I LIBRARY OF THB University of California. GIFT OF J^..^ry\'\AA^. i.'U^.^rrr^.lrvr^^^ Class ^oolitf bp Ipman Abbott, !)♦ T>* THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 8vo, ^1.50, mi. Postage extra. HENRY WARD BEECHER. With Portraits. Crown 8vo, $1.75, mi. Postpaid, J1.90. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. A Study in Twentieth- Century Problems. Crown 8vo, #1.30, nei. Postpaid, ^^1.44. THE LIFE AND LITERATURE OF THE AN- CIENT HEBREWS. Crown 8vo, 52.00. THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY. i6mo, J1.25. CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS. i6mo, 1^1.25. THE THEOLOGY OF AN EVOLUTIONIST. i6mo, $i.2s- THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF PAUL THE APOSTLE. Crown 8vo, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, AND COMPANY, Boston and Nbw York. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/christianministrOOabborich THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY BT LYliAN ABBOTT It BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (^fjt fHiiizt^t^z ptt^^y Cambndge 1905 COPYRIGHT 1905 BY LYMAN ABBOTT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published May iqos To the Christian Ministers who are attempting to impart that acquaint- ance with God which is the secret of life this volume is dedicated. 182155 .11.1 i- OF THl r lUNIVERSiTY PKEFACE Ministers in their conventions often discuss the question why people do not go to church. It would be well if sometimes they would consider the ques- tion, Why do any people ever go to church ? for the phenomenon of church-going is a remarkable one. In the fall of 1903 a careful census was taken of the attendance upon church services in the Bor- ough of Manhattan, in the city of New York. The Borough was divided into four districts, and the numbers in actual attendance upon the churches, liberal and conservative, Protestant and Catholic, were carefully counted. Fortunately the four Sun- days devoted to this census were pleasant Simdays, so that the conditions were favorable to a good attendance. The census was taken with care and the results tabulated. They showed that about one half the adult population of the island of Man- hattan were in the churches on those Sundays. No estimate was made of the children in attendance upon the Sunday-schools. In considering the sig- nificance of this census, it must be remembered, on the one hand, that every person in attendance upon ▼iii PREFACE every service was counted, so tliat any person who attended church twice on that day was counted as two persons ; on the other hand, that those accus- tomed to attend church who were absent on the day the count was made, those who do business in New York and live in the suburbs, and the Jews, of whom there are six hundred thousand resident in the island of Manhattan, were not included in the census. Making due allowance for these facts, it is probably fair to say that, approximately, haK the population of the island, above school age, are accustomed to take part in some form of religious service every week. A little subsequently, a more careful census of church attendance was made in the city of London. A careful estimate of those who attended two services was included in this census. The result showed that, making allowance for those too old, too young, too sick, and too busy, — that is, in unavoidable occupations, — and not counting twice those who attended twice, one third of the population who can attend public worship in London on Sunday do attend. These facts are typical. In all ages of the world, among all races of mankind, attendance upon some form of reli- gious service is customary. It would be difficult to mention any other custom so general. PREFACE ix What is the motive that brings so large a pro- portion of the human race for a certain allotted time every week into their varioas temples, syna- gogues, and churches? The city of New York maybe not inaptly termed the Corinth of America. Both its virtues and its vices are those of a com- mercial metropolis.. Its inhabitants through six days in the week are eager in their pursuit of wealth. They jostle one another in the cars and upon the sidewalk; they travel wearisomely an hour or two every day from their homes to their places of business and back again; they work often in dingy rooms and under disagreeable condi- tions ; they sacrifice for this pursuit pleasure, edu- cation, domestic affection, health, and life itself; and yet once a week stores and offices are closed, the process of money-getting halts, the throngs lay aside for a day their commercial pursuits, and something like one half of them assemble in their churches. For what purpose? It is idle to say that this is a fashion. How came the fashion to be set? Or that it is a habit. What has caused the habit ? They are not attracted by the music : they can get better music in the concert-rooms ; nor by the oratory : for few of the preachers are orators; nor by the social advantages: for the X PREFACE city churcli is rarely a social club, and never a successful one. The object of this book is to furnish some answer to this question ; to indicate to priests and preach- ers what it is which induces half the population of New York city to lay aside their commercial pur- suits and gather in their churches every seventh day ; to interpret to themselves the men and women who form these congregations, and explain to them what it is that they are often unconsciously seeking ; and to indicate to those who rarely or never do go to church the advantage which they might secure if they were in this respect to conform to the custom, not only of their fellow countrymen in America, but of their fellow men throughout the world. The Christian minister fulfills a fourfold func- tion : he is pastor, administrator, priest, and prophet^ or preacher. As pastor, he is the personal friend and counselor of his people ; as administrator, the executive head of his church, which should be his force as well as his field. These two aspects of his work are not considered in this vd^umej it js de-_ -^ votedjexclusively to a^onsideration of the minister as priest and prophet. In the fall of 1903 I gave the Lyman Beecher course of lectures before the Yale Theological Sem- PREFACE xi inary, at New Haven, and in March, 1904, the Earl course of lectures before the Pacific Theological Seminary, at Berkeley, Califomia. While this book is not a reproduction of either course of lectures, both of which were given extemporaneously, the material of which those lectures was composed has been freely used in, the composition of this volume, as has also some other material contributed by me at different times to periodical publications or used in public and pubHshed addresses. Lyman Abbott. CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON, N. Y., December, 1904. CONTENTS FA08 I. The Fundamental Faiths of the Ministry Necessity of Fundamental Faiths 1 Keligion defined 3 What these Definitions imply 4 DifEerent Types of Religion 7 The Christian Religion defined 9 The Distinctive Feature of Christianity .... 10 The Hebrews' Golden Age 13 Christ's Definition of His Mission 14 The Message of the Apostles 17 Meaning of the Incarnation 19 The Post-Resurrection Life of Christ 20 Christianity a New Theology 22 Christianity a New Life 25 The Christian Ministry a Ministry of Christian Re- demption 27 Doubts in Faith 28 Christianity answers the Question of Paganism . 31 The Secret of the Church's Power 32 11. The Function of the Ministry Is there any Need of the Church ? 35 The Answer of the Irreligious 35 Of the Agnostic 36 Of the Skeptic 36 Of the Humanitarian 37 Of the Self-Satisfied 39 Of the Social Reformer 40 The Early Church as an Administrator of Charity 42 Other Organizations have taken its Place ... 44 xiv CONTENTS The Inspirational rather than the Institutional Church the Need of our Time 46 The Early Church as a Political Power .... 47 Three Stages in the Political Development of the Church 48 The Political Function of the Modern Church . . 60 Difference between Minister and Political Re- former 51 The Early Church as an Educator 54 Boman Catholic Testimony respecting Educational Function of the Church 65 Public Schools Preferable to Church Schools . . 57 Defect in our Public Schools 58 Educational Function of Modern Church ... 60 The Fundamental Work of the Church . . . .61 The Message of the Church 62 Man's Desire for Peace 63 Man's Desire for Power 64 The Church's Ministry of Peace 67 The Church's Ministry of Power 68 This Twofold Ministry illustrated by the "High Church Movement 70 By the Work of Dwight L. Moody .... 73 The Church must speak with Authority .... 74 III. The Authority of the Ministry The Authority of the Hebrew Prophets .... 76 Not derived from the Bible 77 Nor from the Church 78 Nor from the Reason 78 Nor from Miracles 79 Nor from Fulfillment of Prophecy .... 79 Spiritual Authority defined by Canon Liddon . . 79 Analyzed by St. Paul 81 Analyzed by T. H. Huxley 83 The Response of the Soul to Ethical Principles . 84 To Spiritual Truths 85 CONTENTS XV Blustrated by W. K. ClifPord 86 Illustrated by Herbert Spencer .... 87 Illustrated by Phillips Brooks 88 Illustrated by Charles Dickens .... 89 The Foundation of Religious Authority . . . 91 The Ecclesiastical Conception of the Authority of the Church 92 The Spiritual Conception of the Authority of the Church 93 The Ecclesiastical Conception of the Authority of the Bible 96 The Spiritual Conception of the Authority of the Bible 99 The Radical Difference between the Two Con- ceptions 100 The Limits of Biblical Authority 102 The Authority of the Reason 103 Necessity for Clear Definition of the Nature and Limits of Ministerial Authority 105 IV. The Individual Message of the Ministry The Prophet defined 108 The Minister differs from the Journalist . . . 109 Preaching on Current Events 110 The Minister differs from the Author .... 112 Power of the Sermon is in Preacher's Personal- ity 113 Attempt to preach Great Sermons a Weakness 114 The Minister differs from the Teacher . . . 114 In their Respective Objects 115 In the Secret of their Power 117 The Minister differs from the Moral Reformer 118 The Difference defined 119 Henry Ward Beecher on the Preacher as Moral Reformer 120 The Minister differs from the Teacher of Theo- logy 121 xvi CONTENTS The Importance of Creeds 121 Theology is not Religion 122 Sermon not a Lecture on Theology 123 The Use and Abuse of Biblical Criticism in the Pulpit 125 Dealing with Doubts 127 The Function of the Christian Ministry sum- marized 129 V. The Social Message of the Ministry The Kingdom of God 132 Three Ideas respecting the Kingdom of God . . 134 The Return to Christ's Teaching concerning the Kingdom 136 Social Meaning of Theological Terms .... 137 Social Revelation 137 Social Redemption 141 Social Regeneration 143 Social Atonement 148 Social Sacrifice 153 Importance of Social Message in our Time . . 155 That Importance emphasized by our National History 158 The Duty of the Christian Church concerning Social Problems 159 Bible Instruction concerning the Laws of Social Life 164 VI. The Minister as Priest Priests and Prophets : Their DiflPerent Func- tions 166 Importance of Devotional Meetings 169 Their Distinctive Character 170 The Lord's Supper : Its Threefold Character . 174 The Devotional Element in Church Services . . 176 The Devotional Reading of Scripture . . . .178 The Musical Service 179 CONTENTS xvu Public Prayer 181 Preparation for Public Prayer 186 Relative Advantages of Liturgical and Non-Lit- urgical Services 188 Testimony of Dr. Bainsford 190 Of Canon Liddon 190 Of Henry Ward Beechep 193 Intercessory Prayer 194 Vn. Qualifications for the Ministry The Minister must possess Spiritual Life . . . 198 And Power to express it 201 Therefore a Definite Purpose 201 The Absorbing Passion of His Life 204 The Power of His Personality 205 Object more Important than Subject in Sermon 208 Mr. Gladstone's Testimony 208 Difference between Sermon and Essay . . . 210 Length of Sermon 213 Necessity for Careful Preparation 215 Mr. Gladstone's Method 216 Phillips Brooks's Method 217 Candor and Courage 219 Bespect for the Opinions of Others 220 Difdculties to be overcome 221 Hopefulness and Patience 223 Ministerial Studies : Human Nature .... 226 The Bible . 227 Acquaintance with God 228 Value of Meditation 229 Vin. Some Ministers op the Olden Time The Hebrew Prophets 231 They claimed to speak for God 233 But do not claim Superiority to Others . . . 236 How their Visions came to them 237 Not Mere Messengers 240 xviii CONTENTS Individuality of their Messages 242 The Source of their Power 243 Both Idealists and Practical Men 246 Dramatic Character of their teachings .... 248 Forthtellers and Foretellers 261 Hopefulness and Courage 251 Every True Minister a Successor of the Pro- phets 262 IX. The Ministry of Jesus Christ : His Methods The Testimony of Ernest Benan and Goldwin Smith 254 The Interpretation of Jesus Christ necessarily Inadequate 255 Christ's Power not Dependent on Dramatic Ef- fects 257 Nor on Oratorical Splendor 258 Nor on Dialectical Skill 259 Christ's Teaching generally Conversational . . 260 Dealt with Great Problems 260 Was Systematic 262 Abounds in Seed Thoughts 266 Aphoristic Style 267 Christ's Industry 268 His Unconventional Methods 269 His Message Expression of His Life .... 270 Therefore exemplified by His Life 271 His Heroism 272 His Hours of Demotion 273 X. The Ministry of Jesus Christ : The Substance of His Teaching Early Formulation of Christ's Teaching . . . 275 His Teaching Vital and Practical 276 Sensuality of Roman Empire 277 First Century Reformers 278 Modern Parallels 279 CONTENTS xix Christ's Use of the World 280 Christ's Indifference to the World 282 Things for Men, not Men for Things .... 284 Three Conceptions respecting our Relation to the World 286 Fundamental Teaching of Hebrew Prophets Re- specting Righteousness 288 Christ's Teaching respecting Righteousness . . 289 Christ's Example respecting Righteousness . . 291 Christ's Doctrine of Brotherhood 292 Standard of Honesty 293 Doctrine of Property 295 Doctrine of Service 297 Principle of Reform 298 His New Commandment 299 Different Conceptions concerning our Relations to God 300 The Hebrew Conception 302 Jesus Christ's Acquaintance with the Father . . 303 His Teaching concerning our Acquaintance with the Father 303 Hopefulness of Christ's Teaching 307 The Kingdom of Heaven has come 308 Obstacles to the Kingdom of God 310 Seeming Absence of God 313 Personal Immortality 315 The Necessary Endowment of a Christian Minis- ter 316 THE CHEISTIAK MmiSTEY CHAPTER I THE FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY Every vocation in life assumes as axiomatic cer- tain fundamental principles on which that vocation is founded. Any man who doubts those funda- mental principles should not choose that vocation. No one should enter the army if he entertains doubts respecting the right of society to use force. He cannot be enthusiastic as a soldier if the theory of non-resistance, as it is expounded by George Fox and Leo Tolstoy, has any place even in his sub- consciousness. No man should enter the legal pro- fession if he regards philosophical anarchism as even a possible social hypothesis. He who is a dis- ciple of Prince Kropotkin, or is inclined to be, cannot be a good lawyer. Christian Scientists hold either that the body and bodily ills have no real existence, or that both are emanations of the mind, and, as a consequence, that all so-called bodily ills are to be cured merely by right thinking. No man to whom this seems a possible hypothesis should enter the medical profession. There are communists who believe with Proudhon that the holding of private 2 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY property is wrong, that all property should be held in common. One who shares this opinion, or even regards it as worthy of serious consideration, ought not to enter on a mercantile career, for the commer- cial world is based on the assumption that the ac- quisition of property is right, and that the ambition to acquire property is a just and laudable ambition. So there are certain principles or doctrines which underlie the Christian ministry. They are its funda- mentals, its axioms. They must be vital convictions in the soul, or the man is unfit to be a minister ; as unfit as a communist to be a railroad president, or an anarchist to be district-attorney, or a Chris- tian Scientist to be a medical practitioner, or a non-resistant to be a soldier. The Christian minis- ter purposes to dedicate his life to the ministry of religion ; therefore he must not merely believe in religion; that belief must be an unquestioned conviction, as clear, as definite, as positive in his experience as is belief in the reality of bodily ills in the mind of a physician, or belief in the legiti- mate use of force to resist wrongdoing in the mind of a soldier. What, then, is religion ? To enter at all adequately upon the religious his- tory of the world for the purpose of determining by a fresh investigation what is the nature of religion as a vital force in human history would take me too far from my immediate theme and require too large a proportion of this volume; to enter on this history but casually would be useless. Instead, FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 3 I accept two definitions which other investigators have given to the world, and which seem to me, after such study of comparative religions as has been practicable for me, to be the best which the philo- sophy of this subject affords. The first, by a divine of the seventeenth century, is popular ; the second, by Max Miiller, is philosophical ; the former lays stress on religion diiefly as a motive power ; the latter, chiefly as an intellectual apprehension ; the former needs for exactness further defining ; the lat- ter is possibly too definite to be entirely adequate. He who wishes to inquire for himself what is rehgion will find the material for such inquiry in the volume from which the second of these two definitions is taken. Henry ScougaU defines religion as "the life of God in the soul of man." ^ In this definition he assumes that God is, and that he has such vital rela- tions with man that the life of God may enter into and affect the life of man. Max Miiller concludes that " religion consists in the perception of the Infi- nite under such manifestations as are able to influ- ence the moral character of man." ^ In this definition he also assumes that the Infinite is, and is an object of perception by man, and that this perception by man of the Infinite constitutes a motive power which enters into his life and affects his moral character. 