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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaftro sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon ie cas: Ie symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ". Ie symbols ^ signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est fiSmi d partir de Tangle supirieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas. en prenant Ie nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 ■I .--r^" :oSI£ No, .. ^'^ -m I ■■w.-'': MA' i\jJ^ IMAGO CHRIST! IMAGO CHRISTI: THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS CHRIST BY THE REV. JAMES STALKER, M.A., AUTHOR OK "the LIFE OK JESUS CHRIST," " THE LIKE OF ST. I'ArL," UTC. hnago dicitur quasi iniitago. Porpliyr. Hor. Od. I. xii. 4, FOURTH THOUSAND. TORONTO: TORONTO WILLARD TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY, YONGE AND TEMPERANCE STREETS. 1890. >^ €. E» B. •-^ PREFACE. F it were permissible, I could truly describe the origin of this book in the very words of Junyan : When at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode ; nay, I had undertook To make another ; which, when almost done, Before I was aware, I this begun. Whilst writing my Life of Christ, and reading Extensively on the subject, the conviction was borne jn upon me that no desideratum more urgently leeds to be supplied in our theology than a work )n the Mind or Teaching of Christ. For several ^ears I have been working at this task. But, as went on, my progress was impeded by the fact that, especially in the department of ethics, Jesus seemed to teach as much by His example as by Plis words ; whereas it was my intention to derive 8 PREFACE. His teaching from His words alone. I commenced accordingly to write a little on His example, merely for the purpose of clearing the surplus material out of the way, and without any thought that it would extend beyond a chapter or two. But, as I wrote, it grew and grew, till, almost unawares, the plan of a new book shaped itself in my mind. Recurring to the quaint and pithy language of Bunyan, I may say : Having now my method by the end, Still, as I pulled, it came ; and so I penned It down ; until it came at last to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. The plan of this book, as it thus, so to speak, made itself, is — to divide the circle of human life into segments, each of which represents an extensive sphere of experience and duty, and then to follow our Lord through them one after another, in order to see how He conducted Himself in each and thereby learn how to conduct ourselves in the same. It is thus a kind of Christian Ethics with a practical and devotional aim. By making the segments smaller, the chapters might easily have been increased in number ; but perhaps no very important part of life has been entirely overlooked. PREFACE. commenced s example, the surplus ny thought er or two. till, almost aped itself and pithy you see. to speak, liuman life extensive to follow in order each and es in the thics with aking the isily have no very verlooked. -m Ench chapter has been written in full view of the whole of our Lord's behaviour, as far as it has been recorded, in the department of human life to which it refers ; and it was at one time my intention to print in full, from the Gospels, ill the evidence on each head. I soon found, however, that this would be impracticable, for the ividcnce turned out to be far more voluminous than I had any conception of ; and to print it in fiiU would have swelled the book to double its size. It has been to me a continual astonishment to find bow abundant are the materials for tracing out our Lord's example even in what may be considered |hc less important parts of life ; and I thankfully ibonfess that I have derivea from this study a new Impression of the wealth which is packed into the tiarrow circumference of the Four Gospels. On the flyleaf of each chapter I have noted a number of the more important passages ; and this list, although in no case complete, may serve as a "Btarting-point to those who may wish to collect the evidence for themselves. f I am persuaded that there are many at present lin all the churches who are turning earnest eyes to the Example of Christ, and who desire an 19 PREFACE. account, derived directly from the records, of how He lived this earthly life which we are living now. For such I have written this guide to the imitaiion of Christ, and I send it forth with the earnest hope that they may be able to find in it, in some degree, the authentic features of the image of the Son of man. Glasgow, ScJ/emdcr 22nd, ibSg. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. A Second Edition being required a few weeks after the issue of the First, no changes have been introduced beyond a few trifling verbal corrections. But I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of saying what i; nowhere distinctly enough stated in the text, that I have not con- ceived the imitation of Christ to consist in the mere literal repetition of His acts, but rather in the application of the spirit and principles of His life to the duties and problems of our own day. At the same time, the way in which I have attempted to arri\e at His spirit and principles has not been by a priori reasoning from the general conception of His character, but by the close study of His actions in detail, , . $' CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY : TIIOM/.S k KEMPIs' IMITATION 01- \ n. EDITION. a few weeks hanges have ifling verbal ^self of this ii-2 distinctly we not con- •nsist in the ut rather in iples of His ir own day. lich I have d principles from the but by tlie CHRIST iN THE HOME III. CHRIST IN THE STATE IV. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH V. CHRIST AS A FRIEND , VI. CHRIST iN SOCIETY , VII. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER . VIII. CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE IX. CHRIST AS A WORKER X. CHRIST AS A SUFFERER. , , XI. CHRIST AS A PHILANTHROPIST . XII, CHRIST AS A WINNER OF SOULS Xin. CHRIST AS A PREACHER . ' . XIV. CHRIST AS A TEACHER XV. CHRIST AS A CONTROVERSIALIST XVI. CHRIST A3 A MAN OF FEELING . XVII. CHRIST AS AN INFLUENCE , ciiKisr ij • 35 • 55 . 71 . 91 . 109 . 125 . 14s . 165 . 1S3 . 201 . 221 . 241 . 261 . 2Sl • ^99 . • 31S ( ! I. INTRODUCTORY: THOMAS A KEMPIS' IMITATION OF CHRIST Bui Thomas X Kempis ? — the name had come across her in her readings and she felt the satisfaction^ ivhich every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little old clumsy book xvith some curiosity : it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now for ever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink ma7-ks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf and read where the quiet hand pointed. . . . A strange thrill of awe passed through her while she read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. . , . She knew nothing of doctrines and systems— of mysticism or quietism ; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human souVs belief and experience^ and came to her as an un- questioned message. I suppose that is the reason lohy the small oldfashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a bcokitall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness ; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written dcwn by a hand that waited for the heart'' s prompting; it is the chrotticle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph — not zaritten on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human need:, and human consolations. George Eliot : The Mill on the Floss. I CHAPTER I. ross her in her 11070$ t of gettivg in the memory, nty : ii had the i, 1107V for ever nk marks, long leaf and read '. read, as if she ntisic, telling of upor. . , . She quietism; but communication her as an un- cncd book, for uiracles to this sermons and fore. It rvas Dip ting; it is and triumph 'hose 7vho are IS to all time X the Floss. INTRODUCTORY. THOMAS A KEMPIS' IMITATION OF CHRIST^ NO religious book perhaps, outside the canon of Scripture, has attained so wide a diffusion in the Christian Church as the De Iinitatione Christi of Thomas a Kempis. The only other book which may possibly compete with it in popularity is the Pilgrim's Progress. But the hold on Christendom of the older work is probably more extensive than jven that of Bunyan's masterpiece ; for, whilst the [ict'ire of Giant Pope must be an obstacle to ic access of the Pilgrim to sensitive Catholics, le Imitation is as much read among Protestants in the Church which claims it as its own, and the Greek Church it is as popular as in either (f the communions of the West. I. To Protestants it has a peculiar interest from |hc very fact that it was not written by the pen of Protestant. It belongs to the beginning of the i6 IMAGO CHRIST!, fifteenth century, and its author flourished a hun- dred years before Luther. It thus belongs to the age which must be accounted the darkest in the whole history of Christianity, when the light of God was well-nigh extinguished by the errors of men. Protestants, indeed, hardly think of the century before the Reformation as a time when Christianity existed at all ; so vast is the accumulation of corruptions which meets the eye, that the reli- gion of Christ almost seems to have disappeared, But this single book corrects this impression. The Imitation of Christ is a voice rising out of the darkness to remind us that the Church of Christ never ceased to exist, but that God had His witnesses and Christ His lovers even in the era of deepest decay. The Imitation itself, indeed, bears marks of the evil tinrie in which it arose. There are elements of superstition in it which the modern mind rejects. But these relics of a corrupt age only make the profoundly Christian tone of the whole the more surprising. It throbs throughout with a devotion to Christ which will find its way to the hearts of %■ Christians in every age : f ' it) O my beloved Spouse Christ Jesus, most ^ pure Lover, Ruler of all creation, who will ^ INTRODUCTORY. 17 ;hed a hun- ongs to the rkest in the light of God rors of men. the century Christianity imulation of lat the reli- disappeared. ession. The out of the ch of Christ His witnesses of deepest larks of the elements of lind rejects. ly make the lie the more a devotion le hearts of esus, most In, who will give me the wings of true liberty to fly and repose in Thee ? * O Jesus, Brightness of the eternal glory, Comfort of the pilgrim soul, with Thee are my lips without a voice, and my very silence speaks to Thee. How long delays my Lord His coming ? Let Him come to me, His poor servant, and make me glad. Come, come, for with- out Thee there will be no glad day nor hour; for Thou art my gladness, and without Thee my table is unspread. Let others seek, instead of Thee, what- ever else they please ; nothing else pleases me, or shall please me, but Thou, my God, my Hope, my Eternal Salvation. The book overflows with love to the Saviour ixpressed in this impassioned strain ; and one very markable thing is that, on the whole, the soul goes ftraight to Christ without halting at those means of jrace which were at that time so often substituted K)r the Saviour or feeling any need of the inter- ission of the Virgin or the saints, on which so much less is laid in Catholic books of devotion. This i8 IMAGO CHRIST/. is the healthiest feature of the whole production and must be welcome to every one who wishes to believe that even in that age, when the spirit was buried beneath the forms of worship, there were many souls that reached up through all obstacles to contact with the living Saviour, II. Obscure as is the external history of the author | of the Imitation* the reader comes to be on the ^^i *"The writer of the Imitatlo Christi is not known, and perhaps never will be known, with absolute certainty. The dispute about the authorship has filled a hundred volumes, and is still so undecided that the voice of the sweetest and humblest of books has come to us mingled, for the last two and a half centuries, with one of the most bitter Jtnd arrogant of literar)' controversies. ... Of the nine or ten saints and doctors to whom at different times the work has been attributed, the pretensions of three alone can be now said to possess the least germ of probability. These three are a certain Gerscn de Cabanis, Thomas Hemerken of Kempen, and Jean de Chailicr de Gerson ; and the claims of the first of the three . , . may now be considered to be set at rest. " The two, then, between whom refits the glory of the autlior- ship — though in truth earthly glory was the last thing for which the author would have wished — are Thofuas d Kevipis, sub-pria of the monastery of St. Agnes, in the diocese of Cologne, aiiJ Jean GersoJi, Chancellor of the University of Paris, and one of the grandest figures of his time. *' The lives of both these saints of God fell in the same dreary epoch. It was that * age of lead and iron,' of political anarchy and ecclesiastical degradation, of war, famine, misery, agitatioi., INTRODUCTORY. 19 most intimate terms with him. He is a mere shadow to the scientific historian ; but to the devout student his personality is most distinct ; his accent is separate and easily detected ; and, notwithstanding I the flight and passion of his devotion, there is in I him something homely and kindly that wins our j affection. Above all, we feel, as we open the book, that we are entering into communion with one who [has found the secret of life. Here is one who, after I corruption, which marked the close of tlie fourteenth and the [beginning of tlie fifteenth century. Thomas a Kcmpis, born in [1379, died at the age of ninety-two ; Gerson, bora in 1363, died [at the age of sixty-one. They were thus contemporaries for forty-five years of their lives. But the destinies of the two men >vere utterly different. " Thomas, the son of an artisan, a quiet recluse, a copier of lanuscripts, was trained at Dcventer, and was received into a lonastcry in the year 1400 at the age of twenty-one. In that lonastcry of St. Agnes — valde dcvotns, Ubcntcr solus, nnnqtiani otiosHS — he spent seventy-one years of perfect calm, unbroken except by one brief period, in which he fled from his cell rather plan acknowledge an archbishop to whom the Pope had refused khe pallium. This was almos^ the sole event of a life in which kve arc told th?t it was his chief delight to be alone in angcllo \um libcllo. •'Far different from this life, 'in a little corner with a little k,' was the troubled, prominent, impassioned life of Jean n'noii, the Doctor Christianissijnus. Kising while yet young a leading position, he was appointed Chancellor of the Jniversity of Paris before the age of thirty, and, struggling kgainst popes and councils, and mobs and kings, became the ktormiest champion of a stormy time. . . . And when all his life |ecmcd to have culminated in one long failure . • . then forced T 30 IMAGO CHRIST/. ' i weary wanderings, such as we perhaps arc still entangled in, and many conflicts, such as we may still be waging, has attained the peace of God ; and he takes us aside and leads us by the hand to view the land of rest. This is the enduring charm of the book. We all carry in our hearts a secret belief that somewhere in the world there exists a paradise unvexed with the cares by which we are pursued and watered by the river of God ; and whenever to see how utterly little is man even at his greatest, and how different are the ways of man's nothiiig-perfcctness from those of God's all-completeness, the great Chancellor, who has been the soul of mighty councils and the terror of contumacious popes, takes obscure refuge, first in a monastery of Tyrol, after- wards under the rule of his brother at Lyons, and there, among the strict and humble Celestine monks, passes his last days in humility and submission. Far other thoughts than those of his tumultuous life had been revealed to him as he wandered, in danger and privation, among the mountains of Bavaria, — or, rather, those earlier objects had faded from the horizon of his soul like the burning hues of a stormy sunset ; but as, when the sunset crimson has faded, we see the light of the eternal stars, so when the painted vapours of earthly ambition had lost their colouring, Gerson could gaze at last on those 'living sapphires' which glow in the deep firmament of spiritual hopes. He had been a leader among the schoolmen, now he cares only for the simplest truths. He had been a fierce gladiator in the arena of publicity, now he has passed into the life of holy silence. At his hottest period of strife he had cried out, * Peace, peace, I long for peace ; ' now at last there has fallen on his soul — not as the world giveth — that peace that passeth understanding."— Farrar in Covipanions of the Devout Life, INTRODUCTORY. 21 ps arc still as we may if God ; and and to view ijx charm of secret belief ts a paradise are pursued id whenever atcst, and how less from those who has been ■ contumacious of Tyrol, afttr- id there, amon;^ lis last days iu lan those of his wandered, in f Bavaria, — or, horizon of his ut as, when the 16 eternal stars, had lost their ving sapphires' al hopes. He ; cares only for or in the arena ily silence. At • Peace, peace, his soul— not erstanding."— one appears whose air assures us that he has lived in that Eden and drunk of that river, we cannot help welcoming him and listening to his message. But where is this happy land ? It is not far away. It is in ourselves : " The kingdom of Go J\ is within you." Men seek happiness out of them- selves — in riches or learning or fame, in friendships and family connections, in talking about others and hearing news. They roam the world in search of adventures ; they descend to the bottom of the sea and tear out the bowels of the earth in pur- suit of wealth ; they are driven forth by turbulent passions in search of excitement and novelty ; they fight with one another, because every one, dis- satisfied himself, believes that his brother is making away with his share. But all the time they are stumbling over their happiness, which lies among their feet ; they fly to the ends of the earth in search of it, and lo it is at home. Whensoever a man desires anything in- ordinately, he is presently disquieted within himself. The proud and covetous are never at rest. The poor and humble in spirit live in abundance of peace. / 23 IMAGO ClIRISTI. \Vc might have much peace, if we would not busy ourselves with the sayings and doings of others, and with things which are no concern of ours. How can he remain long in peace who entangles himself with the cares of others ; who seeks occasions of going abroad, and ' is little or seldom inwardly recollected ? First keep thyself in peace, and then thou wilt be able to bring others to peace. A good peaceable man turns all things to good. Such an one is conqueror of himself, and lord of the world, a friend of Christ, and an heir of heaven. These counsels sound like many that the world has heard from others of its teachers. They sound like the doctrines of the Stoic philosophers, which ended in making self an arrogant little god ; they sound like the teaching of some in modern times who, looking on the raising of " the pyramid of their own being" as the chief end of e.astcncc, have sacrificed to culture the rights of others and the most sacred obligations of morality. The doctrine INTRODUCTORY. 93 that the interior man is the supreme object of care may turn into a doctrine of arrogant selfishness. But i Kempis has guarded well against this per- version. He has no maxims more pungent than those directed against the undue exaltation of self. When he advises us to turn away from outward things to seek the true wealth and happiness within, it is not in ourselves we are to find it, though it is within ourselves. \Vc have to make an empty space within, that it may be filled with God, who is the only true satisfaction of the soul : Know that the love of thyself cloth hurt thee more than anything else in the world. On this defect, that a man inordinately loves himself, hangs almost all in thee that thou hast to root out and overcome ; and, when this evil has been once con- quered and brought under, soon will there be great peace and tranquillity. Christ will come to thee, holding out to thee His consolation, if thou prepare Him a fit dwellino: within thee. ^ Many a visit does He make to the H IMAGO CHRISTI. interior man ; sweet is His communication with him, deh'ghtful His consolation, great His peace, and His familiarity exceedingly amazing. Give place, then, for Christ, and deny entrance to all others. When thou hast Christ thou art rich, and He is sufficient for thee. He will provide for thee and faithfully supply thy wants in all things, so that thou needest not trust to men. "Son," says Christ to us, "leave thy- self, and thou shalt find Me." :^-' ■■^' '"■'"■■:' ■ ■V:.^^' ■" III. r :■ The merits of h. Kempis are inimitable and imperishable ; yet the book is not without defects more or less inseparable from the time and the circumstances in which it was written. I. There is a defect of the Imitation which lies on the surface and has been often pointed out. Its author was a monk and needed a rule only for the little, monotonous world of the cloister ; we live in the freedom and amidst the perils of a larger world, which needs an example more uni- versal. To a Kempis and his brethren this world INTRODUCTORY. n was the territory of the Evil One, from which they had fled ; they wished to have no dealings with it and had no hope of making it better. "Thou oughtest," he says, " to be so far dead to the affections of men as to wish, as far as thou canst, to be without any human company." Even life itself appeared to him an evil : in one of his gloomiest pages he says expressly, " It is truly a misery to live upon earth." This happily is not our creed. *^ The world is not a blank to us, Nor blot ; it means intensely, and means good. To us it is God's world ; and our vocation is to make God's will be done in all departments of its life and to make His Word run on all its highways and bye-ways. Monasticism was a confession on the part of Christianity of being beaten by the world ; but to-day Christianity is planting its standard Ion every shore and going forth conquering and to |conquer. 2. Another blemish which has been attributed to [it is thus dealt with by Dr. Chalmers in one of his )ublished Letters : " I have been reading Thomas Kempis recently on the Imitation of Jesus Christ —a very impressive performance. Some would say f it that it is not enough evangelical. He certainly Ices not often affirm, in a direct and ostensible ' ' 'illll! 