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Oe EECA TTS Ra ean thik A ee kh hh ee ee eh eh ee ee mete ee Re ee ee 2 AVRO RR AR AAS em Ae kW ter Be eee NN Re, ke hl D SAR eR Ree eR ee ee ee eke ee eh ae Wk tee ee ch eR PARRA ERE RR ‘s ty Pie tae Sa ts PR A Py 2 Re Rm Raat at SSeS Ma agtats St teh 4, Oye, AS, > eee eee ee ee he +a are es De® SY RRUMEEE ERE TEE CR ee EER AM ARRAS ERRATA, THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH TO CHRISTIAN FAITH bY JAS. MULCHAHEY, S.T.D ST, PAUL’S CHAPEL, TRINITY PARISH, NEW YORK NEW YORK JAMES POTT :& Co., PUBLISHERS 14 AND 16 AsTOR PLACE 1885 CopyRIGHT, 1885, By JAMES POTT & CO. Press of J. J. Little & Co., Nos. 10 to 20 Astor Place, New York, Praia Dar Caley, THERE is an unquestionable lack of definite Christian teaching in modern religious literature. And even that of the pulpit seems, for the most part, to be constructed on the theory that we are in an age when people cannot be expected to endure sound doctrine. The present writer does not assent to this theory. He believes that what the people of this age most urgently need, and what they are really craving for, is sound doctrine. The dogmatic age, we are told, is gone by. Well, if by a dogmatic age is meant the time for propounding for popular acceptance the dogmas of a mere scholastic theology, its passing away has been a good riddance for the Church and the world. If it mean the time for propounding for such acceptance the dogmas of a sheer Protestant theology, it is, in the author’s judgment, a still more happy deliverance. The one had no possible bear- ing on real life, and the other, while feeding religious enthusiasm, begot and fostered a religion of unreal- ity, insincerity and selfishness. What wonder, then, if, in the reaction from such teaching, there is an immense prevalence of religious unbelief? What iv - PREFACE. wonder if this unbelief is found among those who are most sincere and true of heart? But, the remedy is, surely, not to be found in the avoidance of all religious teaching. The unbelieving of our time are not, for the most part, the willingly infidel. The unbelief has come from an involuntary, but neces- sary rejection of that which was felt to be either worthless, or else false and dishonoring to both God andman. And the urgent question is, where and how to find that which is true in religion, and which, as such, is stamped with the credentials of Divine Revelation and adapted to fill the heart and guide the life of humanity. It was just this question which was answered, and just this want which was met in the Christian Revelation. And this isthe reason why the truth, which in that Revelation was proposed to human faith, converted the world. Many are fond of saying in our time, that it was a revelation, not of abstract truth, but of a Person. But it should be remembered that this Person declared distinctly that “to this end.” had He “been: born’; sand domeces cause’ came He into the world, that He “should bear witness unto the truth.” And who will sup- pose that any attractive qualities of His Personality, His winning amiability, His sympathy and loving consideration-for the suffering masses, or the supreme excellence of His character, would have so im- pressed the world and changed the entire course of human civilization, if His life had not been the very concrete embodiment and manifestation of divine truth? Yes, it is truth, and truth only, which gives satisfaction to human hearts, and is the guide of PREFACE. V human lives. Christian truth, and that alone, is the salvation of the world. This is as true now, and will be to the end of time, as it was in the beginning of the Christian Dispensation. It is a leading aim of these sermons to show how “the truth as it is in Jesus,” coming into the world as a Divine Revelation, did, in its reception gladden the hearts and guide the lives of men, and how it is ever calculated to work these cheering and saving effects. In so far as this aim is reached, it is hoped that the book may prove to be helpful to some who may have been constrained to halt in their faith, but cannot rest zn doubt and unbelief. ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL CLERGY Rooms, Laster-tide, 1885. Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/witnessofchurcht0Omulc GOING Ne Ss: Hi: Advent. PAGE Or FAITH IN THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST AS A His- PORICAT © PACT wie teicle *akdu keh he 6 eRe See EE a Seeded I II. Second Sundap in Advent. Tin PURPOSE“ AND SCOPE OF PROPHECY... ..0ccecccns eee LO III. Third Sundan in Advent. THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION DIVINE IN ORIGIN AND PER- PELUATIOND EE Ah «Sih tic ee eee rece UN ei ae Pola 21 IV. Fourth Sunday in Advent. THE REVELATION OF THE JUDGMENT DAY..........0se0ees 32 V. Advent. re LIVING sFORATHE “JUDGMENT suchas tices tacit h eae feseeens 8 46 Vili CONTENTS. VI. Christmas. PAGE THE HISTORICAL VERITY OF THE INCARNATION....... oes od VII. Christmas. THE VITAL ‘VERITY OF THE INCARNATION, « «000.0 s0iscsuieos 64 VIII. Epiphany. THE LIGHT OF THE SWORLD. 7 20. Re bs eee IX. Epiphany. THE PERSONAL MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST.......00- a ae 82 X. Ash Wednesdap. THE USE AND BENEFIT OF FASTING... 0.000. s0cccssasies eae) (OL dG E Lent. ANGELIC SuccoR, THROUGH PRAYER AND FASTING......... 103 XII. Passion Week. THE HUMILIATION OF ‘THE ETERNAL SON... cues cde IIt CONTENTS. ix ALIT. ®ood Frisan. PAGE PE ATIBACTIVEVLOWER. OF (‘THE CROSS. os os cist sle eG egnte wane 120 XIV. Easter. RSPELORIN TCA TIL oo oe cc ok uate er nls onic te SitteC ae oe e a ee ee. 131 XV. Caster. BUASTEROICALTH wy clas ic. tccece Satstens alan tuba cle ride cute sie oat ote cere 142 BON Gaster-tide. PH RECARNAL MLEMPERWLAITHLESS: Sr at. Oilo bts Cae tenets I5I XVII. Ascension Map. PU EMASCENDEDILLOR Dice t 6 a tec aoe it ioe eee eee Pee 162 x VIELE Ascension-tide. CHRIST IN HEAVEN THE HEAD oF His CHURCH ON EARTH. 174 XIX. Whitsundan. THE PENTECOSTAL INAUGURATION OF THE DISPENSATION OF UES OPIRET Pate oie fatale teal Wits eee hots ace x CONTENTS. XX. Trinitn Sundan. PAGE THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IN GOD, A WORSHIPPING FAITH..... 195 3,4 Crinity Sunday. EUNDAMENTAL . PRINCIPLES OF FAITH §. 2)... ¢sucles > see eieee 202 THE WITNESS OF. THE "CHURCH OSC LURT SLANG ery Ell: 1 DA ATTH IN RHE ASELECOND COMING OF CHRIST AS A HISTORICAL FACT, Advent. And his disciples asked him saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall come first and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they have done unto him what- soever they listed.— St. Matt. xvit. 10, II, 12. Four hundred years before the time when Christ was on earth, the last of the old Jewish prophets had uttered, and left on the records of inspiration, this prediction : “ Behold I will send unto you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” This prediction had, for that long period, held its place among the prophetic an- nouncements which were interpreted by the Scribes and so commonly accepted among the Jewish people as unquestionably referring to a coming Messiah. But their interpretation of this prophecy corre- I THE WITNESS “OF THE CHORCH i) sponded, of course, with the manner in which they construed all the other prophecies relating to that anticipated visitation ; and the real fulfilment of it, as well as of them, was something that they were entirely unprepared for. As their conception of the promised Messiah was only that of a Prince of the house of David, who would give to their national dominion more than the glory of David’s reign, so, in his promised forerunner they could look for only the reappearance of old Elijah, and that, for no other purpose but to settle the questions in dispute among their several schools, and so prepare the way for an undivided allegiance to the Messiah’s government. How utterly confounding to all the theories of this ambitious scheme was the actual incoming of the Redeemer’s dispensation! How entirely differ- ent from any conception in it was the true Messiah, in person, in condition, in character, in His very nature as well as in the purpose and effect of His ad- vent! And scarcely less the difference between their anticipations, and the real person and work of His forerunner. In looking for Elijah again they had fastened their thoughts only on a name and aperson, but had lost all appreciation of “the Spirit and power ” of which that particular person was a typical representative. The real Elijah of the prophetic announcement was not the name or the individual, but it was the coming forth of one in that genera- tion, inspired by the same spirit of righteousness and holy zeal as that which had fired the heart of the old prophet, and summoning the people with authorita- tive power not less than his to the decisive issue LO-CHRISTIAN FAITA, 5 between immediate repentance or impending de- struction. All this was fulfilled, as the Christ Him- self declared, when the voice of John Baptist was heard in the wilderness of Judea proclaiming: reepent.ye, tor, the Kingdoms of vHeaven. is at hand.” Now, my brethren, there is for us much pertinent matter for very serious reflection in this illustration of the mistaken interpretation which the Jews had put upon the prophecies given to prepare them for the dispensation of the Redeemer. If the present season, which the Church has named the Advent Season, have any purpose for us, it is that of fixing our eyes and thoughts on the prophetic announce- ment of a future coming of the same Redeemer and the consequent closing up of the present dispensa- tion, for the bringing in of another wherein the glory of His righteousness shall shine forth, with- out cloud or shadow of obscurity, forever and ever. Now it is just as true of us as it was of the old Jews, that our estimation of these prophecies,—the use we make of them and the interpretation we put upon them,—will give a very fair test and gauge of the tone and temper of our religious faith. t is a possibility which we have to look at in all seriousness, and with more than seriousness,—even with foreboding alarm,—if it be found true, that the Advent call may find us utterly devoid of faith. When the voice of John Baptist was heard in the wilderness of Judea declaring that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand, the proclamation was met by 4 LLL CUE LIEN SSMOL Od fe 6 OL ORCA an appreciative response from the expectation of a new dispensation, which was then unquestionably general inthe hearts of the people. Faith in the prophecies, to that extent at least, was generally held. But in this nineteenth century of the Chris- tian dispensation, the very first practical applica- tion which we have to make of the Advent call is to put to ourselves directly the question, whether we do in truth care anything about it or have any degree of real faith in it? {t is altogether too clear for question, that in our merely nominal Christendom, the Advent announce- ment, if it could even be heard, as it is not, by the great majority of the people, would fall on their ears with as little impression of truth or meaning as that of the wind which passeth by and is utterly un- heeded. The life that now is may not be satisfac- tory to them,—indeed it is not; but it is all they live for, and the good which may possibly be found in it all that they have any expectation of enjoying or realizing. But by us who claim to be more than nominal Christians the question must be met, whether in our own hearts there is in truth any expectation or de- sire which is responsive to the Advent proclamation, and whether we have any real faith in it ? If we listen to the organs of modern religious thought and opinion, we shall be told that the ex- pectation of a second coming of Christ is a fanatical expectation: that, in the type of Christian faith which is held in the intelligent minds of the present gen- eration, there is no place for such an expectation, or TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 5 even for the admission of such an event as within the conditions of reasonable probability. Can this be true? What, then, can we mean in declaring every time that we repeat the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe” ... that “He ascended into Heaven, and ... from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead”; or more explicitly still in the Nicene form: “ He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; whose King- dom shall have no end.” Can it be possible that we have been repeating this as a plain declaration of our faith all our lives, and yet have no real belief in the probability of the fact which is so plainly asserted ? In that case, our unbelief is not only deplorably inconsistent, but it is branded with the stamp of its own self-refutation. For it is an unmistakable mark of a generation of unbelievers, such as our Lord Him- self plainly indicated in His prophetic question re- ferring to the last age of the world: “ When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” It is to be hoped, however, that many who so speak or think have, in their hearts, more faith than appears in their notions, since it is not unlikely that they have confounded the credibility of the fact of the Lord’s second advent with a very reasonable question as to that of certain fanatical theories con- cerning the time and the manner, the historical signs and circumstances, of that great epoch. Asa fact simply, the second coming of the Son of God for judgment in the world is as clearly asserted in Christian prophecy as is His first coming in Christian history. Very plain and frequently repeated pre- 6 LHL WLINEL SSOP. THEE CHOON Cre dictions of this final issue of the Christian dispensa- tion were so marked a feature of our Lord’s personal teachings as to be an unmistakable characteristic of the Christian revelation, coloring its whole repre- sentation of our relations in the presént world and of all the interests and duties of life in it. So it is not surprising that, from the very beginning, specu- lation was keenly stimulated, and theories as to the time and manner of the second coming of Christ were formed; nor that, in every seeming crisis in the history of the church and the world, there has been a newly quickened interest in such speculations and theories. In our time sectarian fanaticism has run specially in this direction, and we have had occasion more than once, within personal recollection, to note the failure of fanatical calculations and consequent preparations for the personal advent of Christ and the end of the world. But, in our disgust at such fanaticism, let us take care that we ourselves lose not the faith. They are wrong, unquestionably, in their ignorant miscalcula- tions and their crude expectations concerning the time and manner of the Advent; but they are not wrong in their fundamental faith. They are essen- tially right also in their feelings; right in their dili- gent study and warm appreciation of the prophetic promises ; right in their earnest desire and longing for the Lord’s coming; right in the watchful antici- pation of His coming as possible at any moment, and in holding themselves to the obligation of being found ready whenever that possibility shall become fact. Nor is an assured conviction of faith in this TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 7 great article of the Christian creed in the least degree inconsistent with the highest advances of our nine- teenth century intelligence. For, in the first place, it is grounded on the Azstorical fact of the first coming of Christ; that He, the Son of Almighty God, has already given this world His personal presence ; that He did, eighteen hundred years ago, take upon Him our human nature, and was seen and known among men. This fact has been substantiated in every trace of historical progress since, and verified by every advance in historical criticism. So history adds its voice to that of prophecy in attesting to the reason- ableness of the Christian expectation of the closing up of this dispensation by another personal manifes- tation of that same Divine Being. And for us, my brethren, it is true that our belief in the second coming of Christ depends very much on the reality of our faith in His incarnation. Faith in the one is atest of faith in the other; and one chief reason why modern Christians find it hard to believe in the personal coming of the Lord in the end of the world’s history, is because they have no real conviction of the veritableness of His human birth and life in the beginning of this dispensation. ‘Their Christianity, being simply the product of thcir religious feelings and sentiments, with no hold on fact in the past, could not be expected to have any hold on fact in the future. But there surely should be no such dif- ficulty for us, if our faith be in truth, as we profess, determined by the Apostles’ Creed and grounded on the facts which are plainly asserted therein. But this test of our faith goes farther than its re- 8 bHE WITNESS OF “THE? CAORGH, lation to the facts of Christianity, whether historical or prophetic; it is, in truth, a real test of our hold on Christ Himself by personal faith and love. In reading the Epistles and the closing verses of the book of Revelations in the New Testament, no one can fail to be struck with the evident warmth of personal desire in the Apostolic writers for the earliest possible return, from Heaven to earth, of the Son of God. They were, in looking for Him, like one who is eagerly awaiting the return of a friend who is so beloved that, without him, life has lost all its brightness. In their eagerness, their waiting re- quired a constant struggle with impatience, and it was evidently hard for them to bear the delay. Their tendency and special temptation was, not to love the present world too much, nor to become too absorbingly engrossed in its interests, but, quite the contrary, to count it of so little worth and its con- cerns of so little moment as to overlook the unques- tionable importance of its responsibilities as the probationary state in which the life of every man is to be tested and his fitness for the destinies of eter- nity determined. Now, it is very clear that the most inspiring mo- tive, in this their attitude of impatient watching, was their intensely fervent love for Christ and their all-absorbing desire to be with Him. It is, then,#a very serious question for us, if we are conscious—if, on an honest self-examination, we are forced to ad- mit that we have no desire at all for Christ’s com- ing; if we do not care to think of it, and, when it is pressed upon our consideration, as it is by the TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 9 Church at this season, if we rather shrink from it, and count it a gloomy subject, like that of death and the grave—it is, I say, a very serious question whether this state of feeling on our part does not imply the absence in us of any real hold on Christ and of any genuine personal trust in Him or love for Him. I pray you, brethren, to ponder that question, and carry on your earnest consideration of it into all its practical bearings. ‘‘The Lord is not slack con- cerning His promise, as some men count slackness ; ” and when that promise shall be, as, in His own good time and way it assuredly will be, fulfilled, the ful- filment will be blissful only to those who shall then be found to have been waiting for Him and to “love His appearing.” Whether He shall come in the first watch, or in the second watch, or in the third, He has left with His Church on earth the assurance of no benediction but for those to whom His coming shall be, not an alarming surprise, but, rather, the long-looked for and ardently desired consummation of their faith and hope. Oh, well, then, if it be our prayer that we may have part in that final blessed- ness, should we take to heart now the question, Do we /ove His appearing ; and is there in our spirit, as we hear His Advent cry, ‘‘ Behold, I come quickly,” any such responsive chord as that which thrilled an Apostle’s soul and found spontaneous utterance in his immediate reply: “‘ Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” IO THE WITNESS OF THE VCHOKCH Lis THE PCORPOSE AND SCOPE: OF PROPHECY Second Sundan in Advent. We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts.—2 Pet. 7. IQ. A VERY considerable portion of the revelation which God has been pleased to make to our race is prophetic of events yet in the future, and, especially, of that great event to which our attention is now directed by the Church,—the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the display of His power and glory as Universal Judge and King. It is of this class of prophecies that the Apostle speaks in the text. Having assured his readers that he and his fellow Apostles had followed no “ cunningly devised fables” when they made known the power and com- ing of the Lord Jesus Christ, he states two reasons in confirmation of this assertion. The first was, that they had already been eye witnesses of a display of majesty in Christ, similar to that in which, as they were assured, He will appear to judge the world. “For,” says the Apostle, “ he received from God the Father, honor and glory when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we FO CHRISTIAN FAL IL. If were with Him in the holy mount.” The second reason is that given in the text: “ We have also a more sure word of prophecy: whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth ina dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts.” Prophecy—by which is obviously meant that portion of the prophetic revelations which relates to the second coming of Christ, or in general, that portion of the prophetic Scriptures which is as yet unfulfilled,—he declares to be even a “more sure word ” than the proof of sight to him- elf, and he exhorts his readers to take heed to it as a word equally sure, equally trustworthy and infalli- ble for them. It is, I need scarcely say to you, my brethren, just as sure and trustworthy for us. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or tittle of God's word cannot pass away. If He hath said, as we know assuredly He hath, that there is “a day ap- pointed,” in which His Son shall come to judge the world in righteousness, we may be as certain that He will come, that we shall be judged by Him, and that by that judgment our eternal destiny will be determined, as certain as if we saw even now His flaming chariot and heard the archangel’s trumpet. It is true, however, of the prophetic Scriptures, not only as it is of the others, that there are in them “some things hard to be understood” which the “ jonorant and unstable ” may wrest and pervert, but also that there are passages about the meaning of which the wisest and best interpreters are by no means agreed. So far, indeed, as the great facts of I2 THE WITNESS OF VT AL CA CRE prophecy are concerned, and especially the fact of the second coming of Christ, with its attendant cir- cumstances and consequences, there is no occasion for doubt or for difference of opinion. The predic- tion is so express that no one can receive it with- out having the fact set before him as infallibly cer- tain. But the prophecies are not mere predictions of naked facts. They are scattered profusely, and in various forms, over the pages of the inspired vol- ume. Sometimes, the form is that of a promise or a threat,—for every promise of future bliss, and every threatening of future woe, is to such as re- ceive it,a prophecy of what the future has in store. Sometimes, there is an obscure hint, a mere intima- tion; and sometimes, full and particular descriptions. Sometimes, prophecies occur where we should least expect to find them,—in the midst of an argument, or an exhortation, or even a historical narration. And, often, they abound in historical allusions, the precise object and scope of which are not readily or easily seen. Nor is the language in which the prophetic predictions are clothed, always free from obscurity. On the contrary, the prophecies which are the fullest, which open up the most extensive and exuberant views of the future state, picture them forth, not in the language of clear and life-like de- scription, but in the dark speech of allegory and symbol. It is, therefore, a matter of some difficulty to de- termine on what principles such prophecies are to be interpreted, and what use we may legitimately make of them in constructing the elements of our future TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. ig aspirations. Nor isthere agreement on these points among those who are cordially united in the belief that they are divinely inspired and certain, according to their intended meaning, to be fulfilled. Some, who are unquestionably sincere and pious, think that the prophetic descriptions should be con- strued precisely as if they were historical narrations, and, accordingly, the scenes and events to which they refer are supposed by them to be as accurately known as any of the events in the past. The end of the present dispensation, with all its circumstances, as well as those both preceding and following it, are hence spoken of and looked forward to, not only as facts which are certain to come to pass, but also as scenes with which the descriptions have already made us familiar, and which we shall be able at once to recognize and identify. The destinies of nations, and even of particular individuals, are hence confi- dently traced ; revolutions in states, changes in gov- ernments, subversions of thrones and destructions of dynasties are confidently predicted and looked forward to. Even “the times and seasons” are thought to be determinable; and some have pre- sumed to tell the precise date when prophecy shall be fulfilled and the consummation of all things brought to pass. The extravagances of many who entertain this view of the scopeand use of prophecy have led many others into an opposite extreme, even to an almost entire neglect of the prophetic Scriptures. Seeing the strange and discordant conclusions which are drawn from them, they doubt the profitableness of attempt- 14 THE WITNESS OF WIE AGH URC ing to study, and scarcely read them. Seeing how fallacious is the attempt to get definite conceptions from them, and how visionary and extravagant are often the results of such attempts, they conclude that it is neither our duty nor our privilege to get any conceptions at all; and that our safest course is to regard them as “sealed books,” and to acquiesce in the necessity of ignorance until their meaning shall be demonstrated by their fulfilment. Now if we consider carefully what the inspired Apostle says in our text, I think we shall find it to be corrective of both of these views of prophecy, and to indicate very clearly the true view. I. In correction of the first: the Apostle declares prophecy to be “ alight that shineth in a dark place ;” and, in the original, the expression translated “a dark place” is much stronger than the translation. It denotes a place of filth in which the working of the mass of corruption beneath sends up continually foul and noxious exhalations which render the at- mosphere gross and heavy. In such an atmosphere, it is evident that a lamp must burn dimly and with difficulty; it cannot shed abroad its light, so as to make the scene which it is designed to illumine, dis- tinct, and clear and bright; but choked and op- pressed by the foul atmosphere, it emits a feeble, flickering flame that barely serves to relieve the dark- ness and to reveal in shadowy indistinctness objects which would otherwise be totally invisible and un- known. Such, says the Apostle, is the light of prophecy in the present dispensation. It is not the day-star, much less the sun. It does not and is not a a ee oe a ee TO. CHRISTIAN: FAITH. 15 designed to lay the future all open before us, and make its scenes as palpable and visible to us as those of the present and the past; but it is given to us in mercy fo relieve the darkness of our natural state, to induce us to raise our eyes from this dull earth and look forward, earnestly, anxiously, hopefully and faithfully towards a future state and a more glorious world. This account of the limited scope and use of prophecy is reasonable as well as scriptural. When we reflect upon the subject it seems evident that prophecy must, in the very nature of the case, be thus obscure. It would not at all comport withthe scheme of moral government in which we are at present placed to have the future made known to us with exactness and definiteness. If, for example, the prophecies relating to the incarnation and life and death of our Lord had been given in the form and order, and with the definiteness and minuteness of a historical narration—declaring in unmistakable terms just when, where and how, He would be born; with whom, and in what circumstances and relations He would live; and by whom, and in what manner, He would be put to death, with all the facts and cir- cumstances—it is plain that the prophecy would have defeated its own end, or, at least, that the or- dinary laws of moral accountability must have been suspended to insure its fulfilment. And so, of prophecies relating to any future events in the his- tory of the world now, it is obvious that there must be a degree of indistinctness and indefiniteness in them, so that their subjects may undesignedly, un- 16 LIE WITNESS SOP VLALS Ci, CaCre consciously, and therefore in the full exercise of their volition and in accordance with all the condi- tions of moral accountability, act for their fulfilment. And this, we cannot but remark by the way, is a marvellous characteristic of the Scriptural prophe- cies, and an irresistible proof of their divine inspira- tion, that they are so framed as to possess all this requisite indistinctness beforehand, while nothing can seem clearer, nothing more unmistakable, after they have been fulfilled. Another reason why many of the prophecies must be obscure is the fact, that they relate to an entirely different state from that with which we are at present acquainted. The world to which they relate, and some of the scenes and events of which they de- scribe, is not, like this, material and temporary, but it is a world that is spiritual and eternal. We have had, and can have, while we remain here, no experi- mental knowledge of such a state. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man” the things which it contains. Of necessity, then, we have no language that can cor- rectly describe those things. For human language is but the expression of human knowledge. Words are but the names which have been given to the ob- jects of human sight or thought—names by which they are known and their images at any time recalled and transferred to the apprehension of others. How then can a description be given to us of a state entirely different from any with which we are ac- quainted? Evidently, in order to be perfectly ac- curate, it must be given in terms that are applicable ee eee | LO CHRISTIAN FAITH, 17 only to such a state, and then, it is as evident that it would be utterly unintelligible to us; the terms would be as new as the things described; and there- fore we should comprehend the one no more than the other. That we might not be left in this total darkness, God hath graciously condescended to make to us some revelations of the future state by em- ploying our own language—language which we can understand—and applying it to the illustration of the scenes which are heavenly and eternal. Just as a wise and loving father, when he would raise in his children’s minds some conception of scenes which they have never witnessed, uses language that is familiar to them, employs, that is, the names of things which they have witnessed, and thus, by apt similes and comparisons, enables their imaginations to form pictures and images of the scenes, even so our Heavenly Father has condescended, by the mouth of His prophets, to employ human language for the purpose of raising within our minds some conceptions of the spiritual and eternal state. But, it is evident that the conceptions which we thus get, though they are the best we are at present capable of, must be exceedingly imperfect. We cannot see as we shall see, nor know as we shall know; but we see only “as through a glass, darkly,” and look, not upon the realities of the heavenly world, but only upon their imperfect and distorted images. This is allthat prophecy reveals, and all that it can reveal tous. And, therefore, it is not, and must not, be deemed the day-star, but only, as the Apostle tells us in the text, “a light that shineth zz a@ dark place, 2 18 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.” Il. But, should we thence conclude that the prophecies are of but little benefit to us, and that the diligent study of them is not profitable? By no means. The Apostle does not give any countenance to such a conclusion. On the contrary, he speaks of the prophecies as of very great value, as affording the assurance of infallible authority for our loftiest aspirations and most glorious hopes. Do you not see that this is so? Consider for a mo- ment how much is contained in prophetic Script- ure. Understanding the term in its full sense, it is obvious that much which was once prophetic is now historical; and hence we have one of the most con- clusive proofs of the truth of Holy Writ. But we do not now, as we have already intimated, use the term in this sense. We use it, asit is used by the Apostle in the text, to denote prophecy which remains yet to be fulfilled. And what we ask you is, to consider how much we are indebted to that. How much we are indebted to it! Oh, it is impossible for any of us to get anything like an adequate estimation of this. AW that we know in anywise concerning the Suture comes from prophecy. Blot out its assurances, and the whole of futurity would be to us an absolute blank! ‘Vhe Apostle speaks of our natural state in this world as “a dark place,” and how dark it would then be, it is, and we have great reason to be thank- ful that it is, impossible for us now to conceive. We could but guess from our knowledge of the history of all past generations, that it would be our lot to die ; TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. ie) but we should have no hope, and no ground of hope, in death. We know now that sin and death will not continue to triumph on earth forever; that the present state will have, and that soon, an end; that the kingdoms and nations of this world have to ac- complish the divine purposes, and will then be swept away; that the Son of God will come, with power and great glory, to judge all mankind according to their works; that there will be a new heaven anda new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness ; that the wise shall shine as stars for ever and ever, and the wicked shall be utterly cut off and consigned to outer darkness from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power; all this we know now. All this we know from prophecy. And, though we do not know precisely what is meant by it, though we cannot tell how much is implied in it, though our conceptions must, necessarily, be very general, and imperfect as they are indefinite, yet, we know enough to enkindle within us most glorious anticipations, and to give usa“ hope that maketh not ashamed,” because it cannot be shaken, and faith full of assur- ance, that all these anticipations will be infinitely more than fulfilled. And we know full well that to deprive us of these prophetic assurances would be to strip from usat once, the highest, nay, the only true consolation in this life and our only source of com- fort and support in death. Surely, then, we have reason to prize and be very thankful for the gift of prophecy, as the light which God hath mercifully lighted in this otherwise totally dark world, to lighten the wandering chil- 20 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH dren of Adam towards their heavenly and eternal home. Having this light, there is no need of argument to prove the truth of the Apostle’sdeclaration: “Ye do well to take heed” to it; for we must all feel that this is at once our bounden duty and our high privilege. Let this, then, be our practical conclusion. Let us take heed to the word of prophecy with a true appreciation of itsscope and design. Let us not imagine it to be, as it has not been intended to be, anything more than “a light in a dark place,” and, therefore, let us not be so presumptuous as to think that we can understand its full meaning, nor rely upon our inadequate, imperfect, and doubtless, very erroneous conceptions, as if they were true images of the spiritual realities. But, on the other hand, let us avoid the error of those who disregard and neglect the prophecies. Knowing that all Scripture is given for our instruction, and that this is a very important part of Scripture, let it be our endeavor, as the Church makes it our prayer, that “ we may so read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it, that we may learn, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 21 ITE: THE MINISTERIAL COMMISSION DIVINE IN ORIGIN AND PERPETUATION. Third Sudan in Advent. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did be- seech you by us: we pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.—2 Cor. v. 20. WE have here a man claiming for himself, yet clearly not for himself only but in common with certain others, this most extraordinary office,—that he and the others, to whom he refers, with him, were commissioned ambassadors from God Most High in Heaven to their fellow men on earth; soauthorita- tively commissioned, that their official utterances were to be received as though God Himself were heard speaking, and the terms offered by them as the terms of a compact divinely appointed and ratified. There can be no question that this is substantially the claim here put forth. And now the point is to see how a claim of so extraordinary a nature and so high in its pretensions can be substantiated or ac- credited. Plainly, it would seem, in but one or the other of two ways: cither, by direct revelation,— the person claiming it asserting that he had been taken up into the councils of the Most High and miraculously invested with the commission ; or else, that, in the divine economy, an order of this rep- resentative nature had been duly constituted,—of 22 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH which order the individual claimant professed to be a legitimately authorized member. If St. Paul were here speaking for himself only, it might be at once conceded that the claim rested on the direct revelation to him of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, and the special, personal commission, which was given to him in that revelation. But, very clearly and unquestionably, he is not speaking of himself only or personally, but, as we have already said, of himself in common with certain others and as a representative of these others. The plural pronoun, “we,” is not used, either for the modest avoidance of apparent egotism, or as an official con- ventionalism, but, clearly, in its true, literal sense as referring to an order of men of whom the Apostle claimed to be a representative. Of this order it is that he makes the declaration in the text: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us.” And now, brethren, I need not remind you that the continuous, perpetual existence of such duly commissioned representatives of God, on earth, is held in the Church to be a fundamental, consti- tutional provision of the Christian economy. But, since a consistent adhesion to this faith is a very marked characteristic of the Church whose minis- trations we receive, and since, on this account, the attitude of our Church is thought by many to be illiberal and unnecessarily exclusive,—as making for itself pretensions which are not charitable or war- ranted either by Scripture, by history, or by sound reason,—it is worth while for us to take into careful LOUCHATS 2 TAN PATH. 23 reconsideration the principles which are at issue in this claim, and plainly involved in its steadfast and uncompromising maintenance. In the first place, then, let it be noticed that the attitude of our Church in relation to the ministry is precisely that which is universally admitted in re- lation to the Bible as the Book of Divine Revelation. All Christians, at least all who can be said, in any true sense, to hold the Christian faith, are agreed that the Bible is essentially different from all other books, in that it is divine, while they are only human; it contains the special revelations of God, and they contain only human assertions, reasonings, specula- tions, or imaginings. When we say that the Bible, as the authentic record of the special revelations which have been made of God from the beginning of the world down to the introduction of the Gospel, is a very old book , that part of it was written over three thousand years, and its last chapters nearly two thousand years ago; that its genuine, authentic integrity has been preserved through all these many years and ages; that, notwithstanding the darkness of the Middle Ages and the corruption which over- spread all Christendom, the books of the Bible were still most scrupulously preserved and copied; and that, since the invention of printing and the revival of learning, it is, notwithstanding the multiplication, by millions upon millions, of its copies, and its trans- lations into all languages, still essentially the same; so that, when we take up and read this Holy Bible, we are certain that we are reading, substantially and veritably, what the inspired Apostles and prophets 24 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH wrote, and what Christians in all ages and nations have received as the Word of Life—when, I say, we assert all this, we are asserting only what all but in- fidels hold to be unquestionably true. Moreover, all Christians hold that all this must necessarily be so; that no modern production can, by any possibility, be the Bible, or may be substituted for the Bible ; and that, even if, in any case, the Bible were lost, or a number of persons were placed,—as, for instance, on an island in the ocean,—so that they could not obtain a copy of the Bible, their duty would be to remember and record as much of it as they could; but not for a moment to think of making a new Bible, or of using their imperfect copy any longer than the exigence of their situation should abso- lutely compel. Now, if all this be conceded to be true in regard to the Bible, is there not good reason in holding pre- cisely the same principles in relation to the Christian ministry ? The Bible is of divine origin ; and is not the ministerial office likewise essentially divine? If no man, or body of men, can, in our modern age, make a book to take the place of the Bible, is there any more authority in any man or body of men to originate a new Christian ministry? It is admitted as obviously and unquestionably true, that the Bible must be from two to four thousand years old, be- cause it contains the contemporaneous historical rec- ords of the revelations which were made so long ago; and, on the same principle, must not the office of the ministry have its foundation on an old com- mission,—the commission given by Christ, the Son LO; CHRISTIAN? FATIL. 