impassioned and more calmly terrible from the apostles and their Master and woe to us in the great day of God, if we have been the sycophants of the rich instead of the redressers of the poor man's wrongs-woe to us if we have been tutoring David into respect to his superior, Nabal, and forgotten that David's cause, not Nabal's, is the cause of God.

XVIII.

CHRIST'S JUDGMENT RESPECTING INHERIT

ANCE.*

"And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."-Luke xii. 13-15.

THE Son of God was misunderstood and misinterpreted in His day. With this fact we are familiar; but we are not at all familiar with the consideration that it was very natural that He should be so mistaken.

He went about Galilee and Judea proclaiming the downfall of every injustice, the exposure and confutation of every lie. He denounced the lawyers who refused education to the people, in order that they might retain the key of knowledge in their own hands. He reiterated Woe! woe! woe! to the Scribes and Pharisees, who revered the past, while systematically persecuting every new prophet and every brave man who rose up to vindicate the spirit of the past against the institutions of the past. He spoke parables which bore hard on the men of wealth: that, for instance, of the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, who died, and in hell lift up his eyes, being in torments-that of the wealthy proprietor who prospered in the world; who pulled down his barns to build greater; who all the while was in the sight of God a fool; who in front of judgment and eternity was found unready. He stripped the so-called religious party of that day of their respectability, convicted them, to their own astonishment, of hypocrisy, and called them" whited sepulchres."

*This Sermon was preached the Sunday after that on which "The Message of the Church to Men of Wealth" was preached, and it was intended as a further illustration of that subject.

He said God was against them; that Jerusalem's day was come, and that she must fall.

And now consider candidly:-suppose that all this had taken place in this country; that an unknown stranger, with no ordination, with no visible authority, basing his authority upon his truth, and his agreement with the mind of God the Father, had appeared in this England, uttering half the severe things He spoke against the selfishness of wealth, against ecclesiastical authorities, against the clergy, against the popular religious party-suppose that such an one should say that our whole social life is corrupt and false-suppose that instead of "thou blind Pharisee," the word had been "thou blind Churchman !”

Should we have fallen at the feet of such an one and said, Lo! this is a message from Almighty God, and He who brings it is a Son of God; perhaps what He says Himself, His only Son-God-of God? Or should we not have rather said, This is dangerous teaching, and revolutionary in its tendencies, and He who teaches it is an incendiary-a mad, democratical, dangerous fanatic?

That was exactly what they did say of your Redeemer in His day; nor does it seem at all wonderful that they did.

The sober, respectable inhabitants of Jerusalem, very comfortable themselves, and utterly unable to conceive why things should not go on as they had been going on for a hundred years-not smarting from the misery and the moral degradation of the lazars with whom He associated, and under whose burdens his loving spirit groaned-thought it excessively dangerous to risk the subversion of their quiet enjoyment by such outcries. They said, prudent men! "If He is permitted to go on this way, the Romans will come and take away our place and nation." The priests and Pharisees, against whom He had specially spoken, were fiercer still. They felt there was no time to be lost.

But still more, His own friends and followers misunderstood Him.

They heard him speak of a kingdom of justice and righteousness in which every man should receive the due reward of his deeds. They heard Him say that this kingdom was not far off, but actually among them, hindered only by their sins and dullness from immediate appearance. Men's souls were stirred and agitated. They were ripe for any thing, and any spark would have produced explosion. They thought the next call would be to take the matter into their own hands.

Accordingly, on one occasion, St. John and St. James asked

permission to call down fire from heaven upon a village of the Samaritans which would not receive their message. On another occasion, on a single figurative mention of sword, they began to gird themselves for the struggle: "Lord," said one, "behold here are two swords." Again, as soon as He entered Jerusalem for the last time, the populace heralded His way with shouts, thinking that the long-delayed hour of retribution was come at last. They saw the Conqueror before them who was to vindicate their wrongs. In imagination they already felt their feet upon the necks of

their enemies.

And because their hopes were disappointed, and He was not the demagogue they wanted, therefore they turned against Him. Not the Pharisees only, but the people whom He had come to save-the outcast, and the publican, and the slave, and the maid-servant; they whose cause He had so often pleaded, and whose emancipation He had prepared. It was the people who cried, " Crucify Him, crucify Him!"

This will become intelligible to us if we can get at the spirit of this passage.