26 IMAGO CIIRISTT. manner, the righteousness that is by faith. But he proceeds on this doctrine, and many an incidental recognition does he bestow upon it ; and I am not sure but that this implies a stronger and more habitual settlement of mind respecting it than when it is thrust forward and repeated, and rc- rcpea^ed with a kind of ultra-orthodoxy, as if to vindicate one's soundness, and acquit oneself of a kind of exacted homage to the form of sound words." * This is both a generous and a just statement of d Kempis' position ; though a simpler explanation of it lies in the fact that he lived a hundred years before the republication, at the Reformation, of this cardinal doctrine of the Pauline theology. But it is a point of the greatest practical import- ance to emphasize that in experience the true order is, that the imitation of Christ should follow the forgiveness of sins through the blood of His cross.t 3. There is another great Pauline doctrine which hardly perhaps obtains in a Kempis the prominence which belongs to it in connexion with his subject. This is the doctrine of union with Christ, whic'a * Correspondence of Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D.D., p. 8r. ■j- On this point see the singularly lofty and weighty statement ofMartensen, On the Imitation of Christ and Justifying Faith, in his Christian Ethics, vol. i. INTRODUCTORY. 21 may be called the other pole of St. Paul's system. St. Paul's whole teaching^ revolves between the two poles of righteousness through the death of Christ for us and holiness through the life of Christ in us. The latter truth is not absent from the pages of the Imitation ; but its importance is not fully brought out. For, beautiful as the phrase " the imitatior. of Christ" is, it hardly indicates the deepest way in which Christ's people become like Him. Imitation is rather an external process : it denotes the taking of that which is on one and putting it on another from the outside. But it is not chiefly by such an external copying that a Christ'an grows like Christ, but by an internal union with Him. If t't is by a process of imitation at all, then it is imitation like that of a child copying its mother. This is the completest of imitations. The child reproduces the mother's tores, her gestures, the smallest peculiarities of her gait and movements, with an amazing and almost laughable perfection. Pjut why is the imitation so perfect ? It may be said it is because of the child's innumerable oppor- tunities of seeing its mother, or because of the minuteness of a child's observation. But every one knows that there is more in it than this. The mother is in her child ; at its birth she communi- 28 IMAGO ClIRISTI. cated her own nature to it ; and it is to the working in the child of this mysterious influence that the success of the imitation is due. In like manner we may carefully copy the traits of Christ's character, looking ?t Him outside of us, as a painter looks at his model ; we may do better still — we may, by prayer and the reading of the Word, live daily in His company, and receive the impress of His influence ; but, if our imitation of Him is to be the deepest and most thorough, something more is necessary : He must be in us, as the mother is in her chfld, having communicated His own nature to us in the new birth.* Thtre is, however, a defect in the Imitation which the reader of to-day feels more than any of these : it lacks the historical sense, which is the guide of the modern mind in every kind of inquiry. Though the spirit of Christ pervades the book and many of its chapters are so full of the essence of His teaching t' it they might be appended as invaluable comments to His sayings, yet it presents no clear historical image of Him. * " Christi Vorbild ist mehr als kahles, kaltes Tugendbeispiel, es ist ervvSrmende, erziindende Lebensgemeinschaft." — Kogel, Predigicttf i, 86. INTRODUCTORY. 29 This would seem, however, to be the one thing needful for successful imitation. If we are to try to be like Christ, we must know what He was like. No painter could make a satisfactory copy of a figure of which he had himself only a vague con- ception. Yet no exact image of Christ will be found in a Kempis. To him Christ is the union and sum of all possible excellences ; but he con- structs Christ out of his own notions of excellence, instead of going to the records of His life and painting the portrait with the colours they supply. He specifies, indeed, certain great features of the Saviour's history — as, for instance, that in becoming man He humbled Himself, and therefore we ought to be humble ; or that He lived a life of suffering, and therefore we ought to be willing to suffer ; but he does not get beyond these generalities. Now, it is possible to construct out of the Gospels a more lifelike portrait than this. It is possible at present as it has never been in any former age. Our century will be remembered in the history of Christian thought as the first which concentrated its attention on the details of the Life of Christ. The works written on this subject in recent times have been without number, and they have power- fully affected the mind of the age. The course of Christ's life on earth has been traced from point 30 IMAGO CHRIST/. to point with indefatigable patience and illustrated with knowledge from every quarter ; every incident has been set in the clearest light ; and we are now able to follow Him as it has never been possible to do before into every department of life — such as the family, the state, the Church, the life of prayer, the life of friendship, and so on — and to see exactly how He bore Himself in each. This is the method of knowing Him which has been granted to our age ; and to be content to know Him merely as a vague image of all possible excellences would be to us like painting a landscape in the studio from mere general conceptions of mountains, rivers and fields, instead of going direct to nature. Of course it is easy to exaggerate the value of a method. Infinitely moie important always are the mind and heart working behind the method. The glowing love, the soaring reverence, the range and sublimity of thought in a Kempis, have brought the object home to him with a closeness and reality which fill every sympathetic reader with a sacred envy and will always enchain the Christian heart.* Yet, though an improved method is not everything, * In reading the Psalms, who has not coveted the nearness to God which their authors attained, and the splendid glow ot feeling which contact with Him produced in them? Who has not questioned whether he has ever himself penetrated so far ! ! ! INTRODUCTORY. 3« II: is something ; and, if we feel our own devotion to be cold, and the wing of our thought feeble in comparison with others, all the more ought we to grasp at whatever advantage it may be able to supply. The imitation of Christ is a subject which is constantly calling for reconsideration ; for the evolution of history and the progress of knowledge place people on new points of view in relation to it. Each generation sees it in its own way, and the last word on it can never be spoken. The historical method of handling it is the one which falls in with those habits of thought which have been worn into the mind of our age by its vast conquests in other c rcctions ; and, though it will not make up for the lack of faith and love, it is a charisma which the Church is bound to use, and on the use of which God will bestow His blessing. V. It can hardly be said that evangelical thought has hitherto claimed this subject cordially enough as its own. The evangelical heart, indeed, has always been true to it. I have sometimes even thought that among the causes of the popularity of into the secret of the Lord? Yet this docs not blind us to the superior freedom and fuhiess of access to the divine presence allowed under the New Testament. ^ 3a UlAGO CHRIST/, k Kempis' book not the least potent is its mere name. The Imitation of Christ ! the very sound of this phrase goes to the heart of every Christian and sets innumerable things moving and yearning in the soul. There is a summons in it like a ravishing voice calling us up sunny heights. It is the sum of all which in our best moments and in our deepest heart we desire. But, whilst to Christian experience the imitation of Christ has always been inexpressibly precious, it has held, in evangelical preaching and literature, on the whole, only an equivocal position. The Moderatism which in last century nearly extin- guished the religion of the country made much of the example of Christ. But it divorced it from His atonement, and urged men to follow Christ's example, without first making them acquainted with Him as the Saviour from sins that are past. Ths Evangelicals, in opposition to this, made Christ's atonement the burden ot their testimony and, when His example was mentioned, were ever ready with. Yes, but His death is more important. Thus it happened that the two parties divided the truth between them, the example of Christ being the doctrine of the one and His atoning death that of the other. In like manner, when Unitarianism seemed for a time, through the high character INTROD UCTOR Y. 33 its mere 2ry sound • Christian i yearning it like a hts. It is mcnts and 2 imitation y precious, 1 literature, :ion. The arly extin- ade much ;ed it from iw Christ's lainted with past. Ths [de Christ's Lony and, ever ready lant. Thus the truth being the Ideath that nitaiianism character and splendid eloquence of Channing, to be about to become a power in the world, it derived nearly all the attractiveness it ever possessed from the eulogies in which its preaching abounded of the pure, lofty and self-sacrificing humanity of Christ. The evangelical Church answered with demonstra- tions of His divinity, scriptural and irresistibly logical no doubt, but not always very captivating. And thus a division was again allowed to take place, the humanity of Christ falling to the one party as its share and His divinity to the other. It is time to object to these divisions. Both halves of the truth are ours, and we claim the whole of it. The death of Christ is ours, and we rest in it our hopes of acceptance with God in time and in eternity. This is what we begin with ; but we do not end with it. We will go on from His death to His life and, with the love begotten of being redeemed, try to reproduce that life in our own. In the same way, whilst glorying in His divinity, we will allow none to rob us of the attraction and the example of His humanity ; for, indeed, the perfection of His humanity, with what this implies as to the value of His testimony about Himself, is the strongest bulwark of our faith that He was more than man. s II. CHRIST IN THE HOME Matt. viii. 14, I5- Matt. I. „ ix. 18-26. „ ii. „ xvii. 18. Luke i. 26-56. „ xviii. 1-6. M "• ,, xix. 13-15. „ iii. 23-38. Mark v. 18, 19. ft . ,, xii. 18-25. w Luke vii. 11-15. „ xi. 27, 28. Matt. xiii. 55-58. John viii. i-ii. Luke iv. 16, 22. „ xix. 25-27. John vi. 42. Matt. xii. 4C-50. Mark iii. 21. Luke ix. 57-6 i. John vii. 3-9. CHAPTER II. 56. % 22. 2. 11. 1-9- CHRIST IN THE HOME. I. T"^, '"'"'""■°" "f the family affords striking Illustrations both of what may be called the eement^of necessity and of what may be called the element of liberty in human life. There is in it a mysterious element of necessity. Everyone .s born into a particular family, which ha a h,story and character of its own, formed be ore ha arrives. He has no choice in the matter; yet th,s connection affects all his subsequent life. He may be born where it is an honour to be bom or, on the contrary, where it is a disgrace. He may be heir ,:o inspiring memories and refined hab,ts, or he may have to take up a hereditaiy burden of physical and moral disease. A man has no choice of his own father and mother, his brothers and sisters, his uncles and cousins ; yet on these ties, which he can never unlock, may depend three-fourths of his happiness or ;isery ■■9111 38 IMAGO CIIRTSTI. The door-bell rings some night, and, going out, you see on the doorstep a man who is evidently a stranger from a strange land. You know nothing of him ; he is quite outside the circle of your interest ; he is ten thousand miles away from your spirit. But, if he can say, " Don't you know me ? I am your brother," how near he comes — ten thousand miles at one step ! You and he are connected with an indissoluble bond ; and this bond may either be a golden clasp which is an ornament or an iron clamp which burns and corrodes your very flesh. This is the element in the institution of the family. Jesus could not touch humanity without being caught in this fetter of necessity. He entered its mysterious circle when He was born of a woman. He became a member of a family which had its own traditions and its own position in society ; and He had brothers and sisters. These circumstances were not without import- ance to Him. That His mother exercised an influence upon His growing mind cannot be doubted. We have not, indeed, the means of tracing in much detail how this influence acted, for few notices of His early years have come down to us ; but it may be noted as one signifi- cant fact that Mary's hymn, the so-called Magnificat, CHRIST IN THE HOME. 39 in which, at her meeting with Eh'zabeth, she poured forth the sentiments of her heart, embodies thoughts which are echoed again and again in the preaching of Jesus. This production proves her to have been a woman not only of great grace, but of rare natural gifts, which had been nourished from God's Word, till she naturally spoke the very language of the prophets and the holy women of old. We may not ascribe too much to her and Joseph, but we can say that the holy childhood of Jesus was reared in a home of pious refinement, and that there weie marks of this home oi: Him after He left it. . . ,, Besides this influence, He was born to a long pedigree ; and this was not a matter of indiffer- ence to Him. He was of the seed of David ; and the Gospel narrative takes pains to trace His descent in the royal line — a procedure which may be regarded as an echo of His own feeling. Noblesse oblige : there is a stimulus to noble action supplied by noble lineage ; and Milton is not perhaps overstepping the bounds of legitimate infer- ence when, in Paradise Regained, he represents the mind of the youthful Saviour as being stirred to noble ambition by the memories of His ancestors: Victorious deeds .:.(. Flamed in My heart, heroic acts — one while To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke j 40 IMAGO CHRIST!. Then to subdue and quell o'er all the earth Brute violence and proud tyrannic power, Till truth was freed and equity restored. ♦ There can at least be no hesitation in believing that His royal descent pointed out His way to the work of the Messiah. He had, however, also to feel the galling of the ring of necessity. He bore the reproach of mean descent ; for, although His remoter ancestry was noble. His immediate relatives were poor ; and, when He appeared on the stage of public life, sneering tongues asked, " Is not this the carpenter'^ sr ^ ? " His life is the final rebuke to such shallow respect of persons, and will remain for ever to the despised and lowly-born a guide to show how, by worth of character and wealth of service to God and man, they may shut the mouths of gainsayers and win a place in the love and honour of the world. The element of liberty which belongs to human life is exhibited no less conspicuously than the element of necessity in the family, and is equally mysterious. Of his own choice a man enters the married state and founds a family ; and by this act of his will the circle is fashioned which in the next generation will be inclosing other human beings in the same bonds of relationship into which he has himself been born. Of course the nature of the case prevented Jesus CHRIST IN THE HOME. 4« believing ay to the ig of the of mean istry was ind, when sneering -'-> Sf ^ ? " w respect ; despised worth of and man, nd win a o human han the equally iters the this act the next )eings in he has *.:; xn from being the founder of a family ; and this has sometime^ been pointed to as a defect in the example He has left us. We have not, it is said, His example to follow in the most sacred of all the relationships of life. Undeniably there seems to be a certain force in this objection. Yet it is a singular fact that the greatest of all precepts in regard to f.his relationship is taken directly from His example. The deepest and most sacred word ever uttered on the subject of marriage is this : " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish."* , Jesus honoured the institution of the family all through His life. In His day there prevailed in Palestine a shameful dissolution of the domestic ties. Divorce was rife and so easily procured that every trifle was made an excuse for it ; and by the system of Corban children were actually allowed to compound by a payment to ed Jesus Eph. V. 25 ft. 42 IMAGO CHRIST!. the Temple for the neglect of their own parents. Jesus denounced these abuses with unsparing indig- nation and sanctioned for all the Christian ages only that law of marriage which causes it to be entered on with forethought,* and then, when the relation- ship has been formed, drains the deepest affections of the heart into its sacred channel. His own love of children, and the divine words He spoke about them, if they cannot be said to have created the love of parents for their children, have at all events immensely deepened and refined it. The love of heathen mothers and fathers for their offspring is a rude and animal propensity in comparison with the love for children which reigns in our Christian homes. He lifted childhood up, as He raised so many other weak and despised things, and set it in the midst. If the patter of little feet on the stairs * " He who attacks marriage, he who by word or deed sets himself to undermine this foundation of all moral society, he must settle the matter with me ; and, if I don't bring him to reason, then I have nothing to do with him. Marriage is the beginning and the summit of all civilisation. It makes the savage mild ; and the most highly cultivated man has no better means of demonstrating his mildness. Marriage must be indissoluble ; for it brings so much general happiness, that any individual case of unhappiness tLat may be connected with it cannot come into account. . . . Are we not really married to our conscience, of which we might often be willing to rid ourselves because it often annoys us more than any man or woman can possibly annoy one another ? " — Blackie, The Wisdom of Goethe, CHRIS r IN THE HOME. 43 and the sound of little voices in the house are music to us, and if the pressure of little fingers and the touches of little lips can make us thrill with gratitude and prayer, we owe this sunshine of life to Jesus Christ. By saying, " Suffer the little children to come unto Me," He converted the home into a church, and parents into His ministers ; and it may be doubted whether He has not by this means won to Himself as many disciples in the course of the Christian ages as even by the institution of the Church itself. Perhaps the lessons of mothers speaking of Jesus, and the examples of Christian fathers, have done as much for the success of Christianity as the sermons of eloquent preachers or the worship of assembled congregations. Not once or twice, at all events, has the religion of Christ, when driven out of the Church, which had been turned by faithless ministers and worldly members into a synagogue of Satan, found ar, asylum in the home ; and there have been few of the great teachers of Christendom who have not derived their deepest convictions from the impressions made by their earliest domestic environment. \ Many of the miracles of Jesus seem to have been prompted by regard for the affections of the family. When He healed the Syro-Phoenician's daughter, or gave the daughter of Jairus back to her mother, or 44 IMAGO CHRISTI. raised the widow's son at the gate of Nain, or brought Lazarus from the dead to keep the family circle at Bethany unbroken, can it be doubted that the Saviour experienced delight in ministering to the domestic affections ? He showed how profound was His appreciation of the depth and intensity of these affections in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. But it was by His own conduct in the family that He exhibited most fully His respect for this institution. Though the details of His life in Mary's home are unknown to us, every indication shows Him to have been a perfect son. There is no joy of parents comparable to that of seeing their child growing up in wisdom, modesty and nobility ; and we are told that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man. If He knew already of the great career before Him, this did not lift Him above the obedience of a child ; for, even when He was twelve years of age, we are told. He went down to Nazareth with His parents and was subject unto them. It is generally supposed that soon after this Joseph died, and on Jesus, as the eldest son, fell the care of supporting the family. This is uncertain ; but the very close of His life is marked by an act which throws the strongest light back on the years of CHRIST IN THE HOME, 45 which no record has been preserved, for it reveals how deep and deathless was His affection for His mother. Whilst hanging on the cross, He saw her and spoke to her. He was at the time in terrible agony, every nerve tingling with intolerable pain. He was at the point of death and anxious no doubt to turn away from all earthly things and deal with God alone ; He was bearing the sin of the world, whose maddening load was crushing His heart ; yet, amidst it all, He turned His attention to His mother and to her future, and made provision for her by ►asking one of His disciples to take her to his home and be a son to her in His own stead. And the disciple He selected for this service was the most amiable of them all — not Peter the headlong or Thomas the melancholy, but John, who could talk with her more tenderly than any other about the one subject which absorbed them both, and who was perhaps abler than any of the rest, on account of the comfort of his worldly condition, to support Mary without allowing her to feel that she was a burden. in. ry- Sacred as is the parent's right to the obedience of tho child, there is a term to it. It is the office of the parent to train the child to independence. 