25 of God Himself, when He was on earth, eighteen hun- dred years ago? There is no doubt that the authen- tic integrity of the Bible has been preserved through all the ancient, and middle, and modern ages; and this confidence is grounded, partly on a legitimate trust in God’s providential care to preserve His truth, and partly on historical evidence of the fact; and why, then, should any one doubt the possibility or the fact of the preservation of the ministerial office, on the same principles, and by the same means? To say the truth, there is more reason—clearer and stronger ground—for confidence in the historical in- tegrity of the ministerial office, than of the sacred volume. For, when in the dark ages, the faith of the Church was corrupted by superstition, there must have been, to the monastic priests who copied the sacred manuscripts, many a strong temptation to alter here a word and there a verse, so that it might square with their belief; but there was no such temptation to interpolate or to change in min- isterial ordinations. If it be said, as it may with truth, that their very superstition would have made, and no doubt did make, them the more scrupulously careful in preserving every letter and syllable of the Bible; it may be claimed with equal truth that the same superstition would have made them not less scrupulous in adhering most steadfastly to the received rules and established usages for continuing the apostolic succession of the ministry. The case is strengthened still more when we remember that the uncorrupted preservation of the sacred volume is guaranteed by no express promise ; while we have 26 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH a special assurance from Christ Himself that “ the gates of hell” shall “never prevail” for the destruc- tion of His Church, and a direct promise that He will be with His ministers of apostolic succession, ‘always, even unto the end.” But if any one doubt whether there be, in truth, the same reason for insisting on a historical adhe- rence to the line of ministerial ordinations from Christ that there is for insisting on the preservation of the old inspired Scriptures, let him consider what the ministerial office claims,—what, in accordance with the plainest declarations of the Word of God, it must claim,—to be and do. Whenever and wherever any man assumes the functions of this office, he must dare to say, he must be able to say: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead.” “‘ Ambassadors for Christ’! “In Christ’s stead ”! —that is, in His place and with His authority, speak- ing as if He spoke, and pleading with men as if God Himself were pleading! Oh, one should indeed shrink from the presumption of such a claim, unless he were quite sure of the authentication of his com- mission from Christ Himself. But the ministerial claim does not stop here. It would be comfortless indeed if it might not go further. When one claim- ing to be an ambassador of Christ calls upon his fel- low men to repent and turn to God, they have good reason to ask not only if he have authority from Christ to make this call, but also if on their compliance with it, he have any authority to assure them of the di- LO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 27 vine forgiveness. They may say, they would say, if they were thoroughly in earnest: “ This is a matter of life and death with us: we cannot see God: we cannot hear His voice; He is in heaven, far above all creatures, but we feel that we are sinners against Him, and that we deserve His wrath. Now, you claim to be an ambassador from Him to us; and as such call upon us to repent and seek forgiveness. Flave you any authority from Him to assure us of Fis forgiveness? Can you give us any trustworthy title to salvation from the penalties of our sinfulness 2” The answer in accordance with the New Testament Scriptures must be: “ Yes, we have such authority. We are commissioned to administer a sacrament which Christ the Son of God Himself instituted for just this purpose,—to admit men into His Church and invest them consequently with all its covenanted grace. Therefore we say in inspired language: ‘ Re- pent, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost.’ More- over, in this Church there are divinely appointed means of grace, which if faithfully used will enable you to go on unto perfection, until you shall be made ‘meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.’ Beside its reading and teaching of the Word of God and its sacrifices of prayer and praise, it has also an- other sacrament, which we are commissioned to admin- ister, in which Christ Himself imparts the strengthen- ing and sanctifying efficacy of His own most holy and immortal life. He will make you partakers of His own blessed body and blood; and so as the Father is in Him, will He dwell in you, making you ‘mem- 28 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH bers of His Body, and therefore one with Him as He and the Father are One!’”’ When such a claim has been made,—the claim which every one assuming to be a minister of Christ in that very assumption does make,—have not peo- ple an indisputable right to demand some trust- worthy authentication of so high a commission ? Should they not answer: “This is a glorious mes- sage to us 2f it be true; but how can we know that it as true? What evidence have we that you have re- ceived such a commission from the Son of God tous??? When this is asked, is ita sufficient answer for the man exercising ministerial functions, to say: “I am sincerely persuaded in my own mind and heart that God has called me to be His minister.” Surely not. His fellow men, to whom he presumes to minister, might say to him, they ought to say: “ That is no satisfactory proof tous. You may be mistaken; men often are in their thoughts and feelings. But, even if you are not mistaken in that respect, your self- persuasion that you ought to be an ambassador for Christ, or that you have been called by the influences of spiritual grace to enter into that office, this, how- ever sincere, does not make you His ambassador. A man may be sincerely persuaded that he is called by divine Providence to be an ambassador from the ruler of one nation to another, but the persuasion would not make him an ambassador or give him any power to offer terms of peace or war. An ambassa- dorship is an office; and no man may exercise its authority unless he is duly commissioned and can TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 29 authenticate his commission before those to whom he is sent. So, the Christian ministry is an office; and the sacred functions which are performed in it demand, not only sincerity in the heart of the minister, but, none the less, a commission from Christ, to prove that he has His authority, and can truly assure his fellow men of the divine terms and admit them to the divine provisions of grace.” Well, then, would it be sufficient for him to say: “T have such a commission; I have been ordained, and thus constituted a minister of Christ!” So far as it goes this assurance is unquestionably satisfac- tory. But, must there not be another assurance behind it? By whose ordination was the commission conferred? The claim is to be az ambassador of Christ. And, as no one, since His ascension to Heaven, can pretend to an ordination directly from Him, but through His commissioned ministers, it must be an essential point to determine how the ordainers received their commission and how the delegating authority has been authenticated both to themselves and to others. Now, when these questions are asked, and they are surely questions which people have a right to ask of their ministers, and would ask if they were thoroughly and intelligently in earnest on the sub- ject, it is difficult to see how a satisfactory reply can be made, except by adducing the original commission of Christ to His Apostles, together with reasonable evidence that the ordination has come by legitimate historical succession, from that commission. This, then, my brethren, and simply this, is the 30 LHE WITNESS*OL THE CHURCH ground on which the Church holds and recognizes the ministerial commission. It was the doctrine and position of Christendom universally for fifteen hun- dred years, and if in these modern days, though still true of nine-tenths of Christendom, it be not so uni- versally ; if we are surrounded by Christian denom- inations of confessedly modern origin, and whose ministers, however excellent in character and ability, do not even claim historical connection with the original apostolic commission, it is surely they and not we, that are the separatists; they and not we that have gone out from the line of succession. We know the plea of necessity, on which, in the Conti- nental Reformation, this departure was excused. We freely acknowledge their piety and their worth. We thank God for every manifestation of His grace through their instrumentality, and would have noth- ing in our feelings, as there is not in our position, that conflicts with the apostolic prayer for “ grace, mercy, and peace, upon all who love our Lord, Jesus Christ, in sincerity ;” but, what we deem essential for ourselves, we surely ought to require from others, viz: An authentication of the claim to be an ambassa- aor of Christ by a commission which is legitimately traceable to Christ Himself. And a steadfast and uncompromising adhesion to this fundamental church principle seems to us to be specially “ needful for these times.” If anew church can be made and a new ministry constituted by men, why not a new Bible? If those who profess and call themselves Christians may laugh at the presumption of a claim now to historical participation in the old, original, FORCHRISTIANY FALL. 31 ministerial commission; why may they not laugh at the alleged absurdity of an implicit credence of such an old book as the Bible? And do they not? Has it not actually come to this? Oh, do not the devel- opments of our modern Christianity invest with fear- ful significance the question of our Lord: “ When the Son of man cometh shall He find fazth on the earth?” ‘ Dear Lamb of God! I know full well, All power to Thee was given, And, Oh, there is none other name, To name us, under Heaven ! I know when Thou didst send a line Through all the world to run, No arm of flesh, if that hath failed, Can weave a surer one ! Thou Priest and Prophet both for us, Art Priest above in Heaven : But, to Apostles still on earth Thy prophet power is given: Thank God, it never failed, nor shall, That long, unbroken chain ! Begun in Thee, in Thee shalt end— When Thou shalt come again.” 32 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH IV. THE REVELATION OF THE JUDGMENT DAY. Sourth Sundan in Advent. Because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained ; where- of He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead.—Acts, xvzz. 31. Tus is one of the many texts in the New Tes- tament which plainly assert that there is to be a final judgment at which all mankind shall be called to render account for the deeds of this life, whether good or bad. Reason and conscience anticipate this final accountability and concur in recognizing it as a necessity in the ultimate vindication of the divine justice and the reign of perfect righteousness. But I propose now, not to take up the argument which is based on such considerations, but simply to lay before you, as clearly as I may be able, the truths in relation to this most momentous subject which are plainly asserted in the divinely inspired Scriptures. It is, indeed, unquestionably true that the best, the wisest and holiest thinkers, in all ages of Christen- dom, have held these revealed truths to be most consistent with the principles of reason and the antic- ipations of conscience; but the fundamental ques- tion for us, in relation to any matter of faith, is: What saith the Word of God? “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 33 Beginning, then, with the recognition of the ex- plicit assertion of the text, which is clearly substan- tiated by many other passages of Holy scription, that there isa Judgment Day appointed, and that this appointed judgment is to be after the end of our life here on earth, it is a question of no slight in- terest whether the teaching of revelation warrants us to suppose that the judgment will be passed upon every individual, separately, immediately after death ; or, to look forward to a general dispensation of just rewards and punishments after the world anc human life in it shall have accomplished their purpose and come to an end. The opinion is very commonly entertained in modern Protestantism that the judgment is passed upon every individual immediately after death. But whence this originated and how it has come to be so generally received it is difficult to imagine. For it was certainly not the belief of Christians in the first and purest ages of the Church, and is not con- sistent with the representations of the judgment which are given in Holy Writ. Instead of such countless and incessant individual judgments, it is very clearly asserted in many passages that there is a time appointed when all who have ever lived shall be summoned together, and on that great occasion one and all judged and sentenced. The assertion of the inspired Apostle, in the text, that “God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness,” is very explicit; and, in accord- ance with it, the time of the judgment is frequently spoken of by the inspired writers both of the Old 3 34 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH and New Testaments as “ the great and terrible day of the Lord.’ The judgment, moreover, is plainly rep- resented as a judgment before which all must stand, and in which all must be tried. Thus it stands as the recorded language of our Lord Himself in terms — so plain as to leave no apparent ground for possible misunderstanding: “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations: And He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” That this gathering of all nations is to in- clude every individual not only then found among the living, but all likewise who from the very beginning of mortality shall have died, is clear from the closing revelation made to St. John. For his declaration is this: “I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face earth and heavensfled away : And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened: And another Book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it: and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every man according to their works.” If, then, we derive our faith, not from conjectures or suppositions, but from the ex- plicit declarations of the inspired Word, we may TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 35 hold this as one certain conclusion, that the final judgment is not passed upon individuals at the mo- ment of death, but is reserved unto a time deter- mined and appointed by the Most High, when it is to be universal, including every individual that has ever lived from the beginning of the world. But then the question is raised for us: what, and where, is the state of the departed before the Judg- ment Day? And it is a question of very deep and solemn interest. It touches ourselves in a vital point, and involves our closest and dearest relations. We have lost those who were very near and dear to us: death came and took them from our sight. Where are they now? And when we shall be called to follow them, when Death shall lay his cold hand upon us and take us, as he has taken them, from earth, into what state, and where, shall we be taken? Many, as we have already implied, would give as the answer to these questions, that those who die in the Lord, such as are called in Scripture the right- eous, are received immediately on their death into the society of God and the angels in Heaven; and that the wicked are consigned at once to their eter- nal place of misery. But, if it be, as we have seen it is, clearly the teaching of revelation that the souls of the departed are reserved into a judgment in the future, and if the very object of that judgment is to try their characters, in order to determine and make manifest for what state,—_-whether of Heaven or of Hell—they are fit; then, surely, it is not sup- posable that the final sentence can have been passed and the award actually carried into effect before that 36 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH judgment shall have been held? What could be more incongruous than the summoning together of those who have been, for ages, in the actual enjoyment of Heaven with those who had been, as long, in the actual suffering of that which Scripture designates as Hell, to be judged, and to have their characters and states then, as if they had not been already, and long before, determined! Besides, if the judgment is to be zz the body, and if its awards can only, as Scripture declares, be perfected in the body, there must be a general resurrection before the judgment, and soul and body are to be reunited for the happi- ness or misery of eternity. It being impossible, then, to reconcile with the scriptural revelation of the last judgment, this idea of an immediate entrance of the departed into the final abode of happiness or misery, there is an opinion prevalent among some Christians, and by one corrupt church,—the Church of Rome—made an article of faith, that, beside “the blackness of darkness,” to which the wicked are consigned, there is a place of purgatorial confinement and torment, in which venial, that is, pardonable, sins are burned away, and souls, which cn the whole are righteous, but not perfect, are made by suffering fit for that glorious kingdom into which they are finally to be received. And accordingly, it is held that all right- eous souls, excepting only the very few who are worthy to be ranked as saints, must pass from this life into that purgatorial state, and can attain to heaven at last only through the sufficient endurance of its discipline and suffering. TO” CHRISTIAN FAITH. 37 “Tf there were any good reason for this belief, we should certainly have a very sad and depressing pros- pect before us; watch and pray and struggle as we might, yet after all to have to pass from the sorrows of this life, from its weariness and its pains, into a second and a worse trial!’”* We might indeed admit, and no doubt should admit if we could see as God sees, that our sins deserve an eternal punish- ment. But still, the contemplation of such a pros- pect would be, as concerning ourselves, very discour- aging and frightful, and as concerning our departed loved ones, very discomforting and distressing. And, therefore, we thank God that we have not so learned the truth as it is in Jesus, nor been so instructed in the way of salvation which is revealed as secured by His meritorious righteousness and sealed by the covenant of grace to all who are departed in the true faith of His holy name. There is yet a third opinion, which it seems al- most a profanation to mention in the ministration of the sanctuary, but which yet we cannot omit to take notice of now, because it has attained a mar- vellous currency in our day; and that is, the notion that the spirits of the dead are left in a state of uncertainty and perplexity, not knowing at first whether they are in this world or another, in death or in life, but struggling, as they find themselves in a spiritual state, to regain communion and _ inter- course with the material world. There is so much that is shocking, and at the same time absurd, in this notion, that its reception into any intelligent, * Newman’s Par. Ser. vol. 1. p. 663. 38 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH. not to say Christian, mind, would be inconceivable, were we not constrained, as we are at the present time, to witness it in many cases, as an actually ex- isting fact. But, turning from this, as from the other opinions noticed, we take up again the Scriptures of revealed truth and ask what they teach in relation to the present, and until the Judgment Day, the future, state of the dead. Nor do we ask in vain. Much, indeed, which our curiosity would fain inquire into is hidden from us; but enough is revealed to sustain faith and hope, to afford very great and precious comfort in our adversities and bereavements, and to show us how to live and how to die in meek prepara- tion for an eternity of holiness and bliss. First, we are assured, that, when the body returns unto dust, the spirit returns unto God who gave it. It is, then, not lost; not left to wander up and down the uni- verse in darkness and perplexity ; not left to struggle for and devise expedients, which in the flesh it would have disdained, to regain the society and companionship of this earthly life. It returns to God who gave it; and in His keeping it surely re- tains both its consciousness and its intelligence. Next, we are assured that a// the spirits of the dead are thus in God’s keeping, in reservation for the great day of resurrection and final judgment. It is very expressly said that the spirits of the wicked, such as have done despite unto the spirit of grace, are reserved until that day to be punished; reserved, it seems clearly to be taught, in dreadful conscious- ness of unpardoned sin, and in a state of wretched- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 39 ness which is described, figuratively it may be, but if figurative, surely not without some basis in awfu] reality, as that of “chains and darkness” with the “angels who kept not their first estate.” * On the other hand, the assurance is given to us in testimony even more abundant and explicit, that the souls of the righteous, washed and made clean in the blood of the Lamb, are reserved in Paradise, an intermediate state of blissful rest, where no torment can touch them, and where they are assured of the divine presence and approbation, and know that there is a crown of righteousness laid up for them to be given them by the Lord, the righteous Judge, and, with them, to all who love His appearing, in the Judgment Day.t+ Such, as we are taught by the Church from Holy Scripture, is that which we are to believe respecting the intermediate state of the dead; a doctrine which is full of comfort if we are trying to walk honestly, and of warning, if we have fallen into the error of the wicked; and which we may not, and certainly would not, relinquish for either the gloomy purgatorial dogma of papal superstition or the fan- tastic theories of modern infidelity. But we are as- sured that the intermediate state is not final. It must end when time ends. It is but the other side of the incompleteness of human history which is the characteristic of the present dispensation; and so, the souls of the martyrs who are in that state, are ~ hs avs hag hal ABS BSUS A i eee ee 7 C/. St. Luke, xxiii. 43; 2 Cor. -xii. 2-5 ee REVe Tgoe st Phat 1, 23;° Rey. vi. 9-12. 4O THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH represented in the book of Revelations, as crying out with a holy impatience, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (Rev. vi. 10). The same divine revelation assures us, as it assured them, that it is yet but “for a season, “a little while,” when “the number of the elect shall be filled up,” the purposes, which, in the counsels of the Most High, determined the existence and condi- tions of the present dispensation shall all have been accomplished, and then cometh the great judgment, in which all human history shall be equitably summed up and every individual man that has had his part and made his own character, whether for good or evil, in this history, shall, according to that character, re- ceive for an eternal existence his just recompense of reward. God has told us plainly in His holy word, who is the appointed Judge, and what shall be the terrible majesty of His appearing. We are as- sured, and blessed be His name for the assurance, that He hath committed all judgment unto His Son; and that, for the infinitely gracious reason that our redemption hath been purchased with His blood. We look for His appearing “in majesty and great glory,” enthroned “in the clouds of heaven,” and surrounded by all the angelic hosts. We are warned that no man knoweth when that coming of the Judge shall be, but, that when He cometh it shall be “suddenly,’)as that-of “a thief in the nigitaes the lightning’s flash from one part of heaven unto the other. It is foretold that “all the dead” shall be summoned from their graves. But not in the TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. AI regions of the dead alone will that summons be heard. Then, as now, a part of the great family of mankind, “every one” of whom must be judged, will be living on this earth. And when that day shall come, it is declared that these “shall not prevent,” that is, go before “them which are asleep;” but, they “shall be changed in a moment, in the twink- ling of an eye, at the last trump;” and their “ cor- ruptible bodies shall put on incorruption,” and their “mortal shall put on immortality.” And they ‘shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air;”’ and, together with them, “the sea shall give up the dead that are therein; and the earth shall give up the dead therein; and death and hell,” the places where the departed, both bodies and souls, are reserved, “shall deliver up the dead which are in them; and they shall be judged, every man ac- cording to his works.” Are we authorized to go further? Is there any disclosure in the divine revelation of human destiny of the possible destiny of every one of us—beyond ? Of our possible destiny for Eternity ? Can we deny or doubt it ? This judgment “ accord- ing to our works,” what can it mean but the awarding of eternal destiny to every individual with impartial and unerring certainty, according to hts character ? Mmnd,.as) it isytrue. that)\the “individual character of every one of us is continually in the process of formation throughout the whole term of our life on earth, and the completed result is just that which we must each one stand in, and be held individually responsible for in the judgment ; and, as character 42 THE WITNESS (Ol GTA (CH ORCH so completed must be good or bad, true or false, righteous or wicked, what wonder is it, even to the apprehension of our own reason and conscience, that the Scriptures reveal to us two, and but two, states beyond the judgment; and that these two states are as opposite in nature and condition as Heaven and Hell? So much, which isall that is needful for practical guidance in working out our eternal salvation, we can surely understand. We may not be able to comprehend the process, or tell the duration, of the judgment; the “day” of judgment, we know, can- not be a literal day of twenty-four hours’ duration, because it is expressly foretold that the judgment shall.be heralded by an angel, who shall declare that “time,” that is, time as we reckon it, “shall be no longer.” It may prove to be au entire dispensation, as long as, or even longer than the present. Nor need this perplex us. For, in common use, as well as in Scripture, any period that is definitely desig- nated iscalled “a day.” For example, when we read, or hear it said: “this is a day of rejoicing,’ or “of sorrow,” we have no thought of the sun’s rising and setting, but simply of the time as affected by the blessing or affliction. When you are told from the pulpit that this is your “ day of probation,” you un- derstand, if you understand correctly, the reference to be not to the diurnal period then passing, but to the whole term of this mortal life. And when you are told, this is your “day of grace,” the word ex- tends, not to asingle hour, or even moment, beyond that in which the announcement is made. In one TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 43 sense, indeed, the whole of the present dispensation of the world, including all the ages from the Incarna- tion of the Redeemer till His final advent, may be called “the day of grace,” as denoting the period in which the divine government of the world is specially manifested as a dispensation of grace, through the Gospel of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; while, in relation to the probation of each individual, there is no assurance of a single hour beyond the present, no promise of even a single moment for repentance beyond that which is stamped as, simply, zozw. With precisely the same propriety, then, it may be pre- sumed that the “day of judgment” will be @ dzs- pensation in which the characteristic mantfestation of the divine government will be, not asin the present dispensation, the probationary abeyance of rewards and punishments, but the perfectly righteous and universally accredited recognition aud award of every person sreal character, whether tt be good or bad. So the books to be “ opened’”’ may denote the divine process of disclosing all the hidden secrets of life and bringing both the deeds and the principles of every man’s character into light. The seztence may be the divinely determined process of developing human character into absolute fitness of condition. And then the final result of such developed adjustment, the eternal existence as good or bad in Heaven or in hell! Oh, we shall all understand, by and by, just what this means. But let it be granted that our apprehension of it must be but very imperfect and defective now—that “ everlasting” isa period which our understanding cannot grasp; that the descrip- 44 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH tions both of Heaven and of Hell are descriptions of states beyond our present ken; that we cannot determine precisely how much is figurative and how much may be real—but still, after all such possible allowance, the one great fact of momentous interest to us stands clear and indubitable: that the eternal states revealed are two, and but two; and that our own individual character—this, and nothing else—is to determine in which of these opposite states we shall have our eternal existence. Life and death are before us. We may have either the one or the other. But, if there be any truth in the plainest dec- larations of God’s Word, nay, if there be any truth in human life and development, if living means any- thing, if character has any moral quality and in- volves any real personal responsibility, then it is cer- tain that the alternative is proposed to us, and that every one of us must choose for himself, and by his choice, in its practical outworking, determine which he will have for his eternal allotment. If our choice be on the side of falsehood, of moral corruption and spiritual wickedness, it is a terrible, but most certain, truth, that there is no salvation revealed as possible for us. But, on the other hand, if our choice be for the truth and the right, no as- surance can be made more sure than that of the Life Everlasting, which is made and sealed to us by the sure word of God Himself in the covenant of His grace. Let the revelation of that glorious destiny be the closing words of our meditation now: ‘“ And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall bein it. And His servants TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 45 shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they shall need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light ; and they shall reign for ever and ey dg 46 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH V. OF LIVING FOR THE JUDGMENT. Advent. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts ; and then shall every man have praise of God, —1 Cor. tv. 5. THIS text is as noteworthy for what it implies as for what it explicitly says. The Apostle, in writing it, was referring to the divisions of sentiment and opinion, of which there was manifest evidence, in the Corinthian Church, and which had already begun to break up its members into opposing parties in relation to their apostolic pastors and teachers. St. Paul was quite aware that he himself was included in this division of sentiment; that some claimed to be especially his friends and admirers, while others gave the preference to Cephas or Apollos. But in writing to them he gives expression to no personal feeling. He tells them, indeed, that it was “a very small thing” that he should be judged of them or of man’sjudgment ; that he didn’t even care to judge himself. What he wanted was to get them grounded and settled, where he was, on the great principle of ving for the divine judgment. That was infallible, and was sure in God’s ap- pointed time to be visited on every person with all his work, and to determine, with absolutely im- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 47 partial and unerring certainty, the precise character of both the one and the other, whether good or bad. Now, the phraseology which refers to this rule of living for the divine judgment has come to be familiar to us all, and the principle is one of the accepted commonplaces of Christianity. The truth of a judgment to come is an old truth now; but in the time of the Apostle it was new and had all the vitality of a truth just revealed. When the Apostle spoke of looking for the coming of the Lord to judge the world in righteousness, he spake of that which to him was something very real and certain. The Lord had been seen and known among men in the person of Jesus Christ. His life with them had been a veritable fact ; as unquestionable and verifi- able as that of any other person whom they had known and with whom they had lived and conversed. He had gone away; but with the express assurance, repeatedly made, that He would return in the full manifestation of His divine glory, to call all, both quick and dead, to give their final account for the verdict of His infallible judgment. Some think that the primitive Christians, and even the Apostles, ex- pected His coming, for this decisive purpose, within a short time, and even in their own generation. There are passages in the Epistles which can hardly be reconciled with this supposition; but it is no matter whether they were mistaken on this point or not. The duration of time between the first and second coming of Christ was not, in their estimation, and is not in fact, the matter of consequence. The 48 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH point was, and is, zts certainty and its constant and enevasible liabtlity. The practical point was, that the judgment, come when it might, was to be the judg- ment of every one of them; that to it they were to be personally accountable for everything done in the body, —and, therefore that for it, and with undeviat- ing regard to its revealed conditions, they should constantly live. My brethren, this is precisely the Christian atti- tude for all in all time. This principle of living for the judgment to come is really one of the first principles of the Christian religion, and it is insep- arably connected with faith in Christ as the world’s Redeemer. To say that we ought to be living under this expectation and on this principle is simply to say that we should be living as Christians; that our thoughts and motives should be those which the Christian revelation consistently inspires and sug- gests. But we must all be conscious, and those who are most thoughtful in the matter the most regretfully so, that the vital freshness of the early faith has long since died out, and that in our modern life there is need of all the help we can get in the Church’s Advent season to enkindle in our minds a real ap- prehension of the coming of Christ to be our judge ; much more, to bring the recognition of its certainty and of our certain liability to it into our daily life and conduct, as a predominant motive. Consider now what would be its practical effect upon our life here, how it would brighten and elevate it, and what an invigorating purpose it would steadily TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. A9 hold us to in passing through the world’s mutations and tribulations. In the first place, it is a revelation of light. It shows us what is the true end and purpose of life, and gives us the only clue that is at all satisfactory amid the perplexities of the tangled web in which every path of our mortal state is meshed. Without this revelation of a judgment to come there is no worthy or consistent purpose in human existence as it is experienced in the world. Not one human being of the myriads who from the beginning of time have peopled the earth, has been able to feel that he has fulfilled such a purpose, on the supposition that life here is “the be all and end all” of exist- ence. The universal feeling is that of dissatisfaction growing out of a sense of capabilities for whose development and effective realization there is here no proper sphere, no adequate time or scope. This would be true, even if all were certain of living to the utmost limit of the earthly life, and if, in the whole duration of that term, all the fortunes and circum- stances of life could be unceasingly and assuredly favorable. But how much more so, when, as we all have reason to know, there is not to any one a mo- ment assured, nor a single contingency of any earthly good that can be held or claimed as certain. In such a world, it is not strange that thinking men are ever perplexed, and utterly at a loss to answer the question—what is our life; and why are its con- ditions here so utterly lacking in all the qualities of certitude in the process or finality in the end of development ? 