m 6.7.^ ®?q«Fatl|0& bg I|tm to tl|? SItbrarg of Prinrrtnn QFljrnbgtral ^pmtttarQ 5V U?^ c GAUDIUM CRUCIS By the Same Author: The Doctrine of St. John : An Essay in Biblical The- ology. 12rao. Longmans, Green, & Co., New York, London, and Bombay. 1899. Monuments of the Early Church (title of the English edition, "Christian Art and Archaeology " ). In the series of Handbooks of Archaeology and Antiquities. Crown 8vo. The Macmillan Company, New York ; Macmillan & Co., London and Bombay. 1901. The Church and its Organization in Primitive and Catholic Times. 8vo. Longmans, Green, & Co., New York, London, and Bombay. 1904. PANEL FROM THE WOODEN DOORS OF FIFTH CENTURY. SABINA, ROME. [See p. GAUDIUM CRUCIS ^ J^ctritation for ^ut he tried them never so infallibly as the touch- when he hung upon the Cross. He had always alUiearts accounted men's attitude towards him the ultimate test of character ; but never had the test cut so surely and so deep. Many had followed Jesus hitherto with false hopes of an earthly king- dom : now they must recognize perforce that his kingdom is not of this world, and that rule in his kingdom is exercised through service and sacrifice. 1 Matt. vi. 24 ; cf. iv. 10. 2 Mark viii. 35 sqq. 3 Matt. X. 32 sqq. SALVATION AND JUDGMENT 35 Christ crucified is to-day again the touchstone of our hearts. Not once for all, but day by day is this test applied — so hard a thing it is to be a Christian ! Each new choice must meet this test, and Christ be either our Saviour or our Judge. JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE — AND THAT THRONE IS LIKEWISE HIS JUDGMENT SEAT. THE THIRD WORD LOVE When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing h/, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, WOMAX, BEHOLD, THY SoN ! Then saith he to the disciple. Behold, thy Mother ! And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home. John xix. 26, 27. Sine me non valet, nee durabit amicitia; Nee est vera et munda dilectio quam ego non copulo. Thomas a Kempis. LOVE OLD AND NEW Wh7/a '\ y|r OTHER'' and "son'' — both these ZLT"' V/I '"""^''^^ ^^""^ ^""^^ ' together they de- mmt ^ JL ▼ JL note the family, the home. Love is an old factor in human life ; it was " from the be- ginning," before all human beginnings in fact ; and the oldest love is mother-love. How then can Christ proclaim love as "a new command- ment " ? ^ Not only had love long been manifested in all the family relations, but it had long ago 1 John xiii. 34. LOVE 37 transcended these limits and made itself felt in a broader social sphere. The very words in which Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments, and which we introduce in our liturgy so emphatically as that which our Lord Jesus Christ saith, are so far from being new that they are cited literally from Deuteronomy and Leviticus.^ St. John noted this paradox, and in his Epistles St. John he plays upon these words " old '' and " new." In '^^ladol' his Second Epistle ^ he says, " Not as though I wrote to thee a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another." In the First Epistle ^ likewise he denies that it is new, yet adds at once, " Again a new commandment write I unto you." He explains also the reason of its newness, though in figurative language which may not at once carry its meaning to the reader : " because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shineth." This means that in Christ there has come to us, and is coming, a new revelation of what love may be and is. In his Gospel, reporting the words of Jesus, St. John conveys to us the same meaning in more specific terms : " A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another ; even as I have loved you^ that ye also love one another." * This com- 1 Matt. xxii. 37, 39 ; Mark xii. 30, 31 ; cf. Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18. 2 2 John 5. 3 1 John ii. 7, 8. * John xiii. 34. 38 THIRD WORD mandment of Jesus is new for a twofold reason : because it is formulated for a new relationship, the Christian brotherhood ; and because it is enjoined according to a new measure, " as I have loved you.'' Jesus teaches his disciples that their love, like his, must transcend the limits of the narrower human relationships to which it had been con- fined, — the family, the clan, or even race and nationality, — and find its sphere in a universal so- ciety. Yet notwithstanding this increase of its objects love is to suffer no loss of its intensity ; for the constant measure of Christian love is Christ's love, a new and loftier measure, love in excelsis, — for " greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." ^ Christ Thomas a Kempis says : makes the old rela- a Without Me friendship is not firm or endurinff : txons sac- -vt t_ ramental Nor is there any true and pure love which I do not join." This does not mean that where we see love we may affirm it is no love because it is not in Christ. It means that where we see love we are to perceive a gift of God. And it means, moreover, that Christ raises to a higher potentiality even the old love which was displayed "from the beginning" in the sweet offices of friendship and the dear relationships of the family. Christ recognized 1 John XV. 13. LOVE 39 the primitive relationships and the aboriginal love which cements them ; he recognized fatherhood, motherhood, filial, fraternal, and conjugal love: but he did not recognize them simply as they were, and leave unchanged the constitutions of old time — he hallowed them, and raised them to the dignity of a sacrament, perceiving in them an outward and visible reflection of divine relationships. Christ recognized the family and the family Marriage love. Marriage, in contradiction to all ancient law and custom, Christ pronounced indissoluble. Since Christ has raised all the commonest human duties to a sacramental dignity, we may properly say that the marriage blessed by him becomes a sacrament. It is no longer constituted by the will of the flesh, in carnal appetite ; but under- taken with the resolute purpose of performing together, at whatever sacrifice, a social duty in the rearing of children, — primarily in the interest of the family, but ultimately in the interest of society at large, the State and the Church. Christ recognizes the family love in all its varied Family relations; he hallows it and makes it new. ^^^ law of the in so doing he also breaks its exclusiveness. This kingdom new wdne cannot be kept in old bottles ; but in breaking the bottles Christ provides that not one drop of the precious liquor shall be lost. For he provides that this great force which has been de- 40 THIRD WORD veloped in the narrower sphere shall henceforth be available for the broader relationship of the Chris- tian brotherhood, the family of God. Love is not mere liking, and its limits are not set bv mere kinship or likeness. Love is also something more than a pathological affection : in its highest forms it is an expression of the will, and hence it may be made the subject of a commandment. Such love as had hitherto been confined to the family, Christ made the law of his kingdom : hence the family becomes the pattern of the kingdom of God. Jems' rs- It is instructive to inquire what was Jesus' re- his^own lotion to his own family. First of all we have family the incident of his childhood related by St. Luke, when he seemed entirely forgetful of his earthly parents, who were seeking him for three days and finally found him in the temple. There was a note of surprise in the boy'^s answer to his mother'*s complaint : " How is it that ye sought me ? did you not know that I must be in my Father's house ? '"' ^ For the unique Son of God, and for all God's sons, there are loftier obligations than that of filial obedience, and broader social duties than those of the family. But until such duties emerge, the family is the natural sphere of the child's life. And so it is said that he returned to Nazareth with his parents "and was subject unto them." 1 Luke ii. 49. LOVE 41 When Jesus began his public ministry he broke off all relation with his family and was a man without a home, — contrasting himself in this respect even with birds and foxes. ^ When the early popularity of his preaching was past, and the clouds of opposition became ominous, the family authority was invoked-; and perhaps there was some thought of using force, to bring him back to Nazareth and save him from public disgrace. Then Jesus publicly repudiated his family. Being told that his mother and his brethren were outside the crowded house in which he was teaching, and were seeking to enter and claim him, he replied, "Who is my mother and my brethren ? And looking round on them which sat round about him, he saith, Behold my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." ^ Jesus taught his disciples that upon occasion they must make the same renunciation ,3 and a certain man who would follow him he forbade to return even to bury his father.* Jesus was already forming about himself a new family of those who were united in a common aim and service. 1 Matt viii. 20 ; Luke ix. 58. =^ Matt. xii. 48-50 ; Mark iii. 33-35. 8 Matt. X. 36, 37. * Matt. viii. 21, 22 ; Luke ix. 59, 60. 42 THIRD WORD The Our Lord's brethren did not come to believe of Jesus on him till after his resurrection, and we have no notice that Mary again appeared in his company till her mother-love brought her to the foot of his Cross. There Jesus, forgetful of himself, was concerned about his mother, and took measures to restore the family life which he had broken up and to fill the place which he was leaving. Such was his regard for the family. John and But why might not Mary live with the " breth- "^^ ren" of Jesus, who, if they were but her step- sons, were bound by law and duty to support her ? That formed the natural family. Jesus, however, reckoned that the ties of a common faith and a common social purpose are stronger than the ties of kindred. " And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home.'''' The word home is not found in our Greek Gospel : the phrase there is simply " unto his own." But we rightly use in this place our strong English word; for where son and mother are is home. Children " Mother "" and " son "' are the words Jesus uses by adop- — ^^^ j without doubt he uses them in no weak tton and unreal sense ; they denote a sacred relation- ship (a family) which is established by mutual adoption. Jesus recognizes the family and he hallows it. But he recognizes that the profound- est sacredness of that relation is constituted, not according to the law of fleshly generation, but LOVE 43 according to the Spirit, by the will. Do you suppose that the sweet offices of motherhood and sonship were ever exercised more perfectly than by the Blessed Virgin and the Beloved Disciple ? God may not give to every one of us children after the flesh, or he may take them away, as from that mother who wept by the Cross ; but upon every lonely heart which is capable of the sacred fire of mothei'hood or fatherhood he lays the injunction : Behold, thy son ! Would God there were no mother without a son ! What Jesus here sets before us is a privilege as well as a duty. But " take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones " ; " inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me." There are in this world so many lonely mother hearts ; and in this same world so many sons without a mother, — little ones for whom Christ died, for whom the world prepares so many stumbling-blocks. There need be no mother without a son folded by the will into the holy sacrament of motherhood, sealed by the com- mand of Christ. Would God there were no son without a mother! It is a duty which Christ sets before us, as well as a privilege. I have said that the family is the pattern and The ah- norm of the Church. But we express Christ's ^f^thlr- meaning better when we say with St. Paul that ^*oot^ the heavenly is the pattern of the earthly, and 44 THIRD WORD that it is our heavenly " Father after whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named."" ^ It is from him we have "received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."' ^ All men are called to the privilege of this adoption, but not all attain to it. Jesus himself contrasts " the sons of this age " with those that " are ac- counted worthy to attain to that age,'"' who " are equal to the angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection."'*' ^ Sonship implies like- ness to the parent. To realize our likeness to the heavenly Father is the loftiest human achieve- ment : it demands not only the highest love, but the broadest. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you ; that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the Gentiles the same ? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'''* " The We may take it that in his third word from r^^"i the Cross our Lord enforces the fundamental law law in the of his kingdom. There can be no doubt that world 1 Eph. iii. 15. 2 Rom. viii. 15. 