'• ■'IUIJM!!!'HIMt'MMiri|U..lHm 
 
UGl 
 
 IIIN 22 1918 
 
 
NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER 
 
 DAN CRAWFORD, F.R.G.S. 
 
O'' ^'<? 
 
 MIN 
 
 NOT LAWFUL 
 .-.TO UTTER.-. 
 
 AND OTHER BIBLE READINGS 
 
 £1<«ICAL 
 
 BY 
 
 DAN CRAWFORD, F.R.G.S. 
 
 AUTHO& OF * 'thinking BLACK.** 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 22 1918 
 
Copyright, 1914, 
 By Geoboe H. Doean Compaxy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I. APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I *'NoT Lawful To Utter'' 3 
 
 II '*A Hundredfold . . . With Persecutions" 11 
 
 III The Parable of the Storm 21 
 
 33 
 43 
 53 
 63 
 73 
 
 IV ''Think It Not Strange" . . . 
 
 V ''Remember . . . Thou Art Fallen' 
 
 VI Paul Not Ashamed — and Why 
 
 VII A Royally Revised Verse . 
 
 VIII "The Times of the Gentiles" . 
 
 BOOK II. LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 I Thirsting After God 81 
 
 II The Psalm of Psalms 89 
 
 III A Resurrection Reverie 101 
 
 IV "Be Still and Know" Ill 
 
 V "Privately" 119 
 
 VI Certitude 127 
 
 BOOK III. MISSION STUDIES 
 
 I "So They Took the Money" .... 137 
 
 II "The Law OF Faith'' 145 
 
 III "The Certainties op Faith" .... 157 
 
 IV All AT It! .167 
 
NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER 
 
BOOK I 
 
 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 I 
 
 "NOT LAWFUL TO UTTEE" 
 
^^What was PauVs secret? Why is i] 
 have been saying 'Paul! Paul!' all down the 
 centuries? Why, indeed, if not that the Apostle 
 of the Gentiles was a happy little man who always 
 had a better time with God than he ever had with 
 man.'' 
 
''not lawful to utteh'' 
 
 2 Cor, xii, 4 
 
 Note well the modest manner of tlie phrase. 
 Paul had apostleship, had unction, and had utter- 
 ance. Nay, more ; by night and by day, and some- 
 times all night and all day, he was God's pioneer 
 witness on virgin soil. Indeed, the whole vision 
 of Paul's life — right on to the premature old age, 
 when he waves back to the East his last adieux 
 from Rome — ^is that of sheer irrepressibility and 
 spiritual freshness. This, we say, is the man 
 whom God claims as His witness, the man who 
 had that old snatch of desert song humming in his 
 
 soul — 
 
 ''Spring up, well!'' 
 
 That the well did spring up, and that too unto 
 the everlasting life of many, is indeed a first-cen- 
 tury certainty. There is no dryness here, though 
 all around is arid desert. For God's river was 
 
 3 
 
4 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 full, and of that fulness did he, Paul, receive ; yea, 
 inflowing grace for outflowing grace. 
 
 We say this man is a joy unto the household of 
 God, because of his sheer irrepressibility and 
 evergreenness. He has always a word of com- 
 fort and cheer, uttered often out of his deep in- 
 firmities and sore straits. 
 
 I 
 
 What, then, we would hasten to enquire, is the 
 avowed source of all this spiritual outflow and 
 Divine unction in every burning word of Paul's? 
 Why, of course, the specific source of his power 
 lies in the above word, which declares that the 
 man has a secret. Paul can preach for hours and 
 at all hours ; can preach a Eutychus asleep, as he 
 had preached a hundred such men awake for ever- 
 more. He has much to say, but also — note the 
 word — ^much more that he cannot say. 
 
 His life's secret was in the * 'unspeakable 
 words'' that fed with endless supply all his other 
 streaming messages. There were words **not 
 lawful to utter," and yet how endless was the 
 utterance they led to! Note it then, God's 
 preacher, whose it is to be watered ere thou wa- 
 terest others. 
 
 Called to publicity, to be a byword, to preach 
 
*'NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER" 5 
 
 in season and out of season, Paul hath yet his 
 sacred retreat in life, where, in the covert of 
 God's pavilion, he doth hide himself. God hath 
 had heavenly transaction with the man, hath whis- 
 pered those ** unspeakable words'' into his ears, 
 and for ever sealed His servant's lips. Loud 
 and long will that poor voice of his ("speech con- 
 temptible!") be raised for God with the throat 
 dry, yet the soul never. Nay, never dry is the 
 preacher's soul who has such secret *^ unspeakable 
 words" to royally retire back upon. 
 
 Having fed others, here is ever ready for him 
 the timely table of God's good things, spread by 
 God's own hands. Why is it "not lawful" for 
 others to feast hereat, ah, why indeed? Christ's 
 own answer is ready to hand. There is an old 
 tryst, an old promise, in the words: "I will sup 
 with him and he with Me!" We do not get "our 
 message," but we "sup" and get that which may 
 never be uttered to soul of man. How often the 
 divine Host is grieved to see us secreting for 
 others at His banquet what He would we secreted 
 in ourselves! 
 
 n 
 
 Here, then, in these sequestered back-paths of 
 the soul, the costliest treasure of God's preacher 
 
6 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 is acquired. We mean that old mystery-word — 
 unction. It is not utterance, nor fluency, nor elo- 
 quence; but the unutterable thing of the Chris- 
 tian life, when speech as a method of communica- 
 tion is dethroned and cast in the dust, albeit 
 Christ shows His smiling face and **our hearts 
 bum within us" by the way. God would thus 
 reveal to us how inexorably He claims in our 
 lives just such holy garden-land as He found in 
 Paul's ; in which the Lord God would walk in the 
 cool of the day, communing with us. Here, far 
 from the ken of brother-saint or brother-man, He 
 may behold something man's eye never saw — 
 'Hhe Father, which seeth in secret.'' 
 
 Oh, blasting publicity! Oh, soul-withering 
 cleverness! Oh, itching ears of man! Ye are 
 the Church's Amalekites, her thorns in the side. 
 
 Thus, then, we learn a somewhat startling fact 
 in Paul's life. Glorious apostle though he was, 
 they never got his best, nor yet saw him at Ms 
 best, Paul kept the best for God, even as God 
 had kept His best for Paul ! Living by grace and 
 preaching that grace he lived by, yet was he under 
 law in one matter: ^'It is not lawful to utter" 
 the secret of my God! 
 
 Now surely just here, amid deep mystery, there 
 
^'NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER'' 7 
 
 are worlds of simplicity. Surely there are many 
 so-called words that are really deeds. And even 
 as a strong, far-reaching deed mounts up to the 
 ears of God with a clear, ringing trumpet-voice, 
 so in Paul's life those ^^unutterable words" were 
 daily coming out in iron deeds — ^^not lawful to 
 utter," yet fanning the flame of life, and energis- 
 ing him to living action. 
 
 in 
 
 Then, beloved, if perchance some such ** words" 
 are ours, let us breathe them not to mortal man. 
 Keep them as life's capital, life's foundation — 
 treasure in the earthen vessel. Paul will not 
 glory in Paul the preacher, nor yet in Paul the 
 martyr, even ; but ah, ''of such a one will I glory," 
 saith he. Even of Paul the man with a secret, the 
 nameless ''man in Christ" of "fourteen years 
 ago," who heard "unutterable words." Of such 
 a one would he glory, of Paul the exalted chief 
 of sinners; Paul the cleansed leper, who was 
 charged, like the other leper of Galilee: "/See 
 thou say nothing to any man/^ 
 
 Beholding the glory of God, not as in a glass, 
 but in heaven's third heaven, Paul was changed: 
 See then, Paul, that you say nothing of this to 
 
8 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 any man, but go down life's way and divinely, 
 diffidently show thyself. 
 
 So unlawful was it before all high heaven to 
 speak of this secret transaction, that the human 
 participant in it is in PauPs mouth, a third person, 
 a vague old friend of fourteen years ago ! 
 
 Note, we say, this quaint manner of his, in 
 shutting up all possible bypaths that might lead 
 to his keep, his fastness, the Lord's garden-land 
 in his life. Herein, then, behold Paul the puzzle 
 and Paul the power. He was better than all his 
 preaching; for he had a better time with God 
 than he ever had with man. He was a true star 
 in God's firmament in the sanely scriptural sense. 
 Stars do not speak; they shine; and yet, forsooth, 
 what saith the Scripture? *^ There is no speech 
 nor language where their voice is not heard ; their 
 line is gone out through all the earth, and their 
 words to the end of the world." 
 
 Eloquence, indeed! What so eloquent as such 
 silence — shining silence. **See thou say nothing! 
 to any man, but go thy way and show thyself." 
 Offer the ^'living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1). **0f 
 such a one will I glory." 
 
n 
 
 *'A HUNDREDFOLD . . . WITH PERSECU- 
 TIONS" 
 
The First Century Saints used to gloriously 
 greet each other: Cheer up, brother, the worst 
 has yet to come! 
 
 * * » 
 
 *^The more they afflicted them the more they 
 grew." 
 
 * * # 
 
 '^As the sufferings abound so the conso- 
 lations," 
 
n 
 
 . WITH PEKSECUTIONS'' 
 
 Mark x, 30 
 
 A FEEBLE age is the mother of feeble conceptions 
 of truth. The royal words of the first century 
 found in Gospel and Epistle, need a royal age to 
 interpret them. Truly this record cometh down 
 to us wearing a thorny crown! It is royalty in 
 exile ; kinghood in Adullam. And we, indeed, who 
 have neither thorns, nor exile, nor Adullam, in- 
 stead of frankly averring that we are too strait- 
 ened to receive a Kingly One, we, forsooth, take 
 Him into our mouths, but have no place for Him 
 in our hearts. 
 
 Because ^'persecution" was in my Bible por- 
 tion this morning, was it therefore in any hole or 
 comer of my life ? It was a hard, rugged path of 
 olden time along which saints fled from city to 
 city: am I in such a path? Ah, beloved, that 
 very first century so much befondled by us — how 
 may it not rise up in judgment against us? We 
 borrow glowing imagery from it, but do we glow? 
 
 11 
 
12 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 I 
 
 Let us now note well the immediate root of this 
 wonderful promise as to receiving * * a hundredfold 
 . . . with persecutions.' ' For faith will have no 
 emphasis other than on the seemingly incongru- 
 ous word in the sentence. Now note this. Riches 
 is the keynote of Christ's theme and promise. 
 The context of this text is that the rich young 
 man had just gone away sorrowing, for he had 
 great possessions. And now Peter's breast swells 
 with a holy pride — for he too was (0! yes) was 
 rich. Fisherfolks, indeed, were his northern 
 kinsmen; but what, after all, are the true riches 
 of life, if not the old cottage and the dear, if 
 humble, fireside, with those who gather there? 
 ^*Lo, we have left all!" cries Peter — a contrast 
 indeed to the rich young man's all, whose riches 
 were mere things, not beings. And Christ, who 
 knew what heartburnings and wrenchings were 
 included in Peter's actual ^*all," chideth him not 
 on the poor old fishing-smack, or poor old any- 
 thing else, but gladly gathers up every human 
 diamond known to man the man, and not man the 
 miser. 
 
 And these He sets in His own circlet of gold, 
 a crown above all the crowns of earth. Diamonds, 
 
'^A HUNDEEDFOLD" 13 
 
 indeed I Yes, saith the Lord, I know what even 
 true earthly riches are. What so precious as a 
 mother, Peter? A wife, sister, or brother, Peter? 
 Yes, you (not that other one!) were **the rich 
 young man," Peter, and I, yes, I know all about 
 it. It was for ''My sake and the Gospel's " you 
 left all. Then, Peter, your debtor am I, saith 
 Christ ; and forthwith came the wondrous promise 
 of '^a hundredfold . . . with persecutions." 
 
 n 
 
 Now let us see why this saving clause as to 
 ** persecutions" is wholly necessary to the very 
 existence of the things promised. Note then — 
 and here is the whole pivotal point — that this old 
 Bible word ^^ persecute," whether in Old or New 
 Testament, can best be Englished by the word 
 ** pursue." And, truth to tell, words then had 
 more intimate connection with deeds than now. 
 For ''pursue" surely is the word that best tells 
 of those early days when cities were left under 
 cover of night, and entered as often under cover 
 of disguise. When the bishop rolled not under 
 the city arches in a chariot, but was perforce to 
 go over the wall in a basket! When, if through 
 the gateway he must leave the town, it is to be 
 
14 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 stoned through it, aye, and left for dead outside ! 
 Ah, beloved, we who tremble to spiritualise an 
 Old Testament prophecy, behold how we spirit- 
 ualise the Book of Acts! ^^ Words regarding 
 deeds/' is the heading we give this Book in 
 Central Africa; suggestive, indeed, to us who 
 abound in windy words. 
 
 Persecuted in one city, they fled to another; 
 yes, fled for His sake and the Gospel's. And in 
 each city that old promise gets fresher and fairer. 
 Who is this sixteenth-of-Eomans beaming matron 
 greeting the weary one? Whose those sixteenth- 
 of-Eomans children who clamber to the knee? 
 Who, indeed, if not those of the ** hundredfold 
 with persecutions'"! 
 
 At this rate the promise has no existence but 
 in the persecutions or pursuings. Satan stones 
 them out, hoots them on, only to further God's 
 work in the making good of that grand round 
 number, **a hundredfold." The ** brothers" and 
 the ^^ sisters" are all there, weary one, lining your 
 path of pursuit, ahead. Yes, further yet, for the 
 better ** mothers" and the better ** fields" — they 
 are all there to succour you ! *^He shall receive a 
 hundredfold now in this time, houses, and 
 brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children^ 
 
*^A HUNDREDFOLD^' 15 
 
 and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to 
 come eternal life." Ah, here Peter and his 
 brethren get what the so-called rich young man 
 lost! They get the ** great possessions" plus 
 the eternal life. God never was in any Peter's 
 debt yet. But His loyal loving law is : Move on ! 
 And if we will not move on, He in love must 
 shove us on. It was only when the fixed-in-one- 
 spot saints at Jerusalem proposed to dispense the 
 Gospel elixir from headquarters only that God 
 permitted the rod of persecution to scatter them. 
 Then, we read (blessed then!), the disciples went 
 everywhere preaching the Word. 
 
 Yes, and things got better in the precise pro- 
 portion that things got worse. Even when they 
 had chased Paul into prison, it was only that God 
 went one better. Things get deeper and deeper, 
 sweeter and sweeter. For they are not mere 
 plebeian friends this time: '^They of Caesar's 
 household!" Yes, the man on the chain got 
 entree into ''all the palace." *'I would ye should 
 understand," quoth Paul, ''that the things which 
 happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the 
 furtherance of the Gospel." 
 
16 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 III 
 
 *'He shall receive now in this time . . . and 
 in the world to come." This mention of the 
 ^^ world to come'' shows that the enemy's chase 
 continues right on to the frontier ! All along the 
 line of the pursuit, devils' hue-and-cry notwith- 
 standing, the saint has been the gainer, here find- 
 ing a fresh mother, and there a whole Bethany of 
 sisters and brothers. Rufus may have a mother, 
 yes, but Paul says she is *'his mother and mine." 
 One of Paul's twenty thousand mothers! Is not 
 this indeed the whole purport of Rom. xvi., yea, 
 this the precise divine reason for the long list of 
 friends recorded there? And this, to show how 
 wisely and how well Christ has kept that old 
 *' hundredfold" promise to His own. 
 
 And now, **in this time" is about to end, and 
 with it the pursuit of the saint. The frontier, 
 glad frontier, is reached, and all beyond that is 
 Christ's jurisdiction. He tells of **them that kill 
 the body, and after that have no more that they 
 can do." How definite the boundary line. How 
 useless their menace. 
 
 Now, even the word "hundredfold" pales; and 
 as the soul leaps forth over the border-line, how 
 many fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters, to 
 
^'A HUNDEEDFOLD" 17 
 
 give a welcome! Ah, and the Father and the 
 Brother too — how sure their welcome ! Now, the 
 note is not one of leaving all, but of finding all for 
 His sake and His Gospel's. 
 
 Peter, what wealth so precious as a poor 
 man's! What money so dear as the last two 
 mites! The Lord knew what a wrench it had 
 been to leave all. He knew that, daily in the old 
 lake-side home, the hope was growing that Peter 
 would be back again. So He goes over the **all." 
 The *' house" left is the old home, and against that 
 our Lord now puts the '^many mansions." The 
 brethren, sister, father, mother, and children — all 
 these He includes in that hundredfold. How well 
 did Christ understand the poor man's cause! To 
 Christ, heaven's wealth was the Father, not the 
 glories of eternity. And so, instead of despising 
 the ties and longings of *4n this time," He makes 
 earth border on heaven, granting both earthly 
 friends and fields, and an eternity with Himself ! 
 
 Ay, but whose is it all, self-satisfied Saints? 
 ** There is no man that hath left ... for My 
 sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive a hun- 
 dredfold now in this time ..." Shall we not 
 seek such enrichment from our Lord? 
 
ni 
 
 THE PAEABLE OF THE STOEM 
 
It is not the water outside the ship that sinks it. 
 It is the ivater inside. 
 
 Seckbb. 
 
 * * # 
 
 And after these things I saw four angels stand- 
 ing on the four corners of the earth, holding the 
 four winds of the earth, that the winds should not 
 blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any 
 tree . . . till we have sealed the servants of our 
 God in their foreheads. 
 
 John. 
 
 * # * 
 
 Christ said, '*Let us go to the other side'' — 
 Not to the middle of the lake to be drowned ! 
 
m 
 
 THE PABABLB OP THE STORM 
 
 Mark iv, 35-41 
 
 It had been to the Lord a long day of parables 
 by the lake-side. Like all His days amongst men 
 this one was a long-drawn-out parable of love to 
 the end, and the nearer the close of the day the 
 deeper the mystery. 
 
 Our Lord's parables were ever twofold — 
 parables of word and parables of deed. And His 
 parables of word were ever backed by His lovely 
 parables of deed — the miracles of the Gospels. 
 
 If there is **a great multitude" it is a deed- 
 parable that has drawn them together. ^* Hear- 
 ing'' they did hear, but did not understand the 
 word-parable ; yet was Christ thronged because of 
 His royal deeds. 
 
 Meanwhile, and in sharp contrast, behold a little 
 inner circle of disciples. Of God, Christ is made 
 unto them wisdom, and they claim life 's best claim 
 — ^to be ** alone" with Him. Their privilege is 
 
 21 
 
22 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 that Christ the Preacher will be made unto them 
 Christ the Interpreter. And He, 0! He loves 
 them for it; loves them because they have found 
 their need of Him, which is indeed the whole pur- 
 port of His parables. ** Without a parable spake 
 He not unto them" — the multitude — and why I 
 The same verse gives the answer — ^^When they 
 were alone He expounded all things to His 
 disciples. ' ' Let us ponder this deed-parable. 
 
 First reflection. And the same day — a day 
 of word-parables — *^when the even was come,'' 
 the Lord must crown the word with the deed. 
 The scholars have had a long day of theory, and 
 now for practice. The Lord is going to test how 
 much they have learned. And His test, like all 
 His tests, is near to hand. For, lo! here is **the 
 ship'' as it has lain the whole day. From that 
 little ship the *^ doctrine" of Christ has streamed 
 forth on the multitude the long, happy day, and 
 now at even the Lord invites His disciples into 
 the ship, and they are going to voyage under His 
 captaincy across to the other side. 
 
