Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

In the case of Christianity men act as they would be ashamed to act in other situations. You who are so given over to alarms, so hopeless of the faith, suppose you were in a ship that has sprung a leak, how should you act? Should we find you among the timid and the hysterical, who lose head and heart, refuse to help at the pumps, fling themselves in despair on the deck, and do their best to dishearten and impede the brave men who, keeping their misgivings to themselves, toil on with bravery to try and save the lives of all? There are some constituted with such despondent, enfeebled nerves as to be excusable for such conduct, but in the Christian Church there are many with no such justification, who shake their heads gloomily, cry despairingly that the Church is in danger, the faith abandoned, do their utmost to weaken and dispirit their brethren, all the time never dreaming how weak and cowardly is their conduct, or that they ought rather to be comforters, helpers, defenders.

The cause of this ignoble conduct seems to me to consist in the fact that many Christians have got to see only one side of Christianity, and that the selfish or personal side. They have learned that by becoming Christ's He undertakes to save them, but they have failed to apprehend that, on the other hand, this relation involves that they are to serve Him. Again, their notion of what is implied in entering the membership of the Church is quite as one-sided. They consider that the purpose of this tie is that you may be cared for, guarded, developed by the Church—all which is true; but then they quite fail to see that also you are bound to aid, defend, and protect the Church. How many Christians are there who never dream of owing any duty to the Church, but consider it to be simply constructed for the purpose of doing everything for them needful for salvation. Within it they are to be surrounded by sanctifying influences, fed by ordinances, guarded in its holy atmosphere from the world's miasma; in a word, they are to be fostered, preached to, prayed for, visited, tended, and all the time they have nothing whatever to do for the Church. But while all this is done by the Church, that is not the only nor the cardinal conception of either the Church or its members. Brethren, the Church of Christ is a great army of valiant and able-bodied soldiers, sent out to battle with evil, led on by officers who ought indeed to encourage and care for the men, but whose main duty, nevertheless, is to lead them to conflict and conquest. According to this modern notion, that Church members are to do nothing but be cared for and protected, the Church is made to be more a sort of great nursery or convalescent hospital, provided with a staff of doctors, nurses, and visitors, and the Church members are not soldiers, but rather a sect of weaklings, invalids, and infirm, who are just kept in life by ceaseless care and nursing.

From this mistaken and perverted notion of what it means to belong to Jesus Christ, from the miserable failure to recognise the public and primary obligations resting on all the Lord's followers, from forgetting that the kingdom of God is founded not merely to foster and ripen those in it for heaven, but that they may extend its conquering boundaries over all the world; from these unhappy errors spring the impotency, the half-heartedness, the dispirited timidity of so large a part of the Church in the present day. This is the origin of that general sort of notion as if we should be thankful if Christians just survived; as if it were natural and changeless that the Church should be despised and scorned; as if against unbelief Christianity should not venture to raise her voice very assuredly, but stand on the defensive, and be thankful if she can just hold her own; as if it were natural and normal that Christians should find their faith hard pressed, hardly able to stand its ground, and they themselves feel weak, timid, alarmed, and helpless.

But perchance you may be inclined to defend this state of mind and this selfish notion of Christianity; nay, you may think that you have Scripture on your side. In opposition to the assertion that in place of being merely cared for, you are to fight, and in place of being timid, you are to be brave, you may recall the fact that Christ compares His people to sheep whom He shelters safely and tends in a snug fold, free from struggle and terror; and urge that sheep are not suggestive of combativeness, and that it is natural for them to tremble when a lion roars outside, and to count on the shepherd driving the evil beast away, while nobody expects them to face the ravager. But do you not see that our Lord meant that comparison to illustrate only His relationship to them and His treatment of them? while if you are to infer from it also that He meant them, in their attitude to the world and unbelief, to be timid and helpless as sheep, then how do you explain that elsewhere they are compared to soldiers, commanded to be valiant, fearless, daring? If they are to do no fighting, then why are they told to put on the whole armour of God, to be faithful unto death, to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? Ah, we are very fond of these pleasant, comfortable comparisons, and are constantly perverting them by misapplying them to positions they have nothing to do with. But you may reply, "Did not our Lord say Himself, to His disciples, that He sent them out as sheep among wolves?" Yes, indeed, but only to inform them of what treatment they might expect from the world, not surely with the intention of indicating that they were to meet the world's hostility as a sheep meets a wolf's, cowering, trembling, fleeing. If He meant that they were to be timid, helpless, sheeplike, why did He say also, "I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy"? why did He send them out to conquer the world? How was it that the disciples so thoroughly misunderstood the command? When Peter, facing the hostile judges, avowed that he would obey God, and not them, that was not timid, that was not sheeplike. When Paul fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, that, too, was not at all in the manner of a sheep among its foes. When the Apostle, in the same Epistle, bids the readers resist unto blood, when you remember how so many of our Lord's followers have indeed sealed their witness with their lives, surely it is plain that we have forgotten one side of our Christian duty. We ought to be "wise as serpents" in dealing with the foe, "harmless as doves" to our brethren and friends; but that is very much inverted now, and the chief characteristic of many a soldier of the Cross is just his perfect harmlessness in the combat. Brethren, you look for the crown of righteousness that sparkled before Paul's closing eyes, bright amid the gathering shades of his martyr death. But that crown was not gained without hazard, not won by slothful ease, but earned on many a bloody, painful field, while he "fought the good fight." Believe me, there shall be no crown for you unless, like Paul, you too have fought that fight, and kept that faith, for which he bravely lived and bravely died.

