Chapter 4 No.4

The Discipline of the Spirit

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

St. Luke vi. 12.

"He continued all night in Prayer to God."

Last week we looked at the soul as that faculty of life which, to a certain extent, we share with animals; to-day we pass on to consider, under the title of spirit, the higher endowment by which man is enabled to look up and, in the fullest exercise of his whole being, to say "my God."

A man without religion is undeveloped in regard to the highest part of his complex nature. In attaining to self-consciousness, and the special powers it brings, he has gone one step further than the animal, but has utterly failed of his true purpose. The supreme object of the self-consciousness, which reveals to him his personality, is that it should disclose its own origin in the personality of God.

One very striking effect of the War has been to produce a vast amount of testimony to the fact that man is, broadly speaking, religious by nature.

The services in the places of worship all over the land have been multiplied, intercession is becoming a felt reality, congregations have grown.

It is asserted, by those who have the best means of knowing, that by far the majority of the letters from the front contain references to religion, such as acknowledgments of God's providence, prayer for His help, or requests for the prayers of others. Sometimes, in the strange double-sidedness of human nature, accompanied by expletives obviously profane. Mention is often made of the bowed heads, and the prayer, in which both sides join, at the time of a joint burial during a temporary truce.

All these things show that the deeps of the fountains of natural religion have been broken up in wondrous fashion.

Our question to-day is: How shall we discipline that spirit which enables us to realise religion as a fact?

Let us try to get to the root of the matter.

There are two chief derivations of the word religion. One comes from the verb which means "to go through, or over again, in reading, speech, or thought." Hence religion is the regular or constant habit of revering the gods, and would be represented by the word devotion-an aspect most important to bear in mind.

The other derivation, and the more usual, derives religion from the idea of binding together, and tells of communion between man and God. For us Christians this thought finds its highest ideal and fulfilment in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The great characteristic action of religion is prayer; varying in its methods and degrees from merely mechanical performances, like the praying wheels of the Chinese up to the heart devotion of the Christian, poured out when commemorating, in the Holy Communion, the death and resurrection of His Lord.

The first essential of any prayer which is to be of value in the discipline of the spirit is regularity. No words can exaggerate the importance of morning prayer. Yet, alas! tens of thousands of professing Christians are content with evening prayer alone. The one who goes forth in the morning prayerless is just as ill-equipped to do his duty, and meet his temptations, as the foodless man is to perform physical work.

The whole story of the saintly life, alike in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Church, is that of diligence in prayer. It was to promote that spirit that the Church of Christ, following on the lines of the Jewish Church, from very early days adopted special hours for stated devotions, with the daily offering of the Holy Eucharist linking the whole system together.

The lowest standard to aim at is private prayer morning and evening, midday too if possible, and regular attendances at God's House on Sundays and Feast Days. The guiding principle, to be kept ever in mind, is not what my own inclinations suggest, but what the glory of God demands. Were this always the case, what magnificent congregations there would be.

Prayer represents a real business of the spirit into which we put the whole endowment of our being, intellect, memory, emotion, will.

Oh! those wandering thoughts, how they do distress us; and just in proportion as we wish to pray and are learning to pray, so we feel our deficiencies the more keenly.

A few moments before we commence our prayers spent in saying very quietly, "Thou God seest me," or "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," coupled with a simple yet earnest act of the realisation of God's presence, will be of infinite use.

The railway train coming into a station does not draw up with a jerk, but gradually slows down. So with us; we cannot come out of our rushing lives all in a moment into the quiet of God's presence; we need to slow down.

But much of the wandering in prayer is the direct result of the habit of wandering in life. Flitting from one subject, one book, one occupation to another; scrappy reading, talking, thinking; then, as a natural consequence, scrappy praying. A great master of the spiritual life used to say, "You will get far more help in your prayers by leading a more useful life, than by making tremendous efforts after concentration when you are actually at prayer."

The one who tries to keep alive the habitual sense of God's presence makes his whole life a prayer, of which the stated devotions only form a natural part. It is comparatively easy for such a one to concentrate his thought and to keep his attention fixed when engaged in his prayers.