1 Henry Scougall : The Life of God in the Soul of Man, A. D. 1671. 2 Max Muller : Natural Beligion, p. 188. 4 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY In this volume I shall assume the correctness of these two propositions. I shall recur to them again and again by way of illustration, and for the pur- pose of confirming certain conclusions to which they necessarily lead every thoughtful man who ac- cepts them; but I shall make no attempt to prove their truth. I assume, as the postulates on which this volume is founded, first, that God is an object of perception ; that he can reveal himseK directly and immediately to man; and that man has the capacity to perceive him, either directly and imme- diately, or indirectly and mediately through such revelation ; and, secondly, that if God is thus per- ceived the perception will affect for good or iU the moral character of the man thus perceiving him, the nature of that effect being primarily dependent upon the clearness and the accuracy of man's per- ception of the Infinite. This definition of religion implies that the Infinite is reaUy perceived, not merely imagined. If he is not really perceived, there is no real religion ; there is only a deception or an illusion. What is called religion is of all vital phenomena the most wide- spread and the most influential. Neither art, music, literature, commerce, nor war has done so much to determine the destiny of the nations as religion, be- cause religion has itself determined their art and their music, pervaded, if it has not created, their literature, regulated their commerce by the obliga- tory ideals which it has imposed on them, and some- FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 5 times incited them to war, sometimes mitigated it or restrained them from it. I shall assume that this phenomenon is not due to a deception or an illu- sion, but is the result of a real, though always partial, often obscure, and sometimes perverted per- ception of the Infinite. I shall assume the reality of religion. This definition of religion implies more than a perception of moral ideals, personified under the general title of God. Perception of God means more than a perception of the good ; faith in God means more than belief in justice and mercy. It means belief in a just and merciful Person. " Moral Idealism," truly says James Martineau, " is not Religion, unless the ideal is held to be Heal as well as Divine J^ Religion is more than a perception of an ideal moral principle which exists only in the minds of those who perceive it ; it is the perceptioa of a real moral principle superior to and independ- ent of aU humanity, which, if it really exists at all, must exist in some moral Being. Religion is more and other than ethical culture. The minister of religion must have more than a perception, however vivid and controlling, of ethical principles. He must have a perception of a Person who is controlled by ethical principles and whose action manifests them. This definition of religion implies more than a ^ James Martineaa : " Ideal Substitutes for God," Essays, iv, 278. 6 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY belief in the reality and influence of what is called religion in human life. To perceive in religion only a phenomenon in human history is to perceive only a phase, however important, of human experience ; but religion involves a real perception of the Infi- nite as the cause of religious experience. One may believe in religious phenomena, without believing that a real perception of the Infinite is the cause of religious phenomena. Such a belief in the reality of religious phenomena will suffice to make the be- liever a teacher of comparative religions, but it will not suffice to make him a minister to the religious life. To be such a minister he must perceive the Infinite manifesting himself in the rehgious life. This definition of religion implies more than be- lief in an hypothetical Creator conceived of as a necessary supposition in order to account for the creation, as a scientist conceives of ether as a neces- sary supposition to account for the phenomena of light. It implies more than a rational conclusion that God exists ; it implies a perception of God as a living Being recognized by the spirit of man. Deism is not religion. The philosophical conclusion that God exists is not sufficient to make a man who has reached that conclusion a minister of reli- gion. He must have a perception of the living God, not merely a conception of a theoretical God. Finally, this definition of religion implies more than the perception of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed. Awe in the FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 7 presence of mystery is not religion. Religion is such a perception of God as affects the moral character of man ; it must therefore be the perception of God as a Personal Being, not as an impersonal Force. By a Personal Being I mean a Being who thinks, feels, and wills. Religion is a life in ourselves pro- duced by our perception of Another under such manifestations as influence our moral character, that is, our thinking, our feeling, and our wills; but if it is to influence our thinking, our feeling, and our wills, it must be a perception of One who himself thinks, feels, and wills. The minister of religion must have, therefore, not merely an intellectual apprehension of God ; he must have a moral per- ception of God. He must so perceive him that by that perception his own thinking, feeling, and wiU are modified, clarified, purified, strengthened. There must be in some true sense a reception as well as a perception of God. Or, to recur to the other defi- nition, he must have some measure of the life of God in his own soul, if he is to minister to the life of God in the souls of others. Religion antedates rehgions and is the mother of them all. Religions vary according as curiosity, or fear, or hope, or conscience, or love predominates. Religion is the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man. It may influence primarily to seek for the truth about the Infinite : then it wiU manifest itself in creeds and theologies. It may in- 8 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY fluence primarily to fear the wrath of the Infinite : then it will issue in propitiations and atonements and sacrifices to escape this wrath. It may influence primarily to hope for reward from the Infinite : then it wiU express itself in services and sacrifices offered to the Infinite in hope of recompense here- after. It may influence primarily the conscience through a behef that the Infinite is a righteous law- giver : then it will issue in a constant warfare to compel the lower animal nature to obey the laws and regulations which are believed to be the ex- pressions of his holy will. It may influence pri- marily through love of the Infinite as a Being of illimitable love : then it will issue in loyal, filial, reverential service of him and in gladness of fellow- ship with him. The first religion will be scholastic, the second sacrificial, the third and fourth legalistic if not servile, the fifth spontaneous and gladsome. Each of these phases of rehgion will have its excel- lences and its defects : the first will be definite, but dogmatic ; the second penitential, but superstitious ; the third and fourth will be virile, but hard and sometimes cruel; the fifth will be free and joy- ous, but vague in thought, possibly sentimental if not irreverent, and sometimes careless and lawless in life. In fact, in all religions these different elements are mingled though in different propor- tions. There are defects in all religions, because religion is a human experience ; there are excel- lences in all religions, because in religion man is FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 9 seeking after excellence. Religions change with times, circumstances, and temperaments, but religion is universal. It would be easier to destroy the appe- tites in man, and feed him by shoveling in carbon as into a furnace ; or ambition, and consign him to endless and nerveless content ; or love, and banish him to the life of solitude in the wilderness, than to destroy in him those desires and aspirations and spiritual perceptions which make him kin to God, and inspire in him the higher experiences of awe, reverence, penitence, hope, and love. But the Christian minister is more than a minis- ter of religion; he is a miaister of the Christian religion. If religion " consists in the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man," then the Christian religion consists in a perception of the Infinite so manifested in the life and character of Jesus Christ that the manifestation is able to pro- mote in man Christlikeness of life and character. Then, also, if the minister of religion must have a living perception of the Infinite under such manifes- tations as are able to influence the moral character of man, the Christian minister must so perceive the Infinite as manifested in the hfe and character of Jesus Christ, and must himseK possess such mea- sure of Christlikeness, that he can promote in other men a like perception and a like transformation of character. Religion involves the relation between God and 10 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY man. All such relations involve obligations on both sides : by the inferior to the superior, but also by the superior to the inferior. The child owes duties to the parent, — the parent, also, duties to the child ; the citizen, duties to the government, — the govern- ment, also, duties to the citizen ; the pupil, duties to the teacher, — the teacher, also, duties to the pupil : no less is it true that man owes duties to God, and God also owes duties to man. There is a mutu- ality of obligation. God is under obhgation to man as truly as man is under obligation to God. This mutuality of obligation between God and man is explicitly and reiteratedly affirmed both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is expressed by the word "covenant," for covenant involves mutuality of obligation. There is, on the one hand, the enforcement on man of his obligation toward God ; there is, on the other hand, the recognition on God's part of his obligation toward man. AU religions recognize the obligations of man to- ward God ; what is distinctive about the Christian religion is that it recognizes the obligations of God toward man. This is equally true of the Hebrew religion ; but the Hebrew and the Christian religions are not separate religions, but one. Christianity is the Hebrew religion in flower ; the Hebrew religion is Christianity in bud. When, therefore, I say that what is distinctive about the Christian religion is that it recognizes the obligations of God toward man, I include in that statement the Hebrew with the FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 11 Christian religion. This mutuality of obligation is the common characteristic of the one Hebrew-Chris- tian religion. The obligations of man toward God are expressed, generically, by the term law ; specifically, by special laws; as, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Eule, the summary of the Jewish law as given by Christ in the two great commandments, the precepts which Christ has given (as in the Sermon on the Mount), the moral maxims contained in the Book of Proverbs, or those contained in the twelfth chap- ter of Romans. These laws are the enunciation of obligations which man owes to God and to his fel- low man, because his feUow man is also a child of God. And these obligations which man owes to God are stated, substantially, by the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament as they are stated by other religions ; more clearly, more simply, but in their fundamental elements identical. And this is because these laws of the Old and the New Testa- ment are the embodiment of the law earlier written in the consciences of men. The law, as it is enun- ciated by the prophets and the apostles, is the in- terpretation to man of the law as it is written in his own conscience. But while other religions recognize the obliga- tions of man to God they do not recognize the obligations of God to man. In the precepts of Confucius, in the teachings of Siddhartha, in the code of Hammurabi, the ethical principles embodied 12 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount may be found substantially stated ; but there will not be found in these or in any other religious writings, prior to or apart from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, any recognition of the obliga- tions of God to man, nor any clear and explicit statement of what God will do in fulfilling his covenant for man. Analogies with the Ten Com- mandments can be found, but nothing analogous to such promises as this in the prophecies of Isaiah : Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near : let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him re- turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.^ Nor anything analogous to this declaration of Paul: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved ;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus : that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.^ In these and kindred declarations of what God has done for men and will do for men the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament are unique ; nothing comparable to them is to be found 1 Isaiah Iv, 6, 7. « Eph. ii, 4-6. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 13 in the literature of other religions. In other words, the law, or man's duty to God, is defined in analo- gous terms in all religious literatures ; the Gospel, or God's ministry to man, is peculiar to the Hebrew and Christian religions. It is not only distinctive, it is emphatic. Throughout their history the Hebrew people were taught by their religious teachers to look to the future for their Golden Age. This Golden Age they called " the theocracy," or " the kingdom of God." Their prophets told them that the time would come when the kingdom of God should be estab- lished on the earth and the will of God done here as it is done in heaven. This kingdom was por- trayed in glowing colors. Education should be uni- versal ; law should have its support in religion ; war should cease, and the warring nations should beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks ; the blind should see, and the lame should leap and walk ; the very wild beasts of the forest should be transformed ; the wolf should dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid, and the sucking child play on the hole of the asp, and the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas ; and there should be new heavens and a new earth, and right- eousness and praise should spring forth before all the nations. This kingdom of God was to be initiated by a Coming One, a Messenger of the Most High, a Servant who should be the Messiah, 14 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY a world Deliverer. Sometimes the Nation is indi- cated as this Servant of God ; sometimes a single person seems to be foretold; sometimes he is por- trayed as King, sometimes as Prophet, sometimes as Crowned Sufferer.^ How these various pro- phecies are to be reconciled, or whether they can be reconciled, I do not stop here to discuss: I think myself they are simply different phases of the same gTcat truth. However this may be, it is certain that from the opening chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Malachi, from the legend which speaks of a time when the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head to the closing verse of the Old Testament collection which foretells the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the Old Testa- ment writers agree in turning the faces of the peo- ple toward the future, and fiUing their hearts with a glad anticipation of a final world deliverance from sin and sorrow, through Israel, and through some servant of God who should embody aU that was best and truest in Israel's message to the world. When Jesus Christ came, he began his message with the declaration that the time for the fulfillment of these prophecies had come.