MORTIFICATION
"If by tying its main artery, we stop most
of the blood going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb performs its
function, those parts which are called into play must be wasted faster than
they are repaired: whence eventual disablement. The relation between due
receipt of nutritive matters through its arteries, and due discharge of its
duties by the limb, is a part of the physical order. If instead of cutting off
the supply to a particular limb, we bleed the patient largely, so drafting away
the materials needed for repairing not one limb but all limbs, and not limbs
only but viscera, there results both a muscular debility and an enfeeblement of
the vital functions. Here, again, cause and effect are necessarily related. .
. . Pass now to those actions more commonly thought of as the occasions for
rules of conduct."
HERBERT SPENCER.
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon
earth"-- Paul.
"O Star-eyed
Science ! hast thou wandered there
To waft us home the message of despair?"--Campbell.
THE definition of Death which science has
given us is this: A falling out of correspondence with environment.
When, for example, a man loses the sight of his eyes, his correspondence
with the environing world is curtailed. His life is limited in an important
direction; he is less living than he was before. If, in addition, he lose the
senses of touch and hearing, his correspondences are still further limited; he
is therefore still further dead. And when all possible correspondences have
ceased, when the nerves decline to respond to any stimulus, when the lungs
close their gates against the air, when the heart refuses to correspond with
the blood by so much as another beat, the insensate corpse is wholly and for
ever dead. The soul, in like manner, which has no correspondence with the
spiritual environment is spiritually dead. It may be that it never possessed
the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, or a heart which throbbed in response
to the love of God. If so, having never lived, it cannot be said to have died.
But not to have these correspondences is to be in the state of Death. To the
spiritual world, to the Divine Environment, it is dead--as a stone which has
never lived is dead to the environment of the organic world.
Having already abundantly illustrated this use of
the symbol Death, we may proceed to deal with another class of expressions
where the same term is employed in an exactly opposite connection. It is a
proof of the radical nature of religion that a word so extreme should have to
be used again and again in Christian teaching, to define in different
directions the true spiritual relations of mankind. Hitherto we have concerned
ourselves with the condition of the natural man with regard to the spiritual
world. We have now to speak of the relations of the spiritual man with regard
to the natural world. Carrying with us the same essential principle--want of
correspondence--underlying the meaning of Death, we shall find that the
relation of the spiritual man to the natural world, or at least to part of it,
is to be that of Death.
When the natural man becomes the spiritual man
the great change is described by Christ as a passing from Death unto Life.
Before the transition occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get
into correspondence with the new Environment? But no sooner is this
correspondence established than the problem is reversed. The question now is,
how to get out of correspondence with the old environment? The moment the new
life is begun there comes a genuine anxiety to break with the old. For the
former environment has now become embarrassing. It refuses its dismissal from
consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new Environment for a share of the
correspondences. And in a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and
passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier life,
now complicate the new relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact,
finds itself in correspondence with two environments, each with urgent but yet
incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a world whose
inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual civil-war.
The position of things is perplexing. It is clear
that no man can attempt to live both lives. To walk both in the flesh and in
the spirit is morally impossible. "No man," as Christ so often emphasized, "can
serve two masters." And yet, as matter of fact, here is the new-born being in
communication with both environments? With sin and purity, light and darkness,
time and Eternity, God and Devil, the confused and undecided soul is now in
correspondence. What is to be done in such an emergency? How can the New Life
deliver itself from the still-persistent past?
A ready solution of the difficulty would be to
die. Were one to die organically, to die and "go to heaven," all
correspondence with the lower environment would be arrested at a stroke. For
Physical Death of course simply means the final stoppage of all natural
correspondences with this sinful world. But this alternative, fortunately or
unfortunately, is not open. The detention here of body and spirit for a given
period is determined for us, and we are morally bound to accept the situation.
We must look then for a further alternative.
Actual Death being denied us, we must ask
ourselves if there is nothing else resembling it--no artificial relation, no
imitation or semblance of Death which would serve our purpose. If we cannot yet
die absolutely, surely the next best thing will be to find a temporary
substitute. If we cannot die altogether, in short, the most we can do is to die
as much as we can. And we now know this is open to us, and how. To die to any
environment is to withdraw correspondence with it, to cut ourselves off, so far
as possible, from all communication with it. So that the solution of the
problem will simply be this, for the spiritual life to reverse continuously the
processes of the natural life. The spiritual man having passed from Death unto
Life, the natural man must next proceed to pass from Life unto Death. Having
opened the new set of correspondences, he must deliberately close up the old.