4 50 LEE WITINE SSAO TMI Le Gi ROL, There is, there can be, no answer in any scheme of human philosophy; the only possible explanation is found in the revelation of a judgment to come. Admit that the life of earth is probationary, and in- tended by the Creator to be only probationary, its characteristics clearly could not be final. Every- thing must have relation to something beyond, and so must be apparently incomplete, and, in the in- completeness, unsatisfactory here. We do not say that this is, either to our speculative reason or our im- patient fancies, a sufficient and satisfactory explana- tion. There is, unquestionably, much on every hand that is perplexing still; but what we do say is, that this is ¢he only explanation, and that in it we have the only assurance of an end and purpose of life that make it worth living. Grasp it clearly and strongly, hold fast to it and live on it, and you will be sure, at least, of a stead- Fast and consistent motive in life. There is something to live for which is worth attaining, and which, when attained, will be a possession assured. There need be no disparagement of achievements which are hon- orable or attainments which are desirable in this world. Let all their worth be conceded, and all the labor and struggle that men are willing to give for their attainment be acknowledged as legitimate and even praiseworthy. Still, the undeniable fact remains, that they are all, without exception, temporary and perishable in their nature, and altogether uncertain and unassured in their tenure. At best, then, they cannot be legitimately final for beings, such as we are, who have an instinctive sense of immortality ; LO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 51 they must be subordinated to some purpose beyond, which is in its scope eternal. This is precisely the truth in the revelation of the judgment to come. That judgment, as revealed, is essentially the setting of the seal of eternal right- eousness on all the issues of this mortal life. We are too apt to think of it, from our traditionary read- ing of the mere phraseology of certain texts, as a formal tribunal, to be held within a definite period for the pronouncement of sentences, either of ac- quittal unto everlasting bliss or of condemnation unto eternal woe, upon every one of all the world’s living souls. But, while it is true that the phrase- ology of Scripture presents the picture of such a tribunal, it should be remembered that pictures, which are images of things that we have seen, must needs be drawn to give us any conception of a state that we have not seen; and yet, that these images are only imperfect and inadequate illustrations. The “Day of Judgment,’ we know, cannot be a day as we now reckon in the measurement of time by the diurnal revolution of the earth, for there is to be “time no longer” there. Rather, it should be con- cluded to be a dispensation, and that of eternal duration; a dispensation fitly called the Day of Judgment, because then the judgment of righteous- ness alone will determine every one’s allotment and condition; just as the whole period of our present life is fitly called “the day of probation,” because it is our time of trial, or, “ the day of grace,” because it is the time while the long-suffering mercy of God in Christ Jesus is bearing with us. But, however '52 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH imperfectly grasped by our conceptions, the essential fact is, that in that dispensation perfect righteous- ness will be universally revealed and eternally mani- fested. No more prevalence and power of wrongs, no more hiding and dissembling of iniquities, no more crafty wiles or successful over-reaches of dis- honesty, no more triumphing or exaltation of the wicked, no more oppression or humiliation of the righteous, no more possibility of confounding right with wrong, nor even of misunderstanding a single shade of one for the other; but, everywhere and for all, perfect equity and the clear light of truth, and, in that truth and by that equity, the allotment of every one according as his earthly life shall have been. Brethren, is it not worth while to live for suchan . end? Is it not worth while to fix our eye steadily upon it and direct all our steps in the short path of this mortal life so that they may carry us steadily onward, and that with an evermore sure and direct tread toward its blessedness? Should we not do this with great thankfulness for the light which ~ beams from such a revelation even upon our dark- ness here in this world? In this light, we may well take as our rule the precept of the Apostle in our text, and be concerned to “ judge nothing before the time,’ because we have a certain assurance that the Lord will come, and that, when He cometh, He ‘both will bring to light the hidden things of dark- ness, and will make manifest the councils of ‘all’ hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.” We need not allow ourselves to be troubled LOVCHRISTIAN: FALL I, ate. with the perplexing problems of evil; the judgment either of men or of things is not our responsibility ; itis all in the province of an infinitely higher and wiser and juster tribunal; it will all be determined righteously, with perfect truth and justice, infallibly and eternally. Wait then; wait patiently; wait trustfully. The judgment is determined; all will be made clear; the Lord alone will reign in that — day, and every eye shall see Him and perceive that He is a God of truth and without iniquity, that justice and equity are the eternal habitation of His throne, and mercy and truth shall go, always and everywhere, before His face. 54 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Vik THE HISTORICAL VERITY OF THE INCARNATION. Christmas. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.— I John, iv, 16, THE first effect of the service to-day should be to bring us all to consider anew with ourselves if we do, in very truth, believe in the incarnation and human birth of the Son of Almighty God. The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem of Judea, eighteen centuries ago, is indeed an unquestionable fact of history. We say an unquestionable fact, be- cause it is attested by all the settled requirements of historical credibility, and the truth of it cannot be impeached on any ground that would not involve the undermining of all historical faith. In the old controversial assaults of infidelity, the veritableness of this fact, and, with it, the real existence of sucha person as Jesus Christ, has, indeed, been sometimes taken asa point of attack; but never with any degree of success, not even in the judgment of infidelity itself. For, in the great net-work of human history, in which, complicated and many colored as it is, not one thread has been, or can be, admitted that was not made of the real stuff—the facts and influences that constitute the actual elements of human life, the person and work of Jesus Christ fill too large a space and hold it by too many, too important, too EOVCHKSLaH WY ATTA, 55 complicated and far-reaching strands, to be displaced without an entire destruction of its symmetry and consistency. There is, therefore, no difficulty in believing the fact which this day commemorates, in relation merely to the birth and real existence of Jesus Christ, as a fact of veritable history. Nor is there any considerable difficulty in believ- ing that His birth was that of a very extraordinary personage. Indeed, the admission of the first fact leads almost necessarily to the recognition of this as the second. The eye of reverent faith sees the birth of Jesus Christ to be the central point—the very fo- cus—of all human history, and Himself the very vital head of the human race; but, even on ground which is far below the apprehension of such faith, the life and character of Jesus Christ stand out with a pre- eminence that is incomparably superior to any other in the whole family of mankind. ‘“ Even a scepti- cal historian finds in Him the explanation of all his- tory ; a democratic leader tells a nation crushed by long oppression that He was the best representative and truest child of the people ; a victorious emperor, the last great man of secular history, contrasting his own utter evanescence with Christ’s eternal rule, declares that he understands and recognizes man, and that Jesus Christ was not a man; a prophet of anarchy and naturalism, in the mid confession of his faith, suddenly bursts into eloquent admiration, and, with a hand as firm as that of a martyr, writes that, ‘if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those 56 THE WITNESS ORETHEGCH URCE: of a God.’” We need, therefore, but recognize the truth of history and give due heed to its universally accepted principles of credible evidence, when we give our assent so far to the faith of Christendom as to acknowledge that He, whose birth the Church this day commemorates, was not only a real person- age, but the very greatest ofall personages in human history ; so incomparably the greatest, in both His own excellence and the extent of His influence, that no other of all the world’s great men can for a mo- ment be allowed to stand in any scale of competi- tion or comparison with Him. May we not, in assenting simply to historical credibility, go further—and very much further— even than this? May we not—if we follow here to their legitimate conclusion the principles of histori- cal verity, must we not believe, in commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, that we are commemorat- ing, not only the birth of the greatest human per- sonage, but even, and that in some very true and peculiar sense; the birth of the Son of Gocr e@as we accept the historical records of Christ’s life as in any degree genuine, without admitting that He asserted for Himself the Divine Sonship, specially and exclusively, in His own person; and that so originally and potentially, that through covenanted union with Him, all men might be brought into the filial relationship toward God? So clear is this, that in a workof remarkable acuteness, written avowedly for the purpose of getting at those “conclusions about Christ, not which church doctors or even Apostles have sealed with their authority, but which TO. CHRISTIAN FAITH. 57 the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to warrant,” the writer found himself compelled to ad- mit the “unbounded personal pretensions which Christ advanced,” and to put the admission in these strong terms: “It is common in human history to meet with those who claim some superiority over their fellows. Men assert a pre-eminence over their fellow citizens or fellow countrymen, and become rulers of those who at first were their equals, but they dream of nothing greater than some partial control over the actions of others for the short space of a lifetime. Few, indeed, are those to whom it is given to influence future ages. Yet some men have appeared who have been as leversto uplift the earth and roll it in another course. Homer by creating lit- erature, Socrates by science, Czesar by carrying civil- ization inland from the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady progress, may be said to have attained this eminence. But these men gave a single impact, like that which is conceived to have first set the planets in motion; Christ claims to be a perpetual attractive power, like the sun which determined their orbit. They con- tributed to men some discovery and passed away ; Christ’s discovery is Himself. To humanity struggling with its passion and its destiny He says, ‘ Cling to Me, cling ever close to Me.’ If we believe St. John He represented Himself as the Light of the world, as the Shepherd of the souls of men, as the way to im- mortality, as the Vine, or Lifetree, of humanity. And if we refuse to believe that He used these words, we cannot deny, without rejecting all the 58 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH evidence before us, that He used words which have substantially the same meaning. Wecannot deny that He commanded men to leave everything and attach themselves to Him; that He declared Him- self King, Master, and Judge of men; that He promised to give rest to all the weary and heavy laden; that He instructed His followers to hope for life from feeding on His body and blood.” * Strong as this statement of Christ’s personal pre- tensions is, it is not too strong. For, while it is true that His character as portrayed in the Gospel narra- tives is universally accepted as the very type of genuine humility, it is, at the same time, true that there is hardly one of His recorded discourses in which such self-assertions as would be justly ac- counted monstrously assumptive in the mouth of any other person do not occur. These assertions as made by Him cannot by any possibility be mis- taken for the ebullitions of self-conceit. They are unmistakably the natural expression of true self- knowledge. And yet He seems to find it necessary almost to exhaust the capacity of human speech to find terms adequate to express His self-sufficiency. Sometimes He employs metaphoric and frequently plain unmetaphorical assertion; but, whether the one or the other, it is without hesitation, without qualification, and without the least apparent thought of a possibility that His language could go beyond the simple truth in declaring the fulness of His ability or the perfection of His virtue. He speaks of Himself as ‘‘the Living Bread that came down * Ecce Homo, pp. 190, 191. TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 59 from Heaven,” to the end that believers in Him might feed on Him and thus have eternal life. He points to a living water of the Spirit, which He can give and which will quench the thirst of souls that drink it. All who came before Him, He character- izes as having been, by comparison with Himself, the “thieves and robbers” of mankind. He is Himself the one “ Good Shepherd” of the souls of men; He knows and is known of His true sheep. Not only is He the shepherd, He is the very “ Door” of the sheep- fold; to enter through Him is to be safe. He is the Vine, the Life-tree of regenerate humanity. All that is fruitful and lovely in the human family must branch forth from Him; all spiritual life must wither and die if it be severed from His. He stands consciously between earth and Heaven. He claims to be the one means of a real approach to the invisible God; no soul of man can come to the Father but through Him. He promises that all prayer shall be an- swered, if only it be offered in His name; He even promises to be Himself the one who will hear and effectively answer such prayer: “If ye ask any- thing in my name, J w7// do zt.” He contrasts Him- self with a group of His countrymen, by these terms: ‘Ye are from beneath, I am from above: Ye are of this world, I am not of this world.” He antici- pates His death and foretells its consequences: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.” He claims to be the Lord of the realm of death; He will himself wake the sleeping dead; all that are in the graves shall hear His voice; He will raise even Himself from the dead. He pro- 60 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH claims: “I am the Resurrection, and the Life.” He bids men trust in Him as they trust in God, to make Him the object of faith, just as they believe in God, to honor Him as they honor the Father; to love Him is a certain mark of the children of God. It is not possible, He rules, to hate Him without, at the same time, hating God: “ He that hateth me, hateth my Father also.” The proof of a true love to Him lies in precisely that which proves love to God,— the doing of His bidding: “ If ye love me, keep my commandments.’’* Since, in the life of Jesus, such claims as these, with many others of like import, are unquestionably recorded, and since all subsequent history has borne continuous and constantly accumulating testimony to the power of His name in maintaining His ac- knowledged right to such claims, there is surely war- rant for the conclusion that historical credence con- curs, most decidedly, with Christian faith in esteem- ing Jesus Christ not only as the one supremely ex- cellent above all the sons of men, but also as in some special and unique sense, the incarnate Son of Al- mighty God. But, my brethren, when we are brought thus far, even by an honest acceptance of historical fact, can we be true to this leading unless our hearts within us are uplifted with fervent impulses for a far higher range ? ‘“‘In some special and unique sense, the incarnate son of Almighty God,” what does that mean? It means that the Almighty and Everlasting Be- ing, who is the Author and Sustainer of the universe, * See Liddon’s Bamp. Lect. pp. 170-2. TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 61 in Whom we and all creatures live and move, for com- munion with Whom our spiritual nature is always in- stinctively craving, but Whose habitation is far above, out of our sight,—that He, the Lord God Almighty, hath responded to this craving by a most merciful revelation of Himself in the world of our humanity ; that He hath put His recognizing and approving seal upon our feeling after affinity with Him; that even here in our earthly estate and amid its lowly condi- tions, He hath not left Himself without witness to assure us that He is in very truth our Father and that we are His children. More than this. On the simple historical credibility of the New Testament Scriptures, it means that special exigencies in our earthly condition were mercifully recognized by Him as calling for special interposition; that because s7z had come into our life, and through sin death with all its woes, He had graciously recognized the need of a new creation, and in the person of His-only be- gotten Son submitted Himself to the lowliest limita- tions of our human nature, that He might restore us to the fullest possible participation in His life, even in that which is heavenly and eternal. This is what we have to recognize as veritable his- torical fact in our commemorative service to-day. And with such recognition what will surely follow if we be true to our apprehensions of historical fact? Very clearly we have here an unquestionable histor- ical authentication of our religious instincts and as- pirations. The real existence and operation of these is matter of every one’s personal experience. We have them as naturally as we have physical senses 62 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH and appetites. Like the latter, they are constantly looking for and feeling after something outside of themselves for their satisfaction. They were made for this satisfaction, and cannot rest till they find it. Here, then, even in the revelation of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of Almighty God, incarnate, these cravings and aspirations are historically authen- ticated, and religious faith becomes, not merely a devout outreaching of the imagination, but an as- surance of fact. We feel after God, if haply we may find Him, and here He revealeth Himself to us, and maketh Himself known. We feel that we are not only, like all other living things, His creatures, but also, in some higher and more special sense, His children; and here He assures us that He is very truly and very lovingly our Father. We feel that we are some how out of our proper place in this world, that we are not what we might be, what we ought to be or desire to be; and here is the revelation of the cause and the cure of this mal-adjustment. Here God “ commendeth His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners,” “ He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, that we, through Him, might be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty” and the everlasting life “of the children of God.” Therefore, dear brethren, we may well say with the Apostle, and that most emphatically and most thankfully, to-day: ““We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” And in this knowl- edge and belief is there not all-sufficient reason for this joyful commemoration and for all its appropri- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 63 ate tokens and accompaniments? Yes, this is surely beyond question. It only remains that we be true to this knowledge and belief. If God so loved us, we ought to love Him with a pure heart fervently, and, through the love of Him, also to love one another. With this love our hearts should all be glowing brightly to-day. *“Lovest thou Me? I hear my Saviour say. Would that my heart had power to answer, Yea, Thou knowest all things, Lord, in heaven above, And earth beneath ; Thou knowest that I love. But ’tis not so; in word, in deed, in thought, I do not, cannot, love Thee as I ought : Thy love must give that power, Thy love alone ; There’s nothing worthy of Thee but Thine own ; Lord, with the love wherewith Thou lovest me, Reflected on myself, I would love Thee.” 64 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Wilde DHE AVA GA do Wit BTV 0 Ue he INCARNATION. Christmas. For verily, He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.—/edrews, xt. 16. TuHE truth which is here declared is emphasized for us at this season, that our divine Saviour in His incarnation submitted Himself to all the vital con- ditions of our human nature. As He came down from Heaven to save us, He passed by all the ranks of the angelic hosts, and took on Him the nature of the race which was to be redeemed. Being from eternity the Son of God, He became as truly the Son of Man; and, together with the divine nature which was His eternally and essentially, He united in His personal being and consciousness the nature which belongs to our human sphere in the creation. Now, to realize this truth we must consider some- what more precisely than we are commonly apt to do what is meant by our human nature. In a general way we are all conscious, of course, that our human life and being has in it certain pecu- liarities which belong to it as essentially its own. We know that every species of living beings has life after its kind, and that our life as human beings is of a kind which differs essentially from that of angels above or of the many orders of the brute creation below us. If we were asked to say why our life is TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 65 of this peculiar kind, we would say at once, because we are human in nature, which seems to be the same thing as simply saying that we are born so ; but it is really more. It means that there is in our race, as in every other species of creature, a certain vital principle which exists only in this race, but which in it is universally predominant, so that the life and being of every member thereof is determined by it ; and yet that no other order of creatures in the uni- verse can have sucha kind of life or exist in such a kind of being. This underlying and determining principle is called our za¢ure ; but what it is, whether it be substance or pure force, whether, indeed, it be anything but the creative law of life, no philosophy is keen enough to tell. But the fact which we do know is, that it makes us human beings and nothing else. And in this fact there are certainly involved two other facts, viz., that all human beings are one with us in this nature, and that no other kind of beings, without participation in this nature, can have part in our oneness of life. Let us consider these facts. We, who are human beings, having a common nat- ure, have therein a common life, and are in a very true sense allone. It may seem fanciful, but it is really true to say that the race is as truly one as any individual person is one. For what makes the one- ness of a person? Is it not the oneness of his life and being? There are belonging to him many members, and these members have not all the same office. There are differences of functions and of ad- ministrations in him; but one life principle deter- 2 66 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH mines them all, and makes him in whom they are operative one person. So, the great human race has many individual members, and these members have their various functions, operative on an incompa- rably wider scale and differing from each other in their ways and works by a more incalculably multi- plied diversity of variations, but yet the principle of being is one; and so the race is really, and that in the truest possible sense, one. Would that we could realize this more than we do. It is the needful counteractive to the selfishness - which is rooted in our sense of individuality. That is the most obvious fact of our being that we are, each one, himself, with his own consciousness, will, desires, pursuits, and destiny. Therefore, the nat- ural inclination is for every one to live and care for himself as if he were really alone and his life the only thing of interest or importance in the universe. But the real truth, which he forgets, is that while he is indeed an individual, he is not complete in him- self, but is only an individual #zesber—a member of a body—that this body is the real unzt ; and that there are common interests and common responsibilities which extend throughout the whole body, and are included in the heritage of every member in its common life. It would be well for us to remember that this heritage of a common nature makes us all very much like each other, notwithstanding all the apparent differences. The greatest difference of all is that which sepa- rates the good from the bad; for this isa difference which goes deeper than any circumstantial posses- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 67 sion or quality, and touches that with which every person is most absolutely identified, viz., his charac- ter. And yet, even here, there is more of common likeness than most of us imagine or may be willing to acknowledge. It is not meant, of course, to say that goodness and badness, righteousness and wick- edness, are alike; but that the likeness is in the common nature of men whose reputation is, on the whole, that of either one or the other. Take an ex- treme case, that of a man who has from his very infancy been steadily growing in all the virtues of grace, and, on the other hand, that of one who has repeatedly and deeply fallen into gross sin and been finally brought to repentance; these two, different as they certainly are in both their courses of life and their characters, will yet be found to be very much like each other in their view of themselves and in their feelings upon the temptations through which they have severally passed. This is most strikingly instanced when men whose reputation has been very marked for holiness of life have left be- hind them a daily record of their spiritual experi- ence. In such cases there are sure to be found such strong and repeated self-accusations, such confessions of guiltiness and such expressions of penitent regret in the consciousness of their own defilement by it, that even bad men can say, “ This is just our case,” and argue from it that there is no difference between bad and good. ‘And I suppose,” says one* of re- markable acuteness in analyzing human character, “T suppose it cannot be denied, concerning all of us, * J. H. Newman, Paroch. Serm., vol. ii. p. 277. 68 THE WITNESS OM: THE, CHURCH that we are generally surprised to hear the strong language which good men use of themselves, as if such confessions show them to be more like our- selves, and much less holy than we had fancied them to be. And onthe other hand, I suppose any man of tolerably correct life, whatever his positive advancement in grace, will seldom read accounts of notoriously bad men, in which their ways and feel- ings are described, without being shocked to find that these more or less cast ameaning upon his own heart, and bring out into light and color lines and shapes of thought within him, which, till then, were almost invisible. Now,this does not show that bad and good men are on a level, but it shows this, that they are of the same nature. It shows that the one has within him in tendency, what the other has brought out into actual existence, so that the good has nothing to boast over the bad, and while what is good in him is from God’s grace, there is an abun- dance left which marks him as being beyond all doubt of one blood with those sons of Adam who are still far from Christ, their Redeemer.” This truth, then, of the oneness of our human nature, is no merely speculative truth; it is very practical. And the realization and remembrance of it would help us all to get out of the slough of sel- fishness, to rid us of self-conceit, and to make us humble as well as considerate in bearing with each other’s frailties and faults, and ready with cheerful alacrity and patient continuance to bear, as far as we may, each other’s burdens. But, in the Christian faith and life it has, as we TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 69 have already intimated, a far higher consequence. The text tells us that Christ, the Son of God, took on Him our nature. Inthe light of this truth, then, it is clear that He became verily one with us. ‘There is not a feeling, not a passion, not a wish, not an in- firmity which we have, which did not belong to that manhood which He assumed, except only such as is of the nature of sin. There is not a trial or tempta- tion which befalls us, but was, in kind at least, pre- sented before Him, except that He had no evil within Him sympathizing with that which came to Him from without.” So that we can understand and realize the truth, of which we have the explicit assurance of the inspired Word, that “ We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feel- ing of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;” and that, “in that He himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.” Could we, possibly, have the comfort of this assurance, or, indeed, could it be possible for us to trust in the Son of God as our Saviour, or, so far as we can apprehend the laws of life, can we see the possibility of His being our Saviour except by thus becoming one with us through the incarnate assump- tion of our nature? I do not see how it could be possible. The oneness of life which belongs to any nature, belongs to that nature exclusively ; so that, without participation in the nature, it is not possible for any other kind of being to participate in the life. We human beings can sympathize with each other fully in every pos- 70 RHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH sible depth of our nature, because we have all the same nature; but we cannot sympathize, in any such sense, with any other kind of creature. It is only so far as the qualities of nature touch and coincide that we can really sympathize at all. We can, in a very true sense, save each other; that is, we can save each other in the sense which includes all that we are per- sonally. But, if there could be anything correspond- ing to Adam’s fall in the inner life of any of the orders of creatures which are below us, we could not wn any such sense save them, because, plainly, the essential difference between their nature and ours would incapacitate us from real sympathy with their life, and it would equally incapacitate them from - understanding or receiving our help even if it should be proffered them. There is profound mystery in all this, but it is clearly true. And though it re- quires thought, it is well for us to make an effort to think it out, for the truth is full of light and comfort for our faith in the mystery of our redemption. We are overwhelmed by the revelation of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Our faith is dazed in trying to accept the possibility of so infinite a condescension,— and it must ever be a mystery of grace beyond our comprehension—but here we can see that, without a violation of the fundamental laws of life, there must have been an incarnation, if there was to be a real salvation. The Son of God must become in very truth the Son of Man, if life for man was to be had and assured through Him. Therefore, there is unspeakable comfort for us, there is ground for infinite thankfulness in the O° GHRISTIAN FATIA, 71 assurance which we have that Christ, our divine and adorable Saviour, “took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.” For in this we have the assurance, all sufficient for our most trustful faith, that “He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him ;” that He can present himself to them as one with them, and equally present them before the Father as one in Him. And oh, dear brethren, with our most thankful acceptance of this great truth of the Gospel of Christ, this truth which makes it indeed the Gospel, good news, glad tidings of salvation to us, let us not fail to lay hold of the truth which is its equally great counterpart, that it is ours to be in very reality par- takers of the Divine Nature. If Christ, the Son of God, became one with us, His salvation for us is to be effected by our being made one with Him as God. And here, again, our own reason can see no other possible way. There must be oneness of nature if there is to be oneness of life. If our eternal life is to be that of heaven, whose very atmosphere is the breath of God, it must needs be that there must pass upon us a divine regeneration, so that we may be capacitated to receive God as dwelling in us, and to have in our consciousness the veritable assurance that our life is in Him. This may bea partial explanation to us of the econ- omy of sacramental grace. The Church isdeclared to be the body of Christ, and all Christians are asserted to be members together of the one Body in Him. It is here, then, that the life of our regenerate nature 72 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH must find both its vital principle and its congenial nutriment. Here, in prayers and sacraments, we commune with God, and “ grow up in Him from whom, the whole body, fitly framed and knit to- gether and compacted by that which every yee supplieth, increaseth with the increase of God.” In the present life it is, of course, futile for us to attempt to understand why, or how it is that our spiritual being is sustained and nurtured in this way; but it is equally futile to attempt to understand why or how it is that our natural life has its sustaining nutriment in our daily food. In both relations our part is, simply, to conform to what is clearly the divine ordinance; and then we are sure to grow, though we know not how, and in this growth to attain unto the stature of men. Oh! blessed consummation of our growth in the di- vine life, which is made possible, by the grace of God, for every one of us to attain “to the stature of a man in Christ Jesus;” to be “made complete” in Him! “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” TO: CHRISTIAN FAITH. 73 VIII. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Epiphany. I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.—Numbers, xxiv. 17. WHATEVER be the explanation of the apparent in- consistencies in the character and functions of Ba- laam,—whether it be the supposition that, as one, and perhaps the last, of the favored seers under the patriarchal dispensation in that Eastern region of the Gentiles, he had possessed the gift of prophecy and been vouchsafed the knowledge of the Most High ; or, that now, by an extraordinary miraculous interposition, the tokens of the diviner were frus- trated and he was constrained to speak for God,— there can be no doubt of the genuineness and con- sequent truthfulness of this prophecy. For, it is established by proof of Holy Writ as strong, as ex- plicit, and of precisely the same character, as that by which all other prophecies are established. | As such, then, let us now listen to it and consider its import. ‘I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” To whom must this predictive anticipation have been looking? And then, what is meant by the additional, and seeming- ly figurative, prediction: “There shall come a Star out of Jacob and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” 74 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Possibly, as some suppose, there may have been a primary reference here to David; and the predic- tion may have found a partial fulfilment in his vic- tories over the idolatrous tribes of Canaan and the. consequent extension of his Empire over the whole of that land. But this cannot have been all. The solemn preface, “Balaam the Son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: he nath said which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vis- ions of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but hav- ing his eyes open ’—this prepares us for a prophecy of weightier import than the reign or the conquest of any mere earthly king; and the distinct specifica- tion of the latter days, as the time in which the prophecy was to be fulfilled, requires that our view be carried on far beyond the time of David’s reign. And then the prediction: “I shall see Az, but not now: I shall behold Az, but not nigh.” How emphatic that HIM. Surely, it points to one greater than David; one who should stand alone, distinct from, and far above, all the sons of men; one who should be, not only the founder of a dynasty, but the very Head of arace. “I shall see Him, but not now: 1 shall behold Him, but not nigh :” this cannot refer to one of that dispensation, but of another and that far distant, even the last—the dispensation of the latter days. And we need not, we cannot, doubt that the person to whom it did have reference, and in whom it finds its true fulfilment, was He, the tes- timony of Whom was through all the elder dispensa- tion ever to be recognized as the spirit of prophecy ; TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. Bs even Jesus, the Messiah for whom Israel waited, and in whom all the ends of the earth are to find salva- tion. , Is it not likely that such a prophecy, by a seer so eminent in the East as Balaam unquestionably was, would have been remembered and treasured up with traditionary veneration, especially by those who kept the keys of traditional knowledge in that East- ern region? Is it not likely that the birth of Hz whom Balaam had thus in the spirit of prophecy foretold, should, for ages, have been expected, and the star, which was to rise out of Jacob, eagerly looked for? And then, at last, after many waiting centuries, when a mysterious star was seen, is it strange that these Magi of the East,—spiritual succes- sors, as they were, of Balaam,—should have remem- bered his prophecy, and, with exulting yet anxious hearts, journeyed to the land of promise to render their homage to the long-expected Prince? With this view of the prophecy and its fulfilment, it has a special interest for us and a special claim upon our consideration now. It is a prophecy of Christ, spoken near two thousand years before His birth, by one who was of Gentile race; and when He came, the evidence of its fulfilment was granted to those who were likewise Gentiles, born and living beyond the pale of the elect nation. Here, then, is one, and that not the least interesting, of the evi- dences that Christ was the object of desire for many long ages, not only in Jewry, but in all nations ; that, as the inspired Apostle declares, “the whole cre- ation groaned and travailed in pain together, and 76 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH the earnest expectation of the creature waited”’ for the manifestation of the Son of God. “I shall see Him, but not now.”” Oh, what blissful anticipation, what deep yearning, what unutterable longing is implied in that prophetic declaration! ‘I shall see Him.” How many prophets and kings desired to see Him; how many, and for how many long years, watched for that mystic star—the lamp that God had promised to light—to lead the footsteps of the nations to the birth-place of His Son! And when, at last, that star shone out, what must have been the feelings of those Eastern watchers whose eyes were eladdened by its rays? We have the record of their conduct. They rose up at once, as did the shepherds of Judea, who saw, perhaps, the same light, and ex- claimed: “ Let us now go even unto Bethlehem ;” let us find Him, the long expected One, who is born at last, the King of the Jews. Behold, His star riseth out of Jacob; surely His sceptre is already swaying over Israel! And now, my brethren, as we turn back and medi- tate on this wonderful chapter in the divine history, there seems to issue from it a gleam of light which serves to relieve one phase of perplexity which is apt to cloud our faith in the scheme of salvation as unfolded in the Holy Scriptures. It is an old dif- ficulty, and, in one relation, was felt even by St. Paul, as we have it discussed in the Epistle to the Romans, and read in part as one of our Lessons to- day, viz.: the apparent injustice and partiality of the election of grace, selecting one portion of the human family, and that a very small portion, an insignifi- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 77 cant nation, to be the sole depository of the divine revelations and the sole recipient of the divinely ordained provisions and means of grace ; while all the rest of the world were left to gropeon in the darkness and perplexity of heathenism. And then, as an issue of this seemingly unjust discrimination in the first place, the subsequent rejection of the elect nation and the substitution of others for special favor, without lifting very extensively the veil of spiritual darkness, which has now for two thousand years since the birth of the Redeemer hung over the face of by far the greater part of the nations of mankind! Certainly, there are very serious diff- culties suggested here. But, as the old Jews were plainly told by the Apostles that they had originated the perplexity chiefly by their narrow and selfish interpretation of the divine economy, so it has been, and is now, with us modern Christians. We, by our narrow conceptions of the divine revelations and the divine guidance, have used our special privileges of grace in the Christian revelation to foster a proud self-complacency; and have been will- ing to suppose that all the rest of mankind were utterly uncared for by the great Father of all. It is not possible for us, indeed, to estimate too highly, or even adequately, our advantages as recipients of the special revelations which are recorded in inspired Scriptures and brought to us by the ministrations of a divinely constituted church; but it is nevertheless true, and that on the authority of the Bible itself, that a// knowledge of religion is from God, and that He hath never left any nation without witness of 78 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Him; nowhere, and at no time, neglected to speak to the erring children of fallen man or by some beacon lights, more or less clear, to show them the path of righteousness unto everlasting life. There is a sense in which it is undoubtedly true that “there is something divinely revealed in every religion all over the earth, overloaded as it may be, and at times even stifled by the impieties which the corrupt will and understanding of man have incorporated with it.” In proof of this it has been well pointed out that in all such religions these fundamental doctrines are found, viz.: “Of the power and presence of an invisible God, of His moral law and governance, of the obligation of duty, and the certainty of a just judgment, and of reward and punishment, as event- ually dispensed to individuals.” Since we do find a recognition of these great truths in all historical religions, there would seem to be sufficient warrant for the conclusion that “revelation, properly speak- ing, is an universal, not a local gift.” And if that be true, it follows that the real “ distinction between the state of Israelites formerly and Christians now and that of the heathen is,” not that while we are infallibly illuminated in the way of eternal life, they are left in absolute darkness beyond the possibility of ever attaining to it, but rather, “ that the Church of God,” within the pale of which it is our inestimable privilege to have our lot, has, and “ever has hag, and the rest of mankind never have had, authori- tative documents of truth, and appointed channels of communication with Him.” The word and the sacrament are the special privileges and distinguish- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 79 ing characteristics of the elect people of God; ‘“ but all men have had more or less the guidance of tra- dition, in addition to those internal notions of right and wrong which the Spirit has put into the heart of each individual.”