LECTURE VIII THE OBLIGATIONS OF BELIEF 1 COR. xvi. 13 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. THE associations of war and battle breathe in every word of this exhortation. It touches the heart as the spirit-stirring address of a trusted leader touches the hearts of his comrades at some great emergency of the conflict. As the foe gathers in the distance, half hidden behind the brow of the hill or beneath the shadow of the forest, and it remains doubtful for the moment at what quarter the storm will break, his warning voice calls to vigilance, “Watch ye." As the tide of war rolls its threatening masses onwards, and the advancing column of the enemy, grim and ominous as a thunder-cloud, threatens to overwhelm the slender line of defenders, the leader's clear voice is heard in the momentary hush of suspense, exhorting them to steadiness and constancy, "Stand fast." As the opposing lines break in the shock of battle confusedly, like the meeting of two angry tides, and warrior contends hand to hand with warrior, the familiar voice still sounds amid the tumult, "Quit you like men." As beneath the fury of the assault the line of the patriot host shakes and wavers, and the crisis calls for a courage prepared to die, but never to yield, I picture to myself the figure of the dauntless leader as he lifts his banner aloft and shouts, "Be strong." So graphic is the language that it suggests the scene-a vivid mind-painting of the actual reality, as the battle of the warrior with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, surges to and fro in the issues of the doubtful conflict. Some such scenes must have been present to the mind of St. Paul when he wrote these words. Yet there was nothing whatever in his position and local circumstances at the time to suggest the illustration. At other times when he employed language of the same character, the associations of the moment naturally furnished the imagery. Thus when he exhorted the Ephesians to put on the whole armour of God, the girdle of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness, and the sandals of peace, and the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and to take the sword of the Spirit, he wrote the words in the barrack of the prætorian guards at Rome. The clash of military accoutrements, the sound of arms, the trumpet-call, the pomp of the parade, surrounded him on every side. It was probably from the same spot, and in the sight of the rugged war-beaten soldiers who guarded him during his second imprisonment, that he exhorted Timothy: "Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." But his Epistles to the Corinthians were written from Ephesus, and a totally different class of associations surrounded him at this half-Greek, half-Oriental metropolis of Asia. The seaport crowded with the trade of the Mediterranean, the inhabitants thronging with song and jest into the amphitheatre, or gathering in the temple, where Diana of the Ephesians was worshipped with semi-barbaric grandeur and the rites of a dark superstition, were the prominent objects here. Neither local association nor historical record can have helped to suggest to the apostle's mind the ideas of war. If, therefore, in writing from this spot he employs military illustrations, it can only have been from their peculiar fitness to express his meaning; because they convey the realities of the Christian calling with a graphic vividness and force nothing else could have supplied. The structure of the verse, when closely examined, furnishes the interpretation of its language. For it involves two ideas—the moral qualities exercised in the contest, and the object for which the contest is maintained. Men do not fight for nothing. It is not possible to exercise heroic virtues for the sake of exercising them. All moral actions are means directed to an end; they require a definite and intelligible purpose, and derive from the worthiness of this purpose alike their existence and their dignity. To be watchful for the mere sake of exercising watchfulness, and with no object to preserve; to stand fast without any adequate reason for standing fast, or any definite position on which to stand; to call out the manly virtues of constancy and courage without any occasion for their exercise; to tax strength in order to beat the air,-would be to make human nature contemptible, and to destroy the very grounds of virtue and vice. The subjective qualities of vigilance, and fortitude, and manliness, and energy, require occasion, and the occasion must be supplied by an objective something lying beyond and outside of the qualities themselves. No ingenious manipulation of the words can get rid of this necessity for an object, because it is seated in the constitution of man, and is inseparable from his created dependence. The meaning of the language cannot be satisfied in the maintenance of given states of mind; for there must be reasons for maintaining them. If we say that the exhortation is directed to the cultivation of the religious affections, we only reach the same conclusion in another way. The dogma, as the root of affection, underlies the moral soil every where, and crops up into view. away. We are to watch, lest through spiritual carelessness we are led away from God; to stand fast, lest violent temptation should hurry us into sin; to be stedfast, lest we weary under temptation; and strong, alike to do and to bear, lest out of mere infirmity and weariness we leave our life-work undone. But if there be danger of our being led away from God, there must be a God from whom to be led If there be a danger of our being hurried into sin, there must be a law to be infringed. If there be a danger of our growing weary under temptation, there must be something which we ought to do, and something which we ought not to do, and an obligation to pursue the one and to avoid the other. If there be danger of our leaving our work undone, there must be a task to be accomplished, and a reason for accomplishing it. Watchfulness without a cause would become unsettled restlessness, fortitude an irrational obstinacy, manliness would degenerate into rugged discourtesy, and strength of energy into a display of force, meaningless and therefore contemptible. Some positive truths and fixed principles underlie all moral action. But what is positive and fixed is dogmatic. Men are not distinguished from each other by the fact that some of them act on dogmatic truths and others do not. They are only distinguished by the nature of the truths they accept, and the reasons for accepting them. A πоû σT is needed by all alike; the question is where we shall find it. Some men rest the basis of their positive principles on themselves, and become their own law. Other men dig deeper, and finding that the firmest human principles rest on nothing stronger than the quicksand, derive their positive principles from revelation, and accept their law from God. Men deceive themselves when they profess to reject dogma. They only substitute a human for a Divine foundation for it. Thus, in the present text, the quality of faith is involved in the virtues called into exercise. In a Christian point of view, faith is the root of all virtues; for faith is the hand by which we lay hold of God; and like the God on whom we lay hold, its attributes vary with its relations. We call God wise, and holy, and just, and good, and mighty, just as the occasion calls into display one attribute of His indivisible being or another. So faith becomes impersonated in one grace or another, according to the occasions calling for its exercise. In the presence of fraud it becomes vigilance, in the presence of danger fortitude; beneath the pressure of difficulty it is manliness, and in prolonged trial strength and energy. But the life of the grace is the same in every case. Faith is the vital principle; and the whole spiritual life ebbs and flows with its alternations. It is faith that overcometh the world. All things are possible to faith, because all things are possible with God. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you a. a " This is the quality of faith. But belief cannot exist without something that is believed. This is the object of faith. Faith is not exercised for the sake of itself, but for the sake of what it makes known to us. When this object consists of the truths of revelation, these too are called "the faith," because they rest on the authority of God, and deal with verities lying beyond the sphere of sight. The faith believing and the faith believed are correlative ideas, and never can be far separated from each other. Without the objective reality the subjective quality would be impossible. The two ideas lie embedded together in the language of the text, and neither of them can survive without the other. The quality is constitutionally adapted to the object as the eye is adapted to a Matt. xvii. 20. |