The Discipline of War Part 7

To tens of thousands there has come the ceaseless yearning for

The touch of a vanished hand, The sound of a voice that is still.

Now notice how S. Paul deals with the matter. "That ye sorrow not as others which have no hope." There is no injunction here not to sorrow at all; that would be contrary to human nature, and would bespeak callousness rather than resignation. Our Blessed Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, and in so doing sanctified human grief. The keenest faith, to which the other world is an absolute reality; the fullest hope of the sure and certain resurrection for the dear one; the most disciplined and submissive will which accepts unquestioningly the dispensations of the Father; all these are not proof against the natural grief at the removal of a loved one from this sphere of tender intimacies, into another, where we can only commune with him in thought and prayer.

How often this is ill.u.s.trated at the death of a chronic invalid who has suffered much. With tears streaming down the cheeks, the mourner will say, "I am so thankful he is at rest." No selfish, rebellious side of grief is exhibited by those tears; only human sorrow, blending in loving harmony with perfect resignation.

Now notice carefully the ground on which S. Paul bases the Christian's hope for the departed; first, faith in the death and resurrection of Christ; "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again." It is a mere plat.i.tude to say that the whole of S. Paul's teaching is founded on the actuality of the resurrection. "If Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" (1 Cor. xv. 17). Then out of this fact of the resurrection flows a consequence: the dead, as we call them, "sleep in Jesus," and will be His immediate companions at the last day. We cannot enter into a discussion as to the exact conditions of what is called "Hades" or the "intermediate state"; suffice it to say that one great feature of it is nearness to Jesus, "having a desire to depart and be with Christ" (Phil. i. 23); "absent from the body, present with the Lord" (2 Cor. v. 8). Herein consists the blessed hope set before us in regard to the faithful departed; the crucified, risen, ascended Jesus has them in His keeping; we and they alike are parts of the one great Church, knit into the "Communion of Saints" by the mystic bond of the sacred bread, linked each to the other by mutual prayer; they for us and we for them.

Very beautifully and tenderly does the Archbishop of Canterbury deal with this thought in one of his late sermons:--

"As with bowed head and quivering lip we commend their souls into the hands of a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour we feel how the very pa.s.sing of those brave and buoyant lives into the world beyond pierces the flimsy barrier between the things which are seen and temporal and the things which are unseen and eternal, and again we can and do give thanks. G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead, but of the living:--

"Nor dare to sorrow with increase of grief When they who go before Go furnished, or because their span was brief.

For doubt not but that in the worlds above There must be other offices of love, That other tasks and ministries there are, Since it is promised that His servants there Shall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong, Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve, Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve, But do the works that unto you belong."

Here is the magnificent prospect of hope for those who mourn: that the Incarnation of our Lord is still working itself out in all its beneficent purposes. By the power of the Holy Ghost, in the Church expectant as in the Church militant, the answer to the constant prayer, "Thy Kingdom come," is being ceaselessly given; and the fulness thereof will be realised in the Church triumphant. The saints on earth and those in Paradise are equally in the hands of the Lord, though the latter have clearer vision and nearer sense of the fact than the former. By some this is used as an argument against the practice of prayer for the departed, but surely this thought of the unity of the whole body leads in exactly the opposite direction. No argument can be adduced against this most ancient and primitive custom, observed by the Jews long before the coming of Christ, but what equally applies to any pet.i.tion for an absent friend still on earth. In each case they are in the keeping of Him Who knows best and will do right, yet for those still here we pray, believing that in His own way G.o.d will take account of our prayers and knit them up into His own dealings, so that they become part of His eternal purposes. When commending the departed to Him, naturally our words will be chastened and restrained because we know somewhat less of the conditions of the "intermediate state" than we do of those of our own dispensation. Somewhat less; for how little do we really understand of the circ.u.mstances around us now in all their bearings as they lie open beneath the eye of G.o.d. Therefore it is that whenever we pray we must ask in full submission to our own limitations and in the spirit of the Master, "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done."

Thank G.o.d this matter is not one of argument; no, it lies in another plane: the innate feeling of one who really knows what prayer means and who has grasped in some degree the doctrine of the "Communion of Saints."

A pious evangelical, well fortified with arguments against prayer for the departed, had been nursing her sick sister and taking care of the little daughter of the house. The sister died, and the same evening the motherless girl knelt down at her aunt's side to say her prayers.