3 Luke XX. 34-36. * Matt. v. 44-4-8. LOVE 45 Christendom has not yet realized this law. We display the old love, to our friends who love us, to our family and kindred ; but the broader love is not generally manifested, — least of all in the broadest relationships of political and commercial life. But if we ask the question, whether in the broadest relationships of life competition or co- operation best comports with the law of the king- dom, which is the law of family love, there can be no doubt about the answer. Competition of a sort, a generous emulation which quickens our best talents and brings into play our most abun- dant resources, there may be between mother and son even, between brother and brother, — but not for bread. But the law of love will not work in the world, men say. True, it will not woi'k any man a temporal advantage so long as self-interest is a stronger and a commoner motive than love. But we may not therefore wait till all men shall have agreed together to act only according to this law ; for it is already the law of the kingdom of God. Can we not say as much as Plato says at the end of his sketch of an ideal republic? He admits the objection that no such state is to be found on earth. But he replies, " In heaven there is laid up a pattern of such a city, and he who desires may behold this, and beholding, gov- ern himself accordingly. But whether there really is or ever will be such an one is of no importance 46 THIRD WORD to him ; for he will act according to the laws of that city and of no other." ^ Thy kingdom come, O Lord, thy kingdom of love and brotherhood, when in every lonely little one the lonely mother will behold a son, in every weak one for whom Christ died a man will behold his brother, — on earth, as it is in heaven. JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE — AND HIS THIRD WORD PROCLAIMS THE ROYAL LAW. 1 Republic, bk. ix. § 592. THE FOURTH WORD JOY AND SACRIFICE jind about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, eli, lama sabachthani ? that is. My God, my God, why hast thou forsakex me? Matt, xxvii. 46. Quoted from Ps. xxii. 1. Cf. Mark xv. 34. THE JOY IN PASSION j4 T this word we must pause as before the in- /-\ comprehensible. Incomprehensible it is X. JL to us that the Son of God should ever be forced to utter this desolate cry. " We know but the outskirts of his ways.**' But let us fix our attention upon what we can Dante understand. And here let me suggest to jou ^l^^^H^^^ a profound truth which Dante, by a startling ^^*'« '^ord paradox, associates with this very cry. He rep- resents the sufferings of purgatory as endured gladly in the strength of that desire which ap- prehends beforehand an assured blessedness, — symbolized here by the Tree of Life. So the sufferers say : 48 FOURTH WORD Che quella voglia all' arbore ci mena, Che mend Cristo lieto a dire, Ell, Quando ne liberd con la sua vena} " Because the like desire leads us to the tree, Which led Christ joyfully to cry, Eli, What time he freed us with his precious blood." It is true there was a joy in the very Passion itself. St. John perceived it, and whoso will may read it in his record. But Dante alone, with a poet's insight, has detected the joy of Jesus in this agonizing cry. Christ's It is one of the striking characteristics of St. ^cording to John's Gospel that it interprets to us the tri- St. John umphant joy with which Jesus encountered the ignominy and suffering of his last mortal hours. St. John emphasizes this so strongly that he seems hardly to leave room for the veritable agony of mind which Jesus experienced at the prospect of death, according to the testimony of all the other Gospels. The note of joy runs through our Lord's prayer, and the long discourses which he held with his disciples the night in which he was betrayed. St. John alone has re- ported them. It comes to clearest expression when he says, " If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I go unto my Father." ^ We hear it 1 PurgatoriOi canto xxiii. lines 73-75. 2 John xiv. 28. JOY AND SACRIFICE 49 finally even from the Cross in a word ^\hich John alone has recorded : " It is finished.'" ^ Through- out, it is the joy of labor accomplished, of duty done, of homesickness for the Father"'s house re- lieved — by going home. This interpretation of St. John''s, peculiar as it The nos- is, is substantially confirmed by the other Evan- jj^ ^^ gelists. For though the Synoptic Gospels give no hint of joy in their story of the Passion, they plainly reveal, in connection with an earlier experience, our Lord''s heavenly homesickness. After the Transfiguration upon the mountain, wherein Jesus as well as his three closest com- panions had enjoyed a peculiarly exalted experi- ence, he came down again to the world and its sordid cares, and straightway encountered faith- lessness and impotence even in his disciples. He could not restrain then the exclamation : " O faithless generation ! how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I bear with you ? "" ^ This instance stands alone, yet it is sufficient to cor- roborate the essential truth of St. John\s record. It may be that Jesus never again so plainly ex- pressed his longing to finish his task and be at home. Yet the sympathy of a disciple could detect it, and what St. John has written for our learning is true to the deepest fact. 1 John xix. 30. 2 Mark ix. 19 ; Matt. xvii. 17 ; Luke ix. 41. 4 50 FOURTH WORD The first three Evangelists are concordant and consistent in representing that our Lord experi- enced up to the end a natural human shrinking at the thought of dying. They show, however, that he entertained this thought, and faced the prospect even of a violent and suffering death, from an early period of his ministry ; and it was immediately after the Transficruration that he began to prepare his disciples for it. But death is one thing, dying is another. In view of Jesus' nostalgia for the heavenly home, death could ap- pear only as a release ; and in the strength of this longing the dread of dying was half overcome. So our Lord's endurance of death is interpreted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when it is said that Jesus ''for the joy that was set before him en- dured the Cross, despising the shame.'' ^ Dante's Such is precisely the meaning of Dante's phrase, meaning ^^^^ji^ vogUa — '* that desire." There is noth- ing new nor strange about his conception of the joy which shone through Jesus' suffering, except that he discovers it in this very word EVi ! Certain it is that the mere exifjencies of rhyme do not account for Dante's use of this unusual word ; nor did he hit upon so strange a thought by any accident. He means somethincr, — as vou will be disposed to credit if you believe, as I do, that the true poets are the greatest teachers, by 1 Heb. xii. 2. JOY AND SACRIFICE 51 virtue of a deeper insight into human Hfe. Our Lord himself was a poet of the Hebrew sort, and the greatest " maker '' of them all. The word " poet " means maker ; and the poet is so called, not because he makes verses, but because he creates thoughts and gives them a vehicle which carries them to all men. Where the genius of Dante leads the way we also may follow and apprehend the significance of his discovery. I make, therefore, this scholium upon his verse. The word In the first place, we must note that Dante dis- tinguishes. He does not affirm that there is any gladness in the cry, " Why hast thou forsaken me.?" He finds it in the word Eh — twice uttered, and emphasized as it is. It is true that this whole saying is a literal quotation from the Psalter. But to learn what Jesus means by it, we do not need to inquire first what the Psalmist meant. For the old Scriptures which Jesus takes upon his lips acquire from him a new meaning. And here, in particular, we shall discover, the common name of Deity is freighted with an expression of the inmost secret of Jesus'* self- consciousness. Something strange there must have been in Jesus'* enunciation of this word EVi} for the people understood him to be calling upon Elijah. 1 For the original form of the utterance see Dal man, Die Worte Jesu, pp. 42, 43. 52 FOURTH WORD It is true that in our Lord's time the divine name, even in this its most generic form, was not uttered except in worship or in formal quotations from the Scripture. Jesus himself seems to have conformed to this practice. There may have been something startling, therefore, in hearing God"'s name twice shouted from the Cross ; but, in worship, at least, this name was by no means unfamiliar to the Jews, and the rarity of its utterance does not explain their misunderstanding. What, however, if our Lord wreaked upon the expression of this well-known name the whole energy of that conflict of joy and agony which was within him, giving it utterance and accent such as had never been heard before, — would not that explain the people's bewilderment ? ''My But before we can understand this point, our God " . . r ' own mispronunciation of the word needs to be corrected. It is true, I think, that in defiance of all authority, — even the handy authority of our " Teachers' Bibles,*" — we commonly pronounce it, Eli^ Eli — my God^ my God. So accenting the phrase, we are left without any clue to the mis- understanding of the Jews, and without any hint of a joy in Jesus' passion. But if we pronounce the word as Dante rightly did, EVi^ and recognize that the whole stress falls upon the personal pro- noun mz/, which here appears as a suffix to the divine name El^ we can understand, I think, how JOY AND SACRIFICE 53 Jesus may have thrown such an intensity of feel- ing into his utterance as to transform the word, and we can perceive that such an intense personal appropriation of God — my God, viy God — is incompatible with utter defeat and complete desolation. This interpretation might well appear fanciful, " The were it not that we can appeal to another passage ^^^ Y of Old Testament Scripture which Jesus himself Aam " expressly interprets for us, and interprets precisely in this way. When the Sadducees sought to entangle him with sophistical questions about the future life, Jesus promptly solved their super- ficial problem by the simplest answ^er ; but, not resting upon that, he offered bread to those that asked for chaff. So he continued, probing to the very heart of the question : " But as touching the dead, that they are raised ; have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the Bush, how God spake unto him, saying, / am the God of Abraham^ and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living : ye do greatly err." ^ This pas- sage had never been used before as a proof of the resurrection from the dead. We may expect to find in Jesus'* interpretation something strikingly characteristic of his method of teaching. We certainly do not reach the height of its meaning 1 Mark xii. 26, 27 ; cf. Matt. xxii. 32 ; Luke xx. 37, 38. 54 FOURTH WORD if we rest satisfied with the common explanation, which gathers, from the mere circumstance that God calls himself the God of the Patriarchs, the proof that they continue to exist, — because no such relation could subsist between God and non- existent beings. This does not suffice. For life, as Jesus conceived of it, is not the mere prolonga- tion of existence, though it w^ere prolonged for- ever ; for him, life is a certain so7't of existence, an existence which consists essentially in the en- joyment of fellowship with God. That this con- ception explains our Lord's thought here, will be made evident if we consider why he fixed upon this text. The mere wording of it does not sug- gest the thought of eternal life ; it expresses merely the assurance that what God was to the fathers, that he will be to their children. If Jesus finds more in it than this, that more must have been furnished by his own religious consciousness, which everywhere determines for him his under- standing of the Scriptures. The central fact in Jesus' consciousness was the experience of an in- comparably close relation to God, — a transcend- ent relation, which was absolutely independent of all earthly conditions, and in which he was assured of participation in the divine life. If this personal relation to God was not brought about by earthly conditions, neither could it be dissolved by them ; if it was a participation of the supernatural life JOY AND SACRIFICE 55 of God, it, too, must be supernatural and endless. It is generally recognized that the absolute neces- sity and certainty of "eternar' life was, for Jesus, an inevitable deduction from his consciousness of sonship. Because he knew God as his God, and recognized that his inmost life was a participation of God's life and being, he was assured that this life was indissoluble. That is precisely what he finds reflected in the expression " God of Abra- ham,"" and what he says with reference to this is merely a generalization of the fact which he recog- nized as the paramount experience of his own life. It is from his own consciousness he judges this passage, from his own consciousness he draws the consequences which are implied in the fact that God is some body''s God.^ This consciousness, in which Jesus discovered the meaning of "eternal"" life, the consciousness of personal possession of God, — this consciousness it was to which Jesus gave expression upon the Cross, triumphing even in the moment of his direst desolation, when he cried, " M^ God ! m7/ God!" SACRIFICE Nevertheless it was half a despairing cry — The an- "Why hast thou forsaken me?'' It is in vain^i""-^ 1 This paragraph I owe substantially to Haupt, Die es~ chatologischen Aussagen Jesu, p. 87. 