Titus 3

Titus 3:13

CHRIST AND LAWYERS Titus 3:13. IN the study of the life and words of Christ, one scarcely knows whether to admire the more the sinlessness of His character or the length and breadth of His sympathies. It is a difficult question to decide whether a man had best be correct in his habits or grandly generous at heart. When he is both, as Christ was both, we say with the centurion who stood over against him in the hour of death, “Truly this Man was the Son of God”. Mortal men are always coming short in one or the other. Oliver Cromwell, the military genius of a military age, was characterized by what John Lord styles an “immutable morality” of life and conduct, and yet was narrow withal in his sympathies. He began as a reformer, and in behalf of the oppressed, and ended upon a throne as despotic as that upon which Caesar used to sit, now oppressor himself; while Daniel Webster, with passions which controlled him at times, and with extravagances that were indulged at the financial loss of others, was yet the most affectionate, sympathetic of men, generous always to a fault, equally frank and sincere, whether in the company of courtiers or hod-carriers.But the excellency of Jesus Christ was in that to a sinless life He added a heart that pulsed with warmest love for men of most widely separated conditions and attainments.

Unto His bosom He took the plain fishermen as readily as the elegant member of the Sanhedrin court; and into His service He accepted the unlearned Apostles with as equal heartiness as that given to the scholarly Luke and the accomplished Saul.The strings of His great loving heart vibrate to the whole gamut of human feelings, and to show His interest in laboring men is no more easy than to prove His concern in those who enter the learned professions. It is my purpose to discuss Christ’s attitude toward the only one included in our term, and yet I hope to say such things as will be of benefit as well to those of us who do not belong to that one.First of all, I invite you to think with me ofCHRIST’S CONTACT WITH LAWYERS In Christ’s day, lawyers were by no means the least significant class that gathered about Him. After the scribes and Pharisees had plied their arts in vain to catch Him, it was not unusual for lawyers to indulge the conceited thought that they could puzzle Him with their questions. If the lawyers there were as the lawyers of today, no wonder they thought so. The last time I visited a court and listened to the questions with which ignorant men were plied, I was made to seriously doubt whether the cross-examiners were not themselves confounded with their own confession. So I say, no wonder they indulged the egotism of hoping to entangle the Christ. But we are glad—lawyers themselves ought to be glad— that the fruitless effort was made.

The history of that effort contains sentences of profit for the profession.It was on one of those occasions that Christ exposed some sins common to the profession.He was dining with a Pharisee, and fell under the ban of the gathered guests because forsooth He sat down to meat without first having washed. In His reply to their criticism He charged them with being over-scrupulous about outward cleanliness, while they were indifferent to holiness of character.

A certain lawyer being present objected to Christ’s words upon the ground that He had created the impression that the members of the bar were also guilty of a kindred hypocrisy and crime. Whereupon Jesus replied, “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46). Some members of the legal profession are open to a similar indictment today. We still have men expounding laws which they themselves disregard, and prosecuting others under civil and even criminal statutes which they are constantly breaking. If there is any class of men, who, next to Christians, ought to have a profound respect for the law of the land, and be most careful to keep it themselves in letter and spirit, that class should be the members of the bar. A lawyer who drinks has no right either to prosecute or defend the fellow who has broken the peace.

A lawyer given to gambling is unfit to expound the legislative act that makes such business a penal offense. A lawyer of immoral habits ought to be silenced in that court where questions of great moral concern are involved.

There has long been an idea abroad to the effect that members of this profession were not to be expected to be models of civil behaviour, much less of moral excellence. Before I was regenerated, I had a very distorted idea of life and purposed sowing a good crop of wild oats when I should be old enough to get away from my father’s oversight, and accordingly it was my purpose to study law, and it was my thought that no sort of conduct was disreputable on the part of a lawyer. I have no doubt that my ideas of the profession were, for the most part, the result of acquaintance with a few lawyers of that class. That idea has been too long entertained and entertained too widely. Christ struck the keynote of the truth here when He condemned the profession for making and executing laws which they themselves broke with impunity.I was pleased with the penitent letter which Mayor Brown of New Castle, Pennsylvania, once wrote to Mr. Squier and to the public, after having knocked Editor Squier down for lying about and maligning the Mayor’s Pastor.

He says of the hasty, yet greatly provoked action, “I here publicly and humbly ask the forgiveness of the citizens of New Castle. I have authorized the chief of police to see that I pay the penalty for the violation of a city ordinance, and so forth.” That letter has in it the tone of absolute respect for the law, and when under heat of passion Brown broke the law, he proposed to pay the penalty and humbly confessed his error.

