■/V 
 
 tu-j^j. 
 
 »^.' 
 
 
 
 
 BT 993 . 
 
 S3 
 
 1918 
 
 
 
 Schenck, 
 
 Fe 
 
 rdinand 
 
 
 
 Schureman, 
 
 1845-1925. 
 
 
 The Apos 
 
 ties' creed 
 
 in 
 
 the 
 
 twentie 
 
 th 
 
 centurv 
 
 
 
The Apostles' Creed in the 
 Twentieth Century 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/apostlescreedintOOsche 
 
The Apostles' Creed in 
 the Xwentieth Century 
 
 1919 
 
 By 
 
 FERDINAND S. SCHENCK, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 Professor of Preaching and Sociology in the Theological 
 Seminary at New Brunswick, N. f. 
 
 New York Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 191 8, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
Preface 
 
 THE unknown origin of the Apostles' 
 Creed gives it a peculiar significance. 
 We trace the Ten Commandments 
 through the Scriptures to the voice of God on 
 Mount Sinai, we trace the Lord's Prayer to the 
 lips of Christ, but the arrangement of the ar- 
 ticles of the creed is not found in the Scriptures. 
 We cannot trace the creed to any council of the 
 Church — such councils simply adopted it as al- 
 ready existing — nor to any group of men — nor 
 to any single man. And there seems no founda- 
 tion for the tradition that the Apostles them- 
 selves arranged the articles of their belief. 
 
 The creed seems to have arisen progressively 
 in the early Church until it assumed its present 
 form as a spontaneous confession of the truths 
 preached by the Apostles and their successors. 
 The real Apostolic Succession is not only of 
 preachers but specially of preaching. What 
 would be the spontaneous confession of the 
 whole Church to-day of the truths now being 
 preached in its pulpits is a crucial question. 
 
 Certainly that kind of preaching which 
 founded and fostered the early Church so 
 markedly is commended to the preachers of 
 
 5 
 
6 PKEFACE 
 
 to-day. The proclaiming these basal truths 
 progressively and in due proportion and in ways 
 to meet modern questionings and purposes, 
 will produce the faith that voices itself in the 
 creed. There is a great craving for such 
 preaching in the souls of men and women to- 
 day — and the more thoughtful they are the 
 greater is the craving. This book is sent forth 
 with the lofty design to foster that kind of 
 preaching and to satisfy that kind of craving of 
 the soul. 
 
 F. S. S. 
 New Brunswick, N. J. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. " I Believe In " 
 
 II. Uses and Abuses of a Creed 
 
 III. " God the Father Almighty, Maker of 
 
 Heaven and Earth " . 
 
 IV. "Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord" . 
 
 V. " Conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of 
 
 the Virgin Mary " 
 
 VI. " Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, Was 
 
 Crucified Dead and Buried ; He De- 
 scended Into Hell " . 
 
 VII. " The Third Day He Rose from the Dead " 
 
 VIII. " He Ascended Into Heaven, and Sitteth 
 
 at the Right Hand of God the Father 
 Almighty " .... 
 
 IX. " From Thence He Shall Come to Judge the 
 
 Quick and the Dead " 
 
 X. " I Believe in the Holy Ghost " 
 
 XI. " The Holy Catholic Church " 
 
 XII. " The Communion of Saints " . 
 
 XIII. " The Forgiveness of Sins " 
 
 XIV. "The Resurrection of the Body" 
 
 XV. " The Life Everlasting " . 
 
 9 
 
 22 
 
 34 
 48 
 
 60 
 
 75 
 89 
 
 114 
 
 130 
 144 
 
 159 
 172 
 
 187 
 201 
 
I. 
 
 He that comcth to God must believe that 
 he is and that he is a rewardcr of them that 
 seek after him. — Heb. i i : 6. 
 
 " I BELIEVE IN " 
 
 THE origin of the Apostles' Creed is un- 
 known. A popular tradition assigns it 
 to the Apostles themselves. The last 
 time they gathered in Jerusalem as they were 
 about to go into all the world to preach the 
 Gospel to all races of men they agreed upon the 
 great articles of their message, each Apostle 
 giving a single statement making up the whole 
 twelve articles. There is no foundation for the 
 tradition except in the number and character of 
 the articles. The creed as a whole was not in 
 use earlier than in the sixth century, though 
 various statements found in it are referred to by 
 writers before that time. Since that time it has 
 been in general use in all branches of the Chris- 
 tian Church, as it is now in the Greek, the 
 Roman and the Protestant Churches. It is fre- 
 quently used in the formal worship of the 
 Church as well as in private devotion, and is 
 probably held in the memory and spoken by the 
 lips more than any other form of words except 
 
 9 
 
10 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 only the Ten Commandments and the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 Before we consider the needs and uses of 
 such a creed and the meaning of its particular 
 articles it will be well for us to give fair and 
 close attention to the first words, " I believe in." 
 They are spoken clearly: the tone of conviction, 
 the clear eye of certainty, the willingness to 
 define and describe what one believes, the 
 ability to give good reasons for what one be- 
 lieves are all clearly embraced in the words. 
 There is no trace of credulity to be found — of 
 vagueness or exaggeration or unreason. 
 
 When we glance down the articles to find the 
 objects of this belief we find two classes: first, 
 persons; second, conditions — or certain facts 
 and circumstances of our lives. These are evi- 
 dently religious in their nature. This then is a 
 religious belief. Does that differ in essence, in 
 kind from ordinary belief, or simply in its di- 
 rection to religious objects? We commonly 
 use the word faith for religious belief — and we 
 sometimes think and speak of faith as if it 
 were a power different and distinct from our 
 natural powers — a peculiar endowment pos- 
 sessed only by a selected few. The Apostle 
 Paul says " Faith is the gift of God." That is 
 certainly true : but it is not only true of religious 
 faith, it is true of all kinds of faith — that is, it is 
 true of our power to believe. All our powers 
 
" I BELIEVE IN " 11 
 
 are gifts of God. We did not make a single 
 one. Secular belief is not a special kind of 
 belief but belief directed to what we may call 
 secular objects : and here are also the two great 
 classes, persons, and conditions or circum- 
 stances of life. Here too belief may have the 
 stages of credulity as well as in religion — of 
 vagueness, exaggeration and unreason; these 
 show the power to believe has been neglected 
 or abused. So religious faith is not a special 
 kind of belief but the power to believe directed 
 to religious objects. 
 
 But what is this power? Examining our own 
 natures, what is the power to believe — what is 
 embraced in it, and what does it do for us? 
 
 In the first place it is the source of our knowl- 
 edge. Our knowledge in any department is 
 based upon sufficient evidence. Our knowledge 
 is the correspondence of our thought of any 
 particular thing with the thing itself; the de- 
 gree of our knowledge is in this correspondence ; 
 is it full or only partial? We say we know 
 things when we see them. There is no belief 
 in that, is there? Yes, there is, the very high- 
 est kind of belief. We believe in our senses. In 
 our sense of sight confirmed by our other 
 senses. When, for instance, we see a tree, we 
 know it exists, because we have seen trees all 
 the days of our lives, and we have felt of them, 
 climbed them, picked fruit from them, heard the 
 
 / 
 
12 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 wind blow through their leaves. We believe 
 in our senses, when we know trees exist. 
 
 Besides the knowledge by our senses there is 
 that we call scientific knowledge. Much of this 
 with even the most learned in such lore is the 
 result of our belief in the testimony of others. 
 Few of us have had opportunity to pursue in- 
 vestigation in chemistry, in geology, in biology, 
 but others have investigated and we believe 
 their statements. 
 
 We have seen but a few thousand twinkling 
 stars; but astronomers with their instruments 
 and calculations tell us that there are millions 
 of flashing suns in the heavens so large and so 
 far off that their light has taken years, centuries, 
 thousands of years to reach us ; and now we look 
 at the twinkling stars, the flash of light of dis- 
 tant suns, and know the suns exist because we 
 believe the astounding statements of astrono- 
 mers. So we at once recognize that our knowl- 
 edge of history and of other races of men and 
 of foreign lands is the result of our belief in the 
 testimony of historians, of anthropologists and 
 of travellers. 
 
 So with the knowledge we have from our 
 reason we compare things or statements with 
 each other and our conclusions are wise only as 
 we obey the laws of logic as we believe we have 
 discovered them. So we know our minds and 
 these laws of the mind exist. 
 
"I BELIEVE IN" 13 
 
 In the second place there is in belief, espe- 
 cially in relation to persons and personal mat- 
 ters, a power which we may call insight. 
 
 The child learns of the existence of many 
 things through his senses, the little world within 
 the house, the wide beautiful world out-of-doors 
 with its ceaseless changes; but he is just as cer- 
 tain of the existence of his mother's love. True, 
 he has constant evidences of this in his mother's 
 care and so believes; but beyond that is this 
 power we may call insight; his love for his 
 mother is itself a sensitive soul power that 
 recognizes his mother's love. 
 
 Just so belief discerns the unseen in man. 
 By sight we discern the features of a man's face, 
 by insight we discern the features of a man's 
 character, his honesty, his justice, his kindli- 
 ness, his love for his fellows. As in the case of 
 the child there is evidence of all this in the man's 
 action — and we believe on evidence; but here 
 also is the power we call insight. For there is 
 this strange element in the knowledge of per- 
 sons. One must have something of the quality 
 he recognizes in another in order to recognize 
 it at all. Personal acquaintance, surely per- 
 sonal friendship, can only come from the power 
 within us to recognize and appreciate that same 
 power in another. One must have some hon- 
 esty, truthfulness, purity, to recognize these 
 qualities in another. This power finds strong 
 
14 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 expression in that common phrase in business 
 and social life, I like that man, I believe in that 
 man. So also with reference to personal mat- 
 ters of choice and action. Persons of kindred 
 views and feelings combine through these to 
 accomplish certain acts. So we form parties to 
 advance causes, in politics, in civil reforms, in 
 national action. 
 
 When we come to express this in strong 
 terms we use the word belief — I believe in that 
 party, in that reform, in that national action. 
 So also the strength of a man's character — the 
 power of his insight to see the point involved, 
 the dedication of his whole personality to such 
 action, is seen in the emphasis he places upon 
 the chosen phrase, I believe in that cause. I 
 will work for it, sacrifice for it, even if need be 
 die for it. I believe in it. I have faith in it. 
 
 In the third place belief may include the ele- 
 ment of trust, stronger than that does in its 
 nature include it, I think, but in this case the 
 will may hinder its exercise; so we may say 
 trust comes into exercise only by the command 
 of the will. We may believe a bank has large 
 resources and is well managed, is worthy of 
 trust. But we do not trust our money to it — 
 perhaps because we do not feel the need of it — 
 we have so little money; perhaps we already 
 have our little money in another bank. The 
 will certainly comes into the question. That 
 
" I BELIEVE IN" 15 
 
 man is worthy of trust. I believe in him. But 
 I do not need him — or I prefer to place my 
 interests in another's care — or for some reason 
 I dislike him ; anyhow I do not trust my affairs 
 to him. Or the reverse is true : I believe in him. 
 I am in need. I will put my case in his hands. 
 We are very familiar with this element of be- 
 lief. We exercise trust every day, sometimes 
 in most important matters. We trust our lives 
 to the physician — our good reputation to our 
 lawyer — our property to our bank, as well as 
 the multitude of lesser interests. Greater in- 
 terests still : the bride at the altar trusts her 
 life and happiness to the man she believes in, 
 as he trusts his to her. 
 
 We may regard belief in the fourth place as a 
 principle of action. A man must believe in 
 farming, in mining, in manufacturing in order 
 to devote himself to these callings — to master 
 the details, to make the best use of his powers. 
 So the artist in poetry, in music, in sculpture, 
 in painting must believe in the high ideals he 
 holds of his work to reach out patiently, con- 
 stantly, enthusiastically to attain them. 
 
 Now to sum up our reasoning thus far : we 
 see that belief enlarges our powers, opens the 
 whole sphere of knowledge, leads us to ap- 
 preciate each other, has the element of personal 
 trust and gives a principle of action. 
 
 We may imagine a case that will illustrate 
 
16 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 its wonderful power. We imagine an Indian 
 standing four hundred years ago on the shore 
 of our country and looking off upon the ocean. 
 His knowledge is bounded by the distant 
 horizon; he may wonder what is beyond, but 
 knows nothing. As he watches a white some- 
 thing comes over the rim of the horizon. It is 
 not a cloud — it is on the ocean — it is a ship. 
 Soon a little boat comes from the strange ship 
 and strange men, white men, come to him. 
 They stay several days, find means of communi- 
 cating with him. They tell him of far distant 
 lands — of great cities, of a civilized life, of 
 strange races of men. 
 
 Now the white men leave him. The ship 
 sinks beyond the horizon, and the Indian 
 stands again alone upon the shore. But now 
 the horizon bounds his vision but not his knowl- 
 edge. He knows of the ship, of the white men, 
 of the distant land, of great cities, of other races 
 of men, and their lives. 
 
 Belief has given, we may well say, broader 
 views, has enlarged the horizon of the mind. 
 
 Now we may further imagine the white men 
 come again and now remain with the Indian a 
 much longer time. The Indian finds he likes 
 the white men the more he becomes acquainted 
 with them. Some powers in him bind him to 
 them ; from this there is awakened a trust in the 
 white men, and this at length leads to action. 
 
"I BELIEVE IN" 17 
 
 The white men now get in their boat and row 
 back to the ship. They lift the sails and the 
 ship sinks below the horizon. But this time 
 the Indian goes with them. He intrusts his 
 life to their care. He shares their aims and 
 purposes and leaves his old life for a new one 
 in the distant lands, in great cities, among 
 strange people. His belief in the white men 
 has given him new knowledge, new associa- 
 tions, new life. 
 
 We now go back to religious belief and ask, 
 What does the Church mean by these first 
 
 words of her great creed — " I believe in "? 
 
 Evidently she includes all these elements in the 
 power to believe we have just been consider- 
 ing. It includes belief as the source of knowl- 
 edge. The Church, or the individual believer, 
 says : " I have a certain knowledge whereby I 
 hold for truth all that God has revealed to us 
 in his word." The writer of the Hebrews says : 
 " Faith is the conviction of things unseen." It 
 is always so — in all affairs as well as in religion. 
 No one has ever seen his senses, but he is con- 
 vinced they are true. No one has even seen 
 the truthfulness of a witness, but he is con- 
 vinced of it. No one has ever seen the nobility 
 of a friend, but he is convinced of it. Faith 
 sees the unseen, we say; it simply is convinced 
 of its existence. 
 
 We may easily recognize in what respect un- 
 
18 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 belief has a moral fault in it — is to be con- 
 demned — not only in religion, but in all direc- 
 tions. It lies in the refusal to investigate, to 
 look for the evidence, possibly from indolence, 
 possibly from dislike for the subject. There 
 is evidently more fault in the one case than in 
 the other. One disbelieves in the attraction of 
 gravitation or that the earth is a globe — we pity 
 rather than blame him. One disbelieves in 
 honesty, righteousness, self-devotion to a cause, 
 does not admire or even recognize such quali- 
 ties. Such unbelief may spring from moral 
 causes; the impure may disbelieve in the pure. 
 There is always the ignoring of evidence; there 
 may be such a dislike of it that one closes the 
 eyes to it, or even is unable to see it. 
 
 Now truth in nature is disdainful of man's 
 ignorance or dislike. If we disbelieve still the 
 truth remains unchanged. The captain of the 
 big steamship ignores the chart; his great ship 
 runs upon the rocks just as surely as if he had 
 designed it to do so. 
 
 Calmly, quietly, the majestic universe moves 
 on ; its sequences are never interrupted. Be- 
 lieve in it and with inexhaustible generosity 
 nature rewards belief. Doubt it, disbelieve it 
 and act in ignorance or hate, and with remorse- 
 less sternness nature punishes disbelief. 
 
 In religious matters there is this element as 
 well. Our text says, " Without faith it is im- 
 
" I BELIEVE IN " 19 
 
 possible to please God: for he that cometh to 
 God must believe that he is, and that he is the 
 rewarder of them that diligently seek him." 
 It is so always. You cannot come to anything 
 or to any person without believing in that per- 
 son or thing, and that your coming is worth 
 while. Belief then in religion in the first place 
 broadens our views, enlarges our knowledge. 
 So in the second place there is insight and trust 
 in it. We are persons and created in the like- 
 ness of God, and that likeness, though blurred 
 by sin, is not destroyed. There are in our na- 
 ture certain personal powers to discern certain 
 personal qualities in God. There is also in our 
 nature the power of personal trust. If one 
 recognizes his need and that God in Christ is 
 willing and able to supply that need the believer 
 trusts Him. We do not cling to a memory of 
 a far-off historical Christ — that is knowledge 
 and necessary. We do not cling to a marble 
 statue of Christ, something we have constructed 
 to vivify our emotion. But we believe in Christ 
 as living and present, and loving us, and power- 
 ful to save, and we trust Him as our personal 
 Saviour. So the Church, including each indi- 
 vidual believer, has all this in these first words 
 
 of the creed — " I believe in " We believe 
 
 in Christ, trust Him for forgiveness of sin and 
 new life and daily grace. We place our per- 
 sonal trust in our Saviour, 
 
20 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 There is also in belief the principle of action. 
 The little band of twelve apostles has grown 
 into an organization of many millions. As it 
 has advanced through the ages it has con- 
 structed splendid edifices for the worship of 
 God, many great institutions for the culture of 
 man, many agencies of alleviating the sufferings 
 of mankind and has wrought in the institutions 
 of society many beneficent changes. 
 
 There was recently dedicated a monument at 
 Plymouth in ^honour of the pilgrim fathers. 
 The conception enshrined in granite is worthy 
 of the event it commemorates. In the center 
 is a lofty statue of a woman representing Faith. 
 She is gazing towards the ocean; one hand 
 points towards heaven, the other holds an open 
 Bible. Round this central figure are four colos- 
 sal statues representing Morality, Freedom, 
 Education and Law. This faith monument at 
 Plymouth suggests that belief has been a prin- 
 ciple of action in our land — as it is to-day — and 
 ministers largely to our well-being and welfare 
 in Morality, Freedom, Education and Law. 
 
 Now we cast a single glance to the future life. 
 
 If a man refuses to examine the evidences, if 
 he does not believe in God, nor trust Him, nor 
 live in His service, his life here is narrow and 
 poor and low. A vast realm of knowledge is 
 closed to him — gives him no insight, no trust 
 in God, no lofty principle of action. In what- 
 
"I BELIEVE IN " 21 
 
 ever condition such a one may be here or here- 
 after he misses the riches of belief in God. 
 
 But if one has believed in God, his mind has 
 been broadened, his spiritual insight quickened, 
 his trust realized, his principle of action aroused 
 and made strong; and now he goes into the 
 future life. As the Indian of our imagination 
 a little while ago, the believer sails with the one 
 he trusts beyond the horizon to a new life. 
 
 The requirement of belief in God as the en- 
 trance into salvation is not an arbitrary enact- 
 ment. We cannot conceive of any other way. 
 And we all know the way is open and free to all 
 who will choose to enter upon it. 
 
II. 
 
 For through him we both have an access 
 by one Spirit unto the Father. — Eph. 2 : 18. 
 
 USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 
 
 BEFORE attending to the particular 
 articles of the Apostles' Creed it may be 
 well for us to consider the nature and 
 uses of a creed and the spirit in which it should 
 be held; and then further the marked features 
 of the general arrangement of this special creed. 
 
 Some one has said that one does not know 
 a thing or fact until he can tell it. Psycholo- 
 gists tell us that the mind has for its main ob- 
 ject the adapting the whole organism to its 
 environment; that the knowledge it receives by 
 the senses is not clear and full until it in some 
 way expresses itself in appropriate action. 
 
 When one believes a truth he makes it more 
 clear to himself by defining or describing it, and 
 in this way he commends it to the attention and 
 acceptance of others. 
 
 This is not only true of a single truth or fact 
 but is emphatically true of a series of related 
 truths. The nature and use of the particular 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 23 
 
 truth can be seen only when its relation to other 
 truths is recognized and the nature and use of 
 the whole series of truths can be seen only when 
 they are clearly expressed in their order, and so 
 carried out into appropriate action. 
 
 It is thus in the nature of the human mind to 
 have a creed, and it applies to all the affairs of 
 life as well as to religion. The one who learns 
 a trade has a creed — the carpenter knows how 
 to hit a nail on the head. The difference be- 
 tween a good farmer and a poor one, between 
 a successful stock-broker and a failure, is that 
 the one knows his creed more fully and thor- 
 oughly — so thoroughly that he puts it in prac- 
 tice quickly and accurately. 
 
 It is so also with science. Every text-book 
 of science states the particular truths of that 
 science in their order and proportion. Our 
 knowledge of any department of nature, as 
 astronomy, geology, biology, is a creed of that 
 department. 
 
 Now it is quite evident that the more clearly 
 and concisely the truths of any department of 
 nature can be stated the better for the complete 
 grasp of the mind. And it is equally obvious 
 that such concise statement of any great de- 
 partment may be the subject of much needed 
 elaboration. 
 
 The headings of the chapters of a book on 
 geology will state the various geological ages, 
 
24 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 and each chapter will fully describe each age; 
 so in astronomy the different kinds of heavenly 
 bodies; so in biology the different orders of 
 vegetable and animal life. Concise, clear 
 statements of truths in their proper order and 
 proportion form creeds on various subjects. It 
 requires clear knowledge and great care to pre- 
 pare them. When well prepared they are of 
 great value, though they may require much 
 elaboration for their full understanding. 
 
 The Apostles' Creed is therefore, as indi- 
 cated by its name, a concise, clear and compre- 
 hensive statement of the truths of religion as 
 taught by the Apostles in the Scriptures. It 
 was made in the far past by students of the 
 Scriptures : by whom we do not know. But 
 they investigated the Scriptures to find the 
 truths; they arranged the truths in what seemed 
 to them the proper order and proportion ac- 
 cording to the demands of the human mind, and 
 we have the result of their work. Other creeds 
 have been formed since, some of them far more 
 elaborate, especially those formed in Reforma- 
 tion times. 
 
 The nature of a creed, therefore, is to state 
 the truths of any department of nature and 
 revelation in clear terms and in proper order 
 and proportion. 
 
 The use of a creed, therefore, is to secure a 
 higher kind of knowledge than can be gathered 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CKEED 25 
 
 from considering only isolated truths. Each 
 truth sheds light on related truth, and on the 
 harmonious whole in its completeness and 
 grandeur. It stimulates the spirit of investiga- 
 tion; the men who made it may have erred in 
 statement or arrangement, and we are stimu- 
 lated to go to their sources of information and 
 find out for ourselves under their guidance. 
 This particular creed deserves respect and 
 veneration in that many succeeding generations 
 have thus investigated it and commended it. 
 When we are stimulated to such research we 
 are following worthy examples. 
 
 The first use of a creed is, therefore, to lead 
 to wide and clear knowledge. This particular 
 creed has in this regard great value from its 
 conciseness; it can be held in the memory easily 
 and is often repeated with the voice still further 
 fixing it in the mind. 
 
 Our knowledge in any great department when 
 we contemplate the whole sphere of truth makes 
 us humble; we know so little in our short lives 
 and with our small powers. But when we com- 
 pare our knowledge not with spheres of truth 
 but with that of our fellow men it may make us 
 arrogant and arbitrary. The Apostle Paul in 
 teaching Timothy commended a creed and 
 especially taught him how to hold it. " Hold 
 fast the form of sound words in faith and love 
 which is in Christ Jesus." We are to hold fast 
 
26 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 the creed we believe in, but not arrogantly in 
 pride over others, or trying to force its adop- 
 tion by others, or condemning others for not 
 embracing it — but " in faith and in love in Christ 
 Jesus": believing in Him and having His 
 spirit. 
 
 A second use of a creed, therefore, is it is the 
 heart of a loving message to our fellow men, the 
 basis of Christian teaching. The believer re- 
 citing the creed in worship — the Church in 
 adopting the creed proclaims and commends it 
 to the world. It virtually says we have re- 
 ceived this statement after due investigation. 
 We commend it to you as a clear, concise and 
 comprehensive statement of truths of vast im- 
 portance, the truths of religion. Investigate 
 them, and accept them as far as our testimony 
 will help you, and come thereby into the fellow- 
 ship of believers and advocates. Our doors, 
 our hearts are not only open, but have a great 
 welcome for all. 
 
 It is a great abuse of a creed when it is relied 
 upon as having authority in itself; it is only a 
 guide in the study of Scripture commended by 
 an honoured course of such study; it is a great 
 abuse when it fosters bigotry and intolerance, 
 when it frowns upon candid investigation, when 
 it crushes freedom of thought. It should al- 
 ways lead to the investigation of nature and the 
 Scriptures; it should always lead to the love of 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 27 
 
 mankind, to persuading men to be seekers of 
 God to their highest welfare. 
 
 The first and second great uses of a creed are 
 thus pervaded by the third, which cannot be 
 separated from them except as we may hold it 
 before our thought. It is not only to foster 
 knowledge and keep it as free as possible from 
 error, it is not only to give a clear message, a 
 proclamation to the world, but it is to foster an 
 experience of its truths and so to promote a life. 
 Creeds in other departments are to lead to 
 action. Surely a creed in religion is dead indeed 
 unless it promotes life; it must live in the be- 
 liever and so preach in his life as well as in his 
 words. 
 
 Truths not merely defined and described as 
 knowledge and proclaimed in words but ex- 
 perienced, influencing the depths of our nature, 
 swaying our souls and lived out in loving lives 
 before the world, these form our creed — this it 
 is to believe, to have faith. Faith believes on 
 sufficient evidence, is the insight in personal 
 matters, has personal trust and becomes thus a 
 principle of action ; this faith has for its objects 
 persons and conditions, as we see at a glance at 
 the particular articles of this creed; and we can 
 only reach the uses of a creed when it sways 
 our lives. 
 
 Thus the Apostles' Creed is an inheritance 
 from the past; it sways the life of the present 
 
28 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 and so is proclaimed to the world, and thus it 
 is handed down as a rich treasure to future 
 generations. 
 
 Let us now consider the marked feature of 
 the general arrangement of the Apostles' Creed. 
 A single glance at the whole creed shows there 
 are three Persons the objects of our belief, and 
 that each Person is the source of special con- 
 ditions of our lives : the Father, of our creation, 
 the Son, of our redemption, the Holy Spirit, of 
 our sanctification; and still it is quite evident 
 the creed does not speak of three Gods but em- 
 phatically of the one only true and eternal God. 
 
 The way in which we are to believe in each 
 of these three Persons and of their acts towards 
 us will be considered fully as we pass along the 
 articles of the creed. We have now to consider 
 what is called the doctrine of the Trinity — that 
 there are three persons in the unity of God. As 
 the creed leads to the investigation of Scripture 
 we ask, How does the Scripture present this 
 doctrine? In the first place it is very emphatic 
 that there is but one God. Jesus Christ sums 
 up the teaching of the Scripture when He says, 
 " The first of all the commandments is, Hear O 
 Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Just 
 as emphatically Jesus also speaks of two per- 
 sons when He says, " I and the Father are one," 
 " The Father is in me and I in the Father." 
 Just as clearly Jesus also speaks of three persons 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 29 
 
 when He says, " The Holy Spirit, whom the 
 Father will send in my name, he shall teach you 
 all things and bring to your remembrance all 
 that I said unto you." 
 
 The Church in all the ages has kept this truth 
 prominent in her worship when she uses the 
 formula of baptism Christ gave her as stated in 
 the last chapter of Matthew's Gospel, and in her 
 use of the Apostolic Benediction written by Paul 
 in the last chapter of the Second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. 
 
 In the one God then, according to the teach- 
 ing of the Scriptures, especially according to the 
 teaching of Jesus Christ, there are three per- 
 sons — that is, there are three distinctions which 
 are spoken of and which act and speak of them- 
 selves, as persons. 
 
 When we speak of a person we mean an in- 
 telligent conscious being independent in ex- 
 istence and action of all other such beings but 
 in close relations with them. We may be sure 
 the Scripture does not contradict itself, also 
 that it no more requires us to believe what is 
 absurd than to do what is sinful. God is not 
 one Person and three Persons in the same sense. 
 We may say with assurance that the distinctions 
 in the divine nature which act and speak of 
 themselves as persons are not limited by our 
 idea of personality formed from our small ex- 
 perience, and that they in no sense conflict with 
 
30 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 the unity of God, the Person. Much thought 
 has been given to this great subject through the 
 ages, many definitions and distinctions have 
 been made and even great controversy has been 
 awakened, but little advance has been made. 
 We are in the face of the mystery of existence. 
 We cannot comprehend the mystery of our own 
 little existence; surely we are not able to com- 
 prehend the mystery of God's existence. In 
 nature we are assured of the existence of God 
 by His works, but the manner of His existence 
 is but dimly seen. Having the revelation of 
 this Trinity in the Scripture we may look again 
 at His works in nature and see that they give 
 some intimations of this mode of His existence. 
 The sun gives forth three powers in one — light, 
 heat and electricity. The matter of sun and 
 earth, of the wide universe, is bound in one by 
 the atom, the force and the law. Our own be- 
 ing is threefold — physical, mental and moral: 
 body, mind and soul may each use the word 
 person. 
 
 But the mode of God's existence can be only 
 made known by Himself, in nature dimly and 
 if He chooses more fully in revelation. He 
 has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Scrip- 
 tures with special reference to the salvation of 
 man from sin; and the revelation of the Trinity 
 is at once seen to have special interest in man's 
 salvation. 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 31 
 
 It is not only to widen our mental horizon, 
 to increase our knowledge of God, but it is 
 specially to enlighten and enliven our souls in 
 the experience of salvation in the full revelation 
 of the Father through the Son by the Holy 
 Spirit. Our text sets forth the result. All 
 mankind, divided before by the presence or ab- 
 sence of a special revelation into two great 
 classes, are now to receive the revelation in 
 Jesus Christ, and so both Jew and Gentile have 
 access through Christ by the Spirit to the 
 Father. 
 
 We are alienated from God, the Father, by 
 our sins; we have arrayed His righteousness 
 against our sins, and cannot in ourselves satisfy 
 it; we have marred His image in our nature and 
 we cannot restore it. 
 
 God the Father has given us His Son to save 
 us from our sins. Jesus Christ our Divine Re- 
 deemer has satisfied the claims of righteousness 
 against us, and by His righteousness has pro- 
 vided new life for us. God, the Holy Spirit, 
 sent of the Father and the Son, teaches us the 
 way of salvation and conforms us in faith and 
 holy living to Christ. So we have access to the 
 Father by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The creed leads us, as do the Scriptures, not 
 to arrogance and pride and intolerance, but to 
 humility, reverence and faith. 
 
 We are to learn as much as we can of the 
 
32 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 nature of God; but we should always recognize 
 that we can never fully comprehend Him. Our 
 minds will be developed throughout eternity as 
 we contemplate Him in His wonderful works, 
 but we probably will never fully comprehend 
 the mystery of His existence. He will ever 
 lead us on in knowledge, in the development of 
 all our powers, but He will always be in the 
 lead. There will always be for us the honour 
 of learning and the duty of reverence — the 
 privilege of looking, of gazing and adoring. 
 
 The creed leads us, as do the Scriptures, to 
 learn now of God, of His nature and His works, 
 all we need for our full salvation ; and this 
 knowledge on sufficient evidence leads us to an 
 insight of His character and to a trust in Him 
 and obedience to Him which is our salvation. 
 A mere intellectual acceptance of creed or 
 Scripture will not suffice. We are to know, in 
 order to love and trust and obey, the one only 
 true and eternal God, the God of our salvation. 
 
 The Scripture declares, " Believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Is not 
 this creed enough? What the smallest quan- 
 tity of knowledge of Jesus Christ may be enough 
 to lead one to trust Him, we need not ask. 
 Certainly the Scriptures present Him fully for 
 our faith. Surely it is desirable we should know 
 all that it is possible to know of Him, that we 
 may be His intelligent followers, and may 
 
USES AND ABUSES OF A CREED 33 
 
 rightly commend Him to others; and the more 
 we know the more fully we should live in fellow- 
 ship with Him. So we are incited by the creed, 
 as we follow its articles, to a greater knowledge 
 of the wonderful work of each of the three Per- 
 sons of the Godhead in giving us salvation and 
 so to the experience of the love of God in 
 Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 
 
III. 
 
 Go unto my brethren and say to them, 
 I ascend unto my Father and your Father 
 and my God and your God. — John 20: 17. 
 
 " GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER 
 OF HEAVEN AND EARTH " 
 
 WE are wonderful beings; the more we 
 contemplate ourselves the more the 
 wonder grows. We are conscious of 
 thinking, feeling, willing, that we are persons; 
 we remember a long past, a personal past; we 
 plan for an uncertain but hoped-for future — a 
 personal future. Now we look out upon the 
 earth and the sky, wonderful in themselves at 
 the first thoughtful look, and the more steadily 
 and intently we look the more the wonder 
 grows. 
 
