Part 50

The manifestation of supernatural realities to the human soul involves so much which is mysterious and unique, that only under great qualification can we compare it with the known mental processes. But were we to conceive of it less by the analogy of scientific discovery, and more by that of artistic apprehension, many an embarrassment would be saved. In a work of high art, you give a Phidias or a Raffaelle _his subject_; he necessarily takes it from that which stirs the heart of his time, and has a solemnity for his own and you do not find fault that there is mythology in the group, or Mariolatry in the picture. Through the conceptions of one time there speaks a feeling for all; and the representation may be immortal, when the thing represented has long been historical. Nor is it that it only reflects honor on its author's name. It springs from an inner harmony with the very heart of things, and it gives a new expressiveness to life and nature, and leaves behind a self-luminous spot in the world, where there was "gross darkness" before. Hence it looks into the eyes, and finds the soul of one generation after another; and, amid the change of materials and the succession of schools, keeps alive the very sense by which alone "materials" can be wielded and "schools" exist. With just the same result do the accidental and temporary media fall away from early Christianity; disengaging a residuary spirit that takes up the life of all times, touches a consciousness else unreached, and breathes upon the face of things, till the meanings writ there with invisible ink come into clearness before the eye. If it pleases God, instead of spreading at our feet the things to be seen, rather to quicken our vision till we see them where they are, it is revelation all the same, only deeper and more various; not an incident of position, but a power that can migrate in place and time, and read the Providential perspective everywhere. This profounder insight into divine relations it has been the especial office of St. Paul to awaken; and none the less that the flashes by which he gives it are incidental, and do not proceed from the Rabbinic lamp which he holds up to his apocalyptic pictures. Indeed, it is he, in great measure, that has carried Christendom into regions other than his own. His thought is everywhere penetrated with an intense heat, leavened with lightning, that fuses the mass containing it, and runs off alive for other media to hold it. The revelation to him of Christ in heaven set in action all the resources of his nature, and gave them a preternatural tension. The sentiments which found satisfaction, the intimations which came into expression, in his form of doctrine, are now for ever _human_, fixed in the self-knowledge of men by his faithful words, and sure to transmigrate into other forms, when their first embodiment will hold them no more. And so much is the Apostle's later exposition of his hope divested of what is special to himself, that to all ages since it has struck upon the ear of mourners along with the very toll of the funeral bell; and though often indistinct to their mind, it has jarred with no falsehood on their heart, but sounded like an anthem in the dark,--great music and dim words. It needed only time and events to transmute the doctrine into that of a future life. For it included--in order to meet the case of those who had "fallen asleep"--the conception of a path, through death before the time, "to depart and be with Christ"; only that this was the minor provision, the by-path of the early few. Reopened, however, as it always was when a disciple passed away, it became an evermore familiar track; and experience had but to negative the opposite direction by leaving it untraced, in order that the upward track should become the _via sacra_ of human faith. And can any one doubt what the justification by faith means, when construed into the language of universal experience? It means that God wants more from us, and also less, than the anxious will can do; more, because he wants ourselves; less, because he does not want our niceties of work. It means that we are called to spiritual heights we strive in vain to climb; that the most patient feet, step after step upon the ground, will but stand upon the earthly mountains after all; and it is the fiery chariot of love and trust that must bear us into heaven. It means that there is an affectionateness in God that looks to what we are, rather than what we do, and more readily speaks to us of communion than of obedience. True, this is but another way of saying what our religion elsewhere more ethically expresses, that God requires our perfect service, and yet has forgiveness for what is imperfect. But this statement, though it means also that heaven is open to the pure, intent, and single heart, touches a spring less deep and strong. It divides the integral and living fact, even in regard to God, by describing it as a demand of the whole, and then a subtraction of a part; and so exhibiting it rather as a dissolution of justice, than as truth and wholeness of love. And the Pauline doctrine appeals with far more immediate power to human consciousness, especially to that third of mankind whom a fervid enthusiastic mind renders little accessible to the cold solemnities of duty. And, finally, if we are insensible to the grandeur of St. Paul's teaching as to the universality of the Gospel, it is not more because it is entangled with the question of Jew and Gentile, than because the sentiment has become the common atmosphere of Christendom, and we feel not its freshness, because it blows not on us as a breeze, but _only_ as our breath of life. Let Mr. Jowett remove from us the spell of our indifference.

