MR. MARTINEAU'S SERMONS.*
Taxes are no ordinary sermons. Packed close with thought, characterised by a curiously-blended phase of scientific and poetic method,—the outline of each sermon being traced with a marked precision, and its idea illustrated with richly-coloured metaphors, of which it is difficult to say whether the exigencies of intellectual exposition or the temper of the underlying sentiment first sug- gested them,—one hardly knows whether to regard these sermons as applications of a philosophy already framed to the inward life of man, or as attempts to find a true intellectual rationale for the spiritual life of the Christian, assumed as the true ideal standard of the soul. Sometimes they seem to be the one, and sometimes the other. For instance, in the fine sermons on-" Seek First the King- dom of God," philosophy, no doubt, is the starting-point, and Mr. Martineau's reconciliation of his philosophy with the teaching -of Christ seems, to a certain extent, to strain the thought of the preacher, though we are far from thinking that the reconciliation is altogether an artificial one. On the other hand, in such sermons as those on "The Witness of God with our Spirit" and the " Moral Quality of Faith," it is obvious enough that the preacher has adopted the genius of Christianity as his own, and is inter- preting what he finds there, rather than reading into it the result of his own philosophical meditations. But whether the drift of ids sermons be to reconcile philosophical convictions with the spiritual standard of Christ's teaching, or to enforce the spiritual standard of Christ by- the help of meditations which seldom pass out of the atmosphere of distinctively Christian feeling, the tone is .always the same,—the tone of a lofty and devout and some- what melancholy thinker, who can never quite relax the strain upon the will, and let you settle into perfect rest,—whose vigilant thought and .feeling are alvtaye on the stretch lest, at some loophole of false sentiment, or fallacy, or doubt, the evil spirit he has exorcised should creep in again unperceived. There is a tinge of melancholy, in the deepest expressions of faith, a tension in the highest moods of emotion, and a residue of vibra- tion in all the chords Mr. Martineau strikes, a residue remaining behind on the ear after the first direct significance of the sound is exhausted and seeming to affirm that, in spite of all that was truly told, there was yet a want in the speaker's mind which he could not adequately embody in his words. Com- pare these sermons, as they doubtless.will be rightly compared, with the finest sermons of any other preacher of our day.— with Dr. Nevrman's, for instance, or Mr. Maurice's clearest and most powerful sermons — and this is one of many dif- ferences, that while in their different ways Dr. Newman and Mr. Maurice always leave you with a mind at peace, Mr. Martineau stirs you into ardour, exalts you into wonder, goads you into resolve, confutes your poor excuses, tears to pieces your wretched sophistries, convinces you of the reality of the spiritual life with which he is dealing, and yet is apt to leave you with the feeling that rest-is beyond the lffnits of this lower sphere, and that the nearest approach to it is the stretched wing on which the hovering soul is poised between the intervals of its flight. Not that Mr. Martineau does not understand, and render with his usual power, -the need and beauty of a resting spirit. For instance, in the fine sermon on "The Better Part,"—that is, on the part chosen by Mary to rest and listen, instead of to serve and wait— the whole drift of the teaching points to the life of the spiritual affections as the true inspiration of the will, rather than to the efforts of the will as the true nourishment of the affections. What we mean is not that Mr. Martineau's teach- ing differs in any way from that of Christ in these things, but that in enforcing it, the chord he strikes is less one of rest, than of wist- fill seeking after rest. Take, for instance, the sermon we have just named. It seems to make us strenuously desire, and loyally strain after, the spirit which its elevated and intense earnestness yet fails to diffuse through us. The intellectual contrast between the restlessly active and the devout mind is the picture left engraved upon us ; and the wrestling of the soul to rid itself of the temper of the wrestler, is the predominant impression that remains behind.
