Very little, says the modern spirit. Prayer is the stimulant, the Dutch courage of the moral world. Prayer is a power, not because it _is_ efficacious, but because it is _believed_ to be so.
A modern Rabbi, with nothing of his Judaism left but a rabid antipathy to the Founder of the Church, guided by Spinoza and Kant, has turned fiercely upon the Lord"s prayer.[343] He takes those pet.i.tions which stand alone among the liturgies of earth in being capable of being translated into every language. He cuts off one pearl after another from the string. Let us look at two specimens. "Our Father which art in Heaven." Heaven! the very name has a breath of magic, a suggestion of beauty, of grandeur, of purity in it. It moves us as nothing else can.
We instinctively lift our heads; the brow grows proud of that splendid home, and the eye is wetted with a tear and lighted with a ray, as it looks into those depths of golden sunset which are full for the young of the radiant mystery of life, for the old of the pathetic mystery of death.[344] Yes, but for modern science Heaven means air, or atmosphere, and the address itself is contradictory. "Forgive us." But surely the guilt cannot be forgiven, except by the person against whom it is committed. There is no other forgiveness. A mother (whose daughter went out upon the cruel London streets) carried into execution a thought bestowed upon her by the inexhaustible ingenuity of love. The poor woman got her own photograph taken, and a friend managed to have copies of it hung in several halls and haunts of infamy with these words clearly written below--"come home, I forgive you." The tender subtlety of love was successful at last; and the poor haggard outcast"s face was touched by her mother"s lips. "But the heart of G.o.d," says this enemy of prayer, "is not as a woman"s heart." (Pardon the words, O loving Father! Thou who hast said "Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Pardon, O pierced Human Love! who hast graven the name of every soul on the palms of Thy hands with the nails of the crucifixion.) Repentance subjectively seems a reality when mother and child meet with a burst of pa.s.sionate tears, and the polluted brow feels purified by their molten downfall; but repentance _objectively_ is seen to be an absurdity by every one who grasps the conception of law. The penitential Psalms may be the _lyrics_ of repentance, the Gospel for the third Sunday after Trinity its _idyll_, the cross its _symbol_, the wounds of Christ its _theology_ and _inspiration_. But the course of Nature, the hard logic of life is its refutation--the flames that burn, the waves that drown, the machine that crushes, the society that condemns, and that neither can, nor will forgive.
Enough, and more than enough of this. The monster of ignorance who has never learnt a prayer, has. .h.i.therto been looked upon as one of the saddest of sights. But there is something sadder--the monster of over-cultivation, the wreck of schools, the priggish fanatic of G.o.dlessness. Alas! for the nature which has become like a plant artificially trained and twisted to turn away from the light. Alas!
for the heart which has hardened itself into stone until it cannot beat faster, or soar higher, even when men are saying with happy enthusiasm, or when the organ is lifting upward to the heaven of heavens the cry which is at once the creed of an everlasting dogma and the hymn of a triumphant hope--"with Thee is the well of Life, and in Thy light shall we see light." Now having heard the answer of the modern spirit to the question "what is the real value of prayer?"
think of the answer of the spirit of the Church as given by St. John in this paragraph. That answer is not drawn out in a syllogism. St.
John appeals to our consciousness of a divine life. "That ye may know that ye have eternal life." This _knowledge_ issues in _confidence, i.e._, literally the sweet possibility of saying out all to G.o.d. And this confidence is never disappointed for any believing child of G.o.d.
"If we know that He hear us, we know that we have the pet.i.tions that we desired of Him."[345]
On the 16th verse we need only say, that the greatness of our brother"s spiritual need does not cease to be a t.i.tle to our sympathy.
St. John is not speaking of all requests, but of the fulness of brotherly intercession.
One question and one warning in conclusion; and that question is this.
Do we take part in this great ministry of love? Is our voice heard in the full music of the prayers of intercession that are ever going up to the Throne, and bringing down the gift of life? Do _we_ pray for others?
