CHRISTIAN LIBERTY: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6496, 27 May 1899, Page 7

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY : ITS NATURE AND LIMITATIONS.

'A SERMON by the Rev CANON ELLISON, M.A., CEa^lain in Ordinary to the Queen, late Chairman of the Church of England Temperance Society, , preached in Westminster Abbey. " Stand ■ fasti therefore, ,iri the liberty wherej with Christ has made us free. ! '"'Only use not liberty for an .occasion to ! the flesh, but by love serve one another." — i Galatians v., 1, 18. 1 •' The liberty, wherewith Christ has made i us free!" It. is liberty— freedom — from sin ; and the whole entail of evil consequences i which, resulted from it; freedom from its , condemnation, freedom from its dominion, . freedom from the fear of. death, and from him that had. the power of death, the devil ; freedom - from the whole " yoke of ordinances" in which the Levitical law had for a time held the people of ■ God, " imi posed upon. them," we are told, "till the j time of reformation." It is of this last i freedom I have to speak to-night. It has been said of those engaged in the ' work of temperance reform in England that I not content, so many of them, with for- • going the use of strong drink for them- ; selves, they lay down the practice as a law i for all ; thereby practically adding a new ■' commandment and invading this great Gos- ■ pel charter of ' Christian liberty. If it be ' true-^and I am far from denying that in i some cases it may have been — it has been ; done in complete ignorance of, or in com- , plete disregard of, the true principles on • which the hope of reformation rests ; . for the hindrance, therefore, and not the furtherance of the work. My purpose to-night — as God shall help me — will be,, not for the first time, to place those principles j on the immovable foundation of God's word — " To the law and the if they ; speak not according to this Word it is be- ; cause they have no' lijrht in them." ! The "liberty in Christ." There was a time -in the childhood of the human race i when it was necessary tiiat God should ; govern and educate His children, even as { we govern our own, by a system of strict rules — "Touch not, taste not, handle not." They were rules framed for the time thatthen was — some for the hardness of men's hearts, some' for the exigencies of race or climate, some as shadows" of 1 heavenly things which were hereafter to be fully revealed. The time came when childish things were put away, and the whole race passed into a new and further stage of development. It was when Jesus. Christ, Son of God and Son of Man,, had taken away the .curse by the. sacrifice of Himself, had. won back for men the inheritance .of the sons of- God,, and with it the dominion over all the creatures of. God, forfeited at the fall. , . .; ; For their guidance in the. pathway of trial and conflict thus opened to them, principles were to take the place of rules — principles, indeed, which were to ■ be sought at His ,lips, principles which would . thus constitute the new Evangelic law of I Christ; but principles which were to ■ adapt themselves to every variety of race ; and climate and age of the world, and which, just so far as they were written in the hearts of His people, should become to them a "perfect law of liberty," enabling them to love that which God loves, and to hate that which He abhors, and so training them for their inheritance in the further stage of development in ! Heaven. For any old rales, then.^which applied j to this question of "meat or drink," was I substituted the simple principle, "Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do :ill to the glory of God." You ask, "Is strong dring. lawful?" The answer is, "All ( thing.? are lawful ; but all things 'are not | expedient." "It is expedient then— a thing 1 in i }^' a Christian, I may well indulge?" For an .answer you are taught to go, not to the old-world customs of 3000 years ago, and to a race in whose history they were enshrined; not to questions whether this or that drink, passing under the generic name of wine was fermented or unfermented, intoxicating or not ; this, however interesting in itself, would but land you. in doubtful disputations, and would be . to little profit in determining the ciuestion. You have to look to the age and country in which you live— this England of ours in this . nineteenth, century ;.to the .beverages in use amongst us— the distilled spirits,,an.inyention of the man in. the eleventh century-, the ; wines., fortified, with these,, the "strong ales J . whose strength is their recommendation, and to the surrounding' circumstances of tempta, j tion.jn,whieh they are presented for the use pi : man; y ou have to ask. of all, or of any ot them,. «'Is q their use likely to be for the glory of God? Will it make me better able * l e^f v in m ? generation— more likely to fulfil the purpose which He had in view when he created me anew in Christ Jesus, that I might glorify Him in body and spirit, which are His?" And