by Joseph Parker

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Now that men have been called and united, it may be time to inquire into the laws by which they are to be personally and relatively governed. Life is continually presenting new aspects, and a widening civilization is perpetually throwing up questions which challenge the consideration of men who profess to go beyond “the world” for their doctrine and policy. Side by side with the Christian organization, called the church, many a powerful rivalry has been growing up, so that a persistent competition has been brought to bear upon the interests, real or supposed, of the whole community. We have seen that Christ regarded his disciples as “not of the world,” yet today the “world” is setting up a claim for the suffrages of the disciples. The line of separation is supposed by some observers to have faded much. Is it so in reality? It may be worthwhile to inquire how Jesus Christ, simply regarded as a bold and far-sighted propagandist, proposed to keep vast masses of men in permanent union—in other words, to consider how men can be in the world, yet not of it; can live in it, and yet be above it; can be united with one another, yet separate from sinners. No Imperium in imperio [government in power] is so great a mystery as the church in the world. Christ surely proposed a hard thing to his disciples when he required them to remain in the world, and yet to continue not only to be superior to its contaminations, but to make daily encroachments upon dominion until its authority was completely upset. In one of his prayers Christ said, “I pray not that thou shouldest keep them from evil.” Here is the difficulty.

In attempting the negative work of keeping men from evil, it is customary to set down in unsystematic order minute regulations and directions respecting things which are to be avoided. Christ did not adopt this plan. Rather by allusion than by detailed statement, he indicated certain forbidden territory, and then took himself to the affirmative side of his plan. He did not hope to keep men from evil by lecturing about it, by elaborating a penal system, or by any appeal to the lower instincts of human nature. His simple plan was to counteract death by life. Thus, instead of telling a man not to despair, he inspired him with a new hope; instead of telling a man to do no murder, he gave him such notions of the sanctity of human life as took away the very tendency to anger. This was his fundamental plan. “Thou shalt not” was adapted to a ruder age of the world; “Thou shalt” was now to take its place. The ineffectiveness of merely negative instruction is shown every day. Take the case of the gambler: tell him that gambling will bring him to ruin or inflict ruin on others, insist upon it that gambling is a perilous and mischievous practice, and not improbably the gambler will assent to the doctrine; but will be abandon of the habit? Go further: imprison the gambler; take from him all gambling instruments, and condemn him to live in penniless poverty all the rest of his days: does he cease to be a gambler? Only in the lowest sense; he is still a gambler in spirit—the evil is untouched. What does Christ propose in such a case? He not only casts out the devil, but he puts in the Holy Spirit. He gives the gambler something better to do, and proves his entire success by leaving the man in the world, yet keeping him from the evil. It would be a poor thing to take the man out of the world; if he required to be taken, that very fact would prove that he was not perfectly healed by Christ. The most conclusive testimony which is afforded of the divine force of truth is that men continue in the world, though inhaling the atmosphere of heaven. Satan is put under their feet. They are still in the region of war, but protected by an impenetrable armor.

The fact that life must have occupation shows the uselessness of merely negative teaching. Life cannon remain quiescent [dormant, inactive]; it has appropriative and distributive functions, and must operate accordingly. If it be not pursuing good, it must be doing mischief. How does Christ propose to engage those functions?

We may simplify the course of inquiry by confining it to the subject of amusements. The mirthful side of human nature must be provided for. The sects have shut up the theatre, the race course and the dancing saloon: they have forbidden game after game; the Ten Commandments they have displaced by a hundred of their own, each commencing with “Thou shalt not.” Nothing was easier, and nothing was more useless. A man lives the drama passionately; he sees only the ideal side of it; the true interpretation of a great poem is to him the most refined of luxuries; he is entranced by the genius of art. The sects say to him, you must give up the drama, and he receives the intimation with great surprise, probably too with some disgust. The intimation may be given to him by a man who hardly knows the meaning of the word drama, who has no soul for poetry, no eye for art—a man who would throw jewels away because the casket had been spotted with mud. Are the feelings of the dramatist not easily conceivable, and do they not under such circumstances call for sympathy? Christ never told his disciples not to go to the theatre, the race course or the festivities; from end to end of his teaching no such prohibition can be found. What then did Christ do? He said, “Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good”; don’t trim the leaves, vitalize the root; don’t attach, but develop. He opened, as we have seen, a wide field of philanthropic service, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, preaching liberty to the captive; he filled men with his own spirit, and then left them to go wherever it would conduct them. Christ did not teach from the outward to the inward, but from the inward to the outward. It is better to give a man a good principle than a good practice; it is better to be good than merely to behave well; the one is character, the other is convenience. Christ’s plan of meeting the wants of all sides of human life was stated in one sentence—“I have given them thy word.” He had put a spirit and a standard within them. The law was henceforth not an outside letter, but an internal voice. The holy Word gave place to the Holy Spirit. It was as if a new sense had been added to the Christian nature—a sense of immediate and accurate moral touch, which instantly discovered the quality of every doctrine or act. This is given to every man who is in Christ; who has eaten his flesh and drunk his blood, and so become essentially one with him.