56 FOURTH WORD Addi- tional pang in the death of the Christ Christian theology we seek to banish the note of spiritual anguish from this cry : we might as easily ignore the physical anguish of the Cross. Success here would be not gain but loss. We find a deep significance in the fact that Jesus tasted death for every man ; but he tasted it not if so be he contemplated it undismayed and drank its bitterest dregs with confidence unshaken. Rather may we say, in view particularly of this cry, that Christ's death was hardly a Christian death. The calmness of Christian death was, indeed, not possible till after Chrisfs resurrection. There is an additional factor in Jesus' fear of death, which I forbore to mention when speaking of the natural shrinking from dying. There is one reason why death, to Jesus, was a sorer trial than to other men : that is, because of the very consciousness he had of being the Christ. Death is the common lot of men ; but that the Christ should die — die, and his kingdom not yet established — what can be the meaning of that ? With this problem above all others Jesus had to wrestle, from the moment he first perceived that a violent death at the hands of his country- men lay squarely in the path of his duty, and not far off. When we think of Jesus and his death, we too are compelled to face that problem, and it be- comes in us the spur of all legitimate Christian JOY AND SACRIFICE 57 theology. Once recognize the reahty of Jesus"* divinity, and we are face to face with the question, Cur Deus homo ? — why was God man ? We recognize the full reality of his suffering death, and inevitably the question arises, Why should the Christ die ? In other ways, surely, like Enoch or Elijah, he might have departed from the world. So long as these questions are asked, just so long shall we feel impelled to formulate a Christian theology ; so long as our answer is inadequate, our theology must be incomplete. Our theology is incomplete : let it be so, and let us know it. The acknowledgment of God in Christ is the crowning achievement of faith. Beyond that we probe with our questions, but we expect in vain the conclusive answer. Well it is for us that we can stand upon this at- tainment. It is an attainment, however, which is not reached once for all by the Church as a whole, needing only to be passed on as a deposit of faith to successive generations. It is an attainment new in every age and to every individual disciple. Peter, the basic rock, and after him every " living stone '"' which is built into the fabric of the Church, makes con- fession of a truth which he has not received from without, but apprehended as the personal acquist of a moral experience. " No one can say, Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.'** The 58 FOURTH WORD dogmatist really depreciates the value of this confession when he makes it a means to an end, treating it as an inexhaustible premise for the deduction of endless syllogisms, seeking thereby to solve all questions in the world and out of it. From the height of this attainment we can look back upon many a question solved ; but there are still more questions to face, unsolved and insolu- ble. Nevertheless we essay to solve them, and our success — is the distraction of Christendom into a hundred sects ! The ele- To-day we are inclined to be less bold. We are ment of • • i. i j. x? • j. wonder in gi'O^^ing as intolerant oi irreverent assurance as our faith ever the dogmatists were of reverent doubt. We are learning again that human knowledge begins in wonder and issues in — wonder. We dwell again with interest upon a saying long plausibly ascribed to Jesus (and revived now by a discovery of the past year) : "Let not him who seeks [eternal life .f^] cease till he finds ; and when he finds he shall be astonished ; astonished, he shall reach the kingdom ; and having reached the kingdom, he shall rest.^'i Sacrifice Such thoughts of the inadequacy of human tdanation knowledge and the impotence of the human un- of Chrisfs derstaiiding are never so much in place as when we contemplate the Cross of Christ. Yet one so- 1 Second Oxyrhynchus Fragment of the Sayings of Jesus, V. 1 ; cf. Clement Alex., Stromata, v. 14 : 96. JOY AND SACRIFICE 59 lution there is of this mystery which we cannot ignore, since in it Jesus himself found solace : it is the thought of sacrifice. Let us not think, however, that the idea oi Meaninq sacrifice is a solution which banishes all mystery. ^J^^^^^J''^^ To say that Christ's death was a sacrifice, is not to define it in terms open and comprehensible to the human mind : it is merely to put a symbol in the place of mystery. Sacrifice is the most ancient symbol of man's longing for reconciliation with God, — of his recognition that a barrier exists, and of his belief that it can be removed. This earth furnishes us, through all the scales of being, with the stupendous mystery of life poured out for the life of others. Countless hecatombs of unwillmg sacrifices attend the progress of the lower animals, and even here among the brutes mother-love provides the willing sacrifice. The perception of this fact is the root of all blood-sacrifice as men have practised it, and of all its ritual symbolism. Whatever of childish credulity there was in the early notions of sacrifice, whatever crudity or cruelty in the early cults, dishonoring to God and debasing to men, — all this was forever done away by the great prophets who made the notion of moral sacrifice a commonplace in Israel. The moral sacrifice is a freewill offering, not of another life for our own, but of our pleasure, profit, ad- vantage of every sort, and of life itself even, for 60 FOURTH WORD the life of another. We speak only of what we see in the actual relations of human life, not of what we guess about God, when we say that such sacrifice as this is, in the strictest sense of the word, vicarious. Such social sacrifice, offered as unto God in the performance of our bounden duty and service, is, according to the Hebrew prophets, the reality^ of which all ritual sacrifice is but the symbol. This theme was especially prominent in those books which were the favorite Scriptures of our Lord, — in the prophecies of Isaiah and in the Psalms. No other notion than this could have occurred to him when he was led to interpret his death as a sacrifice. It is true that the old forms of sacrifice still remained, but they remained simply as a symbol of a newly apprehended reality. Yet this reality itself be- comes in turn a symbol of the incomprehensible when we endeavor to apprehend what may be its significance in relation to God. Signifi- All sacrifice implies two parties and a victim. Christ's The end sought is atonement — that both may be sacrifice ^^ qj^^^ ^ ^lew element emerges in the sacrifice of Christ, inasmuch as God himself takes a hand in it — not merely to receive, but to offer.^ Here the double character of sacrifice becomes more evident : it contemplates an effect upon God, and also upon men. The barrier which divides has 1 Rom. viii. 32. JOY AND SACRIFICE 61 two aspects : on one side is God's unwillingness to tolerate sin ; on the other, man''s hard unwilling- ness to repent. The effect of Chrisfs sacrifice upon man''s side is perfectly open and comprehensible to the human understanding. So long as we imagine a justly severe God awaiting in cold aloofness our dutiful return, we find in our hearts no place for re- pentance, though we may know the anguish of remorse. But when we know the revealed mystery of a Father who suffers in our fault, and is ready to meet more than half-way our return ; when we believe that " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,''"' ^ — then we have found a solvent for the hardest hearts, the specific cure for impenitence. But the effect of sacrifice upon God remains perfectly incomprehensible. This aspect of sacri- fice is expressed by the word " propitiation."' ^ But for us to accept this word in its literal inter- pretation, with all the crude original rudiments of the times of man's ignorance of God (as though it signified that a loving son must placate by his death the wrath of a too just father), would be a more horrible ineptitude than were we to take in a literal sense the words " ransom'' and "redemp- tion " — terms similarly applied to Christ's death 1 2 Cor. V. 19 ; cf. vv. 18, 20 ; also Rom. v. 10. 2 1 John ii. 2 ; iv. 10. 62 FOURTH WORD As inter- preted hy the Last Supper — as though they must signify to us that for the release of a captive from his conqueror, of a slave from his oppressor, Christ's blood was the price paid — to the Devil ! All that we can surely know about this aspect of the mystery of Chrisfs death is what we profess in the Creed, that it was ^'for lis '' ; — that as " he came down from heaven for us men and for our salvation,*" so also what he suffered in death " he suffered jor us. So much is revealed by Christ himself — and no These are the very words in which he ex- more. plained to his disciples, so far as it was explicable, the mystery of his death. St. Paul and three of the Evangelists differ not a little in reporting the words which Jesus uttered at the Last Supper ; but about these words of central importance there can be no doubt. To appreciate justly this oc- casion and the force of these words we must understand that what we now perform as the sac- ramental memorial of Jesus' death was first per- formed by Mm as a prophetic parable of his death impending — so closely impending that he could represent it as already accomplished. He who taught always by parables, here taught, by a par- able in act^ a truth so solemn that it hardly admitted of expression in speech. The dumb parable of the broken loaf needed only one inter- preting word, " my body,"" — and Jesus' imminent JOY AND SACRIFICE 6S death stood revealed. The wine poured out is " my blood '" — and with that the whole sad truth is told. But with one more word Jesus lightens the gloom — it is " for you." Not in vain is the Christ's blood spilled — but " for you." Hence it is that the disciples are to " eat " and " drink *" — that is, appropriate this sign and know it as theirs.^ When Jesus said, " this is my blood," and " for you," it makes little difference whether he did or did not then expressly interpret it as the blood " of the covenant " ; for if it was to be regarded as a sacrifice at all, it must of course be viewed somehow in the light of the ancient covenant sacrifices of Israel. If already in that hour Jesus disclosed to his disciples that this blood was shed " for many," as some of the Evangelists affirm,^ it is, at any rate, certain that what lay nearest to their compre- hension and was uppermost in his heart was the thought that he was dying for them. Afterwards they could understand the broader thought ; and as the circle of Jesus"* friends grew, his disciples learned to confess : " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." ^ 1 Mark xiv. 29, 94 ; Luke xxii. 20. 2 Matt. xxvi. 98 ; Mark xiv. 94. 3 1 John ii. 2. 64 FOURTH WORD Joy in It was in this thought Jesus found a second sacrifice . „ . . . , • i • •' occasion tor joy in passion, — not now in his own behalf, as one confident of hfe in spite of death, and eager for return to the Father's house even through death ; but now dying itself is illumi- nated by a purpose, being endured in behalf of his friends. It was strange, indeed horrible, that the Anointed of God should die ; yet, dying, he knew that God was able to establish the king- dom. He had labored to prepare for it, but he had recognized from the beginning that it was not by human effort, and not even by the preach- ing or wisdom or might of the Messiah that the kingdom of God could be established, but only by a conspicuous divine intervention. And he knew that in this kingdom, when it should be established, the Father was able to raise him to kingly glory and dominion, even through death. The violent death, to which he was shut up by no physical necessity, which also he did not seek wantonly, but encountered inevitable in the path of duty, he recognized as the Father''s will for him. He was assured therefore that God would accept his bounden duty and service, and, accept- ing him, would, for his willing sacrifice, accept also his friends. We may well believe that this thought assuaged even the poignant anguish of the cry, " Why hast thou forsaken me ? "" " Hav- ing loved his own which were in the world, he JOY AND SACRIFICE 65 loved them unto the end"; wilKngly he gave himself for them, and he gave himself unto the uttermost. JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE - AND AS PRIEST-KING HE MAKES THERE A FULL, PERFECT, AND SUFFICIENT SACRIFICE, OB- LATION, AND SATISFACTION FOR THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD. THE FIFTH WORD CONFIRMATION After this Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, saith : I thirst. John xix. 28. Cf. Ps. Ixix. 21. THE SCRIPTURES CONFIRMED BY THE CROSS Christ's T" T is a homely woe that is expressed by this word I sufferings ■ fj-Qm the Cross, which St. John alone records. not dwelt ■ .... upon as -JIL Such suffering as this indicates, even we can sujj-ering xixxdiQv^isindi, who know not what it is to die. Yet even upon this suffering St. John does not dwell — and why should we ? All the Evangel- ists, and St. John especially, give to the story of Jesus'* death a place wholly out of proportion to their brief account of his life and ministry. This is proof of the high importance which the Apos- tolic Church attached to the Cross. It is there- fore the more noteworthy that all the Evangelists, and especially St. John, refrain from any mention of suffering merely as sitffering — it had a higher significance for them. CONFIRMATION 67 Here St. John mentions the cry of thirst only The to note that its consequence, the giving of vinegar Z.^^?^ (which the other Evangehsts also record),^ was a from fulfilment of Scripture.^ He found the same sig- '^'^ ^^ nilicance in the fact that the soldiers cast lots for Jesus' cloak .^ These are superficial coincidences ; there is deeper meaning in the fact that the sacri- fice of the true Paschal Lamb was performed ac- cording to the prescription of the ancient ritual — " not a bone of it shall be broken.'''' ^ There is a mere verbal correspondence again in the pierc- ing of our Lord''s side ; ^ but in the water and the blood which flowed therefrom^ St. John discov- ered a profound emblem of the mission of the Messiah. How important this was in his regard, we see not only in the strong asseveration of verse thirty-five, but in the fact that he recurs to it again in his First Epistle.