasure does he point out to his son the grounds of his own
faith! how gladly does he introduce him to the critical and historical
evidence for the truth of the Scriptures, that he may complete the work
which he had long since begun, and deliver over the faith which had been
so long nursed under the shade of parental authority, to the care of his
son's own conscience and reason!
We see clearly that our individual faith, although grounded in the first
instance on parental authority, yet rests afterwards on wholly different
grounds; namely, on the direct evidence in confirmation of it which is
presented to our own minds. But with regard to those who are called the
Fathers of the Church, it is contended sometimes that we do receive the
Scriptures, in the end, upon their authority: and it is argued, that if
their authority is sufficient for so great a thing as this, it must be
sufficient for every thing else; that if, in short, we believe the
Scriptures for their sake, then we ought also to believe other things
which they may tell us, for their sake, even though they are not to be
found in Scripture.
In the argument there is this great fault, that it misstates the
question at the outset. The authority of the Fathers, as they are
called, is never to any sound mind the only reason for believing in the
Scriptures; I think it is by no means so much as the principle reason.
It is one reason, amongst many; but not the strongest. And, in like
manner, their authority in other points, if there were other and
stronger reasons which confirmed it,--as in many cases there are,--is
and ought to be respected. But, because we lay a certain stress upon it,
it does not follow that we should do well to make it bear the whole
weight of the building. Because we believe the Scriptures, partly on the
authority of the Fathers, as they are called, but more for other
reasons, does it follow that we should equally respect the authority of
the Fathers when there are no other reasons in support of it, but many
which make against it?
In truth, however, the internal evidence in favour of the authenticity
and genuineness of the Scriptures is that on which the mind can rest
with far greater satisfaction than on any external testimonies, however
valuable. On one point, which might seem most to require other
evidence--the age, namely, and origin of the writings of the New
Testament--it has been wonderfully ordered that the books, generally
speaking, are their own witness. I mean that their peculiar language
proves them to have been written by persons such as the apostles were,
and such as the Christian writers immediately following them were not;
persons, namely, whose original language and habits of thinking were
those of Jews, and to whom the Greek in which they wrote was, in its
language and associations, essentially foreign. I do not dwell on the
many other points of internal evidence: it is sufficient to say that
those who are most familar with such inquiries, and who best know how
little any external testimony can avail in favour of a book where the
internal evidence is against it, are most satisfied that the principal
writings of the New Testament do contain abundantly in themselves, for
competent judges, the evidence of their own genuineness and
authenticity.
That the testimony of the early Christian writers goes along with this
evidence and confirms it, is matter indeed of sincere thankfulness;
because more minds, perhaps, are able to believe on external evidence
than on internal. But of this testimony of the Christian writers it is
essential to observe, that two very important points are such as do
indeed affect this particular question much, but yet do not confer any
value on the judgment of the witness in other matters. When a very early
Christian writer quotes a passage from the New Testament, such as we
find it now in our Bibles, it is indeed an argument, which all can
understand, that he had before him the same Bible which we have, and
that though he lived so near to the beginning of the gospel, yet that
some parts of the New Testament must have been written still nearer to
it. This is an evidence to the age of the New Testament, valuable indeed
to us, but implying in the writer who gives it no qualities which confer
authority; it merely shows that the book which he read must have existed
before he could quote it. A second point of evidence is, when a very
early Christian writer quotes any part of the New Testament as being
considered by those to whom he was writing as an authority. This, again,
is a valuable piece of testimony; but neither does it imply any general
wisdom or authority in the writer who gives it: its value is derived
merely from the age at which he lived, and not from his personal
character. And with regard to the general reception of the New Testament
by the Christians of his time, which, in the case supposed, he states as
a fact, no doubt that the general opinion of the early Christians,
where, as in this case, we can be sure that it is reported correctly, is
an authority, and a great authority, in favour of the Scriptures:
combined, as it is, with the still stronger internal evidence of the
books themselves, it is irresistible. But it were too much to argue
that, therefore, it was alone sufficient, not only when destitute of
other evidence, but if opposed to it; and especially if it should happen
to be opposed to that very Scripture which we know they acknowledged to
be above themselves, but which we do not know that they were enabled in
all cases either rightly to interpret or faithfully to follow.
When, therefore, we are told that, as we believe the Scriptures
themselves upon tradition, so we should believe other things also, the
answer is, that we do not believe the Scriptures either entirely or
principally, upon what is called tradition; but for their own internal
evidence; and that the opinions of the early Christians, like those of
other men, may be very good in certain points, and to a certain degree,
without being good in all points, and absolutely; that many a man's
judgment would justly weigh with us, in addition to other strong reasons
in the case itself, when we should by no means follow it where we were
clear that there were strong reasons against it. This, indeed, is so
obvious, that it seems almost foolish to be at the trouble of stating
it; but what is so absurd in common life, that the contrary to it is a
mere truism, is, unfortunately, when applied to a subject with which we
are not familiar, often considered as an unanswerable argument, if it
happen to suit our disposition or our prejudices.
But, although the Scripture is to the Church, and to the individual,
too, who is able to judge for himself, the only decisive authority in
matters of faith, yet we must not forget that it comes to us as it did
to Theophilus, to persuade us of the certainty of things in which we
have been already instructed; not to instruct from the beginning, by
itself alone, those to whom its subject is entirely strange: in other
words, it is and ought to be the general rule, that the Church teaches,
and the Scripture confirms that teaching: or, if it be in any part
erroneous, reproves it. For some appear to think, that by calling the
Scripture the sole authority in matters of faith, we mean to exclude the
Church altogether; and to call upon every man,--nay, upon every
child,--to make out his own religion for himself from the volume of the
Scriptures. The explanation briefly given is this; that while the
Scripture alone teaches the Church, the Church teaches individuals; and
that the authority of her teaching, like that of all human teaching,
whether of individuals or societies, varies justly according to
circumstances; being received, as it ought to be, almost implicitly by
some, as a parent's is by a child, and by others listened to with
respect, as that which is in the main agreeable to the truth, but still
not considered to be, nor really claiming to be received as, infallible.
But this part of the subject will require to be considered by itself on
another occasion.
LECTURE XXXII.
* * * * *
LUKE i. 3,4.
_It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all
things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent
Theophilus, that than mightest know the certainty of those things in
which thou hast been instructed_.