Regeneration in short must be accompanied by Degeneration.
Now it is no surprise to find that this is the
process everywhere described and recommended by the founders of the Christian
system. Their proposal to the natural man, or rather to the natural part of the
spiritual man, with regard to a whole series of inimical relations, is
precisely this. If he cannot really die, he must make an adequate approach to
it by "reckoning himself dead." Seeing that, until the cycle of his organic
life is complete he cannot die physically, he must meantime die morally,
reckoning himself morally dead to that environment which, by competing for his
correspondences, has now become an obstacle to his spiritual life.
The variety of ways in which the New Testament
writers insist upon this somewhat extraordinary method is sufficiently
remarkable And although the idea involved is essentially the same throughout,
it will clearly illustrate the nature of the act if we examine separately three
different modes of expression employed in the later Scriptures in this
connection. The methods by which the spiritual man is to withdraw himself from
the old environment--or from that part of it which will directly hinder the
spiritual life--are three in number:--
First, Suicide.
Second, Mortification.
Third, Limitation.
It will be found in
practice that these different methods are adapted, respectively, to meet three
different forms of temptation; so that we possess a sufficient warrant for
giving a brief separate treatment to each.
First, Suicide. Stated in undisguised
phraseology, the advice of Paul to the Christian, with regard to a part of his
nature, is to commit suicide. If the Christian is to "live unto God," he must
"die unto sin." If he does not kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him.
Recognising this, he must set himself to reduce the number of his
correspondences--retaining and developing those which lead to a fuller life,
unconditionally withdrawing those which in any way tend in an opposite
direction. This stoppage of correspondences is a voluntary act, a crucifixion
of the flesh, a suicide.
Now the least experience of life will make it
evident that a large class of sins can only be met, as it were, by Suicide. The
peculiar feature of Death by Suicide is, that it is not only self-inflicted but
sudden. And there are many sins which must either be dealt with suddenly or not
at all. Under this category, for instance, are to be included generally all
sins of the appetites and passions. Other sins, from their peculiar nature, can
only be treated by methods less abrupt, but the sudden operation of the knife
is the only successful means of dealing with fleshly sins. For example, the
correspondence of the drunkard with his wine is a thing which can be broken off
by degrees only in the rarest cases. To attempt it gradually may in an isolated
case succeed, but even then the slightly prolonged gratification is no
compensation for the slow torture of a gradually diminishing indulgence. "If
thine appetite offend thee cut it off," may seem at first but a harsh remedy;
but when we contemplate on the one hand the lingering pain of the gradual
process, on the other its constant peril, we are compelled to admit that the
principle is as kind as it is wise. The expression "total abstinence" in such a
case is a strictly biological formula. It implies the sudden destruction of a
definite portion of environment by the total withdrawal of all the connecting
links. Obviously of course total abstinence ought thus to be allowed a much
wider application than to cases of "intemperance." It is the only decisive
method of dealing with any sin of the flesh. The very nature of the relations
makes it absolutely imperative that every victim of unlawful appetite, in
whatever direction, shall totally abstain. Hence Christ's apparently extreme
and peremptory language defines the only possible, as well as the only
charitable, expedient: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it
from thee. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from
thee."
The humanity of what is called "sudden
conversion" has never been insisted on as it deserves. In discussing
"Biogenesis"[65] it has been already pointed
out that while growth is a slow and gradual process, the change from Death to
Life alike in the natural and spiritual spheres is the work of a moment.
Whatever the conscious hour of the second birth may be--in the case of an adult
it is probably defined by the first real victory over sin--it is certain that
on biological principles the real turning-point is literally a moment. But on
moral and humane grounds this misunderstood, perverted, and therefore despised
doctrine is equally capable of defence. Were any reformer, with an adequate
knowledge of human life, to sit down and plan a scheme for the salvation of
sinful men, he would probably come to the conclusion that the best way after
all, perhaps indeed the only way, to turn a sinner from the error of his ways
would be to do it suddenly.
Suppose a drunkard were advised to take off one
portion from his usual allowance the first week, another the second, and so on!
