The Message of the Modem Mitrnter LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by BX 7232 .J32 1908 Jackson, Henry E. 1869-1939 The message of the modern minister The Message of the Mode rn Min iste r Copyright, 1908, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York : 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto : 25 Richmond Street, W. London : 2 1 Paternoster Square Edinburgh : 100 Princes Street ''A man's religion is the chief fact luith regard to him. By religion I mean the thing a man does practically believe; the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and knoiv for cer- tain, concerning his vital relations to this mys- terious Universe, and his duty and destiny therein, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest." Thomas Carlyle INTRODUCTION It has been the custom In Congrega- tional churches for many years for candi- dates about to be ordained, or Installed, to present to an Ecclesiastical Council statements of their religious experience and doctrinal beliefs. The following paper was presented by its author to the Council convened to consider the ques- tion of his Installation as pastor of the Christian Union Congregational Church at Upper Montclair, New Jersey. It is more personal and less formal than such papers usually are. In Its delivery It almost took the form of a sermon ad clerum. The Impression which it made was profound, and the wish was unan- imous that It might be preserved In print and thus given to a larger public. Its chief characteristic may be termed its ^'modernism." It deals with living ques- tions, and approaches them In unconven- tional ways. The writer comes to his 7 8 Introduction subject by the path of experience. He has written profoundly because he has first lived profoundly. He believes that every truth which is really helpful may be preached, and that no doctrine which cannot be preached has any claim upon the Christian minister or the Christian public. While this paper is modern it is also thoroughly constructive. There is not a destructive note in all these pages. Without claiming that the message of the preacher for to-day will be the mes- sage for all time, its author has sought to bring into clear relief some of the truths which have most vital relation to the present time. That the pulpit has a message for to-day very different from what it had even half a century ago does not admit of doubt. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we study al- most every subject from the evolutionary standpoint. In the old days the Bible was regarded as a book written by the hand of God; now it is known to be the literature of a people which contains the record of the process by which one nation was taught the true religion in order that It might become the teacher of that Introduction 9 religion to the world. Formerly this earth was regarded as the centre of a limited creation; now we have to adjust our thinking to the conception of the universe, which is comparatively a modern conception. These changes do not affect the substance of doctrine but they have changed the way in which it has to be presented. The modern man thinks in new terms, and he who would effectively preach to him must use the language with which his hearer is most familiar, I commend the address which is con- tained in the following pages as able, timely, and thoroughly abreast of cur- rent thought. It contains no novel teaching, but it is a wise and balanced presentation of the everlasting realities of religion as they are related to life and thought in the days in which we are living. Amory H. Bradford. First Congregational Church, Montclair, New Jersey, The Message of the Mo de rn Min is te r ^'By religion I T?iean the power, whatever it be, which makes a man choose what is hard rather than what is easy, what is lofty and noble rather than what is mean and selfish; that puts courage into timorous hearts, and gladness into clouded spirits; that consoles men in grief, misfortune and disappointment ; that makes men joyfully accept a heavy bur- den; that, in a word, uplifts men out of the dominion of material things, and sets their feet in a purer and simpler region.'" Arthur C. Benson *'An essentially religious attitude is necessary to the noblest living. Life needs to be touched with the glamour of wonder and deepened with the atmosphere of reverence. Men live less by knowledge than by an appreciation of what has not yet been gathered up in the categories of science. The great experiences of human life break in through the closed circle of our knowledge ; we can never anticipate them in theory. Life precedes philosophy : in a very true sense men are better than they know, liv- ing in experience much that they have not yet formulated in terms of the understanding." Edward Howard Griggs The Message of the Modern Minister QBVIOUSLY the thing suggested first by an exercise like this is the importance of knowing how and what a man thinks. The custom of the Congre- gational Church in asking an incoming minister to make a formal statement of his views, is itself a rebuke to the super- ficial, but frequently expressed opinion, that it does not matter what a man thinks, but matters only what he does. Chesterton did not over-state the truth when he said that "there are some peo- ple, and I am one of them, who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is his view of the uni- verse. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more impor- tant to know his philosophy." This 14 Message of the Modern Minister statement is true of any man, but spe- cially true of the man who attempts to form the opinions of others. When the Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, was asked by a woman who thought him to be liberal in his views of religion: "Sir, can you tell us what you really think about God?" he answered: "Madam, it mat- ters very little what I think about God; but it matters a great deal what God thinks about me." Underneath Dr. Jowett's answer is another obvious an- swer which some one else has added: "It matters very much what I think God thinks about me." Since God is the one unescapable reality of a man's life, with- out which one can neither think, nor speak, nor act, it is of the first impor- tance to have true views of Him. Few things matter quite so much. A man's very refusal to define his attitude to God, itself defines it. Your request, there- fore, that I present to you an outline of my outlook on religious questions, is most appropriate and one which I most cheer- fully grant. In order to save myself the embar- rassment of feeling that I am stating Message of the Modern Minister 15 views, Just for the purpose of having them dissected, and save you from the sense of the unreality of performing a merely negative task, I take the liberty of letting you see incidentally my point of view, by stating some things which have more or less recently impressed them- selves on me, in my own experience as a Christian and as a preacher, — some things which I think ought to be em- phasized to-day by the man who attempts to be a spiritual leader. If I can feel that I am preaching to you, I shall im- mediately feel at ease, and if I tell you what things I think you ought to em- phasize in your preaching, you can at once see what things I deem important. I suggest that after my statement, it