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The Christian Life written by Thomas Arnold

T >> Thomas Arnold >> The Christian Life




The practical conclusion is, that, whilst we hold fast, with an
undoubting and unwavering faith, all truths which, by their very nature,
are eternal, and to deny which is no other than to speak against the
Holy Ghost, we should listen patiently to, and pass no harsh judgment
on, those who question other truths not necessarily eternal, while they
declare that they are, to the best of their consciences, seeking to obey
God and Christ. When I say, that we should listen patiently, and not
pass harsh judgments upon those who question such points, I say it
without at all meaning that we should agree with them. It would be
monstrous indeed, to suppose that old opinions are never combated
wrongly; that old institutions are never pronounced to have lived out
their appointed time, when, in fact, they are still in their full
vigour. But the language of those who defend the doctrines and the
ordinances of the Church may, and often does, partake of the sin of that
of the Pharisees, even when those against whom they are contending, are
not, like Christ, bringing in a new and higher truth, but an actual
error. To point out that it is an error, to defend ourselves and the
Church from it, is most right, and most highly our duty; but it is
neither right, nor our duty, but the very sin of the Pharisees, to put
it down merely by saying, "As for this fellow, we know not from whence
he is;" to treat the whole question as an impiety, and to deny the
virtues and the holiness of those who maintain it, because they are, as
we call it, "speaking blasphemous things against the holy place and
against the law." The mischief of this to ourselves is infinite; nay, in
its extreme, it leads to language which is fearfully resembling the very
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; for, when we say, as has been said,
that where men's lives are apparently good and holy, and their doctrines
are against those of the Church, the holiness is an unreal holiness, and
that we cannot see into their hearts, this is, in fact, denying the Holy
Spirit's most infallible sign--the fruits of righteousness; and being
positive rather of the truth of the Church, than of the truth of God.
There is nothing so certain as that goodness is from God; nothing so
certain as that sin is not from God; nothing so certain as that sin is
not from him. To deny, or doubt this, is to dispute the greatest
assurance of truth that God has ever been pleased to give to us. It does
not, by any means, follow, that all good men are free from error, nor
that error is less error because good men hold it; but to make the error
which is less certain, a reason for disputing the goodness which is more
certain, is the spirit, not of God, nor of the Church of God, but of
those false zealots who put an idol in God's place; of such as rejected
Christ and murdered Stephen.




LECTURE XXXIV.

* * * * *

1 CORINTHIANS xiv, 20.

_Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit, in malice be ye
children, but in understanding be men_.


It would be going a great deal too far to say, that they who fulfilled
the latter part of this command, were sure also to fulfil the former;
that they who were men in understanding, were, therefore, likely to be
children in malice. But the converse holds good, with remarkable
certainty, that they who are children in understanding, are
proportionally apt to be men in malice: that is, in proportion as men
neglect that which should be the guide of their lives, so are they left
to the mastery of their passions; and as nature and outward
circumstances do not allow these passions to remain as quiet and as
little grown as they are in childhood,--for they are sure to ripen
without any trouble of ours,--so men are left with nothing but the evils
of both ages, the vices of the man, and the unripeness and ignorance of
the child.

It is indeed a strange and almost incredible thing, that any should ever
have united in their minds the notions of innocence and ignorance as
applied to any but literal children: nor is it less strange, that any
should ever have been afraid of their understanding, and should have
sought goodness through prejudice, and blindness, and folly. Compared
with this, their conduct was infinitely reasonable who weakened and
tormented their bodies in order to strengthen, as they thought, their
spiritual nature. Such conduct was, by comparison, reasonable because
there is a great deal of bodily weakness and discomfort, which really
does not interfere with the strength and purity of our character in
itself, although, by abridging our activity, it may lessen our means of
usefulness. But what should we say of a man who directed his ill usage
of his body to that part of our system which is most closely connected
with the brain; who were purposely to impair his nervous system, and
subject himself to those delusions and diseased views of things which
are the well-known result of any disorder there? Yet this is precisely
what they do who seek to mortify and lower their understanding. It is as
impossible that they should become better men by such a process, as if
they were literally to take medicines to affect their nerves or their
brain, in the hope of becoming idiotic or delirious. It is, in fact, the
worst kind of self-murder; for it is a presumptuous destroying of that
which is our best life, because we dread to undergo those trials which
God has appointed for the perfecting both of it and of us.

