Early omens of the triple genius and functions of Christianity.
These three verses compress all the matter of three volumes, let the volumes be the largest that ever were. Or, again, they suggest to what periods of time, and to what devotion of labour in the life of Christ on earth, the paradoxical language of such a passage as John 21:25 looks not in vain for its ample justification. We have in the present verses the statement of what may be well regarded as early omens of the future achievements of Christ, of the Spirit of Christ, of the movement and force which he set going. Numerous as these drops, they were still but the first drops of the universal shower, that should finally make the whole earth bring forth her full increase. The bare historic statements of these verses may be viewed as most significant omens of the genius and of the triple functions of Christianity. For—
I. IT TEACHES. It teaches in such senses as these following:
1. It arrests prevailing moral errors. Each several "beatitude" may be regarded as a leading and most conspicuous and literal illustration of this. Long-standing, long-grown, and closely grown moral misconceptions and eidola of human life and society it quietly strips off.
2. It offers positive truth; both of such things as unspoiled reason and pure philosophy and the cautiously studied lessons of human life and experience might of themselves point out, as well as of such things as belong to the sphere of genuine revelation.
3. This positive truth which it offers is of the moral distinctly, and therefore of the really and the for ever abiding. It is of the kind that belongs to the framework, not of the shorter life, our present rudiments of life, our present mental scope and horizon; but while touching, brightening, dignifying, all these growths and tributaries of life, it makes direct for the heart—that home of human life, that hearth of human nature, for which and round which all the rest whatsoever subsists.
II. IT PREACHES UNIQUE GOOD NEWS. The "gospel of the kingdom" is what it proclaims, first, last, and without end. That is, the good tidings of a new, unparalleled, unprecedented kingdom on earth; the kingdom of the kind known in heaven on earth. The sort of rule that characterizes the goodness, enlightenment, love, and willinghood of heaven comes to offer itself, and to make itself at home, on earth. This rule had, perhaps, always been whispered of, had always been whispering itself, in men's better heart and moods; but now it is announced with emphasis, with authority, with Divine manifestation.
III. IT HEALS. Thus:
1. It leaves out no part of human nature, disdains no interest of the present form of human life. The body is a most veritable element in every calculation of human nature. None but the shallowest and most artificial philosophy will leave it out of the reckoning. Scripture does not leave it out. As the work of God, and a masterpiece of organization, its effectiveness, health, comfort, are honoured by Christianity.
2. It compassionately regards all the variety of the sickness, infirmity, and deeper disease of the human body. The miracles of Christ prefigure (and only in miniature, miracles though they were) all the wide ameliorative influence of Christianity down through the ages. The miracles of Christ honour God's work, the marvellously made and curiously wrought body of man, as well as subserved the present comfort of those who lived in his time, and prefigured the impulse that should be given by the Spirit of Christ to the beneficent growth of science.
3. It is its own witness. And this it is still. This it will ever increasingly be. For all that it avails for the body, it will speak its own worth. For all that it does for mind and soul, it wins, and will ever win, its own triumphs. It begs no favour. It begs nothing but what its merit imperially demands.—B.
HOMILIES BY MARCUS DODS