Nevertheless there will always be among Christ's disciples those that are weak-handed, feeble-kneed, and lame; some permanently and constitutionally affected with feebleness and infirmity; and now and again a strong one maimed, injured by extreme and undue exposure, or crippled by some untoward accident. It was so among these Hebrew Christians. Intimidated by persecution, disheartened by the spoiling of their goods, shaken by the arguments of unbelief, several grew less steadfast in their confession of Christ, others were perplexed and confused, and some were just on the verge of deserting and abandoning the faith. Among us there is no more imprisoning, goods spoiling and persecution to stagger our faith in Christ, but there are instead a whole world of seductions, of discouragements, of mockeries, and of unbelieving sneers. Still, too, there are with us the weak, the maimed, the misled; many who never have attained to much spirituality or consistency; others who for a time went well, but became entangled in the mazes of the world's sinful attractions, or were overtaken by sudden temptation, enfeebled by persistent opposition and ridicule, paralysed by difficulties, disappointments, doubts, or unbelief.

I wish we did more fully realise and constantly remember that there are to be among Christ's own ones really such as these, weaklings, cripples, tempted, fallen; brethren overtaken by snares, seductions, unbelief, whom we ought to pity, whom we ought to help. Only it is needful to bear in mind that we are not to conclude that every one who gives himself out as such is really a wounded brother, to be sympathised with and aided. For there are many who only imagine themselves distressed, who give themselves out as greatly tried and buffeted, more from a kind of mental hypochondriasis or foolish fondness for being talked of and fussed over. This is especially so in the matter of doubt and religious difficulty. For just as it happens that in the fashionable world it is sometimes proper to have a lisp or limp, in imitation of some dignitary, so, unfortunately, at the present day it has become fashionable to go halt of one foot in faith; and there are persons, thoroughly excellent and orthodox in reality, who are impelled to let all their acquaintances know what dark struggles of soul they pass through, and of how much it costs them to face the unbelieving spectres of their minds. Brethren, when a man has a real skeleton in his closet he does not go round the circle of his friends, flaunting that unpleasant fact in their faces. When a man tells you, with a smile of complacent superiority on his face, of his conflicts with doubt, you need not expend much sympathy or anxiety on him; like all other affectations, this one may be left to die a natural death. No, the man to whom doubt is a real spectre, a veritable agony, does not blazon his pain abroad; like Jacob's wrestle with his dread midnight foe, the real soul-struggles are fought out in darkness and alone. It is these who are truly stricken, wounded, well-nigh carried away—these, and these alone, whom you are asked to pity and to help.