 (Ah, how typical it all is — this voyaging vessel, 
 with the Lord aboard, going over to the despised 
 swine-herding Gardarenes. **Let us go" — Me 
 and you together — **over to the other side." 
 
THE PAEABLE OF THE STORM 23 
 
 How this seems to be echoed by *^ Go ye . . . and 
 lo! I am with you.'') 
 
 And their Lord, who is ever girded for service, 
 even at the midnight hour, needs no preliminary 
 delays, nor can he brook them. ^'They took 
 Him even as He was in the ship, ' ' we read, which 
 surely seems to prove that He had not left it 
 the long day. Such indeed is the eternal basis 
 of all fellowship with Him. He had taken them 
 as they were, and **they took ffim, even as He 
 was.'' How auspicious a start on the overseas 
 voyage, and how goodly the crew indeed. 
 
 Second keflection. Ah, but heard ye not 
 that there is sorrow on the sea ; that it cannot be 
 quiet? God's ^^way is in the sea" and His **path 
 in the great waters." For if man goes down to 
 the sea in ships, and does business in the great 
 waters, so does God too. And God's business has 
 to do with man's. His business down there is as 
 Promise-Maker to be Promise-Keeper and when 
 they pass through the waters He will be with 
 them. 
 
 And now the storm is brewing, and while yet 
 it breaks not, let us with pathos survey the scene. 
 
 There is the ship chartered and piloted by 
 Omnipotence, and bound for the desired haven. 
 
24 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 There are '^the other little ships '* not bidden to 
 go, and therefore not bound to arrive at '^the 
 other side." Ah, hapless little ships with no 
 Christ aboard. And, of course, their pilots are 
 not sleeping — oh, no. Watch it out. 
 
 And now the storm breaks — God's stormy wind 
 fulfilling His word, and happy alone is he who is 
 out doing God's business in the great waters. 
 For God's storm can only help God's business. 
 Yea, is not this very shriek of wind and roar of 
 wave claimed by Psalm xxix. as Jehovah's own 
 voice? 'Tis the voice of Jehovah that is upon the 
 waters; yea, the God of glory thundereth. He 
 hath called Faith forth on this voyage, in order 
 that Faith may learn that He still speaks in the 
 throat of the whirlwind. To those ''m the other 
 little ships ' ' — the onlookers of life — ^it is as of old, 
 only God thundering. To the son in the secret 
 of the Father comes the voice, and that of cheer. 
 
 Thied reflection. Yet look, for angels are 
 weeping. What angels ? What, indeed, if not the 
 four angels standing on the four corners of the 
 earth holding the four winds of the earth? Oh, 
 yes, the wintry winds may blow but only after the 
 servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. 
 Talk about Marine Insurance? Was there ever 
 
THE PARABLE OF THE STORM 25 
 
 such a bonnd-to-arrive crew as this voyaging band 
 who have been sealed with ^Hhe seal of the living 
 God?" Did not the Christ say to them, ''Let us 
 go to the other side'' — not to the middle of the 
 lake to he drowned! And is not the pledged 
 promise of Christ both seal enough and surety 
 enough? **In for a penny, in for a pound," and 
 Christ's fate is their fate. His assured arrival 
 is theirs. Therefore, I repeat it, angels are weep- 
 ing at this hubbub among the Apostles. They 
 who seemed **all of one" — He their Lord and 
 they His disciples — ^how far apart they have 
 drifted. They have fallen from grace. And 
 yet Grace is at their side. A near Christ and 
 a far-off Christian — ^what sorrow like that sor- 
 row. But Christ's best teaching is in His best 
 doing; and Faith's doing consists in its not doing. 
 For lo, He sleepeth. Ah, the wonder of it — sleep- 
 ing pillowed sleep. And if Christ's dear Cross is 
 the Christian's, then, too, should His soft pil- 
 low be theirs. Else there is mutiny on God's 
 high seas. It is enough for the crew that they 
 be as the Captain; and He had no pillow that they 
 had not. ''Let us go to the other side" — this was 
 pillow indeed for each and all. For to Faith 
 this trumpeting of the hurricane is God's glori- 
 
26 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 ons orchestra. Therein He doth set to music 
 the words of the prosaic lake-side proposal, **Let 
 us go to the other side/' 
 
 Yes, this is Faith's portion — to seize upon the 
 music of the whirlwind, in a sinking, water-logged 
 boat, with a sleeping Christ; and to hear the one 
 voice of certitude as to safety! Faith has to 
 learn the logic of the Holy Grhost, which says **He 
 sleeps," therefore all is well. To sum it all up; 
 this is the lesson they have been set to learn — All 
 ill is well ; all bad is good ; and the very worst is 
 the very best ! 
 
 This is God's ideal of faith at its best. The 
 actual state of things of course was, as we know, 
 unbelief at its worst. Yes, they awoJce Him; — 
 awoke Him from sleep, sleep (can you dare the 
 thought?) which they too might have been enjoy- 
 ing. What unbelief thinks, even that it says ; and 
 this is why what is really dishonest doubt passes 
 nowadays as *^ honest doubt." 
 
 Yes, **He is a had Captain"; that, and not less 
 than that, has been lurking in their hearts. The 
 lake storm is the lesser, and the black storm in 
 their hearts is the greater. A little more, as in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, and they who mutiny 
 against the Captain will crucify Him ^* afresh"; 
 
THE PAEABLE OF THE STORM 27 
 
 which means that they did it before. And this 
 mutiny-murder of theirs was far keener to God's 
 heart than that former one. Then it was the out- 
 cast Man, with visage marred with sorrows, whom 
 they crucified. NoWy in Hebrews, He is the glori- 
 fied Christ seated on the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high, and whom God did glorify they 
 do crucify. God is ever the scourger of every son 
 whom He receiveth, and they, the scourged ones, 
 strike bach at Him, 
 
 But Mark iv. is not Hebrews vi., thank God. 
 For we can say of our brethren of Mark iv. (that 
 is of the twelve, except one) that we are persuaded 
 better things of them. Of the sleeping Christ too, 
 we are doubly persuaded that He will not try 
 them above that which they are able. 
 
 Final reflection. At last they call Him who 
 had been longing for their call. Earlier call 
 would have seen earlier calm. Yet call early, or 
 call late, *^He maketh the storm a calm, so that 
 the waves thereof are still.'' 
 
 Yea, and what a call! A challenge, not a re- 
 quest; a protest, not a prayer; a thorough con- 
 tradiction, in fact, with its ^^ Master!" and its 
 *'Carest Thou not?" Yet they call; call upon 
 Him in their day of trouble, and He, 0! He an- 
 
28 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 swers with God-like alacrity, and that abundantly. 
 For they are His, and He is Himself. And their 
 prayer is not mere words, oh, no ! 
 
 Prayer is calling — **deep calling nnto deep." 
 Prayer tells of need, that is to say ; and the meas- 
 ure of the prompting need determines the measure 
 of the answer. 
 
 Therefore cometh the great calm, for their 's had 
 been the great storm. But it is Himself that 
 engrosses them now — **What manner of Man is 
 this?" Not, *'What manner of men are we?" 
 
 Not a word now even as to what manner of 
 storm it had been. Great storm and great calm 
 are lost in the great Lord of both. Truly the 
 Lord indeed had been sitting over this ^'flood^^ 
 (P. xxix.). 
 
 The lake is calm, but not their hearts! *^They 
 feared exceedingly." ** Great," in fact, is the ad- 
 jective qualifying the whole voyage, for great is 
 the Lord with whom they have to do. The storm 
 that estranged them — see now how it brings them 
 nearer! He sees their *^ little faith," and 
 strengthens it ; and they learn more what manner 
 of Lord He is, and adore Him. 
 
 Blest storm ! Blest voyage ! May such a bene- 
 diction of peace rest upon all God's lonely ones 
 
THE PARABLE OF THE STORM 29 
 
 far out on the high seas, battling ' ' 'gainst storm 
 and wind and tide/' 
 
 '*Star of Peace! when winds are mocking 
 All Ms toils f he flies to Thee: 
 Save him, on the billows rocking, 
 Far, far at sea!'' 
 
IV 
 
 "THINK IT NOT STRANGE" 
 
''There is no high hill hut "beside some deep 
 
 valley. 
 
 # « * 
 
 There is 7w birth without a pang. 
 
 * * * 
 
 '^ The Evening and the morning were the first 
 day'' and only in such solemn sequence can you 
 have even one divine day. The DeviVs pro- 
 gramme is to open his day with a morning and 
 end it with an Evening — yeSj am, evening that 
 
IV 
 
 '* THINK IT NOT STEANGE^' 
 
 1 Pet. iv. 12 
 
 The persistent news of fever-deaths in Africa 
 and the noble martyrdoms in China are surely 
 loud calls to the whole Church to arise and carry 
 Christ's cross. To all who wonder desolately 
 why the missionary ranks are so broken, the un- 
 erring answer of love is found in the reproving 
 words, *^ Think it not strange.'' True, it is only 
 human to groan in dejection; but God has ever 
 an inspiring side to a depressing reality. The 
 earthly moan, *^Why this waste?" is countered by 
 God's own reproof, ** Think it not strange." 
 
 I 
 And note, please, firstly, how the whole pun- 
 gency of this reproof lies in the blessed fact that 
 it is Peter who is the writer. He preaches what 
 he is going to practise. For this Peter it is who is 
 doomed to die. All his life this dear man carries 
 the cross, and finally on a cross must he yield up 
 
 33 
 
34 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 his life to God as an offering of a sweet smell. 
 Yet is there no resenting of death with asperity 
 on his part. On the glorious contrary, he alone 
 it is — this doomed-to-die Peter — ^who writes of 
 ours being **a living hope'' or hope of life. In 
 these throbbing words we see not merely life but 
 life more abundant. Thus it is he invites us, as 
 it were, into his most sacred confidence in the 
 solemn concern of his own approaching decease. 
 He urges that his cross is really a crown. He 
 says, We are begotten unto a hope of life, and I, 
 Peter, hereby certify that it is not death to die. 
 Jesus Christ hath abolished death for Peter, and 
 much more than that. He hath brought life and im- 
 mortality to light, therefore ours can only be a 
 living hope. No wonder Peter disowns the very 
 word ''death." The outsiders, of course, assert 
 that Peter died. Peter himself, while yet in the 
 body, says, ''I must put off this my tabernacle." 
 And so, too, with these reproving words: 
 ''Think it not strange." Here, again^ as in the 
 phrase, a living hope, a personal incident in 
 Peter's history is wholly elucidatory of his point. 
 For the same Peter who once connnitted that fatal 
 folly with the sword now calls upon them, not to 
 arm with a sword but with a mind. Do not arm 
 
'^ THINK IT NOT STRANGE'' 35 
 
 yourselves, as I, Peter, once did, with a sword, 
 but arm yourselves with Christ's mind to suffer. 
 Surely, the point is that suffering is such an ad- 
 mittedly repellent thought to the natural mind, 
 that only the armour of a spiritual mind on the 
 subject of suffering can combat it. Besides, the 
 flesh wars against the Spirit, hence Peter's shrill 
 battle-call — Arm ! And now a very natural thing 
 happens. Having so armed his readers with this 
 mind-armour, Peter at once calls upon them to 
 use it. ^^ Think it not strange," says he, '* con- 
 cerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as 
 though some strange thing happened unto you." 
 What is the use of mind-armour if we think suf- 
 fering strange? The very same thing this (and 
 by the same Peter) as when he warns Christian 
 women to be so adorned in mind that, as a conse- 
 quence, they may not be * * afraid with any amaze- 
 ment. ' ' The point, then, is clear. All this being 
 forewarned of coming fiery trial is merely that, 
 literally, we might be forearmed. 
 
 II 
 But harder things are on the tip of Peter's pen, 
 for the Apostle may surely preach what he is go- 
 ing to practise. These hard things are such a 
 
36 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 blow to the flesh that only this protective mind- 
 armour keeps us from reeling under it. God is 
 still the God of mercy who ** remembers that we 
 are dusf Hence, knowing as He does how stag- 
 gering is the solemn word He is about to utter, 
 God in very mercy calls upon us to arm before 
 He delivers the blow. That piercing thrust from 
 the *' Sword of the Lord'' is the momentous 
 declaration that the very ** righteous shall scarcely 
 be saved 'M Yes, the righteous, green trees 
 though they be. And if God so deal with His 
 own green trees, what of the dry! (Luke xxiii. 
 31). It is a fiery trial, and only the green trees 
 will get through it. 
 
 Here, then, we see God weaving our **web of 
 time ' ' with mercy and with judgment. The mercy 
 is seen in God's own concession that to our frail 
 and human thought it is nothing less than start- 
 ling to be told that judgment must begin at the 
 house of God ! A tender and Divine concession to 
 the solemn fact that we are dust. A holy admis- 
 sion on God's part, let us call it, that if He did not 
 first arm us. He would harm us. But we have 
 been forewarned and, therefore, forearmed. The 
 armour is the **mind of Christ, "and therefore it is 
 positive as well as negative. Not merely do we 
 
'* THINK IT NOT STRANGE" 37 
 
 not think it strange, but we positively (do we?) 
 ** glory in tribulation." There is the rub. 
 
 This inner glimpse, then, into the deep recesses 
 of Peter's heart is worth more than gold to ns. 
 We see the power of Christ's resurrection ener- 
 gising his soul with the joy of the life eternal. 
 His words are not the sad, gloomy forebodings of 
 a hopeless soul. He strikes the same note as 
 ** beloved brother Paul" in his last farewell to the 
 Church of God. Paul, too, declares that the hour 
 of his departure is at hand. It is Paul in the 
 chain who shouts that **our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 hath abolished death!" These words would 
 thrill us at any point of Paul's noble life; how 
 much more thrilling are they on the eve of his exe- 
 cution! **I am now ready to be offered," but, 
 death of ignominy notwithstanding, it is not 
 
 death to die. 
 
 ni 
 
 The mighty martyrs of our God knew Christ's 
 cross too well to think their carrying of the cross 
 to be strange. The "strange act" of God was 
 when He rose up in wrath against '* His own Son" 
 for our redemption. And with the dying Peter 
 and the dying Paul the vision of love at the Cross 
 hushed every human murmur. The strange thing 
 
38 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 was that the Son of God so suffered. And now 
 all that remains for ns is to be partakers of His 
 sufferings. Not merely to ^Hhink it not strange 
 concerning the fiery trial,'' but to positively re- 
 joice inasmuch as we are partakers of it. 
 
 ** Think it not strange" — for the servant is 
 certainly not above his Lord. '* Think it not 
 strange'' — for the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
 of the Church. All the records of first-century 
 Christianity have reached us soaked in blood and 
 tears. Down the corridors of time come wafted 
 the Eoman shrieks, * * The Christians to the lions ! ' ' 
 If we think it strange, then admittedly we have 
 forgotten to arm. Peter could say all this, for 
 he was going to die upon this very truth. But 
 he also claims for his readers a full cup to drink. 
 In chapter v. 10 they are declared to be ^*in 
 Christ." Now, one great point of our being 
 members of the Body of Christ is declared to be 
 that if one member suffer all the members suffer 
 with it. Hence the Divine order is : 
 
 (1) Partakers of Christ (Heb. iii. 14) ; 
 
 (2) Partakers of Christ's sufferings (1 Pet. iv. 
 13); 
 
 (3) Partakers of the Glory (1 Pet. v. 1). 
 Thus, we are seen to be *4n Christ," God's 
 
*^ THINK IT NOT STRANGE '' 39 
 
 green tree, both for fruit and fire, and if God so 
 deal with the green tree, what of the dry? 
 
 Here, then, sounds the old call to close up the 
 broken mission ranks of heathendom. Soul after 
 soul in Central Africa has witnessed in conversion 
 that the very thought of the loved missionaries 
 dying for their race and land has melted them to 
 repentance. 
 
V 
 
 "EEMEMBEE . . . THOU AET FALLEN" 
 
Christ sometimes used the faithful formula: 
 ^^ Verily, I say unto you.'' Sometimes He 
 doubled the defimteness by saying, '' Verily, 
 VERILY, / sa^ unto you/' Even so He sent 
 only one Epistle to the Romans but two Epistles 
 (tw'o *^Verilys!") went to the Ephesians. 
 
 * * * 
 
 We speak about the First and Second Epistles 
 to the Thessaloniuns and the First and Second 
 Epistles to the Corinthians. But how little we 
 hear of the First and Second Epistles to the 
 Ephesians ? 
 
 * * * 
 
 The first Epistle to the Ephesians says they 
 were seated in the heavenUes. The second 
 Epistle to the Ephesians says they are fallen 
 from those heights. 
 
''remember . . . THOU ART FALLEN '* 
 
 Rev. a, 5 
 
 It is a church that is addressed, note well. Not 
 '*ye" the church, but **thou." For there is no 
 unity like church unity, and no fall like a church 
 fall. And what a fall for Ephesus ! 
 
 I 
 
 More than twenty years previously Paul's letter 
 to them had come to their doors ; and four years 
 before that the elders of Ephesus had all wept 
 him off at Miletum, falling on his neck and ar- 
 dently kissing him. And well indeed they might 
 weep, for this was the man who had given his days 
 and nights and his tears to Ephesus. **I ceased 
 not by the space of three years to warn everyone 
 night and day with tears." 
 
 In that Eoman emporium of Asia, with its 
 theatre and temple, pro-consul and town-clerk, 
 Paul had cast the Lord's net and drawn **of every 
 
 43 
 
44 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 kind/' doubtless from both temple and theatre. 
 For three glad years had this gone on, the burn- 
 ing message flowing from him and the tears 
 streaming down. He kept no tears for his own 
 misfortunes, for he had no ills in life. His tears 
 were for their woes. And tears begat tears, for 
 lo ! they weep as they see him off, adding kiss to 
 kiss. 
 
 Yet here was no merely soft-hearted preacher 
 leaving them. Paul's eye was a falcon, jealous 
 eye for their souls ' needs. There is no pastor like 
 an evangelist, and no teacher like him who is 
 both. And here Paul, like his Lord, realises how 
 solemn a thing a ** good-bye" can be. Not the 
 mere receding of bodies, one from the other, in 
 the increasing haze. But the solemnity is in the 
 farewell words — the good-bye gift of the treasure 
 of our God in hallowed, tender farewell. The next 
 time these are all going to meet — oh, how solemn 
 the thought for all! — is at the judgment-seat of 
 Christ. Therefore came the word, so needed 
 then, and still more needed now, **Take heed to 
 yourselves. ' ' 
 
 Paul joyed that they, as ** light in the Lord,'' 
 would be for God by night and day when he was 
 far away. But just here Paul the evangelist is 
 
'^THOU ART FALLEN'' 45 
 
 lost in Paul the pastor. Nay, not of the needs of 
 Ephesus is he thinking now, but of theirs. These 
 ex-votaries of Diana, will their zeal outstrip their 
 love 1 Good preachers, will they be good lovers I 
 Time will reveal this; but at least they hang on 
 his words, and particularly on these concerning 
 the advent of apostatisers. Let them come, said 
 they of Ephesus ; they will find us clinging to the 
 truth of God. Indeed, who so leal as they, when 
 others were drifting away? And now tragedy ! 
 