"Auntie, may I say G.o.d bless dear mother?" The whole drift of the aunt's training and theology would have led her to say "No" point blank. There was no time for argument or explanation, for facing the inevitable "If not, why not?" The instincts of natural religion prevailed; the aunt replied, "Yes, dear"; and from that day onward never failed herself to say, when remembering her dear ones, "G.o.d bless my sister."

Whatever the effect of such prayers in the other world, there is no shade of doubt that to the bereaved they bring an infinite sense of nearness to their beloved, and of the reality of the life of the world to come.

Thus far we have been speaking of those who may fairly be called the faithful departed, the cases in which hope may be reasonable and a.s.sured almost to certainty.

Now let us go a step further. The mind staggers as it contemplates the tens of thousands being hurried into eternity who, either according to the teaching of the Catholic Church or the notions of popular theology, would be deemed unprepared.

We trust, in a dim sort of way, that the all-embracing mercy of G.o.d will accept their sacrifice of themselves for their country, and in some fashion place it to the credit side of their account. No doubt He will. But can we not get a more evangelical, and at the same time more catholic, view of the matter? We find it in an extension of our conception of the possibilities of the intermediate state, the condition of souls between death and judgment. Evangelical to the backbone, because it is the work of Christ which we conceive of as being there carried on. Catholic, because the Church from very early times has recognised the idea of the discipline of souls as being a process continued after death. The authority of S. Paul has been appealed to on account of his words to the Philippians (i. 6), "being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ"; and to the Corinthians in that mysterious pa.s.sage concerning "the fire which shall try every man's work" (1 Cor.

iii. 13). The doctrine was developed and materialised till it resulted in those corruptions which were so largely responsible for the Reformation. In their zeal to root out error, the Reformers fell into the opposite extreme and abolished the idea of the intermediate state altogether. Hence arose the popular notion, unknown to the Catholic Church till then, of Heaven or h.e.l.l as the immediate issue of death.

Of course, the Church's teaching had regard to the condition of its own members after death, and we cannot press it into an argument as to those not dying, technically, in a state of grace; but at least this much we may say: Surely no intelligent person can contemplate the thought of these vast hosts being hurried off into eternal perdition, and at the same time retain his reason or his faith in a G.o.d of love. Whatever the possibilities of the world to come, they are but the extension of the boundless love of G.o.d in Christ, and hold out no promise for us if we wilfully neglect our day of grace.

But now to pa.s.s on to one further source of consolation which comes in its measure to all the bereaved alike; the chastened joy from the thought of the splendid sacrifice the dear one has been privileged to make.

Take an ill.u.s.tration--a letter from Major-General Allenby to Lady de Crespigny on the death of her son:--

"Dear Lady de Crespigny,--I and the whole of the Cavalry Division sympathise with you, and we feel deeply for Norman's loss.

But I must tell you that he died a hero's death. The brigade was hotly engaged, and on the Bays fell the brunt of the fighting on September 1st. Norman, with a few men, was holding an important tactical point, and he held it till every man was killed or wounded. No man could have done more, few would have done so much.

"With deepest sympathy, yours sincerely,

"E.H.H. Allenby."

How the bereaved hearts in the midst of crushing grief must have lit up with gladness at such a record as that!

But to close. The discipline of bereavement consists essentially in the trial of faith, yet at the same time brings with it the power of faith.

In bereavement, above all other forms of sorrow, comes the felt need of G.o.d; it has been so with countless souls. The answer to the need is the revelation that G.o.d makes of Himself in Christ; then comes the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth all understanding, which dries the tears and heals the broken heart.

_Note_.--The question of prayer in connection with G.o.d's foreknowledge is so admirably treated in "Some Elements of Religion" (Liddon) that we append an extract:--

"What if prayers and actions, to us at the moment perfectly spontaneous, are eternally foreseen and included within the all-embracing Predestination of G.o.d, as factors and causes, working out that final result which, beyond all dispute, is the product of His Good Pleasure?