"Let us turn aside for a moment to consider how great this thought was in that age and country; a thought which the wisest of men had never before uttered, which even at the present hour we imperfectly realize, which is still leavening the world, and shall do so until the whole is leavened, and the differences of races, of nations, of castes, of religions, of languages, are fully done away. Nothing could seem a less natural or obvious lesson in the then state of the world; nothing could be more at variance with experience, or more difficult to carry out into practice. Even to us it is hard to imagine that the islander of the South Seas, the pariah of India, the African in his worst estate, is equally with ourselves God's creature. But in the age of St. Paul, how great must have been the difficulty of conceiving barbarian and Scythian, bond and free,--all colors, forms, races, and languages,--alike and equal in the presence of God who made them! The origin of the human race was veiled in a deeper mystery to the ancient world, and the lines which separated mankind were harder and stronger; yet the 'love of Christ constraining' bound together in its cords those most separated by time or distance; those who were the types of the most extreme differences of which the human race is capable.

"The thought of this brotherhood of all mankind, the great family on earth, not only implies that all men have certain rights and claims at our hands; it is also a thought of peace and comfort. First, it leads us to rest in God, not as selecting us because he had a favor unto us, but as infinitely just to all mankind. To think of ourselves, or our Church, or our age, as the particular exceptions of his mercy, is not a thought of comfort, but of perplexity. Secondly, it links our fortunes with those of men in general, and gives us the same support in reference to our eternal destiny, that we receive from each other in a narrow sphere in the concerns of daily life. Thirdly, it relieves us from all anxiety about the condition of other men, of friends departed, of those ignorant of the Gospel, of those of a different form of faith from our own, knowing that God, who has thus far lifted up the veil, 'will justify the circumcision through faith, and the uncircumcision by faith'; the Jew who fulfils the law, and the Gentile who does by nature the things contained in the law."--Vol. II. p. 126.

What the doctrine of universality in the Divine government was to that age,--as new and transporting,--is in our own "the clear perception of the moral nature of God, and of his infinite truth and justice." This is one of the many deep sayings, sad and wise, quietly dropped by our author in a series of disquisitions, that show, among other things, how well he understands its scope. Everywhere his care is to disengage Christianity from the theological conceptions fastened on it by a coarser age; and, having restored the purity of its moral vision, to enlarge its horizon to the whole extent of modern knowledge and experience. Penetrating beneath the figures natural to St. Paul, the very changes of which show them to _be_ figures, he finds that nothing can be more abhorrent from the Apostle's thought than the doctrine of "satisfaction," which is hunted down, in every form, with exhaustive and indignant logic; that even the analogy of sacrifice "rather shows us what the death of Christ was not, than what it was"; and that to draw us into union with Christ, to fix our eye on his pure self-renunciation as "the greatest moral act ever done in this world," to keep us in a mood that harmonizes our trust in God with our distrust of ourselves, and to suggest more than it can explain of hope and peace to a reconciled world, are the real functions, as of his death, so of all the stages of his existence. This pure type of faith emerges, we venture to affirm, without straining the rights of the interpreter. The rest and freedom it gives to the mind is singularly evident in the fine essay on Natural Religion. The author sets forth from the Christian centre, and, consciously marking where he passes the boundary of the apostolic view, surveys and brings to its religious place the whole outlying realm of nature, history, and life, that was unknown to Scripture, but is fact to us. The great Gentile religions, now discriminated and interpreted, and ascertained to follow certain laws of development; the breadth in philosophies, purer and brighter as history passed on; the Natural Religion, which is the counterpart of these in Christian times, and holds its place by the side of revelation; and the ordinary state of character in morally good but unspiritual persons, (state of "nature" rather than of "grace,")--are reviewed and estimated with a breadth of observation and a delicacy of reflection singularly impressive. Indeed, the literature of religious philosophy affords few nobler productions than this essay. With how true a hand and bright a touch is the following picture drawn! We will but hang it up in our reader's imagination, and leave him to commune with it alone.