4« IMAGO CHRIST/. As the schoolmaster's aim ought to be to train his pupils to a stage where they are able to face the work of life without any more help from him, so parents have to recognise that there is a point at which their commands must cease and their children be allowed to choose and act for themselves. Love will not cease ; respect ought not to cease ; but authority has to cease. Where exactly this point occurs in a child's life it is difficult to define. It may not be the same in every case. But in all cases it is a momentous crisis. Woe to the child who grasps at this freedom too soon ! This is often the ruin of the young ; and among the features of the life of our own time there are none perhaps more ominous than the widespread disposition among the young to slip the bridle of authority prematurely and acknowledge no law except their own will. But parents also sometimes make the mistake of attempt- ing to exert their authority too long. A father may try to keep his son under his roof when it would be better for him to marry and have a house of his own ; or a mother may interfere in the household affairs of her married daughter, who would be a better wife if left to her own resources.* * •' A child's duty is to obey its parents. It is never said any- where in the Bible, and never was yet said in any good or wise book, that a man's or a woman's, is. When^ precisely a child CHRIST m THE HOME, 47 Mary, the mother of Jesus, erred in this respect. She attempted again and again to interfere unduly with His work, even after His public ministry had commenced. It was her pride in Him that made her do so at the marriage in Cana of Galilee ; it was anxiety about His health on other occasions. She was not the only one who ventured to control His action in an undue way. But, if anything could arouse the indignation of Jesus, it was such interference. It made Him once turn on Peter with, " Get thee behind Me, Satan ; " and on more than one occasion it lent an appearance of harshness even to His behaviour to His mother. The very intensity of His love to His friends and relatives made their wishes and appeals sore temptations to Him, for He would have liked to please them had becomes a man or a woman, it can no more be said, than when it should first stand on its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it should. In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children. It may be — and happy the house in which it is so — that the father's at least equal intellect, and older experience, may remain to the end of his life a law to his children, not ^f force, but of perfect guidance, with perfect love. Rarely it is so ; not often possible. It is as natural for the old to be prejudiced as for the young to be presumptuous ; and in the change of centuries, each generation has something to judge of for itself." — Ruskin, Mornings in Florence^ vol. iii., p. 72. 48 IMAGO CHRISTl. He been able. But, if He had yielded, He would have been turning away from the task to which He was pledged \ and therefore He had to rouse Himself even to indignation to resist temptation. On no other occasion had His conduct so much appearance of unfilial harshness as when His mother and brethren came one day in the midst of His work desiring to speak with Him, and He retorted on the person who told Him, " But who is My mother, and who are My brethren ? " and, looking round on the disciples seated in front of Him, added, " Behold, My mother and My brethren ! for whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." It cannot be denied that these words have a harsh sound.* But they are probably to be read with what goes immediately before them in the Gospel of St. Mark, where we are told that His friends made an attempt to lay hold of Him, saying, " He is beside Himself." So absorbed was Jesus at this period in His work that He neglected even to eat ; so rapt was He in the holy passion of saving men that to His rela- tives it appeared that He had gone mad ; and they * The very fact, however, that Jesus compared the relation between Himself and those who do the will of God to the con- nection between Himself and His mother and brethren implies that the latter held a high and sacred place in His mind. CHRJST IN THE HOME. 49 would which 3 rouse ptation. 3 much m His 2 midst and He Jut who ?" and, front of irethren ! same is • cannot sound* at goes t. Mark, attempt imself." is work was He is rela- .nd they le relation the con- ;n implies Id. conceived it to be their duty to lay hands on Him and put Him in restraint. If Mary took part in this impious procedure, it is no wonder that there should have fallen on her a heavy rebuke. At all events she evidently came to Him thinking that He must at once leave everything and speak to her. But He had to teach her that there are even higher claims than those of domestic affection : in doing God's work He could recognise no authority but God's. There is a sphere into which even parental authority may not seek admittance — the sphere of conscience. Jesus not only kept this sacred for Himself, but called upon those who followed Him to do so too. He foresaw how in the progress of time this would often sever family ties ; and to one who cherished so high a respect for the home it must have been a prospect full of pain : " Think not," He said, "that I am come to send peace on earth, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." This must have been to Him a terrible prospect ; but He did not shrink from it ; to Him there were claims higher than even those of home : " He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he so JMAGO CIIRISTI. that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Mc." This sword still cuts. In heathen countries where Christianity is being introduced, especially in countries, like India, where the domestic system is extensively developed, the chief difficulty in the way of confessing Christ is the pain of breaking family connections, and often it is nothing less than an agony. Even in Christian lands the oppo- sition of worldly parents to the religious decision of their children is sometimes very strong, and occasions extreme perplexity to those who have to bear this cross. It is always a delicate case, re- quiring the utmost Christian wisdom and r 'ence ; but, when the issues are clear to mind . con- science, there can be no doubt which alternative is the will of Christ : we must obey God rather than man.* How happy are they who are in precisely the opposite case : who know that their full decision * There is a very important caution Wnted at in the words of Martenscn on this subject (Christian Ethics, vol. ii.) : •' What- ever doul)tful and difficult circumstances may hereby arise, and however mistakenly those members of a family may act, who are awake to Christian truth, but whose Christianity is often made an unseemly display of, and whose whole behaviour is one fret and ferment, still the fact itself, that ordinary and worldly family life is disturbed by the Gospel, is one quite in order, and in conformity with the divine economy." CHRIST m THE HOME. $1 is not mntries ;ially in system in the >reaking ng less e oppo- dccision »ng, and have to case, re- 'ence ; con- crnative her than recisely decision |the words •' What- arise, and act, who • is often lour is one Id 'worldly lorder, and for Christ and frank confession of Him would fill their homes with joy unspeakable I In every home, it is said, there is a skeleton In the cupboard ; that is to say, however great may be its prosperity and however perfect the appearance of harmony it presents to the world, there is always, inside, some friction or fear or «?ccret, which darkens the sunshine. This proverb may be no truer than many other wide generalisations which need to be qualified by the acknowledgment of innumerable exceptions. Yet there is no denying that home has its pains as well as its pleasures, and the very closeness of the connection of the members of a family with one another gives to any who may be so disposed the chance of wounding the rest. Under the cloak of relationship torture may be applied with impunity, which those who inflict it would not dare to apply to an outsider. Jesus suffered from this ; He had His peculiar domestic grief. It was that His brethren did not believe on Him. They could not believe that He who had grown up with them as one of themselves was infinitely greater than they. They looked with envy on His waxing fame. Whenever s* IMAGO CHRISTI. they intervene in His life, it is in a way to annoy. How great a grief this must have been to Jesus will be best understood by those who have suffered the like themselves. There have been many of God's saints who have had to stand and testify alone in ungodly and worldly homes. Many in such circumstances are suffering an agony of daily petty martyrdom which may be harder to bear than public persecution, for which widespread sympathy !?? easily aroused. But they know at least that they have the sympathy of Him who alluded so patheti- cally to His own experience in the words : " A prophet is not without honour save in his own country and in his own house." " -' How He met His brethren's unbelief — whether He reasoned and remonstrated with them or was silent and trusted to the testimony of His life — we cannot tell. But we may be certain thai- He prayed for them without ceasing ; and happily we know what the issue was. ^; . His brethren, it would appear, continued un- believing up to the time of His death. But im- mediately thereafter, in the first chapter of the Book of Acts, we find them assembled as believers with His apostles in Jerusalem.* This is an * Acts i. 14. CHRIST IN THE HOME. 53 extraordinary circumstance ; for at this very time His cause was, if we may so speak, at the lowest ebb. Events seemed to have demonstrated that His pretensions to the Messiahship had been false ; yet those who had disbelieved in Him at the height of His fame were found among the believers in Him when apparently His cause had gone to pieces. How is this to be accounted for ? The explanation lies, I believe, in a passage of First Corinthians, where, in enumerating the appear- ances of our Lord to different persons after His resurrection, St. Paul mentions that He appeared to James.* This was apparently the Lord's brother ; and, if so, is there not something wonderfully strik- ing in the fact that one of the first acts of the risen Saviour was to bring to His unbelieving brother the evidence which would conquer his unbelief.? James, it may be presumed, would communicate what he had experienced ♦^^o the other members of Mary's family. The result was of the happiest description ; and two of the brothers, James and Jude, lived to be the penmen of books of Holy Scripture. I venture to think that the presence of these brethren of Jesus among the believers in Him at such a crisis is even yet one of the strongest proofs • I Cor. XV. 7, 54 IMAGO CHRIS TI. of the reality i the resurrection ; but in the mean- time we will rather think of it as a signal proof of the unwearied persistence with which He sought their salvation, and as an example to ourselves to pray on, hope on, work on for those of our own flesh and blood who may yet be outside the fold of Christ, ; mean- 1 proof sought Ives to jr own he fold III. CHRIST IN THE STATJi) Matt. ix. I. Matt. • • lU »» xiii. 54. it iv. 3-10. *> xvii. 24-27. i> ix. 9, 27. »» XX. 17-19. >> xxi. l-il. >> xxiii. 37-39. >i xxii. 15-21. >> xxvi. 32. »> xxvi. 47-68 Luke iv. 16-30. >» xxvii. >> xiii. 16, 34, 35. Luke ii. II, 29,32, 38 >f xix. 9. II 11 John It xiii. 31-33. xxiii. 7-12. vi. 15. xi. 48. Matt, xviii. 1-3. „ xix. 28. „ XX. 20-28. John xviii. 36, 37. u xix. 14, ig , 201 33. CHAPTER III. CHRIST IN THE STATE. I. JN the mind of the average Christian of the present day the idea of the state does not perhaps occupy a prominent position. Many of his duties appear to him more important than tho,e he owes as a citizen. He probably considers that the most important question which can be asked about him is, What is he in himself, in his secret soul and inward character.? Next to this in im portance he might perhaps consider the question of what he is as a member of the Church, charged with sustaining its honour and sharing in its work. The third place he might give to the question of what he is in the family, as son, husband, father. But much less important than any of these would appear to him the fourth question-what he is as a citizen of the state. On the whole, perhaps this is the right way of 58 niAGO CIIRISTI. II il judging ; probably it is the Christian way.* But it is the exact opposite of the view of the whole ancient world. The great thinkers of Greece, for example, put the state before the individual, the home and the Church. To them the supreme question about every man was. What is he as a citizen } The chief end of man they believed to be to make the state great and prosperous, and to the interests of the state they sacrificed everything else. Whether the individual was good and happy, whether the family was pure and harmonious, was not what they asked first, but whether the state was strong. Jesus changed this. He was the discoverer, so to speak, of the individual. He taught that in every man there is a soul more precious than the * The relative importance of these different ways of con- sidering man affords scope, however, for endless discussion and difference of opinion. Rothe's ethical speculations were power- fully influenced by deference to the ancient view of the priority of the state. Martensen holds that a theory of society must start from the family. Ritschl and his school have re-emphasized the ethical and religious importance of the Church. Among ourselves several causes are contributing at present to give prominence to the social aspects of religion. It is impossible to overestimate these, unless they are put above its individual aspects. I can entertain no doubt that in the mind of Jesus the individual was the priiis. Indeed, one of the most decisive steps forward taken in His moral teaching was the substitution of the individual as the unit for the nation or the Church, CHRIST IN THE STATE. 59 But whole :e, for il, the preme as a ^ed to ind to ything happy, LIS, was 5 state !rer, so hat in an the of con- iion and power- priority jty must )hasizcd Among to give [possible tidividual )f Jesus I decisive istitution whole world, and that the best product of this world is a good and noble character. Instead of its being true that individuals da not matter if the state is strong, the truth is that the state and the Church and the family are only means for the good of the individual, and they are tested by the kind of man they produce.* In this, as in many other respects, Christianity turned the world upside down, and put the first last and the last first. But, although the state does not hold the place in Christian teaching which it held in heathen philosophy, it would be a great mistake to sup- pose that to Christianity the state is unimportant. Though the primary aim of Christ's religion is to make good men, yet good men ought to be good citizens. It is natural to a healthy human being to love the land of his birth, the scenery on which his eyes have first rested, and the town in which he resides ; and it is part of the design of Providence to utilise these affections for the progress of man and the embellishment of the earth, which is his habitation. Every inhabitant of a town ought to * " The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms." — Aniiets Journal ^ vol. i., p. 49. ' I^F^^ 60 IMAGO CHRISTI. wish to promote its welfare and adorn it with beauty ; and there is no feeling more worthy of a youthful heart than the desire to do something — by making a wise plan, or writing a good book, or singing a noble lay, or expunging a national blot — to add to the fair fame of his native country.* a- Some countries have had an exceptional power of awakening these sentiments and of binding their own children to their service. Palestine was one of these. It was loved with a fervent patriot- ism. Its charm lay partly in its beauty. It may have lain partly in its very smallness, for feeling contracts an impetuous force when confined within narrow limits, as highland rivers become torrents in their rocky beds. But it is the memory of great and unselfish lives lived on its soil that chiefly excites patriotic sentiment in the inhabitants of any " I mind it weel, in early date, When I was beardless, young and blate, And first could thresh the barn, * * * ♦ Ev'n then a wish (I mind its power), A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast : That I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or beuk could make Or sing a sang at least." Burns. CHRIST IN THE STATE. 6t with / of a ling — book, ational native power )inding ne was patriot- It may feeling within orrents great chiefly of any Burns. country ; * and Palestine possessed this source of fascination in unparalleled measure, for its history was crowded with the most inspiring names. \ Jesus felt this spell. Can anyone read in His words the images of natural beauty gathered from the fields of Galilee without being convinced that He looked on these landscapes with a loving eye ? The name of the village He was brought up in clings to Him to this day, for He is still Jesus of Nazareth. He vindicated Himself for healing a woman on the Sabbath on the ground that she was a daughter of Abraham ; and the publicans and sinners were deal" to Him because they were the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jerusalem, the capital of the country, had always laid a strong hold on Jewish hearts. The bards of the nation used to sing of it, " Beautiful for situation is Mount Zion ; " " Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I forget thee, O Jerusalem." But all such tributes of affection were surpassed by Jesus, when He addressed it, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have * Says Novalis : " The best of the French monarchs had it for his purpose to make his subjects so well off that every one of them should be able on Sundays to have roast fowl to dinner. Very good. But would not that be a better government under which the peasant would rather dine on dry bread than under any other on roast fowl, and, as grace before meat, would give God thanks that he had been born in such a country?" ii ill! (a IMAGO ClIRISTT. 111! I iiii gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings ! " This feeling survived even the transformation of the grave, for, in giving instructions, after He was risen, to His apostles about the evangelization of the world. He said, "Begin at Jerusalem." He lived in the closest sympathy with the great figures of His country's past and with the work done by them. Such names as Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah, were continually on His lips ; and He took up the tasks which they had left unfinished and carried them forward to their fulfilment. This is the truest work of patriotism. Happy is that country whose best life has been drained into some ideal cause, and whose greatest names are the names of those who have lavished their strength on this object. The deeds and sayings of these heroes ought, next to the Bible, to be the chief spiritual nourishment of her children ; and the young ambition of her choicest minds should be concentrated on watering the seeds which they sowed and completing the enterprises which they inaugurated. HI. There was one task of patriotism in Christ's day and country which seemed to lie to the hand of anyone born with a patriotic spirit. Palestine was at that time an enslaved country. In fact, it was CHRIST m THE ZTATE. «3 hen This f the 2 was ion of ; lived of His them, d and Dok up carried ; truest whose 3e, and lo have deeds \ Bible, ildren ; should I they II they It's day ind of I was lit was groaning under a double servitude ; for, whilst several of its provinces were ruled over by the tyrannical race of the Herods,* the whole country was subject to the Roman power. Was it not the duty of Jesus to free His country from this double tyranny and restore it to indepen- dence, or even elevate it to a place of sovereignty among the nations "i Many would have been willing to welcome a deliverer and to make sacrifices for the national cause. The whole of the Pharisaic party was imbued with patriotic sentiment, and a section of it bore the name of the Zealots, because they were willing to go all lengths tn sacrifice or daring.t Jesus seemed to be designated for this very service. He was directly descended from David through the royal line. When He was born, wise men came from the East to Jerusalem inquiring, " Where is He that is born King of the Jews ? " One of His first disciples,! on being introduced to Him, saluted Him as " the King of Israel ;" and, on the day when He rode in triumph into Jerusalem, * Herod the Great, the founder of this dynasty, was an Idumacan, but tried to conciliate the national sentiment by marrying a Jewish princess. ' . ; t One member of this party, Simon Zelotcs, joined the discipleship of Jesus. X Nathanael. IMAGO CHRIST/. His adherents called Him by the same name, no doubt meaning that they expected Him to be literally the king of the country. These, and many other incidents which they will recall, are indications that it was His destiny not to be the private man He was, but to be the head of an emancipated and glorious state. Why was this destination not fulfilled ? This is the most difficult question that can be asked. It occurs often to every careful reader of the Gospels, but lands us as often as we ask it in a sea of mysteries. Did He ever intend to be the king of His native country } Was Satan appealing to the favourite fancies of His youth when he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them } If the Jewish people, instead of rejecting, had welcomed Him, what would have happened } Would He have set up His throne in Jerusalem and made the whole world subject to it } Was it only when they had made it impossible for Him to reign over them that He turned aside from what appeared to be His destiny and limited Himself to a kingdom not of this world } It is impossible to read Christ's life intelligently without asking such questions as these ; yet it is vain to ask them, for they cannot be answered. We are asking what would have been, if something which CHRIST IN THE STATE. «5 le, no to be many ations e man >d and rhis is :d. It rospels, sea of e king ling to showed e glory ecting, pened ? usalem Was it Him to what himself ci [igently is vain IWe are which did happen had not happened ; and only omniscience is equal to such a problem. We may, however, say with certainty that it was the sin of man which prevented Jesus from ascending the throne of His father David. His offer of Himself to be the Messiah of His country was a bond fide offer. Yet it was made on conditions from which He could not depart : He could only have been king of a righteous nation. But the Jews were thoroughly unrighteous. They once tried to take Him by force and make Him a king ; but their zeal was unhallowed, and He could not yield to it. Then the tide of His life turned and rolled back upon itself. Instead of the expeller of tyrants, He became the victim of tyranny. His own nation, which ought to have raised Him on its shields as its leader, became His prosecutor at the bar of the alien government, and He had to stand as a culprit before both the Roman and the Herod ian rulers of the land. As a subject of the country, He yielded whh all submissiveness, telling His followers to put up their swords. And the law-officers of the state made a malefactor of Him, crucifying Him between two thieves. His blood fell on the capital of the country as a deadly curse ; and in less than half a century after His murder the Jewish state had disappeared from the face of the earth. 