You have another charge against Christianity. You say it is after all a
selfish faith, in which, however beautiful and noble the moral teaching
may be, the ultimate appeal has always been to the hope of reward
and fear of punishment. You will tell me that in ninety-nine of our
churches out of a hundred I shall hear this doctrine, and shall find it
in ninety-nine out of every hundred of theological or religious works.
If it be so I am sorry for it. But I am speaking of Christ’s Gospel,
and I say that you will not find the doctrine you protest against
there. I cannot go through our Lord’s teaching and his disciples’ to
prove this. I ask you to read for yourselves, bringing honest and clear
heads to the study, and not heads full of what you have thought, or
this and the other man has preached or written, and I say that then you
will give up this charge.
But as I have tried to do in all other cases, so here, I will tell you
exactly what my own faith on this matter is.
Christ has told me that the only reward I shall ever get will be “life
eternal,” and that life eternal is to know God and Him. That is all
the reward I care about. The only punishment I can ever bring on myself
will be, to banish myself from his presence and the presence of all who
know him, to dwell apart from him and my brethren, shut up in myself.
That is the only punishment I dread.
But this reward he has given us already, here. He has given us to know
God, and knowing God involves entering his kingdom, and dwelling in it.
That kingdom Christ has opened to you, and to me, here. We, you and I
may enter in any hour we please. If we don’t enter in now, and here,
I can’t see how we are ever likely to enter in in another world. Why
should not we enter in? It is worth trying. There are no conditions. It
is given for the asking.
I think you will find it all you are in search of and are longing for.
Above all, you will find in it and nowhere else, rest, peace—“not a
peace which depends upon compacts and bargains among men, but which
belongs to the very nature and character and being of God. Not a
peace which is produced by the stifling and suppression of activities
and energies, but the peace in which all activities and energies are
perfected and harmonized. Not a peace which comes from the toleration
of what is base or false, but which demands its destruction. Not a
peace which begins from without, but a peace which is first wrought in
the inner man, and thence comes forth to subdue the world. Not a peace
which a man gets for himself by standing aloof from the sorrows and
confusions of the world in which he is born, of the men whose nature
he shares, choosing a calm retreat and quiet scenery and a regulated
atmosphere; but a peace which has never thriven except in those who
have suffered with their suffering kind, who have been ready to give
up selfish enjoyments, sensual or spiritual, for their sakes, who have
abjured all devices of escape from ordained toils and temptations;
the peace which was His who bore the sorrows and sins and infirmities
of man, who gave up himself that he might become actually one with
them, who thus won for them a participation in the Divine nature, and
inheritance in that peace of God which passeth all understanding.”
This kingdom of God is good enough for me at any rate. I can trust him
who has brought me into it to add what he will, to open my eyes, and
strengthen my powers, that I may see and enjoy ever more and more of
it, in this world, or in any other in which he may put me hereafter.
Where that may be is no care of mine; it will be in his kingdom still,
that I know; no power in Heaven or Hell, or Earth can cast me out of
that, except I myself. While I remain in it I can freely use and enjoy
every blessing and good gift of his glorious earth, the inheritance
which he has given to us, his father’s children, his brethren. When it
shall be his good pleasure to take me out of it he will not take me
out of but bring me into more perfect communion with him and with my
brethren. He nourisheth my heart with good things on this earth, he
will not cease to do this anywhere else. He reveals himself to me here,
though as a man I cannot take in his full and perfect revelation, but
when I awake up after his likeness I shall be satisfied—and not till
then.