As to questions in casuistry [clever but unsound reasoning] which come up again and again in practical life, one of the ablest reasoners in the early church has laid down principles of universal and unerring application. Christ determined the fundamental point, and Paul followed with special illustration. It may be well to spend a moment with Paul, that we may see what his interpretation of Christ’s idea was. There had been a discussion in one of the Christian communities respecting eating, which was not unlikely to create a serious division. The great apostolic casuist, who had in him a volume of humanity second only to the Son of Man, and who could consequently see most sides of a controverted subject, argued the cause with characteristic acumen and cogency. “Let not him that eateth ” said he, “despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.”  He insisted upon strict individuality of judgment and conscience in the case, and became indignant with all censoriousness of criticism: “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.” The spirit of mastery must be put down in the Christian fellowship; there is one Master, and all judgement on the part of the servants is so much detraction from his supremacy in the church. On matters of detail, then, there is no common law in the Christian brotherhood; no amusement is prescribed, no amusement is forbidden; a man may drink wine, or a man may abstain from wine; a man may eat meat, or he may subsist on herbs; a man may esteem one day above another, or he may esteem every day alike. Let the indwelling Spirit determine. “Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought [disrespect] thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” The church is not confederated upon questions of casuistry; it is founded on a common faith and a common philanthropy. It may be inquired—since the Spirit is the same, ought not the results to be the same? Certainly not. The results come through the idiosyncrasies of each man’s constitution. No two men are alike, though all men are made by God. One man is naturally contemplative, another active; one melancholy, another mirthful; one enterprising, another conservative. Christianity does not change the basis of a man’s individuality, but gives him a new spirit by which that individuality may be properly trained. As to amusements or recreations, most of which are supposed to lean towards the devil, their election is an individual question. It is for Christians to say how far they can go into the world of recreation. There is a solemnity which is more sinful than laughter; there is a laughter more acceptable to God than solemnity. Some men never laughed—cannot laugh, but they have a ready talent for condemning laughter in others; what is wanting in mirth is made up in censoriousness. They have but a small endowment of life to answer for, and cannot, consequently, comprehend the many-sided men who, while open to all the influences of mirth, have their holy hours of deep and probably agonizing devotion.

So much for the personal side of this question; but we are to consider the law which is to govern not individual men only, but men who are organized into a church. How is individuality to stand in relation to community? While each man man be a law unto himself, each man is not a church unto himself. We may continue to argue the case, by still keeping to the simple illustration of an amusement. Differences of opinion do obtain as to amusements, but it should be borne in mind that the church, as such, is never asked to adopt any method of amusement for recreation; it is exclusively a personal matter, and can only relate to the corporate body on the ground of influence or example. The reputation of the whole may be compromised by the action of a part. Paul lays down this doctrine. “I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteems anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” The important point of this statement is, that it is given on Christ’s own authority; and it certainly is of the utmost consequence to have it laid down by Jesus Christ himself that “there is nothing unclean of itself.” But the question forced upon men by their association is, how far private tastes are to be controlled by the public opinion of the holy? Are they to be controlled at all? Paul says that some are “weak in the faith,” from which it may be inferred that some are strong: how then? Are the weak to consider the strong, or the strong to consider the weak? If family life may afford a suggestion, nothing can be clearer than that the strong are to consider the weak; the mother lives for the infant, not the infant for the mother. The case is put in the clearest light by Paul: “Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” This is the very spirit of Christian philanthropy, the considerations of self being subordinated to consideration of others. “What!” someone may exclaim, “am I to surrender my pleasures because there are persons called weak brethren in the world? The pleasures are to me perfectly legitimate, and I think it is unreasonable that any man should be offended by them.” A strong case, indeed, when viewed from any point but that of Christian philanthropy. It is just here, however, that the stress comes upon that philanthropy, and tests it. The philanthropy is not a mere sentiment, but a controlling power, having no self, and knowing nothing but man in the image of God. In proportion as a man gives up the very smallest enjoyment for the sake of his brother man, he comes to know what is meant by sacrifice, by self-sacrifice, and gets at least a distant glimpse of the Philanthropist who “pleased not himself.” Why the shock at such a proposition as is above suggested? The very principle is carried out in family life. The parent denies himself many enjoyments for the sake of his child; is not the church a family? When the parent says, “I shall not do this, because my child may get from it a wrong impression of life; the thing itself would be right enough to me, but he cannot yet comprehend my reasons for doing it: therefore, purely for his sake, I shall abstain;” he will see new and overpowering meanings in such expressions as “Christ pleased not himself”; “Christ loved us, and gave himself for us”; “For their sakes I sanctify myself”; “He took upon him the form of a servant.” These expressions cannot be opened by the lexicographer; they are known only to the practical philanthropist. The heart receives the interpretation, while the head can but wonder. A man has been heard to say that never until he saw his own little child in pain did he know what was meant by the words, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” His own nature became the interpreter of God’s. Through an analogous process we come to understand somewhat of the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice. As a written doctrine, it is little more than an external beauty, thought to be too sacred for imitation or reproduction in any degree; but when once the spirit of sacrifice has been developed, it brings with it a sweetness beyond all other sweetness, and a consciousness of spiritual dominion, kindred to being “exalted to be a Prince and a Savior.” The range of self-sacrifice is more extensive than is commonly supposed. The child who sits silently in a sickroom, lest a dying parent should be disturbed, is within that range; so is the mother who gives up her days and nights to her sickening infant; so is the man who divides his last loaf with his hungering neighbor; and so is the noble creature who denies himself a luxury, lest a weak brother should stumble. All this is included in Christ’s idea of sacrifice; with this difference, however, that while the parent sacrifices for his child, and the neighbor for a man of kindred heart, Christ died for his enemies. This disclosed the greatness of his nature. He saw in man what no other eye could see. He did for his enemies what few men would do for their friends, so that from his lips as from no other could come the command, “Love your enemies.”