 The first of the seven Epistles, in Eev. ii., shows 
 them to us nearly thirty years after, with a 
 solemn look of stern zeal on their faces. They 
 who had borne and laboured so patiently for 
 Christ's sake, they could not bear them that were 
 evil. Forewarned by Paul, they are forearmed, 
 and Paul, who had left his mark in every Ephesian 
 home (^^from house to house") could not be sup- 
 planted. 
 
 But God will have the best; and Love en- 
 throned in the glory must beget love, or it will 
 have loved in vain. Alas! the burden and heat 
 of the day has dried the fountain of their tears; 
 they are like **a bottle in the smoke": no tears in 
 them now, though the smoke brings tears to the 
 Lord's eyes as He beholds them dry and sere. 
 
46 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 II 
 
 They are '^fallen" in Love's eyes; yes, they, 
 the orthodox, who held fast the form of sound 
 words, and sent back a counterblast to every blast 
 from the Temple of Diana and the theatre — they 
 are fallen from the heights of Love! Love is 
 jealous, and sorrows that they know not her power 
 in the highest. Love looks on it all with a sad 
 heart — all their clear-cut routine and visions of 
 statistics ! 
 
 Zeal's eyes kindle as she counts her heads and 
 looks up expectantly for Love's **Well done!" 
 But nay : Love has only the old-time answer for 
 Zeal. '*Even the devils," said Zeal once exult- 
 ingly, "are subject to us." **Nay," said Love, 
 '* therein rejoice not, but rather rejoice because 
 your names are written in Heaven." 
 
 "And now, brethren," said Paul, "I commend 
 you to God and to the word of His grace, that is 
 able to build you up, and give you an inheritance 
 among all them that are sanctified." Thus was 
 the apostle's good-bye then, and thus also the 
 teaching of his Epistle four years after. If they 
 fall, what a fall, for in that Epistle are "heights" 
 indeed ! They are * ^ in Christ ' ' — and where is He 1 
 
*^THOU AET FALLEN'' 47 
 
 **Far above all heavens!" said Paul in his good- 
 bye. The word of God *4s able ... to give you 
 an inheritance among all them that are sancti- 
 fied." Here we behold them as those who are 
 raised with Christ in the heavenlies, in whom 
 they have obtained an inheritance. Here too they 
 are sanctified. Here there is not a maybe about 
 being *^ built up," for they **are built upon the 
 Foundation. ' ' 
 
 Ah ! Love is writing all this about the heights 
 of their calling, for Love trembles at the possible 
 depths of their fall. Love writes: **Eemember 
 . . . that ... ye were without Christ . . . but 
 now are made nigh by the blood of Christ. " It is 
 the sad-eyed Love that pens the words, ** Remem- 
 ber . . . thou art fallen!" 
 
 Yes, Love points out the weak spot, the vulner- 
 able entrance for the enemy. This above all 
 things exercised Paul on their behalf. It brought 
 him literally to his knees: and he who had four 
 years ago on the sea-shore '^kneeled down" and 
 prayed with them, is still in his Epistle, not once, 
 but often kneeling for them. **For this cause 
 I bow my knees . . . that ye may . . . know the 
 love of Christ." Having revealed to them how 
 
48 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 high God had placed them, Paul prays that He 
 may keep them nigh and high; and he sees in 
 Love the only power to do this. 
 
 Love had raised them, and only their realisation 
 of what Love had done wonld make them in their 
 lives ^* raised" men and women. ^'Good works" 
 must not be first, but the burning fire of faith that 
 God — before the world began — ^had resolved that 
 they should be His workmanship, even His 
 (emphatic pronoun). And in true sequence the 
 * ^ workmanship ' ' of Love produced ' ' the works ' ' of 
 love. They were to be rooted in Love, for they 
 were ^Hrees of the Lord's planting." They must 
 be grounded in it, for other foundation can no man 
 lay. They were to know its height, to which they 
 were raised, by remembering the depth from which 
 Love had brought them up in the time past of 
 their life. Love's breadth, too, they were to know, 
 by the wide-open, encircling arms ; and its length 
 in seeking them when ^^afar off," stranger and 
 aliens. Yes, that they might know all this — such 
 was Paul's prayer. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And now more than twenty years have come 
 and gone, and we reach, not the 1st Epistle of 
 
^^THOU AET FALLEN '' 49 
 
 Height, but the 2nd Epistle of Depth. Paul says 
 they are risen ; John says they are fallen. 
 
 Alas, and they think far otherwise. To fall 
 and not to know it — what falling like that. To 
 labour and yet after long years to do nothing, 
 really nothing in Love's eyes — ^what slavery like 
 that ! And who so lovingly records a cup of cold 
 water as Love? Yes, this splendidly orthodox 
 church has every chance in Love's hand, but Love 
 knows her not. 
 
 Oh, yes, it might be said, there is love in 
 Ephesus, and probably plenty of it, too. But it 
 is love in word, and not in deed. It is that which 
 says, *'We work, therefore we love; we speak 
 with angePs tongues, therefore we have love.'' 
 
 ''Now," saith the Lord of love, with the jealous 
 eyes like a flame of fire, *'I have one long debit 
 against you that consumes all your credit." 
 
 Poor insolvent Ephesus! All the coin of her 
 spiritual commerce is revealed to be spurious. It 
 never saw the mint of Love : Love sees not its own 
 image thereon. 
 
 The Lord perforce recalls them to the first love, 
 that would produce the first works. The Love 
 that raised them to the heights, is following them 
 to the depths. They are fallen, but Love will raise 
 
50 APOSTOLIC CHKISTIANITY 
 
 them. But twenty long years of labour must go 
 overboard. The test of breaking with the past 
 will be in saying, not, ** Reward me for those 
 twenty years,'' but, **Lord, I thank Thee Thou 
 hast forgotten them!" 
 
 It is not *'Thou art fallen," but ** Remember 
 from whence thou art fallen. ' ' What a difference 
 this makes ! Ephesus is not asked to look down, 
 for she is down. '* Remember from whence," is 
 the Lord's word for '^Look up!" And no won- 
 der, for they are going up, oh, so soon! 
 
VI 
 
 PAUL NOT ASHAMED— AND WHY 
 
God has millions of worlds that rush to do His 
 bidding hut only now and then can He find a 
 man He can trust. 
 
 * * * 
 
 After the battle of Marengo Napoleon struck a 
 medal for his soldiers. On one side he put the 
 name of the battle; on the other he inscribed the 
 three proud words: i was there. 
 
PAUL NOT ASHAMED — AND WHY 
 
 Rom. i, 16 
 
 The fact of Paul twice declaring that he is not 
 ashamed of his message, at once reminds us that 
 he is writing to the capital of the whole world. 
 But provincial Paul is a citizen of heaven, and 
 hence all his shame has been rolled away at the 
 cross. A citizen of glory, this Paul can literally 
 look down upon the metropolis of the Caesars. 
 Eight well he knew that those Eomans of the 
 capital thought themselves the cream of earth's 
 sons. Hence, doubtless, that black yet faithful 
 third chapter of Eomans. With what withering 
 plainness does Paul expose all their boasted prec- 
 edence in that famous photograph of the common 
 corrupting fall ! 
 
 I 
 
 But again. Paul is not ashamed of his Gospel, 
 because looking down upon it all is God's ^* blessed 
 and only Potentate," into whose kingdom he has 
 been translated. And all this in the dialect of 
 
 63 
 
54 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Holy Scripture means that, of course, Paul is 
 above it all too! So dear, indeed, was this truth 
 to Paul's heart, and so vital to his joy, that he 
 was forced even to remind his beloved brethren at 
 Jerusalem of it, in almost blunt terms. There, in 
 the *^City of the Great King,'* his dear kinsmen 
 in God were deeply entrenched behind the dignity 
 of a solemn antiquity. Hence, doubtless, Paul's 
 disclaimer in Galatians. With a godly concern 
 for his heavenly citizenship, he declares that ^^he 
 went not up to Jerusalem to those that were 
 apostles before him. ' ' Nor have we long to wait 
 for his inner reason for this seemingly austere 
 action. Further on we read: **I went not up 
 to Jerusalem," because '^the Jerusalem which is 
 ABOVE is the mother of us all." The higher we 
 ascend, the broader our outlook, and Paul had a 
 missionary gospel for all, because he went high 
 enough. His headquarters were Heaven, not 
 Jerusalem. To Paul, Foreign Missions are a 
 mere matter of altitude. If we live little parish- 
 pump lives then our skyline is contracted. But 
 if on the contrary we are seated with Christ in 
 the Heavenlies then looking down from His view- 
 point the whole earth as a lost unit is in full and 
 fair view. 
 
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 55 
 
 Thus it is we need, in reading Romans, to keep 
 ever before us the * * envelope address ' ' : * ^ To the 
 Romans/' For, strange as it may seem, we have 
 only to appeal to the ordinary schoolboy for the 
 dark, latent meaning lying behind Paul's boast: 
 *^I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for 
 it is the power of God unto salvation/^ This 
 mention of the ^* power of God" is surely in con- 
 trast with the brutal Roman power. As an echo 
 from the schoolroom, do we not recall the bloody 
 fact that of all the names in the Commentaries 
 of Ccesar not three of them died in their beds! 
 Power, yes, your Roman had plenty of it: but it 
 was unto destruction, not unto salvation. Hence 
 this sanguine Paul, advancing as he is upon 
 Rome, the world's vast charnel-house, he, 0! he is 
 not ashamed of the power unto salvation, A re- 
 cent independent witness more than endorses all 
 this. Summing up in three lines the record of 
 these Caesars, he says : **The bloody catalogue is 
 so complete, so nearly comprises all whose names 
 are mentioned (in the Commentaries), that it 
 strikes the reader with almost comic horror!" 
 And thus it is, surely, that we find Paul telling 
 the Romans that **the wages of sin is death/' In 
 that one unerring line, behold, the Divine reason 
 
56 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 of their blood-red history! But the very black- 
 ness of the metropolitan background only added 
 to the Pauline incentive (how like God!) to paint 
 the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God in 
 fresh, unfading colours. **I, oh, I am not 
 ashamed of the power unto salvation." Surely 
 the Divine innuendo here is that these Eomans 
 might well enough be ashamed of their charnel- 
 house power that made a desert and called it 
 
 peace. 
 
 II 
 
 Our immediate concern, however, is with Paul's 
 declaration that he is not ashamed of the Gospel 
 of God even in the roaring capital of the Caesars. 
 Leading up to this declaration of his, we pass 
 phrase after phrase all embodying the apostolic 
 longing to reach Eome, the real centre of the 
 world. For every road led to Eome. It was the 
 strategic point to reach all comers. You will no- 
 tice, too, one phrase in particular that reveals the 
 utter abandonment of the man to this deep de- 
 sire : Now, he says, if by any means I may come 
 to you. Note, we repeat, the utter and holy 
 audacity of the man ; It is not to Eome, the great 
 London of the Empire, he wants to go. It is not 
 provincial Paul wanting to see the sights of that 
 
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 57 
 
 Babylon; oh, no. But it is, indeed, a man 
 enamoured of Christ's last command: ''utter- 
 most parts of the earth''; a true missionary who 
 sees that by reaching the world's centre he is 
 therefore in true equidistance to the whole cir- 
 cumference. Paul was only following God's lead. 
 That Gospel entrusted to the apostle in steward- 
 ship revealed a God equally enamoured of all the 
 lost sons of men. Nay, the more remote the lost 
 soul the more desirable to Love. Only ' ' everlast- 
 ing Love" could declare that the last shall be 
 first. And thus we see here in Paul's longing 
 Eomewards — Eome the centre of the world's cir- 
 cumference! — a pictorial representation of the 
 Love that so loved the world! A Koman Caesar 
 alone it was who could command that the whole 
 world should be enrolled. Hence Paul's resolve 
 to reach the metropolis. 
 
 Watch the holy abandonment of the phrase, 
 '^Ifhy any means, ' ' Paul signing a blank cheque ! 
 Paul offering to go to Rome either as steerage 
 passenger or cabin. Paul with no personal ''axe 
 to grind," but content to endure all things for 
 *'the elect's sake." 
 
 Did he mean it, this Paul, and this ''by any 
 means'"? Yes, he meant it so deeply that God 
 
58 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 took him at his word. God sent him steerage 
 passenger in a chain ! No I God did not take ad- 
 vantage of Paul's warm-heartedness so manifest 
 in the very openness of his offer. But God saw 
 that the Cross would best be illustrated by a chain. 
 A test this for the Paul who said, **I am not 
 ashamed." Will the chain cause a blush? will the 
 chain shut his mouth? Far otherwise. **The 
 offence of the Cross" was Paul's glory; '* boast" 
 is the word he uses again and again to show that 
 the chain of iron is a chain of gold. 
 
 in 
 
 **I am not ashamed of the Gospel. " How often 
 the sentence is torn from its context; how often 
 people miss the point that the apostle only reaches 
 it in Eom. i. after elaborately explaining that he 
 longs to have a prosperous journey to come unto 
 them. Precisely as our Lord Jesus Christ has 
 written unto us a whole New Testament pending 
 His coming again, so, too, Paul could say, as the 
 Christ in essence says concerning the whole New 
 Testament: ** These things I write unto you, 
 hoping to come quickly." 
 
 In Africa, the land of the bondslave, what is the 
 
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 59 
 
 simple and luminous meaning of the word 
 '^ slave''? Why, obviously, ^*a person who has 
 no power over his own body.'' And surely this 
 is Paul's point in leading off with his first, *^Paul, 
 a bond-slave of Jesus Christ." Paul, the man 
 who has no power over his own body. And is not 
 this Paul's point when he further on urges other 
 people concerning their bodies? **I, Paul, a man 
 who has no power over his own body — Paul, bond- 
 servant of Christ^ — I beseech you present your 
 bodies a living sacrifice." Let us never forget it, 
 then, when we quote the phrase so glibly. Paul 's 
 proof that he was not ashamed of the Gospel was 
 ever at hand in his readiness (**I am ready") to 
 go to the earth's ends with God's Gospel. 
 
 How often do we hear nowadays of men who 
 shout Paul ! Paul ! yet do not the things that Paul 
 did. The writer has just glanced anxiously at the 
 indexes of eight annual volumes of a paper wholly 
 given up to the study of Paul's Gospel. Like a 
 slap in the face came the discovery that not once 
 in all these volumes have you a clear shout for 
 the Gospel to be preached to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth. Yet Paul's ^^ mystery" is nothing if 
 it is not to *4et all men know" it. Paul's Gospel 
 
60 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 was by ^ ^ the commandment of the everlasting God 
 made known to all nations' \f By all means let us 
 say Paul! Paul! but let us be followers of him, 
 even as also he was of Christ. 
 
vn 
 
 A EOYALLY REVISED VERSE 
 
^^ There are two ways of looking at the coming 
 of the Lord. If I he in the constant spirit of 
 worship within the veil, according to Hebrews, I 
 shall see the future as does Christ. Over 1800 
 years ago He said, *I come quickly.' And 
 whereas, in point of desire, I put nothing what- 
 ever between that object and my soul, because 
 Christ puts nothing; yet, on the other hand, if 
 you ask whether the fervency of my love to the 
 Lord and the brightness of that hope are 
 diminished, because I see that He must take time 
 to make that coming worthy of Himself, I sa/y, 
 No: He waits patiently, and so do I.'' 
 
 R. C. Chapman. 
 
vn 
 
 A ROYALLY REVISED VERSE 
 
 ^'Tlie Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, 
 and into the patience of Christ.'^ — 2 Thess. iii. 5 (R.V.) 
 
 Remembering as we do how life's joy and in- 
 centive is pivoted on the love of God, it can con- 
 ceivably be never amiss to send ont the old call, 
 '* Behold, what manner of love!" But herein is 
 love, not that we loved God but that He loved us 
 with a love that would not let us go. His love 
 to us, not our love to Him is the theme. 
 
 Therefore the immediate concern of these lines 
 is to claim (and reclaim!) for the love of God a 
 long-lost proof -text. Where the R. V. has revised 
 let us revise too. For God's love in the immu- 
 table fact of life: not our love to God, but His 
 passion for us. And to turn our backs upon the 
 objective Ocean of Love to be engrossed with the 
 subjective drop in our cold hearts, is surely to 
 jeopardise joy. 
 
 Yet even thus has Paul's charge to the Thes- 
 salonians been distorted. We believe memory is 
 
 63 
 
64 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 not a fault in suggesting that following the er- 
 roneus A. V. this Pauline phrase has been per- 
 sistently pressed as urging a deeper subjective 
 realisation of the love of God, and charging them 
 to be more warm of heart and more aflame with 
 love. That such a meaning is quite foreign to the 
 context can be proudly proved for the loyal love 
 of these Thessalonians is not at all in question. 
 Not their love to God is the theme, but God's 
 love to them : ' ^ The Lord direct your hearts into 
 the love of God." For the entering of their 
 hearts into God's love is not at all the same sweet 
 thing as the love of God entering into their hearts. 
 His objective love is an ocean, and our subjective 
 capacity is a drop : And Paul's call, we shall see, 
 is to look off to the boundless and soundless 
 ocean. Not to look in at the dreary drop ! 
 
 I 
 
 This is how we prove the point. 
 
 That the context reveals hearts of love at Thes- 
 salonica is easily evident, for they were com- 
 mended for their ^^ labour of love." Had not 
 Timothy been a witness of it all? Finding Paul 
 in Athens, had he not delivered to the Apostle 
 the ''glad tidings" of their love? Why then 
 
A EOYALLY REVISED VESSE 65 
 
 suggest carnal coldness of heart? Surely PauPs 
 call is both old and bold, I mean, the Matthew 
 xxviii. missionary call to look off to God's 
 love in its ocean aspect. Quoth happy lit- 
 tle Paul, *^God so loved the world, and not 
 Thessalonica only!" The Lord direct your 
 parochial hearts into that ocean of His where 
 *^me'' is merged in **all." To say **God 
 loves me," is to testify that you are a trophy of 
 grace ; but the saint never lived who did not reach 
 this ME through the gateway of God's whoso- 
 ever. And what a graceless love that forgets the 
 door by which it entered the house. 
 
 Now just here, probably, we strike the whole 
 tender point in PauPs desire for these loving but 
 too localised Thessalonians. Their very love to 
 Christ and longing desire for His return had the 
 momentary effect of causing them to forget the 
 vast salvation-for-all scope of God's love. In 
 their longing love they wanted Him, oh, so quickly 
 to come. Theirs had been sorrow upon sorrow 
 and who could wipe away tears like Himself? 
 Hence in their very love to Him they had mo- 
 mentarily forgotten the world-wide extent of the 
 hole of that pit from whence they had been dug. 
 Therefore it is Paul— Paul the itinerant mission- 
 
66 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ary — sends in on them this rousing reminding 
 call. He, Paul, is out in the dark night of Asia 
 Minor, and they (watch this!) are residents of a 
 well evangelised town. This we see from 2 Thess. 
 iii. 1: *^ Brethren pray for us that the word of 
 the Lord may have free course, with me'* (out 
 here in the darkness!) *^even as it is with you." 
 The Lord direct your hungry-for-His-retum 
 hearts into the vast love of God, for God so loved 
 the world and not paltry Thessalonica only. Just 
 think a moment, says Paul: and think, oh! yes, 
 think tremendously the human heart will in this 
 holy particular. Think it out, heart of mine, 
 silently and soberly to the one inexorable con- 
 clusion. If these loving saints of the first century 
 had had their wish, then truly the church, which 
 is Christ's body, would have been a small enough 
 thing! The vast fields of Gentiledom were as yet 
 all unsown with gospel seed, let alone unreaped. 
 Where was Europe then! And there stood the 
 men of Thessalonica gazing up into heaven, for- 
 getful for the moment of the departing Christ's 
 command: *'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me. . . . 
 unto the uttermost part of the earth ! ' ' The Lord 
 direct your loving hearts into the love of God, 
 who so loved the wide, weary World as a lost 
 
A EOYALLY REVISED VERSE 67 
 
 unit. Every hour the craving cry rang up to 
 High Heaven from trusting-but-tried Thcs- 
 salonica, *' Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!" 
 And as an eager echo down came the challeng- 
 ing command of Christ: "Go, my church, go ye 
 into all the world!" Yes, He will come after the 
 Church goes. 
 