5 66 IMAGO CHRIST!. WW It is a terrible commentary on the imperfection of the state. The state exists for the protection of life, property and honour — to be a terror to evil- doers and a praise to them that do well. Once, and only once in all history, it had to deal with One who was perfectly good ; and what it did was to adjudge Him a place among the very worst of criminals and put Him to death. If this were a specimen of the law's habitual action, the state, instead of being a divine institution, would have to be pronounced the most monstrous evil with which the world is cursed. So the victims of its injustice have sometimes pronounced it ; but happily such opinions are only the excesses of a few. On the whole, the laws framed by the state, and the ad- ministration of them, have been a restraint on sin and a protection to innocence. Yet the exceptions in every age have been numerous and sad enough. Not everything is righteous which the law of the land sanctions, nor are those all unrighteous whom the administrators of the law condemn. It is of the utmost consequence in our day to remember this, because, in the changed arrangements of the modern state, we are not only subjects of the government, but, directly or indirectly, makers and administrators of the law. Through the exercise of the municipal and the parliamentary franchises, wc have a part in CHRIST IN THE STATE. 67 :ction Dn of evil- Oiice, 1 One 'as to rst of rere a state, ive to which justice T such )n the le ad- on sin ptions lough. of the whom of the this, lodern ment, raters icipal art in appointing those who make and who administer the laws, and thus we have our share in the responsi- bility of bringing up the laws to the standard of the divine justice and placing the wise and the good upon the judgment seat. \ IV. The life of Jesus appeared to miscarry. He who was meant to be a king was held unworthy to live even as a subject ; instead of inhabiting a palace, He was consigned to a prison ; instead of being seated on a throne, He was nailed to a tree. But, although this was a miscarriage in so far as it was due to the wicked will of men, it was no mis- carriage in the wisdom of God. Looked at froim man's side, the death of Christ was the blackest spot on human history, a mistake and a crime without parallel ; but, looked at from God's side, it is the grandest scene in the history of the universe ; for in it human sin was expiated, the depths of the divine love were disclosed, and the path of perfection opened for the children of men. Jesus was never so completely a king as at the moment when His claims to kingship were turned into ridicule. It was in savage jest that the title was put above His cross, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Pilate wrote 68 IMAGO CHRIST/. these words in ridicule ; but, when we look back at them now, do they appear ridiculous ? Do they not rather shine across the centuries with inextin- guishable splendour ? In that hour of uttermost shame Christ was proving Himself to be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Jesus had all along had a conception of His own kingship which was distinct, original and often repeated. He held that to be a true king is to be the servant of the commonweal, and that he is most kingly who renders the most valuable services to the greatest number. He was well aware that this was not the world's view of kingship, but precisely the reverse of it. The world's view is that to be a king is to have multitudes in your service, and the greater the numbers ministering to hii; glory or pleasure the greater is the king. So He said : " The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them." " But," He added, " it shall not be so among you : but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Such was Christ's conception of greatness ; and, if it is the true one. He was never so great as when, by the sacrifice of Himself, He was conferring on the whole world the blessings of salvation. CHRIST IN THE STATE. 69 :k at they ;xtin- rmost King 5 own often to be ; most to the Is was ly the a king reater re the ices of they * But," but your ;ou, let leption e was jimself, ssings But this conception of greatness and kingliness was not meant by Jesus to be appHed to His own conduct alone ; it is of universal application. It is the Christian standard for the measurement of all dignities in the state. He is greatest, according to '■he mind of Christ, who renders the greatest services to others. Alas ! this is as yet but little understood ; it makes but slow progress in the minds of men. The old heathen idea is still the governing one of politics — that to be great is to receive much service, not to render it. Politics has been n game of ambition, if not a hunting-ground for rapacity, rather than a sphere of service. The aim of the governing classes hitherto has been to get as much as possible for themselves at the expense of the governed ; and it has yet to be seen whether the new governing class is to be swayed b; a better spirit. Still, the Christii' 1 idea is growing in this depart- ment a' ;o of human affairs. The common heart responds o Christ's teaching, that the kingliest is he who sac Ifices himself most willingly, works the hardest and achieves the most for the weal of all ; and, although the quaint old saying of the Psalmist is still too true, that " men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself," yet the number of those Ill IMAGO CHRIST!. is daily growing who feci that the greatness of a ruler is measured, " not by the amount of tribute he levies on society, but by the greatness of the services he renders it." ,' 'f. of a ite he '' rvices IV. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH i :i! Matt. iii. 13-15. ,, viii. 4. „ ix. 35. 7 „ xiii. 54. „ xxi. 12, 13. Mark iii. 1-6. i> vi. 2. „ xii. 41-44. Luke ii. 21-24, 39. 41-49. „ iv. 16-32, 44. „ xxii. 53. John iv. 22. It V. I. ,1 viii. 20. Ii X, 22, 23. , Matt. ix. 10-17. „ xii. 1-14. ,, XV. 1-9. ,, xvi. 6. ,, xxiii. Luke x. 31, 32. John ii. 13-22. Matt. xxiv. 1-2. „ xxvi. 17-30. ,, xxviii. 19, 20. John XX. 22, 23. 20. CHAPTER IV. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. TN some respects the Church is a narrower body than even the family; for one member of a family may be taken into it and another left out ; but in other respects it is wider even than the state ; for members of different nations may be members of the same Church. The family and the state are institutions de- veloped out of human nature by its own inherent force and according to its own inherent laws ; but the Church is a divine institution, planted among men to gather into itself select souls and administer to them supernatural gifts. It is not, indeed, with- out a natural root in human nature ; but this root consists of those feelings in man which make him aspire to an enjoyment and satisfaction which are not to be found in this world of which he is lord, but can only be got as the pure gift of Heaven. Without revelation there is no Church. As the edifice of the Church rises above the homes of men, 74 IMAGO CHRIST/, amidst which it is erected, and its spire, like a finger, points to the sky, so the Church as an institution is an expression of man's aspirations after a heavenly life — a life in God and in eternity, which only the condescending grace of God can supply. . . , , , ,• Jesus was born in a country in which there was already a true Church, founded on revelation and administering the grace of God. He was a child of that nation to which " pertained the adoption and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." He was admitted into the fellowship of the Church by the ordinary gateway of circumcision ; and a few weeks thereafter He was presented in the Temple, like any other Jewish child, in acknowledgment that He belonged to the Lord. Thus, before He wa: Himself conscious of it, He was, through the wishes of His earthly parents, shut in by holy rites within the visible Church of God. The same has happened to us in baptism. But many who are baptized in childhood show no dis- position in maturity to desire for themselves to be connected with the house of God. Jesus, on the contrary, as soon as He became fully capable of CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. M ■e, like a ch as an :ions after eternity, God can there was ation and s a child ption and ng of the es." He hurch by id a few Temple, ledgment cfore He Dugh the loly rites m. But no dis- es to be on the pable of self-conscious action, adopted the pious wishes of His parents as His own and developed a pas- sionate love for the house of God. When His parents lost Him in Jerusalem at twelve years of age, they found Him again in the Temple ; and, when they told Him how long and how widely they had sought Him, He asked in surprise how they could have expected Him to be anywhere else than there* He was without a doubt a regular fre- quenter of the synagogue during His silent years at Nazareth ; and strange it is to think of Him being preached to Sabbath after Sabbath for so long.t When He quitted the privacy of Nazareth and began His public work, He was still a regular frequenter of the synagogue. This was in fact the centre from which His work developed itself. " He wrought miracles in the synagogues of Galilee." * •' Wist ye not that I should be in My Father's house ? " So the Revised Version, correctly. t What was the man like who did it ? Was he a wise man, who guided the footsteps of the Holy Child into the pastures of the Word and supplied Him with the language in which His own thoughts afterwards expressed themselves? or was he an embodiment of all that Jesus had afterwards to denounce in Pharisee and scribe ? No portion of a congregation is more awe-inspiring to a minister than the children. Any Sunday there may be sitting before us one who is already revolving the thoughts which will dominate the future and supersede our own. 76 IMAGO CHRISTI. Nor was He neglectful of the other centre of Jewish worship — the Temple at Jerusalem. He regularly attended the feasts ; He sat down with His disciples in Jerusalem to eat the Passover ; and He preached in the courts of the Temple. Even so secular a part of divine service as the giving of money He did not overlook : He sent Peter to fetch out of the fish's mouth a coin to pay for Him the Temple- tax ; and He passed a glowing eulogium on the widow who cast her mite into the Temple collecting- box. It is thus evident that Jesus was a passionate lover of the house i God. He could say with holy David, " How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ; my soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand." One sometimes hears even professedly religious people at the present day disparaging public worship, as if religion might flourish equally well without it ; and, for trifling reasons or for no reason at all, they take it upon themselves to withdraw from the visible Church as something unworthy of them. This was not the way in which Jesus acted. The Church of Plis day was by no means a pure one ; and He, if anybody, might have deemed it unworthy of Him. But He regularly waited on CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. n )f Jewish regularly disciples preached secular a oney He :h out of ; Temple- n on the ;ollecting- jassionate say with naclcs, O L fainteth ly courts religious g public ally well lo reason withdraw vorthy of us acted, a pure eemed it /aited on its ordinances and ardently loved it. There are few congregations less ideal perhaps than that in which He worshipped in vvicked Nazareth, and few sermons are less perfect than those He listened to. But in that little synagogue He felt Himseli made one with all the piety of the land ; as the Scripture was read, the great and good of former ages thronged around Him ; nay, heaven itself was in that narrow place for Him. The Churrh is the window in the house of human life from which to look out and see heaven ; and it does not require a very ornamental window to make the stars visible. The finest name ever given, out- side the Bible, to the Church is Bunyan's Palace Beautiful. Yet the churches which he was ac- quainted with were only the Baptist meeting-houses of Bedfordshire ; and in an age of persecution these were certainly as humble structures as have ever served for places of worship. No better than barns they seemed to common eyes ; but in his eyes each of them was a Palace Beautiful ; because, when seated on one of its rough benches, he felt himself in the general assembly and Church of the firstborn ; and the eye of his imagination, looking up through the dingy rafters, could descry the gorgeous roof and shining pinnacles of the Church universal. It is the sanctified imagination that 78 IMAGO CIIRISTI. ■4! invests the Church building, whether it be brick meeting-house or noble cathedral, with true sub- limity ; and love to God, whose house it is, can make the humblest material structure a home of the spirit. n. Although the Church of Christ's day was of divine origin and He acknowledged it to be the house of God, it was frightfully full of abuses. Though an institution comec from God, man may add to it that which is his own ; and by degrees the human addition may become so identified with the divine institutivon that both are supposed to be of a piece and equally divine. The human additions grow and grow, until it is almost impossible to get at what is God's through that which is man's. Some s'jccessful souls, indeed, still find their way through to the reality, as the roots of trees seek their way to the sustenance of the soil between the crannies of the opposing rocks ; but multitudes are unable to find the way, and perish through trying to satisfy themselves with what is merely human, mistaking it for what is divine. At last a strong man is raised up to perceive the difference between the original structure and the human addition ; and he tears away the latter, breaking it in pieces, amidst the ilL. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. 79 be brick true sub- it is, can home of yr was of to be the )f abuses, man may egrees the I with the I to be of additions to get at 's. Some y through eir way to rannies of unable to to satisfy istaking it is raised e original he tears midst the wild outcries of all the owls and birds of darkness that have built their nests in it, and discloses once more the foundation of God. This is the Reformer. In Christ's day the accumulation of human addi- tions to the religion which God had instituted had grown to a head. No one knows how it had begun ; such things sometimes begin innocently enough. But it had been immensely developed by a misconcep- tion which had crept in as to what the worship of God is. Worship is the means by which the empty human soul approaches God in order to be filled with His fulness, and then go away rejoicing, to live for Him in the strength thus received. But there is always a tendency to look upon it as a tribute we pay to God, which pleases Him and is meritorious on our part. Of course, if it is tribute paid to Him, the more of it that can be paid the better ; for the more of it there is, so much the greater grows the merit of the worshipper. Thus services are multiplied, new forms are invented, and the memory of God's grace is lost in the achievements of human merit. This was what had happened in Palestine. Religion had become an endless round of services, which were multiplied till they became a burden which life was unable to bear. The ministers of religion heaped them on the people, whose 8o IMAGO CHRISTI. consciences were so crushed with the sense of shortcoming that the whole joy of religion was extinguished. Even the ministers of reiigicn them- selves were not able to perform all the orders they issued ; and then hypocrisy came 'n ; for naturally they were supposed to be doing those tilings which they prescribed to others. But they said and did not ; they bound heavy bi;rdens and grievous to be borne on other men's shoulders, while they them- selves would not touch them with one of their fingers. It was high time for a reformer to appear, and the work f^li to Jesus. The first outburst of His reformatory zeal was at the outset of His ministry, when He drove the buyers and sellers out of the Temple. Their practices had probably commenced with good intentions : they sold oxen and doves for sacrifice to the worshippers from foreign countries, who came in tens of thousands to Jerusalem at the feast and could not easily bring these animals with them ; and they exchanged the coins of Jerusalem for those of foreign countries, in which the strangers of course had brought their money. It was a necessary thing ; but it had grown to be a vast abuse ; for exorbitant prices were charged for the animals and exorbitant rates of exchange demanded ; the traffic was carried on with such din and clamour as to disturb the worship ; and CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. 8i sense of igion was ?^icn Ihem- )rders they • naturally ings which d and did ^ous to be ley them- 2 of their to appear, zeal was drove the r practices ions : they orshippers thousands isily bring anged the countries, Light their it it had ant prices it rates of ;d on with ship ; and it took up so much room that the Gentiles were elbowed out of the court of the Temple which be- longed to them. In short, the house of prayer had become a den of thieves. Jesus had no doubt noted the abuse with holy anger many a time when visiting the Temple at the feasts ; and, whe.i the prophetic spirit descended on Him and His public ministry began, it was among His first acts to clear it out of the house of God. The youthful Prophet, with His scourge of cords, flaming above the venal crowd, that, conscious of their sin, fled, amidst tumbling tables and fleeing animals, from before His holy ire, is a perfect picture of the Reformer. It is said that the high-priestly families derived an income from this unholy traffic, and it is not likely that they felt very kindly to One who thus invaded their vested interests. In like mannf r He aroused the resentment of the Pharisaic paiiy by turning into ridicule their long and pretentious prayers and the trumpets they blew before them when they were giving alms. He could not but expose these prac- tices, for the people had learned to revere as the flower of piety that which was the base weed of vulgarity and pride. He had to consent to be frowned upon as a man of sin because He neglected the fasts and the Sabbatic extravagances which He knew to be no part of religion ; and still more 6 82 IMAGO CHRIST/. because He mingled with publicans and sinners, though He knew this to be the very course of divine mercy. He was compelled at last to pluck the cloak of hypocrisy entirely away from the reli- gious characters of the day and expose them in their true colours as blirid leaders of the blind and as whitcd sepulchres, which appeared fair outside, but inwardly were full of dead men's bones. Thus He cleared away the human additions piled about the house of God and let the true Temple once more be seen in its own fair proportions. But He had to pay the penalty. The priests, the stream of whose sinful gains He had stopped, and the Pharisees, whose hypocrisy He had exposed, pursued Him with hatred that never rested till they saw Him on the cross. And so, in addition to the name of reformer, He earned the name of Martyr, and Himself became the leader of the noble army of martyrs which in a thin line deploys through the centuries. Not a few of that army have also been reformers. They have risen against the abuses of the Church of their day and perished in the attempt. For the New Testament Church is no more free than was the Old Testament Church from the danger of being a scene of abuses. The condition of the Christian Church at the time of those men of God to whom we are wont specially to apply the title of the CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. 83 Reformers was remarkably like the state of the Old Testament Church in the time of Christ : man's additions had completely overlaid God's handiwork ; religion had been transformed from an institution for the administration of God's grace into a round of forms and ceremonies for procuring God's favour by human merit ; and the ministers of religion had become blind leaders of the blind. By the Reforma- tion God delivered His Church from this state of things ; and never since, we may hope, has there been anything like the same need of reform. It would be vain, however, to supr^cse that in our time or in the section of the Church to which we may belong there are no abuses needing the reformer's fan. Though we may be insensible of them, this is no proof that they do not exist ; for the Cliurch even in its worst days has been unconscious of its own defects, till the proper man has appeared and pfiinted them out ; and in all ages there have been those who have believed themselves to be doing God srrvlce when resisting the most necessary changes.* * Schism is the caricature of Reform. But Schismatic is often merely a nickname given to the true Reformer ; and even real schism nearly always indicates the need for reform, as Schleier- macher has proved in the profound discussion of Church Reform in his Chrisllkhe Sitte. He says : " Um also nichtigen Versuchen zu vvehren, bedarf es zuvorderst der Untervveisung zu richtigem Schriltvcrstanduisse, und datm t 84 IMAGO CHRIST/. III. The name Reformer, where it is truly deserved, is a great one in the Church "; but to Jesus belongs one much greater ; for He was the Founder of the Church, The old Church in which He was brought up was ready to vanish away. It had served its day and was about to be taken, down. He Himself prophesied that of the Temple there would soon not muss auch immer das Bewusstsein erweckt vverden, dass ein volliges Verstehen der Schiift nicht andcrs mogiich ist, als auf dem Wege der gelchrten Bildung. Ware in b ' ix Hinsicht immer besser gesorgt gewesen, so wiiiden % - '-.