V 
 
 f 
 
 
 h 1 
 
 .^,V 
 
 % 
 
 H K 
 
THE 
 
 Teaching Office of the Church. 
 
 BY 
 
 y 
 
 CHARLES HODGE, D.D. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 BOARD OF FOREION MISSIONS, 
 
 No. 23 Centre Street. 
 
 1882 . 
 

 'I 
 
 
 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH * 
 
 “ Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
 have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. ■ 
 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. 
 
 We learn from the first chapter of Acts that Christ showed himself 
 alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of the apos¬ 
 tles forty days, and speaking to them of the things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God. We have four, more or less independent, histories 
 of these forty days. Circumstances mentioned by one historian are 
 omitted by another, so that all must be collated in order to obtain a full 
 account of the parting instructions of Christ to his disciples. The 
 passage just recited, however, contains the substance of his last injunc¬ 
 tions. According to the evangelist Matthew, our Lord, on the morning 
 of his resurrection, appeared to the women who visited his sepulchre, and 
 said to them, “ All hail! Be not afraid : go tell my brethren that they 
 go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” 
 
 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain 
 where Jesus had appointed them, and when they saw him they wor¬ 
 shipped him. It was on that mountain, and to those worshipping dis¬ 
 ciples, that Jesus addressed the words of the text. 
 
 If special interest and authority are due to any one communication of 
 Christ more than to others, they must attach to words uttered under 
 these peculiar circumstances. He had finished his work on earth; he 
 had risen from the dead ; he was on the eve of his final departure ; he 
 was now constituting his Church; he was in the act of delivering its 
 charter. He then and there gave his disciples their commission, pre¬ 
 scribed their duties, and gave them the promise of his perpetual presence. 
 
 To whom is the commission given ? What duty does it prescribe ? 
 How is that duty to be performed ? What are the powers here conveyed ? 
 And what is the import of the promise here given ? These are ques¬ 
 tions on which volumes have been written, and on whose solution the 
 most momentous interests depend. 
 
 I propose to call your attention to only one of these questions, viz,: 
 How is the duty prescribed in this commission to be performed ? or how 
 
 * A Sermon by the Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D., preached in the church on University Place, 
 New York, on Sabbath evening. May 7, 1848, at the request of the Executive Committee of the 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. Published at the request of the Exec¬ 
 utive Committee. [Reprinted from the Missionary Chronicle, June, 1S48.] 
 
4 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHUKCH, 
 
 is the end here set before the Church to be accomplished ? We answer, 
 by teaching. 
 
 This appears in the first place from the nature of the end to be ac¬ 
 complished, and from the express words of the commission. The com¬ 
 mand is to make disciples of all nations. A disciple, however, is both a 
 follower and a learner. If the nations are to be made the disciples of 
 Christ, they must know his doctrines and obey his commands. This is 
 to be done by baptism and by teaching. The command is to make dis¬ 
 ciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. These are, therefore, 
 the two divinely-appointed means for attaining the end contemplated. 
 
 Baptism, as a Christian ordinance, is a washing with water in the name 
 of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Grhost. Its main idea is that of 
 consecration. The person baptized takes God the Father to be his 
 father, Jesus Christ his Son to be his Lord and Redeemer, and the 
 Holy Ghost to be his sanctifier. That is, he accepts the covenant of 
 grace and professes allegiance to his covenant God. Every one therefore 
 who is baptized becomes a disciple. He is enrolled among the professed 
 children of God and worshippers of Christ. 
 
 Baptism, however, in the case of adults implies faith. It is in fact 
 the public avowal of faith. And faith supposes knowledge. No man 
 can take God to be his father unless he knows who God is. Nor can 
 he take Christ to be his Redeemer unless he knows who Christ is and 
 what he has done. Nor can he take the Holy Ghost to be his sanctifier 
 unless acquainted with his person and office. Knowledge lies at the 
 foundation of all religion, and therefore Christ has made it the great 
 comprehensive duty of his Church to teach. She does nothing unless 
 she does this, and she accomplishes all other parts of her mission just 
 in proportion as she fulfills this, her first and greatest duty. 
 