In one sense all who know true affection and the sweetness of _true_ prayer do pray for others. We have never loved with supreme affection any for whom we have not interceded, whose names we have not baptized in the fountain of prayer. Prayer takes up a tablet from the hand of love written over with names; that tablet death itself can only break when the heart has turned Sadducee.
Jesus (we sometimes think) gives one strange proof of the love which yet pa.s.seth knowledge. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus;" "when He had heard therefore" [O that strange therefore!]
"that Lazarus was sick, He abode _two days_ still in the same place where He was." Ah! sometimes not two days, but two years, and sometimes evermore, He seems to remain. When the income dwindles with the dwindling span of life; when the best beloved must leave us for many years, and carries away our sunshine with him; when the life of a husband is in danger--then we pray; "O Father, for Jesu"s sake spare that precious life; enable me to provide for these helpless ones; bless these children in their going out and coming in, and let me see them once again before the night cometh, and my hands are folded for the long rest." Yes, but have we prayed at our Communion "because of that Holy Sacrament in it, and with it," that He would give them the grace which they need--the life which shall save them from sin unto death? Round us, close to us in our homes, there are cold hands, hearts that beat feebly. Let us fulfil St. John"s teaching, by praying to Him who is the life that He would chafe those cold hands with His hand of love, and quicken those dying hearts by contact with that wounded heart which is a heart of fire.
NOTES
Ch. v. 3-17.
Ver. 3. This section should begin with the words "And His commandments are not heavy"--and should not be separated from what follows, because they give one reason of the victory whereof he proceeds to speak. "His commandments are not heavy, for all that is born of G.o.d conquereth the world." What a picture of the sweetness of a life of service! What a gentle smile must have been on the old man"s face as he said, "His commandments are not grievous!"
Vers. 7, 8. This pa.s.sage with its apparent obscurity, and famous interpolation, demands some additional notice. As to _criticism_ and _interpretation_.
(1) _Critically._ Since the publication of J. J. Griesbach"s celebrated work (_Diatribe in loc.u.m_ 1 John v. 7, 8, Tom. ii., N.T.
Halle: 1806), first German, and latterly English, opinion has become absolutely unanimous in agreeing with Griesbach that "the words included between brackets are spurious, and should therefore be eliminated from the Sacred Text." Even the famous Roman Catholic scholar, Scholts, in his great critical edition of the New Testament, in two volumes (Bonn: 1836), boldly dropped the disputed pa.s.sage from the text. The interpolated pa.s.sage has certainly no support in any uncial ma.n.u.script, or ancient version, or Greek Father of the four first centuries. (2) As to _interpretation_, the faith has lost nothing by the honesty of her wisest defenders. The whole of the genuine pa.s.sage is intensely Trinitarian. The interpolation is nothing but an exposition written into the text. The three genuine witnesses do really point to the Three Witnesses in Heaven. Bengel"s saying expresses the permanent feeling of Christendom, which no criticism can do away with: "This trine array of witnesses on earth is supported by, and has above and beneath it the Trinity, which is Heavenly, archetypal, fundamental, everlasting." The whole context recognizes three special works of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. "This is the witness of G.o.d," _i.e._ of the Father (ver. 9); "this is He that came by water and blood," _i.e._ the Son (ver. 6); "it is the Spirit that witnesseth," _i.e._ the Holy Ghost (_ibid._).
A fuller examination of this pa.s.sage, from a polemical point of view, will be found in the third of the introductory discourses. It will be well, however, to indicate here the immediate controversial reference in the Spirit, the water, and the blood. There is abundant proof that the popular heretical philosophy of Asia Minor struck Christianity precisely in three vital places. It denied--
(1) The Incarnation--consequently
(2) The Redemption--consequently
(3) The Sacraments.
But the mention of the water and the blood in connection with the Person of the Son Incarnate and Crucified established exactly these three points. Narrated as it was by an eye-witness, it established:--
(1) The reality of the Incarnation--consequently
(2) The reality of Redemption--for the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin (1 John i. 7)--consequently
(3) The reality of Sacraments.
