Henry Latham

“ Beelzebub, they think, may work Signs on earth, but Heaven, they own, is God's domain, and what is written in the skies carries God's hand and seal. Shew men these Signs for which they ask, and display your wonders so as to strike men the most. Cures and works of mercy, witnessed by a few score people, create but little stir. Shew something that all Judea, or at least Jerusalem, can behold at once;—great emotions take strongest hold among men in a mass: display a comet or darken the sun ”

“ Now when Jesus came into the parts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah: and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. ”

“ The world is full of instances easy enough to note. Does not a sick child in a family educate all around it to tenderness and self-denial? What more touching lesson in patience can be given than the sight of the little sufferer, grieved at nothing so much as the trouble it causes, making the most of every alleviation, grateful beyond measure for every look or word of love. ”

“ Close by the side of this question of free will, lies that of the existence of moral evil, in a world made by a being who, by the hypothesis, is perfectly good. When we supposed the world to be formed for the evolution of moral goodness, we, perhaps without knowing it, introduced the idea of moral evil, implied in that of goodness; for actual good is evolved in resisting evil and repairing the mischief it has done; indeed many forms of it can no more exist without evil as an antagonist, than a wheel can turn without the friction of the road. ”

“ He was to deliver mankind as the Son of Man, He was to work as man, to suffer as man, that suffering men might always look to Him, saying “He was one of us.” And how could this be, if His lot was so unlike theirs that He met His own wants by a word of command directly they arose? How could His followers own the duty of labouring for their daily bread, if stones at a word were turned into loaves for Him? How could He tell men not to think overmuch of the meat that perisheth, if He had used Divine powers to provide it for Himself as soon as He possessed them? ”

“ There is an ineffable grandeur—so unconscious that we may fail to mark it—in the utter oblivion that is passed on the foes who had beset the path of the Son of Man. He no more resents the ills that men had wrought Him on His way through life, than the traveller, who has reached his home, resents the insect plague of the desert or the tempests he has met with at sea. The past is lost to sight, and our Lord displays but one thought and one interest, and that is for the disciples and their work. ”

“ Might we not have looked on Jesus Christ as only a manifestation of Deity, clad in outer human guise, but without human affections; visible indeed to men's eyes, but destitute of a pulse which beats in unison with theirs? This error would have lodged Christianity in mens' heads instead of in their hearts and would have destroyed its universality and force; and this error, the narrative of the Temptation—whether we regard it as apologue or fact—is alike effectual to dispel. ”

“ If our Lord had displayed a Sign of overwhelming effect, and bidden men deny it if they could, He would have paralysed intellectual growth in mankind. Men had been gifted with faculties fitting them to explore and to judge of spiritual things: if these were curtailed of room for exercise, they would languish like limbs disused. Should He bar investigation in one-half of reason's realm? Should He so appal mankind, as to enforce an involuntary acceptance of His claims? ”

“ You carry with you powers like those wielded by the prophets of old. Proclaim yourself such a Messiah as men expect. Strike to the ground the Roman eagles that are sent against you. Offer to all who fall on your side a paradise of palpable enjoyments such as they can understand. Shew yourself invulnerable, and be everywhere foremost in the fight. Your superhuman power will balance the enormous might of Rome. ”

“ Words of blessing fell on the ears of those who were used only to hear of their shortcomings and to be treated as outcasts; and when their attention was caught by the unusual sound and they listened to hear who it was who were blessed, they found it was not the strong and the wealthy and the high spirited—those whom they regarded as having the good things of existence while they themselves had the bad—but the blessed are the poor in spirit, and this Kingdom of Heaven, newly proclaimed, belonged to them. The attention caught by the opening is kept alive by the unexpected nature of the matter. ”

“ One critic will see nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs, imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the touch. ”

“ If such people are selfish, it is not because they really care very much for themselves; but because self seems a little more real and a little more under their own control than anything else. They have found unreality in many things; perhaps when they have attempted to do good they have been thrown back by ridicule or discouragement, and are thereby brought to feel at a loss for an interest in life; and in this case an evil one, who is always by, has seemed to whisper, “Do good to thyself and the world will speak well of thee.” ”

“ If men might not be left to frame such things for themselves, what had freedom and faculties been given to them for? What Christ did leave, was infinitely more than a reorganisation of Society or a scheme for the reformation of men. On that day of Pentecost a new faculty—that of communing with God's Spirit—came to the birth. And a new force—that of living religion—sprang into existence as a fresh agent in the affairs of the world—a force which Emperors and sacerdotal castes and schools of philosophers had soon to reckon with. ”

“ Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess. ”

“ Men are not healed because they deserve it. As God sends rain on the just and unjust, so Christ cures the sick who come in His way, rich and poor alike—the son of the nobleman, and the blind beggar; for our Lord, worldly distinctions do not seem to exist. A man, as man, was of such transcendent value in the eyes of the Son of Man that, compared to this, little outer differences were but as the hills and dales of the earth, which scarcely roughen the surface of the globe when seen as a whole. Men, too, are not, except for very special purposes, picked out by Christ to witness the miracles ”

“ This illustrates the function of evil in the ordering of the world. Man's qualities, moral and physical, are developed by it. It subserves the progress of the human race.
We should have less heroism, without cruelty and oppression from without; and could have no self-restraint, without temptation from within. Piety and love indeed, when they had once come into being, might exist without evil; we may believe that they satisfy the souls of the saints in heaven; but among men they commonly owe their birth to a feeling of shelter against evil, and to a sense of pardoned wrong. ”