you have to ask it for yourself. No man, no brother man, has a right to question for a single moment the decision to which you come. "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" tne Apostle indignantly asks. "To his own master he standeth or falleth" • "Let no man judge you in meat or drink " ;" " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own m ? i• 5 n^ PPy iS he tha * condemned not hunselt m that thing ., which he alloweth ; only let him take care that that which he alloweth is « of faith," for "whatsoever is not of faitii is sin." - I Bur it is here that we are arrested by an entirely new consideration. The law is a '■ %*' crt SP-V5 P -V I -^ B1 '- to ' "stand.. fast" ! fe J*; " to W % another Apostle it is ! by tms very, law, and the use I have made : ■" ™ -i*. M?t-I-am to be.hereafter judged by Christ himsdf, „1 return, then, to my great handbcok. of.pnncples. I mD st inquire if :my hnntabon has been placed on the MJest, freest use of this law. Ifind two such limi- i tations-^one negative, the other positive; I let me look at them botli. : | The one negative—" Only use not liberty ' t-.<r a n occasion to the flesh." "The flesh" —that old corrupt nature which, if ye are wS /S 1S fr d 7: wi^ Him, but which we.all know is.so slow to die, which is ever raising its head,> s triving to-regain its masiery over the spirit, which, even in S it Oi^S^: Apostle, had to be bronght under and kept in subjection by heavy blows, You use your liberfcy-take , care it is not for the gratification of a mere . appetite, for some. form of self-indnlgence i which will pamper and foster the flesh into I renewed activity, and will furnish occasion ™- t i le , ev . er -^ ate W«l.ene.my who/through the fleshy is stnvingJtb bring" you into;b°ndage^ again. This must never be. And it -;w;^e;that tpAspm>qf;ug point of departure begins wjuc|ili as : ied ourselves to renounce' once, and' we tope, forever, the use of strong drink. I JJor we have asked the question, Is it necessary?—necessary for health, for strength of body, or strength of mind? The answer has come with unmistakable clearness from the first physicians of the day : " P y ou use J

it, remember it is a luxury, not a neces.?,'?.-^ of life." ' We have asked, then,' Being a luxury h , it a justifiable one — justifiable for thoss who ; in the liberty given to them to regulate ■ their daily expenditiure, yet in this, too, are j strictly responsible to Him who- has given : them their worldly goods, and will hereafter be judged by Him. The answer is, "It is, ■ perhaps, above all, an expensive luxury." ; We have asked, Is It safe? The answer has come in the moral and physical wrecks which lie scattered all around. It is not in one age or rank, or sex that the victims . of the drink are found. Young men in the first flush of their youth, some who entered with you on the journey of life, and. have long since been laid in an /untimely grave j ' old men, who have stood tbe trials of early j life, and have drifted into the sin of years j have passed ; men of education and of posi- i tion— artists, doctors, soldiers, clergymen ; j women, alas, of culture and refinement ; all | and each go to swell the great, awful catalogue that is written on the tablets of memory in your life, in mine, in that of every man or woman who has passed .the meridian of life. If they have fallen, why should we escape? If we stand now, how know we what new circumstances of temptation may be-' preparing for us beneath which we. may fall? True, we have prayed, and do pray, " Lead us not into temptation, but' deUver us from the' evil one"; true, the grace of God is all-powerful — the freedom from tlie dominion of sin, as we have seen, complete; but what reason. have we to believe that the prayer will be heard and the grace of God prevail, if knowing that the way of fleshly indulgence is the way of strong and undue temptation, we deliberately enter into it, and give to the tempter the very occasion that he is seeking ? , Already, then, the way is prepared for a surrender of this costly luxury. But the word of the living God has yet to speak in louder tones to our inmost conscience. For I return again to the text. I find now a positive limitation— " Use your liberty, not for an occasion to the flesh.; but by love serve one another." Immediately I am lifted into a higher, freer, nobler^ atmosphere of . , thought. '" _It . is,,no, longer., a question, of jsjel^preservation alone.