' A. Connell.
70 A TOUCHSTONE OF CHARACTER
Omnipotence cannot reconcile two absolutely antagonistic things. It is past even the power of God to let a man have free will and yet not have it, to make men free and yet slaves; and if God gave men free will, then in the long run it was a dead certainty that some one so endowed would put up his own self-will against the will of his Father and exercise the gift which might make him worthy to be a son of God in a way that would drag him down to be impure and evil.^
II.
A Signal for Contradiction.
"A sign which is spoken against."
A sign is a signal. In the Scripture use, it denotes something or some one pointing to God ; to God's being, and to God's working. Thus a miracle is a sign. It points to God. It says, God is at work : this hath God spoken, for this hath God done. And thus Christ Himself is a sign. He came upon earth to point to God. He came to say by His words, and by His works, and by His character, and by His sufferings, " Behold your God ! " But this sign, Like every other, may be, and commonly is, gainsaid or spoken against. For one who accepts it — for one who, because of Christ, sees and believes in and lives for God — many cavil ; man}- reject and many neglect the Gospel. This has been so always, but most of all, when He was Himself amongst men. Then indeed gainsaying ran into open violence ; and the Son of Man, despised and rejected of men, was at last given up into the hands of wicked men, to suffer death upon a cross of anguish and infamy.
1. Jesus roused the bitterest opposition of those whose falsity He exposed. Do you think it likely that Pharisaism and Jewish intolerance, the pagan gods and the thousands whose living depended on idolatrous worship, or the existing schools of thought, the Stoics and Epicureans, liked being pushed out of the way ? A vast amount of interested selfishness and of honest conservatism necessarily opposed Christ — fought and died to keep Him out. Compare Jesus washing His disciples' feet with the moody Tiberius surrounded by an army of informers and abandoned to vile debauchery, and think what must inevitably happen before * Quintin Hogg : A Biography ^ 309.
ST. LUKE II. 34, 35 71
Christ is received as the King of Rome. Call to mind the amphi- theatres of the Eoman Empire, the hosts of slaves, and think what changes must take place before the cross could be elevated as the divinest of symbols. Read the description of the immorality then common, not in the lines of indignant satirists but in the admitted antecedents of the people who formed the first converts to Chris- tianity, and think what changes in public opinion, what open collisions between classes, what terrible inner struggles in the individual soul, must needs occur before one soul could turn to Him who puts duty for pleasure, self-control for indulgence, self- surrender for self-gratification ; who tells each one of us that we must die to live, die to our lusts, die to our tempers, die to our self-importance, die to the flattering idea of our own righteousness and goodness.
There came a man, whence, none could tell, Bearing a touchstone in his hand; And tested all things in the land. By its unerring spell.
And lo, what sudden changes smote The fair to foul, the foul to fair! Purple nor ermine did he spare Nor scorn the dusty coat.
Of heirloom jewels prized so much Many were changed to chips and clods, And even statues of the gods Crumbled beneath its touch.
Then angrily the people cried, " The loss outweighs the profit far, Our goods suffice us as they are, We will not have them tried."
And since they could not so avail To check his unrelenting quest They seized him saying, "Let him test How real is our jail."
But though they slew him with a sword And in a fire his touchstone burned. Its doings could not be o'erturned, Its undoings restored.
^2 A TOUCHSTONE OF CHARACTER
2. He offered Himself as a Saviour under an aspect incredible and offensive. He demanded an utter renunciation of human righteousness ; He asked them to give their whole confidence to One who should die in weakness and agony upon the shameful tree.
For nearly three centuries, of course with varying intensity, the name of Jesus of Nazareth and His followers was a name of shame, hateful and despised. Not only among the Eoman idolaters was " the Name " spoken against with intense bitterness (see the expressions used by men Hke Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny), but also among His own nation, the Jews, was Jesus known as " the Deceiver," " that Man," " the Hung." These were common ex- pressions used in the great Eabbinical schools which flourished in the early days of Christianity. How different is it all now !
\ " Where can we find a name so holy as that we may sur- render our whole souls to it, before which obedience, reverence without measure, intense humility, most unreserved adoration may all be fully rendered ? " was the earnest inquiry of his whole nature, intellectual and moral no less than religious. And the answer to it in like manner expressed what he endeavoured to make the rule of his own personal conduct, and the centre of all his moral and religious convictions : " One name there is, and one alone, one alone in heaven and earth — not truth, not justice, not benevolence, not Christ's mother, not His holiest servants, not His blessed sacraments, nor His very mystical body the Church, but Himself only who died for us and rose again, Jesus Christ, both God and man." ^