Or suppose at first he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the
evenings, then every second evening, then only on Saturday nights, and finally
only every Christmas? How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reduced the
number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradually diminishing the number
of his blows? The argument ends with an ad absurdum. "Let him that stole
steal no more," is the only feasible, the only moral, and the
only humane way. This may not apply to every case, but when any part of man's
sinful life can be dealt with by immediate Suicide, to make him reach the end,
even were it possible, by a lingering death, would be a monstrous cruelty. And
yet it is this very thing in "sudden conversion," that men object to--the
sudden change, the decisive stand, the uncompromising rupture with the past,
the precipitate night from sin as of one escaping for his life. Men
surely forget that this is an escaping for one's life. Let the poor
prisoner run--madly and blindly if he likes, for the terror of Death is upon
him. God knows, when the pause comes, how the chains will gall him still.
It is a peculiarity of the sinful state, that as
a general rule men are linked to evil mainly by a single correspondence. Few
men break the whole law. Our natures, fortunately, are not large enough to make
us guilty of all, and the restraints of circumstances are usually such as to
leave a loophole in the life of each individual for only a single habitual sin.
But it is very easy to see how this reduction of our intercourse with evil to a
single correspondence blinds us to our true position. Our correspondences, as a
whole, are not with evil, and in our calculations as to our spiritual condition
we emphasize the many negatives rather than the single positive. One little
weakness, we are apt to fancy, all men must be allowed, and we even claim a
certain indulgence for that apparent necessity of nature which we call our
besetting sin. Yet to break with the lower environment at all, to many, is to
break at this single point. It is the only important point at which they touch
it, circumstances or natural disposition making habitual contact at other
places impossible. The sinful environment, in short, to them means a small but
well-defined area. Now if contact at this point be not broken off, they are
virtually in contact still with the whole environment. There may be only one
avenue between the new life and the old, it may be but a small and
subterranean passage, but this is sufficient to keep the old life in. So
long as that remains the victim is not "dead unto sin," and therefore he cannot
"live unto God." Hence the reasonableness of the words, "Whosoever shall keep
the whole law, and yet offend at one point, he is guilty of all." In the
natural world it only requires a single vital correspondence of the body to be
out of order to ensure Death. It is not necessary to have consumption,
diabetes, and an aneurism to bring the body to the grave if it have
heart-disease. He who is fatally diseased in one organ necessarily pays the
penalty with his life, though all the others be in perfect health. And such,
likewise, are the mysterious unity and correlation of functions in the
spiritual organism that the disease of one member may involve the ruin of the
whole. The reason, therefore, with which Christ follows up the announcement of
His Doctrine of Mutilation, or local Suicide, finds here at once its
justification and interpretation: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out,
and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of
thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast
into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from
thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy
members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into
hell."
Secondly, Mortification. The warrant for the use
of this expression is found in the well-known phrases of Paul, "If ye through
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live," and " Mortify
therefore your members which are upon earth." The word mortify here is,
literally, to make to die. It is used, of course, in no specially technical
sense; and to attempt to draw a detailed moral from the pathology of
mortification would be equally fantastic and irrelevant. But without in any way
straining the meaning it is obvious that we have here a slight addition to our
conception of dying to sin. In contrast with Suicide, Mortification implies a
gradual rather than a sudden process. The contexts in which the passages occur
will make this meaning so clear, and are otherwise so instructive in the
general connection, that we may quote them, from the New Version, at length:
"They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that
are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is
death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the
flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are
not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in
you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if
Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall
quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. So
then, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for
if ye live after the flesh ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye mortify the
doings (marg.) of the body, ye shall live."[66]
And again, "If then ye were raised together with
Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated on the right
hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that
are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When
Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be
manifested in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, the which is
idolatry; for which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of
disobedience; in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived in these
things. But now put ye also away all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing,
shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not one to another; seeing that ye
have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is
being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him."[67]
From the nature of the case as here stated it is
evident that no sudden process could entirely transfer a man from the old into
the new relation. To break altogether, and at every point, with the old
environment, is a simple impossibility. So long as the regenerate man is kept
in this world, he must find the old environment at many points a severe
temptation. Power over very many of the commonest temptations is only to be won
by degrees, and however anxious one might be to apply the summary method to
every case, he soon finds it impossible in practice. The difficulty in these
cases arises from a peculiar feature of the temptation. The difference between
a sin of drunkenness, and, let us say, a sin of temper, is that in the former
case the victim who would reform has mainly to deal with the environment, but
in the latter with the correspondence. The drunkard's temptation is a known and
definite quantity. His safety lies in avoiding some external and material
substance. Of course, at bottom, he is really dealing with the correspondence
every time he resists; he is distinctly controlling appetite. Nevertheless it
is less the appetite that absorbs his mind than the environment. And so long as
he can keep himself clear of the "external relation," to use Mr Herbert
Spencer's phraseology, he has much less difficulty with the "internal
relation." The ill-tempered person, on the other hand, can make very little of
his environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain
directions, there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate
his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, and his
most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and suddenly fail
him.