But as a matter of fact, how do we Christian men and women who have not fallen treat such weaker brethren, I mean persons who have really been crippled, really erred? The text very plainly implies that we are not to cast them off, but to compassionate them and seek to recover them. Nay, mere human kindness would require the same. As soldiers seek to rescue, not to slay, a comrade well-nigh carried off by the foe, so surely we Christians should not attack, but strive to regain a brother captured in the meshes of temptation or unbelief. And no doubt to a very large extent true Christians do act so, though I fear not with that unvarying pitifulness that ought to extend the same charity to all. Do we not make unrighteous differences, leaving room for restoration to some of the erring, and closing heart and door against others? Partly from thoughtlessness, partly from prejudice, partly from contempt of what is weakness or cowardice, there are some falling, straying souls whom we treat too much like those evil animals that whenever one of the herd is wounded or crippled fall upon the victim and tear him in pieces. When we hear of a brother falling, doubting, denying, have we not all sometimes felt only anger, reprobation—nay, uttered sharp, cruel, merciless words of final condemnation and irretrievable doom? Do we not often treat erring ones so? It is very natural, for these feeble-handed, weak-kneed, crippled ones are an eye-sore, unpleasant to have to do with, a discredit to the Church and the most convenient plan is to cast them off. Nevertheless, it is most inhuman, most unchristian, and can only spring from one of two errors. Either you do not have that fraternal love for all your brethren in Christ which you ought to have. When your brother after the flesh, or your son, catches a deadly complaint (it may be through his own recklessness and disobedience), or is wounded by some hostile assault, you do not in anger cast him out to die, for you love him. Would God we had more love among Christians! Or it may be the reason of your harsh treatment is that you mistake your straying, doubting brother for an enemy, and fail to see that he is a victim. Of course there is a great distinction between one of Christ's little ones swept into doubt, and a hostile, malignant unbeliever, seeking to harm the flock. This last you must indeed oppose, and seek to drive out of the fold, though even then you will feel for him as our Lord did when He wept over Jerusalem, and on the cross prayed, "Father, forgive them." But it is not of such we speak now, only of those who are themselves not wolves, but wounded, wandered sheep. Remember, therefore, that they are your brethren, and pity and help them.

Perhaps you say, "What! can it be right to feel pity, kindness, compassion, love for men who have gone astray from Christ, rebelled against the Master, forsaken and denied the Saviour?" Remember how Jesus treated the eleven, who deserted Him, Peter, who denied Him, Thomas, who would not believe. Nay, more, can you for one moment doubt the rightfulness of feeling so to sinning brethren, be they as bad as they may, and of treating them so, you who do believe that from all eternity God set His love, compassion, saving purpose on sinners—rebellious, hateful sinners—without one spark of merit or goodness in them to deserve it? Brethren, it is not wrong, it is not weak, it is noble, Christlike, Godlike to pity, to love, to tenderly seek and save the lost, the sinning, the erring, the fallen.

Finally, remark how the text suggests that you are to render them assistance and support. Suppose it is a brother becoming involved in worldly or dangerous entanglements, lapsing into doubtful courses, or yielding to the freezing influence of ungodly or sceptical companions. Now, direct interference, immediate intervention, is not always possible, is often difficult, sometimes impossible. Besides, often the mischief is already done ere you perceive it. Or again, it is intellectual difficulty or doubt that you have to deal with. To meet the objections, to remove the doubts, would be well, but perchance you are not skilled, competent to do that; or it may be they are such as cannot be removed. Here, again, direct remedies may be impracticable. Are you, then, powerless, helpless to aid? Far from it. A method better than all immediate and special action lies open for you, for all Christian men and women. "Make straight, smooth paths with your feet." It may be you cannot personally do anything to support the maimed or arrest the erring, but you can nevertheless render most important service. As a flock of sheep, by all moving on regularly in one united mass, with their feet smooth down the roughnesses and entanglements of the way, breaking down the entrapping brambles, clearing away the furze and tripping briers, leaving behind them a plain and open track, trodden down and freed of obstructions, stones, and stumbling-blocks, so that the weak and crippled are not turned aside or overthrown; so if the strong and whole body of Christian men and women will but move steadfastly on amid the mazes of temptation and over the stumbling-stones of evil, the feeble, tempted, erring will be helped forward, and, borne along in the united, combined advance, will not fall behind or be baffled, overthrown, or led astray by difficulties and impediments. Yes, infinitely more powerful than any isolated rebuke, or warning, or intervention, is the force of united Christian example and protecting aid, to keep in the right path the halt, the maimed, the blind. What the tempted, the world-seduced, the doubting, the unbelieving need is not rebukes, cautions, exhortations, refutations of objections, but it is to be drawn out of the cold, freezing world of evil and doubt into the warm, living, breathing atmosphere of loving, real Christian fellowship; to be surrounded by the resistless progression in rectitude, in faith and love, of Christlike, God-fearing souls. With blows of reprimand and logical argument you may pound and break the ice of sin and unbelief, but though broken, it remains cold, winter ice, freezing still. Bring it into the summer radiance, the golden sunshine of warm Christian life; then it will be melted away, and the hard heart grow soft and tender in the breath of the all-quickening Spirit.