* This is no new theory, no modification of Christian exclusiveness to meet the requirements of modern infidelity. For, as long ago as the second century, it was thus written by so eminent a Christian Father as Clement of Alexandria: “God is the cause of all good things; but of some primarily, as of the Old and the New Testament; and of others by con- sequence, as philosophy. Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the law the Hebrews, to Christ. Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is per- fected in Christ.” + And again: “ It is He who gave philosophy to the Greeks by means of the inferior angels. For by an ancient and divine order the angels are distributed among the nations. * A on For He is the Saviour, not of some, and of others not; but in proportion to the adaptation possessed by each, He has dispensed His beneficence both to Greeks and barbarians, even to those of them that were predestinated, and in due time called the faith- ful and elect. * * * Wherefore, also, the Lord, rawing the Commandments, both the first which He gave and the second, from one fount, neither * Newman’s Arians of the 4th Century, chap. I, sec. iii. + Stromata, Sib. v. Cap. I. | 80 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH allowed those who were before the law to be with- out law, nor permitted those who were unacquainted with the principles of the barbarian philosophy to be without restraint. For, having furnished the one with the Commandments, and the other with philos- ophy, He shut up unbelief tothe Advent. So that every one who believes not is without excuse. For, by a different process, He leads both Greek and barbarian to the perfection which is by faith.” * This faith in the universal dissemination of divine light, even though in scattered rays, does not lessen in the least our obligation to be co-workers with Christ in bringing all men to the knowledge of His saving truth; it only widens our conceptions of the impartiality of His righteousness and the universality of His bountiful goodness. Moreover, while it stimulates thankful zeal, it relieves the impatience which is perplexed by the long-continued prevalence of wide-spread heathen darkness and the very slow and halting steps which mark the march of Christian conquest. Two thousand years came and went before the prophetic anticipation of the Eastern seer had its fulfilment, but it was not lost or for- gotten. The education of the world was meanwhile carried forward, sages and seers were raised up from time to time, now in one nation, now in another; the course of general history was ever in the line of the higher and clearer development of truth; and, in the elect nation, types and prophecies, and psalms and solemn sacrificial rites, were grad- ually weaning the people from idolatrous proclivi- Bb. otb. sve Cap. ite TO CHRISTIAN. FAITH. SI ties and preparing faithful souls among them for the great revelation of the Son of God in the fulness of time. Can we doubt that the educational and dis- ciplinary process is still ever going forward, and, by ways which we do not see and could not comprehend, He, by whose Spirit all the prophetic promises were inspired, is carrying on the world ever steadily and constantly towards the glorious consummation when all these prophecies shall be completely fulfilled and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? Be it ours now, with infinitely more reason for thankful joy than that of the Eastern sages, to imitate in spirit their conduct. The “Star in the East” is still shining, the bright, the morning Star, and the Gentiles are come to its light, and kings to the brightness of itsrising. Itshinesupon our path ; it gladdens our eyes. Oh, let us walk in its light, let us follow its guidance. It will go before us; it will conduct us in the right way; it will bring us at last into the very presence of our Saviour and our God! 6 82 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH TEX: THE PERSONAL MANIFESTATION OF CARIST. Epiphany. He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father ; and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.— St. John, x7v. 21. THE Church in its services to-day commemorates the first manifestation of Christ as the Saviour of the world. In its earliest origin the Epiphany was celebrated as a phase of Christmas, and the intimate association of the two feasts is still marked by the custom of some of the Eastern Christians, who, even to this day, keep their Christmas on the 6th of January, instead of the 25th of December. It was the mantfestation more than the dzrth of the Re- deemer, which gave tone to the Christmas celebra- tion in the primitive Church. There is a reason why it should have been so, which, to Christians of that age, was much more obvious than to us. They had come into the light of Christianity as inheritors or immediate successors of the traditional privileges of the Old Testament revelation. And this, as we know, had been from the first, through many long ages, confined to one people under a special covenant. The revelation of God to this people had been under the terms of that covenant, as “ the Lord ¢hezr God,” and, though it had been given to the prophets to see and foretell that the time would come when He should be declared “‘the Lord of the whole earth,” yet the only way in which the fulfilment of this TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 83 prediction could have been conceived as possible by the chosen people, was through their national exten- sion to universal dominion. It was something for which they were not prepared, and which they could not understand or receive, that the election of Jewry was only a temporary provision for the exten- sion of redemption to all mankind, and that as such it had now served its purpose and come to an end. And even the Gentile converts who came into the Christian heritage as their first successors, were almost equally unprepared for the conception of a universal religion. In all history, all over the world, down to that era, every nation had worshipped its own deity, under whose protection it was supposed to have its fostered welfare; and though there are traces of the conception of an almighty and universal Father, there was yet no practical realization of the relation of God to the world in any larger sense than as the patron and protector of the nation. So that to both Jews and Gentiles it was a new truth, which was now revealed, that “God hath made of one blood all that dwell on the earth,” and that “in every nation, they that fear Him and work righteousness are accepted of Him.” As this was the truth which © was specially indicated in the Epiphany commemora- tion, it is easy to see why the Feast of the Epiphany should have been marked and observed with special thankfulness by the early Christians. On the other hand, this has been now for many centuries an old truth, and the relations under which all of us have been born and brought up are, in this respect, just the reverse of those in the first age. To 84 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH us there is nothing surprising, nothing for any special note of thankfulness, that the Sun of Righteousness should be “for a light to the Gen- tiles;”’ it is even more difficult for us to see how the prophetic assurance can be fulfilled that in Him ‘‘ All Israel shall be saved.” With us, therefore, the difficulty is, to get a sufficient recognition of the Epiphany; at best, its festal character can be felt only asa secondary and subordinate reflection of the joyous rays of Christmas light. Let us not, however, lose sight of the fact that it is one of the points of superiority in the Gospel of Christ, one of its advantages over all other religions which have received the homage of men in the world, that our heavenly Father is herein revealed as the One Creator and Ruler of all, with whom there is no dif- ference between the Jew and the Greek, and in whom there is salvation for all alike, out of every people who sincerely come to Him. But, my brethren, in connection with this com- memorative Festival there is a question of vital and personal moment, which we should, every one, take into earnest consideration for himself, viz.: Whether or no we do in truth know what it is to have Christ savingly manifested to us? We have, unquestion- ably, had our birth and education in the light of His blessed Gospel, and familiar to us as the common- places of every day converse are the Scriptural phrases which declare Him to be the Saviour of the World; but, notwithstanding this, it may be very far from certain that we have any true knowledge of Him, or that in our personal experience there has TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 85 been any veritably apprehended manifestation of His saving grace. The general manifestation of Christianity, under which we all live, is indeed an inestimable privilege; but it is not the same thing as the manifestation of Christ. That is something much more direct, very much closer and more per- sonal in both nature and application. It is, in truth, the immediate manifestation of Christ, as the living and loving Saviour to the individual soul, and the trustful apprehension of Him, as such, by that soul. This is what He plainly asserts and assures us of in the text: “ He that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him, and will manifest my- self to him.” Now, let us put each one to himself the ques- tion: Is Christ thus manifested to me? And, to decide this question, let us understand clearly how it is that He makes such a manifestation of himself. Of course, we must dismiss at once all thought of any such manifestation as may be apprehended by our bodily senses. That manifestation was made, once for all, while He was on earth incarnate, and was brought to an end when He ascended up from earth ‘again into the heavens. But, for the bodily intercourse which was thus withdrawn, there was a substitution of intercourse which is closer and more comforting, even that of His Spirit, directly with the soul of every believing disciple. To see and know Him by such loving apprehension, and thus truly to know God in Christ, is ever the most dis- tinctive characteristic of a regenerate soul. For, on the other hand, it is ever true of the car- 86 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH nal mind that it does not see God. It knows nothing of communion with Him, and has no other conception of Him than as a God afar off. It would not think of Him at all, unless forced to do so by the interposing influences of providential ordering ; but, even then, its momentary glimpse is as that of an infinitely distant Being, between whom and him- self there is nothing in common, except the pos- sibility of incurring His judgment of everlasting wrath. But, to the spiritual mind, God is ever present. It sees and knows Him, not as a God afar off, above the sky or below the depths; but as very nigh, and even within his heart and being. It is not satisfied until it is conscious of living, moving, and having its entire being in His presence, nor, unless it realize in that consciousness, the fulness of loving communion with Him. In the light of the Gospel, this spiritual function and attainment can be realized only by the apprehension of God in Christ, as it is the love of God through Christ which is here specially revealed and assured. Therefore, in the text as well as in other verses of the context, the Saviour speaks of the love, the manifestation, and the presence of Himself, in common terms with that of God the Father, and as effected through the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. “He that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto Him (not Iscariot), Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 87 love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him.” “If ye love Me, keep My commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The ques- tion, then, for every one of us, is, whether or no, in our inner life, in the inspirations that quicken and move the vital affections of our innermost souls, there is any true knowledge of God in Christ and experience of loving communion with Him through the indwell- ing operation of the Holy Ghost? If we do not un- derstand what this means, or have in our experience no realization of it, it is to but little purpose that we have been born in the Gospel dispensation and lived amid the influences of Christian light; we are yet in the darkness of ignorance as to the very first principles of the spiritual life, and there has been to us no Epiphany in whose light we may claim to walk, or in whose beams we may rejoice. Consider then, I pray you, how your case stands, and of what sort your life is. God in Christ is re- vealed first and chiefly as God who pardoneth and saveth from sin. Have you a personal knowledge of genuine, heartfelt penitence for sin ? Do you know what it is to be conscious of its defilement, and in that consciousness, to abhor even yourself, and to cry out for deliverance and purification ? Do you know what it is to abominate iniquity, to 88 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH hate everything that is evil, and to yearn for nothing so much as for purity and perfect righteousness ? Then, do you know what it is to have heard, as it were, a voice speaking to you directly, to you individually, to you in the very depths of your own personality ° “Took unto Me, and be saved. I am thy God, and will be thy salvation; wash you, make you clean with the atoning efficacy of My blood; be strengthened in the might of My Spirit. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for 1 am meek and lowly of heart, and thou shalt find rest for thy soul) zene question is, not whether you can recall some mo- ment in your past life when you had, for the mo- . ment, some thought or feeling, which, in your con- sciousness corresponded with this; the spiritual life is not a spasmodic vitality that moves, like an elec- tric shock, once in a man’s experience and thence- forth ceases. It is the habitual tone and temper of a spiritual mind always to hate sin, always to desire deliverance from it, always to look unto Jesus as the only divine and all sufficient Saviour. And, with this apprehension of Him as the Saviour, it appre- hends Him also as the source of all sanctifying grace and strength. By continual communion with His indwelling Spirit, the faithful soul has ever its satisfying and strengthening nutriment. It lives and grows thereby, and, in every advancing stage, realizes with more and more grateful satisfaction, that He is its portion and its everlasting salvation. Does any one here still ask the old question, how is it that Christ manifests Himself to such souls, and TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 89 not unto the world? The answer—verified in the experience of millions, in every generation of Chris- tian believers—is, that He so manifests Himself to them through all the dispensations, and by all the dealings of His providence and grace. To the man that seeketh Him He is ever nigh, and His presence is often felt and realized with most precious assur- ance when there is no encouraging sign or token in the outer world. In the very isolation of soul which outward adversity occasions, communion with Him becomes the only refuge, and a sense of His abiding love the only consoling stay and support. Yet not in adversity only, but in hours of brightness and scenes of blessing as well, His approving and loving presence is manifested, and its recognition sweetens every satisfaction and heightens every joy. So, all providential dispensations are His manifesta- tions, and, in them all the eye of faith sees and the heart of faith adores and lovingly trusts Him. But, in special degree, and with peculiar assurance, is He manifested by the dispensations of grace. Here the promise to His first disciples is verified with ever new emphasis. “ The world seeth Me no more, but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” “ At that day ye shall know that Iam in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” The Church is ever His living body, and prayers and sacraments have no other purpose but to verify and confirm the union of all faithful souls with Him in the perfection of His Heavenly life. Oh, how high, how precious our privilege in the realization of such Epiphanies! gO THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH It was permitted to St. Stephen, for a moment, just on the point of his release from earth in martyrdom, to see the Heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God; “ but to us, if we have but faith to receive it, it is given to see and know Him condescending to our low estate, as coming unto us and making His abode with us, as making our poor hearts habitations of His Spirit, and certi- fying to us, that, as we become more and more true and constant in our love of Him, we do grow in the very vitality of His life, and become more and more one with Him, even as He is one with God. Shall we not receive it? Shall we not, with ever increasing thankfulness, find our highest joy in realizing it? We have but to put ourselves in the true attitude, for His promise stands, and will surely be verified in the experience of every faithful soul: “He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. ol > THE USE AND BENEFIT OF FASTING. Ash Wednesdan. The days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.— Sz. Luke, v. 35. IT may be taken for granted, I presume, that all of us who are here this morning have some serious purpose for the personal improvement of this Lenten season; we recognize it as a season in which the Church provides for us special opportunities, and makes special calls upon us for faithful diligence in using the means of grace; and, in withdrawing this morning from the ordinary business of our daily life, we are seeking for a new spiritual impulse to stir our hearts, and strengthen our hands, and quicken our feet, for some marked advancement over that of the past—some higher and truer effort—in the line of Christian progress. We can hardly hope for success in such progress without some definite and well-considered plan of action and devotion; and it is to be hoped that this point has already, or is this day to have, our serious and prayerful thought. How shall I keep this Lenten season? How can I keep it in my circum- stances, consistently with my particular engagements and line of daily duty? How should I keep it, so that the effect shall be most thorough in elevating and purifying my personal life and character? These are questions which we must take up at the outset, 92 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH and a well-considered answer to which must lay the foundation for any real progress that we may hope for in the course of the solemn season. Now, without attempting here to discuss specific plans, which must be determined by regard to every one’s particular circumstances and personal needs, I desire to call your attention to one religious prac- tice which stands out above all others as the duty of the season, and which the Church has unmistaka- bly marked as such; but which is very apt, in our time, to be counted as altogether obsolete, and en- tirely disused, or else relegated to the observance of a mere sentimental piety. I mean the duty of fasting ; and I say emphatically the duty of fasting, because there can be no question that, at least for ws, in this Church of the Bible and the Prayer Book, fasting is positively enjoined as of obligation. On one of the opening pages of the Prayer Book there are always to be found two tables— the one, “of Feasts to be observed in this Church throughout the year,” and the other, no less unques- tionably obligatory, “of fasts.” And this latter reads as follows: “ A table of Fasts: Ash Wednes- day, Good Friday,” distinctively at the head; then, “Other days of fasting, on which the Church re- quires such a measure of abstinence as is more espec- ially suited to extraordinary acts and exercises of devotion,” viz.: I. The forty days of Lent; II. The Ember Days at the four seasons; III. The three Rogation Days; and IV. All the Fridays in the year, except Christmas day. With these standing appointments unquestionably before us, there can be TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 93 no question of the recognition or prescription of fasting, as a duty, on the part of our Church; nor would there seem to be any ground to question our own personal obligations in relation to it. But, as there can be no profit in duty performed as a mere perfunctory submission to recognized au- thority, and as the current of our modern life flows in a direction which is crossed and disturbed by anything which is supposed to have an ascetic tendency, it may be worth while for us to consider some of the reasons which have led good men and women in past ages to think that they were spirit- ually strengthened by physical fasting, and to ask if there is not something in these reasons to give them weight and profitable application in our own case ? In the first place, then, let it be clearly noted that no one in any age, not even when the meritorious- ness of ascetic habits was universally accepted, ever supposed that the mere act of abstaining from food was, in itself, a religious duty. Abstinence of neces- sity was always counted as simply starvation, as utterly devoid of religious effect or purpose as of physical comfort. So, fasting which consisted mere- ly of such abstinence, has never been supposed to have the least spiritual efficacy. Really to fast has always been held by religious teachers to be, like getting down on the knees, profitable and right 2/ done in connection with prayer, and for intensifying earnestness and humility therein ; but, otherwise, of no religious character whatever. The question, then, is always to be considered with this understanding. Granting that sheer abstinence from food is not 94 THE WITNESS “OF Tis CHURCH fasting religiously, why should fasting ever be con- sidered a suitable accompaniment of prayer, or sup- posed to be conducive to its deeper earnestness or more fervent character? Now, in giving what I take to be the true answer to this question, let us begin by putting the matter on the lowest ground. I suppose that there is no one who is really in earnest in the spiritual life who will not admit his conscious need of some Zes¢ of his earnestness. In reading the teachings of our Lord and His Apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, every one must feel that there is an enormous con- trast between the Christian life as it is there exem- plified and the general condition and conduct of those who profess and call themselves Christians in these days. Much of this is involuntary and unavoidable. The conditions of our modern life throughout are different from those of that age. The world is near two thousand years older, and civilization has kept pace with its advancing age. In all the conditions of material comfort especially, there is no comparison between life now and then. The poorest person has access now to many things which the richest had not then, and some of which had not entered even into their highest dreams of possible luxury. Then again, the fact that our civilization is Christianized puts us all into an en- tirely different relation to the world from that of the first Christian age. There is no longer open antag- onism between the Church and the world. There is no hostility on the part of “the powers that be” against the Christian profession. Consequently, DOVCTAISLLAIN EAL TL, 95 there is no sacrifice of position or of respectability, no open renunciation of associations or of interests in the world required of any one in making or main- taining this profession. And yet, the New Testa- ment is full of passages which assert plainly and unequivocally that self-denial, in some form, is an essential element in the Christian life; and it is im- possible to explain away these passages by referring them merely to the circumstantial conditions of that, or any other age of the past. They are, un- questionably, declarations for all time and applicable in every stage of civilization and to every person, of whatsoever rank or calling. Now, this being true, it must be a question for anxious consideration with every one who is really conscientious, if there be any sort of test by which he can prove to himself that his religion is nota mere form or compliance with the conventional pro- prieties of respectable and well-behaved society. And, for this purpose, there is no test so practical as that which is afforded by every call of the Church to acts which are disagreeable and requiring self- denial. One instance of such a test, put by our Lord Himself to an inquirer, is given in the Gospel: “Tf thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” It was a test which the young man, who was rich, was unable to meet, and he “ went away sorrowful.” It would be hard indeed to find one who could meet it in these days; but we may thank God that there are but very few indeed—only here and there one—who seem, by Providential indi- 96 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH cations, to be called to it. But the principle of the test is the same in a call to any form and degree of self-denial. The appeal is to our conscience in op- position to our taste and self-will; and our willing- ness or unwillingness to comply, for the sake of Christ and the Church, affords a very practical proof of the supremacy among our governing motives either of a conscientious and loving devotion to Christ in the one case, or of a self-seeking and self- pleasing spirit in the other. Now, among methods of self-denial, there is no one that is so readily at- tainable and so generally possible as that of adopt- ing some systematic plan, in which, from time to time and according to the recognized authority and wisdom of the Church, one puts himself upon fare that is less luxurious and abundant, less palatable and pleasing, and even harder and coarser, than his commonregimen. It is a form of self-denial which is possible for all, the rich and the poor alike; for luxury is relative, and the cheap indulgence of the very poorest has in it the same flavor of luxurious enjoyment that is found in the costly extravagance of the rich. Each must fast in the way which his own circumstances suggest; and the ways will in- deed be widely different; but the self-denial, which is the essence of fasting, is as possible for the oneas for the other. But this is putting religious fasting only, as we have said, on the lowest ground. There is another reason for it, which is a little higher, viz.: it is, at least when practised systematically and in accord- ance with the regulations of the Church, a testimony TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 97 to the world of our Christian allegiance. There is no longer, as we have already said, any apparent an- tagonism between the Church and the world. Ever since the conversion of Constantine, in the fourth century, the Church has been acknowledged by the world as the mother and mistress of civilization, and to her has been generally conceded the administra- tion of the moral influences in human society. Cot: sequently, there is no longer occasion for the open and visible separation of the Church from the world which was absolutely necessary in the first ages. And yet it is plain that, if Christianity is to be a really effective power, moving on society and lifting it upward constantly towarda higher spiritual plane, ‘t must be known and recognized as having a positive character; and its faithful disciples must have some distinguishing marks, by which they are known as “a separate and peculiar people,” “in the world, but not of the world.” But, open separation being now, as we have said, impracticable, and a separation by formal marks, as, for instance, by a particular style of dress or of speech, having been in the experience of modern sectarianism, tried and found wanting, the true secret of such influence seems clearly to lie in a faithful conformity to the appointments and direc- tions of the Church, which have borne the test of many ages, and been found, in the experience of millions of saintly men and women, to be most ef- fectual in giving tone and character to the spiritual life. This is true, emphatically and pre-eminently, of the Church appointments of feasts and fasts throughout the year. For, in the due observance v 98 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH. of these, the time of our mortal life, with all its occupations and interests is Christianized; and the faithful members of the Church are seen everywhere and by all, as “using the world, but not abusing it ;” and even the children of the world themselves recog- nize the wisdom of. this moderation, and, in mere shame hush, for a time, the sounds of their revelry, and abridge the excesses of their dissipation, and curb and suppress the extravagances of their customary over-indulgence. So “the testimony of Jesus” has freer course and gains new power, as a witness against the corruption that is in the world, and Christian example is a manifest power for its refor- mation and elevation. But, my Christian brethren, while there is certainly reason in such considerations as these for our ob- servance of the fasts, as wellas the feasts, which have been appointed by the Church, there is, as I hope some of us have already found in our experience, much higher ground for the practice of fasting among the systematic devotional habits of the Christian life. Most of the considerations that we have now taken into account would be applicable to ‘any form of self-denial or self-discipline which might be sanctioned by the Church; but there is much more to be said, and more that is positively and dis- tinctively Christian, in recommending the particular form of self-denial, which is, properly, fasting. It is a fact, as remarkable as it is unquestionable, that, in all ages and under all dispensations, they who have been eminent as saints of God have been known as serving Him “ with prayer and fasting ;” and TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 99 this fact is alone sufficient to indicate that there must be apparent to persons who are really spirit- ually minded, some special fitness in this particular form of self-denial, as well as, in their experience, some proved use and efficacy for self-discipline and purification. Unquestionably, this is true. And the key to it may be found in the fact that in devo- tional abstinence from food there is a special recog- nition of the original source of sin in the world. Renovation, or even reformation, must begin with a humble recognition of its need in the fallen condi- tion of our natural state and character ; and the same divine revelation which has brought us the knowledge of salvation, has taught us that sin came originally through yielding to fleshly appetite. What more obviously fit, then, whether it be in prostrate self-abasement, or for needful self-discipline, or as seeking for a personal participation in the counter- acting efficacy of the divine redemption; what, I ask, more obviously fit than the religious minded curb- ing of our fleshly appetite, and our proved mastery over it by occasional denials of even its guiltless gratification? This is, no doubt, the key to the general adoption of fasting in the devotional habits of the most earnest and successful seekers after holi- ness. Accordingly, in adopting this practice for our- selves, we have the advantage of knowing and feeling that we are in their company ; our spirit is attuned in unison with theirs; we are consciously trying to be, and in our measure feel that we are, like minded with them, and we gain immense supplies of spirit- 100 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH ual strength in this saintly communion. Above all, we know that we are in communion with the divine Saviour; that in fasting we are following His ex- ample, walking in His steps, and “ filling up in our flesh that which is behind of His sufferings for His body’s sake.” So, then, it is not surprising that there is found to be special use and efficacy in devotional fasting; that, above other modes of self-denial, it has, when faithfully adopted, in submission to the wise direction of the Church and with devoted regard to both the example and the injunctions of our Saviour, peculiar influences to beget in us “‘a deeper humiliation and a more chastened spirit in carrying on His will; a more thorough insight into ourselves, and a closer communion with God; a more resolute and consist- ent practice of self-denying charity; a more lively realizing of things spiritual; a warning to the world of God’s truth and its own peril.” Let us all resolve, brethren, to try it, for once, honestly and systematically, during the Lenten season now before us. Each one must determine for himself how, in his circumstances and for his in- dividual needs, he can fast most profitably ; whether it be by entire abstinence for the whole or a part of given days, or simply by cutting off indulgence in some particular for which he has a special liking. ‘He who pronounced a blessing upon the gift of a cup of cold water to a disciple in His name, will also bless any act of sincere self-denial practised in mem- ory of Him. Only let us not mock God, let us deny ourselves in something which is to us really TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. IOI self-denial; let us, in whatever degree we may be able to bear it without diminishing our own useful- ness, put ourselves to some inconvenience, in sorrow and shame for those sins, ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,’ which made our Saviour a man of sorrows, and exposed Him to shame ;” and then I am sure that “we shall not after- wards think the practice degrading to Him, or with- out meaning.” In conclusion, I adopt the words of one of the old homilies: ‘“ Let us, therefore, dearly beloved, seeing that there are many more causes of fasting and mourning” for sin “in these our days than hath been of many years heretofore in any one age, en- deavor ourselves, both inwardly in our hearts and also outwardly with our bodies, diligently to exercise this goodly exercise of fasting in such sort and man- ner as the holy prophets, the Apostles, and divers other devout persons for their time used the same. God is now the same God that He was then; God that loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity ; God which willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live ; God that hath promised to turn to us, if we refuse not to turn to Him; yea, if we turn from our evil works before His eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek to do right, relieve the oppressed, be a right judge to the fatherless, defend the widow, break our bread to the hungry, bring the poor that wander into our house, clothe the naked, and despise not our brother which is our own flesh. Then thou shalt call, saith the prophet, and the Lord shall answer. Thou 102 LAL WITNESS TOF ST fee CH ORCH shalt cry, and He shalt say, here am-I. Yea, God which heard Ahab and the Ninevites and spared them, will also hear our prayersand spare us, so that we, after their example, will unfeignedly turn unto Him; yea, He will help us with His heavenly bene- dictions the time that we have to tarry in this world, and, after the race of this mortal life, He will bring us to His heavenly kingdom, where we shall reign in everlasting blessedness with our Saviour Christ. “To whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, forever and ever. Amen.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 103 XI. ANGELIC SUCCOR, THROUGH PRAYER AND FASTING. Lent. From the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand. —Danzel, x. 12-14. In the beginning of this chapter, the prophet Daniel represents himself as having been for three full weeks in humiliation, fasting and prayer, before God. “In those days,” he says, “1, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh, nor wine, in my mouth, until three whole weeks were fulfilled.” To see the reason of his fasting and mourning, and so to get at the significance of the angel’s declaration to him, which is contained in the text, we must re- call the fact that a similar prostration of himself in fasting and supplication, five years before, had been followed as an unquestionable consequence to his faith, by the termination of the Jewish captivity ; and that now the hands and hearts of the returned exiles were weakened, and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem hindered, by wicked opposition. At this his spirit must have been deeply stirred within him. He was too aged to go and set forward the 104 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH work with his own hands, for he was now at least ninety years of age; and, besides, his presence and influence were, doubtless, needed in the Persian court. Therefore, his recourse was precisely that which we should have expected to see in him, when he tells us that he devoted himself to prayer and fasting, and, for three full weeks, ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine into his mouth. And now, let us note the result. At the end of that time he lifted up his eyes; and, behold, there stood by him “a man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz, whose body was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass. And the voice of his words lixe the voice of a multitude.” This heavenly messenger (for such we may be assured he was) thus addressed him: “O, Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright; for unto thee am I now sent. Then said he: fear not, Daniel; for Srom the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy prayers were heard, and Jam come for thy words. But, the prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days.” See, then, my brethren, what a contest in the spiritual world the prayer and fasting of one man LORCHRISTIAN: PALIT, 105 may occasion. In this, as in other inspired records of the contests of the principalities and powers in heavenly places, there is much, of course, which is mysterious and above our comprehension; but thus much seems to be clear in fact; that, on the very first day in which Daniel began to chasten himself before God, an angel was dispatched from the court of Heaven to his relief. This angel was met and resisted by another spirit, called in the text, the “Prince of the Kingdom of Persia,” as Satan is called by our Lord “the prince of this world.” Between these a fierce contest ensued. Meanwhile, Daniel continued his self-chastisement and supplications for three full weeks. Then, Michael, one of the chief captains of the heavenly host, comes to the relief of the first angel and subdues the opposing one. Whereupon, Daniel is visited and cheered, and strengthened and enlightened ! The practical inferences for us, which this history obviously suggests, are possibly liable to be obscured by our thinking of it as a chapter in the Old Testa- ment, colored with the imagery of Oriental mysti- cism, and relating to a dispensation far back in antiquity, and in all respects unlike this in which we are living. I will ask you, therefore, before present- ing these inferences, to turn with me for a moment to the New Testament and read there an account of an incident in Christian history which is so clearly paral- lel with this in all the essential features as to relieve it of any such obscurity, whether for our faith or our practical application. In the tenth chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we read that 106 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH “there was a certain man in Cesarea, called Corne- lius, a. centurion of the band called the Italian band: a devout man, and one that feared God, with all his house ; who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.’ He, too, as Daniel, was fasting and praying, not indeed for so long time, but until the ninth hour of the day; and, lo, to him likewise ap- peared an angel, who said unto him: “ Thy prayersand thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.” Need we hesitate, then, my brethren? Can we doubt? May we not rather, and shall we not, take it home to our hearts as a truth unquestionably re- vealed in the Word of God, that our humiliation and prayer—the humiliation and prayer of such poor worms of the dust as we are—have power and effi- cacy beyond the boundaries of time and space, can and do rise above the noise and strife of terrestrial things, are heard and known in highest heaven, and obtain for us celestial visitants, angelic ministers, to fight our battles, strengthen our weaknesses, help our infirmities, enlighten our eyes, cheer our hearts, and save our souls? Was it not to assure us of this that the prayer and fasting of Daniel are recorded ? Was it not for this that the prayer and fasting of Cornelius are recorded? Do we not see an illustration of it in the fast of Elijah, who was likewise visited and strengthened by an angel? And, above all, was it not for this that when our blessed Lord had fasted forty days and forty nights it is recorded that “angels came and ministered unto Him?” Take it to your hearts, then, my brethren, not as a notion or conceit, not as a poetic or religious TO CHRISTIAN FAIT#. 107 fancy, not as a conception of sentimental piety, but as a veritable truth of the gospel and of life; and so improve this Lenten season that you may have a blessed experience of its life and power. I am sure that of all truths none is more needed by us, none more worth an honest, earnest endeavor to grasp and hold with a clear, strong, persistent faith, than just this. It is almost a lost truth. It is admitted, indeed it must be admitted, to be contained in the Bible; and we are all, no doubt, ready to concede that we ought to believe it in a weak, sentimental way, as an act of piety; but to hold it as veritable fact, and really to betake ourselves to a systematic course of self-humiliation and extraordinary devo- tion, with a serious expectation of enlisting angelic movements and ministrations in our behalf ;—Ah, this is something which is so remote from the habit- ual thought and feeling of the times in which we are living, that one can hardly propose it without sus- picion of being very superstitious. But, neverthe- less, the truth of God standeth sure, and “ man doth not tive by bread alone”; human souls with all their spiritual needs and aspirations cannot be sustained and satisfied by mere material cognitions in this age any more than the days of old. The grasp of faith, now as ever, must be on the unseen, and it is strong only as it realizes the verities of the spiritual world. When the incarnate Son of God, who know- eth all things, said explicitly of the power of dispos- sessing and overmastering evil spirits: “ This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,’ He ut- tered a truth too mysterious for the philosophy of 108 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH our age to apprehend, too spiritual for the religious faith of this age to recognize; but true, nevertheless, and as true in this nineteenth century as in the first. The sacred season into whose solemn shadows we are just now entering calls us to humiliation, to sor- rowing repentance, to self-mortification, to fasting and earnest prayer. You will hear the call but coldly, and your endeavors to comply with it will be exceedingly hard and dry and formal, the mere per- functory performance of a prescribed routine, unless you carry into it living spiritual faith, and find in its services and duties an increasing realization of spir- itual verities. With such faith, then, dear brethren, humble yourselves in the sight of God now, and He shall lift you up. Be.afflicted and mourn now, and your heaviness shall ultimately be turned to joy. Mourn, first of all for yourselves, for your own personal sins ; weep and lament that you have made s0 little progress in the divine life, that the flesh with its affections and lusts is still so strong, that your faith and love are so weak. Repent of your shortcom- ings and backslidings, and pray God to help you throw aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset you, that you may, hereafter, press for- ward with ever increasing zeal toward the mark of the prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus. Be afflicted and mourn for your country, that it is so stained by dishonesty, so lacerated by fraud, so threatened by corrupt factions—dead alike to con- science and to shame. Be afflicted and mourn for the Church, that its zeal has become so nerveless and TO CHRISTIAN FAITI. 109 impotent, its love so cold, its faith so weak. Like Daniel, set your face unto the Lord God by prayer and supplication, with fasting and sack-cloth and ashes; and beseech Him to behold the city that is called by His name, and cause His face to shine upon His sanctuary as in the ancient days. Pray for the Church as related to you in your own parish, that it may receive the dews of God’s blessing, that the word preached and the means of grace dis- pensed here may be efficacious to the awakening of the careless and impenitent, to the reclaiming of the backsliding and them that are gone out of the way, and to the building up of the faithful in all the holy eraces of the Christian life. Pray for the Church throughout this great city and diocese ; that it may rise to a truer consciousness of its advantages and responsibilities, and gird itself with renewed strength for its holy work. Pray for the Church throughout our common country, that its stakes may be strengthened and its cords lengthened yet more and more, and that all its parts may be at the same time so bound together that neither the subtilty of men or devils may be able to rend them asunder. Pray for the Church in our motherland. Pray for the Church throughout all the world, as the Saviour prayed, that all may be one, even as the Father and the Sonareone. Pray for them that are ignorant and out of the way. Pray for the careless and impeni- tent. Pray for your own kindred. Pray for our common humanity. And, if in this congregation to-day, there be any who are not yet enrolled as members of the house- IIo LHE WITNESS OF THE -CHURCH hold of faith, who have not by baptism put on Christ, or have hitherto lived in neglect of their plighted duties; let them find in the warnings and calls of this holy season, their present saving op- portunity. Yes, beloved, now for you is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. Oh, let this beginning of the-Lenten season find you on your knees humbling yourself before God, deprecating His wrath and supplicating His mercy; let every succeeding day find you in like mind and employ- ment; and this season of forty days shall not pass before your prayers shall be heard, and your soul richly blessed. Aye, on the very first day that thou shalt set thine heart to chasten thyself before God, thy words shall be heard; and a mighty contest shall be commenced for thee in the spiritual world; Michael and his angels contending with the dragon and his angels. The contest may be long, it may be severe, yea, a sword may pierce through thine own soul also; but continue thy supplications, rise not from thy humiliation, pray without ceasing; and there will assuredly, for Christ Himself hath prom- ised it, be joy for thee in Heaven among the angels of God. IO CHRISTIAN FAITH. II! LA: THE HUMILIATION OF THE ETERNAL SON. Passion Week. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; and, being found in fashion asa man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.— P77. tr On}. O. THE calls of the Church inthe first weeks of Lent are to self-examination, to self-discipline, to repent- ance and turning unto God; in these last, our thoughts, without precluding the sense of our need of repentance, are more especially directed to a con- sideration of the Redeemer’s sufferings, by which grace and power were purchased forus. The text may well subserve this purpose in our meditation now, as it puts distinctly before us, and calls for our direct and undoubting recognition of the Person who thus suffered for us as being in the mystery of a double nature, both God and man. It will be a fitting preparation, please God, for Good Friday, to fix, as far as we can, in our minds, the thought of who our Saviour is, and what, in order to be our Saviour, He condescended to become. It is indeed a very sacred and awful subject, and one of which we ought not to speak, we ought not to hear, with- out great reverence and a careful guarding of our thoughts as well as our words. May He, who I12 THE WITNESS OF (THE CHURCH searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, help us to take up this meditation and to carry it on through this solemn season, with a fittingly chastened tem- per and purity of spirit. First of all, then, when we are meditating on our Lord’s sufferings and death on the cross for us, we must remember and understand clearly that in those sufferings and that death, He was not a mere martyr. And this means a clear recognition and belief of two very profound truths: that He was not a mere man; and that He suffered and died not for His own sake or account. He was not a mere man; He was verily, and that from eternity, the only begotten Son of Almighty God. The text tells us this very clearly: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” And the assertion here is abundantly sustained by the entire tone and im- port of the New Testament Scriptures. It is not necessary to quote the many passages which plain- ly assert His divinity, since they are constantly brought before us in the commemorative services of the Church in this solemn season. “Day by day we magnify Him and we worship His name ever, world without end,’ which would be sheer idolatry, were He not the very and Eternal God, our Maker and Lord. The faith of the Church on this point is, and has ever been, most clear and de- cided; and in holding fast to it the saints of all ages have lived and died. It has been, everywhere and among all who profess and call themselves Chris- tians, the inspiring source of the adoring homage, of TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 113 the unspeakably grateful and loving devotion which has been the accredited characteristic of Christian worship. There could have been no such homage or devotion had Jesus been accounted a mere man. For, in that case, there would have been no special condescension in His low estate, in His privations, or even His persecutions, in the world. He was but a peasant of Galilee, and His poverty was but the common lot of His class. If He met with oppo- sition from the rulers of the nation in His public ministry, this was only what might reasonably have been looked for by one making and publicly assert- ing His pretensions; and even His final execution was but a contingency, the risk of which He must have been willing to run for the sake of the tempo- rary notoriety and influence which His claim to the Messiahship would secure. It is shocking to speak in this way of our adorable Redeemer. But at should be clearly understood that only thus could He be spoken or thought of if He were not believed to be very God. As man merely, His claim upon our homage and devotion, or even our common gratitude, would be decidedly inferior to those which had for centuries before His day been ac- corded by millions in the great Indian Empire still further East, to their reputed Messiah, Gotama- Buddha; for the record of the life of that Eastern sage was one of poverty, of lonely wanderings, of pure self-abnegation, of thought only for others and goodness toward others, very similar to that of Jesus; and he was, at thesame time, the undisputed son of a King, to whom, therefore, all this privation 8 II4 THE WITNESS OF .THE CHURCH and suffering were the voluntary assumption of his own purely unselfish benevolence. Our Saviour, the Lord Jesus, being from eternity very God of very God, when He became man and took on Him the form of a servant, submitted Himself indeed to a voluntary condescension, with which the conde- scension of any earthly king could make no claim to parallel. But the condescension, let: us always remember, was in Him possible, or possible its grate- ful recognition by Christian believers, only on the assurance of a well-grounded faith in His eternal and Divine preéxistence. Directly consequent on this point of faith, follows another no less fundamental and of practical im- portance in the Christian heart, viz.: that His suf- ferings and death were not for His own sake or on His own account. They were voluntary, as the con- ditions of the earthly life in which they were in- volved were self-assumed by Him; but the assump- tion, with all its inevitably humiliating and agonizing consequences, was, purely and solely, for the re- demption of our fallen race. Had the death of Jesus, by public execution, more than eighteen centuries ago in Judea, been that only of a religious pretender, or even of a martyr, it would long since have had its place only in the records of ancient history. But, because it is not only that, but believed and known to be the sacrificial oblation of the Great High Priest for the world’s redemption; therefore its commemoration is pregnant ever with application to the living present, and appeals with increasing claims for the profoundest gratitude and the most trustful TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 115 and loving devotion of every living soul. The suf- ferings and death of the Word Incarnate could not pass away like a dream; they could not be a mere martyrdom, or a mere display or figure of some- thing else; they must have a virtue in them; and their perpetual commemoration is but tnewncver present recognition and application of this virtue as our reconciliation to God, the expiation of our sins, and our new creation in holiness for the life ever- lasting. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” He hath “ made peace by the blood of Hiscross.” “ He hath reconciled us in the body of His flesh, through death, to present us holy and unblameable, and unreprove- able in His sight.” ‘Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” “ He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed.” “ We believe, then, that when Christ suffered on the cross, our nature suffered in Him. Human nature, fallen and corrupt, was under the wrath of God, and it was impossible that it should be restored to His favor till it had expiated its sin by suffering. Why this was necessary we know not; but we are told expressly that ‘we are all, by nature, children of wrath,’ that, ‘ by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified,’ and that, ‘the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God.’ The Son of God, then, graciously took our nature on Him, that in Him it might do and suffer what in itself was impossible to it. What it could not effect of itself, it could effect 116 FHL WITNESS OF THE. CHURCH in Him. He carried it about Him through a life of penance; He carried it forward to agony and death. In Him our sinful nature died, and rose again. When it died on the cross that death was its new creation. In Him it satisfied its old and heavy debt; for the presence of His divinity gave it transcendent merit. His presence had kept it pure from sin from the first, His hand had carefully selected the choicest specimen of our nature, and, separating it from all defilement, His personal indwelling hallowed it and gave it power. And thus, when it had been offered up upon the cross, and made perfect by suffering, it became the first fruits of a new man; it became a divine leaven of holiness for the new birth and spiritual life of as many as should receive it. And thus, as the Apostle says, ‘if one died for all, then were all dead;’ ‘our old man is crucified in Him,’ ‘that the body of sin might be destroyed,’ and, ‘together with Christ,’ ‘when we were dead in sins, hath he quickened us and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’”"* How amazing, how overwhelming this truth; God Himself suffering on the cross; the Almighty, Everlasting God, in the form ofa servant, with human flesh and blood, wounded, insulted, dying; andall this as an expiation for human sin! Howamazing! And yet, if it be true, how necessary for our most faithful and grateful acceptation. If it be true. And, if we think that this can be now a question, we must remember that its truth has been verified by sixty generations who have lived * Newman’s Parochial Sermons, vol. ii. p. 453. TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. II7 and died in the faith of it, and that it has borne the test of near twenty centuries of investigation and of experience, with its constant application to human need in every possible phase and relation. IT IS TRUE. It is the truth which we need, every one, for the pardon of our sins and for the sustenance and comfort of our souls. Now, therefore, when this truth is specially and most impressively brought home to us, when the Church in all its solemn’ services is setting Christ be- fore us as the Great High Priest of our profession, through whose oblation of Himself once offered we have perpetual redemption ; oh, let there be no halting in our faith. And let us try, by devoutly meditating on the mystery of His passion, to break up in our hearts the habit of resting in the merely traditionary generalities of faith. Let it be one, and that not the least, of the devotional aims of this solemn season, to get for ourselves a more specific realization of the true nature, as well as the infinite worth, of our Redeemer’s condescension and suffer- ings for us. Let us take some little time in each day to lift up our thoughts and fix them on the con- templation of what He was in the infinite majesty of His eternal existence, and then of what He con- descended to become, and to what humiliation and suffering He submitted himself in the work of our redemption. Let us be especially careful to take into our faith the apprehension of that condescen- sion and the consequent sufferings as veritable, and in the truest possible sense and degree real—real in fact and in the Saviour’s consciousness. Let us re- 118 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH member that though He ever was, and is, God, He became truly man, and in His incarnation submitted Himself, and that even in His Godhead, to all the sinless conditions of human life and experience. And in the veritable truth of His incarnation we have the conceivable assurance of His possible subjec- tion to the real experience of suffering, even as God. Our understanding stands aghast at the thought of God suffering, and asks if could it be possible for a Divine Being, having in Himself all sufficiency, comprehending all things in His knowledge, and having command of all forces in His power, yet to be compassed by human infirmity and tied and bound in the chains of human sorrow? Most cer- tainly it could not be possible unless He had become man in the very truth of man’s nature. But then it would be possible; for even Divinity incarnate must be true to the essential conditions of a nature to which It had subjected Itself. And if it be diffi- cult for us to put together the thought of a Divine, and, at the same time, a suffering Being, it is equally difficult to put together the conception of evena human intellect in its fullest manifestation of intel- ligence and enjoyment, and yet, in the same person, by change merely of physical conditions, dwarfed even to idiocy. Think of the intellectual compre- hensiveness of a Shakespeare—how abundant, how many sided, how full of all possible phases of life’s experience must have been his consciousness; and yet, Shakespeare in his infancy was but a prattling babe, and in his mature age, had but the hand of disease laid its touch upon his brain, he would have TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. IIg become but a drivelling idiot! So inexorable are the laws of nature: so unexceptional the subjec- tion of every one brought within the conditions of its life. When, therefore, the only begotten Son of Almighty God determined to take upon Him our human nature, He knew full well that such conde- scension must needs involve an entire subjection to all the essential conditions of this nature ; and it was but the legitimate and necessary carrying out of that determination, when, “being found in fashion as a man,” He halted not in full obedience to the law of His human life, but went on unflinchingly in the path of sacrifice, and “humbled himself and be- came obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Oh, wondrous love, to submit to such an infinite depth of condescension, to put Himself under such an overwhelming weight of suffering; but, blessed be His name, we know that the condescension and the suffering were as real to Him as they are of unspeakable worth to us. Therefore, let our hearts be lifted up in most thankful recognition of His great mercy toward us; and let us draw near unto God, through Him, in full assurance of faith, know- ing, that having passed through His sufferings, He is now exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high to plead the merits of those sufferings in the functions of an everlasting Priesthood, by which He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him. 120 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH XIII. PW ATTRACTIVE POW LR OF THECROS @ood Fridan. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.—St. John, xtt. 32. THIS is one of those most solemn and momentous sayings which our Lord spake in the city, and proba- bly in the temple, of Jerusalem, during the week pre- ceding His crucifixion. The Evangelist tells us that He spake this, “Signifying what death he would die.” The being “lifted up from the earth,” of which He here speaks, must therefore be understood to refer, not as we might infer from the words, to His ascension to Heaven and His exaltation on the throne of glory there, but to that cruel and igno- minious lifting up of His body, which was witnessed, and which He foresaw would be witnessed, but a few days thereafter on the Cross of Calvary. Thus “lifted up, He knew full well that He was to be ex- posed to the malignity of His enemies and the scorn of the world; He knew that death by crucifixion was, not only most painful, but also most ignomin- ious; that none but those who were adjudged the vilest criminals were subjected to it; and that in it He would, therefore, seem to have the brand of in- famy stamped indelibly upon His character; that He would thereby be accounted both in the judg- ment of law and the estimation of the world, one “ ac- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. I21 cursed.” And yet, my brethren, it was in reference to that very death, and with the full knowledge of all its ignominious circumstances, that He made the prediction in the text, and declared, that, so far from consigning Him, as it was intended, and as it did in fact consign others, to infamy and oblivion, it would be the source of His mightiest and most slorious triumphs, drawing all men unto Him and causing Him to be esteemed throughout all generations, as the only hope, not only of Israel, but of all the ends of the earth. What a marvellous prediction to make concerning such a fact! How incredible it must have seemed to the Jews, if they had any apprehension of its meaning. But, my brethren, how numerous are the evidences which we have of its truth! How many and how clear the facts which we can point to in proof that it has been, and is ever being, fulfilled ! Yes, incredible as it must have appeared to the Jews, and marvellous as the fact is to all human ap- prehension, it is, nevertheless, completely verified in all the Christian history of near two thousand years, and will, without doubt, continue to be, even unto the end, that the Cross of Christ is, as it were, a universal magnet, the attractive power of which is ever felt in all spiritual life, so that, by it, the redeemed are drawn together in one, out of all nations and tribes of mankind. See, in the first place, how it has drawn together all nations. Before that sacrificial oblation was made by Christ on Calvary, and apart from its influence, the ten- [22 {HE WIIWNESS: OF THE: CHURCH dency of national distinctions has ever been exclusive and separative. Not only does every nation seek to maintain its own natural boundaries and its own political institutions, but even in its religion it aims to be independent of, and separate from, all other nations. In heathenism, universally, every people and country-has gods of its own. And from the earliest ages it has been so, as it is undoubt- edly true that national pride was one of the first principles at work in the corruption of primitive tradition, by which the truth of God was changed into a lie, and the worship and service of various creatures was substituted for that of Him who is the One Creator of all. Even the Divine dispensation previous to the death of Christ was a national dis- pensation. The Almighty chose a people unto Him- self, and made to that people His revelations and His promises. True, this was not in the end for their own exclusive benefit ; but, so long as the dis- pensation lasted, its privileges were confined to them, and all its institutions were designed to keep them asa nation distinct and separate from all others. So then, it is true, as we have said, that in all his- tory, apart from that which is Christian, the ten- dency of national institutions has ever been towards separation and antagonism, breaking up the great human family into sections apart from, and hostile to each other. First, in the very lowest stage of ad- vancement, in that state which our men of science call the state of nature, there is the drawing off of families into tribes, and these are in perpetual hos- tility with each other; so that the most character- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 123 istic designation of those of our race who are in that state is that of savages. Then, advancing beyond that into the heathen civilization when tribes have become merged into nations, the principles of hostile antagonism are not in the least degree abated ; but, on the contrary, are seen to be still in existence and in operation, with mightier energy, and on a far more extensively destructive scale. So that, human history, in all its stages of advancing civilization, has been, thus far, but little else than a history of con- quest and war. Nowhere among all the nations of heathenism, not even in the Platonic cultivation of classic Greece, can you find anything like a real ap- prehension of the idea of a common, universal broth- erhood. You will find Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians, proud of their several national distinc- tions and fierce to maintain them against the world ; but you will not find anywhere the conception of a common Head with common bonds of relationship extending from Him to all its members, even to the most remote and the most obscure, so that.ifrone suffer, all suffer, and if one rejoice, all have cause for joy. Nowhere in heathenism or even in Judaism do you find such a conception of unity and brother- hood. But how familiar to us all is it in Christendom. True, we have come very far short, as yet, of the realization of it as a fact ; but as an idea, as the true condition of humanity, as that which we are to aim at and struggle for, it is most unquestionably appre- hended by us all. And even infidels and scoffers at revelation have taken it up, and made it their shib- x \ 124. THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH boleth, claiming each one that his own diluted re- production of old exploded heathen philosophy is charged with this specific virtue, to secure, with universal infallibility, the fraternal unity of our race, But the truth is purely and exclusively a Christian truth. Christ, in being lifted up on the cross, has become a centre of attraction to all nations, and the principles of His cross have become a common bond of sympathy in all human life. National dis. tinctions exist; national power is maintained; and so, national affection and pride, all that constitutes patriotism, are as possible, and may be as strong as before. But the walls of separation are really broken down, so that there is necessary alienation no longer, there are divers gods no longer, and sep- arate religions no longer; but, in every nation and from all people, in every language and tongue, com- mon prayers and praises go up to the common Lord and Father. And there is more and more, in just the degree in which the principles of Christ and His cross are operative, a realization of the remarkable description of the Christian world, which was given even as early as the second century, that, “there is no nation whatever, whether barbarian or Greek, or by whatever other name called, whether living in wagons, or altogether houseless, or feeding their herds, or dwelling in tents, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings in the name of the crucified Jesus, are not made to the Father and Creator of all.” But, when Christ declared that, in being lifted up TO. CHRISTAANM FATT, 125 from the earth, He would draw all men unto Him, His prediction was, unquestionably, intended to have not only this general reference, but also an individual application. It is as if He had said, “I will draw every man unto me, every one of the innumerable hosts who, in all ages and over all the earth, are to be my disciples, every one who shall feel in the least degree the pulsations of the spiritual life and yearn and struggle for a being above this earthly state ; every such an one,” says the blessed Lord, “ shall be drawn, by the power of the cross, unto Me.” And, in accordance with His words, there is indeed a proc- ess contantly going on, by which individuals, one by one, are everywhere drawn, by silent, invisible influences, to Christ on the cross; and are thus ena- bled to know Him and the power of His death, be- ing made comformable unto His death, that in the end they may attain unto the resurrection from _ the dead. Oh, yes, those of us who know anything of Christ know what it is to be drawn unto His cross; never yet has one been quickened by the very first princti- ples of the Christian life, except by apprehending Christ on the cross. Such an apprehension of Him, of Him crucified, is the essential principle of that life. There can be no true Christian experience ex- cept as it begins with this and continues in the ad- vancing realization of it. ‘The very first cravings of the awakened penitent find there the answer of peace, and the most blissful experience of the most saintly Christian draws thence its principles, and finds there its full satisfaction. 126 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH This universal adaptability of the cross to draw to Christ the hearts of His children on earth, in every possible phase of their religious experience, is in- deed most wonderful. It begins to draw them even before they are distinctly conscious that the spiritual life in them has begun. While they in the world are laying out the plans of their life for the world, and giving their affections to it, then, in the risings of disappointment, in the secret and scarcely ad- mitted but real sense of unsatisfaction; in the un- defined and involuntary yearning after something higher, and truer, and better; and through all the circumstantial trials of their lot, through the ob- stacles to their coveted success, on which they are constantly stumbling in every path of life: through the dark clouds which overhang and threaten its through the storms which actually desolate it; in and through all these, they are drawn by attractive influences of which they are not, at first, at all con- scious, to the cross of Christ. They say of them- selves, in these dissatisfactions and disappointments, that they are “ crossed,’ and they express a far deeper truth in that saying than they are aware of. They are “crossed,” and, though they now know it not, it is, in truth, the cross of Christ, whose shadow has fallen upon them. If this is a part of the mys- tery of sin, it is also, and no less, a part of the mys- tery of redemption. Sin involves suffering ; yes, and in the unspeakable mystery of the grace of Christ, who is the Saviour of the world, all the suf- fering that is felt in the life of the world is taken up potentially, and may be made, in human experience, TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. P27, actually tributary to His own suffering on the cross. So, then, it is not that “blackness of darkness,” which is the eternal consequence of sin, that darkens the pathways of our earthly life; but it is the shadow of the Cross of Christ ; and though it seems, sometimes, to our poor human vision, to be very dark, yet, it is in truth but “a light affliction,” and designed to work out for us “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Now, when the eye of faith begins to perceive this, then it begins to see Christ Himself; and in seeing Him, it is unfilmed for a far higher vision. It sees the meaning in relation to the end as well as the cause, of all human suffering. It sees the atonement ; sees “ God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, but justifying them through His blood.” And when that is seen and apprehended with any degree of clearness, oh, what an attractive power is there then felt to be inthe Cross of Christ! How it draws the man; how it constrains him, as by cords of in- finite love, to draw close to it and to Christ upon it, that the precious blood flowing down from that pierced side, may drop upon him for his redemp- tion and salvation! Nor, even when all this is ef- fected, does the attractive power of the cross cease. Its effectual work is then, in truth, but just begun. From that moment the man not only looks unto Christ crucified as His atoning Saviour, but he yearns to be, and does in fact more and more become, in- corporated with Him, so that his life is not only for Christ, but in Christ. He becomes, and yearns to 128 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH realize more and more that he is, a “ very member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones;”’ so that he can say with real, intelligent truth: “The life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me;’’ and, while I live “ Christ liveth in me; I am crucified with Christ,” that the body of my flesh may be buried in Hisdeath, and raised by the power of His resurrection, unto His eternal life. So it is, then, my brethren, that the prediction of the text is fulfilled in every true disciple of our Lord. So it is that by sinful and sorrowing men, hope and restoration are everywhere alike found in the cruci- fied Redeemer. And it is indeed a most wonderful proof of His divinity, a marvellous demonstration of His divine sufficiency, that this is true. When He was actually lifted up on the cross there were two others of our human race lifted up with Him. He, not less than they, was crucified by the sentence of human law. He, more than they, was hated and contemned by those who procured the sentence and participated in the execution of it. But there has been no attractive power in either of those crosses. It would have been nothing short of blasphemous arrogance in either of those malefactors to have made for himself any such prediction as that of the text. Nor among all the unhappy ones, in all ages of the world, who have been sentenced to death and ex- ecuted, whether justly or unjustly by the sentence, is it possibly conceivable that any one could have made, or could adopt for himself such a declaration. Oh, no. He, who in thus dying could and did alone LO CHRISTIAN FAITH. I29 make it, and who in all subsequent history has. veri- fied it, was no mere man. He was the POWER OF GOD AND THE WISDOM OF GOD.” He must have been. He was in very truth God Himself! “God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Let the solemn commemorative services of this day setting forth Christ “evidently crucified before our eyes,’ bring this precious gospel truth home to each one of us. Let the momentous practical ques- tion be earnestly considered by every one individ- ually; does the Cross of Christ have this attractive virtue for me? Have I been, am I being drawn by the Saviour, crucified thereon, unto Himself? Let no one dismiss this question without considering it well. Believe me, my brethren, this and nothing but this, will save you from the guilt and the misery of sin. You must look directly to Christ, to Christ on the cross, and receive the atonement there made, as “the full propitiation, satisfaction and oblation”’ for your sins. You can substitute nothing in the place of this; nothing in yourself ; not your own morality, or sincerity, or estimable qualities of any sort; not even your religious convictions, feelings and en- deavors. Nor yet is it enough to look to Christ, in His life on earth, for your example; if you look to Him no further than that you will prove to be but a miserably poor copyist of what even your own im- perfect and low apprehension sees that exampie to be. No, that will not do. You must not rest there. You must go further, and say with St. Paul: “Though 9 130 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now hence- forth know we Him no more.” You must not only look at Him, not only try to imitate Him, but you must also be found in Him, not having your own righteousness which is by the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that you may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death, that so in the end you may attain unto the resurrec- tion of the dead. May He breathe upon us all His divine, quicken- ing and enlightening Spirit, to enable us thus to know Him, thus to be found in Him; and thus at last, through the grave and gate of death, to have our eternal inheritance in the blessedness of His heavenly life. Amen. TO CHRISTIAN. FAITH. I3I XIV. DERI MR I INE ION ONS a & Easter. And the graves were opened ; and many of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.—S¢, Matt. xxvit. 52, 53. THE Evangelists’ narrations of the scenes and events connected with the Resurrection of our Lord are as unique, and almost as miraculous, in litera- ture, as the great fact itself was in actual history. The entire series of events, from the moment when the sun was darkened in His death, till the rock was rolled away from the door of the sepulchre in His rising again into life, was not only extraordinary and marvellous, but absolutely overwhelming to hu- man contemplation. And yet the Evangelists have recorded these occurrences in the simplest possible way as just matters of fact. There are no excla- mation marks, no notes or comments to indicate either doubt or astonishment on their part. No matter how unprecedented, how miraculous the al- leged fact, they put it down simply as a matter of record which had been certified to them by sufficient evidence. I say this is as unique in literature, and almost as miraculous as the Resurrection itself in actual history; and it is impossible to account for it on any other theory than that which has from the first been accepted in Christendom, viz.: that these Evangelists were plain, simple, matter-of-fact men, 132 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH who, under the inspiration of the Spirit of truth, felt that they had no other obligation or mission in this respect than just to record the facts as they had re- ceived them; to record these facts in simple, abso- lute honesty; and to leave the record for study, investigation, explanation, meditation, to scholars, philosophers, sages and poets, and, at the same time, for inspiration to all saintly souls, whether of such as these or of simple and unlettered folk in all the after ages of the world. In such investigations and meditations many questions have been asked, and may allowably be asked, and among them, whether all the details of the narrative are to be received as absolutely certain facts, or only as a true record of the testimony which the evangelists had received. It matters not; the main essential fact, above all, the one great fact of the resurrection, is absolutely unquestionable on every ground of historical credibility. And, this fact being admitted, there is no incredibility in almost any de- gree of extraordinariness in the character of its acces- sories; nor can we doubt that there must have been much of confusion and bewilderment mixed with the consternation and amazement of the spectators and actors in those extraordinary scenes. So, when in the narrative of St. Matthew, we have put down asa simple matter of fact the astounding statement, that, in connection with our Lord’s Resur- rection other “graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many,” it matters not for us whether as a true 710 CHRISTIAN FAITH. 