What he has to deal with, then, mainly is the
correspondence, the temper itself. And that, he well knows, involves a long and
humiliating discipline. The case now is not at all a surgical but a medical
one, and the knife is here of no more use than in a fever. A specific irritant
has poisoned his veins. And the acrid humours that are breaking out all over
the surface of his life are only to be subdued by a gradual sweetening of the
inward spirit. It is now known that the human body acts towards certain
fever-germs as a sort of soil. The man whose blood is pure has nothing to fear.
So he whose spirit is purified and sweetened becomes proof against these germs
of sin. "Anger, wrath, malice and railing" in such a soil can find no root.
The difference between this and the former method
of dealing with sin may be illustrated by another analogy. The two processes
depend upon two different natural principles. The Mutilation of a member, for
instance, finds its analogue in the horticultural operation of pruning,
where the object is to divert life from a useless into a useful channel. A part
of a plant which previously monopolised a large share of the vigour of the
total organism, but without yielding any adequate return, is suddenly cut off,
so that the vital processes may proceed more actively in some fruitful parts.
Christ's use of this figure is well-known: "Every branch in Me that beareth
fruit He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit." The strength of the
plant being given in part to the formation of mere wood, a number of useless
correspondences have to be abruptly closed while the useful connections are
allowed to remain. The Mortification of a member, again, is based on the Law of
Degeneration. The useless member here is not cut off, but simply relieved as
much as possible of all exercise. This encourages the gradual decay of the
parts, and as it is more and more neglected it ceases to be a channel for life
at all. So an organism "mortifies" its members.
Thirdly, Limitation. While a large number of
correspondences between man and his environment can be stopped in these ways,
there are many more which neither can be reduced by a gradual Mortification nor
cut short by sudden Death. One reason for this is that to tamper with these
correspondences might involve injury to closely related vital parts. Or, again,
there are organs which are really essential to the normal life of the organism,
and which therefore the organism cannot afford to lose even though at times
they act prejudicially Not a few correspondences, for instance, are not wrong
in themselves but only in their extremes. Up to a certain point they are lawful
and necessary; beyond that point they may become not only unnecessary but
sinful. The appropriate treatment in these and similar cases consists in a
process of Limitation. The performance of this operation, it must be confessed,
requires a most delicate hand. It is an art, moreover, which no one can teach
another. And yet, if it is not learned by all who are trying to lead the
Christian life, it cannot be for want of practice. For, as we shall see, the
Christian is called upon to exercise few things more frequently.
An easy illustration of a correspondence which is
only wrong when carried to an extreme, is the love of money. The love of money
up to a certain point is a necessity; beyond that it may become one of the
worst of sins. Christ said: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon" The two services,
at a definite point, become incompatible, and hence correspondence with one
must cease. At what point, however, it must cease each man has to determine for
himself. And in this consists at once the difficulty and the dignity of
Limitation.
There is another class of cases where the
adjustments are still more difficult to determine. Innumerable points exist in
our surroundings with which it is perfectly legitimate to enjoy, and even to
cultivate, correspondence, but which privilege, at the same time, it were
better on the whole that we did not use. Circumstances are occasionally
such--the demands of others upon us, for example, may be so clamant--that we
have voluntarily to reduce the area of legitimate pleasure. Or, instead of it
coming from others, the claim may come from a still higher direction. Man's
spiritual life consists in the number and fulness of his correspondences with
God. In order to develop these, he may be constrained to insulate them, to
enclose them from the other correspondences, to shut himself in with them. In
many ways the limitation of the natural life is the necessary condition of the
full enjoyment of the spiritual life.