 Watch well that word **into." The idea surely 
 seems to be the scope and breadth of God's love. 
 For this is the preposition used in Acts to picture 
 the ship 's gig being let down into the sea. This, 
 too, the word that shows us the wheat thrown 
 into the stormy wave. And so, too, with their 
 loving hearts. The Lord direct your hearts into 
 the ocean of love, for ye are not straitened in 
 God but in yourselves. Surely there is a very 
 grave yet gracious hint in all this. They wanted 
 to be with Him where He was in the glory, for- 
 getful of the fact that Christ had pledged His 
 presence with them even unto the end of the age. 
 How then could they be with Christ in Heaven 
 before the end of the age if Christ had surely 
 said He would be with them even unto the end 
 of the age! 
 
 Or put it this way. Did not our living loving 
 Lord anticipate this tedious tendency of the human 
 
68 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 lieart in his last great prayer? For almost in 
 the same breath when he said, Father, I will that 
 they also , . , he with Me where I am'' did He 
 not wisely say, ^^7 pray not that Thou shouldest 
 take them out of the world/' 
 
 II 
 
 The best test of the truth of this exegesis, how- 
 ever, will be found in remembering that Paul's 
 is really a twin-charge to the Thessalonians. 
 **The Lord direct your hearts (1) into the love 
 of God and (2) into the patience of Christ, Here 
 again where the R. V. has revised let us revise 
 too! And, surely, the whole truth is out at last, 
 for this is not our ^^ patient waiting for Christ," 
 just as the former was not more of our love to God. 
 I repeat, precisely as at first the Apostle threw 
 them back on the love of God to them, and not 
 theirs to Him ; even so, finer far than any paltry, 
 patient waiting of ours for Christ, is His patient 
 waiting for us. Yes, us, all of us; not **us" of 
 tedious Thessalonica only! Depend upon it: 
 Christ's patience, at any rate, is going to do its 
 perfect work, in order that we, the body of Christ 
 as a truly terrestrial unit, may be perfect and 
 entire, wanting nothing. Not a hoof will be left 
 
A ROYALLY REVISED VERSE 69 
 
 behind ! We, the mere sowers, may be impatient. 
 And to curtly command us to be patient certainly 
 does not mend matters. Hence Paul's upward 
 point yonder to the patient Christ at God's right 
 hand, *'from henceforth expecting." He, the 
 true Husbandman, has long patience. Surely, 
 then the sowers impatient of the heat of the day 
 can find calm and strength in that long loyal 
 patience. For note this keenly: **The field is 
 the world/' Long patience for a large field. 
 Ah ! what an enormous disparity we find between 
 the loving Christ's long patience and our per- 
 verse petulance. He has long patience **for the 
 precious fruit of the earth"; not merely patience 
 unto precious sowing, but patience unto precious 
 reaping. If the love of God did the splendid sow- 
 ing, then the long patience of God will royally 
 reap the fruit. *'Be patient, therefore, (what a 
 logical conjunction!) brethren, unto the com- 
 ing of the Lord: behold the husbandman (i. e., 
 
 HE WHO IS MOST INTERESTED IN IT ALL!) Wait for 
 
 the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long 
 patience. Be ye (note the dig!) also patient." 
 ** Precious fruit," yes, because of ** precious 
 blood." The patience of Christ will have a per- 
 fect work, and the body of Christ as to absolutely 
 
70 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
 
 all its members will be perfect and entire, wanting 
 nothing. Himself it was who went forth weeping 
 bearing precious seed. Now He waiteth for 
 precious fruit. ** Precious seed," — ** tasted death 
 for every man." *' Precious fruit — ** Preach in 
 oil the world to every creature." Hear, then, 
 the sum of the whole matter. Will the God of 
 love do less in Grace than He does in Law? 
 Surely this is a pardonable query just here where 
 the Apostle challenges their hearts as to being in 
 the love of God. The God who visits iniquity 
 ^*unto the third and fourth generation," will He 
 not also visit even a third and fourth generation 
 in grace? The husbandman hath long loyal 
 patience. Has He not visited Christendom unto 
 even a thirtieth and fortieth generation in grace ? 
 Thus it is the clamant calls come in on us 
 from the earth's four comers. Pray for us in the 
 dark comers of the earth, brethren, that the Word 
 of the Lord may have free course and be glori- 
 fied, even as it is with you in beloved gospel lands. 
 **Free course" means that it might reach the ut- 
 termost man in the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
vni 
 
 "THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES" 
 
When the saintly Fayson was dying he said, 
 *'/ long to hand a full cup of happiness to every 
 
 human being!" 
 
 * * * 
 
 '^ Until the times of the Gentiles he fulfilled. 
 
 Luke. 
 
 * « # 
 
 "7 would not, brethren, that ye should he 
 ignorant of , . . the fullness of the Gentiles, 
 
 Paul. 
 
 * # * 
 
 *^The riches of the world . . . the riches of 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 Paul. 
 
VIII 
 
 Luke xxi. 24 
 
 Might we not say of this expression, used by the 
 Holy Ghost, that it bears on the face of it God's 
 controversy with ns? For note well, it is the 
 Gentiles; not merely some select specimens of 
 Gentiledom. Love's arms encircle the globe, and 
 Love's thoughts are **to all generations" (Ps. 
 xxxiii. 11). The scope of God's thoughts and 
 purposes are as the scope of His eye — '^He be- 
 holdeth all the sons of men." And the scope of 
 God's eye is to be the scope of our energy. **He 
 f ashioneth their hearts alike ! ' ' cries the Psalmist. 
 And God's evangelist replies, **For like doom, 
 comes like gospel!" 
 
 I 
 
 And now let us ask a very pertinent question. 
 
 Why, oh why, this plural — ^^ Times," governing 
 
 this other plural *^ Gentiles"? Doth not the 
 
 Holy Ghost still say, *^Now is the accepted time"? 
 
 73 
 
74 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 To a sinner Grod guarantees not ^'times'' but 
 only His holy time — ^^Now.'' 
 
 Ah! here, indeed, behold the long-suffering of 
 God. He in sovereignty can ever forestall man 
 in responsibility. Does man in lethargy fail to 
 pass God's ^'Now'^ around the globe! Love 
 will not be content with merely a sample of 
 Gentiledom. If Western languages have hymned 
 Love's praises, Love will have a song from the 
 remotest and most impoverished dialects of 
 farthest lands. Yes, the **last shall be first'' 
 to Love; and out of the mouths of the babes 
 and sucklings who use earth's poorest tongues, 
 God will ** perfect praise." Thus, then, will God 
 overcome the apathy that mocks His purposes"; 
 '^The Gentiles" shall all have their *' times"; 
 and, however varied the Gentiles, so varied shall 
 be their times. 
 
 On that old, happy day of our lives — the ''now" 
 day, when we passed from death unto life — ^how 
 open-armed God's *'A11" and God's ''Whoso- 
 ever" were to our souls. And now God chargeth 
 us by that primal day of our joy to gladden other 
 lands and people with the All that gladdened us 
 as the guests of God. 
 
 We may here recall the phrase in Acts as to 
 
*^THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES'^ 75 
 
 God's visiting *^tlie Gentiles to take out of tliem 
 a people for His name.'' This visit of the Lord 
 our God will be co-terminous with the glorious 
 ** times of the Gentiles." Little does man seem 
 to realise how well the God of Nature will fulfil 
 His visit of Grace. He who in Nature riseth up 
 early to flood with light the far unknown waters 
 of some hidden inland sea, will He not visit every 
 rood of this lost earth with His gospel? **Are 
 not My ways equal?" saith the God of Nature 
 and of Grace. And David, speaking of the earth 
 as a far-rolling unity of hill and dale, island and 
 continent, saith, **Thou visitest the earth. . . . 
 Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, 
 which is full of water. . . . Thou crownest the 
 year with Thy goodness." And will God do less 
 in Grace than He does in Nature? Will He not 
 crown ''the acceptable year of the Lord" with 
 goodness too 1 Nay, He will crown it with Grace ; 
 even as He crowns every three hundred and sixty- 
 five days of time with Goodness. 
 
 On that day when the last stone from the 
 world's last and remotest comer is brought into 
 the building, then shall He crown the acceptable 
 year with His grace. For thus saith the Lord 
 to His quarrymen, who realise indeed what **a 
 
76 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 great mountain'' this belting the globe with His 
 gospel is — ^'O great mountain! . . . thou shalt 
 become a plain : and He shall bring forth the head- 
 stone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace 
 unto it!" 
 
 To Zerubbabel, God's temple-builder, lo! here 
 was indeed very much of mountain and very lit- 
 tle of temple. Faith only could in vision see the 
 rugged mountain-heap quarried into a plain. 
 ''The Temple has swallowed the mountain," says 
 Faith ; and the final headstone will mean the out- 
 burst of God's Hallelujah chorus, ** Grace! 
 Grace ! unto it ! " Yet, not by might nor by power 
 shall it all be accomplished — and who dare de- 
 spise the day of small things? 
 
 n 
 In the great majority of the uses of the word 
 "visit" in the Old Testament it means stern, im- 
 placable judgment, the sword of the Lord striking 
 home unerringly and surely. Yea, unto the third 
 and fourth generation doth He visit the iniquity 
 of the fathers. Yet this same word tells us that 
 open-armed love will as surely and individually 
 ''visit" every nook and corner of a world of 
 heathendom as it visited inexorably in retribu- 
 
**THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES'' 77 
 
 tion for every broken law. The argument from 
 Nature leads up to the revelation of Grace. 
 Hence, too, Christ's lovely name of *^The Day- 
 spring from on high." For as the eastern skies 
 in all lands herald light for all and light in abun- 
 dance, so too the Dayspring from on high doth 
 visit and redeem a world lost in night. 
 
 Ah, when the Psahnist, a thousand years before 
 the Cross, cried, '^Have respect unto the Cove- 
 nant, FOR the dark places of the earth are full of 
 the habitations of cruelty" — ^how well did he 
 understand the purposes of Grace! Paul had 
 certainly read this, and God bade him write some- 
 thing very like it in Romans — ^^ Where sin 
 abounded, grace did much more abound!" 
 David's *'for^' tells all. '*Have respect unto the 
 Covenant," Lord, which promises to bless ^*all 
 families of the earth," for all families are under 
 the curse. **The dark places of the earth are 
 full of the habitations of cruelty," therefore 
 **have respect to the Covenant!" That God did 
 respect the Covenant, our tongues can tell. And 
 David's call comes back on us, the faithless ones. 
 Not **have respect to the Covenant" is the call; 
 but ^^have respect to the command!" David's 
 *^for" of thousands of years ago is still living 
 
78 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY 
 
 and cogent. And where there is sin abounding 
 there must we preach grace abounding. 
 
 They tell us of — and we have seen them — poor, 
 dwarfed, downtrodden tribes with only glimmer- 
 ings of an innate notion of their own manhood. 
 Very, very low in the so-called scale are they, and 
 have as many bestial traits of character as human. 
 '* Child-nations ' ' is a matter-of-fact exclamation 
 of the anthropologist, who has merely to glance 
 at the conical occiput and receding chin. But 
 Christ, who comes to seek and save the lost, says 
 in open-armed love to all such ** child-nations ' ' 
 —*^ Suffer the little children to come!" Out of 
 the mouths of such babes and sucklings God will 
 perfect His praise. ''The last shall be first!" 
 
BOOK II 
 
 LORD'S SUPPEE EEVERIES 
 
 I 
 
 THIRSTINa AFTEE GOD 
 
^Long the blessed Guide has led me 
 By the desert road; 
 Now I see the golden towers 
 City of my God. 
 There amidst the love and glory 
 He is waiting yet; 
 On His Hands a name is graven 
 He can ne'er forget. 
 
THIRSTING AFTER GOD 
 
 Psalm xliii 
 
 ''As the hart panteth after the water-hrooks, 
 So panteth my soul after Thee, God. 
 My soul tJvirsteth for God, for the living God." 
 
 In this hart or gazelle of the desert, panting after 
 the water-hrooks, we have surely the crown of 
 all language as an image of sincerity in the sonPs 
 thirst after God. What more sincere in all the 
 earth than the lustrous-eyed gazelle, panting after 
 the water-brooks? There is perfect desert in- 
 stinct here; perfect innocent need, going out to 
 perfect supply, and expressed so perfectly too in 
 that pant succeeding pant. 
 
 Note the first phase. This, then, is the old 
 obvious story. David has lost his God, albeit 
 God, his God, knoweth the desert, thirsty way that 
 he takes. 
 
 And this God {who Himself hath commanded 
 for all time, ''If thine enemy thirst, give him 
 
 8X 
 
82 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 drink"!) this God will indeed be the health of 
 David's countenance, and that right early. 
 
 God, then, has driven David into the desert to 
 learn what a God is his God. To learn that for 
 every pant of David's soul after God, the living 
 God, there is a deeper, dearer pant in God's heart 
 after His child. For this, surely seems the mean- 
 ing of verse 7: **Deep is calling unto deep" — 
 the deep of David's longing calling out to the 
 deep of God's longing; the deep of David's empti- 
 ness calling out to the deep of Divine plenitude. 
 
 And thus it must ever be, whether with the soul 
 about to be saved or the soul saved in the long 
 ago. Yes, thus indeed, to the intent that by the 
 arid desert and its parched thirst, we may be led 
 on and up to Him. 
 
 # # # # # # * 
 
 Watch the second phase. Thirst, then, is the 
 Psalmist's great theme, and thirst's eternal an- 
 tithesis — God, the Quencher thereof. David is 
 indeed marching through night to daydawn. He 
 shall yet praise Him. 
 
 This thirst has given to David what it gives to 
 the gazelle — a clear-eyed earnestness that asks for 
 the one thing, and for all things in the one — **My 
 soul thirsteth after God." Oh, for more of this 
 
THIESTING AFTER GOD 83 
 
 clear-eyed transparency, and its language of pant. 
 The paradox of this panting seems to be that 
 in its wealth of expression there is no language. 
 Parched throat and tongue refuse to articulate 
 the soul's secret. And God is thereby spared a 
 reminder of Babel, with mere vain verbiage, and 
 He hears, moreover, the language He loves so 
 wisely and so well — the souPs pant. Garrick 
 said he would give a hundred guineas if he could 
 say *^ Oh!'' as Whitfield did it when he held 30,- 
 000 spellbound. 
 
 "We have said that with this holy thirst going 
 out for God there is a deeper thirst in God's heart 
 going out for His thirsty child. This heart-pant 
 we probably hear in that arrestive ^*Ho!" in 
 Isaiah, when God calls to the thirsty. As a good 
 Philologist has said, ^ * The interjection, instead of 
 being a part of speech, is indeed a whole speech/' 
 What this writer probably means, when his defini- 
 tion is applied to this **Ho!" leaving the very 
 lips of God, is this, supremely this. There is a 
 time when the heart is too full for words; when 
 out of sheer loving, yearning, commiseration on 
 His part, comes forth that ^*Ho!" from the lips 
 of God, springing out to the soul's succour. 
 
 Now watch phase three, David had lost his 
 
84 LOED'S SUPPEE EEVEEIES 
 
 God; but how did he lose Him! Ah! this, too, is 
 an old story. He had gone with the multitude; 
 he went with them to the house of God, with the 
 voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that 
 kept holy day. This, we say, is the old obvious 
 story, and how easy it is to be carried on with the 
 *^ Convention" crowd. So easy, having caught 
 the infection, to praise God in a crowd. Oh, the 
 blessedness of it, and the fragrant memories 
 thereof ! 
 
 But all that is past now for David. A receding 
 memory leaves it almost below the verge. 
 
 God hath called him out to the thirsty desert; 
 and though it might seem far otherwise, David 
 is on the right path now. For listen to his 
 words — **My soul thirsteth for God!" Not for 
 the multitude keeping holy day; but for God, my 
 God. 
 
 All this recalls the seventh chapter of John's 
 Gospel. The people have been trooping up to 
 their feast — a multitude going up to the house 
 of God — **a multitude that kept holy day." But 
 the Lord says, *'I go not up yet," albeit when 
 His time was come He went up, and found them 
 ** murmuring" concerning Him. And finally, **in 
 the last day, that great day of the feast, ' ' a great 
 
THIESTING AFTEE GOD 85 
 
 vision of the sadness of the nnsatisfied multitude 
 flooded His loving soul with pity. All down the 
 centuries He saw them keeping their feasts, and 
 getting leaner and leaner; becoming annually- 
 drier and drier, like their arid patches of Syrian 
 desert. Then, on that great last day of the feast, 
 Jesus stood and ckied to the multitude (Isaiah's 
 **Ho!'' in another form) — ^*If any man thirst, 
 let him come unto Me and drink." In other 
 words, '*You have had your feast, and what has 
 it done for you? Nothing: hut I am the true 
 Feast; let him who thirsts come unto Me" — ^not 
 to it, the feast; 11, the creed; or aught else. He 
 came to bring us to God, ''my God" — ^the soul's 
 exceeding joy. 
 
 Over against the great vacumm of human thirst 
 God in His day of grace doth put Himself as the 
 Ocean, and as we drink with the pant of sincerity 
 we shall become like Him. 
 
 Now for the final phase. How very vital 
 all this must be, and hence, doubtless, the fact 
 that this is the Lord's last word to us in Eev. 
 xxii. First, in verse 1, is the river's source, far 
 up on the highest height of the everlasting hills 
 — the throne of God and of the Lamb. Down it 
 
86 LOED'S SUPPEE EEVEEIES 
 
 flows from the high throne of God, that blessed 
 river of God, full of water. And it strikes at 
 last the dry and thirsty land where no water is; 
 so whether from the Spirit and the Bride, or from 
 him that heareth, ^^Come!" is the glad call, and 
 drink of **the water of life freely." 
 
 Then, the weary, desert pilgrim, having struck 
 at last the river of God flowing across life's waste, 
 resolves never to leave it. He spends his days of 
 sojourning ascending its hallowed banks. In his 
 glad experience, as with Ezekiel's wonderful 
 river, ** everything doth live whither the river 
 cometh." And finally, having drunk of it and 
 bathed in it, all the way along, at last he reaches 
 the city, out from which it flows. It is the city of 
 our God. Here doth He dwell. God is known 
 in her palaces for a refuge. Here, too, is the 
 river, the streams whereof make glad the city of 
 God ; * * God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be 
 moved." 
 
n 
 
 THE PSALM OF PSALMS 
 
None of the ransomed ever knew 
 How deep were the waters crossed 
 Or how dark was the night 
 That the Lord passed through. 
 E'er He found the sheep that was lost 
 
n 
 
 THE PSALM OF PSALMS 
 
 A Lord's Supper Meditation 
 
 Psalm xxiii 
 
 The sequence of thought, linMng even separate 
 Psalms, is often their true divine key. Take, for 
 instance, David's bold *^My" in Psalm xxiii. 
 How simple it is to see unerring explanation of 
 all this certainty of soul in David, in that preced- 
 ing vision of love in Psalm xxii. ! The roots of 
 Psalm xxiii., revealing Jehovah as Shepherd, 
 strike back deep into the sterile rocky soil of 
 Psalm xxii. The sheep can only reach the green 
 pastures of Psalm xxiii., because the Shepherd 
 of Psalm xxii. held on His way among the thorns 
 of the waste. 
 
