was not a docetic phantasm, a transient theophany, but a real man, hungry, sleeping, weary with his journey, working at his trade, succumbing to death at last. The Word made flesh is such consecration of the human body as God, not disdaining but dwelling in it, can give. Again, the notable thing about the ministry of our Lord was, that it was so much a ministry to men's bodies, as well as their souls. He was poor, and could do little for their physical comfort, except in a miraculous way. And so he recognized their bodily necessities and fed them when hungry. How many persons he cured of disease probably the gospels do not tell, and yet they relate a great number of striking instances, and then state in a general way that "he went about all the cities and villages, healing every sickness and every disease among the people; "1 while he also "gave his apostles power to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." 2 And so he consecrated even the infirm, diseased, mortal body by devoting to it so much of his ministry as a Prophet and Evangelist of God. The death of Christ, on which redemption hangs, has a significance and efficacy entirely spiritual, and has no other value than a moral one; and yet it was a physical event, the death and burial and resurrection of the body of our Lord, on which all this great act of redemption turned, and thus stands as twin and complement to the Incarnation in its testimony to the consecration which our Lord gave to the human body. Again, this spiritual religion has two sacraments symbolizing its essential ideas, and both of them belong to the body, first to its cleansing, and second to its nutriment. It is water washing it, it is bread and wine, it is eating and drinking; it is not the physical only, but the corporeal, which is sanctified to this sacramental purpose. And then, if this corruptible is to put on incorrup1 Matt. ix. 35. 2 Ibid., x. 1. tion, if out of the present is to rise the future and immortal life, the Christian doctrine of Resurrection means at least as much as this, that there is a connection not only between the life, but also the body which now is and that which is to come. It is not pure and naked spirit here; it will be no more pure and naked spirit hereafter. And whatever future organization the soul shall assume after the dissolution of this mortal, it has some mysterious and undiscoverable connection with that which is to be immortal. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But that the soul's inheritance, that which it carries with it into the future life, is entirely moral, no germ of its future abode in the present, life all begun over again, depletes the doctrine of a resurrection of all meaning. That Christianity creating a new spiritual life, and careful first of all for that, in its ethics deals with the body, and after a divine wisdom of its own, only follows logically what has already been said. It came into a world where two tendencies were at work, and the pendulum swung to two extremes. The two tendencies met even in religion itself. The one indulged the body; the other despised and mortified it. The one was sensuous, the other ascetic. The one made much of this world and the physical life; the other sacrificed it for the sake of another. The one was unbalanced materialism; the other was unbalanced spiritualism. And so we find Christianity yielding now to one and now to the other, and even combining the two. For while it soon put on a gay and magnificent ritualism to please the senses and captivate minds trained in the shows of Paganism, it at the same time admitted the Manichean and Gnostic heresies, which considered matter essentially evil, and made the suppression of all bodily desires, the mortification of the flesh, even the torture and disfigurement of the body,1 a peculiar virtue. Asceticism began 1 For an interesting statement in regard to the influence of this feeling upon art, see Lecky, History of Rationalism, i. 239. early in Christian history, issuing in monastic austerities, and has always infected the Christian life. It is false in principle and corrupting in its effects. Its ideal of sanctity is the suppression of the bodily appetites instead of their control. In the interest of spirituality, for the sake of the soul, it crucifies what Christian principle is abundantly able to govern. It honors celibacy, even compels it; it prescribes the fasting which is ritual instead of that which may be necessary or useful; it makes temperance a sin, and abstinence the only virtue; to use the very words of St. Paul, in whose time it had already begun to work, "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." Let me continue the quotation, which in a word passes final sentence on all ascetic practices, and states the true relation of religion to physical enjoyment: "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." 1 Christianity has this problem and ideal in the future, to reconcile the spiritual and the physical; to maintain the primacy of the soul, and yet give the body its full development; to keep the two poles of life, the religious and the secular, in equipoise; to be the friend of all art, of all beauty, of all joy, and yet the mother of all righteousness, and the nurse of the loftiest spiritual life. It is to uphold the rights of man's spiritual nature, with and not against the growth of physical science to the last border of material existence. Against a religion of animal passion or of carnal ordinance; against an unmixed materialism and a civilization that is of the flesh; against the sensualities, coarse or fine, which devour so many souls, it is to stand for temperance in all physical pleasures, for spirituality, for the supremacy of conscience, for sincere 1 1 Tim. iv. 3-5. and simple religious observance, for spiritual interests as paramount and everlasting. But so, also, is it to bring together in the unity of life the body and the soul under a common and holier consecration, that the body may be a temple of the Holy Ghost. It is to be the healer of man's physical disorders as well as his redeemer from sin. It is to spiritualize art and not destroy it; to enlarge the commodity and culture of life without lowering its aim or reducing its faith. It is to have its part in the improvement of man's present estate, as well as in the redemption of his immortal life. The Pagan poet, Juvenal, put as a desire and a prayer into his often-repeated line, "Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano," what the Christian apostle puts into a precept and a doctrine, "Glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." "Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm ; then comes a nobler breed of men, whose better blood shall match their purer morals, and who shall be physically competent for the great calls of a purer and more spiritual religion, for the future needs and opportunities and triumphs of the coming kingdom of God. 1 The Princess, p. 398. THE SUPREMACY OF LOVE.1 "And though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing." — 1 CORINTHIANS xiii. 2. THAT the Church in Corinth had many faults is plain from this letter. That it was also well endowed with the peculiar powers which came with the first inspirations of Christianity in the Apostolic age, is expressly declared by St. Paul. He was thankful that in everything they were enriched by Christ in all utterance and all knowledge, so that they came behind in no gift. Through this letter you look in upon a scene of great intellectual and spiritual activity. You feel the mighty yet excited and irregular stir of a new spirit moving among men. You see the bright, quick wit of the Greek kindled into wildest activity by fire from heaven. The new wine ferments. The spirit in them is eager and tumultuous. And so, enriched with so many gifts, they hardly know how to use them. They use them ambitiously and at random,- for pride rather than for common edification. They put the first last, the showy before the useful, gifts before graces. The Apostle rejoiced in all these signs of a new inspiration. These novel and remarkable gifts he does not disparage. They are good, they are useful. But, he says, there is something better. Best of all gifts is Charity; not that merely of liberality in opinion or in alms, but Love, the deep, divine affection born of God and ending in God, which expands beyond into religion, which is love of God and man together. And so for a chapter this Apostle of faith becomes the 1 Baccalaureate Sermon at Vassar College, June 22, 1879. |