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The Christian Life written by Thomas Arnold

T >> Thomas Arnold >> The Christian Life




Thus things good, things noble, things sacred, may all become idols. To
some minds truth is an idol, to others justice, to others charity or
benevolence; and others are beguiled by objects of a different sort of
sacredness: some have made Christ's mother their idol; some, Christ's
servants; some, again, Christ's sacraments, and Christ's own body, the
Church. If these may all be idols, where can we find a name so holy, as
that we may surrender up our whole souls to it; before which obedience,
reverence, without measure, intense humility, most unreserved adoration,
may all be duly rendered. One name there is, and one only; one alone in
heaven and in earth; not truth, not justice, not benevolence, not
Christ's mother, not his holiest servants, not his blessed sacraments,
not his very mystical body, but Himself only, who died for us and rose
again, Jesus Christ, both God and Man.

He is truth, and he is righteousness, and he is love; he gives his grace
to his sacraments, and his manifold gifts to his Church; whoever hath
him hath all things; but if we do not take heed, whenever we turn our
mind to any other object, we shall make it an idol and lose him. Take
him in all his fulness, not as God merely, not as man merely; not in his
life on earth only, not in his death only, not in his exaltation at
God's right hand only; but in all his fulness, the Christ of God, God
and Man, our Prophet, our Priest, our King and Lord, redeeming us by his
blood, sanctifying us by his Spirit; and then worship him and love him
with all the heart, and with, all the soul, and with all the strength;
and we shall see how all evil will be barred, and all good will abound.
No man who worships Christ alone, can be a fanatic, nor yet can be a
more philosopher; he cannot be bigoted, nor yet can he be indifferent;
he cannot be so the slave of what be calls amiable feelings as to cast
truth and justice behind him; nor yet can he so pursue truth and justice
as to lose sight of humbler and softer feelings, self-abasement,
reverence, devotion. There is no evil tendency in the nature of any one
of us, which has not its cure in the true worship of Christ our Saviour.
Let us look into our hearts, and consider their besetting faults. Are we
indolent, or are we active; are we enthusiastic, or are we cold; zealous
or indifferent, devout or reasonable; whatever the inclination, or bias
of our nature be, if we follow its kindred idol, it will be magnified
and grow on to our ruin; if we worship Christ, it will be pruned and
chastened, and made to grow up with opposite tendencies, all alike
tempered, none destroyed; none overgrowing the garden, but all filling
it with their several fruits; so that it shall be, indeed, the garden of
the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord shall dwell in the midst of it.

And who shall dare to make sad the heart of him who is thus drinking
daily of the well-spring of righteousness, by telling him that he is not
yet saved, nor can be, unless he will come and bow down before his idol?
And if, rather than do so, he break the idol in pieces, who shall dare
to call him profane, or cold in love to his Lord, when it was in his
very jealousy for his Lord, and in his full purpose to worship him
alone, that he threw down all that exalted itself above its due
proportion against him? And if a man be not so worshipping Christ only,
who shall dare to encourage him in his evil way, by magnifying the
sacredness of his idol, and ascribing to it that healing virtue which
belongs to Christ alone?

What has been here said might bear to be followed up at far greater
length than the present occasion will admit of. But the main point is
one, I think, of no small importance, that all fanaticism and
superstition on the one hand, and all unbelief and coldness of heart on
the other, arise from what is in fact idolatry,--the putting some other
object, whether it be called a religious or moral one,--and an object
often in itself very excellent,--in the place of Christ himself, as set
forth to us fully in the Scriptures. And as no idol can stand in
Christ's place, or in any way save us, so whoever worships Christ truly
is preserved from all idols and has life eternal. And if any one demand
of him further, that he should worship his idol, and tells him that he
is not safe if he does not; his answer will be rather that he will
perish if he does; that he is safe, fully safe, and only safe, so long
as he clings to Christ alone; and that to make anything else necessary
to his safety, is not only to minister to superstition, but to
ungodliness also; not only to lay on us a yoke which neither our fathers
nor we were able to bear; but, by the very act of laying this
unchristian yoke upon us, to tear from us the easy yoke and light burden
of Christ himself, our Lord and our life.




LECTURE XXI.

* * * * *

ADVENT SUNDAY.

* * * * *

HEBREWS in. 16.

