SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 Sr-p 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Delivered on the Evening of the IZth May, 1832, hy the Rev. 
 John Breckinridge, of Philadelphia. 
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 This people have I formed for myself ; they shall show forth ray praise. 
 — Isaiah xliii. 21. 
 
 That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the 
 house of God, wliich is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground 
 of the truth. — 1 Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word 
 in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost : so that ye were ensamples 
 to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the 
 word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place 
 your faith to God-ward is spread abroad ; so that we need not to speak any 
 thing. — 1 Thess. i. 6 — 8. 
 
 Ip the Church of Christ had been in any adequate measure 
 pure in her spirit, and faithful to her trust, as the depository 
 of the Gospel for mankind, then the history of the Church 
 would have been the history of missions.* 
 
 But on the contrary, the history of the Church is often. 
 
 • Some of the views advanced in this Lecture were published by the au- 
 thor in the Biblical Repertory, October, 1830. 
 
 36 
 
256 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 in a principal degree, the record of its corruptions in doc- 
 trine and life ; and when we would trace from its rise to 
 the present time, the pure stream of Christianity, instead 
 of “ the river of God,” we find in many ages only a scanty 
 brook, w'ell nigh lost amid the rubbish and delapidations 
 through which it wends its weary way. 
 
 The Apostles of Christ, in a qualified sense, may be said 
 to have defined with their own hands the present frontier- 
 line of foreign missions; and what has since been done for 
 the conversion of the world, has been the result more of 
 natural causes, than of the spirit of missions. What they 
 achieved in a few years, under divine influence, by heroic 
 enterprise, was ignobly left by after ages, to a great extent, 
 to the work of time, and to the indirect influences only of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Indeed, for several centuries before the days of Luther, 
 the Church itself was missionary ground. The religion 
 of Christ lay expiring on its own altar, the victim of its 
 professed votaries and friends. And when at the ever me- 
 morable reformation, “the spirit of life from God entered 
 into her, and she again stood upon her feet,” the servants 
 of Christ found Paganism within the very recesses of the 
 sanctuary. They had but little leisure for the cultivation of 
 a foreign field, who were absorved in purging out abomina- 
 tions from the very temple of God itself. Their hands were 
 busied in breaking down the idols from the holy places, in 
 ca.sting out those that made merchandise of the truth, in 
 overturning the tables of the money-changers, and in restor- 
 ing to its purity the worship of God. And then, alas! al- 
 most before the work of reform had been sufficiently extend- 
 ed to give numbers and strength to Christianity, the spirit 
 of contention and of schism arose ; the progress of the holy 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 257 
 
 cause was arrested by the fatal divisions of its friends ; and 
 the Reformed Church 
 
 “ To party gave up, what was meant for mankind.” 
 
 The revival in latter days of the spirit of missions in Pro- 
 testant Christendom, is a great epoch in the history of the 
 Church and of the world. We have no doubt that future 
 generations, passing by the fading glories of this world, will 
 resard this as the most brilliant characteristic of the age in 
 which we live: and if we are faithful to God and man, it 
 may become the first in a series of progressive movements, 
 which, with the divine blessing, shall issue in the conver- 
 sion of the world. 
 
 But if we would take the proper impression of the sub- 
 ject, and gird ourselves fully for the great and solemn ser- 
 vice we have to perform, then must we esteem the work of 
 missions for the conversion of the world as but just begun. 
 For though, compared with the spirit and labours of some 
 other ages, much is doing now for this noblest of causes, 
 yet, compared with the vast extent of unreclaimed heathen- 
 ism, with the bountiful compass of the divine command, or 
 with what we can and ought to do, our achievements are 
 matter much more of humiliation than of mutual congratu- 
 lation. 
 
 The subject of Christian Missions having, in the order of 
 discussion, been assigned to us, we proceed this evening to 
 present some hints in relation to it, which we trust will not 
 be found unprofitable. 
 
 The passages selected from the word of God are intended 
 to form rather the basis than matter of discussion; and may 
 be considered more a continued motto, or running caption, 
 than as a text for regular analysis. The first named passage 
 
258 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 exhibits the divinely derived character, and appropriate in- 
 fluence of the people of God. “ This people have 1 formed 
 for myself : they shall show forth my praise.” This is 
 expanded as follows by the Apostle Peter: ‘‘ Ye are a 
 chosen generation., a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a 
 peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of 
 Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvel- 
 lous light.”* The next portion refers to this peculiar and 
 chosen people, organized into a church, furnished from on 
 high, as the house of God, with the means of extending 
 “the truth” through the earth, and put by its great Head 
 under requisition for this labour of love. “ The house of 
 God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar 
 and ground of the truth.” Not that the Church is that 
 on which the truth rests, for the truth rests on God ; and it 
 is the action of the truth by the power of God which called 
 the Church into being, organized it into form, and furnished 
 it with beauty and the means of doing good. Hence it is 
 the effect of the truth, and, of course, can never be that on 
 which the truth depends, to be what it is. But it is that, 
 without which, according to the divine arrangement, the 
 truth of God will never be adequately extended in the 
 world. “ It is the ground of the truth,” as God’s chosen 
 seat on earth; where ‘ his truth is stationed, supported, and 
 upheld,’ — the pillar on which the truth is continually held 
 to view, as a public proclamation of mercy to a lost world. 
 
 The last passage represents to us this Church in successful 
 action — in the work of faith and the labour of love. “ From 
 you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Ma- 
 cedonia and Jichaia, but in every place; so that ye be- 
 came ensamples to all that believe. ” 
 
 • 1 Peter ii.9. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 259 
 
 It is taken for granted in this discussion, that the glory 
 of God is the great end of all his works. In his dealings 
 with our world, he has made his supreme glory to depend 
 upon the influence and final triumph of Christianity. “He 
 has magnified his wore? above all his name.”* The plan 
 of redemption subordinates to itself all beings and all things 
 in our own, and, so far as we know, in all other worlds. 
 “ The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
 hath set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far 
 above all principality, and power, and might, and domi- 
 nion, and every name that is named, not only in this 
 world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all 
 things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all 
 things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him 
 that filleth all in all, to the intent that now unto the prin- 
 cipalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known 
 by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.”t In the 
 economy of redemption, man is regarded at once as an 
 object and an agent; as an object, it proposes his eternal 
 salvation; as an agent, he is to be occupied in extending 
 the knowledge of this salvation to his fellow men, in all 
 the world. By the comprehensive and general terms of 
 the subject, “Christian Missions,” J we are to under- 
 stand the nature, obligations, importance, &c. of that work 
 in which we are required to engage as agents or instru- 
 ments in the hands of God, for publishing the Gospel to 
 every creature. 
 
 In examining this important subject, we remark; 
 
 I. That the Christian man is, in the very constitution 
 
 * Psalm cxxxviii. 2. t Ephes. i. 17, 20 — 23, and iii. 10. 
 
 } A series of subjects, of which this is one, had been previously selected, 
 and assigned to the several speakers. 
 
260 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 of his character, a missionary; or, in other words, that 
 which makes him a Christian, endows him in the same 
 degree with the missionary spirit and in fluence. 
 
 The Christian character and spirit, properly so called, are 
 peculiar, original, and from God. In the new and divine 
 constitution of this character, the Christian differs in many 
 essential respects from his fellow men, who are not Chris- 
 tian, and from his former self. A profession of religion is 
 a declaration of this difference — the life of a Christian is its 
 continued exhibition, or it is embodied Christianity. Our 
 first proposition is, that this spirit and character are intrin- 
 sically fitted in themselves, and designed by God, to ex- 
 tend the influence of the Christian religion. In order to 
 establish this, let us for a moment look at some of the dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics of a Christian. 
 
 The Christian is distinguished by a supreme regard 
 for divine truth, and lives under eVs controlling influ- 
 ence. Divine truth exhibits God as he is, and man as he 
 is, and all things in their true light and just proportions. 
 It gives him right views of time and of eternity, of sin, and 
 of the soul, of the law of God, of the plan of redemption 
 and its glorious author; in a word, it gives right principles 
 of action, sets a true value on all things, gives the just ex- 
 pression to all his relations, and by reducing his knowledge 
 into practical use, under the divine Spirit, makes the be- 
 liever, in some degree, feel, and think, and act like him 
 “ who has left us an example that we should follow his 
 steps.”* 
 
 Personal holiness is an essential characteristic of a 
 Christian. “ Without holiness no man shall see the 
 Lord.” “ Ye are a holy nation.” “ If any man be in 
 
 * 1 Peter ii. 21. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 261 
 
 Christ, he is a new creature.” He is renewed by the 
 Spirit of God, “being his workmanship,” “created after the 
 image of God in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which 
 God hath before ordained that he should walk in them.”* 
 By a holy man, we mean one cleansed from the pollution 
 and delivered from the curse of sin, and having been made 
 so, is kept so by the power of God. Holiness also includes 
 the idea of dedication to God, being God’s temple, inha- 
 bited by his Spirit, and set apart for his service. This is 
 that ‘beauty of the Lord our God upon his people,’ which is 
 seen of all men, by which the world take knowledge of 
 them that have been with Jesus, and glorify God on their 
 behalf. This characteristic will necessarily lead a man to 
 hate sin for its own evil nature, for the indignity it offers 
 to a holy God, and for the unbounded ruin which it occa- 
 sions; and will impel him to seek its extinction every 
 where. 
 