^ Going into the synagogue at Nazareth, where he was brought up as 1 Deut. xviii, 15-19 ; Psalm Ixxii ; Isaiah ii, 3, 4, ix, 6, 7, xi, 1-9, xxxiii, 6, XXXV, 6, xU, 8-13, xlii, 1-13, liii, 1-12, Ixi, 1-11, Ixv, 17 ; Micah iv, 2, 3 ; Hab. ii, 14 ; Zech. ix, 9, 10. 2 Matt, iv, 17, X, 7 ; Mark i, 14. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 15 a boy, he is asked to preach, and he opens the Book of Isaiah and finds the place where it is written : The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.* He then declares to the congregation that he has himself come to fulfill this Scripture, and that its fulfillment is to carry blessing not merely to the people of Israel, but to the pagan world as well. This declaration with which he begins his ministry constitutes the theme of his life preaching. That theme is the kingdom of God and himself as its founder. Most of his instructions were conversa- tional ; but he is reported as preaching five great discourses, and this was the theme of the five. In the first, at Nazareth, he proclaims himseK as the One who was to fulfill the ancient prophecy, and initiate the kingdom of God on the earth. In the second, the Sermon on the Mount, preached at the ordination of the Twelve to be his helpers, he explains the nature and expounds the prin- ciples of that kingdom. In the third discourse, or series of discourses, the Parables by the sea- shore, he traces prophetically the growth of that kingdom. In the fourth, on the Bread of Life, he reveals the secret of the power by which that king- 1 Luke iv, 18, 19; Isaiah M, 1, 2. 16 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY dom of God is to be established in this world : the secret is acceptance of the Christ spirit, posses- sion of the Christ life, loyalty to Christ. In the fifth, the discourse on the last days, he foretells the consummation of that kingdom, and the public recognition of himself as the judge and lord of the kingdom.^ Once he asks his disciples whom they think him to be. When Peter replies by affirming their faith that he is the promised Messiah, he approves the declaration, and affirms that on this faith in him as the world Deliverer, and on the power of that faith to transform men as it will transform Peter from a character as shifty as the waves of the sea to one as firm as a rock foundation, he will build his church. Again and again, in language which would be supremely egotistical were it not divinely true, he points to himself as the source of life in all its various phases. " I have come," he says, " that they might have life, and that they might have it more abimdantly." And what he means by life he makes clear by repeated and explicit invi- tations, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I wiU give you rest." " Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men." " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." " My peace I give unto you." " These things have I 1 Luke iv, 16-21 ; Matt, v, yi, vii, xiii ; John vi, 26-59, FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 17 spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you." ^ Rest, power, contentment, peace, joy, — these are some of the elements in that life which he declares that he has come to give to mankind. His life draws to a close. Betrayed by one dis- ciple, denied by a second, deserted by the others, he is brought before the Jewish Supreme Court and accused of blasphemy in declaring himself to be the long-promised Messiah. In violation of the Jewish law he is put upon the witness-stand, the oath is administered to him, and he is asked directly the question whether he is the Messiah or no. In full consciousness of the fact that by his answer he seals his own death warrant, he replies, " I am." ^ He dies, and in his grave the hopes of his disciples are buried. They return to their fishing. Then it be- gins to be whispered about among them that the Jesus whom they followed has risen from the dead. With difficulty they are convinced of the fact, but when they are convinced their despair is turned into triumph. The fact that death had no dominion over him convinces them that he was indeed the One who was to bring deliverance to the world ; and with this message they go forth to carry the hope of deliverance to the nations. If the reader will turn to the Book of Acts, and read the reports there given of the Apostolic sermons, he will find that 1 Matt, xvi, 13-19 ; John x, 10 ; Matt, xi, 28 ; Mark i, 17 ; John Tii, 37 ; John iv, 14 ; John xiv, 27 ; John xv, 11. 2 Mark xiv, 62. 18 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY they are all different forms of the same message.^ That message is not ethical, it is not a new philoso- phy of life, nor a new interpretation of the character of God, nor the elaboration of a new conception of man's relation to God. The Apostles are witness- bearers and what they bear witness to is this : The world Deliverer has come, and we know that he is the world Deliverer because he has triumphed over the last enemy, Death, over whom no one before ever won a victory. In that message Christianity was bom, by that message Christianity has won its victory in the world. Says Browning : Does the precept run " Believe in good, In justice, truth, now understood For the first time ? " — or, * ' Believe in me, Who lived and died, yet essentially Am Lord of Life ? " Whoever can take The same to his heart and for mere lovers sake Conceive of the love, — that man obtains A new truth ; no conviction gains Of an old one only, made intense By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.^ The reports of Christ's life and teachings afforded by the Four Gospels answer Browning's question : Jesus Christ was the theme of his own ministry. The history of Christianity confirms Browning's affirmation : it is the history of a new moral power in the world derived from a new perception of the Infinite, and a new effect produced thereby on the moral character of man. 1 For examples : Acts ii, 22-36; iii, 12-26 ; iv, 8-12 ; v, 29-82. * Robert Browning : Christmas Eve, xviL FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 19 It has often been said that Christianity is summed up in the two commands, — " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with aU thy mind," and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." In fact, this is not Chris- tianity at all ; this is Christ's summary of Judaism, his summary of the law which defines man's obliga- tion to God.i But this definition of man's obligation to God is not distinctively Christian, it is hardly even distinctively Jewish. Christianity is the state- ment of what God has done and is doing for man ; and what it affirms God has done and is doing for man is this : God has come into life and fiUed one human life fuU of himself that he may fill all human lives full of himself, and in doing this he has brought the world deliverance from its sins, and transformed its sorrows into sources of a joy deeper than any sorrowless joy. Let us return to Max MiiUer's definition: re- ligion is " the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man." Then the Christian re- ligion is such a perception of the Infinite as mani- fested in the life and character of Jesus Christ that the perception is able to produce in man Christlikeness of life and character. I do not wonder that men disbelieve the Incar- nation. I sometimes wonder whether any man believes it, whether I really believe it myself. 1 Matt, xadi, 37-40. 20 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY What does it really mean? Nothing else than this : that the " Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which aU things proceed," ^ which creates, rules, pervades the universe, energizing it alike on the earth and on the remotest star ; that the " Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness," ^ the power in aU history, overruling all human wills, and out of stubborn and stupid souls working out a divine progress in events ; that this Energy, this Power, has entered into one human life, filled it full, and lived and loved and suffered and died that we might know who and what he is, and how he who is intangible, inaudible, invisible, is opera- tive upon us. I believe this because I believe, with Browning, that it is easier to think God has done this than that man has imagined it. But, if we are ministers of the Christian religion, we perceive the Infinite not merely in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth ; we perceive the Infinite in his post-resurrection life and work. We believe and ^ " Amid all the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one abso- lute certainty, that he is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." — Herbert Spencer: Religious Retrospect and Prospect, "Ecclesiastical In- stitutions," p. 843. 2 " How are we to verify that there rules an enduring Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness ? We may answer at once : How ? Why, as you verify that fire bums, — by experi- ence I It is so ; try it ! You can try it ; every case of conduct, of that which is more than three fourths of your own life and of the life of all mankind, will prove it to you." — Matthew Arnold : Literature and Dogma, p. 267. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 21 bear witness not merely that God was in Christ re- conciling the world unto himself ; we believe and bear witness that God is in this world of men here and now. The incarnation was not ended at Calvary. It is a perpetual fact. We believe that Christ is risen from the dead. This is not merely a curious fact in ancient history. What difference would it make to us whether Jesus rose from the dead or not if that were aU ? It is not practically important for us to know whether the man borne to his burial, and falling from his bier, rose from the dead when he fell on Elisha's bones. It is not practically im- portant for us to know whether Lazarus really rose from the dead or not. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is important, because to us it means that this God who was manifest in the flesh, this image of God, this Immanuel — God with us — is stiU with us. He is not dead, he never died, he could not die. This Christ, who lived eighteen centuries ago in Nazareth and Capernaum, still lives ; there is no death for him or for his followers ; he came back to the world ; he is in the world ; he is as truly in America as he was in Galilee, as present in the Christian church as he was in the Jewish temple and the Jewish synagogue ; and he is carrying on through all these centuries the same work of for- giving, healing, helping, inspiring love which he carried on during the three short years of his re- corded earthly life. The Christian religion is the perception of the Infinite in the earthly life of 22 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Jesus Christ ; it is also the perception of the Infi- nite in the world history of Christianity. It is the perception of God in the world reconciling the world to himself, — forgiving its sins, assuaging its sor- rows, and inspiring it with a new and divine life. The Christian religion involves a new theology, that is, a new conception of God. The earliest con- ception of God is of one who is manifested in power. This is a true conception, but it is a partial, incomplete, imperfect, and so misleading concep- tion. He is seen as the All-mighty One, but only as the AU-mighty One. He is more. Says a He- brew Psalmist : " Twice have I heard this ; that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy." ^ When the first message only is heard, not also the second, when man sees the Infinite only in the manifestation of extraordinary power, and not also in the merciful instincts of his own heart, the natural result is a religion of fear. This religion Plutarch has graphically portrayed : Of all fears none so dazes and confounds as superstition. He fears not the sea that never goes to sea; nor a battle that follows not the camp ; nor robbers that goes not abroad ; nor malicious informers that is a poor man ; nor emulation that leads a private life ; nor earthquakes that dwells in Gaul ; nor thunderbolts that dwells in Ethiopia : but he that dreads the divine powers dreads everything, — the land, the sea, the air, the sky, the dark, the light, a sound, a silence, a dream. ^ 1 Psalm Ixii, 11, 12. 2 Plutarch's Morals, i, 169, Of Superstitioii. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 23 To the pagan world dominated by this fear came the Jewish religion, which in its earlier forms was a conception of God as one manifested in the con- science of mankind. Its message to the world was that God is a righteous God who demands right- eousness of his children and demands nothing else ; that he wiU reward with peace and prosperity those who obey his just laws, but also that he wiU recom- pense with penalty, certain and terrible, those who do not obey. " I call heaven and earth to record this day against you," says the author of the Book of Deuteronomy, " that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." ^ This conception of God as a righteous Person, who " loves righteousness and expects man to conform to his peremptory rules of law," ^ ^as a true con- ception, but it was also partial, incomplete, im- perfect, and so misleading. It was not a conception which brought peace, for there was always possible a fear that the soul had made a wrong choice, and the more conscientious the individual the greater was his apprehension. From both fears the later Hebrew religion by its message, and Christianity by its fulfillment of that message, brought deliver- ^ Dent. XXX, 19. 2 " The profound religions movement which took place in the Kingdom of Israel in the ninth century b. c. resolved itself into the assertion that Jehovah is a just God, who loves righteousness and expects man to conform to his peremptory rules of law." — Benan : History of the People of Israd, ii, 304. 24 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY ance. It perceived the Infinite not only as the Al- mighty, not only as a righteous God who demands righteousness of his children and demands nothing else; it perceived God as a redeeming God, who will help man to attain righteousness. The message of Mosaism was summed up in the Ten Command- ments : Reverence God, honor your parents, regard the rights of your neighbor, and do this spontane- ously from the heart, do not desire to do the re- verse, and God will be your God, and you shall be to him a nation of priests. The message of the later Hebrew religion was summed up in the One Hundred and Third Psalm : Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits : Who f orgiveth all thine iniquities ; Who healeth all thy diseases ; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction ; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies ; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things ; So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.^ This message, illustrated, emphasized, manifested, fulfilled in the life of Christ and in the Christian experience of his disciples, constitutes the message of the Christian ministry to the world. It is the message that God is such an one as Jesus Christ ; that the Infinite is to be seen manifested in a finite form in Jesus Christ; that he judges as Jesus Christ judges, condemns as Jesus Christ condemns, forgives as Jesus Christ forgives ; that he is a Healer ^ Psalm ciii, 2-5. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 25 and Helper, a Saviour and Redeemer, a Friend of the friendless, a Companion of men; that he is ever doing in the world what Jesus Christ did in Galilee ; that the Infinite is love, and that the life and service and sufferings of Jesus Christ are the interpreters of his love. To the pagan conception of God as power, to the Jewish conception of God as justice, — both of which were but partial and imperfect, — Christianity adds the revelation of God as mercy. Power is no longer feared when it is the power of a Father, pledged to be used for the suc- cor of his child. And this is the message of Chris- tianity to the fearful : " My Father, which hath given them unto me, is greater than all ; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." ^ Justice is no longer feared when, at the same moment and by the same act by which jus- tice sets up a standard of character, it promises to enable the feeblest to achieve the standard. And this is the testimony of Christianity to the fearful : " He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." ^ But the Christian religion is not merely a per- ception of the Infinite in the life and character of Jesus Christ, and in the post-resurrection history of his work in the world, it is also a change in the moral character of man produced by that percep- tion. It is the transformation of character, indi- vidual and social, which that perception has wrought 1 John X, 29. a 1 John i, 9. 