Max I. Reich
Present Day Papers, Vol. I, No. 2. (Second Month, 1914,) pages 45-48.
This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.
One of these two paths, the one, too, which would appear the most reasonable on the first
consideration, has invariably landed travelers in disappointment, for "there is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
The other is a way of humiliation to pride and self--glory, but in it is found inward rest and
victorious progress. "The path of just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the
day."
These two paths have been denominated by many different terms. The Apostle Paul, who was in
his time one of the most experienced travelers on both of them, called the first the way of Law,
the second the pathway of Grace. Grace became the pivotal word of the Pauline evangel, that
which he called "MY Gospel," the message of hope for which he gave his life to carry it to the
strugglers after purity within and its resultant vision of God.
Paul's message really touches the deepest chord in our mystic personality. It unfolds the secret of
the practical displacement of evil in human experience. How to arrive at this secret has ever been
the quest of earnest souls. Modern thought as well as the wisdom of the ancients has been
unsuccessful in its endeavors to make men forget for any length of time this burning problem in
their own breasts. From every excursion they have been compelled to come back again, even at
the risk of a morbid introspection, to the consideration of this life--and--death question. It is
wrapped up with the elemental necessities of human nature which are the same from age to age.
I am aware that these two Pauline terms "law" and "grace" have been largely the shuttlecock and
battledore of wrangling schools of theology. For Paul himself they symbolized the dispensations
of his spiritual pilgrimage. They designated the two great halves of his religious life. His "body of
divinity" was born out of his deep soul travail. His terms were an attempt to articulate in human
speech the things which in their own nature are deeper than words.
Let us endeavor to approach this subject a little closer. It does certainly seem a reasonable
proposal that in order to bring about an improvement in human nature, to further its evolution on
nobler lines, we must antagonize and crush out the evil tendencies which mar its beauty. This is
the heroic treatment proposed by the law. Now the experience of all who have honestly gone this
way has been that it has led them into a blind alley. To forbid evil merely, to denounce it, to
oppose it, has been to aggravate it, to stir up its resistance. The very occupation with it has had a
weakening, discouraging and often defiling effect. We know how this principle broke down in
ancient Greece. The most exalted ethics, the cultivation to the highest pitch of perfection of the
intellectual faculties; the pursuit of wisdom, music, art; the training of the noblest tastes, left their
votaries utterly helpless in the presence of the clamorous passions of the flesh. Saul of Tarsus,
having every religious advantage, a He brew of the Hebrews, made the same discovery, as
described so minutely in his spiritual autobiography in Rom. VII. There is no difference here
between the Jew and the Greek, representing two types of mind, and two philosophies of life. To
crush the lower appetites, to quell the revolt of beast-like tendencies in human nature by means of
the law has been found a hopeless undertaking. It is like a man in a morass, the more he struggles
to get out, the deeper he sinks in.
The fact is the heart cannot by its own inherent energy disentangle itself from the love of sin and
the fascination of the material. The spell is too potent. The imagination is held captive. In vain do
we present powerful arguments demonstrating the folly of vice the dire consequences of a course
of evil; the arguments may felt unanswerable and the evil consequences may be honestly dreaded.
In vain do we point out that the material with all its and glamour is only a passing phenomenon,
an illusion; that the spiritual is the real, the unseen the eternal. All this may be granted fully. But
the enslavement of the heart is not thus broken. The conflict only becomes the more painful,
because of the increase of light which compels the understanding to approve that which is nobler
and holier and worthier of pursuit.
Grace, and grace alone, is the delivering power. But what is grace? It is more than God's attitude
of favor. It is a measure of His Spirit in man, the light which shineth in darkness though the
darkness comprehendeth it not. It has appeared to all men, according to Paul's doctrine, not only
teaching them to deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts that they might live soberly, righteously and
godly in this present world, but enabling them to do this. It is the mighty hand of divine love
reaching down to man in the depths of his self-despair to lift him out, and plant his feet on "the
rock that is higher man," even on the plane of the heavenly and divine, which is man's true origin,
and therefore his proper destiny and home.
For man is man for no other reason than that the breath of the Eternal throbs and pulsates in his
common dust. Heaven and earth meet in man. And the darkness and misery and emptiness and
hunger and thirst and melancholy of hell also, if he give himself up to selfishness and the sensual
pleasures of sin. But even then, however degraded, there is that in him, whether he knows it or
not, whether he can interpret its cry or not, which thirsts after the living God, after the water
brooks of life where the weary thirst no more. And it is this, this eternal in man, which Jesus
Christ, our Lord, has come to save, to bring it forth out of its prison and bring it back into the
divine embrace. This is the lost sheep that got entangled among the thorns of the desert. This is
the lost coin that rolled into the darkness and dirt of the comer. This is the lost son whom the
husks of the swine in the far country could not satisfy. This was meant to rule in man, but alas!
the flesh has got the upper hand. Therefore man is conscious of an inward disharmony. To
restore the balance, to re-enthrone the divine, Jesus came, and by His grace still comes, not
outwardly now in the flesh, but inwardly by the Spirit. For "the law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And how does the grace that comes by Jesus Christ work?
It presents to the human heart a new object. It was this that enthused the first Christians. Their
religion, their faith, was an enthusiasm for Jesus. And it worked. It overcame the world.
For herein lies the secret of true deliverance. True Christianity is "the expulsive power of a new affection." The love for evil, often so bewitching and alluring, can only be displaced as the heart is mastered by a nobler passion for an Object worthier and lovelier. If grace is an inward power which would aid the struggling human spirit to come up out of its dungeon and despair into the celestial spheres from which it originally came, it is the attraction of the new Object which draws man upward. If Go d, says Paul, hath shined in our hearts, it is that He might give us the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. It is the presentation of Christ, this Object, so glorious, so fair, so worthy, that causes every other object to pale in comparison with Him.
"I have heard the voice of Jesus
Tell me not of aught beside!
I have seen the face of Jesus,
And my heart is satisfied."
For our mysterious being is the most objective thing in the world, and therefore mere abstract
principles, however sublime, could never meet its need. A philosophy, a code of ethics, a system
of ritual or of theology, could never become a world-evangel. The bed is too short and the
covering too narrow. It is when the glorious Personality of the Christ arises on the horizon of the
soul and fills its vision, that the deepest in man instinctively feels it has found its Mate and its
Master. He then becomes the new center for the activities of the life, and He is abundantly able to
satisfy the heart He succeeds in winning.
The displacement of evil is experienced not by our being occupied with it, but by letting grace operate by the imparted virtue of the Cross and victorious resurrection life of Christ, sweetening out and transforming everything from within. The One who ca n take our hearts into heaven can also bring heaven down into our hearts.