In this way Christ broke in upon the organized selfishness of the world and “troubled” society with his unearthly doctrine of self-abasement. And in this way he proposed to keep up eternally the distinction between the church and the world, and so to preserve his disciples from evil; while they continued more or less in the very midst of their old associations. The spirit of sacrifice is the best defense against evil; not the spirit of criticism, not the sharpness of wit, not the resources of experience, but the spirit of self-suppression as it was manifested by Jesus Christ in the Temptation. Every temptation was an appeal to self; every answer showed how self could be held in perfect subjection: This was the root of his power; it came to fruition on the Cross.

Reverting to the church, we find a distinct law laid down by Paul for the regulation of associated life: “Ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” We have still the same principle of philanthropy called into exercise. It is perfectly true that man has liberty, but it is also true that liberty is to be the servant of love. Liberty is consistent with self, but love is not; therefore love is the final law. The possessor of mere liberty (assuming that to be possible) may take counsel with himself as to enjoyment; may write a detailed program and repel dictation, but the man whose liberty is controlled by love will ask how this or that will affect the persons who observe his conduct, or come under his influence. He will instantly explode the sophism that men should come up to him rather than that he should go down to them: like his Master, he will take upon him the form of a servant, that he may deliver those who are in a low estate.

To those who have come into liberty, but have not yet attained perfect love, it may be well to recall the purpose of discipline. Every man should be king over himself. Christ insists upon the supremacy of the whole over the part when he commands the cutting off or plucking out of an offending member of the body. To be able to look at pleasure, yet to keep it at arm’s length for the sake of a brother, is the highest attainment of discipline. The disciplined man enjoys the spoils of a large conquest; in conquering himself he has conquered his principal foe. He can look at the forbidden tree, acknowledge that it is pleasant to the eyes, and, probably, a tree ”to be desired to make one wise,” and yet tell the damning serpent that there is no folly so great as the wisdom which comes through violating love. The fear is that the disciplinarian may become ungenial in judgement. The man who has cut off his right hand may be tempted to think that other men should cut off their right hands; and the man with one eye may think it hard that other people should have two. Christ foresaw this, and constantly turned men back upon themselves to consider what was wanted by their own peculiar constitution, and he gave them the benefit of his own prayers, as in the case of Simon Peter, for whom he specially prayed that his faith might not fail. One of the main purposes of discipline will be frustrated if it fails to give men a firmer control over their critical faculty when they institute a comparison between themselves and others. Censure is inconsistent with philanthropy, and philanthropy is the last result of a perfect discipline.

The disciplined man will not keep men from evil by shouting moral maxims at them, as the modern church has been doing for a long series of years. The great disciplinarian, who knew both how to abound and how to be abased, who kept his body under, and checked himself at every point, lest, after having preached to others, he should become a castaway, adopted the only successful method of maintaining a permanent hold upon men—a literal transcript of Christ’s method—“Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without the law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men.” This is the fruit of discipline. Paul looked at things from every man’s own particular standpoint. To each man he said, “I shall come round to your point of view, put myself in your circumstances, establish a common sympathy, and so work my way back to Jesus Christ.” This gave him a marvelous advantage. When a man goes down to teach, he takes with him considerable power; but when he goes up to teach, he goes in the wrong direction, and strains himself greatly to the disgust of those who are above him. The only true way of getting up is by going down; the way to gain life is to lose it. “Thou fool, that which thou sows is not quickened except it die.”