"It is impossible not to observe that innumerable persons,--may we not say the majority of mankind?--who have a belief in God and immortality, have nevertheless hardly any consciousness of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. They seem to live aloof from them in the routine of business or of pleasure, 'the common life of all men,' not without a sense of right, and a rule of truth and honesty, yet insensible to what our Saviour meant by taking up the cross and following him, or what St. Paul meant by 'being one with Christ.' They die without any great fear or lively hope; to the last more interested about the least concerns of this world than about the greatest of another. They have never in their whole lives experienced the love of God, or the sense of sin, or the need of forgiveness. Often they are remarkable for the purity of their morals; many of them have strong and disinterested attachments, and quick human sympathies; sometimes a stoical feeling of uprightness, or a peculiar sensitiveness to dishonor. It would be a mistake to say they are without religion. They join in its public acts; they are offended at profaneness or impiety; they are thankful for the blessings of life, and do not rebel against its misfortunes. Such men meet us at every turn. They are those whom we know and associate with; honest in their dealings, respectable in their lives, decent in their conversation. The Scripture speaks to us of two classes, represented by the Church and the world, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the friends and enemies of God. We cannot say in which of the two divisions we should find a place for them.

"The picture is a true one, and, if we change the light by which we look at it, may be a resemblance of ourselves no less than of other men. Others will include most of us in the same circle in which we are including them. What shall we say to such a state, common as it is to both us and them? The fact that we are considering is not the evil of the world, but the neutrality of the world, the indifference of the world, the inertness of the world. There are multitudes of men and women everywhere who have no peculiarly Christian feelings, to whom, except for the indirect influence of Christian institutions, the fact that Christ died on the cross for their sins has made no difference; and who have, nevertheless, the common sense of truth and right almost equally with true Christians. You cannot say of them, 'There is none that doeth good; no, not one.' The other tone of St. Paul is more suitable: 'When the Gentiles that know not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these not knowing the law are a law unto themselves.' So of what we commonly term the world, as opposed to those who make a profession of Christianity, we must not shrink from saying, 'When men of the world do by nature whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, these, not being conscious of the grace of God, do by nature what can only be done by his grace.' Why should we make them out worse than they are? We must cease to speak evil of them ere they will judge fairly of the characters of religious men. That, with so little recognition of His personal relation to them, God has not cast them off, is a ground of hope rather than of fear,--of thankfulness, not of regret."--Vol. II. p. 416.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Acts xviii. 24; xix. 7.

[59] Acts vii. 44-49.

[60] Acts viii. 1.

[61] See especially the Notes on Paley's Horæ Paulinæ, Vol. I. pp. 349, 252. We subjoin in this connection a just and striking remark of Mr. Jowett's. In inquiries of this sort, it is often supposed that, if the evidence of the genuineness of a single book of Scripture be weakened, or the credit of a single chapter shaken, a deep and irreparable injury is inflicted on Christian truth, and may afford a rest to the mind to consider that, if but one discourse of Christ, one Epistle of Paul, had come down to us, still more than half would have been preserved. Coleridge has remarked, that out of a single play of Shakespeare the whole of English literature might be restored. Much more true is it that in short portions or single verses of Scripture the whole spirit of Christianity is contained. Vol. I. p. 352.

[62] Was it in reference to this mere _family-title_ to a _spiritual_ authority that Paul says of the Jerusalem Apostles, "Whatever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth _no man's person_"? (Gal. iii. 6.)

[63] Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. II. 23.

[64] In proof of an essential unity of teaching, Mr. Jowett quotes Paul as declaring that what they preached against him was "_not another_" gospel, "for there was not, could not, be another." (I. 340.) But far from bearing this conciliatory turn, which is out of character with the whole context, Gal. i. 6 affirms that what his opponents have been preaching _is_ (1.) another gospel; and yet (2.) _not_ another gospel, (not so good even as that,) but mere disturbance and perversion, the negation of a gospel.

[65] Compare also Rom. xiv. 10; Phil. i. 6; 2 Tim. iv. 1. Nay, the very passage in which he renounces the "knowing of Christ according to the flesh," contains the doctrine (2 Cor. v. 10).

[66] With a curious inconsistency Mr. Stanley fixes _at the Apostle's conversion_ the date after which he would no longer "know Christ according to the flesh"; yet in the very next note declares, that this state of mind must be referred to a more recent period than the conversion.

"απο του νυν, from _the time of my conversion_." It is to be presumed that this is also Mr. Stanley's interpretation of the νυν ουκετι of the next clause, which only repeats specifically of "Christ" what has just been said universally.

"ει και εγνωκαμεν κατα σαρκα χριστον, even though I have known; granting that I have known." γινωσκομεν, i. e. κατα σαρκα, "henceforth we know him no longer.... The words lead us to infer that something of this kind had once been [prior, surely, to the "_henceforth_"] his own state of mind, _not only_ in the time before his conversion, ... _but since_!"

How then can the "_henceforth_" serve as the _terminus a quo_, if the same state lies on both sides of it?

