L I E) RA RY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N I VER.S ITY 
 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 / 
 
 JERUSALEM WHICH IS ABOVE IS FREE. 
 
 ^ Sermon 
 
 Preached at St. Margaret's Church, on Sunday Morning, 
 March 12th, 1899, by the 
 
 REV. CANON J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON, D.D., 
 
 Rector. 
 
 " But Jerusalem which is above is fbes, which is our Mother 
 " So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the febe.'' 
 
 Gal. iv., 26, 31. 
 
 ST. PAUL is uttering the protest of the spiritual against 
 bondage to the material. There never has been an age in 
 which this protest has not been needed. Certainly it is needed 
 as much as ever to-day. 
 
 In the history of Israel we find the Prophets uttering this 
 protest. Formal religion with burdensome enactments — sacri- 
 fices and fasts and multiplied prayers — once the symbols and 
 utterances of a fervent spiritual life, the shapes in which the 
 spiritual had embodied and expressed itself — had been main- 
 tained and cherished as valuable in themselves when the vitali- 
 sing spirit had fled. 
 
 Hence the prophetic protest against the lifelessness of mere 
 forms, whose observance was found easily compatible with un- 
 righteousness and had come to be a cloak of hypocrisy. The 
 great men of the state, and the great ladies of society, were 
 causing the miscarriage of justice, and were gi'inding the faces of 
 the poor and living in costly luxuriousness, while all the time 
 they were bringing their expensive sacrifices and making their 
 wealthy offerings and were loud in their professions of religion. 
 
 Hence the protest of Isaiah : " To what purpose is the 
 multitude of your sacrifices to Me ? saith the Lord . . . Bring 
 no more vain oblations : incense is an abomination unto me ; the 
 new moons and the Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot 
 away with : it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." 
 1
 
 SERMON'. 
 
 Hence the protest of the Psalmist : '' Thou de^irest no sacri- 
 fice, else would I give it Thee ; Lut Thou delightest not in 
 burnt'offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a 
 broken and a contrite heart, God, shalt Thou not despise." 
 
 Not that those sacrifices were not of divine institution and 
 acceptable to God when the hands that offered them were pure : 
 for the same Psalm expressly declares that when heart and hands 
 are purified the old worship will at once revive in its full 
 meaning : '* Then shalt Thou bo pleased with the sacrifice of 
 righteousness, with the burnt-offeiings and oblations: then shall 
 they ofier young bullocks upon Thine altar." 
 
 The protest of the spiritual against bondage to the material 
 was reiterated in the teaching of Christ. We have only to recall 
 such sayings as " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
 for the Sabbath," or the words which He spake " making all 
 meats clean," or again the notable declaration to the woman of 
 Samaria, " Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh when ye shall 
 neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the 
 Father : . . . God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him 
 must worship Him in Spirit and in truth." 
 
 Not indeed that he sought to cancel for the Jews of His own 
 day the Mosaic ritual. On the contrary He shewed His recogni- 
 tion of it again and again : going up to keep the Feasts, sending 
 the cleansed leper to offer the sacrifice which Moses had com- 
 manded, and, generally, in His own words, "fulfilling all 
 righteousness." " These things,^' He said, " ought ye to have 
 done, and not to leave the other undone." 
 
 In the words which I have chosen from the Epistle for to-day 
 we have, as I have said, the same protest uttered by St. Paul. 
 His letter to the Galatian Churches is a loud cry for Liberty, 
 when certain Jewish Christians were seeking to impose on 
 Gentile converts the traditions which to themselves were rightly 
 and of necessity sacred, but which were not intended to be of 
 universal obligation, and had no binding force upon those who 
 2
 
 JKRUSALKM WHICH IS ABOVt: IS FREE. 
 
 bad entered the service of Christ by another door than that of 
 Judaism. 
 
 It was St. Paul's mission to proclaim that the Gentiles became 
 members of Christ's Body by their Baptism, and thereby acquired 
 equal privileges with the circumcised Jew. To accept Circum- 
 cision, therefore, was on the part of a Gentile to surrender this 
 great liberty, and to subjugate himself to the entire yoke of the 
 Mosaic Law. It was to admit that no one could be a good 
 Christian, unless he were first a good Jew. It was to make St. 
 PauPs wider Gospel of the * Christ for all men ' of none effect. 
 
