Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Something new about Shakespeare

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Literature, Uncategorized

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This article in the New York Times describes the work of Dennis McCarthy who used plagiarism software to discover a source mined by Shakespeare. It seems that the Bard used a book by George North, A Brief Discourse on Rebellion and Rebels. The book had been nearly lost to history, when Mr. McCarthy came upon a clue (and you’ll have to read the article yourself to find out how this happened, or everything they discovered).

I liked this bit

One of the most compelling [evidences that Shakespeare used the book] is Jack Cade, who led a failed popular rebellion against Henry VI in 1450. Shakespeare describes Cade’s final days in “Henry VI, Part 2,” in which he says he was starving and eating grass, before he was finally caught and dragged through the street by his heels, his body left to be eaten by crows. Scholars have long thought that Shakespeare invented these details, but all of them are present in a passage from North’s “Discourse” in which he inveighs against Cade and two other famous rebels. Mr. McCarthy and Ms. Schlueter argue that Shakespeare used those details to make Cade into a composite of the three.

What I like about it is how certain scholars can be of a certain “fact” and hold this fact for many, many years — and it turns out that this fact about the most famous writer of the last 1,000 years, whose work has been ransacked for evidence of every thought was wrong. I just wonder how many facts we are certain of which are simply wrong. Our ignorance is proof of our conclusion.

The book itself looks like an interesting read (especially to see how Shakespeare reworked the source material).

Or some fierce thing (Sonnet 23)

12 Friday Dec 2014

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As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burthen of mine own love’s might.
O! let my looks be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

The Soul’s Conflict With Itself 6.2

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Richard Sibbes

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Pascal writes:

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. For above all, it it that which keeps us from thinking about ourselves and so leads imperceptibly to destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom should drive us to seek some more reliable means of escape, but distraction passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death (414-171).

It is here, to the one without distraction that Sibbes draws our attention. For Sibbes, human solitude is not a matter of being withdrawn, but being alone with God. We need not be drawn away with our own distractions and confused heart — if there is a Spirit above our spirit to govern our affections and draw us toward God:

Obs. 4. We see here again, that a godly man can make a good use of privacy. When he is forced to be alone he can talk with his God and himself; one reason whereof is, that his heart is a treasury and storehouse of divine truths, whence he can speak to himself, by way of check, or encouragement of himself: he hath a Spirit over his own spirit, to teach him to make use of that store he hath laid up in his heart.

Pascal famously noted that it was our inability to be alone in a room which causes the depth of human misery.  Sibbes would agree and state that the heart which can be governed by the Spirit is one that need not be alone, at all. Rather, the one who knows and is known by God can come closest to God in such solitude.

The Spirit is never nearer him than when by way of witness to his spirit he is thus comforted;

If such solitude is such a bounty, then why do we fear it so? Our conscience. As Hamlet says to Rosencrantz:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

It is precisely this trouble which makes solitude such a misery:

wherein the child of God differs from another man, who cannot endure solitariness, because his heart is empty; he was a stranger to God before, and God is a stranger to him now, so that he cannot go to God as a friend. And for his conscience, that is ready to speak to him that which he is loth to hear: and therefore he counts himself a torment to himself, especially in privacy.

Now one may dispute Sibbes (and Pascal’s) proposition. Yet experience proves the opposite. First, there is the great mountain of distraction that is our world. We make gods out of those best able to distract us. To whom do we give our money? Those who distract us and those who manage the distraction.

Now the alternative of “peace” and “meditation” is merely a variant on the theme. To empty one’s mind is merely to drive off the thoughts in a different direction. Both strategies seek to leave us anything about alone with ourselves and God.

We read of great princes, who after some bloody designs were as terrible to themselves,* as they were formerly to others, and therefore could never endure to be awaked in the night, without music or some like diversion. It may be, we may be cast into such a condition, where we have none in the world to comfort us; as in contagious sickness, when none may come near us, we may be in such an estate wherein no friend will own us.

What then is the solution? To have a heart prepared to meet God, to live in communion with God. The great weakness of the Christian church is its inability to lead Christians to be with God.  Even in the most doctrinally correct churches it seems that God is little better than an abstraction.