would be most helpful if we should have a mutual conference about those elements of the Christian religion which its teach- ers ought to make clear and prominent, if the church is to be a real power and service to the men of to-day. I shall never forget an all-night meeting held last year in Princeton by twenty-four members of our class, at the tenth anni- versary of its graduation from the Theo- 1 6 Message of the Modern Minister logical Seminary. The subject of the conference was this very question. There were two facts upon which all the men agreed and which impressed me most deeply. One was this : Every man present felt a sense of confusion and be- wilderment about his theological out- look. Every man testified that the point of view given to him ten years before, and which many of them held at that time, had become unreal to him per- sonally, and had ceased to be of value to him in his work. The other was this : Every man present had an honest desire to find out what were the essential and fundamental truths of the Gospel of Christ and how they ought to be pre- sented. The testimony of these twenty- four ministers is most significant, for the problem they faced is one that must be continually faced by every earnest Christian teacher who is awake to his responsibility. Therefore a conference upon it on an occasion like this is an op- portunity to do a real service for any men who may be in a similar situation. I propose, therefore, to state five prac- tical and fundamental truths, made real Message of the Modern Minister 17 In my experience, which I think ought to be controlling and guiding principles In any minister's public teaching. Sin is a Reality and Salvation is a Present Process The first fact which my experience leads me to suggest, and which my posi- tion to-day reminds me of anew. Is this. I do not find that the work of the Chris- tian minister becomes Increasingly easy, but rather Increasingly difficult. Not that the preparation and preaching of sermons is a burden. I love that work, although it Is an enormous task for any man to undertake. Not that the calling and pastoral work are so hard. I love that too. What makes the minister's work ever more difficult, is the failure to embody in one's own life the Ideals which he preaches. As I come to know more and more of the needs and sorrows and loneliness of men, and as I come to know more and more the charm and wonder and greatness of the message of Jesus, I 1 8 Message of the Modern Minuter find it Increasingly hard to apply that message to that need effectively by em- bodying it in my own life. It was not hard to be a minister of religion at a time when religion did not concern itself with character and when the priests of Greece and Rome never for a moment regarded it as part of their duty to help men to a purer life. But to be a Chris- tian minister to-day is a different matter and is difficult chiefly for the very reason that once made it easy. "Clever men," said Huxley, "are as common as black- berries. The rare thing is to find a good one." The rare and difficult thing for the minister is to be a good man, and a good man on the minister's lips means to be the kind of man he urges others to be. The subtle danger of professionalism, a relying on the conventional forms In- stead of seeking for the substance beneath, uttering the letter of the law only from the teeth out, instead of In- carnating its spirit, is a danger which I find ever ready to spoil the minister's own life and make ineffective his message to men. I believe no man so well as the minister knows what Gladstone meant Message of the Modern Minister 19 when he said: "There Is one proposition which the experience of life has burned into my soul. It is the fear that my religion shall kill my morality. Every day of my life in thousands of different ways, some great, some small, all of them subtle, I am tempted to that great sin." My own experience thus has helped to giv^e to me my doctrine of sin. For the study of sin, as Simpson says, if it is to be really serious and effective, is a study of one's self. Because I myself know what the seventh chapter of Romans is, I believe sin is a reality. It is not merely involuntary error, or mere unripeness, as in an apple. It is that; but it is also an act of the will, a violation of the laws of life, and every specific sin is a form and manifestation of its root principle, which is selfishness. I do not think that any elemental passion in a man's life is wrong in itself. Sin is just the wrong use of the right thing. That such a wrong use has been universally made, there can be no doubt in the mind of any man who knows himself and knows life as it is. I believe, then, that sin as a reality is a cardinal question for 20 Message of the Modern Minister religion and philosophy and for practical life, and is, therefore, to be emphasized by the minister. Growing out of this fact and cognate to it, is, of course, the doctrine of for- giveness, or salvation, or atonement. When all other religious questions cease to interest men, they will still ask : What is it which saves? How can men be helped to be what they want to be? "There are no men who are not inter- ested to know whether there is any power in the world which will help to overcome evil, to cure ignorance, to comfort in sorrow, to take out the sting of remorse for the past, to inspire with aspirations of hope for the future." Christianity's method is distinct from every other which seeks to help man reach his ideal. Humanism seeks to do it by emancipation of the mind, Christianity by changing the heart and the will. "The one wishes to make bet- ter by enlightening, the other to en- lighten by making better. This Is the difference between Socrates and Jesus," a difference which the Christian minister must never lose sight of. Message of the Modern Minister 21 But just what the Christian conception of salvation is — that is where the min- ister's task and difficulty begin; that is where his opportunity begins too. No word is more commonly on the lips of Christian men than the word "salva- tion," and yet no word is more commonly misunderstood. If any man wishes to find out whether that is so or not, all he has to do is to ask a dozen average Christians to meet him and state what they think salvation is, just what does Christ do for a man when He saves him, just what takes place in the heart of the man who receives salvation. The an- swers he will get will not only astonish him, but also discourage him. One great duty of a minister to-day becomes per- fectly apparent when he discovers how many Christians there are who think that salvation is a kind of reserved-seat ticket which they secure to be used sometime in the future. I do not like to use a phrase which seems irreverent, but no simile more dignified will describe the idea, the idea that salvation is a kind of plan by which they hope to escape from the post- mortem consequences of misdoing. Such 22 Message of the Modern Minister a conception of salvation accounts largely for the existence in the churches of an un- lovely and defective type of Christian character. Such a conception is to-day one of the great barriers between the church and the thinking men outside of it. It is needless to say that I think such a conception has no justification whatso- ever in the teaching of Jesus. In view of this