CHAPTER
13
(Not included
in The Bible or the Church?)
234
“MARTYRS of disgust.” Whoever coined the phrase had grasped
a truth of practical importance. It is not easy to estimate how much of
the popularity of Ritualism is due to a recoil from the slovenliness,
if such a word may be allowed, of certain types of Protestantism. What
constitutes “the Church” is the Divine presence—the
fulfilment of the promise, “There am I in the midst.” No gorgeous
shrine, no splendid ceremonial, no sensuous music is needed to secure
that presence; it is the assured possession of His people gathered in
His name.
On the very
evening of the Resurrection the disciples received an object lesson of
what that
235
promise meant. Near by
stood the holy Temple, in all its proud magnificence. But that house was
“desolate.”[1] The
Lord was not there, but in the “upper room” where the disciples
had met in secret to await His coming. And not all the splendour of that
shrine could relieve its utter desolation when the Divine presence was
denied it, nor could the bare poverty of that humble scene detract from
its solemnity while He was “in the midst.” And if men boast
that theirs is the cult of the “upper room,” while yet they
give proof that they have no sense of the Divine presence—no appreciation
of the reverence which is its due, is it strange that so many turn away
to that which has at least a semblance of the lost reality?
[1]
“Your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. xxiii. 38).
The last of
the old Hebrew prophets charged it upon the people that they had less
respect for God than for their superiors in social rank. And so it is
with ourselves. The presence perhaps of some distinguished stranger will
serve to prevent any slovenliness of dress or manner on the part of the
minister, and in all the service the effect
236
of that presence will
be felt. But the Divine presence is a mere theory, which too often fails
to influence those who profess to be controlled by it.
A barren
Protestantism, a mere negation of the outward trappings and superstitions
of religion, may fill a church with Christianised rationalists; and if
genuine piety and earnest philanthropy be not wanting, such men will command
respect and make their influence felt. But there are times in every life
when great thoughts of “sin and righteousness and judgment”
oppress the soul with fear, and “heart and flesh cry out for the
living God.” The spiritual realities of vital Christianity alone
can banish such fear and satisfy such yearnings. But human religion will
act as a narcotic to soothe and deaden them; and in ignorance of the great
sacrifice of Calvary and of the great Priest who has passed into the heavens,
men will turn to a system which provides at least a travesty of Christian
truth.
How few there
are to whom the Lord Jesus Christ is a living and ever-present Divine
Person! How entirely the dead Buddha, the historic Jesus
237
of the Rationalist, or the traditional Jesus of the Romanist, has supplanted
Him! The truth of these statements admits of a plain and simple test.
To “the man in the street” our leading statesmen are mere
institutions. He speaks of them, therefore, as freely, as unceremoniously,
as would their intimate friends and equals. With him the Prime Minister
of England is “Salisbury,” the First Lord of the Treasury
is “Balfour.” But when we pass within the circle where they
are personally known, we notice a change at once. It is now Lord
Salisbury and Mr. Balfour. And even “the man in the street,”
were he to find himself in their company, would at once show his consciousness
of their presence by altering his mode of speaking of them.
Now let us
apply this test to the case before us. Let us mark how men speak and write
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is not recorded in the four Gospels, from
first to last, one solitary instance where a disciple ever addressed Him
or spoke of Him save as “Lord” or “Master.” This
indeed was a definite characteristic of discipleship; so much so that
even those whose conduct belied
238
their words always called
Him “Lord.”[2] He
was known to the world as “Jesus of Nazareth;” and if one
of the Jews had been sent to fetch the beast to carry Him in His mock
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, or to bespeak the guest-chamber for the
paschal supper, his language would have been that “Jesus”
required it. But His own disciples declared themselves even in the very
mention of His name. With them it was, “The Master saith;”
“The Lord hath need of it.”[3]
To this rule the Gospels contain absolutely no exception.
[2]
Luke vi. 46.
[3]
Luke xix. 31, 34; xxii. 11. Note that the words were dictated by the Lord
Himself.