 They had begun well, he says. They had entered the Church. 
 without a mention of Jewish observances^ — simply as Gentiles 
 who believed in Christ as the Saviour of all men. Why were 
 they listening to these Jewish teachers, who would rob them of 
 their liberty in order that they might boast of having added new 
 converts to Judaism or to a Judaised Christianity ? 
 
 The whole future of Christianity as a world-wide religion was 
 at stake in this controversy. Was Christ indeed ' the Son of 
 Man' — the Man for all men — or was He, afier all, only 'the Son 
 of David,' the Messiah of the Jewish people. ? 
 
 It was not unnatural that earnest Jews who had accepted 
 Jesus as their nation's Messiah should proclaim that the only 
 way of God was through Judaism to Christ. But St. Paul, 
 though ' a Hebrew of the Hebrews,' had learned a larger Gospe^ 
 than this : and it was this larger Gospel which was threatened by 
 these teachers. 
 
 Hence the passionate protest of a man who felt that the whole 
 work of his life was at stake : '' If an angel from heaven preach 
 any other Gospel uuto you than that ye have received, let him be 
 accursed." 
 
 In the present passage, after he has pleaded for the life and 
 
 freedom of the Spirit as against the bondage of ceremonial 
 
 observance, he uses an illustration from the Old Testament 
 
 Scriptures, to which his opponents made their appeal. Abraham 
 
 3
 
 SERMON. 
 
 had two sons : Ishmael born of the slave-girl Hagar, Isaac born 
 of the freewoman and true wife Sarah, These things have a 
 deeper meaning : they contain an allegory. 
 
 In order to interpret the spiritual sense, he combines with 
 this scriptural illustration another from the Rabbinical teachers, 
 who used to dis:tinguish between the earthly and the heavenly 
 Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem was but the counterpart of a 
 heavenly City, which exhibited in perfection above what was 
 only imperfectly realised here on earth. St. Paul accepts the 
 distinction, and goes on to identify the earthly Jerusalem with 
 the Jewish Nation, and the heavenly Jerusalem with the new 
 Christian Church. He then boldly declares that the earthly 
 Jerusalem, which was in bondage to the Roman Empire, corres- 
 ponds to the slave-girl Hagar, the mother of Ishmael ; while the 
 heavenly Jerusalem corresponds to the freewoman Sarah, the 
 mother of Isaac, the child of the Promise. 
 
 " This Hagar . . . answereth to Jerusalem which now 
 is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which 
 is above is pkek, which is our mother." 
 
 " So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, 
 
 but of the FREE." 
 
 " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
 made us free; and be not entangled again with the yoke of 
 bondage. '' 
 
 The argument from illustration is seldom a strong one ; and 
 St. Paul does not rest his case on a proof like this. He uses it 
 rather to answer objections, and as a kind of argumentum ad 
 hnmincm. It is to enforce the moral^ rather than to establish 
 the position, that he argues thus. 
 
 You are right, he seems to say, about your * heavenly 
 Jerusalem ■" as the truth to which the earthly Jerusalem points. 
 
 The Jewish Nation is truly the forerunner and the imperfect 
 type of the Christian Church. It is as the mother of Ishmael to 
 the mother of Isaac. Ishmael comes first indeed, but he is the 
 4 
 
 
 i
 
 JERUSALEM WHICH TS ABOVE IS FREE. 
 
 son of the slave-girl : Isaac comes only afterwards, but he is the 
 son of the freewoman. " Cast out/' saith the Scripture, ** the 
 bondwoman and her son : for the son of the bondwoman shall 
 not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren," 
 (he triumphantly concludes,) " we are not children of the bond- 
 woman, but of the PREE.'^ 
 
 Beware lest you forget this : lest you get enticed back into 
 bondage — bondage to Judaism with its elaborate ceremonial 
 enactments — a yoke which (in St. Peter's words) neither our 
 fathers nor we were able to bear. You have nothing to do with 
 all this. You came to Christ quite independently of it. You are 
 Christ's freemen : you were born free of a free Mother. Do not 
 surrender your heritage. Do not exchange your spiritual free- 
 dom for what is after all a bondage to the material. 
 