common misconcep- tion, which is admirably stated In the lit- tle book by Patterson DuBois, called *'The Culture of Justice," a need which I regard as one of the greatest in the church of to-day, I propose immediately to begin a series of as many sermons as may be necessary, on what I shall call "The Practice of Salvation," In the hope of making clear what I think is the Christian conception of salvation, not as a method by which a man is released from punishment, because he thinks some one else has been punished for him, which is both Impossible and immoral, because punishment can be experienced only where there is guilt; therefore, pun- ishment is not transferable; sin and Its punishment are riveted together; but Message of the Modern Minister 23 salvation as an actual atonement, through the vicarious suffering of the Son of God, a process by which he is being saved, not from punishment, escape from which is nowhere promised to him, but saved from sin; a method by which men are saved not by the physical death of Jesus, but by His love, as He Himself said, that the Father gave His Son because He so loved the world; a method by which the sense of guilt, the worst of all blights that fall upon the soul, is re- moved; a method by which to acquire the power of moral recovery; a method by which the good in man is reinforced and helped to conquer; a process by which a man here and now is made at one, and brought into harmony with, the law of life, which is the Will of God. II The Intellect is Limited and Faith is Therefore a Necessity The second fact which my experience has deeply impressed upon me, and which has a vast effect on my work as ^ 14 Message of the Modern Minister minister, Is the need of more Christian agnosticism, such as Paul had, when he said: "I know in fragments." What I mean is this. Every normal minister feels that there ought to be the accent of certainty in his public teaching. He knows that It is this note that men hope to find when they come to him. He knows that men are indifferent to him when they have any misgiving that the preacher knows no more than they do about spiritual things. He knows that a doubtful gospel is a weakened and divided message, as the word doubt literally means. It Is debilitating to rule life by negatives. He cannot express himself in negatives and remain a Chris- tian minister. The people, also, eagerly desire more definite knowledge on matters of the first Importance. They feel with Harriet Martlneau, that "we have a right to know." If they feel the pressure of the problem of life, they feel that they are entitled to more light upon the mystery. "If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly," is the demand still In the hearts of great numbers of men. Who has not, at times, Message of the Modern Minister 25 uttered Carlyle's cry that God might break through the silence and speak? Without some word from Him, even the stars were a "sad sight" to Carlyle. Who has not at times uttered Brown- ing's prayer? "Come then, complete incompletion, O Comer, Pant through the blueness, perfect the Summer!" Without some message from Him, even Summer's beauty Is found wanting. In view of this eager desire, which men have, for definfte Information about their life and destiny, and In view of the minister's honest wish to satisfy this need, It Is Impossible not to chafe under the little that we know. This constitutes a chief difficulty In the minister's work as a teacher. How little we know-of God and duty and Immortality. "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him." "Why Is light given to a man whose way Is hid?" Why should the very being of God be a question open to discussion? Why should the grave be an effectual barrier between the living and the dead? 26 Message of the Modern Minister "Strange, is it not? that of the myriads, who Before us passed the Door of Darkness through. Not one returned to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too." I think that our ignorance on these questions and the confident pulpit tone which ignores the fact that there is any mystery in God's dealings with men, are responsible, not only for the apparent religious indifference so common to-day, but also constitute a serious difficulty for the minister himself. It has weighed heavily upon my own heart. When, therefore, I made two dis- coveries about this fact, I felt that the sun had broken through the clouds for me as a minister. The two discoveries were these: "We know enough for true living, and not too much for noble liv- ing; that the things essential for true liv- ing are surely known; that the things only known in fragments contain great moral value by their very mystery. About some things God has left us in no doubt. / Speaking of these venerable landmarks, to which a man ought per- Message of the Modern Minister 27 sistently to cling, Robertson of Brighton said: "In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, even then it is better to be generous than selfish, bet- '. ter to be chaste than licentious, better to ! t^hjMj^^ be brave than be a coward." Of these [- moral certainties at least we know the worth. {I began to see also that^these moral certainties come first in God's order. If a man would get light on life's mystery, he must first obey in the things about which there is no doubt.V* If a man has no faith in the worth of duty, | he can have no faith in God.") As to the things which are not so surely known, when I consciously took the agnostic attitude of Paul and said, "I know only in fragments," I began to see that there was a great moral value in i mystery. If a man knew for certain the result and reward of a virtuous action, his act would cease to have moral worth and become enlightened selfishness. All heroism would be at once eliminated. If a man could know the future his knowl- edge would convert his future into a past 2 8 Message of the Modern Minister and as his body walked forward, his face would be where the back of his head is, looking over the path already trod; this would paralyze his will for present action. Ignorance of the future is one of man's chiefest boons. It prevents trouble from crushing him twice. Mystery has a distinct positive moral value. It is what the old philosophers called an "advantageous deficiency." From the time that Professor Huxley invented the word "agnostic," it has been made to stand for two very opposite Ideas. The agnosticism of the positivlst regards the unknowable as a stone wall too hard to pierce, too high to see over, and an insult to his intelligence. The Christian agnosticism Is a sane, humble confession of the limits of the human Intellect, a limitation wnth a distinct moral value. The abuse of the Idea has caused Christian men to be afraid of the word and suffer in consequence a serious loss. The true Christian agnosticism was one of the most illuminating dis- coveries In my life, very far-reaching in its application. Its vast Importance becomes apparent when we notice Message of the Modern Minister 29 how many practical questions it illumi- nates. The discovery helped me to see that all great truths are dual. They have two sides which are opposite, but not contradictory. Christian agnosticism pre- vents a man from accepting one side alone and emphasizing it by denying its opposite, one of the commonest of mis- takes, but rather teaches him