Let me not
be misunderstood. In the narrative of the Gospels He is spoken
of by His personal name, because GOD is the narrator. Had Leaves from
Our Journal in the Highlands been published anonymously, the mode
in which the members of the Royal House are mentioned would have disclosed
the Queen’s authorship of the book. And so also the manner in which
the Lord is named in the Gospel narrative is one of many incidental proofs
of its Divine authorship.
239
But in every case, without
exception, where the narrative introduces words spoken by the disciples
as men, whether addressed to Him, or to others about Him, a title of reverence
is used. Not one single instance is recorded in which He is named with
the freedom, not to say familiarity, common with Christians now. Just
as in the Queen's book the Royal children are spoken of by their personal
names, so in God's book our Divine Lord is spoken of in the same way.
But they must have a strange conception of what inspiration means who
urge that the language of the Bible should in this respect be imitated
in our colloquial speech, or even in the formal discourse of the pulpit.
Even the most elevated and solemn of mere human utterances are separated
by an unmeasured distance from the inspired Scriptures.
Rationalism,
of course, ever seeks to bring down our Divine Lord to the level of mere
humanity, and Rationalism has entirely leavened our literature, even our
standard theological literature. Its influence is felt everywhere. But
it was not Rationalism that taught “the primitive Church”
to abandon the habits of reverence in speaking
240
of the Lord, which had prevailed in Apostolic days. In this respect, indeed,
there is a striking difference between the writings of Clement and Polycarp,
who had come directly under apostolic influence, and the patristic writings
of a later age.[4]
[4]
As regards Ignatius, see Appendix IV., Note
IX.; and on the general question, see Note
X.
Even a century
later Tertullian wrote, referring to the solemn converse of the Christians
at the Agape, “Our conversation is that of men who are
conscious that the Lord hears them.”[5] Here is the true test.
Let the pulpit be judged by it. If the preacher be a man of refinement
he will not offend by speaking of the Lord, or even of the Apostles, with
the flippant familiarity so popular with many. But do his words impress
the hearers with the conviction that he is speaking of his living Lord,
and that he is conscious of His presence? Or is he not rather speaking
of the mythical Jesus of sentimental religion, or of “the historic
Jesus,” the dead Buddha of nineteen centuries ago.
Many there
are, moreover, who would be offended by the omission of the conventional
241
title of “saint”
before the name of an apostle,[6]
and yet who see nothing unseemly in speaking of the Lord after the example,
not of the apostles, but of the strolling Jewish exorcists mentioned in
the nineteenth chapter of the Acts.[7]
With not a few this is due to thoughtlessness, with others again, to sheer
carelessness—slovenliness would not be too strong a word. It takes
less time and less breath to say “Jesus” than to say “the
Lord Jesus,” and this it is that governs their practice. But those
who seek to obey the Divine command, “Sanctify in your hearts Christ
as LORD,”[8] learn both
to think of Him and to speak of Him as Lord; and this, not as a matter
of effort or training, but instinctively and of course.
[6]
It has been my habit to give this title to the saints of the New Testament
and to none others; but I may say here that a renewed and fuller study
of Church history has led me to omit it altogether in these pages. A title
that belongs to men like Cyril of Alexandria, a title, moreover, that
depends on decrees of the apostate Church, is not a title of honour.
[7]
“We adjure you by Jesus” was their formula, and the evil spirit
copied them, “Jesus I know” (Acts xix. 13, 15). Mark in contrast
the manner in which the Evangelist names Him in verses 10, 13, 17.
[8]
I Pet. iii. 15, R.V.
