The Sphere Of Christian Manifestation
XI, tit oPaekr OF CHRISTIAN
MANIFESTATION.
Ir will be seen from the last chapter that the new heroism inaugurated by the Gospel is of very wide application, extending to fields of study which seem at first view to have no connection with it.
This leads us to consider the general question, What are the boundaries of the Christian sphere?
We are in the habit of dividing the pursuits of life into the secular and the sacred; where does the sacred end and the secular begin?
In a work on New Testament ethics the question cannot be answered on abstract principles, nor even by an appeal to modern experience.
We must ask what the original Christian record has itself to say upon the subject.
Let us go back, therefore, to the beginning of Christianity's moral teaching—the Sermon on the Mount.
It is evident that there were present to the mind of Christ on that occasion. two opposite schools of moral thought— the Pharisees and the Essenes.
The sphere of Pharisaic morality was the world; the sphere of
SPHERE OF CHRISTIAN MANIFESTATION.
Essene morality was the desert.
The aim of the Pharisee was to "shine before men;" the aim of the Essene was so to hide his 'lamp under a bushel" that it might shine only before God.
To the Pharisee the value of virtue lay only in its being seen; to the Essene the value of virtue lay in its being felt, in its being hid within the breast as a perpetual sacrifice of the outward man.
Now, the view of Christianity as to the sphere of the moral life is in relation to these two schools at once reconciliatory and destructive; it finds a meeting-place for both by destroying the distinctive elements of each.
Christ says that the important feature in Hzs morality is not the place where it shines, but the manner of its shining:
"Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
'The sphere of Christianity is here said to be one not of place, but of motive.
Christ says that in the system He is about to inaugurate, the Pharisee and the Essene, the life of self-manifestation and the life of self-crucifixion, cau meet side by side, so that a man may shine in being crucified, and be crucified in the act of shining.
He says in effect, Do not imagine that there is any contradiction between self-forgetfulness and selfmanifestation ; it is only when you have forgotten yourself that you will really display yourself.
Would you be able to shine before men?
So shine that you may glorify another.
Would you
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have men see your good works?
Let your good works be to you not an end, but a means—the means of glorifying your Father in Heaven.
You will only become a true Pharisee when you have become a true Essene.
Your personality will only wake into real power when it has felt its own nothingness in the presence of a power of all-excelling glory.
Let your motive be to radiate light for others, and the light which you radiate for others shall play around your own person and make it bright and beautiful; he that shines for God shines also for man.
Here, then, we have a very definite principle announced on the very threshold of the Christian temple, a principle which determines beyond all possibility of dispute the boundary-line that divided the secular from the sacred.
That boundary-line it declares to be not geographical, but mental.
The same locality, the same outward act, the same scene of human occupation, may at one and the same moment be secular to me and sacred to you.
The difference between the sphere of the Pharisee and the sphere of the Christian is not one that can be indicated on a map.
Outwardly their sphere is identical; they both manifest their light 'before men."
The difference lies in their mental attitude ; the shining of the Pharisee was conscious and artificial ; the shining of the Christian is unconscious and spontaneous, It will be seen that on this view the relation
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which subsists between the secular and the sacred bears a very marked resemblance to the relation which pertains between the prosaic and the poetical.
It is not correct to say that the physical world consists of two classes of objects; one prosaic and the other poetical.
'To a really prosaic mind, all the scenes in the world are prosaic; to a truly poetic soul, all the scenes in the world are poetical.
You cannot tell the true poet that God made the country and man made the town; he would not believe you.
He would tell you that in the meanest objects of the town—in busy street, and dusty lane, and squalid alley—he can find sugvestions as full of Divine inspiration as ever were yielded by ancient mountain or forest primeval.
Whatsoever the spirit of the poet touches it turns straightway into gold.
Even so is it with the spirit of Christianity.
It claims the blessing of mheriting the earth—ze., of being limited to no special sphere for its manifestation.
It says in lancuage to the same effect, that it has the world, life, death, things present and things to come, that he who is spiritual "ruleth all things."