 Holy love is a leading characteristic of the Chris- 
 tian. We can, of course, do no more than allude to 
 these qualities, while forming an argument out of their 
 united force. But supreme love to God, and a disin- 
 terested love to his fellow men, is a summary expression of 
 the spirit and duty of a Christian. “ Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and with 
 all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour 
 as thyself. This is the great commandment.”t And this love 
 God-ward is not a vague and heartless theism, but a supreme, 
 intelligent, commanding, and practical affection for the 
 God of the Bible — God in Christ. And this love of man 
 is not a vain sentiment, or a wild spirit of religious knight 
 errantry; but a wise, dutiful, and disinterested love which 
 
 Ephes. ii. 10, and G)los. iii. 10. 
 
 t Luke X. 27. Math. xxii. 37. 
 
262 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 seeks to do good unto all men. It is a faint, but real copy 
 of the spirit of Him who so loved the world, that though he 
 was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, and gave himself 
 up unto death, even the death of the cross, that we might 
 not perish, but have everlasting life. This spirit necessarily 
 leads its possessor to make every sacrifice which is clearly 
 required, for God and his fellow man. 
 
 7%e Christian man is characterized by holy obe- 
 dience to God’s commands. “ If ye love me, keep 
 my commandments,” is the great test of Christian cha- 
 racter. “ I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things 
 to be right, and I hate every false way.” As sin is the 
 transgression of the law, so he cannot be a holy man, a 
 Christian, who permits himself to live in disobedience to, 
 or any known transgression of, any law of God. Now 
 he who commands us in the decalogue to keep holy 
 the Sabbath day, and says “ thou shalt not kill,” has also 
 said, “do good unto all men as ye have opportunity.”* 
 “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” “ Go teach 
 all nations” the Gospel of the Son of God. He who re- 
 quires us, under pain of eternal death, to obey the first table 
 of the law as to the duties especially owed to God, under 
 the same pain, requires us to obey the second table, which 
 defines the sum of our love and duty to our neighbour, and 
 especially to his soul; and a neglect of these is, by emi- 
 nence, offensive to God, because it kills the soul, beyond 
 the tomb! “ thou forbear to deliver them that are 
 drawn unto death, and them that are ready to be slain; 
 if thou sayest behold we knew it not, doth not he that 
 pondereth the heart consider it ? And he that keepeth 
 
 • Galatians vi. 10. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 263 
 
 thy soul, doth not he know it ? And shall not he ren- 
 der to every man according to his workV’"* 
 
 Once more: It is a distinguishing characteristic of the 
 Christian, that he intends to glorify God in all his 
 actions. It is one great law of the kingdom, “ Whether 
 ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of 
 God.” “Glorify God with your bodies and your spirits, 
 which are his.” But the chief glory of God results from 
 the triumph of the Gospel. This ‘^is glory to God in the 
 highest, because it brings peace to earth, and good will 
 to men.” To the accomplishment, therefore, of this great 
 end, the desires, labours, sacrifices, prayers of the believer 
 are directed, in a degree that is supreme and controlling, 
 even in his darkest and coldest hours. All things and all 
 beings glorify God in some shape; but it may be reluctant, 
 extorted, and unknown. “ The wrath of man praises him.” 
 If not, “he restrains it.” But it is the purpose and the 
 effort of the Christian to give glory to God, and especially 
 by the universal diffusion of the religion of Christ Now 
 this is the very spirit and work of missions. 
 
 There are other characteristics which distinguish the Chris- 
 tian, as the spirit of prayer, self-denial, &c. But these just 
 named may suffice for the present use. Now our argument 
 is, that these qualities do, in their own nature, constitute a 
 missionary spirit, and fit their possessor with the divine 
 blessing, to extend the influence of Christianity in the 
 world. For, in the first place, the very presence of such 
 a being in such a world as ours, is honourable to our holy 
 religion, and useful to his fellow men. Such a man is the 
 representative of an unseen Saviour; he is a specimen of 
 the religion which he professes; a practical proof of its 
 
 37 
 
 * Proverbs xxiv. 11-12. 
 
264 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 truth, value, and divine power. “ He shows forth the 
 praises of him who hath called him out of darkness into 
 his marvellous light. He is an epistle of Christ 
 known and read of all men.”* Sometimes such a man, 
 like lot in Sodom, stands the solitary, but yet expressive 
 earnest of the divine presence among a guilty people; a 
 living witness for the God of heaven; at once their honour, 
 their reproof, and their security; “Me salt of the earth, 
 the light of the world.” But the influence of such a man 
 is not merely the result of proper character. He is, in the 
 next place, intentionally and actively useful. His views of 
 divine truth lead him to set a proper price on man. He has 
 an impression of the true value and importance of the soul, 
 infinitely more just and elevated than ever entered the cold 
 and narrow calculations of infidel philosophy. He mea- 
 sures it by the word of God, in the scale of an eternal 
 existence; he sees his ruin by sin; he beholds a great salva- 
 tion provided for him; he takes truth’s view of all things, 
 and is properly affected by them. His holiness makes him 
 hate sin, the common foe of God and man, while his love 
 for both will impel him to seek the honour of the one, and 
 the eternal salvation of the other. His obedience to the 
 law of God — the law of love, will forbid him to stand still, 
 when the great command sounds forth “ Go ye unto all the 
 world, and teach all nations;” “let him that heareth say 
 come.” His nature is an active nature; his affections are 
 strong affections, and eminently social. The influence of 
 religion will give to them intensity, refinement, and ele- 
 vation. He will labour where labour can avail. Where he 
 cannot go in person, he will give of his substance, and give 
 on a scale which shows the greatness of his holy pity to a 
 
 * 2 Cor. iii. 3. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 265 
 
 ruined world, and the supremacy of his love, with the en- 
 tireness of his dedication to the Lord Jesus Christ. He 
 will not give grudgingly, or by measure, unto that beloved 
 Lord who poured out his soul unto death for him. And 
 having influence in heaven by his prayers, he will send 
 out his alms, directed by his supplications, and by steady 
 and fervent intercession, press the throne of grace with the 
 wants of a ruined world. Oh! brethren, is this no more 
 than a lovely vision — a fair, but impracticable theory! 
 When we read the history of the Church in past ages, or 
 even look around upon its professing millions now, in 
 search of such examples, we may well tremble while we 
 see the truth still indicated, that only a remnant shall he 
 saved.” But yet the character is not ideal. God requires 
 this very spirit at our hands. It is that, and that alone, 
 with which we can enter heaven. 
 
 It is then apparent, that the very constitution of the 
 Christian character, is missionary in its nature, and that 
 what makes a man a Christian, endows him in the same 
 measure with the spirit and influence of missions. 
 
 II. We remark that the Church of God is essentially, 
 in its organization, and in the purpose of God, a Mis- 
 sionary institution. 
 
 We speak, of course, of the visible Church catholic, pro- 
 perly so called. The Church of God was established, in 
 order to keep alive and extend the true religion in the 
 world, and thus to glorify God in the salvation of men. 
 It has been essentially the same institution during the seve- 
 ral dispensations through which it has passed; and every 
 successive development of its scheme of mercy to mankind, 
 has added new sanctions and helps to its missionary consti- 
 tution. 
 
266 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 If, as we have shown, the individual Christian who truly 
 possesses, and properly displays the spirit of his religion, 
 is a missionary man; when united into a society, with the 
 accession of power, under God, peculiar to combined action, 
 and when invested from on high with corporate rights, and 
 qualifications for the work of missions, the body thus orga- 
 nized must be, in the highest form, a missionary institution. 
 
 The Church is a social institution. “A chosen ^enera- 
 tion, a holy nation, a peculiar people, called out of dark- 
 ness into God’s marvellous light.” Each living member, 
 of course, brings into the body, if we may speak so, in 
 his person an accession to the common stock of mis- 
 sionary influence. Thus united to Christ, the common 
 head, and being all members one of another, “ the whole 
 body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which 
 every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working 
 in the measure ofi every part, maketh increase of the body, 
 unto the edifying of itself in loved’* and in the same de- 
 gree is it fitted for harmonious and efiicient action, in the 
 work of faith and the labour of love. 
 