 The earth and the sky have had a long past; 
 we read it, but it is not a personal past. The 
 earth and sky, the more intently we look, have 
 a wonderful order and arrangement, but they 
 show no signs of intelligence, feeling, willing, 
 that they are arranging themselves. The earth 
 and sky have an uncertain future; the present 
 evidently prepares for it, we may anticipate it, 
 
 34 
 
" GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 35 
 
 but it is not a personal future. We persons 
 are in wonderful union and dependence upon 
 our impersonal surroundings. We find our 
 bodies are made of the same stuff that earth 
 and distant stars are made of, only we can 
 think and feel and will, and they cannot. 
 
 The universe — one system, one history, one 
 future — what a wonderful thing it is! We too 
 are a part of it, one with it: only we have a 
 wonderful personality, and we find nothing like 
 this in the rest of the universe. 
 
 How did the universe, including ourselves, 
 come to be — come into existence? How is it, 
 including ourselves, maintained and governed 
 in such splendid order? What will be its future, 
 including ourselves? What wonderful ques- 
 tions, how hard to answer! And yet we must 
 ask them, because we are persons. We would 
 not be persons, would not be thinking, feeling, 
 willing beings if we did not ask them. It is in 
 our nature to ask them. Man as an intelligent 
 person must ask these questions. Is there any 
 answer? The Apostles' Creed replies: I believe 
 in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 Does this reply commend itself to our reason? 
 Other replies have been given. Men, as they 
 have advanced from savagery through barba- 
 rism to some high degrees of civilization, have 
 believed in many gods of varied and often con- 
 
36 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 flicting characters: but an appreciation of the 
 oneness of the system we call the universe has 
 set aside such answers. Some have thought 
 that the universe itself is God — that it accounts 
 for itself — by chance, by materialism or by 
 pantheism; but no consciousness of personality 
 can be seen in it, outside ourselves, and we 
 know we are not God in any sense. Some have 
 said we can never find out the answer, we have 
 no powers of knowing. We may not be able to 
 know all about God, but the insistence of the 
 question in our intelligent personality implies 
 there will be found a reasonable answer. Some 
 have said, There must be a God, the maker of 
 all things, but He has no longer any interest in 
 them, any control over them. This seems to be 
 inconsistent with the needed intelligence of such 
 a personal maker of the vast universe, including 
 ourselves, persons. 
 
 Now as we look again carefully, intently at 
 our surroundings, the universe outside our- 
 selves, there is such a marvellous harmony and 
 order in it, such a marvellous combination of 
 forces and materials in one harmonious system, 
 such stately order, such striking beauty, such 
 marvellous usefulness in many directions that 
 it begins to assume the nature of a message to 
 us, to have a strange resemblance to a book that 
 we are to learn to read and to follow. 
 
 This makes science possible. It investigates 
 
"GOD THE FATHEK ALMIGHTY" 37 
 
 the various departments of nature, classifies the 
 facts it discovers, forms theories as to the means 
 that have brought them about; in other words 
 it tries to read the message, and to turn its 
 knowledge into practical channels of usefulness. 
 Scientists strive faithfully to find the truth in 
 the message; all honour to such earnest 
 searchers for truth; but some do not attend to 
 the natural inference that a message comes 
 from one mind to another, that a book implies 
 an author as well as a reader. Other scientists 
 adoringly acknowledge that they are simply 
 trying to read the thoughts of God after Him, 
 trying to read His message to them. 
 
 When we, as directed by the Apostles' Creed, 
 turn to investigate the Scriptures we find they 
 teach from beginning to end the existence of 
 one " God the Father Almighty, maker of 
 heaven and earth." 
 
 The two books, that of nature and that of the 
 Scriptures, speak to our questioning minds the 
 same message: God exists, our Father. Some- 
 times these two readers, Science and Religion, 
 have been intolerant of each other; this is not 
 because the two books are in any sense con- 
 flicting — they come from one author — but be- 
 cause the readers have had but small knowledge, 
 and each proud of the little knowledge he 
 possessed was contemptuous of the little knowl- 
 edge of the other. 
 
38 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 The day of this conflict has almost passed 
 away, very little of it remains, and it passes 
 because the narrowness of knowledge is passing 
 with its misunderstandings and errors. 
 
 Religion looks up into the blue sky on a clear 
 day and says how beautiful God has made the 
 heavens. Science says the sky is blue because 
 the cosmic dust filling the air transmits all other 
 rays and reflects only the blue rays of the sun- 
 light, and thus she sees the way in which God 
 has, through the ages, made the heavens beauti- 
 ful. 
 
 Science was intolerant of the six days of 
 creation described in the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis because it thought the days were of twenty- 
 four hours. Since it has learned that day in 
 Scripture means a vast period — as the day of 
 creation, the day of God's rest, the day of judg- 
 ment, the day of grace, and since it has seen in 
 that chapter the same vast succession of creative 
 acts it is studying in astronomy, geology and 
 biology narrated in the same order as it finds 
 written in the heavens and the earth, intoler- 
 ance has given place to adoration. 
 
 Religion was intolerant of the immense 
 periods of unfolding changes in the earth as 
 indicated in the stratification of the rocks and 
 of the vast periods of the evolution of forms 
 of life upon its surface. But we have learned 
 that the farther back we go and the greater 
 
" GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 39 
 
 the number of changes one takes in view the 
 more a great deal does the mind observing these 
 learn the far-reaching plans of the great maker 
 of heaven and the earth. 
 
 Thus Religion and Science are sisters study- 
 ing and admiring together the works of their 
 heavenly Father. They look back through 
 immense periods of time and see the cosmic 
 light dawning from condensing star dust, as 
 God said, " Let there be light." They see this 
 little globe of the earth forming into shape and 
 the gases and water and land coming into 
 proper proportions. 
 
 Dead matter being prepared for its dwelling 
 place the command of God brings vegetable life 
 into existence; this life did not come from the 
 matter but from the great Life-Giver. After 
 long succession of abundant vegetation the air 
 was so cleared of gases that sun, moon and 
 stars could be seen and that present day move- 
 ments prevailed. Thus when the atmosphere 
 was prepared animal life in water and air was 
 introduced, not from dead matter, not from 
 vegetable life even, but from the great Life- 
 Giver. After long succession of many forms 
 of life, some now extinct, but whose vestiges 
 are found in the stratification of the earth, God 
 created man — a race distinct from all other 
 races of life, though related to them as from 
 the dust of the earth, but having distinctively 
 
40 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 the likeness, the image of the great Life- 
 Giver. 
 
 Thus man comes into existence at length in 
 the plan and work of God, man the person, the 
 thinking, feeling, willing being who can thus 
 read the book God has written. Thus Religion 
 and Science vie with each other in studying the 
 works and word of God and in adoring Him. 
 Science is becoming more and more religious, 
 and Religion is becoming more and more scien- 
 tific. Man the wonderful person becomes more 
 wonderful as he learns of and adores " God the 
 Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth." 
 
 For there is also this feature of our nature as 
 persons that we not only have to ask how the 
 universe came into existence, a mere intellectual 
 question perhaps, but we have feeling and will, 
 and our whole nature craves another person, 
 with whom we may have fellowship. As per- 
 sons we are children of a great Father and the 
 highest powers of our nature cannot be satisfied 
 except as we find Him. 
 
 The revelation of God in the Scriptures 
 awakens and satisfies this craving. The crav- 
 ing may lie dormant in the savage — it may stir 
 as if about to awaken in the advance through 
 barbarism to civilization, and men only become 
 conscious of their brotherhood to each other as 
 they dimly recognize God as their Father. 
 When Jesus Christ, the full revelation of God, 
 
" GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 41 
 
 comes in touch with the souls of men He gives 
 them power to become the sons of God. He 
 awakens fully the likeness of God in the soul, 
 takes away all the barriers that separate the 
 soul from God and we wonderful persons be- 
 come more wonderful as we are inspired by our 
 Saviour to think the thoughts, feel the feelings 
 and choose the choices of God, and so have true 
 fellowship with our Father in heaven. 
 
 Now not only has God made but He main- 
 tains and rules the heaven and the earth. The 
 teaching of Christ is remarkable in that it brings 
 God near to us, declares Him present and acting 
 in all our surroundings and in our lives. In our 
 limited use of language, dependent alone on our 
 experience, we have made use of two words — 
 Creation and Providence. We are makers of 
 things and we speak of God as the maker of all 
 things. But why do we make things? to throw 
 them aside? Alas, yes, too often, as we are 
 ignorant and trifling and often failures. But 
 generally we make things for purposes we 
 choose. We foresee, we provide for the future, 
 we have a plan and end in view. Now with 
 reference to the universe, including ourselves, 
 we are certain, since in order to make such a 
 universe God must be all powerful, all wise, and 
 all good. He did not make it to throw it 
 aside — He had a pla 1 and end in view. He is 
 the God of creation and of Providence. We 
 
42 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 persons look upon ourselves and upon our sur- 
 roundings and read the thought, the feeling and 
 the will of God not only in what He has done 
 but in what He is doing now, and in what He 
 will do in the future. God has a grand design, 
 an end in view with reference to the great uni- 
 verse; this includes of course many particular 
 ends tending towards it, and He employs means 
 to accomplish the particular and the general 
 ends, and in all He is infinitely powerful, wise 
 and good. 
 
 We call this the Providence of God, the main- 
 taining and governing the universe to attain the 
 designed end. 
 
 And now as we look again and more intently 
 at our surroundings and upon ourselves there 
 arise at least three questions that greatly per- 
 plex us. Of course we can silence them by say- 
 ing that we cannot hope to find the full answer 
 to them in this stage of our existence, nor until 
 God's plan is fully accomplished and the end He 
 designed for the universe is at length realized 
 and clearly seen by us. But we cannot think 
 that God would have us thus stifle our ques- 
 tions; rather we feel He may be culturing our 
 powers of thinking and our faith in Him by our 
 trying to find some 'satisfactory answers to 
 them. 
 
 The first question is, Does God's providence 
 extend to the general outlines and to the great 
 
"GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 43 
 
 results only, or does it include the small and 
 subordinate things and persons as well? Is it 
 only a universal or is it a particular Providence 
 as well? 
 
 When we think of our own plans we recog- 
 nize that unless due attention is paid to the 
 small details the general plan is apt to fail. But 
 in the universe there are so many apparently 
 insignificant things. The spheres of existence 
 in the heavens above us revealed by the tele- 
 scope, the spectroscope, stellar photography in 
 systems and galaxies of distant suns — all move 
 in complete order and harmony. Surely the 
 providence of God maintains and governs the 
 heavens above us. Now we look within and be- 
 neath our own being and the microscope reveals 
 spheres of existence of the infinitely small. 
 God maintains and governs the stars — does He 
 maintain and govern microbes and insects in- 
 visible to the naked eye as well? Now we re- 
 flect still further and see that atoms and force 
 and law, the little as well as the great, are in 
 the stars as well as in the insects. The great 
 and the small are inseparably linked together. 
 Nothing is too great for His control. Nothing 
 is too small for His notice. And we begin to 
 see that Jesus Christ stated a scientific truth 
 when He said, " Not a sparrow falls on the 
 ground without your Father; the very hairs of 
 your head are all numbered." 
 
44 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 When we look upon the history of the race 
 of man we see the vast influence of the seem- 
 ingly insignificant upon great movements. 
 The wave of the hand of a savage sends the 
 great discoverer to the south and Spanish 
 civilization takes possession of South America, 
 while North America is given to the Anglo- 
 Saxon. The nod of the head of an ignorant 
 peasant led Napoleon to order the charge which 
 defeated him at Waterloo. 
 
 We turn to the Scriptures and the fate of 
 Joseph is decided by a passing caravan going 
 down into Egypt. Later on, David hides from 
 Saul in the depths of a cave. Saul and his men, 
 pursuing and wearied, come to the cave and fall 
 asleep in the cool entrance. David and his men, 
 watchful, pass out over their sleeping foes. 
 The caravan happens to pass and events follow, 
 leading up to the giving of the Ten Command- 
 ments on Sinai. Saul falls asleep and events 
 follow, leading to the great Son of David, the 
 Cross and the Resurrection. No individual or 
 event is isolated or neglected. However small, 
 we are under the care of God. Every thought- 
 ful man must recognize in his individual life that 
 great changes are wrought by small events, and 
 that beyond his care there is One who cares for 
 him. The belief in providence should lead each 
 one of us to at least thank God every morning 
 that we were born in a Christian land. 
 
" GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 45 
 
 Now the second question arises, Does not 
 God maintain and govern the universe by law, 
 and so is not all His care of the little and the 
 great confined to the working of universal law, 
 and so can there be any feature of what we call 
 personal care of either single events or of in- 
 dividual lives? 
 
 We who are trying to think the thoughts of 
 God after Him must be filled with astonish- 
 ment at the universal sway of law. We who 
 are trying to feel and will like God must recog- 
 nize at once that our part is to discover and 
 obey His law. We recognize that God's laws 
 are for the good of His creatures and that their 
 well-being can only be secured by their obedi- 
 ence to them. So we try to obey the law of 
 gravitation as we walk, the law of breathing as 
 we seek pure air, the law of digestion as we eat 
 wholesome food, and so all the laws of health of 
 body, mind and soul, as we discover them. 
 
 In these laws for our good God has a per- 
 sonal care for each one of us. Just as one of 
 you who is a father may make general rules for 
 and exercise a general oversight of your fam- 
 ily and still have a deep personal care of each 
 of your children. 
 
 But while we are limited on our part to 
 honour law by seeking to learn and obey it, we 
 are not to limit God to His laws as we under- 
 stand them. We even, as we are on the outside 
 
46 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 of law and so limited to discovery and obedi- 
 ence, may work our special will in many an 
 instance by combination and arrangement. We 
 combine the law of gravitation and the law of 
 the expansion of steam and by constructing 
 machinery to run on rails we send the heavy 
 train of cars from city to city, carrying many 
 passengers in comfort and safety. God knows 
 more laws than we do and can combine their 
 infinite complexity. And He acts from the in- 
 side of nature while we act only from the out- 
 side. And so it is at least conceivable that 
 without setting aside or breaking a single law 
 He may work His personal care over particular 
 events and individual lives. 
 
 The only question then is, Will He so act? 
 If this is involved in His promise to answer 
 prayer in some special case, or if it is involved 
 in His promse, " I will never leave thee nor 
 forsake thee," in some special case we may be 
 sure He will so act. 
 
 The last of the three perplexing questions 
 now demands our notice. Why does God per- 
 mit sin in His maintaining and governing the 
 universe? We can only say now that the re- 
 maining articles of the creed will throw great 
 light upon that question as we consider all He 
 does to overrule and save from sin. He has 
 made us free moral beings. We have chosen to 
 break moral laws; it was permitted in the very 
 
" GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 47 
 
 nature of our freedom. God governs us as free 
 moral agents. He uses His providence, as we 
 can easily see, to punish, to check, to prevent 
 sin in many forms and courses. We sinners are 
 still under the government of the holy God; we 
 have not passed beyond His care. His deal- 
 ings with us become a strong appeal to us to 
 turn from sin. So through His providence has 
 come to us the gift of His Son, to be our Re- 
 deemer, our Saviour from sin. 
 
 Trusting in Him we may have the utmost 
 confidence that He will provide all things neces- 
 sary for soul and body and that He will over- 
 rule all evil for our good. He is able, He is 
 willing, He is faithful, for He is our loving 
 Father in Christ, as He is the Almighty Father 
 of Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
IV. 
 
 Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for it is he 
 that shall save his people from their sins. 
 Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God. — Matt. 1:21; 16:16. 
 
 " JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON, 
 OUR LORD" 
 
 SIX of the twelve articles of the Apostles' 
 Creed are devoted to Jesus Christ and 
 His works. This first article mentions 
 His name, calls Him the only begotten Son of 
 God, the Father, and acknowledges Him as our 
 Lord. 
 
 Names are given men to distinguish one from 
 another; it is hard to distinguish the absent in 
 any other way. In early ages what we now 
 call the first or given name was generally used 
 and frequently combined with the father's first 
 name or that of the place of residence. So 
 we read of Jesus, the son of Joseph, or of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. It is interesting to trace 
 the origin of family names, as we call them. 
 Most were probably given originally by gen- 
 eral consent as descriptive of personal appear- 
 
 48 
 
"JESUS CHKIST, HIS ONLY SON" 49 
 
 ance, character or employment, as for instance 
 Tallman, Strong or Smith. These are often ab- 
 surdly unsuitable to those who bear them now. 
 Besides, names of honour are sometimes con- 
 ferred upon men descriptive of character and 
 achievement. In some such way Jesus of 
 Nazareth came to be called the Christ — or Jesus 
 Christ, as we now recognize Him. This name 
 distinguishes Him from all other men who have 
 ever lived. 
 
 There is deep significance in each one of these 
 names. Joseph was told by the angel of the 
 Lord to call Mary's son Jesus, and this meaning 
 of the name was given — " for he shall save his 
 people from their sins." When more than half 
 of the ministry of Jesus was accomplished He 
 asked His disciples the result. " Whom do you 
 say that I am?" and Peter answered, "Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
 Christ means anointed. Thou art the anointed 
 Son of God. This human giving of a name was 
 accepted by Jesus. 
 
 We are now to consider the deep significance 
 of the full name Jesus Christ. The first name 
 Jesus, the divinely given name, signifies what 
 He does; the second name, Christ, the humanly 
 given name, signifies how He does it — the man- 
 ner in which He accomplishes His mission. 
 
 Jesus is, I suppose, the dearest name ever 
 uttered by human lips. It was the name Mary 
 
50 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 the mother used in speaking to and of her son, 
 the mother name always dear, and to her won- 
 dering and adoring heart specially dear. So it 
 is the heart name of the believer in all ages; 
 his lips quiver with emotion, his eyes fill with 
 tears as he speaks the name of his Saviour. To 
 the believer there is no music on earth nor in 
 the songs of heaven like the name of Jesus. 
 It will be a joy to us to meditate upon its full 
 significance and so to be drawn nearer to Him 
 who is our Saviour. 
 
 The angel of the Lord said, " Thou shalt call 
 his name Jesus for he shall save his people from 
 their sins." Now we are His people, for we 
 trust Him. Then He saves us from our sins. 
 And all conscious of sin are invited to His full 
 salvation. For it is this loving and all powerful 
 Jesus who says, " Come unto me all ye that 
 labour and are heavy laden and I will give you 
 rest." These are surely the most tender and 
 loving words ever spoken by human lips. 
 Sinners are those who transgress the law of 
 God in thought or word or deed. The law is 
 that of our being. Love God who has given us 
 our being and all good things, and who is 
 infinitely lovely in His nature, love Him 
 supremely, and your fellow man as yourself. 
 Looking at ourselves in the light of this law we 
 must acknowledge in our consciences that we 
 are sinners. Now at once we are prone to turn 
 
"JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON" 51 
 
 our thought from sin itself to its consequences. 
 Will we be discovered? Will we be held to 
 strict account? 
 
 We recognize that evil, suffering, often come 
 to us from transgressing some law without us 
 or within us, some broken limb from a fall, some 
 severe pain from unwholesome food, and look- 
 ing further we see also that suffering comes 
 from defeated selfishness and from the contests 
 working harm to others though successful for 
 ourselves; and suffering is fearfully prevalent in 
 this world since sin is so prevalent. Thus as we 
 reflect the dire results of sin loom before us in 
 terrifying form ; and further terror is awakened 
 as we think of their dominating the future life. 
 
 Now it is to be noticed that nothing is said 
 by the angel — nothing is said in this divinely 
 given name of saving us from the consequences 
 of our sins either in time or eternity. It goes 
 much deeper than that — " he saves us from our 
 sins " — that is, from sin itself. It is not the 
 primary object of Jesus to save from what we 
 call evil, from suffering, from hardship. In the 
 process of saving from sin He does save us 
 largely from evil as the consequence of sin, but 
 that is only incidental to the larger saving from 
 sin. In proportion as a life of virtue, of love to 
 God and man is reached it is a life of happiness, 
 though it may be in the midst of suffering. 
 Virtue is its own source of happiness, its own 
 
52 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 reward. Outward evil loses much of its power. 
 Songs burst forth from hovels, from sick beds, 
 even from prisons and martyr flames. 
 
 Then too the nature of evil is changed to the 
 soul believing in Jesus and being saved from 
 sin. It is no longer in the line of punishment; 
 that sting is taken away as we shall soon see, 
 but it becomes disciplinary. It still may be very 
 heavy and hard to bear but it is being adminis- 
 tered by the loving Father, by Jesus the 
 Saviour, in saving us from sin. So earthly 
 fathers, earthly teachers give tasks, give hard 
 work to their children to develop strength and 
 steadfastness; they are often mistaken in their 
 discipline, but Jesus is too wise and loving to 
 make any mistakes. We have utmost cause to 
 trust Him fully to the end. 
 
 Neither is it the primary object of Jesus to 
 save from the eternal punishment of sin. He 
 does this of course but it is incidental to saving 
 us from sin. There is suffering in hell, the place 
 of punishment, because there is sin there, and 
 as long as there is sin there, there will be suffer- 
 ing. There is no suffering in heaven, " no sor- 
 row, no crying, neither any pain," because there 
 is no sin there. Jesus, Jesus, the dearest name 
 on human lips — He saves His people from their 
 sins. It is vitally important for us all to un- 
 derstand this fully. If any of us are ever think- 
 ing of putting off trusting in Jesus to the end 
 
"JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON" 53 
 
 of this life, to our dying beds, we have wholly 
 mistaken His mission; we are thinking not of 
 sin but of its consequences; we want to be saved 
 not from sin but from its punishment. Then, 
 too, if any think of trusting any other, as saints, 
 or saintly friends or our own selves, it must be 
 to save from the punishment of sin and so it is 
 at once seen to be vain. Let us all rather now, 
 at once in this our time of need and of oppor- 
 tunity, trust in Jesus to save us from our sins. 
 
 We now turn to the second name Christ to 
 seek more fully to understand how He saves us 
 from sin. Christ is the Greek name which 
 translates the Hebrew name Messiah. Both 
 names mean anointed. In Hebrew life there 
 were three offices to which men were anointed 
 as prophets, priests and kings. The anointing 
 consisted of pouring oil upon the head and 
 signified that God set apart and consecrated the 
 man to the discharge of the duties of the office. 
 Thus Aaron was anointed as Priest, thus David 
 was anointed as King, thus Elisha was anointed 
 as Prophet. Aaron, David, Elisha, great 
 men — and other great men followed them. 
 Now the whole account given of these prophets, 
 priests and kings through succeeding genera- 
 tions in the long history shows the people were 
 led to look for the coming of a greater Prophet, 
 Priest and King in one person. Hence the 
 great expectation of the Messiah was awakened 
 
54 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 among the Jews. Generations passed away, 
 and then Jesus began His ministry. After a 
 suitable time of ministry He asked His disciples, 
 " Whom do you say that I am? " We cannot 
 imagine the awe with which the answer was 
 given, " Thou art the Messiah, the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God." Those giving this an- 
 swer believed the hopes of the Hebrew race 
 growing through their long history were at 
 length fully realized in Him. 
 
 Now if we look carefully at the history of the 
 whole race of mankind we see the stirrings of 
 dormant and vague hopes which are made fully 
 alive and satisfied in the Messiah of the He- 
 brews, the Christ of the world. For as the race 
 rises from savage conditions towards civiliza- 
 tion the presence and influence of these three 
 offices, prophets, priests and kings, must be 
 recognized. And as we look at our own needs 
 even in our high civilization we recognize that 
 Jesus can be our Saviour from our sins only 
 as He is our Prophet, Priest and King. 
 
 Man wherever found is ignorant, but capable 
 of learning. He needs a teacher. Among all 
 races men of special taste and ability have arisen 
 who have become teachers of their fellows. 
 Some in some races have made great attain- 
 ments and have led their people to great knowl- 
 edge — the wise men of the east, the sages of 
 Egypt, the philosophers of Greece. Many have 
 
" JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON " 55 
 
 been enthusiastic seekers of truth, have made 
 great discoveries in various lines and have con- 
 ferred great benefit upon their fellows. What- 
 ever truths these great teachers have taught 
 have been their readings of God's great book 
 of nature, have been of their seeking after God's 
 thoughts. 
 
 When we come to the Hebrew race their 
 great teachers from Moses, the great prophet 
 and lawgiver, down to the last prophet of the 
 noble line were specially gifted in seeing the 
 truths of nature as revealing God and were 
 specially anointed by the spirit of God for larger 
 vision of Him in His character and works. 
 
 Now the glory of all the teachers, the 
 prophets of all ages and all races comes from 
 Christ, and centers in Him. He stands at the 
 head. He is the great Prophet, the Messiah of 
 God. Scientists tell us that all the light upon 
 the earth comes from the sun. When we light 
 our fires of wood or coal, when we light our 
 evening lamps of oil or gas or electricity we are 
 using that which the sun has compounded and 
 stored up for us ages ago. So all our dis- 
 coveries of truth, the incentive, the attainment, 
 the truth itself comes from the great Teacher; 
 and in all and beyond all we have from the 
 great teachers of earth are the teachings of the 
 great Prophet Himself. 
 
 He has made clear certain truths of which our 
 
56 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 greatest teachers had but dim knowledge, as 
 the character of God. 
 
 He has brought to full light certain truths of 
 which our greatest teachers could only con- 
 jecture, as man's immortality. 
 
 He has revealed certain truths of which our 
 greatest teachers were entirely ignorant, the 
 great plan of God for our salvation from sin. 
 
 Looking again at the history of the race, man 
 wherever found is a religious being and also he 
 is conscious of sinfulness. As man emerges 
 from the unknown past we see the tribe 
 gathered for worship, and there is an altar, a 
 sacrifice and a priest. They recognize that they 
 need some one to approach God for them; they 
 are so sinful that they must have a priest, a 
 sacrifice and an altar. What does it mean? 
 There is a strong desire to approach God. 
 There is an instinctive feeling we are not worthy 
 to approach Him. He will repel us. There is 
 the reasonable plan. We will set apart a priest 
 to approach God for us by offering sacrifice to 
 Him. Perhaps God will accept us through the 
 priest and the sacrifice. 
 
 This instinctive feeling was used by God in 
 directing the worship of the Hebrews. He 
 taught them of His holiness and of their sinful- 
 ness and provided for them a way in which 
 they could confess their sin and satisfy for it 
 and become devoted to God. They were to 
 
" JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON " 57 
 
 stand at a distance from His tabernacle, they 
 were to confess their sins upon the head of the 
 sacrifice, they were to offer the life to God, His 
 life for their life, and in the burnt offering was 
 signified their entire devotion to God. Now 
 while they stood at a distance a priest ap- 
 proached God for them, offered their sacrifice 
 for them, interceded for them and returning 
 to them gave them God's blessing. 
 
 The glory of Christ, the anointed Priest, is 
 seen that He stands at the head of the priests of 
 all races and ages — at the head of the priests of 
 the Hebrew race — and that which was only 
 signified in them is fulfilled in Him. His whole 
 life was one of self-sacrifice in love for us but 
 especially as our Priest He sacrificed Himself 
 upon the cross, making atonement for our sins 
 in that He bore in His suffering and death all 
 our desert, and won for us the favour of God 
 which is life everlasting. 
 
 Now as we look again at the dim ranks of 
 men emerging from an unknown past we see 
 they have a leader. He is the chieftain of the 
 tribe, its head; it becomes a nation, the head; 
 the chieftain becomes a king. In him govern- 
 ment centers, for the order of the tribe or nation 
 and for its defense. Even in our republic we 
 have a Governor or President. 
 
 We do not, we cannot approve of all prophets 
 and their teachings — much of error mingles 
 
58 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 with truth — nor of all priests — much of super- 
 stition mingles with religious feeling — nor of all 
 kings — much tyranny mingles with govern- 
 ment, but we recognize the influence of kings, 
 of government in the advance of the race. 
 
 So the glory of Christ is seen in that He 
 stands at the head of all kings ; of all govern- 
 ment of man, the social being. He is the 
 anointed King of the race. 
 
 Now as we look intently at Christ alone the 
 anointed Prophet, Priest and King, we begin to 
 see the depth and height of meaning of that 
 phrase of this article of the creed, " his only 
 son " — the only begotten Son of God the 
 Father. The next article of the creed will shed 
 fuller light upon this truth — now we see its 
 full bearing on the name Christ. 
 
 Christ is the Prophet; as the anointed, "the 
 only begotten son of God," He not only teaches 
 of God, He shows God to us, reveals God in His 
 nature and character; He says, "whoso has 
 seen me has seen the Father." 
 
 Christ is the Priest; as the anointed, "the 
 only begotten son of God," His sufferings and 
 death have infinite value. No mere man, how- 
 ever innocent, however righteous, could have 
 atoned for the sin of man; only the Divine 
 Man could bear our curse, could have pur- 
 chased life eternal for us. 
 
 Christ is the King; as the anointed, " the only 
 
"JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON" 59 
 
 begotten son of God," He is good enough, great 
 enough and has the right to rule over our 
 thoughts, our desires, our whole lives as social 
 beings; He is the Divine King. 
 
 Now we turn again to our confession, I be- 
 lieve in Jesus Christ. I have faith in Him on suf- 
 ficient evidence that He lived and died and arose 
 again as recorded in the Scriptures. I have in- 
 sight in Him, recognizing certain qualities of 
 highest worth. I trust in Him to do for me all 
 I need, to save me from sin. I have Him as 
 my sole principle of action. I can say with the 
 creed, " He is my Lord." So I partake of His 
 anointing I am a Christian. I will teach of 
 Jesus Christ, my Prophet. I will give myself 
 a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Him, my Priest. 
 I will fight the good fight of faith under Him, 
 my King, relying on His care, doing His will, 
 honouring Him in all things. 
 
 So we ask all to join with us in this article of 
 the creed, to learn of Christ the Teacher, to 
 trust in Christ the Priest, to obey Christ the 
 King, to learn of, to trust, to obey Jesus as He 
 saves His people from their sins. 
 
V. 
 
 For when the fullness of time came God 
 sent forth his son, bom of a woman, born 
 under the law. — Gal. 4 : 4. 
 
 " CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, 
 BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY " 
 
 JESUS CHRIST lived in Judea nineteen 
 centuries ago. His life is pictured for us 
 in the four Gospels. Those who knew 
 Him best believed He was more than a man. 
 The Apostles' Creed in the second article and 
 especially in this third article voices the belief 
 of the Church in all ages. It says the only be- 
 gotten Son of God was " conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." This concep- 
 tion and birth are described in the early chap- 
 ters of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels. This 
 sets Him forth as the most remarkable being 
 who has ever lived upon the earth, and forms 
 good ground to believe that He now lives at the 
 right hand of God in heaven. He is the God 
 incarnate, the Man Divine. In our text the 
 Apostle Paul says that the Son of God assumed 
 our human nature in carrying out the plan of 
 
 60 
 
« CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 61 
 
 God of man's redemption. This stupendous 
 theme should widen our views and inflame our 
 hearts with the love of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the works of God we can discern no trace 
 of either haste or delay; His plans are con- 
 ceived in wisdom and executed with power; 
 they are carried on from the beginning with 
 no need of correction, with no change of 
 method. Science reading the book of nature 
 and Religion reading the book of revelation in 
 the first chapter of Genesis see God forming the 
 globe of the earth, though many geologic con- 
 vulsions and long periods of time are in its vast 
 surroundings. When dead matter was fully 
 prepared God bestowed a new gift directly from 
 Himself, the lower kind of life. When the full- 
 ness of time was come God again interposed a 
 new gift from Himself, a higher kind of life. 
 Again through long ages when the fullness of 
 time was come God again touched the earth 
 with the highest kind of created life, the like- 
 ness to Himself. Again through long ages 
 when the fullness of time was come God gave 
 from Himself the highest kind of uncreated life, 
 even His only begotten Son, " conceived by the 
 Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." 
 
 The earth was already old, the race of man 
 had passed through vast experiences when 
 Jesus Christ was born. As dead matter could 
 not bring forth even the lowest life — as the 
 
62 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 lowest life could not bloom into the highest 
 life — as the higher life could not develop the 
 man life, so man, who in the exercise of his 
 moral freedom had chosen disobedience to 
 God, fallen man could not raise himself or sat- 
 isfy himself away from God. Then in the full- 
 ness of time God sent His own Son, the desire 
 of all nations, who became the God-Man, Jesus 
 Christ, the anointed Saviour. 
 
 The key-note to all the prior history of the 
 race is preparation for Christ's coming. The 
 earliest civilizations were in the Euphrates and 
 Nile valleys; the race won vast material pros- 
 perity from these fertile bottom lands. But 
 neither Egypt nor Babylon could save man from 
 luxury and vice, from his sins. 
 
 In ancient Greece man developed his intel- 
 lectual powers and his sense of the beautiful. 
 But learning and culture could not save man 
 from pride and sensuality, from his sins. In 
 ancient Rome man won the empire of the world 
 by the domination of his will. But government 
 and power could not save man from selfishness 
 and cruelty, from his sins. In Judea, the cen- 
 tral land, the bridge between these great civili- 
 zations, man gained the knowledge of the true 
 God and of righteousness. But even this 
 knowledge could not save him from formality 
 and intolerance, from his sins. 
 