Nay, it is this, and nothing less than this, that is meant by the liberty of the spirit.
The liberty of the spirit of Christianity is its power to roam at will into spots apparently opposed to it—to enter the commonplace, the prosaic, the secular haunts of men and receive not a stain upon its wings,
It is the power to transfigure the world into its own
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brightness, to make its clay gold, to turn its water into wine, until, its secular element being lost, it shall be changed into the Spirit's own image from glory to glory.
Now, this is just one of the points in which the religion of Christ is distinguished from all other religions.
It may be said of all other religions that they curtail the sphere of human liberty, and nearly all curtail that sphere in the same way— by drawing a fence between God and the world, between the temple of worship and the scene of common toil.
'To prove this we need not go to the Brahman or the Buddhist, whose faith is professedly founded on a despair of actual things.
Let us keep to a region where the natural conditions would seem to have been more favourable to a reconciliation of religion and common life—the faith of Judaism.
It might have been thought that if any.class of men would recognise the liberty of the spirit, it would have been the Pharisees; their object was actually to shine before men.
But the very fact that this was their object made them separatists from the world.
It was the sense of their own superiority that made them wish to display themselves.
It was their conviction that the world, as a world, moved in a lower sphere than theirs that impelled. them to show how great was the gulf fixed between them; their effort to shine was made in the interest of separatism.
The Essene, on the other hand, made no effort to shine
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at all so far as the world was concerned; he hid his light under a bushel in order the better to realise his own humility.
But what caused the Essene to feel humble was not so much his sense of sin as his sense of materialism.
He believed that the flesh, as such, was the antagonist of the spirit; and therefore he, as well as the Pharisee, was in heart a separatist.
The two opposite sects of Judaism were thus ultimately joined in one conclusion ; both by different roads arrived at the same conviction—that to become religious men is to manifest the decrease of one's right to individual hberty.
In contradistinction to these views, the religion of Christ claims for its followers an extension of — the right-of-way.
'Ye are the salt of the earth," are the words in which it inaugurates this claim.
It declares in these words that, apart from the Christian spirit, the earthly or secular element is a source of corruption.
It does not by nature contain that salt, or preserving material, which arrests the progress of decay, and keeps alive the substance in which it dwells.
Accordingly, there is in it by nature no element of life, and therefore no source of permanent joy.
But when the Christian spirit enters into this secular mass of corruption, it brings into it the preserving material; it becomes "the salt of the earth."
Henceforth the secular world is no longer a dead world ; it is full of life and spirituality.
The flesh does not any
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more lust against the spirit, nor do the pursuits of the flesh tend any longer to corrupt the spirit ; the spirit gives them its own saline property, its own principle of life.
The man will cease to get harm from those things which were formerly pernicious to his interests; he will tread upon scorpions, and they will do him no hurt.
The food which was poison to the child shall nourish the man.
His liberty of diet shall increase in proportion to the growth of his constitution.
He will have a passport into regions of the world which are morally barred to the worldling himself, for that which degraded the unspiritual shall exalt the man of the spirit.
This idea, which, as we have said, is inaugurated in the Sermon on the Mount, runs like a thread of gold through every part of the New Testament.
It is the keynote alike of St. Paul and of St. James —the Apostle of the Gentiles and the leader of Judaic Christianity.
Nay, is not this the idea which St. Peter has in view when he says that God in Christ has begotten us "to an inheritance that is incorruptible"?
He says in effect, The new inheritance to which we are begotten is altogether unlike the inheritance of Judaism.
'There we could only avoid corruption by avoiding contact; here we are incorruptible by any contact.
There we were kept pure by the mandate, "Touch not, taste not, handle not;" here we may touch and taste and handle without receiv-
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ing a stain.
There our prohibitions were multiplied in proportion to our religious zeal; here the spirit of religion within us has annulled all prohibitions.
We have reached a truth that has made us free.
But now, we have to remark that it is just in its spirit of liberty that Christianity receives its spirit of sacrifice.
Of all the powers it possesses, that which it prizes most is its power to deny itself the exercise of its full freedom.
