By James Stalker
"And many more believed because of His own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" Joh 4:41-42
Anyone approaching religion at present from the intellectual side alone will find great obstacles in the way of belief. In our century the human mind has been in an almost unparalleled state of activity, and immense accumulations have been made of new knowledge. With these Christian thought has not yet had time to make a complete reckoning. Science, for example, has been extending its dominion towards all points of the compass, and it has greatly altered our conceptions of the wonderful universe in which we live. A hardly less characteristic movement of the modern mind is enthusiastic interest in the history of the past; and at the prevent moment the ancient documents of our religion, the Holy Scriptures, are being subjected to the most uncompromising investigation, while new theories about them are being crowded in bewildering numbers on the public mind.
In these circumstances what is the individual to do? Must he wait till these controversies are settled, before having anything to do with religion? Without doubt it is the duty of Christianity, as an organized body, to reckon with all new knowledge; and intelligent minds will follow the course of the argument with interest, noting especially the points where traditional beliefs require to be modified on account of the incoming of fresh light. Perhaps in our day this work has not been carried on with sufficient vigour; the apologetic of the Church is lagging behind the advance of knowledge. But must the individual keep at a distance from religion till this work is completed? If so, it is manifest that many must spend their life without the influence of religion; and to lack this guidance and strength in the years when character is being formed is the greatest of all calamities. Besides, it is evident that those who are enjoying the comfort and strength of religion have not waited till they were able to answer all these questions; for very few could pretend to have gone deeply into them all.
Can their faith, then, be justified? What is the kind of evidence on which certainty in religion is grounded?
A well-known incident of the gospel history will guide us in this investigation.
The Woman of Samaria was a remarkable instance of the effects which contact with Christ was able to produce. She came to Jacob's well a notorious sinner; she went back to the town a rejoicing believer. Not only so: she was transformed into an eloquent evangelist, who spread abroad the news that the long expected Messiah and the Saviour of the world was at hand. And she was most successful. There is a strange persuasiveness in the testimony of one in whom the flame of divine love has just been kindled. Her words so moved her fellow-townsmen that they flocked out to see Jesus in numbers which, as they approached on the highway, reminded Him of the stalks of corn covering a harvest field.
Coming to Jesus with minds disposed to believe by the woman's testimony, they begged Him to stay amongst them; and He remained two days. These were memorable days for that city. Many, listening to His words of grace and truth, experienced the same change as the woman had undergone at the well; and, as the joy of believing overspread their souls, they said to her in tones of hallowed pleasantry, " Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." They had believed at first, when she told them that the Saviour was at hand, because her words and her manner won them; but now they believed for a far stronger reason-because they had been saved themselves.
In these words the simple Samaritans, guided only by a vivid experience, gave expression to one of the prime truths of religion. They distinguished with perfect clearness between two kinds of evidence on which faith may rest-the evidence of hearsay or tradition and the evidence of experience.
I. The Evidence of Tradition.
We have all heard say that there is in this world such a thing as salvation, and that the Author and Depositary of it is the Lord Jesus Christ. Ever since we have been able to understand anything, we have been assured by a hundred witnesses, that men can be lifted out of the state of sin and misery in which they are born and raised to a happy and holy life in this world and to a state of unimaginable blessedness in the world to come; and that this has been made possible by the life and the death of Christ. These statements are the sum and substance of the creed of Christendom; and, I say, they have been reported to us by a great many witnesses. The witnesses are well deserving of credit; and, just as the Samaritan woman's fellow-townsmen believed when she testified about Christ, so we have good reason to trust those by whom these facts are certified.
In the first place, we have the testimony of Scripture. The essence of the Bible is nothing else than that which I have declared to be the creed of Christendom. It reports that of old God was in the world. He worked through the law and the prophets, convincing men of sin. He appeared in Jesus Christ, to take away the sin of the world. He revealed Himself in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and in the early successes of the Christian cause. To these facts the Bible bears witness.
Is it not an august witness? The Bible has mastered the mind of the world, and it is mastering it more and more. It is the great teacher of truthfulness, and in every part it breathes the air of simplicity and truth. It claims to be the word of Him who cannot lie. It is, indeed, outside testimony; it is only hearsay to us. But is it not most credible hearsay? If the Samaritans believed the testimony of a notorious woman, may not we much more believe that of the Bible?
Then there is the testimony of Christian history and Christian learning. The witness of the Bible has been continued in the witness of the Church. Age after age, as the good news has sounded through the world, it has found a response in the human heart; and men of ability and character have risen up to declare that they have found in Christ the secret of life.
