The New Standard of Criticism

Revelation xx. 12

“And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.” It is in my opinion impossible to understand this passage if we do not consider the state of the seer’s mind when he witnessed the vision. Every word seems to me to be strongly antithetical. St. John is suffering from a false judgment; his fellow-Christians are suffering from a false judgment. He sees the Roman world divided into the great and the small. He sees men standing before the throne of that tribunal to receive their respective places. He is not for a moment

236 under the idea that the world of Christ is distinguished from the world of Caesar by the possession of a judgment-seat. He knows that Caesar has a throne, and that men are made great or small by standing before that throne. What he objects to is not the absence, but the ground, of the judgment. Men are given their places without reference to character; they are not judged “according to their works” Their position is often determined by arbitrary circumstances — family, name, wealth, influence. To the eye of St. John, gazing on the tribunal of that old world, the balance between the great and the small turns on a physical rather than a moral weight. There is nothing which involves self-introspection — the looking into the records of the past, or, as St. John calls it, “the open books.” There is nothing, above all, which can send a man back to his innermost self — the state of being which lies even behind his works that other book called the book of life.

Now, in opposition to this view, St. John sees a new order of criticism. He beholds the multitude of the dead come back, in the places which the old world gave them. He sees them stand before a new throne, before a new tribunal, before a judgment-seat guided by other principles. Guided by these principles, judging by that new standard, this second throne effects wondrous transformations. Many of the first become last, and many of the last become first. Those whom the first throne pronounced great are by the second pronounced small; those whom the first declared small are by the second esteemed great. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, were at the top of the list in the old society; in the new they are very near the end of it — only saved from being quite at the end by the imputation of insanity. And, in the place of honour which was held by Tiberius and Caligula and Nero, stands many a despised slave, many a deformed outcast — outcast by reason of his deformity, many a poor invalid considered unfit for survival, and whom the old world’s chariot had passed, contemptuous, by.

As I have said, the cause of this change was a change of standard. The old standard was the impression of outward force. The new standard, St. John says, is introspective. It is the record of inward books, and specially of one book the innermost of all — life. I do not think that by this innermost book St. John means to indicate that “Lamb’s book of life” of which he has elsewhere spoken and which we have elsewhere considered. That was Christ’s reading of history; this is the testimony of our own souls, the witness of our spirit with His Spirit. The idea evidently is that in the completed kingdom of God there are influences which must render man more self-critical — influences which must un¬ lock his powers of introspection, and quicken those mortified members which were dead in trespasses and in sin.

Excluding all reference to the book of history, there are three inward books spoken of in the Bible. The writer of the fifty-first Psalm says, “Blot me not out from the book of Thy remembrance”; there is, then, a book of memory. St. Paul says that the Gentiles have a “law written in their hearts”; there is, then, a book of conscience. Finally, St. John here speaks of a book underlying both of these — the book of life.

Let us look at these three. The thought of the seer evidently is that for each of them death is an expansion. He regards these three books as at present blotted — prevented from giving their testimony by reason of certain physical ink-stains. Death erases the ink-stains and reveals the handwriting below. It confronts a man for the first time with the sight of himself as he is. It does so, not so much by creating new light as by removing past darkness. The idea is that we are at present the victims of obstruction; something is shutting out our legitimate light. We are in actual possession of books which would tell us marvellous things. But they are closed books. There is a physical clasp on them which can only be broken by a physical wrench. Death is that wrench. It breaks the clasp and the books fly open. The page of our inner self is revealed; and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we read, hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

Take the book of memory. What is the cause of forgetfulness in the present system of things? I hold it to lie always in matter, never in mind. The popular notion is that memory declines with years; I believe the fact to be that memory is obstructed with years. It is the difference between failing to see a thing from short-sightedness and failing to see a thing because another object stands in the way. I hold that the memory of old age is in the latter position; it fails, not as a power, but because in a certain direction its view is circumscribed. My reason for thinking so is that the memory of old age does fail only in a certain direction; it forgets yesterday, but it remembers youth. It is the near things which it misses; it trips only upon the threshold of the door. But far-away things are clear; the voices of all the birds twitter in the dawn. What does that prove? Clearly that, whatever be the defect of memory in age, it is not a defect in the power. If not in the power, it

