"If by tying its main artery, we
stop most of the blood going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb performs
its function, those parts which are called into play must be wasted faster
than they are repaired: whence eventual disablement. The relation between
due receipt of nutritive matters through its arteries, and due discharge
of its duties by the limb, is a part of the physical order. If instead
of cutting off the supply to a particular limb, we bleed the patient largely,
so drafting away the materials needed for repairing not one limb but all
limbs, and not limbs only but viscera, there results both a muscular debility
and an enfeeblement of the vital functions. Here, again, cause and effect
are necessarily related. . . . Pass now to those actions more commonly
thought of as the occasions for rules of conduct."
HERBERT SPENCER.
"Mortify therefore your members which
are upon earth"-- Paul.
"O Star-eyed
Science ! hast thou wandered there
To waft us home the message of despair?"--Campbell.
THE definition of Death which science has
given us is this: A falling out of correspondence with environment.
When, for example, a man loses the sight of his eyes, his correspondence
with the environing world is curtailed. His life is limited in an important
direction; he is less living than he was before. If, in addition, he lose
the senses of touch and hearing, his correspondences are still further
limited; he is therefore still further dead. And when all possible correspondences
have ceased, when the nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, when the
lungs close their gates against the air, when the heart refuses to correspond
with the blood by so much as another beat, the insensate corpse is wholly
and for ever dead. The soul, in like manner, which has no correspondence
with the spiritual environment is spiritually dead. It may be that it never
possessed the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed
in response to the love of God. If so, having never lived, it cannot be
said to have died. But not to have these correspondences is to be in the
state of Death. To the spiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is
dead--as a stone which has never lived is dead to the environment of the
organic world.
Having already abundantly illustrated this
use of the symbol Death, we may proceed to deal with another class of expressions
where the same term is employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is
a proof of the radical nature of religion that a word so extreme should
have to be used again and again in Christian teaching, to define in different
directions the true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto we have concerned
ourselves with the condition of the natural man with regard to the spiritual
world. We have now to speak of the relations of the spiritual man with
regard to the natural world. Carrying with us the same essential principle--want
of correspondence--underlying the meaning of Death, we shall find that
the relation of the spiritual man to the natural world, or at least to
part of it, is to be that of Death.
When the natural man becomes the spiritual
man the great change is described by Christ as a passing from Death unto
Life. Before the transition occurred, the practical difficulty was this,
how to get into correspondence with the new Environment? But no sooner
is this correspondence established than the problem is reversed. The question
now is, how to get out of correspondence with the old environment? The
moment the new life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break with
the old. For the former environment has now become embarrassing. It refuses
its dismissal from consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new Environment
for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the former traditions,
the memories and passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits
of the earlier life, now complicate the new relation. The complex and bewildered
soul, in fact, finds itself in correspondence with two environments, each
with urgent but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a
double world, a world whose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged
in perpetual civil-war.
The position of things is perplexing. It
is clear that no man can attempt to live both lives. To walk both in the
flesh and in the spirit is morally impossible. "No man," as Christ
so often emphasized, "can serve two masters." And yet, as matter
of fact, here is the new-born being in communication with both environments?
With sin and purity, light and darkness, time and Eternity, God and Devil,
the confused and undecided soul is now in correspondence. What is to be
done in such an emergency? How can the New Life deliver itself from the
still-persistent past?
A ready solution of the difficulty would
be to die. Were one to die organically, to die and "go to heaven,"
all correspondence with the lower environment would be arrested at a stroke.
For Physical Death of course simply means the final stoppage of all natural
correspondences with this sinful world. But this alternative, fortunately
or unfortunately, is not open. The detention here of body and spirit for
a given period is determined for us, and we are morally bound to accept
the situation. We must look then for a further alternative.
Actual Death being denied us, we must ask
ourselves if there is nothing else resembling it--no artificial relation,
no imitation or semblance of Death which would serve our purpose. If we
cannot yet die absolutely, surely the next best thing will be to find a
temporary substitute. If we cannot die altogether, in short, the most we
can do is to die as much as we can. And we now know this is open to us,
and how. To die to any environment is to withdraw correspondence with it,
to cut ourselves off, so far as possible, from all communication with it.