133 record, this be a statement of the facts which he witnessed, or, not rather of the testimony which he had received. In either case the mighty marvellous- ness of that to which it was accessory makes it credi- ble, and entitles it to acceptation. But, we have selected it for our special medita- tion this Easter morning for a single purpose; be- cause it is the first intimation we have in the New Testament of one of the effects of our Lord’s resur- rection in the realm of human thought and feeling, viz.: the change which it made in the minds of His disciples as they thought of the dead and contem- plated their state. The Evangelist says here, “ many bodies of the saints whzch slept, arose.” ‘ Saints which slept.” Observe how naturally and involun- tarily he speaks of the dead as having been only asleep. And this is the first indication of what we know to be the fact, that this became very soon the common conception of death among Christian be- lievers. Again and again throughout the New Testa- ment the departed are so spoken of; and throughout Christendom, from the earliest age the commonly accepted name for the burial grounds of the dead has been that of a “cemetery ;” which means simply 2 sleeping place. A fit subject for grateful meditation on Easter morning, then, may be this: to consider some of the obvious reasons why we, who have life and im- mortality brought to light in the Resurrection of Christ, should thus speak and think of those whom the world calls dead. The first and most obvious of these is, because we know, as the world before or 134 THE ALINE SSOP GAD EMCITORCE without the knowledge of the Resurrection of Christ could not know, the limited power of death. Without revelation death seems to be destruc- tion. And even the arguments of reason, which tell us of the immortality of the soul, the imperishable permanence of character, or even the indestructi- bility of matter, are confronted by the stern facts of dissolution, which meet inevitably the sentence: ‘“ Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” But in the light of the revelation of the Gospel of Christ, we know that death is not final, and that it has no power to destroy the vital principle in either the soul or the body. We know that the grave is but a cemetery—a sleeping place for the mortal frame, and that in Paradise there is blissful rest for the redeemed soul till the Resurrection Day. There- fore, we may properly think and speak of death as but asleep. Not, indeed, as some have coldly sup- posed, as a state of insensibility and unconscious- ness; for sleep does not necessarily involve uncon- sciousness. We seldom remember on waking what have been the themes which have occupied our thoughts during the sleeping hours; but there is no doubt that the mind has both retained and exer- cised its thinking faculties. What is even more to the purpose, it often proves itself, in the free and spontaneous exercise of its capabilities which it has in the favored seclusion of the sleeping state, to be possessed of powers of intellect and imagina- tion, of which there are no gleams in the awakened consciousness. “ No Raphael can paint a dew-drop or a flake of frost. Yet some rude man, tired of his TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 135 work, lies down beneath a tree, his head upon his swarthy arm; sleep shuts one by one those five scant portals of the soul—and what an artist ts he made at once! Wow brave a sky he paints above him! With what golden garniture of clouds set off! What flowers and trees, what men and women does he not create, and moving in celestial scenes! What years of history does he condense in one short minute!” And yet, “when he wakes, he shakes off the purple drapery of his dream, as if it were but worthless dust, and girds him for his work anew.” * | So, we doubt not, in the sleep of the faithful de- parted, there are visions of blessedness infinitely surpassing the most rapturous conceptions of bliss that are ever attained to in our earthly state. Their rest is, surely “not the rest of a stone—cold and lifeless; but of wearied humanity,” alive unto God, and in the nursing care of His unsleeping and in- finitely tender love. They are “asleep in Jesus;”’ and, we doubt not, they see His face and feel the beating of His loving heart. This is quite consistent with the fact, that, until the Resurrection Day, when the restoration of the body shall complete their identity, and give them back, fully redeemed, all their original powers of active energy, they must be in some real sense analogous to the condition of the body when asleep, in an imperfect and quiescent state, rather than in active service. The souls of the waiting martyrs are represented in the Book of * I am indebted for this striking illustration to Theo. Parker’s Sermon of Immortality. O sz ste omnia. 136 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Revelation as being, not in the full enjoyment of heavenly blessedness, nor before the throne of God, but as being “under the altar;” seeming to inti- mate that they are in a safe and holy treasure house close by, “in acleft of the rock,’ as Moses was, covered by the hand of God, and beholding the skirts of His glory; in that intermediate state which is called Paradise, the Garden of the Lord, where . His voice may be heard and the light of His coun- tenance enjoyed; but which is still not the place where His highest glory is perpetually manifested. That is reserved for the final reward, when all the righteous shall have been gathered in after the Resurrection Day. But, even in the intermediate state, and while they are thus “asleep in Jesus,” we may, I think, without presumption, indulge the hope and even cherish the belief that they still, at least with all the affections of spiritual affinity, remember us. “How much of all that they were must they forfeit, if they lose both memory and love. Shall we think that we can remember Bethel, and Gideon, and the valley of Ajalon, and Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives; but that Jacob, and Joshua, and David, and the be- loved disciple remember them not? Or shall the lifeless dust that their feet stood upon be re- membered, and the living spirits who there dwell with them, be clean forgotten? Surely we may be- lieve that they who live unto God, live in the un- folded sameness of personal identity, replenished with charity, and filled with a holy light; reaching backward in spirit into this world of warfare, and TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 137, onward in blissful expectation to the day of Christ’s coming, and in that holy waiting adore, as the brightness of Paradise ever waxes unto the perfect day, when the noontide of God’s kingdom ‘shall be as the light of seven days,’ and shall stand forever in a meridian splendor. He hath made His rest to be glorious; and there is He gathering in His jewels. There is the multitude of saints, waiting and wor- shipping. Abel is there, and Isaiah, and Rachel who would not be comforted, and the sonless widow, and Mary Magdalene, and all martyrs, and all the holy ones of God. They wore out with patience the years of this toilsome life; and they are resting now. They sleep in Jesus. Theirs is a bliss only less perfect than the glory of His kingdom when the new creation shall be accomplished.” * And so we have already indicated to us another reason why we should think of them, not as dead, but as asleep, viz.: because we know that they shalt wake up again. “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.”’ That ut- terance of the Son of God on earth in regard to one whom He loved has become, since His resurrection and ascension, the universal promise of His Gospel; assuring a certain, ultimate triumph over death and the grave to all who are “departed in the true faith of His holy name.” Therefore, death has become, in relation to the resurrection, simply what sleep is to waking. “It is only a prelude; a transitory state ushering in a mightier power of lifes: * Manning’s Sermons, vol. I. p. 247. 138 LAE WITNESS POL VLE” CHURCH How incomparably below our favored position in this respect was that of even the most clear sighted and spiritually minded cf the old heathen sages? They mused and boded and felt after immortality as they felt after God; but, after all, death and the world of the dead was to them a dreary night. They saw men going down into the dust, but they saw none come back again; they had heard not even a whisper of the Resurrection of the body. If the dis- embodied spirit should live on, that was the highest attainment of their hope; and even this was clouded and dim. And so, the fleetingness of life and the un- known condition of the dead were the chosen themes, alike of their deepest philosophy and their highest strains of poetry. And even the elect people of God, in the old dispensations, were permitted to see but very dimly the coming gleams of the Resurrection. “Death was too high, too mighty, and too absolute; they saw and felt his dominion. Of his ultimate overthrow they had indeed both the promise and the prophecy; but as yet he seemed too tyran- nously strong to pass away into a transitory sleep.” Ah! but it is ours to sing a new song. “I heard a voice from Heaven”; from Heaven—no longer an unknown realm, but the place whither our Saviour Christ, who is “the Resurrection and the Life,” hath — “gone before ’—‘‘ saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth; even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their la- bors.” Therefore, for us, death is not only doomed to final extinction, but is even now destroyed, and TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 139 “ Life and Immortality ” are already, in the reality of fact as well as the assurance of promise, “‘ brought to light.” Our dead shall live again; nay, they are not dead, even now; they are but sleeping, in that kindly, soothing rest which is needful for the wearied and world-worn spirit; and in due time we know | that they shall hear the voice of Him in whom they have trusted, and shall wake up in His likeness and be satisfied. For these reasons, then, and surely they are quite sufficient, the death of the righteous is truly spoken of as a sleep, and may be rightly regarded by us as both the pledge of present rest and the prophecy of a certain future resurrection. We say the death of the righteous, the death of those who fall asleep in Jesus; for it is only of these that the Scriptures speak when they use this language. They do, in- deed, in dark hints refer to the death of the wicked. They speak of souls “in darkness,” “shut out from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power;” they warn us that the bad as well as the good will be raised up and judged in the last day; and we know in how fearful terms are portrayed the everlasting condition of such as shall then be con- demned. But the text speaks only of those who sleep in Jesus; and of such only have we been speak- ing now. It is the privilege of all of us, if we will, to be in Jesus; and enough, therefore, is it for us to know that they. who are in Him, when they pass away from this mortal life, enter into a state of blissful rest. This, thank God, we do know. It is not a guess; T40 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH not a supposition or probable opinion; but it is the positive, explicit assurance of the revelation of Christ our Lord. As one, then, and that not the least precious among the many precious gleams of revelation from the Easter sun, let this consoling and cheering as- surance be taken to our hearts. Weep not for the sainted ones whom God hath taken. They are at rest. They sleep in Jesus; and no harm can happen unto them. Seek not, either with devotees of old superstition or modern infidels, to pass the barrier which separates them now from the apprehensions of sense. Fancy not, with the old heathens, that their spirits are left to wander up and down in in- visible space, or that they are any longer subject to the disturbances of our earthly state. But leave them in faith and hope with Christ: and rejoice in believ- ing that, as He is the Living Head both of them and of us, through Him alone we may commune with them now, and with Him we shall all together at last be raised up to stand before the throne of God. ‘They are at rest We may not stir the haven of their repose By rude invoking voice, or prayer addrest In waywardness to those Who in the mountain grots of Eden lie, And hear the fourfold river as it murmurs by. ‘* They hear it sweep In distance down the dark and savage vale ; But they at rocky bed, or current deep, Shall nevermore grow pale ; They hear, and meekly muse, as fain to know How long untired, unspent, that giant stream shall flow. TO CHRISTIAN: FALE, I4!I ‘* And soothing sounds Blend with the neighboring waters as they glide, Posted along the haunted garden’s bounds Angelic forms abide, Echoing, as words of watch, o’er lawn and grove, The verses of that hymn which seraphs chant above.” 142 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH eV 5 LASTER FAITH. Gaster. “‘And when they heard of the Resurrection of the dead, some mocked ; and others said, we will hear thee again of this matter.”— A cls 211-632. % ST. PAUL, having been directed by the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel in Macedonia, was subjected to three successive persecutions, in Phil- ippi, Thessalonica, and Berea; from the last of which he was rescued by certain of the brethren and conveyed in safety to Athens. There he sent word to his companions, Silas and Timotheus, to join him; and while waiting, “his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry,” or, as it is in the margin, “full of idols.” He therefore engaged in disputations, “in the syn- agogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met him.” He encountered also certain philosophers of the Epicureans, who counted it but superstition to live for anything but present enjoyment; and of the Stoics, to whom all the events and issues of life were the inevitable impositions of arbitrary fate. At last he was brought unto Areopagus ; probably as the most convenient place for addressing the multitude; perhaps to submit his doctrines to the test of the judicial tribunal which was there in session. And, standing on Mar’s Hill—in the very TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 143 heart of Athens, with its statues, and altars, and temples of many deities around him—the Apostle found a most fit opportunity to proclaim his testi- mony against idolatry, and to announce himself as an ambassador of the One, Living and True God. Having observed, as he passed through one of the streets of the city, an altar with this inscription: “To the Unknown God,” he took this as a text or motto on which to hinge the argument of his dis- course. He announced that he had come to make that God known to them; and declaring Him to be the Creator and preserver of all things, he exhorted them to turn from their idols and worship Him alone, by this argument: “ Forasmuch as we are all the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ig- norance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent; because He hath ap- pointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath or- dained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead.”’ Up to this point the assembled multitude listened to him patiently and, no doubt, with the eager curi- osity for which the Athenians were distinguished. But “when they heard of the Resurrection from the dead, some mocked; and others said, we will hear thee again on this matter.” It is plain from this that the doctrine of the resur- rection of the dead, which St. Paul preached, was entirely new to the Athenians. And let us not fail I44 LHE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH to note the significance of this fact. Athens, we know, was the seat of the Grecian philosophy. The Athenians were not unaccustomed to speculations, or unfamiliar with theories concerning the future life. Quite the contrary, the subject was a very old and familiar one in their thoughts. And if the Apostle had entered into an argument for the pos- sibility of a future existence, or for its probability, from moral considerations, or spiritual intuitions; had he put his doctrine on any philosophical or even re- ligious ground, as that of the immortality of the soul, there would have been nothing in it that would have startled the Athenians, or occasioned among them the least surprise. Even if he had gone much farther, and argued for the possibility of a future life for the body, as well as the soul ; this, though it had not been distinctly formulated, might have been not unreason- ably grounded on the principle, which was very gen- erally accepted in their philosophy, of the indestructi- bility of matter; and would not have stirred them up, as the Apostle’s preaching plainly did, to interrupting opposition. No, the truth clearly is, that what the Apostle declared in their ears, was, no speculation, no theory, no mere doctrine; but it was, and was claimed to be, fact. God had, to his personal knowledge, raised up one from the dead, and thereby had given assurance unto all men of a like resur- rection, and an eternal judgment by him. This was the Resurrection which the Apostle proclaimed ; and nothing short of, or in any respect other than, this, can ever be truly preached or held as the Christian doctrine of “the Resurrection of the dead.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 145 For us, as for St. Paul, the Resurrection of Christ brings the future Resurrection of all men wethzn the domain of fact; and this is the ground of our un- questioning faith init as Christians. We are assured that we shall rise from the dead and live everlastingly, because He hath risen in the power of an endless life. Now, on this basis of fact, we have the assurance, in the first place, that we shall be the same identical beings in the future life that we are now. The old Athenians were familiar enough with speculations concerning the future state of existence, but their boldest speculations always fell short of the grasp of this truth. In the great poem, which they were all accustomed to consider as the foundation of their literature and their religion alike, the departed heroes are represented as existing after death only as ghostly shades. They have a form; but it is an unsubstantial form, which eludes the grasp. The body has fallen to dust; the spirit also has perished ; the soul alone still exists; but it lives a cold, sad, gloomy, dream-like life, mindful of its former pur- suits, but no longer able to enjoy them. “ Such is the lot of mortals,” exclaims the mother of Ulysses. “When they die, the muscles no longer hold to- gether the flesh and bones, but they perish in the fire when the breath leaves the body, and the soul flits hither and thither like adream.” A later philosophy held, that in the future our personal identity, and with it our personal consciousness, will be altogether lost; that our souls will exist indeed, but exist only as the vital principle in birds or beasts or creeping things, or even in trees or plants. While still Io 146 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH another, and that by far the highest, could dare to assert but this as a positive conviction that “there is in man a principle that cannot perish.” But that this principle will re-appear in another world, with the same order of faculties and under the same laws that pertain to its being here, was not conceived of as true or probable. Here, then, was the new thing in St. Paul’s an- nouncement of the Resurrection of Jesus. It was no abstraction of a possible immortality ; but it was the assertion of a veritable, literal Resurrection. A man had died and risen again; had risen again so as to be the same identical person that he was before; not a mere vital principle, not a mere disembodied, though conscious, soul, but a complete man, body, soul and spirit; all in true, organic union, and fulfilling the essential functions of a true, glorified, and perfected manhood. Such, then, is the Christian conception; nay, not the conception only, but the well-grounded assur- ance of the future life. We shall rise again, as Christ rose, in the completeness of nature and identity; and the life hereafter shall be a true continuation, in legitimate development, of the life which we are living now. And, with our personal identity and therein the continuance of our personal conscious- ness, we may, surely, believe also that there will be to us still the grounds, and within us the capacities for identical recognitions and affections. Christ not only knew and recognized His disciples after His Resurrection, but assured them that they would be admitted into heavenly companionship with Him, TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 147 after His final and eternal triumph over death and hell. And if it was to be their joy that they should be with Him, this, surely, could not be without knowing Him, nor without knowing and rejoicing together with each other, and with all others alike redeemed and saved in Him. These are the two essential points in the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection; the completeness of our personal identity, and the perfection of our con- sciousness in the future life. In holding these we have the assurance of a well-grounded faith. This faith is not only self-consistent, but it is the only faith which takes in the essential conditions and realizes the full capabilities of our human nature. It recognizes our whole existence from its germinal beginning to its fullest development in the most re- mote eternity, as continuously and legitimately but one. Weare men, spirit, soul and body, upon earth; we shall be men, spirit, soul and body, in the world to come. We are not to be human existences here, and spiritual existences there; but human existences in both; “and our life shall know no break from its first dim dawn to its mid-day brightness in the world of bliss. When we stand before God, in presence of the great white throne, and are judged every man according to his works, it shall not be possible for any one to say that the body in which he stands is a strange, untried one, in which on earth he never sinned or repented, and on which it is unjust that punishment shonld now fall, and unbefitting that glory should come. All transformed though it shall be, the possessor of each body will feel that it is his 148 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH own ‘once sweet flesh.’ It will gather round our spirits as a natural garment. The judgment which is given on the deeds done in the body, however woful, will be felt to descend on the very body in which the deeds were done. The tears which God shall, once for all, wipe away from the faces of the blessed, shall assuage the weeping of the very eyes, wonderfully changed, but felt to be the same, that wept day and night upon earth; and the conscious- ness that it shall never know pain again, shall thrill through the very frame that once agonized in the mortal life, like the ripple on a lake, which though now serene as the clear sky above it, has in it tokens that it fell from heaven, and has carried with it signs of the battles with the rocks over which it was flung, and the whirlpools in which it wrestled before it reached the landlocked valley below.” * But let us ever keep our faith in this great Chris- tian doctrine clear of speculations concerning its physical conditions. Let us remember that even an Apostle, in the fulness of inspiration, was con- strained to say that “it doth not yet appear ”—it is not yet made manifest to our senses or our intel- lectual conception—“ what we shall be.” The body with which we shall be clothed upon, will indeed, in all that is essential to its identity, be the same with that body which is to each one of us an essential part of himself ; but who of us can now tell precisely what it is that constitutes essential identity ? Most certainly not anything that is the product of pres- ent physical defect, derangement, or infirmity. This * Religio Chemici, by Dr. George Wilson, p. 375. PO CHRISTIANE FATEH, 149 is very clear, because our personality in the future life is to be a perfect personality. There shall be no pain or sickness, no diseased or defective mem- bers when death shall have been conquered, and our mortal bodies shall have become immortal in the glory of the risen life. Nor again, does the identity of the body depend on the identity of its present material particles. These are constantly changing throughout the life that now is. The body of our childhood is not, in this respect, the body of our youth, nor the body of our youth that of our manhood, nor the body of our manhood that of our old age. In the material par- ticles of which it is composed, and indeed in all its material qualities and conditions, it is, from first to last, in a continual process of change ; and yet, from first to last it is nevertheless true that it remains ever the same body, as the person to whom it be- longs is the same person. Enough, then, that inthe Resurrection we shall still, each one, be consciously and fully himself, and not another. Enough that, with this perfection of consciousness, we shall awake from the grave and sleep of death, and in waking shall feel the mortal to have put on immortality, and the corruption to have put on incorruption. How, in the developing power of that endless life we shall be changed, we do not know. “It doth not yet appear,” nor to our present limited faculties can it appear, “what we shall be.” This only we know, and this we do know assuredly, for we have the word of God Himself for it, that “if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in 150 LHE WITINESS OF THE CHURCH us, He that hath raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal body by His Spirit that dwelleth in us,” and that we shall then be in all respects “like Him.” Our vile bodies shall be changed and made like unto His glorious body, our souls shall live, with all their faculties quickened and all their affections sanctified by His own divine Spirit, and even the atmosphere in which we shall live, move, and have our being, will be nothing else than the very breath of His eternal life. Knowing this, we need not desire to know more. We do, indeed, most thankfully accept the illustra- tions of the heavenly state which are given to us in the inspired volume, and we know assuredly that when we have gathered together all its descriptions and all its images, and have invested them with the fullest and highest significance which our imagina- tion can grasp, we have yet but a faint conception of the glory of that state; but, after all, this, ¢izs isthe ground of our brightest, and highest, and purest hope, that in Heaven we shall live, in all its infinite and eternal fulness, THE LIFE OF GOD, even as that Life is possessed by our Elder Brother, His only and well beloved Son, Jesus Christ. TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. I5I XVI. THE CARNAL TEMPER FAITHLESS. Easter-tide. What, and if ye shall sce the Son of Man ascend up where he was before ?— St. John, vi. 62. “ FARD SAYINGS” in religion are very apt to be in the way of those persons whose affections and habits are determined chiefly by the gratifications and ad- vantages of the present life. Such were those to whom this question was put by our Lord. They had followed Him from Tiberias to Capernaum and avowed themselves His disciples ; but they were in- duced to put themselves in this relation to Him not by a true religious belief that He was “ the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world,” nor yet by a sincere desire for the knowledge which they might get from His instructions, but because they had, on the day before, been plentifully supplied with food through His miraculous power. Such disciples received no encouragement from Him. He saw their carnal motives, though it ts quite probable that they were not conscious of them ; and when they came to Him with expressions of af- fectionate anxiety, He replied, “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek Me, not because ye saw the mira- cles,”—not, that is, because ye believe My works, and therefore believe in Me—“ but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.’ He then goes on to rebuke their unworthy motives and to teach them 152 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH that it was no part of His religion to pander to such motives. His object was infinitely higher; He came to feed the souls, not the bodies of men, and there- fore He required His disciples to “labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en- dureth unto everlasting life.” This, if they earn- estly desired it, He would give them. For He was the “ Bread of God, which came down from Heaven, and giveth life to the world.” Whosoever should come sincerely unto Him should never hunger, and the believer in Him should never thirst. It is no wonder that, with their carnal notions, they were unable to comprehend this. It is no wonder that they murmured at Him because He said, “I am the Bread which came down from Heaven.” It is no wonder that they doubted and questioned: “Is not this Jesus, whose father and mother we know; how is it then that He saithel came down from Heaven?” But, on the other hand, it is no wonder that the only answer which our Lord would give to such cav- illings was the reiteration, in still stronger terms, of His former assertions: “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this Bread he shall live forever. And the Bread that I will give is My flesh which I will give for the life of the world.” TO CHRISTIAN FAITH, 153 Now, note the influence of carnal notions and de- sires. One would suppose that these declarations of Christ were sufficiently explicit. One would sup- pose that after a miracle so evidently divine as that of creating instantaneously food for thousands, there would have been no difficulty in perceiving that He must have been a Divine Person, and, if Divine, that His teachings must not be interpreted in a gross and carnal sense. But gross and carnal minds are incapable of apprehending any other sense. And, therefore, they stumbled into new difficulties. “ How can this man’’—this son of Joseph—“ give us His flesh to eat?” They were difficulties, how- ever, of their own raising, springing from their own sensual imaginations; and, therefore, our Lord would not condescend to answer them. On the contrary, He repeated, in yet more startling language, “ Ver- ily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. . . . He that eateth My flesh and drinketh my blood dwellethin Me,andI inhim. As the Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” This was “a hard saying.” And not only these Jews who had hitherto stumbled at His declara-_ tions, but many of His disciples also, when they heard this, murmured at Him, saying, “ Who can hear it?’ Who can understand and believe a doc- trine so monstrous and incredible? It was then that our Lord put the question in the text: “Doth this offend you? What, and if ye shall see the Son of Manascend up where He was before?” 154 LHL WHINE SSO) Te foe COR CA. As if He had said, “ Would you then rise above these carnal conceptions and understand what is meant by “the Bread coming down from Heaven to be the life of the world? Or, would you then be- lieve that I came down from Heaven, notwithstand- ing your knowledge of My earthly parentage?” He added also, for them and for us, “ It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are Isifers My brethren, I have entered into this detailed ac- count of our Lord’s teaching in this chapter not for the purpose of explaining away what, most assuredly, He did not explain away, nor yet for the purpose of attempting to reconcile with carnal conceptions what He proposed, plainly, in opposition to such conceptions, but rather to raise, as He would raise, our minds above such conceptions. It zs mysterious, incomprehensibly mysterious, that He who was born to all earthly appearance of human parents, should have come down from heaven; it is mysterious that His body and His blood should be given for the life of the world. But what then? Shall we deny it because we cannot comprehend it? Shall we refuse to believe on Him, and decline to accept this Food at His hands, because we cannot comprehend by what process it will nourish us unto eternal life? Or, generally, shall we neglect our spiritual obligations and be false to our spiritual relations, because of some pre- sumed difficulty in the system of faith and obedience which is revealed from Heaven for our salvation? TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 155 No mistake is more common than this. It was not in our Lord’s day only, but in every day ever since, that men refuse to follow Christ, or, after be- ginning, turn back from following Him, because they find difficulties in His appointed way of salvation which do not square with their carnal conceptions. These conceptions appear to them to be very reason- able. They are, as they say, common-sense concep- tions; they are founded on plain, rational principles. And are these, they ask, to be givenup? Are we to extinguish the light of reason which God hath lit within us? Are we to take things upon trust? Are we to sell our substantial birthright for castles in the skies? Are we to leave the firm rock of expe- rience to travel blindfold in unexplored regions? Are we to run on, neglecting the things that are seen and reaching after those things that are un- seen? Precisely so reasoned the Jews in our Lord’s day. It was perfectly plain to them, as plain as anything could be, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary, whom they well knew. Being such, it was as plain that He did not come down from Heaven, and still more plain, if possible, that He could not give them His flesh to eat; or, if so monstrous an idea could be harbored, that His flesh would have no efficacy to preserve them from death and sustain them in eternal life. Now this reasoning was perfectly sound and logi- cal as far asit went. And yet it did not lead to the truth. For we know that our Lord did come down from Heaven, and, praised be His name, we know also 156 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH that His body was given to be the Life of the world. Where, then, was the difficulty? How was it that inferences so fairly drawn from well-known facts led to conclusions so far from the truth? The answer to them and to all who think and act like them is this: The reasoning was altogether one- sided. It was based on truth; but not onthe whole truth. Its premises were, in fact, only just so much of the truth—the small and comparatively unim- portant part of it—which is obvious to a mind that is exercised wholly in the material considerations of the present life. It was true that the name of Jesus appeared on the Jewish records as the sonof Joseph and Mary ; true that in the contemporaneous history He had been well known as such to many of the Jews who were now around Him. But then it was also true that from the beginning of the world spiritually minded men had been yearn- ing for such a Teacher and Saviour as He, that the oracles of God, with which the Jews had been for ages intrusted, and in which they were taught to look for the words of eternal life, were full of proph- ecies and types predictive of Him; and that, not- withstanding the lowliness of His earthly parentage He was in truth the Incarnate Son of God, born, not through ordinary human generation, but of pure Virgin maternity overshadowed by the Holy Ghost. Moreover, it was also true that both His teachings and His works were superhuman. He spake as never man spake, and wrought miracles, for which no human energy was competent, but which must have been wrought by the mighty power of God. tOMCHRISTIAN FAITH, 157 On the principles of religion, therefore, as they had been revealed to and accredited by the Jews them- selves, Jesus was entitled to implicit confidence when He declared that He had come down from Heaven and that His Body was the Life of the world. All the difficulty which the Jews found in receiving this assertion on His teaching throughout this chapter was attributable simply to the fact that their habitual thoughts and desires were altogether carnal. There- fore they fixed their minds wholly on the facts which were cognizable by the physical senses or appreciable on the ordinary conditions of human estimation, and overlooked all that was extraordinary and disregarded all that was supernatural. With minds and hearts so disposed it is no wonder that they disputed His claims and deemed His doctrines incredible. Is it not precisely so in our day, brethren? Do not the difficulties which men commonly find now in the scheme of revelation arise from their imperfect conceptions and their partial apprehension of its truths? Do they not fix their minds habitually on the ordinary and common-place, and draw thence their inferences and conclusions? Do they not for- get that God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways? Do they not forget that His power is infinite and His wisdom eternal ? To illustrate this by particular instances. Why isit that men, and they even in many cases like those in the chapter before us, among the professed disciples of Christ, find a difficulty in admitting that there can be any grace in the holy sacraments which were con- fessedly ordained by Him to be the signs and seals 158 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH of participation in the covenant conditions of salva- tion? Why is it that they reason among themselves and say, how is it possible for the application of a little water to the body to have any connection with the cleansing of the soul from sin? And how is it possible for the reception of a little bread and wine to be in any way efficacious towards nourishing grace in the soul or towards the strengthening of it for an eternal existence? Men do ask these questions. And because they cannot answer them, thousands are content to run the risk of living and dying in utter neglect of the divinely appointed means of grace. It may be that some whom I am now addressing are living in this manner and upon this principle. If so, I beseech them to consider whether they are not attempting to measure the infinite by the finite; whether they are not walking by sight rather than by faith; whether they are not limiting the power of God by the weakness of man? It is unquestionably true that there is in the ele- ment of water no inherent efficacy to wash out the stains of the soul; it is true that there is in the ele- ments of bread and wine no inherent efficacy to nourish spiritual life. But, what if inthe sacramental administration of these elements under conditions and for purposes which are all divinely ordained, the Almighty Creator and Saviour hath imparted this efficacious power? What if the Heavenly Dove hovers over that sacramental water to render it “the Washing of Regeneration ” and the sign and seal of the New Birth? What if the bread which we TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. I59 break is the communion of the Body of Christ and the cup which we bless is the communion of the Blood of Christ ? I am not saying now that it is so. But I put to you whether the Word of God does not so declare; and if that be so, whether in raising ob- jections and resting in doubts your reasoning and your conduct are not precisely like those of the Jews? So with all the other difficulties which people commonly find in revelation. They deny the doc- trine of the Incarnation, because they cannot under- stand how God and man could be united in one person. They deny the doctrine of the Atonement, because they see no need of such an interposition, and because it does not accord with their notions of the divine nature or attributes. They deny the doc- trine of Future Retribution because it is not consis- tent with their ideas of the Divine mercy. They deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, because they cannot comprehend how three Persons should each possess all the attributes of God and that there should yet be but one God. Now, it is not our present purpose to prove, or even to assert, that these doctrines are true; but simply to ask whether the Scriptures which have come to us as the Word of God do not teach us that they are true; and if so, whether those who reject them are not acting precisely like the Jews, who did not believe that Christ came down from Heaven, or that His flesh could be the Life of the world. And then, I would put to such doubters the question which our Lord Himself put to the Jews: 160 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up, where He was before?” What and if future dem- onstrations of the power and wisdom of God shall prove the truth of His word and the fallacy of their reasonings? Our Lord did ascend up into Heaven, and His Body was given for the Life of the world. And those who are disposed now to doubt any of His declarations because they find difficulties in them irreconcilable with their present knowledge, should consider very seriously whether the imperfection of their knowledge may not be attributed to the earthliness of their apprehensions ; and if so, whether it is not the part of wisdom and of duty to submit their reason to God’s Word, to receive implicitly that word, incomprehensible though it be, and to rely on His assurance that in His own time and way it will be veritably demonstrated,—that though they are permitted now to see only as through a glass, darkly, the time will come when they shall be permitted to see face to face. While, on the other hand, if they refuse to believe God’s Word, the time may come when with the overwhelming demonstra- tion of its truth, there shall be no escape from the sentence—‘“ Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish !” Let us not fail to note that while many, in the chapter before us, turned away from Christ with the murmuring complaint of His teachings—* This is a hard saying, who can hear it?”’