 But, besides the relation of society, or the collective ef- 
 fects of numbers, “the house of God, which is the Church 
 of the living God,” is eminently a missionary institu- 
 tion in its furniture. For this “ peculiar people” are en- 
 dowed by their sovereign for the work of missions. It is in the 
 sense already explained, that the Church is “ the pillar and 
 ground of the truth.” To her “ are committed the oracles of 
 God, ’’and that not for her own manifold “advantage” alone,’^ 
 but as a depository of the matchless blessings therein revealed, 
 for all the world. “ The truth by which she is sanctified,” 
 
 Ephea. iv. 5. 
 
 t Roms. iii. 2. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 267 
 
 is the sword of the Spirit for cleaving the closed hearts of 
 men, and thus opening their darkened understandings to the 
 light of an eternal day. And in order to give to this people 
 the standing means to “show forth God’s praise,” his public 
 worship is established, and sustained by his authority. The 
 ordinances of his house are observed, and its sacred rites 
 performed in public, with direct reference to the pre- 
 sence and the good of men. And with infinite wisdom and 
 mercy, a day, originally set apart to celebrate God’s praise, 
 and keep alive the knowledge of Him in the world, is 
 turned to the peculiar use of publishing the salvation of the 
 Gospel. It is in an emphatic and peculiar sense, the Lord’s 
 day; and returning, in the measured and rapid revolutions 
 of each succeeding week, renews to the listening earth the 
 evidences of his resurrection, and the incessant calls of his 
 mercy. 
 
 In addition to all this, there is an order of men, given 
 by God to the Church, set apart for the special purpose 
 of ministering in his house, and of preaching to all men 
 the Gospel of his Son. The ministers of reconcilia- 
 tion, if truly called of God, go forth, furnished for 
 their work by his holy Spirit, as well as commission- 
 ed by his authority. This is his chosen method of mis- 
 sionary effort; it has been selected by his wisdom, and 
 is made successful by his Almighty power. Now this great 
 mean of evangelizing the nations of the earth, is commit- 
 ted, if we may say so, to the fostering care of the Church 
 of God. She is, under God, the mother of her ministering 
 sons. The Head of the Church gives them unto her for 
 the work of the ministry. “ When he ascended on high 
 he gave gifts to men: he gave some apostles, and some 
 prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and 
 
268 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 teachers, for the works of the ministry.”* And God is 
 prepared to give them in sufficient numbers, and in heavenly 
 fitness, for the perfecting of the saints, and for the conver- 
 sion of the world, whenever the Church truly asks them at 
 his hands, and is really prepared to make the necessary sa- 
 crifices, in order to train them, and send them forth under 
 the great commission, to preach the Gospel to every creature. 
 
 But the Church of God is attended hy the Spirit of 
 God, to give direction and effect to her missionary ac- 
 tion. Each believer, as such, is “ a temple of God,” that 
 is, a spiritual man sanctified by the Spirit, led by the Spi- 
 rit, his graces the gifts and adornings of the Spirit: and each 
 minister, who is truly such, is personally and officially at- 
 tended by the Spirit: and the collective body of Christians 
 has the Spirit of God in the midst of - it. Even to 
 
 two, and to three, is this Spirit promised by the gracious 
 Head of the Church; and He dwells perpetually in the 
 Church, as the divine representative of Jesus, as her 
 Holy Paraclete and Guide ; and goes forth, “ without mea- 
 sure,” amidst the administrations of the Gospel to convince 
 men of sin, and to convert them unto God. It is the glory 
 of the Gospel, that it is the ministration of the Spirit; and 
 that the Church is inhabited and attended by His perpetual 
 presence. Thus “ all the body fitly framed together, grow- 
 eth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom his peo- 
 ple are builded together for an habitation of God 
 through the Spirit. ”\ 
 
 And while the Spirit of Truth is thus vouchsafed to the 
 Church, as an abiding gift, there “are seasons of refreshing 
 from the presence of the Lord,” in which this greatest of 
 blessings is dispensed with peculiar plenitude and power; 
 
 Ephes. iv. 8. 11 — 12. 
 
 t Ephes. ii. 21 — 22. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 269 
 
 when the Holy Spirit, by a simultaneous and diffusive work 
 of grace, gives new impulse to his people in the divine 
 life, and converts great numbers of sinners unto God. 
 These special and illustrious occasions hasten, in an especial 
 degree, the conversion of the world. They outrun the or- 
 dinary means of grace; they transcend all the resistance of 
 men and devils, and divinely furnish a faithful and revived 
 Church from on high, for spreading to all lands the saving 
 knowledge of the Son of God. 
 
 We might add, that the Church is a self-perpetuat- 
 ing institution, and thus, under th© divine blessing, is fitted 
 to extend her influence from generation to generation. And 
 it is equally true, that success from God is promised to the 
 proper action of the Church in sending abroad the Gospel of 
 Christ. But we have dwelt sufficiently on these suggestions, 
 to answer the end in view, which is to show that the Church 
 is furnished for the successful prosecution of the great work 
 of missions, by her glorious Head. She has numbers and 
 union; she has the truth and its preachers; the social ordi- 
 nances of religion, and the time, and the opportunities, for 
 their public, ever-returning and successful administration; 
 and the Eternal Spirit attends his truth, and gives divine 
 effect to the calls and labours of the Church. 
 
 What then is wanting, (to say no more,) towards a mis- 
 sionary institution ? And how apparent is the intention of its 
 divine Author in its entire constitution ? Is it not the very 
 husbandry (plantation, or nursery) of God, from which every 
 wind that blows should waft its odours abroad; and carry 
 forth its winged-seeds to every forest, and »to every field ! 
 
 But it is time that we pass, in the third place, to consi- 
 der the direct commands of the Lord Jesus Christ, as to 
 the work of missions. What we infer from the organiza- 
 
270 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 tion and furniture of the Church, we learn explicitly from 
 the standing laws of Christ, that the work of missions is 
 commanded duty of the Church. “Duty,” (as has been 
 admirably said by a modern missionary, now in the field)* 
 
 “ resulting from the command of Christ — obligation 
 founded on the authority of Christ, is the great argument 
 in behalf of missions.” 
 
 * William Swan, Missionary in Siberia. The following’ remarks are so 
 apposite and forcible, that we cannot forbear to give them a place here : — 
 
 “ Suppose an order issued from the highest authority in the kingdom, re- 
 quiring certain faithful subjects to perform a specific service in the character 
 of soldiers, and commanding all faithful subjects generally to be aiding to the 
 utmost of their power in the execution of the will of theii; sovereign. In urg- 
 ing the people to obedience, what would be the most obvious, and we might 
 almost say, exclusive topic that could present itself in the way of argument? 
 unquestionably the authority of the command. It must not be resisted. It 
 must not be neglected. It is at the peril of the sovereign’s displeasure and 
 the loss of character — and, it may be, under the pain of condign punishment, 
 if it be not fulfilled. It would be self-evident that no one could justly retain 
 the character of a loyal subject if he disobeyed ; and he must forfeit the es- 
 teem and confidence of his better affected brethren if he not merely should 
 refuse obedience, but should attempt to justify his conduct.” 
 
 “ I feel that this illustration, as indeed every illustration taken from earthly 
 and sensible objects, must fall short of the paramount authority of the com- 
 mand of the King and Head of the Church, in reference to the extension of 
 his kingdom and the subjection of all nations to Him. An eartlily king is a 
 mortal man, and he may err through ignorance or passion. His commands 
 may be the dictates of cruelty, or imbecility, or ambition, or a wanton exer- 
 cise of power ; but even allowing his will to be in all respects accordant to 
 the principles of the strictest justice and highest honour and universal bene- 
 volence — his subjects can never be under such obligations to obey him, as 
 Christians are to “ lying every thought into subjection to the obedience of 
 Christ.” And if any one should disregard his authority, I would not endea- 
 vour to work upon that man’s mind by any other consideration. I allow 
 other arguments a place, but that place is a lower one than the authority of 
 Christ.” 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 271 
 
 The ultimate appeal is to the authority of God. What 
 then does He command. Jlnd Jesus came and spake 
 unto them, saying, Ml power is given unto me in hea- 
 ven and in earth. Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo ! I am with 
 you always, even unto the end of the world.’’ “ Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved-, he 
 that believeth not shall be damned.” “ And he said un- 
 to them, thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to 
 suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that 
 repentance and remission of sins should be preached in 
 his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem; 
 and ye are witnesses of these things.”* Such is the lan- 
 guage of standing, sovereign law. It was addressed, it is 
 true, to but a little band; but it was to the Church, and for 
 the Church, and the entire Church. It extends to all who 
 have an interest in Christ, and to all who ever heard of 
 Christ; and he who would excuse himself from its obliga- 
 tion, shuts himself out from the blessings it announces. It 
 runs to the last day — and the last man. It is the great law 
 of the Lord: it comprehends all the rest. Though the di- 
 rect and official work of “ preaching the Gospel” regards 
 especially the ministers of Christ, yet the ministers must 
 spring from the Church; they must be sent forth by the 
 Church; and the only choice of every one in the Church, is 
 between going or sending; between preaching the Gospel, 
 or causing it to be preached. It is under law, the royal law, 
 
 * Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20. Mark xvi. 15 — 16. Luke xxiv. 46 — 48. 
 