 While material prosperity, intellectual de- 
 
" CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 63 
 
 velopment, social order and formal religion in 
 the worship of the true God could not save man 
 from sin, they had worth in themselves and 
 prepared the way for Christ not only in their 
 failure but in their service. Eastern contempla- 
 tion was combined with western energy. Greek 
 power took possession of the East, and gave for 
 three centuries its rich inheritance of language 
 and energy to Babylon, Judea and Egypt. 
 Then came Roman conquest and gave its laws 
 and government to the world. Thus Greek 
 culture and Roman order made possible the 
 founding and spread of a world religion in 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 The age in which Christ lived was an his- 
 torical one. It was the Augustan age of Rome. 
 Statesmen, orators, historians, writers made it 
 splendid — as was the Victorian Age in Eng- 
 land long afterwards. The Greek age of achieve- 
 ment in intellectual effort was past; its philos- 
 ophers and poets were the world's inheritance 
 in its rich language. Judea had given the world 
 rich inheritance of righteousness in her long 
 literature of the deeds of lawgivers and kings, 
 in the aspirations of poets and prophets. 
 
 Back of the age in which Christ lived 
 stretched a thousand years of Hebrew history 
 with that of Egypt and Babylon. Seven hun- 
 dred years of Greek history, five hundred years 
 of Roman history. Over the land of Judea had 
 
64 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 flowed the Chaldean, the Greek and the Roman 
 power and civilization, leaving the deposit of 
 three languages spoken in Christ's time and by 
 Christ and His disciples — the Hebrew, the 
 Greek and the Latin — a cultured land in that 
 cultured age. It was not the age of myths, or 
 in which myths could arise and grow; that age 
 lay far back in the dim past. For all future ages 
 the events in the life of Christ would be beyond 
 the suspicion of myths, would be clearly seen as 
 historical. From His life came the four mas- 
 terly descriptions of it we have in the Gospels. 
 They are clear, beautiful, striking pictures of 
 Him — like photographs. 
 
 Now as we look upon this life passed in the 
 clear light of an enlightened, intelligent, his- 
 torical age, upon which the strong light of his- 
 torical investigation has ever since been shining, 
 we see a most remarkable thing. This Jesus 
 Christ loved God supremely, delighted to do 
 His will. He loved man, always used His 
 thought and power for the good of His fellow 
 man. He so loved man that He died for him. 
 We cannot find a flaw in His life as compared 
 with the law of man's being as given by God. 
 More we are confirmed in this in that His 
 closest, best friends who knew Him most inti- 
 mately found no sin in Him. So also His 
 enemies, and He had sharp and unscrupulous 
 ones, could find no flaw in Him. Then besides 
 
" CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 65 
 
 all this there seems to be no consciousness of 
 sin in Him. Surely He is the best of all possi- 
 ble witnesses of His own nature. We ask Him, 
 Who art thou? Hear His answer. He tells 
 Nicodemus, " No man hath ascended into 
 heaven but he that descended out of heaven, the 
 son of man." When He walked upon the 
 waters of the sea of Galilee and saved Peter 
 from its depths the disciples worshipped Him, 
 saying, " Of a truth thou art the son of God." 
 When the High Priest, acting as the chief judge 
 of the highest court of his nation, put Jesus 
 under oath and asked Him, " Art thou the 
 Christ, the Son of God?" Jesus answered, "I 
 am. 
 
 Between the creator and the creature there 
 is a great distinction. The more perfect and 
 intelligent the man, the moral creature, is, the 
 more clear will be his recognition of this dis- 
 tinction. The claim of Jesus Christ thus be- 
 comes astounding. No mere man could make 
 it. There is no way of explaining it away con- 
 sistent with the character of Christ. It must 
 simply be accepted. These are only a few of 
 His teachings on the nature of His being — 
 many others could be selected. Look again at 
 them : and the Church's creed is the only an- 
 swer. 
 
 How did the Son of Man descend from 
 heaven? Not attended by the hosts of angels, 
 
66 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 not with the glory of God. This earth has not 
 yet received such a visit from its great Creator. 
 He became incarnate, assumed human nature. 
 He " was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of 
 the Virgin Mary." The man walks the waves 
 of the sea, and receives the worship of His fel- 
 lows as the Son of God. The man stands be- 
 fore the Sanhedrim, and under oath says He is 
 the Son of God, and the court sends Him to the 
 cross. The Son of God was the son of Mary. 
 
 This is confirmed by Jesus Christ's place in 
 the Bible. He is the harmony of its teachings. 
 He is the center, the culmination of the whole. 
 Take away the Divinity of Christ from the 
 Bible and it loses its completeness. The syllo- 
 gism is convincing. He to whom the names, 
 attributes, works and honours of God are 
 ascribed must be God. These all, in the Old 
 Testament of history, ceremony, praise and 
 prophecy, and in the New Testament of Gos- 
 pels, Acts and Epistles, are ascribed to Christ. 
 Therefore He is the Son of God, " conceived of 
 the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." 
 
 This is confirmed by Christ's place in the his- 
 tory of the race. We have already glanced at 
 this history before His coming to the earth 
 nineteen centuries ago. Now His religion has 
 spread over the earth. He is its distinctive 
 feature — the Divine Saviour. Other religions 
 have the one God, as the Jew and the Mo- 
 
" CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 67 
 
 hammedan. Other religions have a code of 
 morals, as Buddha and Confucius. Other re- 
 ligions have the missionary spirit, as Buddha 
 and Mohammedan. But the distinctive truth 
 of the Christian religion is Jesus, the Saviour 
 from sin; the Christ, the anointed Prophet, 
 Priest and King; the Son of God, "conceived 
 by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary "; 
 the God incarnate, the Man Divine, the Saviour 
 of sinners. This gives Him the first place in 
 the life and heart of the believer. The con- 
 science is at peace, the soul is satisfied, the life is 
 purified. The devotion of Christ is everywhere 
 and in all ages the noblest attainment of man. 
 
 The truth is of vast importance to each one 
 personally. Jesus is the Son of God. Do I 
 ignore His claim or resist it? Then I resist 
 God, and I resist Him in His love, in His effort 
 to save me from my sins. Rather I trust Him 
 and adore Him as my Saviour. 
 
 We are utterly unable to understand how the 
 two natures, divine and human, are united in 
 one person. The seeming contradictions spoken 
 of Christ fill us with awe, and are beyond our 
 understanding. The wearied Saviour is asleep 
 in a frail boat in a great storm on the sea. The 
 disciples in fear awake Him, and He commands 
 the winds and the waves and there is a great 
 calm. The Jews say, " Thou art not yet fifty 
 years old," and they were right. Christ replies, 
 
68 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 " Before Abraham was I am," and He knew 
 and spoke the truth. We cannot understand 
 our own personality, how the physical and 
 mental are combined in one person; but these 
 existed in Christ as well as in us; and so this 
 mystery fails to help us in the more mysterious 
 union of the two natures in Him, except as mak- 
 ing us humble in estimating the scope and 
 power of our understanding. Christ too is said 
 to dwell in us, " the hope of glory," but this 
 indwelling is by His spirit through our faith 
 and it does not combine our nature with His in 
 the matter of making of the two one person. 
 The union is close, is vital, is glorious and it too 
 is beyond our weak power of understanding; 
 we are simply conscious of our individuality, 
 our personality, by itself. 
 
 Jesus Christ is just as truly human as He is 
 divine. As we received our existence by birth 
 so He received His; He was born of the Virgin 
 Mary. Inexpressibly great is the honour thus 
 placed upon motherhood. The hopes and fears, 
 the trials and joys which dwell in a mother's 
 heart stirred the heart of Mary as she looked 
 forward to the birth of her son Jesus. Mother 
 is the dearest, sweetest name on human lips, 
 more dear now since Jesus our Saviour often 
 had it upon His sacred lips, through life and at 
 last upon the cross. 
 
 There is a great significance in the term, the 
 
« CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 69 
 
 Son of Man. Jesus frequently called Himself 
 the Son of Man. Ezekiel is the only one who 
 used that term freely of himself, and he does 
 this in his humility, to cheer the depression of 
 his people in their captivity. There seems a 
 different tone in Christ's use of the term; some- 
 thing like the insistence that He is a man — a full 
 man, a complete man. He is the one person 
 in the Scriptures who claims in the real sense 
 to be Divine, the Son of God. In His favourite 
 term the Son of Man, He magnifies that claim 
 by insisting that He is a true man. If we 
 think of any other Bible character insisting that 
 he is a man, for example John or Paul, we see 
 how absurd it would be. We would answer at 
 once, " Who ever dreamed you were anything 
 else? " It is appropriate upon the lips of only 
 one being, Jesus Christ. While I am the Son 
 of God I am also a true man, the Son of Man. 
 This draws our attention to His full hu- 
 manity. In Him humanity is for once fully 
 manifested. Other men are fragments. Jesus 
 Christ is the whole man. Other men are frag- 
 ments. Each may have many manly qualities 
 but not all; each quality may be nearly perfect, 
 but not fully. No quality is fully rounded; no 
 man has all such qualities complete. Each 
 great division of the race may excel in some 
 manly qualities and be deficient in others. Now 
 Jesus Christ has all excellencies of manhood. 
 
TO THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 He is the perfect man, the fully rounded, com- 
 plete man, the best, the whole human nature, 
 no excellency left out, or in any sense deficient. 
 He is the Son of Man. So He satisfies the ideals 
 of all ages and of all races, and supplements 
 them as well — appeals both to their excellencies 
 and to their defects. 
 
 The men of the East are contemplative. 
 Jesus appeals to the oriental in His contempla- 
 tion. 
 
 We men of the West are active. Jesus is 
 more active than even the Occident demands. 
 
 The men of ancient times made great achieve- 
 ments, but we have to make excuses for even 
 Socrates and Marcus Aurelius arising from the 
 age in which they lived. No such excuses are 
 needed for Jesus Christ. 
 
 The men of modern times have made great 
 attainments in thought and life, but Jesus stands 
 still far ahead of even our ideals; He is the Son 
 of Man. Many national traits are so marked 
 that we may often describe a race or a nation 
 in one word. That word if well chosen will 
 describe Christ, but not fully ; it will take many 
 such national traits and still others to set forth 
 the ideal man. He has the love of righteous- 
 ness of the Jew, the love of beauty of the Greek, 
 the love of power of the Roman. So with our 
 modern nations. He has the rugged strength 
 of the English, the perseverance of the German, 
 
" CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 71 
 
 the genius of the Italian, the brilliancy of the 
 French, the energy of the American. Jesus 
 Christ does not belong to any one nation or 
 race, He belongs to all. He is a citizen of the 
 world, the Son of Man. 
 
 In the sphere of humanity there are two 
 hemispheres. The one we call man, the other 
 we call woman. Jesus Christ has all true 
 manliness. In Him are the manly virtues: 
 stern iron integrity, as in the temptation; 
 justice never giving way to weak feeling, as 
 rebuking His disciples; severe truthfulness in 
 speaking plainly to friend and foe; righteous in- 
 dignation, as denouncing the Pharisees; calm 
 courage facing angry mobs; steady self-sacri- 
 fice, not in the excitement of the hour alone, 
 but in the long and steady advance to the cross. 
 He is every inch a man. Just as markedly 
 He has all the womanly virtues: purity without 
 a shadow of an evil thought; tender considera- 
 tion for the ignorant; compassion for the sor- 
 rowing; sympathy for the suffering; patient 
 endurance of wrong; gentleness, as a woman's 
 touch ; love beyond a mother's. He is the com- 
 plete sphere of humanity, the Son of Man. 
 
 In His day as in ours the race of man was 
 divided into two great classes — the rich and the 
 poor. To-day we call them the capitalist class 
 and the labouring class. And there is not only 
 division but often conflict between them. 
 
n THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 Jesus was a poor man; in the latter part of His 
 ministry He had not where to lay His head. 
 Up until the time of His ministry He was a 
 labouring man — in boyhood in the humble 
 home, in young manhood a carpenter at His 
 bench earning His living by daily toil. Indus- 
 try, frugality were prominent in His life. The 
 welfare of labour was His welfare when on 
 earth, and we may be sure it is dear to Him now. 
 The great multitude of His followers in all ages 
 and now belong to the labouring class. But He 
 is not a part man — He is the whole man, the 
 Son of Man. No man was too rich to be His 
 brother, though a millionaire. He went to the 
 houses of the rich in full sympathy with all their 
 needs. He cured their sick, He faithfully re- 
 buked their errors, He instructed them as 
 others. More than all, He tried to teach them 
 the meaning of their wealth, that they were the 
 stewards of God, they were to gain wealth by 
 honest and fair dealings, and should use their 
 riches only in obedience to His will, and that 
 the poor were their brothers. He is the Son 
 of Man — He appeals to both labour and capital 
 by His full manhood, treating them as His 
 brothers and influencing them to seek each the 
 other's good. When capital says to its brother, 
 We will give fair wages, we will take fair in- 
 terest for the money invested, and we will share 
 with you the remaining profits of your labour 
 
" CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST " 73 
 
 and our money ; when labour says to its brother, 
 We will seek your interests in our work, we will 
 be diligent, skillful and faithful ; when each shall 
 seek the profits of the other as he seeks his own, 
 then there will be cooperation instead of conflict 
 under the spirit and influence of the Son of 
 Man. His influence as Son of Man in this as in 
 all respects, in this relation as in all relations, 
 is made commanding by His being as well the 
 Son of God. 
 
 His work as Saviour, the way He saves, is 
 fully treated in the following articles of the 
 creed. We can easily see in this article some of 
 the meaning of the Scripture in calling Him the 
 only mediator between God and man. One 
 who mediates must have the nature of both the 
 estranged parties. So Christ represents God to 
 us. We are sinners. God in His righteousness 
 cannot approve and favour us as sinners. Now 
 if He was revealed as stern, relentless, heart- 
 less, as condemning us and cold and indifferent 
 to us, having no pity, no sympathy for suffering, 
 sinful man, we could never be led to love Him. 
 All the terrors of the law could not force love. 
 You cannot drive with whips and brushes a 
 swarm of bees into a field where there are no 
 flowers, nor can you keep them out of a field 
 full of flowers with all your whips and brushes. 
 But God is not revealed as stern, relentless 
 justice alone ; He is just, but also loving. " God 
 
74 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
 gotten son that whosoever believeth on him 
 should not perish but have eternal life." He 
 gave His Son in love to die for us; He reveals 
 His infinite yearning love for us by the gift of 
 His Son. Hard indeed must be the heart that 
 will not love Him in return. 
 
 So Christ is our representative to God. Man, 
 the very best of us, recognizes the rightfulness 
 of the law of our being; and then disobeys it. 
 The divine spark is not blown entirely out; it 
 flames up and then sinks down again. We ad- 
 mire virtue till the call comes to practice it. 
 We hate sin, until the temptation comes to in- 
 dulge it. We have moral convictions but too 
 often are unfaithful to them. We admire the 
 good but fall into the evil. Then the Son of 
 God becomes the Son of Man. He stands as 
 our representative before God, a man as He 
 ought to be, the ideal man fully realized. 
 
 God now looks with favour upon us as repre- 
 sented by the perfect man, the Son of Man. 
 
 We now look with love upon God as repre- 
 sented by the Son of God. 
 
 Jesus Christ is my Lord of greatest victory 
 over sin, of greatest glory, that of love. I will 
 rely upon His righteousness, depend upon His 
 strength, follow His example. 
 
VI. 
 
 This is my blood of the covenant which 
 is poured out for many unto remission of 
 sins. — Matt. 26 : 28. 
 
 " SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, 
 
 WAS CRUCIFIED DEAD AND BURIED; 
 
 HE DESCENDED INTO HELL " 
 
 OUR Saviour Jesus Christ is at once the 
 Son of God and the Son of Man. We 
 are not able to fully fathom either title. 
 All of divinity is in the one. All of humanity 
 is in the other. All of humanity as God de- 
 signed and created it, free from sin. He, the 
 ideal man, enjoyed the fellowship with men in 
 their homes, at their feasts, by the wayside, in 
 their synagogues. He had deep sympathy for 
 the distressed and wrought many wonderful 
 works for their help. He had great love for 
 all mankind, and wonderful love for His friends; 
 He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, whom 
 He raised from the dead, and He awakened 
 great love in many for Himself. 
 
 This wonderful Person, the Son of God and 
 the Son of Man, lived upon the earth for thirty 
 
 75 
 
?6 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 years in the bright light of an historical age. 
 His life has been more studied in all succeeding 
 ages than that of any other historical character. 
 We know more about Him, His actions, His 
 thoughts and feelings than we do of any other 
 man who ever lived. 
 
 We ask what was the prevailing feature that 
 characterized His life. We say at once suffer- 
 ing. How did this wonderful person leave this 
 earth? He died a shameful death. 
 
 Our article of the Apostles' Creed now de- 
 mands our careful attention. He suffered un- 
 der Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and 
 buried. He descended into hell. His suffer- 
 ing culminated in His trial and death. 
 
 There is an immense amount of human suffer- 
 ing from which Christ was absolutely free, ex- 
 cept through His compassion. Much of our 
 suffering comes from being out of harmony with 
 our surroundings, from broken natural laws, 
 from being out of harmony within, from con- 
 flicting passions, from broken moral laws. 
 
 There is no hint of Christ ever being sick or 
 suffering pain from His own act. He was evi- 
 dently a man in perfect health. So there is no 
 hint of His having any sorrow or dissatisfaction 
 from not being good or not doing good. 
 Through all His suffering there was a deep un- 
 derlying delight in doing the will of God. 
 
 Now consider one or two features beneath 
 
" SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE " 77 
 
 this surface. We probably all know instances 
 where men and women leave homes of plenty 
 and refinement to dwell in the slums of a great 
 city or in heathen lands for the purpose of 
 sympathy and help. They have the spirit of 
 Christ and follow His example. They retain 
 their purity, they have the joy of doing good, 
 still there is great self-denial and suffering from 
 contact with the impure, and from sympathy 
 with their sufferings; and the closer the tie of 
 brotherhood the greater the suffering. So 
 Christ left the purity of heaven for the sinful- 
 ness of earth. His pure soul suffered the con- 
 tact with sinful beings whom He loved. He 
 dwelt in close ties with them and always had 
 the most tender sympathy for their great suffer- 
 ing. So sometimes one of us devotes himself 
 to save men from an enthroned and awful 
 wrong, appeals to them to arouse and cast it 
 off. He is a reformer, pure in motive, earnest 
 in life; he too has the spirit of Christ and fol- 
 lows His example. Often he suffers as Christ 
 suffered from being misunderstood, misrepre- 
 sented, resisted, even hated by the men he de- 
 sires to save. Often he suffers as Christ suf- 
 fered from being misunderstood by his friends 
 and followers, from the half-heartedness of 
 many followers, from being deserted by those 
 he had the right to rely upon in times of trial, 
 distress and danger. 
 
IS THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 These two kinds of suffering of the infinitely 
 pure and loving Christ were endured by Him all 
 through His life. They increased in intensity 
 as His ministry advanced and they culminated 
 in His death upon the cross. We can only 
 faintly imagine them ; our purity is itself tinged 
 with the vice from which it revolts. Our love 
 for others has some pride of self-love in it, 
 awakened by their opposition. 
 
 Another element of His suffering lies in His 
 foreseeing His death throughout His ministry 
 and in His dread of it. There are foreshadow- 
 ings of His death in His early teachings and 
 He very plainly taught of its coming and its 
 meaning in the last year of His life. He clearly 
 foreknew it and as steadily advanced towards it. 
 So He foreknew its dreadful nature, the rejec- 
 tion by His people, the death of agony and 
 shame upon the cross. He had the suffering of 
 long anticipation, and bore it nobly, advancing 
 step by step towards it. He was the Son of 
 Man, full humanity was in Him, and so the 
 natural love of life must have been strong in 
 His fullness of life. Fullness of life was in Him 
 and so a revulsion from the fate of being cast 
 out by His fellow men as unworthy to live must 
 have been strong in Him. He was a young 
 man, in the splendid vigour of the prime of life, 
 and the love of life must have been strong in 
 Him. Still all these reasons and more besides 
 
" SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE " 79 
 
 are needed to explain to us His dread of His 
 coming death. We see it in several sayings of 
 our Lord, but it comes out strongly in His 
 prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: "My 
 Father, if it be possible let this cup pass away 
 from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as 
 thou wilt." Many a young hero has advanced 
 to his death in the excitement of the hour of 
 trial. Now after the long advance through the 
 years and the hour is here, does our Lord shrink 
 from death? 
 
 Surely there was an element of suffering in 
 His coming death which we have not yet 
 grasped which was the cause of His dread of it, 
 which was present whenever He thought of His 
 death, and which grew in intensity as He came 
 near to it. All the suffering we have thus far 
 seen and much of the suffering of His last days 
 came from His fellow men; in this and beyond 
 this there seems a great realm of mystery to 
 us but very real and clear to Him, the suffering 
 that came upon Him directly from God. As 
 we now consider the suffering He endured from 
 men we see our depth of sinfulness as we are 
 related to those who crucified Him, and we see 
 also something of His deep suffering in His 
 close relation as Son of Man to those who sent 
 Him ignominiously out of this life. He felt the 
 depth of sinfulness in those He came to save; 
 and He still loved them and prayed for them — 
 
80 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 " Father, forgive them, they know not what 
 they do " — as He died for them upon the cross. 
 
 We often say the people, the mass of men 
 embracing all classes, have deep down in their 
 nature the admiration of the right; they will 
 instinctively choose the right when left to act 
 spontaneously. But the crowd, the mass of 
 the people, of His own nationality, many of 
 whom had doubtlessly been greatly blessed by 
 Him, turned against Him in the crisis and with 
 loud cries, without a dissenting voice, demanded 
 of Pilate that He should be crucified. But they 
 were influenced by their leaders, we say in ex- 
 cusing them. These leaders were the best men 
 of their race; their leadership arose from their 
 religious life and from their patriotism. These 
 had for a long time opposed Christ, and now 
 they who by rights ought to have received and 
 been loyal to Him demanded in bitter hatred 
 that He should be crucified. 
 
 There was an organized system of govern- 
 ment. We think of society as so organized for 
 its protection from evilly disposed members and 
 from outside enemies and as expressing its 
 highest ideals of social well-being. This gov- 
 ernment had a long history, so expressing the 
 ideals of successive generations, and it cul- 
 minated in a supreme court composed of the 
 most just and eminent men of the nation. 
 
 Our Lord stands before this supreme court 
 
"SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE" 81 
 
 and it sentences Him to death. Who can 
 imagine the suffering of one sentenced by the 
 highest court to death — and particularly if he 
 is innocent of all desert of death, and instead 
 deserves the highest commendation of the 
 court? 
 
 But there is a higher government still — 
 Rome, a world empire, noted for its laws and 
 its fearless administration of justice. It is cen- 
 tered in a person, Pontius Pilate. 
 
 The Roman judge feels Christ is innocent of 
 all desert of death, but from personal ambition 
 to retain his place and power he sentences Him 
 to the cross. Unworthy are all the motives of 
 action, sinful, despicable even to us with our 
 dim knowledge and blurred conscience; what 
 suffering they must have caused Christ — all the 
 motives of the populace, of the leaders, of the 
 judges of His own supreme court, of the judge 
 of the empire of the world. There seems only 
 one thing that can be added: the cowardly de- 
 sertion of His friends, the betrayal, the denial; 
 they all forsook Him and fled. Yet there is 
 another thing, too, the brutality of which human 
 nature is capable: the soldiers mocking Him, 
 buffeting Him, crucifying Him — the crown of 
 thorns, the nails in hands and feet, the exposure 
 and agony of the cross. Yes, one thing more 
 of suffering: He the purest, noblest of men, the 
 Son of Man, is crucified between two thieves. 
 
82 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 Now let us reverently try to realize what was 
 the suffering that came upon our Lord directly 
 from God. In His suffering from man, in all 
 this combined suffering that sinful humanity 
 could bring upon Christ, there was of course 
 involved, without excusing man at all, the per- 
 mission of God. This Christ recognized when 
 He told Pilate that he had no power except as 
 God had given him, and in other of His sayings. 
 This the Apostle Peter mentions at Pentecost. 
 " Christ being delivered by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God ye by the 
 hand of lawless men did crucify and slay." But 
 beyond this the dying Christ upon the cross had 
 the added suffering directly from God. 
 
 We read in the Gospels that while our Lord 
 was hanging upon the cross, there was dark- 
 ness over all the land from the sixth hour till 
 the ninth hour; and at the ninth hour Jesus 
 cried with a loud voice, " My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me?" Beginning at noon 
 the darkness lasted hour after hour. It must 
 have appalled all the people who had crucified 
 Him ; they must have waited in silence the re- 
 sult of this frown of God upon their act. But 
 it seems it was more than that. Jesus endured 
 it too in silence; and then He could endure it 
 no longer and He made this cry with a loud 
 voice. The cross did not kill Him. The frown 
 of God killed Him. God had forsaken Him. 
 
"SUFFERED UNDER TONTIUS PILATE" 83 
 
 Here as in all His suffering there was no desert 
 of it on His part. His last loud cry was that of 
 true faith of the Son of Man, " Father, into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit." But He stood in 
 close relation to sinners; He suffered from them 
 and with them; He represented them, and so 
 endured this culmination of all human suffer- 
 ing in its sinfulness; He endured the sting of 
 death; He was forsaken of God. When they 
 took Him down from the cross they did not 
 break His legs as they did those of the two 
 thieves, for He was already dead. The spear 
 thrust in His side did not kill Him. He was 
 already dead, and the blood and water that 
 flowed forth indicated that He had died of a 
 broken heart. The mental and spiritual suffer- 
 ings of Christ killed Him ; not only the bodily 
 wounds but the being cast out of men, the being 
 forsaken of God. So His work was finished, 
 His redeeming work. " It is finished," He said. 
 He was buried by His friends; loving hands 
 laid Him in the tomb of the rich, with many 
 fragrant spices, and a Roman guard watched 
 over the tomb; it was a burial fit for a king. 
 The last words of this article of the creed, " He 
 descended into hell," mean that His spirit left 
 the body and went to the place of disembodied 
 spirits. His saying to the repentant and be- 
 lieving thief, " To-day thou shalt be with me in 
 paradise," His prayer to God, " Father, into thy 
 
84 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 hands I commend my spirit," these and the gen- 
 eral teaching of the Scripture show that His 
 suffering for our sins was ended with His death 
 upon the cross. 
 
 Now we must try to learn what was accom- 
 plished by this great feature of the life and 
 death of Christ as set forth in this article of 
 the creed: "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
 was crucified dead and buried. He descended 
 into hell." The silence of the creed of the 
 Church as to the meaning of His death is per- 
 haps a caution to us of the great difficulty of 
 the subject. What was the meaning of Christ's 
 death? The best of all teachers is Jesus Christ 
 Himself. 
 
 What did Christ teach concerning the mean- 
 ing of His death? There are four great teach- 
 ings of Christ concerning the meaning of His 
 death, and there is a marked progression in this 
 teaching of that which is so difficult for us to 
 understand. 
 
 The first half of Christ's ministry was devoted 
 to teaching the nature of His kingdom. Then 
 He asked His disciples concerning the results of 
 this teaching, "Whom do ye say that I am?" 
 They confessed Him as the Christ. Then both 
 Gospels, Matthew and Mark, say that Christ 
 began to teach them that He their King would 
 be rejected by the people and be killed. They 
 could not understand it. Then He told them 
 
"SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE" 85 
 
 that they too must be willing to die as He 
 was. 
 
 This is the first meaning of His death, the 
 most easily understood, to die for a cause — for 
 a kingdom. This is one of the experiences of 
 human life at its highest reach, to be so devoted 
 to a cause as to die for it. The roll of such 
 heroes in the world's history is long and splen- 
 did and leads one to be proud of humanity. 
 
 A few days after this incident Christ again 
 taught His disciples that He would be delivered 
 into the hands of men and they would kill Him. 
 He then tells them of dying to save others, as 
 the shepherd seeks the lost sheep; and after- 
 wards He tells them plainly, " I lay down my 
 life for the sheep." This is the second meaning 
 of His death. Here too human nature at its 
 highest may share the dying of Christ. There 
 are many instances in which men have risked 
 their lives, have lost them in saving others. 
 Many a mother has given her life for her child. 
 Many a physician has given his life in trying 
 to save another. 
 
 When Christ came near to Jerusalem on His 
 last journey to that city He again tells His dis- 
 ciples of His now near-by death. And now He 
 adds, to warn them before of some harsh fea- 
 tures of it, the Gentiles would mock and scourge 
 and crucify Him. He now tells them He would 
 so give His life as a ransom for many. Here 
 
86 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 is the idea of substitution, of dying in the place 
 of another. This is the third meaning of His 
 death as taught by Christ Himself. Here too 
 human nature may rise to such a height as to 
 share this kind of dying with Christ. There is 
 something of this in the death of a soldier for 
 his country. There is something of this when 
 a soldier takes into his own breast the shot that 
 otherwise would have struck down his captain. 
 When drafting into the army was resorted to 
 in our war for the Union it sometimes occurred 
 that a friend went in the place of a friend; he 
 took the place of the husband or father for the 
 sake of wife or children; he gave his life a ran- 
 som — died instead of another. 
 
 Now we come to the last of the four great 
 teachings of Christ, that of our text. It is the 
 solemn hour of the last supper. To-morrow 
 Christ will die upon the cross. This is my 
 blood of the covenant which is shed for many 
 for the remission of sins. I die as a sacrifice 
 for sin. All the mysterious meaning of sacri- 
 fice through the ages is summed up in the death 
 of Christ. In the sinner's place He bore the 
 penalty of sin ; He was forsaken of God, the last 
 bitter dreg in His cup of woe. 
 
 In this He stands alone — man cannot share 
 with Him. We can only confess our sins, and 
 trust Him to save us from the guilt of sin — He 
 tasted death for us. 
 
"SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE" 87 
 
 The Apostles under the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit and in the light of the resurrection 
 give us in the Epistles a fuller teaching of the 
 meaning of Christ's death; but their words are 
 only after all an exposition of His " for the re- 
 mission of sins." Peter says, " He died the just 
 for the unjust to bring us to God." John says, 
 " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all 
 sin." Paul says, " He died to declare the 
 righteousness of God that he might be just and 
 the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus." 
 A coming article of the creed also teaches more 
 fully of the requirements of the forgiveness of 
 sin. 
 
 We sometimes think of the wrath of God 
 against sin as something like our quick anger 
 when provoked and think it impossible God 
 should have it. We are right. It is impossible. 
 But there is such a thing as righteous indigna- 
 tion in man. Sometimes a judge in giving a 
 sentence is terribly severe, and we recognize 
 that such righteous opposition to crime is the 
 foundation of our stable government. Purify 
 this of all sin, magnify it in your utmost thought, 
 and it may somewhat resemble the righteous 
 opposition of the divine nature against sin; and 
 this too is the foundation of our only hope of 
 recovery from sin. So terrible is it that Christ, 
 our substitute, our representative standing in 
 our desert when He faced it, uttered the cry of 
 
88 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 anguish on the cross. He gave up His life — 
 He shed His blood for the remission of our 
 sins. 
 
 Some men think they are good, their virtues 
 will save them. At any rate God will be in- 
 dulgent to them. It will be wise for all such to 
 meditate upon their character and prospects in 
 the darkness of the cross, with Christ's cry of 
 anguish reaching their souls. 
 
 Many trust in Christ as their Saviour. They 
 cannot fully understand the full meaning of His 
 death. But they know they should hate the sin 
 that brought such suffering upon Him. Seven 
 hundred years ago the Waldenses in the south 
 of France under persecutions fled to the hills 
 and mountains. They had a password by which 
 they knew each other and were led to defend 
 and help each other and together to do all the 
 good they could to all men, even to their perse- 
 cutors. "Will you do this?" one asked and 
 added, "for the love of Christ." The other 
 replied, " I will do it," and added, " in Christ's 
 name." 
 
 We live in quiet times but the same spirit 
 should fill our lives all our days. All we are, 
 all we do, should be " for the love of Christ and 
 in His name." 
 
VII. 
 
 Christ was delivered for our trespasses 
 and was raised for our justification. — 
 Rom. 4: 25. 
 