to see the truth of both, up to the limits of his knowledge and to postpone any attempt at a final reconciliation until some fu- ture day, when more light shall break upon them. This single fact gives a working reconciliation between God's sovereignty and man's free will, between love and duty, as principles of action, between truth and beauty as elements of God's world. The discovery helped me to avoid the mistake of dividing a man into depart- ments and thinking that any one alone was a sufficient guide for life, helped me to see that the division of mental powers into feeling and knowing and willing, is a theoretic distinction in function alone, and that in every act of a man's life. 30 Message of the Modern Minister these powers must interact, that for sane living the whole man must act, heart and head are both needed. The discovery did me a serv^ice of un- told value, when it showed me that there were some truths which are too im- portant to rest on proof, a fact strongly' stated in Tennyson's "Ancient Sage" : ''Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O, my son, Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in; Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone ; Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one; Thou canst not prove that thou art im- mortal, no, Nor yet, that thou art mortal, nay, my son, Thou canst not prove that I who speak with thee Art not thyself in converse with thyself; For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproved, wherefore^ thou be wise Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt And cling to faith beyond the forms of Faith." Message of the Modern Minister 31 The discovery saves the Christian man from the shallow conceit, revealed in so many creeds of the past, that assumes to analyze and classify and formulate a complete plan of the Universe, the con- ceit against which Carlyle protested when he said that some Christians talk as if God were their next-door neighbor and they were intimately acquainted with all His affairs. After stating the funda- mentals in our creeds, a large margin or unexplored remainder ought to be left for faith, in regard to which a man ought to say with Paul, "I know only in frag- ments." It is for this reason that the Christian poets are the wisest of theo- logians, dealing with concrete facts and leaving a margin for the imagination, which is faith. The poet is not like the philosopher in Emerson's poem, who is lined with eyes inside, and who tries to catch the unconscious heart in the very act. In such an analytical process, the sage unmakes the man. The work and methods of the minister and the minstrel, as their names indicate, lie close together and in many respects are identical. 32 Message of the Modern Minister The discovery made the Holy Spirit real to me. I got no help from the theo- logical formulas as to the third person of the Trinity. I got no help from the loose mechanical descriptions of what is called the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But it was a real help when I saw that the Holy Spirit was just the life of God in the soul. When the intellect could not, by searching, find out God, the Holy Spirit did just what the intellect could not do, revealed God through the funda- mental instincts of the soul, creating and developing what might be called a sixth sense. The discovery helps a man to see that just because mystery out-tops knowledge, therefore the appropriate attitude is one of trust. The world being what it is, and man being limited as he is, the trust- ful life is the only rational life. It alone brings into the human heart the tranquil- lity of God. "I have always had one lode-star; now, As I look back, I see that I have halted Or hastened, as I looked towards that star — A need, a trust, a yearning after God." Message of the Modern Minister ^2 I think the great contribution which the noble poem of Job has made to man is the sanity of liv^ing a life of trust in a world which we do not understand. After he and his friends had made their answer to his problem, it still remained an open wound. Then God presents to Job indecipherable mystery and for the first time Job is comforted. Job flings at God a dozen riddles, God flings back at Job a hundred riddles and Job is at peace. He has discovered that the trust- ful life is the only sane life for man whose keenest knowledge cannot com- pass a tithe of the wonders that lie at his feet. The discovery saves the Christian from intellectual pride and helps him combine a positive faith with humility, such as is combined in Tennyson's state- ment, "I hardly dare name His Name, but take away belief in the self-conscious personality of God, and you take away the backbone of the world." The discovery saves the man of the world from the mistakes he so often makes in times of grief and perplexity, saves him from dashing himself in 34 Message of the Modern Minister rage against a wall which is too hard to pierce and falling back bruised and weary. It would keep him from stumbling over his own head. It would help him to see that the Bible does not cease to be a lamp to his feet because it does not reveal all he eagerly desires to know. "It is like a lantern he carries in his hand on a dark night. It does not illumine the whole forest through which he picks his way. It sheds a ray of light on the path on which he walks and shows him where to put his foot in his next step. To reveal light for each day's duty, is all the knowledge that God meant revela- tion to give. The thing which such a man most needs is the attitude of Chris- tian agnosticism, which leads him to say with Paul, "Even as things are, there abide faith, hope, and love." It seems clear to me, therefore, that the attitude of Christian agnosticism is the very opposite of a denial of religion. It is one of the most needed, positive, and Indispensable elements in any religion that can be called true. My contention is that one of the most needed and posi- tive messages of the minister to-day to Message of the Modern Minister 2S men, both Inside and outside the church, is the necessity of living the trustful life; and I use the word "agnosticism" just for the purpose of emphasizing that fact. The word "agnosticism" is misunder- stood because it has been misapplied; but the word "faith" is no less misunder- stood. When the word "faith" is used, men generally think of Intellectual dogmas. It never meant that to Jesus. To Him It meant a reliance upon the in- tuitions and not upon the reason. To rescue faith from philosophy and make it mean what it means in the New Testa- ment, is one of the great tasks for the minister. Until men are led to take Paul's attitude of agnosticism, there can be no place In their lives for faith, In the New Testament sense, not an Intellectual creed, but a living trust. The first thing to be said about the three mystic virtues, faith, hope and love, which Christianity invented, is that they are unreasonable, a fact which Chesterton has well pointed out. Indeed, this is their chief merit. They are not the product of reasoning. They are designed to do what the reason is unable to do; to teach all men how to ^6 Message of the Modern Minister be guided by faith, hope and love, rather than depend on the lame and limited power of reason, I regard as among the minister's first and chiefest functions. Ill