 38 
 
272 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 that the Church of God is required to do this. ‘‘For who- 
 soever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 
 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not 
 believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they 
 have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 
 And how shall they preach, except they he sent?” 
 
 Now the whole duty comprehends all the parts essential 
 to its constituent character, and the end includes the means 
 necessary to its accomplishment. Therefore, as they can- 
 not hear without a preacher, nor preach except they be 
 sent, so they cannot be sent, except they be trained. If 
 others may train them, the Church must do it, or sin 
 against the fundamental law of the kingdom. If others 
 may train them, she alone, in her official character, can 
 ordain them for the work of the ministry; and she cannot 
 divest herself any more of the duty to send them forth, 
 than she can alienate, or delegate to another, her ordaining 
 rights, or her love and duty to her risen Lord. 
 
 While all the people of God agree that the Church of 
 Christ is thus bound to send forth the Gospel, they differ 
 as to the form of doing it. Some prefer the action of the 
 Church, as such, in her ecclesiastical organization; while 
 others choose an association, (unhappily denominated volun- 
 tary, since the ecclesiastical is voluntary too,) not officially 
 the Church, nor the ordaining body, nor directly consti- 
 tuted by it, or responsible to it; but formed for the same 
 great end. The most important part is to do the work, 
 AND to do it at ONCE ; and none but God’s people ever 
 will do it. But surely it is also important, that it be pro- 
 perly done, since on it will, in a great measure, depend 
 both the speed and the efficiency of the service. It will 
 not be denied, that the Church, as such, ought to do what 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 273 
 
 she can in this cause; and we suppose it will be allowed, 
 that if her ecclesiastical action be equally good, it ought to 
 be preferred to any other form. And as the preliminary 
 acts, such as receiving the candidate for the ministry into 
 her communion, ordaining him for the work of the minis- 
 try, &c. are peculiar to the Church, so there would seem to 
 be a special fitness and unity in her carrying forward the 
 entire work, from first to last. And as the Church, as such, 
 is, without a question, responsible to God for the universal 
 publication of the Gospel, it w’ould seem to be proper, re- 
 quisite, and even obligatory, to subordinate to her ultimate 
 direction, the agents and the operations by which it is 
 accomplished. If the organization of any Church necessa- 
 rily unfits it for the work of missions, in its proper person, 
 then we should think it time to question the authority of 
 that Church, and its conformity to the principles of Gospel 
 constitution and order. Not that mere adaptation to mis- 
 sionary action is an evidence of this conformity; but to be 
 without it, seems incompatible with the very genius of an 
 institution, which has been organized and commissioned for 
 the conversion of the world. 
 
 To convince us that the organized Church can do the 
 work, we need not look beyond the very striking spe- 
 cimens afforded to the world in the Methodist Episcopal 
 circuit system at home, or that of the United Brethren 
 abroad. While we consider neither of these schemes a 
 perfect model, yet they stand forth to the view of reproved 
 and admiring Christendom, illustrious examples of what 
 the Church, in her organized form can do, to save the 
 world. Especially do we admire, while we gaze upon it, the 
 unparalleled self-devotion and attendant success of the 
 labours of our Moravian brethren. They pitched their 
 
274 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 tents in the open plain, like two little flocks of kids, before an 
 enemy that well nigh filled the world.* But God was with 
 them, and they have sent through all the earth the praises of 
 Him in whose name they have prevailed. May they never 
 loose that godly simplicity, that supreme faith, that disin- 
 terested self-denial and holy love, which have made the 
 page that records their labours, the most brilliant in the 
 history of missions! 
 
 In regard to our own institutions, we freely acknowledge 
 that we have been far from realizing our hopes or our duty 
 in doing good. But the defect has been in us, not in our 
 system. The organization of the Presbyterian Church fits 
 it, in no ordinary measure, for combined and efficient action, 
 to an unlimited extent. The gradation of its various eccle- 
 siastical bodies, through the whole line of which the great 
 principle of representation runs, renders it next to impossi- 
 ble to usurp power, and entirely so to hold it long: and the 
 continued responsibility of its peculiar institutions to the 
 whole Church, gives unity, without consolidation, and 
 secures supervision, without impairing efficiency. 
 
 One reason why we are so earnestly desirous that our 
 Church should be occupied in her ecclesiastical character 
 in the conversion of the world is, the happy influence it 
 must exert upon its various official bodies, as well as on the 
 spirit of the people at large. The very name by which we 
 are accustomed to define them, “ Church-courts,” indicates 
 that they have been too exclusively devoted to conducting 
 business and directing discipline, in contradistinction to the 
 specific work of missions. 
 
 Again; if others feed, and clothe, and train, and establish 
 
 1 Kings XX. 27. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 275 
 
 Our children, and leave to us only the duty of government 
 and of the rod, our children may give to our authority a 
 cold assent, but their hearts will flow out after their bene- 
 factors. The parent’s sweetest privilege, which blesses him 
 in blessing them, is to give to his children. In its place, 
 discipline also is a duty. But these are relative and insepa- 
 rable; they are wisely and mercifully blended in the same 
 person; and are necessary to the right support of the respec- 
 tive relations of parent and child. And so it is with the 
 ecclesiastical relations. For the sake of our candidates for the 
 ministry, and of our ofiicial bodies, as well as for the sake of 
 the people, these great duties, joined together by God, ought 
 never to be put asunder by man. The bodies who act in these 
 benevolent institutions, both directly and in general supervi- 
 sion, if properly engaged in them, would find it their most 
 pleasant, honoured, and useful occupation; and it would bind 
 our youth and the people in love and confidence to the judi- 
 catures of the Church, while it would make every eccle- 
 siastical body an apostolical assembly for doing good. * 
 
 * It is due to ourselves, and the noble institutions of our age and land, 
 ■which have arisen in aid of the various benevolent operations of the day, 
 here explicitly to declare, that we do most cordially approve them ; that we 
 think them highly necessary, as well as greatly useful, and that they can no 
 more be dispensed with by the several great families of the- Church of God, 
 than each family can dispense with its peculiar institutions and ecclesiastical 
 order. Without interference with the proper action of the Church, as such, 
 they sustain the union, and extend the influence of the people of God, and 
 afford a fine moral demonstration of the truth of Christianity ; “ that they 
 all may be one, as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may 
 be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” John 
 xvii. 17. And we are equally far from intending to assail those valuable 
 sister institutions, which are now carrying forward in our own Church, by 
 ■voluntary associations, the work of missions, either foreign or domestic, or 
 of education for the ministry. Their existence is called for by the present cir- 
 
276 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 But however this question may be settled, as to the 
 form of the service, (in the discussion of which we have 
 already been too long engaged,) the work must be done by 
 the Church of the living God. Nothing can be more clear 
 or urgent, than the divine command respecting this duty; 
 and we need rather to be incited, with all speed to obey it, 
 than to be reasoned with in evidence of its obligation. Is 
 it borne in mind by the people of God, that obedience to 
 this standing law is a discriminating test of our fidelity and 
 devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ ? If ye love me, keep 
 my commandments, is his own aflfecting standard of Chris- 
 tian character. And how can we love him, and yet forget 
 or violate his great, his last command? To this, he set the 
 seal of his own blood in death. To this, he added the sanc- 
 tion of divine authority and power, when he arose from 
 the dead. In this, all other commands centre. The ser- 
 vice it enjoins is in the direct line of the operation of provi- 
 dence, the work of redemption, and the glory of God. To 
 this is appended, the overwhelming condition of heaven or 
 hell, the decisive alternative of redemption or ruin; and 
 when he ascended on high, he appointed obedience to this 
 command, not only as the test of his people’s love, but as 
 the supreme method of doing honour to Him, and good to 
 man. In a word, however our patient and injured Lord 
 may have borne with the ignorance and lethargy of other 
 ages, now that channels for missionary charity and effort 
 
 cumstances of the Church ; their continuance is necessary to call out its 
 entire resources ; and peace will be best secured, by the spirit of an'cnlarged 
 and mutual toleration. But yet we insist that the organizations of the 
 Church are binding on her and her people ; that they are peculiarly adapted 
 to the end intended ; and without them the Presbyterian Church cannot long 
 exist in its present form. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 277 
 
 are opened to our very doors, from the most distant Hea- 
 then lands — all disregard of this great law, is to be esteemed 
 a deliberate and continued sin; and as the effect of disobe- 
 dience is to prevent Christ’s kingdom from being set up in 
 the world, it is no less than high treason against the Son of 
 God. 
 