 II. In the second place, the paramount importance of this duty ap¬ 
 pears from the kind of knowledge which is necessary to make men the 
 true and worthy disciples of Christ. It will not be denied that the 
 Church is bound to teach what God has revealed in his word. If, then, 
 we would understand the nature of the duty Christ has enjoined upon 
 his Church we must consider that system of truth which he has commanded 
 her to communicate to all nations. It comprehends a knowledge of the 
 being and attributes of God and of bis relation to the world. These, how¬ 
 ever, are the profoundest themes of human thought; the most difficult sub¬ 
 jects to be rightly comprehended, and yet absolutely essential to all true re¬ 
 ligion. The God, moreover, whom we are to make known, is revealed 
 as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He must be received and wor¬ 
 shipped as such by every man who becomes a Christian. This cannot be 
 done without knowledge, and this knowledge can only be communicated 
 by teaching. Even in a Christian country it requires early and long- 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 5 
 
 continued instruction to imbue the mind with any correct apprehension 
 of the nature of God as he is revealed in the Bible. Among heathen 
 nations the task must be an hundred fold more difficult. The pagan 
 mind is prepossessed with false conceptions of the divine Being : the terms 
 by which he is designated are all associated with degraded ideas of his 
 nature. The very medium of instruction has to be created. A propo¬ 
 sition which to our minds, and in our sense of the words employed, ex¬ 
 presses truth, must of necessity convey error to the minds of those who 
 attach a different meaning to the words we use. What is God to the 
 mind of a heathen ? What is law ? What is sin ? What is virtue ? 
 Not what we mean by these terms, but something altogether different. 
 Without a miracle, correct knowledge can be communicated to such minds 
 only by a long process of explanations or corrections. The heathen have 
 a great deal to unlearn before they can learn anything aright. Their 
 minds must be emptied of the foul and deformed images with which they 
 are filled, before it is possible that the forms of purity and truth can 
 enter and dwell there. 
 
 The same remarks are applicable to what the Bible teaches concerning 
 man ; his origin, his apostasy, his present state, his future destiny. No 
 man can be a Christian without a competent knowledge of these subjects. 
 They are, however, subjects in themselves of great difficulty; the pre¬ 
 possessions of the heathen are opposed to the scriptural representations 
 on these topics ; all their previous opinions and convictions must be 
 renounced, before the truth concerning the nature and condition of man 
 can be communicated to their minds. 
 
 Again, to be Christians, men must understand the plan of salvation ; 
 they must know Jesus Christ, the constitution of his person, and the na¬ 
 ture of his work ; they must know how we are made partakers of the 
 redemption purchased by Christ, and the nature and office of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Again, to be Christians, men must know the law of God, that perfect 
 rule of duty which unfolds the obligations which we owe to him as 
 creatures, as sinners, and as the subjects of redemption. But the hea¬ 
 then, alas, have been taught to call evil good, and good evil, to put 
 sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet. Their moral perceptions are 
 darkened and their moral sensibilities hardened; so that the acquisition 
 of correct knowledge on their part of the pure law of God must be a 
 tedious and gradual operation. 
 
 Such is a meagre outline of the knowledge which the Church is bound 
 to communicate, and without which the nations cannot be saved. We 
 have no adequate conception of the magnitude or difficulty of the task. 
 We forget that we have been slowly acquiring this knowledge all our 
 lives, that oui mothers gave us our first lessons in this divine science 
 
6 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 before we could speak ; that from our infancy it has been constantly 
 inculcated in the family, in the sanctuary and in the school-room; that 
 this heavenly light has always beamed around us and upon us from the 
 Bible, from the institutions of the country and from innumerable other 
 sources. Can the heathen then learn it in a day ? Because the English 
 language is familiar to us, can it be taught to foreigners in an hour ? 
 If we undertake the work of making disciples of all nations, we ought 
 to understand what it is we have to do. It is no work of miracle or 
 magic. As far as we are concerned it is a sober, rational enterprise. 
 We undertake to change the opinions and convictions of all the inhabit¬ 
 ants of the world on the whole department of religious and moral truth, 
 the widest domain of human knowledge. This is the work which Christ 
 has assigned to his Church. And it is to be accomplished by the or¬ 
 dinary process of teaching; not by inspiration, nor by miraculous inter¬ 
 ference of any kind. It is, indeed, a stupendous work, and no man can 
 address himself to it in a proper spirit who does not so regard it. It 
 would be comparatively a small matter to bring all nations to speak our 
 language and to adopt the civil and social institutions of our country. 
 Stupendous as is the work assigned us, we cannot flinch from it. It 
 must be done, and we must do it. 
 
