"I Don't Want Any Man to Come Between My Soul and God"

HOLY CROSS TRACTS

By Father H.N. Thompson

"I Don't Want Any Man to Come Between My Soul and God"

Don't you? But what has that got to do with it? I mean, what difference does it make whether you wish it or not? You haven't got to choose. This is a matter of religion, and the question is not what you want, but what God says. He is the Master. You are only one of His creatures. It is for Him to say what is to be — not you.
The only religion which is worth anything at all is the religion which God has revealed. You can't open up com­munications with God. You can only avail yourself of those which He has made. A man-made religion is worth simply nothing at all. If you have found out a heaven of your own, you can, perhaps, find out the way to it — such as it is. But if you want to get to God's heaven you must be content to go to it by His way.
So, you see, this saying, "I don't want any man to come between my soul and God," is a piece of Counterfeit Reli­gious Coin. It has a pious look about it, but when it is tested it rings false. It is really a piece of base metal. It is really self-will, with a religious face upon it.
"Ah ! but (you say) that isn't what I meant. I meant it isn't God's Will that any man should come between my soul and God." Well, there you are exactly in the wrong. Just the opposite to what you say is true. It is God's Will that men should come between your soul and Him. It is God's Will to give us His gifts for body and soul by means of our fellow-men.
To begin with, there is the great gift of life. You will not deny that our bodily life comes from God. But you can­not deny, either, that it comes to us through our parents. Fancy anyone saying, "I don't want any parents to come between my life and God!" It has pleased Him to use their ministry to convey this gift from Him to us.
But this life, when once it has been given, must be pre­served by food. We do not provide our own food for our­selves. We get it from butchers and bakers and others. By their ministry God's gift of food comes to us. Sometimes we are sick, disease is interfering with the gift of life. We go to the doctor, and he ministers to us God's gift of medicine.
As it is with the body, so it is with the mind. We go to school, and we are taught how to read. Our minds are fed with truth about the world in which God has placed us. The schoolmaster is the minister by whom we receive food for the mind.
So it is also with the soul. God has His gifts for the soul, and He gives them to us through the ministry of our fellow-men—just as He gives His gifts for body and mind through our fellow-men. The gift of spiritual life comes to us in Baptism. Then we are "born of water and of the Spirit," as the Lord said we must be. (St. John 3 :5) But we cannot baptize ourselves. So we receive this first gift for our souls through the ministry of a Clergyman.

The good work begun then needs help later on; the young life requires to be strengthened. So children are brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, and by the laying on of his hands they receive the Holy Ghost, as the people of old did by laying on of the Apostles' hands. (Acts 8 and 19.) God uses the Bishop as His instrument.
Sometimes the spiritual life is attacked by the deadly disease of sin. Then medicine is needed. The medicine is called Absolution, or the Forgiveness of Sins. It comes from God, of course, as every good gift does. But it comes to us through the Priest, to whom it has been said, "Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven."
Again, the constant food of the Christian soul through life is the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. But everybody is not able to celebrate the Holy Communion. Here, again, therefore, the gift comes to us from God through His appointed minister and steward.
So it is, too, with Bible reading and sermons. Holy men of old, moved by the Holy Ghost, wrote down the books of the Bible. Others copied them out, and others at last printed them. In the ministry of the Word and Sacraments our Clergy, who are God's stewards, give to the members of the Lord's household "their portion of meat in due sea­son" (St. Luke 12:42). It is the Lord Who has made them rulers over His household.
This foolish saying, then, about having no man between your soul and God, is nothing but self-will. You might as well say, put no water-pipe between my house and the reservoir. Or, put no staircase between me and my bedroom. Don't you see that these things are channels and helps—not hindrances?
And, moreover, the Clergy and the Church did not invent them. The Sacraments were appointed by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. So that if you say that you won't have anything to do with them, it is not merely the Church whom you are rejecting, but the Lord. And do you think it is wise or safe to do this?
Many years ago there was a man who had caught the dreadful disease of leprosy. He went to a Prophet of God, who told him to wash himself seven times in the river Jor­dan and he would be cured. But Naaman (that was his name) made a difficulty. He said, Why must it be this river Jordan? Can't I wash in one of the rivers in my own country? No, only the river Jordan would do.
Why was this? Did the water of Jordan taste any dif­ferent, or look any different, from the others? Perhaps not. But God said distinctly, The River Jordan. And when God says a thing He means it.
I said at the beginning of this tract that the saying, "I don't want any man to come between my soul and God," is a piece of bad religious money. So it is. And yet it is often passed from one to another by those who would have nothing to do with it if they only knew its real character. It is a saying which really belongs to those who reject the Lord that bought them.
There are some who say that they do not want any Mediator to come between their souls and God—no Lord Jesus Christ to bring them back to the Father. They deny what the Lord said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." All this sounds very dreadful to you. You do not agree with such people.

You say that all your trust is in the merits of the Saviour. This is well. But are you quite sure that you do yourself really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you believe in Him, surely you would obey Him. Surely you would "hear the Church," as He commands. (St. Matt. 18: 17)
Imagine the case of a sick man. As he lies on his bed you hear him express the greatest possible faith in the doc­tor. "I am sure he can cure me," he says. But you notice a row of unopened medicine bottles by the bedside. You say, "Why don't you take your medicine?" The sick man says, "Oh, the medicine is only a form; the great thing is to believe in the doctor, and I do believe in him thoroughly. It isn't medicine that will cure me; it's the doctor."
"Ah!" you reply, "but why should a skillful doctor give you medicine, if it were of little consequence whether you took it or not? How can you say that you believe in the doctor when you neglect his orders?"
And how can Christians declare that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ when they despise His Church and Sacra­ments? They say that they believe, but in their acts they deny it. They want to come to the Father, not in the way that Christ has appointed, but in their own way.
To despise the things which the Lord has instituted is to despise the Lord himself. "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (St. Luke 6:46) Why, indeed?

Dear reader, see how all this applies to you. God has set up a certain religion. It is called the Holy Catholic Church. In it He gives gifts to men—such gifts as He knows that we need.
He gives these gifts to us in His own way, the way in which He Himself has chosen. That is, He gives them through the ministry of His Church. He might have given the gifts in other ways if it had so pleased Him, but it has not.
This is not, perhaps, the religion which you would have invented if it had fallen to your lot to make a religion. Fortunately, this is not your business. Your business is (is it not?) to avail yourself gratefully to those blessings which the Lord won for you by becoming Man and dying on the Cross.
You are a poor sinner, afflicted with a worse leprosy than Naaman's—the leprosy of sin. Surely you will not "go away in rage" because the way of salvation is laid down for you; and you cannot make a new way for yourself.
"If the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much more, then, when He saith to thee, Wash and be clean?"
You believe that the Lord is perfect Love. Believe also that He is perfect Wisdom. The way which He has chosen for you, the way of the Holy Church, is not merely the only safe way. It is also the best possible way. Say to Him, "Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. Thou knowest that I love Thee. Thou only hast the words of everlasting life."