So that the solution of the problem will simply be this, for the spiritual
life to reverse continuously the processes of the natural life. The spiritual
man having passed from Death unto Life, the natural man must next proceed
to pass from Life unto Death. Having opened the new set of correspondences,
he must deliberately close up the old. Regeneration in short must be accompanied
by Degeneration.
Now it is no surprise to find that this is
the process everywhere described and recommended by the founders of the
Christian system. Their proposal to the natural man, or rather to the natural
part of the spiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inimical relations,
is precisely this. If he cannot really die, he must make an adequate approach
to it by "reckoning himself dead." Seeing that, until the cycle
of his organic life is complete he cannot die physically, he must meantime
die morally, reckoning himself morally dead to that environment which,
by competing for his correspondences, has now become an obstacle to his
spiritual life.
The variety of ways in which the New Testament
writers insist upon this somewhat extraordinary method is sufficiently
remarkable And although the idea involved is essentially the same throughout,
it will clearly illustrate the nature of the act if we examine separately
three different modes of expression employed in the later Scriptures in
this connection. The methods by which the spiritual man is to withdraw
himself from the old environment--or from that part of it which will directly
hinder the spiritual life--are three in number:--
First, Suicide.
Second, Mortification.
Third, Limitation.
It will be found in practice that these different
methods are adapted, respectively, to meet three different forms of temptation;
so that we possess a sufficient warrant for giving a brief separate treatment
to each.
First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised phraseology,
the advice of Paul to the Christian, with regard to a part of his nature,
is to commit suicide. If the Christian is to "live unto God,"
he must "die unto sin." If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably
kill him. Recognising this, he must set himself to reduce the number of
his correspondences--retaining and developing those which lead to a fuller
life, unconditionally withdrawing those which in any way tend in an opposite
direction. This stoppage of correspondences is a voluntary act, a crucifixion
of the flesh, a suicide.
Now the least experience of life will make
it evident that a large class of sins can only be met, as it were, by Suicide.
The peculiar feature of Death by Suicide is, that it is not only self-inflicted
but sudden. And there are many sins which must either be dealt with suddenly
or not at all. Under this category, for instance, are to be included generally
all sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from their peculiar
nature, can only be treated by methods less abrupt, but the sudden operation
of the knife is the only successful means of dealing with fleshly sins.
For example, the correspondence of the drunkard with his wine is a thing
which can be broken off by degrees only in the rarest cases. To attempt
it gradually may in an isolated case succeed, but even then the slightly
prolonged gratification is no compensation for the slow torture of a gradually
diminishing indulgence. "If thine appetite offend thee cut it off,"
may seem at first but a harsh remedy; but when we contemplate on the one
hand the lingering pain of the gradual process, on the other its constant
peril, we are compelled to admit that the principle is as kind as it is
wise. The expression "total abstinence" in such a case is a strictly
biological formula. It implies the sudden destruction of a definite portion
of environment by the total withdrawal of all the connecting links. Obviously
of course total abstinence ought thus to be allowed a much wider application
than to cases of "intemperance." It is the only decisive method
of dealing with any sin of the flesh. The very nature of the relations
makes it absolutely imperative that every victim of unlawful appetite,
in whatever direction, shall totally abstain. Hence Christ's apparently
extreme and peremptory language defines the only possible, as well as the
only charitable, expedient: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it
out, and cast it from thee. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,
and cast it from thee."
The humanity of what is called "sudden
conversion" has never been insisted on as it deserves. In discussing
"Biogenesis" it has been already pointed out that while growth
is a slow and gradual process, the change from Death to Life alike in the
natural and spiritual spheres is the work of a moment. Whatever the conscious
hour of the second birth may be--in the case of an adult it is probably
defined by the first real victory over sin--it is certain that on biological
principles the real turning-point is literally a moment. But on moral and
humane grounds this misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised doctrine
is equally capable of defence. Were any reformer, with an adequate knowledge
of human life, to sit down and plan a scheme for the salvation of sinful
men, he would probably come to the conclusion that the best way after all,
perhaps indeed the only way, to turn a sinner from the error of his ways
would be to do it suddenly.
Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off
one portion from his usual allowance the first week, another the second,
and so on! Or suppose at first he only allowed himself to become intoxicated
in the evenings, then every second evening, then only on Saturday nights,
and finally only every Christmas? How would a thief be reformed if he slowly
reduced the number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradually diminishing
the number of his blows? The argument ends with an ad absurdum. "Let
him that stole steal no more," is the only feasible,
the only moral, and the only humane way. This may not apply to every case,
but when any part of man's sinful life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide,
to make him reach the end, even were it possible, by a lingering death,
would be a monstrous cruelty. And yet it is this very thing in "sudden
conversion," that men object to--the sudden change, the decisive stand,
the uncompromising rupture with the past, the precipitate night from sin
as of one escaping for his life. Men surely forget that this is
an escaping for one's life. Let the poor prisoner run--madly and blindly
if he likes, for the terror of Death is upon him. God knows, when the pause
comes, how the chains will gall him still.
It is a peculiarity of the sinful state,
that as a general rule men are linked to evil mainly by a single correspondence.
Few men break the whole law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough
to make us guilty of all, and the restraints of circumstances are usually
such as to leave a loophole in the life of each individual for only a single
habitual sin. But it is very easy to see how this reduction of our intercourse
with evil to a single correspondence blinds us to our true position. Our
correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and in our calculations
as to our spiritual condition we emphasize the many negatives rather than
the single positive. One little weakness, we are apt to fancy, all men
must be allowed, and we even claim a certain indulgence for that apparent
necessity of nature which we call our besetting sin. Yet to break with
the lower environment at all, to many, is to break at this single point.
It is the only important point at which they touch it, circumstances or
natural disposition making habitual contact at other places impossible.
The sinful environment, in short, to them means a small but well-defined
area. Now if contact at this point be not broken off, they are virtually
in contact still with the whole environment. There may be only one avenue
between the new life and the old, it may be but a small and subterranean
passage, but this is sufficient to keep the old life in. So long as
that remains the victim is not "dead unto sin," and therefore
he cannot "live unto God." Hence the reasonableness of the words,
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend at one point,
he is guilty of all." In the natural world it only requires a single
vital correspondence of the body to be out of order to ensure Death. It
is not necessary to have consumption, diabetes, and an aneurism to bring
the body to the grave if it have heart-disease. He who is fatally diseased
in one organ necessarily pays the penalty with his life, though all the
others be in perfect health. And such, likewise, are the mysterious unity
and correlation of functions in the spiritual organism that the disease
of one member may involve the ruin of the whole. The reason, therefore,
with which Christ follows up the announcement of His Doctrine of Mutilation,
or local Suicide, finds here at once its justification and interpretation:
"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And
if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for
the use of this expression is found in the well-known phrases of Paul,
"If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall
live," and " Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth."
The word mortify here is, literally, to make to die. It is used, of course,
in no specially technical sense; and to attempt to draw a detailed moral
from the pathology of mortification would be equally fantastic and irrelevant.
But without in any way straining the meaning it is obvious that we have
here a slight addition to our conception of dying to sin. In contrast with
Suicide, Mortification implies a gradual rather than a sudden process.
The contexts in which the passages occur will make this meaning so clear,
and are otherwise so instructive in the general connection, that we may
quote them, from the New Version, at length: "They that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but
the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh
is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But
ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ
Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit
that dwelleth in you. So then, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh,
to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh ye must die; but
if by the Spirit ye mortify the doings (marg.) of the body, ye shall live."
And again, "If then ye were raised together
with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated on
the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not
on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid
with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested,
then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your
members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil
desire, and covetousness, the which is idolatry; for which things' sake
cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience; in the which ye
also walked aforetime, when ye lived in these things. But now put ye also
away all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of
your mouth: lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old
man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed
unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him."
From the nature of the case as here stated
it is evident that no sudden process could entirely transfer a man from
the old into the new relation. To break altogether, and at every point,
with the old environment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the regenerate
man is kept in this world, he must find the old environment at many points
a severe temptation. Power over very many of the commonest temptations
is only to be won by degrees, and however anxious one might be to apply
the summary method to every case, he soon finds it impossible in practice.
The difficulty in these cases arises from a peculiar feature of the temptation.
The difference between a sin of drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin of
temper, is that in the former case the victim who would reform has mainly
to deal with the environment, but in the latter with the correspondence.
The drunkard's temptation is a known and definite quantity. His safety
lies in avoiding some external and material substance. Of course, at bottom,
he is really dealing with the correspondence every time he resists; he
is distinctly controlling appetite. Nevertheless it is less the appetite
that absorbs his mind than the environment. And so long as he can keep
himself clear of the "external relation," to use Mr Herbert Spencer's
phraseology, he has much less difficulty with the "internal relation."
