day are to me of infinite worth, and that they do not at all clash in
my mind with the belief which our Lord's words in this chapter appear
very distinctly to justify,--that men, at all times and in all ages,
who have been in their graves, have heard the voice of the Son of Man
and have lived; that in their bodies, and not in their spirits only,
they have awakened at His call; I think will be evident from what I
have said on the resurrection of Lazarus. And this general
resurrection I connect, as I think all men connect it, with a
judgment-day. The only question is, whether we are to follow strictly
the assertions of the Evangelists, and call that day an unveiling of
the Son of Man--a discovery to all, wherever they are, in one part of
the universe or another, quick or dead, of Him who is, and always has
been, their King and their Judge, so that every eye shall see Him, and
the secrets of all hearts shall be discovered; or whether we shall
substitute for _this_ notion of His advent to judgment, one which
supposes a gathering together, in some certain space, of multitudes
that never could be gathered together in any space,--one that
reproduces all the pomp and solemnities of earthly courts of
justice,--one that supposes Christ not to be the Searcher of hearts,
not to be the Light of men, but the mere image and pattern of an
earthly magistrate. What I call for, is the _strict_ interpretation of
the words of Scripture. What I denounce, is an attempt to substitute
the forms and conceptions of our own carnal understandings for that
which speaks to a faculty within us which is higher than our
understandings, and which belongs to us all alike. Far from agreeing
with those writers, immeasurably superior to me I own in learning and
insight, who think that the words of Scripture do not fit the
conditions of modern times, and that we need to adapt them to our
stage of civilization, or else to cast them aside, I expect no
deliverance from the superstitions by which we are tied and bound,
from the confusions which a corrupt and money-getting civilization has
introduced into our thoughts on the meanest and on the highest
subjects, but in a return to the more accurate study of those
Scriptural phrases which we use most familiarly, but in the attempt to
bring our theology to the higher and simpler standard which they set
before us. Earnestly would I implore those friends who have so kindly
told me that they would gladly agree with me, in my views respecting
the Resurrection and the Judgment, but that they find it
impossible--not to trouble themselves about my views at all; to be
sure that they can only be of use to them, that I can only be of use
to them, just so far as I can help them to clear their minds of mists
which hinder them from seeing that light which must throw all my
opinions and those of far wiser men into the shade.
DISCOURSES XVI. AND XVII.
A friend, who has kindly looked over the sheets of these Discourses,
has intimated to me that though I may have said enough on the simple
and childlike character of St. John's _narrative_, I have not directly
encountered an impression which he believes to be very general,--that
the _discourses_ of our Lord which are contained in this Gospel, are
essentially and radically unlike those in the other three. He thinks
that this impression may not be felt by the _most_ humble and devout
readers of the Gospel; but that it is far from being confined to those
who have any knowledge of Baur's opinions, or have even the slightest
acquaintance with German theology. It forces itself upon every one who
is only beginning to exercise his faculties of comparison and
criticism upon the Scriptures; it is especially likely to affect those
who have derived their impressions of them from our ordinary English
commentators and pulpit teachers.
My own experience corroborates this opinion. Earnest men feel this
difficulty more than indifferent men. It is, therefore, one which no
teacher ought to leave unconsidered. But every reader must feel how
hard it is for one man to put himself exactly in another's point of
view, and to discern what the inconsistencies are which seem to him
most glaring. To speak about tones and habits of writing, so as to
make oneself intelligible, so as not to assume canons of criticism
which the objector does not recognise, is possible, but certainly far
from easy. I believe that I can only fulfil my friend's wishes on this
subject, with any satisfaction, if I take some special discourse from
one of the first three Gospels,--some one which shall be admitted to
exhibit their characteristical manner,--and another from St. John,
which shall be admitted to exhibit his manner. For many reasons, I
think that the former specimen ought to be taken from St. Matthew. Nor
can I have much doubt on which passage of St. Matthew the reader would
wish me to fix. All would say, 'The Sermon on the Mount exhibits that
purely ethical tone which we trace in the earlier Gospels. There
Christ speaks with authority, no doubt, as a king and a lawgiver; but
it is to proclaim blessings upon the poor in spirit, the merciful, the
pure in heart. There is little of what in modern times we call
doctrine. There is no formal theology. It is a code which saint,
savage, and sage, may all recognise as divine, whether they conform to
it or no.'