 There is another aspect of this subject which must not be overlooked. 
 The system of truth of which we have spoken cannot be taught in ab¬ 
 stract propositions, as though it were a mere philosophy. It must be 
 taught by the Church, just as God has taught it in his word; in history, 
 in types, in allegories, in prophecies, in psalms, in didactic assertions, in 
 exhortations, warnings and precepts. No man can understand the truths 
 of the Bible without understanding the Bible itself. He must know the 
 history of the creation, of the fall and of God’s dealings with his ancient 
 people. He must be acquainted with the Mosaic institutions, and with 
 the experience of the saints as recorded in the Psalms. He must know 
 the history of Christ as predicted by the prophets and as recorded by 
 the evangelists. He must hear Christ’s own words and read for himself 
 what the apostles have delivered. If we teach Christianity, we must 
 teach the Bible and the whole Bible. We must convey the truth to 
 others in the very facts and forms in which God has communicated it to 
 us. The two are absolutely inseparable; and woe to those who would 
 attempt to divide them—who would undertake to tell men, iu their own 
 way and in their own forms, what they think the Bible means, by pop¬ 
 ular discourse or otherwise, instead of teaching the Bible itself. Let us 
 then, Christian brethren, calmly look our work distinctly in the face. 
 The precise, definite task which Christ has enjoined upon his Church is 
 to teach the Bible, and the whole Bible, to every creature under heaven. 
 
 It never could have entered into the mind of any man that this work 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 7 
 
 
 could be accomplished in any other way than by a regular process of 
 education, were it not for some vague impression that the work of the 
 Holy Spirit in some way supersedes the necessity of the ordinary 
 methods of instruction. This is a fatal delusion. The Bible teaches us 
 that the Spirit operates with and by the truth upon the hearts of men. 
 As far as we know, either from Scripture or observation, he never oper¬ 
 ates on the minds of adults in any other way. The knowledge of the 
 truth is therefore a preliminary condition to the experience of this 
 divine influence. This knowledge the Spirit does not communicate. 
 He has revealed it in the word. It is the business of the Church to 
 make it known. The office of the Church and that of the Spirit are 
 therefore perfectly distinct. Both are necessary. Neither supersedes 
 the other. The Church teaches the truth; the Spirit gives that truth 
 effect. He opens the mind to perceive the excellence of the things of 
 God, he applies them to the conscience, he writes them upon the heart; 
 but the truth must be known before it is thus effectually applied to the 
 sanctification and salvation of the soul. It is therefore in perfect con¬ 
 sistency with the doctrine of the Spirit’s influence that we assert the 
 absolute necessity of knowledge, and therefore of instruction. 
 
 III. A third argument in support of the doctrine that the great duty 
 of the Church is to teach is drawn from the fact that the Church from 
 the beginning of the world has, by divine appointment, been an educa¬ 
 tional institute. This is and ever has been her distinctive character. 
 She is indeed an association for the worship of God and for the cure of 
 souls, but she is peculiarly and distinctively an organization for main¬ 
 taining and promoting the truth. 
 
 To the ancient Church were committed the oracles of God, not only to 
 be preserved and transmitted, but to be taught to the people. The 
 whole ritual service was a mode of teaching. The morning and evenino- 
 sacrifice was a daily lesson on sin and atonement. Every rite was the 
 visible form of some religious truth. Every festival was a commem¬ 
 oration and a prophecy. The Sabbath was a perpetual annuncia¬ 
 tion of the creation of the world and of the being of a personal 
 God. There were thus daily, monthly and yearly services all designed 
 for the instruction of the people. The sabbatical year and the year of 
 jubilee were prolonged periods for setting forth the great truths of 
 morals and redemption. Besides all this there was a distinct order of 
 men, one-twelfth of the whole population, set apart for this purpose. 
 The priests were devoted to the service of the temple, the august school 
 of God, and the Levites scattered over the whole land. Into this system 
 the synagogues were incorporated, where the Scriptures were read and 
 expounded to the people. It must also be borne in mind that the whole 
 literature of the Hebrews was religious. Their only histories were the 
 
8 
 
 THE TEACHING OFEICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 record of God’s dealings with his Church; their poetry was devotional 
 or didactic; their fictions were divine parables; their orators, inspired 
 prophets. We cannot conceive of a set of institutions better adapted to 
 imbue a whole nation with religious knowledge than those ordained of 
 God under the old dispensation. 
 