^ It was emblematical of the fact that Jesus came, not like the Baptist, with only a preparatory purification by water, but as the Messiah, " with the water and with the blood."" When St. John expressly notes the ful- filment of Zechariah's prophecy, " They shall look 1 Matt, xxvii. 48 ; Mark xv. 36 ; Luke xxiii. 36. 2 Psalm Ixix. 21. 3 John xix. 23, 24 ; Ps. xxii. 18. * John xix. 36 ; Ex. xii. 46. 5 John xix. 34, 37 ; Zech. xii. 10. 6 John xix. 34, 35. 7 1 John V. 6-9. 68 FIFTH WORD on him whom they pierced," there can be no doubt that he had in mind the passage which immediately follows it : " In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabi- tants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.*" ^ Water is the obvious and universal symbol of purification, but the deepest symbol of purifica- tion from sin is blood, and this represents the very essence of the sacrificial idea. When the Baptist discriminates his ministry from that of Jesus, and points to Mm as " the Lamb of God,"" 2 he implicitly refers to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, the prophecy of the suffering Messiah, who by his death makes atonement for the people. It was thus that Jesus came in ful- filment of prophecy ; with the water of baptism he brings also the blood of atonement and the gift of the Spirit.^ Hence the significance of the three witnesses, " the Spirit, and the water, and the blood," which agree in one witness, the wit- ness of God concerning his Son, who comes in fulfilment of prophecy.* It is thus that St. John delights to find the Scriptures confirmed by the event, the event ex- plained by the Scriptures. 1 Zech. xiii. 1. 2 John i. 29. 8 John vii. 37-39. * See my Doctrine of St. John, pp. 154, 155. CONFIRMATION 69 St. John is a pre-eminent instance of that type Symholism of mind which delights in symboUsm. All Christians are not so constituted. There has ever been a class of common-sense people who have no appreciation of the symbolical. Perhaps they have never been so numerous as to-day, and never so much inclined to condemn in others what they do not enjoy for themselves. They might justly repudiate symbolism if they were right in think- ing that it usurps the place of sober reason and argument. But, in truth, symbol, emblem, and allegory are not argument, but a play of the fancy around a fact which has already been ac- cepted with conviction. These treasures which St. John gathers upon the shore of the infinite mystery — be they pebbles or pearls — are not proof to him or to us that Jesus js the Christ; but once we have accepted him as Lord, upon deeper grounds than we can marshal before our consciousness, we too find ourselves playing like children with the trifles which suggest a greater truth than we have grasped. If not one sparrow falls without our Father, and the very hairs of our head are all numbered, the death of the Messiah must have significance in every detail — if only we could find it ! And so we build with "gold, silver, hay, stubble," while well we know that the foundation, though out of sight, is of adamant. 70 FIFTH WORD Jerjs' Yet for all this we are glad to observe that Jesus'* nroof" " °^^^ scriptural proof was of a soberer sort. His use of those passages of Scripture which directed him in life and comforted him in death is distinguished, not by ingenuity of adaptation, but by depth of insight. We have proof and example of this in the last chapter. It is true of all his interpreta- tions of Scripture. At the beginning of his min- istrv he reassured his own innate assurance of divine Sonship and Messianic vocation by appeal- ing to that part of the prophecy of Isaiah which he read in the svnacroo-ue at Nazareth and ex- presslv applied to himself: '' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor : He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives. And recovering of sight to the blind_, To set at liberty them that are bruised. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." ^ If there is any moral meaning in the ancient Scriptures, if there is any constant providence of God over the human race, if any significance in historv, this proof is cogent. To the same proof Jesus appealed again at a later period, when the Baptist, doubting in the gloom of his prison the things he had believed in the glorious 1 Luke iv. IS, 19 ; cf. Isa. Lxi. 1, 2. CONFIRMATION 71 freedom of the wilderness, sent his disciples to de- mand, " Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another ? '"' Jesus did not answer in words, but in deeds. He kept the messengers with him while " he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits ; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered and said unto them. Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard : the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And happy is he whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me." ^ It was in the Scriptures Jesus sought and found The Scrip- light upon the mystery of the suffering fate which ^^{ain^is he foresaw in the path of rectitude and duty. He death saw in every fate that might befall him his Father's will. He had taught every son of man to pray, " Father, thy will be done,"" as an expres- sion for that perfect consummation which all men must desire though they know not well what it is ; and he himself, when that good will seemed to run most counter to his own, was able to say, ^''Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.""^ His fate once recognized as the Father''s will, prompt obedience even unto death was the expres- sion of his filial consciousness ; and the darkness 1 Luke vii. 18-23. 2 Luke xxii. 42 ; cf. Matt. xxvi. 39 ; Mark xiv. 36. man 72 FIFTH WORD of that mystery was in a measure relieved by the very name which he had chosen to designate himself. " Son of From the beginning of his ministry he had called himself the Son of man. This name does not, as is commonly supposed, emphasize human- ity as expressly distinguished from divinity ; it lays no stress upon human origin, and denotes nothing incompatible with the claim to be the Son of God ; but it does indicate human weakness in contrast with the brute might of the bestial powers which rule the world, and which God de- stroys in order to raise his weak but elect instru- ment to universal dominion. This is the meaning Jesus rightly read in the seventh chapter of Daniel. Therefore the sense of his weakness produced no abatement of his confidence that God was able to perform whatsoever he purposed to do through him. As a weak instrument in God's mighty hand, he came not to wrest to himself a kingdom, but to receive it. He was the passive instrument, and it not so much signified what he might do as what might be done to him. He was thus prepared to suffer, and even to suffer death. He knew that it was not here and under earthly con- ditions that his kingdom was to be established ; but as " with the clouds of heaven, before the Ancient of Days."*"* Therefore death, as a liber- ation from earthly conditions, was a preparation CON FIRM A TION 73 for his reign. He came to do his Father's will, and in doing it he encountered a fate which, though the expression of that will, was yet con- ditioned and explained by the history of God's people and by the Scriptures which are the record of it. Therefore Jesus, no less than his disciples, was disposed to find a meaning in everything that befell him. "It cannot be,"" he said, "that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.'" ^ As he ap- proached the end, he saw in his own death and in the momentary dispersion of his disciples a fulfilment of Zechariah''s prophecy, " I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad.*" ^ When he repudiated Peter''s effort to rescue him by force, and refrained from summon- ing supernatural aid, he appealed to the Scripture in proof " that thus it must be.'''' ^ He knew that his consummate performance was, not to do, but to suffer, waiting upon God. JESUS' TEACHING CONFIRMED BY THE CROSS The Cross is the fulfilment and confii-mation of Scripture, but it also may be regarded as the confirmation of Jesus'* ow^n teaching. I am not thinking here of the words in which Jesus fore- 1 Luke xiii. 33. 2 Mark xiv. 27 ; cf. vv. 21, 49, and Matt. xxvi. 54, 5Q, 3 Matt. xxvi. 52-54. 74 FIFTH WORD Jesus as teacher told his death, but of the hard precepts which were sealed by the Cross. Here is One whom we account the chiefest teacher of mankind ; yet he himself seemed to set so small a value upon his teaching that he never wrote but once, and that was upon the ground — no man knows what he wrote. The chief thing in his estimation was, not what he said, but what he did ; rather, not what he did, but what he suffered. Yet in all this he would have men regard him as the Teacher. It was as a teacher he first gathered his disciples about him; and the sum of all that he is — from first to last, in word and deed — we justly express by the name we have given him, the Word of God. The School of Jesus preceded the Church ; but the Church is still the School of the exalted Christ. What Jesus is to us as Teacher, Ten- nyson has expressed : " And so the Word had breath and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds. In loveliness of perfect deeds. More strong than all poetic thought." Teaching Such being the character of our Teacher, we from the y^\XQY no baffling! paradox when we say that even Cross or j his wonderful words are incomplete if they stand alone, and that Jesus was never so much our Teacher as when he kept silence upon the Cross. CONFIRMATION 75 The words of Christ must not be separated from his life ; his hfe cannot be separated from his death. The teaching of Christ is Christianity ; but the teaching of Christ cannot be divorced from the Cross. The newness of Jesus' teaching first became Newness fully evident at the Cross. " Follow me,'' said Caching Jesus to those whom he chose out of the world ; but until he had descended unto death that he might ascend to glory, no man knew whither he led. In that path no teacher had led before. The hardest of Jesus' precepts, those particu- Jesus' larly which commend the non-resistance of evil, ^^^cltts are explained — and not explained away — by the o*"^ ^*^ Cross. From the line of thought we have just of conduct been following above, it is clear that these pre- cepts are the direct outcome of Jesus' inmost con- sciousness, the practical expression of his faith in God's justice and of his confidence in God's wis- dom and might. They were first of all his own rule of conduct : but he made them over unto every son of man. For whoso has this faith and maintains this confidence will not believe that God's ark is tottering, nor intrude upon his plan with the violent purposes of anger. God's plan is worked out in part by human instrumentality, and he can make even the wrath of men to serve him; but the direct and conscious instruments of his will strive not in anger but in love. Yet strive 76 FIFTH WORD they do, and with a godly violence.-^ We mis- interpret the meekness which Jesus exempHfied and inculcates when we represent it as mere pas- sivity, or as a formal compliance with a rule. To suffer and yet forego revenge is a sign of cowardice or hypocrisy, if anger is merely dissimulated, and not rather conquered by the greater violence of love. Love of We have already seen wherein consists the novelty of Jesus'* commandment to love the brethren ; but newer still is the commandment to love one''s enemies, and this, though enjoined be- fore, we see exemplified for the first time at the Cross. To turn the other cheek to the smiter, to give one''s coat to whoso takes one's cloak, — these are hard sayings ; without the meekness of love they are impossible. But this word " meekness,"'"' if we understand it aright, is only another name for love, — love in its most specifically Christian aspect. The sincerity of these precepts appears, and the hardship vanishes, when we contemplate him who, with his cloak, gave his life also, and yet loved his slayers. Jesus forgave his enemies because he loved them ; and he loved them, and could not hate, because he came expressly to serve and save them. Self- Like Peter, we are prone to ask, How many times shall I forgive a brother his petty faults, 1 Cf. 2 Tim. ii. 24 with Col. i. 29. renunci ation CONFIRMATION 77 " till seven times "' ? Jesus' word of forgiveness upon the Cross forever sets at naught such cal- culation. " Whoso renounceth not all that he hath," saith Jesus, " cannot be my disciple." ^ And at once we begin again with our mean and minimizing calculation : How much is " all " ? We receive our answer at the Cross. And in the same moment, in view of a death which ex- hibited to the utmost the vital vigor of love, we recognize the truth of the saying, " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." ^ When Jesus said, " If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me," ^ he may have had in mind some familiar proverb, or a criminal passing to his execution may have suggested and enforced the expression ; but the sober sincerity of this saying was surely never appreciated until it was remembered upon Mount Calvary. Jesus employed a more familiar figure when he Meekness enjoined his disciples to bear his "yoke," saying to all who are weary and heavy laden, " Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." * In face of the fact that Jesus calls upon us to learn meekness from him^ it is strange that we should so commonly misinter- 1 Luke xiv. 33. 2 Luke xii. 15. 3 Matt. xvi. 24. * Matt. xi. 29. 