16 must be in the environment. Death changes the environment Even changes of the environment falling short of death have rendered the memory preternatural. Men who have been resuscitated from the waves have told how, in the moment of drowning, they have lived their whole past anew, recalled forgotten scenes, performed obliterated deeds, reproduced the buried acts of long ago. The book of memory has been opened by an influence which to the physical organism is absolutely adverse. If the loosing of the silver cord can do so much, what might not the breaking of it do?

But the book of memory is by itself not a source of judgment; there is, I think, a very common misconception on this point. It is quite safe to affirm that any man who has been able to do a bad deed without a twinge will, other things being equal, be able to re- ’ member it without a twinge. Surely perception is at least as vivid as memory; if the actual sight of evil has failed to move, the mere remembrance of evil will move still less. Why is it, then, that in the dawning of moral conviction men shrink from memory — that even a Newman cries, “Remember not past years”? It is because a second book has been opened — the book of conscience. If the book of memory were opened alone, it would be morally powerless, valueless; its power lies in the volume below. What, then, is the influence which, according to St. John, is to open this underlying volume — this book of conscience? He tells us what it is in the preceding verse quite explicitly: “I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.” That which opens the book of conscience is the vision of the great white throne — the sight of an ideal of superhuman purity. Man will know his sin by Christ, not Christ by his sin; nothing but the blaze of the throne can teach him his own night. What has prevented him from seeing his night is the cave of materialism; he has thought of himself as a bit of physical nature, or a piece of mechanism bound to act in a certain way. Judged by such a throne, it is easy to say “we are all honourable men.” But when a rent shall be made in the cave, and the morning light shall strike through, the white will reveal the black. Man will see in, the first time he sees out. He will take a measure of himself when he has a standard beyond himself. He will recognise the presence of his own dust and ashes the moment he has looked upon the face of Jesus.

That is distinctly the interpretation which St. John means to be put on his vision. You will observe that in his view the state of judgment is a state of intense individualism. This is implied in the very idea of reading a book — nay, it is involved in the conception of conscience itself. Conscience is the solitary region of the soul. Love demands at least two; conscience is a voice to one. When that book is opened a man must always be alone. The point is well worth our consideration. We have been accustomed to think of this scene as a great assize where the whole world is assembled side by side, where the individual soul is lost in the contemplation of a vast multitude. That is not my reading of the passage. It is true, the small and great are said to stand before the throne; but it is not said that they stand before each other. The sight is that of a multitude to the eye of the seer and to the eye of the Judge; but not to the eye of the accused. He sees nothing but his own soul. The book which his brother reads is invisible to him; the verdict on his brother is inaudible to him. Seen by the eye of Omnipotence, it is the gathering together in a single space and at one time; but to the dzvellers in the space and time it is represented in fragments. Each feels himself to be in a space apart; each is conscious of a different time. Every man is the member of an immense crowd; yet every man believes himself alone.

I think this is the idea of Browning’s “Easter Day.” I used to wonder why he should have represented a human soul as standing before the bar of God in solitude; where were the small and great who were to assemble round the throne? Browning seems to answer, “They are round the throne, but they are not round the criminal.” Fie probably felt, as every reflective man must feel, that the revealed presence of a crowd must spoil the judgment; that introspection is essential to self-criticism; that the book of each heart must be opened and read by itself alone.