 While the authority of God is the supreme reason for 
 missionary effort, yet there are other and most affecting 
 considerations, which cannot properly be omitted in such 
 an inquiry as this. 
 
 Consider, then, in the fourth place, 
 
 The spiritual state and prospects of the Heathen, 
 without the Gospel. 
 
 We here waive a discussion of the state of those who 
 have heard the Gospel, and rejected its merciful provisions, 
 taking it for granted, that there can be no difference among 
 Christians as to their guilt and exposure to eternal death. 
 
 In our attempts to assert the claims of foreign missions, 
 we have too commonly taken for granted, that the great 
 body of professed Christians was correctly informed as to 
 the spiritual condition and prospects of those who have 
 never heard the Gospel. We forget that the objects of their 
 compassion are out of their sight. They seldom hear of 
 them. They seldom think of them. When they do, there 
 is nothing definite or palpable before the mind as to their 
 religious state. They feel a vague pity for distant and 
 endangered nations, whose condition they would gladly 
 better. But they hardly apprehend their exposure to eter- 
 nal ruin: they scarcely believe it. And while they thus 
 think and feel, perhaps the teachers of religion among them 
 shrink with a false and fatal sensibility from the proper 
 exhibition of the awful subject: or if they are faithful, the 
 
278 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 people too often view it with suspicion as a romantic cause, 
 partaking of the nature of a religious crusade, and wasting 
 without profit the treasures of the Church. 
 
 But what is in fact the divine testimony on this question? 
 The following propositions no Christian can, we think, 
 consistently reject, viz: 
 
 1. That in all ages since the fall, the natural state of every 
 man has been a sinful, and therefore a lost, one. 
 
 2. Hence no man in any age or country can reach the 
 kingdom of God, without the interposition of Jesus Christ 
 in his behalf. 
 
 3. God may interpose for the salvation of sinners, as he 
 does in the case of those saved in infancy, and of those who 
 received immediate revelations, before the written word 
 was given. 
 
 4. But the decided intimations of the Bible are, that as a 
 great fact, Jesus Christ is revealed to adult men, through 
 the ordinary means of grace alone. “For whosoever shall 
 call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then 
 shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? 
 And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not 
 heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And 
 how shall they preach except they be sent? So then, faith 
 cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”* 
 And that this is the clear import of this passage, none can 
 doubt who will look at its connexion. According to the 
 second proposition, all are lost who are not saved by Jesus 
 Christ. And then the prospect of salvation to those who 
 have not the Gospel, is in proportion to the probability that 
 Jesus Christ will save them by direct interposition. 
 
 Rom. X. 13, 14, 15. 17. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 279 
 
 5. A holy* man has never been found on earth, so far as 
 we know, since a written revelation was given, who had 
 not been made so by the power of the Gospel. No apostle, 
 no foreign missionary, has ever reported a single case of this 
 character. And yet they have traversed every sea, ex- 
 plored every country, and in some age and form, offered 
 the Saviour to almost every nation under heaven. Now 
 allowing that men are made holy in heathen lands, without 
 the instrumentality of the Gospel, yet when that Gospel is 
 made known to them, would not such persons instantly re- 
 ceive it, and with spiritual relish adopt it for their own, as 
 kindred sunbeams mingle into one? But no such persons have 
 ever been found, since a written revelation was given, unless 
 indeed Cornelius, the centurion, be considered an example. 
 Allowing him to be such, how sadly solitary is the speci- 
 men! But the apostle distinctly declares in his sermon on 
 that memorable occasion, that Cornelius and his household 
 were already acquainted with God’s written revelation to 
 the Jews; with the doctrine and baptism of John; and with 
 the work and ministry of the Son of God.t 
 
 The inhabitants of the Sandwich islands made perhaps 
 the nearest approach to this. They abolished idolatry, 
 though ignorant of Christianity. But when Christian mis- 
 sionaries arrived, they found them unholy and degraded men, 
 having no taste for a spiritual religion, and like all other 
 sinners, needing the renovating grace of God to fit them 
 for heaven: and any previous changes had been little more 
 than the wearing out of an obsolete, impure, and idolatrous 
 
 * We use this word, of course, iu the Gk)spel sense ; not to mean perfect, 
 but religiously dedicated to God, and delivered from the dominion of sin. 
 
 + Acts X. 36 — 39. 
 
 39 
 
280 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 religion, which had been outgrown by their wants, and 
 made no response to their cry for succour. 
 
 Again; if such cases of salvation without the Gospel 
 were numerous enough to justify the pleasing hope of an 
 extensive redemption, surely out of hundreds of millions of 
 men, and through a series of ages, multitudes would be 
 found exhibiting the evidences of having felt its influence. 
 Such cases as Job, and Jethro, and Lot, and Melchisedec, 
 and Abraham, might be looked for in every land. But no 
 missionary or apostle, as far as we know, has been ever 
 cheered by the discovery of a single case. While then the 
 hope still trembles in our breasts, that some may be redeem- 
 ed by the direct interposition of God through Christ, yet 
 who that loves the Saviour, or the souls of men, would make 
 this the exclusive ground, or in any degree the ground, on 
 which to rest the salvation of the heathen? Or who that 
 believes the word of God, would suspend his own eternal 
 life upon such a condition? With these overwhelming facts 
 full in view, we are in some measure prepared to under- 
 stand and feel the urgency of those motives which press us 
 to send forth the Gospel, as “on the wings of the morning,” 
 to the uttermost parts of the earth. Here we may know 
 the meaning of our Master when he tells us, that he will 
 require their blood at our hands, if we neglect our moment- 
 ous duty to them. Here, with the map of the world before 
 us, we may survey whole continents immersed in Pagan 
 darkness, and count the innumerable millions of heathen 
 population; and looking up into heaven and down into hell, 
 may calculate the worth of all their souls by the value we 
 set on our own. He who can look unmoved at such a 
 spectacle, cannot be a Christian, and is devoid of the sym- 
 pathies common to all the race. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 281 
 
 In fine, there is one view, in which all Christians can 
 meet, and which directly transfers this awful subject from 
 our sympathies, to our consciences, and identifies our perso- 
 nal interests, in some degree, with the state and prospects of 
 the heathen world. It is this, that however we settle in our 
 own minds the question of their condition in a future world, 
 our own will, in a degree, depends upon the way we feel and 
 act and give for their salvation: and God has declared, that 
 when we withhold the Gospel from them. He will treat us 
 precisely as if they were lost; and lost by our disobedience. 
 
 Consider, in the fifth place, in affecting contrast with 
 the last view, the very limited extent of Christianity in 
 the loorld. It is not now our place to inquire into the cause 
 of this, but into the fact. It may be proper, however, in 
 passing, to remark, that the cause is chiefly to be sought in 
 the inefficiency of the Christian Church. But that such is 
 the fact, no one can doubt, who is at all acquainted with the 
 history and present state of the world. After the many ages 
 which have elapsed since the command was given to make 
 Christianity universally known, how little has been done to- 
 wards this result! The Church has always been kept alive 
 in the world: and millions, without number, have been 
 saved from eternal ruin, by her instrumentality. But the 
 great mass of men, in the successive generations which have 
 passed into eternity since the death of Christ, have been 
 strangers to his religion. And even in this age of the world, 
 not one-fourth part of the population of the earth have even 
 heard of the Saviour of sinners. Look at the whole conti- 
 nent of Africa, lying under the thick darkness of Mahome- 
 dan delusion, or of pagan superstition: converted by Chris- 
 tian America and Christian Europe into a field of blood, 
 a market, where men are bought and sold! Look at India, 
 
282 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 and China, and the Islands of the Sea. What has been done 
 toward giving them the Gospel? The whole force of our mis- 
 sionaries abroad, if distributively disposed, would scarcely af- 
 ford a pastor for a nation; and the points of their impres- 
 sion, on a world in ruins, break at distant intervals on the 
 view. 
 
