"Lord, to whom shall we go? You Have the words of eternal life." JOHN 6:38.
WHO will show us any good? Where are we to look for the clearest, truest setting forth of religion? There is such a variety of Churches, there are such differences of form and of creed, there is such a babel-confusion of ecclesiastical tongues, and so many of them asserting that theirs is the only faith by which any man can be saved; and meanwhile some think it doubtful if any faith can stand. Where shall we find some real light, - some solid ground to rest upon?
Am I mistaken in saying that this is a craving widely felt at the present time? The heart of society just now is in a curiously puzzled and perplexed condition. It is not satisfied. Men have the answers of their various Churches. These tell them in creed and catechism, in article and confession, what it is that man must believe, and which shall be "saving faith" to him. And all the points are well backed up by "proof texts," which sound clear and unmistakeable; yet, when all is said, people are not satisfied. It may not be that they have come actually to disbelieve these doctrines, but they do not feel that they go to the root and reality of the matter. The creeds may be all right and true, and yet even those who still hold them, or think they do, do not like to hear them much insisted on; they feel that there is something deeper. They feel that, behind all those doctrinal differences which separate them, there are there must be some deeper realities, a few great thoughts of faith and love, something far simpler and more practical than these matters that divines have wrangled over, and something on which they might join hands, and feel brotherly and friendly, and get rid of all their miserable doubts about each other's acceptance and salvation in the world to come.
Now I want to set before you what I believe to be the true way out of these perplexities and doubts, the true way to this broader, simpler, more practical religion, upon which men might be able to agree, -or at least to see their differences in their true light, as minor matters. That way, I believe to be, to look simply to Christianity as Christ preached it; to go back, as near as we can, through the narratives of the Gospels, to Christ as he went about among the people, himself preaching his own "good tidings," his own religion. See what he himself said; how he answered people's questions; what he urged them to believe or to do; what it was that he was constantly putting before them in his parables, and beautiful deep sayings. You know that often-quoted saying of Chillingworth's: "The Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants." Well, we Unitarians want to bring that idea to a brighter point still, and would say, -" Christ, and Christ only, the special teacher for Christians."
See, at the outset, one thing which surely should be a great recommendation of this principle. It is not a new principle, and it is not a sectarian one, nor in any way a partial or exclusive one. The thought which lies at the bottom of it, and on which it is founded, is one which is owned by every church in Christendom. There is not a church throughout the world that does not own Christ to be its teacher; there is not one that does not wish its belief and its thought to be his thought and faith; there is not one that does not hold its doctrines under the idea that they are those which he meant men to hold. Why, the man who wrote the Athanasian Creed, wrote it because he believed that he should by it make clearer to men the thought of Christ. John Calvin, in all his sternest, gloomiest doctrines about some being elected to be saved, and the rest of mankind being elected to be damned, sincerely believed that he had penetrated to Christ's deeper thought, and was interpreting it more clearly than ever before. Martin Luther attacked the Papacy, because he believed that it had hidden Christ from men. John Wesley went forth to the hill-sides and by-ways, because he felt that the churches of his time were not preaching "Christianity as Christ preached it." So that it is a very broad, comprehensive principle, and one which in the abstract the members of all Churches must gladly approve.
The real difficulty occurs when we come to the practical application of it. Many of those who quite believe, in the abstract, in holding for Christianity as Christ preached it, have been accustomed to fancy that, in some way, that light of Christ's teaching operates and shines throughout the whole Bible. So they will admit a text from one part just as readily as from another; and they are apt to think that any other plan amounts to rejecting the Scriptures. People have said to me sometimes, when I have been urging this matter, "What? are we to have nothing to do with the rest of the Bible? are we to put it all aside as useless or superfluous, and to read the four Gospels only?"