But though we cannot find the perfect rest of Christian faith in. Mr. Martineau's volume, there is hardly any constituent of the active life of the Christian which is not there. How vivid and how true is the description, to be found_ in different * Bourg of Thought on Sacred Things: a Volume of Sermons. By James Martineau, LL.D., D.D. London: Longmans,
forms on many different pages, of the militant spirit which is required in all true lives, whether individual or national, let the following fine passage from the sermon on the " The Messengers of Change " illustrate
So completely is it the Providential plan to secure to us the disci- pline of change, that, when we fall asleep on the crust of usage, a fire is
immediately kindled beneath us, and we sleep on a volcano. Our very inertia operates as an instrument to prepare for us new crises that shall force us to spring to our feet once more. Whatever be our appointed work, the first moment of its neglect is the first moment of its decay; and where we cease to grow our corn, the poison-plants will cover all the ground. God has made nothing in this world to keep—nothing, at least, that has a beauty-, and that bears a fruit ; death only and negation, deformity and barrenness, will flourish when let alone. The individual mind, abandoned to negligence, watched by no eye of con- science, bathed in no presence of God, exercised in no athletics of duty, loosens all its healthy structure, and sinks into moral decline ; little, perhaps, suspecting its own degeneracy, till surprised into some awful degradation, and wakening into shame. No institution, no State, no Church, will go on of itself and hold its footing in the nature of things, while its guardians and trustees are dozing on their watch. There is ever a little speck of disease, a canker of evil and falsehood, secreted in the substance of terrestrial things, which is sure to spread, if you omit to wipe the dust from their surface, and wash them with the waters of purification. If you persist a while in your unfaithfulness, you will be startled at length by the spasm of a sudden agony; and it will be well, if by repentant efforts at renewal and the use of painful remedies, a disastrous dissolution is staved off. In nations, as in per- sons, too great a calm, too mild an indifference, too peaceful an apathy, is ever a dark and boding sign, the lull that comes before the storm, the dead silence ere the thunder breaks. If we stir the atmosphere and fling it upwards from no soil burning with noble passions; if every zone of our world reduces itself to temperate and timid heats ; if no circulat- ing breath of pure enthusiasm passes from land to land, bearing en it the cry of sympathy with the down-trodden, and of defiance to the op- pressor ; God will clear the air for us from above, and fling across our fields and cities the whirlwind of revolution. Thus it is that 'He who abideth for ever will afflict us,' if, 'because we have no changes,' we cetee to stand in awe of Him. There is no peace but in waking to all His seasons, and moving freely with the windings of His Will ; quick to seize each fresh surprise of duty ; alert before daybreak to strike our tent of ease ; patient to endure the crown of thorns which must press upon the brow of every son of God."
And again, how fine is the criticism on the patronising way of looking at faith, as a capital sort of thing which every one should appreciate, but to which no one need actually surrender his own soul, in the sermon on "The Witness of God with our Spirit :"—
"It was a favourite idea with Plato, that in order to discover the true doctrine of personal morality, we should begin by studying the Commonwealth rather than the Individual. The single soul, he thought, was too small and subtle a thing to reveal its nature and the laws that bind it to a vision dull as ours ; but in a great community we have a magnified image of the same human nature, with all its relations made colossal to the eye, and its swift passions reduced to a stately and measurable march. In this conception there is at least thus much truth involved; that large social phenomena often show what is pass- ing through the private heart ; that tendencies silently operating on you and me, unmarked by others, unsuspected even by ourselves, may have conspicuous expression in the literature, the taste, the morals of the age ; that lights of self-knowledge may therefore flash upon us from the open spaces of the world, and the broad pavement of our time serve to us as the secret confessional. Thus we may find, I fear, a magni- fying medium of self-inspection in a certain mode of speech about Religion which is every year becoming more familiar, and separating us further from the simple fervour of an earnest and prophetic age. I refer to the disposition to look at faith, instead of living in it •, to own it as a noble fact in human nature, without becoming personally corn. mitted to it; to feel interest in its representations, but evade contact with its realities. There is no more favourite object of criticism than its different forms; - the origin of each peculiar worship, the meaning of its symbols, the character of its doctrines, are a topic no longer special to the divine, but familiar even to the newspaper. Yet the great objects of trust seem none the nearer for all this : they lie off at second-hand; and men discuss with the lips each other's creeds, in- stead of going into silence with their own God. The pure and simple faith of the elder time has passed away ; nor is it any sufficient com- pensation for the loss that unbelief has grown gentle and respectful. For, in truth, the loss of enthusiasm in the one case and the improve- ment of temper in the other are both parts of the same phenomenon ; they are the meeting, or at least the approximation of the two extremes upon the common ground of a secret scepticism, empty of all power, positive or negative. Waiving the awful and fundamental question— the only one that touches any living soul—whether the voice of prophets and of prayer be true, men agree that at any rate religion is an in- destructible affection