What shall we choose as the parallel discourse to this in St. John? It
would be difficult to find any contrast so marked and striking as that
which the 8th chapter offers. The discourse there is argumentative,
not hortatory. It is addressed to disputers in Jerusalem, not to
crowds about a mountain. Those who hear it do not confess its
authority, but canvass every word of it. No passage in St. John is
more strictly theological. Here, then, if anywhere, we may expect to
find the radical essential dissimilitude which is spoken of. Let us
see whether it is there,--whether the opposition which is so manifest
upon the surface does, or does not, penetrate to the heart's core of
the two records.
We may amuse ourselves for ever with the words ethical, theological,
doctrinal. They are evidently mere artificial helps to our
conceptions. We can never arrive through them at any safe apprehension
of human thoughts or divine. But it is not difficult, I think, for any
earnest reader to ascertain what is the cardinal idea,--at all events
the cardinal word in the Sermon on the Mount. Let us take a few
passages of it, that we may be clear on this point. '_Let your light
so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.' 'I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and
on the unjust.' 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect.' 'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men,
to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which
is in heaven.' 'But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know
what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy
Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly.' 'But
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.' 'Be not ye therefore
like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of,
before ye ask Him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father
which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.' 'For if ye forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses.' 'But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and
wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly.' 'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?' 'Therefore take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of
these things.' 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven
give good things to them that ask Him?' 'Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven._'
I am sure I need not remark that we have not here the mere repetition
of a name. All the precepts that answer most to the description that
is given of the Sermon on the Mount, when it is praised for its
ethical qualities, for its beautiful morality, are here made to depend
upon the fact that those whom He was addressing had a Father in
heaven, who knew them and desired them to be what He was. This is the
thread which binds all these precepts together. Take it away, and they
lose not only their cohesion, but all their practical force; they
become a set of cold, dead, formal letters in a book, which we may
admire if we like them, but which have no power over us, which do not
concern human beings at all. This is not only a truth, but it is _the_
truth which exercises all the charm over those who feel that there is
any charm in the Sermon on the Mount, however they may account for it,
or represent it to themselves. A person who has been reading the old
Hebrew Scriptures asks himself,--'What is the change that I experience
in passing from them to this document? St. Matthew was a Hebrew;
perhaps he wrote in Hebrew. He says the law is not to pass away; but
that every jot and tittle of it is to be fulfilled. Why, then, do I
call his book a Gospel? Why does it transport me into a world
altogether different from that in which I have been dwelling,--from
that in which I have had such wonderful revelations of God? Christ
speaks to me of a Father; Christ reveals a Father. All other
differences are contained in that. This is the new revelation.'
Having made this discovery, let us turn to the 8th chapter of St.
John. What is that about? I am afraid of repeating myself; but I will
repeat St. John without fear.
'_And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I
and the Father that sent me.' 'I am one that bear witness of myself,
and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto
Him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my
Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also?'
'They understood not that He spake to them of the Father.' 'And He
that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do
always those things that please Him.' 'I speak that which I have seen
with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.'
'Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do
dishonour me.' 'Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is
nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that He is
your God._'
These passages I think I have shown are the cardinal passages here,
as the others are the cardinal passages there. May I entreat the
reader, who thinks there is a radical difference between St. Matthew
and St. John, seriously to meditate upon them? They will show him that
there is a difference, a very great difference, between these
Evangelists. I think they will show him that the difference is of the
kind which I have endeavoured to indicate in these Sermons, between
one whose function it was to declare to men that they had a Father,
and one whose function it was to show them how it was possible they
should have a Father, by unfolding the unity of the Father and the
Son.
DISCOURSE XIX.
A book has recently been published by Mr. John McLeod Campbell 'On the
Nature of the Atonement.' I cannot feel too thankful to the pious and
excellent writer for the light which he has thrown upon this subject;
for his exemplary charity to those with whom he is at variance; for
his successful effort to reclaim the doctrine from the region of hard
scholasticism to the region of practical life and holiness; above all,
for his vindication of the character of God as a Father, and for his
determination to assert, that likeness to His character, and communion
with Him, are the ends which God is seeking for us, and which we are
to seek from Him. In every one of these respects, I wish to be a
learner from Mr. Campbell. Others may criticise him who feel that they
know more than he does. I cannot read his book without perceiving how
little I do know of the truths which seem to me the most vital and
cardinal, and how impossible it is to know more, except by having more
of the spirit of love, which is the Spirit of God.
In a book written expressly for Scotland--though admirably fitted to
enlarge and deepen the thoughts of Englishmen--I cannot wish that he
should have followed any other method than that which he has followed.