_For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came
out of Egypt by Moses_.


I take this verse as my text, rather than those which immediately go
before or follow it, because it affords one of the most serious
instances of mistranslation that are to be met with in the whole New
Testament. For the true translation of the words is this: "For who were
they who, when they had heard, did provoke? nay, were they not all who
came out of Egypt through Moses?" And then it goes on--"And with whom
was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose
carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?" I call this a
serious mistranslation, because it lessens the force of the writer's
comparison. So far from meaning to say that "some, but not all did
provoke," he lays a stress on the universality of the evil: it was not
only a few, but the whole people who came out of Egypt, with only the
two individual exceptions of Caleb and Joshua. All the rest who were
grown up when they came out of Egypt did provoke God; and the carcases
of that whole generation, fell in the wilderness.

Had the lesson from the Hebrews been actually chosen for the service of
this day, it could hardly have suited it better. For this day is the
New-year's day of the Christian year; and it is probably for this reason
that the service of the first day of the common year is confined
entirely to the commemoration of our Lord's circumcision, and takes no
notice of the beginning of a new year. It is manifest that it could not
do so without confusion: for the first of January is not the beginning
of the Christian year, but Advent Sunday; the last Sunday of the
Christian year is not Christmas-day, as it would be this year if we
reckoned by the common divisions of time; but it is the last Sunday
after Trinity. Now, then, we are at the beginning of our year; and well
it is that, as our trial is now become shorter by another year, as
another division of our lives has passed away, we should fix our eyes on
that which makes every year so valuable,--the Judgment, for which it
ought to be a preparation. In fact, if we observe, we shall see that
these Sundays in Advent are much more regarded by the Church as the
beginning of a new year, than as a mere prelude to the celebration of
the festival of Christmas. That is, Christmas-day is regarded, so to
speak, in a two-fold light, as representing both the comings of our
Lord, his first coming in the flesh, and his second coming to judgment.
When the day actually arrives, it commemorates our Lord's first coming:
and this is the beginning of the Christian year, historically regarded,
that is, so far as it is a commemoration of the several events of our
Lord's life on earth. But before it comes, it is regarded as
commemorating our Lord's second coming: and wisely, for his first coming
requires now no previous preparation for it; we cannot well put
ourselves into the position of those who lived before Christ appeared.
But our whole life is, or ought to be, a preparation for his second
coming; and it is this state, of which the season of Advent in the
Church services is intended to be the representation.

There is something striking in the season of the natural year at which
we thus celebrate the beginning of another Christian year. It is a true
type of our condition, of the insensible manner in which all the changes
of our lives steal upon us, that nature, at this moment, gives no
outward signs of beginning: it is a period which does not manifest any
striking change in the state of things around us. The Christian Spring
begins ere we have reached the half of the natural winter. Nature is not
bursting into life, but rather preparing itself for a long period of
death. And this is a type of an universal truth, that the signs and
warnings which we must look to, must come from within us, not from
without: that neither sky nor earth, will arouse us from our deadly
slumber, unless we are ourselves aroused already, and more disposed to
make warnings for ourselves than to find them.

If this be true of nature, it is true also of all the efforts of man. As
nature will give no sign, so man cannot. Let the Church do all that she
may; let her keep her solemn anniversaries, and choose out for her
services all such passages of Scripture as may be most fitted to impress
the lesson which she would teach; still we know that these are alike
powerless and unheeded; that unless there be in our own minds something
beforehand disposed to profit by them, they are but the words of
unavailing affection, vainly spoken to the ears of the dead.

Oh that we would remember this, all of us; that there is no voice in
nature, no voice in man, that can really awaken the sleeping soul. That
is the work of a far mightier power, to be sought for with most earnest
prayers for ourselves and for each other: that the Holy Spirit of God
would speak, and would dispose our hearts to hear; that so being
awakened from death and our ears being truly opened, all things outward
may now join in language which we can hear; and nature, and man, life
and death, things present and things to come, may be but the manifold
voices of the Spirit of God, all working for us together for good. Till
this be so, we speak in vain; our words neither reach our own hearts,
nor the hearts of our hearers; they are but recorded in God's book of
judgment, to be brought forward hereafter for the condemnation of
us both.