But from the wilful blindness of these men, let us turn to the Christian
wisdom of the Apostle: "In malice be ye children, but in understanding
be men." Let us turn to what is recorded of our Lord in his early life,
at that age when, as man, the cultivation of his understanding was his
particular duty--that he was found in the temple, sitting in the midst
of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions: not asking
questions only, as one too impatient or too vain to wait for an answer,
or to consider it when he had received it; not hearing only, as one
careless and passive, who thinks that the words of wisdom can improve
his mind by being indolently admitted through the ears, with no more
effort than his body uses when it is refreshed by a cooling air, or when
it is laid down in running water; but both hearing and asking questions;
docile and patient, yet active and intelligent; knowing that the wisdom
was to be communicated from without, but that it belongs to the vigorous
exercise of the power within, to apprehend it, and to convert it to
nourishment.

Now, what is recorded of our Lord for our example, as to the manner in
which he received instruction when delivered by word of mouth, this same
thing should we do with that instruction, which, as is the ease with
most of ours, we derive from reading. Put the Scriptures in the place of
those living teachers whom Christ was so eager to hear; the words of
Christ, and of his Spirit, instead of those far inferior guides from
whom, notwithstanding, he, for our sakes, once submitted to learn; and
what can be more exact than the application of the example? Let us be
found in God's true temple, in the communion of his faithful
people,--his universal Church, sitting down as it were, surrounded by
the voices of the oracles of God--prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ
himself: let us be found with the record of these oracles in our hands,
both reading them and asking them questions.

It is quite clear that what hinders a true understanding of anything is
vagueness; and it is by this process of asking questions that vagueness
is to be dispelled: for, in the first place, it removes one great
vagueness, or indistinctness, which is very apt to beset the minds of
many; namely, the not clearly seeing whether they understand a thing or
no; and much more, the not seeing what it is that they do understand,
and what it is which they do not. Take any one of our Lord's parables,
and read it even to a young child: there will be something of an
impression conveyed, and some feelings awakened; but all will be
indistinct; the child will not know whether he understands or no, but
will soon gain the habit of supposing that he does, as that is at once
the least troublesome, and the least unpleasant to our vanity. And this
same vague impression is often received by uneducated persons from
reading or bearing either the Scriptures or sermons; it is by no means
the same as if they had read or heard something in an unknown language;
but yet they can give no distinct account of what they have heard or
read; they do not know how far they understand it, and how far they do
not. Here, then, is the use of "asking questions,"--asking questions of
ourselves or of our book, I mean, for I am supposing the case of our
reading, when it can rarely happen that we have any living person at
hand to give us an answer. Now, taking the earliest and simplest state
of knowledge, it is plain that the first question to put to ourselves
will be, "Do I understand the meaning of all the words and expressions
in what I have been reading?" I know that this is taking things at their
very beginning, but it is my wish to do so. Now, so plain and forcible
is the English of our Bible, generally speaking, that the words
difficult to be understood will probably not be many: yet some such do
occur, owing, in some instances, to a change of the language; as in the
words "let," and "prevent," which now signify, the one, "to allow, or
suffer to be done," and the other "to stop, or hinder," but which
signified, when our translation was made, the first, "to stop or
hinder," and the second, "to be beforehand with us;" as in the prayer,
"Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour;"
the meaning is, "Let thy favour be with us beforehand, O Lord, in
whatever we are going to do." In other instances the words are difficult
because they are used in a particular sense, such as we do not learn
from our common language; of which kind are the words "elect," "saints,"
"justification," "righteousness," and many others. Now, if we ask
ourselves "whether we understand these words or no," our common sense,
when thus questioned, will readily tell us, whether we do or not;
although if we had not directly asked the question, it might never have
thought about it. Of course, our common sense cannot tell us what the
true meaning is; that is a matter of information, and our means of
gaining information may be more or less; but still, a great step is
gained, the mist is partly cleared away; we can say to ourselves, "Here
is something which I do understand, and here is something which I do
not; I must keep the two distinct, for the first I may use, the second I
cannot; I will mark it down as a thing about which I may get explanation
at another time; but at present it is a blank in the picture, it is the
same as if it were not there." This, then, is the first process of
self-questioning, adapted, as I have already said, to those whose
knowledge is most elementary.