We have articulate evidence of the denial of the two sacraments by the Docetic idealists of Asia Minor. The _Philosophumena_ tells us of the view of baptism held by one of their princ.i.p.al sects. "According to them the promise of the laver of regeneration is nothing more than the introduction into the "unfading pleasure" of him that is washed (as they say) with living water, and anointed with "chrism that speaketh not.""[346] The testimony of Ignatius is express as to the other sacrament. "From Eucharist and prayer they abstain on account of not confessing that the Eucharist is flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins." ["Water and blood" should be noted in Heb. ix.
19. Water is not mentioned in Exod. xxiv. 6.]--(_Ep. ad Smyrn._ vii.)
FOOTNOTES:
[337] Mr. Matthew Arnold.
[338] This is true as a general rule; but there were exceptions.
[339] See Ps. xv. Cf. Ps. xxiv. 3-7.
[340] 1 John v. 15.
[341] 1 John v. 14, 18.
[342] Vv. 14, 15.
[343] _Historical and Critical Commentary on Leviticus._ By M. M.
Kalisch. Part 1. Theology of the Past and Future, 431, 438.
[344] This is denied by De Wette (_Ueber die Religion_, Vorlesungen, 106).
[345] The form of expression indicates _not_ necessarily the very things asked, but the spiritual essence and substance.
[346] ? ?a? epa??e??a t?? ???t??? ??? a??? t?? est? ?at" a?t???, ? t?
e?sa?a?e?? e?? t?? aa?a?t?? ?d???? t?? ????e??? ?at" a?t??? ???t ?dat? ?a? ????e??? a?a?? ???sat?.--(_Philosoph._, p. 140, de Naa.s.senis.)
SECTION X.
GREEK. LATIN.
??dae? ?t? pa? ? Scimus quoniam omnis ?e?e???e??? e? t?? qui natus est ex Te?? ??? ?a?ta?e?, Deo non peccat, sed a??" ? ?e????e?? e? t?? generatio Dei conservat Te?? t??e? a?t??, ?a? eum et malignus non ? p?????? ??? ?pteta? tangit eum. Scimus a?t??. ??dae? ?t? e? quoniam ex Deo sumus t?? Te?? ese?, ?a? et mundus totus in ? ??s?? ???? e? t? maligno positus est.
p????? ?e?ta?. ??dae? Et scimus quoniam de ?t? ? ???? t?? Te?? Filius Dei venit, et ??e?, ?a? ded??e? ??? dedit n.o.bis sensum ut d?a???a?, ??a ????s??e? cognoscamus verum t?? a???????? ?a? ese? Deum et simus in vero, e? t? a??????, e? t? Filio eius; hic est ??? a?t?? ??s?? ???st?. verus et vita aeterna.
??t?? est?? ? a??????? Filioli custodite vos a Te?? ?a? ? ??? a??????. simulachris.
?e???a, f??a?ate ?a?t???
ap? t?? e?d????.
a??.
AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION.
We know that whosoever We know that whosoever is born of G.o.d is begotten of sinneth not; but he G.o.d sinneth not; but that is begotten of G.o.d He that was begotten keepeth himself, and of G.o.d keepeth him, that wicked one toucheth and the evil one toucheth him not. _And_ we him not. We know know that we are of that we are of G.o.d, G.o.d, and the whole and the whole world world lieth in wickedness. lieth in the evil one.
And we know And we know that the that the Son of G.o.d is Son of G.o.d is come, come, and hath given and hath given us an us an understanding, understanding that we that we may know Him know Him that is true, that is true, and we and we are in Him that are in Him that is true, is true, _even_ in His _even_ in His Son Jesus Son Jesus Christ. This Christ. This is the is the true G.o.d, and true G.o.d, and eternal eternal life. _My_ little life. Little children, children, guard yourselves keep yourselves from from idols.