 “ Like sunny islets, in a stormy sea, 
 
 Like specks of azure, in a cloudy sky.” 
 
 At this moment, the race as such may be said to be still a 
 revolted, lost race; and at the present speed of our efforts 
 for its recovery, though greatly accelerated in latter years, 
 the world will never be saved! 
 
 VI, Our next suggestion is, that the best interests of the 
 'Church of Christ at home require her to he actively en- 
 gaged in the work of missions. 
 
 What we mean to say is, that the Church, as well as the 
 world, gains by this service; and that it is even as necessary 
 to the healthful action of the Church, as it is to the salvation 
 of the world. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary facts in the history of the 
 present age is, that a grave attempt had been made, in the 
 name of religion, to prove that the Church and the domestic 
 field are in danger from an excessive issue of foreign mis- 
 sionaries. We regret that we cannot present in a tabular 
 view, the number of evangelical ministers in the world who 
 are labouring in what is called the domestic field, with the 
 amount of their hearers on the one hand, and on the other 
 the number of evangelical missionaries, with the amount of 
 heathen population in the world. 
 
 In such a view, the disparity would be made to appear 
 unspeakably great and awful. By the scale it afforded us. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 283 
 
 more millions would be assigned to each foreign missionary, 
 than the same number of thousands to each pastor at home. 
 It would be found that the ministers of Christ were crowded 
 into a few corners of the earth, while the wide field of pagan 
 desolations was surrendered to the holy daring and generous 
 self-devotion of a little band of foreign missionaries.* At 
 present time, therefore, there is no ground for the fear 
 xthat we shall feel too much interest in the foreign field, or 
 send so many ministers abroad as to damage the domestic 
 
 * The followings remarks, flom the pen of the lamented and extraordinary 
 youth, John Urquhart, are so admirable and appropriate, that we cannot for- 
 bear their insertion here in a note. 
 
 “ Let us imagine, that instead of the world, a single country had been 
 pointed out by our Lord as the field of action. And since we are most fami- 
 liar with our own land, let us just suppose, that the particular country speci- 
 fied was the island of Great Britain : and that, instead of the command to go 
 forth to all nations, and preach the Gospel to every creature, the order had 
 been to go through all the counties of this island, and preach the Gospel to 
 every inhabitant. I find that on a scale which would make the population of 
 Great Britain represent that of the world, the population of Mid Lothian 
 might be taken as a sufiiciently accurate representation of the population of 
 our own land. 
 
 “In order, then, to have a just picture of the present state of the world, 
 only conceive that all who had received the above commission, some how or 
 other, had contrived to gather themselves together within the limits of this 
 single county. Imagine to yourselves all the other divisions of Scotland and 
 England immersed in heathen darkness ; and that by these Christians who 
 had so unaccountably happened to settle down together in one little spot, no 
 effort was made to evangelize the rest of the land, except by collecting a little 
 money, and sending forth two or three itinerants, to walk single handed 
 through the length and breadth of the country. 
 
 “ I shall be told, however, that illustration is not argument ; and so distorted 
 have our views been on this subject, that you will be disposed to think this a 
 perfect caricature of the matter. But I deny that this is an illustration at aU. 
 It is merely a representation on a reduced scale ; and I believe you will find 
 it to be a correct representation of the state of the world.” 
 
284 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 work. The wonder only is, that any one acquainted with 
 the history of missions, should apprehend such a result even 
 in a distant futurity. A blush of shame would seem a much 
 more appropriate concomitant of such a history than idle 
 and ill-omened auguries about the danger of excess in our 
 efforts for the heathen. 
 
 It is one of the most striking and merciful features in the 
 constitution of Christian character, that duty and our best in- 
 terests are inseparably blended. “ Do thyself no harm,” 
 “ do good unto all men,” meet in the result, “ give and it 
 shall be given unto you.” We do ourselves harm, when we 
 refuse to do others good, and wisdom unites with love and 
 duty, in prompting us to seek the salvation of our fellow- 
 men. It is the great law of moral action in the kingdom of 
 grace, “ that it in more blessed to give than to received 
 It is promised alike to individuals, and to communities of 
 Christians, “they that water, shall be watered also.” To 
 be good, is to do good: and to do good is to get good more 
 abundantly. As well might the husbandman in time of 
 spring withhold his seed from the fallowed earth, to rescue 
 it from waste, as for us to look for injuries to the Church 
 from the sending forth of foreign missionaries. “ If we sow 
 sparingly, we shall reap sparingly.” If we save the seed, 
 we shall lose the harvest! 
 
 Did not the Jews lose their birthright in the Church of 
 Christ by refusing to give their religion to the Gentiles? 
 “ I say, then, have they stumbled that they might fall? God 
 forbid; but rather through their fall, salvation is come to 
 the Gentiles.”* 
 
 It is a memorable fact, that the corruptions of the primi- 
 
 *Rom. xi. 11. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 285 
 
 tive church increased in proportion to the decay of mission- 
 ary enterprise. Nor is it less true, that, in our day, the 
 revival of religion at home, appeared and grew in perfect 
 harmony, and even exact degree, with the spirit and work 
 of foreign missions. It is not necessary to determine whe- 
 ther this spirit be the cause or the effect of reviving religion 
 among the people. If it be the uniform effect, then its ab- 
 sence denotes religious decay; if it be the uniform cause, 
 then is it a blessing to the Church. The truth is, it is at 
 once the cause and the effect. As Christians awake to an 
 increased regard for God, and for their own souls, they ac- 
 quire also an increased regard for the well-being of other 
 men: they feel a more tender and holy pity for the perish- 
 ing heathen. An increased interest in their welfare pro- 
 duces increased efforts for their salvation; and every prayer 
 they offer, every gift they bestow, every effort they 
 make, returns into their own bosoms. Thus, every im- 
 pression made abroad is felt with electric force at home, 
 as Scipio raised the siege of Rome at the gates of Car- 
 thage: and thus a repercussive influence is constantly 
 exchanged. Let those, therefore, who shelter their con- 
 sciences against the claims of foreign missions, under the 
 idle and fallacious adage “that w’e have heathen enough at 
 home,” henceforth remember that the Church cannot afford 
 to do without the foreign field; that the best way to carry 
 on missions at home is to carry on missions abroad; and that 
 all neglect of this great cause not only violates the last com- 
 mand of Jesus Christ, and endangers the souls of innume- 
 rable millions of our fellow-men, but impairs the vital ener- 
 gies of the Church itself. 
 
 VII. We remark again, that the toorld never loill he 
 
286 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 converted to God, without the active and intentional 
 agency of the Church of Christ. 
 
 It is evident from the word of God, and the past history 
 of Missions, that the world never will be saved without 
 the instrumentality of the people of God. Not that this is 
 necessary on God’s part; but it has pleased Him that it 
 should be so. In this way God puts eternal shame upon 
 Satan, and eternal honour on his Son, by using so frail an 
 agency to destroy the kingdom of darkness; and at the 
 same time, as we have already seen, the instrument which 
 he uses to break the oppressor’s power, and rescue the 
 oppressed, is prepared for heaven by the service which he 
 performs. This plan of operation is not only determined 
 on, but if we may speak so, the divine veracity is pledged, 
 and the divine honour committed, on the principle that 
 men, Christian men, are to take the Gospel to their fellow 
 men. The divine influence must of course attend and bless 
 human exertion and Gospel means. But human agency is 
 inseperable from the success of the arrangement. “ Go ye 
 into all the world, and joreacA the Gospel to every creature; 
 and Lo! lam with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world!” 
 
 In all ages, since the apostles closed their illustrious 
 labours, the grand difficulty has been to induce men to do 
 their part in this great work. In the propagation of the 
 Gospel by his holy providence, it may almost be said of the 
 Redeemer, that of “ the people, there is none with him.”* 
 If we subtract from tbe sum of what has been effected for 
 Christianity, all that the course of human affairs overruled by 
 God has done; all that natural generation has done; all that 
 
 * Foster. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 
 
 287 
 
 emigration and colonizing (with Christian population) heathen 
 lands, have done; all that the bringing of the heathen to the 
 Gospel has done; all that wars and revolutions, inventions 
 and discoveries, and human enterprise have unintention- 
 ally done; in a word, if we subtract all the indirect in- 
 fluences of Christianity, and all the overruled events of the 
 world, from what has been done for the cause of Jesus, then 
 how much will remain? 
 