Suppose, however, that we are got beyond difficulties of this sort--that
the words and particular expressions of the Scriptures are mostly clear
to us. Now, take again one of our Lord's parables; say, for instance,
that of the labourers in the vineyard: we read it, and find that he who
went to work at the eleventh hour received as much as he who had been
working all the day. This seems to say, that he who begins to serve God
in his old age shall receive his crown of glory no less than he who has
served him all his life. But now try the process of self-questioning:
what do I think that Christ means me to learn from this? what is the
lesson to me? what is it to make me feel, or think, or do? If it makes
me think that I shall receive an equal crown of glory if I begin to
serve God in my old age, and therefore if it leads me to live
carelessly, this is clearly making Christ encourage wickedness; and such
a thought is blasphemy. He cannot mean me to learn this from it: let me
look at the parable again. Who is it who is reproved in those words
which seem to contain its real object? It is one who complains of God
for having rewarded others equally with himself. Now this I can see is
not a good feeling: it is pride and jealousy. In order, then to learn
what the parable means me to learn, let me put myself in the position of
those reproved in it. If I complain that others are rewarded by God as
much as I am, it is altogether a bad feeling, and one which I ought to
check; for I have nothing to do with God's dealings to others, let me
think of what concerns myself. Here I have the lesson of the parable
complete: and here I find it is useful for me. But if I take it for a
different object, and suppose that it means to encourage waiting till
the eleventh hour--waiting till we are old before we repent--we find
that we make it only actually to be mischievous to us. And thus we gain
a great piece of knowledge: namely, that the parables of our Lord are
mostly designed to teach, some one particular lesson, with respect to
some one particular fault: and that if we take them generally, as if all
in them was applicable to all persons, whether exposed to that
particular fault or not, we shall absolutely be in danger of deriving
mischief from them instead of good. It is true, that in this particular
parable, the gross wickedness of such an interpretation as I have
mentioned is guarded against even in the story itself; because those who
worked only at the eleventh hour are expressly said to have stood idle
so long only because no man had hired them; their delay, therefore, was
no fault of their own. But even if this circumstance had been left out,
it would have been just the same; because the general rule is, that we
apply to a parable only for its particular lesson, and do not strain it
to any thing else. Had this been well understood, no one would have ever
found so much difficulty in understanding the parable of the
unjust steward.

This is another great step towards the dispelling vagueness, to apply
the particular lesson of each part of Scripture to that state of
knowledge, or feeling, or practice in ourselves, which it was intended
to benefit; to apply it as a lesson to ourselves, not as a general truth
for our neighbours. And the very desire to do this, makes us naturally
look with care to the object of every passage--to see to whom it was
addressed, and on what occasion; for this will often surely guide us to
the point that we want. But in order to do this, we must strive to
clothe the whole in our own common language; to get rid of those
expressions which to us convey the meaning faintly; and to put it into
such others as shall come most strongly home to us. This I have spoken
of on other occasions; and I have so often witnessed the bad effects of
not doing so, that I am sure it may well bear to be noticed again; I
mean the putting such words as "persecution," "the cares and riches of
the world," "the kingdom of God," "confessing Christ," "denying Christ,"
and many others, into a language which to us has more lively reality,
which makes us manifestly see that it is of us, and of our common life,
and of our dangers, that the scripture is speaking, and not only of
things in a remote time and country, and under circumstances quite
unlike our own. Therefore I have a strong objection to the use of what
is called peculiarly religious language, because I am sure that it
hinders us from bringing the matter of that language thoroughly home to
us; our minds do not entirely assimilate with, it; or if they fancy that
they do, it is only by their becoming themselves affected, and losing
their sense of the reality of things around them. For our language is
fixed for us, and we cannot alter it; and into that common language in
which we think and feel, all truth must be translated, if we would think
and feel respecting it at once rightly, clearly, and vividly. Happy is
he, who, by practising this early, has imbued his own natural language
with the spirit of God's wisdom and holiness; and who can see, and
understand, and feel them the better, because they are so put into a
form with which he is perfectly familiar.