^ Abnoimitaten nicht entstanden sein. Dazu kommt aber noch etvvas anderes. Es tritt niimlich nur zu oft der Fall ein, dass die Ehrfurcht, vvelchc die Laien haben fiir die Wissenden als solche und fiir die Kirclienrcprasentation als Amt, ganzlich vvieder aufgehoben wird durch die geringe personliche Ehrfurcht, welche die Mitglieder der Repriisentation und in welchen sonst das geschichtliche Leben ist einflossen. Wie sollte auch der Laie beides vereinigen, auf der einen Seite sich iiber jenen wissen in Beziehung auf Sittlichkeit und religiose Kraft, und auf der anderen Seite sich ihrer hoheren Erkenntniss unterordnen. Der geistliche Hoch- mutli vviirde also in den einzelnen nicht entstehen, vvenn er nicht immer Vorschub fande einerseits in der Unvollkommenheit der Organisation, und andererseits darin, dass nicht Anstalten genug getroffen sind zur Verbreitung des richtigen Schriftverstandnisses, und die Menge jener verkehrten Versuche in unserer Kirche ist ein sicheres Thermometer fiir den Zustand des ganzen in dieser Hinsicht. Wir werden auch dts Uebels nicht Herr vverden, ehe die Grtinde desselben gehoben sind." CHRIST IN THE CHURCH 85 & gen, auf sich ocli- icht der nug ses, 2 ist eser elie be left one stone above another ; He told the woman of Samaria that the hour was coming when they would neither in Gerizim nor yet on Mount Zion worship the Father, but the true worshippers every- where would worship Him in spirit and in truth ; and, when He died, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. He founded the Church of the New Testament in His own blood. By the shedding of His blood He abolished the imperfect relation between God and men mediated by the blood of bulls and of goats, and established a new and better relationship. So He said in instituting the Lord's Supper, " This is the new covenant in My blood." The new house of God is illuminated with the perfect revelation made by Him of the Father ; and in it are adminis- tered the new and richer blessings purchased by His life and death. But in building the new house of God its Founder did not wholly discard the materials of the old.* * The apparent contradiction between speaking of Christ both IS the Reformer of the old and the Founder of the new is partly due to the contradiction, expounded in the preceding chapter, between the will of God and the will of man. To finite eyes it cannot but seem that He was striving earnestly for ends whicli were not realised, and tliat the results of His life were different from His intentions. Besides, old and iieiv are terms which may both be applicable to the same object at the same time. It i* more orthodox to speak of the Christian Church as the same 86 IMAGO CHRISTL He instituted the Lord's Supper in the very elements with which on the evening of its institution He and His disciples were celebrating the Passover. The forms of worship and office-bearers of the Christian Church bear a close resemblance to those of the synagogue. Above all, the Scriptures of the Old Testament, with the figures of their saints and heroes, form part of the same volume as the Scriptures of the New. Jesus Himself did not draw out in detail the plan of the New Testament Church. He contented Himself with la"ing *ts foun^'ation, which none else could have done, and sketching the great outlines of its structure. He entrusted to it His Gospel, with the sacred charge to preach it to every creature ; He gave to it the twelve apostles, whose labours and inspired teachings might serve as the second course of foundation-stones laid above the foundation which He had laid Himself; He empowered its officers to admit to, and exclude from, its fellowship ; He instituted the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper ; and, above all. He left with His Church the promise, which is her star of hope in with that of the Old Testament ; but it is perhaps more scriptural to speak of it as a new Church. That is to say, orthodoxy emphasizes the element which is common to both dispensations, whilst Scripture emphasizes what is distinctive in the new. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. 87 every age : " Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." This foundation-laying work of Christ was done once for all and cannot be repeated. Men dream sometimes of the Christian Church passing away and something more advanced taking its place. But "other foundation can no man lay." Only the building up of the Church on this foundation is now left to us. This, however, is part of the same work and may be done in the same spirit in which He laid the foundations. In the first place, those who undertake it require to see to it that they build straight on the founda- tion. There is much that passes for Christian work that will not in the end be acknowledged by Christ, because it is not building on the foundation which He has laid. If that new covenant in His blood be ignored in which He declared His own work to consist, or if the foundationa laid by I lln apostles in His name are not recognised, "-e may build a church of our own, but He will not recognise our labour. All who take part in this work ought to build with His holy ardour. He thought it worth while to die for the sake of redeeming the souls of men ; what sacrifices are we prepared to make in contri- buting to the same end ? He gave His life ; v ill we give up our ease, our effort, our money } It was II 88 IMAGO CHRISTI. because He believed every single soul was more precious than a world that He died to save the souls of men. Are they precious in our eyes ? Does their fate haunt us ? does their sin grieve us ? would their salvation fill us with aught of the joy that thrills the angels in heaven when one sinner is converted ? * There is needed, however, not only zeal, but con- secrated originality as well, in building this edifice. As I said, Jesus did not prescribe the minute details of the organization of the Church. He largely left it to human ingenuity to find out how best His work may be done ; and the Church is only finding out still. New problems arise for her to solve, new tasks to be performed, and therefore she needs inventors and pioneers to devise the plans for her new enterprises and open up the way to new con- quests. It is impossible, for example, to measure the blessing which that man conferred on the * " Christianity would sacrifice its divinity if it abandoned its missionary character and became a mere educational institu- tion. Surely this Article of Conversion is the true articultts stantis ant cadentis ecdesicB. When the power of reclaiming the lost dies out of the Church, it ceases to be the Church. It may remain a useful institution, though it is most likely to become an immoral and mischievous one. Where the power remains, there, whatever is wanting, it may still be said that ' the taber- nacle of God is with men.' " — Eae Homo, CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. «9 Js: Church who instituted Sabbath schools. He was no dignitary of the Church nor perhaps in any way a remarkable man, except in this— that he saw a vast work needing to be done and had originah'ty to discover the best way of doing it. He led the way into the children's world, and ever since he has been supplying the best of work for the myriads of willing reapers who have followed him into that most attractive portion of the harvest-field. There are plenty of other tasks awaiting solution from sanctified Christian genius; and I know no prize more to be coveted than that of being the first to show how Christian thought may exploit some new mine of spiritual knowledge, or Christian character rise to a new level of spiritual attainment, or Christian zeal reach the spiritual wants of some neglected section of the community V. CHRIST AS A FRIEND # ^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) m.x t 1.0 I.I .25 IS |t£ I 2.2 t i4£ 2.0 1.4 III 1.6 <^ /a ^l /A o m m. P / Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIM STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MSBO (716) 872-4503 HH > Matt. X. 2"4. „ xi. 7-1 1. „ xvii. I, 2. ,, xviii. 6-IO. M xxi. 17. „ xxvi. 14-16, :^T, 38, 40, 50. „ xxvil. 3-5, 55-6t. Mark v. 37. „ xiii. 3, 4. Luke vifl. 1-3. „ X. 38-42. ,, xii. 4. Juhn i. 35-51. „ xi. ,, xii. 1-7. „ xiii. 1-5, 23. „ XV. 13-15. ,.. xix. 27. 23. CHAPTER V. CliRIST AS A FRIP:ND. I. T T has been advanced as an objection to the New -*" Testament that it never rocommends friendship, and, while supplying rules for the behaviour to one another of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, gives none for the intercourse of friend with friend.* Various reasons have been suggested to account for this singular omission. But, before entering * In an argument designed to prove that Christianity is unfavourable to friendship, the fact might be adduced, that the best book on the subject is from the pen of a heathen. From the classical age of English theology we have two treatises on the subject, one from the Royalist side by Jeremy Taylor, the other from the Puritan side by Richard Baxter; but neither possesses tl e exquisite flavour of Cicero's De Amlcitid. The Lysis of Plato is interesting, as opening some of the difficultierj of the subject, but it is not an important dialogue. Shakspeare also has dis- cussed some of the difficulties in Two Noble Kinsmen and Two Gentlemen of Verona, and he has given the v;hole subject an exquisite embodiment in The Merchant of Venice, But the glory of English literature in this department is In Memoriam. 94 2MAG0 CIIRISTI. upon these, it would be well to make sure that the omission itself is a reality. Is it true that the Nevv Testament omits all reference to friendship ? I venture, on the contrary, to affirm that the New Testament is the classical place for the study of this subject. The highest of all examples of friendship is to be found in Jesus ; and His behaviour in this beautiful relationship is the very mirror in which all true friendship must see and measure itself. It is objected, indeed, that this instance is inad- missible, because Jesus sustained to those who may be called His friends the higher relationship of Saviour ; and between those standing on such different levels, it is contended, real friendship was impossible. But He Himself called the Twelve His friends : " Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends." From among the Twelve He made special com- panions of three — Peter, James and John ; and of these three John was specially the disciple whom Jesus loved. We are told that "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus ; " and this notice surely implies that He stood in an attitude of peculiar friendliness towards the members of the family of Bethany. Merely as the Saviour, He is hardly to be thought of as loving one of those He has saved more than another ; He loves them all alike. CHKIST AS A FRIEND. m i that the the New the New \y of this riendship ir in this vhich all is inad- ho may iship of n such hip was friends : riends." I com- i ; and ! whom Martha surely 'ccuh'ar nily of hardly te has 1 alike. But in the cases just quoted He showed preferences for some of His followers over others ; and this seems to prove that within the wider and higher relationship between Saviour and saved there was scope for the strictly human tie of friendship. II. Among those who have written on the subject of friendship it has been discussed whether the best friend is he who loves most or he who bestows the greatest benefits. Much may be said on both sides ; for, on the one hand, there is an infinite solace in the sincere affec- tion of even the humblest friend, however unable he may be to render any material service ; and, on the other hand, in the perplexities and misfortunes of life, which come to all, it is an unspeakable advantage to have one with a sound judgment and a helpful hand, who will interest himself in our affairs as if they were his own, because he is our friend. Yet I venture to think that neither of these is the pearl of friendship ; there is something in it more valuable than either. Let any one who has drunk deeply of this well- spring of happiness look back and ask what has been the sweetest ingredient in it : let him recall the friend of his heart, whose image is associated 96 IMAGO CHRIST/. with the choicest hours of his experience ; and then let him say what is the secret and the soul of his satisfaction. If your friendship has been of a high order, the soul of it is simply the worth of him you are allowed to call your friend. He is genuine to the core ; you know him through and through, and nowhere is there any twist or doubleness or guile. It may be a false and disappointing world, but you have known at least one heart that has never deceived you ; and, amidst much that may have happened to lower your estimate of mankind, the image of your friend has enabled you always to believe in human nature. Surely this is the incom- parable gain of friendship — fellowship with a simple, pure and lofty soul. If it is, what must have been the charm of the friendship of Jesus ! If even the comparatively common and imperfect specimens of human nature we have known can make impressions so delightful, what must it have been to see closely that heart which was always beating with the purest love to God and man, that mind which was a copious and ever-springing fountain of such thoughts as have been preserved to us in the Gospels, that character in which the minutest investigation has never detected a single spot or wrinkle 1 As we read the records of the great and good, we cannot help T CHRIST AS A FRIEND. 97 ind then il of his ^ a high of him genuine through, ness or I world, hat has at may ankind, ^vays to incom- simple, of the atively nature ightful, : heart ove to us and i have iracter never ! read thelp sometimes wishing it had been our lot to follow Plato in his garden, or to hear the table-talk of Luther, or to sit with Bunyan in the sunshine of the streets of Bedford, or to listen to Coleridge bodying forth the golden clouds of his philosophy. But what would any such privilege have been in comparison with that of Mary,* who sat at Jesus' feet and heard His words ; or that of John, who leant on His bosom and listened to the beating of His heart ? 4^-'--:^.'-.- ■ '-^-^ . : HI. If that which has just been mentioned is the prime excellence of friendship, love holds in it the second place. Friendship is not the mere claim which one man may make on another because he was born in the * The neathen held woman to be unfit for this relationship, and too many Christian thinkers have followed in their footsteps, alleging such pleas as that a woman cannot keep a secret or that she cannot give counsel in affairs of difficulty. But Jesus "loved Martha and her sister ; " some of His friends were women. Thus He vindicated the right of women to this honourable position, and hundreds of the best and manliest of His servants have since experienced the solace and strength springing from the friendship of good women ; and, as one of them (Jeremy Taylor) has said, " a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministries ; and she can die for her friend as well as any Roman knight." 98 IMAGO CHRIST!. same village or sat on the same bench at school ; it is not the acquaintance of neighbours who have learned to like one another by daily gossiping from door to door, but would, if separated, forget one another in a month ; it is not the tryst of roysterers, or the chance acquaintance of fellow-travellers, or the association of the members of a political party.* In real friendship there is always the knitting of soul to soul, the exchange of heart for heart. In the classical instance of friendship in the Old Testa- ment, its inception is exquisitely described : " And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." A union like this is formed not to be broken, and, if it is broken, it can only be with the tearing of the flesh and the loss of much blood. I cannot, however, aigree with those who maintain that true friendship, like wedded love, can have but * '• Zu trautcr Freundschaft ist cs iiicht geniig, r ,- . Dass man auf Uu und Du ein Glas geleert, Auf Einer Schulbank bci cinandcr sass, In Einem Cafe oft zusammentraf, : ^ ■• Sich auf der Strassc hoflich unterhiclt, |x Im selben Club dieselben Licder sang, ^ . Als Publicisten Eine Farbe trug, , Audi in der Presse sich einander pries." Baggesen, quoted by Martensen. CHRIST AS A FRIEND. 99 one object at a time. One of the finest spirits of our century, a thinker conversant with all the heights and depths of man's relationships with man,* has argued strongly in favour of this position, and he silences all objectors by replying that, if you think you have more friends than one, this only proves that you have not yet found the true one. But this is to misinterpret the nature of this affection, and force on it a rule belonging to quite a different passion. At all events, the example of Christ appears to support this view, and to prove that in friendship there may be different degrees, and that the heart is capable of enjoying several friendships at the same time. . .:.f..::^-.-. IV. The love of friends is an active passion, and delights in rendering services and bestowing benefits. So sensible of this were the ancients that, in discussing the duties of friendship, what they asked was, not how much one friend ought to do for another, but where the limit was at which he ought to stop. They took it for granted that he would do, suffer and give all he could for his friend's '•= RoTiiE. See his Eihik, vol. iv., p. 6"/. Germany is fortunate in having such examples of friendship among its greatest men as that of Luther and Melanchthon, and that of Goethe and Schiller. lUO IMAGO CHRISTI. sake ; and they only prescribed to him to restrain himself at the point where his zeal might clash with some still higher obligation to his family, his country or his God. In accordance with this they represented friendship in art as a young man bare- headed and rudely attired, to signify activity and aptness for service. Upon the fringe of his garment was written Death and Life, as signifying that in life and death friendship is the same. On his forehead was inscribed Swnvier and Winter^ mean- ing that in prosperity or adversity friendship knows no change except in the variety of its services. The left shoulder and the arm were naked down to the heart, to which the finger of the right hand pointed at the words Far and Near^ which expressed that true friendship is not impaired by time or dissolved by distance * Of this feature in the friendships of Jesus it would be easy to give examples ; but none could be more striking than His behaviour at the death and re- surrection of Lazarus. Every step of His on this occasion is characteristic. His abiding two days still in the place where He was, after receiving the news of His friend's death, in order to make the gift He was about to bestow more valuable ; His 1. * From Jeremy Taylor's treatise on Friendship. CIJA'/ST AS A FRIEND. lOI restrain t clash lily, his lis they n bare- ty and arment that in 3n his mean- knows . The to the >ointed d that 'Solved would more id re- n this days g the :e the ; His venturing into Judaea in spite of the dangers He was exposed to and the fears of the Twelve; His fanning into flame of Martha's weak faith ; His secret sending for Mary, that she might not miss the great spectacle; His sympathy with the emotions of the scene, so intense that He wept and the spec- tators exclaimed, " Behold, how He loved him ; " His preparation of the sisters, by His prayer, for the shock of seeing their brother emerging from the sepulchre in his graveclothes ; and then the bene- faction of his resurrection — all these are traits of a love that was delicate as a woman's heart, strong as death and bountiful as heaven. But friendship can sometimes show its streni^th as much by the readiness with which it accepts benefits as by the freedom with which it gives them. It proves by this its confidence in the love on the other side. Jesus gave such a proof of the depth of His friendship for St. John when, hanging on the cross, He asked the beloved disciple to adopt Mary as his own mother. Never was there a more delicate expression given to friendship. Jesus did not ask him if he would ; He took his devotion for granted ; and this trust was the greatest honour that could have been conferred on the disciple. 1 102 J MA GO CHRISTI. V. It is a well-known characteristic of friendship that friends enjoy being in each other's company and hearing each other talk, and that they admit one another to the knowledge of secrets which they would not reveal to the world at large. ' ■ It is the commonest saying about two very in- timate friends, that if you are seeking the one, you will do best to resort to the abode of the other. In each other's company they are at peace ; speech between them is hardly necessary, for they have a subtler way of divining thought and feeling, and it is a precious privilege of friends to be silent in each other's company without awkwardness. Yet, when the gates of speech are opened, there is an out- pouring of the mind's wealth such as takes place in no other circumstances. For nothing needs to be concealed. The shy thought, which scarcely ventured to show its face even to its own creator, is tempted out ; the hardy opinion utters itself without fear ; confidence is responded to with confidence ; like two coals, burning feebly apart, which, when flung together, make a merry blaze, so mind and mind burn as they touch, and emit splendours which nothing but this contact could evoke. He is ignorant of one of the most glorious prerogatives of manhood CHRIST AS A FRIEND. »oj who doos not carry, treasured in his mind, the recollection of such golden hours of the feast of reason and the flow of soul. Jesus expressly chose the Twelve "that they might be with Him." For three years they were His constant companions ; and often He would take them away into uninhabited spots or on distant journeys for the express purpose of enjoying with them more uninterrupted intercourse. In the Gospel of St. John we have notes of these conver- sations, and from the wide contrast between the sayings of Jesus in this Gospel and those reported in the Synoptists, which rather represent His addresses to the people at large, we may perceive how fully in these interviews He opened to the Twelve His secret mind. And the kind of impressions which they received from these confidences may be learned from the saying of the two with whom He conversed on the way to Emmaus : "Did not our heart burn within us as He talked with us by the way, and as He opened to us the Scriptures } " The minds of the most favoured apostles especially carried in subsequent years the priceless memory of many great hours like this, when, with hearts lost in wonder, they gazed into the vast and mystic realm of the thoughts of Christ. And they were vouch- safed a few hours even greater, when He took them 104 IMAGO CHRISTI. away v/il! Him to pray ; as He did, for instance, when they beheld His glory in the Holy Mount, or v/hen He invited them to watch with Him in Gethscmane. Never surely was He so unmistakably the human trend as when, on the latter occasion, He threw Himself on their sympathy, entreating them to be near Him in His agoiiy. These scenes excite our wonder that any should have been admitted so far into His secret life. Were not these hours cf prayer especially too sacred for any mortal eyes to see ? That His friends were admitted to them proves that it is a prerogative of friendship to be admitted far into the secrets of religious experience. It is d truncated and most imperfect friendship when the gateway of this region is closed , for it means that the one friend is excluded from the most important province of the other's life. Hence it may be affirmed that friendship in its highest sense can exist only between Christians ; * and even they * *' Ihre htichste Intensitat hat die Freundscliaft als religiose Freundschaft, als Wahlanziehung der Fiounde vermoge der specifischen Wahlverwandtschaft ihrer religiosen Individuali- taten. Denn wegen der wesentlich centralen Stellung der Frommigkeit im Menschen ist die religiose specifische Sympathie der Individuen wesentlich specifische Sympathie derstlDen nach der Totalitat ihrer sittlichen Individualitat, nach dem ganzen innersten Kern derselben." — Rothe, Christliche Ethik, vol. iv., p. 68. CHUIST AS A FRIEND. 