The church (now understanding by that term the organized sects) is not willing to “lose its life” that it may “gain” others; hence it is the weakest, and humanly speaking, the most despicable institution men are now tolerating. It is afraid of amusement; it is afraid of heresy; it is afraid of contamination; it is afraid of sinners; it is afraid of the devil. All this must come from a low condition of vitality. It shuts itself up within thick walls, sings its hymns, hears its periodical platitudes and then skulks into the common streets, as if afraid lest the multitude should know what it has been doing. The worst feature of this cowardly fear is that it is often expressed in a bad spirit, venom being mistaken for strength. The sin is not so much in the thing said, as in the way of saying it. It is forgotten too, by the sect-church, that there are other sins than those which reel in the streets or swing on the gallows. The man who makes a long prayer, and then oppresses the hireling, is as an unclean beast in the sanctuary; so is the man who would not part with a leaf from his catechism, yet makes his home a very hell by a fiendish temper; so is the man who spends his life in sniffing out the heresies of doctrine, and yet cultivates the blacker heresies of life. Such a course brings Christ into disrepute. He is crucified by those who bear his name. Christ’s work must be done in Christ’s spirit, and in Christ’s way. He went among men, turning the water into wine, and celebrating the prodigal’s return with music and dancing. The sect-church, in some of its developments, has imagined that it must stand aloof from bad men, lest it should receive contamination. This is a melancholy confession of weakness, bringing the most undeserved and humiliating discredit upon the power of the Holy Ghost in the human soul. It is as if the salt should stand aloof from the flesh, lest it should be corrupted; or as if the light should stand aloof from the darkness, lest it should be obstructed. Christ never shut himself up from the wicked, and yet never seemed to be so far from them as when in their very midst. Other men’s refinement became vulgarity when contrasted with his gentleness; their wisdom became folly under the luster of his revelations; and Solomon’s grandeur faded beside the lily which Christ pointed out. When bad men meet alone, they lose the advantage of moral contrast, and measuring themselves by themselves they commit the falsehood of exaggeration. Christ saved men from his own day, and would save them from it now but for the narrowness of sects. The coarsest man feels a measure of restraint in the presence of a gentle, pure woman; what might not the evil sections of society feel in the presence of the embodied holiness of the Infinite God? “No man lights a candle to put it under a bushel, but he sets it on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house.” There is a good deal in the setting, as well as in the candle; a few inches on this side or that may make all the difference between usefulness and uselessness.

Thus we have incompletely sketched the position of the church in the world, and shown how the church is to be protected from the evils by which it is surrounded. Evil is to be extinguished, not by mere verbal denunciation, but by the spirit of goodness, the Holy Spirit. Darkness will not be removed by outrage against it, but by light. Individual liberty is to be regulated by common philanthropy. The church is to be kept from selfishness by sacrifice. This is Christ’s method, as illustrated in particular cases by his great interpreter the apostle Paul. Christ gave his followers power to go everywhere, and to take up even deadly things without being hurt. He had no fear of their being corrupted, but gave them energy to save others from corruption; his own Word dwelling in them richly. He sent them as sheep among wolves, with wisdom and gentleness as their defense. They were to pursue evil persons in every direction, and to “torment” them “before the time,” by the presence of an distinguished yet genial purity. They were safe, because their Lord was with them. Their power was moral—not the power of purse, or scrip, or sword, or many coats, which exercise so illegitimate an influence in the world. Not what was on, but what was in, was their strength. We look for the same self-repression today, the same moral majesty, producing the same startling contrast. Where is it? Hidden, no doubt, in some degree under the folds of an elaborate civilization, but still, we doubt not, in existence; not all in this sect or in that, but partly; widely scattered, yet not beyond the call of the Voice which brought order out of chaos. We cannot take so discouraging a view of human society as to believe that Christ’s influence is diminishing. If it is less demonstrative, it may not be less vital. His church has not slipped out of the world into a secret and nameless grave, though its original compactness and accessibility are not what they were. The very inquiry which men are now pressing with unexampled urgency, is a good sign; when the anxiety is extreme, the satisfaction will not long be delayed. There may be a law of subsidence [sinking downward] or rest in the progression of the Christian society. The tide may be advancing, notwithstanding the ebbing wave. There is, too, an intensive as well as an extensive operation in life; what is lacking in demonstrativeness may be made up in penetration. Anyhow, Christ’s vitality cannot be lost in the world; the seed of the second Adam shall be, as the sand upon the seashore, innumerable.