- Christianity is appealing to me ,by , rthat which is. its unique, its all-constraining . . principlerr-my pl%ce in that. great brotherihoad of the "human "family oLwhi.ch^Jesus „ Christ is tlie Head ; my" mission in the world to live, not for myself but for ;Him, and my fellow men in Him ; my call, by all the love I bear Him, by all the of showing it in love for them, to let my life, my example, so shine forth on all around, that it shall be as a light set upon a hill to lead them into the right path. I look, then, to my place in the world. I have influence there of one kind or another. I am a father or a mother with children growing up at my feet; or I am a master with servants ; an employer of labour, with labourers looking narrowly at my ways and habits; or I am a patriot, reflecting with deepest interest on the great masses of my countrymensighing and crying, for t the abominations that I see among them. Everywhere, as I plead my liberty in Ohnsi;, : there meets me some * note of Apostolic warning :—" Take heed lest this liberty of • yours become a stumbling-bllock to those ' that are weak." "We that are strong ought ' ,to bear the infirmities. of- the weak, and not .: jto please ourselves:" "It is good neither i to eat meat, nor to, drink , Tvine--nor any- : thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is , offended, or is made weak." I take my ..; stand,, then, for a day, in full view of one . of those flaring, blazing gin palaces, to be • i found, at. almost every corner in our prin- , [ cipal streets— the measure at once of- our ] i national passion for drink, and our- national '■ ' shame. From morn till eve, from eve well- « night to morn again, one uninterrupted! J stream of customers flows in and -out of ! its sldlfully^arranged bars. Old men and \ maidens, children often of tendeivyears, men ( and women whose faces, show that^ they are ( forgone in the'doWward: path .of sin,. pothers , whose- dress; whose ,age, betoken that- they. ] are only in tbe first steps, are giving to | the tempter the very occasion which is ■, needed for the enslaving of their lives. M I I follow ftem to their homes. .My pas- ] toral duties have made ' nic familiar with l them all. ' They are. homes of poverty and f strife, of cruel oppression of the weak by "< the strong-, oftentimes:, of .: . bloodshed and murder:' The, old .-'•■fain iliar sequence is at c , work. They : have conic to lust after an evil thing, they are "led away by it and { enticed," the lust has "conceived and i brought forth sin," and "tiifi sin when it : r is finished bringeth forth death.". Death— j aye, death in its most terrible forms; to ; \ be looked for on the scaffold, in the lunatic j T asylum, in the coroner's court : deatfi of <the £

(body, of the mind, of the soul ; all caused oy this terrible destroyer. Bea.th of the bodj^ — " As Igo through the wards of my : hospital." says a very leading physician of ; the present day, " seven out of ten of the i patients there owe their illnesses to strong drink." Of those who die every year in . England and Wales, £0,000 say the medical! statisticians, owe their deaths directly. to ' strong drink, some 80,000 more indirectly . throueh the sin of others. Death of the jninc! — " Of the women confined in the Durham Lunatic. Asylum," says a report of its ' medical officer, " the greater number have bern driven mad by the cruelty of drunken husbands." Death, of the " soul — "The ' drunkard stall not inherit the kingdom "of i God." "_ j 0 men and brethren, is it any marvel if, | in view of these things, we associate our- • selves together, first to snatch. these brands i from tbe burning, then to roll back this national curse, to bring the powers of the kingdom of God to bear on this stronghold of tlie evil one entrenched in our very midst ? Can you be surprised that to those already fallen we cry aloud, "Escape for your life, there is no escape but in Christ. — none in Him till you have put the stumbling-block of the* drunk entirely away?" That to those who are tempted but not. yftt fallen, the young especially we say, " Give no occasion to the flesh and to^ the devil— go not at all into the way of temptation ? " And for ourselves, that we may speak with an emphasis which nothing but example can give, and, as far as in us lies, remove the stumbling-block out of the way — that we take our final resolution, and renounce the use of tins strong drink ? . And one step further ; will you find fault with us if, so judging for ourselves, we place it before you, not as a law of Christian life, which we nowhere find, but as an opportunity— a priceless, precious opportunity — of showing self-denial in a lawful thing thajb, under #ie constraint of lore, you, too, may sen r e your brother, and .bear your part, as a leader it may be, in „ a •national reform,-; second to/, .none .which' the pages of the nations history _.have had. to -•record? » .- - -■■ t ; . .- "..,■" v ■... "As a leader."