 Another very instructive fact is this: when God designed to extend 
 the olfer of salvation beyond the limits of Judea he subjected the sur¬ 
 rounding nations for three centuries to a course of preliminary educa¬ 
 tion. Two hundred and eighty years before Christ the Scriptures, or at 
 least the Pentateuch, were translated into Greek, the language of the 
 civilized world. Jews were congregated in every city of the Roman 
 empire. Synagogues were everywhere established, in which the true 
 God was worshipped and his word expounded. Hundreds and thousands 
 of devout proselytes were gathered from among the heathen and in¬ 
 structed out of the law and the prophets, and taught to look for the 
 salvation that was to come out of Zion. A broad foundation was thus 
 silently and laboriously laid for the Christian Church in every part of 
 the civilized world. It was the special mission of the apostles to go over 
 the Roman empire and, selecting those points where the ground had been 
 thus previously prepared, to establish churches as centres of light to the 
 surrounding regions. They always when they entered a city went first 
 to the synagogue, and there endeavored to convince the Jews and pros¬ 
 elytes that Jesus was the Christ, and that there was no other name given 
 under heaven whereby men must be saved. Sometimes the whole assem- 
 blv, with their elders, believed and became a Christian church. At 
 others only a portion embraced the gospel. Those the apostles separated 
 and organized into a new church or Christian synagogue. 
 
 We are apt to forget all this, and to think the work of the apostles 
 was analogous to that of our modern missionaries. It was, however, 
 essentially different. The apostles preached in a great measure to the 
 worshippers of Jehovah ; to men whose hearts and consciences had been 
 educated under his word and institutions ; to men who had comparatively 
 little to unlearn, whose general views of the nature of religion were cor¬ 
 rect, and who were in earnest expectation of the salvation which the 
 apostles preached, and with whom they could communicate in a compe¬ 
 tent language. We need not remark on the different character and con¬ 
 dition of the people among whom the modern messengers of the gospel 
 are called to labor; men whose minds are dark, degraded and inaccessi¬ 
 ble, having no ideas in common with us and no terms of correct religious 
 import. Our missionaries have to do the long preparatory work, which 
 the apostles found done to their hands. We should therefore commit a 
 fatal error if we should infer from the itinerant character of the apos¬ 
 tles’ labors that our missionaries should pass in like manner from city 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 9 
 
 to city, abiding only a few months at any one place. It would be most 
 unreasonable to expect that this mode of operating would now be attend¬ 
 ed with a success analogous to that which followed similar labors of the 
 apostles, under circumstances essentially different. The great fact how¬ 
 ever is undeniable and most instructive, that God did prepare the way 
 for the apostles, by subjecting the population of the chief cities of the 
 Roman empire, for nearly three centuAes, to a preliminary process of 
 religious culture. 
 
 As then God made the Church under the old dispensation an educa¬ 
 tional institute, as he prepared the way for the dissemination of the 
 gospel by previously causing Judaism to be extensively diffused, so also 
 in the organization of the Christian Church, he gave it a distinctive 
 educational character. Christ appointed a set of men as teachers ; he 
 made provision for their being continued; he promised to be with them 
 in all ages, and to give them by his Spirit the qualifications for their 
 work. When the apostles went forth, it was in the character of teachers. 
 They everywhere established churches, which were schools presided over 
 by 6i6a(jK.aloL [teachers]. Aptness to teach was made an essential requisite 
 for the office of a Presbyter. Ministers were commanded to give attend¬ 
 ance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine or instruction, that their 
 profiting might appear unto all. In support of the doctrine that the 
 great business of the Church is to teach, that this is the divinely-ap¬ 
 pointed means by which she is to make disciples, we appeal, therefore, 
 not to this or that particular passage of Scripture, but to the whole de¬ 
 sign or organization of the Church as laid down in the word of God. 
 
 IV. What God has thus clearly taught in his word, he has not less 
 impressively taught by his providence. If the history of the Church 
 teaches any one lesson more distinctly than any other, it is that just in 
 proportion as she has been faithful as a teacher, she has been successful 
 in promoting the Redeemer’s kingdom; and just in proportion as she 
 has failed in teaching, she failed in everything pure and good. 
 