 What lessons do the words of St. Paul offer to us in the Church 
 of England to-day ? Freedom is a watchword of English Chris- 
 tianity. It is a national characteristic, which has been fostered 
 and protected by the English Church. We in England have, 
 in perhaps as high a measure as has ever yet been attained any- 
 where in the world, a free Church in a free State. This has been 
 the issue of the English Reformation. No foreign Prince or 
 Prelate has any jurisdiction over this Church or Realm. The 
 supremacy rests with a Member of the Church itself, specially 
 consecrated by the Church as Sovereign 'of the People. Nor is 
 this Freedom in any peril or real prospect of peril. The inter- 
 ference which the Papacy exercises in the affairs of certain foreign 
 Churches and States is as unknown and as little to be anticipated 
 in England as it is in Russia. As sons of the Church of England, 
 " we, brethren, are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.'' 
 
 But we may ask, Is there no danger of the encroachment of 
 formalism upon the English Church — of a return, not indeed to 
 the bondage of the Papacy which our fathers shook off, but to 
 the no less serious tyranny of exaggerated external observances 
 and exaggerated priestly claims ? of an introduction of the whole 

 
 SERMON. 
 
 system of Rome minus the Pope ? Of private confession uni- 
 versally enforced as the condition of Communion^ of an elaborate 
 ritual made as unintelligible to the bulk of our congregations 
 as if it were in Latin, of a servile and ignorant imitation of dis- 
 tinctively Roman practices, which foster a spirit alien to the 
 freedom and simplicity of Englishmen ? Is there not a danger 
 of our becoming entangled in a yoke of bondage ? 
 
 To this I venture to give you the answer which has come to 
 me, as I have been able to observe the situation from a stand- 
 point comparatively remote from controversies — the standpoint 
 of an academical position. And I answer Yes, in certain quar- 
 ters : No, not for the whole Church. 
 
 And this twofold answer is based on a consideration of that 
 very Freedom which is characteristic of Englishmen alike in 
 Church and in State. 
 
 On the one hand, our Clergy and Laity are extraordinarily 
 free to make what I may call religious experiments. Take, for 
 example, a wholly unobjectionable instance — that of Parochial 
 Missions. The very name of Missions in this sense may be said 
 to be borrowed from Rome. In foreign churchyards you have 
 often seen a hugh wooden cross, bearing the one word Mission 
 followed by the simple date. There was some outcry when the 
 word was first introduced into the usage of the English Church. 
 The Mission of a Priest from another Parish, and the surrender 
 into his hands for ten days of the whole of the services of the 
 Church, was regarded as liable to abuse and fraught with peril to 
 our parochial system. But the experiment succeeded, and the 
 practice is almost universally approved. It has done more tban 
 any one change of the last 40 years to revive the devotional spirit 
 of the Church of England. Something similar may be said of the 
 Retreats for Clergy or Laity, which some prefer to entitle Quiet 
 Days, in order to avoid another borrowed name. 
 
 The freedom which permits such far-reaching changes is. in 
 turn responsible for the introduction of other practices confessedly 
 6 

 
 JERUSALEM WHICH IS ABOVE IS FREE. 
 
 Ronican, as well as for the reiDtroduction of old Euglisli customs 
 which have lontj become obsolete. The law of the Church of 
 England has proved far more elastic than was supposed a little 
 while ago, and the measure of its elasticity has not yet been 
 completely determined. It is certain that it admits of an amount 
 of ritual observance which, if it becomes merely formal^ must 
 be a serious foe to the spiritual life. I say nothing now of 
 practices which plainly controvert the Church's law. 
 
 This freedom constitutes a danger from which a cast-iron 
 system Avould be exempt. 
 