More might be said, very much more, but here I will now pause. In this
world, wherein heavenly things are, after all, hard to seize and fix
upon, we have great need that no mists of imperfect understanding darken
them, over and above those of the corrupt will. To see them clearly, to
understand them distinctly and vividly, may, indeed, after all be vain:
a thicker veil may yet remain behind, and we may see and understand, and
yet perish. Only the clear sight of God in Christ can be no light
blessing; and there may be a hope, that understanding and approving with
all our minds his excellent wisdom, the light may warm us as well as
assist our sight; that we may see, and not in our vague and empty sense,
but in the force of the scriptural meaning of the word,--may see, and
so believe.




LECTURE XXXV.

* * * * *

MATTHEW xxvi. 45, 46.

_Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the
Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be.
going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me_.


I take these verses for my text, in the first place, because some have
fancied a difficulty in them, and have even proposed to alter the
translation, and read the first words as a question, "Do ye still sleep
and take your rest?" and because they are really a very good
illustration of our Lord's manner of speaking, a manner which it is of
the highest importance to us fully to understand. And, secondly, I take
them as a text for the general lesson which they convey to us; their
mixture of condemnation and mercy; their view, at once looking backwards
and forwards, not losing sight of irreparable evils of a neglected past,
nor yet making those evils worse by so dwelling upon them as to forget
the still available future; not concealing from us the solemn truth,
that what is done cannot be undone, yet warning us also not to undo by a
vain despair that future which may yet be done to our soul's health.

First, a difficulty has been fancied to exist in the words, as if our
Lord had bade his disciples to do two contradictory things: telling
them, first, to sleep on and take their rust, and then saying, "Rise,
let us be going." And because in St. Luke's account, when our Lord
comes to his disciples the last time, his words are given thus, "Why
sleep ye? rise and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:" therefore,
as I have said, his words in the text have been translated, "Are ye
sleeping and resting for the remainder of the time?" Now, I should not
take up your time with things of this sort, where I believe our common
translation to be most certainly right, were it not for the sake of one
or two general remarks, which I think may not be out of place. It is a
general rule, that in passages not obscure, but appearing to contain
some moral difficulty, if I may so speak; that is, something which seems
inconsistent with our notions of God's holiness, or wisdom, or justice;
something, in short, of a stumbling-block, which we fear may occasion a
triumph to unbelievers; it is a rule, I say, that in passages of this
kind the difficulty is not to be met by departing from the
common-received translation. And the reason of this is plain; that had
not the commonly received translation in such cases been clearly the
right one, it would never have come to be commonly received. Amongst the
thousands of interpreters of Scripture, all, from the earliest time,
anxious to remove grounds of cavil from the adversaries of their faith,
a passage would never have been translated so as to afford such a
ground, if the right translation of it could have been different. Such
places are especially those in which the common translation needs not to
be suspected: and it is merely leading us astray from the true
explanation of the apparent difficulty, when we thus attempt to evade it
by tampering with the translation. A notable instance of this was
afforded some few years since in a new translation of some of the books
of the Old Testament; in which it was pretended that most of those
points which had been most attacked by unbelievers were, in fact, mere
mistranslations, and that the real meaning of the original was
something totally different; and, in order to show the necessity of his
alterations, the writer entirely allowed the objections of unbelievers
to the common reading; and said that no sufficient answer had been or
could be made to them. This was an extreme case, and probably imposed
only on a very few: but less instances of the same thing are common: St.
Paul's words about being baptized for the dead, have been twisted to all
sorts of senses, from their natural and only possible meaning, because
men could not bear to believe that the superstition of being baptized as
proxies for another could have existed at a period which they were
resolved to consider so pure: and so in the text, a force has been put
upon the words which they cannot bear, in order to remove a supposed
contradiction: and all that would have been gained by the change would
be, to have one instructive illustration the less of our Lord's peculiar
manner of discourse, and one instance the less of the inimitable way in
which his language, addressed directly to the circumstances before him,
contains, at the same time, a general lesson, for the use of all his
disciples in all ages.