 In proof of this point we appeal in the first instance to the contrast 
 between the Romish and Protestant portions of Christendom. The 
 characteristic difference between the popish and Protestant churches is 
 that the former is a ritual and the latter a teaching Church. In the 
 former the minister is a priest, in the latter he is an instructor. The 
 functions of the Romish priesthood are the offering of sacrifices, the ad¬ 
 ministration of rites, and the absolution of penitents. Public worship 
 in the Romish Church is conducted in a language which the people do 
 not understand, and consists largely in ceremonies which they do not 
 comprehend. The Scriptures are a sealed book among them, and the 
 necessity of knowledge to faith or holiness is expressly denied. The 
 consequence is that under a dead uniformity of outward show there is 
 
10 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 in tbe Romisli Church a mass of ignorance, heresy, irreligion, supersti¬ 
 tion, immorality, such, as probably never existed within the pale of any 
 Christian communion on earth. 
 
 On the other hand, among Protestants the minister is a teacher. He 
 leads indeed in the worship of the sanctuary and he administers the sac¬ 
 raments, but his great official business is to minister in word and doctrine. 
 The sacraments in his hands are*not magic rites, but methods of instruc¬ 
 tion, as well as seals of the covenant. It is in Protestant countries, ac¬ 
 cordingly, we find knowledge and religion in a far higher state than in 
 any other portions of the world. 
 
 Again, if we compare different Protestant countries we shall find that 
 religion fiourishes uniformly and everywhere exactly in proportion as the 
 Church performs her duty as a teacher. In England, notwithsta.nding 
 the abundant provision made for the support of the clergy, yet from the 
 enormous extent of many of the parishes and from the predominance of 
 the liturgical element in the constitution of the .Established Church, a 
 large part of the population has been left uninstructed, and, were it not 
 for the exertions of other denominations, would be in a state little better 
 than heathenism. In Scotland, on the other hand, religion is more gen¬ 
 erally diffused and has a stronger hold on the mass of the people than 
 in any other country in the world. The reason is that the Church of 
 Scotland has from the beginning been pre-eminently a teaching Church. 
 Notwithstanding the trammels of an establishment and patronage under 
 which she has acted, she understood her vocation; she recognized her 
 duty to teach the people, and the whole people, Christianity as a system 
 of doctrines and duties, and she has therefore succeeded in making Scot¬ 
 land the most religious country in the world. 
 
 It matters not, however, where we look, Avherever we find a teaching 
 Church there we find religion prosperous ; and wherever we find a ritual, 
 an indolent, or a ranting or merely declaiming Church, there we find re¬ 
 ligion degenerated either into superstition or fanaticism. 
 
 As a final appeal on this subject we refer to the history of missions. 
 There are only three methods by which Christianity has ever been estab¬ 
 lished among heathen nations. The first is that adopted by the apos¬ 
 tles, who established churches in various important places where the 
 ground had been long under a process of preparatory culture, which 
 churches became centres of radiation for the surrounding people. Eiom 
 such centres the gospel was extended in ever-widening circles, until 
 their circumferences met and compassed the Avhole Roman world. 
 
 The second method is that in Avhich, by force or fraud, a people has 
 been brought to submit to Christian rites, and to an external compliance 
 with the forms of Christian worship. Thus the Franks ivere converted 
 under Clovis, and the Saxons under Charlemagne; and thus was Chris- 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 11 
 
 tianity introduced into Mexico and Peru, and by the Jesuits into Par¬ 
 aguay, China and the Indies. The characteristic of this method is that 
 it is conversion without instruction. It implies no change of opinions, 
 no change of heart, no change of life. It is simply a change of name 
 and external ceremonies. In some cases this nominal conversion is fol¬ 
 lowed sooner or later by instruction, and a real reception of the gospel 
 is the ultimate result. The Saxons, who long remained baptized heathen, 
 are noAv the stamina of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. In other 
 cases instruction does not follow, and then the consequence is that the 
 people remain Christians only in name, or, when the external pressure 
 is removed, they relapse into heathenism. The Indians of Mexico and 
 Peru are no more Christians now than they were in the days of Cortez 
 and Pizarro, and the once flourishing missions of the Jesuits, with their 
 thousands and even millions of converts, have perished without leaving 
 a trace behind them. 
 