The prominence
which the truth of the Lordship of Christ holds in Christian
doctrine is sometimes
242
obscured even in our Authorised Version of the New Testament. The text
just quoted is an instance of this. Another will be found in that most
striking passage from the Epistle to the Romans: “If thou shalt
confess with thy mouth Jesus AS LORD, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”[9]
Now that religion has superseded Christianity, and men believe whatever
“the Church” enjoins, the doctrine of salvation through confessing
Christ as Lord must seem absurd. But not with those who face the problem
fairly. What answer can be made to such a challenge as this: “You
point me to a man hanging between two thieves, condemned by both Church
and State—condemned as a profane impostor by all that was respectable
and trustworthy in the sphere of ecclesiastical as well as of secular
authority—and you ask me to believe that that crucified Jew is now
seated on the throne of the universe of God! But why should I accept the
judgment of Christendom against that of the Church of His own times, which
deliberately
243
preferred even Jesus Barabbas to Jesus the Rabbi?”[10]
[9]
Rom. x. 9, R.V. See Chap. VIII.
ante.
[10]
Tradition says that the personal name of Barabbas was Jesus.
It must be
conceded at once that the challenge can be met only by an appeal to revelation.
But what and where is the revelation? This brings up again the question
discussed in an earlier chapter.[11]
The religionist believes that He was the Son of God, on the same authority
on which he believes this of a piece of bread, namely, the authority of
the Church. Of Transubstantiation Cardinal Newman writes: “I did
not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in
believing it as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was
the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part
of the original revelation.” Of course not. On the same ground a
man would have “no difficulty” in believing that the earth
is a plane, and the centre of the solar system, and that the Spanish Inquisition
and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew were divinely sanctioned and blessed.
But this whole position only proves the depth of the degradation to which
244
even such a man as John Henry Newman sinks when he turns away from Christianity
to religion.
[11]
See Chap. VII. ante.
But what is
the answer which Holy Scripture makes to the challenge? “I give
you to understand,” says the Apostle Paul, “that no man can
say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ “ or (still more literally), “No
man can say ‘Lord Jesus’ but by the Holy Spirit.” And
the Lord Himself teaches in the most express terms that to know Him as
Divine betokens a Divine revelation to the individual.[12]
Any one who owns a copy of the New Testament may know the Buddha of Christendom;
the spiritual Christian alone can know the Christ of God. Therefore it
is that such a gulf separates the religion of Christendom from Christianity.
[12]
See, ex. gr., Matt. xvi. 17; John vi. 45.
But the religion
of Christendom has changed all that. Instead of Lordship we have “brotherhood,”
and instead of the Divine voice in the Holy Scriptures by the Divine Spirit,
we have the voice of the Church, claiming to be Divine. That voice finds
articulate expression by the lips of the man who pretends to be vicar
of Christ on earth. Here are the words of Pope Leo XIII. He is referring
245
to those who claim to be Christians while repudiating what he calls “the
Church”: “Let such take counsel with themselves and realise
that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they
take Christ Jesus as their Brother, and at the same time the Church as
their mother.”[13]
[13]
Encyclical Letter on the Unity of the Church, June 29, 1896.
No one can
deny that the New Testament plainly proclaims the motherhood of the historic
Church; but in the one and only passage which teaches it, she is described
as “the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.”[14]
And the doctrine of the brotherhood of Jesus belongs to the cult of the
Buddha of Christendom. Holy Scripture lends no sanction to it. Salvation,
as we have seen, depends upon owning Him as Lord; and the man
who, setting this aside, talks of “taking Jesus as his brother,”
be he Pope or peasant, has yet to learn
246
the rudiments of Christian truth.[15]
In His infinite grace the Son of God is “not ashamed” to call
us brethren;[16] but the response
of every heart that grace has won is to call Him Lord. We have
the same Father and the same God—for even such an one as He is has
a God; but in the very words by which He teaches the nearness of the relationship,
He forbids the inference which the unspiritual would draw from it. “Go,”
He said, “to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend” (not
unto our Father and God, but) “unto My Father and your Father, and
My God and your God.”[17]
[14]
Rev. xvii. 5. This doctrine of the motherhood of the Church comes, of
course, like most other errors in Latin theology, from Augustine of Hippo,
and to him the Pope refers it. Our mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, Abraham’s
city (Gal. iv. 26, Heb. xi. 10, 16). The Church is not “the Bride
of the Lamb” (Rev. xxi.), but the body of Christ—a wholly
incompatible relationship (see Chap. X., p. 160 ante Note
12).