We find a similar view in Cardinal Newman’s remarkable poem, “The Dream of Gerontius.” The first experience of Gerontius after death is a vision of Christ. It precedes his sight of heaven, it anticipates his view of the golden streets and pearly gates and crystal fountains. It is an experience of the individual heart. The man sees not his brother; he sees Jesus only. He realises for the first time the awful purity of Christ; it acts on him like the great white throne. St. John says that before this whiteness the earth and the heaven fled away. Even so, before the spotless purity of Jesus, Gerontius flies within upon himself, beholds in a moment of time what manner of man he was. St. Paul speaks of death as a departing to be with Christ. Did he mean to suggest some such thought? Did he intend to indicate that, before entering into that great congregation called the city of God, the soul has a moment of intense individualism, a moment of personal solitude in which for the first time it sees what it might have been? I my¬ self have no doubt that this was St. Paul’s view. I believe that he and St. John were speaking of the same thing. Paul is speaking of the silence to each man; John is contemplating the collective silences. To the eye of God Almighty the books are opened simultaneously; the small and the great are seen together in a moment of time. But to each of the small and the great there appears only one book — the volume in the individual hand. There is no object seen but the great white throne; the first hour of departure is an hour with Christ.

I believe that, to the sacred writers, it is this separation of the individual from the mass that makes the time after death the appropriate day of judgment. What prevents self-judgment here is in their view just the vision of the multitude, the sight of a crowd of fellow-beings who are living precisely the same as ourselves. Death has a moment of isolation in it; it makes silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. It breaks for an instant the chain of physical continuity that binds me to my brother. It throws me back upon my¬ self; it makes me say “It is I.” This reading of yourself in the record is what St. John calls having your name “written in the books.” It is a very difficult thing to take a record to yourself. We hear a preacher denouncing a special form of sin. We say, “He is evidently hitting at the man in front.” He is hitting at ourselves. We have failed to see our own names written in the book. That is our reproach; that is our loss. It proves conscience to be blunted, individualism to be blunted, introspection to be blunted. Our penalty has been the escape of our pain. To read our own name in the record of the world’s badness is a moral gain.

For, this leads me to observe that the opening of the book of conscience involves the opening of what St. John calls “another book” — the book of life. By “another book” he means, as I take it, an opposite kind of book — a book which is not accusing, but commendatory. He means that no man can read his name in the record of conscience except by the light of God — the light which streams from the great white throne. It is not by the human that the state of humanity is seen, it is by the superhuman. The perpetual presence of foul air is not only destructive to life, it is destructive to the perception of itself. To make a man perceive it you must lift him into other air — pure air. Why? Because pure air means more life, and more life means more sensitiveness. That is the secret of the moral expansion which St. John ascribes to death; it is the increased sensitiveness which comes from increased vitality. He would not limit the process to the last earthly hour. He declares in his First Epistle that he regards all regeneration as a “passing from death into life.” But, come when and where it will, the effect of the higher life is ever the same; it reveals for the first time the lower. “Sin revived, and I died,” says Paul, speaking of the revelation of Christ to his soul. It is a bold, a striking statement. It tells us that he only saw the darkness of to-day when it became his yesterday. It was from the height of his new life that he began to survey the old. It was by the light of heaven that he read the record of earth. It was in the vision of the great white throne that he learned the blackness of his past. The book of life was the preface to the book of conscience. Before the throne of Moses he had said with sincerity, “Touching the righteousness of the law, I am blameless”; before the throne of the Lamb, he cried, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?”

And this is the comfort of all spiritual depression. I cannot read my name in the book except by the light of God. “Nathan said unto David, ‘Thou art the man.’” David himself never dreamed that he was the man; he thought another was the man; he evoked upon that other the vengeance of heaven. The book was patent to him, open to him; but another’s name was on the title-page. It is not my voice nor my light that says “Thou art the man”; it is a higher voice: and when that voice comes, it is a sore and solemn moment. Yet it sends peace, not a sword. It tells me I have passed already from death into life. God alone could have revealed my distance from God. Flesh and blood could never have told it; only my Father which is in heaven. It is from the gates of the Divine temple that I behold the storm; it is from the shelter of the ark that I discern the waters of the flood. Only he who has heard the still, small voice can detect the thunder, the earthquake, and the fire; for moral strengthening is the root of moral pain, and the book of conscience is a volume of the book of life.