26 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY in men. The perception of the Infinite as helping mankind out of their ignorance and poverty and misery and sinfulness has inspired in men to whom that perception was given a like spirit of helpful- ness. The life of Christ as a revelation of what the Father is always doing in the world has inspired men to identify themselves with him in this service of love. For the standard of justice which Judaism had given in the Golden Rule, — "all things what- soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,"i Christ substituted a new standard in the commandment, " That ye love one another, as I have loved you." ^ Not equality of ser- vice, but self-sacrificing service, is the ideal, and in an increasing number of instances has become the passion of the disciples of Jesus Christ. Inspired by this spirit, Christianity became a great world movement for the emancipation and elevation of mankind. Christianity is the abolition of slavery, the overthrow of despotism, the recognition of the truth that all just governments are administered for the benefit of the governed, the organization of charity for the poor, the sick, the blind, the establishment of educational systems intended for and open to the masses, the diffusion of wealth 1 Matt, vii, 12. Christ does not give this as his rule of life, but as his summary of the law and the prophets. The Golden Rule is simply a rule of justice. What right have I to demand that another should treat me better than I would treat him if our positions and relations were reversed ? a John XV, 12. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 27 and comfort, better homes, better food, better clothing, better sanitary conditions for all men. Because Christianity is a new perception of what Christlike work God is doing in the world, because it is an inspiration to man to take part in this work, it is a great- world movement. It is Christ's sermon at Nazareth writ large in hmnan history ; it is the story of One who for eighteen centuries has been proclaiming glad tidings to the poor, heal- ing the broken-hearted, delivering the captives, bestowing sight on the blind, setting at liberty those that are bruised. It is the One Hundred and Third Psalm writ large in human experience ; the history of a world that has been sinning and sick and dying and humbling its head in dust and ashes, and of a God who has been forgiving its iniqui- ties and healing its diseases and saving it from self- destruction and crowning it with loving-kindness and with tender mercies. The Christian minister is a minister of this Christian redemption. It is true that in the life and character of Jesus Christ he holds up a new ideal and a new standard of life, and writes under- neath it, " That ye love one another, as I have loved you." It is true that, in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, he holds up a new conception of God as the Father of whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, and writes underneath it, " Say, Our Father." But he does more than this. He is the herald of a great Deliverer, and he brings the 28 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY message of a world deliverance. His message is that the Messiah has come; that the world is a saved world ; that sorrow is transformed, so that even in their tears Christians may cry, " We glory in tribulations also ; " ^ that sin is vanquished, so that even while the battle is waged against it, Christians may shout as they fight, " We are more than conquerors through him that loved us." ^ He is the messenger of glad tidings to the poor, of healing to the broken-hearted, of deliverance to the captives, of sight to the blind, of liberty to the bruised ; he is the preacher of forgiveness to the sin- ful, of health to the diseased and the dying, of newness of life to those who have thrown their lives away, of loving-kindness and tender mercies to those for whom life seems to have no mercy, and hu- manity no love. If he is to do this, he must perceive the Infinite as the Infinite is manifested in Jesus Christ, and he must be able to open the eyes of men so that they shall perceive the Infinite as the Infinite is manifested in Jesus Christ, and he must so perceive the Infinite in Jesus Christ, and so enable them to perceive the Infinite in Jesus Christ, that Christ- likeness of disposition and character shall be pro- moted alike in himself and in them. I do not say that a man may not at times have doubts respecting the Christian religion, and still be an effective Chris- tian minister. A soldier may at times wonder, Is 1 Rom. V, 3. ^ Rom. viii, 37. FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 29 war ever right ? or a doctor, Is it worth while to administer drugs ? But underlying the soldier's pro- fession is the strong confidence that it is right to use force to put down force, and underlying the doctor's profession is the strong conviction that there are physical remedies for physical diseases. So, despite the doubts that may sometimes surge in upon him, underlying the work of the Christian minister must be his fundamental faith, so wrought into his con- sciousness that it is a part of his nature, not merely that there are noble moral ideals, not merely that there is a personal God, not merely that we owe to him reverential and loving obedience, but that God is in his world, ever doing what Jesus Christ is portrayed as doing in his earthly life, — pardoning iniquity, healing disease, redeeming life from de- struction, and crowning man with loving-kindnesses and with tender mercies. It is because this is the message of the Christian Church that the Church lays such stress upon its faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The re- surrection of Jesus Christ means to the Christian believer that the Deliverer triumphed over death in the very moment when death seemed to triumph over him. It means that the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth is but the projection in visible form upon the screen of human history of a spiritual force more effective now than then just because it is invisible, an influence working in and through the spirits of men, and therefore limited by no con- 30 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY ditions of time or space. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely a miraculous evidence of his Messiahship, it is not merely the historical basis of Christianity as a world movement ; it is also an historical witness to the spiritual vitality of a Divine Redeemer whom death could not imprison. This message of the Christian religion makes it a missionary religion. The Christian missionary does not go to pagan nations to teU them that their religion is the product of priestcraft, or a delusion of the devil; nor to abolish one form of worship that he may substitute another ; nor as the enemy of the spiritual faith, imperfect as it may be, of the people to whom he ministers. He goes in the spirit of Paul to Athens, — to say to the pagan world, " Whom without understanding ye worship, him we declare unto you ; " he goes to make clearer and more intelligible the voice of their own conscience as it is interpreted in their own ethical precepts ; he goes to emphasize their own sense of sin and their own need of pardon and help as these find expression in their religious rituals ; and, above all, he goes to answer the question which their religious faith asks. Professor William James, in his suggestive vol- ume " The Varieties of Religious Experience," says, " Is there, imder all the discrepancies of creeds, a common nucleus to which they bear their testimony unanimously?" and answers his question in the affirmative thus : FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 31 The warring Gods and formulas of the various reli- gions do indeed cancel each other, but there is a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts : 1. An uneasiness ; and 2. Its solution. 1. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we nat- urally stand. 2. The solution is that we are saved from the wrongs ness by making proper connection with the higher powers.^ This is as far as paganism carries its votaries. The question which it leaves them asking, " How shall we make proper connection with the higher powers ? " Christianity answers by replying, " The higher powers have already made that connection." We have not to remove the past sins which sepa- rate us from God, for he has already forgiven them ; we are not to earn his favor by penances or services of any description, — his favor is the free gift of his love; we are not by self -absorption and interior meditation to think ourselves into some mystical acquaintance with him, — he has revealed himself to us by coming into human life and interpreting him- self to us in the terms of a human experience ; in short, we are not to climb up to God, — he has come down to us, and takes us into his strong arms as a father takes his child : all that we need to do is to accept the forgiveness that he freely offers, 1 William James : The Varieties of Religious Experience^ p. 508. 32 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY and live joyously the life with which he inspires us. This message of the Christian Church is the se- cret of the power which the Evangelical churches possess, and which no naturalistic philosophy or mere ethical teaching can ever rival. It is our faith in this message which makes us suspicious of aU philoso- phies which seem to eliminate the supernatural from the world. It is because this is our message that we insist upon what are commonly called the great cardinal doctrines of the Evangelical faith, such as Inspiration, Incarnation, Atonement, and Regenera- tion. This is not because we are enamored of a particular system of theology; it is because our message to the world is like that of Jacob to him- self when he woke from his dream : " Surely the Lord is in this place ; and I knew it not." I have been often asked to define the difference between the New Theology and Unitarianism. That difference is difficult to define, because both the New Theology and Unitarianism lay stress on life rather than on doctrine. But I may indicate the two trends of opin- ion, — one toward Divine inunanence, the other toward naturalism, — without imdertaking to iden- tify the first with the new orthodoxy, or the second with Unitarianism, and 1 may do this by quoting the words of James Martineau, who, though he always disavowed the name Unitarian, was certainly no Trinitarian, and in his philosophy belonged to the liberal school of thought, though he was not always FUNDAMENTAL FAITHS OF THE MINISTRY 33 ecclesiastically in sympathy with the Unitarian de- nomination. His testimony is the more significant because it was written toward the close of his life : Your experience confirms my growing surprise, that the mission which had been consigned to us by our his- tory is likely to pass to the Congregationalists in Eng- land and the Presbyterians in Scotland. Their escape from the old orthodox scheme is by a better path than ours. With us, insistence upon the simple Humanity of Christ has come to mean the limitation of all Divine- ness to the Father, leaving Man a mere item of crea- turely existence under the laws of Natural Necessity. With them the transfer of emphasis from the Atonement to the Incarnation means the retention of a Divine es- sence in Christ, as the Head and Type of Humanity in its realized idea ; so that Man and Life are lifted into kinship with God, instead of what had been God being reduced to the scale of mere Nature. The union of the two natures in Christ resolves itself into their union in man, and links Heaven and Earth in relations of com- mon spirituality. It is easy to see how the Divineness of existence, instead of being driven off into the heights beyond life, is thus brought down into the deeps within it, and diffuses there a multitude of sanctities that would else have been secularized. Hence, the feeling of rever- ence, the habits of piety, the aspirations of faith, the hopes of immortality, the devoutness of duty, which have so much lost their hold on our people, remain real powers among the liberalized orthodox, and enable them to carry their appeal home to the hearts of men in a way the secret of which has escaped from us. I hardly think we shall recover it now. There is plenty of scope, how- ever, for any young prophet who can bring into his mis- 34 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY sion the faith and fervour of more spiritual churches, in combination with the rationality and veracity of ours.^ Whenever a minister forgets this splendid mes- sage of pardon, peace, and power based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, whenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical essays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or even ethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, in other words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceum or seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages of the world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will be its power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to conquer, and sorrows to be assuaged. 1 James Dnuumond : The Life and Letters of James Martineau, ii, 231. CHAPTER II THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY Is there any longer need for a Church and a min- istry ? That men and women are putting this ques- tion to themselves, and answering it either with a doubtful affirmative or with a positive negative, cannot be questioned by any student of modem thought. There are a few who agree, more or less defi- nitely, with Strauss ^ that " instead of a prerogative of human nature it [religion] appears as a weak- ness which adhered to mankind during the period of childhood, but which it must outgrow on at- taining maturity." They rank religion with super- stition, believe it to be the product of priestcraft, — something which has been imposed upon the credu- lity of mankind, — a weakness, not a strength ; a fee- bleness, if not a folly, which belongs to the primitive condition of mankind, and is to be discarded as man- kind reaches its higher development. Such men look with contempt upon the institutions of religion, because they look with contempt upon religion it- self. Others believe that reverence and awe are neces- 1 David Friedrich Strauss : The Old Faith and the New, i, 158. 36 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY sary experiences of the human soul, but that they are aroused by mystery, and dispelled by knowledge. In their view all that concerns the Infinite and the Eternal is involved in impenetrable mystery. God is the Unknown and the Unknowable. Religion cannot be defined in doctrine, nor taught in text- books and sermons, nor embodied in institutions. Such men discard religious teaching and religious institutions, because they hold that the invisible lies beyond the realm of apprehension. They think, if they do not say, with Huxley, " truly on this topic silence is golden; while speech reaches not even the dignity of sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, and is but the weary clatter of an endless logo- machy." 1 To those who have clearly defined their views, even to themselves, as thus anti-religious or imre- ligious, must be added a larger number of men and women whose education has taught them that the intellectual forms in which religion has expressed itself in the past are not consistent with truths clearly revealed to us by modern investigation. They can no longer believe in the infallibility of the Bible, or in the historicity of miracles as mira- cles are understood by them, or in the fall of man and the entrance of imperfection and sin into the world as a consequence of that faU, or even in the personality of God, which they identify with the anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity formed by 1 T. H. Huxley : Hume, p. 183. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 37 them in their childhood ; and as these intellectual forms of religion are still in their minds identified with the Church and its teachings, they either at- tend the Church and listen to those teachings with impatience or indifference, or discard both the Church and the 'ministry altogether. More than either, probably more than all these classes combined, are those who discard the institu- tions of religion, not because they discard religion, but because they think that religion is so pervasive, so universal, so fimdamental an instinct of human- ity that institutions of religion are no longer needed. Religion is a spirit, and aU the experiences of life are engaged in promoting and developing it. Time was, such men say to themselves, when religious institutions were indispensable, and they are still indispensable to certain classes in the community. They are, therefore, to be respected, encouraged, per- haps supported ; but the world is outgrowing them ; other instrumentalities have come in to develop the religious spirit and to make ecclesiastical or- ganizations unnecessary. The apostle Peter cata- logues the elements which go to make up a divinely organized character: "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temper- ance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." ^ Various instrumen- talities in society, say such non-churchgoers, are de- 1 2 Pet. i, 5-7. 