—there were others who clung to Him the more faithfully, saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” And let us remember and lay to TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 161 heart the end of these men. Oh, who would not rather have been, at the last, with the confiding, sim- ple-minded disciples, than with the doubting and disbelieving Jews? Who would not rather have been with the Saviour at Bethany and received His parting blessing as He went up to His throne of heavenly glory, than with those, who, having become offended and forsaken Him, were now to be num- ered among His enemies, and made to feel the rod of His power? Let us, then, profit by their example. Let us receive, with implicit confidence, all that God has been pleased to reveal. Where we cannot compre- hend, let us adore; where reason staggers, let faith be strong. It 162 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH XVII. THE ASCENDED LORD. Ascension Man. Now, of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens ; a minister of the Sanctuary and of the True Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.—/Hed. vit. 12; CHRISTIAN belief is not a set of notions, opinions or sentiments, but simply a credence of actual facts—the facts in the life and revelation of Jesus Christ; which facts are real, whether we believe them or no; only, our belief puts us in a true rela- tion towards Him and towardsGod. Believing that He isthe only begotten Son of the Father, Who came from Heaven to redeem us from the curse of sin, we commit ourselves with implicit trust unto Him as our all-sufficient Saviour, and look up unto God as our all-merciful Father. And there is no fact in the life of Jesus, nothing of all that He said or did, that faith passes by; no word, or deed, or manifes- tation of Himself, that it does not accredit and em- brace with the homage of its most implicit trust and its deepest gratitude. But the facts on which faith is thus grounded are not mere facts of the past. The life:and works of Jesus did not cease with His death, 1800 years ago ; He died then in the flesh, as it is appointed unto all men to die; and His spirit passed into the state TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 163 which is the common habitation of the dead; but “ His soul was not left in hell, neither did His flesh see corruption: He rose again, on the third day, from the dead, and ascended up into Heaven, where He now sitteth at the right hand of the Father to make intercession for us.” Thus the past is ever linked in with the present, in the Christian scheme. And, while all the facts of the past are historically authenticated, so that pres- ent trust is grounded most reasonably on a certain historical foundation, on the other hand, the facts of the present are explicable only as having their roots in just these past events. You know that geologists tell us that the surface of our earth bears upon and in it unquestionable records of its progres- sive history in the creation, that its out-croppings of different strata of stone and of earth are indubitable indications of the different periods which succes- sively marked its history in the progress of creation. Just so all existing Christian institutions—the Min- istry, the Sacraments, and the Worship of the Chris- tian Church, and even the inspired Scriptures of the Christian Testament—are out-croppings, as it were, of the actual Christian history, and could not be, as we know they are, in present existence, except as results from the historical verities. Take, for example, the observance, which is main- tained in all Christendom, of the first day of the week as a day of holy worship and rest. This ob- servance is professedly grounded on the resurrection of Christ from the dead. He rose on this day of the week; therefore, it was made the Christian Sabbath, 164 LAE IWILTNVE SS OMe L Hi CHORCH consecrated as the Lord’s Day, and substituted for the day which, from the beginning of the world, had been hallowed by the obligations of a divine com- mandment. 7 Now, imagine that there was no resurrection of Christ from the dead, and you can find no possible explanation of this existing institution. For, it is ob- vious and unquestionable that its observance dates from the very event itself. The obligation to keep it rests, not on an enactment or appointment which might be made at any time for the special purpose, but it goes back directly to the Fact, and declares that when it had taken place the day of its occur- ence was at once recognized by the Apostles, who had the mind of the Spirit, as analogous in the Christian scheme to the day when God rested from all His work in the creation, and was thenceforth universally hallowed in the Christian Church. Never has there been a moment, from that time to this, when the observance was, or could have been, separated from the fact; never a generation who did not be- lieve, not only that it was their duty to observe it, but, also, that tt had been observed by their fathers, and through them by their fathers, up to the Apos- tles who were themselves eye witnesses of the fact. This is but an illustration of the relation of the present to the past, which subsists in all the Chris- tian economy. It is a sublime truth, which we have now to con- sider, that this connection of the present with the past is not confined to the earthly system, but ex- tends even into the heavenly world. TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 165 It is a glorious article of our Faith, that Jesus is now exalted at the right hand of God in Heaven, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us; and, that He is thus exalted and is invested with this office because He took upon Him our nature, and in it suffered death, and rose again from the dead. The Ascension is a fact of the past, and, as such, not only abundantly authenticated by the testimony of those who were eye witnesses of the fact, but it was also so linked in with the Resurrection as to be its necessary consequent. If Christ rose from the grave and gate of death into life again on this earth, He would be still here, had He not passed away either through a second death or by living transla- tion. But, inasmuch as it is certain, that having once on the cross suffered death, He “dieth no more,” it is unquestionably certain that He departed from the earth by ascending up into Heaven. The one great miracle, being authenticated, puts its seal upon the other as an incontestable, and even a nec- essary fact. Asa fact how glorious it is! No wonder that, if in the scheme of the economy of Divine grace, it was to take place, it should have been anticipated by types and prophecies, and abundantly verified in the evangelical history. What a revelation it makes to us of the world to come! How it opens Heaven, and lets its glory in upon even the present earthly habitation of our re- deemed and regenerated humanity. How it opens Heaven! 106 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH When the Apostles of Christ stood on Mount Olivet, gazing after the ascending Lord, and saw His adorable Form rising steadily upward, until it disappeared in celestial regions far above the range of human sight, they must have felt, not only such a certain conviction of His Divinity as they had never felt before, but, with this confirmation of their faith, oh, what .a flood of new conceptions of the Heavenly State, and of new hopes in those concep- tions, must have rushed, with overwhelming power, upon them. Jesus—their Lord and Master, their Friend and Leader, their Teacher and Exemplar, their Guide and their Saviour—had ascended up in His bodily form, with all its human qualities and at- tributes manifestly retained! Himself the same; His person the same; His body the same: the same in appearance, the same in fact, or if changed, yet changed but to be glorified, to be immortal, to be superior to all the changes and chances of this earthly life, but not divested of a single quality or attribute that was essential to constitute His personal identity. As such, He had gone up, up beyond the atmosphere of this world; up beyond the clouds ; up beyond the sky; up beyond the stars; up beyond all human ken or thought ; but still, defi- nitely upward, into some Place where His Throne was prepared! And, since they knew that place to be Heaven, Heaven itself was assuredly revealed to them, as in some apprehensible, though doubtless mysteri- ous sense, a locality, and not a mere abstract state. Through them the revelation has come to us; and, by faith in it, we see Him who is invisible, TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 167 and look for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” True, we know but little of that City now, nor doth it yet appear what we shall be when, translated with Christ from earth, we shall have our everlasting habitation therein. We stand with the Apostles, “gazing up into Heaven,” and, with them we can see no farther than “to the cloud which has” received Him out of our “sight.” The cloud is impenetrable. We only know that Jesus hath gone through it, and that He hath His throne of everlasting glory in the Heaven of heavens, far above it. But there the vision ceases, and our knowledge finds its limit. The cloud interposes; and eye doth not see, nor ear hear, nor is the heart able to conceive the mysteries of the heavenly state. We are mere little children here— children of a day; and it were presumption indeed to expect that our puny imaginations could com- prehend the elementary conditions and qualities, much less take in all the verities of that state which is infinite and eternal. It cannot be expected that the language of our best and wisest discourse about it should have in it much more of verisimilitude than children’s babbling. And yet, the revelation which we have received is truly substantial; and it is an inestimable privilege, a cause for unspeakable thankfulness, that we live in its glorious light. To know that Heaven is real, and, as such, far above this earthly state; to be assured, therefore, that our life, though it be but “as a vapor which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away,’ is yet not vapor, but a true existence upon 168 LHETWITNESS OR NTHE: CHURCH. which its Creator hath stamped the mark of His own Immortality ; to know that one of our own race—as truly a man as any descendant of Adam, notwithstanding the union in His person of the Divine nature with His humanity—hath actually passed into the Heavens, and now sitteth at the right hand of God as our Mediator with God; and, there- fore, to have a hope, sure and steadfast as an anchor cast within the vail, that when we shall have passed away from this earth, though it be through the grave and gate of death, we shall not be left in dark- ness, nor given over to irredeemable corruption, but shall only be detained to await a summons to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and thence- forth to be forever with Him: to know that though it doth not yet appear what we shall be in the heavenly state, it is nevertheless certain that, being with Him made Sons of God, we shall be like Him, and, therefore, shall have still, and be conscious of having, all the qualities, that are essential to con- stitute our personal identities, and with these quali- ties shall have participation in the power of His endless Life; shall have our everlasting abode in the mansions of His Father and our Father in Heaven; shall come not only in faith, not only in spirit, but actually in our own persons, unto the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, where are the innumerable company of the angels, the general assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in Heaven, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant ; where there shall bea full and everlasting TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 169 verification of that voice which has been already heard in prophetic vision, saying, “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God:” “and God shall wipe away alltears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away ;’”—to know all this, as we do know it by the accomplished facts and the revealed truths of our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension—oh, this is surely a great advance on our natural ignorance; and there is in it more than enough of veritable certainty to sustain our strongest faith and justify our liveliest and most ardent hope. In the light of this revelation how changed is the aspect of all human history! There is no word, per- haps, which so truly characterizes life on this earth as the word disappointing. The world is full of promise, but there is no realization. Whether on the general scale or in the life of individuals, history is ever leading us on to expect great things, and ever ending in failure, or at least in results far short of our expectations. There is no nation that has fulfilled its destiny according to the measure of its opportu- nities or its capabilities; and there is no individual life, however comparatively happy or prosperous, the experience of which might not be summed up most truly at its close, in the words of the old patriarch: “ Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been!”” The simple fact that life is mor- L/S THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH tal makes it under all circumstances and in every form feeble and despicable. It passes away, and when it is passed, “it is all one,’ as Newman says, with his characteristic terseness, “whether it has lasted two hundred years or fifty.” But its imperfec- tion consists not simply in its mortality; it lies not less in its failure to develop and adequately employ the capabilities of those who live it. “Men there are, who in a single moment of their lives have shown a superhuman height and majesty of mind which it would take ages for them to employ on its proper objects, and as it were to exhaust; and who, by such passing flashes, like rays of the sun and the darting of lightning, give token to us that they are but angels in disguise, destined to judge the world, and reign as kings forever. And yet, they are sud- denly taken away and we have hardly recognized them when we have lost them.” Nor even in characters of common capabilities does life seem adequate to accomplish what they might. ‘There is something in moral truth and goodness, in faith, in firmness, in meekness, in courage, in loving kind- ness to which this world’s circumstances are quite un- equal, for which the longest life is insufficient, which makes the highest opportunities of this life disap- pointing, which must burst the prison of this world to have its appropriate range. So that whenever a good man dies, let him have lived ever so long, fore- score years or more, there is reason to feel disap- pointed, especially in the reflection that he has never fully developed all the excellent gifts, which, by God’s grace, were in him, never had oppor- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 171 tunity to exercise all his powers and reach his full scope.” * Such is human life in its earthly aspect. But, let in upon it now the revelation of the heavenly world, of that Life and Immortality which Christ hath brought to light, and how the clouds scatter and the shadows flee away! The zuxcompleteness of life, its inadequacy to fulfil its promise, is now seen to be legitimately involved in its constitutional relation to the future. It ought to seem incomplete, for it zs in- complete. It is transitory and short, coming very soon in any event, and it may be very suddenly to its close. But its close is not an end, it is but a be- ginning, an introduction to that life which will, in truth, be endless. The world passeth away and cometh to nought; but its true purpose is seen and its true destiny fulfilled elsewhere. It may not de- velop all the capabilities which it evidently posses- ses; but, if it exercise them sufficiently to train and discipline them, so that they shall be strong and vigorous when they shall have adequate scope, surely its existence is not in vain. This may be said not only in respect to individual lives, but also of history on a general scale. Though the end be here ever in ruins, yet it is not all in vain. For all earthly kingdoms are but experiments and tempo- rary expedients; yet they are surely preparatory for and destined to become “the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, wherein He shall reign forever and ever.” To bring about that glorious consummation, to carry the world steadily on towards it, is one of * See Newman’s Par. Ser., vol. ii. Sermon xiv. 172 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH the great purposes for which it is revealed that our Lord is now seated on His mediatorial throne in Heaven. Correlative with this, is that high, spiritual pur- pose to which we may well give our thoughts in concluding our consideration of this great subject. Repeatedly in the New Testament, and especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is it plainly declared that our Lord is now in Heaven as our Intercessor with the Father. We are told that He hath gone up on high “to present Himself before the face of God for us;” that He “hath entered by His own blood, once for all, into the Holy Place, having effected eternal redemption;” that, He “ ever liveth to make intercession for those who come unto God by Him, having a Priesthood which will not pass from Him;” and that “we have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the Sanc- tuary and of the True Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” These, and similar passages, which are numerous, teach us that Christ in Heaven is nota King only, but a Priest also; that He there exercises the functions of the true Priesthood, of which all min- istrations in the Church on earth are but types. Doubtless, this is most mysterious and beyond our comprehension. We are not given to see into the Secret Shrine in which God dwells; clouds and dark. ness are round about Him. Before Him stand the Seraphim, veiling their faces; Christ is within the veil, pleading the merits of His Sacrifice, and mak- TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. IVs ing perpetual intercession for us. It is incomprehen- sible, but, oh, how comforting. And with what boldness may it well inspire us to come unto God by Him. And, in the light of this truth, what mysterious and awful import is given to the ministrations of His Church here on earth. If the sacrificial rites of the old dispensation derived virtue from this heavenly source, though they were merely its typical antici- pations, surely the sacraments and the other spirit- ual sacrifices of the Church which He hath purchased with His own blood, and through which He dispenses His grace from generation to generation until the number of His elect shall be filled up, surely, I say, these cannot be unmeaning or empty ceremonies. Nay, rather, they are fulfilling His prayer: Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in Heaven. In them His great High Priesthood, exercised in Heaven for men, is here dispensing its gracious benefits to men. Through them we are made partakers, even here in this world, of the powers of the world tocome. We are admitted into the sanctuary of His Holiness, and have our place in the congregation of His saints. May He grant us all grace so to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and so to receive and use all the ministrations of His Church in the present earthly dispensation, that when it shall come, as come it surely will in His appointed time, to an end, we may be found fitted to take our place at once among His saints, in the glory of that dispensation which is eternal in Heaven. 174 LHE WLTENE SS OR NTAE” CHORCH XVIII. CHRIST IN HEAVEN THE HEAD OF HIS CHURCH ON EARTH. Ascension-tide. And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things, to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.— ZA. 7. 22, 23. THE Apostle is here speaking of the divine honor and glory to which our Lord Jesus Christ was raised after His triumph for our sakes over sin and death. “God,” he says, “according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, set him at His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all princi- pality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet.” It is evident that it is of our Lord, not simply in His Dzvinze nature, that this is said; for in that nature He needed not to be, and indeed could not be raised to any higher degree of exaltation than that which He had with the Father from all eternity; but itis of Him in His two-fold nature as both God and man; just such as He was while He lived, and suffered, and died here; such was He when He rose from the dead; such when He ascended up on high; and such is He in that infinite exaltation which is here so magnificently described. As the Christ; the God Incarnate; the TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 175 Saviour of the world, both Divine and human, He is ‘“‘ raised even to the right hand of the Majesty on high,” and enthroned in the very Heaven of heavens, “far above all creatures, not only in this world, but also in the world to come.” Now, in our present consideration of this great fact in the Christian revelation, I wish to fix your attention specially on what the Apostle says in the text as to the continued relation of Christ with His Church on earth, and the essentially Divine constitu- tion and character of that Church itself. The in- ference of short-sighted human reason would be, that in such infinite and surpassingly glorious exal- tation, Christ could no longer have any sympathy for us here on earth, much less any personal con- nection with us. If all the ranks of the heavenly hosts are beneath His feet, and if even the highest of the Angelic spirits is infinitely below Him, we could scarcely dare to assume that He would still recognize and maintain any bond of relationship with us, His earthly creatures. But in the text the Apostle assures us that Christ is not exalted in Heaven, any more than He lived, and suffered, and died, here on earth for Himself; but that He is thus exalted in order that He may still carry on and com- plete the great work of human salvation. As for that purpose He became incarnate, and made His incarnate life the organic seed of His Church, which Church He purchased unto Himself with His own most precious blood; so, having by His resurrection from the grave secured to it the power of an endless life, He raised it up together with Him and endowed 176 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH it with heavenly functions and character, when He ascended up again from earth and resumed the glory and majesty of His heavenly state. So, in the text the Apostle represents Him as still maintaining the most intimate and vital connection with the Church; a connection no less intimate and vital than that of a head with its body. He is made, says the Apostle, “the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the Fudness of Him that filleth all in all.” Now, it is not possible for us to grasp with our understandings, or even to conceive in our imagina- tions, how it is that the Son of God on His heavenly throne continues to hold the Church on earth in this vital relation to Himself personally, but its appre- hension in any degree as a truth awakens concep- tions, not only of the loving mercy of the Saviour, but also of the dignity of His Church, which are far above those that commonly prevail, or that, for the most part, have prevailed, among such as profess and call themselves Christians. Take it, first, in contrast with the theory of the Church’s headship which is known as the Papal theory, and which has been held for ages as an ar- ticle of faith in the Church of Rome. This theory assumes that when Christ ascended up into the heavens, He ceased to hold the close, personal re- lation to the Church, which He held while He was living here; that He no longer retained in Himself, as His own peculiar prerogative, the functions of its Headship, but that He left this, asa delegated office, in the hands of one of its human Bishops—the Bishop of Rome. Now, how far above sucha theory TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 177 is the truth set forth by the Apostle in our text. “Christ is the Head, over all things, to the Church, which is His Body.”” There is no need, indeed there is no possible admission, of an earthly head here. Though Christ is passed into the heavens, and the world seeth Him no more, yet, He is not separated from His Church. It is still His Body, and He is still its Head. In His exaltation, it is likewise ex- alted. It has infinitely higher graces, and discharges higher functions than it could have had, or exer- cised, if He had remained in the flesh. The life by which it is animated is the life of the Divine Spirit, thevery Life of God; so that, as Christ is One with the Father, even so its Members are made one with Him. And, now that He is exalted above all creat- ures not only in this world but in the world to come, it is commissioned and enabled, both to publish the riches of His grace among all men, and also to show forth unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God. Away then with this notion of an earthly head- ship. It deprives the Church of participation in the triumphal glory of Christ’s exaltation. Aye, worse, it leaves Her, because of His exaltation, without Him, and, since He is the only Mediator, without God in the world. Thank God, this is not so. Thank God for the assurance of His own infallible Word, that, when He raised Christ from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named- He did not take Him from us, but, “raised us up to, 12 178 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH gether, with Him, and made us sit together in heav- enly places”; so that, while all things are under His feet, He is still, and will ever continue to be, “the Head of the Church”, and it is, “ His Body, the Ful- ness of Him that filleth all in all.” But there is another theory of the Church which is, if possible, still more inconsistent than that of the Papacy, with this doctrine of its Divine Head- ship. What is the conception of it which most persons have in modern Protestant Christendom? What is the common conception even among ourselves? Why, that the Church is simply an association, for the purposes of Christian worship and discipline, of such persons as agree in certain particulars of faith and practice. It is thought to be the right of professing believers to organize, or to unite with, any such association in accordance with their pe- , culiar opinions or tastes. True, there is an abstract notion about a divine origin, and in some sort a di- vine constitution of the Church, but with most per- sons, nowadays, this has no practical significance, and is held only as a faint, lingering sentiment of an ancient traditionary faith. Take the common ex- pression, for instance, that one “has joined” or “is about to join” the Church, and see what is meant by it. Nothing more, certainly, in most cases, than that he becomes a member of some Christian denomina- tion; that is to say, he selects and joins, according to his taste, or his associations, or his notions, or, at best, one or two points of belief, some one out of many ecclesiastical organizations, all of which are, TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 179 equally and alike, Churches of Christ, and any of which it was entirely at his option to prefer. Now, without entering at all into the question as to the comparative claims of any denomination to be truly the Church, or a legitimate branch of the Church of Christ, the point to be observed is that the conception—the idea—of the Church, which thus actually prevails and is by most persons entertained, is, that it is really only a voluntary association, a human organization for religious purposes. For, no other idea could, by any possibility, be reconciled with the existing state of things. It could not for a moment be thought, as it commonly is, that any society professing to be Christian, is, by virtue of this simple profession, a true Christian Church; that there may be, therefore, and actually are, a countless number of such associations, differing from each other in every way, in their constitutions, their ser- vices, and their doctrines, yet all alike, one as much as another, churches of Christ; and that, to ques- tion this, to prefer one above the rest on any higher ground than that of mere preference, is a mark of uncharitableness and bigotry; this, I say, could not be, as it certainly is, the common sentiment, if there were in the common mind any higher conception or idea of the Church than that of a voluntary society which any number of professing Christian men are, at any time, competent to form. That this is really the common idea among us seems, therefore, to be clear. Now, consider what the inspired Apostle says in the text concerning the Church, and you cannot but see 180 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH that his doctrine is infinitely higher than any such theory. The Church, he says, is CHRIST’S Bopy, not a human organization; not a society which you, or I, or any, or all men on earth can form, but, Christ's Body ; and that so truly and essentially that it is the very “ Fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” This is the inspired definition of the Church. All that Holy Scripture teaches respecting it, and re- specting its members, both collectively and individ- ually, is in harmony with this. For instance, the very terms which describe the state and condition of Christians, in contradistinction to others, imply it. They are said to be, not only disciples of Christ, but az Him; not only, called by His name, professors of His religion, or members of a society which recog- nizes Him as the Saviour, but ‘“ members of His flesh and of His bones,” and “ one together in Him, even as He is One with God.” And so, the true and faithful members of the Church are uniformly iden- tified with Christ; and all that He did on earth, as well as all that He is in heaven, is appropriated to them, as theirs by virtue of this union which they have with Him. The life which they live is said to be, not theirs, but, it is He living in them. In Bap. tism, it is said that they are ‘baptized into His death;” that, “like as He was raised up from the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so they also should walk in newness of life.” All that they do and endeavor is said to be in Christ’s strength and righteousness. Even in all that they suffer, they are said to be “filling up, in their mortal flesh, His sufferings,” “for His Body’s sake, which is the TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 181 Church,” they are said “all to eat the same spiritual meat, and to drink the same spiritual drink ;” and that meat and drink are Christ’s Flesh and blood, according to His own express promise: “ My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed ;” “ He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood dwell- eth in Me, and I in him.” And so, His Eternal Life is theirs,—theirs, not only in future anticipation, but in present actual possession. They are said to be, “ not of the world,” even as Hé is “ not of the world,” and their “life is hid with Him in God.” Hereafter, they have the promise of “seeing as they are seen, and knowing as they are known;” but, meanwhile, even now, they are assured, that, as Christ is exalted at the right hand of God, they are “ quickened with Him,” and “ raised up together, and made to sit to- gether in heavenly places.” Thus, throughout the New Testament, the repre- sentations of the state and condition of those who are members of the Church correspond with the definition of it which is given in the text; they are uniformly represented as being, by virtue of their union with the Church, so closely and vitally united with Christ, as to be, in a true sense, members of His Body and participants in His Life. 7 If then, my brethren, we would have the true idea of the Church, if we would hold it in our esti- mation, in exact accordance with the Bible-standard, no higher and no lower, then it is certain we must believe it to be the “Body of Christ,” and “the Fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” We must believe that that “ Divine and adorable form” which 182 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH was once manifested on earth in the flesh, and which Apostles saw and handled, is, as now ascended into the heavens, “a principle of life, a secret origin of heavenly existence” to all the faithful, through the ministration of the Holy Ghost; and that the ordi- nances of the Church are both signs and seals of this spiritual ministration. In accordance with this, and with nothing lower than this, must be our estimation of the importance, both as duty and privilege, of membership in the Church. Never may the question as to whether or no we are, or ought to be, connected with it, be considered as if it were merely a question respect- ing connection with some human society; but it is tantamount to nothing less than this, whether we are, or ought to be, members of the body of Christ ; whether His flesh and blood, which were given for the life of the world, are, or are to be, our food and sustenance; whether, in conformity to the Divine constitution, we may “receive of His fulness,” ‘“srace for grace,” and “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ.” The Word of God plainly makes this the purport of the ques- tion, and we shall come short of the Bible-standard in just so far forth as we esteem it less than this. But it may be asked now, does not all this imply that the Church, in the true sense of the word, is purely a great spiritual body, membership in which is secured simply by living faith in Christ, without the medium of any earthly instrumentality, and without dependence on any of those associations which we are accustomed to look to and speak of as TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 183 Churches? To which we answer: that the Church, in its largest and fullest sense, does unquestionably include the whole family in Heaven and earth, of which Christ is the Head, and holds, as participants in its Divine life, the spirits of just men made per- fect in Paradise not less than the strugglers after holiness still on earth. But as exercising its func- tions on earth, and so as claiming and guaranteeing our individual membership, the Church is unques- tionably constituted as a visible body, in actual historical verity set up in the world; seen and known among men; the witness and keeper, the pillar and eround, of revealed truth; the publisher of the everlasting Gospel; through the ministrations of which all men, in all nations and through all time, are to be brought unto salvation, and against which the gates of hell shall never prevail. Vhe Church in this relation and to this extent must be verifiable. And, plainly, it can be so only by the identity of its ministrations in all essential respects with those instituted by Christ ; that is, through the historical succession of its original ministry and its adminis- tration of the Word and Sacraments according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of neces- sity are requisite to the same. And just this, my brethren, let me say in closing, just this is the reason why, for us, no Christian min- istrations can be authoritatively effective or satis- factory which are not substantiated by these histor- ical credentials. We do not presume to limit the goodness or mercy of God. We do not doubt that in every nation and in every ecclesiastical connec- 184 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH tion, they that fear Him and work righteousness will be accepted of Him; nor do we doubt that the boundaries of His Church are infinitely wider than those of any organization on earth; that they ex- tend into the heavenly world, and include all that are redeemed by His blood; but while we are on probation in this life, and have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, it must be ac- counted as both our highest privilege and our most bounden duty to be in the communion of the Church which we know by verifiable historical credentials to be His. For here we are certain that, if only we be faithful, we may “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love.” ZO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 185 DX: Cpe rN LECOSDTAL, JINAUCGOKALTTON:. OF PAE DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT, Whitsunday. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.