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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 86

Christ's System of Religion

Christ's System of Religion.

What was that system? What was the truth that He, whom we heedlessly call the Great Teacher, diligently sought for page 15 and discovered for Himself, and which He desired to communicate as the most precious gift that mind can give to mind to every member of the human race? Is it presumption in a layman to ask this question? I fear that many who aspire to control the mind of the layman, while they are unable to teach or persuade it, really think that it is. Now, I am very sensible that with regard to questions of this nature, I, and you also, my brother laymen, are unlearned and ignorant men, and extremely liable in consequence of our ignorance to fall into grave error. But why are we ignorant? I say that it is because the chaos of creeds and the babel of strong tongues in the Christian Churches leave us ignorant and untaught—(renewed applause)—and compel every thinking layman to set out alone and unaided on the perilous path of inquiry. And what shall a rational man who is constrained to seek truth for himself upon this subject do other than this, to close his ears resolutely against all other sounds and voices, and try to catch the sound of that one voice which alone above the din of nineteen centuries still makes itself heard as the voice of one that has authority? That it is more profitable to seek the fountain-heads than to follow the course of the rivulets is a canon of critical research peculiarly applicable to this inquiry. The precise words employed by a teacher are almost invariably the best exponent of his meaning; they acquire a supreme and exclusive value when differences arise as to what the scope and effect of his teaching were, and when those who had the privilege of hearing him, and who might be expected therefore to be competent and concordant interpreters, have admittedly failed to comprehend his meaning and his mission, and do not agree with one another as to several particulars as well as to the general spirit of his doctrine. The words of the Great Teacher of which the Gospels are not the exclusive depositories have come down to us by tradition only. No contemporary record of them exists, or has ever existed. Not more than two of his immediate followers committed to writing His remembered words, and the Gospel of St. John—assuming as I do that it is genuine—was not written until more than thirty years, or, according to another authority, more than fifty years after his Master's last words had been spoken. The general accuracy of His reported utterance, spoken in one language and recorded in another and a very different language, depends largely in respect to both form and substance on what has been called "the uncertain testimony of slippery memory," but an answer conveyed almost wholly in a quotation from an old and still existing book has a very special claim to be regarded as an authentic and probably accurate report of His actual words. Such an answer we find in a passage that occurs in all the three synoptic gospels, with some important differences in each. The full meaning and force of this passage—the most weighty and significant, I think, that is to be found in all Jewish and Christian literature—will be apparent if we remember the main tendency of Jewish philosophy during all the periods of the history of that people. The highest philosophy page 16 amongst the Jews appears to have consisted in the search for a comprehensive rule of life and conduct, founded upon and capable of being traced to a principle or a fact accepted by the understanding. That this thought pervaded Jewish literature and is the key to its historical meaning is shown by a curious and instructive passage quoted from the Talmud by Emile Deutch, which, with your permission, I will read to you:—

Six hundred and thirteen injunctions was Moses instructed to give to the people. David reduced them to eleven in the 15th Psalm. The prophet Isaiah reduce them to six (xxxiii., 15); the prophet Micah reduced them to three (vi., 8); Isaiah once more reduced them to two (lvi., 1); Amos reduced them to one (v., 4); but lest it might be supposed that God could he found in the fulfilment of His holy law, Habbakuk said (xi., 4) "The just shall live by his faith."

