Christians were to follow peace not know or love their Master. with all men." They were to submit themselves to every ordinance of man, that is, to the heathen government of the Empire, for the Lord's sake. They were to do good unto all men, although the household of faith had a first claim on them. They were not even to shun heathen fornicators, St. Paul says (because in that case, he adds, they must, living in such a city as Corinth, go out of the world), but only Christians who, knowing better, dishonoured thus their Master's name. And yet, if the Apostles had thought that this was the meaning of the blessing, they would soon be undeceived. Pentecost was quickly followed by imprisonments, by martyrdoms. For three centuries the Church was almost continuously persecuted. No doubt it was right to pray-and men did pray-that they might lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty, but it was with reference to this meaning of the word that our Lord Himself had already said: "Think ye that I am come to send peace on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division. I am not come to send peace, but a sword." He knew that a pure and heavenly creed such as Christianity could not but excite hostility in the human heart wherever it did not compel faith and love. He knew that this hostility in the long run meant persecution, and He would not encourage unwarrantable expectations. No; the peace of Easter evening was not an insurance for the Church against the world's persecution. Christians have prayed for some sixteen centuries at least, in the words of one of the most familiar and beautiful of our collects, "that we, being delivered from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness." But the peace which Christ promised is independent of outward troubles. It certainly does not consist in their absence. (3) Does the blessing, then, refer to concord amongst Christians? No doubt our Lord had said, "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another." He had said, " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one towards another." He had said of others that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." He had pleaded in the hearing of His disciples "that as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, they also may be one in us.” He had hushed up disputes about pre-eminence by His own example of ready and complete self-sacrifice. No doubt, also, peace, in this sense of concord among Christians, is much insisted on by the Apostles as a great and most precious grace. The Corinthians are bidden: "Be of one mind: live in peace." The Thessalonians are told: "Be at peace among yourselves." The Ephesians are entreated to keep" the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The Hebrews are to " follow peace with all men, and holiness." Timothy is desired, as a Christian bishop, to follow peace as well as righteousness, and faith, and charity. The Roman Christians are warned that the kingdom of God is not adherence to their private notions about meat and drink, but "righteousness and peace." They are desired to "follow after the things which make for peace." The Galatians are told that peace-peace with their brethren as well as with their God-is the third of the fruits of the Spirit. Certainly it was meant we cannot doubt it-that peace should reign within the fold of Christ. He who is the author of peace and lover of concord so willed it; but neither here nor elsewhere did He impose His will mechanically upon baptized men. Such is our human imperfection that the very earnestness of faith has constantly been itself fatal to peace. Controversy, no doubt, is a bad thing, but there are worse things in the world than controversy. The peace of indifference to truth-the sort of peace which is often exhibited as a pleasing contrast to the distracting controversies of the Christian Church-is really purchased at the cost of a man's complete degradation-the degradation of the man who voluntarily closes his eyes to the gravest and most interesting question that can interest a thinking being. Controversy with all its evils is better than that; and controversy is as old, or all but as old, as Christendom. Corinth, Galatia, Jerusalem were full of it, each one of them, in St. Paul's day, just as every portion and section of the Church of Christ the Church of Rome, most certainly, being no sort of exception to the rule-is distracted by it now. It may well make us pray God to inspire continually the universal Church with the Spirit of unity and concord, as well as of truth; but its existence does not forfeit the great gift which our Lord made to His Apostles on the evening of Easter day; for that gift was a gift-we cannot doubt it-chiefly and first, if not exclusively, to the individual soul. (4) The words which our Lord spoke must have recalled the saying in the supper-room: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you " an external peace, produced mechanically or by force, within the power of the world sometimes to give. Augustus had secured it a few years before for the great Roman Empire. A travesty of inward peace might for a while be given to the single soul by pleasure or by occupation, but illusions of this kind do not last, and they leave matters worse, far worse, than ever when they break up. The peace of Christ" my peace," He calls it-is that heavenly tranquillity of the soul which belongs to the new regenerate life of man, to man's eternal life, begun here in the sphere of time, and ended beyond the grave. It is the light of His countenance who is called five times deliberately in the pages of the New Testament, "the God of peace." It is His light falling upon the spirit of man, and conferring on it something of the calm, tranquil dignity which belongs to the highest strength and goodness-which belongs to His eternal life. In thirteen epistles St. Paul prays that his correspondents may have grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ; grace first, that is, God's active favour; and then its fruit in the soul-that great gift of inward harmony with God and with self from which the peace of the Church, and ultimately the peace of all civil society, must really radiate. |