38 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY veloping these virtues in man as well or better than rituals and sermons. Athletics produce virtue, or manliness. The requirements of business promote temperance, because drinking men are no longer wanted iu positions of trust. Daily life, by the bur- dens which it lays upon us, develops patience as no preacher can develop it. Social intercourse evokes in us brotherly kindness. The home, the wife, the children inspire in us love. There remain in the apostle's catalogue faith and godliness. Concerning these two qualities such skeptics are silent. Perhaps in confidential conversation they will admit that the old religion produced certain qualities of piety and reverence which modem scientific thought, business activity, and social affiliations do nothing to pro- duce, but if so, they will regard the loss with mild regret, as they regard the lost arts of a bygone civilization ; possibly they may say with Frederic Harrison and the Humanists, more probably they will think without saying, that the new reverence for Humanity must take the place of the old rever- ence for God. Says the author of " Letters from a Chinese Official : " Humanity they [the Chinese] are taught as a being spiritual and eternal manifesting itself in time in a series of generations. This being is the mediator between heaven and earth, between the ultimate ideal and the existing fact. By labor incessant and devout to raise earth to heaven, to realize in fact the good that exists as yet only in idea — that is the end and purpose of human THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 39 life, and in fulfilling it we achieve and maintain our unity, each with every other and all with the Divine. Here surely is a faith not unworthy to be called a reli- gion.^ If faith is looking upon the things that are un- seen, this is not faith. If religion is a perception of the Infinite, this is not religion. Looking at one's self in the mirror and worshiping one's own image is not reverence. Spelling humanity with a capital H does not make it divine. But this reverence for an idealized humanity is offered by a few and ac- cepted by many as a substitute for that religion which is the life of God in the soul of man. Other men in the community, and these probably a stiU greater number, regard religion as impor- tant, and even the Church and the institutions of religion as valuable, but not for themselves. "I always thought," says Moses Pennel, " that my wife must be one of the sort of women who pray."^ Moses Pennel is a type. Many men desire the in- spirations and restraints of religion for others, but do not desire those inspirations, still less those re- straints, for themselves. They are glad to have their children in the Sunday-school and their wives in the church, but they do not go themselves ; they say in moments of confidence. When we go to church we get nothing from it, we do not hear as good music as at the opera, and the minister tells ^ Letters from a Chinese Official, p. 52. 2 Harriet Beecher Sto\?e : Pearl of Orr^s Island, p. 321. 40 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY US nothing we did not know before ; we prefer to remain at home and read. To these classes must be added still another, and a not inconsiderable one, of those who discard the Church because it seems to them to discard religion. Liberal leaders have told them that Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, that the inspiration of this life is to be found in Jesus Christ, and the ideal of this life in his teachings and his character, and they declare that they do not find this ideal presented or this inspiration afforded by the Christian Church. This class is thus described by the editor of " The Hibbert Journal : " The type of plain man we are considering wants a more valid proof than has yet been offered that the world is serious when it professes the Christianity which is a life and not a creed. He doubts, moreover, whether he could seriously and honestly make such a profession himself. He is by all operative standards an honorable man; he deals honestly in trade, is a good husband and father, faithful to his friends (though per- haps a little hard on his foes), public-spirited, patriotic, munificent. But to pretend that the ethics of the Ser- mon on the Mount are his, even in their spirit, would be a flagrant falsehood. He admires the beauty, he may even admit the philosophic truth of the principle which bids him lose his life to save it; but he is an acting member of a community whose industrial life is based on the opposite principle of competition ! He knows the danger of riches ; remembers the saying about lay- ing up treasure on earth ; but willingly and eagerly takes THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 41 his part in an economic system which rests on the accu- mulation of wealth. He is a firm supporter of the criminal law ; holds that great armaments are necessary to the life of nations ; takes pride in the majesty and power of the British fleet; upholds the Government when it shakes the mailed fist in the face of foreign nations, — and he will not sully his conscience by pre- tending that he who does these things is a believer, in any sense whatever, in non-resistance to evil, in unlimited forgiveness, or in the principle of turning the other cheek. If these commandments are involved in the Christianity which is a life, if obedience to them is re- quired of the followers of Christ, then he is no Christian, and will not pretend to be.^ Perhaps if, when he went to church, he heard the Christian ideal simply and clearly defined, and the violations of that ideal current in human society candidly and courageously condemned, he might continue to go, though he fell under that condem- nation himself ; but he declines to go to a church which substitutes a lower ideal, condones where it should condemn, or offers acceptance of a creed, long or short, simple or complex, or participation in a ritual, liturgical or non-liturgical, for a sim- ple and real acceptance of the precepts and prin- ciples of Jesus Christ, and an honest endeavor to apply them to the current problems of modern life. The view of these classes, more or less clearly defined, more or less consciously entertained, that 1 The Hibbert Journal, January, 1904, pp. 254, 255. 42 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY the institutions of religion are no longer necessary for the promotion of the higher life, or that the in- stitutions of religion as they exist in this country to-day no longer do promote the higher life, seems to receive some confirmation from the fact that certain functions which the Church once performed it no longer needs to perform, because other insti- tutions have come in to take its place and to do its work in these departments. I. The Church was originally the administrator of charity. When the Church was bom there were no organized charities in the world. There are expres- sions of charity in the ancient moralists, no doubt, but charity, organically, wisely, systematically ad- ministered, did not exist in pagan Rome, and was not developed by pagan literature. Says Mr. Lecky: However fully they [the Stoics] might reconcile in theory their principles with the widest and most active benevolence, they could not wholly counteract the prac- tical evil of a system which declared war against the whole emotional side of our being, and reduced human virtue to a kind of majestic egotism. . . . The frame- work or theory of benevolence might be there, but the animating spirit was absent. Men who taught that the husband or father should look with perfect indifference on the death of his wife or his child, and that the philo- sopher, though he may shed tears of pretended sympathy in order to console his suffering friend, must suffer no real emotion to penetrate his heart, could never found a true or lasting religion of benevolence. Men who refused THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 43 to recognize pain and sickness as evils were scarcely- likely to be very eager to relieve them in others.* When, therefore, the Christian churches came into existence, they had not only to inspire the spirit of benevolence, but they had also to organize the activities of benevolence. There were no organiza- tions into which they could put the expression of the new life. There were no charitable organiza- tions ; and the Church was not in touch with the great political organizations and could not affect them. If the work of benevolence was to be done at all, it had to be done by the Church ; and the Church, therefore, became an organized charitable society. This work of charity done by the Church became one of its most prominent pieces of work. Says Edwin Hatch : The teaching of the earliest Christian homily which has come down to us [Clement on Romans xvi] elevates almsgiving to the chief place in Christian practice: " Fasting is better than prayer, almsgiving is better than fasting : blessed is the man who is found perfect therein, for almsgiving lightens the weight of sin." It was in this point that the Christian communities were unlike the other associations which surrounded them. Other asso- ciations were charitable: but whereas in them charity was an accident, in Christian associations it was of the essence. They gave to the religious revival which almost always accompanies a period of social strain the special direction of philanthropy. They brought into the Euro- * W. E. H. Lecky : History of European Morals, i, pp. 201, t44 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRT pean world that regard for the poor which had beeD for centuries the burden of Jewish hymns.^ Out of these conditions grew the organization of the early churches. They were almoners of charity no less than preachers of religion. The spirit of charity which they created they also organized ; the gifts which they inspired they also distributed. That spirit of humanity which leads the rich to provide for the poor, and the competent to care for the incompetent, — the deaf and blind and sick and weak-minded, — existed only very feebly, and only in exceptional individuals, outside of the Christian Church ; and as this spirit of humanity was dis- tinctively and almost exclusively a church as well as a Christian virtue, its organic exercise was nat- urally intrusted to church officers. Out of this charitable work grew, as Dr. Hatch tells us, the bishopric. But in our time the conditions have entirely changed, — changed because the Church has done its fundamental work so thoroughly. The spirit of humanity is still a Christian virtue ; but it is no longer a distinctively church virtue. The Church has so permeated Christendom with the spirit of humanity that it no longer needs administer through its own organism the spirit of charity which it has inspired. The city, the state, the nation, have be- come charitable organizjations. The system of penol- 1 Edwin Hatch : Organization of the Early Christian Churches^ pp. 35, 36. Gomp. A. P. Stanley : Christian Institutions^ pp. 210, 211. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 46 ogy has become a system of reform. Hospitals and poorhouses and orphan asylums are founded, some by the political organism, others by private enter- prise. And it is a little difficult for the philosopher to see why church charities should exist to any great extent. Why should we have a Presbyterian hospital and an Episcopal hospital ? Is there a Pres- byterian method of setting a broken bone, or an Episcopalian method of curing typhoid fever ? Nor can it be said that church hospitals are doing any better or any different work than the hospitals which are inspired by the Christian Church, but not directed by it. It is not, then, the function of the Christian minister, primarily, to be an almoner of public charity, or to be an administrator of philanthropic work. Whether it is best that a church should be what men call an institutional church or not, will depend altogether upon circumstances. If it is situated in a community where that kind of work is already adequately and sufficiently done, or in a community where it can inspire men to do it by other than distinctively church organizations, that is the better way. It is better to inspire the Young Men's Christian Association to carry on a gymna- sium than for the Church to carry on a gymnasium. It is better to inspire the city to maintain a hos- pital than for the Church to maintain a hospital. Nevertheless, there remains a very fundamental charitable work for the Church to do. Much insist' 46 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY ence is put in our time upon organized charity, — and not too much ; but it is quite possible to put all the emphasis on the organization and none on the charity. The primary function of the Church is to inspire in men the spirit of love, not to organize, direct, or administer that love when it has been inspired. There are other organizations — national, state, voluntary — to carry out the requirements of that spirit whenever and wherever it exists. But what institution, other than the Church, makes it a direct, specific, and definite object to create, fos- ter, and develop the spirit of charity? The cry. More money for hospitals and less for churches, is like the cry. More water for the reservoir and less for the springs. For the greater proportion of the money for all benevolent and educational in- stitutions supported by private contributions comes either directly from the churches, or indirectly from them through men whose education has been re- ceived in the churches and whose ideals have been obtained there. The Church is to be measured, not by the institutions it sustains, but by the inspiration it imparts. Even where the conditions of the community are such as to require an institutional church, the more institutional it is, the more necessary that it should be made inspirational. These subsidiary institu- tions, — the boys' club, the girls' club, the gym- nasium, the kindergarten, — as carried on by a church, are but the instruments by which the THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 47 Church is to serve men in the higher Hfe. The clergyman who allows himself to forget his great work, which is the promotion of the life of God in the soul of man, in order that he may establish a philanthropic institution or a gymnasium or a kindergarten or a sewing-school, allows himself to be diverted from the higher and nobler service to one that is less important. It is a great mistake if the modem minister substitutes the charitable administration of a philanthropic machine for the inspirational work of the pulpit, kindling in men the flame of human love and of godly reverence. To do this is to do exactly the reverse of that which the Apostles counseled ; they said, " It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables." ^ The word of God is the revealing of God to men ; serving tables is philanthropic ministry to the lesser, though more apparent, needs of men. n. A second function which the Church exercised in the olden time, and which it no longer has occa- sion to exercise, was that of government. When the Koman Empire feU into ruins, and the Imperial autocracy was dissolved, little or nothing remained of government for a time but the municipal system. The members of the municipal governing bodies became discouraged and apathetic, and the priests and bishops, fuU of the new life, naturally and rightfully offered themselves to do the work of superintendence and administration for the muni- ^ 1 Acts vi, 2. 48 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY cipalities. They became the principal municipal magistrates, because they were the men of force and honor. " We should be wrong," says Guizot, " to reproach them for this, to tax them with usurpa- tion. It was all in the natural course of things ; the clergy alone were morally strong and animated ; they became everywhere powerful. Such is the law of the universe." ^ As the result of this cooperation with the civil authorities in the administration of the municipal- ities, political power gradually passed over to the bishops, and then finally to the Bishop of Rome, and there ensued the next stage of political devel- opment, in which the clergy cooperated with the civilians in the administration of the State. They divided the functions, the clergy taking the ecclesi- astical side of life, the civilians the civil side of life. Under this system the Church and the State became one, as they had been one in the Hebrew Commonwealth. The identification of the two in one organism is thus described by Professor James Bryce: Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, in two aspects ; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian soci- ety, is also Romanism ; that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality ; manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two natures of its Founder. As divine and eternal, its head is the ^ Guizot : History of Civilization in Eurcpe, i, 36. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 49 Pope, to whom souls have been entrusted; as human and temporal, the Emperor, commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts. But this, which Mr. Bryce well calls " the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of Church and State," proved to be impracticable ; in fact, was attained only at a few points in the his- tory of the Holy Roman Empire. It was finally supplanted by another view of their relation, which, professing to be a development of a principle recognized as fundamental, the superior impor- tance of the religious life, found increasing favor in the eyes of fervent churchmen. Declaring the Pope sole representative on earth of the Deity, it concluded that from him, and not directly from God, must the Empire be held, — held feudally, it was said by many, — and it thereby thrust down the temporal power, to be the slave instead of the sister of the spiritual. Nevertheless, the Papacy in her meridian, and under the guidance of her greatest minds, of Hildebrand, of Alexander, of Inno- cent, not seeking to abolish or absorb the civil govern- ment, required only its obedience, and exalted its dignity against all save herself.^ Thus there were three stages in the development of the political power of the Church : in the first, the clergy went into politics because there was no one else to administer public affairs ; in the second, the clergy divided political functions with the lay- men, they taking one part, the laymen the other ; in the third and last, the clergy assumed the respon- ^ James Bryce : The Hdy Boman Empire, pp. 106-109. 50 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY sibility of telling the laymen what they ought to do, and enforced their counsels by spiritual authority. By common consent, in America, the first two of these methods of clerical participation in politics are abandoned. It is imiversally agreed that it is not the function of clergymen, as clergymen, to manage legislatures or municipal assemblies. If Dr. Washington Gladden goes into the Common Coimcil of Columbus, he is not there in his capacity of clergyman. There is nothing in American poli- tics which corresponds to the participation of the Bishops of the Church of England in the English government, through their seats iu the House of Lords. But there are those who think that the Christian ministry ought to tell the people how to perform their political duties. When those duties were per- formed by the Emperor, it was the Pope's duty to tell the Emperor how to perform them ; now that they are performed by all the people, ought not modern ministers to tell the people how to perform them? In other words, ought not the minister to preach politics ? This question cannot be answered categorically. It cannot be answered unqualifiedly in the negative, for all duties are proper themes for the minister, and free citizenship imposes certain duties on the citizen. It cannot be answered un- qualifiedly in the affirmative, for in politics ques- tions of ethics, questions of policy, and questions concerning party leaders and party organizations are THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 51 so interwoven that it is often impossible to preach on the current political questions without becom- ing the advocate of one side of a question of politi- cal expediency, if not the apologist or eulogist of a party candidate or a party organization. There are two things necessary to good govern- ment in a free commonwealth : the first is a diffused spirit of patriotism, justice, and good-will ; the second is the organization of this spirit of patriot- ism, justice, and good-wiU in laws and political institutions. It is the function of the lawyer, the statesman, the political reformer, to formulate the spirit of patriotism, justice, and good-will in laws and institutions ; it is the function of the minister to develop the spirit of patriotism, justice, and good- will that it may be in the community to be formu- lated. It is the function of the minister to inculcate by every means in his power the fundamental prin- ciple that the Indian in this country is to be treated with justice, that he is not to be robbed and kept in ignorance and denied libei'ty ; but the questions, How shall we frame our laws for this purpose? ShaU the Indian be under the War Department or under the Interior Department ? ShaU the reserva- tion be broken up, and in what way? do not belong to him, as minister, to solve. In the nature of the case, the statesman must be an opportunist if he is to succeed ; that is, he must consider the immediate effect of the present action. But we need other men in the community than op- 62 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY portunists. We need men with a long look ahead ; men who are not considering what will be the im- mediate effect ; men who consider what wiU be the ultimate effect of human action on the kingdom of God. Such is the minister. He is or should be an idealist. When an idealist goes into politics and undertakes to carry out his ideals in political action, he fails ; when an opportunist goes into the pulpit and undertakes to measure human policies by imme- diate results, he fails. So long as Savonarola pro- claimed the great fundamental principles of truth and righteousness and justice, he was a great power in Italy ; when he undertook to become a political leader and frame the policies for the State, he lost his power. The function of the minister is not to teU men how they ought to vote in the immediate issue before the community. His function is to inspire in his congregation the faith that God is in his world working out his kingdom, and the purpose to work with him to that end. It is to lift men above the issues of the hour to the eternal issues ; above the party conflicts of the hour to the eternal conflict between truth and error, light and darkness, hu- manity and injustice, selfishness and generosity, good and evil, in which all temporary conflicts are but episodes. It is to cause them to consider the effect of their action, not upon their own personal interests, nor upon those of their party, but upon the kingdom of God. If the minister, strong in THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 63 that perception of God whicli constitutes the essence of religion, perceives him in public affairs, and causes his congregation to look there for him also, he may contribute nothing directly to the solution of tariff, or currency, or colonial questions, on which the nation is to vote ; but he will do what is far more important, — he will promote that spirit of divine justice which clarifies the mind from the disturbing influences of pride and passion, and that long look ahead which is the best guide for the action of each day. If, on the contrary, the minister fails to do this, no one else will or can fulfill this function ; it will remain unfulfilled. If, then, I could reach my brethren in the ministry with my pen, my message to them would be this : Deal with aU the public issues of your time, but deal with them exclusively in their relation to the king- dom of God. As a citizen, you may be a Repub- lican or a Democrat, a Populist or a Prohibitionist, but in your pulpit be neither. Do not undertake to use your ministerial influence to promote the success of special candidates or parties or political policies. It is not certain that you are infallible ; it is very certain that your congregation will not believe that you are. You and I are men of like passions as other men. In the midst of a heated political campaign we ourselves get the heats of the campaign burning like a fever in our veins. During the Bryan campaign the ministers who preached on the political issue in the East assured us that the 64 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY gold standard was the only honest money, and the ministers who preached in Colorado were equally certain that free silver was the only honest money. Remember, too, that there are men who are shrewder than you are, who wiU be very glad to get your influence to promote the result of the election of to-day, but who care nothing for the relation of that vote or of your influence to the kingdom of God in the world. Do not work for parties, nor for can- didates, nor for immediate results ; do not be an opportunist. Carry your idealism into all your teaching concerning political questions. Work for the triumph of the kingdom of God, not for the triumph of a political party. Do not imagine that the triumph of the kingdom of God is identical with or even dependent upon the trimnph of a political party. Remember that there are honest men in all parties and dishonest men in all, and seek not to promote victory for the party of your choice, but to promote whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are honest, what- soever things are pure, in men of all parties and in men of none. III. A third function which the Church formerly exercised, and which is now better exercised by other instrumentalities, is that of secular education. In the first century the only schools for the common people were those connected with the Jew- ish synagogues. Neither Rome nor Greece made any provision for the education of the common THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 65 people. Christianity inherited from Judaism, with its free spirit and its free political institutions, its educational system. The Church established, with charities for the poor, schools for the ignorant, and for a long time these parish schools furnished the only provision of any kind for the education of the children of the poor. Out of these parish schools grew institutions of higher learning, mainly devoted, however, to preparation of an elect few for the cler- ical profession. Protestants ought always to hold in grateful remembrance the monasteries, not only because in their libraries they preserved the manu- scripts which have brought down to our time the best thoughts of the ancients, whether pagan or Christian, secular or religious, but also because they handed over to the Christian community from the Hebrew community the provision which the latter had made for popular education. But, on the other hand, Koman Catholics ought not to forget that this educational work of the Church was carried on, not because the Church believed this to be her prime function, but because it was absolutely necessary work, and there was no other organization willing or able to undertake it. It is not the primary func- tion of the Church to furnish secular instruction. Says the Kev. Thomas Bouquillon, Professor of Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. : The Church has received from her Divine Founder the mission to teach the supernatural truths. . . . But 66 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY the Church has not received the mission to make known the human sciences, she has not been established for the progress of nations in the arts and sciences, no more than to render them powerful and wealthy. . . . Her duty of teaching human sciences is only indirect — a work of charity or of necessity : of charity when they are not sufficiently taught by others who have that duty ; of necessity when they are badly taught, that is, taught in a sense opposed to supernatural truth and morality. This is why the missionary, setting foot in a savage land, though he begins with the preaching of the Gospel, very soon establishes schools. . . . There are men who seem to assert that the Church has received the mission to teach human as well as divine science. They give to the words of Christ, Euntes docete (go and teach), an indefi- nite interpretation. But such an interpretation is evi- dently false.* I do not affirm that this is the authoritative posi- tion of the Roman Catholic Church on this subject. Probably many Roman Catholic authorities would dissent from it. Certainly the doctrine that fur- nishing education is the primary function of the State is still hotly denied by ecclesiastics, both Pro- testant and Roman Catholic, in Europe. The reli- gious war now raging in France is the result of an endeavor by the State to take the work of teaching out of the hands of the Church into its own hands. The recent Educational Bill in England is the re- 1 Thomas Bouquillon: Education: To Whom Does it Belong? See also two other pamphlets by the same author and with same title : (1) A Bejoinder to the Civiltd, Cattolica; (2) A Rejoinder to Critics* THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 57 suit of an endeavor by the Church to recover the supervision and control of the educational work of that country, partially taken out of its control and lodged in that of the state authorities by a previous administration. But for America we may consider this question decided. The great body of the people, Protestant and Roman Catholic, agree in their support of the public school ; and this means that they agree in their belief that education for the common people is to be furnished by the State, not by the Church ; that in its control and administration it is to be civil, not ecclesiastical. There will probably always be private schools and church schools in America, but they will be the exception. The education of American boys and girls in the industries, the arts, and the sciences wiU be mainly furnished, not in parochial but in public schools, not under the con- trol of the clergy, but under the control of the State. It is true that there are still flourishing denomina- tional colleges. But in most Protestant communions these are denominational in name rather than in reality, in the control to which they are intrusted, rather than in any doctrine which they teach or even any influence which they exert. But although in America the Church has rele- gated to the State the work of educating the youth in the arts and sciences, it does not follow that the Church has no longer any educational function. Says Professor Huxley : 68 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Education is the instraction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, — under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways ; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself educa- tion must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.^ The State is, in the main, admirably giving in- struction of the intellect in the laws of Nature; but she is doing little or nothing directly to fashion the affections and the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. And that this fashioning of the affections and the wiU is quite as essential as the instruction of the intellect we are beginning in America to discover. Man is not governed by his reason ; he is guided by his reason, but he is governed by his emotive powers, by his affections and his will, by his appetites, his passions, his love of acquisition, his love of approbation, his self-esteem, or by his rev- erence, his conscience, his hope, his love. A man whose intellect is well instructed, but whose affec- tions are ill trained, is more poorly educated than one whose affections are weU trained and whose intellect is ill instructed; as an ocean steamer is a more helpless object if it is without an engine 1 T. H. Huxley : Science and Education, p. 83. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 69 tlian if it is without a rudder. We have yet to learn how in this country to organize and carry on a system of education which wiU fulfill the defini- tion of Professor Huxley : which will fashion the affections and the will, as well as instruct the in- tellect. This is not to be done by dividing education into two departments, and intrusting the instruction of the intellect to the State and the fashioning of the affections to the Church ; nor is it to be done by estabhshing a state church in order to give in the state schools instruction in the doctrines of the Church. A Roman Catholic bishop of this country has in a pregnant paragraph intimated the way in which it must be done. Says the Right Rev. John J. Keane, D. D. : A school is not made a Christian school by taking up a good deal of time in doctrinal instruction or in devo- tional exercises, which would otherwise be spent in ac- quiring secular knowledge. Some time, indeed, must be given to these, and it ought to be, and can be, made the most instructive and beneficial part of the school hours ; but that time need not be, and should not be, so long as to be wearisome to the pupils or damaging to other studies. "What, above all, make it a Christian school are the moral atmosphere, the general tone, the surround- ing objects, the character of the teachers, the constant endeavor, the loving tact, the gentle skill, by which the light and the spirit of Christianity — its lessons for the head, for the heart, for the whole character — are made to pervade and animate the whole school-life of the 60 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY child ; just as the good parent desires that they should animate his whole future life in all his manifold duties and relations as man and as citizen. This is the kind of a school which a parent, anxious as in duty bound to give his child as thorough Christian training as possible, will naturally choose.^ As it is not the primary function of the Church to administer charities, but it is its primary func- tion to inspire in the conmiunity the spirit of charity ; as it is not the primary function of the Church to govern, nor to teU either emperors, aris- tocracies, or democracies how to govern, but it is its primary function to inspire in the rulers of the land the spirit of justice out of which all righteous policies proceed ; so it is not the primary function of the Church to administer systems of education ; but it is the primary function of the Church to in- spire in the community such a desire to fashion the affections and the will in conformity to the laws of life, that the public school shall fulfill the end of education as defined by Professor Huxley ; that is, shall fashion the affections and the will, as well as instruct the intellect, and shall be a Christian school as defined by Bishop Keane ; that is. Christian in its moral atmosphere, in its general tone, and in the character of its teachers. Nor can it be doubted that it is a greater work to inspire the community with the spirit of charity than to administer partic- ular charities ; to inspire all parties with the spirit 1 The Rt. Rev. John J. Keane : Denominational Schools, p. 9. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 61 of justice thao to counsel particular policies, or contribute to the victory of any party ; to inspire the school system with Christlikeness of disposition than to teach the pupils in a parochial school the tenets and ritual of a denomination. This work the Church can do' only by being true to its specific work, — that of ministering to the Christian life of the community. Let us recur to our definition of the Christian religion: The Christian religion consists in such a perception of the Infinite, as manifested in the life and character of Jesus Christ, that the percep- tion is able to promote in man Christlikeness of character. Then a Christian church is a body of men and women who possess in some degree such a perception of the Infinite in Jesus Christ and some Christlikeness of character, and who have united for the purpose of imparting to others that perception, and developing in others that character. Catholics — whether Roman, Greek, or Anglican — believe that the Church was organized by Jesus Christ him- seK, and that loyalty to him requires his disciples to unite with that historic organization; Protest- ants believe that any men and women possessing this vision of God, and animated by this purpose to impart it and its fruits to others, have a right to constitute themselves a church of Christ for that purpose. But both Catholics and Protestants agree that a church, if it be a church of Christ, must be animated by the spirit of faith, hope, and 62 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY charity ; faith, that is, the perception of the Infinite in Christ ; hope, that is, the aspiration for Christ- likeness which that perception inspires ; love, that is, a desire to impart both the perception and the resultant life to the world. The message of the Christian Church is very- simple and very profound. It is not a series of disjointed messages, though many counsels of per- fection grow out of it. It cannot be adequately formulated in a creed, though it involves a new and inspiring conception of hfe. It cannot be stated in words, because life always transcends definition ; and yet a few simple words may sufiice to suggest it. It is that God is not the Unknown and the Unknowable ; that though he transcends aU our definitions, yet he is a self-revealing God ; that he manifests himseK in nature, in the world's history, in hmnan experience, and preeminently in the person and character of Jesus Christ; that through Jesus Christ the manifestations of God in nature, in history, and in human experience are interpreted, and, so to speak, vocalized; that in knowing God, in acquaintance with him, in parti- cipation in his life, is the secret of life, the fruits of which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- ness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control ; that love, not any ordered selfishness, is the true social bond ; that loyalty to God's law, not any divine right of kings or of democracies, is the foundation of just government; that character building, not THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 63 any mere intellectual instruction, is the only ade- quate education ; and, finally, that the secret of all social well-being is the individual life, the secret of all individual life is acquaintance with God, and the supreme source of acquaintance with God is Jesus Christ. In giving this message the Church of Christ is more than an instrument of social reform. It is a minister to life. And in its ministry to life it responds to the two deepest and most universal desires of mankind ; the desire for peace and the desire for power. Every healthful man sometimes looks back regret- fully upon his past. He is conscious of blunders in judgment, of aberrations of wiU, of deliberate acts of wrong-doing which have brought injury upon him- self and upon others. He wishes that he could live again his life, or some particular crisis in his life. His experience answers more or less consciously to the expression in the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer : " We have done the things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things which we ought to have done," even if his self-dissatisfaction does not lead him to add, " and there is no health in us." ^ Sometimes this is a keen sense of shame for some specific deed done or duty neglected; sometimes it is a vague feeling of self-condemnation, without clearly defined 1 The Book of Common Prayer : The Order for Daily Morning^ and for Daily Evening Prayer. 04 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY specific cause ; sometimes it is a passing shadow, evanescent and uninfluential ; sometimes it is a morbid self-condemnation, depressing the spirits and tending toward despair. But he who has never felt this sense of remorse in some one of its various forms is singularly lacking, either in his memory, his ideals, or his power of sitting in judgment upon his own conduct and character. It is doubtful whether any desire which the human soul ever possessed is keener or more overmastering than the desire which sometimes possesses it, in certain phases of experi- ence, to be rid of its ineradicable past, and to be per- mitted to begin life anew,unclogged and unburdened. The other spiritual hunger of the soul relates to the future. The soul is conscious of undeveloped possibilities in itself ; it is spurred on to it knows not what future by unsatisfied aspirations. It longs to do and to be more, and rather to be than to do. It has in the sphere of moral experience aspirations which may be compared to those which have sum- moned the greatest musicians and the greatest artists to their careers. This sense of unsatisfied aspiration differs from the sense of remorse in that it relates to the future, not to the past ; the one is a con- sciousness of wrong committed or duty left undone, the other of life incomplete. The cry of the soul in the one experience is that of Paul : " Who shall de- liver me from the body of this death ? " ^ The cry of the other is that of Tennyson : > Bom. vii, 2i. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 65 And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be ! ^ The one is a craving for peace, the other for achieve- ment. The one belongs to a nature which dwells in the past, the other to a nature which lives in the future. Not only are different temperaments dif- ferently affected, the one being more conscious of regret, the other of unsatisfied aspiration ; but the same person sometimes experiences the one, some- times the other. One age of the world is more prone to the former, another age to the latter. In our time there is comparatively little experience of re- gret for the past. There is, to use the phrase cur- rent in theological circles, very little " conviction of sin." The age has its face set toward the future. Its ideals lie before it, not behind. It is eager, ex- pectant, hopeful, aspiring. It takes no time to look back, not even time enough to learn the lessons which the past can teach. But it is full of eager expectations for a nobler civilization, a better distri- bution of wealth, more harmonious relations between employer and employed, juster government, better social and industrial conditions, a nearer approxi- mation to brotherhood. In the Middle Ages, hu- manity was burdened by the consciousness of past wrong-doing, and it sought relief from its burden by seclusion from the world in monastic retreats. In the present age, humanity is feverish with un- satisfied aspirations, and is driven by its fever into 1 Tennyson : Maud, X, vi. 66 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY the world, there to engage in ceaseless and exces- sive activities. Like a mettlesome steed cruelly roweled with spurs, yet held in by a curb bit, is the present age, spurred on by aspiration to even greater achievements, yet held back by prudential self-interest from the great endeavor and the greater seK-sacrifices without which the noblest achieve- ments are always impossible. It is because the Christian religion professes to be able to satisfy these two passionate desires of the human soul — the desire for peace and the de- sire for achievement — that it possesses the attrac- tion which the failures and the folly of its adherents may diminish, but cannot destroy. Christianity is more than a system of ethics — though it has revolutionized ethics ; more than a method of worship — though it has furnished a new inspiration to worship and given it a new character ; more than a philosophy of life — though it has given to life a new interpretation. It is a new life founded on a historic fact ; take that fact away and it is difficult to see how the life could survive. The belief of the universal Christian Church in that fact is expressed with incomparable simplicity in the words of one of the more ancient Christian creeds : " I believe ... in one Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven." ^ What is the relation of this Lord Jesus Christ to the Eternal Father from whom 1 The Nicene Creed. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 67 he came, and how he accomplishes our salvation, are questions to which Christian philosophers give different answers. But aU Christian believers accept the historic fact that there is one Lord Jesus Christ, and that he came down from heaven for us men and our salvation. In its possession of this faith and its interest in this fact lies the secret of the power of the Christian Church. Rob it of this faith, take from it this fact, and its peculiar power would be gone ; it would only be a teacher of ethics, or a school of philosophy, or a conductor of reli- gious mysteries in an unintelligible worship of an unknown God. For in its possession of this fact lies its power to take from men the two burdens which so sorely oppress them, — that of remorse for a wrongful past, that of unsatisfied aspiration in the present and for the future. Empowered by this fact, the Church declares to men burdened that their sins are forgiven them. This is not a philosophical statement founded on a general faith that God is good and therefore will forgive sins ; still less is it the enunciation of a general belief that he is merciful and therefore will not be very exacting of his children, but will let them off from deserved punishment if they appeal to him with adequate signs of repentance, in pen- ances or otherwise. It is the statement of the his- toric fact that God forgave men their sins before they repented; that he bears no ill-will and no wrath against them ; that he only desires for them 68 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY that they shall be good men and true ; and that, to accomplish this, his good-will toward them, Jesus Christ has come forth from his Father and our Father into the world. Empowered by this fact, the Church acts as the official and authoritative promulgator of a divine forgiveness, an authoritative and historically reinforced interpreter of the divine disposition ; empowered by this fact, the Christian teacher repeats of himself what Jesus Christ said of himself : " The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." ^ He reiterates Christ's message and with the same authority : " Go in peace and sin no more." ^ He re-declares, not as a theory, but as an historically established fact : " Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . hath given power, and commandment, to his ministers, to de- clare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. He pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel." ^ While the Church thus with authority unloosens the burden of the past from those on whom a re- morseful memory has bound that past, it also inspires with a hope for the future which turns the anxious and sometimes despairing aspirations into eager and gladly expectant ones. For it tells the story of a Man who in himself fulfilled the spiritual desires 1 Mark ii, 10. * Luke vii, 48-50 ; John viii, 11. * The Book of Common Prayer : The Order for Daily Morning and for Daily Evening Prayer. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 69 which are in aU noble men, and then, departing, left as his legacy the command, which is also a promise : " Follow me." It answers the question, What is human nature ? by pointing to the charac- ter of Jesus of Nazareth, with the assurance. What he was every man can become. It answers the ques- tion. Is life worth living ? by pointing to that life and declaring that, as he laid down his life for us, so can we lay down our lives for one another. It presents to humanity not an ideal merely, but a realized ideal, and in this realization of the highest ideal of character gives assurance that our aspira- tions are not doomed to disappointment, unless we ourselves so doom them. That they are intended by our Father to be realized, and that we can real- ize them, is historically attested by the life of him who was the Son of man, and who, experiencing our battles, has pointed out to us the possibility of victory and the way to achieve it. This is the secret of the power of the Church: not the excellence of its ethical instruction, not the wisdom of its religious philosophy, not the aesthetic beauty of its buildings or its services, and certainly not the oratory of its preachers : but this, that it is charged with a double message to men burdened by a sense of wrong-doing in the past and tor- mented by unfulfilled aspirations for the future ; a message to the first. Thy sins are forgiven thee ; ^ a message to the second, You can do aU things 1 Luke V, 20. 70 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY through him that strengtheneth you.^ Poorly as the Church understands its mission, poorly as it delivers its message, it nevertheless has this as its mission, this as its message. And when it fulfills the one and delivers the other with the power that comes from the conscious possession of divine au- thority, men gather to its services to receive its gift. This is not the only message of Christianity : it teaches a purer ethics, it proffers a more sacred consolation, it incites to a more joyous and inspir- ing worship than any other religion ; but no other religion has attempted to proclaim with authority pardon for the past, or to give, as from God him- self, power for the future. Of the principles which I am here trying to interpret, two illustrations are afforded in the very recent life of the Church, — illustrations which are aU the more significant because they come from quarters so dissimilar theologically and ecclesiasti- cally that to many persons they seem to have no- thing in common. The first illustration is afforded by the High Church movement in England; the second by the life and work of Dwight L. Moody. It can hardly be necessary to say that I have no ecclesiastical or theological sympathy with the High Church movement. I do not believe that Jesus Christ organized a church, or appointed bishops, or gave directly or by remote implication any special authority to the bishops thereafter to 1 Phil, iv, 13. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 71 be appointed in the Church, or conferred special grace, or intended that special grace should be conferred, by the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, or made either of them means of conveying supernatural grace, except in so far as they became the expressions of a mood or spirit of mind receptive of grace. I do not believe in the perpetuity of a priesthood, or an altar, or the kind of sacrificial system which a priesthood and an altar seem to typify. And yet it is impossible for any student of current events to doubt that the High Church party in the Anglican Church is reaUy exerting a notable spiritual influence in Eng- land ; that it is attracting in many cases large con- gregations to before sparsely attended churches; that it is felt as a power in many hearts and homes. To think that this is because Protestant England is going back to its old-time allegiance to the Pope of Rome, or because a generation which has departed in its social standards from the severer simplicity of Puritan England wants elaborate ritu- alism in its churches, or because it is easier to con- duct an orderly ritual than to preach a tolerable sermon, and easier to go through the first without attention than to give attention to the second, is to misread the signs of the times, and, in judging a movement, to estimate it by the mere incidents which happen to accompany it and not by the essential spirit which characterizes it. The dis- tinctive characteristic of the High Church party 72 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY is its sacerdotal spirit ; ^ its exaltation of the priest- hood and the altar ; its conversion of the memorial supper into a bloodless sacrifice of the mass ; and its use of priesthood, altar, and mass to emphasize the right of the priest to declare authoritatively the absolution and remission of sins. It is because the High Church priesthood assume power on earth to forgive sins, and so to relieve men and women of the first of the two burdens of which I have spoken, that it has its power over the hearts of its adherents. It is for this reason, also, that its power is mainly seen among women. Women's morbid consciences make them susceptible to painful and sometimes needless regrets, and a church which offers to remove this burden of the past appeals to them more than it does to men, who are more inclined to let the dead bury their dead, and ask for a religion which wiU help them to a better future. High Church theology has no special effi- cacy in equipping the soul for the future, and it has, therefore, no special attraction for virile men. But so long as men and women feel the burden of the irreparable past, so long they wiU come to that church, and only to that church, which declares with authority that the past is forgiven ; and they wiU not always be critical in inquiring whether all ^ It has also been characterized by notable missionary and phi- lanthropic activity. But this is not distinctive of the High Church party ; it belongs to the age, and is seen in every denomination within the Church and in some organizations wholly nnecclesias- tioal. THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 73 the grounds on which that authority is claimed can stand historical investigation. At the other extreme, ecclesiastically, are the evangelists of our time, chief among them all, and type of them all, the late Dwight L. Moody. If I speak of him peculiarly, it is because he affords so striking an illustration of the principle which I wish to elucidate. Mr. Moody belonged to a denomination which discards all notion of the priesthood, whose ministry are only laymen performing a special func- tion in a church without orders. In this church he never had such ordination as is generally required of those who desire to exercise ministerial func- tions. His services were accompanied neither by Baptism nor by the Lord's Supper. He believed that the latter was a memorial service, not a blood- less sacrifice ; that any Christian, whether lay or clerical, was equally a priest ; to him the Church was a meeting-house and the altar a communion table or table of meeting ; and most of his services were held in unconsecrated halls. But never did a High Church priest of the Anglican Church be- lieve more profoundly that to him had been given authority to promise the absolution and remission of sins, than did Mr. Moody believe that he pos- sessed such authority. Rarely, if ever, did priest, Anglican or Catholic, hear more vital confessions or pronounce absolution with greater assurance. The High Churchman thinks that he derives such power through a long ecclesiastical line ; Mr. Moody 74 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY believed that he derived it through the declarations of the Bible ; but both in the last analysis obtained it by their faith in " one Lord Jesus Christ, . . . Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven." The one no less than the other spoke, or claimed to speak, by authority ; both de- rived their authority from the same great historic fact ; and the attractive power which drew unnum- bered thousands to the preaching of Mr. Moody was in its essence the same as that which draws unnumbered thousands to the Altar and the Eucha- rist. This is the function of the Christian ministry : not to administer charity, but to inspire in the com- munity the spirit of charity ; not to counsel wise political policies, but to inspire in government the spirit of justice ; not to instruct the intellect, but to fashion the affections and the wiU ; and this it is to do by imparting to men peace from the burden of the past and power for the duties of the present and the future. If the Christian ministry is to do this work it must be itself inspired by such a per- ception of the Infinite in the life, character, and post-resurrection work of Jesus Christ as is able to promote in men Christlikeness of character. If this perception is wanting in the ministry, the ministry will be without power. If we of the so-caUed lib- eral faith hope to retain in these more liberal days the attractive power of the Church, we can do it only by holding fast to the great historic facts of THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 75 the birth, life, passion, and death of Jesus Christ essentially as they are narrated in the Four Gospels, and to the great spiritual fact that in the God whom Christ has revealed to us there is abundant for- giveness for all the past, and abundant life for all the future. And this we must declare, not as a the- ological opinion, to be defended by philosophical arguments as a rational hypothesis, but as an as- sured fact, historically certified by the life and death of Jesus Christ, and confirmed out of the mouth of many witnesses by the experience of Christ's disci- ples and followers in all churches and in every age. If we fail to do this, men will desert our ministry for Eomanism, Anglicanism, and Evangelism, or, in despair of spiritual life in any quarter, will desert aU that ministers to the higher life, and live a whoUy material life, alternating between restless, unsatisfied desire and stolid seK-content. And the fault and the folly will be ours more even than theirs. If the Church is to give this message of peace and power it must give it with authority. Whence does it derive this authority ? and how is this author- ity attested ? CHAPTER III THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTRY The writers of the Bible speak witli authority. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, it was not to say to the Children of Israel on the plain, I advise you not to steal, not to kiU, not to commit adultery ; you will be a great deal happier if you do not do these things ; the experience of the world indicates that this is disadvantageous. He says, Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kiU, thou shalt not commit adultery. He speaks with authority. When Isaiah speaks to the Children of Israel, in a later age, he does not say, I think you are mistaken in putting such stress on forms and ceremonies ; it is far more important to keep the heart clean than it is to offer sacrifices ; the experience of the world indicates this ; and there are other good reasons for thinking so. He says, in the name of God, and speaking as for him: " To what purpose is the multi- tude of your sacrifices unto me ? . . . Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well." ^ These prophets spoke in the name of God. Their customary phrase was, " Thus saith the Lord." 1 Isaiah i. 11, 16, 17. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTRY 77 They spoke with authority. When Christ comes and a great audience gathers to hear that ordination sermon which we call the Sermon on the Mount, he does not argue, he simply affirms ; and when he has finished, the ^people say. This man speaks with authority, and not as the Scribes. He promises to his apostles similar authority. He says, " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." When Paul writes his Epistles, it is stiU with power. The Gospel, he says, is "the power of God unto salvation." ^ From the Exodus to the close of the canon the Bible speaks with au- thority. Where did these men get their authority? What was the secret of it ? What was its nature ? They certainly did not get it from the Bible, because the Bible is composed of what they said ; it is the product of their utterances. The Bible gets its authority from the prophets and the apos- tles ; the prophets and the apostles do not get their authority from the Bible. They did not get it from the Church. Moses spoke before any church was organized. The later prophets stood in no relation to the Church ; they did not belong to the hierarchy. The priests were in a succession, but the prophets were not. In the later times, Christ and the apostles did not get their authority from the Church. Christ did not ; 1 Matt, vii, 29 ; Acts i, 4, 5, 8 (cf . Luke xxiv, 49) ; Rom. i, 16 (cf. 1 Cop. i, 18). 78 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY the Church excommunicated him ; the major part of his life the Church was fighting him. Paul did not; the Christian Church was divided on the question whether he was an apostle or not, and the Jewish Church turned him out of the synagogue. The sacred writers did not get their authority from reason. Their affirmations were not deduc- tions ; their revealings were not conclusions of ar- guments. The Hebrews were not philosophers. They did not argue. Jesus Christ rarely argued. His most emphatic declarations were not syllogistic in form and cannot be put in syllogistic form. His great sermons — the Sermon at Nazareth, the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Bread of Life — are not logical. Paul argued ; but only for the purpose of making the people accept the conclusions which he had reached by a different process. Sometimes his arguments are formal, not real ; sometimes the processes are illogical ; some- times the premises would be doubted or denied by most modern readers ; generally his most authori- tative declarations are not preceded by any argu- ments, as : " We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now ; " or " We know that aU things work together for good to them that love God." ^ Where does he get his authority for such a statement ? How did he know ? How can he know ? These writers did not get their authority from 1 Rom. viii, 22, 28. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTRY 79 miracles. Granting that all the so-caUed miracles in the Bible were performed exactly as narrated, stiU it remains true that the great majority of the Bible teachers performed no miracles. Most of the prophets performed none. Of those Biblical teach- ers who did perform miracles, the great majority made their utterances independent of any miracles. They did not get their authority from the ful- fillment of prophecy, for the prophecy was not ful- filled for years, in some cases not for centuries, after the prediction. Events occurring from two to four centuries after the death of the prophet could not have given the prophet his authority during his lifetime. Their authority did not come from pro- phecy, nor from miracles, nor from argument, nor from the Church, nor from the Bible ; and yet they spoke with authority. The character of this authority has been de- scribed by Canon Liddon in an eloquent passage : Wherein did this power which the Apostles were to receive consist? Creating political ascendancy, yet ut- terly distinct from it ; fertilizing intellectual power, yet differing in its essence from the activity of mere vigorous unsanctified intellect ; working miracles, (it may be) gifted to work physical wonders, yet certainly in itself more per- suasive than the miracle it was empowered to produce ; intimately allied with, and the natural accompaniment of distinct ministerial faculties, yet not necessarily so, — what is this higher, this highest power, this gift of gifts, this transforming influence, which was to countersign as if from heaven what had previously been given by the 80 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Incarnate Lord on earth, and was to form out of un- lettered and irresolute peasants the evangelists of the world ? My brethren, it was spiritual, it was personal, it was niioral power. And spiritual power may be felt rather than described or analyzed. It resides in or it permeates a man's whole circle of activities ; it cannot be localized, it cannot be identified exclusively with one of them. It is felt in solemn statements of doctrine, and also in the informal utterances of casual intercourse ; it is felt in actions no less than in language, in trivial acts no less than in heroic resignation ; it is traced perchance in the very expression of the countenance, yet the coun- tenance is too coarse an organ to do it justice ; it just asserts its presence, but its presence is too volatile, too immaterial, to admit of being seized, and measured, and brought by art or by language fairly within the compass of our comprehension. It is an unearthly beauty, whose native home is in a higher world, yet which tarries among men from age to age, since the time when the Son of God left us His example and gave us His Spirit. It is nothing else than His spiritual presence, mantling upon His servants ; they live in Him ; they lose in Him something of their proper personality ; yet they are ab- sorbed into, they are transfigured by, a Life altogether higher than their own : His voice blends with theirs. His £ye seems to lighten theirs with its sweetness and its penetration ; His hand gives gentleness and decision to their acts ; His Heart communicates a ray of its Divine charity to their life of narrow and more stagnant affec- tion ; His Soul commingles with theirs, and their life of thought, and feeling, and resolve is irradiated and braced by His.^ 1 H. P. Liddon : Clerical Life and Work, pp. 159-161. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTRY 81 Eloquent as this description is, it yet leaves some- thing to be desired. Can we by analysis approxi- mate an understanding of the secret of this power ? Can we state it in psychological terms ? Two writ- ers have done this : one an ancient, the other a modem author; one theological, the other anti- theological ; the one called himseH an Apostle, the other called himself an Agnostic. The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthi- ans thus describes this authority : And my speech and my preaching was not with en- ticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. His power was a demonstration of the spirit. What does that mean ? A little later in this Epistle he teUs us what it means : But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit : for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.^ Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not ^ That is, as in the next sentence, " the spirit which is of Qod." 82 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY the things of the spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.^ Every man has a body, a physical organism. He has a social and intellectual character that is some- what aMn to that of the animal. And he also possesses a spiritual nature, — a faith, a hope, a love, — that transcends the animal nature, the social nature, the physical nature. This spiritual nature in man searches the deep things of God. It is all the time groping; it is all the time looking for something the eye does not see and even the im- agination has not conceived. It feels, it realizes, it knows, because it is spirit ; knows something that transcends the senses, something that argument can- not bring, something that logic cannot demonstrate. Every man has this spirit in him. If we so speak that we evoke that spiritual response in the men who listen to us, our words are with authority, be- cause they themselves see also that it is true. "We are ourselves revelators. We draw aside the veil that hangs over men's souls, and then they see and know : not because the Church has told them, not because the Bible has told them, not because mira- cles have attested it, not because fulfilled prophecy has proved it, not because reason has reached it, but because they see it. Such is Paul's explanation of the secret of his 1 lCor.ii,4,9-15. THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTRY 83 power. His preaching was powerful because it was in " demonstration of the spirit ; " not " proof by syllogistic deduction of a conclusion from known premises," ^ but proof by the revelation to the spirit in man '^hich is able to perceive spiritual truth upon the bare presentation of it. In very different language, but to the same effect, is Professor Huxley's explanation of the source of our knowledge of ethical truth, and so the secret of power in the ethical teacher : Some there are who cannot feel the difference be- tween the " Sonata Appassionata " and " Cherry Ripe " or between a grave-stone-cutter's art and the Apollo Belvedere ; but the canons of art are none the less ac- knowledged. "While some there may be, who, devoid of sympathy, are incapable of a sense of duty ; but neither does their existence affect the foundations of morality. Such pathological deviations from true manhood are merely the halt, the lame, and the blind of the world of consciousness ; and the anatomist of the mind leaves them aside, as the anatomist of the body would ignore abnor- mal specimens. And as there are Pascals and Mozarts, Newtons and Raffaeles, in whom the innate faculty for science or art seems to need but a touch to spring into full vigor, and through whom the human race obtains new possibilities of knowledge and new conceptions of beauty: so there have been men of moral genius, to whom we owe ideals of duty and visions of moral perfec- tion, which ordinary mankind could never have attained : though, happily for them, they can feel the beauty of a * Aristotle : quoted in Liddell & Scott's Greek-Englisb Lexi- con under &p