The ill-tempered person, on the other hand, can make very little of his
environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions,
there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate his
irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, and
his most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and suddenly
fail him.
What he has to deal with, then, mainly is
the correspondence, the temper itself. And that, he well knows, involves
a long and humiliating discipline. The case now is not at all a surgical
but a medical one, and the knife is here of no more use than in a fever.
A specific irritant has poisoned his veins. And the acrid humours that
are breaking out all over the surface of his life are only to be subdued
by a gradual sweetening of the inward spirit. It is now known that the
human body acts towards certain fever-germs as a sort of soil. The man
whose blood is pure has nothing to fear. So he whose spirit is purified
and sweetened becomes proof against these germs of sin. "Anger, wrath,
malice and railing" in such a soil can find no root.
The difference between this and the former
method of dealing with sin may be illustrated by another analogy. The two
processes depend upon two different natural principles. The Mutilation
of a member, for instance, finds its analogue in the horticultural operation
of pruning, where the object is to divert life from a useless into
a useful channel. A part of a plant which previously monopolised a large
share of the vigour of the total organism, but without yielding any adequate
return, is suddenly cut off, so that the vital processes may proceed more
actively in some fruitful parts. Christ's use of this figure is well-known:
"Every branch in Me that beareth fruit He purgeth it that it may bring
forth more fruit." The strength of the plant being given in part to
the formation of mere wood, a number of useless correspondences have to
be abruptly closed while the useful connections are allowed to remain.
The Mortification of a member, again, is based on the Law of Degeneration.
The useless member here is not cut off, but simply relieved as much as
possible of all exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of the parts,
and as it is more and more neglected it ceases to be a channel for life
at all. So an organism "mortifies" its members.
Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number
of correspondences between man and his environment can be stopped in these
ways, there are many more which neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortification
nor cut short by sudden Death. One reason for this is that to tamper with
these correspondences might involve injury to closely related vital parts.
Or, again, there are organs which are really essential to the normal life
of the organism, and which therefore the organism cannot afford to lose
even though at times they act prejudicially Not a few correspondences,
for instance, are not wrong in themselves but only in their extremes. Up
to a certain point they are lawful and necessary; beyond that point they
may become not only unnecessary but sinful. The appropriate treatment in
these and similar cases consists in a process of Limitation. The performance
of this operation, it must be confessed, requires a most delicate hand.
It is an art, moreover, which no one can teach another. And yet, if it
is not learned by all who are trying to lead the Christian life, it cannot
be for want of practice. For, as we shall see, the Christian is called
upon to exercise few things more frequently.
An easy illustration of a correspondence
which is only wrong when carried to an extreme, is the love of money. The
love of money up to a certain point is a necessity; beyond that it may
become one of the worst of sins. Christ said: "Ye cannot serve God
and Mammon" The two services, at a definite point, become incompatible,
and hence correspondence with one must cease. At what point, however, it
must cease each man has to determine for himself. And in this consists
at once the difficulty and the dignity of Limitation.
There is another class of cases where the
adjustments are still more difficult to determine. Innumerable points exist
in our surroundings with which it is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and
even to cultivate, correspondence, but which privilege, at the same time,
it were better on the whole that we did not use. Circumstances are occasionally
such--the demands of others upon us, for example, may be so clamant--that
we have voluntarily to reduce the area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead
of it coming from others, the claim may come from a still higher direction.
Man's spiritual life consists in the number and fulness of his correspondences
with God. In order to develop these, he may be constrained to insulate
them, to enclose them from the other correspondences, to shut himself in
with them. In many ways the limitation of the natural life is the necessary
condition of the full enjoyment of the spiritual life.
In this principle lies the true philosophy
of self-denial. No man is called to a life of self-denial for its own sake.
It is in order to a compensation which, though sometimes difficult to see,
is always real and always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical
religion is more lost sight of. We cherish somehow a lingering rebellion
against the doctrine of self-denial--as if our nature, or our circumstances,
or our conscience, dealt with us severely in loading us with the daily
cross. But is it not plain after all that the life of self-denial is the
more abundant life--more abundant just in proportion to the ampler crucifixion
of the narrower life? Is it not a clear case of exchange--an exchange however
where the advantage is entirely on our side? We give up a correspondence
in which there is a little life to enjoy a correspondence in which there
is an abundant life. What though we sacrifice a hundred such correspondences?