of the human mind ; that whether we regard it as a dream, a philosophy, or a revelation, it remains a fact ; that it is an influence of such transcendent importance as to reward study and demand regulation and control. We find it accordingly not approached as a divine verity, but dealt with as a human product; dressed up and administered as a medicine for the maladies of character and society; judged of by its fitness to the wants of a nation or a class. The dis- tastefulness of one extreme is studiously balanced by reaction into another ; stagnant falsehoods are permitted to remain from indulgence to the sickly minds long used to breathe their exhalations ; and to purer streams of thought no welcome is given, lest fevered mortals should feel too great a freshness, as of morning air. Churches are built, not as holy shrines to God, but as platforms of sectional opinion : doe.. trines and sentiments are estimated , not by the sincere rule of our private heart,—not by their intrinsic worth and sanctity—but by their sup- posed effect on the prejudices of others and the current usages of
thought. All this betrays a disheartening unreality of faith. Such theological connoisseurship would sink abashed before the living look of God ; plunged in the pure and sanctifying tides of his infinite Being, all fear and art would be baptized away. There clings to us some untrustful feeling, something that keeps us mere lookers-on, and hinders the sur- render of our minds to the divine captivity that makes their freedom."
In a word, we should say of these sermons that it would be diffi- cult to find in the English language a finer picture of the active side of the spiritual life ; finer exposures of the falsehoods and quackeries of modern thought, in their attempt to get rid of the objects of belief and yet to retain all the privileges of the believing attitude ; finer expositions of the assumptions on which scepticism, no less than faith, must proceed; finer illustrations of the true ethics of Christianity ; or more vivid pictures of the scenery and the significance of temptation and trial. We miss something only when we come to such sermons as the beautiful, but to our minds, very questionable one, so far as regards its conclusions, on the sorrows of Christ, and find Mr. Martineau writing as if the highest and divinest spirit were the spirit of sadness, and joy were the product mainly of human limitation and dependence. No doubt there is a theological difference at the root of our divergence from the view traced in the following passage, but we think it may be contested on historical grounds as well :—
"Assuming that, under one name or other, there was in Christ a blending of divine and human elements, we fancy that it was his par- ticipation in the human nature which bruised him with Borrow, and that his higher attributes, by their imperfect amount or occasional re- treat, fell short of power to heal the wounds. Had this been so, then those who, with the dieciples, stood upon a lower level of humanity, would have been sunk into a deeper darkness, instead of being lifted into a more cheerful light. No, it was the Divine spirit in Christ—as it is in every noble heart—that subdued him to that earnest sadness, which, under human impulse only, would have been soon forgot. How- ever true it may be, that 'Man is born to trouble,' he owes the dis- tinction not to his inferior, but to his highest powers. Reason alone has the privilege of tears; conscience trembles with remorse; creative thought laments its poor performance ; and the light of love casts the long shadow of death. Lift off these crowning faculties, and you re- move at once our griefs and glory, and let us down to the poor level of unfallen Adam. If labour and sorrow come of the lapse in Paradise, we have reason to bless the sinning mother of all flesh, that she held not her hand from the forbidden fruit, and exchanged the grass and flowers of Eden for the rock, the thistle' and the thorn. It is not as child of the earth, but as a Son of God, that man has his heritage of care. And in proportion as the Divine spirit is transcendent over the inferior nature, and through higher and higher brightness becomes a supernatural light of the world, must the shadow deepen too ; till in Messiah we reach the limit of inspired sorrow ; where the lot and out- ward scope of being is finite as in other men ; but the son!, immeasure- able and infinite. Far from its being wonderful that the disciples should have a joy to which the Master was a stranger, it is the necessary conse- quence of their relative position. He who himself is a religion, must needs miss the chief solace of religion. Others believe in him ; but he has no mediator in the immensity that leads to the Most High. They gather with reverent affection round him, and feel a perfect lest; finding in him a representative image of all that is Divine, a mid-point of clear conception beyond which they cannot go; but he stands, with uncovered head, beneath the Infinite, and has no help to God but his own poor thoughts. They live, as we all do unconsciously, by communicated religion, the instinctive dependence of lower souls upon the higher, and the divine right of the greater to bold the less ; but he has no higher, no greater, and while ruling systems of minds, floats through space with no guiding attraction except to the awful Centre which is everywhere. No Messiah of heaven can find a disciple's rest at the feet of them who sit in Moses' seat. And yet no one can be his own Christ. It is this singular position, beyond all the beaten ways and city lamps of the habitable earth, on the confines of eternal night, and amid the breaking lights of a new world, that fills the prophet's soul, ever genial and tender beneath its sublime strength, with sorrow even unto death. He cannot love and have a home in a sphere which is not yet hung up in heaven, and which he spends himself in cleating; and so the meanest things have a shelter denied to him ; and the saying comes to pass as it is written, 'the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man bath not where to lay his head."
