The Discipline of War Part 1

The Discipline of War.

by John Hasloch Potter.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The war has introduced into countless lives new conditions, and has strangely modified, or emphasised, those already existing. These Addresses, prepared under much stress of other work, are intended to supply, in very simple fashion, hints for conduct and points for thought along the lines of our fresh or deepened responsibilities. An Appendix gives a suggested subject and a pa.s.sage of Scripture for each day during Lent. May G.o.d the Holy Ghost, without Whom man's best labours are in vain, bless this little book to its purpose. Please say a prayer for the writer, who, as much as any, needs grace that he may try to practise what he preaches.

J. HASLOCH POTTER.

Surbiton.

The Conversion of St. Paul. 1915.

FOREWORD

Kingston House, Clapham Common.

_January 19th, 1915._

My dear Canon,--

You have invited me to say a few words introductory to the little book you are putting forth, and of which you have sent me the advance proofs.

From the great excellence of that which I have read, I am convinced that your Lenten meditations on the Discipline of War, will be of pre-eminently spiritual value in a time when publications on the subject are multiplied. That the war is to leave us on a higher plane of self-discipline, and with higher ideals of citizen life and responsibility, every Christian must acknowledge. Your little Lenten scheme is just that which is needed to give reality and action to what might otherwise be left in the realm of theory. May the Holy Spirit make use of your work to the benefit of us all and for the Glory of G.o.d.

Your sincere friend,

CECIL HOOK, _Bishop._

THE DISCIPLINE OF WAR

I

=The Discipline of the Will=

ASH WEDNESDAY

Isaiah lviii. 6

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?"

Discipline is the central idea of the observance of Lent. An opportunity, rich in its splendid possibilities, comes before us this year. Much of the discipline of this Lent is settled for us by those tragic circ.u.mstances in which we find ourselves placed.

G.o.d seems to be saying to us, in no uncertain tones, "Is not this the fast that I have chosen?"

Our amus.e.m.e.nts are already to a large extent curtailed, maybe by our own individual sorrows or anxieties; maybe by the feeling of the incongruity of enjoying ourselves while anguish and hardship reign supreme around us.

Our self-denials are already in operation, under the stress of straitened means, or the vital necessity of helping others less favoured than ourselves.

Our devotions have already been increased in frequency and in earnestness, for the call upon our prayers has come with an insistence and an imperiousness that brook no denial.

To this extent, and further in many directions, our Lent has been taken out of our own hands; ordered and pre-arranged by that inscrutable, yet loving, Providence which has permitted the War to come about.

Thus, at the very outset, we are brought into harmony with the central idea of discipline--not my will, but G.o.d's will.

Broadly, discipline is defined as "Mental and moral training, under one's own guidance or under that of another": the two necessarily overlap, and therefore we shall speak of G.o.d's discipline, acting upon us from outside, and of our own co-operation with divine purposes, which is our discipline of self from within.

In the forefront of the subject, and including every aspect of it upon which we shall touch, stands that tremendous word--_will_.

Have you ever attempted to gauge the mystery, to sound the depth of meaning implied in the simple sentence "I will"?

First of all what is the significance of "I"? You are the only one who can say it of yourself. Any other must speak of you as "he" or "she"; but "I" is your own inalienable possession.

This is the mystery of personality. That acc.u.mulation of experience, that consciousness of ident.i.ty which you possess as absolutely, uniquely your own; which none other can share with you in the remotest degree. "A thing we consider to be unconscious, an animal to be conscious, a person to be self-conscious."

This leads on to a further mystery, alike concerned with so apparently simple a matter that its real complexity escapes us.

"I _will_": I, the self-conscious person, have made up my mind what I am going to do, and, physical obstacles excepted, I will do it.

The freedom of man's will has been the subject of endless dispute from every point of view, theistic, atheistic, Christian and non-Christian.

Merely as a philosophic controversy it has but little bearing upon daily life. The staunchest necessitarian, who argues _theoretically_ that even when he says "I will" he is under the compulsion of external force, yet acts _practically_ in exactly the same fashion as the rest of mankind.

When the freedom of the will is considered in relation to religion, then it bears a totally different aspect. If the will be not free, religion, as a personal matter, falls to the ground, for its very essence is man's voluntary choice of G.o.d.

Here too those who deny the freedom of man's will doctrinally yet accept it as a working fact. Calvin, whose theory of Predestination and Irresistible Grace seems to exclude man from any co-operation in his own salvation, yet preached a Gospel not to be distinguished from that of John Wesley!

For us Christians the freedom of the will is absolutely settled by Him Who says, "Whosoever will let him come."

If you are sometimes troubled by certain pa.s.sages in Scripture which seem to imply that G.o.d's predestination overrides man's will, remember, that whenever we are considering any question which concerns both G.o.d's nature and man's nature, difficulty must arise, from the very fact that our finite mind can only comprehend, and that but imperfectly, man's side of the transaction. Things which now seem incompatible, such as prayer and law; miracle and, what we are pleased to call, nature; G.o.d's foreknowledge and man's free-will in the light of eternity will be seen as only complementary parts of one divine whole.

Remember too that you must take the general bearing of Scripture; not isolated pa.s.sages in which, for the necessity of the argument, one side is strongly emphasised. The Apostle who, thinking of the boundless power of G.o.d's grace, says, "So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of G.o.d that showeth mercy" (Rom. ix. 16) is the one who says "He willeth that all men should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4).

The love by which the Father gave up His Son; the life and death of that Son; the ministry of G.o.d the Holy Ghost; the whole dispensation of the Catholic Church, form one great tender appeal to the free-will of man.

Your free-will, my free-will, before which is placed the tremendous responsibility of choosing or rejecting.

And now from the broad thought of will, at its highest point, occupied with eternal choices and spiritual decisions, we turn to will as the governing power in our lives.

It is, to a certain extent, self in action, for before even the slightest movement of any part of the body, there must have gone, automatically and unconsciously, an act of will.