“ The Apostles were the salt to season and preserve the world, and if they had not savour whence could help be sought? Is it not then likely that the best means would be employed for choosing and shaping instruments for the work; and can we do better than mark the Divine wisdom so engaged?
On many sides the work of Christ stretches away into infinity. God's purpose in having created the world, and put free intelligences into it, as well as the changes which Christ's death may have wrought in the relation of men's souls to God, belong to that infinite side of things, which we cannot explore. ”

“ We will suppose the household planted in a spot remote from human intercourse, in some self-supplying island or dale among the hills; and, as I do not mean to touch on physical evil, let us suppose that no external calamity comes nigh the dwelling. Here, let us suppose, the children grow up, uncontaminated by ill, knowing no temptation, reared in love and kindness, treated wisely and with such even justice that envy and jealousy find no room to enter. ”

“ Such a whisper as this may have come—"These powers are given you to enable you to set up God's Kingdom upon earth; for this you must win adherents. These adherents must be maintained. Your opponents are supported by the great ones of the earth; the God of Heaven has committed to you His powers for the support of yours. This little incident of the loaves only points the way to a much weightier matter; you must use your special powers to supply your own bodily wants in the coming contest,—why not begin with using them for this purpose now?" ”

“ This was a cheering lesson, and it was made to bear on the duty of mutual restoration. They were to wash one another's feet. It is not the way of the world to do this. If, in a body aiming at holiness of life, one of the society should go wrong, it might seem the readiest way of upholding the society's good name to thrust out the offending member at once; but Christians are not to deal with one another thus. It is just when a man goes wrong that he most wants his brethren's support. ”

“ Have I not been wrong in supposing that they must be good because they have never done wrong? They have been so kept from the suggestion of evil that they could hardly help going right. But could they resist temptation if it came? They have never been braced by a struggle with it, nor marked the ill fruits of evil. They take it on trust from me that evil brings sorrow ”

“ Christ gave no system for recasting Society by positive Law, and no ecclesiastical Polity, for men could make laws better when the circumstances which called for them arose. He gave no system of philosophy, for such systems are only the ways of looking at some of the enigmas of life, which suit the cast of mind of the nation or the generation which shapes the system. So different nations and generations should be left to make their systems as of old, only a new truth was declared, and a new force was set to work, which systems would henceforth have to take into account. ”

“ And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour thy father and mother. ”

“ Consequently, if we limit our Love to a Humanity visibly existing on the earth, we give up our hearts to something which must necessarily come to an end: if we make a Deity of this we shall serve but a temporary God. But—although the earth should be calcined to powder, or fly off into regions of space where the temperature is fatal to life—still that Humanity which has the Son of Man for its central and presiding figure may abide with Him for ever, in some of the many mansions of His Father's House. ”

“ John came as a prophet and forerunner, and he set on foot a sect, which was held together and long kept alive by usages of its own; but the very observances which gave it vitality as a sect prevented its ever becoming anything more than a sect. Our Lord is not founding a sect at all; He is not a missionary making converts. He comes on earth to proclaim that God loves men, and to open a way by which men should “come to the Father.” He leaves behind Him men suited to direct a religious movement, but He organises none himself. ”

“ Men will never understand my love at all unless I die for them.” Until He was baptised with this baptism of suffering, He was like one straitened on every side by an imperious task which claims his every thought. ”

“ He trusts to men's believing that the Father is in Him, not because He has declared it in set dogmas, but because He has been “so long with them.” He is a friend who lifts us out of our common selves, and helps each one of us to find his own truest self: we catch fire from the new light which he kindles in us, and we become conscious of a new force, a spiritual one. When the narrative brings us to the sacrifice on the Cross, we see what the spectators saw, and something more, for we see this new inward force transcending all outward violence. ”

“ I believe that the relation of a parent to his household affords likeness enough to that of the Father to His world, to be used as the ground of a parable on God's Will and Human Freedom.
Let us suppose that the father of a family, a man of strong will, and steadfastly abhorring evil, should conceive the project of forcibly shutting it out from his home. ”

“ So it is with the Gospel History. While we read chapter by chapter we see what answers to one group in the great picture; but when we have the whole in our mind, we see a consistent purpose holding it all together: we find that our Lord always acts along certain lines, and carries out certain principles. One of these, which lies at the root of His ways of dealing with men, is His carefulness to keep alive in each man the sense of his personal responsibility, and of the dignity of such responsibility. ”

“ That miracles should be employed as a means of impressing truths on the learner, we can well understand.
In no way could a great truth be presented so forcibly to the mind as by being clothed in the garb of a miracle. The wondrous circumstances would print themselves on the mind's eye at once and for ever; and as they recurred in lonely hours of thought, something more of their drift and purport would peep out every time. It is characteristic of our Lord's ways, that His teaching yields its fruit gradually ”

“ Among some African races, a man set free from a master at once goes and sells himself to another, he cannot be troubled with managing for himself. This is like the way in which men liberated from one absolute and infallible authority have so often handed themselves over to another. They must have something or somebody to take their beliefs and consciences in charge. Fancying that they are to be saved by holding proper opinions—for by belief they often mean no more than taking up and maintaining opinion—they come, asking, “What are we to believe?” ”