78 FIFTH WORD pret this word, treating it as equivalent to the monkish humilitas, which means lowliness in self- estimation — " with a true knowledge of one^s self to abhor one's self,'" as St. Bernard defines it. This manifestly does not hit the meaning of JesQs, and it is his meaning we must apprehend if we would have meekness untainted with hypoc- risy. With him it meant, not a lowly opinion of himself — no thinking of himself at all, but the complete abstraction of self-regard, and the assumption in actual fact of a lowly condition. " Yoke '' and " burden " are the symbols of ser- vice, and it was in the express character of a servant that Jesus appeared among men.^ Low- liness of outward estate is essential to the idea, yet it is not this alone, nor this chiefly. In so far as it involves an attitude of mind, — as St. Paul intimates that it does when he enjoins, " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,'" "^ — it is an attitude which is the genuine and spontaneous expression of one who has accepted a humble position^ the attitude of one who has re- nounced the ideal of mastery and embraced the ideal of service. The phrases which Jesus uses — " lowly in heart,"" " poor in spirit " — indicate that as an affair of the heart it must be a service voluntarily assumed or willingly endured. The word which we translate by " meekness "" is an 1 Matt. XX. 28 ; Mark x. 44 ; Luke xxii. 27 ; Phil. ii. 7. CONFIRMATION 79 Old Testament term which may equally well de- note mere poverty- It was Jesus that first raised it to an aiFair of the heart and inculcated it as a virtue. An affair of the heart it is, but not of a heart busy about its own interests, " looking to its own things, but looking to the things of others." ^ When we have rightly apprehended this conception we shall find that the apparently preposterous injunction of St. Paul, " Let each esteem others better than himself,'''' ^ is practically possible of execution. For, in reality, it proposes no critical estimate of character ; but the dutiful devotion which judgeth not^ — the attitude of the true servant towards his master. This is the newest and most distinctive feature of Jesus'* moral teaching, and again we note that it finds its ultimate test and confirmation in the Cross. No disciple could adequately conceive what the " yoke " as a symbol of service might signify, until he saw it identified with the Cross. The world^s ethical ideal at its highest is self- realization, and it is an ideal which the Christian of all men is least able to ignore, since he seeks in Jesus the Saviour of his life and finds in him the promise that he shall be blessed. Yet from the same mouth he receives the commandment of self-renunciation. Jesus had a perfect perception of the paradox which lies in this ideal of service, 1 Phil. ii. 5. 2 Phil. ii. 4. 80 FIFTH WORD and he himself has expressed it in the most abso- lute terms. When he says, " Every one that ex- alteth himself shall be humbled : and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,""^ he utters an adage which finds application and confirmation in many of the common situations of life. But when he says, " Whosoever would save his life shall lose it : and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall save it,""^ how should we believe his saying, did not the Cross witness at once to its sincerity and to its truth ? It is significant that St. Paul, who is not wont to dwell upon the personal traits of Jesus, recalls emphatically the one trait we have here been con- sidering, when he says, " I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.'" ^ The meek- ness of Jesus was manifest in the whole of his earthly life ; yet it is characteristic of St. Paul that when, as in the second chapter of Philip- pians, he discourses at length upon " this mind which was in Christ Jesus,*" he finds it supremely exhibited in the descent from heaven to earth, and finally and climactically in the Cross. Imitation It is an exceedingly striking fact that the com- mfferina ^^^^^^^ments which Jesus enjoins upon his disciples Christ as the mere condition of discipleship — not as ^ Luke xiv. 11 ; Matt, xxiii. 12. 2 Matt. xvi. 25 ; Mark viii. 35 ; Luke ix. 24. 8 2 Cor. X. 1. CONFIRMATION 81 counsels of unattainable perfection, as we are fain to regard them — are precisely those hard com- mandments which find their full exemplification only at the Cross. This agrees with the fact which we observe in the Apostolic Scriptures, that wherever we are exhorted to the imitation of Jesus, it is not in view of the human excellen- cies of his character which are most nearly level with our attainment, but in view precisely of those traits in which he transcended human limits in giving himself over unto death. Everywhere it is the death of Jesus — the Cross — which is proposed for our imitation.^ It is a wholesome example, not because it is death, but because it exhibits the utmost plenitude of life, — life flow- ing onward towards the Cross, converging upon it, — and persisting unchecked, we must beheve. This is our surest argument for life beyond death. If Jesus ever lived, he lived supremely upon the Cross ; for, with him, to live was to love. Life which exhibits in one moment such sheer abun- dance that it spills its overplus, cannot be about to cease, but to escape. To the rule that it is everywhere the sufferings of Jesus which are proposed in the Scriptures for our imitation, there is only one notable exception. That is where St. John makes use of a term so general that it covers the whole life, exhortino- us 1 Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 10. 6 82 FIFTH WORD " to walk as he walked." ^ To this St. Augustine pertinently remarks that when Christ was nailed to the Cross he still walked^ for the path in which he trod was love — ^^Jixus in cruce erat et in ipsa via amhulabat: ipsa est via caritatisr JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE — AND THE SECRET OF HIS SCEPTRE'S SWAY OVER THE HEARTS OF MEN IS HIS SUFFERING. ^ 1 John ii. 6. THE SIXTH WORD ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said: It is finished. — John xix. 30. I ACCOMPLISHMENT T would not be strange or startling if Dante Jems" joy had found in this word, " It is finished," the "J^^^T^ proof of Jesus' joy in suffering, the gladness of labor accomplished, of homesickness relieved. It is certain that St. John perceived this meaning in the saying which he alone has recorded. And we who read it are irresistibly reminded of Isaiah's prophecy, " He shall see of the travail of his soul : he shall be satisfied : by his knowledge shall my righteous servant make many righteous : and he shall bear their iniquities."' ^ The Jews and their rulers congratulated them- selves that by their subtilty and force they had cut short and ended this man's career : " Finished," replied Jesus. His work is accomplished — it is also over. For a man to say. My work is over yet incomplete, is to pronounce a curse upon his 1 Isa. liii. 11. 84 SIXTH WORD life. But Jesus knew that because his work was God's work, it could not be ended without being finished ; and the joy of accomplishment was superadded to the joy of labor done. The joy Jesus knew by faith that his task was accom- of every '^ . servant of piished, though it did not so appear to men. Goclin p^^^ ^^ ^^g j^^^ thence draw this comfort, that work done -^ ^ ' for every servant of God the end is also accom- plishment ? Though his strength be cut off in the prime, and his plans perish before they be effected, must we not believe that his service in the kingdom of God — and what else counts be- neath the Cross ? — is not merely ended but finished ? Even of the believing thief it might be said, though he might not say it of himself, that his work was finished. We are weak ; " how- beit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his." The joy of This confidence of Jesus is an example to his disciples. St. Paul, too, though he saw himself about to be cut off by a violent death, dared to affirm, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.'"* If these words match Jesus' consciousness of duty done, the next words of glad anticipation reflect his joy in the confidence of reward, having also the same basis in the consciousness of moral in- tegrity conjoined with faith in God's righteous- ness: " Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 85 of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day, — and not only to me, but also to all them that love his appearing."'^ St. Paul is very bold in drawing the parallel between his experience and that of Christ. He even suggests that there is a sense in which we may say that Christ's sacrifice was not the last and only offering for sin. For he says, " Now I rejoice in my sufferings, for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh, for his body''s sake, which is the Church."' ^ And in the context of the passage we have just quoted, he says, " I am already being offered — poured out as a drink-offering." ^ St. Paul dares to speak thus because he accepted in earnest the Cross as the symbol of discipleship, — and by the same token he could count upon the Crown. St. Paul is not the only disciple that has dared, and rightly dared, to use such words. We may not all dare to count so confidently upon the Crown, nor with such assurance to reckon our work accomplished, — too much bowed down by the conviction of failure, by the thought of service so late commenced, so faintly prosecuted. We repeat the words of the Psalmist as our own heart- felt cry, 1 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. - Col. i. 94. 3 2 Tim. iv. 6. 86 SIXTH WORD " O Lord, establish thou the work of our hands upon us ; O prosper, thou, our handy- work." Nevertheless, when we see our work tested as by fire and consumed, we may still comfort our- selves with the thought that man's failure may be God's accomplishment. DUTY Accom- We cannot use the word " finished " or " accom- ^m^Zr* plished " except in relation to a definite task. A duty task which is imposed by authority is a duty, and the joy of accomplishment is the joy of duty done. This word, therefore, of Jesus implies that he regarded his whole life, and particularly his suf- fering and death, under the aspect of duty. The sternness of duty, Jesus felt as few men have ; and because he never had to suffer remorse for a duty shunned, he experienced in full measure the joy of duty done. The joy of Jesus may be expressed, like that of any other man, in the words of Wordsworth in his Ode to Duty : " Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace ; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face." Jesus' It is exceedingly necessary for us to note what dut^^"^ place duty held in Jesus' consciousness. Our ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 87 modern age, by ignoring the most palpable facts of the Gospel record, has succeeded in eliminating this stern feature from the popular picture of Jesus. Our popular art, popular religion, and even the popular theology depict exclusively the soft traits of tender-hearted sympathy and weak concession. Other ages have preferred their own partial and unbalanced picture of Christ — as the impassible monarch, as the vindictive judge, as the excruciated victim ; — but perhaps no other has done graver damage to the majesty of his character. The revival in modern times of the Good Shep- The senti- 11 1 J.1 '1 ^•n mental nerd as a popular theme ni art exemplines our picture sentimental notion of Christ. For what we ex- of Jems clusively dwell upon is the pitifulness of the Shepherd, who leaves the whole flock to seek the one sheep that has gone astray. We ignore the wealthier range of pastoral symbolism which appears in the Scripture and in early Christian art. The question may well be raised whether such a shepherd as we depict would dare attack the wolf; whether he is mighty enough to rescue the soul " in the valley of the shadow of death.'*'' This is merely one example among many, — only a straw, but it shows the direction of the wind.^ If men are able to disregard the stern quality Sin of duty in our Lord'*s own consciousness, it is 1 See my Monuments of the Early Chim'ch^ pp. 214 sqq. 88 SIXTH WORD not strange that they hsten only to his gracious promises, and hear no longer the sterner note of his commandments, — the most exacting any teacher ever uttered. Knowing themselves no rule of duty, they know no sin ; and having in- terpreted the Father by their estimate of the Son, they have no fear of God before their eyes. This is the tendency of our whole modern age. It is the tendency which Heine satirized from his " mat- tress-grave,''"' when he replied to those who asked him if he hoped in God's forgiveness, " Oh, he 11 forgive me : that 's what he 's for — c'est son metier.'''' Tempta- One who swims with the current cannot know its force : one who knows not the good will of God opposing his human will has no experience of the imperative of conscience. Conversely, that man, if such there be, who knows the will of God, yet feels within himself no prompting to oppose it, can have no sense of the compulsion of duty. This is true also of Jesus. Those who, with ex- cess of zeal to guard the sinlessness of Jesus, scruple even to admit the reality of his tempta- tion, succeed only in depriving him of an essential human experience, — essential most of all to the Saviour of men. The sinlessness of Jesus is a dogma of our faith, and it is attested by Jesus'* own words in the Gospel.^ But the same Gospels 1 John viii. 46. Hon ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 89 also attest the reality of his temptation, and that in a story which they must have derived from Jesus himself.