[15]
I am aware of course that a certain sort of Protestant literature, and
notably our hymnology, has adopted this; but my contention is that the
habits of thought and speech of seventeen centuries have accustomed us
to much that revolts the true instincts of spiritual life.
[16]
Heb. ii. 11.
[17]
John xx. 17.
The truth of
the Lordship of Christ is closely allied with that great characteristic
truth of Christianity which, as already noticed, was so soon lost by the
Church. “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly,” the
Apostle Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, “that God hath
made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom ye crucified.”[18]
Messiahship was immediately
247
connected with covenant; Lordship, with grace. The Jew knew Him
first as Christ, and then as Lord. With the Gentile the moral order was
reversed, and submitting to Him first as Lord, he came to know Him as
Christ. Christ was “a minister of the circumcision for the truth
of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that
the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.”[19]
The Jew was heir to “the promises”; and in fulfilment of these
Christ became “a minister of the circumcision”: the Gentiles,
being “strangers from the covenants of promise,”[20]
are absolutely dependent upon mercy.
[18]
Acts ii. 36, R.V.
[19]
Rom. xv. 8, 9.
[20]
Eph. ii. 12.
“Eighteenth
century deism,” says Renan, “and a certain kind of Protestantism,
have accustomed us to think of the founder of the Christian faith only
as a great moralist, a benefactor of mankind.” Precisely: “the
Buddha of Christendom.” But Rationalism is only one of “the
three R’s” by which Christianity is undermined. Romanism and
Revivalism, in their various developments and phases, though so entirely
opposed to Rationalism and to one another, tend in this respect to produce
248
similar results. Sentiment is a marked characteristic of both. Even in
human relationships sentiment is a poor thing, and in the spiritual sphere
it is easily mistaken for faith. There is a “peace in believing,”
even if the belief be mere credulity. The peace of God “passeth
all understanding”; but it has its human counterfeit which can be
thoroughly understood—a peace, for example, like that which Cardinal
Newman found in the Church of Rome, as described in his Apologia,
the peace of one who gives up the life of faith and commits himself to
“the Church,” who shirks the discipline of the pilgrim’s
path by joining a “personally conducted” expedition to the
heavenly city. So also there is a peace which springs from sentiment.
We all know the woman who found such peace from the sermon, and when pressed
for an explanation, declared it was “that sweet word ‘Mesopotamia.’”
An American
book which was immensely popular some years ago, tells of a man who spent
a holiday in charge of two baby nephews. One of his experiences is his
being made to sing a hopelessly senseless doggerel to comfort his
249
charge when sick or sore. His bachelor mind tried in vain to discover
how such drivel could pacify any one. But a fuller knowledge of child
nature would have solved the mystery. For, as the story discloses, the
verses in question were a lullaby by which their mother soothed them to
sleep in infancy. The words in themselves were nothing: the comfort they
brought depended entirely on the sentiment attached to them. And on the
same principle it is that “children of a larger growth” find
peace in “that sweet word ‘Mesopotamia,’” or in
some combination of words as little fitted to quiet either heart or conscience
in view of the stern facts of human existence. How many there are who
live and die with a peace which rests altogether upon sentiment connected
with mawkish, irreverent, and unchristian hymns,[21]
or other literature of a kindred type—a peace which the light of
truth would dissipate as night-mists are scattered by the rising sun!
[21]
See Appendix IV., Note XI.
The Christian’s
peace does not depend on ignoring the solemn facts of life and death,
the stern realities of human sin and Divine righteousness,
250
nor yet on sentiment about the mythical Jesus of our popular hymnology—a
“sweet, gentle Jesus” whom men can fondle and patronise. The
disciple whom He loved, who leaned upon His breast at the supper, was
given to see Him in His glory, and here are the words in which he describes
the vision: “His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
And when I saw Him I fell at His feet as one dead. And He laid His right
hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living
one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the
keys of death and of hell.”[22]
[22]
Rev. i. 16-18, R.V.