Life Must he Construed in Terms, not of Matter, hut of Spirit The third fact which my experience has shown to me to be of primal impor- tance to the minister is this. He must look at life in terms of spirit, not in terms of matter. Whether the mind is a func- tion of the brain, or whether man is es- sentially a spirit who uses a body as an instrument for temporary purposes. Is a crucial question that divides Christian from unchristian thought. On this ques- tion the minister must get the certainty that Is born of pure and spiritual vision and on It he must dogmatize, for unless he can believe that man was not born to die, he could be a teacher of ethics, but not a teacher of Christianity. This is the citadel for Christian faith, and it will be of little use for her ministers to guard Message of the Modern Minister 21 the outposts while the citadel itself is in danger. I well remember the challenge made to me by a physician at an operation per- formed on Dr. Day, a brilliant professor in Swarthmore College. Years previously he had received a blow on the head. After some years it so affected the brain that the man's faculties, one by one, were lost. I was present at the operation at the family's request. With consummate skill, the surgeons opened the head and located the trouble. During the process, I asked Dr. Mitchell, a consulting sur- geon, this question: If a slight Injury to the brain could rob Dr. Day of his faculties, thought, memory and speech, where is the man now, the spirit that made him what he was, the man we knew and loved? Dr. Mitchell answered the question by asking another. You are a Christian minister, are you not? When I answered yes, "Then," said he, "that question is one for you to answer." During the entire night after the opera- tion I sat In meditation upon Dr. Mit- chell's answer. I accepted the challenge. Unless I could accept It with confidence, I 38 Message of the Modern Minister could not be a minister. Since then I have had a near view of death, and what I saw then makes it unnecessary for me longer to argue the question with myself. I know with the certainty born of direct vision. ''We may question with wand of science, Explain, deride and discuss; But only in meditation The m5'Stery speaks to us." This is the one article of faith which Jesus submitted to Martha. Jesus made it a cardinal question of belief. When Martha came to Him on the death of her brother and was not satisfied with a far- off resurrection, but asked for some present comfort, He said: "I am [now] the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on Me shall never die. Be- lieveth thou this?" What was it that Jesus asked her to believe? It was this, that Lazarus was not mere matter, sub- ject to decay, but was spirit and that he was alive. He asked her to believe In the spiritual nature of man, to trust the logic of the heart not of the head, to Message of the Modern Minister 39 believe In the absolute continuity of life, a belief not found in Jewish or pagan literature before the time of Christ. If I were asked to state in one word the real function of the Christian minister, I would say that it is to teach men how to live under the aspect of eternity. It is of the first importance for men to know that they are now In eternity. The dis- tinction between time and eternity is both false and harmful. What we call time has in fact no existence at all. It is merely a conventional idea invented for practical convenience. It is just that section of eternity of which we are con- scious. In speaking of the Puritan and Huguenot, Carlyle said: "It Is a fruitful kind of study, that of men who do In every deed understand and feel at all moments that they are in contact with God, that the right and wrong of this little life has extended itself into eternity and infinitude; It Is at bottom my religion too." This fact which Jesus regarded as fundamental has a vast practical sig- nificance, a significance strangely over- looked in the Middle Ages, strangely 40 Message of the Modern Minister overlooked also in our day, though for a very different reason. Very subtle is the danger that it will be obscured to-day by the demands of humanitarian move- ments. The poor of course must be cared for and protected. Jesus made such ef- fort the real test of the sincerity of re- ligion. For it is an unescapable law that a man's religious life goes up no higher on the perpendicular, that is towards God, than it goes out on the horizontal, that is towards men. Certainly no man ever more sympathetically responded to the needs of the poor than did Jesus, and yet He always gave a perpetual primacy to the spiritual in man. The Christian Church must never do otherwise. It is most illuminating to discover that such primacy as Jesus' sanity gave to the spir- itual, instead of neglecting material de- mands, is in fact the best inspiration for securing them and the best guardian of them when they are secured. In propor- tion as souls are valued, bodies will be properly treated. No statement needs more emphatic reiteration to-day, for the sake of rich and poor alike, than this, that man himself is of more value Message of the Modern Minister 41 than property. The condition that makes money dear and men cheap has no more uncompromising enemy than the Idea which Is an axiom In Christian thought that the meanest unit of society has value because It has a soul. I regard this, then, as one of the chief truths which the minister ought to teach to the men of to-day, or any day, to teach them what Dante said Virgil taught him : *'You taught me how to be eternal." IV The Cross in Our Experience is a Means to a Good End The fourth fact to which my experi- ence as a man and a minister has given outstanding Importance, Is the fact that the need of some w^orkable attitude to suffering is among the deepest of all human needs. Few subjects have haunted me more than this ; on few sub- jects have I preached more frequently. Joseph Parker advised ministers that they ought always to preach to the men in the pews who are In sorrow : that 42 Message of the Modern Minister means all of them. Dr. Watson said when he closed his ministry in Liverpool, that if he had his life to live over again, he would be careful to do three things in particular. He would preach shorter sermons; he would be more attentive to his English; and he would preach more comfortingly. I cannot yet appreciate why he should give so much importance to the first two suggestions, but I am quite sure that the last one needs all the emphasis which he gives it and more. From my own experience, I can ap- preciate the feeling of that sensitive and brilliant young student whose ex- perience Dr. Fairbairn relates. When he entered the pulpit for the first time and faced the upturned eyes of men, there came such a vision of the evils that filled life and the impotence of the preacher and the word he preached, either to mend or to end them, that he vowed to God in whose goodness he still believed, that if he were allowed to escape with his reason from that appalling place, he would not again lift up his voice in a pulpit until he had a message better fitted for the supreme crisis of the soul so- Message of the Modern Minister 43 journing amidst scenes so confused and perplexing. The message never came and he never returned to the pulpit. I believe he was right so far as this, that if the minister has no gospel for the sor- rows of life, his place is not in the pulpit. I understand that no difficulty is so often presented in literature as this. I under- stand that it remains an unsolved problem in philosophy. I also know that every man is forced to find for himself a moral reason for suffering. I also know that just as ''nothing so marks man's progress as the successive solutions he has attempted to this problem," so there is no finer or surer test of each man's success in life than the personal attitude he takes to it. There is, for example, no surer indication of the temper and out- look of Tennyson, Longfellow and Browning, than the solution which each one offers to this question. The same is true of every other 'Christian man. I believe that Christianity does not offer a final solution for the existence of pain, but I believe that Christianity offers a final, workable attitude to it. Jesus never explained the problem of suffering. 