 This is ever the divine law of cross-and-crown 
 sequence. The sheep by the still waters of the 
 Lord's Supper look across the gulf to the Psalm 
 where Jehovah is a Shepherd unto blood. The 
 thorns are over there and the green pastures are 
 
 89 
 
90 LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 just here, and *^My" is the adoring result of it all. 
 Surely in such loving sequence do we find an ade- 
 quate reason why the ineffable name of Jehovah 
 can be linked with the name of a lost sheep of 
 humanity, lost David, or lost anybody. Jehovah 
 is MY Shepherd. 
 
 Thus we learn that, Psalm of sorrow though it 
 be, the grace of God is so exceeding abundant at 
 the Cross, that we find a pledge of the very peace 
 of the sinner in the woes of the Saviour. 
 
 I 
 
 Watch the contrast of it all. Like David, the 
 Christ, too, opens his Psalm of Calvary with a 
 '*My." Twice does the forsaken cry ring out to 
 the skies. How different David's **My" from 
 that of the lonely Christ. A heaven and a hell of 
 difference, surely! The deep of Christ's for- 
 sakenness calleth across to the deep of David's 
 calm and joy. And this surely is the divine in- 
 tention concerning these Psalms — a sequence so 
 certain that the sufferings of Christ shall not 
 have long to wait for the glory that should fol- 
 low. 
 
 Else how shall we explain that praise-shout: 
 * ' The meek shall eat and be satisfied ' ' I Who are 
 
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 91 
 
 the meek of Psalm xxii., if not the green-pastured 
 sheep of Psalm xxiii.! Was it not, indeed, just 
 such an adjacent prophecy as this that hastened 
 David to glorify the Christ, by singing of pas- 
 tures where the meek and lowly sheep find rest 
 to their souls? 
 
 But watch this divine sequence a little longer. 
 David's **I shall not wanf finds its reason in 
 the fact that Jehovah is with him. And so, too, 
 in the opposite experience of Christ's loneliness 
 do we see the utter poverty of the Cross. With- 
 out God was the sinner, and without God was 
 the Saviour. ^*I, the Shepherd, am poured out 
 like water, ' ' is the source of all that satiety in the 
 sheep. 
 
 The Second Man, the Lord from heaven, was 
 His divine title ; yet He it is, who, in dying pang, 
 says : * ^ I am a worm, and no man. ' ' Watch, too, 
 those still waters of tranquillity, and listen in 
 contrast to the words of Christ's roaring. All 
 God's waves and billows are rolling over Him 
 there, in the strong crying and tears of the Son 
 of God. 
 
 This contrast is seen further down under an- 
 other figure. Both David and David's Lord have 
 a cup, and both the cups are seen running over — 
 
92 LOED'S SUPPEB EEVERIES 
 
 the red wine of wrath and the red wine of joy. 
 No wonder that old English word blood comes 
 from the same root as bloom and blossom. With- 
 out the shedding of blood there is no — truly there 
 is no anything without the shedding of blood! 
 Far away even in the marshes of Africa, the 
 tribesmen say: ^^No blood, no blossom!*' 
 
 Contrast, yet further, David's head anointed 
 with oil and the head of the Christ of God 
 wounded with thorns. That soft oil and those 
 sharp thorns are so widely removed from each 
 other that they spell salvation to the sheep. 
 
 There is one phrase, indeed, in this Psalm 
 (almost Pauline) which reveals how fully the 
 writer has seized upon the fact that Christ is his 
 Saviour-Substitute. When David says: ^^Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death," surely here we have a most naive hint 
 that if the Substitute-Christ has so utterly died 
 for the sheep, then in some glorious sense the 
 sheep will not die at all. *^ Shall not see death'' 
 is the note of joy for the sheep. But for that 
 wounded Shepherd of the Psalm of sorrow there 
 was no qualification. The inexorable *^Must be" 
 of the Cross was ever before him. If the worst 
 came to the worst, David could say: **I will not 
 
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 93 
 
 fear." For the lonely Christ, the worst must 
 climax in the worst. 
 
 II 
 
 So, too, further on. A divinely intended con- 
 trast we see in the two groups of enemies sur- 
 rounding David and David's greater Son. There, 
 in the presence of his enemies, God doth load his 
 table with good things. God Himself prepares 
 that table, prepares both the time and place for it, 
 to wit, when the enemies are in full view. But 
 look at the contrasted Christ, hungry both in 
 body and soul ! His is the bread of aflBiction ; His 
 the abjects' death. 
 
 And if David 's joy was the confounding of his 
 enemies, how deep the woe of Christ in being 
 taunted by His foes! There they are, shooting 
 out the lip and shaking the head in derision. 
 David gets the banquet, and David's Lord gets 
 the penury of Calvary. Surely the lesson for us 
 is writ large in all this intended contrast. Do 
 I, or do you, ever and always take our brimming 
 cup to the Calvary cup and, before drinking even 
 one drop of joy, bless the cup of woe that the 
 Shepherd drank all alone for us? These are 
 days, indeed, when whole books of '* Bible Con- 
 trasts" are greedily perused. How much harder 
 
94 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 it is for the child of God to bring his life in its 
 faithlessness into sharp contrast with the loving 
 ways of our steadfast God. As man is, after all, 
 a comparative race, how well, indeed, if he learns 
 life's beet lesson of contrasting God with the 
 creature. 
 
 David's last contrast is with the Man of Sor- 
 rows, an outcast from the Father 's house — and he, 
 David, boasting of that house as his dwelling for 
 evermore. The homeless Christ, out in the cold, 
 knocking at the Father's door! *'My God, my 
 God! Why—?" Surely here, in the Christ's 
 own ^^Why?" we seem to see why so many 
 theories of the Atonement are in currency. A 
 dozen and more ** working" theories of Christ's 
 Atonement! Does not their very number show 
 that they have tried and failed to fathom Christ's 
 own perplexed **Why"? Oh, let this be our 
 Atonement-watchword for Time — this, too, for 
 Eternity^^'Why! Why?" When you think 
 you fathom it, and when you reduce it all to a cold 
 syllogism, then indeed are God's mighty fallen. 
 Christ's own perplexed ^'Why?" declares it all to 
 be a mystery; and the creed was never yet written 
 that did not shut out great deeps of atoning love. 
 
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 95 
 
 **For the love of God is broader 
 
 Than the measure of man's mdnd, 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully hind J' 
 
 III 
 One word more in conclusion. It will be seen 
 that there is close affinity between the assurance 
 of David's **My'' and the certainty contained in 
 his *^shalP'— ^'I shall not want." This is the 
 jubilant dogma of faith. But whence all the cer- 
 tainty, if not in the wondrous blank-cheque Name, 
 ^* Jehovah"? God, who in grace revealed His 
 own unutterableness, could only perforce reveal 
 Himself by a Name which ever confounds the 
 grammarians of this world to translate. It was 
 the Jew himself who best caught the divine in- 
 tention, when, as a nation, he resolved not even 
 to pronounce the Name Jehovah at all. If the in- 
 effable Name is untranslatable, said he, then let 
 it be unpronounceable! Hence it is, the best 
 translation in any language of that glorious 
 Name will only be the best because it is the most 
 unpretentious. So full of meaning, indeed, is the 
 name Jehovah, that human speech can only call a 
 halt, and translate it, blank-cheque fashion: **I 
 
96 LOED^S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 AM, etc., etc." Thus praise is sacredly silent in 
 Zion before Zion's King. 
 
 And David's whole point in his *^ shall" lies 
 just here. If, says David, my Shepherd has such 
 a blank-cheque Name — **I AM, etc., etc." — then, 
 indeed, /, too, can issue a blank cheque on the 
 unknown future of life. How often we forget 
 that **I shall not want — " is as much a blank- 
 cheque as Jehovah's own Name I AM — ! If 
 God's name is **I AM, etc., etc.," then Faith's 
 echo-shout can obviously only be: **I shall not 
 want, etc., etc." 
 
 Thus the deep of supply calleth out to the deep 
 of need. If God does so challenge Faith as to 
 His very name, **I AM, etc., etc." then Faith 
 gladdens God's heart by sending back the sister- 
 challenge: ^'I shall not want, etc., etc,!'' For 
 when God declared His unutterable Name to be 
 I AM THAT I AM, what is this but just the 
 modernised I AM, etc., etc. ! 
 
 The whole eternity of God lies a great deep in 
 that ineffable Name, and the responsive *' shall" 
 is faith striking its roots deep into the eternity of 
 God. Everlasting is His name, so "shall" 
 adorns the mouth of all God's children. We are 
 
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 97 
 
 the lords of the future, and another king can 
 never arise who knows not Joseph. 
 
 And this, finally, is the real root of David's 
 phrase, ''For His Name's sake/' His Name, the 
 blank-cheque Name, explains it all. True, the 
 language of modern banking was not known a 
 thousand years before the Cross. David's 
 equivalent for a cheque-book was, in those stormy 
 days, "a Strong Tower." And the blank ele- 
 ment is well enough seen in both. Does not 
 David, later on, sing of the Name *^ Jehovah" as 
 a something we can ^^run into and be safe"? 
 Precisely as in the stress of commerce a merchant 
 runs into his blank cheques to meet all demands 
 against him, even so David claims that Faith can 
 ^^run into" the Jehovah-name as into a strong 
 tower. Surely it must be blank enough if you 
 and your needs can run into it. Thither let us 
 flee! 
 
Ill 
 
 A EESUEEECTION REVEEIE 
 
What the Pa/rahle of the Sower is to our 
 Lord's Parables so, supremely so, is The Resur- 
 rection to our Lord's Miracles. Leading the long 
 Une of His Parables is that first and finest 
 Parable of the Sower, for did He not give it 
 princely priority when He asked, ^'Know ye not 
 this Parable? And how shall ye know all the 
 Parables?" 
 
 And so, too, with that ^'corn of wheat" Miracle 
 of The Resurrection. Leading the long line of 
 Christ's Miracles is this keystone certitude, and 
 if we know not this Miracle how shall we know 
 all the Miracles? 
 
m 
 
 A RESURRECTION REVERIE 
 
 John XX. 1-19 
 
 It is ^^tJie first day of the week/' note well; and 
 the Soul finds in this word first something that 
 it desires with great desire. Weeks and days 
 of the week it knoweth not ; yet doth it seize upon 
 this word ** first" as containing worlds of import. 
 For this first has no last, and this beginning no 
 end. Here is a dawn that will never see a sun- 
 set; and God's first day of John xx. is precisely 
 as His first day of Genesis i. One day, one func- 
 tion, was His law of Creation. **Let there be 
 light" was the lone command of Earth's first 
 day. **And there was light" is the long, lone 
 blessedness of Resurrection's Eternal day. 
 
 *^ Cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was 
 yet dark/' She was early, yes, but God was 
 earlier. To the Soul's early there is ever God's 
 earlier. In the days of His flesh He was ever ris- 
 ing early and protesting, saying, *^Obey My 
 voice"; and now He who had risen early to 
 
 101 
 
102 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 preach, riseth early to save. Note, that this 
 **when it was yet dark" is the Morning-Star hour. 
 When He rose so shall we — *^ while it is yet 
 dark." No forty days will elapse between onr 
 rising and our ascending. To rise will be to 
 ascend. 
 
 ^'And seeth the stone taken away from the 
 sepulchre/' In the might of Imperial Rome the 
 world as a unit, and the power of that world, was 
 headed up in Caesar. There was no King but 
 CsBsar, and no power like Caesar 's power. When, 
 therefore, Rome struck Christ's death-blow, all 
 the world's strength backed that blow. And as 
 the death, so, too, Christ's burial. As surely as 
 the Empire had killed Him, so surely did it mean 
 to patrol the tomb. King Caesar would await 
 King Corruption and then each would go his re- 
 spective way. This stone, then, ** great stone" 
 though it was, was not merely a woman's diffi- 
 culty. It was an Imperial fact. ^'Who shall roll 
 it awayf said they. Yet the real difficulty was 
 not a mere stone, however large, but Death 's real 
 gates of brass and bars of iron. They locked 
 Christ in, and not mere stone. Rome's iron nails 
 and soldier's spear had bolted the gates of brass; 
 be there big stone at the door, or no stone at all. 
 
A RESUEEECTION REVERIE 103 
 
 And so this while-it-was-yet-dark vision of the 
 stone rolled away tells its own tale and another 
 tale also. The lesser is contained in the greater. 
 **The Breaker'' is Micah's name for Him, and 
 here the Lord earns it all. He hath broken the 
 gates of brass in Resurrection and cut the bars 
 of iron in sunder ! 
 
 ^^Then she runneth , . , So they (Peter and 
 John) ran together/' How suggestive an inau- 
 guration of the Resurrection! The Saints have 
 incentive; they run. God has outrun them; yet 
 would they run. And even so it ever was with 
 the Church. The memory of the empty tomb ever 
 vivifies His own. This made Gospelling so gladly 
 easy in the years 33-66 a. d. This constituted the 
 *^ Offence of the Cross''; for there the world's 
 power spent itself; and the Gospel of the opened 
 Tomb heaped humiliation on that vaunted power. 
 Where God struck the world its death-blow, so 
 even there the Church ever does so. Ah, empty 
 tomb, may we run because of thee ! 
 
 ^^She runneth to Simon Peter and the other 
 disciple, and they ran together J* Yes, running 
 indeed, but not to outsiders. That will be, and 
 soon enough. The Resurrection, first of all, 
 causes Christ's own to ^*run together"; to run 
 
104 LOED'S SUPPER EEVERIES 
 
 to each other's hearts for commniiioii and help. 
 See that lovely miniature of what all this being 
 ** together' ' may involve. **As they ran together 
 the other disciple did outrun Peter." How sim- 
 ply put and yet how unerringly. But not he who 
 is first exercises his rights as such. The first 
 at the tomb is the second to enter it. He 
 who is forward in running is backward in enter- 
 ing. And he is that disciple whom Jesus fondly 
 loved; he, who would rather be second in some 
 things and first in one thing. This one thing all 
 the Church owns to be his fond loving. He who 
 fondly loved was fondly loved. He loved Him 
 because He first loved us. Peter dared and John 
 loved; yet do we read that **they went away to 
 their own home/' dear brethren both of a dear 
 Lord. 
 
 In the running of fellowship there will always 
 be outstripping. But the kindly dignity of 
 outrunning consists in its resolve not to be first 
 in everything. It leaves something for some- 
 body else — '^that all might have a little." 
 
 ''Simon Peter . . . went in; then went in also 
 that other disciple; and he saw and believed.'' 
 It was what they did not see that agreed so di- 
 vinely with what they saw. This constitutes 
 
A KESUERECTION REVERIE 105 
 
 believing. ^*We see not yet . . . but we see;'' 
 even tbns doth God make Faith. ''We see Him 
 not," said Peter; yet do we see His stately go- 
 ings, and seeing we believe. The believing, it 
 must be most carefully noted, is all put down to 
 John's credit. They entered, ''but he believed." 
 Peter's thoughts are read for us by Luke when 
 he says that having beheld the linen clothes, Peter 
 departed, "wondering in himself at that which 
 was come to pass." Ah, how solemn! We can 
 have been first in and last to believe. "The first 
 shall be last." Love's eye alone can keenly de- 
 tect. Love is not blind, though a proverb says it. 
 Love only can see rightly. The Gospel, in fact, 
 hurries on to tell us that this believing was not 
 the belief of faith— faith in God's word. Saith 
 the record: "He saw and believed, for as yet 
 they knew not the Scripture." This is the be- 
 lief of love, not the belief of faith. God's hints 
 lead up to God's words. He who refuses the 
 ■hint will get the word; but blessed is he who 
 taketh God's hints. Love ever does. 
 
 ^^But Mary stood without weeping." Ah, now 
 we climb the heights! Not he who runneth, and 
 not he who entereth, but she who weepeth is 
 crowned. They are not going to get her reward; 
 
106 LORD'S SUPPEE REVERIES 
 
 no man may take her crown! She gets Himself 
 — she who had been out betimes seeking Him while 
 it was yet dark. True, she never dreamed of 
 this, nor would we. We wonder why they did 
 not remember what He had told them. Ah, that 
 shows up not their unbelief but our own! They, 
 even now, are under the black cloud of Calvary; 
 their souls are shrouded in the horror of great 
 darkness. No empty tomb for them will mean 
 the long aching days of sorrow dragging out 
 ahead; the night getting bleaker and darker. 
 And so our wondering at all this only shows how 
 little a Calvary ours has been — ^how little a loss 
 we realise theirs had been. Looking across a 
 glorious Resurrection vista of nearly two thou- 
 sand years — in which Christ has been Head over 
 all things to the Church — ^how easy to criticise the 
 orphans who had neither Christ nor Paraclete! 
 Mary, then, was first, and first she shall be, said 
 her risen Lord. She who had experienced His 
 saving grace is honoured by first welcoming Him 
 back again. All has been tangled, and her only 
 relief is that of weeping. She, like the other 
 woman, would have wet His feet with those same 
 tears ; but now there are no feet to weep over, and 
 she weeps the tears of despair. And the tears 
 
A EESURRECTION REVERIE 107 
 
 blind — blind so really that when He speaks to 
 iher she knows Him not. Supposes Him to be 
 the gardener, forsooth — oh, blinding tears! For 
 there are tears that blind metaphorically, even 
 as there are tears that clear the soul's vision. 
 She, too, had stooped in to see what the others 
 saw ; but her tears hindered her seeing what John 
 saw. God, then, must do His first godlike act 
 in Resurrection; do what He ever does to His 
 weeping Marys. He wipes away all their tears; 
 and that, too, with the old magic word of a hu- 
 man name; her name — ^^Mary!" And she — oh, 
 in a flash all is explained; and to show how well 
 she has learned her lesson she utters the lone 
 word **Rabboni!'' that is to say (if an interjec- 
 tion has any value at all), '*0h, what a Teacher!'' 
 For the path has been winding and the discipline 
 severe, but all has been climaxed, even as our 
 lesson will be, with that one ascriptive word, 
 '^Rabboni!" **Who teacheth like Thee!" 
 
 *^Then the same day at evening, when the doors 
 were shut , . . came Jesus and stood in the 
 midst.'' The wonderful morning leads on to a 
 wonderful evening. They have shut out the Jews, 
 not the Lord. He who could not be shut in by 
 the Romans cannot be shut out by His own. 
 
108 LORD'S SUPPEE REVERIES 
 
 Nay, but His own promise do they claim — ** Where 
 two or three are gathered together. " Look, 
 too, how they have left Him His rightful place 
 *'in the midst''; and look, too, how He claims it! 
 ** Jesus stood in the midst." The promise made 
 is the promise kept. 
 