Specially worthy of note in this regard is that portion of Christian learning which has been occupied with the defence of Christianity. In all ages doubters have arisen, who have cast suspicion on the Gospel. Sometimes they have denied that man needs salvation, trying to persuade poor human nature that it is not so miserable after all, but has resources within itself which will enable it, in course of time, to achieve perfection and make of the world an earthly paradise. Sometimes they have admitted that man is utterly miserable, but denied that salvation is possible for him: miserable he is, and miserable he must remain. At other times they have contended that, whether salvation is possible or not, at least Jesus Christ is not man's Saviour; for He was only a man Himself, and could not ransom the souls of His brothers. In all these forms doubt of Christianity has asserted itself, and pressed its suspicions on men's minds by strength of argument; but, as often as this has happened, God has raised up men of sanctified genius and learning, to refute the objections and surround Christianity with a circumvallation of evidences. Nor have these champions stood alone, they have only been the mouthpieces of obscure millions at their backs, who bore their testimony through them. This also, indeed, is only outside testimony; it is only hearsay; but is it not hearsay which has the strongest claim on our faith?
But, still further, there is the testimony of those known to ourselves who have been saved by Christ. This corresponds most closely with the testimony which the men of Samaria believed. They heard the woman tell that Jesus had shown her all her evil past and had taken her sin away; and they marked a change in her demeanour-a softening of the countenance, indicating that the hardened heart was broken, and an earnestness of manner in telling her tale, which assured them that they might trust her. But has not the same testimony been borne to us, with the same marks of genuineness? Is anyone ignorant that at the present hour there are tens of thousands alive with the same tale to tell-that they have met with Christ, and that He has broken their hearts and healed them again, and put a new song in their mouths and a new purpose into their lives? To many of us this appeal comes with overwhelming power; because the most sacred treasures which our memories contain are our recollections of those, in our homes or among our kindred, who have borne this testimony to us. They are the excellent of the earth-people that dwell alone in our memories and are not to be reckoned with the others there- men of a dignity and a wisdom above the dower of manhood, women of a purity and a tenderness above even the dower of womanhood; but well we know that, in their own clear conviction, all they possessed which made them peculiar was the effect of their connection with the Saviour Christ.
This, too, is outside testimony; it is only hearsay; but it is enough to make some of us say, Even if I should never know anything of Christianity in my own experience, nothing will ever persuade me that it is not a reality; there is a secret, even though I may never know it; a power which is not of this earth must have gone to the shaping of those hallowed lives; and I believe that their own conviction about its origin was correct.
II. The Evidence of Experience.
The forms of testimony hitherto mentioned all come from without; and therefore I have called them hearsay. This has been done with no intention of disparaging them; on the contrary, I have shown that they are worthy of all acceptation. Yet in substance they are precisely like the testimony which the Samaritans believed, when the woman reported to them her interview with Christ.
But, after Christ had been with them two days, the Samaritans believed in Him for a very different reason: " Now we believe, not because of thy saying; but we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." They had now obtained, in place of the evidence of hearsay, the evidence of experience, They believed in Christ's power to tell them all that ever they did, because He had laid open the secrets of their own lives; and they believed that He was the Saviour of the world because He had saved themselves.
This passage from belief that rests on testimony to belief founded on experience is perfectly familiar in common life.
It may have chanced to you to hear from others the rumour of one of those men of whom only two or three arise in a generation-orators gifted with the power of overmastering eloquence. The reports of the effects produced by the speaking of such a man are often well nigh incredible. Your friend's eyes glisten and his mind seems possessed, as he piles up hyperboles in the attempt to convey to you the impression made on himself. You believe him, but it is with a cool kind of belief. You tell him not to get excited, and you take a large discount off his words. Still his account is enough to make you go and hear for yourself, when an opportunity occurs. Suppose it is a real case of oratorical genius-that there is a charm in the liquid yet penetrating tones that thrills you through and through, and that, as one astonishing idea succeeds another, your excitement rises, till time and space are annihilated. Then it is your turn to be the excited reporter of the scene. You are annoyed that listeners remain cool under your description; but your own belief in the man is immovable and it is of a totally different quality from that which mere hearsay had produced.
Or take a rarer experience. It may chance that you know what it is to have laboured under a disease which baffled all local skill and reduced you to despair. But you heard of a physician who was said to have a genius for dealing with this special ailment. Enthusiastic admirers praised him to you, and told you incredible stories of what had happened to themselves. You listened with a dreary kind of belief; yet you went and tried. And the marvellous cleverness of the questions with which he found out everything about your case, the simple skill with which his trained fingers discovered the very spot where the malady was hidden, and the triumphant results of his treatment, turned you into the enthusiast who endeavoured to persuade others by the self-contradictory argument that you would not have believed it if you had not come through it yourself.
There is such a faith in Christ arising from experience, and it is far above the faith of tradition. Those possess it who, having received the testimony concerning salvation and the Saviour borne by the Bible, by the Church, and by living men to whom He has been precious, have gone to Christ with their own personal needs and, in their own saved souls, have received the evidence that all which others have said of Him is true.
He tells them all that ever they have done, as the Samaritan woman declared He had told her. There are states of conscience of which all have some experience-they are due to the convincing influence of the Holy Ghost-in which our evil past rises up before us, and the voice of God repeats the story of our sins. We can have no doubt in such solemn hours that a God exists, or that the holy law is the expression of His will. But never is this sight of ourselves so moving as when in spirit we are standing on Golgotha, and the accusing voice is heard issuing from the lips of Him who is hanging on the tree.
