98 Our Lord's plan' of founding indirectly yielded by the later Judaism; and we pass to-day to a topic which is in some sense continuous with that of our last lecture. We have seen how the appearance of a Divine Person, as the Saviour of men, was anticipated by the Old Testament ; let us enquire how far Christ's Divinity is attested by the phenomenon which we encounter in the formation and continuity of the Christian Church. I. When modern writers examine and discuss the proportions and character of our Lord's 'plan,' a Christian believer may rightly feel that such a term can only be used in such a connection with some mental caution. He may urge that in forming an estimate of strictly human action, we can distinguish between a plan and its realization; but that this distinction is obviously inapplicable to Him with Whom resolve means achievement, and Who completes His action, really if not visibly, when He simply wills to act. It might further be maintained, and with great truth, that the pretension to exhibit our Lord's entire design in His Life and Death proceeds upon a misapprehension. It is far from being true that our Lord has really laid bare to the eyes of men the whole purpose of the Eternal Mind in respect of His Incarnation. Indeed nothing is plainer, or more upon the very face of the New Testament, than the limitations and reserve of His disclosures on this head. We see enough for faith and for practical purposes, but we see no more. Amid the glimpses which are offered us respecting the scope and range of the Incarnation, the obvious shades off continually into mystery, the visible commingles with the unseen. We Christians know just enough to take the measure of our ignorance; we feel ourselves hovering intellectually on the outskirts of a vast economy of mercy, the complete extent and the inner harmonies of which One Eye alone can survey. If however we have before us only a part of the plan which our Lord meant to carry out by His Incarnation and Death, assuredly we do know something and that from His Own Lips. If it is true that success can never be really doubtful to Omnipotence, and that no period of suspense can be presumed to intervene between a resolve and its accomplishment in the Eternal Mind; yet, on the other hand, it is a part of our Lord's gracious condescension that He has, if we may so speak, entered into the lists of history. He has come among us as one of ourselves; He has made Himself of no reputation, and has been found in fashion as a man. He has despoiled Himself of His advantages; He has actually stated what He proposed to do in the 'Kingdom of Heaven' or of GOD. 99 the world, and has thus submitted Himself to the verdict of man's experience. His own Words are our warrant for comparing them with His Work; and He has interposed the struggles of centuries between His Words and their fulfilment. He has so shrouded His Hand of might as at times to seem as if He would court at least the possibilities of failure. Putting aside then for the moment any recorded intimations of Christ's Will in respect of other spheres of being, with all their mighty issues of life and death, let us enquire what it was that He purposed to effect within the province of human action and history. Now the answer to this question is simply, that He proclaimed Himself the Founder of a world-wide and imperishable Society. He did not propose to act powerfully upon the convictions and the characters of individual men, and then to leave to them, when they believed and felt alike, the liberty of voluntarily forming themselves into an association, with a view to reciprocal sympathy and united action. From the first, the formation of a society was not less an essential feature of Christ's plan, than was His redemptive action upon single souls. This society was not to be a school of thinkers, nor a self-associated company of enterprising fellow-workers; it was to be a Kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, or, as it is also called, the kingdom of God a. For ages indeed the Jewish theocracy had been a kingdom of God upon earth b. God was the one true King of ancient Israel. He was felt to be present in Israel as a Monarch living among His subjects. The temple was His palace; its sacrifices and ritual were the public acknowledgment of His present but invisible Majesty. But the Jewish polity, considered as a system, was an external rather than an internal kingdom of God. Doubtless there were great saints in ancient Israel; doubtless Israel had prayers and hymns such as may be found in the Psalter, than which nothing more searching and more spiritual has been since produced in Christendom. Looking however to the popular working of the Jewish theocratic system, and to what is implied as to its character in Jeremiah's prophecy of a profoundly spiritual kingdom which was to succeed it, may we a Baσiλeía tŵv ovpavŵv occurs thirty-two times in St. Matthew's Gospel, to which it is peculiar; Bariλeía Tòû eoû five times. The latter term occurs βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ fifteen times in St. Mark, thirty-three times in St. Luke, twice in St. John, seven times in the Acts of the Apostles. In St. Matt. xiii. 43, xxvi. 29, we find ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Πατρός. Our Lord speaks of ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ three times, St. John xviii. 36. b St. Matt. xxi. 43. © Jer. xxxi. 31-34, quoted in Heb. viii. 8-11. 100 Laws of the Kingdom of Heaven, as given not conclude that the Royalty of God was represented rather to the senses than to the heart and intelligence of at least the mass of His ancient subjects? Jesus Christ our Lord announced a new kingdom of God; and, by terming it the Kingdom of God, He implied that it would first fully deserve that sacred name, as corresponding with Daniel's prophecy of a fifth empire d. Let us moreover note, in passing, that when using the word 'kingdom,' our Lord did not announce a republic. Writers who carry into their interpretation of the Gospels ideas which have been gained from a study of the Platonic dialogues or of the recent history of France, may permit themselves to describe our Lord as Founder of the Christian republic. And certainly St. Paul, when accommodating himself to political traditions and aspirations which still prevailed largely throughout the Roman world, represents and recommends the Church of Christ as the source and home of the highest moral and mental liberty, by speaking freely of our Christian 'citizenship,' and of our coming at baptism to the 'city' of the living Gode. Not that the Apostle would press the metaphor to the