IV 
 
 "BE STILL AND KNOW" 
 
The Lord separates the sin that He hates from 
 the soul that He loves. 
 
 * * * 
 
 We live by dying to ourselves. We die hy 
 living to ourselves. 
 
IV 
 
 "be still and know" 
 
 A Meditation on Psalm xlvi 
 
 Jehovah is indeed our God, our Refuge and our 
 Strength. Often, too, have we known Him as a 
 very present Help. Yet how far, far oftener it 
 has to candidly come to this: '^Be still, and 
 know that I, am God!'' His attributes are sound- 
 less and boundless, but back, ever back must we 
 come to Himself. This is life eternal, this the 
 Alpha and Omega in one — to know God. 
 Whether it be the witness of such an one as Paul 
 the aged, or Augustine, or Richard Baxter, the 
 word is ever the same — God, God, GOD, and that 
 I might know Him! But watch withal one tre- 
 mendous thing. The atmosphere of such a 
 knowledge is that war ever and inexorably pre- 
 cedes peace. *^Come, behold the works of Je- 
 hovah, what desolations He hath made'' — in 
 making peace! There is no birth without a 
 pang. There is no high hill but beside a deep 
 valley. 
 
 m 
 
112 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 I, a little bob-about of humanity, must be still 
 to know Him. Therefore He must make me still 
 with a solemn stillness. He wars with me for 
 my peace. ''From whence come wars," asks the 
 Apostle, ''if not from this old, old war — the soul 
 vEKsus God? Come therefore, behold the desola- 
 tions He hath made! Behold the trusty treas- 
 ures of His deep designs and see how in loyal love 
 God roareth as a lion in the path of His rebel 
 child." He had only this one way with THE 
 SON when He undertook our case; and He hath 
 no other way with the sons. God must desolate 
 me for my peace. He must cross His church be- 
 fore He can crown it. Come, then, behold not 
 only life's desolations, but also life's consola- 
 tions. After the desolation comes the consola- 
 tion. Look, too, at the specific details in our 
 Psalm of this peace-after-war postulate and how 
 it eventuates. 
 
 Firstly, He, the Holy Warrior God, breaketh 
 my rebel bow. Yes, the old bow that had hurled 
 many a dart at Him, our God. Now all is far 
 otherwise. His arrows are sharp in the heart of 
 the King's enemies. To emancipate. He must 
 needs subjugate. 
 
 Secondly, in bringing about the rebel soul's 
 
*^BE STILL AND KNOW" 113 
 
 peace He cutteth the spear in sunder. Yes, my 
 old spear wherewith I pierced His wounded side, 
 cruel spear that wounded Him — ^but unto my heal- 
 ing ! . Best stroke of my God that snappeth it in 
 twain. Now it will pierce no longer. That 
 spear, though, is not wholly abandoned ; it is now 
 beaten into a pruning Jiooh, He only 'breaks the 
 spear to make it a pruning hook — emblem of 
 peace, yea, peace through direst, reddest war. 
 The old spear wherewith I stabbed my God I 
 now use to prune myself. Anon, too, it will prune 
 others, for what He tells me in darkness, that 
 must I speak in the light. 
 
 Thus, by the inexorable law of Cross-and- 
 Crown sequence we emerge upon these sweetest 
 of words, ^*BE STILL." I would not be still, so 
 He had to make me still. Come, behold the 
 desolations He hath made, all to this intent. 
 Here, a sick bed, there a hidden heart trial; and 
 everywhere, a cross for all who will ever wear a 
 crown. 
 
 ^ ' The evening and morning were the first day. * ' 
 And we will never, never have a divine day un- 
 less it be after the primal pattern of God's first 
 model one. The Devil's day is the opposite of 
 God's. The Satanic formula runs, ^'the morning 
 
114 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 and the evening make the diabolic day." Yes, 
 first the morning then the evening that never sees 
 a snnrise. With God our God the evening and 
 morning make a divine day ! 
 
 **And know." Ah! they know best who have 
 battled with God and been defeated. '*! will be 
 exalted" is God's cry. So must man be laid 
 low; but not so low as ever the Son of Man lay. 
 And He who went lowest must be Highest. ^^I 
 will be exalted." So, too, shall we find like ex- 
 altation in like humiliation. The same word is 
 used for being ^ lifted up" on a cross and on a 
 throne and the same glorious Lord was lifted up 
 on both. 
 
 Thus we work out at the xlvi Psalm's lovely 
 end, which is really its beginning too. There is a 
 secret key and that key lies in the mention of 
 Jacob's name. For every mention of the phrase 
 *^God of Jacob" really means ^^God of (EVEN!) 
 Jacob! Yes, the God of even such a wriggling 
 cheat as he: *^The God of all Grace" and there- 
 fore 'Hhe God of (even) Jacob." 
 
 ''The Lord of Hosts is with us, THE GOD OF 
 JACOB is our refuge," our ''high tower." 
 There is exaltation for Jacob and all his ilk! 
 
^*BE STILL AND KNOW 115 
 
 The Lord of hosts is with us now, as surely as 
 He was against us with all His hosts to break and 
 subjugate us for our peace. Hence this abrupt 
 juxtaposition of ^*Lord of hosts*' and **God of 
 Jacob.*' 
 
 Yes, Jacob's name is the determining factor 
 here in the exegesis of this bitter-sweet Psalm. 
 For watch. Storm and calm, war and peace, is 
 Jacob's soul's history, as well as a world's. A 
 soul is a world, and as is the world, so is the soul, 
 to wit, Jacob's. As many as the sons of Adam, 
 so many the Jacobs. Watch this out with Jacob 's 
 name and history as a key. 
 
 Ah ! God had indeed to desolate this Jacob ere 
 he could consolate him. Come, behold the works 
 of the Lord in this Jacob. Come, behold him 
 broken, indeed, at last by life's Jabbok; lamed 
 for life, but, oh, so peaceful now! Broken at 
 last the old cunning Jacob bow, cut asunder the 
 unerring spear of his youth! And as by that 
 brook Jabbok he battled along, God did say to 
 him in love as a nurse to a weary child, ^^Be still 
 and know that I am God. ' ' 
 
 Now it is all over, and after blackest night 
 breaketh morning clear and fair at last. A holy 
 
116 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 war, indeed, that would thus subjugate our rebel 
 soul unto Thee, our God ! 
 
 *'Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, Most 
 Mighty, and in Thy majesty ride prosperously!'' 
 
V 
 "PEIVATELY" 
 
In a mountain the law was propounded to 
 Moses; in a mountain the law was expounded by 
 
 Jesus. 
 
 * * « 
 
 The former to a man of God, the latter hy the 
 Son of God, The one to a Prophet of the Lord, 
 the other by the Lord of the Prophets, 
 
V 
 
 *^ privately": a one word bible study 
 
 Mark vL 32; Matt, xxiv, 3 
 
 Glancing at the New Testament we see this ad- 
 verb in close and ahnost sole association with 
 two significant nouns — * ^ mountain ' ' and * * desert. ' ' 
 There, on *Hhe high mountain apart,'' or in ^^the 
 desert place," He appoints the trysting-place 
 with the saints. Surely here is a holy hint that 
 God embraces the extremes of life. This double 
 trysting-place of mountain and desert is His own 
 royal rebuke to the old lie, that *'The Lord is God 
 of the hills but He is not God of the valleys." 
 
 I 
 Watch Mark's first use of the word. The sent- 
 ones have come back to the Sender. Where the 
 words of the King had gone there had been power, 
 and they who had seen much of man must now 
 see much of the Master. So to the desert they 
 must go — to Christ's retreat from the strife of 
 tongues. That place of His Temptation is to be 
 
 119 
 
120 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 the place of their rest ; where the Christ was with 
 the wild beasts, even there He gathers the lambs 
 of His flock for rest (Heb. iv. 9). 
 
 ^^God hath His deserts broad and "brown — 
 A solitude — a sea of sand 
 Where He doth let heaven's curtain down, 
 Unknit by His Almighty hand.'' 
 
 To the desert, then, by ship they go; but as 
 though to mock the idea of hermitic solitude, the 
 crowd take the short cut by land, and lo, the 
 desert is no longer desert ! 
 
 What then? What, indeed, if not a feast, a 
 table in the wilderness *? He who was forty days 
 and nights in the wilderness without bread, will 
 not let them go hungry an hour. For this invi- 
 tation to come apart shows that Christ had re- 
 solved to feast them bountifully in the desert. 
 They, who had no ** leisure so much as to eat,'' 
 must come apart to rest, and the resting consists 
 in the feasting and the giving others to feast. 
 Here, then, the Master teaches them the double 
 lesson, that while to be apart privately is the 
 soul's deepest need, it is no easy thing in this 
 desert of life to get apart with Him. 
 
 Moral: How many a short cut the world 
 knows, by which to invade our calm of soul ! 
 
^TEIVATELY'* 121 
 
 II 
 But the Teacher must finish the lesson. He is 
 the perfect Teacher, because He perfectly lives 
 His own homily. Not even the apostles may 
 break into His privacy. Disbanding the ranks 
 of hundreds and ranks of fifties, He sends them 
 away back again to the bustle of their towns, and 
 even His own He constrains to depart in the ship 
 to the other side. For He who so suffered 
 this interruption of the desert-rest must needs 
 show them how much to be prized above all life's 
 prizes is aloneness with God. There, jutting up 
 into the blue sky is God 's mountain, and what the 
 desert denied Him of solitude the mountain af- 
 forded * ^ He went up into a mountain privately to 
 pray.'' Here, then, He teaches where this word 
 *^ privately" first leads us. Not to the united 
 prayer of saints, but to life's holiest of all-lone 
 prayer on the lone mountain. 
 
 '^God hath His mountains bleak and hare, 
 Where He doth hid us rest awhile; 
 Crags where we hreathe a purer air, 
 Lone peaks that catch the day's first smile." 
 
 Moral: By every legitimate human contriv- 
 ance we have to **set bounds about" this holy 
 mount of ours, that the people draw not nigh. 
 
122 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 m 
 
 The next ** privately" is still the mountain; 
 yea, a high mountain, and Christ on it with only 
 three, and not twelve, of His own. He does not 
 go where they may not come, and He would thus 
 lead them into His own way of living life. They 
 must know Him on the mountain as they could 
 never know Him in the desert. '*He bringeth 
 them up into a high mountain" privately, and 
 was transfigured before, alas, not them all, only 
 three, and so suggestively three too! Here is 
 divine irony indeed. For in all ages, not even in 
 the ratio of three in twelve, has Christ been a 
 transfigured Christ to His own. 
 
 Moral: How few Robert McCheynes and 
 George Miillers there are! 
 
 IV 
 
 Pursuing the track of this adverb, we see unity 
 of design, and find ourselves among the same 
 apostles who come ^^ privately" to their Lord 
 with the powerless query: '*Why could we not 
 east him out?" ''We" is emphatic, for who are 
 these, if not those who come back rejoicing that 
 even the devils were subject to them? ''We, oh, 
 we! Where is our old-time power?" What a 
 
^^PEIVATELY" 123 
 
 private affair this is! How often we publicly 
 lament our impotence when the remedy is all in 
 our private life. The question they ask in secret 
 is, however, answered by Christ on the house- 
 tops for the Church in all ages to hear: ** Be- 
 cause of your unbelief." Ah, no wonder the 
 power is lost! Power means publicity as to its 
 exercise, and as night wars with day, so pub- 
 licity wars with privacy. 
 
 Moral: How common the swing of the pen- 
 dulum from power to poverty! 
 
 v 
 And, granted the power bestowed, what so 
 necessary as the last use of our adverb? They 
 are about to be left on this earth the chosen cus- 
 todians of Christ's truth. From their lips and 
 pens will come anon the divine **form of sound 
 words, ' ' and they, in turn, will transmit the same 
 as a divine unit to faithful men who will be able 
 also to teach others. How necessary then for 
 them, as for all of us, to spurn human creeds, 
 and approach Christ privately on the matter of 
 His own teaching. **The disciples came unto 
 Him privately, saying, Tell us when these things 
 shall be.'' Not to particularise prophecy 
 
124 LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 (tliougli well we migM), how little, indeed, is 
 Christ permitted to preach His own truth pri- 
 vately to His own ! Nay, He is not spicy enough 
 for itching ears, and the puhlic ministry of the 
 Word often supersedes such private divine tui- 
 tion as He loves to give. Yet as now, so in all 
 ages, the greatest need is to be in private au- 
 dience of our God, that the good "Word of promise 
 may be fulfilled in us: *^They shall be taught of 
 God." 
 
 It was only Paul for the desert and the desert 
 for Paul that saved the faith from black havoc 
 while yet in its infancy. There in the desert, far 
 from the madding crowd, not only of sinners but 
 of saints, God needs Paul as Paul needs God. 
 Yes, and the saints of the madding crowd need 
 Paul too. Even in this holy matter of getting 
 alone with God, he must supply their lack of serv- 
 ice. Paul was allured into Arabia with the 
 promise: **They shall be all taught of God.'* 
 Did he regret going? See him emerging from it 
 all with a shining face, and listen to his shout: 
 ' ' Who teacheth like Thee ! ' ' 
 
 Moral: It is written: **They shall be all 
 taught of God.'' 
 
VI 
 
 CEETITUDE 
 
'' Some men "believe their doubts and doubt 
 
 their beliefs." 
 
 m * ne 
 
 Said Christ to Thomas: Ye know. 
 Said Thomas to Christ: We know not. 
 
VI 
 
 CERTITUDE 
 
 John xiv. 4 
 
 *^ Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." 
 Listen to the certainty of it all from Him who 
 knows the hmnan heart better than it knows itself. 
 But the word of Faith rings back as nsnal only 
 the hollow, sepulchral note of Unbelief. And God 
 would thus unmask unbelief before our eyes. So 
 in sharp sorry juxtaposition He puts the word of 
 Faith over against the word of Unbelief — 
 
 * * Whither I go *^ We know not 
 
 y^ hnow,^' whither." 
 
 Again — 
 
 **The way ye ''How can we know 
 know," the way?" 
 
 Ah! Christ knows them better than they know 
 themselves. Thomas really knows a thing that 
 Thomas thinks he does not know. For Thomas 
 has a ''My Lord" and a ''My God" who knows 
 Thomas better than Thomas knows himself. 
 
 127 
 
128 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES 
 
 I 
 
 Note the real root-reason of it all. Their 
 '' whither' ' was as usual only an it. It, that 
 is, heaven — a locality; and it — the hard, theo- 
 retical way thither. And, of course, sought by 
 the search of sense, neither it, the Goal, nor it, 
 the Way thereto, was found. He is found of them 
 that seek Him not; and the remedy, which is an 
 old one, was immediately applied. 
 
 The Father is the blessed *^ Whither" of our 
 soul's pilgrimage, and the **Way'' is Christ the 
 Son — a new and living Way. Yes, **I am the 
 Way, ' ' not to heaven, the locality, but to the Per- 
 son, the Father. For what saith St. John? 
 
 Right down the long fourteenth chapter of John, 
 and on and on through the wondrous fifteenth, the 
 longer sixteenth and hallowed seventeenth chap- 
 ters, it is not Heaven this or Heaven that but the 
 Son going to the Father. Yes, and the Son lead- 
 ing many sons. 
 
 But the purpose of this, which we may call the 
 Thomas interlude of the chapter, we shall alto- 
 gether misunderstand if we proceed forthwith to 
 ^'Poor Thomas!" him without seeing all that is 
 involved as to the latent unbelief of the heart. 
 
 Here, then, is a man — a typical and true man, 
 
CERTITUDE 129 
 
 frankly standing forth as the spokesman of our 
 fallen race. He has denied the Way, and bound 
 up with that denial is this other — that of the 
 Truth. 
 
 Look at the blunt ^*We know not" frowning 
 over against the gracious **Ye know.'' Thomas 
 has believed his doubts and as a result has doubted 
 his beliefs. Christ is positive ; so Thomas is not. 
 Aye, and Thomas, plus a million of his ilk, can be 
 positive when Christ is not. The Gospel is a reve- 
 lation ^'from faith to faith," i.e. of heights and 
 heights of faith. Yes, and one has truly said it 
 is a revelation of ' ^depths and depths of unbelief. " 
 
 Yet the Christ, who cannot lie, says, **I have 
 told you, Thomas — I, whose yea has been ever 
 yea, and whose nay, ever nay — that I am the "Way 
 and the Truth. Moreover, Thomas, I have been 
 speaking of leaving you — of going to the Father, 
 and that to you in plain Galilean speech is, I am 
 going to die. And having died, yea, though I shall 
 rise again, thou, Thomas (7 see it coming!) thou 
 wilt not believe it. Yet, Thomas, I am ^the Way ' ; 
 I am *the Truth'; yea, verily, I am *the Life' and 
 death cannot hold its prey ! ' ' 
 
 This Thomas interlude, though broken into by 
 Philip's query, is merely adjourned for a few 
 
130 LOED^S SUPPEK REVERIES 
 
 days. Wondrous days indeed, for therein God 
 has ^* brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, 
 that Great Shepherd of the sheep." 
 
 And now forth He stands who was dead and is 
 alive again — ^living after the power of an endless 
 life. And in chapter xx. Thomas is commanded 
 to make an end of the matter, yes^ that old matter 
 begun hy himself in this fourteenth chapter. Best 
 doubter, he is now best believer; and ^*My Lord 
 and my God ! ' ' ends the solemn matter. To him, 
 the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, are a peer- 
 less Person, whom to believe is bliss. 
 
 And now for our side of this subject. Away, He 
 has gone into the glory — gone to the Father — the 
 Way indeed, and the Life indeed. 
 
 And cheering the pilgrim's path as he travels 
 through the night is the central fact — He is the 
 Truth. This is the reason why the names Way 
 and Life flank the very vital name of Truth. Cen- 
 turies are going to pass, and still He is going 
 to sit, **from henceforth expecting," upon the 
 Throne. 
 
 And still the night will grow blacker as souls 
 journey on to Him, **Whom having not seen they 
 
CERTITUDE 131 
 
 loyally love. The very blackness of the night 
 seems to feed the jflame of sedition and many a 
 time we out-Thomas Thomas with our *^We know 
 not." But God knows His timid Thomases better 
 than they know themselves. With royal reitera- 
 tion and through life's gathering gloom He, our 
 Lord, sends back on us His eager and earnest ''Ye 
 know'^ right in the teeth of our blundering-in-the- 
 dark ''We know not/' And, surely, Thomas 
 would be well and wisely advised to believe in a 
 cock-sure Lord rather than in a cock-sure Thomas. 
 Jeremiah was a **heart" man hence his tears, 
 yet he it was who said, *Hhe heart . . . who can 
 know it?" Then it was a jealous God answered 
 this **who can know it" challenge of His pro- 
 foundly puzzled Jeremiah. '*! the Lord search 
 the heart." *^The Lord knoweth the heart." 
 And the God who knows me better than I, John 
 Smith, know myself, this God it is who sweetly 
 tells me that I really know the very thing that I 
 timidly and Thomas-like think I do not know. 
 
 in 
 
 And this God is our God for ever and ever, He 
 will be our Guide even *^over" (see Hebrew) 
 death. For note this. He loves us for the good 
 
132 LOED^S SUPPEE EEVEEIES 
 
 that is in us — and because He put it there. * ' That 
 good thing committed unto thee keep . . . !" It 
 is not merely that we believe in Christ but that 
 He believes in us. And He never believes in 
 us better than when we least believe in our- 
 selves. It is not merely that we hope in Christ 
 but that Christ is in us the Hope of Glory 
 hoping His own Hope and believing His own 
 Belief. We do not hold it, the truth — a dogma. 
 But He, The Truth, a Person, holds us. And just 
 as mere dogma is not good enough for us so is it 
 not good enough for Him. He must have more 
 than talk. If we talk the talk we must live the life. 
 