 Now by all these agencies, and indeed by the whole uni- 
 verse of agencies, is the great Head of the Church carrying 
 on the work of Redemption. But the tide of providence, 
 which steadily sets in with the final conversion of the 
 world, is only the stream on which the tall and goodly 
 vessel” of the Gospel floats: and to reach its desired haven, 
 the navigator man must take the helm, as well as the Spirit 
 of Jesus fill the sail. Heretofore, if we may so speak, the 
 work of the Lord has been carrying forward the Church; 
 but the Church is required to carry forward the work of 
 the Lord, God demands of us that we give not only an 
 overruled and indirect assistance (for that he extorts even 
 from his foes,) but that we should co-operate with him in 
 a positive, direct, and intentional instrumentality . 
 
 VHI. We proceed to remark, that a crisis appears now 
 to have been arrived at, in the history of the world, in 
 which it is peculiarly important for the Christian 
 Church to bear with all her resources on the conversion 
 of the heathen. In a somewhat inverted application of 
 the apocalyptic symbol, a “voice” seems to “come forth 
 from the temple of God, saying, thrust in the sickle and 
 reap, for the time to reap has come; for the harvest of the 
 earth is ripe.” The spirit of the age is ripe for action, for 
 40 
 
288 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 it is a spirit of extraordinary enterprise. It is a public 
 spirit also, and is ripe, if well directed, not only for action, 
 but for combined action, on a scale of noble daring and sub- 
 lime extent, hitherto unknown on earth. It is an age of 
 revolution; and it is ripe not only for change, but for im- 
 provement too. While the God of providence is shak- 
 ing all nations, the desire of nations must be at hand. 
 “ While he removes diadem after diadem, and takes off 
 crown after crown,”* He must be near whose right it is 
 to rule. 
 
 And then our facilities for the universal diffusion of the 
 Gospel, are great and manifold, to a most surprising extent. 
 By all the power of the press, by all the commerce of the 
 nations, by arts, by arms, by the progress of improvement, 
 by the spirit and growth of liberty, by the decay of the 
 great rival systems of religion, and by the general state of 
 the heathen world, as well as by all the provisions of the 
 Gospel, is the way of the Lord prepared before us, and our 
 long delay reproved. 
 
 And again, every step we take seems to be divinely se- 
 conded and sustained. Success beyond our faith, above 
 our hopes, has attended our efforts, and beckoned us on to 
 a more devoted and extended work of missions. That 
 which seemed a rock has sent forth gushing waters, when 
 smitten by the rod of the Gospel herald, in the Redeemer’s 
 name. Nations have thrown away their idols to receive 
 us, or have given them up at our bidding; while other na- 
 tions are inviting us to come, and weep when a Christian 
 sail appears, bringing no Bibles and no missionaries. And 
 a reproving providence, opening a way for the Gospel to 
 
 Ilnggai iii. 7. Ezekiel xxi. 27. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 289 
 
 mankind, seems to say, in the voice of all its operations, 
 “ go forward, go forward,” to the lingering, hesitating 
 Church. 
 
 IX. The next suggestion has reference to our own coun- 
 try. It is this: that the genius of our institutions, and 
 the concomitant spirit of the people, fit them in a pecu- 
 liar manner to receive with favour appeals in behalf of 
 missions. There exists in the bosom of the people a con- 
 stitutional sympathy for oppressed nations, and a fervid 
 desire to impart to others the blessings which we enjoy. 
 It is, in this respect, a nation of philanthropists; a deposi- 
 tory of civil and religious liberty for the population of the 
 earth. Here, then, we may successfully approach them as 
 the guardians of the Bible for other lands. Here we have 
 a national highway to the hearts of the people. The 
 transition, though delicate, is not difficult, to a more 
 elevated freedom; to more pure and enduring blessings. 
 We may say to them with a force which it will not be 
 easy to resist, you, the people of this happy land, who, in 
 the noble disinterestedness of freemen and of brethren, 
 exult in the political independence of Spanish America, in 
 the emancipation of injured Greece, and the rising liberties 
 of France; you who welcome with enthusiastic hospitality 
 the arrival on your shores of the oppressed Irishman and 
 the persecuted Pole; you who pant and pray for universal 
 freedom, and delight to impart the blessings of your na- 
 tional republican institutions to an admiring world; will 
 you stifle the convictions which rise up in your breasts to 
 plead for the rights of man? Can you withhold from 
 heathen nations the covenant of their spiritual peace, and 
 bury in your rusting cofiers their heavenly citizenship and 
 
290 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 llieir eternal freedom? And if such is the feeling of freemen 
 and the spirit of American citizens, what ought we not to 
 look for from the Christians of America, upon whose 
 hearts have been superinduced the unearthly influences and 
 resistless appeals of eternal truth and holy love! 
 
 X. Finally; it is a missionary spirit which we need in 
 the Church of God, in order to give her the proper effi- 
 ciency in the ivork of missions. By this we mean a spirit 
 of supreme devotion to the divine Redeemer; a spirit in 
 unison with the end for which the Saviour died; a spirit 
 which properly estimates the value of the soul; a spirit of 
 enlarged and generous love to man, and of holy pity to the 
 perishing heathen. In a word, we mean the spirit of true 
 religion, and of Jesus Christ. This is the spirit of Chris- 
 tian enterprise, which is attributed in ancient prophecy to 
 a Christian people. “The people that know the Lord shall 
 be strong, and shall do exploits.” It is this which burnt 
 with holy and consuming ardour in the great apostle’s 
 breast, when he declared,, “ I am ready not to be bound 
 only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.” “ I 
 have strived to preach among the Gentiles, where Jesus 
 was not named, the unsearchable riches of Christ.”* Under 
 the influence of such a spirit as this, a new order of men 
 and of movements would arise, altogether above the tame 
 and long tolerated standard of the Christian Church. Such 
 men as Paul, and Luther, and Whitfield would re-appear. 
 The sons of thunder would again fulminate upon the na- 
 tions, and the sons of consolation again pour into the weary 
 and heavy laden hearts of pagan men, the oil of Gospel joy 
 
 *■ Acts xxi. 13. Romans xv. 20. Ephesians iii. 8. 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 291 
 
 and gladness. The heroic heralds of the cross, clad in the 
 might of God, and fired with the spirit of missions, would 
 transcend all human calculations; impatient of delay, they 
 would outstrip the tedious and timid expedients of human 
 policy; they would hasten with the Gospel to the dying^^ 
 nations, and fly through the earth as avant couriers of the 
 approaching King of Kings.* A few such men as these at 
 home and abroad, would kindle the whole Church of Christ 
 into one broad blaze of light; would call out into action 
 every spiritual energy, and every temporal resource; and 
 cause a resistless enginery of Gospel means, to bear upon 
 the entire destruction of heathenism. 
 
 It has been the uniform fate of all great enterprises to meet 
 in their origin with resistance and even with ridicule from 
 the weak, the selfish, and the over cautious. The ancients 
 called profane, and even mad, the first brave mariner who 
 ventured out to sea: Columbus was for almost an age an un- 
 heeded suppliant at the feet of European princes, though he 
 asked at their hands the permission to present them with a 
 NEW WORLD ! Our own glorious revolution was, at its dawn- 
 ing, the wonder of one half mankind, and the derision of 
 the other. So it has been with the missionary enterprise. 
 Even at the present day, it is the by- word of the wise and 
 prudent” of this world; and a great number of professed 
 Christians, preferring ease to self-denial, and thinking the 
 state of the heathen so good, and the value of the Gospel to 
 them so small, regard every such attempt as in the last de- 
 gree extravagant and wild. 
 
 We are aware that this spirit, like every other, is liable 
 
 * “Aut inveniain viatn aut faciam,” is the true missionary principle, when 
 sanctified by divine grace. 
 
293 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 to abuse. We remember the crusades of one age, and the 
 fanatical zeal of several others. We are no friends to reli- 
 gious knight-errants, or crazy cosmopolites, who travel 
 through the world “without wisdom to direct” in quest of 
 adventures. It may be worthy of remark, however, that 
 the very attention which such counterfeits excite, shows 
 the fine impression that the true missionary character is 
 fitted to make, when embodied in the persons of such 
 men as Whitfield, Buchanan and Martyn. But we are 
 no advocates of extremes on either side. The extreme 
 of indifierence or of cowardice is criminal in itself; is more 
 common, and perhaps more hurtful, than that of fana- 
 tical rashness. The extreme of mere worldly expedien- 
 cy and secular policy in missions is as evil as presumptu- 
 ous enterprise. The system of the Jesuits was as fatal as 
 the spirit of the crusaders to true religion. The author of 
 the work, entitled “ For Missionaries after the Apostolical 
 School,” is on one extreme. He would storm the world, 
 and spurn all helps, and outfits, and means, save only the 
 vagrant and unfurnished missionary. This is quite exces- 
 sive, and is destined to live only in the fervours of his own 
 warm but wild fancy. The work, on the contrary, entitled 
 “ Hints on Missions,” is quite as extreme on the other side. 
 The plan of operation which it suggests would be more dis- 
 astrous in its consequences, because not speculative and im- 
 practicable like the other, but mainly secular, and requiring 
 only .secular men to promote it. The author would civilize 
 and colonize the world into Christianity; he would make a 
 mere business-matter of giving Christianity to heathen na- 
 tions; in a word, he would so adjust things, that the world 
 should ffroiv up into Christianity. 
 