 "THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE FROM THE 
 DEAD " 
 
 THE day after the crucifixion was the 
 Jewish Sabbath and the high day of 
 their national feast of the Passover. 
 Great multitudes from all over the land thronged 
 the city streets and the temple courts; but the 
 great teacher, the great miracle worker whose 
 fame was known to all and who had cured many 
 of them and of their friends of diseases, they 
 had crucified; He was silent in the grave. An 
 awe must have filled that Sabbath day from 
 the sepulchre where Jesus lies dead and buried. 
 The priests ministering in the Temple see 
 the vail hastily repaired of the rent from top to 
 bottom, the strange memorial of their seeming 
 success and a fear-inspiring premonition of 
 their dreadful failure. The friends of Jesus, 
 disheartened and hopeless, mingle with the 
 worshipping throng or mourn alone. Some 
 with never dying love long for the morrow when 
 
 89 
 
90 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 they may visit His tomb. At length the dark- 
 ness of night hushes the city into silence. A 
 light gleams on Golgotha where around a 
 watch-fire the Roman soldiers are sleeping 
 while their sentinel paces to and fro before the 
 sealed door of the sepulchre. 
 
 The midnight hour passes, the third watch 
 *s set; and then begins to dawn upon the world 
 its first Easter morning. The grave cannot 
 hold Him, for He is the Prince of Life, the Son 
 of God, the Son of Man. He triumphs over sin, 
 death and the grave. He rises from the dead 
 in His own power, and in the power of the 
 Father. 
 
 Science with its great knowledge and power 
 has its limits. It cannot create life even in its 
 lowest forms. It often prolongs life, wonder- 
 fully snatches life sometimes from the edge of 
 the grave. But science cannot restore life. 
 The agony of love and the skill of science stand 
 alike powerless by the side of the dead. 
 
 Science in its methods of investigation, in 
 sifting and testing evidence, in its power of 
 detecting fraud has greatly advanced man's 
 knowledge of truth. Many things a more 
 credulous age would believe are set aside as 
 doubtful or incredible by this intelligent age. 
 Yet here is a most wonderful event. 
 
 Our article of the creed says, " The third day 
 he rose again from the dead." The creed 
 
"THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE" 91 
 
 herein sets forth a remarkable, well authenti- 
 cated and important truth for our careful con- 
 sideration. 
 
 It is a most remarkable event. Successive 
 generations of the race of men have passed into 
 the silence of the grave. The earth is encrusted 
 with graves, and the grave holds fast its own. 
 Jesus, the Son of Man, lies in the grave, one of 
 the race of men. The grave will surely hold 
 Him fast. 
 
 Materialism stands by the grave of Christ as 
 by all other graves with no hope, only despair. 
 It regards human life as the highest flower of 
 material development, and death as the killing 
 frost that has destroyed it. The resurrection of 
 Christ, as of any man, is not only improbable, 
 it is impossible. But materialism need not 
 trouble us; it is false throughout. We know 
 we are something more than refined matter. 
 
 A skeptical criticism alleges the resurrection 
 of Christ is a myth, the imagination of His de- 
 luded followers. But Christ did not live in an 
 age of myths, but in an historical age when lives 
 stand out with great distinctness, long after the 
 time of David and Isaiah, of Socrates and Alex- 
 ander, of Cicero and Caesar. 
 
 Yet this most remarkable event which can 
 be accounted for only by the exercise of super- 
 natural power is generally believed in this in- 
 telligent age. This can only be as the demands 
 
92 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 of science as to the needed evidence of such an 
 event are fulfilled. We may glance at the gen- 
 eral scope of such evidence. 
 
 While the event is astounding there was no 
 obscurity connected with its surroundings. The 
 powers of investigation enlisted were sufficient 
 to establish the fact. The most thoroughly 
 equipped scientist of our day, had he been pres- 
 ent, could have done no more than the disciples 
 did. 
 
 Christ was clearly dead. His friends buried 
 Him. His enemies watched His grave. He 
 was buried with the wound in His side with 
 which it was impossible that He should live. 
 The spear thrust of the Roman soldier had 
 reached His heart. 
 
 There can be no doubt about the death or the 
 identity of Christ. The sepulchre was broken 
 and empty. Those who knew Christ intimately 
 were convinced of His risen life. The doubter 
 Thomas was convinced with reference to the 
 spear thrust. The life Christ now lived was on 
 the other side of the grave, not a return to 
 ordinary conditions to this life, but a deathless 
 resurrection life. The wounded side, the bar- 
 riers of man's works, the limits of space and of 
 vision are all frankly recognized. 
 
 The confidence of the witnesses, as well as 
 their investigation, excludes all doubt. Their 
 truthfulness of character is beyond question, 
 
" THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE " 9S 
 
 Their variety of statements confirms the cen- 
 tral event. Their disinterestedness is manifest; 
 they encountered opposition and loss from the 
 first through many years of unwavering testi- 
 mony and many encountered death by it. 
 
 The circumstantial evidence is strong — things 
 that cannot be accounted for without the resur- 
 rection of Christ, the Christian Church, the 
 Sunday of the week, the observance of Easter 
 day, the counting of the centuries from the life 
 of Christ on earth. 
 
 We need now to carefully consider the im- 
 portance to us, and to the whole race of man- 
 kind, of the resurrection of Christ. 
 
 Tell us that Socrates rose from the dead, and 
 we answer at once, It is not worth investigating. 
 It would make no difference to us if he did. It 
 would not prove that his teachings were true. 
 They, as all teachings of philosophy, arise from 
 human reason and must stand or fall as they 
 appeal to human reason. Socrates made no 
 claim for himself that needed his resurrection to 
 substantiate it. 
 
 But Christ did. He claimed to be the Son of 
 God. Christ was a great teacher of most lofty 
 truths. He taught " God is a spirit and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit 
 and in truth." Now His resurrection from the 
 dead does not prove that. That teaching stands 
 on its own merit; it appeals to our reason. 
 
94 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 But His claim to be the Son of God makes His 
 death the most remarkable thing. Well may it 
 awaken the wondering adoration of the angels. 
 But being the Son of God, that He should rise 
 from the dead is the most natural thing. 
 
 You remember He was put to death on this 
 charge. He stood before the highest court of 
 His people. The High Priest put Him under 
 oath. "Art thou the Son of God?" Christ 
 answered, " I am." Then the court sentenced 
 Him to death on the charge of blasphemy, that 
 He claimed to be the Son of God. Then as 
 they had no power to execute Him they took 
 Him to the Roman court. They charged Him 
 before Pilate with claiming to be King. This 
 arose from His claim to be the Son of God, their 
 Messiah, their anointed King. Pilate asked 
 Him, "Art thou a King?" Again Jesus an- 
 swered, " I am." Upon this Pilate sentenced 
 Him to the cross, for he knew he could not re- 
 tain the confidence of the Roman Emperor and 
 allow a rival king to live. 
 
 So Christ on this charge was crucified, dead 
 and buried. Had the grave held Him fast, had 
 He remained dead, the charge of blasphemy in 
 claiming to be the Son of God would have been 
 proved. 
 
 But the sentence of the highest courts on 
 earth was carried to the High Court of heaven, 
 and reversed. The third day He rose from the 
 
"THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE" 9a 
 
 dead. He was proved the Son of God with 
 power by the resurrection from the dead, as 
 the Apostle Paul declares, and as we see at 
 once when we consider the case carefully and 
 fully. Surely this is of vast importance to us. 
 If He is proved to be the Son of God then we 
 should acknowledge Him as our Lord and our 
 God. The doubting Thomas, convinced by the 
 resurrection, used that word of tender and lov- 
 ing possession which we should each one use, 
 " My Lord and my God." 
 
 There is a further element of vast importance 
 to us for our salvation in the resurrection of 
 Christ from the dead. Being the Son of God 
 the wonder is that He should have submitted 
 Himself to death. We look back to His own 
 teaching concerning the meaning of His death, 
 as to the reason of His giving up His life for 
 us. He died for a cause as other men do; He 
 died in His effort to save, as others do; He died 
 as a ransom in place of another, as other men 
 do. In all these He is an inciting example to 
 us, to live worthily and die bravely for Him and 
 in the service of our fellow men. He lives 
 again as our leader, and we may follow Him. 
 
 But you remember another of His teachings 
 as to the meaning of His death. This formed 
 the terror and hardship of His dying which 
 pressed out the prayer to the Father in Geth- 
 semane. This explains the terrible blackness of 
 
96 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 His death which pressed out of His breaking 
 heart upon the cross the cry, " My God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me? " He taught that His 
 death was a sacrifice for sin, His blood was shed 
 for the remission of sin. He died as a sacrifice 
 to save sinners, to save us. 
 
 Now the question of supreme importance to 
 us is, Has God accepted that sacrifice? The 
 resurrection of Christ from the dead is the con- 
 clusive answer. He is indeed the Lamb of 
 God, as John the forerunner said at the be- 
 ginning—" He is the Lamb of God that taketh 
 away the sin of the world." Jesus, He saves 
 His people from their sins. He has borne the 
 curse of sin. He as a representative of His 
 people has offered Himself a sacrifice for their 
 sins. He died upon the cross; His body was 
 broken, His blood shed for them. God has ac- 
 cepted this sacrifice. All the claims of the law 
 are fully satisfied, for God raised Him from the 
 dead. 
 
 These are the two great facts involved in the 
 resurrection of Christ, the two great truths 
 proved by it. First, He is the Son of God. 
 Second, His sacrifice for the sin of the world 
 has been accepted by God. 
 
 Now let me ask a personal question. Of 
 course the answer to the question will depend 
 largely upon of whom it is asked. I will ask it 
 therefore of two great classes of people. First 
 
"THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE" 97 
 
 I will ask that large class who are indifferent to 
 religion. Many are moral, intelligent, cultured 
 but still they are largely irreligious. 
 
 What profit have you received from the resur- 
 rection of Christ? The answer is prompt and 
 clear. Why, none at all. So I will ask another 
 question. What profit have you received from 
 the constitutional convention of 1787? The 
 answer is prompt and clear. Why, none at all. 
 I never heard of it. Surely in both cases it is 
 a thoughtless answer — and in the first case far 
 more so than in the second. We owe it to the 
 wisdom of that convention that we live under 
 the best government ever devised by man. 
 True, the convention did not build your house, 
 or spread your table, or make your clothes, or 
 form your business and social relations. Never- 
 theless all these would have been far different 
 if it had not been for the work of that conven- 
 tion. So you have great profit from the resur- 
 rection of Christ. You live in a Christian land, 
 you share in the material, intellectual, moral 
 and spiritual advancement which is being 
 brought about by the risen Son of God. There 
 is a great variety of character and influence 
 among His followers to-day as in past ages, but 
 however far off and haltingly they have followed 
 Him they have made Christian lands far better 
 for the average man to live in than are any 
 other lands : and the more Christian they are 
 
98 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 the better they are. Priceless, countless bless- 
 ings you enjoy to-day from living under the 
 enlarging influence of the Son of God who rose 
 from the dead. Still you are not saved. How- 
 ever many blessings you now enjoy from Him, 
 you are depriving yourself of far greater by 
 not believing in Christ. Perhaps in this too 
 you are simply thoughtless; you have not con- 
 sidered the matter. So now that you may con- 
 sider what you are missing I will ask this same 
 question of an earnest believer in Christ. The 
 answer of course will be of faith. They will 
 not be benefits one can handle or estimate their 
 value in worldly coin; they are spiritual benefits 
 and as such are of greater value than can be 
 measured by any money standard. 
 
 What profit, oh believer in Christ, what profit 
 have you received from the resurrection of 
 Christ? The answer is prompt and clear. My 
 first profit is a change of condition, great and 
 glorious. 
 
 We live under an excellent government in 
 our free country. But all the excellency of the 
 government while it protects and blesses the 
 good citizen is arrayed against the disobedient, 
 the lawbreaker. So the strong and excellent 
 Divine government is against the sinner. My 
 conscience recognizes some little, not fully, that 
 I am a sinner. My natural condition then was 
 that I was under the condemnation of this good 
 
"THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE" 99 
 
 government of God. But now I believe in 
 Christ. As my representative He obeyed the 
 law of God perfectly and is entitled to all the 
 rewards of obedience. As my representative 
 He bore the terrible curse of sin, all that I de- 
 served, and His bearing my curse has been ac- 
 cepted of God. Those represented in another 
 share the act and fate of their representative. 
 This runs through the character of the race of 
 man. So I trusting in Him share in His act and 
 fate. The law has no longer any penalty for 
 me. He has borne it all. I am entitled to all 
 the rewards of obedience, the favour of God and 
 eternal life. He has deserved it all, and for me. 
 I cannot fully understand it; it is beyond my 
 power of appreciation. Throughout eternity I 
 will learn of it, and praise and love Him for His 
 blood-bought salvation. My change of condi- 
 tion is from condemnation to justification and it 
 is through the resurrection of Christ. He was 
 delivered for our offences; but has His work 
 been accepted, is it sufficient to justify us? 
 Yes, He has been raised from the dead: the 
 whole debt is paid, the whole reward is won. 
 As the text says, " Christ was delivered for our 
 offences and raised again for our justification." 
 My second profit is a change of character. 
 My Saviour lives and makes me share His life 
 as I trust in Him. In my natural state while 
 I could see the good and approve it, the bent 
 
100 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 of my character was sinful. I am still far short 
 of perfect obedience; but I love Christ, admire, 
 adore and serve Him. I have been raised to a 
 new life in Him. He is my living Lord and 
 lives in me and I in Him. He applies to me His 
 blood-bought salvation. As He rose from the 
 dead so He raises me to a new life. This new 
 life has new aims, new motives, new sustenance, 
 new hopes, and these are all from the risen 
 Lord. 
 
 My third profit is the well assured anticipa- 
 tion of a glorious future. Death is no longer 
 the frown of God on sin, but the smile of Christ 
 welcoming me to His presence. As Christ has 
 passed through the grave and waits me on the 
 other side so I am confident His resurrection is 
 a. pledge and an illustration of mine. 
 
 All these benefits I receive from trusting in 
 Christ. 
 
 So the believer commends the Son of God, the 
 Saviour of sinners, to the sinful world. What 
 He has done for me, what He is to me, what He 
 promises to me — all this He will be and do for 
 every one who trusts Him. 
 
VIII. 
 
 And it came to pass while he blessed them 
 he parted from them and was carried up into 
 heaven. — Luke 24: 51. 
 
 "HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND 
 
 SITTETH AT THE RIGHT HAND OF 
 
 GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY " 
 
 IT is stated that our Lord remained on earth 
 forty days after His resurrection, during 
 which time He appeared unto His dis- 
 ciples and taught them concerning His king- 
 dom. We have an account of ten such appear- 
 ances and some record of His teaching. But 
 He did not dwell with His disciples as of old; 
 He appeared and disappeared to His chosen 
 ones at His pleasure and in widely separated 
 places, and was not subject to the conditions 
 of our usual life. 
 
 There is deep significance in His non-appear- 
 ances as well as His appearances. He did not 
 appear to the soldiers who guarded the tomb 
 to convince them of His identity; they had 
 scarcely known Him. He did not appear to 
 Pilate to satisfy his idle curiosity concerning 
 truth. He did not summon His judges into 
 
 IOI 
 
102 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 His presence — the High Priest and the Phari- 
 sees, His willful enemies; nor did He appear to 
 the indifferent mob. He had taught and warned 
 all these solemnly and earnestly, and now He 
 passes them by in silence, a silence more im- 
 pressive than any spoken word. But He ap- 
 peared often and tenderly to those who had 
 listened to His teachings, who knew Him well 
 and who loved Him, and who could bear wit- 
 ness of Him to all others whom they could in- 
 terest in Him. 
 
 Then came His last day on this earth. He 
 had returned from Galilee to Jerusalem. He 
 leads a company of His disciples through the 
 streets, out of a gate of the city, across the 
 brook Kidron, past the Garden of Gethsemane, 
 up the Mount of Olives to its top towards Beth- 
 any. Then He lifted up His hands and blessed 
 them; He was parted from them and was car- 
 ried up into heaven. Could there be a more 
 unadorned account of such a stupendous event? 
 Even by our inspired writer it is the very sim- 
 plicity of truth. Earth could no longer hold 
 Him; He yielded to the power of the yearning 
 heavens. They listen to the words of blessing 
 dying away in the distance. They strain their 
 eyes to catch a last glimpse of His look of part- 
 ing love. 
 
 Who can imagine His reception beyond the 
 cloud, the angelic escort, the outburst of 
 
"HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN" 103 
 
 heavenly praise, the throne of glory? They 
 never saw His face again until each one in turn 
 awoke in His presence in that heavenly land 
 and was satisfied. 
 
 Our religion is based on facts. Our convic- 
 tions, our principles and feelings binding us to 
 God are based upon the facts of His revelation 
 in nature and in His holy Word. The tests of 
 an alleged fact are the same in all departments 
 of truth, and it is so with the fact of the ascen- 
 sion of Christ. There are three tests. First, 
 a fact must be attested by careful and truthful 
 observers. The disciples who attest both the 
 resurrection and the ascension of Christ are, 
 we have seen, such observers. Second, it must 
 be in harmony with other facts of the same class. 
 Third, it must be followed by its own conse- 
 quences, facts that cannot be accounted for 
 without it. 
 
 These last two tests deserve our careful at- 
 tention. The ascension of Christ is in harmony 
 with all other known truth of existence and of 
 personality. There are great mysteries in our 
 religion, but they are not like the mysteries of 
 other religions, trivial matters bewildering the 
 mind only to degrade it; these are of infinite 
 subjects, and their study enlarges and elevates 
 the mind and quickens reverence and true piety. 
 They are mysteries simply because they are 
 lines of truth running out beyond our power of 
 
104 THE APOSTLES' CEEED 
 
 mind to fully follow them ; they are beyond our 
 comprehension, but in lines with all we know, 
 lines going out into infinity. 
 
 The believer is filled with awe as he stands 
 in the presence of immensity. With bared head 
 on a cloudless summer night he stands under 
 the mystery of the starry heavens; from the lit- 
 tle ball of the earth he looks off upon blazing 
 suns in the infinity of space. That little twink- 
 ling star yonder he knows is a sun many times as 
 large as his own sun that a few hours ago made 
 the western sky beautiful with its declining 
 beams — a sun so large and at the same time so 
 far away that he can only see a flash of light 
 that has taken many thousand years to reach 
 his eyes. Should there be a planet revolving 
 around that great sun, and intelligent beings 
 upon it with like powers as his, as is quite prob- 
 able, they could not see his earth, or even his 
 sun, so small is it and so far away from their 
 eyes. This believer, this little being on this 
 little earth is facing the mystery of existence, 
 for the whole heaven is full of blazing suns, and 
 he knows that beyond these heavens, visible to 
 his unaided eye, there stretches away on every 
 side and above and below an infinity of space in 
 which are many such suns ; and that in this im- 
 mensity of space he is floating on his little earth 
 upheld by the Almighty Father, maker of 
 heaven and earth. 
 
"HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN" 105 
 
 He turns now to his Bible and it tells him of 
 a place where angels and saints have their 
 home and where God specially manifests His 
 presence, where is, as it were, His throne; and 
 now the first thought of his faith is that these 
 blazing suns are the outposts, the sentinels of 
 that place of God's throne, that place of light 
 and glory. 
 
 Into this heaven, the palace of the great 
 King, of which the starry heaven is but the 
 gem spangled doorway, Jesus, our King, has 
 ascended. Into this heaven, the temple of the 
 Holy God, of which the starry heaven is the 
 magnificent portico, Jesus our High Priest has 
 ascended. Into this heaven, the splendid grove 
 of loftiest philosophy lighted by blazing suns, 
 Jesus, our Teacher, has ascended; and our 
 thoughts simply follow Him. True, science 
 tells us the multitude of stars are not moving in 
 great circles around a great center; that all, 
 our own sun and its planets with the others, are 
 moving in various directions and in wavering 
 lines ; but the calculation is not complete. True, 
 science tells us the utmost rapidity of flight, if 
 as fast as the light flies, would require thou- 
 sands of years to reach that central palace. 
 But there is one thing that flies faster than 
 light; our thought flies so. We are here one 
 second, the next we are in that far-off sun: 
 why may not the spirit fly with the speed of its 
 
106 THE APOSTLES' CEEED 
 
 thought when released from its earthly con- 
 ditions? True, heaven, the throne room of the 
 great King, may be very near to us now, only 
 we have no powers with which to know its 
 presence — our eyes see only the light of the 
 sun, but the light and glory of God's throne may 
 be far beyond our power of seeing, or of any 
 other powers we possess, which are suited only 
 to these material surroundings. True, the 
 Bible tells us God is a Spirit; He has no visible 
 form; a pure spirit has no right hand. A great 
 teacher has always to accommodate his state- 
 ments to the condition of his scholars. We 
 have right hands. All there comes to us in that 
 familiar fact, of power, of favour, may be 
 ascribed to God. 
 
 Heaven is not fully described in the Bible, 
 simply because it cannot be. Whatever descrip- 
 tions are given to us must be in terms we un- 
 derstand, in terms of our earthly experience. 
 Using these terms heaven is a place of light and 
 glory, the abode of angels and saints, the place 
 where God manifests His special presence, the 
 place of His throne. Into this heaven Jesus, 
 the risen Son of God and Son of Man, our Lord, 
 ascended. And there He is now seated at the 
 right hand of God the Father. All the mystery 
 of it is in full harmony with all the known truth 
 of existence. The Son of God is at home again. 
 
 So the ascension of Christ is in harmony with 
 
"HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN" 101 
 
 all the known truth of personality. We know 
 of personality only from ourselves. There are 
 different natures in our persons — physical, men- 
 tal, spiritual; widely different as they are we 
 speak of each personally. I am hungry. I am 
 tired and must sleep; I think, I feel; so I aspire, 
 I adore. Now we go a step farther, but it is a 
 stupendous step. We say of Jesus Christ that 
 in Him the divine nature assumed the human 
 nature, the Son of God became the Son of Man 
 in one person. 
 
 The Son of God dwelling through eternity in 
 the glory of the heavens saw on this far-off 
 earth a race of intelligent beings involved in 
 the corrupting power and the terrible guilt of 
 sin, and He yearned over them in His infinite 
 love. So He came to this earth with the sole 
 purpose to save sinners. Of all beings who 
 have ever lived upon this earth He is the only 
 one who came with a conscious purpose. All 
 of us children of men came here without the 
 choice of our wills. Of all the countless planets 
 in the wide universe of God inhabited by kindred 
 races of intelligent beings this may be the only 
 one where dwells a race of sinners. What effect 
 the salvation of our race may have upon these 
 other races, if such there be, we cannot tell. 
 Suffice it the Son of God took upon Himself 
 our nature and became the person Jesus Christ 
 that He might save us from our sins. 
 
108 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 We often speak of the humiliation of Jesus 
 Christ. Wherein did it consist? Not in His 
 poverty; many noble men have been poor. 
 Nor in His limitations to a single age and land; 
 many great men have been so limited. His 
 humility, strange as it may seem to us, was in 
 His becoming a man at all. He, the glorious 
 Son of God, the creator of all the wide universe, 
 took upon Himself the nature of His creature: 
 we cannot fathom the depth of this humiliation. 
 We speak of the sacrifice of Christ upon the 
 cross as voluntary. Wherein was it voluntary? 
 
 We see Him led to the cross by armed 
 Romans and surrounded by a passionate mob. 
 What stronger power than the world empire 
 and a multitude of unreasoning men can we 
 imagine, and He is in their power. Now let 
 the light of the ascension of Christ fall upon the 
 Roman spears and upon the angry faces of the 
 mob and we see at once that had He chosen 
 to ascend from the foot of the cross all the 
 powers of the world combined would have been 
 unable to hold Him. It could as easily have 
 grasped the stars and dragged them from their 
 courses. He the Son of God in the person of 
 Jesus Christ had the right, and the love of sin- 
 ners, to make the sacrifice of Himself upon the 
 cross. Herein also lies the value of His sacri- 
 fice, to atone for the sins of the world. Herein 
 also is seen the glory of the resurrection. He 
 
" HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN " 109 
 
 rises from the dead by His own power, and that 
 of His Father; His sacrifice is accepted. It 
 would have been manifestly improper for the 
 glorious Son of God to remain upon this earth, 
 His work being accomplished, or for Him to 
 die again as men do. He arose to a life be- 
 yond the grave. Hence the ascension of Christ 
 is in full harmony with the glory of His person 
 and work. He returned triumphant to the 
 throne of God in heaven. 
 
 His work of sacrifice for sin was fully ac- 
 complished and accepted and now He ascends 
 to the throne of God in heaven, and as He 
 ascended " He led captivity captive and gave 
 gifts unto men, that the Lord God might dwell 
 among them." 
 
 When Christ commissioned His disciples to 
 preach His Gospel to all men He promised to 
 be with them always to the end of the world; 
 He would lead, guard and cheer them with His 
 presence. There are expressions in Scripture 
 which describe the relation of Christ to the be- 
 liever as so intimate that He dwells in them. 
 " Christ in you the hope of glory." We often 
 say that Christ while on earth was limited in 
 space, but now is everywhere present. The mys- 
 tery of personality is by no means ended by the 
 ascension of Christ. The human nature of 
 Christ was not endowed with the qualities of 
 the divine nature so that it could be every- 
 
110 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 where present. But neither was the divine na- 
 ture limited by the human nature, so it was 
 confined to a particular place. The physical 
 man is confined to a particular place but he has 
 other power and we know the thought and 
 feeling powers of a person, a man, cannot be 
 localized, and it is human nature with its many 
 rich, divinely given qualities that the divine 
 nature assumed. So that which can be said of 
 either the divine nature or the human nature 
 is said of the person Jesus Christ. Thus it was 
 that Christ spoke of Himself when on earth: 
 " Before Abraham was I am." Again, " The 
 Son of Man which is in heaven," and again to 
 Nathaniel, " When thou wast under the fig tree 
 I saw thee." 
 
 So our Lord at the right hand of the throne 
 of God to-day is a true man in every sense of 
 the word as He was when He lived here upon 
 the earth. The heart which beat in sympathy 
 with human hearts in their infirmities and sor- 
 rows, which reached down to the fallen, yearn- 
 ing to save them, which grieved over the im- 
 penitent and hardened, which welcomed the 
 penitent and trustful, is the same divinely hu- 
 man heart to-day in heaven. The hand that 
 touched the eyes of the blind and they saw, 
 that touched the leper and he was cleansed, now 
 holds the scepter of glory and power. Just as 
 truly the person Jesus Christ is present with us 
 
"HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN" 111 
 
 now and always by His divine nature, having 
 divinely human love and sympathy for us in all 
 the experiences of this life. 
 
 The ascension of Christ, besides being in 
 harmony with all known truth of existence and 
 of personality, also meets the third test of truth. 
 It is followed by its own consequences, by facts 
 that cannot be accounted for without it. Our 
 Lord in His last discourse with His disciples 
 on the night before His death said, " It is ex- 
 pedient for you that I go away, that the Com- 
 forter, the near caller, the Holy Spirit, may 
 come upon you for I will send him unto you." 
 Then follows the description of what the Holy 
 Spirit will do in the world. On the day of 
 Pentecost the Apostle Peter accounted for the 
 marvellous gifts of speech and for the consecra- 
 tion of believers by telling the people and their 
 rulers that Jesus Christ whom they had cruci- 
 fied had been exalted by the right hand of God, 
 and had poured out the Holy Spirit upon the 
 people. The birth and growth of Christian 
 character and influence, and of the Christian 
 Church are accounted for not only or mainly 
 by the belief in the resurrection and ascension 
 of Christ, but by the facts believed in as well. 
 Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God in 
 heaven, and so by His Spirit He is present 
 with the believer and with His Church in all 
 ages and in the whole earth. 
 
112 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 Thus we see in the light of the ascension of 
 Christ what is the true belief in Him. We are 
 apt sometimes to think it is like a belief in any 
 historical character who has lived, taught and 
 passed away. We sometimes think it is admir- 
 ing His life, understanding His teachings and 
 influence, even understanding something of the 
 meaning of His death. It is all this, and far 
 more. It is the personal trust of a needy soul 
 in a living and present and ruling Saviour. He 
 is with us now by His spirit and in His provi- 
 dence; He has divinely human love and sym- 
 pathy for us in all our varied experiences. The 
 believer recognizes that while he trusts and 
 loves Christ, while he tries to live in the service 
 of God in true thankfulness there is much im- 
 perfection in him; even his aspirations, his 
 prayers are imperfect. He recognizes as well 
 that Christ is now in heaven, his advocate 
 with the Father, and that His righteousness 
 awaits for him, that it covers all his imperfec- 
 tions, and is the full assurance that he shall at 
 length be presented " holy and without blemish 
 and unreprovable before him"; that as Christ 
 so loved us that He died for us, just as truly He 
 loves us now and lives for us; as the Apostle 
 Paul says, " We shall be saved by his life." 
 
 The ascension of Christ thus brings the un- 
 seen and eternal world near to us. How near 
 it must have been to His disciples! They saw 
 
"HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN" 113 
 
 Him ascend, they knew He still existed; His 
 messengers, the two men in white apparel, were 
 at once by their side. Henceforth the heavens 
 had a new meaning for them ; it was very near 
 by, though they were unable to see its full glory. 
 Their own lives were enlarged and ennobled as 
 they thought of entering heaven. Jesus Him- 
 self had told them, " I go to prepare a place for 
 you, and I will come again for you — that where 
 I am there ye may be also." Where is 
 heaven? We know not. Our earth seems 
 small compared with the great universe, still it 
 is a part of it. Our lives may seem to us small 
 compared with the heavenly life, but in our 
 small duties, and it may be heavy trials, we have 
 the divine companionship of the living Saviour. 
 With Christ, His mission to the earth, His de- 
 parture to the heavens, the unseen and eternal 
 are brought near to us and our lives too are 
 enlarged and ennobled. Where is heaven? It 
 is a place where Christ is. What is heaven? 
 It is a condition. To be like Christ. To be 
 like Christ and to be with Christ, this is our 
 heaven. We have a foretaste now, and the full 
 glorious fruition awaits our awaking from the 
 sleep of death, in His glorious presence. 
 
IX. 
 
 When the Son of man shall come in his 
 
 glory and all the angels with him, then shall 
 
 he sit on the throne of his glory: and before 
 
 him shall be gathered all the nations. . . . 
 
 — Matt. 25: 31-46. 
 
 " FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO 
 JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD " 
 
 THE last clause of the Apostles' Creed 
 concerning Jesus Christ states that He 
 will come again to the earth from the 
 throne in heaven, and this time it will be to 
 judge the living and the dead. 
 
 There are many passages of the New Testa- 
 ment that teach this coming of Christ to be the 
 judge of the race of mankind, and many more 
 which are based upon it. It may be well for us 
 to bear these in mind while we direct our atten- 
 tion mainly to the teaching of Christ Himself 
 on this subject. 
 
 Let us then consider the Last Judgment as 
 described by our Lord Jesus Christ in the 
 twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. 
 
 The prevailing impression to-day is that this 
 subject should be addressed to unbelievers, 
 
 114 
 
"HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE" 115 
 
 especially to great sinners to arouse them to 
 seek salvation. But we note at once that this 
 description was spoken by Christ to His own 
 disciples. He had ended His ministry of teach- 
 ing the people, He had denounced in terrible 
 terms the false religious leaders, He had taken 
 His farewell of the Temple. Now He is speak- 
 ing to His disciples on the Mount of Olives, 
 overlooking the city as they are on their way 
 to Bethany. It was a solemn hour of His life ; 
 He was within two days of the cross. He has 
 foretold the destruction of the Temple, and in 
 answering the questions of His disciples He 
 describes the future time ending in His second 
 coming to the earth. He speaks striking para- 
 bles concerning mainly the judgment of His 
 followers. Parables cease and this description 
 of His coming to judge the world closes His 
 teaching of His disciples concerning future 
 time. 
 
 We see the design of Christ therefore was to 
 incite His followers first of all to faithfulness 
 and perseverance, and so all His followers in 
 the ages to come: and thus through their lives 
 and teachings to quicken and impress the con- 
 science of all mankind and so lead them to seek 
 salvation in Him. It will be well for us to bear 
 this in mind throughout our meditation on this 
 stupendous theme. 
 
 It is evidently the description of the General 
 
116 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 Judgment. " The Son of Man shall come in 
 his glory, and all the angels with him, then 
 shall he sit on the throne of his glory : and be- 
 fore him shall be gathered all the nations." 
 
 We are to distinguish clearly the present from 
 the future and are not to forget for an instant 
 that Christ is now ruling and judging the world 
 and each one of us. His judgment agencies are 
 now hovering over sin ripe for condemnation as 
 the vultures hover over their prey. The 
 dominion of Christ is being increasingly exer- 
 cised and will be unto the end. Just as truly the 
 end will come in the General Judgment. So 
 we are not to forget for an instant the particular 
 judgment of each one at death. The parable 
 of Dives and Lazarus implies an individual 
 judgment at death as do the words of Christ 
 upon the cross to the penitent thief, " To-day 
 thou shalt be with me in Paradise." The im- 
 penitent, unforgiven sinner passes at his death 
 into perdition while the believer can say with 
 the great Apostle to the Gentiles, " absent from 
 the body, present with the Lord." " I have a 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is 
 far better." 
 