^ The Temptation of Jesus, which is related immediately after the story of his baptism, depicts in symbolical language a triple experience of the prompting of individual desire which was the direct outcome of the recognition of his Messianic vocation. The essential fact is that Jesus overcame temptation ; and it is signifi- cant that he overcame by appealing to the rule of duty which he found in the Scripture, reply- ing to every prompting of the Tempter, " It is written/"' This was doubtless not the only temptation he encountered as a man, nor was it the last or bitterest of the Christ. Recog- nizing the reality of Jesus' temptation, we know that " we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all points in the very same way without sin^ ^ Jesus knew sin by conflict with it ; and by conflict and victory he knew it better than any man can know it by conflict and defeat. Jesus feared God. We can say this in the full Jems' fear sense of the scriptural term. For, at its highest, ^^ fear is not the opposite and exclusive contrary of love. We may rather say that " the fear of 1 Matt. iv. 1-11 ; Luke iv. 1-13. 2 Heb. iv. 15. 90 SIXTH WORD God" is the closest Old Testament parallel to the New Testament conception of "the love of God'' and "faith in God.'' ^ Jesus feared God too much to blench from the perfect line of rectitude. The fearfulness of duty was at once his guide and his defence. The fear of God is the inevitable experience of conscience : it is a slavish fear when we hate the authority we are obliged to recognize ; it is a filial fear when we love it and even in our disobedience com- mend it. To put away from us fear is not to gain in courage, but to cast away our armor through temerity. Jesus feared God, and he expressly inculcated this fear in his disciples. He means, evidently, not mere awe, but genuine fear, when he says, " Be not afraid of them which kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall fear : Fear him who after he hath killed the body hath power to cast into hell ; yea, I say unto you. Fear him."^ This is a wholesome fear, and it excludes every worldly fear which perturbs our peace and frustrates our en- deavors. Hence there is no real contradiction in the commandment which Jesus subjoins : " Fear wo^." ^ This last is an injunction which admits of 1 Deut. X. 12. 2 Luke xii. 4, 5 ; cf. Matt. x. 28. * Luke xii. 7. ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 91 but one exception. The fear of God makes us bold. When we recognize our wayward helpless- ness and cast ourselves trustfully upon the inti- mate, personal care of our heavenly Father, the changes and chances of this mortal life frighten us no more. When we are freed from the innumer- able fears which it is the whole province of worldly prudence to guard against, we find the true guid- ing principle of life in the fear of God. The sense of duty, of obligation to do the right Conscience whatever befall, is the only possible P-uide of life. ^^^ o»^y ^ ^ . puide of God may be guided by wisdom and prudence, for life he sees the whole : but for us who see but in part, the only wisdom and prudence is to ignore the specious guidance of profit and expediency, and follow in the straight path of rectitude. We believe in God's providence in the universe, and as a part of this faith we believe that to do the right is to fulfil God's will and to conform to his plan. But from the point of view from which man must regard the universe it exhibits no plan which he can surely trace : it appears rather as a boundless intricacy. It is astonishing that in this maze we should so commonly take for our guide the wisdom of the understanding, when by wisdom we cannot compute the remote conse- quences of any act, and by the most far-sighted prudence cannot be assured of attaining even our own temporal profit. In our faith in God we 92 SIXTH WORD have the assurance that the right is also the good, — for us and for all. This is the conclusion of the wisdom of the Preacher : " Fear God and keep his commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man." ^ And Job likewise, after the most impres- sive discourse upon God's wisdom in the ordering of the universe, makes a sudden transition to the one way of practical wisdom which is obvious to man : "And unto man he said^ Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; And to depart from evil is understanding." ^ Jesus our Jesus walked as the example of men ; and there- tnthepath ^"^^^ ^^ walked in man's path and under human of duty limitations: the wisdom which guided him was not the all-seeing wisdom of God, infallible in its calculation of expediency ; but the practical reason with its sure j udgment of right. This light which sheds its narrow beams only upon our immediate pathway is yet the only light man has for his practical guidance ; and it is of this Jesus ex- claims, " If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness ! " ^ The temptations which are related of Jesus are such as could influence only a noble mind. To 1 Eccles. xii. 13 ; cf. Pro v. ix. 10. 2 Job xxviii. 28. 3 Matt. vi. 23 ; cf. Luke xi. 35. ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 93 turn stones into bread, to grasp earthly dominion, to claim supernatural protection, — these do not represent the temptations of selfish lust (the lust of appetite, the lust of conquest, the lust of power) : they were the temptations of the Mes- siah, temptations to attain the end of God*'s evi- dent purpose by diverging from the sober road of right into a plausible short-cut of expediency which promised a swifter issue. No one was ever more tempted to fulfil a lofty aim by means — not illegal, but aside from the plain path of duty : no one ever more resolutely refused to leave that sober path. Therefore Jesus, for all his zeal and enthusiasm in a high cause, cannot justly be reck- oned among zealots and enthusiasts. He is the more perfectly our example because he displays the simplicity and power of a life led according to the rule of duty. He is supremely our example in his death because that was the culmination of a dutiful life. It was because of Jesus' own solemn regard for The duty that he could impose upon his disciples the ^qT-12^ most uncompromising and exacting command- i^r^ce^*^* ments. He imposed upon them even his Cross ; hy 1m ov^n and the Cross is the very symbol of duty. The ^^.'/"•^f^/o^ Cross excludes every precept of expediency, — even the obvious expediency of saving oner's life. The paradox which Jesus expresses in word and deed is an absolute one : it is denied, not explained, by 94 SIXTH WORD those who resolve it into a far-sighted rule of pru- dence, which counsels us to exchange gladly the temporal life for life eternal. To seek one"'s own life, the salvation of one"'s soul, even in the high- est sense, Jesus forbids ; — and yet life is what he promises. This riddle cannot be solved by any effort of the understanding. How, we may ask, can the individual come to mighty self-realization by the suppression of all claims of self? How can he attain the goal of his own life by self- abnegation, by the renunciation of an independent life aim directed to the perfection of his ego^ by ignoring all that contributes to his personal satis- faction, and by making himself merely a service- able instrument for the development of others ? But in our experience this inconceivable becomes the actual. It is realized in the man whom the personal life of Jesus takes captive. Jesus woos us to a willing service, since we see in him the one who is alone worthy to rule and who yet takes upon himself service as his distinctive mark. When his might over us creates the willingness to serve and the power to serve, we have then attained what by no decision of self-interested prudence, and by no concern about ourselves and all that we find within ourselves, is ever attainable.^ 1 See W. Herrmann, article Demut, in Herzog's Real- encyklopddie, 3d ed. , vol. iv. pp. 571 sqq. ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 95 Jesus' repudiation of formalism did not mean Jems' emancipation from the law of duty — either for ^^ahteous- himself or for his disciples. In receiving the ness baptism of John he declared, " It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,"" ^ — meaning thereby the formal prescriptions of piety, even where they were not defined by the Scriptures. We have to note that Jesus expresses his thought, not in the terms of conscience and duty, which are familiar to us, but in the equivalent Hebrew terms of law and righteousness. He says, " Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.""*^ He claimed to give a purer conception of the law of righteous- ness, but not one which was less genuinely derived from the Scriptures. He repudiated the right- eousness which was done in selfish expectation of reward, teaching us rather to say, when we have done all that is commanded of us, " We are unprofitable servants ; we have done that which it was our duty to do."^ But he re- gards the filial duty of a son of God as, not less, but more exacting than the servile perform- ance of the hireling : " Except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."' ^ 1 Matt. iii. 15. 2 Matt. v. 17. 8 Luke xvii. 10. ^ Matt. v. 20. 96 SIXTH WORD Right- To express his broader and profounder concep- is the per- ^^^" ^^ ^^^ 1^^^? Jesus preferred to use the phrase formance « God's will." The will of God, however it miffht of Gods , . 1 • 1 1 yjill be ascertained, was his absolute rule of duty. How conformable his will was to the will of God, we learn from such a saying as, " My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accom- phsh his work.^'i And yet, even in this same Gospel of St. John, we see Jesus' will contrasted with the Father's will : " For I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.'' ^ When Jesus says, " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished !" ^ we see how stern a conflict he had with his own will in view of the supreme duty of death. His willing- ness to die is expressed as a conquest of his own will, when he prays, " Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me : nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."* The Cross The Cross, which is the witness of Jesus' sublime symbol sense of duty, is the highest symbol of obedience of duty and duty foi' us. The Epistle to the Hebrews says, " Though he was a son, yet learned he obedience through the things which he suffered ; and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salva- 1 John iv. 34. 2 John vi. 38 ; cf. v. 30. 3 Luke xii. 50. * Luke xxii. 42 ; cf. Heb. v. 7-9. ACCOMPLISHMENT AND DUTY 97 tion.'" ^ The will of God, which Jesus accepted as his rule, he enjoins upon his disciples as the only criterion of conduct, and as the condition of entrance into the kingdom.^ This thought is so essential that he incorporates it in the formula which his disciples were constantly to repeat, the words which he taught them for a pattern of prayer and for the regulation of desire. When we pray, " Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,"'"' it is normally the expression of our ardent desire ; for to our faith the will of God represents the utmost conceivable blessedness for us and for all. This marks the height of our attainment. But progress in this direction is conditioned by the fact that in our human experience the will of God is constantly making itself felt as duty^ by opposing our will and spurring us onward. Though the Cross has been sealed upon our fore- head in baptism, though we have voluntarily embraced it in our mature confession of Christ, it is ever asserting itself anew as a cross — that is, as an instrument of torture and death — when we are most sure that it is our sign of triumph. It is so very hard to be a Christian, because at each step in the path of duty we meet a new test, " And where we looked for crowns to fall. We find the tug 's to come, — that 's all." 1 Heb. V. 8, 9. 2 Matt vii. 21. 98 SIXTH WORD We can often say, " Thy will be done," as a genuine expression of our desire ; but in the ex- perience of a life of duty there must come black moments when our utmost is to say, '^Neverthe- less not my will, but thine, be done."" That, how- ever, is victory. The path of perfection is paved by the conquest of desire. JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE — AND HE JUSTIFIES HIS RULE BY HIS OWN ROYAL REGARD FOR DUTY. THE SEVENTH WORD FILIAL TRUST And when Jesus had cried with a loud voices he said. Father, into thy hands i commend my spirit : and hav- ing said this, he gave up the ghost. Luke xxiii. 46, quoted from Ps. xxxi. 3. TRUST IN GOD WE are struck at once by the contrast between the fiHal confidence of this word and the despairing note of the cry, " Why hast thou forsaken me ? " There needs no subtilty of exegesis to detect here the joy of trustful repose upon the goodness of God, the Son's confidence in the Father's care. It is remarkable, in both these cases, that the Jesus' T. . 1 1 • 1 • If familiar- unpremeditated cry which is wrung irom our ^- ^^^J^ Lord's lips is expressed in the language of the ^^^ ^crip- Psalter. This shows not only Jesus' familiarity with the Scriptures, which he accounted as his daily bread ; ^ it proves, further, the enduring worth of the Old Testament, and especially the Psalter, as an expression of the religious nature 1 See Matt. iv. 4 ; cf. Deut. viii. 3. 