[67] Jowett, II. 142.

SIN: WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT IS NOT.

"Now the end of the commandment is Charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned."--1 Timothy i. 5.

The Apostle gives us here a very simple formula of Christian perfection. He was not fond of long lists of the virtues, such as the moral philosophers draw up; and though he does sometimes pass through a series, it is with a peculiar result. Look at any book upon human ethics, and you are astonished at the number of qualities that go to make up a good man: the ramifications of duty seem never to terminate: you scarcely know how a soul like ours can hold so much: the further the author proceeds in his enumeration, the less does he seem able to stop,--his divisions breaking into subdivisions, and the subdivisions opening new varieties,--till life appears to pulverize itself under his definitions, and become an infinite complexity of moral detail. St. Paul's enumerations, on the contrary, instead of running down into multitude, run up into unity; each term is apt to be larger than its predecessor; he seems impatient of scattering his exhortations, as if each had a business of its own, and rather forces them as he proceeds into denser compression, till he flings out some term of power that holds them all. The graces with him do not present themselves apart, like garden plants that may be tended and watered one by one; but all on the same organism, as the leaves and the blossoms of a single shrub. He felt that in reality the virtues do not add themselves up and subscribe to the final result of a holy soul: but the one simple soul lives itself out into the direction of all the virtues; and there is a certain mood, a temper, a climate of the soul, which grows everything beautiful at once, and without which, while one adornment is elaborately nursed, the rest will be apt to droop and die. This blessed and productive mood, felt to be _one thing_, ought to have _one name_: and the Apostle calls it _Charity_ or _Love_; and presents it sometimes as the greatest of graces, sometimes as the unity of them all.

But this simple grace is to have a _triple source_. In the midst of the garden of the Lord the Apostle plants but a solitary tree of life,--his divine and fruitful Charity. Only it must be nursed by the threefold root, of which should any part be wanting, the beauty of the form and the healing of the leaves will soon be gone. "Charity out of a pure heart,--and a good conscience,--and faith unfeigned." The Heart, the Conscience, the Faith, must all be right; and it is no Pauline Charity that is not sustained by concurrence of them all. And, observe _the order_. In the centre, striking its fibres deepest down into the substance of our world, is the _Conscience_, the _Moral_ element of life; and on either side, held to their due balance by its intermediate power, we find the _Heart_,--the fresh _human affections_,--and the Faith,--the _heavenly trust and aspirations_,--of our nature. Tenderness and pity on the one hand, devotion and hope on the other, are to hold on to the sense of duty in the midst; and there only will a noble and majestic Love arise, casting no baneful shade upon the earth, and in its branches giving no shelter but to birds that sing the songs of heaven. A charity, therefore, that flows _only_ from the genial heart, that looks with kindly complacency on all things and persons, and with a sort of animal sympathy licks every sore of humanity that lies at its gate;--this is not the "end of the commandment";--for it has in it no moral, no religious element: it condemns nothing; it worships nothing: its eye neither flashes in rebuke, nor lifts itself in prayer: it is sensitive to suffering, not to sin: and, if it can but wipe out pain, will do it even upon guilty terms, and charm away a God-sent remorse as freely as it would an anguish of the innocent. And, on the other hand, a charity that flows only from the sincerity of faith, and limits itself to the fellowship of belief; that feels perhaps _for_ many, but only _with_ a few; whose warmest sympathies are little else than a partnership of antipathies; that transfers to the infinite God the narrowness of its own consecrated circle, reduces the universe to a temple of orthodoxy, and turns the Heaven of Immortals into the May-meeting of a sect;--this also misses "the end of the commandment": for it abuses the true power of religion over life, and flings in the branch of faith only to embitter, instead of sweeten, the waters of natural affection; it blinds and bewilders the moral discernment, overlooks undeniable nobleness, and glorifies not a little meanness; and, applying its perverted admiration to the past as well as the present, crowds the statue-gallery of history with ill-favored and questionable saints, whose features have so grown to the mould and pressure of a creed, that they look like casts of an abstract theology, more than emblems of a living humanity. Take away the wisdom of Conscience; and Charity, surrendered to mere affection, will fail to see sin where _it is_; or, constricted by Faith, will suppose it where _it is not_. Both errors will shape themselves into deliberate doctrines, deviating on either side from the simple creed of our moral nature and of Christ. Let us look for a few moments at the central truth on this matter; and then glance from it at the lateral heresies.