Images de page
PDF
ePub

Christians. It is not the spiritual nature of God which is alone in us, but the human nature also. Thus every

Christian is a supplementary Gospel of the Incarnation, with something human and imperfect, and something also divine and ideal.

Every man is like a pool reflecting the sun. He is the reproduction of Christ, whether he be Christian or heathen, Catholic or Protestant; but in one, the image is clearer and more radiant than in another, because there is less disturbance of the harmony of a nature in union with God. Every interference with the development of his nature, by negation of personality, of the link between the personalities, or of the relation of the personalities, breaks up the image, and the mirror is clouded. To reproduce Christ, the Ideal, the affirmation of the being of God, of one's self, and the exercise of the link, which is love, by use of free-will and acquisition of grace, and the affirmation by worship of the relations in which God stands to man, are absolutely necessary.

When God crowns our merits, He crowns Himself, for we are one with Christ, we in Him—that is, in His body the Church-and He in us, by conformation to the Ideal. There is no imputation of merits; the good we do, Christ does in us, and He cannot do it in us, except by our distinguishing our personality from His.

This is the mystery of the Passion, the descent of Christ into negation and opposition, and out of negation and opposition a restoration to unity.

Thus the Incarnation, as regards the moral life, is not a thing of the past, but of the present. As a means of conveying moral force, or grace, it is not a thing of the past, but of the present. Christ lives on in His Church as the Grace-dispenser. The gospel of His life is ever taking

new forms and fresh developments, in the patriot, in the resolute explorer, undaunted by difficulties, the emancipator of the slave, the political reformer,-it was not run out at His crucifixion; wherever there is a moral beauty, a dignity, a heroism, it is an aspect of Christ's life working out in His body the Church or in His members.

And as His garment is of many colours, so is that of His grace, which nourishes the moral life. In a thousand ways, through the voices of men, through the press, through the orchestra and the stage, through whatever is beautiful in act and noble in conception, He breathes the stimulating force into the soul of man. But especially does He do so through those consecrated channels which He historically in person, or still mystically in His Church, may have instituted. In these specially, for they were appointed for that particular purpose, and for none other, whereas all the other means, devices of men, are not designed for that end.

It is thus that Christ is in all the sacraments as the Grace-giver. They are not forms only, but the forms through which He works, just as all force operates through matter. Spiritual gifts may be given without a medium, but it is according to analogy that a vehicle should be used. Protestants cannot do away with a medium. They have, however, reduced all sacraments to two, the preacher and the Bible. If they derive good from a sermon, the minister has been to them the outward and visible sign through which it has reached them. And what is the Bible? So much paper-mashed cotton rags, and so much ink-treacle and lamp-black, but the transformed rags and the blackened treacle are to them the materia of spiritual grace.

But as we have a body formed of the dust of the earth

[ocr errors][merged small]

as well as an animating soul, it is according to analogy that a sacrament should be formed on the like principle, and be adapted to things with a material and an immaterial substance, body and soul. It is according to the analogy of God's other dealings with us, as I have already shewn.

And now we arrive at the satisfaction of the desire man has for an object to which to address himself in prayer, an object on which to focus his thoughts and rivet his attention.

God is present everywhere and in all things,-that is at once an axiom of reason and an article of faith. He is above, below, before, behind, nay, He is within me; "Whither shall I go then from Thy Spirit; or whither shall I go then from Thy presence? If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there: if I go down to hell, Thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned to day."

That God is everywhere present a Christian must believe -it is of the nature of God; that union with Him is available to the devout in all places and at all times, He is also bound to believe. Nevertheless he desires to have God's presence specialized;

"Jehovah, shapeless Power above all powers,

Single and one, the omnipresent God,

By vocal utterance, or blaze of light,

Or cloud of darkness localized in heaven;

On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark,
Or out of Sion, thundering from His throne
Between the cherubim."2

1 Ps. cxxxix. 6-10.

2 Wordsworth: The Excursion.

God's answer to that want was the Incarnation. Why did not the Syro-Phoenician woman and the leper turn their backs on Christ, and worship Him everywhere, instead of where He visibly stood? Because it is a natural instinct which cannot be suppressed, to localize God. The Deist, when he prays, raises his eyes to heaven; the Pantheist, if he worships, adores God in the flower. The heathen lifts his hands to the sun, or bows before an idol. If the spirit of worship has wholly deserted Protestantism -I do not say the spirit of prayer, it is because the specialization of God has been discountenanced. The Protestant will pray, because he feels that he needs something, but he will not worship. He is incapable of adoring immensity. And if worship be a necessity, he must have an objective presence of God to adore. That objective presence is Christ in the Holy Eucharist. As the virtuous man is a perpetuation of Christ's moral life, as the sacraments are the perpetuation of His grace giving, so is the Eucharist Christ perpetually present to receive our worship and homage. Such is the Catholic doctrine.

"In the Eucharist we have something for the senses, something which tells us that God is present in a special manner, not from necessity, but from love, and for our sake; yet, at the same time, this object that meets our senses and touches our hearts has no meaning or power except over those who live by faith. It is well worth a Protestant's calm consideration that the very mystery which is the object of the most elaborate and splendid Catholic ceremonial, is called by Catholics pre-eminently Mysterium fidei, the mystery of faith."

It is like the pillar of cloud we read of in Exodus, a light and brightness to some, but darkness and confusion 1 In Spirit and in Truth, p. 317.

to others. It is like Christ Himself when He was on earth. Some saw and believed, others saw and disbelieved. He had no form nor comeliness, and He was struck and reviled. So is He in His presence among us now, without majesty of appearance, scoffed at and trampled under foot.

Yet in this is He still our Emmanuel, as the object of our worship, and as thus lifted up, He draws all men to Him.

Take the following description of a solemnity of the Church, and judge whether in it the idea of worship is realized with an intensity and truth, found nowhere but in the Church. In vain have we thrown open our churches for worshippers, no worshippers will come; but when we restore to our altars the presence of our Incarnate Lord, under the form in which He is content to dwell "with us," then our churches will fill from morning to night with those whom love draws to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.

The passage I quote describes the very beautiful devotion practised in the Roman Church, called Exposition, or the Forty-Hours' Prayer.

"The Church is richly adorned with tapestry and hangings, while the daylight is excluded, not so much to give effect to the brilliant illumination round the altar, as to concentrate and direct attention towards that which is upon it, and make it, like the Lamb in heaven, the lamp and the sun, the centre of light and glory to the surrounding sanctuary. After a solemn mass, and a procession, the Blessed Sacrament is enshrined and enthroned above the altar. Around it is disposed, as it were, a firmament of countless lights, radiating from it, symbolical of the ever-wakeful host of heaven, the spirits of restless life and

« PrécédentContinuer »