Sibbes directs to close with God in Word and Spirit (as Owen sought to teach in Communion With God). Christianity does most good with it is intensely spiritual and vital. When our hearts are directed and taught to be with God, even our solitude becomes a place of great joy and comfort:

And therefore let us labour now to be acquainted with God and our own hearts, and acquaint our hearts with the comforts of the Holy Ghost; then, though we have not so much as a book to look on, or a friend to talk with, yet we may look with comfort into the book of our own heart, and read what God hath written there by the finger of his Spirit. …. By this means we shall never want a divine to comfort us, a physician to cure us, a counsellor to direct us, a musician to cheer us, a controller to check us, because, by help of the word and Spirit, we can be all these to ourselves.

Consider careful those words of Sibbes: a divine (pastor), physician, counselor, musician, controller.

This comes from “observation 4” discussing remedies for a soul cast down. Here, Sibbes places the remedy in the preparatory work. We must prepare ourselves for our trouble. It will be found in:  Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 148–149.

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/the-souls-conflict-with-itself-6-1/

Edward Taylor, A King Indeed.2

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Christology, Edward Taylor, Literature, Praise

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The previous post in this series may be found here

What is this throne all glory? Crown all gay?
Crown of all brightest shine of glory’s wealth?
This is a lisp of non-sense. I should say,
He is the throne and crown of glory ‘tself.
Should sun beams come to gild his glory they
Would be as ’twere to gild the sun with clay.

Jesus in his glory is portrayed as crowned. For example, Revelation 14:14:
“Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.”

Matthew Bridges’s hymn begins:

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

“Lisp of non-sense”: speaking like a child. An interesting use of this phrase, which may have been known to Taylor, would be Calvin’s well-known (in theological circles) statement about God “lisping”:

“Indeed, that they dared abuse certain testimonies of Scripture was due to base ignorance; just as the error itself sprang from execrable madness. The Anthropomorphites, also, who imagined a corporeal God from the fact that Scripture often ascribes to him a mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are easily refuted. For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to “lisp” in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness.”
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.13.1.

The idea of God’s glory and being the source and measure of glory is a frequent theme in Scripture. For example, Psalm 24:8-10:

8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah

“Gild the sun with clay”: gilding would diminish His beauty and glory.

The phrase reminds one of Shakespeare’s play, King John Act 4, scene 2 where Salisbury says:

Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Mutability and Stability: Edward Reynolds, Matthew Poole, Spenser, Shakespeare and Ecclesiastes 3:1

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Edward Reynolds

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Edward Reynolds on Ecclesiastes 3:1:

That all events in the world, both natural and contingent, voluntary or fortuitous, are all of them limited and bounded in their beginning, duration, and ending, and by the providence of God (Psalm 31:15; Job 14:15; Acts 17:26)….That whatever are the thoughts or cares of men, yet the purposes of God must stand; no man can, by his anxious fears or contrivance, mend or alter his condition. Means we must use in obedience to God, and expectation of his promised blessing; but events and successes we must wholly leave to him….That all things are under the sun subject to continual changes; there are various revolutions and vicissitudes of events, now one thing, and anon the contrary, to the intent that men should neither be wanton in prosperity, nor desperate in adversity, but should always fear before the Lord and seek for a kingdom which cannot be shaken.

In these statements Reynolds lies well within the Westminster Confession, as appropriate for a Divine of the Assembly.

Chapter Three: Of God’s Eternal Decree:

1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

And from Chapter Five: Of Providence:

God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will,to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

3. God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.

By noting the consistency of his exegesis with his theology, I do not mean that Reynolds has read anything into the text. Rather, Reynolds theology is consistent with his exegesis. Stability can only be anchored in God – who can change the world but cannot be changed against his will. His understanding is quite similar to contemporary Matthew Poole, who writes in his commentary:

A season; a certain time appointed by God for its being and continuance, which no human wit or providence can prevent or alter. And by virtue of this appointment or decree of God, whether comforts or calamities, do come to pass; …that both free and comfortable enjoyment of the creatures which some have and the crosses and vexations which others have with them are from the and  counsel of God; partly, to prove the principal proposition of the book that all things below are vain and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty, and mutability and transitoriness, and because they are so much out of the reach and power  of men, and wholly in the disposal of another, to wit, God, who doth either give or take them away, either sweeten or imbitter them, as it pleaseth him; and partly to bring to the minds of men into a quiet and cheerful dependence upon God’s providence and submission to his will, and state of preparation for all events. …Not only natural, but even the free and voluntary actions of men are ordered and disposed by God to accomplish his purpose.