—Acts, xt. I-5. THE great event which is recorded in these words we this day commemorate. I trust that our hearts have already been kindled with grateful interest in it by the services of the Church ; and now let us, for a few moments, gather up our thoughts so that we may have a distinct conception of the fact anda clear apprehension of its most important practical consequences. ; It was on the day of Pentecost that the event oc- curred. And what was the day of Pentecost? It was a day which had been observed for more than a thousand years asa Festival in God’s Church— celebrating the completed in-gathering of the first harvest, and also commemorating the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. And it is, surely, a very signif- icant fact that, on that Festival the Holy Spirit came down. The old dispensation was characterized as the /eza/ dispensation—the dispensation of the Law 186 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH —because it was instituted through the revelation which God vouchsafed on Mount Sinai, and wherein He brought His chosen people under the clearly proclaimed conditions of His moral law. But there were repeated prophetic intimations that this dispensation was not to be the final one; that it was, in fact, preparatory to a dispensation which should enjoy such a fulness of spiritual grace, as to render unnecessary many of the legal restrictions which were then imposed. And, therefore, while the old dispensation was known, as we have said, as the dis- pensation of the Law, there is good reason to believe that they who lived under it were accustomed, for ages, to look forward to the coming dispensation with a distinct apprehension of this fact, viz., that it would be known as the Dzspensation of the Spirit. How significant, then, the Pentecostal coincidence ! How obvious to every faithful heart is made the ful- filment of the prophecies and the ushering in of the long-looked-for dispensation of grace! And tous, in these later ages, who look back through many cent- uries in commemorating it, what an illustration does it present of the unity of the inspired history, of the harmony of the successive revelations through which God hath vouchsafed to our fallen race a knowledge of His will and communications of His grace. But let us now consider definitely what was the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, which occurred on the Pentecostal day? How was it that the Holy Ghost came down from Heaven then, as He had never come before? Through what practical rela- tions is it that His descent then has constituted TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 187 the dispensation in which we are living the Dzspensa- tion of the Spirit ? We must not begin by imagining that until the Pentecostal outpouring, there had been no spiritual grace, no vouchsafement of sanctifying influences, in human society and human hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost. Bear in mind that human civiliza- tion, as we know it, was then, at least, four thousand years old; and remember that through all ages the elements of human nature were essentially the same, and the relation of mankind to God precisely the same, as now. From the beginning, it was true, that, in the fallen nature of humanity, there was no inherent ability to think a good thought. “Very far gone,”’ as this nature was “from original right- eousness,” its sanctification was impossible save by the renewing power of divine grace. Had the sanc- tifying influences of the Holy Spirit been withheld, then, what a pandemonium would our world have become! How utterly, irredeemably, hopelessly, sunk in the accumulated corruption of so many ages of unmitigated depravity! But, thank God, they were not withheld. The provisions of Redemption were coeval with the fall ; and never from the first, has a human heart, born into the inheritance of sinful corruption, been left without being cared for and striven with, for its con- version and renewal unto holiness, by the Holy Ghost. Never in ancient Judaism or even in hea- thenism has there been an honest and docile sub- mission to that spiritual influence without resulting in a corresponding counteraction of the natural de- 188 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH pravity and a transforming of the character from the image of Satan to the image of God. Therefore, the saints of the old dispensation were true saints; that is, they were converted saints,—converted from natural sinfulness to Godly holiness, by simply sub- mitting themselves, as we must all submit ourselves if we would be saved, to the guiding, illuminating and sanctifying influences of God’s good Spirit. They had much less light than we, and lived under the disadvantages of a revelation which was far be- low the Christian revelation in point both of clear- ness and of fulness; but the essential principles of godliness were the same then as now; the principles and affections of the godly character came then as now from that Spirit, without Whom there can be no light of heavenly life. Abel and Seth, and Enoch; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses and Joshua and Samuel; David and Solomon, and the holy men and women who came after them, were all servants of the same God whom we worship, and candidates for the same Heaven to which we are aspiring. There- fore, in their several degrees of personal holiness, they were converted, sanctified, moulded, formed, by the same Spirit, upon whose grace we are dependent for whatever of good there may, or can, be in us. How clear or distinct may have been their con- scious apprehension of the personal character of the Divine Spirit, we do not know; but we do know that the disobedient in that dispensation were directly charged with rebelling against and vexing the Holy Spirit ; that the penitent psalmist prayed that the floly Spirit might not be taken from him ; and that the TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 189 prophets repeatedly called upon their contemporaries to “be converted,” to make them “a new heart,” and to have and exercise all those principles and affec- tions which the Holy Spirit quickens in those who submit to His gracious will. But while all this is unquestionably true, it is also true as unquestionably, that the Holy Ghost came down on the day of Pentecost as He had never de- scended from Heaven before, and that the demonstra- tions then given proved His presence in a sense so altogether new and unprecedented as to entitle the dispensation thus ushered in to be justly desig- nated the DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT. Let us consider this, and try, as far as we may, to get a clear apprehension of the meaning and truth of it. We must think very reverently, and speak cau- tiously, respecting any manifestation of the Divine Presence. We know that, in a true and absolute sense, though beyond our understanding, God is omnipresent, and that there can be no place at any time where He is not. It must be true also, though still, and equally, beyond our understanding, that, wherever the Divine Presence is there must be the presence of the holy and undivided Trinity ; since we hold it as a fundamental Christian truth, that, “ the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one.” And yet, as it is revealed to us that there are three Persons in the Godhead, so, we are taught by revelation to believe that, by an economy of His own Supreme wisdom, there is a division of official relationship to the work of grace, 199 ~YHE WITNESS OF FHE: CHORCH corresponding with the threefold Personality; and God the Father is specially the Creator, God the Son is the Redeemer, and God the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier. Now, consistently with this, we are assured that God the Son became incarnate, and so lived for thirty years on earth, and, during that time was personally here with men as He had not been before. From the beginning till that era, it was true to say that Heaven only was the habitation of the Most High God; and this, notwithstanding the truth of His omnipresence; which we know must be a truth, though we cannot understand it. But, when the Son of God became incarnate, then the earth was raised into a participation in this wonderful preroga- tive of Heaven. It was the habitation, the dwelling- place, for a time, of Him who is God of God; and this, not only by His omnipresent power and grace, but also by the special presence of His own Person. Now, as this is clear in the New Testament history, so it is equally clear, that that earthly life of the Son of God was only for the time—beginning with His Incarnation and ending with His Ascension. henceforth, we are assured He is no longer here in a natural body, but hath passed into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. But the Divine Economy never goes backwards. It is ever in the line of progress, developing always in higher stages. And, therefore, if we could dare to anticipate any consequence as most probable from this temporary admission of the sons of men to co- 10. CARISTIAN FAITH. I9I habitation with God on earth, it would certainly be, that human life on earth would be raised thereby to a plane far above its former level, and, that thence- forth the enjoyment of personal relationship to God, and most intimate communion with God, would be the conscious privilege of men as it had never been on earth before. We might, I say, even dare to anticipate this. But the marvellous record of the divine history which we read in the commemorative service this day changes anticipation into faith, and gives us un- questionable fact for the surmise of probability. For it is fact—fact certified by all the credentials of veritable history—first, that when He was about to be taken up, the Son of God promised to send from the Father in Heaven another Comforter, Who would be in the Church on earth as a personal rep- resentative of the Godhead, all, and more than all, that Himself in the flesh had been or could be; and, second, that on the Day of Pentecost, corresponding to this day—the tenth day after the Ascension—there was a demonstrated fulfilment of that promise, in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the assembled Apostles. That spiritual outpouring constituted the full inauguration of this dispensation, and it was manifested by outward signs—the rushing wind, the forked tongues, the miraculous utterances; these were mercifully granted as proofs and tokens of the Holy Spirit’s presence, because the Spirit is Him- self invisible. But from thenceforth His special presence became a perpetual privilege of the Church on earth—a presence as true and as personal as that Ig2 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH of God the Son had been during His life in the flesh. Now, this is the great fact which the Church com- memorates to-day. In the commemoration of this event there is a call upon us all fora most thankful recognition of the unspeakably precious gifts of divine grace and the priceless privileges we enjoy in having our pro- bationary lot in this dispensation. It is ours to have, not only the attestation of our spiritual nature with its responsibilities and its destinies, which is granted to all men through the conscience and the general illuminations of the Spirit, but also to know, in very truth, God the Son as our all-meritorious Saviour and perfect Exemplar, and to have His Spirit, God, the Holy Ghost, as our ever-present Paraclete, to sanctify, to comfort, to enlighten, to strengthen, to impart all needful grace and build up in all the requisites of growth unto meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. Let us remember that this inestimable benefit is ever ours and the privilege of every one of us in the faithful use of the divinely appointed means of grace. It is not a privilege or prerogative of the world. It may not be claimed anywhere outside the Church, nor here, except through conformity to the Divine ordinances. It is no occasional or spasmodic influence. It may not be attained by any merely emotional process, by any working of ourselves up into extraordinary degrees of spiritual sensibility through the stimulations and excitements of social agencies. It is, in truth, the perpetual, abiding, pre- TOP CA RISITANGLAL LE: 193 rogative of the Church of God; and all its sanctify- ing and saving grace is the covenanted portion of every faithful soul therein, and flows steadily and surely in every sacramental ministration. And just this, my brethren, let me say in closing, is the explanation, so far, that is, as there can be in human language or to human apprehension, an ex- planation of the great mystery of sacramental grace, which the world finds it so hard, nay, so impossible, to understand. To the apprehension of worldly minds, that is, of minds that are habitually and ex- clusively occupied with material considerations and interests, nothing is so absurd, so incredible, as the claim for the sacramental application of water to the body, that it can have any effect, much less regen- erative effect, upon the soul; or, for the sacramental reception of bread and wine, that thereby there is a feeding on Christ as the food of everlasting life. We may go further, and say that nothing is so in- credible as the claim for spiritual efficacy in the use of any Divine ordinance—the communing with God and His saints and angels in the heavenly world by the utterances of prayer, or the learning of divine knowledge through the teachings of Scripture. But the incredulity in such minds goes back of the im- mediate fact to an entire failure to recognize or be- lieve in the spiritual vitality of the Body of which these sacramental ministrations are the normal or- ganic functions. Once get this great truth fixed in the mind and heart, and there is no difficulty in be- lieving, for the recognition follows then as of a truth that is as necessary as it is precious, that there must 13 194 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH be living spiritual power in these functions; that God the Holy Ghost being here, the works that are done must be Divine, and, as such, certainly effect- ual, if rightly received, to raise us up into the realm of the spiritual life and to make us participators in its highest and best spiritual influences, unto growth in all the requisites of the Life which is everlasting. Only let us see to it, that these inestimable bless- ings of the dispensation in which we have our lot be not lost to us by our want of faith or our neglect to receive thankfully and to use rightly the means of grace which our all-merciful God hath provided for us, and which, through the ministrations of His Church, He freely offers to us. LPOPCH RI SLIANG LAI iH. 195 XX. Bie GithiS SIAN (MALIA LE GOD@A WORSHIE PING FALL, Crinitn Guudap. Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.—S¢. John, xiv, 1. THESE are words of Christ to us. Spoken orig- inally to His personal disciples, they come, through the ministrations of His Church, to all who live and walk in the light of the Christian dispensation. “ Ye believe in God;” that is your common duty and privilege as men. It is granted to you and de- manded of you by proofs of nature and reason as well as of special revelation. Therefore, it may be taken for granted as something that would be beyond question. But now, overand above this, there is a Revelation in the Gospel. And, to us who have received it, whose inestimable privilege it is to be living in its light, God is made known, not only as the Great Spirit, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, but also as having, in the mysterious constitution of His Infinite Nature, personal qualities and affections, and as, in His all-gracious and merciful economy, condescending to hold personal relations toward us. Therefore,—said Christ, He who had declared Him- self to be God the Son Incarnate,—not only, ‘“‘ye believe in God,” but also “ believe in Me.’”’ By which we know He meant, that we should honor Him even 196 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH as we honor the Father, and put our whole trust in Him as our all-sufficient, because our Divine Saviour. We know, moreover, that with this revelation of His Eternal Sonship, He revealed also the personal existence and relationship, both in Heaven and on earth, of God the Holy Ghost. And therefore, in the light of the whole revealed truth, His words in the text may be understood as proposing to our humble and reverent faith no less than this: Ye be- lieve in God as the first Source of all life and the object of universal worship ; so also are ye to believe in Me as God Incarnate, the One Mediator between Heaven and earth; and in God the Holy Ghost, the One Divine Spirit, through whose communion and fellowship ye are made partakers of the Divine Nature and endowed with the capabilities of that Life which is truly of God and in God, holy and eternal. With such import these words of our adorable Lord and Master cometo usto-day. And, as we listen to them, the Church is bidding us all to “ fall down and worship Him that is on the throne, and that liveth for ever and ever; and, in our worship here on earth, to join with them that cast down their crowns be- fore the throne in Heaven, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleas- ure they are, and were created,” and with them that “rest not day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” Our belief in God is vain and worse than TO, CHRISTIANG FAITH. 197 vain if it struggles not to find, and if it do not actu- ally find, its true expression in worship. For, what is this belief in God? Whence comes it, and what is its real significance ? It is unquestionably substantiated in the convic- tions of reason; but it is not, merely, or essentially, a conviction of the reason. The thought of God is no outcome of logic. When we were little children and knelt at our mother’s knees, and lisped the prayer: “Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name;” there had been no possible reason- ing, and no need of reasoning, to awaken within us the recognition, which we know we had, of the real personal existence and the goodness of the Great King unto whom we prayed. And if through all the experience of life that has come to us since we have retained this belief as a veritable conviction of the heart, it still has its root and vital power within us in something far deeper than a deduction of the understanding or aconviction of the reason. The thought of God! What is it but the thought of essential and absolute greatness and goodness? And, to have it, and live in it, and be inspired by it, so that our life becomes a veritable worship, what is this, but, to have submitted ourselves to the guidance of that which we know to be at once the deepest impulse and the loftiest principle of our nature ? Is it intuitive? Isit possible to lose it altogether? I do not know. ButI do know, that the more truly we are men, and the higher and truer our life be on the plane of humanity above that of brute creatures, 198 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH the more lively is this conception of God, and the more necessarily and irrepressibly must it find ex- pression in reverential and loving devotion. If, on the other hand, it be possible to lose it altogether and to have life and consciousness from which it has been utterly outrooted, I know that such a drear result can come only from a life-long persist- ency in shutting out the thought of the excel- lence of goodness and a corresponding persistency in giving the preference to that which is low and base. Test it by your own conscious experience. Let the appeal come first to those who are habitually de- vout, and in whose daily life the enjoyment of com- munion and fellowship with God is so real as to enable them to adopt, each one for himself, the Apostle’s asseveration, “I know Him whom I have believed” ; yet, among even these, there is no one whose spiritual perceptions are at all times equally clear, no one who does not sometimes find the thought of God invested with strange obscurity and unreality, the thought as of a Being far off, or a mere phan- tom, with Whom any endeavor to hold personal fellowship seems to be little more than a delusion of superstition: in such moments, after making all due allowance for the depressing influence of ill health, or distracting circumstances, a faithful self-exami- nation will seldom fail to discover a preceding neg- lect of devotion and the letting down of the heart to a lower order of associations, if not to such as are postively base and impure. If, on the other hand, there be one here whose daily TO CHRISTIAN: FAITE 2 199 life is not in any true sense with God, to whom the thought of God is not familiar, and in whose experi- ence communion with Him is a thing unknown, I am sure there have been moments when even such a life has been consciously raised up into a higher than its common atmosphere and lightened with rays of un- wonted brightness, when divine realities were aspired after, if not actually grasped, and the heart was stirred with reverential feelings and impulses, if not to con- scious and intelligent worship; and I ask, if that was not atimewhen there were purifying influences, without or within, to which the affections and the will had been yielded, and by which they were, as not commonly, attuned ? So, then, let us understand clearly that true be- lief in God is a worshipping belief; and, that its root and vital source is not in the imagination, not in the understanding, not even in the reason, but in the affections and aspirations of the heart. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Just in proportion as the heart is pure, that is, just as its desires, its preferences, its cherished likings and longings are for the things which are righteous and holy, and withdrawn from all taint of the low and the unclean, will be the desire to know and commune with God. This very desire of the better nature is itself an outreaching which is instinctive in devout faith. Hence we get the real significance of worship, as well as its true motive. The very word itself —which is an abbreviation of worthship—indicates rightly that it is the lifting up of the heart in rever- 200 LAE WILTNE SSVOL AT Le YCL OIECI1. ential and admiring adoration of Him Who ts worthy; Him Who is believed and felt to be the One Who possesses in Himself all perfection and Who is Him- self absolute perfection. Itis, therefore, the highest and noblest of all the functions which are possible to us as human beings. That we are capable of it, and are inspired by impulses to it, is our most character- istic token of superiority to all orders of the brute creation, and of our right to be associated with the higher orders of spiritual intelligences in the heav- enly world. For this is their most characteristic em- ployment ; “They rest not, day nor night, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, andisto come.” And, in uniting with them, we are lifted to a real participation in their recog- nition—though far below it in degree—of the infinite worthiness, the glorious and excellent goodness, of “God)) “Thou art -worthy; O,; Lord,*to (rece glory, and honor, and power; for Thou hast created all things; and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created.” : But all this, brethren, might be, possibly, true of us, even if our lot had been cast, like that of millions of our race in all ages, beyond the pale of special revelation. It might still be a prerogative and token of our manhood, and so far realized in our experi- ence that we should at least have been conscious of feeling after God, if haply we might find Him. But I need not tell you we are within the heritage of a higher condition of privilege. We know that even in the Worship of Heaven itself there has been in- troduced “a new song,” evena song of thanksgiving LO CHRISTIAN FAITH, 201 unto the Lamb together with Him that sitteth upon the throne. And surely our hearts should glow to- day and all days, not only with the inspirations of reverent admiration and holy awe, but also with un- speakable gratitude and most fervent love to Him who hath washed us in His own bloodand quickened us by the might of His own Spirit, that we might be raised from sin and death in the inheritance of His everlasting life and heavenly glory. Therefore, let us make this the one great purpose of our service to-day; to realize our high privilege and our most bounden obligation; to render unto the Triune God, Who is revealed for our worship, the homage which is most meet and right, even the homage both of revering and admiring, and also of trusting and loving hearts. In the life which is con- secrated by such homage we shall learn more and more to know Him Whom we have believed ; and in this knowledge shall growup, O, marvellous result! in His likeness; shall be sanctified wholly in body, soul, and spirit, and be made meet for everlasting companionship with those who “stand round about the throne in Heaven, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” And now unto Him, our Maker, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all honor and glory, and power and dominion, for ever and evern 2Amen. 202 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH XXI. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. Trinity Sundan. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.”— St. John, XVI, 37. Tus declaration of our Lord, made more than eighteen centuries ago, to one who questioned whether there be any such thing as truth or any possibility of ascertaining it, is “specially needful for these times.” In the line of its consideration which I shall ask you to take with me now, I begin with the remark, and would that I could impress it upon every one as a conviction, that a state of confirmed scepticism in respect to religious truth is the most disheartening state into which one can fal. It is better, far better, to be a misbeliever than an unbeliever; better to be mistaken in the object of one’s faith than to have no faith. For, the moment that faith is gone, the moment that one settles in the conclusion that there is no such thing as truth or no ascertainment of it, that moment his life is left without any guiding principle or elevating aim. And one of two wretched results will surely follow. He will become either a mere trifler, or else a gloomy and malignant hater of everything that is accredited as truth. Of course he will then regard all who profess to hold and believe in such truth as TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 203 either hypocrites or fools. And this universal dis- trust of others can scarcely help reacting to foster dishonesty in himself. He is only playing the same game that others are playing, for the same selfish ends. Or else heassumesa tone of lofty superiority ; deals out hard invectives against bigotry and narrow- mindedness; plumes himself on his liberality of sentiment and his freedom from sectarian prejudice and cant; while in truth he is steeped to the very lips in the bitterest malignity against all who dissent in the least from his unbelief. What a wretched state of mind and heart! Who would willingly sink into it? Who would not be glad to know and anxious to hold fast the principles of thought and life which will preserve him from it? Give, then, your earnest attention while we en- deavor to indicate and illustrate some of these prin- ciples. First of all, then, let it be settledas a fundamental and unquestionable principle, that in religion, as in every other department of knowledge, there is such a thing as absolute truth. There either is, or else there is not, one living and true God; and He either has, or else He has not, made that revelation of His nature and will which is contained in the books of Scripture and proclaimed in the preaching and sac- ramental ministrations of the Church. There can be no other alternative; no compromise which can mitigate in the least the antagonism between these two positions. One of them must be true, true as matter of absolute fact, altogether independent of any notions of ours, and the other must be as abso- 204. THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH lutely false. It is not a question between different sets or phases of opinions either of which may be held or rejected in the way of mere speculation. It is not a balance of suppositions or of theological notions; but it isa simple unmitigated alternative between absolute truth and downright falsehood. It follows, therefore, as a second fundamental principle, that belief of the truth and Coeged but the truth is vitally important. Pilate’s question is often put nowadays, whether put by him or not in such a spirit, as a sneer at the presumed folly of insisting on any decided convic- tion as to religious doctrine or fact. ‘What is truth?” it is asked; whoneed care for that? What difference does it make whether we believe in one God or in three Gods, or in twenty, if we only live godly? What matter whether we hold all the articles of the Christian faith as contained in the Apostles’ Creed, or deem this faith no better than antiquated superstition, provided only that our con- duct accords with good principles? Of what impor- tance can any dogmatic shades or degrees of belief be, provided only that we are sincere in what we do hold? This sounds very plausible, and finds an easy cur- rency with the careless and superficial, But one must be very careless and superficial not to see that its plausibility is not that of truth, but of sheer fallacy. For it ought to be understood by every one that religious fazth is something which is quite distinct from and altogether superior to mere ofzn- zon. There are unquestionably in religion, as in TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 205 every other department of life and thought, a thou- sand subjects which are properly matters of opinion; but here, as elsewhere, they are such matters as are uncertain and undeterminable. In assigning them to the province of opinion we decide them to be such. We do not profess to have certain knowledge respecting them; but only a probable judgment. We are of the opinion; that is, we think, on the whole, from the degree of evidence afforded us, that they are so and so; but concede, or ought to con- cede, to others who may see them from a different standpoint, or, under different degrees of evidence, the right to an entirely different opinion. But faith is not what one ¢hzuks or conjectures, but what one believes , and the subject-matter of delzef is, not that which is deemed to be presumable, but that which is recognized as accredited fact. Religious faith is the assent of the mind and heart to truth as revealed from God. This truth is external to us. It remains the same whether we believe it or not. It does not depend upon our thoughts or sentiments, and is not at all affected by them. But surely if it be revealed, and if we be living within the light of that revela- tion, we must be responsible for its reception, and it must make a very great difference in our charac- ter and on our destiny whether we believe and con- form to it or refuse to do so. Everybody understands and admits that in the revelation of natyre there are certain truths; and that whether men have faith in them or not, does not alter nature, but does very seriously affect men. It is a truth, for example, that while many of the 206 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH earth’s products are nutritious, others are poisonous. Now, one may have but a very imperfect knowledge of all that is involved in this general truth, and his practical use of it may be proportionably restricted. But faith in the truth will keep him from presum- ing beyond his knowledge, and so imsure his safety. But if, on the other hand, one determines for him- self to ignore this truth, and insist on making his own individual taste and opinion the sole rule for deciding on what he shall eat or drink, his faith is positively wrong; that is, it is faith in his own in- fallibility or self-sufficiency instead of in the real fact; and it would not be surprising if he should go on to choose the sweetness of poison, in which case he would have nobody but himself to blame in its consequences—suffering and death. Precisely so in the Revelation of Grace. The subjects of this Revelation are God’s truths—truths that do not depend upon the notions or fancies of men, and are not at all affected by them. For in- stance, that there is one living and true God; that He isour Almighty Creator and Father; that He cares for us, loves us, yet holds us accountable by the laws of righteousness; that, when we had fallen under the power of sin, He sent His Only Begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, and in it to live and die for us; that in the Person of Christ Jesus was God the Son incarnate and dwelling in our flesh ; that His life was a true fulfilling of the law of righteousness, His death a true propitiation and satisfaction for our transgressions; that He rose from the dead, and ascended again to the right hand TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 207 of the Father in Heaven, where He now liveth to inter- cede for us; that before His Ascension He ordained and constituted sacramental ordinances, one for in- itiation into His religious economy, and another for continued fellowship and communion in its spiritual life ; that so was established for universal and per- petual extension His Church on earth, “which is His Body,” the habitation of His regenerating and sanctifying Spirit, in which He is revealed and imparted to every faithful soul, as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life;”’ and that, the conditions of everlasting life are thus proffered to every one of us; these, and such as these, are the truths revealed. They are truths whether we believe them or not. If we had never received a revelation of them we should not be held responsible for belief in them ; but, surely, no one who is not blinded by miserable self-deceit can failto see that if a revelation of them have been vouchsafed from Heaven, and if we have been placed by Divine Providence within the light of that revelation, it must make a vital difference to us whether we rightly believe them, or no. If, in the light of such a revelation, you throw yourself back on your individual fancies and opinions, and determine to exercise your independence by trusting in and following them, you do not, and cannot, change the truth in the least by your conclusions, but you do put yourself, in relation to the dispen- sation of divine grace, in a position precisely anal- ogous to that previously supposed in relation to nat- ure. In assuming that position, it is plain, in the first place, that the mental temper 1s wrong. It is 208 THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH an attitude of absurd self-conceit ; an assumption that you have sufficient wisdom and strength in yourself tostand apart from all the common relations of the Economy in which Divine Providence has cast your lot, that you can subsist without dependence on any of its resources and find your way clearly without accepting its light. The vanity of such an assumption is equalled only by its folly, and these are both surpassed, if possible, under the claims of the Christian Revelation, by its ingratitude. For, here the withholding of faith involves not only re- jection of truth, but also repudiation of a Person, and that Person, Him who claims to be the Only Be- gotten Son of God, incarnate for our redemption. His claim to our faith involves also claims to our deepest gratitude and our most dutiful and loving devotion; claims to the homage of all that we are and have; to the entire submission of ourselves and all that is ours, to His service under the direction and guidance of His Holy Spirit. It is not pos- sible for you to withhold faith from Him, with- out its involving as a consequence the refusal of your gratitude and your allegiance; it is not possible to be deficient in your faith, without an exactly propor- tionate detraction from all your religious principles and affections. To these considerations, it is to be added now, that there is no doctrine which comes to us asa doctrine of Revelation, no article of the Chris- tian Faith, which is not, in its very nature, if true at all, of the utmost practical consequence. Take the great fundamental truth of all revealed religion,— that there is One Almighty and Everlasting God, LOVED RISLIANAPATT FH. 209 in Whom, and by Whom, and to Whom, are all things. This, if it be a truth, is a truth the knowledge of which involves obligations far beyond that of a mere theoretical opinion; it demands the devotion of all our faculties to Him and the most implicit trust in Him. On the other hand, we cannot disbelieve it, without being left, in our unbelief, “ without God in the world;” and our very existence becomes to us in consequence, a mere accident of time, without principle, without devotion, without hope. So, re- specting the revealed character of God, the doctrine of the Bible in relation to His attributes—of Om- nipotence, Omniprescence Omniscience, Goodness, Holiness, Justice, and Mercy—if your belief strip Him of any of these attributes, or substitute others of acharacter inconsistent with them, it is plain that both your service in relation directly to Him and also your whole character in all its relations, must be, in so far as you are true to your belief, essentially affected. So, with any of the doctrines which are distinctively Christian, the alternative is the same between truth and falsehood and the practical con- sequences are just as diverse. If the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ be true, it involves the duty of honoring Him even as we honor the Father; but if this doctrine be not true, then the rendering of such honor unto Him is nothing else than downright idol- atry. If the doctrine of the Atonement by His blood be true, it demands repentance of sin and implicit faith in Him for salvation; if it be not true, such re- pentance is needless and such faith vain. If the doctrine of the Resurrection and Future Judgment be 14 210 THE WITNESS (OF THE CHORKCH: true, it is our wisdom and duty to live as they that must give account, for an inheritance of Eternal Life; if it be not true, we may as well adopt for our motto, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” When such alternatives are at issue, it must not be pretended or thought that it is unimportant, that it is less than vitally important, for us to know and believe the truth. This, then, we repeat, should be held ever asa settled fundamental principle, that, a true belief, belief, that is, of the truth in religion, is not a matter of indifference, but of the utmost importance. And now there is a third fundamental principle, which is this: that in religion, as in all science, the truth ts authenticated by certain legitimate rules, and has its vitality in organic institutions. One would infer from the way in which many per- sons speak of “seeking for the truth” that they imagine the truth to be adrift somewhere in the uni- verse, and that every individual should spend his life in seeking for it—each one in his own way and on his own account. But surely there are some things tried and proved in religion as in everything else. Truth has laws and principles which are set- tled, and which, as such, are not to be ignored or continually reargued ; but, on the contrary, to be ac- cepted and relied upon with undoubting assurance. Suppose one should adopt a similar philosophy in matters of the present life. Suppose we should take the ground that every one must find and test for himself all truth. Suppose we should compel every one to find out for himself whether fire will LO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 211 burn, whether water will drown, whether there be any such thing as poison and what are its effects, whether it really makes any difference what we eat or drink, and in all other matters demand from every man, aye, from every boy and girl, the exercise of the same “ right of private judgment,” we can easily see that the absurdity of our philosophy would soon be effectually demonstrated by its practical conclu- sions. No, brethren, truth is not thus adrift, with- out local habitation or name. It is not thus subject ever to individual empiricism. It is established in laws and institutions. It has the attestation of tes- timony and the prescription of common consent. And woe to him who presumes, without very good reason, to contradict any fact or doctrine which is substantiated by the weight of this concurrent au- thority. To do it under any circumstances ts to as- sume a tremendous responsibility. It is possible, indeed, that a doubt of some principle which is ap- parently thus established may cross, and even lodge itself, in one’s mind, and evidence against it, seem- ingly new and credible, may come to him or fiash upon him. And then, his individual responsibility requires of him that he should not plunge at once into general scepticism, nor suffer his mind to betake itself indefinitely and superficially to the entertain- ment of all sorts of questions and doubtful disputa- tions, but give himself with all his capabilities, under a full sense of all the responsibilities that God has laid upon him, with a faithful and conscientious use of all sources of light and all means and tests of knowledge, fo the investigation of just that point ; to 212 PAE WILNESSIOPAL HE SCH ORC, search out the ground of hts doubt and determine the worth of his evidence. And it is possible that in the process, the old truth may become to him a demon- strated falsehood. But he must be an exceedingly vain and presumptuous person who does not shrink from such a position, or who can enter into it with- out most profound deference to the overwhelming presumption of prescript authority which stands against him. The true spirit, then, the spirit which, for the at- tainment of both truth and happiness, we should all cherish, is not that which puts one continually in a doubting and questioning attitude, but it is that of a modest and reverential disciple; quick to receive, apt to believe, and predisposed to implicit faith in all legitimately established authorities. It is a gloomy and wretched thing to lose this faith or to have it unsettled. There isa conceit which young men are especially apt to entertain, and which there are peculiar influences at work in our time to foster, that scepticism is a proof of strong-mindedness, something that one may be proud of. But this isa miserable delusion, a delusion which a larger knowl- edge and deeper experience of life reveals'to be miserable in both its character and its effects. It is no proof of intellectual strength, it is but surface- work, to doubt. To go on from doubt to disbelief is to gosomewhat deeper; but disbelief may require no real thought, no knowledge, no honest judgment, nothing but an untrue conscience, a depraved taste, and a perverse will. These are quite sufficient to lead any one who submits himself to their TO CHRISTIAN FAITH. 213 guidance into the lowest depths of religious un- belief. But, to have a well_grounded faith, to have proved the worthlessness and futility of sceptical specula- tions, to have come toa clear apprehension of the facts and the responsibilities pertaining to all our relations, both temporal and eternal, to recognize and duly appreciate the evidences of history, of prophecy, of miracle, of natural analogies, of divinely established and providentially perpetuated institu- tions, to have come, through doubt, through diffi- culty, through the drawbacks of carnal conceit and self-pleasing by real earnest thought and study and prayerful striving, unto the knowledge of God in Christ, to be able to say honestly, with a noble hero of old: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him ;” this requires, if not in- tellectual strength, at least intellectual and spiritual integrity. And it is itself a ground and source of strength. “To believe,” as one * who was never suspected of any tendency towards a too credu- lous faith, says well, “To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do anything that is worth doing. The only manly thing, the only strong thing, Is faithaslt is not so far as a man doubts, but so far as he be- lieves, that he can achieve or perfect anything. All things are possible to him that believeth.” Let me close, then, with this counsel to all, but * F, W. Robertson. 214 PHE WITNESS OF -THEY CHURCH: especially to the young: Never count him a bene- factor, but consider him rather as your worst enemy, who trifles with your faith or in any way endeavors to unsettle it. And never, on your part, be false to it. Never allow yourself to be an imitator of Pilate in asking sceptically, “What is truth?” But let your spirit ever be attuned to find its truest expres- sion in the Psalm of Faith. ‘** Lord, forever at Thy side, Let my place and portion be ; Strip me of the robe of pride, Clothe me with humility. ‘* Meekly may my soul receive All Thy Spirit hath revealed ; Thou hast spoken—I believe — Tho’ the oracle be sealed. ‘“* Humble as a little child, Weaned from its mother’s breast, By no subtilties beguiled, On Thy faithful word I rest.” FINIS. a ee cn 2th Ha ha tO ie é ; ni i a i We ay . rinceton Theological Seminary-Speer Library ’ SF & ase = ‘ 3 a. >. ¥ 4 — * ‘i, < J J s * qalounnNnEaaiER | 1 | BMA TADS TVA DR 885888 8h } +. TULA TRV OA Paty Wen ue ae be he © 483.8 ‘ a CeCe RT ST CEM Il | | | : : Ss ma ‘ ’ f MASA EN NN TY UN ENA ee NN NSS. 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