"Whether I open my mouth or lift my hand is, before my doing it, strictly within the jurisdiction and power of my personal will: but however I may decide, my decision, so absolutely free to me, will have been already incorporated by the All-seeing, All-controlling Being as an integral part, however insignificant, of His one all-embracing purpose, leading on to effects and causes beyond itself. Prayer, too, is only a foreseen action of man which, together with its results, is embraced in the eternal Predestination of G.o.d. To us this or that blessing may be strictly contingent on our praying for it; but our prayer is nevertheless so far from necessarily introducing change into the purpose of the Unchangeable, that it has been all along taken, so to speak, into account by Him. If, then, with 'the Father of Lights' there is in this sense 'no variableness, neither shadow of turning,' it is not therefore irrational to pray for specific blessings, as we do in the Litany, because G.o.d works out His plans not merely in us but by us; and we may dare to say that that which is to us a free self-determination, may be not other than a foreseen element of His work."

_For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix._

VIII

=Discipline through Self-sacrifice=

GOOD FRIDAY

1 Tim. ii. 6

"Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all."

To-day we reach the solemn climax which embraces in itself the whole idea of discipline under each of those aspects upon which we have touched. Will, body, soul, spirit, obedience, suffering, death, all summed up in the tremendous self-sacrifice declared by the Cross of Christ.

The principle of sacrifice is one of those deep mysteries which seem, as it were, to be rooted in the very nature of our being. It begins in the initial fact by which man's existence is maintained upon earth--motherhood, a vast vicarious sacrifice. Yet borne with grat.i.tude, readiness, ay, even with joy because of the dignity, the love, the delights it brings with it. One of the surest signs of the decadence of a nation is when its women, through desire of merely living for themselves, begin to rebel against the high privilege of motherhood, or to neglect the duties it should entail. This att.i.tude of mind poisons life at its fountain-head.

Time would fail us, nor indeed would it be profitable, to enter upon a discussion as to the exact theological bearing of the death of Christ upon the forgiveness of sins. This is a matter which may rightly occupy the attention of theologians and scholars who endeavour, so far as infinite verities can be expressed in finite language, to give a reason for the hope that is in them. Such books as Liddon's Bampton Lectures, Dale on the Atonement, or Illingworth on Personality, will be found most valuable by those who have the time and the capacity for studying them.

It is a good thing, especially in these days, that the intellect of the Christian should be well-equipped, so that he may silence the taunts of those who say Christianity is purely a matter of emotion.

The personal acceptance of Christ as a personal Saviour rests, not so much on arguments, as on a sense of need; when this is accompanied by strong intellectual grip of truth then the influence of the Christian upon others becomes a great missionary factor. The beauty of the Gospel story lies in its wonderful adaptability. It is the same in its power to a Pascal, a Butler, a Liddon, as it is to the unlettered peasant, who can neither read nor write.

Scripture declares quite plainly that the death of Christ was "for us"; how far this may be pressed to mean "instead of us" is a very grave question. The words will bear that interpretation, no doubt, but we must remember that they do not necessarily involve any more than "in our behalf," that is, for our benefit.

It has been the forcing of the words into an unnatural and immoral theory of subst.i.tution, the notion of an angry G.o.d claiming a victim, that has done such terrible harm to the cause of Christianity, and has led many thoughtful minds to give it up in disgust or despair. Probably in a wise commingling of the two lines of thought we shall arrive most nearly at the truth. We all agree that our Blessed Lord's death was "in behalf of us"; that is for our everlasting welfare; in a very real sense this was "instead of us," since His sufferings were endured so that we might not lose the blessing of salvation.

Very beautifully is the matter summed up by a modern writer: "In the death of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for the sins of the world, the moral perfections of G.o.d find their highest expression, and the deepest necessities of man's moral and spiritual life their only complete satisfaction."[3]

[Footnote 3: Dale on the Atonement.]

The death of Christ was not only typically but, in a certain sense, actually the offering up of our bodies on the Cross. Notice very carefully the words of St. Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ"

(Gal. ii., 20 R.V.). Not simply, as in the old Authorised Version, "I am crucified with Christ," but something much more definite and exact.

When Christ ascended the Cross He took up with Him our human nature collectively, as bound up in Himself by virtue of His Incarnation. Hence it follows that you, the individual, have been crucified with Him; just as you, the individual, have been buried with Him, and raised with Him in your Baptism (Rom. vi., 4). How completely this takes the sting out of the reproach brought against Christianity, on the ground of the immorality of the Crucifixion! It is no longer the Innocent one suffering instead of the guilty, but it is the sinless One taking upon Himself human nature, with all its guilt and consequent punishment, and "in His own body on the tree," offering that human nature up to G.o.d. He in us, we in Him, that the redemption of human nature may be complete.