the inner and moral law, thus giving to its votaries an exclusive character, and to righteousness and obedience to God a formal and limited meaning. But it was also pointed out that the moral law has in it the character of universality, and that the development into universality was contemplated by the prophets as the object of aspiration, if not of direct endeavour. The time came when this universal moral power, nourished within the womb of Judaism, was to come forth into light. Christianity is born from the Jewish Church as Christ Himself from a Jewish mother; and though the separation of the child from the parent was full of sharp pangs, the life of the one passed over into the other. The theocracy in Israel was the righteous God abiding in the nation. The theocracy in Christendom was to be the same righteous power abiding in mankind. The righteousness is at once deeper and fuller; deeper, because, to become universal, it must touch the springs of human action, not the mere rules of national custom; and fuller, because, starting from the central principle, that of love, it must show itself all-pervading, applicable to all, subduing and embracing all, binding the world into one. The inwardness of the Christian righteousness has been recognized; it has been characterized in our day as the special method of Christ1: but its extension and 1 M. Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 195: 'No outward observances were conduct, were that keeping of the commandments, which was the keeping of a man's own soul and made him enter into life. To have the thoughts in order as to certain matters, was conduct. This was the method' of Jesus: setting up a great unceasing inward movement of attention and verification in matters which goal have been little dwelt upon. We have known, to use St. Paul's words, the depth and the height of the love of Christ, but not its length and breadth, Men see in Him the Saviour of their own lives. We must show that He is the Saviour of the life of the world, the Founder of a society which is to embrace all mankind in a fellowship of righteousness. It is true that the first and main effort of His ministry was to renew in men's minds the consciousness of the Fatherhood of God, and the inner and spiritual life, the life of gratitude and affection, which flows from this consciousness. He and His disciples were members of the Jewish Church, and it was not the first and essential part of His office to revolutionize are three-fourths of human life, where to see true and to verify is not difficult, the difficult thing is to care and to attend. And the inducement to attend was, because joy and peace, missed on every other line, were to be reached on this.' Mr. Arnold seems to be content with this inwardness, and to consider that it cannot and ought not to work itself out into a social system. Mr. Froude,' he says, (Lit. and Dogma, p. 95) 'thinks he defends the Puritans by saying that they, like the Jews of the Old Testament, had their hearts set on a theocracy, on a fashioning of politics and society to suit the government of God. How strange that he does not perceive that he thus passes, and with justice, the gravest condemnation on the Puritans as followers of Christ! At the Christian era the time had passed, in religion, for outward constructions of this kind, and for all care about establishing or abolishing them.' Contrast with this, Natural Religion, p. 187: Is it true that, whereas the ancient religions, including the Jewish, were closely connected with public and national life, Christianity is different in kind, being purely of the nature of a philosophy, and intended only as a guide for the individual conscience? ... It does not appear that Christianity has ever wished or consented, except under constraint, to be such a religion. Its nature is misrepresented when it is reduced to a set of philosophical or quasi-philosophical opinions; its history is misrepresented when it is described as a quiet spiritual influence, wholly removed from the turmoil of public disturbances, and spreading invisibly from heart to heart. Its rise and success are closely connected with great political revolutions.' P. 197: Look almost where you will in the wide field of history, you find religion, wherever it works freely and mightily, either giving birth to and sustaining states, or else raising them up to a second life after their destruction.' H existing institutions. He gave intimations, no doubt, of the changes which must be wrought by the working out of the universal principle which He inculcated -the conversion of the Gentiles, the universality of His kingdom; and, as the enmity of the Jews against Him deepened, of His own self-sacrifice, of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the upraising of a new and spiritual temple. But He did not excite His hearers by dwelling upon any of these. He spoke of them only to the inner circle of His followers, and with the reserve imposed by His spiritual objects. There was to be nothing of that which is called in our day sensational. Speculation on wonderful events to come was not to outstrip the conviction by which the minds of His servants were to be prepared for them. Nevertheless, the events were present to His mind, and He was concerned to prepare His disciples for them. He declared, and with more frequency and impressiveness towards the end, that He was come to send a fire upon the earth1, that His disciples would be delivered up, expelled from the Jewish synagogues 3, brought before Gentile rulers. And here we may trace the need for the formation of the Church. His disciples were to go forth as sheep among wolves. Was there to be no fold or shepherd, no organization in which they could support one another? We can hardly doubt that the great prophecy of Matt. xxiv. expresses His thoughts about the future. When the great tribulation there spoken of should come, and Jerusalem should no longer afford them any shelter, was there 1 Luke xii. 48. 2 Mark xiii. 9. 3 John xvi. 2. to be no social system to succeed that of which Jerusalem had been the centre? The fabric of the ceremonial law must crumble away, as the political law had well-nigh done. It had crumbled away already in our Lord's estimation, for He never urges its obligations, and, so far as the record informs us, He never practised more than its central ordinances. What was to come after, when the fabric of the law, which had seemed to the Jews like the eternal ordinances of nature, should have vanished away? Was each man to build up an intellectual home for himself? Were the simple believers to confront the Western school of philosophy, or the theosophies of the East, or the stupendous power of Rome, without guides or leaders? Our Lord saw multitudes already taking the kingdom of heaven by storm1; the fields were white to the harvest and He bade His disciples pray for labourers to gather them in 3; the Greeks who sought to see Him at the last Passover, called forth some of His deepest and most far-reaching sayings; His last injunction to His apostles was, that they should make disciples of all nations". Was He content to look forward merely to a tumultuary aggregate of individuals, and not to an organized society? Some such questions-though we must not bring all our later thoughts within the scope of our Lord's ministry-must have presented themselves to His mind; and the answer He gave to them was the foundation of the Church. There are many of His sayings, especially in the parables, which show 3 1 Matt. xi. 12. Luke xvi. 16. 2 John iv. 35. 3 Matt. ix. 38. 5 Matt. xxviii. 19. how His mind dwelt upon the future destinies of the body of His disciples 1, and which must have come back to them for their guidance when they began to organize the Christian community. We may compare our Lord's dealing with the subject of the Church or organized body of believers, with His dealing on some other matters of importance. Take the question of public worship. There is hardly a word about it in our Lord's discourses. Yet we cannot doubt that, though its position has been greatly exaggerated, it is an integral element in the life of Christians; and, as such, it must have been present to the mind of Christ. We must presume, therefore, that He gave no injunctions concerning it, because the general principles of prayer which He unfolded, and of which the Lord's prayer is a type, and the transference, which was sure to come, of the customs of the synagogue to the church, were deemed by Him sufficient, under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, without any express directions. Or, take another instance, that of the doctrine of equality, the abolition of the difference between Jew and Gentile, bond and free, which to St. Paul was the very essence of the Gospel. A few intimations, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the welcome of the Greeks at the last Passover, and the absence of all that is distinctively Judaic in our Lord's teaching, were all that He left to guide the disciples in a matter of absolutely vital moment to the infant community. Similarly, as regards the Church itself, our Lord spoke little of it, as indeed He spoke 1 Matt. xiii. 24-30; 31, 32; 33. Mark iv. 26. Matt. xxii. 11-14. |