Among those who heard Him lay down the laws of the kingdom of God-justice, fairness, charity-there was one who had been defrauded, as it seems, by his brother of his just share of the patrimony. He thought that the One who stood before him was exactly what he wanted: a redresser of wrongs-a champion of the oppressed-a divider and arbiter between factions-a referee of lawsuits-one who would spend His life in the unerring decision of all misunderstandings.

66

To his astonishment, the Son of Man refused to interfere in his quarrel, or take part in it at all. Man, who made me a judge or a divider between you ?" We ask attention to two things.

I. The Saviour's refusal to interfere.

II. The source to which He traced the appeal for interfer

ence.

I. The Saviour's refusal to interfere.

1. He implied that it was not His part to interfere. "Who made me a judge or a divider ?”

It is a common saying that religion has nothing to do with politics, and particularly there is a strong feeling current against all interference with politics by the ministers of religion. This notion rests on a basis which is partly wrong, partly right.

To say that religion has nothing to do with politics is to

assert that which is simply false. It were as wise to say that the atmosphere has nothing to do with the principles of architecture. Directly, nothing-indirectly, much. Some kinds of stone are so friable, that though they will last for centuries in a dry climate, they will crumble away in a few years in a damp one. There are some temperatures in which a form of building is indispensable which in another would be unbearable. The shape of doors, windows, apartments, all depend upon the air that is to be admitted or excluded. Nay, it is for the very sake of procuring a habitable atmosphere within certain limits that architecture exists at all. The atmospheric laws are distinct from the laws of architecture; but there is not an architectural question into which atmospheric considerations do not enter as conditions of the question.

That which the air is to architecture, religion is to politics. It is the vital air of every question. Directly, it determines nothing-indirectly, it conditions every problem that can arise. The kingdoms of this world must become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. How, if His Spirit is not to mingle with political and social truths?

Nevertheless, in the popular idea that religion as such must not be mixed with politics, there is a profound truth. Here, for instance, the Saviour will not meddle with the question. He stands aloof, sublime and dignified. It was no part of His to take from the oppressor and give to the oppressed, much less to encourage the oppressed to take from the oppressor himself. It was His part to forbid oppression. It was a judge's part to decide what oppression was. It was not His office to determine the boundaries of civil right, nor to lay down the rules of the descent of property. Of course there was a spiritual and moral principle involved in this question. But He would not suffer His sublime mission to degenerate into the mere task of deciding casuistry. He asserted principles of love, unselfishness, order, which would decide all questions; but the questions themselves He would not decide. He would lay down the great political principle, “Render unto Cæsar the things that be Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's;" but He would not determine whether this particular tax was due to Cæsar

or not.

So, too, He would say, justice, like mercy and truth, is one of the weightier matters of the law; but he would not decide whether in this definite case this or that brother had justice on his side. It was for themselves to determine that, and in that determination lay their responsibility.

And thus religion deals with men, not cases: with human hearts, not casuistry.

Christianity determines general principles, out of which, no doubt, the best government would surely spring: but what the best government is it does not determine whether monarchy or a republic, an aristocracy or a democracy.

It lays down a great social law: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal." But it is not its part to declare how much is just and equal. It has no fixed scale of wages according to which masters must give. That it leaves to each master and each age of society.

It binds up men in a holy brotherhood. But what are the best institutions and surest means for arriving at this brotherhood it has not said. In particular, it has not pronounced whether competition or co-operation will secure it.

And hence it comes to pass that Christianity is the eternal religion, which can never become obsolete. If it sets itself to determine the temporary and the local, the justice of this tax, or the exact wrongs of that conventional maxim, it would soon become obsolete: it would be the religion of one century, not of all. As it is, it commits itself to nothing except eternal principles.

It is not sent into this world to establish monarchy, or secure the franchise-to establish socialism, or to frown it into annihilation-but to establish a charity, and a moderation, and a sense of duty, and a love of right, which will modify human life according to any circumstances that can possibly arise.

2. In this refusal, again, it was implied that His kingdom was one founded on spiritual disposition, not one of outward law and jurisprudence.

That this lawsuit should have been decided by the brothers themselves, in love, with mutual fairness, would have been much that it should be determined by authoritative arbitration, was, spiritually speaking, nothing. The right disposition of their hearts, and the right division of their property thence resulting, was Christ's kingdom. The apportionment of their property by another's division had nothing to do with His kingdom.

Suppose that both were wrong: one oppressive, the other covetous. Then, that the oppressor should become generous, and the covetous liberal, were a great gain. But to take from one selfish brother in order to give to another selfish brother, what spiritual gain would there have been in this?

Suppose, again, that the retainer of the inheritance was in