Our Lord's habitual language was parabolical; I use the word in a wide
sense, to include all language which is not meant to be taken according
to the letter. Observe his conversation with the Samaritan woman; it
begins at once with parable, "If thou hadst known who it was that asked
of thee, saying, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and
he would have given thee living water." And again, "Whoso drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but it shall be in
him a well of water, springing up unto life eternal." This seems to have
been, if I may venture to say so, the favourite language in which he
preferred to speak; but when he found that he was not understood, then,
according to the nature of the case, he went on in two or three
different manners. When he, to whom all hearts were open, saw that the
misunderstanding was wilful, that it arose out of a disposition glad to
find an excuse, in his pretended obscurity, for not listening to him and
obeying him, then, instead of explaining his language, he made it more
and more figurative; more likely to be misunderstood, or to offend those
whom he knew to be disposed beforehand to misunderstand and to be
offended. A famous example of this may be seen in the sixth chapter of
St. John; there he first calls himself the Bread of Life, and says, that
whosoever should eat of that bread should live for ever: but when he
found that the Jews cavilled at this language, instead of explaining it,
he only added expressions yet more strongly parabolical; "Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in
you:" and he dwells on this image so long, that we find that many of his
disciples, bent on interpreting it literally, and, in this sense,
finding it utterly shocking, went back and walked no more with him.
Again, when he found not a disposition to cavil, but yet a profound
ignorance of his meaning, arising from a state of mind wholly unused to
think of spiritual good and evil, he neither used, as to those who
wilfully misunderstood him, language that would offend them still more,
nor yet did he offer a direct explanation; but he broke off the
conversation, and adopted another method of instruction. Thus, when the
Samaritan woman, thinking only of bodily wants, answered him by saying,
"Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to
draw," he neither goes on to speak to her in the same language, nor yet
does he explain it; but at once addresses her in a different manner,
saying, "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." Thirdly, when he was
speaking to his own disciples, to whom it was given to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of God, he generally explained his meaning,--at
least so far as to prevent practical error,--when he found that they had
not understood him. Thus, when he had said to them, "Beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod," and they thought
only of leaven and of bread in the literal sense, he upbraids them,
indeed, for their slowness, saying, "Are ye also yet without
understanding?" but he goes on to tell them in express terms that he did
not mean to speak to them of the leaven of bread. And the words of the
text are an exactly similar instance: his first address is parabolical;
that is, it is not meant to be taken to the letter; "Sleep on now, and
take your rest," meaning, "Ye can now do me no good by watching, for the
time is past, and he who betrayed me is at hand; ye might as well sleep
on now and take your rest, for I need not try you any longer." But, as
the time was really pressing, and there was a possibility that they
might have misunderstood his words, and have really continued to sleep,
he immediately added in different language, "Rise, let us be going;
behold, he is at hand that doth betray me." We must be prepared, then,
to find that our Lord's language, not only to the Jews at large, but
even to his own disciples, is commonly parabolical; the worst
interpretation which we can give to it is commonly the literal one. His
conversation with his disciples, just before he went out to the garden
of Gethsemane, as recorded in the thirteenth, and following chapters of
St. John, is a most striking proof of this. If any one looks through
them, he will find how many are the comparisons, and figurative manners
of speaking, which abound in them, and how often his disciples were at a
loss to understand his meaning, And he himself declares this, for, at
the end of the sixteenth chapter, he says expressly, "These things I
have spoken unto you in proverbs;"--that is, language not to be taken
according to the letter;--"the time is coming when I will no more speak
unto you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father." And
then, when he goes on to declare, what he never, it seems, had before
told them in such express and literal language, "I came forth from the
Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to
my Father," his disciples seem to have welcomed with joy this departure
from his usual manner of speaking, and said immediately, "Lo! now
speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb: now we know that thou
knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by
this we believe that thou earnest forth from God."