 The third method of propagating the gospel is a process of education ; 
 that is, actually teaching the people, so that they come to know God 
 and Jesus Christ his Son, and the way of salvation through him. Un¬ 
 less God works miracles, unless he subverts all the revealed or known 
 methods of his operation, this is the only means by which the nations 
 can be converted. This is the method which all Protestant chuiches 
 have been forced to adopt, and it is the only one that has ever been suc¬ 
 cessful. No instance can be produced of the establishment of the gos¬ 
 pel in a heathen land by any other means. This was the course pursued 
 by the faithful Moravians in Greenland, in the West Indies and in this 
 country. They uniformly established permanent missions and labor¬ 
 iously taught the people. This was the method adopted by Elliot and 
 Brainerd.” To this mode of procedure, after many experiments and 
 failures, the missionaries were obliged to resort in Tahiti, the Sandwich 
 Islands, in India and South Africa. 
 
 It is a very humble and self-denying work thus to teach the first prin¬ 
 ciples of the oracles of God; it is a very slow process ; there is no eclat 
 about it; it is very trying to the faith of the missionaries and to the 
 patience of the churches. But it is God’s appointment. It is as much 
 a law of his gracious dispensation that the minds of men must be im¬ 
 bued with the divine knowledge before the Spirit quickens them into 
 life, as it is a law of his providence that the seed must first be properly 
 deposited in the earth before, by his rain and sun, he calls forth the 
 beautiful and bountiful harvest. No man expects to raise a crop of 
 wheat by casting seed broadcast in swamps, forests and jungles ; and 
 just as little reason have we to expect a harvest of souls or the secure 
 and permanent establishment of the gospel in heathen lands by any such 
 short and easy method of disseminating truth. God will not depart 
 
12 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 from his wise ordinations to gratify either our ease or love of excite¬ 
 ment. If we would bring our sheaves to his garner Ave must go forth 
 with tears and patient labor, bearing the precious seed of truth. 
 
 This is the true apostolic method. The apostles converted the world 
 by teaching. They established churches at Jerusalem, at Antioch, at 
 Ephesus, and at Rome, just as we are now laboring to establish churches 
 at Lodiana, Furrukhabad, Agra, and Allahabad. The only difference is 
 that the apostles found the ground cleared, broken up, and prepared for 
 the reception of the seed, while our poor missionaries, with but a small 
 portion of their strength or grace, have to go into the jungles and forests, 
 and clear the ground as Avell as sow the seed. The same God, however, 
 who wrought effectually in the apostles, is mighty in the weaker mes¬ 
 sengers Avhom he has sent to do this harder work. In both cases the ex¬ 
 cellency of the power is of God, and not of man. But do not let us add 
 to all the other trials and discouragements of our missionaries the heavy 
 burden of our impatience. Let us not forget that the work to be done 
 is, of necessity, in its first stages a very slow work—that the harvest does 
 not follow immediately after seed-time. 
 
 That teaching, then, is the great vocation of the Church, that by no 
 other means can she make disciples of all nations, is evident-—1. From 
 the express command of Christ, in the commission given to his disciples. 
 2. From the nature of that system of doctrines, the knowledge and cor¬ 
 dial belief of which are essential to salvation. 8. From the nature, de¬ 
 sign, and constitution of the Church, as revealed in the Scriptures; and, 
 4. From the whole history of the Church, and especially from the whole 
 history of missions. 
 
 It may, however, be asked. What is meant by teaching ? What is this 
 educational process which is so necessary to the propagation of the gos¬ 
 pel ? We answer, it is that process by which men are brought really to 
 know what the Bible reveals. The end to be attained is the actual com¬ 
 munication of this divine knowledge. There are, of course, different 
 methods of instruction, some better adapted to one class of learners, and 
 some to another; no one of which should be neglected. The principal 
 agencies which God has put into our hands for this purpose are the pul¬ 
 pit, the school-room, and the press. All these are employed in Chris¬ 
 tian countries, and all must be used among the heathen. The danger is, 
 that a disproportionate importance be given to one of these methods of 
 instruction to the neglect of the others. The great temptation is to over¬ 
 value the first. This arises from several sources. 
 
