CLAUSE XIII
The guidance exercised by the Divine Spirit, by which we are completely surrounded, is not of the nature of compulsion; it is only a leading and helping influence, which we are able to resist if we choose.
The problem of manufacturing free creatures with a will of their own, to be led, not forced, into right action, is a problem of a different nature from any of those that have ever appealed to human power and knowledge. What we are accustomed to make is mechanism, of various kinds; and the essential difficulty of the higher problem is so obscure to us that some impatient and unimaginative persons cry out against its slowness, and wonder that everything is not compulsorily made perfect at once. But we can see that the kind of perfection thus easily attainable would be of an utterly inferior kind.
It is to be supposed that incarnation, or a connexion between consciousness and material mechanism, is auxiliary to the difficult process of evolution of free beings, thus indicated; and it is probable that matter is thus an instrument of lofty spiritual purpose. Some religious systems have failed to perceive this, and have depreciated matter and flesh as intrinsically evil.
One important feature of Christianity is that it recognises as good the connexion between spirit andmatter, and emphasises the importance of both, when properly regarded. It is not mystical and spiritual alone, nor is it material alone; but it tends to unify these two extremes, and to place in due position both soul and body: the material being utilised to make manifest the spiritual, and being dominated by it.
The whole idea of the Incarnation, as well as some of the miracles and the sacraments, are expressive of this wide and comprehensive character of the Christian religion.
It recognises the wonder and beauty of the animal body, destined to be the scene of extraordinary spiritual triumphs in the long course of time; and it teaches
“That none but Gods could build this house of ours,So beautiful, vast, various, so beyondAll work of man, yet, like all work of man,A beauty with defect—till That which knows,And is not known, but felt thro’ what we feelWithin ourselves is highest, shall descendOn this half-deed, and shape it at the lastAccording to the Highest in the Highest.”
“That none but Gods could build this house of ours,So beautiful, vast, various, so beyondAll work of man, yet, like all work of man,A beauty with defect—till That which knows,And is not known, but felt thro’ what we feelWithin ourselves is highest, shall descendOn this half-deed, and shape it at the lastAccording to the Highest in the Highest.”
“That none but Gods could build this house of ours,So beautiful, vast, various, so beyondAll work of man, yet, like all work of man,A beauty with defect—till That which knows,And is not known, but felt thro’ what we feelWithin ourselves is highest, shall descendOn this half-deed, and shape it at the lastAccording to the Highest in the Highest.”
“That none but Gods could build this house of ours,
So beautiful, vast, various, so beyond
All work of man, yet, like all work of man,
A beauty with defect—till That which knows,
And is not known, but felt thro’ what we feel
Within ourselves is highest, shall descend
On this half-deed, and shape it at the last
According to the Highest in the Highest.”
Christianity is a planetary and human religion: being the revelation of those aspects of Godhead which are most intelligible and helpful to us in our present stage of development. But it is more than a revelation, it is a manifestation of some of the attributes of Godhead in the form of humanity.
The statement that Christ and God are one, is not really a statement concerning Christ, but a statementconcerning what we understand by God. It is useless, and in the literal sense preposterous, to explain the known in terms of the unknown: the converse is the right method. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Every son of man is potentially also a son of God, but the union was deepest and completest in the Galilean.
The ideas of incarnation and revelation are not confined to the domain of religion; they are common to music and letters and science: in all we recognise “a flash of the will that can,”
“All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed visibly forth.”
“All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed visibly forth.”
“All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed visibly forth.”
“All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All through my soul that praised, as the wish flowed visibly forth.”
The spirit of Beethoven is incarnate in his music; and he that hath heard the Fifth Symphony hath heard Beethoven.
The Incarnation of the Divine Spirit in man is the central feature of Terrestrial History. It is through man, and the highest man, that the revelation of what is meant by Godhead must necessarily come. The world—even the common everyday world—has accepted this, and is able to perceive its appropriateness and truth; and the traditional song of the angels, at the epoch of the Birth—
“Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill among men,”
“Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill among men,”
“Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill among men,”
“Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, goodwill among men,”
is still heard in the land. Whenever there is war at Christmas-time it is universally felt to be incongruous.Goodwill among men is conspicuous in cessation of private feuds, in overladen postbags, in family reunions and Christmas hampers and all manner of homely frivolities.
The Incarnation doctrine is the glorification of human effort, and the sanctification of childhood and simplicity of life; but it is a pity to reduce it to a dogma. It is well to leave something to intuitive apprehension, and to let the life and death of Christ gradually teach their own eloquent lesson without premature dogmatic assistance.
From that event we date our history, and the strongest believer in immanent Godhead can admit that the life of Jesus was an explicit and clear-voiced message of love to this planet from the Father of all. Naturally our conception of Godhead is still only indistinct and partial, but, so far as we are as yet able to grasp it, we must reach it through recognition of the extent and intricacy of the Cosmos, and more particularly through the highest type and loftiest spiritual development of man himself.
The most essential element in Christianity is its conception of a human God; of a God, in the first place, not apart from the Universe, not outside it and distinct from it, but immanent in it; yet not immanent only, but actually incarnate, incarnate in it and revealed in the Incarnation. The nature of God is displayed in part by everything, to those who have eyes to see, but is displayed most clearly and fullyby the highest type of existence, the highest experience to which the process of evolution has so far opened our senses.
“’Tis the sublime of man,Our noontide majesty, to know ourselvesPart and proportion of one wondrous whole.”
“’Tis the sublime of man,Our noontide majesty, to know ourselvesPart and proportion of one wondrous whole.”
“’Tis the sublime of man,Our noontide majesty, to know ourselvesPart and proportion of one wondrous whole.”
“’Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
Part and proportion of one wondrous whole.”
The Humanity of God, the Divinity of man, is the essence of the Christian revelation. It was truly a manifestation of Immanuel.
The Christian idea of God is not that of a being outside the universe, above its struggles and advances, looking on and taking no part in the process,solelyexalted, beneficent, self-determined, and complete. It is also that of a God who loves, who yearns, who suffers, who keenly laments the rebellious and misguided activity of the free agents brought into being by Himself as part of Himself, who enters into the storm and conflict, and is subject to conditions as the soul of it all.
This is the truth which has been reverberating down the ages ever since; it has been the hidden inspiration of saint, apostle, prophet, martyr, and, in however dim and vague a form, has given hope and consolation to the unlettered and poverty-stricken millions:—A God that could understand, that could suffer, that could sympathise, that had felt the extremity of human anguish, the agony of bereavement, had submitted even to the brutal hopeless torture of the innocent, and had become acquainted with the pangs ofdeath—this has been the chief consolation of the Christian religion. This is the extraordinary conception of Godhead to which we have thus far risen. “This is My beloved Son.”
“Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.” The Christian God is revealed as the incarnate Spirit of humanity; or rather the incarnate spirit of humanity is recognised as a real intrinsic part of God. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”