Yet we must still speak; for the Spirit of God, who alone works in us
effectually, works also secretly; we know not when, nor how, nor where.
But we know, that as the Father worketh hitherto, and the Son worketh
hitherto, so the Holy Spirit worketh hitherto, and is still working
daily. We know that, every year, he creates in thousands of God's people
that work which alone shall abide for ever. We know that in the year
that is just past he has done this; that in the year which is just
beginning he will do it. Have we not here, also, many in whom he has
wrought this work? may we not hope, and surely believe, that there are
many in whom he is even now preparing to work it?

We know not who these are; still less do we know, what were the
occasions which the Holy Spirit so blessed as to work in them his work
of life. But this we know, that we are bound to minister all the
occasions which we can; we must not spare our labour, although it is God
alone who gives the increase. We must speak of life and of death, of
Christ and of judgment, not forgetting that we speak often, and shall
speak, utterly in vain; yet knowing that it is by these very thoughts,
though long unheeded, that God's Spirit does in his own good time awaken
the heart; he takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us; and
then, what was before like a book in a strange language--we saw the
figures, but they conveyed no meaning to our minds--becomes, on a
sudden, instinct with the language of God, which we hear and understand
as readily as if it were our own tongue wherein we were born.

Therefore, we speak and say, that another year has now dawned upon us;
and we would remind you, and remember, ourselves, in what words the
various Scriptures of this day's service point out its inestimable
value. "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." So says St.
Paul in the epistle of this day; and how blessed are all those amongst
us who can feel that this is truly said of them! Then, indeed, a new
year's day is a day of rejoicing; we are so much nearer that period when
all care, all anxiety, all painful labour will be for ever ended. But
there is other language of a different sort, which, it may be, will suit
us better. "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me." "Their land is full of idols; they worship the
work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made;" which
means to us, the work of our own hearts, that which our own fancies and
desires have made. "Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for
fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty." For in the very
temple of God, his Church, all manner of profane thoughts and words and
works are crowded together; the din of covetousness and worldliness is
loud and constant, and will ill abide the day of his coming, who will, a
second time, cast out of his temple all that is unclean. And is there
not also in us that evil heart of unbelief and disobedience which
departs from the living God? are there not here those who are becoming
daily hardened through the deceitfulness of sin? How are they passing
their time in the wilderness, and with what prospects when they come to
the end of it? God said, "I sware in my wrath, that they shall not enter
into my rest." By the way that they came, by the same shall they return;
they shall go back to that bondage from which they were once redeemed,
and from which they will be redeemed again no more for ever.

These are some of the passages of this day's service which speaks to us
at the beginning of this new Christian year. Let me add to all this
language of warning, the language in which God, by his apostle Paul,
answers every one of us, if we ask of him in sincerity of heart, "Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do?" He answers, "The night is far spent, the
day is at hand: let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and
drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and
envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh, to fulfil the works thereof." Now, I grant, that this day, of
which the apostle speaks, has never yet shone so brightly, as he had
hoped and imagined; clouds have, up to this hour, continually
overshadowed it. I mean, that the lives of Christians have hindered them
from being the light of the world. It has been a light pale and dim, and
therefore the works of darkness have continued to abound. But admit
this, and what follows? Is it, or can it be, anything else but a more
earnest desire not to be ourselves children of darkness, lest what we
see to have happened in part should happen altogether; namely, that the
day should never shine on us at all? We see that God's promises have
been in part forfeited; we see that Christ's kingdom has not been what
it was prophesied it should be. Is not this a solemn warning, that for
us, too, individually, God's promises may be forfeited? that all we read
in Scripture of light, and life, and glory, and happiness, should really
prove to us words only, and no reality? that whereas the promise of
salvation has been made to us, we should be in the end, not saved, but
lost? If, indeed, God's kingdom were shining around us, in its full
beauty; if every evil thing were driven out of his temple; if we saw
nothing but holy lives and happy, the fruits of his Spirit, truth, and
love, and joy; then we might be less anxious for ourselves; our course
would be far smoother; the very stream would carry us along to the end
of our voyage without our labour: what evil thoughts would not be
withered, and die long ere they could ripen into action, if the very air
which we breathed were of such, keen and heavenly purity! It is because
all this is not so, that we have need of so much watchfulness; it is
because the faults of every one of us make our brethren's task harder;
because there is not one bad or careless person amongst us who is not a
hindrance in his brother's path, and does not oblige him to exert
himself the more. Therefore, because the day is not bright, but
overclouded; because it is but too like the night, and too many use it
as the night for all works of darkness; let us take the more heed that
we do not ourselves so mistake it; let us watch each of us the light
within us, lest, indeed, we should wholly stumble; let us put on the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know how often I have dwelt on this; how often I
have tried to show that Christ is all in all to us; that to put on
Christ, is a truer and fuller expression, by far, than if we had been
told to put on truth, or holiness, or goodness. It includes all these,
with something more, that nothing but itself can give--the sense of
safety, and joy unspeakable, in feeling ourselves sheltered in our
Saviour's arms, and taken even into himself. Assuredly, if we put on the
Lord Jesus Christ, we shall not make provision for the flesh to fulfil
the lusts thereof; such a warning would then be wholly unnecessary. Or,
if we do not like language thus figurative, let us put it, if we will,
into the plainest words that shall express the same meaning; let us call
it praying to Christ, thinking of him, hoping in him, earnestly loving
him; these, at least, are words without a figure, which all can surely
understand. Let us be Christ's this year that is now beginning; be his
servants, be his disciples, be his redeemed in deed; let us live to him,
and for him; setting him before us every day to do his will, and to live
in his blessing. Then, indeed, if it be his pleasure that we should
serve him throughout this year, even to its end, we may repeat, with a
deeper feeling of their truth, the words of St. Paul; we may say, when
next Advent Sunday shall appear, that now is our salvation nearer than
when we became believers.