 Let me conclude thus. 
 
 Paul once nearly blundered into this thing but 
 he did not. The God who keepeth the feet of His 
 Saints also keeps the pen of His Apostle when 
 writing to the Galatians. I repeat he almost 
 blundered but he decidedly did not. Writing 
 them an Epistle he said, *' After that ye knew 
 God — " and then Paul pulled up sharp. *'If 
 this is not modified," mused the Apostle, **then 
 the right point of view will be missed." So the 
 Pauline pen runs royally on and without deleting 
 a word he redeems and regulates the phrase. 
 * ^ After that ye knew God ob bather (I'll put it the 
 
CEETITUDE 133 
 
 proper way!) were known of God." *'I do not," 
 says Paul, * Hake it back, but I almost want to. It 
 is not your knowing God but it is God's knowing 
 you. 
 
BOOK III 
 
 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 I 
 
 "SO THEY TOOK THE MONET'' 
 
When the widow gave her last two mites, this 
 is what she thought. Said she, ^'Whatsoever I 
 receive is a token of God's love to me. There- 
 fore I part with it contentedly as a token of my 
 love to Him!'' 
 
I 
 
 *'S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY" 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 15 
 
 Nay, they did more. *^They took the money and 
 did as they were taught.'' Now there is point 
 in these words undoubtedly ; but there is far more 
 point in their context. For here, at the end of 
 Matthew, the gospel record is closing and the 
 gospel preaching is beginning. Now the above 
 words occur, not merely in Matthew's last chap- 
 ter, but also hard before Christ's last command. 
 There is a transition here far too abrupt not to be 
 intentional. Here is Satan propagating the lie, 
 and here, too, is the Christ propagating the Truth. 
 Here are Satan's great money methods of propa- 
 ganda unveiled before us ; here, too, the Christ's. 
 
 Satan seems sure of one thing, that money will 
 do what he wants. Had he not specifically hired 
 Apostle No. 12 for a stated sum? And why not 
 a batch of Caesar's men? 
 
 137 
 
138 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 I 
 
 Let lis now contrast these two commissions, for 
 curiously where the Church has only seen one 
 commission, there are in reality two. A glance 
 shows us the deep subtlety of it all. Here in 
 sharp juxtaposition we see the lie and also the 
 truth. 
 
 Watch, I say, these rival Missions with their 
 rival methods. 
 
 The Christ ordains that they must do all things 
 whatsoever He has commanded them. 
 
 The Liar claims a like obedience for they '*did 
 as they were taught." 
 
 The Christ proclaims the promise that He will 
 personally back all his servants, saying, **Lo I 
 (even I, emphatic) am with you alway.'' 
 
 The Liar likewise saith to his devotees: Do 
 the deed : sow the sinful seed and if this come to 
 the Governor's ears lo! we will stand by you 
 alway. 
 
 The Christ by way of a salary giveth them not 
 mere money (no mention of it even!) but He gives 
 them Himself. * ^ I 'm your Salary ! ' ' 
 
 The Liar lures them on with large money for it 
 is a large lie. Large? Yes I but Christ went far- 
 ther and gave not mere money but Himself. 
 
*^S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY '^ 139 
 
 II 
 
 Look closely now at this resurrection-lie, and 
 see if it is not the head and front of all Satan's 
 offending. For the Eesurrection is Heaven's 
 ALL, even as it is the Church's breath of life. 
 Look, too, at this salaried lie, as to its actual 
 words. Saith Satan in effect : ** Say ye. His dis- 
 ciples stole Him away; . . . and, if this come to 
 the governor's ears, I will stand by you, I will 
 not desert you!" *^So they took the money and 
 did as they were taught." 
 
 Is there nothing suggestive, I ask, in the fact 
 that Christ commissions His church to go thou- 
 sands of miles and yet never hints about the 
 needed money en routed Passage money for thou- 
 sands of saints going thousands of miles is easily 
 involved in this commission: Go ye into all the 
 world. I repeat this ^*ye" means many, many 
 men; this ^'all" means many, many miles. Yes, 
 and this **ye" plus this **all" means money, 
 many millions of money ! Yet He never even men- 
 tions mere money in the concise context where 
 Satan in his lie-commission makes money! money! 
 loom so large. ! give me The Christ for divine 
 methods in His divine service. 
 
 Then does He ignore the whole question of 
 
140 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 money? Nay! there is no question at all about 
 it for the less is included in the greater. ^ ^ Go ye, " 
 saith this living loving Lord, * ' and lo ! I am with 
 you to run the whole concern and pay all the 
 hills J' 
 
 Of course, the salary was a large one. *^They 
 gave large money unto the soldiers." The 
 Resurrection was Satan's extremity; hence this 
 large money for a large work. True, there are 
 hundreds the broad world over who do a large 
 enough work for Satan without receiving a large 
 wage. Man's extremity is the hour of Satan's 
 parsimony. Satan's bounty ever tells of his own 
 extremity. 
 
 Take, for example, the daring attack upon our 
 Lord in the wilderness. There Satan reckoned 
 upon the Son of Man's extremity; yes, reckoned 
 that mere creature hunger would eventuate in 
 capitulation. But God knoweth no extremity, 
 nor God's Man either. Yet note the fact and 
 tremble. Satan tempted even the Son of God 
 with a crust of bread! 
 
 The large money was for a large work, and 
 see how well they worked. Alas, how well men 
 labour for him who labours not for them. Saith 
 Matthew, **They did as they were taught, and 
 
*^S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY'' 141 
 
 this saying is commonly reported . . , to this 
 day," Here tlien we behold Zeal on a salary — 
 prepaid, too, according to tlie words of the Lord 
 Jesus, *'They have their reward." 
 
 in 
 
 Look now in conclusion at this resurrection-lie 
 and see how unerringly Christ combats same. 
 
 Saith the Liar : Say, they stole Him away. 
 
 Saith the Truth: Lo! I {even I, emphatic) am 
 with you to give this lie its death-blow. 
 
 Saith the Liar : Say, they stole Him away. 
 
 Saith the Truth: This will shame even the 
 Devil : Me ? they could not steal Me away, for lo ! 
 I am with you in person to nail down the resurrec- 
 tion-lie with the resurrection-truth of my Eeal 
 Presence with you. 
 
 Ah! heart of mine, how often thou forgettest 
 that the resurrection is not a mere event in history, 
 but a person. Not a creed about Christ it is The 
 Christ. Nay, not mere windy word- wrangling can 
 settle this subject. He can only treat this lie the 
 way many a good man has to meet a dark, dirty 
 lie against his own private honour. He must 
 (not talk it down !), he must live it down. And as 
 Christ's so The Christ. He is with us in peerless, 
 
142 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 powerful person to live down the Jewisli lie about 
 His resurrection. 
 
 Shall we venture now to deny that here, in 
 such abrupt contrast, there is no significance in 
 Christ's absolutely ignoring the word money in 
 His last command! In Satan's propaganda it is 
 the word that ever bulks so largely. But for that 
 there would have been no need for Matthew's 
 pathetic phrase, **Then the eleven disciples" — 
 the unity of the twelve broken by the god Mam- 
 mon! Moreover, the mournful declension of this 
 Judas — seceding, too, on such a poor wage as 
 from £3 to £4 — surely indicates what a poor 
 earthly store was theirs who had treasure in 
 Heaven. ** Silver and gold have I none," said 
 Peter, ^'but such as I have, give I thee." 
 
 ''But such as I havef Yes, Peter thou hast 
 the living, loyal Lord who not only pays your way 
 but presences the way. And His pay is His 
 presence ! 
 
 ^'And they went forth and preached every- 
 where, the Lord working with them." 
 
n 
 
 "THE LAW OF FAITH" 
 
// faith in God gives us our Eternal life why 
 should not faith in Him give us our morning 
 meal? 
 
 * * * 
 
 We boast of being so practical a people that we 
 want to have a surer thing than faith. But did 
 not Paul say that the promise was by FAITH 
 that it might be SUBEf 
 
n 
 
 Bom. ill. 27 
 
 Writing, as Paul does in his Epistle to the Eo- 
 mans, to a great legal nation, how appropriate is 
 his frequent mention of Law. Among those Eo- 
 mans Law was held in such high honour that the 
 echo of the Eoman Code can be heard even in 
 a British Court of Justice to-day. How ap- 
 propriate, then, we repeat, that Paul's language 
 should be framed in such precise diction as 
 would be understood by a Eoman lawyer. Surely 
 the sublime and logical sequence of PauPs every 
 * therefore" and ^^ wherefore" is a true echo of 
 their own later language of the Forum. Thus we 
 learn that the Paul of Mars Hill in Greece can 
 prove himself to be a Eoman to the Eomans, even 
 as he was then on that Athens Hill a Greek to the 
 Greeks. As surely as the home of stem law was 
 away there in the heart of Eome — law that 
 grasped and unified the Empire with an iron 
 hand — even so in all tlie great Epistle to the Eo- 
 
 145 
 
146 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 mans, the word law is found dominating and 
 dwarfing all other issues. The more than sixty- 
 references in Romans, for instance, to the law of 
 Sinai are so obvious that we need not now con- 
 sider them in detail. Such mentions of Sinai 
 law, vital though they be, and forming as they 
 do Paul's basis of God's gospel, we do not dwell 
 upon. It is with another and almost curious 
 mention of law that we are now concerned. In 
 this, it will be seen that Roman Paul is still cling- 
 ing to the imagery of law, the very use of the 
 word in its newness and power adding illumina- 
 tion to the subject, while at the same time con- 
 ciliating Roman ears. One such powerful phrase 
 is: *^The Law of Faith." 
 
 Note, then, the blessed fact, that Paul is such a 
 Roman to the Romans that he preaches faith as a 
 law. Faith, so definitely in contrast with law all 
 through Paul's Epistles, is yet declared to be a 
 law. '^By what Law!" asks the Apostle, and we 
 can almost see the genial smile of his answer, 
 ^^By the Law of Faith." To Paul, what a wealth 
 of authority lies behind his proclamation, as the 
 Christ's ambassador, of the law of faith. Many 
 
^^THE LAW OF FAITH" 147 
 
 a pro-consul and procurator had he seen flourish 
 an imperial edict in the teeth of a lawless mob, 
 and to Paul, in this solemn concern of the law of 
 faith, was not God commanding all men every- 
 where to repent? If PauPs theme was **the 
 Kingdom of God'' (Acts xxviii. 31), then, surely 
 this was a royal edict. Eeaching the metropolis 
 as he ultimately did, the last glimpse we have of 
 him in Acts is as ** preaching the kingdom of God, 
 no man forbidding him." And the kingdom of 
 God, to Paul, meant the sphere in which God's 
 Law of Faith was regnant. Through him God 
 was commanding all men everywhere to repent 
 from their law-breaking, much more insistently 
 than any Eoman official could claim obedience for 
 his Emperor. 
 
 Faith, as a law, however, had a fuller import 
 than its commandment aspect. To the Apostle 
 this law necessarily excluded much, while it in- 
 cluded much. As an edict, the same Law of Faith 
 that embraced all men everywhere, just as sweep- 
 ingly rejected all man's vain boasting. Boast- 
 ing is excluded, not by whim, but by law — *Hhe 
 Law of Faith." For the Law of Faith is the 
 law of brokenness of spirit, of emptiness, of hu- 
 mility. And where is boasting here, if not ex- 
 
148 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 eluded? The inflexible demand of the law of 
 emptiness is that it excludes fulness, even as 
 brokenness and humility are eternally at war 
 with pride. So inexorable are these laws, that 
 they operated before time was, and drove Satan 
 out of heaven. Boasting, alias Satan, was ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 Faith is a rock, is certitude, is supremely the 
 sure thing in life. Faith is law, not mist, not 
 mere talk, not dream. It is the only sure thing 
 in the world. This is God's guarantee, as it were, 
 why the Bristol Orphan Homes continue. This, 
 too, is the reason why all who truly tread the 
 path of faith are sure of unerring supply. God 
 is under law to support them, and the watchwords 
 of such a law are ^^shalP' and ^^must." The 
 only link that binds us to the eternity of God and 
 His steadfast throne is this Law of Faith. Every 
 '' shall" and ^^must" in the treasure house of 
 God is the portion of Faith. There is nothing 
 uncertain in the Law of Faith. The future is 
 merely uncertain in our ignorance of it. "With 
 our God the future is, and thus faith is under 
 glorious law, and never can '^draw a blank." 
 Faith is the evidence of things not seen. 
 
^^THE LAW OF FAITH ^' 149 
 
 **His methods are sublime, 
 His ways supremely kind; 
 God never is before His time, 
 And never is behind/* 
 
 II 
 
 So definite a thing is this Law of Faith that the 
 Apostle John boldly shows it to be universal even 
 among shrewd men of the world. He declares 
 that, even in the low plane of human affairs, faith 
 as between man and man is utterly indispensable 
 to a day's life in the world. It is the native at- 
 mosphere of the human family right across the 
 globe. It is the cement that binds the social fab- 
 ric in unity. So sure is the Apostle John of 
 this that he boldly argues from this very law of 
 mutual human faith to the higher Divine faith. 
 **If we receive the witness of men, the witness of 
 God is greater.'' Nor does John end here. Such 
 definite leverage does the Apostle see here for the 
 Gospel plea, that he returns to it again under an- 
 other form; ^^He that loveth not his brother 
 whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom 
 he hath not seen I" Thus it is that God turns the 
 world's anti-faith laugh against itself, reminding 
 shrewd men and women that the poorest invest- 
 
150 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 ment is the one that ignores God and His Law of 
 Faith. For they who have not faith, yet show 
 the work of that Law of Faith written in their 
 hearts in the very fact that human mutnal faith 
 is the fundamental law of even such a vital theme 
 as commerce. 
 
 Boasting is excluded by the Law of Faith, says 
 Paul, and so too is bankruptcy. God only ex- 
 cludes in order that He may abound in including. 
 He excludes the sight of human eyeballs, only to 
 give the soul the piercing falcon gaze of faith. 
 The arm of flesh is disowned only to make bare 
 **the Arm of the Lord.'' Truly he need be no 
 weakling of a missionary who is fully subject to 
 this law. Funds will flow in according to Divine 
 law. '* Lacked ye anything?" once asked the 
 God of this law. ** Nothing!" was the answer of 
 His own — the answer of the ages. 
 
 I like to think of a hidden subtle suggestion 
 there seems to be in this phrase, '*Law of Faith," 
 that, after all, law is law, whether for my eternal 
 life or my daily meal. The same Law of Faith 
 governs both; even such a stately law as that of 
 Divine supply. David surely felt the wide grasp 
 of this law when in one breath he praised God for 
 binding up the wounds of the broken in heart and 
 
^^THE LAW OF FAITH'' 151 
 
 telling the number of the stars! (Ps. cxlvii. 3, 4). 
 A word of cheer, this, surely, to all who are 
 trimming the little lamps of testimony in dark 
 heathen corners of the earth. The God who 
 lights a myriad of burning worlds will keep the 
 little mission lamp alight unto His praise. So 
 exact and sure are God's ways with us that the 
 final sum of them all is **the length and the 
 breadth and the height of it are equal." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Finally, what shall we say of such an unwaver- 
 ing Law of Faith, if not that here, indeed, we 
 touch the bed-rock of Christianity. The cring- 
 ing flesh sees only irritating indefiniteness in 
 Faith as a business basis in life's varied and puz- 
 zling affairs. God's most splendid certainty that 
 subdued kingdoms and stopped the mouths of 
 lions is to the flesh no law at all ! But the saved 
 soul knows far otherwise. Finding Faith a glori- 
 ous law operating unto its own life everlasting, 
 surely such a soul sees, in a flash, the Divine law 
 of heaven's lesser being contained in heaven's 
 greater, and as a result will step out with 
 alacrity on the bare promise of God for all. 
 
 Surely, just here, we find Paul 's reason why his 
 
152 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 only reference to Faith as a Law is when he 
 declares that it excludes all human boasting. 
 Man^s spasmodic and halting actions are here con- 
 fronted by the serene certainties of faith. Faith 
 ever pursues its own calm and supreme function 
 in the universe of God, spurning all man's clever 
 little plans and by-laws as its handmaids. There 
 is not a child of God but sees that it is only the 
 naked soul stripped of pretence that claims faith's 
 blessing. And so, too, in all the operations of 
 that law, whether for bread of soul or bread of 
 body. As we received Christ Jesus the Lord, 
 even so must we walk in Him. He is Lord of 
 soul and body, and filleth all things. Beginning 
 in the Spirit, how impoverished must be the faith 
 that seeks to perfect any part of God's work in 
 the flesh. Thus it is that Paul has no other argu- 
 ment of rebuke to those Galatians than the simple 
 yet solid query as to how they received their 
 eternal life. And if by faith, your eternal life, 
 saith Paul, then, Galatians, why not live your 
 earthly life thereby? The eternal life came to 
 their souls by faith, and the earthly life of testi- 
 mony must be lived by the same faith. Otherwise 
 it is foolishness: ^*Are ye so foolish!" Pre- 
 cisely the commiserating word many a worldly 
 
^*THE LAW OF FAITH'* 153 
 
 relative throws after a departing kinsman wlio 
 plunges into heathenism trusting God only for 
 supplies. And this, too, is Paul's precise retort 
 to all who swerve from the path of Faith: **Are 
 ye so foolish?" 
 
 A goodly band in London many years ago was 
 being farewelled to other lands. Text after text 
 was given to us with the godly desire to make 
 them our soul's portion. Finally rose the beloved 
 M'Vicker with Bible open at the first chapter of 
 Genesis: *^ God made two great lights. ... He 
 made the stars also!" 
 
 And thus were we sped on our way to distant 
 lands with the glad belief that ''He who spared 
 not His own son . . . how shall He not with Him 
 also, freely give us all things'?" ''Lacked ye 
 anything?" And they said "Nothing!" Surely 
 nothing less than a serene, uwavering Law of 
 Faith operating by night and day could guarantee 
 such a sure supply. 
 
in 
 
 "THE CERTAINTIES OF FAITH" 
 
^^Tou know the hopelessness of such a tasJc 
 (as African Missiom) till you find a St. Paul or 
 a St. John, Their representatives nowadays 
 want so much per year and a contract.' ' 
 
 General Gordon to Sir Richard Burton. 
 
ni 
 
 "the cektainties of faith" 
 
 Rom, iv. 16 
 
 A MISSIONARY friend not long ago expostulated 
 with me, as a married man, for not having a 
 salary. Something sure was his idea. On that 
 occasion God spoke from His Word to both of 
 us on the salary subject. What settled the mat- 
 ter as to Faith being the only definite thing God- 
 ward was the following word, — * * The promise was 
 by Faith that it might be sure." There we have 
 the whole subject. The only sure thing is Faith. 
 The thing in my purse or in my hand is not sure. 
 An old platitude, no doubt, is this creature-hum- 
 bling, Christ-exalting Gospel, but it is well to 
 sound out the call, *^Wake brethren, wake." 
 
