OPENNESS TO TRUTH. 261 to determine with precision, and it is impossible now to enter into the problems and controversies which the question suggests. In our general practice we are necessarily guided by a sort of rude common sense; but we may safely lay down the rule that Christian love includes the whole sentient creation within its embrace, and will not wantonly limit that measure of happiness which the Creator has designed for it. We must now leave the virtues which spring out of our love to God and man, and speak of the duties which, however they may affect others indirectly, terminate immediately in oneself. Here also we are confined to general principles, and meet with no rules of self-discipline; but every man is left free to form his own rules, to suit his own particular requirements. It is expected that of ourselves we shall form a just judgment, and keep ourselves free from the blinding influence of prejudice. We are to be like merchantmen seeking goodly pearls; 2 and we are not to pay a conventional honour to the prophets of the olden time, while we persecute the prophets of to-day, at once closing our ears against the new truth which comes to prove the hearts of men, and burying the old beneath 1 Luke xii. 54 sqq. 2 Matt. xiii. 45. a sepulchre of artificial and unappreciative respect.1 Nevertheless, we are to be on our guard against false prophets, and not rush after every novelty, assuming that a man is great and good because he abuses his neighbours, and attacks their time-honoured convictions. We must judge them by those ethical rules which furnish the nearest and most certain ground of discrimination, for bad fruit does not come from a good tree, nor are deeds of beneficence and moral healing prompted by Beelzebub.2 Christianity requires the strictest personal purity— purity of thought and feeling as well as of deed. It also, as we have seen, demands constant vigilance and self-denial. Nevertheless, it is opposed to asceticism. This may seem a questionable statement, considering how largely asceticism has entered into Christian history, and how deeply it has coloured the idea of the Christian saint. But the spirit of Christ himself is the standard of his religion; and though he denied 1 Matt. xxiii. 29 sqq.; Luke xi. 47 sq. 2 Matt. vii. 15 sqq.; xii. 24 sqq., Mark iii. 22 sqq., Luke xi. 15 sqq. 3 Matt. v. 8, 27 sqq.; Rom. vi. 13; 1 Cor. v. vi. 13 sqq.; James i. 27. ASCETICISM REJECTED. 263 himself to the uttermost in obedience to the voice of God within him, asceticism is precisely the characteristic which he seizes on as distinguishing John the Baptist from himself. "John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."1 These words show that by the freedom of his living he offended the religious people of his time, who thought that holiness consisted in bodily privations; and throughout his life there is not a trace of those austerities which captivate the vulgar imagination and attract the fame of superior sanctity. There is always the same quiet and reverent moderation, the same spontaneous and exalted purity; and if on one side scandal has left his character unsullied, on the other side not even legend has tricked him out with the adventitious glories of an external holiness.2 Nevertheless, Christ seems to have given some sanction to religious abstinence in what he is reported to 1 Matt. xi. 18 sq.; Luke vii. 33 sq. 2 We may contrast with this the account which Hegesippus gives of James, the Lord's brother. have said about fasting. On a certain occasion he was asked why the disciples of John and the Pharisees fasted, while his disciples refrained from doing so. He replied that they would fast when the bridegroom was taken from them, and added the illustration of a patch on an old garment, and of new wine in old wineskins. The purport of the two answers is the same. The old practice of formal and stated fasts, under the pressure of a supposed religious obligation, was inconsistent with the new religion. When Christ's disciples fasted, they would do so naturally and spontaneously, under the stress of heartfelt sorrow. In the Sermon on the Mount he assumes that his disciples will fast; but he does not inculcate the practice, or lay down any rules as to its frequency or its character. Here, as in everything else, he leaves the judgment free, and only enjoins privacy, lest the religious exercise should engender spiritual pride and hypocrisy.2 It may be that in our imperfect state some bodily discipline may be needed to subdue our self-indulgence and give firmness to the will, and each man must decide for himself what will be beneficial. For my 1 Matt. ix. 14 sqq.; Mark ii. 18 sqq.; Luke v. 33 sqq. REVERENCE FOR THE BODY. 265 own part, I believe that the true outcome of the mind of Christ is to place no reliance upon artificial acts of self-denial, but to remember always that the body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit," and to treat it always with the reverence due to a consecrated shrine. Here Christianity set itself in direct opposition to the highest wisdom of the ancient world, which looked on the body as a prison or a tomb, and thought that the only way to God was to trample on its rights, and seek the spiritual, not in and through the natural, but by waging war against it. Paul, indeed, knew full well the foulness of a mind enslaved to the flesh; but then the body was the organ of the mind, and might be used for righteousness as well as for sin, and it will be shielded from all abuse, and transfigured as on the mount of heavenly vision, when we know that it is a house built by God for the indwelling and operation of his own Spirit. Connected with personal purity is the injunction not to swear,1 for this too rests ultimately upon reverence towards Him to whom the oath appeals. The name of God may indeed be avoided, but everything created by him should share the reverence which we profess 1 Matt. v. 33 sqq.; James v. 12. |