105 n Stance, Mount, Bim in A takably 1 ccasion, ■ reating 1 should 1 et life. 1 y t-^o 1 friends 1 )gative 1 rets of J idship 1 for it W most B )ce it B ' sense ,B they ■ ligiose • B ?e der B iduali- ■ g der ■ pathie ■ 1 nach H anzen B^ >!• iv., H only taste the bloom on this cup when they have arrived at the stage of f'-ee and frequent converse on those themes which were native to the mouth of Christ. VI. Friendship, like everything else, is tested by results. If you wish to know the value of any friendship, you must ask what it has done for you and whr.L it has made you. The friendship of Jesus could stand this test. Look at the Twelve! Consider what they were before they knew Him, and think what His influence made them and ./riat position they occupy now ! They were humble men, some of them, perhaps, with unusual natural gifts, but rude and undeveloped everyone. Without Him they would never have been anything. They would have lived and died in the obscurity of their peasant occupations and been laid in unmarked graves by the blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. They would never have been heard of twenty miles froni home, and would all have been forgotten in less than a century. But His intercourse and conversation raised them to a place among the best and wisest of the sons of m.en ; and they now sit on thrones, ruling the modern world with their ideas and example. io6 IMAGO CHRIST/. fi Our friendships, too, must submit to this test. There are friendships so-called which are like mill- stones dragging down those who are tied to them into degradation and shame. But true friendship purifies and exalts. A friend may be a second conscience. The consciousness of what he expects from us may be a spur to high endeavour. The mere memory that he exists, though it be at a distance, may stifle unworthy thoughts and prevent unworthy actions. Even when the fear of facing our own conscience might not be strong enough to restrain us from evil, the knowledge that our conduct will have to encounter his judgment will make the com- mission of what is base intolerable. Among the privileges of friendship one of the most valuable is the right of being told our faults by our friend. There are ridiculous traits of character in every man which all eyes seo except his own ; and there £re dangers to character which the eye of a friend can discern long before they are visible to ourselves. It requires some tact to administer such reproof, and it requires some grace to take it grate- fully ; but " faithful are the wounds of a friend," and there are few gifts of fnendship more highly to be prized than words of wise correction.* 1 . i * Cicero adds som< hing more : " Ut igitur et monere et moneri proprium est croc amicilioc, et alterum libere facere, CHRIST AS A FRIEND, 107 Whilst, however, we estimate the value of the friendships we enjoy by their influence on us, it is no less important to remember that our own conduct in this relationship has to stand the same test Is it good for my friend that I am his friend ? In the maturity of his fully-formed judg- ment will he still prize the connection ? At the judgment-seat and in eternity will he look back on it with approval ? A man will hesitate to answer these questions ; but surely there is no object worthier of intense desire and earnest prayer than that our friendship may never be detrimental to him we love — that it may never pull him down, but help to raise and sustain him. Would it not be a prize better than any earthly distinction, if in non aspcre, alterum patienter accipere, non rcpugnantcr ; sic habendum est, nullam in amicitiis pestcm esse majorem, quam adulationem, blanditiam, asscntationcm : niultis enim nominibus est hoc vitium notandum levium hominum atque fallacium, ad voluntatem loquentium omnia, nihil ad veri- tatem. Cum autem omnium rerum simulatio vitiosa est (tolHt enim judicium veri idque adulterat), tum amicititc rcpugnat maxime : delet enim vcritatem, sine qua nomen amicitiae valero non potest. Nam cum amicitia; vis sit in eo, ut unus quasi animus fiat ex pluiibus, qui id fieri poterit, si ne in uno quidem quoque iut''; animus crit idemque semper, sed varius, commutabiHs, muhiplex? Quid enim potest esse tarn fiexibile tam devium, quam animus eius qui ad altcrius non modo sensum ac voluntatem, sed eliam vultum atque nutum convcrtitur ? " — De Ainiciiid, cap. 25. io8 IMAGO CHRISTI. I the distant years, when wc are old and grey-headed, or perhaps beneath the sod, there were one or two who could say, Kis influence was a redeeming element in my life ; he made me believe in goodness and think highly of human nature ; and I thank God I ever knew him ? There is no way in which we can have any guarantee of exerting such an influence except by keeping ourselves in contact with the great source of good influence. Christ was the friend of Peter and John and James, of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, in Palestine long ago. But He is still the friend of men ; and, if we wish it, He will be ours. There are those who walk with Him and talk with Him. They meet Him in the morning when they awake ; He is with them in the street and at their work ; they tell Him their secrets and appeal to Him in every time of need ; they know Him better than any other friend. And these are they who have found the secret of existence and keep alive the faith of mankind in the reality of the life of Christ. -headed, one or deeming :oodness i thank ve any :ept by source Peter ry and till the e ours, k with n they t their eal to better '■ who alive i(Q of VI. CHRIST IN SOCIETY Matt, xi, 16-19. Luke XV. I, 2. „ xix. 5-7. „ xxiv. 41-43. Luke xi. 37-44. „ xiv. 1-24. Matt. xxvi. 6-13. Luke vii. 36-50. John ii. i-n. „ xii. I -8. Matt. xiv. 15-21. », xxvi. 26-30. Luke xxiv. 29-31. John xiii. 1-15. S^-JtlgfTTSS-SC^Mf^icm CHAPTER VI. CHRIST IN SOCIETY. T3EY0ND the narrow c'rcle of those whom we •^^ properly call our friends, there is a large circle of acquaintances, brought into connection with us in various ways, which may be designated by the vague term Society. Our intercourse with those to whom we are thus related raises questions which are not free from difficulty, but they receive light from the study of the conduct of Jesus. I. ■"■ In this relationship there was a remarkable contrast between our Lord and His forerunner, the Baptist. John shunned society, living in the desext far from the abodes of men. His clothing was unsuited for the house or the town, and he con- fined himself to the ascetic fare of a hermit. The Saviour, on the contrary, descended among His fellowmen. Instead of waiting, like the Baptist, till people went out to Him, He came to them. 112 IMAGO CHRISTI. In village and city, in street and market-place, in synagogue and Temple — wherever two or three were gathered together, there was He in the midst of them. He entered beneath men's roofs, to rejoice with them when they were rejoicing and to weep with them when they wept. It is astonishing how often we read of His being at feasts. He began His ministry by attending a wedding. Matthew made Him a feast, and He went and sat down among the publican's motley guests. He invited Himself to the house of Zacchaeus, another publican. Indeed, His eating with this class of persons came to be notorious. But, when people from the other end of the social scale invited Him, He accepted their hospitality with equal readiness and sat down as frankly with scribes and Pharisees as among publicans and sinners. St. Luke mentions at least three occasions when He dined with Pharisees. Thus, " the Son of man came eating and drinking." Indeed, so free was His conduct in this respect, that sour and narrow- souled critics were able to call Him a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. False as these nicknames were, they derived a colour of truth from His way of living ; none would ever have dreamed of applying them to the Baptist. „ _-- - -^ - - This contrast is remarkable between two so closely associated as John and Jesus. Both were CHRIST IN SOCIETY. "3 o so were I religious teachers, whose disciples imitated them ; but in this particular their examples led in opposite directions. The disciples of John fasted, while Christ's disciples feasted. Could these opposite courses both be justified ? The Baptist no doubt had reasons "or his con- duct which satisfied himself. There are dangers in society. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are there. Company is the ruin of many a man and of many a family. There are social circles in which religion would not be tolerated, and there are others in which those who profess it are under sore temptation to hide their colours. The Baptist felt that these influences were so predominant in the society of his day that neither he nor his followers could bear up against them. The only alternatives between which they had to choose were either, on the one hand, to flee from society and keep their religion pure and entire or, on the other, to enter it and lose their religion ; and there could be no doubt which was the path of duty.* Jesus, on the contrary, could go into society ♦ John was well aware, however, of the imperfection of his own standpoint. " He pointed across to the sweetness, freedom and glory of the new dispensation, as Moses from Pisgah saw the land of promise." — Schleiermacher, Predigten, vol. iv. In this volume there are four discourses which may be called a kind 8 1 114 IMAGO CIIRISTI. not only without striking His colours, but for the purpose of displaying them. So completely was His religious character the whole of Him, and so powerful and victorious were His principles, that there was no fear of any company He might enter obscuring His testimony for God. And He lent His followers the same power : He filled them with an enthusiasm which wrought in them like new wine ; they moved through the world with the free and glad bearing of wedding guests ; and therefore wherever they went they gave the tone to society ; their enthusiasm was so exuberant that it was far more likely to set others on fire than to be extinguished by worldly influences. .;.?■? Here we seem to find the true answer to the perplexing questions often raised as to how far the people of God ought to venture into society and take part in its engagements. What is its effect on your religious life and profession 1 Does it silence your testimony } does it cool down your enthusiasm } does it secularise you and render you of first sketch of what has been attempted in this book. They are entitled — 2j _ Christ as a Teacher. - - - -' ^^ -- ; r' -^'" Christ as a Miracle-Worker ' ; Christ in Social Life. * Christ among His disciples* J CHRIST IN SOCIt TY. ill for the \y was and so ;s, that t enter ie lent m with ^e new he free lerefore lociety ; kvas far to be to the Dw far society is its Does 1 your IX you They unfit for prayer ? If so, then you must adopt the Baptist's Hue of conduct and keep away from it, or seek for company in which your principles will be safe. But there are those who can venture far into the world and yet everywhere be true to their Saviour ; they are known as Christians wher- ever they appear, and people respect their position ; they would not go anywhere if they knew that their mouths were to be stopped on the subjects lying nearest their hearts ; the energy of Christ in them is so glowing and victorious a force that they mould the society in which they are, instead of being moulded by it. This may be a difficult attainment ; but there can be no doubt that it is the attitude towards the world most worthy of Christ's followers and likest to His own, ^■" II. It has been mentioned how often He is recorded to have been present at feasts. This part of His conduct was of a piece with all the rest ; for nothing He ever did, however trivial it might seem to be, was unconnected with the grand mission upon which He had come to the world. This mission was to make known the love of Heaven and to awaken and foster love on earth. He lived I to increase the love of man to God and the love of ' ii6 IMAGO CHRIST/. tr man to man ; and nothing which could serve either of these ends was unimportant in His eyes. He encouraged hospitality because it promotes one of these ends : it helps to break down the obstacles which separate men and to bind them together in the bonds of goodwill. When men meet one another, the misconceptions and misunder- standings which have caused estrangement dissolve in the light of better acquaintance. How often W2 come away from a first conversation with one against whom we have entertained a prejudice with the remark that he is not a bad fellow after all ; and not unfrequently after a social rencontre we carry away an enthusiastic admiration for a charac- ter which we have previously considered proud, or formal, or shallow. Our dislikes and suspicions breed and grow great at a distance, but they die at the touch of actual acquaintance. Jesus did not regard even the courtesies of life as beneath His notice and encouragement. These foster respect between man and man, causiag us to think of one another as personalities, not as things to be neglected or trampled on. Once He was invited to dine at a house where the hosi neglected to show Him the ordinary Oriental courtesies. The man had no real regard for his Guest, but invited Him for a selfish purpose of CHRIST IN SOCIETY. 117 e either s. romotes iwn the d them en meet sunder- dissoive V often ith one !ce with ter all ; itre we charac- •oud, or spicions ley die of life These causing es, not Once he hosi )riental for his >ose of his own. He wished to gratify his curiosity by examining at leisure one who was the talk of the country and to honour himself by having the dis- tinguished man beneath his roof. But he felt it to be a condescension, and he showed this by omitting the courtesies which he bestowed on the guests of his own standing. Jesus felt the slight ; and, before leaving the table, He exposed Simon's little and loveless heart, enumerating one by one,* in tones of scathing indignation, the courtesies he had grudged Him. He could not enjoy a loveless feast. Where, on the contrary, love was, He would not have it controlled. When, at the feast of another Simon, His gentb disciple Mary poured her costly treasure on His head and brought down on herself the reproaches of narrow hearts that grudged the extravagance, Jesus defended her against the pretended champions of the poor and insisted on love having its way. It is a violation of the sacrament of hos pitali ty/V * " Notanda sunt antitheta in quibus Simoni mulier praefertur : nempe quod hcec lachrymis suis rigavit Christi pedes, et japillis abstersit, quum ille ne vulgarem quidem aquam dari jussisset: quod hsec non desierit osculari pedes, quum ille ne hospitali quidem osculo dignatus asset Christum cxcipere : quod pretiosum unguentum ilia effuderit in pedes, hie autem ne oleo quidem caput unxerit."— Calvin, in loc. I ■ Ii8 IMAGO CHRIST/. when any other motive underlies it but love. Jesus pointed the finger of condemnation at those who extend hospitality only to guests who, they hope, will extend it to them in turn, thus degrading it to a business transaction. It is, if possible, a meaner motive still to make it only an opportunity of selfish display. Cumbrous luxury is the death of true hospitality. It narrows the scope of it ; for even the wealthy can indulge but seldom in such extravagance, and people of humbler means are not able to face it at all except at the risk of ruin. This is one of the growing evils of the present day. With the money spent on a single tiresome feast, half a dozen simple and fiugal entertainments might be furnished forth, and thus the scope of hospitality widened.* Instead of * " Hospitality is threefold ; — for one's family, this is of neces- sity ; for strangers, tiiis is courtesy; for the poor, this is charity. "To keep a disorderly house is the way to keep neither house nor lands. For whilst they keep the greatest roaring, their state steals away in the greatest silence. Yet, when many consume themselves with secret vices, then hospitality bears the blame ; whereas it is not the meat but the sauce, not the supper but the gaming after it, doth undo them. - *' Measure not the entertainment of a guest by his estate, but THINE OWN. Because he is a lord forget not that thou art but a gentleman ; otherwise, if with feasting him thou breakest thyself, he will not cure thy rupture, and (perchance) may rather deride than nity thee." — Fuller, The Holy afid Profane State. CHRIST IN SOCIETY. 119 gorging the wealthy, who have too much already, influential entertainers might occasionally open their doors to those younger and humbler than themselves, and parents might assemble often round their tables suitable company for their children, instead of driving them to public places to seek occupation for their hours of leisure. There is a mission of ' social kindness still remaining to be opened up as one of the agencies of Christianity. Though the encouragement of hospitality, and through it of love, was one reason for which Jesus went to the tables of those who invited Him, He carried there a still higher purpose. When He went to dine at the house of Zacchaeus, He said, " To-day is salvation come to this house ; " and salvation came to many a house when He entered it. Hospitality affords unrivalled opportunities of conversation, and Jesus made use of these to speak words of eternal life. If you carefully examine His words, you will be surprised to find how many of them are literally table-talk- — words spoken to His fellow-guests at meals. Some of His most priceless sayings, which are now the watchwords of His religion, were uttered in these commonplace circumstances, such as, " They that arc whole have lao IMAGO CHRIST!. • no need of a physician, but they that are sick ; " "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost;" and many more. ^ ' This is an instance of how Jesu? dignified life and found golden opportunities of doing good in those elements of it which are often treated as mere v/aste. The talk and the hilarity of the table are a snare. Men of social charm often use their gift to their own undoing and to the injury of others. The meeting-place of boon com- panions is to many the vestibule of ruin. Even where sociality is not permitted to degenerate into temptation, the conversation of the table is too often allowed to lapse into triviality and stupidity; and the meetings of friends, which might give intellectual stimulus and kindle noble purpose, become a weariness and satisfy nobody. It is a rare gift to be able to lift conversation out of the ditch and lead it to manly and profitable themes. There have, however, been servants of God who in this respect have followed very closely in the footsteps of their Master. They have made con- versation a delightful and profitable art ; and to enjoy their company in the free interchange of social intercourse has been an education in everything good and true. A man of note recently deceased, son of a father still more notable, has left a striking I CHRIST IN SOCIETY. 121 picture of the circle of scholars and men of God who used to be assembled round his father's hospitable table, and of the wonder and delight with which he and his brothers, then only children, used to listen to the discussions and pick up the crumbs of wisdom * No parent can do his chil- dren a better service than by making his house a resort of the wise and good, in whom the keen observation of childhood may see examples of noble manhood and womanhood. "Be not for- getful," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, "to enter- tain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares ; " on which one of the wise has thus commented : " By exercising hospitality — by treating with sympathy and hearty interest those who are still in many respects strangers to us — by showing ourselves kindly and opening our houses * •' Here almost every night, for long years, came Professors Dod and Maclean, and frequently Professors J. W. Alexander, Joseph Henry, and the older professors, A. Alexander, and Samuel Miller, President Carnahan, and frequently, when visit- ing the town, Professors Vethake and Torrey, and Dr. John W. Yeonians, Thus, at least in the eyes of the young sons gleaming out from the corners, from the shadows of which they looked on with breathless interest, this study became the scene of the most wonderful debates and discourses on the highest themes of philosophy, science, literature, theology, morals, and politics." — Rev. D. A. A. Hodge in Princeton i ana, by Rev. C. A. Salmond, M.A. 122 IMAGO CHRIST!. m\\ to them, as circumstances permit and opportunities offer — it may also happen to us to entertain angels ; that is, men in whom we must recognise mes- sengers sent to us from God, or from the world of mind and ideas, and whose sojourn in our house, whose conversation, whose influence on our souls, may bring us a blessing far outweighing all we can do for them."* , ; - . ,. IV. ■j-it We have been looking at our Lord as the guest of others ; but He comes before us in the Gospels also as Himself an entertainer. - Jesus never, indeed, had a house of His own to which He could invite people. But on the two occasions when He fed the five thousand and the four thousand He acted as entertainer on a colossal scale. It was a character in which He was thoroughly Himself ; for it displayed His consideration for the common wants of man. Spiritual as He was and intent on the salvation of the soul, He never undervalued or overlooked the body. On the contrary, He recognised on it the stamp and honour of its Maker, and He knew quite well that it is often * Marten SEN, Christian Ethics , vol. iii. CHRIST m SOCIETY. 