In this principle lies the true philosophy of
self-denial. No man is called to a life of self-denial for its own sake. It is
in order to a compensation which, though sometimes difficult to see, is always
real and always proportionate. No truth, perhaps, in practical religion is more
lost sight of. We cherish somehow a lingering rebellion against the doctrine of
self-denial--as if our nature, or our circumstances, or our conscience, dealt
with us severely in loading us with the daily cross. But is it not plain after
all that the life of self-denial is the more abundant life--more abundant just
in proportion to the ampler crucifixion of the narrower life? Is it not a clear
case of exchange--an exchange however where the advantage is entirely on our
side? We give up a correspondence in which there is a little life to enjoy a
correspondence in which there is an abundant life. What though we sacrifice a
hundred such correspondences? We make but the more room for the great one that
is left. The lesson of self-denial, that is to say of Limitation, is
concentration. Do not spoil your life, it says, at the outset with
unworthy and impoverishing correspondences; and if it is growing truly rich and
abundant, be very jealous of ever diluting its high eternal quality with
anything of earth. To concentrate upon a few great correspondences, to oppose
to the death the perpetual petty larceny of our life by trifles--these are the
conditions for the highest and happiest life. It is only Limitation which can
secure the Illimitable.
The penalty of evading self-denial also is just
that we get the lesser instead of the larger good. The punishment of sin is
inseparably bound up with itself. To refuse to deny one's self is just to be
left with the self undenied. When the balance of life is struck, the self will
be found still there. The discipline of life was meant to destroy this self,
but that discipline having been evaded--and we all to some extent have
opportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrow path by the
shortest cuts--its purpose is baulked. But the soul is the loser. In seeking to
gain its life it has really lost it. This is what Christ meant when He said:
"He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this
world shall keep it unto life eternal."
Why does Christ say: "Hate Life "? Does He mean
that life is a sin? No. Life is not a sin. Still, He says we must hate it. But
we must live. Why should we hate what we must do? For this reason: Life is not
a sin, but the love of life may be a sin. And the best way not to love life is
to hate it. Is it a sin then to love life? Not a sin exactly, but a mistake. It
is a sin to love some life, a mistake to love the rest. Because that love is
lost. All that is lavished on it is lost. Christ does not say it is wrong to
love life. He simply says it is loss. Each man has only a certain amount
of life, of time, of attention--a definite measurable quantity. If he gives any
of it to this life solely it is wasted. Therefore Christ says, Hate life, limit
life, lest you steal your love for it from something that deserves it more.
Now this does not apply to all life. It is "life
in this world" that is to be hated. For life in this world implies conformity
to this world. It may not mean pursuing worldly pleasures, or mixing with
worldly sets; but a subtler thing than that--a silent deference to worldly
opinion; an almost unconscious lowering of religious tone to the level of the
worldly religious world around; a subdued resistance to the soul's delicate
promptings to greater consecration, out of deference to "breadth" or fear of
ridicule. These, and such things, are what Christ tells us we must hate. For
these things are of the very essence of worldliness. "If any man love the
world," even in this sense, "the love of the Father is not in him."
There are two ways of hating life, a true and a
false. Some men hate life because it hates them. They have seen through it, and
it has turned round upon them. They have drunk it, and come to the dregs;
therefore they hate it. This is one of the ways in which the man who loves his
life literally loses it. He loves it till he loses it, then he hates it because
it has fooled him. The other way is the religious. For religious reasons a man
deliberately braces himself to the systematic hating of his life. "No man can
serve two masters, for either he must hate the one and love the other, or else
he must hold to the one and despise the other." Despising the other--this is
hating life, limiting life. It is not misanthropy, but Christianity.
This principle, as has been said, contains the
true philosophy of self-denial. It also holds the secret by which self-denial
may be most easily borne. A common conception of self-denial is that there are
a multitude of things about life which are to be put down with a high hand the
moment they make their appearance. They are temptations which are not to be
tolerated, but must be instantly crushed out of being with pang and effort.
So life comes to be a constant and sore cutting
off of things which we love as our right hand. But now suppose one tried boldly
to hate these things? Suppose we deliberately made up our minds as to what
things we were henceforth to allow to become our life? Suppose we selected a
given area of our environment and determined once for all that our
correspondences should go to that alone, fencing in this area all round with a
morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem to live a poorer life;
they would see that our environment was circumscribed, and call us narrow
because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limited life would be really the
fullest life; it would be rich in the highest and worthiest, and poor in the
smallest and basest correspondences. The well-defined spiritual life is not
only the highest life, but it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is
more easily carried than the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of
both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters
misses the benediction of both. But he who has taken his stand, who has drawn a
boundary line, sharp and deep about his religious life, who has marked off all
beyond as for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden
light. For this forbidden environment comes to be as if it were not.
His faculties falling out of correspondence,
slowly lose their sensibilities. And the balm of Death numbing his lower nature
releases him for the scarce disturbed communion of a higher life. So even here
to die is gain.
[65] Page 93.
[66] Rom. viii. 5-13.
[67] Col. iii. 1-10