"What is your doctrine? What is the truth sufficient, according to your tending, for the guidance of the life of man?" This was in effect the question put by the jurist or scribe to Him who as a boy appears to have proposed questions of a like nature to the learned doctors of the Jewish law. You know the answer that was promptly given to the question. It was quoted from the early records of Jewish history, where it had lain neglected for fourteen centuries buried under heaps of ecclesiastical traditions and forms. It states the central principle or dogma of the existence of one God and His relationship to man, together with the primary and secondary rules of human conduct on and springing out of that relationship. And on these rules, the answer proceeds to state, "hang all the law and the prophets"; they contain the whole practice and theory of the universal religion which the Teacher had himself sought for and had found; none more comprehensive than these exist With the exception of a few, a very few, discordant notes, which a just and fearless criticism may and must either moderate or reject, all His other utterances are in complete harmony with and merely elucidate this one. I believe that no student who reads with an unpreoccupied mind the records of the sayings of Christ can doubt that it was this simple and sublime idea, realised as an idea never before or since has been realised in his life, that possessed, controlled, and animated it all; that it was this that gave great and enduring authority to His words, and has gained for His person the tender reverence of millions of men who have never accepted only because they have never been enabled to understand His doctrine; that this was the good news which he wished to extend from the Semitic to the other races of mankind; and that the transmission and the teaching of this truth, and the application of it to all the varying circumstances of civilisation in the course of its development, was the wise purpose of the commission which He gave to His Church. If my inquiries upon this subject have led me to conclusions not wholly erroneous, it will be evident that there is no opposition or conflict between the religion of Christ and modern science. The resulting conception of both is the same. "God is a Spirit" is the single central dogma of the first; it is the highest generalisation towards which the latest and grandest page 17 discoveries of the second seem to be conducting the human mind. "When we have really penetrated," a recent writer, Mr. Grey, observes, "to the actual teaching of Christ, and fairly disinterred that religion of Jesus which preceded all creeds and schemes and formulas, and which we trust will survive them all, we shall find that so far from this, the true essence of Christianity being renounced or outgrown by the progressive intelligence of the age, its rescue, re-discovery, purification, and re-enthronement as a guide of life, a fountain of truth, an object of faith, a law written on the heart, will be recognised as the grandest and most beneficial achievement of that intelligence." The Christian religion has existed for more than 1800 years. The religion of Christ has yet to be tried. The contest lies between the Christian religion and the religion of Jesus Christ; the religion of which Jesus is the object, or that of which Christ is the subject." The contrast which these words of Lessing vividly expresses brings us into the presence of the most portentous fact, as it appears to me, of this age of the world—a fact so fraught with pain and perplexity that I should be glad if I were able to pass it by. But I cannot do so, for it contains in itself the answer to the question which I have undertaken the attempt to solve. I assume that the founder of Christianity intended to establish a Church—an organisation which should propagate and should for ever maintain His doctrine throughout the world. The positive evidence of such intention is slight; the antecedent probability in favour of it is strong. The best and the most fruitful thoughts are usually the most evanescent, and when they are lost it is difficult to regain them. The saying of "Wordsworth—

'Tis hard to keep

Heights which the soul is competent to gain,

is proved by the history of systems of religious thought to be equally true as applied to communities and to individuals. And the higher the ideal the more difficult it is to propagate; the broader and more comprehensive the principle, the harder it is to apply it to the minute and ever-varying circumstances of practical life. It is unquestionably true that the religion taught by the founder of Christianity avowedly claims a right to hold absolute and exclusive control over all the faculties of the human mind, and to employ them continually in their fullest energy. To communicate a religion of so exalted and exacting a character to nations who were ignorant of it, and afterwards to keep its claims constantly before the minds of those who should adopt it, as well as to supply the means of applying its principles to the new and more complex events and circumstances of advancing civilisation, might well be supposed to require permanent teaching organisation of some kind. Of the intended form of the Church, whether it was to be an independent and separate body, or whether it was to be identical with the State, the civil head of the community presumed to be united by the bond of a common faith, we have no knowledge. Certainly no system of government was fixed by the page 18 founder of the Church, no ritual was prescribed, no form of common prayer was directed, but only a closet prayer constructed (according to Wetstein) almost verbatim out of the Talmud. Everything except the central dogma and the rules of life dependent on it was left at large, and free to adjust itself to the different characters and habits and the varying conditions of each nationality and age. How instructive is this majestic silence in the founder of a religion that was to affect so largely the destinies of mankind ! How does the debt of gratitude due from all who acknowledge His authority for the liberty with which He intended to make and to keep them free ! Christianity is, and always has been, represented in the world by the Christian Churches?