But this telling of all that ever we have done is only a preliminary to forgiving it all. Let anyone who has been told all that ever he did--that is, who has been awakened to the meaning of his own conduct, who feels how wicked his life has been, how it condemns him before God and cuts off his hope of blessedness in the future-let such a one approach Christ in prayer and in the Word, and deal with Him about his case, and he will obtain the sense of complete forgiveness. Christ has this gift to give in virtue of His life and death on earth. He can blot out the past and cancel its power to condemn us now or punish us hereafter. And the seal and evidence that He has done so is the peace, passing all understanding, which is shed abroad in the believing heart.
But the experience of Christ's power to save does not stop here. The root of the misery of an unsaved man is not in his unforgiven past-bad as this may be-but in his nature alienated from God. It is from this that individual sins arise. It is owing to this that he finds it difficult or unpleasant to think of God, and that his life is prayerless, or his worship formal. But let a man who is feeling in this way come to the Saviour and put himself into His hands, and he will experience a mighty change. The touch of Christ quickens the spirit of man-that is, the part of his nature intended for intercourse with God and eternity-and causes its powers to go forth with vigour and satisfaction upon their proper objects. Love to God, to God's people, to God's Word, to God's house, to everything that is God's, will break forth, and the spiritual world will become as real as the natural has always been.
And this change is a growing one. The oftener and the more ardently a man thus turns to Christ, laying hold of Him by faith and closing his entire nature round Him, the more patent will the consequences be. The daily life of a Christian ought to be a daily meeting and dealing with Christ, as friend with friend-speaking to Him in prayer, listening to Him in the Word, learning to know His mind, imitating His example, and rejoicing in His love. And, if we are cultivating such a connection with Him, there will inevitably pass influences from Him into us, the transforming effects of which on our character and life will be a growing demonstration that all which the saints of the past have said of Him is true.
Such, then, are the two kinds of evidence on which faith may rest.
Both are valuable, and they ought not to be separated. They lend each other mutual support; for the more a man is satisfied with the historical credentials of Christianity, the more confidence will he have in committing to it his own vital interests; and, on the other hand, the more certain and satisfying his own experience of it is, the more will he be persuaded that it is not a mere fiction of the imagination, but has its root and foundation in the nature of things.
But, though both kinds of evidence are valuable, they are not equally valuable.
The evidence of tradition is external and is, therefore, liable to be shaken by many external influences. The Bible is exposed to constant assaults; and these may, for a time, lack a satisfactory reply. The learning of the Church on the side of Christianity may chance sometimes to be opposed by still greater learning on the opposite side. Even the testimony of the lives of the saints may fail us. It may not be our good fortune to see true religion embodied in persons who command our deepest homage and respect. We may even see it embodied in characters which make on us an opposite impression. And there is the still sadder possibility of seeing those whom we have taken for saints turning out to be hypocrites.
Many such dangers beset the faith which is due to hearsay. But the evidence on which the other kind of faith rests is internal. It is a personal possession, which none can take from us. It is a part of ourselves, and the principal part. How can I believe that there is no such thing as salvation, necessary or possible, if I am saved myself? How can I give up my faith that Christ is a divine Saviour, if He has saved, and is daily saving, me? Sometimes, indeed, one may doubt the reality of one's own experience; but, if it is constantly growing and becoming more and more the predominant element in one's life, it must more and more throw off every vestige of doubt.
There is another difference between these two kinds of evidence: the faith that is due to hearsay does not save; the faith of experience does. We may accept the testimony of the Bible and the Church and the saints to such facts as that all men are sinners and need a Saviour, and that salvation is to be found in Christ alone. But will this save us? It will not, unless, making use of this testimony, we put it to the proof for ourselves by going to Christ and dealing with Him about our own spiritual needs.
I should not like, in regard to any of the great experiences of human nature, to be wholly dependent on the testimony of others. I do not wish to have merely the word of the poets for the beauty and glory of nature. I wish to feel the awakening life of spring and to see the splendours of the growing year with my own senses,
"Our present sunsets are as rich in gold,
As ere the Iliad's music was outrolled."
I will not take the mere word of Shakspeare or Burns for the sweetness of love, or the glory of youth, or the joy of independence. While delighting in the immortal expression which they have given to these sentiments, I desire to experience the feelings myself in all their freshness and in all their power. And especially in regard to the very highest experiences of the soul-those of religion I am not content merely to receive the testimony of St. John and St. Paul, of Augustine or Bernard, of Luther or Calvin, of Wesley or McCheyne, that they found salvation satisfying and Christ precious. Gladly, indeed, do I accept their testimony, and rejoice that they were able to give such golden expression to that which I cannot worthily utter; yet I wish to enjoy the experiences myself, and to be able to say to even the greatest of these witnesses: " Now I believe, not because of thy saying; for I have heard Him myself, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."