 Now, the medium between these extremes is the true Gos- 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 293 
 
 pel plan. No scheme abounds so much in practical wisdom, 
 and powerful means, directly adapted to produce the in- 
 tended end, as the Gospel method of converting the world. 
 And the spirit of missionary enterprise of which we speak, 
 is that divine influence by which man is at once qualified 
 and impelled to spread this salvation. 
 
 The great agents must be the ministers of reconciliation, 
 sent out into all the world, under the supreme dominion of 
 this spirit: the people of the Lord, who cannot, and ought 
 not to go, yet if they possess this spirit will help them in 
 heaven by their intercessions, and in heathen lands by their 
 manifold and abounding charities. On such a spirit God 
 will “ shed his selectest influences;” a resistless power will 
 attend every efibrt directed by this spirit; and to universal 
 efibrt would succeed universal impression. Thus the pro- 
 mises of the Gospel would travail in the birth of nations, 
 and soon a renovated world would people the Church, and 
 a glorified Church would people heaven. 
 
 We have pursued these suggestions so far, that little room 
 is left for the application which we had intended of this dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 It may seem in strong contrast to some of our remarks, yet 
 it is in perfect consistency with them, to say, that prophecy, 
 by general consent, represents the conversion of the world 
 as near at hand. When the Apostle Paul assured the crew 
 who were about to flee out of the ship, ‘‘ except ye abide in 
 the ship ye cannot be saved,” he did not forget or disparage 
 the revelation of the Angel of God, who had said unto him, 
 “ There shall be no loss of any man’s life among you; not 
 a hair shall fall from the head of any of you.”* And so the 
 
 * Acts xxviii. 
 
294 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 world must soon be converted to God; but this must be 
 done by the agency of man. The means are no less neces- 
 sary and certain than the end; and as in order of time, they 
 must precede, and by divine appointment bring it about, so 
 nothing ever can nor ever will be done without their proper 
 use. When “ Daniel understood by the books” of divine 
 prophecy, that a time was set for the restoration of Israel, 
 he at once, and for that reason, betook himself to the work 
 of intercession for the predicted deliverance. If it were 
 not that the conversion of the world is a predicted and pro- 
 mised event, who could believe that it ever will occur! But 
 God has said it, therefore it is true; and we expect it at his 
 word, not only certainly, but soon. In order to this, how- 
 ever, Christians must begin to feel, and pray, and labour, 
 and give and make sacrifices, in far another style; and great 
 events must succeed each other, with a celerity and effect 
 heretofore unknown on earth. The last forty years, com- 
 pared with the centuries past, have been distinguished by 
 many such events; and may be a type of the years to come. 
 But in these few years just before us, the world and the 
 Church must live very fast. The friends of God must be 
 multiplied like the dew of the morning; and they must grow 
 in stature, as they augment in numbers. The irreconcileable 
 enemies of God may expect to perish with accelerated speed, 
 and great terror. As it is written, “one woe is past, and 
 behold, there come two woes more hereafter; and, behold 
 the third woe cometh qitickly.” 
 
 One most cheering characteristic of the present crisis is, 
 the increasing union of the people of God. Another is the 
 spirit of enlargement that now possesses and distinguishes 
 many of our national benevolent institutions. Begin- 
 ning, perhaps, with only a very distant regard to so 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 295 
 
 great a work, they have imperceptibly, and even rapidly, 
 been led on by the finger of God, until now the Bible, and 
 the Tract, and the Sunday-school, and the Temperance, and 
 the Mariner’s Societies have, in succession, passed the limits 
 of our own country, and taken the world for their theatre 
 of action. It is a heavenly token too, that God is pouring 
 out his Spirit upon our missionary labours and institu- 
 tions abroad; thus setting his approving seal to the work, 
 and, by divine interposition, giving evidence of his being 
 the God of the Bible, and the God of the race. And still 
 the most important of all the tokens for good is this, that 
 God’s method of converting th& world, viz. the preaching 
 of the Gospel, has begun to take its true place in the re- 
 gards of the Church of God; a great number of devoted 
 youth have dedicated themselves to the honoured work, at 
 home and abroad; and the earth seems preparing to hear the 
 word of the Lord. Who, then, will dare to slumber at such 
 a time as this? Who will dare to shut up his bowels of com- 
 passion now? Who will hoard God’s treasure, when the 
 life of souls may be in it ? Who will refuse, when God 
 calls him from on high, to come up to his help? Who will 
 refuse to say, ’■'■here am I, send me?” Did Christ Jesus 
 pour out his soul unto death for us, and shall we now re- 
 fuse to give our substance or ourselves unto Him? To 
 every hesitating heart I seem to hear an injured Saviour 
 speaking from heaven, ”If thou altogether boldest thy 
 peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and de- 
 liverance arise from another place; but thou shalt be 
 destroyed.”* 
 
 The organization, the numbers, the character, and the in- 
 fluence of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
 
 41 
 
 * Esther iv. 14. 
 
296 
 
 SPRUCE STREET LECTURES. 
 
 have justified the expectation of a noble effort by her in 
 the cause of foreign missions. She has not met this 
 reasonable hope. She has not acted on this subject in a 
 way worthy of her avowed allegiance to God, of her pro- 
 fessed love to man, and of her pure and powerful witness 
 to the truth at home. Her disregard of foreign missions 
 has been in singular contrariety to the promptitude and ef- 
 fect with which she has sustained each great domestic enter- 
 prise in behalf of Christianity, as they have in succession 
 presented themselves before her. At this moment every 
 Presbytery in the Church (and they amount to more than 
 one hundred) ought, on a general average, to provide 
 one foreign missionary, and then to sustain him in the 
 field of his labours. Whether our lethargy on this subject 
 result from the want of missionary organization in the 
 bosom of the Church, or from the still more distressing and 
 criminal want of a missionary spirit, we have all a great 
 public sin to confess and to forsake. The Church has sin- 
 ned; and we her ministers have sinned still more. It is 
 high time that we had all repented of this sin, and evin- 
 ced the soundness of our repentance by a due and deep re- 
 form. Then let every minister awake, and let every mem- 
 ber awake, at the call of the divine Redeemer, to regard 
 the claims of the dying Heathen? 
 
 To the youth of our Church who are preparing to preach 
 the Gospel we especially look for that Christian enterprise, 
 which, under God, shall rouse the energies of the Church; 
 shall rescue her venerated name from reproach among men; 
 and bear her heavenly charities to heathen lands. To these 
 young brothers in the Lord, who are standing on the 
 threshold of the most elevated and most awful of human 
 trusts, we would most afiectionately say — take not your 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 297 
 
 standard of action from your fathers and elder brethren in 
 the ministry. Shame covers our faces when we turn them 
 towards the continents, where darkness and death eternal 
 reign. Pause before you select a field of future labour; 
 and survey these wide and awful desolations of many gene- 
 rations! Listen to the groans of dying millions as they as- 
 cend to heaven! Count not your own lives dear to you, 
 in comparison of their eternal good! Come forth from 
 your sacred shades of study and devotion to kindle our 
 hearts anew in this great service! Come! not only to point 
 us, but lead us to that field to which the finger of God di- 
 rects you, and the wail of perishing nations calls you! 
 
 Finally. In associating ourselves with the empire of God, 
 as agents in this great work, it is a most affecting considera- 
 tion, that we are a spectacle to men and angels: that we live 
 in a public world, which has been selected by God, as a 
 theatre for the display of the most sublime and awful events 
 in the history of the universe. We allude more especially 
 to the entrance of sin into it, with all its train of death, and 
 ruin, on the one hand — and the method of its destruction on 
 the other, by the death of the Son of God. In the contest 
 which is going forward, all creatures may have a part; in 
 its issue all beings have an interest. Our world, which 
 is now its field, is appointed of God, to be the tomb of sin, 
 and the trophy of Divine Redemption. And are we actors 
 on such a stage? Oh distinction full of terror! “Seeing 
 
 THEN, THAT WE ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A CLOUD 
 OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT, AND THE SIN 
 THAT DOTH MOST EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PA- 
 TIENCE THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO 
 JESUS.” 
 

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