We make but the more room for the great one that is left. The lesson of
self-denial, that is to say of Limitation, is concentration. Do
not spoil your life, it says, at the outset with unworthy and impoverishing
correspondences; and if it is growing truly rich and abundant, be very
jealous of ever diluting its high eternal quality with anything of earth.
To concentrate upon a few great correspondences, to oppose to the death
the perpetual petty larceny of our life by trifles--these are the conditions
for the highest and happiest life. It is only Limitation which can secure
the Illimitable.
The penalty of evading self-denial also is
just that we get the lesser instead of the larger good. The punishment
of sin is inseparably bound up with itself. To refuse to deny one's self
is just to be left with the self undenied. When the balance of life is
struck, the self will be found still there. The discipline of life was
meant to destroy this self, but that discipline having been evaded--and
we all to some extent have opportunities, and too often exercise them,
of taking the narrow path by the shortest cuts--its purpose is baulked.
But the soul is the loser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost
it. This is what Christ meant when He said: "He that loveth his life
shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it
unto life eternal."
Why does Christ say: "Hate Life "?
Does He mean that life is a sin? No. Life is not a sin. Still, He says
we must hate it. But we must live. Why should we hate what we must do?
For this reason: Life is not a sin, but the love of life may be a sin.
And the best way not to love life is to hate it. Is it a sin then to love
life? Not a sin exactly, but a mistake. It is a sin to love some life,
a mistake to love the rest. Because that love is lost. All that is lavished
on it is lost. Christ does not say it is wrong to love life. He simply
says it is loss. Each man has only a certain amount of life, of
time, of attention--a definite measurable quantity. If he gives any of
it to this life solely it is wasted. Therefore Christ says, Hate life,
limit life, lest you steal your love for it from something that deserves
it more.
Now this does not apply to all life. It is
"life in this world" that is to be hated. For life in this world
implies conformity to this world. It may not mean pursuing worldly pleasures,
or mixing with worldly sets; but a subtler thing than that--a silent deference
to worldly opinion; an almost unconscious lowering of religious tone to
the level of the worldly religious world around; a subdued resistance to
the soul's delicate promptings to greater consecration, out of deference
to "breadth" or fear of ridicule. These, and such things, are
what Christ tells us we must hate. For these things are of the very essence
of worldliness. "If any man love the world," even in this sense,
"the love of the Father is not in him."
There are two ways of hating life, a true
and a false. Some men hate life because it hates them. They have seen through
it, and it has turned round upon them. They have drunk it, and come to
the dregs; therefore they hate it. This is one of the ways in which the
man who loves his life literally loses it. He loves it till he loses it,
then he hates it because it has fooled him. The other way is the religious.
For religious reasons a man deliberately braces himself to the systematic
hating of his life. "No man can serve two masters, for either he must
hate the one and love the other, or else he must hold to the one and despise
the other." Despising the other--this is hating life, limiting life.
It is not misanthropy, but Christianity.
This principle, as has been said, contains
the true philosophy of self-denial. It also holds the secret by which self-denial
may be most easily borne. A common conception of self-denial is that there
are a multitude of things about life which are to be put down with a high
hand the moment they make their appearance. They are temptations which
are not to be tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of being with
pang and effort.
So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting
off of things which we love as our right hand. But now suppose one tried
boldly to hate these things? Suppose we deliberately made up our minds
as to what things we were henceforth to allow to become our life? Suppose
we selected a given area of our environment and determined once for all
that our correspondences should go to that alone, fencing in this area
all round with a morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem
to live a poorer life; they would see that our environment was circumscribed,
and call us narrow because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limited
life would be really the fullest life; it would be rich in the highest
and worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest correspondences. The
well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also
the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than the
half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makes
nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses the benediction
of both. But he who has taken his stand, who has drawn a boundary line,
sharp and deep about his religious life, who has marked off all beyond
as for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden
light. For this forbidden environment comes to be as if it were not.
His faculties falling out of correspondence,
slowly lose their sensibilities. And the balm of Death numbing his lower
nature releases him for the scarce disturbed communion of a higher life.
So even here to die is gain.