44 Message of the Modern Minister He just brought God into It. Burne- Jones, when he prepared his mosaic of "Christ on the Tree of Life," wrote at the foot his favorite text, in the words of Vulgate, "In mundo pressuram habebi- tis" (In the world ye shall have pressure) — words that seemed to him in a peculiar manner to express the burden and pres- sure of life. "But I have overcome the world." All that he knew of religion, he said, all that he believed of Christian faith, was summed up in these words. If Christ made that word good, then He is really our God. That is the minis- ter's message. Jesus met suffering and worsted it on its own ground. The same victory is possible for His followers. The word "cross" has had In the past two distinct meanings. It Is the symbol of all that is most precious In the Chris- tian life; It represents what Christ has done for us, and as such, it Is a strength and comfort. It also stands for what we are called upon to endure for Him, and as such It Is a test and burden and conflict. Both Ideas are reflected fre- quently In Christian song and experience. I believe the time will come when the Message of the Modern Minister 45 word "cross" will acquire in men's thought a third and new meaning. It will stand for suffering as a means of joy. There is no conviction which I more tenaciously hold than this, that on the other side of every cross-bearing, there is a joy and an experience, for the sake of which the cross is given; that all pain willingly borne brings immediate bless- ing; that the gladdest people in the world are not those who have no crosses, but those who have. This statement is veri- fied in the lives of men irrespective of their attitude to the Christian faith. The insight into spiritual realities which an experience of pain gave to the scien- tist, John George Romanes, who aban- doned the Christian faith of his child- hood and then returned to it, is a suf- ficient and beautiful demonstration that it is a universal truth. There are few messages from the Christian minister more needed than this — needed by the minister himself; for if the minister has begun his work, har- assed by doubts, created for him by his university or theological studies, and dis- tressed because he lacks the accent of cer- 46 Message of the Modern Minister talnty in his message, there is no surer cure for his difficulties than an honest effort to minister to the needs and sor- rows of men and women; — needed also for the men of to-day, for, if men could once see that suffering is God's minister to manhood, and that "when pain ends gain ends too," then the bitterness and weariness of spirit, so characteristic of our day and which is far worse than any philosophical pessimism, would cease to exist. To meet this settled weariness of spirit the Christian minister of to-day must stand as a robust optimist, such as Browning described himself to be, **One who never turned his back But marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, Wrong would triumph, Held \\t fall to rise, Are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake." Message of the Modern Minister 47 The Christ of the Gospels is the Sole and Sufficient Guide for Life The fifth fact born out of my experi- ence which I mention last, because I think it is the chief fact to be emphasized to- day by the Christian minister, is the sole sovereignty of Jesus, as a guide for life. No other single fact in my Christian ex- perience has more deeply impressed me than the absolute uniqueness and depend- ableness of Jesus asHe is presented in the four gospels. After a man has preached for ten years and tried many diverse methods and lines of thought and be- come more or less acquainted with books and poets and philosophers, he comes to feel that nothing is worth preaching about, except the life and teaching of Jesus. Certainly all else assumes a vastly smaller importance in comparison. That statement of Browning, which I used to think was the exaggeration of a devotee, I now see and believe to be literally true. 48 Message of the Modern Minister *'I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee All questions in this earth and out of it." I believe that one of the greatest needs of the Christian church to-day is a larger acquaintance with the four gospels. The four gospels are as little generally known as any books on the market to-day : They are not either seriously or honestly studied by any very large number of men inside the church, or out of It. Few things are less known than the position of Jesus on moral questions. Few things remain more undiscovered than His great words. In a peculiar sense the four gospels are Christianity's text-book. It is of the first importance for the Chris- tian to know his own text-book. I think that the second Sunday service In every church should be, not a preaching service, but a teaching service, an Informal and open Bible class for the study of the New Testament. Such a service would be more difficult to conduct than a preaching service, for In It the pulpit would be called upon to explain and defend its own statements. But It would fairly face the Message of the Modern Minister 49 need of a class of men to-day who are disposed to think that the pulpit is a *'coward's castle" and that Christianity cannot be discussed because it has noth- ing to say for itself. It seems to me that nothing could be more fitting than to see the members of any Christian church en- gaged once a week in an honest study to find out accurately what the four gospels say about Jesus and His teaching. It seems probable that during the next ten years the four gospels will be sub- jected to a more searching criticism than ever before, but a sound historical criti- cism is not a thing to be feared. So long as the fundamental principles of evidence are kept In mind, the four gospels will not suffer harm. If Jesus did not say the words attributed to Him, then the man who did is my Christ; that is to say, I believe the four gospels, as we have them, are their own evidence. I believe that fact is more important than Is generally appreciated. The story of a perfect life is as much a miracle among books as the perfect life of Christ Is among men. Here is a picture of a per- fect goodness, written not by men of gen- so Message of the Modern Minister ius, but by the hands of lowly men, who frequently