His voice once
shook the earth; and the sacred Word declares that in the awful future
He will shake not the earth only, but also heaven. But the Christian has
to do with “things which cannot be shaken“—“the
precious blood of Christ,” the eternal redemption it has won, and
life in a glorious Saviour and Lord who has the keys of death and of hell—and
to such the exhortation comes: “Let us have grace whereby we may
serve
251
God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming
fire.”[23]
[23]
Heb. xii. 26-29.
----------------------
I am well aware
that this book will give pain to many, and offence to some, whose friendship
I greatly value. But when interests so momentous are in question, considerations
of that kind can have no place. We shall be told, of course, that there
is nothing in the events of the day to give cause for disquietude. Such
is the answer always made whenever a warning voice is raised against the
encroachments of either of the two great powers from which, in their respective
spheres, England has most to fear—Russia and Rome. Those powers
resemble each other in the patient pertinacity with which they work out
their aims. Their advance is like that of a flowing tide upon a level
shore.
But there is
this essential difference. Russian aggression is entirely hostile, and
works from without; it finds no encouragement in the sympathies of a single
Englishman. But Rome, on the other hand, appeals to the hearts of men,
and
252
its success depends on the hold it has upon human nature. For man is a
religious being who has apostatised from his Creator; and therefore, as
urged in previous chapters, he must have a religion, and his religion
always gravitates towards superstition and evil. If the history of Christendom
could be effaced, and Christianity restored to its pristine purity, errors
akin to those which now prevail would soon again declare themselves. It
is unnecessary therefore to suggest, nor do I for one believe, that the
movement Romewards which is now so rife in the English Church is the outcome
of a definite Jesuit plot hatched in the Vatican. It is the result of
influences of a general character, far deeper and more subtle. But on
this very account the danger is all the greater. Those who guide the destinies
of the Church of England, instead of keeping to the channel marked out
by the Reformers, are, of set purpose, so diverting the stream, that it
is drawing nearer and nearer to the dead sea of Rome; and the dividing
barrier is becoming so perilously slight that leakage is inevitable, and
some adverse influence may undermine it altogether.
253
The reunion of Christendom
is as certain as the day of judgment; it will, in fact, herald the great
apostasy which is to precede the day of judgment. And if the reunion of
the Church of England with the Church of Rome is not imminent, it is because
the Pope has more independence—I had almost said more principle—than
the men who at this moment govern the Church of England. When the Romanisers
appealed to the Pope to recognise Anglican orders, a favourable response
to that appeal would have gone far to precipitate the crisis. But in his
Bull of September, 1896, the Pope pitilessly exposed the duplicity and
ignorance of the conspirators. “A new rite” (he declared)
“was publicly introduced under Edward VI.; the true Sacrament of
Orders, as introduced by Christ, lapsed, and with it the hierarchical
succession.”
In a word,
while these sham “Catholic priests” affect to ignore the Reformation,
the Pope of Rome insists upon the vital importance of the Reformation,
and finds in it a sufficient reason for denying the validity of Anglican
orders. “They have persuaded themselves,” Cardinal Vaughan
254
writes, “that their clergy are really sacerdotal that they possess
sacrificing powers, and that they hold direct continuity from the old
Catholic Church of England as founded by St. Augustine.” A “strange
and almost incomprehensible belief,” he very naturally calls it;
for a main object with the Reformers was to break that “continuity,”
and to establish the national Church upon a basis only and altogether
Divine.[24]
[24]
See Chap. VIII, pp. 117-121,
ante. The above words are quoted from a letter to the Cardinal
Archbishop of Toledo, warning the Spanish bishops against being deceived
by Lord Halifax and the Church Union conspiracy. It is given in the Times
of November 29, 1894. In that letter Cardinal Vaughan uses the following
striking and ominous words: “This movement is widely extended, so
much so that a multitude of the better educated and most zealous of the
Anglican clergy and laity teach Catholic doctrines almost in their totality,
so that they only want the key—the office and authority of St. Peter—to
close the arch... Some even go so far as to boldly communicate in Catholic
churches abroad, while others actually want to say Mass at our altars
in Catholic countries, as though they were really priests and members
of the Catholic Church.” In other words, these men are Romanists,
though not Papists.