LECTURE XXII.

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS DAY.

* * * * *

JOHN i. 10.

_He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not_.


When we use ourselves, or hear others use, the term "mystery," as
applied to things belonging to the gospel, we should do well to consider
what is meant by it. For our common notion of the word mystery is of
something dark; whereas Christ and his gospel are continually spoken of
as being, above all other things, light. Then come others, and say,
"Light and darkness cannot go together: what you call the mysteries of
Christianity are no part of it, but the fond inventions of man:
Christianity is all simple and clear:" and thus they strike away some of
the very greatest truths which God has revealed to us. Thus they deal in
particular with the great truth declared in the text, that He who made
the world visited it in the likeness of man. Now, if this truth were a
mystery, in the common notion of that term; if it were a thing full of
darkness, defying our minds to understand it, or to draw any good from
it; then, indeed, it would be of little consequence whether we received
it or no. It is because it is a mystery in a very different sense, in
the sense in which the word is used commonly in the Scriptures; that
is, a thing which was a secret, but which God has been pleased to
reveal, and to reveal for our benefit, that therefore the loss of it
would be the loss of a real blessing, a loss at once of light
and comfort.

But we must go a little further, and explain from what this sad
confusion in the use of the term "mystery" has arisen. There are many
things relating to ourselves and to things around us, which by nature we
cannot understand; and of God we can scarcely understand anything. Now,
while the gospel has revealed much that we did not know before, it yet
has not revealed everything: of God, in particular, it has given us much
most precious knowledge, yet it has not removed all the veil. It has
furnished us with a glass, indeed, to use the apostle's comparison; but
the glass, although, a great help, although reflecting a likeness of
what, without it, we could not see at all, is yet a dark and imperfect
manner of seeing, compared with, the seeing face to face. So, when the
gospel tells us that He who made the world visited it in our nature, it
does not indeed enable us yet fully to conceive what He is who made us,
and then became as one of us; there is still left around the name of God
that light inaccessible which is to our imperfections darkness; and so
far as we cannot understand or conceive rightly of God, so far it is
true that we cannot understand all that is conveyed in the expression
that God was in the world dwelling among us. Yet it is still most true
that by the revelation thus made to us we have gained immensely. God, as
he is in himself, we cannot understand; but Jesus Christ we can. When we
are told to love God, if we look to the life and death of Christ, we can
understand and feel how truly he deserves our love; when we are told to
be perfect as God is perfect, we have the image of this perfection so
truly set before us in his Son Jesus, that it may be well said, "Whoso
hath seen Him hath seen the Father;" and why, then, should we ask with
Philip, that "He should show us the Father?"

