1 H. P. Liddon, Easter in St. Paul's, 398.
ST. MATTHEW xxvm. 18-20 445
1| I was hearing the other day the testimony of a Coptic judge in Egypt as to how the very idea of justice had for the first time dawned upon the fellah in Egypt when he saw that he, poor man, was going to get his Nile water, a thing hitherto inconceiv- able, equally with his rich neighbour. We bring justice, and yet even the justice of administration, glorious as that gift is, does not get to the inner heart and conscience of men. It does not give them the peace to live by in their private life ; it does not create character ; it does not get to the conscience or the heart.1
2. " Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." " Baptism," it has been well said, " is the oldest ceremonial ordinance that Christianity possesses ; it is the only one which is inherited from Judaism." Immersion of the body in water is naturally symbolical and suggestive of purification ; so, in the sacrament of Baptism, the one essential of entrance into the Kingdom of God is visibly set forth. It is a Kingdom into which nothing unclean can enter, yet in Baptism the right of every man to inherit the Kingdom is declared, and the condition of admission revealed. Baptism, therefore, is the token of a universal Church ; it is not the symbol of a sect, or the badge of a party; it is a visible witness to the world of a common humanity united in God.
T[ Dr. Moritz Busch, the Boswell of Prince Bismarck, relates this story. It happened some time ago that King Frederick of Denmark conferred upon the great German Chancellor the Grand Cross of the Danebrog Order. One of the rules of that order is that every one who receives the decoration of its cross must set up his name and arms in the principal church at Copenhagen, with a motto which must be chosen by himself, and must bear a double or ambiguous meaning. " So I hit upon this motto," said Prince Bismarck, " ' In Trinitate robur,' alluding to the trefoil, the clover, which was the old device of our family." " And what was the other meaning ? " said Dr. Busch. " Was it, ' My strength is in the Triune God ' ? " And the answer was given with a solemn gravity " Yes, just so; that is exactly what I meant." 2
3. "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I com- manded you." Those who come under the influence of the pro- clamation of the Lordship of Jesus, and, yielding to it, pass
1 Bishop Gore.
2 J. E. C. Welldou, The Fire upon the Altar, 59.
446 CHRIST'S PARTING CHARGE
through His death and resurrection into living union with Him, are to be taught " to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you." They are to realize in their own fellowship the actuality of His Kingship, and are to manifest through their corporate life the glory and grace of the Kingdom of God. This new society is formed wherever, as a result of the proclamation of His Lordship, men and women yield thereto ; a society of those who not only believe in His Lordship, but bend to it, and exhibit to the world the result of His Kingship in their individual lives and social fellowship. We hear a great deal in these days about the worth- lessness of mere dogmatic Christianity. Jesus Christ anticipated all that talk, and guarded it from exaggeration. For what He tells us here that we are to train ourselves and others in is not creed but conduct ; not things to be believed or credenda, but things to be done or agenda — " teaching them to observe all things whatso- ever I commanded you." A creed that is not wrought out in actions is empty; conduct that is not informed, penetrated, regulated by creed is unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian. What we are to know we are to know in order that we may do, and so inherit the benediction, which is never bestowed upon them that know, but upon them that, knowing these things, are blessed in, as well as for, the doing of them.
^| Surely, if there be anything with which metaphysics have nothing to do, and where a plain man, without skill to walk in the arduous paths of abstruse reasoning, may yet find himself at home, it is religion. For the object of religion is conduct ; and conduct is really, however men may overlay it with philosophical disquisitions, the simplest thing in the world. That is to say, it is the simplest thing in the world as far as understanding is con- cerned; as regards doing, it is the hardest thing in the world. Here is the difficulty, to do what we very well know ought to be done ; and instead of facing this, men have searched out another with which they occupy themselves by preference — the origin of what is called the moral sense, the genesis and physiology of conscience, and so on. No one denies that here, too, is difficulty, or that the difficulty is a proper object for the human faculties to be exercised upon ; but the difficulty here is speculative. It is not the difficulty of religion, which is a practical one ; and it often tends to divert attention from this. Yet surely the difficulty of religion is great enough by itself, if men would but consider it, to satisfy the most voracious appetite for difficulties. It extends to