 We are thus led on in what is positively sure 
 as against what is not sure. The only sure thing 
 is that purposed thing God has stored up in His 
 own heart for me. My bank is God's heart. My 
 pillow is His bosom. 
 
 We certainly travesty this gracious word of 
 
 157 
 
158 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 God, ** purpose/' when we use it concerning high- 
 sounding phrases as to everlasting heaven and 
 happiness, and disown it as to the plenishing of 
 the homely cuphoard. Tremblingly we can write 
 the phrase — the eternal purpose of God concern- 
 ing to-day's meal ! For God's purpose to usward 
 is exactly like the third chapter of Colossians. 
 It begins in heaven, as Mr. Spurgeon said, and 
 ends in the kitchen. It speaks of the heavenlies 
 and descends to the earthlies. ^*It is of Faith 
 that it might be sure." 
 
 This brings us to another consideration re- 
 garding the path of Faith. It was remarked by 
 my missionary friend to one of our number, that 
 we on the field should be relieved of the burden of 
 the money question, and left free for service. 
 This is so common and specious a mode of refer- 
 ring to the glorious life of Faith, that we should 
 nail it down as we meet it. No; none can have 
 Faith for me. Before high heaven I must my- 
 self have faith for myself. It is the only thing 
 another cannot do for me. Bread of my soul, 
 or bread of my body — I must trust Him for both. 
 (Of course they who trust not at all, often get 
 plenty of bread; but so do the ravens and young 
 lions.) If another can trust for me for my daily 
 
^'THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH" 159 
 
 bread, then lie can trust for me for my souPs 
 salvation. No committee can bear this burden 
 for me. Every man must bear his own burden, 
 in this matter, and that is where the Lord comes 
 in. **Cast thy burden upon the Lord" was writ- 
 ten for just such a one. 
 
 A close exegesis of the sixth chapter of Ga- 
 latians, so full of a true balance and combination 
 of qualities, would doubtless show that the precise 
 man to whom the words '* Every man shall bear 
 his own burden" refer, is a teacher, looking only 
 to the Lord for temporalities. This we shall see 
 anon. The Lord wants me to cast my burden 
 upon Him, not on a committee. Every man shall 
 bear his own burden up to the Lord, upon whom 
 he rolls it. In the sixth chapter of Galatians the 
 whole subject is revealed. Matters being there 
 put in their true sequence, and every man being 
 burdened with his own responsibility, God's rule 
 of practical, fraternal stewardship flashes into 
 full view. It can only now come into view. He 
 fixes me with my burden, and then, lo, in full view, 
 stand the brethren bearing one another's burdens. 
 There stands the brother who could not go to a 
 foreign land, so you fulfilled his lack of service. 
 And he met your lack as you had met his. He 
 
160 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 bears you up in prayer, too — no light burden that 
 — and you seek to serve on God's upbearing grace. 
 
 In Gal. vi. 6, insert Paul's omitted ''but," and 
 how luminous the link becomes. ''Each man 
 shall bear his own burden, but let him that is 
 taught in the Word communicate unto him that 
 teacheth in all good things." 
 
 Do we not see here the holy fellowship of 
 stewardship in that linking but? Souls are 
 linked to souls in a deeper sense than words link 
 words. Every man must look off to God for all ; 
 yes, BUT every man is to look on the things of 
 others. There is no haphazard exegesis here, we 
 submit. The man who "teacheth" is the central 
 figure. That man must bear his own burden ; no 
 committee can do it for him. Yet, hastens the 
 Holy Ghost to add, each man must bear his own 
 burden, hut let him that is taught in the Word 
 communicate unto him that teacheth in all good 
 things. Widow's mite, spices of Joseph, and 
 Gains' hospitality all echo thereto. 
 
 They went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles ; 
 therefore let him that is "taught in the Word" 
 succour. Paul speaks of the Gentiles as those who 
 have not the law. From them who know not the 
 Word, nothing is received; hut let him that is 
 
^^THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH'' 161 
 
 taught communicate. The servant has often, 
 manwardly, been left to bear his own burden by 
 those who forget to bear one another's burdens. 
 There was no link, no connecting stewardship. 
 
 Paul's rallying call in this holy particular is 
 indeed inspiring, and often misunderstood. '^Be 
 not deceived" by parsimoniousness, shouts the 
 Apostle. *^God is not mocked. Whatsoever a 
 man soweth, that shall he also reap." God's best 
 Sower went forth weeping, bearing precious seed. 
 And as He sowed so shall He also reap. 
 
 It behoves us, having thus struck such a high 
 apostolic note, to be found of our God truly out 
 in the sunlight of this path of Faith. Nothing 
 shady; nothing halting in our gait. How often 
 the very phrase, ^'living by Faith," is in itself a 
 thing of calculation and counterfeit. How often 
 it stands, not for guileless following of the Home- 
 less Stranger, but for fleshly shifts and contri- 
 vances. Sincerity is the cement that binds the 
 Christian testimony together. Surely it is the 
 mother of all hypocrisy to claim to have taken a 
 plunge into the ocean of the Lord when, as a 
 matter of fact, we are really swimming with one 
 foot aground on the shore margin. 
 
 This metaphor is literally used concerning 
 
162 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 Abraham, God's friend — the father of all who 
 believe. God covenanted with His friend to give 
 him the land by the word of His month. Yet of 
 the tangible land itself we thrillingly read that 
 He gave him '^no, not so mnch as to set his foot 
 on.'' So, too, with the children of God's friend. 
 We must go forth like onr father, not knowing 
 whither we are going. To be literal, we must, 
 humanly speaking, let ourselves drown, reserving, 
 no, not so much as a place to put our foot on. 
 A prearranged contract of salary might be too 
 large, or too small. To have even a semblance 
 of a contract makes it all the more false if we 
 walk in the steps of the faith of our father Abra- 
 ham. Not even so much as to set your foot on. 
 Not even a little bit of a Society about you. Is 
 all this too sweeping? Has Faith then no foot- 
 ing at all! Yes, and it is located in that very 
 same Scripture. Here it is: **He gave him 
 . . . not so much as to set his foot on; yet He 
 PEOMisED." And the promise is Faith's footing. 
 **It is of Faith that it might be sure." 
 
 In conclusion, it would be well to answer the 
 question as to what particular Scripture stands 
 definitely against a legal contract of salary in the 
 Lord's work. We have only to refer to the other 
 
^^THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH »' 163 
 
 half of that very same word in Eom. iv. 14. 
 There the Apostle is careful to discriminate, and 
 to him law and flesh are convertible terms. For, 
 saith the Apostle, if the Promise be of law, then 
 Faith is made void, and the Promise is of none 
 effect. Yes, even a very little bit of law, a very 
 small contract, a verbal understanding even — if 
 your money comes through such channels — then 
 Faith is made void, and the promise of none ef- 
 fect. Law, in this connection, is a contract in 
 which A undertakes to do so and so, and B re- 
 ciprocates with so and so. Along such lines, 
 whether for one's soul or one's salary, Faith is 
 made void. The fullest thing in all the economy 
 of grace (the fullest because the emptiest) is 
 made void, and God's promise returns to His own 
 heart unused. 
 
 The sum, then, of the whole matter is that he 
 alone is the really practical Christian who so acts. 
 The Faith that opens everlasting doors can best 
 prove its reality by being now, in time, a cup- 
 board Faith. Christ filleth all things, and there- 
 fore the barrel and cruse are of His filling too. 
 
IV 
 ALL AT IT! 
 
Why he surprised at Islam sweeping one-eighth 
 of the earth's surf ace f They have no priestly 
 cult; they are all at it! 
 
 # # # 
 
 *^All Christians are altogether priests and let 
 it he anathema to assert there is any other priest 
 tJian he who is Christian for it will he asserted 
 without the Word of God, on no authority hut 
 the sayings of men, or the antiquity of custom, or 
 the multitude of those that think so/' 
 
 Luther. 
 
 may 
 
 * « # 
 
 For ye all can prophesy one hy one that all 
 f learn, and all may he comforted. 
 
 Paul. 
 
TV 
 
 ALL AT it! 
 
 John iv. 14 ; 1 Cor, xiv. 31 
 
 One of the strongest proofs that Christ meant 
 His Church to be a pilgrim band is the fact that 
 He stripped it of all ordinances, save the two 
 travelling institutions of Baptism and The Lord's 
 Supper. Wherever man is, there, even there, is 
 water. Wherever the pilgrim rests, there, even 
 there, is some sort of humble table in the wilder- 
 ness. A sharp intended contrast all this, surely, to 
 the heavy cumbersome Tabernacle furniture of a 
 past dispensation of works. How different the 
 pilgrim Church of the upper room, stripped and 
 lithe for service! There is no ecclesiastical 
 furniture for the only outfit they have is God's 
 iNFiT. That is to say, the minimum of machinery 
 and the maximimi of power. 
 
 In this connection, I am indebted to a quaint 
 unlettered African for quite a new proof-text 
 
 167 
 
168 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 in favour of the *^all-at-it'' ministry so dis- 
 tinctive a feature of 1 Cor. xiv. That animated 
 photograph of open ministry in Corinth was 
 linked by the African with the wonderful fourth 
 chapter of John. On the one hand he showed 
 how the same Bantu word bound these two seem- 
 ingly very different chapters together. Lost in 
 Aryan speech, the link is still strong in Semitic; 
 and the ^^ bubbling up'' of a living water-spring 
 is the same word as that ^^ bubbling over" of gift 
 in Corinth. The Assembly is there seen as com- 
 posed of a congregation of so many living, bub- 
 bling water-springs. **He that believeth" is the 
 man of whom it is declared that in him the up- 
 bubbling spring would assert itself. Thus, the 
 animated photograph of Corinth given by Paul 
 is, therefore, only a natural sequence of ^*all that 
 believe being together." The God who created 
 so many living inlets, does of sheer divine neces- 
 sity saQction as many outlets. Hence the blessed 
 word of authority: **for ye all can prophesy (or 
 ** bubble up") one by one." There is no ecclesi- 
 astical outfit in Corinth. It is all infit. And the 
 ordinance of God is, that what He puts in must 
 come out, ''We cannot but speak!" The thing 
 will out. 
 
ALL AT IT! 169 
 
 Nor is that old unlettered African's link ex- 
 hausted yet awhile. Beyond the link of identical 
 language, you have the stronger link of identical 
 context. Surely the fourth of John is deeply con- 
 cerned with the very theme of 1 Cor. xiv.! For 
 were not the very words regarding the bubbling- 
 up spring of living water uttered in the specific 
 connection of Christ's words as to ''worship in 
 Spirit and in Truth"? And what, indeed, is 1 
 Cor. xiv. if not the divine snapshot photograph 
 of true and spiritual worship in the Assembly? 
 *'A11 of you have a hymn, etc." What is that if 
 not each individual well of living water bubbling 
 over? Living water only means moving water. 
 God put it in and God demands that it come out. 
 The water must spring up to the level of its 
 source, hence ''the Father seeketh such to wor- 
 ship Him." "Ye can all prophesy one by one." 
 "It shall be in him (in the Assembly) a well of 
 water springing up." How then can mere man 
 shut it down? "The Father seeketh such." Let 
 us all thank God, and that old African, for linking 
 John iv. with 1 Cor. xiv.; a double link of iden- 
 tical language and identical context. He was 
 right. Worship in Spirit and in Truth is the 
 
170 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 double theme of these double chapters. The well 
 of water must bubble up if it is living water. 
 
 II 
 
 Now, all this can stand the sternest of scrutiny. 
 Let us bring to bear upon this humble vision of 
 bubbling springs in the Corinth Assembly the 
 severest test of all known ecclesiastical nomen- 
 clature. Take the most complicated of any form 
 of earthly worship. The most intricate of all 
 puzzling forms of human ritual shoots down its 
 roots into the solitary word, priesthood. Eome, 
 just here, remember, is the soul of frankness, and 
 heartily claims in priesthood the efficient cause of 
 all her elaborate ritual. Thus, the test becomes 
 unerringly simple, because pivoted on the lone 
 word, priesthood. Well, then, literally accepting 
 Eome's own dictum, and speaking in the terms of 
 ecclesiastical systems (for God had one such holy 
 institution!), what, I ask, is 1 Cor. xiv. if not a 
 vision of all the worshippers performing priestly 
 service? There they are, a family of priests, 
 with priestly status and office. **Ye can all 
 prophesy one by one,'* is divine authority con- 
 ceded to all those spiritual priests. The High 
 Priest has gone in, and they are left behind in 
 
ALL AT IT! 171 
 
 wilderness testimony, priests unto their God. 
 ^' All of you have a hymn'' — surely that is a sacri- 
 fice of praise f Now, only a priest, remember, can 
 offer a sacrifice ! 
 
 To object, as some rightly do, that Paul here 
 regulates the said priestly sacrifices of praise is 
 merely to emphasise this very Levitical analogy. 
 For when, by the commandment of the Lord, Paul 
 said that they all could so offer the sacrifice of 
 praise, the priesthood of all believers was thereby 
 acknowledged. To regulate the godly exercise of 
 such ministry as he proceeds forthwith to do, is 
 merely to accentuate that very priestly aspect of 
 the Corinth Assembly. For the Levites were not 
 a mob, but served in orderly courses. Hence 
 Paul, by the commandment of the Lord, founds 
 on their very spiritual priesthood to declare that 
 all things must be done ** decently and in order." 
 The very Levitical phrase this, used in 1 Chron. 
 vi. 32 to remind us that, priests though they all 
 were, yet did they **wait on their office according 
 to their order.'' '^Ye can all prophesy one by 
 one." That is their Levite birthright. **Let 
 the prophets speak two or three." That is the 
 Levites in their courses. '^Ye can all prophesy 
 
172 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 one by one" does not stupidly mean, ^^all in one 
 day'M 
 
 in 
 
 There is no cheap ad captandum analogy here. 
 The mere edge, this, of that rich vein of Levitical 
 analogy so beautifully elaborated by Miss Haber- 
 shon/ Quite one hundred and forty sober points 
 of analogy she adduces between the priesthood 
 of Israel and the Church of God! The inter- 
 penetration, too, of this analogy absolutely 
 perfect. In fact, after reading The Priests and 
 Levites, one sees at a glance that on this subject 
 he alone is divinely theological who is analogical. 
 
 The Pope and a quorum of Cardinals would have 
 hard work to try and explain away Miss Haber- 
 shon's solid one hundred and forty instances of 
 common analogical birthright between the select 
 Levites of old and all Christ's Church. Luther 
 it was, in the old fierce battle-days, who seized 
 upon this very 1 Cor. xiv. weapon to break 
 Popery therewith. Alas, that he should ever 
 have allowed himself to drift beyond such an an- 
 chorage! Nevertheless, Martin Luther's great 
 letter to the Moravian Brethren will ever stand 
 
 ^ The Priests and Levites, a type of the Church, By 
 Ada R. Habershon. Alfred Holness. 
 
ALL AT IT! 173 
 
 stubbornly on record, eloquent of the fact that, 
 when the tempest raged its worst, 1 Cor. xiv. was 
 the silencing weapon he wielded against Eome to 
 demonstrate the priesthood of all believers. 
 **A11 Christians," said Luther, **are altogether 
 priests and let it be anathema to assert there is 
 any other priest than he who is Christian for it 
 will be asserted without the Word of God and on 
 no authority but the sayings of men or the an- 
 tiquity of custom or the multitude of those that 
 think so." *^ Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 but My words shall not pass away." 
 
 Why is it that so many exegetes under a 
 specious plea of rightly dividing the *^Word" 
 warn us off *^ Hebrews" as being a Jewish 
 Epistle f Is it because God has declared that the 
 whole Church of Christ is a priesthood, and 
 proved it to the hilt in one hundred and forty 
 stubborn links of analogy? And if all the Church 
 be a heavenly priesthood where is the laity 1 And 
 where the status of ^^clericy"? Truly a straw 
 indicates the current, and we are less Protestant 
 than we think. 
 
 The godly Pastor (and we must have Jiim!) is 
 the man who realises that he only officially exists 
 to foster this ^^all-at-it" functioning of the mem- 
 
174 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 bers of the body. God's big-hearted Moses could 
 confound many a weakling jealous of his peurile 
 priestly prerogative. Listen to the royal record : 
 *^And there ran a young man and told Moses . . . 
 Eldad and Medad do prophesy in camp. And 
 Joshua said, ^My lord Moses, forbid them.' And 
 Moses said, *Art thou jealous for my sake? 
 Would God that all the Lord's people were 
 prophets that the Lord would put his Spirit upon 
 them!'" 
 
 Big-hearted Moses agrees admirably with brave- 
 hearted Paul who said ^ ^ Ye may all prophesy one 
 by one." 
 
 To sum up. To regulate all this bubbling up 
 gift is one thing. To supress it is quite amazingly 
 another. Why bring civil war into God's con- 
 test? In the very breath where He says ^^God is 
 not a God of confusion but of peace," the word 
 proceeds * ' Ye all can prophesy one by one. ' ' How 
 then can this connote confusion? 
 
 But the clinching and convincing proof is found 
 in the very (yes ! very) verse that is used to kill 
 out this same **all-at-it" ministry. What, I ask, 
 is so seemingly contradictory of this '^all-at-it" 
 proposition as the well-worn line, **Let all things 
 be done decently and in order"? Yet this very 
 
ALL AT IT! 175 
 
 line occurs in the same convincing context as ^^ye 
 can all prophesy one by one" ! How, then, can we 
 even faintly conceive that '* decency and order" 
 are at war with its own context of ^*all-at-it" 
 ministry ? 
 
 On the convincing contrary, what can divine de- 
 cency and order mean if not this very open minis- 
 try which is its consistent contexts By what man- 
 ner of exegetical propriety can you enter 1 Cor. 
 xiv. by the back door of * * Let all things be done de- 
 cently and in order," and then calmly ignore the 
 preceding precept that ^*ye can all prophesy one 
 by one"? Here surely you have the old story of 
 David cutting off the head of Goliath with the 
 giant's own sword. And the very verse assumed 
 to be against is actually the proof-text for this 
 *^all-at-it" method. 
 
 This and this alone will evangelise the world 
 — all at it! Too long a mere nickname has 
 done duty for an argument. And to call this 
 ''Plymouthism" or any other *4sm" is merely to 
 be the victim of an exasperated expedient. It is 
 the old obvious artifice of making a nickname do 
 duty for an argument. It takes all sorts of people 
 to make a world and all sorts of members to make 
 a ministering body. That there is a certain kind 
 
176 MISSION STUDIES 
 
 of powerful, pungent illiteracy can be proved from 
 the inspired Word of God where not a few por- 
 tions are written in '*bad Greek." The pedantic 
 essayist may appeal to the select few, but God's 
 millions are multiform and the majority do not 
 care to catch up a royal rousing man on a mere 
 verbal technicality. The soft eye cannot say to 
 the hard, homy hand, ^^I have no need of thee." 
 Nay, much more, the very members which seem to 
 be more feeble are necessary. For the body is not 
 one member but many. 
 
 The case of Islam is a clear convincing proof 
 of a non-clerical caste sweeping one-eighth of the 
 world's population with an '*all-at-it" propa- 
 ganda. From Morocco to Zanzibar, from Sierra 
 Leone to Siberia and China, from Bosnia to New 
 Guinea has witnessed the success of ^^all-at-itism." 
 
 THE END