We do not mean anything of the kind For my own part I believe that the whole of that old Hebrew literature, for it is a literature rather than a book, which is bound up together as our Bible, is helpful and valuable. But it is not all helpful in the same way, nor in the same degree. Nobody would say that the histories of the Wars of the Israelites are as useful as the Parables of Jesus, or as the Sermon on the Mount. Even those who believe that every writer in the Bible was inspired would hardly say that they were all equally inspired, and that the light of the religious truth revealed shines equally brightly and equally clearly in all parts. And that is all I ask, in order to bring out the principle I am advocating; for surely that light of the world, which shines all through the course of the Hebrew religion, came to its very brightest in Christ. It was only twilight before, compared to that perfect day. And I think no one would say that it was ever quite so bright again. The light was wonderfully reflected in the Apostles, and in all the early Christian life; but it kept fading a little. Even Paul, and John, and the rest, holy men as they were, were not preserved from all errors by their inspiration. As Emerson says, "When God makes the prophet he does not unmake the man." Paul had to withstand Peter to the face, once. They preached the Gospel with all their might; and still, if they had been asked whether they or their Master best understood and best taught the Gospel, can any one doubt what their answer would have been? I should be sorry if Paul's epistles were lost, but still, if the four lives of Christ were left us, surely we should not lose the knowledge of what Christianity is. They would be sufficient, -those four Gospel accounts of how Christ himself preached, -surely not only sufficient, but the best of all would be left to us. And so, even though we are thankful that they are not all that is left us, yet still we ought to give them the very first and highest place. Did you ever read what Luther wrote to Eck, one of his adversaries, who was defending the authority of the Catholic Church? He said, "It is certainly impudent in anyone to teach as the Philosophy of Aristotle any doctrine which cannot be proved by his authority. You grant this. Well, then, all the more, it is the most impudent of all things to affirm in the church, and among Christians, any thing that Jesus Christ himself has not taught." It is true that Luther himself did not half keep to his principle; but that is no new thing in the world. The principle is good, and it is exactly the principle that we plead for.
It is, then, to the Gospels, as giving us Christianity as Christ himself preached it, that, as Christians, we ought to look. We may not have a perfect record, even there, of all that he was, or of all that he taught; but we have at least one so full-or rather four, so full, so artless, so bearing the mark of being honest personal recollections of him, on the face of them, that we may be sure we lack no material feature in his character, and no essential part of what he taught us.
And, look for a moment at what a simplifying of the problem of Christianity this is. Why, what a task it is that any one has before him who shall sit down to the whole Bible without any feeling of any one part being more especially adapted for him than the rest! Christianity was given to be a "glad tidings" for the poor; but what could poor unlearned a poor make out of it, turned loose upon the whole Bible, without any guidance as to where he may find what he wants most clearly put? Fancy him trying to make his way through the strange visions of Ezekiel or Daniel! Imagine his difficulties with some of David's curses for his enemies in the Psalms! Think how much light he would get from that mystical book, the Revelation, the meaning of which is quite as much disputed by those who believe it inspired as by those who do not. Why, is it not exactly this way of consulting the whole Bible, indiscriminately, as if it was all on one dead level of authority-is it not this which has led to so much diversity and contradiction among Christians? Men have thought they found this or that doctrine stated, somewhere--and, anywhere in the Bible it must be absolutely true; and so everything else must be consistent with it. Thus one sect has started from one point, and another from a different point; and from those different points they have argued against one another, and might go on arguing, and never agreeing, to the end of time! And is it not a wonderful simplifying of the matter to be able to say :-Turn to the Gospels; there you have the life of Jesus himself, his very teachings as he went about trying to convert men to his Gospel. There you have everything that you need, and there you have it in its greatest simplicity. There you have the very heart of Christianity. Make that the chief study. Let that be the criterion of what the religion of Christ is. If any doctrine be put before you, and urged upon you as part of Christianity, turn to the Gospels, see whether Christ preached it. If you have been accustomed to regard any doctrine as part of Christianity, if you have been used to think that, without that doctrine, any system of religion must be a questionable sort of Christianity, again, I say, -turn to the Gospels: see whether it is something that Christ taught. Even if you fancy you can discern some trace of it in his words, do not be satisfied with that! See if it is really something that he put before men and urged upon them, if not, then do not admit it as any essential part of Christianity! That is no reason for not thinking about it; there are points that Christ did not touch upon, which we cannot help thinking about, and forming some thought or hope about. It was meant to be so. Jesus Christ is "the Foundation," not the Building,- the strong foundation of religious truth on which our thoughts are to build and climb.
So think, and build, but do not insist upon what you make out as, a part of Christianity! For that, keep to "Christianity as Christ preached it."
Adapted from an 1875 Sermon by Rev. Brooke Hereford
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