 There are two stupendous events clearly set 
 forth as accompanying the coming of Christ to 
 the General Judgment. The Apostle Paul 
 speaks to the Athenians of " a day in which 
 Christ will judge the world in righteousness/' 
 
"HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE" 117 
 
 and again he writes, " that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ will judge the quick and dead at his ap- 
 pearing," and again, " that we must all appear 
 before the judgment seat of Christ." " The 
 world," " the quick and the dead," and " we 
 must all appear," as well as Christ's own descrip- 
 tion imply that great truth taught so clearly in 
 the Scripture — the Resurrection of the dead, 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt, and 
 some to everlasting life. Identity and change 
 are the two seemingly conflicting truths of the 
 Resurrection as taught in the Scriptures. The 
 identity will be as real as between the babe in 
 the cradle and the man of mature mind, as be- 
 tween the seed and the flower — and the change 
 will be as inconceivable. A following article 
 of the Apostles' Creed will bring this great 
 subject to our consideration by itself. Only 
 now it is necessary for us to contemplate the 
 successive generations of mankind assembled 
 before Christ at the day of the General Judg- 
 ment. Let us not think of the day itself as any 
 twenty-four hour day or small period of time. 
 There is no haste in any of the works of God, 
 no neglect or confusion incident to hurry; " one 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a 
 thousand years as one day." The day of judg- 
 ment will be like the day of creation, like the day 
 of grace in which we live. There will be ample 
 time given to the judgment of the race of man- 
 
118 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 kind, when the living and the dead shall stand 
 before the great white throne of the righteous 
 Judge. Time is however not the main thought, 
 for the Judge will know all the life and the in- 
 ward character of each one fully without further 
 need of examination. 
 
 The second stupendous event associated with 
 the General Judgment in the Scripture is the 
 destruction of the earth by fire. The Apostle 
 Peter says, " The heavens that now are by the 
 word of God have been stored up for fire (or 
 as it may be rendered, stored with fire), being 
 reserved against the day of judgment when the 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise and 
 the elements shall be dissolved with fervent 
 heat and the earth and the works that are 
 therein shall be burned up." Science speaks of 
 the earth having already passed through many 
 great convulsions, describes it now as a ball of 
 molten fire crusted over with a thin layer of 
 solid rock, shows by earthquake and volcano 
 the possibility, even the probability, of a future 
 convulsion — that it is stored with fire, as the 
 Scripture says. But nature, while it teaches of 
 change of form, speaks also of permanence of 
 substance and force ; it gives no intimation of 
 annihilation but of the possibility, even the 
 probability, of a new heavens and a new earth, 
 indescribably more rich and beautiful than our 
 present home, the culmination of God's great 
 
"HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE" 119 
 
 ideal of creation " wherein dwelleth righteous- 
 ness," as the Apostle Peter describes. 
 
 These two associated events show to us the 
 General Judgment in its distinctive character as 
 the termination of what we call the present dis- 
 pensation, the present stage of God's dealings 
 with the race of mankind. While there is much 
 that is inconceivable to us about the close of 
 this dispensation the fact itself seems indis- 
 pensable to our thought. The everlasting 
 continuance of the present economy is not con- 
 ceivable; it had a beginning — just so it must 
 have an ending. The ending will be on a scale 
 of grandeur and sublimity in full harmony with 
 the righteousness of God who gave His well 
 beloved Son to save sinners from their sins — 
 " He will judge the world in righteousness, by 
 the man he hath ordained, whereof he hath 
 given assurance to all men in that he hath raised 
 him from the dead." 
 
 In this sense it will be the culmination and 
 vindication of the present every-day judgment 
 of the individual and the race, and will clear 
 away what may seem to us now as mysterious 
 in the various complications of our social lives, 
 as the prosperity of the wicked and the adver- 
 sity of the righteous; the inner life and the out- 
 ward circumstance will appear in the right light 
 and in due proportion both to the individual and 
 to the race. 
 
120 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 Another sublime purpose of the General 
 Judgment appears to be the manifestation to 
 the assembled universe of intelligent beings of 
 the righteousness of God in His dealings with 
 the sinful race of man. Hence we are told that 
 the Judge will be attended by all the holy angels, 
 and that the fallen angels are reserved " in 
 bonds until the day of judgment." Science 
 studying God's great book of nature teaches us 
 of the probability of other races of intelligent 
 beings inhabiting planets revolving about dis- 
 tant suns in the immensity of space. They may 
 know of our race already with their superior 
 powers and if so they must wonder at the 
 righteousness of God in sparing a race of 
 sinners, and at His wonderful love for that race 
 in sending His Son to this little planet and in 
 His taking upon Himself our nature in His great 
 condescension and sacrifice to save us from our 
 sins. So God's other book, His supernatural 
 revelation in the Bible, speaks of the General 
 Judgment of our race as in the presence of the 
 " angels of his power," gazing in adoring won- 
 der upon the results of His Son's redeeming 
 work as pronounced by Himself in His judg- 
 ment of our race. 
 
 All the currents of human history are setting 
 in to the Judgment. All generations of men 
 penitent and impenitent are moving on to the 
 Great White Throne. All the ranks of angelic 
 
"HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE" 121 
 
 beings, holy and rebellious, are waiting for the 
 manifestation of the righteous judgment of God. 
 
 We must now confine our attention to three 
 general features of Christ's own description of 
 the General Judgment of the race of mankind. 
 
 The first is that Christ teaches clearly that 
 He will be the Judge. Whatever perplexities, 
 even doubts, men may entertain of Christ's 
 divinity it is quite evident that Christ in this 
 solemn hour had no doubt Himself. In a quiet, 
 concise, self-possessed way He describes His 
 judging all nations, the reasons of His sen- 
 tences and the execution of His decrees. The 
 resurrection of the dead, the assembled nations, 
 the gathered angels, the throne of glory, while 
 the earth passes away in smoke and flame, and 
 a new heavens and a new earth evolve these all 
 center about the person of Jesus Christ and pro- 
 claim Him both Son of Man and Son of God. 
 
 There is the retribution of justice in His be- 
 ing the appointed Judge. In two days after 
 this description on the Mount of Olives He was 
 judged by the multitude, by the supreme court 
 of His own nation, and by the Roman gov- 
 ernor, and He was condemned to the cross; and 
 ever since He has stood before the judgment 
 seat of human souls of all who have heard of 
 Him and has been accepted or rejected of them 
 as the Saviour of sinners. 
 
 There is also the wisdom of justice in His be- 
 
122 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 ing the appointed Judge. He is the Son of 
 Man — the God-Man. He knows the nature of 
 man in His own person; He has passed through 
 our earthly experiences, has borne our trials, 
 has faced our temptations. He knows us all 
 together. Our brother man is our Judge. 
 
 There is also infinite love in the justice of His 
 being the appointed Judge. No one has ever 
 loved us as He loves us. If He condemns us 
 nothing can be said for us. Each one so con- 
 demned must as heartily condemn himself, 
 for He loves us more than we can love our- 
 selves. 
 
 The condemnation of the lost will be by the 
 Saviour who came to save the lost. No one 
 ever did so much for them; He loved them so 
 He died for them. We can give our dearest 
 friend into His hand. He loves him with 
 greater love than we ever did. We can com- 
 mit ourselves into His hand. No one has ever 
 yearned over us to save us as He yearns over us. 
 If He pronounces sentence against our friend, 
 if He pronounces sentence against us, it will be 
 richly deserved. If He condemns it will be 
 evident to the assembled universe of witnessing 
 angels, it will be evident to all one's friends, it 
 will be evident to one's own self that no other 
 sentence could possibly be given that even 
 Christ Himself could not save him. Each one 
 will have to confess, however hard to bear, that 
 
"HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE" 123 
 
 the sentence is the only one infinite love could 
 pronounce. 
 
 We now consider the nature and grounds of 
 the General Judgment as described by the Judge 
 Himself. He will separate the righteous from 
 the wicked. The present dispensation is a com- 
 mingling of these two classes. We are bound 
 to each other by many close and strong ties. 
 At its close there will be a complete separation. 
 The Great Judge will separate them as easily 
 and as accurately as a shepherd separates the 
 sheep from the goats. He will separate them as 
 He discerns their character. 
 
 Now the Judge describes His test of char- 
 acter of each class as He gives the ground of 
 His decision; and we must at once confess our 
 great surprise. The test does not seem to be 
 a moral one; there is no recounting of splendid 
 virtues or of horrid crimes. The test does not 
 seem to be a religious one; there is no mention 
 of worship in private or in public, nor of its 
 neglect. The test does not seem to emphasize 
 faith; there is no mention of trusting in Christ, 
 of being forgiven and accepted in Him, of be- 
 ing renewed in Him, of confessing Him, nor of 
 rejecting Christ. The test does not seem to be 
 one of obedience to law — at any rate nothing is 
 said of loving God supremely, as required by 
 the first and great commandment, nor of dis- 
 liking or even hating God. But when we con- 
 
124: THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 sider more carefully the ground of His decision, 
 we see it embraces all these, the moral, the re- 
 ligious, the faith, the obedience to law. The 
 test shows a character like Christ's in that it 
 looks upon and treats all mankind as He does. 
 The test shows the presence of a brotherly love 
 of mankind so great and constant that it acts 
 freely, spontaneously, instinctively on the whole 
 life. This is something different from natural 
 benevolence, an impulse to help awakened by 
 an appealing case. This may coexist with an 
 utterly selfish character. This must be more 
 than mere sentimentality which may coexist 
 with hard-hearted cruelty. This must be a 
 principle in control of life, in control when one 
 does not plan the deed, when it comes out 
 spontaneously, so that the deeds of helpfulness 
 are the natural outflow of the love — a surprise 
 even to the doer. The absence of this spirit 
 is thus detected even when one has natural 
 benevolence and sentimentality, so that one may 
 truly say, " I would have been kind only I did 
 not know you." He did not have anything in 
 his life which resembled Christ's deep, steady, 
 constant love for all men. 
 
 The test then is the presence of Christian love 
 for Christ, for His followers, for all men in such 
 a degree that it controls the whole life so that 
 even our unconscious acts are directed and 
 charged with it. This we recognize at once 
 
" HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE " 125 
 
 flows from and so is the evidence of our love to 
 God in Christ — a supreme, grateful love; it 
 flows from our faith in Christ; it proves that it 
 is more than a mere intellectual acknowledg- 
 ment of Him, more than a mere profession; it 
 is a living trust in Him, a vital union with Him ; 
 it shows also the spirit of true morality is its 
 source. Formal morality may have one virtue, 
 as honesty, accompanied by a dark vice, as im- 
 purity; this seems a living morality, a Christian 
 love that comprehends all the virtues; it shows 
 also the sincerity and earnestness of all re- 
 ligious observances. 
 
 Christ as Judge makes the test a striking one 
 by identifying Himself with the miserable. We 
 know how His life when on earth was a spon- 
 taneous ministering to the wretched. Many 
 expressions in the Gospels show there were 
 many miracles besides those specially described. 
 Before Him as He passed through the country 
 was the heavy cloud of misery; after Him the 
 bright sunlight of health and happiness. 
 
 We also see that the progress of Christianity 
 over the world has been attended by the same 
 spirit to a large extent. The old Roman and 
 Greek civilizations, as the heathen civilizations 
 of to-day, largely neglected poverty, sickness 
 and the prisons, while slavery flourished. Now 
 society itself in Christian lands has abolished 
 slavery, helps the poor and the sick and the im- 
 
126 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 prisoned. It is to-day going farther in seeking 
 to diminish sickness by fostering sanitary con- 
 ditions, to lessen poverty by the principles of 
 justice and even by the spirit of love in the 
 treatment given by both the employer and em- 
 ployee in business and labour, and by conduct- 
 ing prisons in a way to stimulate and help the 
 imprisoned to become good citizens. There, 
 however, is much still to be done by society for 
 all these needy classes, which may still be called 
 to some extent neglected classes. There should 
 certainly be a larger infusion of a Christian 
 spirit into the life of society. This can only be 
 of course by a greater number of Christians and 
 by a greater amount of Christian love. There 
 is some reason to fear that many professed 
 Christians are mere formal ones, and that even 
 genuine ones have not yet attained to the larg- 
 est possible degree of Christian love. 
 
 It behoves each one of us to make the matter 
 personal. Not to think mainly of the action of 
 society in general, not of individual acts of 
 what may be called wayside charity, but to ex- 
 amine our inner life. Is it so controlled by 
 Christian love for all mankind that it acts spon- 
 taneously, unconsciously, fully, as well as by de- 
 sign and intention, in the family, in business 
 and in society? One destitute of this Christian 
 love is a selfish man, though living in seeming 
 morality. One possessing this Christian love 
 
" HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE " 127 
 
 is acknowledged as His follower by Christ, his 
 Judge. 
 
 Let us now consider the sentence of the 
 Judge. These are the two strong and wonder- 
 fully suggestive words in the concise sentence — 
 Come and Depart. The personal character of 
 Christ the Judge is itself attractive to the one 
 class. He draws them to Himself. Just as 
 truly, and it is a terrible truth, Christ is per- 
 sonally repellent to the second class. The self- 
 ish soul would be unhappy in heaven where all 
 is love, unhappy in the presence of Christ the 
 lover of mankind, unhappy in the presence of 
 the Father, whose name is love. Not in the 
 mere word of his lips but in the nature of the 
 case, the character of Christ says, Depart. 
 
 So the meaning of the next words are clear, 
 Come ye blessed of my Father, ye who have 
 his blessedness, that of loving. Depart ye 
 cursed, ye who already in your natures are 
 cursed, who know not pure love. The re- 
 mainder of the sentence provides a condition 
 the Judge of infinite righteousness and mercy 
 sees is suitable for each class: Come ye blessed, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world. Heaven cannot be 
 fully described to us ; all description is limited by 
 our language. We look out upon the fair earth 
 and the wonderful universe — there has been 
 progress from the far-off beginning, but the 
 
128 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 plan is not yet complete. All so far has been 
 but a preparation; the consummation is yet to 
 be — " the kingdom prepared for you." There 
 love shall flourish and even grow more like the 
 eternal and infinite love in a condition suitable 
 to its blessedness. Eternal life in perfect sur- 
 roundings. Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
 the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his 
 angels. Here too the place of punishment can- 
 not be fully described to us, for our thought is 
 limited to our language. Christ uses words 
 with which we are familiar — " outer darkness," 
 "worm dying not," and here fire; they seem 
 contradictory, but are really cumulative, and all 
 expressive of terrible conditions, conditions of 
 punishment. Those having the loveless char- 
 acter go into a condition suitable to them, for all 
 the terms used are restrictive not only to happi- 
 ness but to growth of the qualities of character. 
 Depart from me — from love. Associate with 
 those confirmed in selfishness. Go into a con- 
 dition restrictive of further growth in selfish- 
 ness. We sometimes think of eternal punish- 
 ment as if it was everlasting woe inflicted for 
 certain acts performed in time; here it is seen 
 to be a persistent, confirmed, hardened char- 
 acter finding its own place and associates. Our 
 ideas of time are limited. Let our imagination 
 take its wildest flight, we cannot reach the limit 
 of time. Still the question arises, What is be- 
 
" HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE " 129 
 
 yond? From the darkness beneath comes the 
 answer: A sinner still, with the selfish, under 
 punishment. From the light above comes the 
 answer: Still loving, with Christ in the kingdom 
 of love. 
 
 On the ceiling of one of the chapels in Rome 
 there is the great painting by Michael Angelo 
 of the Last Judgment. Those who have made 
 a critical study of it say that the faces of the 
 blessed are expressive not of realization but of 
 eager anticipation; they are attracted by the 
 bright vision of the kingdom. So likewise the 
 faces of the cursed are not filled with woe but 
 with an awful dread, a shrinking from the im- 
 pending punishment. The great artist has evi- 
 dently caught the meaning of Christ. He did 
 not design to give a full description either of 
 the blessedness or the misery, only of the at- 
 tractiveness of the one and the repulsiveness of 
 the other — and this not mainly of the condition 
 but of the character— the attractiveness of the 
 blessed character, the repulsiveness of the 
 cursed character. 
 
 Let us pause here that Christ's design may be 
 fulfilled in us. 
 
X, 
 
 But when the Comforter is come whom I 
 will send unto you from the Father, even the 
 Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the 
 Father, he shall bear witness of me. — 
 John 15: 26. 
 
 " I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST " 
 
 I 
 
 "^HE last article of the Apostles' Creed 
 that speaks directly of God says, I be- 
 lieve in the Holy Ghost. 
 The formula of Christian baptism and the 
 Apostolic Benediction used generally at the 
 close of our church services bring what is called 
 the doctrine of the Trinity into constant re- 
 membrance as a fundamental truth of the Chris- 
 tian religion. There is increasing mystery as 
 we ascend the scale of being — mystery in the 
 existence of matter, of life, of man's life, phys- 
 ical, mental, spiritual, and at length the greatest 
 mystery of all in the being of the self-existent 
 God. 
 
 In the unity of the being of God there is the 
 trinity of persons. In the one God there are 
 distinctions we call persons. These distinctions 
 are not merely in our idea, but in the reality of 
 being, so that each is a person, each can say I 
 130 
 
"I BELIEVE m THE HOLY GHOST" 131 
 
 of himself and thou or he of the other, and 
 peculiar properties, operations and offices may 
 be affirmed of each. Still God the one person 
 is not one and three in the same sense; the 
 trinity is not contrary to our reason but above 
 it, the greatest mystery of existence. We can- 
 not understand our own personality. Each one 
 of us may say, I hunger, I think, I worship. 
 There are distinctions physical, mental, spiritual, 
 and each expresses itself in terms of personality, 
 but each is so linked with the others that it has 
 no separate existence. 
 
 But it is not only or mainly in our own nature 
 that we may see indications of a Trinity in the 
 being of our Creator but specially in the revela- 
 tion He has made to us in the Scriptures. At 
 the very beginning of the hymn of creation in 
 the first chapter of Genesis it is said, " The 
 Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
 waters." This awakens our thought. " Is the 
 Spirit of God " only a mode of expressing the 
 power or action of God, or is there in the being 
 of God a distinction called the " Spirit of God " ? 
 This last thought becomes progressively promi- 
 nent as we follow the unfolding of the Scripture 
 revelation until we reach our text. Here Jesus 
 Christ speaks of Himself as a person, of the 
 Father as a person, and of the Comforter or 
 Holy Spirit as a person. Yet we find that each 
 person is always represented as having such 
 
132 THE APOSTLES' CEEED 
 
 relation to the others that He has no separate 
 existence by Himself. There is but one God. 
 Certain meanings of the word person, as we 
 use it of ourselves, evidently do not apply here; 
 independent existence can in no sense be at- 
 tributed to either Father, Son or Holy Ghost; 
 they exist only in relation with each other as 
 one God. Our word person evidently does not 
 express the whole truth ; it is our human effort 
 to comprehend the incomprehensible. Yet the 
 distinctions are real in God, for each speaks of 
 Himself as a person, though always as united in 
 being with the others. This truth has been 
 carefully considered in the articles of the creed 
 concerning the Father and the Son, and we are 
 now to consider the office and work of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 The revelation of God is made to sinners and 
 has reference not to the mystery of the being 
 of God in itself but only as far as needed to 
 make us understand the great salvation worked 
 for us and offered to us. The Father creates, 
 maintains and rules. He sent the Son, and 
 through Him forgives and restores us to His 
 favour. The Son came forth from the Father, 
 assumed our nature, represents us, died for us 
 and so redeemed us to Himself. Now we con- 
 sider the Holy Spirit in His loving work of ap- 
 plying the blood-bought salvation to us. 
 
 The deep reality in the being of God is the 
 
" I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST M 133 
 
 basis of this threefold revelation of God. God 
 the Father describes the general relation of the 
 Creator and Ruler of the universe to us, the 
 children of men. God the Son describes the 
 mission and work of Christ as the Saviour of 
 sinners. God the Holy Spirit describes the ex- 
 ecution of the plan of salvation to the race of 
 mankind. 
 
 Christ the incarnate Son of God wrought out 
 His mission in a few short years in a far-off age 
 and land; this supreme revelation of God was 
 localized in the necessities of the case. Now 
 the Holy Spirit makes Christ, His life, His 
 teaching, His redeeming work universal in all 
 lands and ages : to the world awakening belief, 
 and to believers revealing Christ in His fullness 
 of saving power. 
 
 Our Saviour, in His farewell address to His 
 disciples the night before His death upon the 
 cross, follows the text with what is called the 
 Holy Ghost chapter, the sixteenth chapter of 
 the Gospel of John. In the early verses of the 
 chapter, especially in the seventh verse, He 
 teaches that the coming of the Holy Spirit is 
 dependent upon His own death and resurrec- 
 tion. In the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh 
 verses He describes the mission of the Holy 
 Spirit to the world. In the fifteenth He de- 
 scribes the mission of the Holy Spirit to be- 
 lievers. 
 
134 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 When we ask, as we must, how is Christ made 
 universal to all lands and all ages, how does the 
 Holy Spirit work this great result, we can at 
 once see that it is in at least three ways. First, 
 by the record of Christ's work as handed down 
 to us in the Scriptures. The Apostle Peter 
 says of the Scriptures, " Men spake from God 
 being moved by the Holy Spirit." This gives 
 us the whole Scriptures, and especially the 
 Gospels. Secondly, by the personal influence 
 of believers. In Scripture times and ever since 
 the knowledge of Christ has spread among men 
 from those who have trusted Him as their 
 Saviour and lived His life. Thirdly, by the 
 loving influences of the Holy Spirit Himself 
 through the Scriptures and through the testi- 
 mony of believers to persuade men to believe 
 in Christ. 
 
 We now follow the Saviour's description of 
 the mission of the Holy Spirit. First to the 
 world. " He will convict the world of sin, of 
 righteousness and of judgment." In the first 
 and in each of the following cases the Holy 
 Spirit uses Christ Himself in His life here on the 
 earth, and especially in His death, to accom- 
 plish His gracious purpose. 
 
 First, He convicts the world of sin because 
 they believe not on Christ. The Holy Spirit 
 reveals Christ to the world in all the perfection 
 of His being — the man who did the will of God, 
 
« I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST " 135 
 
 revealed the nature of God. The man " who 
 went about doing good," the lover of His fellow 
 man. The man who had not a thought of self- 
 ishness, who was wholly devoted to God and 
 man. Not to recognize Him in His genuine 
 goodness reveals to the thoughtful man that his 
 own moral nature is blind. Natural blindness 
 may be tested thus; he cannot see the glimmer 
 of a candle, the glare of an arc light; he cannot 
 even see the sun — surely he is blind. Then 
 beside as a man recognizes, and to the extent he 
 recognizes the goodness of Christ, he sees his 
 own glaring defects. The man relying upon 
 his morality, even proud of it, must as he looks 
 upon Christ say, I do not love God as Christ 
 did. I do not love my fellow man as Christ 
 did. And now the Holy Spirit shows us this 
 perfect man upon the cross, cast out by man as 
 unworthy to live. Who crucified Him? Our 
 brothers, our fellow men. There is something 
 in man that is repelled by pure goodness, is 
 awakened to enmity by the rebuke of goodness. 
 That goodness I do not recognize shows me 
 my blindness; that goodness I do recognize 
 shows me my defects; that goodness that 
 arouses my enmity shows me my hardness. 
 The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, the sin of not 
 believing on Christ, not recognizing Christ, not 
 trusting Christ, not adoring Christ. 
 
 In the next step of His mission Christ says, 
 
136 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 " The Holy Spirit will convince the world of 
 righteousness because I go to the Father and 
 ye behold me no more." The Holy Spirit in 
 showing the world its sin reveals its ruin, its 
 helplessness; now He shows the world the 
 righteousness of Christ and so reveals its refuge, 
 its hope. Death often clarifies our view of a 
 virtuous life — lifts the whole life to our view in 
 its strength and beauty. The Israelites mur- 
 mured against Moses while he lived and revered 
 him after his death. So Christ directs our view 
 to His completed life. As we look we are com- 
 pelled to say, His life is perfect; He loves God 
 so He dies in doing His will; He loves man so 
 He dies for him. Such a life deserves a trans- 
 lation to heaven, an ascension to the Father. 
 But far more is taught by the Holy Spirit. 
 Christ claimed to be the Son of God and the 
 Son of Man, to be the Saviour of sinners, to give 
 His life a ransom, to shed His blood as a sacri- 
 fice for sin, to die that man might live. It is an 
 astounding claim by this righteous man. Is it 
 false? Then surely God will pronounce it false 
 by His unbroken grave. Is it true? Yes, be- 
 yond a doubt, for God raises Him from the 
 dead, and He ascends to the Father. The 
 righteousness is accepted, the ransom of the 
 sinner is paid, the sacrifice for sin is sufficient. 
 Sinners would be banished by the righteousness 
 of Christ were it not that He was their repre- 
 
" I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST " 137 
 
 sentative — the Son of God of infinite dignity 
 and worth, the Son of Man our brother. He 
 lived for man. He died for man. His life, His 
 death as our representative has been accepted 
 by the Father, and now our representative is 
 at the right hand of the throne of God. 
 
 What hinders us now from sharing in this 
 blood-bought, glorious salvation from sin? 
 There is but one thing, the hold the prince of 
 this world has upon us, the power of sin over 
 us. 
 
 The third feature of the mission of the Holy 
 Spirit, Christ says, is that He will convince the 
 world of judgment because the prince of this 
 world hath been judged. Both God and man 
 have judged him. Deep in human nature is the 
 power of judging, of approving or condemning 
 principles leading to courses of action. 
 
 Principles do not have a separate existence in 
 themselves; they are abstractions of our 
 thought; they exist only in persons. We may 
 in our thought sum up such worldly principles 
 as embodied in a person, and we may call him 
 the prince of this world, and then we may judge 
 him. It is of this Christ speaks. He says, The 
 Holy Spirit will arouse by my death this judg- 
 ment power in human nature to judge those 
 principles and forces which brought me to the 
 cross. 
 
 When we reflect we see that the whole world 
 
138 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 has pronounced and is constantly pronouncing 
 judgment upon the main actors in the crucifixion 
 of Christ, that is upon the principles embodied 
 in them; upon these actors under the willing 
 sway of the prince of this world; and the sen- 
 tence is one of condemnation. 
 
 What is the world's judgment of Judas; of 
 the unscrupulous, selfish love of money em- 
 bodied in him ? What is the world's judgment 
 of Caiaphas; of the proud intolerance of re- 
 ligious opinion and power embodied in him? 
 What is the world's judgment of Pilate; of the 
 absorbing ambition for political place and 
 power embodied in him? What is the world's 
 judgment upon the multitude: of the fickle 
 nature in the masses, of the love of applause, 
 of fame, embodied in them? What is the 
 world's judgment upon the recklessly wicked, 
 upon the Roman soldiers and the impenitent 
 thief; of the cruelty, the gambling, the reviling 
 embodied in them? What is the world's judg- 
 ment of the disciples forsaking Christ in the 
 hour of His distress; of the weak loyalty to a 
 person and a cause which fails when hardship 
 and danger threaten? The Holy Spirit has so 
 awakened the judgment power of our nature 
 that we condemn the prince of this world. Why 
 then should we not rebel against him? Why 
 not throw off his yoke? Why should each one 
 be held any longer by the principle seen and 
 
"I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST" 139 
 
 instinctively condemned as it takes its sinful 
 part in crucifying Christ? The love of money 
 is forever condemned in Judas. Shall I let it 
 make a Judas of me? The pride of opinion is 
 forever condemned in Caiaphas. Political am- 
 bition is hideous in Pilate. Popular applause is 
 not worth living for as seen in the multitude. 
 Presumptuous wickedness is repellent at the 
 cross. Half-hearted loyalty is unworthy the 
 soul: all these principles of action cry aloud for 
 condemnation. 
 
 These principles of action which have such a 
 large influence, when we see them at the cross 
 of Christ, are utterly condemned, the world it- 
 self being aroused to judge them. The only 
 wise thing for us to do is to repudiate them, to 
 cast off their power, and turn to Christ our 
 Saviour. 
 
 With these few strong words the Saviour 
 describes the complete work of the Holy Spirit 
 in the world, revealing through the life and 
 death of Christ man's sin, the Saviour's power 
 to save, and showing us how unworthy of us 
 are the worldly principles which would keep us 
 from accepting Christ as our Saviour. In His 
 last address to the people in the Temple as re- 
 corded in the twelfth chapter of John the 
 Saviour states this truth with its companion 
 truth. " Now is the judgment of this world, 
 now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 
 
140 THE APOSTLES' CllEEB 
 
 And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw 
 all men to myself." The prince of this world 
 is unworthy of our allegiance, is cast out. 
 Christ crucified is universally attractive. Re- 
 sisting the power of the world let us yield to the 
 attractive power of Christ. Now when one 
 says, I believe in the Holy Ghost, he not only 
 believes this is the mission of the Holy Ghost 
 in the world as Christ teaches, but he trusts in 
 the Holy Ghost to thus work in him so he sees 
 his sin, sees his Saviour, and sees his liberty 
 from the prince of this world, who has deceived 
 and enslaved him. 
 
 We are not to think of the Holy Spirit as an 
 arbitrary and capricious sovereign working only 
 where He will and as He will, so we cannot fore- 
 see and rely upon His work, but must await His 
 irresistible, mysterious power for our salvation. 
 
 God never acts capriciously either in nature 
 or in grace. He has made man a free moral 
 agent and always treats him as such. The Holy 
 Spirit does not coerce a man to believe — such 
 belief would not in any sense be man's at all. 
 The Saviour Himself tells us the character and 
 mission of the Holy Spirit. We know we can 
 rely upon His character, we can depend upon 
 His mission, accept it and act with Him. 
 
 We have already seen that the Holy Spirit 
 makes Christ, who was localized upon the earth 
 centuries ago, present now in all ages and in 
 
"I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST" 141 
 
 all lands. The Holy Spirit now reveals Christ 
 and carries on His work in the whole world as 
 present in His spirit. When Christ was upon 
 earth He taught men, He invited men, He urged 
 men to believe in Him but He never coerced 
 men. So now the Holy Spirit appeals to the 
 God-given nature of man, to his free will; He 
 instructs of his sin, of his Saviour, and of the 
 condemnation of the prince of this world who 
 enslaves man, and so He influences and leads 
 man. If now we do not rebel against the prince 
 of this world we choose to remain his slaves; 
 the full responsibility is ours — it does not belong 
 in any sense to the Holy Spirit. If we rebel 
 against the power of sin in us we follow the in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit and may rely upon 
 His help for success as He helps all believers — 
 which is the second part of His mission. 
 
 Belief, as we saw at the beginning of the 
 Apostles' Creed, is both intellectual belief and 
 heart trust; these two go together in our belief 
 in all the persons of the one Godhead. When 
 we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker 
 of heaven and earth, we trust Him as our 
 Father. When we believe in Christ we trust 
 Him as our Saviour. So when we believe in 
 the Holy Spirit we not only have an intellectual 
 belief in His character and mission in the world, 
 but we trust Him, as He brings us to Christ and 
 renews us in His likeness. We through His in- 
 
142 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 fluence on us cast off the sway of the prince of 
 this world and come under the sway of the 
 Prince of Righteousness. May we never reject 
 the mission of the Holy Spirit, never grieve 
 Him ; rather may we heartily accept His mission 
 in the world and joyfully accept His mission to 
 believers. Our Saviour describes the mission 
 of the Holy Spirit to believers in the fifteenth 
 verse of this sixteenth chapter of the Gospel by 
 John. " All things the Father hath are mine, 
 the Holy Spirit shall take of mine and shall de- 
 clare it unto you." The full revelation of the 
 power and grace of God in the Saviour He will 
 declare unto you. 
 
 The remaining articles of the Apostles' Creed 
 will in some measure set forth the enlarging 
 experience of the believer of the full salvation 
 of Christ as wrought in him through the grow- 
 ing confidence, loving trust and steady loyalty 
 of his belief in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In recent years our knowledge of the heavens 
 has been greatly enlarged by stellar photog- 
 raphy. A dry process photographer's plate is 
 held facing a certain part of the heavens steadily 
 for several hours. Of course this can only be 
 done by freeing the plate entirely from the 
 movement of the revolving earth and it must 
 be done only when the air is free from dust and 
 clouds. Then a remarkable picture of them- 
 selves is wrought on the plate by the myriad 
 
" I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST " 143 
 
 flashing suns beyond the power of the largest 
 telescope to discover. All the stars we knew 
 before are clearly upon the plate and multitudes 
 of others we had never seen. So the Holy 
 Spirit leads us and helps us to look steadily to 
 Christ, frees us from the sway of the prince of 
 this world — of the world movement and the 
 world mists and clouds. And as we so look to 
 Christ our souls grow in His likeness: the 
 virtues and graces in Him are revealed to us 
 and impressed upon us by the Holy Spirit. 
 
XL 
 
 Now ye are the body of Christ and sever- 
 ally members thereof. — i Cor. 12:27. 
 
 " THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH " 
 
 THE Apostle is speaking in this chapter 
 of the Church. While writing to a 
 particular church he describes the 
 whole Church in all ages and lands — calls it the 
 body of Christ. The articles of the Apostles' 
 Creed we have thus far considered have directed 
 our faith to God as He reveals Himself for our 
 salvation. Now this and the following articles 
 tell of our faith as seen in our experience of this 
 salvation. The first says I believe in the Holy 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 Our word church is a translation of the 
 Greek word used in the New Testament mean- 
 ing an assembly or congregation of people called 
 together by a herald or proclamation. The 
 society called together by Jesus Christ of all 
 those who believe in Him is called the Christian 
 Church. Christ as Head of the Church, the 
 source of all authority in it, instituted two sacra- 
 ments setting it apart and distinguishing it from 
 
 144 
 
"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH" 145 
 
 the general societies of the world: Baptism, 
 the rite of initiation, and the Lord's Supper, the 
 right of maintenance. The word Catholic 
 comes from two Greek words meaning the en- 
 tire, the whole; the Catholic Church therefore 
 means the whole Christian Church. This 
 Church began its existence in Judea many cen- 
 turies ago, and as it has lived through the ages 
 and spread into many races and lands it has 
 developed many varieties in government, in 
 worship, in creed and in mode of living; but 
 these have all been the effort of the human 
 mind in varied races and conditions to learn 
 more fully of the great Head of the Church and 
 of the way to serve and honour Him. Mis- 
 takes and errors may have been made and may 
 now be cherished, but the Catholic Church cen- 
 ters its faith in Jesus Christ, its Lord and 
 Saviour. The main divisions existing to-day, 
 each uses the word Catholic. The Roman 
 Catholic means the whole Roman Church. The 
 Greek Catholic means the whole Greek Church. 
 The Protestant Catholic means the whole 
 Protestant Church. Each of these has divisions 
 in itself, particularly; the Protestant has a mul- 
 titude of denominations, each having some dis- 
 tinction in government, worship, creed or mode 
 of life. But when we use the words of the 
 Apostles' Creed the Catholic Church means the 
 whole Church, including the Roman, the Greek, 
 
146 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 and the Protestant, the universal Church in all 
 lands and ages. 
 
 The word holy means set apart to the service 
 of God. Holiness is the reverse of moral im- 
 purity; it is the active principle of purity cast- 
 ing off all impurity; it is positive righteousness. 
 This is absolute in God. It can only be relative 
 in man, and of course in a society of men, though 
 engaged in the service of God. The avowed 
 purpose and effort of this society flow from faith 
 in Christ, and recognize that only to the extent 
 of its being holy can it serve and honour the 
 Holy God. Here, as always in the creed, belief 
 is not only intellectual acceptance but heart 
 trust. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church 
 means not only I believe in its existence, but I 
 have confidence in its principles and purposes 
 to such an extent that I am identified with it. 
 Such an one may believe more heartily in one 
 branch of the Church than in another, but he 
 recognizes it as a branch, and therefore believes 
 in the whole, the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 There is then a society in the world which is 
 distinct from the world in that it recognizes 
 Christ as its head ; it agrees in its faith in Him, 
 it acknowledges His authority and tries to live 
 His life; it has been gathered by His word and 
 spirit, and it proclaims that word and conveys 
 that spirit to the world. 
 
 In the last article of the creed we saw the 
 
"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" 147 
 
 mission of the Holy Spirit was to convince the 
 world of its need of a Saviour and to lead to 
 trust in that Saviour. Now we see that the 
 Church is formed of those who thus trust in 
 Christ and that its work is to proclaim Him to 
 the world through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Let us take in the sublime thought. The 
 great universal Church of Christ is called from 
 the world, agrees in its true faith and is en- 
 dowed by the Holy Spirit and commissioned 
 by Christ to live His life and carry on His work 
 in the world. It represents Him in all lands 
 and in all ages. While divinely called and com- 
 missioned it is made up of human members with 
 many virtues and many frailties. Some mem- 
 bers are strong and true, some are weak and 
 some are false. We are to be always liberal in 
 our judgment of others and strict in our judg- 
 ment of ourselves, and we are to judge of any 
 society by its consistent members. So judg- 
 ing of the Holy Catholic Church we should be 
 filled with admiration for it and strongly drawn 
 to it — should believe in it heartily. 
 
 Three things about it may be rapidly men- 
 tioned. First, it is an ancient organization. 
 Before the time of Christ men had been gath- 
 ered by the supernatural revelation of God pre- 
 paring for Christ, the saints of the Old Testa- 
 ment, the heroes and poets and orators of 
 Israel — a noble line. Since the time of Christ 
 
148 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 the Church has gathered its members and car- 
 ried on its life and work. Races, nations, 
 empires, civilizations, Egyptian, Babylonian, 
 Grecian, Roman have risen, flourished and 
 passed away. They are remembered only by 
 their monuments. The Church needs no monu- 
 ment. It still lives. It is not decrepit with age. 
 It is in the vigour of youthful life and divine 
 energy. 
 
 The second thing to be noticed is its universal 
 character — it is fitted for humanity. It is not 
 confined to any favoured nation, or race, or 
 class of men. None are too noble to be called, 
 and none are too lowly, none too cultured and 
 none too ignorant, none too rich and none too 
 poor, none too good and none too bad. Wher- 
 ever human lives are found there is need for 
 the Church and the Church goes there as com- 
 missioned by Christ and filled with the Holy 
 Spirit to show the need and to urge all to trust 
 the Saviour. The Church gives its invitation 
 and gathers its members to its equal rights and 
 privileges wherever man is found, whether in 
 the heart of Africa or in the highest college 
 town of our favoured land, in the deepest slums 
 of a city or in its finest palaces : it seeks and wel- 
 comes humanity wherever found. 
 
 The third thing to be noticed is, it is a 
 beneficent organization. Christ said, " Ye are 
 the salt of the earth," and salt is gathered only 
 
«THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH" 149 
 
 to be used when needed to preserve and purify. 
 Christ said, " Ye are the light of the world," 
 and light is not to be hidden but to shine to 
 drive away darkness. So the Church ever takes 
 the lead in the progress of the race in morals 
 and true welfare; its influence is a blessed one — 
 a beneficent one in all ages and lands. When 
 the dark ages settled upon Europe caused by 
 the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals over- 
 whelming the Roman power and civilization, 
 the Church preserved much of the literature and 
 culture of ancient Greece and Rome and kindled 
 the new light of the teachings and life of its 
 Saviour, and this has grown and spread to the 
 civilization of to-day. In that cruel dark age 
 of feuds and rapine mercy found its refuge in 
 the Church. Alas also the world spirit of 
 cruelty entered its bosom. The deficiencies of 
 the Church are recognized as unworthy of her, 
 as coming not from her Lord, but from the 
 world. The persecutions in the Church were 
 largely this false spirit trying to crush the true 
 Church within its own organization; the perse- 
 cuting spirit was the world spirit ; the persecuted 
 spirit was the true Church trying to grow in 
 the knowledge and spirit of Christ. 
 
 The large tolerance of opinion and Christian 
 charity prevailing to-day come from the true 
 Church in its growth in the knowledge and 
 spirit of its Lord and Head. We cannot over- 
 
150 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 estimate the beneficent effects of the teaching 
 and life of the Church upon the race of man 
 in all lands and ages. It has ever taught the 
 loftiest truths — holding God high in the thought 
 of man as Creator, righteous Ruler and gracious 
 Father; holding man high in his own thought as 
 more than an animal, as a spiritual being created 
 in the likeness of God, and though fallen into sin 
 still capable of being restored in that likeness, 
 as having the lofty call to learn of God, to grow 
 in His knowledge, His grace, His likeness and 
 His service. So the Church has ever gathered 
 in its membership the penitent and the renewed 
 and taught them of Christ, and incited them 
 to live the Christ life in the world. Wherever 
 the Church life has prevailed many beneficent 
 results have followed. Woman has been 
 lifted to the position of honour rightfully be- 
 longing to her. Marriage has been sanctified, 
 family life has been ennobled, children have re- 
 ceived much elevating attention, shackles have 
 fallen from the slave, the poor have received 
 sympathy and much judicious help in self-re- 
 specting support and larger justice and the sick 
 and suffering have received its ministry in 
 lightened groans, in restored health and in more 
 sanitary conditions of living. 
 
 The Church has had its deficiencies, its periods 
 of depression; it could not have been otherwise, 
 as it is a human organization; but its faith has 
 
"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" 151 
 
 been in the Saviour and its general aim to pro- 
 claim Him to the world by its word and its 
 life — and its influence, greater at times than at 
 others, has been generally a beneficent one. 
 
 Let us in our favoured land and age give due 
 credit to the main agency of our civilization ; 
 let us think and speak honourably and lovingly 
 of the " mother who has borne and trained us." 
 In the Church also we find incentive, culture 
 and opportunity to render the best service to 
 our fellow men. We are not to be contented 
 with an unconscious beneficence, however large, 
 but are called by Christ the Head to devise and 
 foster a larger social service of the Church, the 
 intentional influence and effort it may and 
 should put forth to benefit all conditions of men 
 in all directions. 
 
 On the other hand we hear the criticism that 
 the Church has been left behind by the great 
 attainments and achievements of this wonder- 
 ful age in which we live. It is claimed and it is 
 probably largely true that during the past cen- 
 tury man has acquired more knowledge of 
 nature and more control of its forces and more 
 resulting power and wealth than in all the for- 
 mer centuries. It is an age of the sciences — 
 and of applied science — science of the heavens 
 and the earth — man grasping the power of 
 steam, of electricity, of explosives, boring 
 through mountains, sailing over seas, riding 
 
152 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 swiftly on land, and flying in the heavens, send- 
 ing his messages over the land, under the sea, 
 through the air. Wonderful attainments and 
 achievements, vast knowledge and culture, vast 
 power and wealth. 
 
 Much of this advance may be attributed to 
 the human mind becoming freed from the bond- 
 age of superstition; and this has been largely 
 due to the Church holding before man the lofty 
 thought of the one God, maker of heaven and 
 earth, our Father, and the lofty thought of man 
 as the child of God, and so inciting him to read 
 the book of nature — to discover its meaning and 
 use its forces. 
 
 Still our civilization, in itself alone with all its 
 attainments, has its clear limitations and great 
 dangers. The present terrible war among the 
 Christian nations in Europe shows that these 
 great forces of civilization have not eradicated 
 the savage nature of man but have become the 
 fearful means by which it destroys life and 
 property; alas also it shows that the Christian 
 Church has not insisted enough in its teaching 
 and life upon love as the law of God, the law of 
 " righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost"; it has not at any rate taught and in- 
 fluenced the nations it has made to some extent 
 Christian, to have the Christian spirit in full 
 control, has not taught each nation to love its 
 neighbour as itself. 
 
"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" 153 
 
 While Christianity has not eradicated the 
 fighting propensity of mankind it has, we feel, 
 in the case of our nation and our allies given it 
 a noble purpose. Fighting in itself becomes 
 arrogant, strives for self and power, for the 
 victory of might, for the having its own way 
 even by the oppression of the defeated. But 
 there may be fighting with a noble aim, to de- 
 fend the weak, to relieve the oppressed, to se- 
 cure the right against the assaults of might. 
 Thus Christianity in the middle ages turned the 
 warrior into a knight. Thus in our day the 
 spirit of the individual knight has taken posses- 
 sion of nations. Ours is the most advanced age 
 of chivalry, as seen in the act of our nation. 
 She has entered the war not for selfish ag- 
 grandizement or material gain, but to defend 
 her weak citizens from the assault of cruel power 
 upon the seas, to aid France in her distress as 
 she aided us in our struggle for freedom, to save 
 Belgium and the weak nations from being ab- 
 sorbed in an arrogant world empire, to make 
 the world safe for democracy, for the rights of 
 the people of all the earth to choose their own 
 mode of government, to destroy the power of 
 militarism that humanity may have liberty. To 
 secure these noble purposes our nation, as of 
 old the individual knight, is distinguished for 
 honour, courtesy, bravery, magnanimity; she 
 pours out her blood and her treasure for the 
 
154 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 rescue of the oppressed, for the welfare of man- 
 kind. In all this our nation, under the influence 
 of the Church, has caught the spirit of our 
 religion. 
 
 Now as we look more carefully at the social 
 condition of our country in this time of great 
 material prosperity it becomes clear that the 
 great knowledge and power of our age, our 
 boasted civilization, may be a source of danger, 
 may even threaten its own existence, may pre- 
 pare for its own overthrow. Emerson has said, 
 ' The soul of improvement is the improvement 
 of the soul," and civilization does not in itself 
 secure this. All men have equal rights but all 
 men do not have equal ability. It is right to 
 develop the individual to his highest powers but 
 the incentive should be not for him the one, 
 but for humanity for the all. The equality of 
 rights applies to the inequality of ability. There 
 are men much stronger in many ways than 
 others — in grasping knowledge and power, be- 
 coming leaders, employers, capitalists. The 
 grasping of the knowledge and power of the age 
 by the strong makes them stronger, but does 
 not change their character. If they have a 
 selfish spirit they will become more selfish by 
 its indulgence, and will trample on the many and 
 the weak. 
 
 This evidently leads to social conflict and even 
 threatens the destruction of civilization. In our 
 
« THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" 155 
 
 cultured and rich land we have immense riches 
 in the possession of a comparatively few, a large 
 middle class of the prosperous and well to do, 
 and alas also a wide-spread poverty — a large 
 number of people who have difficulty in earning 
 a poor living. Resulting we have great com- 
 binations of wealth, of capital ever seeking 
 greater wealth, and great combinations of 
 labour seeking higher wages, shorter hours, 
 better conditions. 
 
 The frequent conflicts of capital and labour 
 threaten a growth of class distinction and class 
 hatred destructive of civilization. The at- 
 tempt to control these combinations and con- 
 tests by law and force is within the province of 
 national organization, and shows the limitations 
 of our social order, and evidently is not an 
 adequate remedy for the growing evil. 
 
 The spirit of the strong must be changed 
 from a selfish to a Christlike spirit; the hope of 
 doing this is only in the Christian Church. The 
 Church is to preach Christ as the Saviour and 
 further is to preach and show the nature of His 
 salvation — that it is Christlikeness. The owner 
 of a tenement house to be a Christian must 
 have the interests of his tenants at heart. The 
 owner of a factory to be a Christian must try to 
 conduct his factory as Christ would conduct it. 
 The president of a railroad, the owner of a coal 
 mine, the director of a corporation to be a 
 
156 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 Christian must try to conduct his business as 
 Christ would conduct it. So labour, the great 
 power to develop the world, to be Christian 
 must have the spirit of Christ seeking the good 
 of all. This kind of church teaching and living 
 appeals to the highest manhood and prevents 
 the scandal to religion arising from the many 
 unchristian lives of its professed followers. 
 
 The Church may and should sit down by the 
 weak and oppressed, the poor and the sick, 
 should administer the needed sympathy and 
 charity to them, should cheer the suffering with 
 the consciousness of a present and sympathiz- 
 ing God and should hold before them the hope 
 of a better life to come. 
 
 But far, far more than these loving minister- 
 ings it should preach and live in a way to incite 
 to a Christlike life. It should replace selfish- 
 ness and greed as motives in grasping the 
 wealth and power of the age with love for 
 Christ and for humanity, for mankind He came 
 to save. It should replace Adam Smith's rule, 
 " Every one for himself in the competition of 
 life," with Christ's golden rule, " Do unto others 
 as you would have others do to you." To say 
 that politics in national life, that international 
 relations, that business on a large scale cannot 
 be carried on by the golden rule of Christ is to 
 banish Him from the great affairs of social life. 
 The Kingdom of God includes all humanity and 
 
"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH" 157 
 
 the golden rule is the law and the spirit of the 
 King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 
 
 The mission of the Church is to proclaim this 
 truth and to live this life. Loyalty to Christ 
 includes loyalty to one's nation — and far more, 
 loyalty to mankind; includes patriotism — and 
 far more, humanity. Loyalty to Christ includes 
 church life, home life, social life and business 
 life. To exclude either kind of life from the 
 golden rule, to exclude small business affairs or 
 the largest business affairs from the golden rule, 
 is to be untrue — disloyal to Christ. 
 
 We should surely rejoice in the high civiliza- 
 tion of the present age in our favoured land 
 and in Christian lands generally, but we cannot 
 help seeing its dangers and particularly its 
 limitations. If the soul conscious of its sin, of 
 its need of forgiveness, of its need of a new life 
 to overcome its selfishness comes to the high 
 civilization of to-day and asks for needed help 
 it receives no answer; the lips of science with 
 all its learning and culture, the lips of power, 
 with all its wisdom and wealth, are dumb before 
 such a cry of the soul. 
 
 Only the Church can help such a soul; it 
 brings that needy soul to Christ the Saviour. 
 He gives forgiveness and new life. Then the 
 Church welcomes that believing soul into her 
 fellowship. Thus the Church becomes a social 
 force ; within itself awakening the spirit of fel- 
 
158 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 lowship in the true worship of a growing Christ- 
 likeness: and without itself, in each community, 
 country or city, asking what would Christ do 
 here, finding the needs of a community, of a 
 nation, of the world; and then awakening all its 
 dormant power in the enthusiastic work of min- 
 istering. It is the body of Christ, the repre- 
 sentative of Christ in all lands. 
 
XII. 
 
 Ye are fellow citizens with the saints and 
 of the household of God. — Eph. 2: 19. 
 
 "THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" 
 
 THE ninth article of the Apostles' Creed 
 contains two kindred statements; the 
 first we have just considered, the sec- 
 ond, " I believe in the communion of saints," 
 is now before us. 
 
 In the New Testament the members of the 
 Church are frequently called saints; some of the 
 Epistles are addressed to such. It was a gen- 
 eral designation of all believers in Christ who 
 had confessed Him in becoming members of 
 His Church. It is quite reasonable then that 
 a creed made up of the statements of the 
 Apostles should speak of the members of the 
 Church as the saints — that is the holy ones. 
 Nowadays the word has dropped out of com- 
 mon usage: the world generally does not call 
 the members of the Church saints, nor do the 
 members of the Church venture to call them- 
 selves saints. As the ages passed on from the 
 
 159 
 
160 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 times of the New Testament the name saint 
 became confined to those distinguished by spe- 
 cial holiness of life, or those distinguished by 
 special fidelity in trial, as the martyrs. That 
 both the world and the Church have ceased to 
 use the name for all confessed Christians may 
 be regarded as a high tribute to the ideal of 
 Christlikeness, but the word also has lost some 
 of the incentive of the New Testament usage. 
 The Apostle Paul in writing the Epistles did 
 not regard the members of the Church as per- 
 fect in holiness, for he frequently rebukes errors 
 of teaching and life and exhorts to growth in 
 character and service. So Christ Himself did 
 not regard His Apostles and disciples as per- 
 fect, but He taught them to recognize each 
 other as disciples and to love each other as He 
 loved them. The designation then is a great 
 honour and a noble incentive; the followers of 
 Christ are to regard themselves as saints and 
 to live such lives that the world shall know them 
 as saints. 
 
 In the text the Apostle speaks of new rela- 
 tionships formed by believing in Christ, " Ye 
 were strangers and foreigners," without alle- 
 giance to Christ or love for Him; now "ye are 
 fellow-citizens with the saints," obeying the 
 laws and being loyal to the kingdom of heaven, 
 " and of the household of God," inmates of the 
 home established by God, members of the fam- 
 
"THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" 161 
 
 ily, governed by family feelings, and having the 
 fellowship of family life. The communion of 
 the saints is then their recognizing each other 
 and sharing with each other the possessions, 
 rights, privileges and duties of the citizenship 
 and family life they have in Christ. Here, as 
 in the other articles, the " I believe " includes 
 the intellectual recognition of such a communion 
 of life and privilege and especially a personal 
 sharing in it. 
 
 What do the saints have in common, and 
 what is their spirit of fellowship in their com- 
 mon possessions? We may in a single sentence 
 describe it. They have one source of life— it is 
 in Christ. They have one manner of life — it is 
 growing like Christ. They have one service 
 in the world— it is proclaiming Christ. They 
 have one destiny— it is to be with Christ for- 
 ever. There are various degrees of this life 
 and its manifestations, many shining lives rec- 
 ognized at once as saints, many dim lives, but 
 having some Christ life and so-called saints, 
 set apart to the service of God. 
 
 Now as we think of our communion of the 
 saints there are manifestly two great parts of 
 the one glorious fellowship. The one is gen- 
 eral—it is largely grasped by the imagination. 
 It includes the far-off in time and space. The 
 other is special — it is real in its presence with 
 us here and now. 
 
162 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 With regard to the general, we look back 
 through the ages. We have fellowship with 
 the saints of the early Church; as the Church 
 spreads among nations we have fellowship with 
 the saints in Egypt, in Armenia, in Greece, in 
 Rome. As the ages pass on our fellowship 
 embraces the saints among our race-ancestry 
 of Northern Europe ; and so we come down to 
 recent years. There has been a great variety 
 of belief, of worship, of character. But the life 
 separated from the world as belief in Christ can 
 be distinguished, and our interest in that life 
 and obligation to it should be gratefully rec- 
 ognized. 
 
 Now we take a wide look over the great 
 world of to-day. Some lands are Christian 
 lands. Not all the inhabitants of these lands 
 are confessed Christians, but such large num- 
 bers are, that the lands are called Christian. 
 Some lands are heathen lands, but in nearly all 
 these there are Christian missions and some 
 confessed followers of Christ. So on all conti- 
 nents and on the islands of the sea the wide 
 world over there are great numbers of saints. 
 There is a great variety of saints — those just 
 coming out of savagery, those in gross igno- 
 rance, those holding widely different views of 
 some truths from ourselves, and having widely 
 different manners and customs, but the life 
 separate from the world as belief in Christ can 
 
"THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" 163 
 
 be distinguished and with that life we have 
 communion, fellowship. 
 
 The Christian Church is the largest organi- 
 zation in the world to-day. It is composed 
 of those acknowledging Christ as their Lord. 
 Christ is the source of our common life. Race 
 characteristics, mental powers, habits of think- 
 ing and living from a long ancestry make 
 great variety in creed, worship, life. But 
 the common source of the distinctive life, 
 aim of life, service of life, destiny of life, is 
 from Christ. Sectarian pride, the spirit of self- 
 righteousness, all magnifying of self must give 
 way to Christian love, acknowledging the 
 Christ life wherever found, as the Apostle says, 
 " Who are we to judge another man's servant? 
 To his own master he standeth or falleth." 
 We are cheerfully to recognize the Christ life, 
 and share in its development, and help in its 
 spread. We also are helped as others pray for 
 us, as others incite and inspire us by their ex- 
 amples in widely different circumstances from 
 our own. We are not all alike, but each in his 
 own sphere of time and space makes his own 
 contribution of hue and colour to the one 
 Christlikeness and service we all have in com- 
 mon. 
 
 Now let the imagination strive to see and feel 
 this general communion of the saints of all ages 
 and climes. Untold millions of our fellows have 
 
164 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 come out from the world, confessed Christ and 
 so lived their lives that we have in our day be- 
 come Christians, entered into their glorious fel- 
 lowship and noble life. Untold millions are now 
 separating from the world, confessing Christ 
 and living His life in all lands the wide world 
 over. They are one with us in love and aim. 
 Untold millions will in the ages to come receive 
 from our hands the glorious trust and great 
 commission until the final triumph, and Christ 
 shall reign in all lands and all hearts. Untold 
 millions have passed on, are passing on, and will 
 pass on to the glorious life at Christ's right 
 hand. I believe in the communion of saints. 
 
 It is a great kingdom — the Kingdom of God. 
 We have the communion of citizenship. We 
 are citizens of heaven even while on the earth. 
 It is a great family. God the Father through 
 Jesus Christ. We are members of this family. 
 Christ our Elder Brother acknowledges the 
 family likeness. " They that do the will of my 
 Father in heaven are my brothers and sisters." 
 
 It is through these loyal citizens — these 
 members of the noble family — that three im- 
 portant agencies of vast influence have been 
 established and flourish in the world. 
 
 The first is the public worship of the right- 
 eous God. On country hillsides and city streets 
 stand church buildings ; their doors are invit- 
 ingly open, their bells ring out a welcome, and 
 
"THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" 165 
 
 multitudes assemble in them at times to wor- 
 ship God. The influence upon the nation, upon 
 those who never take part in such worship, is 
 very great, and in all ages and lands large num- 
 bers accept the invitation and welcome and be- 
 come the worshippers of God. 
 
 The second is the circulation of the Bible. 
 Its fine literature of narrative, poetry and 
 oratory has impressed itself upon our English 
 literature; and besides and above this it car- 
 ries the purest morals and noblest ideals to all 
 lands; and above all it bears the supernatural 
 revelation of God, culminating in Jesus Christ, 
 in many languages to many races of mankind. 
 The influence of the Bible cannot be overesti- 
 mated. 
 
 The third agency is the Christian Sabbath. 
 The rest day so characteristic of Christian lands 
 is the rich blessing bestowed upon the workers 
 of the world. Many such weary toilers not only 
 rest from their work but refresh their spirits 
 by communing with the Father of their spirits. 
 So much of greatest value lies in the general 
 communion of the saints. Our imagination 
 fails to grasp its full significance, but as much 
 as we can grasp stirs the heart with love and 
 praise. 
 
 We now turn from the general to the spe- 
 cial — from the far off in time and space to the 
 near by to-day. I believe in the communion of 
 
166 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 saints — those I am associated with in our 
 Church, in our country, town or city. There 
 are a great variety of saints in every individual 
 church, as in every denomination, and in the 
 Church universal. In our individual church 
 many have inherited from Christian parents 
 traits of Christian character; they have grown 
 up in Christian surroundings, they have been 
 taught and cultured in the knowledge and like- 
 ness to Christ. Many others have been rescued 
 from the habits and tendencies to sin ; they have 
 from infancy lived in the gloom of evil, have 
 worn the chains of sinful habits. In their mature 
 age, perhaps in their old age, the radiant Christ 
 has opened their prison doors and struck off 
 their chains, and they are His followers. In 
 other cases many have had the sickness and 
 weakness of sin, have been in the shadow of 
 death, and the gentle hand of the good physician 
 has been laid upon their brow and they look up 
 with loving eyes to his kind face, and follow 
 him. All kinds of characters are in our church 
 of varied history, propensities, strength, but 
 they have the one distinguishing feature now — 
 life in Christ and some traits of Christlikeness. 
 Their attainments, their dispositions, their con- 
 ditions are widely different but they are called 
 to be saints; they are saints in Christ. I recog- 
 nize them as such. We are fellow-citizens; we 
 are members of the same family. 
 
"THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS" 167 
 
 Then, too, in our church there are all social 
 grades. There are the ignorant and the cul- 
 tured, the dull and the bright, the active and 
 the inactive, the employer and the employed, 
 the lady of fashion and the maid of all work, 
 the rich and the poor. The Church is the one 
 organization in the world embracing such wide 
 distinctions, giving to all her members equality 
 of rights and privileges, of opportunities and 
 duties; herein is her glory to the world, and 
 herein is her incentive to kindly judgment and 
 helpful fellowship among all her members. 
 
 As she embraces widely different characters 
 and conditions she becomes a strong binding 
 force in social life, checking many tendencies 
 threatening the disintegration of society, and 
 inciting to many tendencies for society's highest 
 development. In this wide variety of church 
 membership lies also the high exercise of the 
 communion of saints. What we have in com- 
 mon overflows and conquers our differences; 
 the saintly becomes more saintly in triumphing 
 over the natural. Each one in this communion 
 of saints recognizes in the other the beginning 
 of Christlikeness — sympathizes with and helps 
 the other in overcoming the old nature, is 
 faithful and considerate and helpful in cultivat- 
 ing the Christlikeness. Thus the wide variety 
 of character and condition, the great diversity 
 among the saints, finds a unifying principle in 
 
168 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 recognition, in consideration, in Christian fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 The rich have consideration for the poor, the 
 poor have sympathy for the rich — both are 
 brothers in Christ. The employer and the em- 
 ployed in the house, in the store, in the factory, 
 try to think and act as such in the other's place 
 —they are brothers in Christ. The cultured 
 and the ignorant, the quick-tempered and the 
 sluggish, vie with each other in consideration 
 for each other, arising out of recognition of their 
 relation to Christ. " Love one another as I 
 have loved you," was Christ's direction to His 
 disciples as He bade them farewell before His 
 death. The communion of the saints is the 
 carrying out of this command. It is the tradi- 
 tion that the heathen used to say of church 
 members — "Behold how these Christians love 
 one another." Alas, the world no longer calls 
 members of the Church saints nor do we ven- 
 ture to call ourselves saints, and it may not be 
 quite so manifest in these latter as in those 
 earlier days that Christians love one another, 
 but still that is the ideal each one adopts when 
 he says "I believe in the communion of saints." 
 
 We are fellow-citizens of the Kingdom of 
 God — we are proud of the relationship. We are 
 members of the family of our Father in Christ— 
 we are keen to recognize family resemblances. 
 We love one another not as a hard task, an irk- 
 
" THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS " 169 
 
 some duty — love cannot act in such ways — but 
 because each sees in the other something lovely, 
 some feature of the Christlikeness. 
 
 Another great feature of this near-by com- 
 munion of saints in to-day's stirring life is the 
 sharing in the great privilege of preaching 
 Christ to the world. In the early days it was 
 not only ordained ministers who preached the 
 Gospel; the truth and the life of Christ spread 
 from individual believers as well, and the reputa- 
 tion of loving each other, of the social fellow- 
 ship, was a strong commendation of the Gospel 
 message. So in the communion of saints there 
 is the awakened desire and the encouraging fel- 
 lowship in seeking to win souls to Christ, to 
 bring into the fellowship of the saints others 
 from the world who are now strangers and for- 
 eigners, who are now sinners, that they may 
 become saints. What is nowadays called per- 
 sonal work for Christ, friend with friend, ac- 
 quaintance with acquaintance, soul with soul, 
 flows from the communion of saints and con- 
 stantly adds to this communion. 
 
 A legend of ancient times in England which 
 has been the subject of so much painting, poetry 
 and music illustrates our theme. The knights 
 of King Arthur had varied talents but formed a 
 circle of chivalric spirits. From this group Sir 
 Galahad, the blameless knight, went forth in 
 quest of the Holy Grail, the cup Christ had used 
 
170 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 in the first communion supper. He thus sought 
 deeper fellowship with Christ and His follow- 
 ers. On this quest he came to the enchanted 
 castle in a gloomy forest guarded by knights 
 of an evil character but strong and well armed — 
 a quite vivid picture of a soul in the gloom and 
 power of sin. Sir Galahad met the seven black 
 knights in fierce conflict and disabled them. 
 Over their prostrate forms he advanced to the 
 castle gate. Now there was a strange trans- 
 formation; the castle was no longer depressed 
 in a gloomy forest but was standing out on a 
 sunny hilltop : but it was still enchanted. All 
 within were sound asleep. Sir Galahad knocked 
 time and time again with the hilt of his sword 
 against the castle gate, but with no result. At 
 length there was a stir within, and soon the gate 
 was thrown open and there issued forth twelve 
 maidens, " each as fair as any flower," and wel- 
 comed their deliverer from sin and death. From 
 that time on the castle became the joy of all 
 the countryside. 
 
 The seven black knights were the seven 
 deadly sins, holding the soul in bondage. The 
 twelve fair maidens were the Christian virtues 
 and graces awakened by the call of Christ. The 
 Apostle gives us names of the graces in Gala- 
 tians 5 : 22, and eloquently describes the car- 
 dinal virtues in 1 Corinthians 13, and the great- 
 est of these is love. 
 
"THE COMMUNION" OF SAINTS" 171 
 
 Can one imagine the honour and joy of Sir 
 Galahad seeking fellowship with his Saviour 
 and thus turning a soul from death to life? 
 
 I believe in the communion of the saints may 
 express itself with a modern poet: 
 
 I live for those who love me, 
 
 For those who know me true, 
 
 For the heaven that smiles above me, 
 
 And awaits my coming too. 
 
 For the cause that lacks assistance, 
 
 'Gainst the wrongs that need resistance, 
 
 For the future in the distance 
 
 For the good that I can do. 
 
 Such an one has a goodly fellowship, is a citizen 
 of a glorious kingdom, a member of a royal 
 family. 
 
XIII. 
 
 Through this man is proclaimed unto you 
 remission of sins. — Acts 13 : 38. 
 
 " THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS " 
 
 IF the Apostles' Creed ended with the only- 
 clause of individual blessing to be fully 
 enjoyed in this life as pardon it would be 
 a tame conclusion of a great creed. We need 
 pardon undoubtedly, but that can never meet 
 our full need, nor can it satisfy the craving of 
 our hearts; only forgiveness can do this. So 
 the creed says, " I believe in the forgiveness of 
 sins." Here as elsewhere the belief is not 
 simply the intellectual acknowledgment that 
 there is such forgiveness, but a personal ex- 
 perience I have the forgiveness of sins. 
 