Just a word or two about books of devotion. They serve a most useful purpose, especially in preparation and thanksgiving for Confession or Communion, but should never be allowed to take the entire place of the Christian's glorious privilege of pleading the "Abba Father," and speaking to God in his own words, day by day.

Be careful not to use prayers which are manifestly beyond your own standpoint or out of harmony with your own feeling. The mere repetition of phrases that do not represent your inner attitude towards truth only tends to formality; the effort to force a kind of artificial conformity, because you think you ought to feel this or that, invariably ends in unreality. Given these cautions, devotional books may be of great use, even for regular daily prayer, and often help to call back the thoughts which are flying off at a tangent.

To speak of discipline without touching upon Confession would be to omit one of its most essential features. Nightly self-examination must be performed, and that not perfunctorily, but with real intention of repentance and strictness of living. Self-examination is nothing more nor less than spiritual account-keeping; without it the man has no real idea of how the business of his soul stands.

When it reveals the fact that sin is making headway and the spirit losing ground, then the wise teaching of the Prayer Book should be followed; "the grief"-for such it ought to be-opened in Confession to God, before one of God's ministers, and the benefit of absolution secured.

Much of the terrible prejudice felt against this practice arises from the mistaken idea that the priest professes to forgive us our sins. The words of the Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, in our own Prayer Book, put the matter on its true footing:-"Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve, ... forgive thee ... and by His authority ... I absolve thee." The source of all pardon and the right to exercise it rest in God alone, but the message declaring the fact is part of the "ministry of reconciliation," committed, in the infinite condescension of God, to the "earthen vessels." An illustration may be taken from the pardon of a criminal condemned to death; the Home Secretary recommends it, but the King, on his sole authority, grants it, and then the message, the absolvo te, which lets the man go free, is delivered by the governor of the gaol.

Penitents, especially after a first confession at some crisis in mature life, often bear witness to the fact that it seemed to bring them straight into the presence of Jesus Christ; to make them feel the reality of His pardoning blood in a way they never could have believed possible. How strange that the very thing which by so many pious and thoroughly honest souls is dreaded because it is supposed to bring a man in between God and the soul, should yet so often be used by the Holy Spirit to give a wondrous and precious vision of Christ the Saviour.

Thus far we have spoken only of that kind of occasional Confession which is obviously contemplated by the Prayer Book; we have no time to dwell on its habitual use.

Suffice it to quote some words from the first English Prayer Book:-

"Requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest; nor those which think needful or convenient to open their sins to the priest to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church."

That staunch Evangelical Churchman, Bishop Thorold, who was strongly opposed to habitual Confession in our Communion, once said, "We cannot ignore the fact that the giants of old owed much of that saintliness, which we of the present day can only wonder at but cannot reproduce, to the practice of Confession."

If you should be in doubt about it for yourself, consult some spiritually-minded person who possesses experience in the matter. Not, on the one hand, the man who will tell you that it is the greatest curse the Church has ever known; nor, on the other, the one who would have it practised by everybody.

Surely for us sober Church folk there must be a loyal middle course, which leaves absolute freedom, so long as the individual "follows and keeps the rule of charity, and is satisfied with his own conscience."

Last, but most important of all, in the discipline of the spirit comes the Holy Communion, about which we shall speak next week.

As our closing thought, let us go back to what we said just now. The object of religion is God's glory, not man's enjoyment. See how this puts feelings down into their right, and subordinate, place. They are sometimes very delightful, sometimes very depressing, but always liable to be misleading. A great saint of old used to say:-"If God never gave me another moment of sensible devotion in prayer, I would go on praying, because His glory demands it."

Religion has to do with facts: the facts of what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost have done, and are doing, for us; the facts of what we have to do, to make the finished work of Christ our own.

Here, as always, our Lord Himself gives us the highest illustration. Neither as God, nor yet as perfect Man, was there an actual need for Him to pray; yet His whole life was punctuated with prayer: first because the glory of the Father required it, and next because His chosen Apostles must be taught by example as well as precept.

Let the same mind dwell in us. It is for the glory of God that I should have salvation; therefore by the help of God I will discipline my spirit.

For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.