He knows what books are popular among the religious people of his own
land; and of these he has spoken with singular candour and wisdom. I
might, indeed, wish that Calvinists knew something of Calvin as well
as of Edwards, and that Scotchmen cared more for the broad, bold
statements of Knox, than for the modifications of much feebler men in
this country. I can say for myself that I have read, with infinite
delight, Knox's book on Predestination; finding there the fullest and
most vehement assertions of God as an absolutely righteous Being, and
the greatest indignation against his opponents for daring to say that
a believer in predestination must think of Him chiefly as a Sovereign.
Knox would evidently have died rather than have adopted phraseology
which his descendants think that it is heretical to complain of. He
would have rejoiced not to limit God's grace in any way; only he could
not see how the acknowledgment of it as universal was compatible with
the attributing of every good thing to God and nothing to man. As an
assertor, as a resistor of Arminian denials, we may embrace him and go
all lengths with him. And I apprehend that even when he was upon
earth, at all events that now, he would prefer this sympathy to that
of men who fritter away his positions, and only accept his negations.
Neither Edwards, however, nor Dr. Williams, nor Knox, nor Calvin, have
much influence upon the mind of England in the present day--at all
events on the minds of English Episcopalians. Luther, to whose
Commentary on the Galatians Mr. Campbell has done justice, commands
our sympathy more. It is the man who speaks to us more than his books.
I believe if we knew them better, we should find such a man speaking
in them that we should be scarcely able to make the distinction. He
whom we suppose to be the assertor of Justification by Faith, is
really the poor stricken monk, overwhelmed by the sense and burden of
sin; grasping the assurance of forgiveness which comes to him from the
old Creed; believing that assurance as given by the God who is the
subject of the Creed; certain that it cannot mean indulgence for sin,
that it must mean deliverance from sin; discovering that it involves
the actual possession of righteousness; discovering that he cannot
have that righteousness in himself, and must have it in Christ;
learning gradually from St. Paul how Christ is made unto us
righteousness and is the righteousness of God; knocking down every
obstacle which stood in the way of the apprehension of this
righteousness; preaching the Gospel to men that it is theirs as well
as his; anathematizing Popes, Councils, Kings, Doctors, Reformers,
whoever seem to him to intercept the intercourse between the sinner
and his Lord. With such a man--in his strength and in his weakness, in
his gentleness and in his rage--Englishmen, so far as they are enabled
to make his acquaintance, feel a cordial interest; they are sure that
he was fighting a good fight, even when the smoke of the cannon, or
his own single-handed rashness, conceal him from their sight, and make
his intentions perplexing to them. And those who have had any fights
in themselves, and who therefore know that his descriptions are real
and not imaginary, will heartily approve of Mr. Campbell's judgment in
putting him foremost among those who have started from the sense of
evil in themselves, and have been led to believe in an atonement as
the only emancipation from it.
It must not, however, be concealed, that the following of Luther has
had an effect in cramping men's study of St. Paul. In another book I
have endeavoured to explain how it seems to me that this effect has
been produced. The doctrine of Justification by Faith has been assumed
to be _the_ Pauline doctrine. Luther said that it was so; and Luther
surely entered into St. Paul as no one else has done. Persons who
followed the course of Luther's experience thought that the Epistle to
the Romans must begin from the sense of sin, as Luther and as they
began. If it did not appear to do so, then the two first chapters must
be treated as prologue, and it must begin with the third. All
questions about the relation of Jews and Gentiles must be treated as
accidental or subordinate to the primary thesis; whatever does not
concern that, in the final chapters, must be resolved into practical
exhortations, introduced, after the manner of a modern sermon, when
the doctrinal statement has been concluded. Those who, without this
experience, merely desired to elucidate the formal doctrine, of course
subjected the Epistle to still more formal treatment. Its human
character disappeared; and the divinity which was to compensate for
that disappearance was of a very dry, hungry, uninspired character
indeed. Both parties agreed to regard the Epistles to the Romans and
the Galatians as the specially Pauline Epistles, because there were
most allusions in them to justification by faith; other Epistles were
to be interpreted mainly by reference to these. Ultimately, Baur, who
wrote a triumphant vindication of the Lutheran doctrine against
Möhler's 'Symbolik,' has discovered that only four of the thirteen
Epistles can be genuine, because the Pauline diagnostic is wanting in
the rest; and that there was a deadly antipathy between St. Paul and
the other apostles, because he was asserting that spiritual doctrine
which they were setting at nought.