What, then, the festival of Christmas presents to us, as distinct from
that of Easter, is generally the revelation of God in the flesh. True it
is, that we may make it, if we will, the same as Easter: that is, we may
celebrate it as the birth of our Saviour, of him who died and rose again
for us; but then we only celebrate our Lord's birth with reference to
his death and resurrection: that is, we make Christmas to be Easter
under another name. And so everything relating to our Lord may be made
to refer to his death and resurrection; for in them consists our
redemption, and for that reason Easter has ever been considered as the
great festival of the Christian year. But yet apart from this, Christmas
has something peculiarly its own: namely, as I said before, the
revelation of God in the flesh, not only to make atonement for our
sins,--which is the peculiar subject of the celebration of the season of
Easter,--but to give us notions of God at once distinct and lively; to
enable us to have One in the invisible world, whom we could conceive of
as distinctly as of a mere man, yet whom we might love with all our
hearts, and trust with all our hearts, and yet be guilty of no idolatry.

It is not, then, only as the beginning of an earthly life of little more
than thirty years, that we may celebrate the day of our Lord's birth in
the flesh. His own words express what this day has brought to us:
"Henceforth shall ye see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of man." The words here, like so many of our
Lord's, are expressed in a parable; but their meaning is not the less
clear. They allude evidently to Jacob's vision, to the ladder reaching
from earth to heaven, on which the angels were ascending and descending
continually. But this vision is itself a parable; showing, under the
figure of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and the angels going
up and down on it, a free communication, as it were, between God and
man, heaven brought nearer to earth, and heavenly things made more
familiar. Now, this is done, in a manner, by every revelation from God;
most of all, by the revelation of his Son. Nor is it only by his Spirit
that Christ communicates with us even now; though, he is ascended again
into heaven, yet the benefits of his having become man, over and above
those of his dying and rising again for us, have not yet passed away. It
is still the man Christ Jesus who brings heaven near to earth, and earth
near to heaven.

It has been well said by Augustine, that babes in Christ should so think
of the Son of man as not to lose sight of the Son of God; that more
advanced Christians should so think of the Son of God as not to lose
sight of the Son of man. Augustine well understood how the thought of
the Son of man is fitted to our weakness; and that the best and most
advanced of us in this mortal life are never so strong as to be able to
do without it. Have we ever tried this with our children? We tell them
that God made them, and takes care of them, and loves them, and hears
their prayers, and knows what is in their hearts, and cannot bear what
is evil. These are such notions of God as a child requires, and can
understand. But, if we join with them some of those other notions which
belong to God as he is in himself; that he is a Spirit, not to be seen,
not to be conceived of as in any one place, or in any one form; what do
we but embarrass our child's mind, and lessen that sense of near and
dear relation to God which, our earlier accounts of God had given him?
Yet we must teach him something of this sort, if we would prevent him
from forming unworthy notions of God, such as have been the beginning
of all idolatry. Here, then, is the blessing of the revelation of God in
Christ. All that he can understand of God, or love in him, or fear in
him--that is to be found in Christ. Christ made him, takes care of him,
can hear his prayers, can read his little heart, loves him tenderly; yet
cannot bear what is evil, and will strictly judge him at the last day.
But what we must teach when we speak of God, yet which has a tendency to
lessen the liveliness of our impressions of him, this has no place when
we speak of Christ. Christ has a body, incorruptible and glorified
indeed, such as they who are Christ's shall also wear at his coming, yet
still a body. Christ is not to be seen, indeed, for the clouds have
received him out of our sight: yet he may be conceived of as in one
place--at the right hand of God; as in one certain and well-known
form--the form of the Son of man. Yet let us observe again, and be
thankful for the perfect wisdom of God. Even while presenting to us God
in Christ; that is to say, God with all those attributes which we can
understand, and fear, and love; and without those which, throw us, as it
were, to an infinite distance, overwhelming our minds, and baffling all
our conceptions; even then the utmost care is taken to make us remember
that God in himself is really that infinite and incomprehensible Being
to whom we cannot, in our present state, approach; that even his
manifestation of himself in Christ Jesus, is one less perfect than we
shall be permitted to see hereafter; that Christ stands at the right
hand of the Majesty on high; that he has received from the Father all
his kingdom and his glory; finally, that the Father is greater than he,
inasmuch as any other nature added to the pure and perfect essence of
God, must, in a certain measure, if I may venture so to speak, be a
coming down to a lower point, from the very and unmixed Divinity.