An interesting comparison comes from the existing philosophy and writing of the time. The conflict between what will stand and what will change appears throughout much writing. Thus, Spenser anchors stability in God; while Shakespeare anchors a permanence in art:,

                Mutability

When I bethink me on that speech whilere,

Of Mutability, and well it weigh:

Me seems,that though she all unworthy were

Of the Heav’ns Rule; yet very sooth to say,

In all things else she bears the greatest sway.

Which makes me loathe this state of life so tickle,

And love of things so vain to cast away;

Whose flow’ring pride, so fading and so fickle,

Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.

Then gin I think on that which Nature said.

Of that same time when no more Change shall be,

But steadfast rest of all things firmly stayed

Upon the pillars of Eternity,

That is contrare to Mutability:

For, all that moveth, doth in Change delight:

But thence-forth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:

O that great Sabbaoth God, grant me that Sabbaoth’s sight

Or Shakespeare’s sonnets, such as 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The Vanity of this Mortal Life (John Howe).13

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in John Howe, Puritan

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Howe then proceeds to ask the question of whether the goodness of God accords with giving men merely a temporary existence.  He admits that “strict justice” would “upon the ground of absolute dominion” give God the ground to “what [he] will with [his] own.” However, such a thing would be contrary to abundant goodness of God: both in degree and in continuance.

First, Howe notes the majesty of the nature of humanity and how mismatched it is with current, sublunary existence:

[F]or who sees not, that the nature of man is capable of greater things than he here enjoys? And where that capacity is rescued from the corruption that narrows and debases it, how sensibly do holy souls resent and bewail their present state, as a state of imperfection! With how fervent and vehement desires and groans do they aspire and pant after a higher and more perfect! “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, (2 Cor. 5:4, that is not enough, to be delivered out of the miseries of life, by laying down this passive part—is not that which will terminate their desires,) but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Theirs are not brutal groans, the complaint of oppressed sensitive nature under a present evil; but rational and spiritual, the expressions of desire strongly carried to pursue an apprehended suitable good.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 286-87.[1]  A temporary life, a life ended with material death would be inconsistent with the goodness of God.

It is an interesting observation that those who seek to rest in base materialism – we are splendid accidental machinery, soon to pass into oblivion – must also diminish and deny the obvious exaltation of humanity. On one end, we are little different than animals (although I heard a famous evolutionary scientist express his admiration for our ability to use symbolic language, an attribute for which he admitted he could find no explanation). On the other we are less than the animals, for it would be best if we were removed from the planet so that the I more “natural” beasts could carry on. [2]

[1] In making this observation, Howe was answering the sort of question being asked within this time and place. Hamlet famously makes such observations about the nature of man. Howe seems to be echoing the thoughts of Shakespeare in Act II, scene 2 of Hamlet:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!

how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how

express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the

world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,

what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not

me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling

you seem to say so.

And, in Act IV, scene 4, Hamlet asks

                                What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused.

[2] Stephen Falken: Now, children, come on over here. I’m going to tell you a bedtime story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren’t even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start again. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David.  – War Games

The Vanity of this Mortal Life (John Howe).1

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in 2 Corinthians, Biblical Counseling, John Howe, Meditation, Psalms, Puritan

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John Howe, in his discourse on Psalm 89:47-48 The Vanity of Man as Mortal, observes both the grim meditation and the recovery of hope by the Psalmist.   The passage at hand reads as follows:

46 How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! 48 What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah Psalm 89:46–48 (ESV)

(Howe merely references 47-48, v. 46 has been added to complete the stanza.) Of man’s present state, Howe writes:

“Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?”—then, secondly, in a pathetic discourse with himself, representing the reason of that rough charge, “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver,” &c. q. d. When I add to the consideration of my short time, that of dying mankind, and behold a dark and deadly shade universally overspreading the world, the whole species of human creatures vanishing, quitting the stage[1] round about me, and disappearing almost as soon as they show themselves[2]: have I not a fair and plausible ground for that (seemingly rude) challenge? Why is there so unaccountable a phenomenon, such a creature made to no purpose; the noblest part of this inferior creation brought forth into being without any imaginable design? I know not how to untie the knot, upon this only view of the case, or avoid the absurdity. It is hard sure to design the supposal, (or what it may yet seem hard to suppose,) “that all men were made in vain.”