 Now we look at the text and we hear a procla- 
 mation of forgiveness of sins through Jesus 
 Christ and it follows the assurance that the 
 believer in Christ is justified in Him, and this 
 follows from the crucifixion and resurrection 
 of Christ as is set forth earlier in this chap- 
 ter of the Acts. This is the distinguishing fea- 
 ture of the Christian religion — the forgiveness 
 of sins though complete and full. This was the 
 subject of the early preachers, both of Apostles 
 
 172 
 
"THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS" 173 
 
 and of all others, those set apart to preach, and 
 also all believers. It was their joyous privilege 
 to experience this forgiveness of sins, and to 
 spread abroad the proclamation of God to all 
 men of this forgiveness through Jesus Christ 
 who by dying for them and now living for them 
 justifies all who believe in Him. 
 
 Why did Christ die for us? To remove all 
 that would hinder the forgiving love of God 
 reaching us. Why did Christ die for us? Be- 
 cause the forgiving love of God sought in this 
 costly way to forgive and so save us. What 
 does the forgiving love of God through Jesus 
 Christ do for us? It breaks down our opposi- 
 tion to God, our coldness, our hard-hearted 
 dullness, our enmity, and awakens penitence 
 and longing for reconciliation and new life of 
 love and obedience. 
 
 It is therefore of great importance that we 
 should have right views and appreciation of the 
 forgiveness of sins. Justification and pardon 
 are matters of legal relations. Forgiveness is 
 a matter of personal relations. Only a judge 
 in court can pronounce one just, that the law 
 has nothing against him, that he is entitled to 
 all results of obedience to the law. Only a 
 governor or president can pardon a man, free 
 him from the penalty of the law and restore 
 him to citizenship under the laws of the state. 
 But a friend may forgive a friend — the forgive- 
 
174: THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 ness removes hard feelings from both hearts. 
 Now we recognize at once that there is no 
 place for forgiveness in the office of either a 
 judge or a governor. His dearest friend may 
 stand before him convicted of an offence against 
 the law; the judge can only sentence him, 
 though it may be with tears flowing down his 
 cheeks. The governor must not yield to per- 
 sonal feelings; he must uphold the laws of the 
 state. He cannot pardon his best friend, 
 though he pleads for such pardon with sobs ; 
 there must be other reasons aside from feeling 
 to justify the exercise of pardoning power. 
 
 Now we turn from the small affairs of our 
 state laws, the laws among men, and from our 
 weak but clear sense of justice, to the great 
 affair of the law of our being, and our sense of 
 justice here. The law is the transcript of the 
 divine nature and the description of our nature 
 as God designs us to be. Love God supremely, 
 love your fellow men as you love yourself. 
 Have we kept it? Are we keeping it? Our 
 own conscience being the judge, we condemn 
 ourselves as sinners, guilty of breaking the law 
 of God, the fundamental, deep and all-inclusive 
 law of our being. No little thing this, but the 
 greatest conceivable. What must the Judge 
 who knows us altogether do? What can He 
 do but sentence us? What must the King do — 
 or shall we venture to use the language of our 
 
"THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS" 1Y5 
 
 land to-day — what must the Governor of the 
 Universe do? What can He do but leave us 
 under the penalty of broken law? There is no 
 place here in Judge or Governor for forgiveness, 
 for feeling, only for justice. 
 
 Now when we look at the other side, at the 
 one indited before a court of our land for some 
 offence, and the court frees him, pronounces 
 him just in the sight of the law, that verdict 
 does not say anything about the character of 
 the man; he may not have committed that par- 
 ticular offence and still be capable, even prone 
 to commit such offences, nor does it in any way 
 change his character; it may foster a bad char- 
 acter. So when a governor for reasons of state 
 pardons a man, the man may at heart be a bad 
 citizen, and the pardon does not change his 
 character; it may confirm it. Again these are 
 little affairs — particular offences against some 
 state law — little compared with our offence 
 against the law of God, the violation of the law 
 of our whole being. Here too there is char- 
 acter back of all violated law, in our case a cor- 
 rupt character. We cannot conceive of God as 
 approving or confirming this corrupt character. 
 Our only hope of ever being saved is in His 
 justice. He must maintain the righteous law 
 of our being in our own esteem and before all 
 mankind. 
 
 Now while a judge or a governor ought not 
 
176 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 to be swayed by personal feelings, he may have 
 them, and have them very strongly. It is hardly 
 conceivable, yet he may be the father of the 
 culprit, and the character and act of the culprit 
 may be the hardest blows ever struck against 
 the father's heart. While he may want to free 
 his guilty son from all penalty of the law, he 
 knows that will not be for the upholding of the 
 law, neither will it be good for the son; it will 
 encourage him in a wayward character. The 
 judge must punish the son or the law is under- 
 mined in the esteem of all the citizens of the 
 state. The social life is injured ; he must pun- 
 ish the son or there is the terrible likelihood 
 that the son himself will be confirmed both in 
 wounding the father's heart and in warring 
 against the social welfare of the state. It is 
 hardly conceivable, yet the father's love for the 
 son may be so great that he would sacrifice him- 
 self for the son, but he cannot devise a way. 
 The laws of the state will not allow him to step 
 down from the bench of the court, or from the 
 chair of the state, and take the place of his son 
 in the prison, and so free his son. They make 
 no provision for such action. Could he do that, 
 and should he do that, it would proclaim to all 
 who heard of it how he valued the law of the 
 land, and specially how deeply he loved his son; 
 and certainly no stronger appeal could possibly 
 be made by the father to the latent power of 
 
" THE FOKGIVENESS OF SINS » 177 
 
 good that might remain in the son to turn back 
 from evil and love his father. 
 
 While it is possible such a deep self-sacrific- 
 ing love may exist in a father's heart it is no re- 
 flection upon judges and governors to say that 
 such a case has not been recorded in the history 
 of the race, nor is it a reflection upon human 
 laws to discover no provision for its exercise. 
 There is much self-sacrificing love in human 
 hearts — citizens for their country, men and 
 women for a cause, friends for friends, parents 
 for their children; wherever found and however 
 pure and strong it may be it is but a faint 
 glimmer of the divine likeness remaining in us. 
 It comes from the infinite self-sacrificing love 
 of the Father of our spirits. With us it does 
 not always act with full knowledge of the case, 
 with singleness of aim for the highest good, and 
 with wisdom. With God this strong attribute 
 of His nature is always infinitely wise and good. 
 God is love and the highest manifestation of 
 His love is His sending His only begotten Son 
 into the world to be the propitiation for our 
 sins that we might live through Him. So the 
 forgiveness of sin flows from the infinite love 
 of God, and this love in maintaining the law 
 flows to us through Jesus Christ, by whom be- 
 lievers are justified. 
 
 Now to be justified clearly means that God 
 the Judge pronounces one just; there is no 
 
178 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 penalty of violated law due Him ; on the con- 
 trary he is entitled to all the rewards of obedi- 
 ence to law. He is a good citizen. How can 
 this ever be brought about in our case? We 
 know we are sinners, under the penalty of the 
 law. How can we be justified? Only through 
 the self-sacrificing love of God in His Son Jesus 
 Christ taking our place, bearing our penalty of 
 sin and by His righteousness entitling us to the 
 rewards of obedience, and this being ours 
 through our union with Him by believing in 
 Him. That which human laws could not de- 
 vise, human sacrifice could not accomplish, the 
 infinite love and wisdom of God our Father in 
 Christ has wrought for us. It seems beyond 
 our grasp, but there are several forces familiar 
 to us in our lives, in our social relations which 
 throw much light upon the wondrous plan of 
 our salvation. 
 
 We have already seen some of the splendid 
 actions of self-sacrificing love — in the family, in 
 the community, in the state. We are also 
 familiar with one person taking the place of 
 others for certain purposes, and the others be- 
 coming entitled to the results of his action. 
 Our member of Congress represents us in mak- 
 ing laws. Our judges represent the people, in- 
 terpreting and applying laws. Our governors 
 and presidents represent the state and nation, 
 enforcing the laws. Our President represents 
 
" THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS " 179 
 
 the whole nation— a hundred million people to 
 the whole world. This idea of representation 
 runs through all our social life— in the family, 
 the community, the nation, the race of man- 
 kind. There must be a tie of nature and a social 
 recognition of it. Our President must be a citi- 
 zen of our nation, and we recognize his ability 
 by electing him to his office, and then we abide 
 by the results of his action. This familiar idea 
 of representation — one acting for others — is so 
 inherent in our nature that, as with self-sacri- 
 ficing love, it seems to have come from the 
 nature of our Creator, God. 
 
 We are the creatures of God. He is infinitely 
 above us. If He in His self-sacrificing love 
 should consent to represent us and we should 
 recognize that tie, the infinite dignity and worth 
 of our representative would secure for us all 
 that He secured for Himself, and by faith we 
 receive as represented in Him our share. So 
 Jesus Christ the Son of God became man— our 
 representative received by faith. He lived a 
 life absolutely free from all penalty due Him, 
 but He endured our penalty, He entered into 
 our condition, He died for our sins. He abso- 
 lutely deserved all rewards of obedience to law. 
 Now as He represents us, we are freed from 
 all penalty, and we are entitled to all reward, 
 as He has won these by representing us, and 
 as we receive these by faith in Him. 
 
180 THE APOSTLES' CEEED 
 
 We often find in the Scripture the thought 
 of suretyship and redemption — sometimes fully 
 described in social affairs and state relations in 
 such a way to lift our thoughts to the great re- 
 demption wrought for us by Jesus Christ. In 
 our state laws to-day we have suretyship in 
 money matters, not in life matters; these are 
 beyond the reach of human laws and human 
 sacrifice. In money matters one often becomes 
 surety for another and in time of disaster be- 
 cause of this suretyship redeems his friend from 
 his distress. It may be for small amounts or 
 large amounts, the principle is the same, and 
 acknowledged by our laws as just, as real; it is 
 not a fiction, it is a real transfer of debt based 
 upon a tie of nature or friendship or mere busi- 
 ness accommodation. Sometimes the relation 
 may be very close. A father may become a 
 surety for his son. He sets his son up in busi- 
 ness, indorses his notes at the bank, or his bor- 
 rowings from others. Time passes on; the 
 notes or bonds expire. The son cannot pay 
 them; the father pays the whole. Does the 
 debt no longer exist? No, in all honour and 
 affection the son owes the whole amount to the 
 father, and besides a large debt of love for his 
 having taken his son's place before the law in 
 such money affairs. 
 
 That which is so familiar to us in our social 
 relations throws some light upon the stupendous 
 
" THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS » 181 
 
 subject of our relations to God and His rela- 
 tion to us. It is not a fiction of law, it is a real 
 and important transaction. God teaches us 
 about it in our relations with each other, in 
 representation in suretyship, especially in ties 
 of affection binding hearts and lives together. 
 
 This is the only article in the Apostles' Creed 
 that mentions the word sin. It is very im- 
 portant to call things by their right names. We 
 sometimes think of sin as an infirmity, a weak- 
 ness; it is something more — choice enters into 
 it. We sometimes speak of it as a mistake, an 
 error; it is something more than choosing as 
 right what proves to be wrong; often the only 
 error is that of judging as desirable and profit- 
 able that which is in its nature injurious. We 
 sometimes speak of ourselves as victims of cir- 
 cumstances, ensnared by temptation; but we 
 reflect that temptation does not bring evil to 
 us — it only appeals to the evil in us. The 
 Scriptures say that sin is the transgression of 
 law; that whosoever sins may be weak, may 
 make a mistake, may be tempted, may be many 
 other things, but the one thing that covers all 
 and goes beyond all, and that he should always 
 recognize is that he transgresses the law. Now 
 such sin may come from willfulness; he does the 
 forbidden thing because he wants to do it; or it 
 may come from indifference to God. He may 
 be a good man relatively, a good father, a good 
 
182 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 citizen, but lie pays no attention to the law of 
 his being; he does not love God, nor his neigh- 
 bour as himself. Let us not deceive ourselves. 
 Sin is transgression of law — the law of God, the 
 law of our being; we violate it, willfully or care- 
 lessly. Carelessly we do not care for our 
 Father, God; willfully we will not let Him rule 
 over us. We see this goes down to the depth 
 of our nature; from this nature particular acts 
 of sin arise. Deceit, for instance, may be nega- 
 tive, letting a man remain deceived as to a cer- 
 tain matter; or positive, deceiving him in the 
 matter; but we say at once it transgresses the 
 law of love of God and man. It is a bad thing 
 among savages in Africa, among half civilized 
 in the Philippines, a bad thing in the rural dis- 
 tricts, in trading a horse ; a bad thing in selling 
 stock on Wall Street, in social life and in family 
 life, in the slums of the city or on Fifth Avenue ; 
 a bad thing, a transgression of law, wherever 
 found and in whatever degree of careless in- 
 difference to or willful disregard of God. 
 
 Now there are two things that we recognize 
 at once from transgression of law. There is 
 pollution in sin, that is its nature; it is the 
 reverse of the moral health and well-being de- 
 fined by the law of our being; it has many de- 
 grees, but that is its nature; and it confirms and 
 deepens itself the longer it exists and the more 
 it acts. The second thing arising from trans- 
 
« THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS " 183 
 
 gression of law is guilt, its desert of punishment, 
 the penalty of the broken law. 
 
 With reference to these both there are some 
 things that cannot be changed and should never 
 be ignored. Take the instance we have just 
 considered — deceit. A certain man deceives a 
 man or woman at a certain time. That is a 
 fact; it cannot be changed — it is written in- 
 destructibly on the record of events. That act 
 had an influence upon the one deceived, upon 
 others who knew of it; it is written indestruc- 
 tibly on the sensitive record of human lives. 
 That act had an influence upon the deceiver as 
 well — he is a worse man for it. Shall we say 
 that record is indestructible too? We must 
 pause and reflect a while before we are forced 
 to answer it must be. Surely neither pardon 
 nor forgiveness can alter either of these 
 stupendous facts. But the deceiver may recog- 
 nize that he has sinned, that he has wronged 
 the man or woman beyond repair, that he has 
 thus wronged a creature of God whom God 
 values highly, and in so doing he has wronged 
 God. He also has wronged himself, made him- 
 self a worse man by his indulgence, and he also 
 is a creature of God, whom God values highly, 
 and so he has wronged God. He has sinned 
 against God. 
 
 He begins to recognize the nature of sin; he 
 begins to abhor himself, that he was capable 
 
184 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 of such an act. He begins to see the extent 
 of his sin, that he is capable of kindred acts, and 
 he begins to abhor himself a sinner. Now he 
 begins to ask, What does God think of me? 
 Surely He must abhor sin, He must hate that 
 which I recognize in myself as hateful. The 
 penalty of broken law shows what God thinks 
 of sin; it is His just indignation against sin. 
 Then God hates me, is indignant with me. 
 Hold on, friend ! God will not cast you off 
 while there is the slightest possibility of separat- 
 ing you from your sin. He will magnify the 
 law, He will express His just indignation against 
 its violation, and you are under its penalty. But 
 He so loves you that He bears your penalty for 
 you. He the great Judge, He the noble Gov- 
 ernor, is also your Father, and never a father 
 on earth loved a son as He loves you; so He 
 will bear the penalty due you, and Jesus Christ 
 bears it upon the cross, that He may free you 
 from it. 
 
 Does this forgiving love that leads the 
 Saviour to take your place and bear your curse 
 appeal to you? Does it win your trust, your 
 gratitude, your obedience? Then it saves you 
 from more than the punishment of sin — it saves 
 from sin itself. To be pronounced just, free 
 from all penalty, entitled to the rewards of 
 obedience — surely that is wonderful ; but it is 
 very little compared with forgiveness. To be 
 
" THE FOEGIVENESS OF SINS " 185 
 
 pardoned, to be saved from penalty, is as noth- 
 ing compared with being saved from sin. In 
 God's heart saving from penalty is a means of 
 saving from sin itself. The forgiving love of 
 God in bearing the penalty Himself awakens in 
 our hearts abhorrence of sin, turning away from 
 sin, a new spirit of obedience and love of God, 
 and so saves from sin itself. Evil causing suf- 
 fering may remain a large portion of our ex- 
 periences in this life, but it has no longer the 
 nature of penalty; it is God's fatherly love dis- 
 ciplining us out of our sinfulness. Defects may 
 remain — the results of the weakening power of 
 sin in us — but the general principles and direc- 
 tion of life are thoroughly changed ; no longer 
 away from God but now turned to Him in loving 
 obedience. 
 
 It is told that Chrysostom, the golden 
 mouthed orator, awakened the hatred of the 
 emperor who called his counsellors and said, 
 "How shall we injure Chrysostom?" One 
 said, " Confiscate his property." The Emperor 
 answered, "That will not injure him. You 
 only rob the poor he cares for." Another said, 
 " Banish him." The Emperor answered, 
 " That will not injure him. He will make 
 friends wherever he goes." Another said, " Kill 
 him." The Emperor answered, " That will not 
 injure him — it will send him to heaven." Then 
 a wise counsellor said, " Induce him to sin." 
 
186 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 " Yes," said the Emperor, " that would injure 
 him, but it is the one thing we with all our 
 power and influence cannot do, for he hates 
 sin." I know there are many to-day who can- 
 not be induced to enter and pursue a known 
 course of sin. The number embraces all who 
 can say with the heart, " I believe in the for- 
 giveness of sins." The forgiveness of a loving 
 Father at infinite cost to Himself wins the for- 
 given to His loving obedience and service. 
 
XIV. 
 
 This is the will of my Father, that every 
 one that beholdeth the Son and believeth on 
 him, shoidd have eternal life: and I will raise 
 him tip at the last day. — John 6:40. 
 
 " THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 
 
 THE last words of this verse have been 
 called the blessed refrain of this teach- 
 ing of Christ; they are repeated four 
 times. They sound like solemn, stately music 
 heard in the darkness and the stillness of the 
 night. " I will raise him up at the last day." 
 They seem to refer to the resurrection of the 
 body as the culmination of the redeeming work 
 of Christ beyond which there is no more evil. 
 
 Not only did John write these words as com- 
 ing from the lips of Christ, His anticipation of 
 final triumph, but Paul speaks to the bereaved 
 Thessalonians : "Your dead shall share in the 
 triumph of Christ; fallen asleep they shall rise 
 first and be forever with the Lord." Also to 
 the Corinthians he writes: "Christ hath been 
 raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them 
 which are asleep. They that are Christ's will 
 
 187 
 
188 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 be raised from the dead at his coming." So we 
 find in the Apostles' Creed the clear statement: 
 " I believe in the resurrection of the body." 
 Here, as always, the " I believe " includes the 
 intellectual acknowledgment of the fact and also 
 the personal trust of the believer — Christ will 
 raise me from the dead. 
 
 What are we to understand by the resurrec- 
 tion of the body? Of Christ's resurrection we 
 have already meditated in the fifth article of the 
 creed. He is the first-fruits. Of our resurrec- 
 tion, as we think of His, and of the general 
 teaching of the Scripture, we recognize two 
 facts, each hard to grasp in detail, but both 
 clearly seen; they are identity and change. 
 They seem contradictory, but in reality they ex- 
 plain each other, as we shall see. The resur- 
 rection of the body is taught dimly in some 
 portions of Scripture — clearly in others. Christ 
 speaks of it clearly and emphatically, and the 
 Apostle Paul in the fifteenth chapter of First 
 Corinthians likens the resurrection of the body 
 both as to identity and change to that of Christ 
 Himself. 
 
 The first important thing for us to recognize 
 is that it is a truth revealed in the Scriptures. 
 Here, as with regard to all such truths, we con- 
 clude that since both books, nature and the 
 Scriptures, are from God, they do not contradict 
 but they supplement each other. The resur- 
 
"THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY" 189 
 
 rection of the body is not opposed by nature. 
 In fact nature has many whisperings of it. 
 Let us listen to one of these whisperings. 
 
 There are two great classes of the creation 
 of God. The first is that of matter, revealed to 
 us by our senses and by our consciousness as 
 well. Some philosophies and religions look al- 
 most alone to matter. In ancient China there 
 was the belief that the material principle was 
 eternal; it was beneath all changing forms. 
 The face of nature was feelingless, changeless, 
 and all forms and beings were lights and 
 shadows passing over it. In ancient Greece 
 there was the idea of living matter. The face 
 of nature was full of light and feeling; the spark 
 of fire was in the eye, the tear of feeling was 
 on the cheek, and the breath of life stirred the 
 lips. But the spark went back to the flame, 
 the tear-drop to the ocean, the breath to the 
 air; only the elements remained. So with 
 materialism to-day. Atoms of wonderful elec- 
 trons highly endowed come together in certain 
 relations and electricity results; in other rela- 
 tions and life results; in still other relations and 
 mind results. The atoms separate again and 
 mind goes out of existence. There of course is 
 no resurrection here. 
 
 But the trouble is that only one kind of crea- 
 tion is being considered. The answer to this in 
 all ages and now is the consciousness of man. 
 
190 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 We know that thought, feelings of adoration, 
 powers to see and to choose of the right are not 
 properties of matter, but acts of the spirit. 
 Thus we look at the other class of the crea- 
 tion of God. God is a pure spirit; He has 
 created spiritual beings, some like ourselves in 
 close union with the material creation. Some 
 philosophies and religions look almost exclu- 
 sively to the spiritual. In India all things are 
 to be absorbed into the great spirit, are only 
 the manifest breath of Brahm. No personal 
 immortality here. In Greece we find the idea 
 of the spirit living after the death of the body, 
 but a limited existence, a kind of dream life in 
 Hades. The Egyptians and Persians had the 
 idea of the spirit being clothed in light, but its 
 continued existence depended upon the pres- 
 ervation of the body; hence the mummies of 
 Egypt were preserved, not to rise again, but to 
 keep the spirit alive. So some Christian views 
 of the resurrection drift towards a mere spirit 
 life; they think sin resides in the flesh and the 
 spirit will be freed at last, a pure spirit. But 
 matter and spirit are not in conflict in this re- 
 spect. Sin is a choice of the spirit as well as 
 of the flesh: both are cursed by sin. Take 
 away sin, and they are in harmony. 
 
 Herein then is the whispering of nature of 
 the resurrection of the body. Man is both body 
 and spirit. He is the link between the material 
 
" THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 191 
 
 and the spiritual creations of God. If he be- 
 comes simply and forever a disembodied spirit, 
 the link is broken; man as God created him, 
 body and spirit, no longer exists. If man is 
 immortal at all, he must be immortal as body 
 as well as spirit, for so only is he man. If man 
 is to be saved from sin at all he must be saved 
 as body as well as spirit, for so only is he man. 
 The whispering of nature is clear and distinct. 
 Man is formed of the dust of the earth — of the 
 material creation. God breathed into him and 
 he became a living soul, after the likeness of 
 God. Man is both matter and spirit, the link 
 between the two, a union of the two. As we 
 hear this whisper we recognize the complete- 
 ness of the redeeming work of Christ, the Son 
 of Man. His resurrection is the first-fruits. 
 All in Him as their representative shall be raised 
 like unto His resurrection, body and soul freed 
 from all taint of sin, the whole, the complete 
 man saved. 
 
 Hence both nature and Scripture teach us to 
 look upon death as a temporary separation of 
 body and soul; believers die in the Lord — they 
 sleep in Jesus. The body as well as soul is re- 
 deemed; it belongs to Christ. Wonderful re- 
 demption! He who governs millions of stars 
 watches over the graves of His saints, for He is 
 God the all wise and the all loving. Listen to 
 the Apostle Paul as he exults with the Philip- 
 
192 THE APOSTLES' CKEED 
 
 pians : " For our citizenship is in heaven, from 
 whence also we wait for the Saviour, the Lord 
 Jesus Christ : who shall fashion anew the body 
 of our humiliation that it may be conformed to 
 the body of his glory, according to the work- 
 ing whereby he is able to subject all things to 
 himself." 
 
 Now we are not taught that the whole body 
 buried in the grave will be raised at the last 
 day. Here again nature and Scripture agree. 
 Nature says the body will go back to the dust : 
 that its various particles of dust and gas and 
 water will be absorbed by nature, and will be 
 used by nature in its many forms of growth; 
 but nature also teaches that the particles of 
 matter forming our bodies now change fre- 
 quently during the few years of our present 
 life. So the Apostle speaks of fashioning anew 
 our bodies, to be like Christ's glorious body. 
 The changed body will be my body, each can 
 say. The two great truths of the resurrection, 
 as we said at the beginning, are identity — my 
 body — and change, like Christ's glorious body. 
 
 Now we know there are several kinds of 
 identity. The lowest is that of substance. A 
 cup of water may be frozen and thawed; it may 
 be diffused into steam, caught and condensed 
 again ; it may be resolved into its gases and 
 combined again. It is the same water while we 
 can trace the substance. 
 
« THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 193 
 
 There is another and a higher kind of identity. 
 We stand before Murillo's picture, " The Im- 
 maculate Conception," in Paris. Wherein does 
 its identity consist? Not in substance. Burn 
 the canvas and the paint, and you might gather 
 the substance again ; but even Murillo if alive 
 could not restore the painting. The identity 
 consists in the form and colour, the expression 
 of the adoration of the artist. Another and the 
 highest kind of identity we know of is that of 
 life. The acorn, the shoot, the sapling, the 
 oak, the identity not of substance, nor of form, 
 but of life. So the babe in the arms of the 
 mother, the youth at college, the president who 
 directs the affairs of a great nation, the same 
 person, we know to be the same, but the 
 identity is not of substance, or of form, but of 
 life. 
 
 In what the identity of the resurrection body 
 may consist we know not; it may be of all three 
 kinds. A very little of the substance which has 
 formed our dark bodies may be enough for our 
 bodies of light: the form may be the same but 
 greatly changed, freed from all defects; the life 
 will undoubtedly be the same. My body, each 
 one of us can say as we can say of our present 
 bodies, though these with the passing years are 
 wonderfully changed. 
 
 Turn now from the identity to the still more 
 wonderful change in the resurrection of the 
 
i 194 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 body. When we come to contemplate the 
 change wrought upon our bodies by Christ at 
 His coming, the completed redemption, it is 
 astonishing how much the Scripture describes, 
 when we bring its various teachings together. 
 
 We are assured in the first place that our 
 resurrection body will be in the human form. 
 So Christ, the first-fruits, rose from the dead. 
 He was greatly changed, not subject to some of 
 the conditions of our present life. He did not 
 live with His disciples as of yore — He appeared 
 and vanished at will — but whenever the dis- 
 ciples saw Him they knew Him. It is Jesus, 
 they said, and they had lived with Him inti- 
 mately and beyond any doubt knew Him. Not 
 only will our resurrection bodies be as now in 
 the human form but they will have a clear like- 
 ness to our present bodies. When Moses and 
 Elias met Christ on the Mount of Transfigura- 
 tion they were recognized as leaders in Israel. 
 Elijah had not died. He had been taken to 
 heaven in the chariot of fire. Moses had died 
 and been buried by God. No man knew where 
 was his grave. There is a strange passage in 
 Jude about " Michael the Archangel contend- 
 ing with the devil about the body of Moses " 
 which seems to hint that Moses appeared on 
 the mount in his resurrection body; both talked 
 with Jesus about His death on the cross, and 
 Christ's transfiguration showed the kingdom of 
 
" THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 195 
 
 the heavens touching the earth as a glorious 
 vision of the future. Now as we turn to the 
 enraptured reasoning of the Apostle Paul in the 
 fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians we see 
 both the identity and the four great changes in 
 our resurrection body. 
 
 He says it will be an incorruptible body. Our 
 present bodies constantly waste away; while 
 life flourishes they are as constantly restored. 
 As life grows feeble in sickness or age the bodies 
 fail; as life goes out corruption rules. "It is 
 sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption." 
 Not subject to any sickness, to any failure of 
 power, to the feebleness of age. The incor- 
 ruptible body. 
 
 The Apostle then teaches us further. It will 
 be a glorious body. The body now is the most 
 highly organized, finely finished and beautiful 
 of the known creations of God. But this is as 
 dishonour to the coming glory, for the curse of 
 sin has passed upon it, and it goes down to 
 death. " It is sown in dishonour, it is raised 
 in glory." The body comes forth from death 
 conquered. No curse clouds it. It is raised a 
 glorious body. 
 
 The disciples on the Mount of Transfigura- 
 tion fainted at the sight of the glory of Christ, 
 and of Moses and Elias. Christ after His resur- 
 rection remained on earth forty days and then 
 came the ascension to the throne of God. His 
 
196 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 body was somewhat changed but not glorified 
 until His ascension. After that we have 
 glimpses of His glorious body. Stephen saw 
 Jesus standing at the right hand of God in glory. 
 Paul saw Him on the way to Damascus, and. 
 was blinded by the glory. John saw Him in 
 Patmos, when Christ's countenance was as the 
 sun shineth in his strength, and he fell at His 
 feet as one dead. But John, the familiar dis- 
 ciple, knew Jesus though He was glorified. 
 Thus our body of glory will have no defect. 
 All shadow of sin will be removed from the 
 finest creation of God. Our glorious body will 
 be like that of the Son of Man now in heaven. 
 So also as John knew Christ on Patmos we shall 
 know our familiar ones, our loved ones, in more 
 than our highest ideal of beauty. Beyond any- 
 thing we have ever known or dreamed shall be 
 our bodies of glory. 
 
 What more can Paul say? It will be a body 
 of power. We have great power now, but it 
 is only weakness and ends in weakness com- 
 pared with the coming power. Much of our 
 power now comes from our grasping the powers 
 of nature; we have grasped the power of steam, 
 the power of electricity; but of how much we 
 are still in ignorance. Our dominion over 
 nature while large is, we all recognize, not com- 
 plete because of ignorance, because of disobey- 
 ing laws, because of sin. We cannot even hin- 
 
" THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 197 
 
 der the decay of our powers; we die after a few 
 years. " It is sown in weakness. It is raised 
 in power." The power we shall share with 
 Christ — shall reign with Him. Complete 
 power. What new senses we may have we 
 know not. What new power of present senses 
 we know not. What new powers in nature 
 about us we may know and grasp we know not. 
 Shall the eye unaided have greater power than 
 now with telescope? Shall we pass, as now 
 our thoughts may pass, with the rapidity of 
 thought from star to star in the vast universe — 
 contemplating the glory of God, flying to do 
 the will of God? These are not wild dreams, 
 unfounded expectations, " for eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
 heart of man what God hath prepared for them 
 that love him." 
 
 The Apostle has one more statement of a 
 marvellous change. " It is sown a natural 
 body, it is raised a spiritual body." Our present 
 bodies are fitted for the present life. The 
 changed resurrection body will be fitted for 
 the spiritual life. Our eyes are often dull to 
 the good and beautiful, and strong to the evil 
 and the ugly. So our tongue and our hands 
 are often prone to the evil of our nature and 
 surroundings. Then our eyes will see new 
 beauties of the good, our hands will be ready 
 servants of God and our tongues full of His 
 
198 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 praise. My body, identity, but marvellously 
 changed to the purity of the heavenly life. 
 Even now the spirit is sometimes so pure and 
 strong that it shines through our natural body. 
 So Moses' face shone as he came down from 
 the mount of vision. So Stephen's face, as he 
 bore witness for Christ, was as the face of an 
 angel. Perhaps we have seen some face shine 
 with a saintly light — a mother beautiful in char- 
 acter, or a father strong in allegiance to Christ. 
 So as we look forward to the resurrection the 
 identity is secured, it is sown, it is raised, and 
 the change is beyond our highest possible 
 thought. It is the change of the new life — 
 the body is incorruptible, glorious, powerful, 
 spiritual. 
 
 Now what is the Resurrection? It is the 
 culminating glory of the Person and work of 
 Christ. By faith we have seen His glory in 
 eternity, the beloved of the Father; in creation, 
 bringing the glory of the universe into being; 
 in redemption His glory of self-sacrifice as He 
 hangs upon the cross ; in heaven His glory upon 
 the throne of universal dominion. But we look 
 forward to His complete, triumphal glory when 
 He shall come again with all the holy angels 
 with Him and at His word of command His 
 redeemed ones will arise in glory and be for- 
 ever with the Lord. As when a great artist 
 removes the veil from his masterpiece and says 
 
" THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY " 199 
 
 to his admiring friends, See my life-work, so 
 God shall say to the assembled universe, See 
 my finished work. As the visible heavens, stars 
 and systems are shining with light and so de- 
 clare my glory. As ye pure spirits around my 
 throne are shining in holiness and so declare my 
 glory. So behold the being, man, who joins 
 the two, the material glory and the spiritual 
 glory; he has been long clouded by sin but the 
 cloud I have driven away. See the countless 
 ranks of mankind stand forth, the glory of the 
 material and the glory of the spiritual combined 
 forever. See Jesus Christ, my beloved Son with 
 His redeemed ones, redeemed in body and soul. 
 He the first-fruits, they joined to Him now in 
 their order. 
 
 What comfort this brings to us dying men! 
 We are called to bury our beloved dead. 
 
