Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

prodigal son. Yet, although few of them rise to the conscious liberty of the redeemed, many soar unconsciously into the pure element of joy, only by gazing on the face of Jesus; and many more fly with a trembling hope from the Judgment Throne to the Cross, taking refuge from the Judge with Himself—safe, indeed, there! And how blessed to wake and find such a look on that face as the sinful woman who bathed His feet saw there, when He said, “Go in peace!" or the Magdalene at the sepulchre; or Peter in that untold interview after the resurrection, when none were present but himself and the Lord he had denied, yet loved, deeply as that Lord only knew!

With the apprehension of the love of God was lost the sense of His justice. Instead of the confident and most blessed assurance that God has provided a ransom for us, that His irrevocable law is satisfied, and His whole heart set on blessing man, crept in the faint hope that His justice might one day yield a little to His mercy, and that so a few might struggle into heaven.

It was precisely at this point that the mediation of Mary was presented, and was clung to with desperate tenacity. Of her motherly tenderness, it was thought, there could be no doubt, whatever might be entertained of the love of the Father or the grace of the Saviour. Thus, in many instances, the Enemy's point was gained. Again fallen Adam fled from God, and, shrinking away too far to catch even an echo of the promises which pursued him, heard only the thunders of the law, saw only the flaming sword, and, fleeing further and further into the darkness, took refuge in a woman's pity, or, rather,

in a shadowy vision of the night. For all the while, was not, and is not, her happy spirit in paradise with those of all the forgiven "spirits of the just made perfect," learning ever more and more of that tender and patient and lifegiving love which the "exiled sons of Eve" were flying from, not to her peaceful spirit, but to her empty name!

This superstition grew indeed but slowly to its full height. Century after century added some stones to that altar, and it was not until the latest ages that the form, once known only as the joyful mother with the infant Saviour in her arms, or the mournful mother weeping by the cross, was altogether dissociated from Him, and stood alone, as we now see it on the façade of Italian churches, a Crowned Queen, with her hands outstretched to bless, concentrating on her person all the glory of the Trinity above, and all the adoration of humanity below. Would, indeed, that this were only the picture of an obsolete religion, that these Marian hymns were only fossil specimens of an extinct idolatry! Luther struck at the root of this and all other superstitions, when he proclaimed that God is revealed to us in the Bible, not as an Exactor of vengeance, but as a Saviour and a Forgiver of sins. And in proportion as we keep a firm grasp on this truth —which Luther said it is so easy to preach, and so hard to hold, when the enemy assails the soul with his old lieshall we be kept from all gloomy parodies of the true religion, and enabled to walk in light and liberty. The only true message from heaven is a gospel, the only safe way is the way of peace. Nothing but the full conviction of this free love of God, giving "His Son," "Himself," for us, will ever make us faithful servants, contented

sufferers, and cheerful givers. Nothing but this is the antidote to selfishness, and the secret of a life of communion with God. Nothing but this will make our prayers and praises what the services of the temple where the Son of God is the High Priest should be; no longer the agonising cry of doubt, or solitary "spiritual exercises," or the complacent self-congratulations of the Pharisee, but the submissive asking from a Father of blessings He delights to give, the joyful lifting up of hearts, whose praises, offered in Him who is their Source and Theme, are fragrant incense in heaven.

CHAPTER X.

THE HYMNS OF GERMANY.

No mere improvement in correctness of doctrine could have stirred the heart of Europe as the Reformation did. The assertion of the "right of private judgment" might have shattered Christendom with a war of independence, but could not have brought peace to one heart. Had not the Serpent asserted it long ago in Eden? The clearest statements of the doctrine of justification by faith could not in themselves have swept away all the barriers superstition had been building up for centuries between man and God. Many of the theologians of the middle ages seem to have understood that doctrine. The Reformation was not the mere statement of a positive dogma, still less was it the mere assertion of a negative right; it was the revealing of a Person, it was the unveiling of a heart. It was the fresh revelation through the Bible to the heart of one man, and through him to the hearts of thousands, that "God is love," and "hath so loved the world," that a heart of infinite love embraces us on every side, and rules in heaven. It was the fresh declaration to sinful men that the terrible reality of sin, which forms the barrier between the sinner and the Holy One, has been swept away by the sacrifice God Himself has

provided; not the offering of man, but "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," the Son of God who reveals the Father.

Before this gospel all the systems of human priesthood and saintly intercession, indulgences, meritorious selftorture, fell in pieces, not like a fortress painfully battered down, but like dreams when daylight comes, like a misunderstanding between friends who have been slandered to one another, in a minute's interview. Purchased indulgences to defend us from the anger of a Father; men, strangers to us, to intercede with Him who beseeches us to be reconciled; painful penances to wring forgiveness of sins from Him who died that we might be justly forgiven ;-all these fade into nothingness before that wondrous message of love.

One perusal of Luther's "Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians," with all its exaggerations and its passionate vehemence, may give us a more true and living idea of what the Reformation was, than libraries of histories of its causes and disquisitions about its effects.

"Christ's victory," he writes, "is the overcoming of the law, of sin, our flesh, the world, the devil, death, hell, and all evils; and this victory He hath given unto us.” "Although, then, that these tyrants and these enemies of ours do accuse us and make us afraid, yet can they not drive us to despair, nor condemn us, for Christ, whom God the Father hath raised from the dead, is our righteousness and victory."

Again, on the words, "Who hath given Himself for our sins," he writes (referring to the efforts of Satan to drive us to despair on account of our sins), "Against

« VorigeDoorgaan »