The time, therefore, it seemed to me, had come for re-examining this
question about the subject-matter of St. Paul's Epistles, and seeing
whether we have a right to limit them as some German Evangelicals have
been inclined to limit them. I contended, in 'The Unity of the New
Testament,' that the words '_It pleased God to reveal His Son in me,
that I might preach Him among the Gentiles_,'--words that occur in the
Epistle which was dearest to Luther, in the Epistle on which Baur
grounds his great argument for an opposition between St. Paul and the
other apostles; words that contain St. Paul's own account of his
conversion, and therefore begin from what Lutherans must admit to be
the right starting-point of his history,--are the key to the meaning
of his life and the object of his mission. I attempted to show that,
if we used this key, the Epistle to the Romans might be read as a
whole letter, not be cut into fragments to meet a certain hypothesis;
and that all the Epistles which Baur would reject become the varied
and harmonious expositions of a great and divine purpose. Using that
key, also, it seemed to me that a most close and intimate relation
would appear between the Epistle to the Hebrews and those which bear
St. Paul's name on the face of them; and that--whether the old
tradition or the suspicion of critics respecting that Epistle has the
strongest foundation, whether or not it actually proceeded from the
hand of St. Paul--it does illustrate and fulfil his intention, and is
a transition point between him and the other Apostles, especially
between him and the Apostle St. John.
Why do I refer to these points here? Because it seems to me that the
doctrine of Justification by Faith, either in the practical form in
which it presented itself to Luther, or in the merely dogmatical form
which it assumes in some of his successors, has determined the
thoughts of a number of Germans, Englishmen, and Scotchmen on the
subject of the Atonement; so that their thoughts of the one
unconsciously and inevitably govern their thoughts of the other. They
start from evil, from the conscience of evil in themselves, and then
either each man asks himself,--'How can I be free from this oppression
which is sitting so heavily upon me?' or the schoolman asks, 'What
divine arrangement would meet the necessities of this case?' Of
course, the results of these two inquiries are very different; and Mr.
Campbell has done an immense service to Christian faith and life by
bringing forth the former into prominence, and throwing the other into
the shade. His book may be read as a great protest of the individual
conscience against the utter inadequacy of the scholastic arrangements
to satisfy it; as a solemn assertion,--'This arrangement of yours will
not take away my sin; and I must have my sin taken away; this
arrangement of yours does not bring me into fellowship with a
righteous and loving God; and I must have that fellowship, or perish.'
This is admirable; but if what I have said is true, there is another
way of contemplating the subject. We need not begin with the sinner;
we may begin with God. And so beginning, that which speaks most
comfort to the individual man may not be first of all contrived for
his justification. God may have reconciled the world unto Himself; God
may have atoned Himself with mankind; and the declaration of this
atonement, the setting forth the nature and grounds of it, and all the
different aspects of it, may be the real subjects of those Epistles,
in which the individual man has found the secret of his own blessing,
of his own restoration; but which he mangles and well-nigh destroys
when he reconstructs them upon the basis of his individual
necessities, and makes them utter a message which has been first
suggested by them.
The subject belongs to this place, because the words, '_Other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold_,' have led me to speak in this
Discourse of the calling in of the Gentiles as part of that mystery of
atonement, the great act of which was the Son of Man's laying down His
life that He might take it again, the ground of which was the unity of
the Father and the Son. Here St. Paul and St. John wonderfully
coincide. That which must be thrown into the background by those who
merely connect the atonement with individual salvation, becomes most
prominent for both Apostles; for the one who believed that He was an
ambassador from God to men, telling them that He had reconciled the
world unto Himself, and beseeching them to be reconciled to Him; for
the other who taught that '_God sent not His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved_.' If
it be asked, then, whether there is no difference between the
tent-maker of Tarsus and the old man of Ephesus, I should
answer--this; that while St. Paul's main work was to set forth the
fact of atonement, laying its groundwork always in the righteousness
of God manifested in Christ, and ascending, in the Epistle to the
Ephesians especially, to the purpose which He purposed in Christ
before the worlds were; St. John's calling was to trace this last idea
to its source in God Himself; to exhibit the original constitution of
man in the Divine Word; to set forth atonement as the vindication of
that constitution, and the vindication of the right of all men to
enter into it; to set forth the union of the Father with the Son in
one Spirit, as the ground of the reconciliation of man, and of his
restoration to the image of his Creator.