HOMILETICAL BREVIARIES.

No. CCCXCIX.

The Error in Substituting the Human for the Divine in Religious Teaching.

"HOWBEIT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING FOR DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN." Mark vii. 7.

This verse and the preceding one is a quotation given substantially from the Greek version of Isaiah. The word "commandments" here does not mean the same as the word "commandments," in the next verse, the commandment of God. They are taken from two different Greek words which have not exactly the same significance. The subject of this verse is the substitution of the teaching of man for the teachings of Christ, and in relation to this subject we offer two remarks: I. It is an error TERRIBLY PREVALENT. All creeds and all theologies, what are they, but "the commandments" and the teachings of fallible and errable men? What is called Christian theology is no more the Gospel than astronomy, the stars; physiology, life; or botany the vegetable kingdom. Compare the doctrinal teaching of theology with the doctrinal teaching of Christ, and the ethical teaching of theology with the ethical teaching of Christ, and how vast the difference! The teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees consisted in the putting of their own opinions in the place of God's truth. And to what a fearful extent is this the case with the religious teachers of England to-day! In what Church, or sect do we have the truth as "it is in Jesus" brought out in all its sublime freshness and force? What are called the churches live in the atmosphere of human ideas and they are the miserable caricatures of the Divine ideal. II. It is an error DESTRUCTIVE OF TRUE WORSHIP. "In vain do they worship." The Scribes and Pharisees, worshipped with the greatest punctuality and regard to external order, but their worship was vain, unaccepted of heaven and morally worthless. There is much of what is called worshipping in all conventional churches, what singing, what praying, what confessing. But how much of all this is real! How much is merely occasional and

not constant, formal not spiritual, hypocritical not sincere!

Who can

trust a Christ that is given to you in human ideas with unbounded confidence, or have supreme love to a God presented to you in human ideas? Wherever in religion the teaching of men is substituted for the teaching of Christ, there can be no true worship. "In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

No. CCCC.

The Unique Man.

"WHAT MANNER OF MAN IS THIS?"-Mark iv. 41.`

"What manner of man?" He is a Man then, possessing the form, the attributes, the natural tastes, appetites, necessities of man, and yet a man differing in points most striking and salient from any that ever appeared before Him, or has ever appeared since. Some of these points will appear when marking His conduct in certain of His fundamental relationships. I. Look at Him as a MEMBER OF A FAMILY. Though He did not sustain all the relations in family life that multitudes of men sustain, such as husband, father, notwithstanding He was a Son and Brother, and His conduct in these relationships was governed by a principle unlike that which has governed all other sons and brothers. What was that? Esteeming them in proportion to their loyalty to the Divine will. His words assert in its strongest form the truth which we all acknowledge, that though natural relationships involve duties which must not be neglected, spiritual relationships, brotherhood in a great cause, devotion to the Great Father, must be supreme, and that when the two clash (as in the case supposed in x. 37), the latter must of right prevail. He regarded natural kinship as something almost too insignificant in the presence of the spiritual. His regard for His parents and His brothers was not governed by the instinct of consanguinity, but by the recognition in them of loyalty to the will of heaven. Is not this unique in family relationships? Where are the sons and brothers that act upon this principle? And yet does not such a principle commend itself to our reason and our conscience? How blest society would be if men were loved and honoured just in proportion as their lives are regulated by the will of the eternal Father.

"What man ner

of man then is this" who acted with this sublime singularity ?— II. Look at Him as a wORSHIPPER OF GOD.

Observe-First: His

"I and my Father are one."

He

conscious oneness with the Father. felt He was in the Father and the Father in Him. There was a common pulsation, a common purpose, a common life. He felt that the Father was nearer to Him than nature, that He was the all in all of His being. "I am alone yet I am not alone for the Father is with Me." Is not this consciousness unique? Where are the men who feel this vital oneness with the everlasting Father? Observe Secondly-The peculiarity of His prayers to the Father. In His prayers (a) There is no confession of sin. The ordinary prayers even of the best of men contain much of this. (b) There are no appeals for forgiveness. The prayers of the best of men are full of this petition, and Christ Himself taught us to use it, "Forgive us our debts." But He had no debts, "He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." (c) There are no entreaties for a higher life. He does not ask for higher virtues, to be more in conformity with the Divine will. There is not a breath of personal interest in any of His prayers. They glow and throb with the spirit of universal philanthrophy. The grand burden of all His prayers for Himself and others was the reign of the Divine will in human souls. "What manner of man is this" to have acted thus in relation to God? Did ever other man feel and act thus? We know of none.-III. Look at Him as a TEACHER OF RELIGION. "Never man spake like this man." Whilst He excelled all other religious teachers in His naturalness, suggestiveness, spirituality, tenderness, honesty, and authority, He was distinguished from all in this respect that He made Himself the grand subject of His teaching, He was constantly speaking about Himself. He was the great subject of His own teaching. Hence all He said was full of the "I." "I and My Father are one;" "I am the bread of life." "I am the resurrection and the life;" "I am the good Shepherd;" "I am the way, the truth, and the life;" "I say unto you." His discourses are in fact full of the "I." The reason of this is obvious. He had nothing greater to reveal; "in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." He was the centre and circumference, the soul and substance of all truth.-IV. Look at Him as a REFORMER OF ABUSES. He lived in an age and country where abuses abounded, political and religious. The tyrannies of rulers, the hypocricies, and crafts of priests. How did He deal with these as a Reformer ? Reformers generally organise societies to expose and battle with abuses. But this did not He. He dealt with them personally, and by moral means. Whilst He denounced them in language most scathing, He inculcated moral principles

in the minds of His contemporaries, which He knew if they took root and grew would work off the wrong as vernal forces work off the withered foliage of winter in the forest. His method of reforming men was by indoctrinating them, and this is the philosophic and only true method. "What manner of man" is this, who tries to reform the abuses of the world, political, social, and ecclesiastic by the mere words of His mouth, who seeks to sweep all unjust governments, religious impostures, and social immoralities from the face of the earth, by instilling into the minds of men, quietly as the falling of the dew, a few principles of truth and right ?-V. Look at Him as the OBJECT OF ENMITY. No one ever had more enemies than He. "He came to His own, and His own received Him not, and of the people there was none with Him." They wreaked their animosity on Him by deeds of violence, and words of insolence. How did He treat His enemies? Did He render evil for evil? No, "when He was reviled, He reviled not again." Instead of manifesting this spirit of retaliation He displayed the spirit of a magnanimous generosity. He lived, and toiled, and prayed, and endured for His enemies, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." "What manner

of man is this"-who acts towards His enemies in a way which no other man ever did ?—VI. Look at Him as a CITIZEN OF THE EARTH As a man, He was of the "earth earthy." His body was composed of earthly elements, and supported by earthly elements. He required, like all other men, its sustaining fruits, its genial sunbeams, its refreshing streams, and its life-giving breeze. But look at Him in relation to this material nature. He acted as no other man ever acted. By a word of His mouth, He hushes its storms, He withers its trees, He scatters its diseases, He multiplies its provisions, He raises its dead. "What manner of man is this?" No other man ever did the like. Thus Christ was unique: separate from all other men. And that which distinguished Him, mark, were points of transcendent superiority. We can conceive of a man unique on account of his weakness or wickedness, his stature or his strength, but Christ is unique in all that is grand and glorious. He stands amongst the race like a majestic cedar amongst brambles, like the grand Amazon amongst muddy streams, the effulgent Sun amongst the twinkling stars.