We are told
that the conspirators are an insignificant minority, and that they have
in no way compromised the Church of England. But this plea is as disingenuous
as was the appeal of the conspirators themselves. Did the English hierarchy
255
repudiate their action? Did they seize an opportunity so apt as that which
the Papal Bull afforded them to reaffirm the principles of the Reformation?
Did they even remain passive and silent? On the contrary, in their “letter”
of February 19, 1897, in answer to the Papal Bull, the English archbishops
openly took sides with the conspirators in ignoring the Reformation. Their
letter was an implied appeal to their “venerable brother, Pope Leo
XIII.,” to acknowledge that English clergymen are not Christian
ministers, but sacrificing priests, and therefore stand upon the same
footing as the priests of Rome. Is it any wonder, then, that another “revolt
of the laity” should be in progress? And while in the revolt of
the sixteenth century the laity found leaders among the bishops, there
is not so much as one member of the episcopal bench to-day, who has stood
forward publicly to champion the truths of the Reformation, and to protest
against the Romish conception of “the Church,” which underlies
the agitation of the Ritualists and the apologia of the archbishops.[25]
[25]
Since writing the above I have been reminded that there was one.
256
If the Romish view of the Church be the true one, as these
ecclesiastics assume, the Pope is in the right, and they are entirely
in the wrong. If the Reformers’ view be just, they are all in the
wrong together. And this is the vital question in the present controversies:
not the pretensions of the Pope—that element is merely incidental—but
the pretensions of “the Church.”[26]
To vindicate the doctrines of the Reformers in this regard is one main
object of these pages.
[26]
See Chaps. VII. and VIII.
ante, and Appendix
IV., Note III.
But that is
not their only object. There are multitudes of thoughtful people who,
knowing nothing of these distinctions, and misreading the history of Christendom,
confound the religion which calls itself Christian with the Divine revelation
of Christianity; and rightly rejecting that religion, they turn away from
Christianity itself. Such men need to be reminded that there are vast
numbers of Christians who revolt, as they do, against the religion of
Christendom, but whose faith in Christ is on that very account all the
more intelligent and enthusiastic.
In the days
of Pagan Rome, the Church was
257
entirely on the side of the martyrs. In the days of Papal Rome the martyrs
were the victims of “the Church” in its apostasy. Here in
England Wycliffe and Tyndale, and the reformers of the sixteenth century,
were the proscribed antagonists of the religion of Christendom. The struggle
for the truth, and for those liberties which we owe to the maintenance
of the truth, was waged by men who dared to stand out against “the
Church,” denouncing its errors and superstitions, and defying its
power. Their attitude towards human religion was that of scepticism. But
enlightened scepticism is merely a means to an end. As Mill observes,
it is not a permanent resting-place for human reason. When men turn it
into a cult it becomes a mere cloak for self-will, if not for immorality.
The position
maintained by the martyrs was no mere negation of the false; it was a
testimony to the true. The Christian converts of early days turned from
idols to “serve the living and true God.” The martyrs of later
days turned from “the Church” that they might be loyal to
Christ. So it must ever be. There can
258
be no true loyalty to the king without denouncing the pretender. Loyalty
to Christ implies the repudiation of what is false to Christ. Christendom
being what it is, every true Christian is, of necessity and in the very
nature of things, a Protestant.
*
* *
The
preceding chapter was taken from:
THE BUDDHA OF CHRISTENDOM (revised and republished in 1908 as The
Bible or the Church?)
by Sir Robert Anderson.
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1899.
No copyright. Public domain.
The Bible or the Church?, Chapter 13
The
Buddha of Christendom, Chapter 1
The
Bible or the Church?, Chapter 1
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