' All things are lawful to me," says St. Paul, " but all things are not expedient," z.e., not good for others.
He himself was able with a clear conscience to eat flesh offered to an idol.
He knew that an idol was nothing, and therefore he would allow no man in this question to deny his right to liberty of action.
But while he claimed the right, he claimed also the power to sacrifice his right.
He claimed the power to exercise an act of grace analogous to that act of grace by which his Lord had "emptied Himself,' to say of his liberty as Christ had said, "I have power to lay it down."
The act of grace or emptying process consisted in an ability to put himself in the place of his weak brother, to think with his heart, to see with his eyes.
It consisted in an act of substitution, by which he forgot his own opinion of the idol, and lived only in that view of the subject entertained by his weak brother.
He took upon himself his folly, he became poor to make him rich.
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That abstinence from bread for the sake of his weak brother was itself a sacrament; it showed the broken body and shed blood.
It grandly illustrated the sacrificial power of the Christian spirit.
Paul had cast himself down from an eminence—the eminence of his own spiritual culture; he had thrown himself into a form of belief which he had long surmounted, and into sympathy with a stage of development which he had far passed by.
In so doing he had in the highest sense exhibited the nature of the Christian sacrifice.
He had emptied himself, had poured out, so to speak, a portion of his own consciousness.
He had tried to substitute himself for another who was inferior to himself, to think with his mind, to suffer in his experience.
He himself looked upon his act as nothing less than a repetition of his Master's cross within his own soul.
What does he mean when he says, "I am crucified with Christ,' "Buried in baptism unto His death," "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus"?
What does he mean when he cries, "I protest I die daily," '' We who live are alway delivered unto death"?
What, in fine, is the thought in his mind when he declares that he has fellowship in the sufferings of Christ, and that he has been "made conformable unto His death"?
Is it not clear from such words as these that he believed the principle of the Cross of Christ to be applicable not merely
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to the martyrdom of physical dying, but equally so to the daily and hourly sacrifice of living.
He felt that the spirit of the Christian sacrifice in all its forms was the spirit of self-forgetfulness,
He saw that the root of the whole matter was that intellectual sympathy which, by the emptying out of its own glory, could put itself in another's place, and minister to another's needs.
He perceived that the necessity for such a spirit was not limited to great events, but was felt even more in the commonplaces of life, and hence in the very humblest of daily acts he beheld the possibility of a Christian sacrifice:
" Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,"
Sineularly enough, it is in relation to these commonplace elements of life that the problem of Christian sacrifice has in our days again presented itself.
It is in the question of temperance that modern life is again raising the issue as to the moral rights of man.
With the exception of the fact that the modern issue is a social, while the ancient was a religious one, the point in dispute is very much the same.
You, let us say, have never been under any temptation to exceed in the use of stimulants.
You do not need to abstain; you have never in any respect been hurt either morally or physically by what you have imbibed, and therefore you deny any man's right to force upon you a pledge of abstinence.
But
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then there is a member of your household who is subject to the temptation from which you are free.
Here the question arises:
Is it right that you should use your freedom to enslave another ?
Is it right that you, being unaffected by this special temptation, should yet put the temptation before an inmate of your dwelling whom you know to be affected by it?
From a Christian point of view the answer cannot be doubtful.
Paul would certainly say: Empty yourself of your freedom in the presence of your weak brother.
Come down to his state while you are with him.
Make yourself a slave for his sake, that you may lead his captivity captive.
Become for the time poor, to give him the chance of being eternally rich !
But the argument is by many pushed much further.
It is said that as humanity is itself an united membership, the strong should in every case resign their freedom in the interest of their weak brethren.
The decision of that question is not within our present province.
We shall only remark that it depends on the decision of another— Would the total abstinence of the strong produce the cure of the weak?
Are the weak the slaves to a habit, or are they the slaves merely to a fashion ?
If the latter, the conclusion is easy ; if the former, it is difficult to see how the sacrifice of freedom would avail.
Christianity gives us the law, but not the fact.