123 tunities angels ; ; mes- I world house, • souls, all we ; guest jospels )wn to le two tid the olossal oughly 3n for [e was never n the lonour ) often only through the body that the soul can be reached. The great majority of His guests were doubtless poor, and it gratified His generous heart to confer a benefit on them. It was, indeed, but common fare He gave them ; * the table was the ground, the tablecloth was the green grass, and the banqueting hall was the open air ; but never did His guests enjoy a better meal, for love presided at the table, and it is love that makes an enter- tainment fine. As we see Him there, beaming with genial delight over the vast company, it is impossible not to think of such words of His as these : " I am the bread of life ; " " The bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." In His teaching He delighted to repre- sent the gospel as a feast, to which He invited all the sons of men in the beautiful spirit of a royal host. But nothing else shows so strikingly how charac- teristic of Him this spirit was as the fact that the memorial by which He has chosen to be remem- bered to all generations is a feast. He might have selected any one of a hundred other mementoes. He might, for instance, have instituted among His * u Barley loaves," the bread of the poor. 124 IMAGO CHRIS TI. followers a periodical fast. But this would have been a thoroughly unsuitable memorial of Him ; for His is a gospel of abundance, joy and union. He chose what was fitting and truly significant ; and so throughout all ages at the head of His own table the Saviour sits in the character of Entertainer, His face radiant with goodwill and His heart over- flowing with generosity ; and over His head, on the wall behind where He sits, these words are written : " This Man rccciveth sinners, and eatcth with them." d have Him ; union. ificant ; [is own rtainer, t over- on the ritten : with VII. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER n Matt. xi. 25, 26. tt xiv. 19. » xix. 13. ,, xxi. 12, 13. „ xxvi. 53. I.uke ix. 18. ), xi. I. John vi. 23. M xiv. 16, 17. 11 xvii. Matt. xiv. 23. Mark i, 35. ,, xiv. 22, 23. Luke V. 16. Matt. xxvi. 36-44. Luke vi. 12, 13. Luke iii. 21, 22, ,, ix. 28, John 29. xi. 41, 42. CHAPTER VII. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. THERE is surely a mystery in the prayers of Jesus. If, as we believe, He was no less than God, how could God pray to God, or what need could there be in His nature for the satisfaction of which He required to pray.? It may be a partial answer to this question to say that all prayer does not consist of petitions arising from the sense of need. Prayer, indeed, is often spoken of, especially by those who wish to bring it into ridicule, as if it consisted of nothing but a series of demands addressed to God — to give fine weather, or to take away disease, or in some other way to alter our circumstances in accordance with our wishes. But it is not by those who pray that prayer is thus spoken of In the prayers of those who pray most and best, petitions proper, I venture to say, occupy only an inconsiderable place. Much of prayer expresses the fulness of the soul rather * 128 IMAGO CHRIST I. than its emptiness. It is the overflow of the cup. Prayer at its best is, if one may be allowed the expression, conversation with God, tho confidential talk of a child who tells everything to his father. There is a remarkable example of this in the Confessions of St. Augustine. This great book is in the form of a prayer from beginning to end ; yet it narrates its author's history and expounds the most iiiiportant of his opinions. Evidently the good man had got into the habit of doing all his deepest thinking in the form of conversation with God. If this be what prayer is, it is not difficult to understand how the Eternal Son should have prayed to the Eternal Father. Indeed, it is easy to see that, in this sense, He must have prayed without ceasing. But this does not altogether clear up the mystery of the prayers of Jesus ; for many of them were undoubtedly expressions of the sense of want. " In the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." * How can we explain a statement like this } There is but one explanation of it ; and it is His true humanity. It is only by • Heb. V. 7. CHRIST AS A MAISr OF PRA YER. 139 accepting this truth in the fullest sense that we can understand this aspect of His life. Christ was not half a God and half a man, but perfectly God and perfectly man. There are things about Him, and there are statements of His own, to which justice cannot be done without categorically calling Him God. We may hesitate to utter this confession, but the facts, unless we flinch from them, will compel us to make it. On the other hand, there are other things about Him which compel us in the fullest acceptation of the term to call Him a man ; and we are not honouring but dishonouring Him if we do not accept this truth also in all its fulness and in all its consequences. He prayed, then, because He was a man. Humanity even at its best is a feeble and dependent thing ; it can never be self-sufficient. Even in Him it was not sufficient for itself, but dependent on God from day to day ; and He expressed His sense of depend- ence by praying. Does this not bring Him very near us ? Verily He is our brother, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. But there is another lesson in it, and a graver one. Although a man, Jesus was a sinless man. At every stage of development His manhood was perfect. He had no sinful past to weaken the force of present effort. Yet He needed prayer and resorted 9 i 130 IMAGO CIIRISTI. r to it continually. What a commentary on our need of it I If He needed it, being what He was, how must we need it, being what we are, n. The life of prayer is a secret life, and everyone who really loves prayer has habits of it known only to himself. Much of the prayerfulness of Jesus must have lain beyond the observation of even His disciples, and therefore is altogether unrecorded in the Gospels. But some of His habits have been preserved, and they are extremely interesting and instructive. He liked, when about to pray, to escape from the house and from the town, and go away out into the natural solitudes. We read, " He went out and departed unto a solitary place, and there prayed." Elsewhere it is said, " He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed." \.ie seems to have especially loved mountains as places of prayer. When the statement is any here made that He went up to a mountain to pray, commentators try to find out, by examining the vicinity in which He was sojourning at the time, which mountain it was He ascended for this purpose. But in this, I think, they are on the wrong track. In Palestine, as in many parts of Scotland, there is mountain everywhere, Cin^IST AS A MAN OF PR A YER. 131 A mile or two from any town you arc out on it. You iiavc only to quit the houses, cross a few acres of cultivated ground, and your feet are on the turfy pastures, where you can be absolutely alone. Jesus had, if we may so speak, made the discovery that He could obtain this solitude any- where ; and, when He arrived in a town. His first thought was, which was the shortest road to the mountain, — ^just as ordinary travellers inquire where are the most noted sights and which is the best hotel. There is a solitude of time as well as a solitude of space. What mountains and wildernesses are to towns and cities, the night-time and the early morning are to the day-time and the early night. Jesus frequented this solitude too for prayer. We hear of Him continuing the vvnole night in prayer to God ; or it is said that He " rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place to pray." It may partly have been because, on account of His poverty. He could not easily find solitude in the houses in which He lod^;ed that Jesus cultivated this habit,* and this may give His example a special qyjr * Many of us may be able to be quite alone in our own homes. Jesus recognised this when He said : " Enter thou, when thou prayest, into thy closet ; and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray 132 IMAGO CHRIS TI. m interest for any whose circumstances expose them to the same difficulty. But it is a discovery which might immensely enrich us all if we were to realise how easy it is to get into the natural solitudes. There is scarcely a town out of which you cannot escape in a very few minutes and find yourself quite alone — on a bit of shore, or on a mountain, or in a pasture or a wood. The town or city may be thundering away quite near, with its imprisoned multitudes bound on the treadmill of its toils or its amusements ; but you are out of it and alone with God. There is more than mere solitude in such a situation to assist prayer. There is a ministry of nature which soothes the mind and disposes it to to thy Father which is in secret." The essential thing is to have the world shut out and to be alone with God. It is for this reason that we shut our eyes in prayer : it is that our attention, being withdrawn from all sights and sounds witliout, may be concen- trated on the vision and the voices within. We may even so familiarise ourselves with the in'.vard world that we shall acquire the habit of transporting ourselves into it at will at any hour of the day and in any circumstances. Amidst the whirr of machinery, in the bustle of the street, even in the midst of con- versation, we may be able mentally to disappear out of time and stand for an instant in eternity face to face with God; and few prayers are more precious than the momentary ejaculations offered in the course of daily occupations. He who has acquired this habit has a strong tower into which he can retreat in every time of need. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRA YER. 133 se them •y which ► reah'se olitudes. cannot ;If quite n, or in may be prisoned s or its ne with such a istry of !s it to 3 to have is reason in, being concen- even so I acquire ny hour whirr of : of con- ime and md few ulations icquired n every devotion. Never did I feel more strongly that in this habit Jesus had laid bare one of the great secrets of life than one day when I climbed all alone a hill above Inveraray and lay on the summit of it, musing through a summer forenoon. On every hand there stretched a solitary world of mountain and moorland ; the loch below was gleam- ing in the sun like a shield of silver ; the town was visible at the foot of the hill, and the passengers could be seen moving in the streets, but no sound of its bustle reached so high. The great sky was over all ; and God seemed just at hand, waiting to hear every word. It was in spots like this that Jesus prayed. He prayed, however, in company as well as in solitude. We hear of Him again and again taking two or three of His disciples away to pray with them, and sometimes of Him praying with them all. The Twelve were a kind of family 10 Him, and He assiduously cultivatsd family worship. He spoke too of the value of united prayer. " I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven." United prayer acts on the spirit very much in the same way as conversation acts on the mind. Many a man's intellect, when he is alone, is slow in its movements 134 IMAGO CHRISTI. and far from fertile in the production of ideas. But, when it meets with another mind and clashes with it in conversation, it is transformed : it be- comes agile and audacious, it burns and coruscates, and brings forth ideas out of its resources which are a surprise even to itself* So, where two or three are met together, the prayer of one strikes fire from the soul of another ; and the latter in his turn leads the way to nobler heights of devo- tion. And lo ! as their joy increases, there is One in their midst whom they all recognise and cling to. He was there before, but it is only when their hearts begin to burn that they recognise Him ; and in a true sense they may be said to bring Him there — "Where two or three are met together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." HI. The occasions which call for prayer are innumer- able, and it would be vain to attempt to count * " Certain it is, that whosoever hath his Mind fraught with many Thoughts, his Wits and Understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with Another: he tosseth his Thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly ; he seeth how they look when they are turned into Words ; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an Hour's Discourse than by a Day's Meditation." — Bacon's £ssays, xxvii : Of Friendship. t: vis CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRA YER, 135 f ideas. clashes it be- uscates, J which two or strikes tter in " devo- is One i cling n their 1 ; and I Him her in lumer- of count ht with • i break er: he 1 more 1 , id into lore by bacon's them. Jesus undoubtedly had, as we have ourselves, new reasons for praying every day; but some of the occasions en which He prayed are specially instructive. ? .. : I. We find Him engaged in special prayer just before taking very important steps in life. One of the most important steps He ever took was the selection from among His disciples of the Twelve who were to be His apostles. It was an act on which the whole future of Christianity depended ; and what was He doing before it took place ? " It came to pass in those days that He went into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God ; and, when it was day, He called unto Him His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom He also named apostles." It was after this night-long vigil that He proceeded to the choice which was to be so momentous for Him and for them and for all the world. There was another day for which, v,i are told. He made similar preparation. It was fiv t on which He first informed His disciples that He ' .s to suffer and die. - Thus it is evident that, when Jesus had a day of crisis or of difficult duty before Him, He gave Him- self specially to prayer. Would it not simplify our difficulties if we attacked them in the same way } It would infinitely increase the intellectual insight 1^6 IMAGO CHRIST/. with which we try to penetrate a problem and the power of the hand we lay upon duty. The wheels of existence would move far more smoothly and our purposes travel more surely to their aims, if every morning we reviewed beforehand the duties of the day with God.* ;> 2. Jesus appears to have devoted Himself specially to prayer at times when His life was unusually full of work and excitement. His was a very busy life ; there were nearly always " many coming and going " about Him. Sometimes, however, there was such a congestion of thronging objects that He had scarcely time to eat. But even then He found time to pray. * In Nicoll's Life of Jesus Chrts„, pp. 178-80, an important con- sideration is added: "Jesus Christ not only prayed before great and decisive acts, but He prayed after them. . . . This teaches us much which it is easy but fatal to miss. When we have done some great work by immense expenditure of force, we are tempted to say our part is done, — we cannot accomplish more. Many a man desires to end and crown his public life amidst the shoutings of applause tor some victory or achievement. He would retire to boast of it, and live all the rest of his days upon that proud memory. Better it is to pray, — to pray, if it be God's will, for new strength, for new if humbler efforts, and, if that is denied, for blessing on what has been attempted or done. Jesus Christ did not boast. He did rot give up, but He recruited Himself for new .cprvice by continuing in prayer to God. Another tempta- tion is to pride. We are lifted above the simplicity and humility in which we lived before. Our hearts s'vell, and we are tempted to think our previous life mean and insignificant. Never are we CHRIST AS A MAN OF PR A YER. m and the e wheels hly and aims, if e duties specially lally full Jsy life ; going " such a scarcely to pray. tant con- ?reat and us much me great d to say y a man itings of retire to It proud will, for i denied, is Christ iself for tempta- [lumility tempted r are we Indeed, these appear to have been with Him seasons of more prolonged prayer than usual. Thus we read : " So much the more went there a fame abroad of Him, and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by Him of their infirmities ; but He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed." Many in our day know what this congestion of occupations is : they are swept off their feet with their engagements and can scarcely find time to eat. We make this a reason for not praying ; Jesus made it a reason for praying. Is there any doubt further from God than when intoxicated by pride. In the pride of their hearts the wicked angels fell, and we may fall too unless we are delivered from their sin. Nothing will avail more effect- ually to allay and silence our pride than prayer. In communion with our Father our pride is chilled and destroyed. A kindred temptation after great achievements is the temptation to profound depression. When one has done one's utmost, and put forth the whole force of life, one feels completely spent, as if work were over. Men who have preached with power to multitud'^s of people have told us of the terrible languor which succeeds a full outburst of the heart. They have told us how they felt as if their life went from them in that supreme effort, and could never be regained. That is natural ; and we may learn from Jesus Christ how it is to be met. Let us pray that by prayer and service we may be taught to feel that our well-springs are in God, and that He who strengthened and filled us for that achievement, which we fear we can never repeat, can gird us, if He will, for new and nobler work." T 138 IMAGO CHRISTI. 1 which is the better course ? Many of the wisest have in this respect done as Jesus did. When Luther had a specially busy and exciting day, he allowed himself longer time than usual for prayer beforehand. A wise man once said that he was too busy to be in a hurry ; he meant that, if he allowed himself to become hurried, he could not do all that he had to do. There is nothing like prayer for producing this calm self-possession. When the dust of business so fills your room that it threatens to choke you, sprinkle it with the water of prayer, and then you can cleanse it out with comfort and expedition. 3. We find Jesus engaging in special prayer when about to enter into temptation. The greatest scene of prayer in His life is undoubtedly Gethsemane. As we enter that garden after Him, we fear almost to look on the scene — it is so sacred and so passes our understanding ; and we tremble as we listen to the prayers rising from the ground where He lies. Never were prayers heard like these. We cannot fathom them ; yet much may be learned from them. Let one lesson, however, suffice in the meantime : He prayed on this occasion before entering into temptation ; for at the gate of the garden, after the agony was over, He said, " This is your hour and the power of darkness." It was the commencement of His final conflict with the powers of wickedness in CHRIST AS A MAN OF PR A YER. »39 J wisest Luther allowed )rehand. y to be nself to had to ng this )usiness ^^e you, en you n. :r when t scene emane. almost passes ;ten to fe lies, cannot them, ntime : g into er the ir and ement less in earth and hell. But He had equipped Himself for the conflict by the prayer in the garden beforehand, and so He was able to go through all that followed with unruffled dignity and with perfect success. His strength was the strength of prayer. What an illustration of contrast was presented on that occasion by the weakness of the disciples ! For them also the hour and the power of darkness began at the gate of Gethsemane ; but it was an hour of disaster and ignominious defeat. Why } Because they were sleeping when they ought to have been praying. " Watch and pray," He had said, bending over their prostrate forms, " lest ye enter into tempta- tion." But they heeded not ; and so, when the hour of temptation came, they fell. Alas ! their experi- ence has often been ours also. The only armour in which temptation can be successfully met is prayer ; and, when the enemy is allowed to come upon us before we have buckled it on, we have not a chance of standing. 4. If any scene of prayer in our Lord's life may compete in interest with this one, it is the last of all. Jesus died praying. His last wordj were words of prayer. The habit of life was strong in death. It may seem far olf ; but this event will come to us also. What will our last words be .? Who can tell > But would it not be beautiful if our spirit were so 140 IMAGO CHRIST/. steeped in the habit of prayer that the language of prayer came naturally to us at the last ? Many have died with Christ's own last words on their lips. Who would not covet them for his own ? " Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" IV. If anyone were to go through the life of Christ seeking for answers to His prayers, many of them, I am persuaded, could be found. But I shall at present refer only to two on which the Word itself lays emphasis, and which are specially instructive. The Transfiguration was an answer to prayer. This is how it is introduced in one of the Gospels : " And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias." I do not say that He was praying for this alteration in His countenance and raiment, or even for the privilege of talking with these wise and sympathetic spirits about the work which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. But yet, I say, all this was in answer to the prayer He was offering when it came. There are some who, CHRIST AS A MAN OF PR A YER. m guage of Many leir lips. ' Father, f Christ Df them, shall at rd itself ructive. prayer, irospels : ys after 1 James, \ as He altered, :• And, ch were praying aiment, ;se wise ich He iut yet, ^er He le who, ^ disbelieving in the direct virtue of prayer to obtain from God what it asks, yet believe in what they call the reflex influence of prayer : they allow it does you good to pray, even if you get nothing directly by it, and even if there is no God to hear you. This, taken as the whole theory of prayer, is a mockery, as the simplest mind must perceive. But it is none the less true that there is a most blessed reflex influence of prayer. Prayers for goodness and purity in a sense answer themselves ; for you cannot pray for these things without in some measure re- ceiving them in the very act. To lift up the soul to God calms and ennobles it. It was this, I imagine, that was the beginning of Christ's transfiguration. The absorption and delight of communion with His Father overspread His very face with beauty and glory ; and through this outlet the inner glory leapt forth. In some degree this happens to all who pray, and it may happen in a high degree to those who pray much. Moses, after being forty days in the mount with God, shone with the same kind of light as the disciples saw in their Master on the Holy Mount ; and there is a spiritual beauty bellowed in some degree on all God's saints who pray much which is of the same nature and is the most precious of all answers to prayer. Character flows from the well-spring of prayer. 