 On the other hand, this very freedom is our truest safeguard. 
 Exotics will not always grow in the new soil to which they are 
 transplanted. Let us be Englishmen enough to trust the English 
 spirit. Let us not be betrayed into trying to secure freedom by 
 imposing a new bondage. Let us recognize the law of the pen- 
 dulum : reaction is followed by reaction, and the clock moves 
 steadily and truly on. If you hold the pendulum, you are a fool 
 for your pains. 
 
 We have come out of a gruesome state of neglected churches 
 and dismal services and dry discourses and careless priests and 
 sleepy congregations. Thank God ! The activity of the clergy 
 (again I speak from an academical position of observation) is un- 
 paralleled, the Laity are urging them on — especially, as I was 
 reminded only yesterday, the younger laymen are urging the 
 clergy on to give them more services and better music and more 
 beautiful ritual. Clergy and Laity are combining in hundreds of 
 parishes to introduce religious experiments, some of which are 
 alien to the English spirit — and these will die out — some of which 
 will take root and grow, because they are congenial to the English 
 soil. 
 
 But the pendulum has not done its swing yet in very many 
 
 of the parishes of the land : and the reaction to simplicity has 
 
 still to be waited for. If freedom be allowed to prevail, we need 
 
 have no fear for the ultimate issue. We shall not lose our heri- 
 
 7
 
 SERMON. 
 
 tage, if we are faithful to the God who has given it us. " We, 
 brethren, are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.'* 
 
 I have been speaking from the standpoint of the Englishman, 
 who loves his Church as she is, and who shudders at the notion 
 that she may forget to preach the Gospel, and bind her children 
 with the bondage of borrowed customs and unspiritual rites and 
 ceremonies. 
 
 There is another side. The identity between the component 
 members of the Church and the State is an ideal only in the 
 present day. That the ideal is not a practical reality is again 
 due to our prevailing characteristic of Freedom. We no longer 
 enfoi'ce conformity by penalties or disabilities. That is often 
 forgotten when men are complaining that the Church of England 
 does not wholly walk in the ways of the 17th or the 18th 
 century. But this fact means a relaxation on the citizen's side 
 of the compact between Church and State. Is there to be no 
 recognition of this change when the obligations of the Church 
 are in question ? For the Church, be it remembered, is no 
 department of the State. Neither is it a figure of speech. It is 
 not a mere addition sum of a number of individuals who combine 
 for certain religious purposes. It is a living whole. It has a 
 life of its own, and a history of its own, and a principle of 
 growth and progress of its own. The Church as such may make 
 terms with the State as such : but she is responsible to herself 
 and to her invisible Lord that those terms shall not be, nor 
 come by changed circumstances to be, terms which shall prevent 
 her from developing her powers to the full to meet the new 
 necessities of altered times. 
 
 " The Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our Mother." 
 An early 2nd century interpretation added, " the Holy Church 
 which we have confessed." It was a true gloss, and brought out 
 well the meaning of St. Paul. But what would the 2nd century 
 Church have said if any power other than her own had attempted 
 to alter her formularies or her observances ?
 
 JERUSALKM WiriCII IS ABOVE IS FKEi-:. 
 
 A relaxation of the civic obligation of the citizen to the 
 Church is a wise product of our spirit of freedom. It has not 
 involved any disturbance of the general relation of the State to 
 the Church. A nieasui-e of further independence allowed to the 
 Church in the regulation of her internal affairs is a corresponding 
 relaxation which is much to be desired, and may fairly bo 
 claimed : and this again need involve no disturbance of the 
 general relation of the Church to the State. Of the details by 
 which the policy of Church and State in this matter may be best 
 worked out I say nothing. The pulpit is for principles. 
 
 Be assured of it that as individual citizens we must maintain 
 that freedom of the Spirit which keep^ ftirms and ceremonies in 
 their proper and subordinate j)0 iiion, as embodiments of and 
 not substitutes for spiritual forces and spiritual results. Wo 
 must " stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us 
 
 FREE." 
 
 As Churchmen we must believe more in the Chttrch: we 
 must grasp far more fully than wo have grasped ihe fact tha" we 
 are parts of a living whole, members of the Body of the Christ, 
 citizens of the heavenly city, the Jerusalem which is above and 
 is fi;ee.