 " There is no flock however watched and tended 
 But one dead lamb is there. 
 There is no fireside howsoe'er defended 
 But has one vacant chair." 
 
 We mourn the parting, but have a glorious 
 hope. Our loved ones are with Christ now, and 
 blessed; they will be raised again when Christ 
 comes, glorious ones. 
 
 As a mother puts her tired children to bed 
 when night comes, kisses them good-night and 
 prays by the bedside, her heart is filled with love 
 
200 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 and joy, for she knows that when the morning 
 light comes they will rise again, rosy with health 
 and happiness, to a new day. 
 
 We look forward to our own death. We shall 
 lie down in the grave. We need not try to 
 stay the hand of corruption, for we must be 
 changed. Death is ours. Our Saviour has 
 passed through the grave to the light and glory 
 of the resurrection. Death is now the opening 
 of the gates into a glorious life. 
 
 " Why should we start at the creaking of the door, 
 When we know there is light and welcome in the 
 room beyond." 
 
XV. 
 
 And this is life eternal that they should 
 know thee the only true God and him whom 
 thou didst send, even Jesus Christ. 
 
 —John 17:3. 
 
 "THE LIFE EVERLASTING" 
 
 THERE are two remarkable things about 
 these words of our Saviour. The first 
 is that this is the only time of which 
 we have any record that He used His full name 
 by which we now know Him — Jesus Christ. 
 Jesus, the Saviour and Christ, the anointed one, 
 the prophet, priest and king- — the names so 
 frequently given Him by the Apostles after His 
 resurrection. The added saying, " whom thou 
 didst send," and the prayer, " glorify thy Son 
 that thy Son may glorify thee," and the clear 
 statement that " God had given him authority 
 over all flesh to give Christ's full eternal life to 
 all God had given him," these together show 
 consciousness of both His divine nature and 
 mission. 
 
 The second remarkable thing is that our 
 Saviour here gives us a definition of eternal 
 life — a full description of it, which may thus 
 
 201 
 
202 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 be regarded as authoritative. The last state- 
 ment of the Apostles' Creed is, " I believe in the 
 life everlasting." I believe in its existence, I 
 trust I have it in my experience. 
 
 We cannot do better than attend to our 
 Saviour's description of eternal life. What is 
 it? Men are apt to form wrong views of the 
 life everlasting. We think mainly of its dura- 
 tion — conscious existence prolonged into eter- 
 nity. Of course this is part of the truth as 
 taught in the Scriptures, but it is a very small 
 part of it. We see at once that to prolong the 
 life of a fly into eternity would fall far short 
 even of our idea of eternal life. The first glance 
 at this teaching of Christ puts the emphasis not 
 on duration but upon the kind of life that en- 
 dures. The kind of life belonging to eternity is 
 to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has 
 sent. It begins now, it may be experienced to- 
 day, and in its very nature it is eternal — the 
 highest kind of life known in the wide creation, 
 the kind of life that is deathless; it cannot pass 
 out of existence — it must live forever. 
 
 Is there a kind of life that can never die? Is 
 there an eternal life? There may be a general 
 impression that the Bible says there is and that 
 nature says there is not. This is a great mis- 
 take. The Bible and nature never contradict 
 each other. Nature has many striking teach- 
 ings concerning eternal life, beginning with the 
 
"THE LIFE EVEKLASTING" 203 
 
 lowest form of life and showing an advanc- 
 ing principle or power in all its ascending 
 ranks. 
 
 Nature teaches first of all that life even of 
 the lowest grade is the gift of God. We may 
 know all the elements that compose a living 
 organism. We may gather these from earth 
 and air and sea in exact proportion and in 
 proper condition. All is dead; no living or- 
 ganism results, wait we ever so patiently. The 
 blade of grass, we know all its elements, but we 
 cannot make it live. The summer insect, we 
 may know all its elements, but we cannot make 
 it live. Whence the life? Only from the realm 
 of life. Whence this realm of life? Only from 
 the great Life-Giver — from God, the ever living 
 God. 
 
 Nature in the next place shows us a vast pro- 
 fusion of life, in various grades. The Apostle 
 Paul in First Corinthians speaks of various 
 kinds of vegetable life also; of the bodies of 
 men, of beasts, of birds, of fishes, of bodies of 
 the earth and of the heavens, of one star differ- 
 ing from another star in glory. The astronomer 
 tells of other systems beside our solar system 
 that probably are inhabited by various races of 
 beings. The geologist tells of the ranks of be- 
 ings who have lived upon the earth in past ages. 
 The biologist and zoologist describe innumer- 
 able ranks of beings living now upon the earth. 
 
204 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 What does the Apostle teach? What do scien- 
 tists teach? What does the universe teach? 
 All teach the one clear lesson — there is no limit 
 to God's creating power. 
 
 Nature shows us in the third place a remark- 
 able law of life. The principle of life forms 
 from the elements of nature many organisms, 
 each after its own kind. Now the various 
 grades of organisms enrich themselves and pro- 
 long their existence by a power within them of 
 adapting themselves to their surroundings. 
 This power is of various degrees, but its nature 
 is the same, and the ascending degree seems to 
 be the increasing power of knowing, and so of 
 adapting itself to its wider surroundings. This 
 is a strange intimation of the knowing Christ 
 speaks of in the text. The lower ranks of life 
 are in harmony with few surroundings and so 
 are poor, weak, and quickly pass away. The 
 higher ranks are in harmony with wider sur- 
 roundings — are rich, strong in knowing, and so 
 live longer. Look at this broad spreading tree 
 in the open field — the wide universe for its sur- 
 rounding, but it knows nothing of it. Here 
 crawls a snail; it knows little, is slow of move- 
 ment; an ox comes and crushes it, a bird swoops 
 down and eats it. The bird has higher life, 
 knows more, is in harmony with wider sur- 
 roundings. The ox comes and the bird flies 
 up to the branches of the tree. The frost comes 
 
"THE LIFE EVERLASTING" 205 
 
 and the bird flies to warmer climes. Here 
 comes a man. He has fuller knowledge; he 
 foresees the coming winter. He cuts down the 
 tree for fuel, kills the ox for food; he stretches 
 forth his hands and all climes minister to his 
 needs. He keeps an active, far-reaching mind. 
 He looks up to the sky. He reads books in the 
 long winter evenings and distant suns are part 
 of his environment. So in nature the grades 
 of life in their power of adapting themselves in 
 growing degree to their surroundings and so 
 enriching and prolonging their existence fairly 
 force the mind to the conception of a life hav- 
 ing a power of adapting itself to eternal sur- 
 roundings and so becoming eternal in nature 
 and existence; and further they show a proba- 
 bility that God, the life-giver who made the 
 lower forms in such profusion and in ascending 
 scale, would make the higher life more like and 
 in harmony with Himself. 
 
 This brings us to the fourth great teaching of 
 nature, that the probable eternal life must be of 
 the spirit and in harmony with spiritual sur- 
 roundings. The surroundings that are material 
 as far as we know them are so subject to change 
 that all life in harmony with them alone must 
 change, must pass away. Besides a possible 
 catastrophe, as in the geologic ages, nature 
 intimates that the time will come when the sun 
 will die out and the stars fade away and our cold 
 
206 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 dark earth will have no living being upon it as 
 it flies through space. We must look for 
 eternal life above changing matter to the realm 
 of spirit — a spirit in harmony with God the 
 Spirit, the great Life-Giver. 
 
 Now when we come to the teachings of the 
 Bible they only carry on and make more plain 
 the teachings of nature. There is a spirit ex- 
 istence which the Bible calls death — the death 
 of sin — alive in some sense but dead to harmony 
 with God, in rebellion and estrangement from 
 Him. In our material life here we know of 
 existence deprived of full rich life. A man is 
 deaf; he is alive, and still he is dead to all the 
 realm of sounds ; music hath no charms — the 
 voices of loved ones never reach him. A man 
 is blind; all beauty of form and movement, of 
 light and colour is shut out from him. A man 
 may be alive and still insensible. Touch him 
 and he feels it not. The hand of love upon his 
 brow awakens no response. So the spirit may 
 exist and still be blind, deaf and insensible to 
 God — may be cut off by its own act from all 
 harmony with spiritual surroundings, cut off 
 from God. This surely is not eternal life. We 
 can hardly think of it as mere eternal exist- 
 ence; while it lasts it is, as the Bible says, 
 death — not knowing God. 
 
 Here we recall the saying of our Saviour just 
 before His description of eternal life. It is the 
 
"THE LIFE EVERLASTING" 207 
 
 glory of God to give, to send Christ into the 
 world, to bestow eternal life, to take the blind- 
 ness, the deafness, the insensibility of the soul 
 away, to redeem sinners from their sins. " I 
 believe in the life everlasting " — the full life of 
 the spirit. The Saviour describes it as know- 
 ing God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. 
 This is evidently a peculiar kind of knowledge — 
 the highest conceivable. 
 
 Nature teaches that life is enriched and pro- 
 longed by the knowledge of one's environment. 
 This is so of man, who stands at the head of all 
 beings upon the earth. Now man's environ- 
 ment is wide and varied, and man's knowledge 
 of it may be great and may bring him into har- 
 mony with it in a large degree. Our knowl- 
 edge of nature and its forces, of all the sciences 
 and the arts; our knowledge of our fellow men 
 and their achievements — the history, the litera- 
 ture, the government of the world ; our knowl- 
 edge of our fellow men about us in all the af- 
 fairs of this life, all we call civilization — its 
 stores of the past, its rich gifts of the present — 
 how this wide knowledge enriches and ennobles 
 life and prolongs it as well. Our knowledge 
 may possess all we have just recounted and yet 
 not be eternal life. 
 
 Eternal life is to know the only true God 
 and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, to know 
 the person God as revealed in Jesus Christ. 
 
208 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 This is the highest conceivable knowledge, that 
 of the personal God. 
 
 Now there are three ways in which we may 
 know a person, and it seems all three are needed 
 to make our knowledge full. 
 
 There are two great truths of which man is 
 conscious: I am — I have personal existence; 
 and God is — beyond all my eyes behold in the 
 wide universe God is. He has given me my 
 personality. He too is a person. I am from 
 Him, dependent upon Him and somewhat like 
 Him, a person. 
 
 The first way in which we may know a per- 
 son is by knowing something of his works. We 
 may never see the man — he may have passed 
 away centuries ago — but he was the builder of 
 some vast cathedral; he was an artist of some 
 great painting or oratorio or poetry; he was a 
 statesman in some turning point of the history 
 of the race ; or he may be living now and we are 
 familiar with his works. We may know much 
 of his ability and character from his works. 
 So we may know much of God from His works 
 in nature — about His power and His character; 
 but it is a limited and distant knowledge. The 
 worship of God in nature alone is the worship 
 of eternal silence. 
 
 The second way in which we may know a 
 person is from what he says of himself and 
 from what others say of him. The great artist 
 
"THE LIFE EVERLASTING 5 ' 209 
 
 of centuries ago has written his autobiography, 
 or his intimate friend and admirer has written 
 about him as he saw and knew him. So the 
 great statesman of the present day tells in some 
 great speech of his plans and purposes, or some 
 one who is close to him by many ties of co- 
 operation writes about him fully and frankly. 
 It is obvious our knowledge of him in this way 
 is much larger and finer than in the first way; 
 and if it can be added to the first it widens and 
 enriches our knowledge greatly. 
 
 So from nature we turn to the Bible to know 
 God. We see how He reveals Himself super- 
 naturally in His dealings with our fellow men ; 
 we hear what He says of Himself in precept 
 and in promise, and of how He is just and 
 righteous and loving; how He calls back wan- 
 dering men and welcomes their trust and love. 
 We see what God says and does, and we also 
 hear what men who have trusted Him, and 
 have followed Him in His plans and purposes, 
 and so learned of Him, say of Him. It is 
 obvious this knowledge of God is larger and 
 finer than that we have of Him from nature 
 alone, and that added to the first it brings Him 
 near to us. Still this combined knowledge is 
 largely knowing about God as distinguished 
 from knowing God. 
 
 The third way in which we know a person is 
 by intimate companionship with him. We have 
 
210 THE APOSTLES' CEEED 
 
 much in common with him ; he may be greater 
 and higher in position than we are or can ever 
 hope to be, but there is something in us that 
 discerns and appreciates something in him, and 
 so learns to know him intimately. He is our 
 friend — admits us to his confidence — and we 
 find in him qualities we admire, and so know 
 him, and we constantly grow in this knowing. 
 We recognize that one must have some of the 
 same quality in himself before he can see and 
 appreciate that quality in another — truthful- 
 ness, it may be, or purity, or devotion to the 
 right; and that whatever the quality is it grows 
 by fellowship with the other. We recognize 
 this is the highest and fullest knowledge one 
 person can have of another; that it must be 
 added to the other kinds of knowledge to make 
 our knowledge complete. We know not only 
 about the person, we know the person himself. 
 In our meditation upon the Apostles' Creed this 
 has been continually kept in mind. I believe, 
 as we have passed over each article, has in- 
 cluded I have an intellectual acceptance of the 
 truth about the being described, and I have also 
 the trust in him — the experience of the truth. 
 This is evidently the kind of knowledge Christ 
 means when He says, " This is eternal life, to 
 know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent." 
 To know Him in His works of creation and re- 
 demption, to know Him as He speaks of Him- 
 
"THE LIFE EVERLASTING" 211 
 
 self and as others tell of Him, and also to know 
 Him by my personal trust in Him as my Father 
 and Saviour, the trust that recognizes His good- 
 ness and love, that finds in Him a full supply for 
 my penitence, for my longing for the good, for 
 my spiritual hunger for spiritual fellowship; to 
 find a full response to all my longing for Him, 
 this is eternal life. 
 
 This knowledge may be lower in degree than 
 we desire but still it is the kind of knowing that 
 brings us into harmony with our eternal sur- 
 roundings, with the eternal God, and so in its 
 nature it is eternal life. The degree may be 
 increased, even here and now, and must con- 
 stantly grow in more favourable surroundings. 
 We guard our physical life against all its foes ; 
 so we are to guard this high life from coolness 
 of love of God or wanderings from Him. We 
 feed our lower life with sustaining food; so we 
 are to feed this high life with prayer and devo- 
 tion. We exercise our lower life to keep it in 
 health and win its support; so we are to exercise 
 the higher life by following Christ and giving 
 ourselves to His service. The more we are 
 with Christ the better and fuller will be our 
 knowing Him. 
 
 What shall we say now of heaven? Surely it 
 is not simply prolonged existence. Far more, 
 it is endless development in knowing God in 
 Christ. The more we jrrow like Him the more 
 
212 THE APOSTLES' CREED 
 
 we will know Him. God in Christ is infinite 
 in all His perfections and eternal in His nature. 
 We will have the eternal life begun now, and 
 passing through the valley of death, in ever 
 growing power and happiness on the uplands 
 of heaven. This eternal life can never be ex- 
 hausted; it must constantly grow in knowing 
 God. We have the bud here, there is the 
 flower. 
 
 This is the record that God hath given us 
 eternal life, and this life is in His Son. To 
 trust Him, love Him, know Him — this now and 
 here is eternal life. It can never die; it will 
 ever grow in fullness of power and happiness, 
 in complete harmony with its eternal surround- 
 ings. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST 
 
 P. WHITWELL WILSON of the London Daily Neivs 
 
 The Christ We Forget 
 
 A Life of Our Lord for Men of To-day. 8vo, 
 cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 A book with scarcely a peer in contemporary publishing. 
 The author, an English University man, brilliant journalist, 
 and sometime member of Parliament, writes the story of Jesus 
 of Nazareth in a wonderfully arresting fashion. His book is 
 utterly free from theological terminology or conventional view- 
 point presenting a picture of Jesus which while actually new 
 13 astonishingly convinoing. 
 
 EDGAR YOUNG MULLINS, D.D. Pres. Southern Baptist 
 
 ■ Theo' 'I Sem., Louisville 
 
 The Life in Christ Net $1.25. 
 
 "Dr. Mullins has recognition throughout the country as a 
 great teacher. This volume shows him a preacher of intel- 
 lectual and spiritual power. Excellent models for the grow- 
 ing minister, forcible, intellectual, spiritual.'' — Christian Advo- 
 cate. 
 
 FRA NCIS E. CLA R K, D. D. President United Society 
 
 — — — — — — — — — — ■— Christian Endeavor 
 
 Christ and the Young People 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 50c. 
 
 "A study of the Life of Jesus in a quite unusual vein. 
 The editor has seldom during his life been so helped by 
 the printed page. It is indeed a remarkable presentation of 
 the life of Jesus, sincere and impartial." — Zion's Herald. 
 
 JAMES M. GRAY, D.D. Dean Moody Bible Institute 
 
 A Picture of the Resurrection 
 
 i2mo, boards, net 35c. 
 
 A plain, unadorned examination of the historical fact ot 
 Our Lord's Resurrection, of its indispensable prominence in 
 the faith of the Christian and of the power its acceptance 
 exercises in buttressing his belief in a physical resurrection 
 from the dead, and the attainment of life eternal. 
 
 A. T. ROBERTSON, M.A., D.D. 
 
 The Divinity of Chrisl: in the Gospel 
 
 Of John i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 "A fascinating study of the Gospel of John. The book is 
 not a full commentary on the Gespel, but an effort to de- 
 velop the thesis of the bo^k with brevity and clearness, so 
 that the average man may understand the book bettex as • 
 Whole in detail." — Christian Observer. 
 
ON FAITH AND BELIEF 
 
 HENRY C. MABIE, D.D. Author of 'Method of 
 
 ■ Soul H inning 
 
 The Unshaken Kingdom 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Treats of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, against 
 which the storms of time beat in vain. There is a fine mis- 
 sionary spirit running through the book, which finds a special 
 expression in the chapter entitled The Ultimacy of Christian 
 Missions. 
 
 DAVID BA1NES-GRIFFITHS 
 
 When Faiths Flash Out 
 
 Essays in Spiritual Replenishment. Net $1.00. 
 
 "Thoroughly health-giving, evangelical and consequently 
 hopeful. The author possesses the power of felicitous ex- 
 pression, and gives us many helpful illustrations." — Episcopal 
 Recorder. 
 
 ADOLPH LEHMANN, D.D. 
 
 The World to Come 
 
 The Progressive Manifestation of the Kingdom of 
 God Among Men. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Points out that Christ's Messianic Kingdom, when com- 
 pleted, will be followed by that of the Father, and indicates 
 what the Bible teaches concerning this Dispensation, and its 
 place in the development of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 DAVID A. MURRAY, D.D . Author of ' ' Christian Faith 
 
 •—^—^———^^— ———'—— and the New Psychology" 
 
 The Supernatural : or Fellowship with God 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 "Virile and will stimulate earnest thinking and vitalize 
 flabby faith. The author sends his earnest message from the 
 mission field. It will prove an effective weapon against 
 prevelant naturalistic Tendencies in Bible interpretation in the 
 homeland." — Christian World. 
 
 DAVID J. BURRELL, D.D. 
 
 Why I Believe the Bible 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Dees anyone knowing the author doubt his ability to give 
 in clear, concise and convincing form his 'reasons' for a 
 definite faith in the Book of Books. The work will confirm 
 faith, cure skepticism and convert the honest enquirer. 
 
ESSAYS AND STUDIES 
 
 /■ WILBUR CHAPMAN, P.P. Moderator of 
 
 — ^— — — ^— — — — ^— ^^— ^— — — General Assembly 
 
 When Home Is Heaven 
 
 iamo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 A series of stirring chapters dealing with various aspect9 
 of domestic life, the right training of children and the value to 
 the community of a home in which, God's name is honored and 
 His precepts extolled, 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN HARPER , LLP. President of Eton 
 
 " College, N. C. 
 
 The New Layman for the New Time 
 
 A Discussion of Principles. i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Outlines from a layman's standpoint, the underlying prin- 
 ciples which should animate the modern layman. The author 
 confines himself to> a discussion of these principles rather 
 than to a survey of methods. 
 
 EPWIN L. HOUSE , P. P. Author of " The Psychology 
 
 mm ~~— — — — ■ — — —— of Orthodoxy" 
 
 The Mind of God i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "A wonderfully fine book, throwing light on the Mystery 
 of the Trinity. Every thought and illustration is made to 
 bring Glory to Christ. A rich volume — one of the choicest 
 we have read in many a day." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 JAMES I. VANCE, P.P. Pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 ■ Church, Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 Life's Terminals Boards, net 35c. 
 
 "Earnest, every-day talks to the every-day man, not one of 
 whom can read it without having the conscience aroused, 
 and the life made correspondingly better."— Presbyterian 
 Standard. 
 
 J. B. GAMBRELL, P.P. Edited by E.C. Routh of 
 
 ' 1 r ■ •• The Baptist Standard' ' 
 
 Parable and Precept 
 
 A Baptist Message. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Dr. Gambrell is so well known and sincerely loved that 
 he needs no commendation from us. We have among us no 
 more effective writer, wiser counsellor or more efficient leader 
 than he, and his great personality is fully manifest on each, 
 page." — Word and Way. 
 
 FREPERICK LYNCH Editor" The Christian Work 
 
 ■ and Evangelist" 
 
 The Challenge : The Church and the 
 New World Order i2tno. cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 "Awakening chapters that search out the deeper meaning 
 and farther application of Christian principles. The whole 
 book presents vividly 3 responsibility for world service."— 
 The Churchman. 
 
ESSAYS AND STUDIES 
 
 CHARLES L. THOMPSON, P.P. President of Homt 
 
 • ' Mission Council 
 
 The Religious Foundations of America 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 A survey of the religious elements which from various Eu- 
 ropean sources went to the making of America. The Refor- 
 mation principles, which are the very springs of her national 
 life, are traced to their original Old World channels, and their 
 culminative influence in the New World measured and ap- 
 praised. 
 
 EPGAR WHITAKER WORK, P.P. Author" The Fasci; 
 
 • nation of the hook 
 
 The Bible in English Literature 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Dr. Work believes that English-speaking people possess the 
 Bible in the blood. When men bare their spirits to God, 
 one sees the naked soul of humanity in the creative literature 
 of the race. A volume of singular freshness, to be read with 
 delight and to be studied with profit. 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 Heart-to-Heart Appeals 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 The cream of Mr. Bryan's public utterances, selected from 
 the principal speeches and lectures delivered by him during 
 his eventful and picturesque career. The topics treated of 
 include the following: Money; Imperialism; Labor; Trusts; 
 Income Tax; Peace; Religion; Pan-Americanism, etc., etc. 
 A New Booklet by Mr. Bryan. 
 
 The First Commandment Boards, net 35c. 
 
 GEORGE McCREAPY PRICE Professor of Chemistry and 
 
 " — Physics, Lodi Academy, Cat, 
 
 Q. E. D., or New Light on the 
 Doctrines of Creation 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 The author, an acknowledged conservative, has in his sev- 
 eral former volumes, found hearty approval and cordial en- 
 dorsement from Professors Sayce, Parker, Wilkinson, John- 
 son, and many others. The work is reverential but scientific, 
 frankly calling in question many recent popular hypotheses. 
 
 RICHARP L. SWAIN 
 
 The Real Key to Christian Science 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 60c. 
 
 "The author's experience with 'leaders' of the Science 
 Church, his defining of them of their own faith, the approval 
 by them of a large part of his analysis, together with the un- 
 answerable conclusion is commended both to converts to, and 
 critics of, this rapidly growing system of ethics. The work 
 is unique — unlike any previous study of the cult." 
 
LIGHT ON THE GREAT WAR 
 
 JAMES A. MAC DONA LP, LL.D. Editor Toronto Globe 
 
 The North American Idea 
 
 The Cole Lectures for 1917. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 . The famous Canadian editor enjoys an established and 
 J ust| y;ea™ed reputation. In Penchant and stirring phrase 
 Dr. McDonald discusses the growth and development of that 
 •pint of liberty just government, and freedom of individual 
 action, in the light of its relation to the Great World War. 
 
 EDWARD LEIGH PELL, P.P. Author of" Troublesome 
 
 ■■""■■■" ■ i Religious Questions" 
 
 What Did Jesus ReallyTeach About War? 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Unquestionably war is a matter of conscience But in Dr 
 Pell s opinion what America is suffering from just now is not 
 a troubled conscience so much as an untroubled conscience 
 I hat is why this book does not stop with clearing up trouble- 
 some questions. 
 
 ARTHUR J. BROWN, P.P. Author -of '"Unity and Missions'* 
 ™~"~ — —— "" ' The foreign Missionary ," etc. 
 
 Russia in Transformation 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Jb? 3 ^ n r ia y P ass , bef " r e Ne w Russia will settle down to 
 stability of life and administration. Meanwhile we may be 
 helped to understand the situation and have a deeper sym- 
 pathy with Russian brethren, if we study the conditions lead 
 ing up to the Revolution and mind ourselves of fundamental 
 characteristics which will undoubtedly affect New Russi i re- 
 gardless of the immediate outcome. The book is most timely. 
 
 R. A. TORREY, P.P. SupL Los Angeles Bible Institute 
 
 The Voice of God in the Present Hour 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 v new collection of sermons by the famous pastor-evan- 
 gelist. They contain stirring gospel appeals and also special 
 messages of enheartenment for those who find themselves 
 Perplexed and bewildered by the war conditions existing in 
 this and other lands. 
 
 JAMES M. GRA Y, P. P. Dean of the 
 
 ■ Moody Bible histitute, Chicago 
 
 Prophecy and the Lord's Return 
 
 l2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 What is the purpose of God in connection with the present 
 International cataclysm Does prophecy deal with the world 
 to-day. The author, Dean of the Moody Bible Institute, of 
 Chicago, is well-known as a Bible student and expositor 
 
 Z3S n ntl r e * • recistion throughout the Christian 
 
 world. Dr. Grey s i I, tpl hive unusual interest at this time. 
 
PULPIT AND PEW 
 
 PROF. WILLIAM J. HU TCHINS The Oberlin Graduate 
 m School of Theology 
 
 The Preacher's Ideals and Inspirations 
 
 George Shepherd Foundation Lectures. Net $1.00. 
 
 "Professor Hutchins' work with his students, out of which 
 these lectures have grown, has been so stimulating and en- 
 lightening, that I rejoice that the fruit of his long thinking 
 on the Preacher's problem is to be made available to others 
 also." — Pres. Henry Churchill King, of Oberlin. 
 
 ELIJAH P. BROWN (Ram's Horn) Author of "The 
 
 • Real Billy Sunday" 
 
 Point and Purpose in Preaching 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Dr. Brown is perhaps best known as the Ram's Horn 
 Man, having been for a long while editor of The Ham's Horn, 
 which under his administration was a power for good._ Good 
 reading for us all, but it is of special value to minister*." 
 . — Herald of Gospel Liberty. 
 
 ALBERT F. McGARRAH „„ _, Author or 
 
 • Modern Church Finance 
 
 Modern Church Management 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 With thoroughness and constructive ability, Mr. McGar- 
 rah furnishes valuable advice concerning the ideals and poli- 
 cies of the modern church and what she may learn and profit 
 by, from a study of the principles of scientific management. 
 
 JO HN F. COWAN, P.P. 
 
 Big Jobs for Little Churches 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Deals with the manifold problems confronting the rural 
 church in an optimistic, constructive sort of way. Furnishes 
 helpful, suggestive plans of work and methods of procedure 
 which have been found to yield highly satisfactory results. 
 
 JOSEPH FORT NEWTON Pastor City Temple, London 
 
 An Ambassador 
 
 City Temple Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Most of the sermons were preached by Dr. Newton in the 
 City Temple, London. Dr. Newton has both vigor of 
 thought and an unusual felicity of expression. And it is 
 good, earnest gospel preaching as well." — Christian Guardian. 
 
 HUGH THOMPSON KERR, P.P, 
 
 The Highway of Life 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Dr. Kerr has long established himself as a man with a 
 message. Some of his fine pulpit efforts are here presented, 
 furnishing ample evidence that this talented preacher has 
 something to say of an enheartening character. 
 
BIBLE STUDY 
 
 HENRY T. SELL, P.P. 
 
 Bible Studies in the Four Gospels: 
 
 The Master Books of the World. 
 l2mo, cloth, net 6oc; paper, 35c. 
 
 # 'A new volume in Sell'9 ''Bible Studies'* setting forth the 
 circumstances under which the Gospels came to he written, 
 their respective view-points, differences, agreements and 
 arguments, together with an appraisement of their messages to 
 the ancient and modern world. m Suitable for use in adult 
 Bible classes, young people's societies, schools, colleges and 
 private study. 
 
 ANPREW W. BLACKWOOP Pastor First Presbyterian 
 —^ — — — — • Church, Columbia, S. C 
 
 The Prophets: Elijah to ChrisT: 
 
 Studies in the Prophets. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 A study of the Great Hebrew prophets, their times and their 
 teaching. The author has not_ aimed to either raise critical 
 questions or answer them. Chiefly, he is concerned to show 
 the heart and life of each of his characters, to examine his 
 message and endeavor to discover what there is in it of value 
 to the modern world. 
 
 B. H. CARROLL, P.P. Late President Southwestern 
 
 ' ' • Theological Seminary 
 
 An Interpretation of the English Bible 
 
 Edited and Compiled by J. B. Cranfill, D.D., 
 
 The Book of Genesis. Net $2.25. 
 
 Exodus, Leviticus. Net $2.25. 
 
 Numbers to Ruth. Net $1.75. 
 
 The Hebrew Monarchy. Net $1.75. 
 
 Daniel and the Inter-Biblical Period. Net $i.7i. 
 
 The Four Gospels. Vol. I. Net $2.50. 
 
 The Four Gospels. Vol. II. Net $2.50. 
 
 The Acts. Net $2.25. 
 
 James, Thessalonians, Corinthians. Net $1.75. 
 
 Galatians, Romans, Philippians, Philemon. Net 
 
 $i.75. 
 Colossians, Ephesians and Hebrews. Net $1.75. 
 The Pastoral Epistles. Net $1.75. 
 Revelation. Net $1.75. 
 
BIBLE CTUDY AND DEVOTIONAL 
 
 A. T. ROBERTSON, M.A., P.P. 
 
 Paul's Joy in Christ 
 
 Studies in Philippians. l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 A study of Paul's unfailing optimism and spirit of rejoicing. 
 "Prof. Robertson brings all his expository skill to the presen- 
 tation of this fact. The result is a new evidence of the 
 Value which may be set on the work of this accomplished 
 New Testament scholar. 
 
 J A MES H. P UN HAM Dean of College of Liberal Arts 
 
 • and Sciences, Philadelphia 
 
 John Fourteen 
 
 The Greatest Chapter of the Greatest Book. Net $1.50. 
 
 "Will be welcomed everywhere by earnest students of the 
 Bible. On every page is revealed the keen discriminating 
 mind of a scholar, who ever exalts Christ and magnifies the 
 Word of God above every other message." — Baptist Standard. 
 
 WILLIAM HIRAM FOULKES, P.P. 
 
 Sunset by the Lakeside 
 
 Vesper Messages to Young People. Boards, net 60c. 
 
 Under this general title, a number of devotional messages 
 such as are eminently suited to Young People's Conferences, 
 are brought together in attractive and useful form. Into these 
 brief addresses, Dr. Foulkes introduces some really choice, 
 reverential thoughts such as cannot fail of proving helpful to 
 everybody into whose hands they come. 
 
 YOUNG FOLKS* BIBLE STORIES 
 
 I.ETTICE BELL Author of'Go-to-Bed Stories," etc. 
 
 Bible Battles 
 
 Israel's Victories Retold for Young Folks. i2mo, 
 cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 Commencing with the victories of Joshua, a stirring pano- 
 rama of Old Testament battle scenes is here presented. The 
 narratives are all simply and effectively told in language pe» 
 culiarly suited to juvenile readers, 
 
 APA R. HABERSHON 
 
 Hidden Pictures 
 
 Or, How the New Testament is Concealed in the 
 Old Testament. i2tno, cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 In a series of delightfully-drawn pictures, Miss Habershon 
 presents some of the most arresting and salient incidents in 
 the history of ancient Israel. These she employs to show how 
 wonderfully they foreshadow and pre-figure the coming of Itt> 
 tnanuel, as related in the Gospels. 
 
Date Due 
 
 1 
 
 — ' 
 
 !T~- ~ 
 
 to 
 
 ^'52 
 &. 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 - '-A 
 
 k> i s m 
 
 & 
 
 «ra 
 
 '49 
 
 Mn 
 
 2 4 '40 OC i I ■^m^m^m»': 
 
 to ?- n oc2bi 
 
 ^r 
 
 h* 
 
 HW»lH>il«li»»>«tlW«li ,- 
 
 *j 
 
 
 fl 
 
 ^ 
 
 ' 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 jfton^Ns^ift'i ^ w 
 
 Dim n 'tfrf 
 
 '> /fata J****^ 
 
 Mr 
 
 
 iVl23t 
 
 re 
 
• ,. . 
 
J012 01 
 
 013 
 
 0583 
 
 ■gjsrrS 3