misunderstood Him, and yet they never record any saying of Jesus of which you could say, I w^ish Jesus had not said that. Here is a question of the first importance for literary students. The only answer I am able to make to that question is the answer by Tennyson, "Something sealed the lips of that evan- gelist." The four gospels are not ordi- nary literature. I conceive it to be the chief duty of the minister to bring men and women face to face with the portrait of Jesus, assum- ing nothing about it except that we have it in our hands. I would first of all have men become lovers of Jesus by becoming acquainted with Him. I would leave all metaphysical and theological questions alone until that is done. Not that the- ology is not important. Every man who thinks on religious matters must have a theology. To refuse to theologize is to refuse to think on religious things, but theology to be of any value must be not a formal product, nor a party badge, but a vital outgrowth of experience. We must get our data before we draw our con- Message of the Modern Minister 51 elusions. This is the only proper ap- proach both logically and historically. The first disciples came to their views of Jesus's nature and person late in their experience. They first of all were loyally bound to Him in bonds of love. When men have once honestly made themselves acquainted with the Christ of the four gospels, they will either see that He is something more than a man, or they will be forced to abandon the four gos- pels as trustworthy documents. When a man has done that he will find not only that he has somehow to account for the existence of the gospels, but he will see also that for any adequate philosophy of life or explanation of the strange world in which he lives, for any reasonable hope of a true destiny, for any tentative solu- tion of life's problems and sorrows, his choice lies between the Christ of the four gospels and nothing. Men will doubtless be kept from any such result because of a strange experi- ence they have in any sincere study of the four gospels. Carnegie Simpson has called special attention to this singular phenomenon. We begin intellectually to 52 Message of the Modern Minister examine Jesus, we soon find that He Is spiritually examining us. We read Aris- totle and are edified. We read Jesus and are spiritually disturbed. No man can honestly study Jesus and remain morally non-committal. If men had honestly studied Jesus, It would have been unnecessary for Washington Glad- den to have Invented the term "Applied Christianity," for the Christianity of Christ involves the necessity of making an application of it. This leads me to say that one of the first needs of the church of to-day Is the honesty and cour- age to apply the principles of Jesus to every question In life. Many years ago Roswell D. Hitchcock said that the prime need of our time Is "to Christian- ize Christendom." Men are seeing as they never saw before what Is written large In the four gospels, that every polit- ical and economic and social problem is at bottom a religious problem. Men are seeing what was a primary teaching of Jesus, that there is no such thing as individual goodness, for goodness is love and cannot be shown In an Isolated life, for love Is service to others. Men are Message of the Modern Minisler 53 seeing that service is the first law of the Christian Hfe, that happiness and heaven and even character are by-products of service. The most subtle peril of reli- gious men is the tendency to substitute emotional loyalty for practical loyalty; to think that the forgiveness of one's sins makes it unnecessary to fight against one's sins. If a man says he believes in cleanliness but will not get into the bath- tub in the morning, he does not really be- lieve in cleanliness, he believes only in the idea of cleanliness. To deserve an honest man's respect, a religion must produce its legitimate product, moral behavior. At this point the religious leaders in Jesus' day failed and for this reason He denounced them. If our re- ligious leaders fail it will be for the same reason, and can they complain if honest men repeat Jesus' verdict? Whatever faults the church has, noth- ing is gained by being unfair to her, and in justice could it not be said that she is now doing more for the betterment of the world than any other one society? But whether they are justified or not, certainly there exists a large class of 54 Message of the Modern Minister good men who admire the church more for what she might be than for what she is. Why this is so, that is the per- tinent question for the church to ask her- self. The demand which our day is mak- ing of the church and her ministers is that they stand for the rediscovered fundamentals of Christ's teaching. It is a striking and suggestive sight to-day to see the great moral and religious move- ments that are being carried on outside the Christian Church, inspired indeed by Christianity, but no longer controlled or guided by organized Christianity alone. I think they ought to be, for the reason that the "proper nurse for Moses is Moses's mother," not that the leadership of the church is a thing to be sought for its own sake, but the real question for the church to-day is what part she is to have in the regeneration of the world, which Christ is working and can work either with or without the help of the church. It is a matter of serious concern for the church to notice that although men may not attend the church as much as they once did, yet, at the same time, the coun^ Message of the Modern Minister 55 try itself is more Christian now than ever before. This fact indeed constitutes a challenge. Side by side with this con- dition there exists another which con- stitutes just as distinct a call to the church. There is a surprisingly large number of men, both inside and outside of the church, who have never accepted the spiritual leadership of Jesus, frankly alleging as the reason, their opinion that the principles of Jesus are not practicable for the social and economic problems of to-day; that the golden rule is a beautiful sentiment, but will not work; that Jesus is not just the type of character to be the ideal for a business man of to-day. My contention is that the principles of Jesus are the most practicable principles there are and the only principles which will produce certain results which men profess to seek. Only men have not discovered that this is so, that's all. John said that Jesus was so expert in His knowledge of men that in forming His judgment of them He did not need the help of His friends. Yet Jesus was the purest- minded of men and knew nothing of sin by experience. Purity gave Him in- 56 Message of the Modern Minister sight. The same is true of all men. Long before Jesus concretely illustrated it in His own life, Plato stated the fact and stated as its explanation that vice can never know both itself and virtue, but virtue acquires a knowledge at once of itself and of vice. It remained for Jesus to demonstrate this fact. I am convinced that it is quite possible to demonstrate both in theory and practice, even from the practical standpoint of this world's business, that the wise man is the good man; that the vicious man is not the clever but the stupid man. It still re- mains for Christian men to accept this principle and practice it. A clear under- standing