100 SEVENTH WORD New meaning in old loords Thefirst Christian death of man, — his God ward consciousness at its highest. Yet it justifies, too, our instinctive tendency to put into the old words a new and distinctively Christian meaning. We cannot in every place apply the parable of the old bottles which are unserviceable for the new wine. For here Jesus fills the old expression with a totally new significance, undreamt of by the Psalmist. It was a triumph of faith in the Psalmist to commend his spirit to God in the trust that he would save him from death ; but Jesus, in the very moment of death, triumphed in the assurance that God could save him through death. Yet the old words sufficed to express this new hope. I have said in another connection, in view of Jesus'* feeling of desertion, that his death was hardly an example of Christian dying. AVe may say now, in view of his last word from the Cross, that his was the first Christian death. This cry of Jesus has been echoed again and again by gen- erations of disciples who have lived and died in him. The new meaning which Jesus attached to these words was expressed more plainly by the martyr Stephen, — the first to suffer in his name, — who cried out to him who had gone before to show the way and to prepare a place, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'' ^ The belief that God will 1 Acts vii. 59. FILIAL TRUST 101 receive the spirit at death, that to be away frbm the home of the body is to be at home with the Lord,^ has become so much a commonplace of Christian thought that we hardly detect the new- ness of this hope in Jesus' utterance, and scarcely can credit the fact that the Old Testament saints lacked this assurance of faith. It is exceedingly difficult to state accurately The Old the attitude of a pious Israelite towards the ques- l^^lh^^^ tion of life after death. It is even difficult for ^op^ of us to realize that such a hope constituted no part ^taU^~ of his faith in God. It is certain that the Old Testament formulated no desirable picture of life beyond the grave, and that the Old Testament saints cherished no lucid hope of personal immor- tality. Their personality was merged in the family and the nation ; in his posterity the individual survived. And yet — the hope of eternal life was logically justified by their faith in God, as a righteous God ; and this logical corollary of their faith was finally apprehended. Belief in the righteousness of God is the back- Faith in bone of the Bible : it is the constant factor which riffhteous- unifies the development from the Old Testament ness to the New, and unites both as an organic wliole. If God is righteous and omnipotent, righteous men must be adequately rewarded, and the wicked condignly punished. The Old Testament believer 1 2 Cor. V. 6-9. 102 SEVENTH WORD affirmed that this righteous equivalence is a fact, taking merely the earthly life into account as the sphere of God^s judgment. Manifestly, it is the rule in the moral government of the world ; but, manifestly, there are many exceptions, — and the absolute righteousness of God can endure no exception. The pious Israelite of the calamitous days of the later kingdom and the exile was con- stantly preoccupied by this problem of reward. This is the theme of the Book of Job ; and no- where is the inadequacy of the dogmatic solution more mercilessly revealed. It might do for Job's friends to deny the difficulty by affirming that if Job is unfortunate, he must be wicked ; but for the afflicted man who is conscious of his own in- tegrity there is no such escape. Again and again there rose to the lips of persecuted saints a cry which was almost a profession of faith in a future life in which God's righteousness would be fully vindicated. So Job cried : « But I know that my vindicator liveth, And that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth ; And after my skin hath been thus destroyed. Yet from my flesh shall I see God : Whom I shall see for myself. And mine eyes shall behold, and not another." ^ 1 Job xix. 25-27. FILIAL TRUST 103 Though this may not mean precisely what we have been accustomed to suppose, it has a right to its place in our Burial Office ; for it is the seed of the later hope of a life beyond the grave. Such a hope as this emerges frequently, as an Belief in expression of personal experience, in the Psalter ; Q^friqSu- and in the days of public calamity, when the eousness nation itself was regarded as the persecuted and afflicted servant of Jehovah, this problem of re- ward pressed upon the prophets with still greater severity. What, it was asked finally, — what if righteousness demand the sacrifice of life it- self ? Where then can be the rew^ard — this side the grave ? Isaiah answers : " Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the proud ; because he poured out his soul unto death."'"' ^ The word " thei'efore "'"' (and " because "''') has all the force of man's faith in God's righteousness. What- ever may be the meaning of these words as Isaiah uttered them, they have justly been ap- plied to Christ ; and there can be no doubt that in the logic of this illative particle he found strong comfort as he poured out his soul unto death. Jesus'' faith in the righteousness of God implied reward for duty done, either here — or hereafter. 1 Isa. liii. 12. 104 SEVENTH WORD THE FATHER Trust in But it was not upon God's righteousness alone Father that Jesus reHed : his confidence was founded far more upon his intimate, personal relation to God as Father. This word, " Father," is not found in the Psalm from which Jesus borrowed the words of his last cry from the Cross. It is a significant addition, for it transforms the expression into one oi Jilial confidence. Old and Here again we find in Jesus' teaching a feature li^ion of which was old and yet new. God is sometimes the divine spoken of in the Old Testament as the Father of hood the nation collectively ; and later Jewish usage, particularly in the time of our Lord, employed this title not infrequently with a more individual reference. The m-owth of this usas^e in favor of the title "heavenly Father" is accounted for, first of all, by the disposition to avoid the utterance of the express names of God. This in turn was a consequence of an increasing emphasis in later Judaism upon the awful transcendence of the Deity. In dread reverence for God, his name was replaced in common use by a periphrasis : he was described as " the Highest," ^ " the Blessed," " the Power," ^ or as " the Father in heaven."" Jesus himself observed this scruple — perhaps 1 Mark v. T. 2 Mark xiv. 61, 62. FILIAL TRUST 105 more consistently than our Greek Gospels seem to indicate. But the fact that before all other names of God he preferred this last designation, and employed it with a frequency unparalleled in Jewish literature, is significant of the new concep- tion of God which he possessed and endeavored to impart to his disciples. An exclusive emphasis upon the transcendence of God was matched and balanced by a name which drew him as Father close to his children. Jesus appropriated this name, and filled it with a richer content. Old as this name was, Jesus made it the symbol of all that was most original in his contribution to the religious consciousness of mankind : it is the sum- mary of all that he had to teach about God. Jesus' doctrine of the divine fatherhood was not Jesm'' V J r^ J-) L' 'i. • 4.* doctrine based upon God s activity m creation or upon any ^j^^ rekec- aboriginal relation between God and man. This Hon of his was substantially the pagan notion, to which St. Paul did not hesitate to appeal in preaching to the Athenians : " ' For we are also his offspring,' as certain even of your own poets have said."" ^ It is true that Jesus interpreted the fatherhood of God in the most universal sense, affirming that his loving care was shown towards all his creatures, his fatherly love towards all men, bad men as well as good : '* for your Father in heaven maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and 1 Acts xvii. 28. 106 SEVENTH WORD sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.""^ But at this universal conception of God's fatherly goodness Jesus had arrived through the most intimate and personal experience of God as his Father. '• My It appears that the Gospel of St. Matthew and "^our ^^^^st correctly reflects the usage of Jesus, repre- Fathe'r" sen ting that, except in direct address to God, he never used the term "Father " without the adjunct "in heaven,'' and that in prayer he addressed God as "w?/ Father."^ It is clear from all the Gospels that he never so associated himself with his disciples as to speak of God as our Father. This phrase occurs in the prayer which he taught his disciples to make, but which he did not make in common with them. Substantially, St. John interprets aright the significance of Jesus' use of the possessive pronoun, when he represents that throughout his ministry Jesus spoke of God as "w?/ Father," and that only at the end, when he had magnified to the utmost the reality and in- timacy of this relationship, did he make it over to his disciples as their own possession, saying, " I ascend unto vii/ Father and ijour Father, and mi/ God and 7/our God."^ 1 Matt. V. 45. 2 For the proof of this, which is too intricate to give here, see Dalman, Die Worte Jesu^ pp. 155 sqq. 2 John XX. 17. FILIAL TRUST 107 That cry of Jesus from the Cross, " My God, " Abba my God,'' was not more intimate in its personal appropriation of God than the address " My Father," or simply "Father."" There was some- thing so impressive in Jesus' use of this name that the word has been preserved, even by the Greek- speaking Church, in the language in which Jesus uttered it, — as in the case of the cry, "Eli, Eli" and the "Amen" (unfortunately in our English version translated by " verily " ) which Jesus used, in a fashion peculiar to himself, as an introduction to his solemn assertions. In the form " abha " the definite article is joined to the Aramaic word for " father " : it means strictly " the father," but was commonly used also in a possessive sense, as equiva- lent to " my (or our) father." This word may owe its survival in Christian use to the fact that it was the first word of the prayer which our Lord taught his disciples — " Our Father " ; ^ and St. Paul may have had this prayer in mind in the two passages where he cites this name as a symbol of the spirit of adoption : " Because ye are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." ^ But it is also recorded as the first word of our Lord's own prayer in the garden, when he bowed his will 1 It could be rendered either by " Father," as we have it in Luke xi. 2, or " Our Father," as in Matt. vi. 9. 2 Gal. iv. 6 ; cf. Rom. viii. 15. 108 SEVENTH WORD to the will of his Father ; ^ and there can be no doubt that what made this word so memorable was Jesus' own utterance of it. This word which he uttered finally upon the Cross is the surest token of his filial confidence in the moment of death. Parables Jesus employed several parables to illustrate hood ^^ the fatherhood of God. Fundamental to them all is the notion, not that God is to be con- ceived after the image of man, but that human perfections are a faint reflection of the divine.^ Or, as St. Paul says, substantially: The divine fatherhood is the aboriginal fatherhood after which every fatherhood on earth is patterned.^ We know Parables might faintly illustrate what God is Father of ^^ Father ; but Jesus' own relation to God was the Son the conclusive testimony and proof of the divine fatherhood. Jesus was conscious of a unique and incomparable relation to God. How he attained that consciousness, the Gospels give us no hint. Rather we must say that they represent him as one who, like a child, growing up with a serene consciousness of a father's presence and loving care, cannot point to a time when he first knew his parent. All that was unique in his conscious- ness of essential sonship Jesus jealously guarded as his own ; but his consciousness of the universal fatherhood of God he communicated to his dis- 1 Mark xiv. 36. 2 Matt. vii. 11. » Eph. iii. 15. FILIAL TRUST 109 ciples. He said, " My Father *" ; he said also, "Your Father"''': but he never put himself upon the same plane with his disciples by the use of such a phrase as " our Father.'"' The Church has always recognized that the knowledge of God as Father, and access to this Father-God, has been attained through Jesus Christ. Hence the dis- tinctive Christian name for God is not "our Father," simply ; but " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."^ SONSHIP Jesus appeared among men as the Son of God Jesus' con- in a unique sense. It is true that he never ex- ofsomhip pressly applied to himself this name, — as he never expressly called himself the Christ. His self-chosen appellation was " the Son of man."" But for all that, his claim is none the less clear and certain. His consciousness of exclusive and privileged son- ship is expressed, as we have already had occasion to note, by the way in which he speaks of God as " my father."" Other traits in the Gospels which cannot be so briefly adduced concur in proving that this was the fundamental factor in his Mes- sianic consciousness. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God in an ex- Jesus the elusive sense. He did not seek to impart to his ^/^SAijo disciples all that he was conscious of being and 1 Rom. XV. 6 ; 2 Cor. i. 3 ; 1 Pet. i. 3 ; cf. Rev. i. 6. 