We should have said, on the contrary, that though nothing is clearer than that the Apostles gained the joy and peace promised them by their master, there was a far higher joy and peace manifest in his life than in theirs. In the latter it was derived, in the former it was inherent. What was the feeling which gave rise to the reply to the Pharisees, when they asked him to rebuke his disciples for addressing him with Hosannas to "the king who cometh in the name of the Lord,"—" I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out "? What was the mood in which he beheld "Satan as lightning fall from heaven"? —what the spirit in which he "rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank Thee, 0 Father, lord of heaven and earth, that Thou haat hid these things from the wise and prudent, and haat revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight "? What, again, the tone of mind in which, when bending beneath the cross, he said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for we, but weep for yourselves and for your children ?" and what the experience which dictated the peculiar expression with which he anticipated that when the struggle was done he' should welcome all faithful disciples, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ?" It seems to us that, judging from the narrative alone, Christ's sorrows were almost all on behalf of man, not on his own behalf. He weeps over Jerusalem ; he weeps at the grief of the sisters for their brother's death ; he is- troubled at the prospect of "the sword" which he is to send forth into human society, and the divided families his gospel is to make. But except in the anticipation of Gethsemane, from which Mr. Martineau takes his text, "Now is my soul' troubled ; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour ; yet for this cause came I unto this hour. Father ! glorify thy name ;" and the struggle in Gethsemane itself, and the words on the cross, "My God, my God, why haat thou forsaken me?" we have no words in all the Gospels which imply any sadness in Christ, not felt on behalf of others than himself. Mr. Martineau in a beautiful passage describes the joyful emblems with which the early Christians in Rome decorated the tombs of the martyrs in the Catacombs, but whence were these symbols of joy derived but from the parables of Christ ?—the Good Shepherd, with the sheep on his shoulders which he had brought back from the- wilderness ; the blossoming branch, in which Christ taught his disciples to see the pledge of divine promises ; the light of the world ; the water springing up to everlasting life ; the vine with its everlasting root ; the rock on which the true' Church was to be built,—surely all these symbols of life and joy and hope and trust were derived by the disciples from their Master, and not adopted, as Mr. Martineau teaches, by them, from the experience of a life almost the opposite of his?' Surely when he says that "God, alas ! is silent always," he' not only rejects—probably he thinks it unhistorical—the con- clusion of the very passage from which he takes his text, but misdescribes the whole spirit of Christ's life,—from which it is certainly not to be gathered, if we may accept the Gospels' as they are, though Mr. Martineau says it, that "there is silence in heaven unto this hour." Those who argue, as Mr. Martineau, however, never argues, that the vision of glory and blessedness' which is perpetually filling the heart and flowing from the lips of Christ was a mistake, might fairly interpret the few words of personal anguish which he utters as the expression of a sadness deeper than that of other men, because a sadness resulting from ex- piring faith. But accepting the Gospels as they stand, surely never was there a conception more hard to justify than that which as- cribes to our Lord less divine serenity and joy than that which he bestowed on his disciples, and imputes to him any sorrows so deep, as those which he bore on behalf of the humanity whose sins and griefs he came to suffer, and by suffering to conquer and to heal.
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