of this truth is one of the first needs today of the men of America who are constantly tempted to admire smart- ness rather than goodness. Until Chris- tian men accept this fundamental teach- ing of Jesus they will make no serious at- tempt to apply His other teachings to commercial and political life. To demon- strate this fact is a duty that looms large for the church to-day. It constitutes a call for leaders of honesty and courage, by whom alone the task can be performed. Message of the Modern Minister 57 I regard it, therefore, as a chief duty of the minister to make an honest effort to apply the teachings of Jesus to all the conditions of life. It was a true instinct that led Longfellow, in his drama, "Christus," which occupied so large a share of his thought and life, to sum up his study of Christendom in the apostolic, middle, and modern ages, by this signif- icant statement, put into the mouth of John : "From all vain pomps and shows, From the pride that overflows, And the false conceits of men; From all the narrow rules, And subtleties of Schools, And the craft of tongue and pen ; Bewildered in its search, Bewildered with the cry, Lo, here! lo, there, the Church! /roor, sad Humanity- Through all the dust and heat Turns back with bleeding feet, By the weary road it came Unto the simple thought By the great Master taught And that remaineth still : Not he that repeatcth the name. But he that^-^tTthe will." J M' "^MC. 58 Message of the Modern Minister The measure of the church's success Is not In the number of times she repeateth the name, but the degree In which she doeth the will. The five statements I have just made are, In the language of the religious ex- perience of to-day, the "five points" of my practical working theology. Sin Is a reality and salvation Is a present process. The Intellect Is limited and faith Is therefore a necessity. Life must be construed, not In terms of matter, but of spirit. The cross In our experience Is a means to a good end. The Christ of the gospels Is the sole and sufficient guide for life. The business of the minister, I take It, Is to be a witness of these facts, for the gospel of Jesus Is essentially a factual religion. This Is the gospel which I think Is needed for our age. To preach this gospel, I call Imperial preaching, for it Is the gospel needed by all ages and by all classes of men. To preach Imperially means that a man must not pull down but Message of the Modern Minister 59 build up, or rather must never pull down except for the purpose of building up. If sometimes he feels it his duty to destroy what he believes to be false, even then he must never forget that "he only destroys who can replace." One of the most subtle dangers before the minister of to-day is the failure to see that the formulas of the old creeds which once were alive to the men who used them, but mean little to the men of to- day, that these formulas, although they seem crude and inadequate to us, never- theless stand for the fundamental facts of Christianity, and the manifest needs of human life. The failure to see this has led many a man to throw away the es- sential thing together with the outgrown expression of it. To do this is an illog- ical act. It is to do what the Germans say — "throw out the baby with the bath." In this revolt against the old formulas some men seem never able to get rid of their feeling of resentment against them. Therefore they spend much of their time In attacking what is already outgrown in- stead of putting something positive in its place. Ihey seem never able to realize 6o Message of the Modern Minister that the battle is over. Nothing could be a greater mistake. The great task before the minister to- day is to restate the historic facts of Christianity as they are related to the deep needs of the human heart, in the language used to-day, so that they may be understood. Many men to-day lack a sense of reality and enthusiasm in their religious lives just because they have either given up the old formulas, or hold to them in a half-hearted way, and they have found nothing else to take their place. The same sense of reality and enthusiasm which characterized the men of a former day will return to the men of our day as soon as the Christian life is ex- plained to them in terms which they can understand. It will be the discovery and renascence of a new life of wonder and faith and joy such as Jesus brought to men in the lanes and fields of Galilee. The need for the minister who will do this work was never more urgent than now; his opportunity never so excep- tional. In doing this work, the minis- ter's true relation to the old truths is well illustrated by an experience of Asa Message of the Modern Minister 6i Holmes, the cross-roads philosopher — *'The last time I went East to visit my grandson," said the old man medita- tively, "his wife showed me a mahogany table in her dining-room which she said was making all her friends break the tenth commandment. It was a hand- some piece of furniture, worth a small fortune. It was polished till you could see your face in it, and I thought it was the newest thing out in tables, till she told me she'd rummaged it out of her great- grandmother's attic and had it done over as she called it. It had been hidden away in the dust and cobwebs for a life- time, because it had been pronounced too time-worn and battered and scratched for longer use; yet there it stood just as beautiful and useful for this generation to spread its feasts upon as it was the day it was made. Every whit as substantial, and, aside from any question of sentiment, a thousand times more valuable than the one that Dunk Smith drove past with just now. His table is modern, to be sure, but it's of cheap pine, too rickety to serve even Dunk through his one short lifetime of movings." The task before 62 Message of the Modern Minister the minister to-day is to "do over" the old statements of the historic facts of Christianity and the essential needs of human life. There can be no doubt but that they need doing over. Many layers of dust and cobwebs must be removed if they are to be serviceable to men now. But when we have done that we shall find that after all they are the things of real value, they are solid mahogany. I be- lieve if we go deep enough, we shall find that the real needs of the men of every age are exactly the same, however diverse the forms they assume. Sin is still the same monotonous reality it always has been; the need of an actual atonement, of a harmony between man's will and God's, still is the deepest need of human nature; the intellect is still impotent to find ultimate reality, despite the im- mensely widened horizons which mod- ern discoveries have created in man's outlook; the sanity of living the trustful life is still as apparent to men of the deepest insight as it ever was; the task of discovering the spiritual meaning of life Is still the chief task before every man who is awake; the cry for some comfort Message of the Modern Minister 6^ Is an universal cry which the essential loneliness of life compels all men to utter; the moral and spiritual leadership of Jesus will remain undisputed so long as men must go backward for their mor- als to him as they are now doing. Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01208 7542 DATE DUE -m^m^m m 1 1 1 GAYLORD PRINTEDINU.S.A. ■••\'-A