Such respect for law every man ought to have; such obedience to the law every man ought to render who proposes to expound that law for the public and prosecute and defend men’s claims in accordance with its decrees.Diodes is said to have made a law that no man should come armed into the public assembly. Through inadvertency he chanced to break the law, and his enemies charged, “He has broken a law he himself made.” He turned to the accusers and declared with a loud voice, “No, the law shall have its sanction,” and drawing his sword, he killed himself.It was a terrible penalty to inflict, but it gave a never-to-be forgotten illustration of respect for law.On still another occasion a lawyer by a question intended for puzzling the Christ drew from Him a statement of the virtues proposed for the members of the bar. When the wily Sadducees had been routed by this Man of Nazareth, and were left gaping with astonishment at the wisdom of His words, we see the Pharisees gathering for the onslaught and the Scriptures say,“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, “Master, which is the great Commandment in the Law? “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. “This is the first and great Commandment. “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”. There is a good sound basis of morality in that reply, and let us remember that such words were spoken to a lawyer. I was pleased to hear the speaker on the occasion of a law school commencement, urge upon the graduates the duty, yea the absolute necessity of moral character and exemplary conduct on their part, as they went into the honored profession. I greatly honor the profession of the law, and second to my present calling it should be my choice of professions, and yet if I entered it now I should hope for success only upon condition that to studious habits I added the force of moral character. There are few professions which can rightly claim a catalogue of nobler names than those which have been enrolled as members of the bar. Into that list have gone the imperishable names of Pitt the Elder, and Pitt the younger, Mirabeau, Fox, Burke and Gladstone, Hamilton, Calhoun, Webster, Sumner, Breckenridge and Clay, and such like, and yet this one claim will stand the test of study. They, whose names are already most immortal have been men of unimpeachable characters and spotless morals.

When John Lord in his excellent Essay on Alexander Hamilton reaches the point where he chronicles the bloody deed of Burr in removing such a nobleman from the world, he speaks of Burr as falling from his former greatness “like Lucifer, like a star from heaven,” his name to become a reproach and his life record stained eternally with the spots of his murdered brother’s blood, and adds, “And here, let me say, that great men, although they do not commit crimes, cannot escape the penalty of even defects and vices that some consider menial. No position however lofty, no services however great, no talents however brilliant will enable a man to secure lasting popularity and influence when respect for his moral character is undermined; ultimately he will fall.

He may have defects, he may have offensive peculiarities, and retain position and respect, for everybody has faults; but if his moral character is bad, nothing can keep him long on the elevation to which he has climbed—no political friendships, no remembrances of services and deeds.”How many illustrations of this truth has history furnished already. Pitt was great in intellect, broad in his sympathies, and an actor-born, but his consummate efforts were only possible to a man of his moral parts. Hamilton’s memory is revered whilst Burr’s is cursed. Burr was the brighter of the two, and more accomplished, equally powerful in speech, but Hamilton was a man and Burr nursed in his bosom the demons that grew and dragged him down. Edmund Burke was oratory-ablaze and his name is a synonym of all that was conscientious and right. If Webster had defects of character, he was not great by reason of them, but in spite of them, and greater still because of the virtues that offset his errors.

The greatest living man of yesterday, studied from whatever point, was a lawyer and a statesman. I mean Gladstone!

In excellence of moral character he stood the noble equal of the peerless preacher of England, Mr. Spurgeon. So we repeat, Christ knew what need of virtue a lawyer had, and he who loves this calling ought to gladly bow at the feet of the “Son of God” and learn of Him.Christianity is not so often professed by lawyers as by members of other callings, such as teaching, and the honorable trades, but I am not sure that the members of the bar are wholly to blame for that. Preachers are often discouraged with the perversities of human nature, and yet they seldom see men in their crookedest moods. Parishioners and others make a point of being on their good behavior when the parson is around. But clients generally discover their distempers of intellect and their viciousness of heart when they consult their legal defenders.

To find a man seeking a lawyer’s advice upon some point in which he is being wronged or imagines himself so, without showing irritability of temper, questionable motive and cruel purpose is unusual to say the least. I shall not soon forget that page in Sir Walter Scott’s novel, “Guy Mannering”, in which that waster of ideas and the pen makes Guy ask Lawyer Pleydell, “Shall you be able to carry this honest fellow’s cause for him?” to which the lawyer replies, “Why I don’t know.

The battle is not to the strong, but he shall come off triumphant over Jock of Dawston if we can make it out. I owe him something. It is the pest of our profession,” continued Pleydell, “that we seldom see the best side of human nature. People come to us with every selfish feeling newly pointed and grinded; they turn down the very caulkers of their animosities and prejudices, as smiths do with horses’ shoes in a white frost. Many a man has come to my garret yonder, that I have at first longed to pitch out at the window, and yet at length have discovered that he was only doing as I might have done in his case, being very angry and of course very unreasonable. I have now satisfied myself that if our profession sees more of human folly and human roguery than others, it is because we witness them acting in that channel in which they can most freely vent themselves.