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 266.

Thus, the sight of life from the position of present life is grim. Yet, the poem does not end on a grim tone:

49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? 50 Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked, and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations, 51 with which your enemies mock, O LORD, with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen. Psalm 89:49–52 (ESV)

Howe accounts for the change in tone as resulting from the remembrance and meditation upon the promises of God made to David:

Therefore it was his reflection upon those loving-kindnesses mentioned in the former part of the psalm, contained in God’s covenant, and confirmed by his oath, but understood according to the sense and import already declared, that caused this sudden turn in David’s spirit;* and made him that lately spake as out of a Golgotha, as if he had nothing but death in his eye and thoughts, to speak now in so different a strain, and (after some additional pleadings, in which his faith further recovers itself) to conclude this psalm with solemn praise; “Blessed be the Lord for evermore; Amen and Amen.”

We see, then, the contemplation of his own and all men’s mortality, abstractly and alone considered, clothed his soul with black, wrapped it up in gloomy darkness, makes the whole kind of human creatures seem to him an obscure shadow, an empty vanity: but his recalling into his thoughts a succeeding state of immortal life clears up the day, makes him and all things appear in another hue, gives a fair account why such a creature as man was made; and therein makes the whole frame of things in this inferior world look with a comely and well-composed aspect, as the product of a wise and rational design.

John Howe, The Works of the Reverend John Howe, Volume 2 (London: William Tegg and Co., 1848), 270. It is useful to note that the meditation was not nostalgic: it was not merely hopefulness that someday all with will be better. Rather, it was a remembrance and a future promise that had the effect of transforming the present. The knowledge of what God is doing does not change the present events; yet, such knowledge changes the meaning of present events.

This paradox exists throughout the Bible: present pain is nowhere denied. The Book presents  current misery is vivid color, but then puts the evil of the present into a greater context so that it appears not merely as misery but rather as a means to a greater end.

The pattern is set by the horror and glory of Jesus:

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:9 (ESV)

The pattern set, the application is upon us, likewise:

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

Thus, to respond to suffering and evil we must not deny the reality of the evil. To do so would be to deny the necessity of the atonement, of the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  However, while we do not deny evil, we deny that evil has the final say. Evil will have its day, but it will soon be reversed and evil traded for glory.

[1] Howe’s imagery here shows some apparent knowledge of Shakespeare. Whether the reliance is direct or whether it merely refers to imagery which had become stock in the culture, I cannot know. The reference is to the speech of Jacques (one of my Shakespeare professors at UCLA told us that Jacques was a pun in that the name refers to a place of repose (shall we say) similar to the current, “Going to the John”) in As You Like It (Act 2, scene 7):

DUKE SENIOR

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

JAQUES

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[2] The reference may also have been to this scene in MacBeth (Act 5, scene 5).  In many ways, this reference seems more plausible: it to contains a reference to the stage, yet the emphasis is on the quick leaving of the world and the vanity of life while upon the stage of this world. Yet, again, I do not know if Howe had personal knowledge of Shakespeare (the dislike of the theater among some Puritans did not lie with literature or art, per se. Any reading will quickly disclose a wealth of knowledge concerning art, literature, philosophy and culture – much of classical culture and thus not “Christian”. The concern was primarily with the immorality, such as prostitution associated with the theater).

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Training in Temper.1

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in A.B. Bruce, Discipleship, Matthew

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When Jesus left from the Mount of Transfiguration, he again foretold his crucifixion. At this point, he sought to specifically train the disciples in temperament, in matters of grace, humility, kindness.