It tells us that our freedom must not P
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enchain our brother, but it does not-tell us whether in this case our freedom does enchain.
No system of morality can give us that information ; it must be tested by another sphere than that of ethics.
It must be learned by observation, by experiment, by a study of human nature, by a comparison of statistics, by a knowledge of the facts of history.
Paul did not pretend to be inspired in such subjects as these, and he would probably have said of this, as he said of another matter of detail:
'' Let every man be persuaded in his own mind."
Turning then from this special application of the Christian law of freedom, let us look for a moment at the law itself.
What is the principle on which aman at any time should consent to surrender his right to a possession ? Many will answer, that by his profession of the religion of the Cross he becomes an heir to the spirit of sacrifice, and should henceforth count it a glory to give up whatever is his own.
A more complete delusion or a more entire misconception it would, we believe, be difficult to imagine.
Christianity is not ultimately the religion of the Cross at all, but the religion of the crown.
<Atno time does it proclaim its end to be the sacrifice of the individual man; sacrifice is never its end, but always its means to an end.
The end of Christianity is not the pain, but the profit of the individual (Matt. v. 29).
It only demands the sacrifice for the sake of the profit : 'It is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
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not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
The plucking out of the right eye, and the cutting off of the right hand, are both processes of pain, but in the Christian system it is not their pain that makes them valuable ; if by the law of nature the end could be achieved without the pain it would please Christianity better.
The entire design of the immolating process is to have the diseased member separated from those parts of the body which are as yet unaffected by disease.
The pain is necessary, but it is only incidentally necessary ; it is necessary as the fulfilment of a physical law, but not as the execution of a moral requirement.
The moral aim of Christianity is to promote the well-being of all human souls, and it would attach no value to any cross which did not tend to the enlargement of mankind.
If it be so it follows that there is no good to be derived from sacrificing for the sake of sacrifice.
St. Paul has a clear perception of this truth when he says: "Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
It profits him nothing because it profits others nothing.
A sacrifice whose glory centres in itself has not a Christian glory.
The Christian glory is love, and sacrifice is only valuable as an instrument of love.
Moreover, as St. Paul says, our love must "abound in all judgment."
It must not be a love that will sacrifice its own on a mere possibility ; it must be a love that has measured the needs of its
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object and knows exactly what is required.
Christian morality, no less than Christian theology, is thus dependent on the advance of secular knowledge.
Its sphere is circumscribed, not widened, by ignorance of the world.
Its field of ministration is narrowed in proportion as it ministers in the dark.
Human freedom only gains a right to sacrifice itself when it gains a vision of that for which it dies.
Such a vision is not gained easily.
If I would know whether I am ministering to a mind diseased or only to the disease of a mind, I must study in all its fulness the nature of man.
I cannot prescribe the remedy till I have made the diagnosis; I cannot make the diagnosis till I have learned the constitution of the patient.
The same self-sacrifice which in one case has cured the sickness may in another only feed the distemper, for humanity varies with its conditions, and the food of one age may be the poison of the next.
Therefore it is that Christianity does not prescribe any food; it reveals the laws of moral health and leaves the spirit of man to adapt itself to these.
Of all the secondary causes for the permanence of Christianity this reticence as to matters of detail has been the most conspicuous and the most powerful.
Why is it that this religion has been able to subsist through civilisations so diverse, through times so dissimilar in their modes of life and action?
It is because this religion has in all ages made its appeal to that which underlies every mode and
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forms the basis of every action.
It has made its appeal to that element in human nature which never varies—the sympathy of man with man.
It has not defined the form which human sympathy in any age shall assume; it has allowed every age to choose its own form.
It has not laid down the limits of what does or does not constitute the sacrificial well-being of our brother man; it allows these limits to be fixed by society itself.
But it is its very gentleness in this respect that has made it great.
Refusing to identify itself with the special aspects of any era, and holding fast by the abstract principle which binds all eras into one, it has preserved its unity amid the changes, and retained its empire amid the vanishings, of earthly power.
We shall look more fully in the next chapter at the secret of this absolute dominion.