In civilized society law is the chimney through which all that smoke discharges itself that used to circulate through the whole house, and put everyone’s eyes out. No wonder, therefore, that the vent itself should sometimes get a little sooty.” I don’t wonder!

I confess that I reckon lawyers more often Christian men than the world has a right to expect. No man can believe in God and be fervently loyal to Him when once he has lost faith in his fellows. And how lawyers believe in mankind in general when most of those by whom they are engaged from time to time are as ugly in temper toward somebody as frizzly chickens are in personal appearance. I can’t understand. If this talk should cause those who have listened to be always reasonable even when they are wronged and seek to get justice by means of the law, and to carry into civil courts a Christian spirit, then it will be easier for some lawyers to trust the good in men and follow the teaching of the Man of Nazareth.Meantime, the members of this noble profession must understand that Christ has made no exception of them in His demand for universal allegiance and fervent love. When in His day lawyers joined with the Pharisees and “rejected the counsel of God”, He gave no hint that they would escape in the last day.

Unfavorable conditions may mitigate judgment, but it cannot excuse unbelief and disobedience. Many men argue that if they were differently situated they would more easily live consistent Christian lives; but such a plea is a poor defense of so grave an act as the rejection of Jesus.

If the brightest and best of Christians can come from characters which were once loathsomely degraded as was Bunyan; from those who were criminal as was old John Newton; from those who were doubly fettered by evil habits and vicious associates as was the noted Jerry McAuley, then let no one imagine that an honorable profession can be excused from the most sacred duty of men, because its work is often with unprincipled men, and almost always with men who are in ugly temper. Daniel was a lawyer and lived in a time when the profession was degraded by the practice of unprincipled men and yet he kept a heart ever warm with love to God, and full of service for his fellows even against all cruelties and intrigues from his brothers at the bar. Nicodemus came to Christ at night, when to come by day would have ruined his popularity if it had not cost his life. Saul was a lawyer, but when he heard the voice of the persecuted Master and learned that his practice was a persecution of God, he penitently inquired of Jesus, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do”? And from that hour so lived and labored for God, that we think of his crown as among the most brilliant of those worn by the saints already redeemed. Zenas, the man of my text, was a lawyer and yet such was his efficiency in Gospel meetings that when Paul needed help he wrote Titus to bring with him that member of the bar.

The legal profession has never been without its illustrious followers of the Nazarene. Let us hope that it may never be, but that the religion which sent Hamilton to his grave guiltless after the severest temptation to shed blood to which man can ever be put; the religion that sustained Edmund Burke in all his trials of debate on America, on India, in the impeachment of Hastings, in defense of Irish Catholics, in reference to the French Revolution and lasting him to the end, left no spot upon his record over which good men need to blush; that the religion which supported the noble Webster in the hours of his crudest tortures, may be the religion of the bar in the days yet unborn.Finally, Christ must be pleased with the allegiance of this profession for the sake of its influence.

We do not believe that Jesus is any more a respecter of persons today than when on earth. We are confident that the salvation of the meanest beggar that tramps our highways makes the great heart of God as merry as would the regeneration of the most famed legalist of any nation. The angels in Heaven must have rejoiced as greatly when in Sam Jones’ meeting at Cincinnati, a whatnot was reached by the Gospel, as they did when Major Blackburn, the most noted criminal lawyer of that metropolis, was converted unto God. But no man’s salvation stops with his own security. Men of broader learning and greater prominence among their fellows, react and affect for good or ill a greater number of immortal souls. One of the most serious indictments Christ ever brought against lawyers was that in which He said, “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luke 11:52).

He knew well the length and breadth of the influence for evil of such able opponents of the Truth. But as the unbelieving lawyer is a power for Satan, so may the believer be a power for Christ and His gracious Word.

As the one closes the gate of life so the other may open it and by voice, deed and the power of life attract men to the King. This world is influenced by fashion to a considerable extent, and fashions emanate as a rule from people of some power. We are told that Queen Anne had a wen on her neck, and to hide it had a high ruffle put on her dress. A few months passed and the world of women was necked in ruffles. We don’t want to be unmindful of our influence over the thoughts and actions of others. Dr. Green of Boston said, “Two little girls were molding images in clay. One said, “I am going to make a little devil.” The other said, “I am going to make a little angel.” Brethren, we have power to do that and the mud in our hands is that of which men and women are made.

Which will we make? I know the name Gladstone for his wonderful intellect, grasping more of universal knowledge than any living man. I honor him for his ponderous eloquence, used always in expression of noble opinions and defense of right. I love him for the embodiment of the noblest morals, and the champion of God’s Revelation; but to me he was even greater when he bowed in a humble cabin and tried to lead a man to Christ. Oh, brethren of the law, this is your privilege as well as mine. The ministry cares for no monopoly of this noble work. Lend us a helping hand and you may lay this glorious text to your heart. “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever”.