The disciples, knowing that they were on a trip toward Jerusalem, but still not rightly understanding their progress:

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Matthew 18:1 (ESV)

Bruce makes the interesting observation that Jesus did not reject their question, rather he answered it:

For be it observed, Jesus did not summarily dismiss the question, who is greatest in the kingdom, by negativing the existence of distinctions therein. He said not on this occasion, He said not on any other, “It is needless to ask who is the greatest in the kingdom: there is no such thing as a distinction of greater and less there.” On the contrary, it is implied here, and it is asserted elsewhere, that there is such a thing. According to the doctrine of Christ, the supernal commonwealth has no affinity with jealous radicalism, which demands that all shall be equal. There are grades of distinction there as well as in the kingdoms of this world. The difference between the divine kingdom and all others lies in the principle on which promotion proceeds. Here the proud and the ambitious gain the post of honor; there honors are conferred on the humble and the self-forgetful. He that on earth was willing to be the least in lowly love will be the great one in the kingdom of heaven.

But Jesus answered the question by going at the matter of how they evaluated such things. He went to the issue of their temperament, they basic orientation to the world and sought to correct their judgment of such things.

Jesus taught them by use of a living parable:

2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 18:2–4 (ESV)

Rather than reject the notion of greatness, he goes at the means by which they had determined to measure greatness:

The higher we rise in the kingdom the more we shall be like Jesus in this humbling of Himself. Childlikeness such as He exhibited is an invariable characteristic of spiritual advancement, even as its absence is the mark of moral littleness. The little man, even when well-intentioned, is ever consequential and scheming,–ever thinking of himself, his honor, dignity, reputation, even when professedly doing good. He always studies to glorify God in a way that shall at the same time glorify himself. Frequently above the love of gain, he is never above the feeling of self-importance. The great ones in the kingdom, on the other hand, throw themselves with such unreservedness into the work to which they are called, that they have neither time nor inclination to inquire what place they shall obtain in this world or the next. Leaving consequences to the great Governor and Lord, and forgetful of self-interest, they give their whole soul to their appointed task; content to fill a little space or a large one, as God shall appoint, if only He be glorified.

Jesus then took the related matter. Not only must they seek a humility which cares nothing for personal greatness and only for the glory of God, they must be willing to receive all who come, and to do so for the sake of Jesus, himself:

5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, Matthew 18:5 (ESV)

Bruce notes the connection between a gentle, humble spirit and a willing acceptance of others:

This transition of thought from being like a child to receiving all that of which childhood in its weakness is the emblem, was perfectly natural; for there is a close connection between the selfish struggle to be great and an offensive mode of acting towards the little. Harshness and contemptuousness are vices inseparable from an ambitious spirit. An ambitious man is not, indeed, necessarily cruel in his disposition, and capable of cherishing heartless designs in cold blood.

It needs to be seen here, as elsewhere, that discipleship requires a constant movement toward the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus explicitly commands these men to forgo their person ambition, protection, good for the sake of Jesus. They ask about their rewards and he explains that rewards will be given only to those who seek Jesus and not something other than him.

Sin constantly tempts us to seek our own

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Shakespeare, Sonnet 146. We were not created to be our own center, our own ground. We were created for a Creator, and our goal is to be him. Thus, in discipleship, Jesus was seeking to wean these men from their pursuits after their personal good and to seek that good which comes from God, alone.

And, in the manner of which things concerning Christ work, as one seeks Christ, these attributes of humility and love of the weak come necessarily, automatically along. This helps us to understand why humility and graciousness can be so difficult obtain: we seek them as if they were objects we could rightly possess without Jesus. However, when we rightly seek Jesus, we will receive the love and humility he commands:

Jesus further directed the attention of His disciples to the sublimest example of humility. For that love shows that there was not only no pride of greatness in the Son of God, but also no pride of holiness. He could not only condescend to men of humble estate, but could even become the brother of the vile: one with them in sympathy and lot, that they might become one with Him in privilege and character. Once more, in making reference to His own love as the Saviour, Jesus pointed out to His disciples the true source of that charity which careth for the weak and despiseth not the little. No one who rightly appreciated His love could deliberately offend or heartlessly contemn any brother, however insignificant, who had a place in His Saviour-sympathies. The charity of the Son of man, in the eyes of all true disciples, surrounds with a halo of sacredness the meanest and vilest of the human race.