 1. In the first place, Ave are apt to attach to the word preaching, as 
 used in the Bible, the sense which it now has in common life. We mean 
 preaching, the public and authoritative enunciation of the gospel, 
 whereas, in the Bible, the Avord comprehends all methods of communi- 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 13 
 
 eating divine truth. When Paul says, “ It pleased God, by the foolish¬ 
 ness of preaching to save them that believe,” he does not mean that the 
 public oral proclamation of the gospel is the only method of saving sin¬ 
 ners ; but that God had determined to save men by the gospel, and not 
 by the wisdom of this world. Human wisdom is entirely inadequate to 
 that end, as the world by wisdom knew not God, and therefore God de¬ 
 termined to save them by the gospel, which Paul calls the true or hid¬ 
 den wisdom. Any method by which that wisdom is communicated comes 
 within the compass of that foolishness of preaching of which Paul speaks. 
 The parent, the teacher, the author, are all preachers in the scriptural 
 sense of the word, so far as they are engaged in holding forth the word 
 of life. The power is in the truth, not in the channel or method of com¬ 
 munication. It is this transferring to the Bible the modern restricted 
 meaning of the tvord preaching which has led many good men to under¬ 
 value other methods of instruction. They suppose that all the Scriptures 
 say about preaching is to be understood of the oral enunciation of the 
 gospel, whereas it relates to the inculcation of divine truth, in any and 
 all ways by which it can be conveyed to the human mind. 
 
 2. But secondly, we do not make due allowance for the difference be¬ 
 tween the state of the heathen and that of our own people. Because 
 the majority of persons in a Christian land are prepared, in a good de¬ 
 gree, to understand a public discourse, we are apt to take it for granted 
 that this method of instruction is equally adapted to the heathen. A 
 moment’s reflection, however, is sufficient to correct this mistake. A cer¬ 
 tain degree of previous knowledge is requisite to enable us to profit by 
 public discourses ; and we accordingly find, the world over, that the effect 
 of public preaching is just in proportion to the previous religious train¬ 
 ing of the hearers. 
 
 3. In the third place, as we know from Scripture and experience that 
 many single sentences of the word of God contain truth enough to save 
 the soul, and as the Spirit of God does sometimes make one such sen¬ 
 tence fasten on the conscience, and from that single germ, by his in¬ 
 ward teaching, evolves enough of the system of truth to enable the sinner 
 to receive Christ, to the saving of the soul, it is very natural for us to 
 be anxious to scatter the truth as rapidly and as widely as possible. And 
 this is a good and sufficient reason why, even in heathen countries, the 
 public proclamation of the gospel should never be neglected, but on the 
 contrary, should be as assiduously employed as possible : we know not but 
 God may give some one truth saving power in some poor sinner’s heart. 
 Of the seed sown on the wayside, among the rocks or thorns, it is possible 
 that some one grain, here and there, may take root and bring forth fruit. 
 But no harvest is ever raised in that way. Neither has any heathen na¬ 
 tion ever been converted by the itinerant proclamation of the gospel. 
 
14 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 To raise grain enough to feed our families or to sustain a nation, we 
 must plough and harrow, as well as sow; and to save souls enough to 
 found a church or convert a nation, we must slowly and laboriously in¬ 
 doctrinate the people in the knowledge of the Bible. 
 
 The mistake to which w'e have referred is one into which the mission¬ 
 aries themselves almost uniformly fall, at the beginning; and those new 
 to the work are apt to think that their more experienced brethren rely 
 too little on preaching, and too much on the slower method of instruction. 
 A missionary from Ceylon told me that soon after his arrival in that 
 field, he ventured to suggest his doubts on this subject to the oldest and 
 certainly one of the ablest and most devoted of his brethren. That elder 
 brother was then ill, lying on his bed, opposite an open window. He 
 said to his doubting brother, From that window you can cast your 
 eye over a number of villages, embowered in trees : as I lie here, I can 
 in my mind go from house to house through all those villages, and tell 
 you the names and character of every family. In a course of years I 
 visited them so often, I so often conversed with them and preached to 
 them, that I know them all, and know them intimately ; yet 1 never saw 
 any fruit from all that labor. Their minds Avere so darkened, their moral 
 feelings so degraded, that the truth could gain no access, and made no 
 impression. We were literally forced to adopt the method of regular 
 teaching; and you see the result. A Christian nation is rising up around 
 us. Another missionary from the same field, who had been twenty-five 
 years on the ground, expressed his firm conviction that if God would 
 continue to bless their labors for the next five and twenty years as he 
 had hitherto done, the whole Tamul people Avould be as thoroughly Chris¬ 
 tianized as any nation in Europe. 
 