110 SEVENTH WORD possessing as the Son of God. Yet he taught them to look to God as their Father, and to behave themselves in a way befitting God's sons. Hence his own relation to God, unique as it is, illustrates the religious and moral relation of every son to his heavenly Father. What it is to be a son, in the perfection of likeness and love, Jesus would have his disciples learn in his person ; and the disciples, having come to know sonship in its highest instance, were not disposed to dwell upon the lowest relations to which this concep- tion might be applied. Sonship a It seems perfectly logical to say that because p7^iieffe ^^^ ^^ to be regarded as the Father of all men, therefore all men indiscriminately are his sons ; — but it would be a perfectly perverse use of logic. For it is a fact that in the New Testament the notion of sonship expresses the exalted privilege of membership in the kingdom of God. Love is substantially what is expressed by the name "father''; and because God's love is universal, he may be called the Father of all men. On the other hand, the name "son" is meant to express something more than the mere fact that one has a father. In the notion of sonship there is im- plied (far more stringently to the Hebrew than to us) likeness and obedience, as well as privilege. Moral likeness to God and obedience to him are proofs of sonship and conditions of its privilege. FILIAL TRUST 111 It is manifest that all do not fulfil these condi- tions and attain this status. It is true that the parable of the prodigal son, if its allegorical interpretation is to be pressed in detail, implies that a sinner remains a son even in his estrangement from God. We must remember, however, that we are here dealing with figurative language, and must endeavor to avoid the logom- achy into which men commonly fall in debating this subject. There can be no doubt that the express point of this parable is the proof of God's fatherly love towards even the sinner in his es- trangement. But if there is any significance at all in the usage of words, it is important here to observe that Jesus does not use the term " son of God" to describe the common status of men, but to indicate the acme of religious attainment and privilege. It is certain that he did not regard the sum of all the benefits he brought to men as a mere restitution of an original status which had been lost through sin. He brought men into a new relation to God, and for this relation sonship is a summary expression. When St. John regards divine sonship as conditioned by a new birth, he rightly interprets the newness of the i-elationship and its peculiar privilege, as St. Paul does also by the notion of " adoption." The fact is that the name "son of God" expresses a degree of perfection which is unattainable even to Christ's disciples 112 SEVENTH WORD under earthly conditions, and can be realized, like the perfected kingdom, only in the coming age. A heavenly perfection is expected of God's sons which they can in part realize in this world ; ^ but only in the resurrection does their state completely match their name. Divine sonship appears as the supreme and final attainment of man, in the strik- ing passage where Jesus says of those that " are accounted worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead,'' that " they are equal unto the angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection .'" ^ Parables The relation between father and son which is exhibited in the human family afforded Jesus a many-sided parable, which he applied in various ways. He used it to illustrate the universal love of God in the reception of repentant sinners,^ or his particular care for those who call upon him in filial confidence ; ^ or, again, to define the behavior of genuine sons.^ But he employed it also to ex- plain the peculiar relation which subsists between the heavenly Father and himself as the only Son. It is as a parable we must understand Jesus' words in Matt. xi. 27, where he says, "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father : and no 1 Matt. V. 45-48 2 Luke xx. 36. 8 Luke XV. 11-32. * Matt. vii. 9-11 ; Luke xi. 11-13. 6 Matt. xxi. 28-31. FILIAL TRUST 113 one knoweth the son, save the father ; neither doth any know the father, save the son, and he to whomsoever the son willeth to reveal him." The exclusive intimacy which exists between a father and a son, and between a son and a father, explains the unique position of Jesus as the only possible mediator of a true knowledge of God.^ Both in form and content this passage is closely akin to many of the characteristic utterances re- corded in the Fourth Gospel. But there "the Father " is no longer a parabolic expression ; it has become a fixed title for God, as he is known, first of all, in his relation to " the only begotten Son," and then through him, the Revealer, is apprehended as Father by all who are born from above. How Jesus understood the peculiar privilege of sonship which he claimed for himself, one may learn more clearly from the parable of the wicked husbandmen.2 The notion of sonship here emerges in a new and distinctive form, when the lord of the vineyard sends his " son," who is sharply dis- tinguished from the " servants," and recognized as " the heir," to whom reverence and rule are due by natural right. While the narrative in St. Matthew's Gospel has simply the expression " my son," St. Luke says, " my beloved son," and St. 1 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, pp. 231 sq. 2 Matt. xxi. 33-45 ; Mark xii. 1-12 ; Luke xx. 9-19. 8 . 114 SEVENTH WORD Mark has the more pointed and probable phrase, " he had one left, a beloved son." This phrase precisely matches in meaning '* the only begotten Son,''"' which was a favorite term with St. John.^ Both expressions denote the rightful authority of the only Son to rule in God's kingdom. This reflects the prophecy of Psalm ii. 6-9, — the text which first gave currency to the name " Son of God"'' as a Messianic title. But in Jesus'* use of it the name " Son" has become more than a mere figure of speech ; it denotes a substantial and natural relationship. As the Son of God, Jesus felt him- self called to a universal dominion ; not such dominion, however, as a fortunate Jewish general might acquire, but such as God himself exercises. Jesus" con- Such is the lofty consciousness which is implied ofsonskip hi Jesus"' last word from the Cross. He never was iwon the ^^ clear in his claim of roval authority as when Cross ^ -^ *' he approached his death. He faced death's last moment calling upon God as Father, and commit- ting confidently to his keeping, not only his per- sonal existence, but his royal rights as Son. JESUS REIGNS FROM THE TREE — AND THOUGH HIS RULE BE IGNORED OR REJECTED, HE REIGNS NEVERTHELESS BY RIGHT DIVINE AS SON. 1 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 230. INDEX OF NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGES Matthew Page Matthew Page iii. 15 95 xvii. 17 49 iv. 1-11 89 xviii. 6-14 28 4 99 14 27 10 34 XX. 28 78 19 24 xxi 28-31 112 V. 17-20 95 33-45 113 44, 45 18 xxii. 32 53 45 106 37-39 37 44-48 44, 112 xxiii. 12 80 vi. 9 107 XX vi. 28 63 23 92 39 71 24 34 48 67 vii. 9-11 112 52-56 73 11 108 63 13 20 41 Mark 21 97 i. 17 24 21, 22 41 22 33 X. 28 90 35-38 25 32 sqq. 34 ii. 4,5 22 36,37 41 12 33 xi. 6 31 iii. 33-35 41 29 77 iv. 41 33 xii. 12 27 V. 7 104 32 16 15, 17, 33 33 48-50 41 vi. 50 33 xiv. 26 sq. 33 vii. 37 33 xvi. 6 33 viii. 35 80 24 77 35 sqq. 34 25 80 ix. 19 49 28 14 X. 26, 32 33 116 INDEX Mark Page Luke Page X. 45 78 xiv. 33 77 xi. 18 33 XV. 28 32 33 11-32 112 xii. 1-12 113 xvii. 10 95 26, 27 53 21 22 30, 31 37 XX. 9-19 113 xiv. 22, 24 63 18 31 21, 27, 29 73 34-36 44 36 71, 108 36 112 61 13 37,38 53 61, 62 104 xxii. 20 63 XV. 32 20 27 78 36 67 42 67-69 71, 96 13 Luke xxiii. 34 9 ii. 9 sqq. 33 36 67 34, 35 31 39-43 20 49 40 46 99 iv. 1-13 89 xxiv. 21 2 18, 19 70 V. 8 33 John 10 24 i. 29 68 vi. 36 19 iii. 17 30 vii. 16 33 iv. 31-34 26 18- 23 71 34 96 50 23 35 25 ix. 24 80 vi. 30, 38 96 41 49 vii. 37-39 68 58- 60 41 viii. 46 88 xi. 2 107 ix. 39 30 11- 13 112 X. 1-16 24 29- 32 17 xii. 33 13 35 92 xiii. 31 8 xii. 4, I. », T 90 34 37 10 16 xiv. 28 48 15 77 XV. 4, 5 21 50 96 13 38 xiii. 33 77 xvii. 23 21 xiv. 11 80 37 11 INDEX 117 John Page Philippians Page xviii. 37 25 ii. 4, 5 79 xix. 23, 24 67 7 78 28 QQ 30 49,83 COLOSSIANS 34-37 67 i. 24 29 85 XX. 16, 17 3 76 17 106 ii. 15 12 25 2 2 Timothy Acts ii. 24 76 vi. 60 19 iv. 6-8 85 vii. 59 100 xvii. 28 105 Hebrews iv. 15 89 Romans V. 7, 9 96 i. 18, 24, 25 32 8,9 97 V. 10 61 xii. 2 50 viii. 15 44, 107 xiii. 20 24 32 60 34 1 1 Peter xi. 12, 15, 24 17 i. 3 109 XV. 6 109 ii. 4-8 31 21-23 18 2 Corinthians 25 24 i. 3 109 iii. 17, 18 21 1 John 18 2 ii. 2 61, 63 iv. 10 81 6 82 V. 6-8 21 7,8 37 6-9 101 iv. 10 61 18-20 61 V. 6-9 67 X. 1 80 16 16 Galatians iv. 6 107 2 John 5 37 Ephesians iii. 15 44, 108 Revelation iv. 10 4 i. 6 109 The Church and its Organization An Interpretation of Rudolph Sohm's Kirchenrecht THE PRIMITIVE AGE By the Rev. WALTER LOWRIE, M.A. (Princeton) Sometime Fellow of Princeton Theological Seminary ; Assistant Minister at Emmanuel Church, Boston ; Author of " The Doctrine of St. John," "Gaudium Crucis," etc. 8vo, pp. xxviMOZ. Price $3.50 net. By mail, $3.70 Contents: I. Introduction. —i. Denominational Con- troversy about the Ministry a Question of Form. — 2. Legalised Christianity. — 3. No Catholic Controversy about the Form of the Ministry. — 4. Reformation Principles. — 5. Denominational Controversy. — 6. Modern Study. — IL The Idea of the Church.— 7. Significance of the Name Ecclesia. — 8. Jesus' Use of the Word Church.— 9. The Apostolic Notion of the Church. — 10. The Idea of Church Organisation. — 11. Signifi- cance of Order and Custom in the Church. — III. The Assem- bly FOR Instruction, — 12. Of Church Assemblies in Gen- eral. — 13. Conduct of the Assembly. — 14, Prayer and Praise. — 15. The Gift of Teaching. — 16. The Teaching Office. — 17. The Teachers and the Assembly.— 18. Election and Ordination. — IV. The Eucharistic Assembly. — 19. The Eucharist, its Significance for Church Order and Organisation. — -20. Church Property. — 21. Bishops.— 22. Deacons. — 23. Presbyters. "... it is without question one of the best studies in Chris- tian origins yet made by any American writer." — The Living Church. "... It is a work that demands respectful attention, it is the result of much study, it is written in a calm and quiet spirit, and while we differ from the conclusions the author has arrived at, in some cases, yet we admit that whatever he says is not said rashly or unadvisedly. . . ." — Church Eclectic. " ... a good piece of investigative work born of scholarship and a zeal for truth. . . . Mr. Lowrie's volume is decidedly a work of love as well as a propaganda of new ideas. ... In carrying out his task Mr. Lowrie has shown excellent judg- ment; his equipment for it is of the very best, and his work is generally of the type which in time makes information from such a source both sought after and trusted." — The Dial. "... This present volume discusses very luminously the idea of the Church, the assembly for instruction, and the euchar- istic assembly, with such related topics as bishops, deacons, presbyters, church property, the gift of teaching, and the significance of the eucharist. ... It will repay careful perusal by those interested in its topics. The style is very clear, and the pages are full of information attractively presented. It is a book that will have to be reckoned with by all writers on this theme." — Methodist Quarterly Review. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., Publishers, New Vork The Doctrine of Saint John An Essay in Biblical Theology By WALTER LOWRIE, M.A. Author of " The Church and its Organization : The Primitive Age " "Gaudium Crucis," etc. ' Crown 8vo, pp. xx-216. $1.50 "Mr. Lowrie's interpretation of St. John's writings is vigor- ous, balanced, and '^\v\o^o^\i.\z"— Churchman. "A fairly complete and very thoughtful exposition of St John s teaching. . . . The author of this well-written work aims to interpret St. John's theology as a whole, and to reduce It to a system. It is also his desire to bring the Apostle's doc- trine within easy reach of the ordinary understanding, and thus make his essay a manual for the lay student of St. John's writ- mgs. In both of these purposes he has been commendably successful. His exegesis is clear; his presentation of the lead- mg ideas of St. John is clothed in direct and simple language ... We heartily commend this book to the student of the doctrine of St. John. It is thoroughly catholic in its viewpoint and IS abreast with the best thought of the age concerning the Apostle and his teaching. ..." —The Church Standard. "... a: remarkably compact and precise statement. Brief as It is, It attempts to interpret the theology of St. John as a whole, and to give an exposition of it which will not only em- brace all the great ideas but present them as a system And it succeeds to a large extent. . . . The book altogether is a care- ful study and makes a very useful guide to the subject."— Cr///- cal Review. _ " We have read this volume with the greatest satisfaction. It is by no means large, but it is full of matter clearly and com- pactly put together. It is the fruit of careful study, extensive reading, and independent reliection. 1 1 is based upon exact exe- gesis, and shows real insight into the compass and significance of the form of doctrine which it expounds. It has also the at- traction of comparative novelty. For its object is to interpret the Johannine theology as a whole in the way in which the Pauline theology has been exhibited in its entire system. But It is enough to say that the book is one of real merit, and one to be commended heartily to students of the New Testa- ment. " — Pi'esbyterian and Reformed Review. "The author writes seriously and with knowledge ... we recommend the study of this book as a useful discipline to' any young clergyman who imagines that he has mastered the Fourth Gospel. It will reveal to him how much he has to learn."— 7%^ Guardian. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., Publishers, New Vork Date Due