extent of implying that the new society was to be a spiritual democracy; since he very earnestly taught that even the inmost thoughts of its members were to be ruled by their Invisible King f. This indeed had been the claim of the Founder of the kingdom Himself; He willed to be King, absolutely and without a rival, in the new society; and the nature and extent of His legislation plainly shews us in what sense He meant to reign. The original laws of the new kingdom are for the most part set forth by its Founder in His Sermon on the Mount. After a preliminary statement of the distinctive character which was to mark the life and bearing of those who would fully correspond to His Mind and Will1, and a further sketch of the nature and depth of the influence which His subjects were to exert upon other meni, He proceeds to define the general relation of the new law which He is promulgating to the law that had preceded itk. The vital principle of His legislation, namely, that moral obedience shall be enforced, not merely in the performance of or d Dan. vii. 9-15. e Phil. iii. 20 : ἡμῶν γὰρ τὸ πολίτευμα ἐν οὐρανοῖς ὑπάρχει. Cf. Acts xxiii. 1 : πεπολίτευμαι τῷ Θεῷ. Phil. i. 27: ἀξίως τοῦ εὐαγγελίου πολιτεύεσθε. Heb. xiii. 14. In Heb. xi. 10, xii. 22, Tóλis apparently embraces the whole Church of Christ, visible and invisible; in Heb. xi. 16, xiii. 14, it is restricted to the latter. 2 Cor. x. 5. h Ibid. v. I-12. f i Ibid. vers. 13-16. g St. Matt. xxiii. 8. k Ibid. vers. 17-20. in the Sermon on the Mount. IOI The in the abstinence from outward acts, but in the deepest and most secret springs of thought and motive, is traced in its application to certain specific prescriptions of the older Law 1; while other ancient enactments are modified or set aside by the stricter purity, the genuine simplicity of motive and character ", the entire unselfishness, and the superiority to personal prejudices and exclusiveness P which the New Lawgiver insisted on. required life of the new kingdom is then exhibited in detail; the duties of almsgiving, of prayer1, and of fastings, are successively enforced; but the rectification of the ruling motive is chiefly insisted on as essential. In performing religious duties, God's Will, and not any conventional standard of human opinion, is to be kept steadily before the eye of the soul. The Legislator insists upon the need of a single, supreme, unrivalled motive in thought and action, unless all is to be lost. The uncorruptible treasure must be in heaven; the body of the moral life will only be full of light if 'the eye is single;' no man can serve two masters t. The birds and the flowers suggest the lesson of trust in and devotion to the One Source and End of life; all will really be well with those who in very deed seek His kingdom and His righteousness". Charity in judgment of other men 3, circumspection in communicating sacred truth y, confidence and constancy in prayer, perfect consideration for the wishes of othersa, yet also a determination to seek the paths of difficulty and sacrifice, rather than the broad easy ways trodden by the mass of mankindb;-these features will mark the conduct of loyal subjects of the kingdom. They will beware too of false prophets, that is, of the movers of spiritual sedition, of teachers who are false to the truths upon which the kingdom is based and to the temper which is required of its real children. The false prophets will be known by their moral unfruitfulness ©, rather than by any lack of popularity or success. Finally, obedience to the law of the kingdom is insisted on as the one condition of safety; obedience das distinct from professions of loyalty; obedience,—which will be found to have really based a man's life upon the immoveable rock at that solemn moment when all that stands upon the sand must utterly perish e. 1 St. Matt. v. 21-30. • Ibid. vers. 38–42. r Ibid. vers. 5–8. z Ibid. vers. 7-11. c Ibid. vers. 15-20. 102 The Kingdom both visible and invisible. Not Such a proclamation of the law of the kingdom as was the Sermon on the Mount, already implied that the kingdom would be at once visible and invisible. On the one hand certain outward duties, such as the use of the Lord's Prayer and fasting, are prescribed f; on the other, the new law urgently pushes its claim of jurisdiction far beyond the range of material acts into the invisible world of thought and motive. The visibility of the kingdom lay already in the fact of its being a society of men, and not a society solely made up of incorporeal beings such as the angels. The King never professes that He will be satisfied with a measure of obedience which sloth or timidity might confine to the region of inoperative feelings and convictions; He insists with great emphasis upon the payment of homage to His Invisible Majesty, outwardly, and before the eyes of men. to confess Him before men is to break with Him for ever g; it is to forfeit His blessing and protection when these would most be needed. The consistent bearing, then, of His loyal subjects will bring the reality of His rule before the sight of men; but, besides this, He provides His realm with a visible government, deriving its authority from Himself, and entitled on this account to deferential and entire obedience on the part of His subjects. To the first members of this government His commission runs thus -‘He that receiveth you, receiveth Meh.' It is the King Who will Himself reign throughout all history on the thrones of His representatives; it is He Who, in their persons, will be acknowledged or rejected. In this way His empire will have an external and political side; nor is its visibility to be limited to its governmental organization. The form of prayeri which the King enjoins on His subjects, and the outward visible actions by which, according to His appointment, membership in His kingdom is to be begunj and maintained k, make the very life and movement of the new society, up to a certain point, visible. But undoubtedly the real strength of the kingdom, its deepest life, its truest action, are veiled from sight. At bottom it is to be a moral, not a material empire; it is to be a realm not merely of bodies but of souls, of souls instinct with intelligence and love. Its seat of power will be the conscience of mankind. Not 'here' or 'there' in outward signs of establishment and supremacy, but in the free conformity of the thought and heart of its members f St. Matt. vi. 9-13, 16. h St. Matt. x. 40; comp. St. Luke x. 16. j Ibid. xxviii. 19; St. John iii. 5. 8 Ibid. x. 32; St. Luke xii. 8. i St. Matt. vi. 9-13. *St. Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 24; St. John vi. 53. |