-.. You have read, ; pip ciiance^.jhow ; , ; tJi^,.Arst Napoleon, „v y iv his "memorable passage- of -the Alps," '"'hen.'bis troops were beginning. -.to faint under. the difficulties of the passage, dismounted from his horse and marched at the head of his battalions that he might share the hardships and inspirit them by his presence. You may .not have read of a question asked during the Indian Mutiny— Why it was that the Indian. Sepoys, so brave as they showed themselves when commanded by English officers, were such' cowards when commanded by natives? "I know riot," the answer was, r ' except it be that the native, officers always say to their men 'Go!' the English officers always say ' Come !' " And shall it be said that in the armies of France and England leaders are never wanting for posts of hardship and of danger, and that in. the army of the Living God the spirit of self-sacrifice is so much a thing of the past, that we must call and call in vain for men to take up • their cross and place themselves in the van of the host? Shall it be said of English, women that — ready, ever ready, as they are to go forth in the wake of these armies, to "tend the sick and wounded,- to vencounter the perils- of fever and the privations .of .the campaign, receiving, as they are henceforward to receive, the recognition of their Queen', the decoration of "tVe red eross — ■ j when the battle-field is nearer home, when ' the peril is all round them, in that increase of drinking among women which the Archbishop said on Tuesday is "like a dsrk | shadow doprecing the footsteps of our So- j ciety " — shall it be said that they have no | heart to feel for the degradation of their sex; no hand to put forth for, the rescue of their tempted sisters ; no ambition . to win the recognition of flim Who is Lord of lords and King of kings, who is soon to '■ come .ppain, aM Whose, "reward rball be with H'm. t/i rrive every one according as . his work* shall be?" But I have said enough. I have but one ] word more. ' You may l say ; that, looking ; to your own circumstances, whatever these „ may be. you do not see the expediency of ; any such cbartjre in your own habits as the surrender of this . customarT . indulgence w6iild involve. „ Then we .hive not. one j j word to sKy .in condemnation pf;.ybu'r de- ; J cision., ''Happy he in ■that.condemneth.not; himself, in the. thing, which .he-' alloweth. ." ■ And the question then is, Xve .ycu, there-! fore, to be shut out from taking any part ; ] in the great national work of temperance j ] reform? We answer at once, "No." The ' ' very liberty in Christ for which we have 1 been contending demands from us an em- 1 phatic "no." It gives you the choice of « fighting or not ; much more does it give the '

choice of the weapons wffcb which to fight. It is that we may bear our distinct .\yitness to this liberty, of choice, and -still secure you as fellowi- workers in the ■: caipse, that in the Church Society, membership, includes not abstainers only, yet': may work for their own ends in their own way, but all those,, "who, in whatever. way, are' desirous of taking a part- - There are social;-- 'there are legislative, there are physical "causes to be attacked ; '.associate yourself "" with us in working for ?tbe removal of these according to the opportunities which God may have placed before you. You are j a Senator, a member of one of the' Houses ■ of the Legislature — work with us f6r' the ! passing of measures which shill ■ minimise, if they cannot put an end to, the fearful amount of temptation which • the drinking houses are putting before- thepeople. You are the master or the mistress' of a«household, a citizen, a leader in your own. rank of society— work for the purification of social life from those relics of. sensual-.in-dulgence which have come down from heathen times. The Christian who ' wonld rejoice with the joy which trells up from the heart in a T>erennial stream of rejoicing must be filled Vith the Holy Spirit of God, not with the wretched counterfeit of thai Spirit which Satan has foisted upon his victims in these later ages. • You are wealthy — oh, do not let your fellow soldiers fight with tied hands because the annual income of their Societies scarcely amounts to the value of the lease of a flourishing pablichoose ! You are none of these, but a poor weak member, of the great brotherhood, with no influence : . as it seems, none to rescue, none to persuade. Oh, then, pray, watch unto prayer." Tins is the part assigned to you, "There was a little city," says the preacher, " and few men in it, and there came a great king against it and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now, there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he, by. bis wisdom, delivered the city, yet ho man remembered that same poor man:" - And " The while upon his terraced roofs, The loved Apostle to his Lord, ' .•'■• In silent thought aloof/ '. >. ' ; „, For heavenly vision soared. ... .■••..•,.- --"Unheard by all "but -^Angel's ;eWs*; ■ ''■' '"' The Good .Cornelius knelt. alone; Nor dreamed his prayers and tears „-,i "Would, help : :tne%orld- undone. ' " '-^ . jv.O ■••->. : .-2 ■•--.■■ . '•. ■:•■•<; •■-■.'•&■:.•■• ■ ■ : 'sii..'. . i'si I*l^1 * 1^ '"'His prayers' for — the . eoursfe' of ; prayer ■ ■■• -who knows? : •". " : It springs in. silence where it will, ."■ Springs out of sight, and flows At first a lonely rill; .:• '.; .--i' "But streams shall meet . it by-arid-bye ' From thousand sympathetic hearts; . .' ■ ■ Together swelling high Their chant of many parts." And the world is helped ; : the • devil in time dislodged from his strong position;you have " moved the Hand of Him that moves the world." ' 1893 •