 Let it, however, be distinctly understood tha!t we advocate no exclu¬ 
 sive method of instruction. The business of the Church is to teach, and 
 to teach in all the ways by which the truth of God can be conveyed to 
 the understanding; but that work must be accomplished. 
 
 We have endeavored to show that teaching is the great duty of the 
 Church, and how she ought to teach ; the only other question is. What 
 is she to teach? Is she to teach secular knowledge? The proper an¬ 
 swer to this question undoubtedly is that the Church is bound to teach 
 the Bible, and other things, only so far as they are necessary or import¬ 
 ant to the right understanding of the Bible. This exception, however, 
 covers the whole field of human knowledge. The Bible is a wonderful 
 book. It brings everything within its sweep. Its truths radiate in every 
 direction, and become implicated with all other truth, so that no form 
 of knowledge—nothing which serves to illustrate the nature of God, the 
 constitution of the universe, or the powers of the human soul—fails to do 
 homage and render service to the book of God. We cannot teach the 
 
THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 15 
 
 doctrines of creation and providence without teaching the true theory of 
 the universe, and the proper office of the laws of nature ; we cannot teach 
 the laws of God without teaching moral philosophy; we cannot teach 
 the doctrines of sin and regeneration without teaching the nature and 
 faculties of the soul. Christianity, as the highest form of knowledge, 
 comprehends all forms of truth. 
 
 Besides this, every false religion has underlying and sustaining it a 
 false theory concerning God, concerning the world, and concerning the 
 human soul. If you destroy these false theories, you destroy the relig¬ 
 ion. The Hindu religion cannot stand without the Hindu astronomy 
 and cosmogony. Science undermines the pillars of heathenism, and 
 frightens its votaries from its tottering walls. The native population of 
 Calcutta is beginning to quake under the silent operation of Dr. Duff’s 
 school in that great city. They feel the ground trembling beneath their 
 feet, and they are well aware if the truth in any form is taught, the whole 
 system of error must soon crumble into dust. On the other hand, the 
 true religion necessarily supposes a true theory concerning God, the uni¬ 
 verse, and the soul; so that you cannot teach the Bible without teaching 
 what is commonly called human science. All knowledge comes from God, 
 and leads to God. We must remember that ignorance is error, and not 
 merely the absence of knowledge. The mind is never empty. If it has 
 not right views, it has wrong views. If it has not right apprehensions 
 concerning God, the universe, and itself, it has wrong ones. And all error 
 is hostile to the truth. It is right, therefore, to pull up these noxious 
 weeds, that the seeds of divine truth may the better take root and grow. 
 
 While, therefore, the Church is mindful that her vocation is to teach 
 the Bible, she cannot forget that the Bible is the friend of all truth, and 
 the enemy of all error. The Church is the light of the world. She has 
 the right to subsidize all departments of knowledge, those principalities 
 and powers, and force them to do homage to him to whom everything 
 that has power must be made subservient. She has always acted 
 under the consciousness that knowledge, is her natural ally. She is 
 the mother of all the universities of Europe. Harvard, Yale, Nassau 
 Hall, and a numerous progeny besides, are all her children. She knows 
 she is most effectually fulfilling her vocation, and honoring her divine 
 Master, when she is most effectually bringing men to know him, from 
 whom all knowledge flows and to whom all truth leads. 
 
 It is, Christian brethren, an infelicity incident to the prominent exhi¬ 
 bition of any one truth, that other not less important truths are, for the 
 moment, cast into the shade. Because we have insisted on the import¬ 
 ance of communicating a knowledge of the truth, it may seem as though 
 we forget that the truth is powerless without the demonstration of the 
 Spirit. Must we ever undulate between these two cardinal points ? 
 
16 
 
 THE TEACHING OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Because the Spirit alone can give the truth effect, must we do nothing ? 
 Or because the Spirit operates only with and by the truth, are we sim¬ 
 ply to teach, and forget our dependence upon God ? Cannot we unite 
 these two great doctrines in our faith and practice? Cannot we believe 
 that it is the office of the Church to teach, and the prerogative of the 
 Spirit to give that teaching effect ? Cannot we be at once diligent and 
 dependent, doing all things commanded, and yet relying exclusively on 
 the power of God for success ? In his commission to his Church, Christ 
 says, “ Go teach, and, lo, I am with you always, to give your teaching 
 effect.” Here, then, is at once our duty and our hope.