142 IMAGO CIIRISTI. The other answer to prayer given to Jesus to which I desire to call attention took place at His baptism. Here is St. Luke's account of it : " Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended like a dove upon Him." It was when He was 'praying that the Spirit was sent down upon Him, and in all probability it was this which at the moment He was praying for. He had just left His home in Nazareth to begin His public work ; and He was in immediate need of the Holy Spirit to equip Him for His task. It is a forgotten truth that Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost ; but it is one most clearly revealed in the Gospels. The human nature of Jesus was from first to last depen- dent on the Holy Ghost, being thereby made a fit organ for the divine ; and it was in the strength of this inspiration that all His work, as preacher, miracle-worker and atoner, was done.* And if in • " The Holy Spirit, in a peculiar manner, anointed Him with all those extraordinary potvers and gifts which were necessary for the exercise and discharging of His office on the earth. Isa. Ixi. I '. ' The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me ; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek : He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them tliat are bound/ It is the prophetical office of Christ, and His CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRA YER. 143 Jesus to 5 at His : " Now to pass, ing, the ascended He was )n Him, . at the left His rk ; and spirit to pn truth ; but it s. The : depen- ide a fit strength )reacher, id if in Him with necessary rth. Isa. cause the he meek : proclaim 1 to them , and Hig any measure our life is to be an imitation of His — if we are to help in carrying on His work in the world or in filling up what is lacking in His sufferings — we must be dependent on the same influence. But how are we to get it ? He has discliarge thereof in His ministry on the earth, which is intended. And He applies these words unto Himself with respect unto H^s preaching of the Gospel (Luke iv. i8, 19); for this was that office which He principally attended unto here in the world, as that whereby He instructed men in the nature and use of His other offices. . . . Hereunto was He fitted by this unction of the Spirit. And here, also, is a distinction between the ' Spirit that was upon Him,' and His being ' anointed to preach,' which contains the communication of the gifts of that Spirit unto Him. . . . And this collation of extraordinary gifts for the discharge of His prophetical office was at His baptism (Matt. iii. 17). They were not bestowed on the Head of the Church, nor are any gifts of the same nature in general bestowed on any of His members, but for use, exercise, and improvement. And that they were then collated appears; for, — " I. Then did He receive the visible pledge which confirmed Him in, and testified unto others His calling of God to, the exercise of His office; for then 'the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted upon Him : and, lo, a voice came from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ' (Matt. iii. 16, 17). Hereby was He 'sealed of God the Father ' (John vi. 27) in that visible pledge of His vocation, setting the great seal of heaven to His commission. And this also was to be a testimony unto others, that they might own Him in His office, now He had undertaken to discharge it (chap. i. 33). " 2. He now entered on His public ministry, and wholly gave Himself up unto His work ; for before He did only occasionally manifest the presence of God with Him, somewhat to prepare 144 IMAGO CHRIST/. told US Himself: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." Power, like character, comes from the fountain of prayer. ■IQIII the minds of men to attend unto His ministry, as when He hilcd them with astonishment at His discourses with the doctors in the Temple (Luke ii. 46, 47), And although it is probable that He might be acted by the Spirit in and unto many such extraordinary actions during His course of a private life, yet the fulness of gifts for His work He received not until the time of His baptism, and tlierefore before that He gave not Himself up wholly unto His public ministry. " 3. Immediately hereon it is si* i that He was 'full of the Holy Ghost' (Luke iv. i). Before, He was said to 'wax strong in spirit,' 7rX;jpov;j€i/off > V. 17, 48. >» viii. 21. >> vi. 29. » xvi. 29, 30. >> vii. 12. M xxiii. 46. »• viii. 4, 11. w xxiv. 27. f> ix. 13. ; . , ^ ■ . r -■■'■■;" )» X. 15. *} xi. 21, 24. >) xii- 3-7, 39-42. it xiii. 14, 15. M XV. 7.9. John V. 39, 45, 4C. >> xix. 8, 18, 19. >, vi. 32, 45, 49. l» xxi. 16, 4:? » vii. 19, 22. >» xxii. 29-32, 35-40, 43.^5, », viii. 17, 37. >» xxiv. 37-39. », X. 34. 35- >> xxvi. 30, 31, 53, 54. >» xiii. 18. >1 xxvii. 46. » xvii. 12, 14, 17 "^'Wv . CHAPTER VIII. CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. T T is probable that Jesus knew three languages. The language of His country was Aramaic ; and some fragments of it, as they fell from His lips, have been preserved to us in the Gospels, such as Talitha, cuini, the words with which He raised the daughter of Jairus. But it is not likely that He read the Scriptures in this His native tongue. Sometimes, indeed, the quotations of the Old Testament In the New do not tally exactly with any form of the Old Testament now in our hands, and the conjecture has been hazarded that in such cases the quotations are taken from an Aramaij version then in existence; but this is no more than conjecture. Another language He spoke was Greek. In Galilee, where He was brought up, there were so many Greek settlers that it was called "Galilee of the Gentiles ; " and Greek was the language of 148 IMAGO CHRIS Tl. commerce and of the .nore cosmopolitan kind of social intercourse. A boy brought up in Galilee in those days would have the same chance of learning Greek as in our day a boy brought up in the Highlands of Scotland has of learning English. Now in Greek there existed in Christ's time a version of the Old Testament Scriptures. We still possess it, under the name of the Sep- tuagint, or Seventy, the supposed number of the translators who executed it in Egypt between two and three hundred years before the Christian era. It was extensively circulated in Palestine. The New Testament writers very frequently quote from it, and there is little doubt that our Lord read it. The third language which He probably knew was Hebrew. This can only be stated as a probability ; for, though Hebrew was the language of the Jews, it had ceased before Christ's time to be the spoken language of Palestine. Languages sometimes decay even in the countries to which they are native, and become so mixed with foreign elements as to lose their identity. A modern example is seen in Italy, where Latin is now a dead language, having been transmuted by slow degrees in the course of centuries into Italian. Though Italian bears considerable resemblance to the ancient tongue, the boys of Italy of to-day CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. 149 have to learn Latin just as our own boys do. The same thing had taken place in Palestine. The Hebrew language, in which the Old Testa- ment was written, had degenerated into Aramaic ; and Jews who desired to read the Scriptures in the original tongue had to learn the dead language. There is reason to believe that Jesus acquired it» In some of His quotations from the Old Testament, scholars have observed. He purposely diverges from the Gre^k and reverts to the exact terms of the original. It will be remembered also that in the synagogue of Nazareth He was asked to read the Scriptures. Now it is probable that in the synagogue-roll the writing was in Hebrew, the reader having first to read it in that language and then to translate it into the language of the people.* If this be so, it is surely interest- ing to think of Jesus learning the dead language in order to read the Word of God in the tongue in which it was written. Remember, His condition in life was only that of a mechanic ; and it may have been in the brief intervals of toil that He mastered the strange letters and forms that were * "Vers fiir Vers, abwechselnd mit dem dazu bcstellten Uebersetzer, las der Aufgerufene den Text und der Ue]:ersetzer sprach das Targum, d. h. die aramaische Paraphrase." — ■ Hausrath, Nattcsta7}ientliche Zeitgcschkhte. ISO IMAGO CIIRISTL to bring Him face to face with the Psalms as David wrote them and with the prophecies as they flowed from the pen of Isaiah or Jeremiah. In our own country the same sacred ambition is not unknown. At all events, a generation ago there were working men who learned Greek with the grammar stuck on the loom in front of them, that they might read the New Testament in the language in which it was written ; and I have spoken with the members of a group of business men in Edinburgh who met every Saturday to read the Greek Testament. Certainly there is a flavour about the Bible, when read in the language it was written in, which it loses more or less in every translation ; and it is perhaps surprising that in our day, when the love of the Bible is so common and the means of learning are so accessible, the ambition to read it thus is not more widely spread. It is pathetic to think that Jesus never possessed a Bible of His own ; but there can be no doubt of the fact. The expense of such a possession in those days was utterly beyond the means of one in His condition ; and besides, the bulkiness of the rolls on which it was written would have prevented it from being portable, even if He could have possessed it. Possibly in His home there may have been a .<.kL CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. iSi {Q,yfi of the precious rolls, containing the Psalms or other favourite portions of Holy Writ ; but it must have been by frequenting the synagogue and obtaining access to the books lying there, perhaps through ingratiating Himself with their keeper, as an enthusiastic musician may do with the organist of a church in order to be permitted to use the instrument, that He was able to quench His thirst for sacred knowledge. We can procure the Holy Book for next to nothing, and every child possesses a copy. May its cheapness and universal currency never make it in our eyes a common thing ! Of course it was only the Old Testament Jesus had to read. It may be worth while to recall this as t. reminder of how much more reason we have to love and prize our larger Bible. When I read in the Psalms such outbursts of affection for the Word of God as these : " Oh how I love Thy law : it is my study all the day ; " " How sweet are Thy words to my taste ; yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth ; " " More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey and the honey- comb,"— I say, when I read such outbursts of holy feeling, and recollect that they came from the lips of men who possessed only the Old Testament, perhaps only a fragment of it — 152 IMAGO CHRISTI. men in whose Bible there were no Gospels, or Epistles of Paul, or Apocalypse, who had never read the Sermon on the Mount or the Prodigal Son, the seventeenth of John or the eighth of Romans, the thirteenth of First Corinthians or the eleventh of Hebrews, — I ask what my feelings are towards the much larger Bible I possess, and I say to myself that surely in modern times the heart of man has become ossified, and the fountains of gratitude have dried up, and the fires of admiration and enthusiasm have been put out, so tame, in comparison, is our affection for the far more perfect Book.* * No nobler tribute has e^rer been paid to the Divine Word than Edward Irving's Omlionsfor the Oracles of God. We quote a few sentences from the first of them : " There is no express stirring up of faculties to meditate her high and heavenly strains — nor formal sequestration of the mind from all other concerns on purpose for her special entertainment — nor pause of solemn seeking and solemn waiting for a spiritual frame, before enter! -ig and listening to the voice of the Almighty's wisdom. Who feels the sublime dignity there is in a saying fresh descended from the porch of heaven? Who feels the awful weight there is in the least iota that hath dropped from the lips of God ? Who feels the thrilling fear or trembling hope there is in words whereon the eternal destinies of himself do hang ? Who feels the tide of gratitude swelling within his breast, for redemption and salvation, instead of flat despair and everlasting retribution ? Or who, in perusing the Word of God, is captivated through all his faculties, transported through all his emotions, and through all his energies of action wound up ? . . . •• Oh I if books had but tongues to speak their wrongs, then CHRIST AZ A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. 153 II. There is the most indubitable evidence that Jesus was an assiduous student of the Word of God. This is furnished, not by repeated statements to this effect, but by proofs far more impressive. His recorded sayings abound with quotations from it. These are sometimes express references to the book might this book well exclaim — Hear, O heavens ! and give ear, earth ! I came from the love and embrace of God, and mute nature, to whom I brought no boon, did me rightful homage. To man I came, and my words were to the children of men. I dis- closed to you the mysteries of the hereafter, and the secrets of the throne of God. I set open to you the gates of salvation, and the way of eternal life, heretofore unknown. Nothing in heaven did 1 withhold from your hope and ambition ; and upon your earthly lot I poured the full horn of divine providence and consolation. But ye requited me with no welcome, ye held no festivity on my arrival : ye sequester me from happiness and heroism, closeting mt with sickness and infirmity ; ye make not of me, nor use me foi /our guide to wisdom and prudence, but press me into your list of duties, and withdraw me to a mere corner of your time ; and most of ye set me at nought, and utterly disregard me. I came, the fulness of the knowledge of God : angels delighted in my company, and desired to dive into my secrets. But ye, mortals, place masters over me, subjecting me to the discipline and dogmatism of men, and tutoring me in your schools of learn- ing. I came not to be silent in your dwellings, but to speak welfare to you and to your children. I came to rule, and my throne to set up in the hearts of men. Mine ancient residence was the bosom of God ; no residence will I have but the soul of an immortal ; and if you had entertained me, I should have pos.scssed you of the peace which I had with God." 154 IMAGO CIIRISTI. and the verse ; but oltener they are allusions to Old Testament events and personages, or unexpressed quotations so woven into the warp and woof of His own statements as to show that the Old Testament drenched His mind through and through, supplied the scenery in which His imagination habitually worked, and moulded the very language in which He thought and spoke. If His quotations are examined, it will be found that they are derived from every part of the book, showing His acquaintance not only with its promi- nent featiires, but with its obscurest corners ; so that we ourselves need not travel anywhere among the Old Testament writings without the assurance that His blessed feet have been there before us. It is, however, peculiarly enjoyable in the reading of Scripture to be able to halt at a text and know for certain, from His quoting it, that out of this very vessel, which we are raising to our lips, Jesus drank the living water. There are even texts which we may without irreverence call His favourites, because He quoted them again and again. And there arc books of Scripture which seem to have been specially dear to Him, Deuteronomy, the Psalms and Isaiah being the chieH v Not long ago it fell to my lot to look over the papers of a deceased friend. As all who have had CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. 155 to Old pressed of His Jtament upplied bitually which ; found book, promi- so that ig the :e that It is, ng of o\v for s very drank ch we 3CaUSG re arc :cially Isaiah jr the e had the same duty to perform must know, it is a pathetic task. There is a haunting sense of desecration in rifling the secrets kept hidden during life and learn- ing exactly what the man was beneath the surface. My friend had been a man of the world, exposed to many of the temptations of those who have to do its business and mingle with its company ; but he had sustained the character of a religious man. I had now the means of finding out whether this was something put on from the outside or growing from within. It was with deep awe that, as I advanced, I came upon evidence after evidence of an inner life with even deeper and fresher roots than I had ventured to hope for. When I opened his Bible especially, it told an unm''stakable story ; for the marks of long and diligent use were visible on every page — the leaves well worn, the choice texts underlined, short breathings of the heart noted on the margins. In some parts the marks of use were peculiarly frequent. This was the case especially with Psalms, Isaiah and Hosea in the Old Testa- ment and the writings of St. John in the New. I now knew the reality of the life that was ended, and whence its virtues had sprung. Thus the very aspect of a man's Bible may be a record of his most secret habits and remain to those who come after him a monument of his religion or 156 IMAGO CHRISTI. irreligion. To the living man himself there is perhaps no better test of his own religious condition than a glance through its pages ; for by the tokens of use or neglect he may learn whether or not he loves it. I copied from the flyleaf of my friend's Bible a few words which perhaps explain the source of true love to the Word : " Oh, to come nearer to Christ, nearer to God, nearer to holiness ! Every day to live more completely in Him, by Him, for and with Him. There is a Christ ; shall I be Christless } A cleansing ; shall I remain foul ? A Father's love ; shall I be an alien ">, A heaven ; shall I be cast out?" • HI. There are different methods of studying the Scriptures with profit. On these we have no express teaching from the lips of Christ ; but from the records of His conduct we can see that He practised them. According to the method by which it is studied, God's Word serves different uses in spiritual experi- ence ; one method being serviceable for one kind of use, and another for another. Jesus displayed perfect proficiency in all the ways of using it ; and from this we are able to infer how He studied it. CHRIST AS A STUDENT OF SCRIPTURE. m there is ondition Dkens of he loves Bible a of true ) Christ, day to nd with ristless ? 's love ; be cast ng the ave no it from lat He ' ■ : S-: ■>■■! -Vi studied, experi- e kind jplayed t ; and it. There are especially three prominent uses to which we find Ilim putting the Bible, and these are very important for our imitation. 1 . For Defence, The very first use we find Him making of the Word is as a defence against temptation. When the Wicked One came to Him and tempted Him in the wilderness, He answered every suggestion with, " It is written.' The Word was in His hands the sword of the Spirit, and He turned with its edge the onsets of the enemy. In like manner He defended Himself with it against the assaults of wicked men. When they 'ay in wait for Him and tried to entangle Him in His talk. He foiled them with the Word of God. Espe- cially on that great day of controversy immediately before His end,* when all His enemies set upon Him and the champions of the different parties did their utmost to confuse and confute Him, He repelled their attacks one after another with answers drawn from the Scriptures ; and at last silenced them and put them to shame in the eyes of the people by showing their ignorance of the Scriptures of which they were the chosen interpreters. * Matt. xxii. IS8 UfAGO CHRIST/. There was yet another enemy He met with the same weapon. It was the last enemy. When the terrors of death were closing round Him, Hke a dark multitude pressing in upon a solitary man, H^ had recourse to His old and tried weapon. Two at least, if not more, of His seven last words from the cross were verses out of His favourite book of Psalms. One of them was His very last word, and with it He plucked His soul out of the jaws of death : " Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." For this use of Scripture the practice of com- mitting it to memory is essential. In every case I have mentioned Jesus was able to recur to the con- tents of a memory stored with texts of Scripture and find at once the necessary weapon for the occasion. Often, when temptation comes, there is no time to search for the word to meet it ; everything depends on being already armed, with swc rd in hand. This shows how necessary it is to fill the memory, while it is plastic, with stores of texts ; we do not know what use we may get of them in future days of trial and weakness. In daily reading, when we have gone through a chapter, it is an excellent plan to select a single verse and commit it to memory. Not only does this sharpen the attention on the whole chapter, but it lays up ammunition for future battles. CIIKIST AS A STUDENT OF SCKIPTUKE. 159 with the 'hen the c a dark H:. had at least, he cross Psalms, th it lie ' Father, 3f com- y case I he con- ure and ccasion. time to lepends This ^, while t know lays of len we nt plan emory, on the future 2. Foy Inspiration. It is easy from Christ's Old Testament references to see that He dwelt much among the great spirits : of the past whose lives the Old Testament records. His earthly environment v/as unsympathetic in the extreme. In Mis own home He was not believed in. In Ilis own country there was living an evil generation, as He often said, irresponsive to every motive that most profoundly affected Him. His own followers were, in mind and spirit; but children, whom He was only training to comprehend His ideas. His overcharged heart longed for com- panionship, and He had to seek it among the great figures of the past. In the silent walks and groves of Scripture He met with Abraham and Moses, with David and Elijah and Isaiah, and many more of kindred spirit. These men had lived for aims similar to His own. They had suffered for them as He was suffering ; He could borrow the very words of Isaiah about his contemporaries to de- scribe His own. If Jerusalem was persecuting Him, -she ha