tihvavy of t:Ke t:heoIo3ical ^emmarjp PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY From the library of The Reverend Professor Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, D.D BV 4316 .T5 P7 ^ Princeton sermons i/t^ . J ^ , AhSU^^^^LJ^^ w PRINCETON SERMONS CHIEFLY BY THE PROFESSORS IN PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO 30 Union Square East 148-150 Madison Street Publishers 0/ Evangelical Literature Copyright, 1893, Fleming H. Revell Company. ^6e Corfon (prces 171, 173 Macdougal Street, New York In compliance \s ith c nrrcnt C()p\ri<;hi hiw. LBS Archival Products j^rocluccxl this replacement xolume on paper thai meets the ANSI Standard Z39.4S-H)S4 to replace tlie irreparahh deteriorated original 1989 PEEFACE. The sermons printed in this volume were not written for publication. They represent the or- dinary sermons preached Sabbath by Sabbath in the chapel of the Theological Seminary at Prince- ton. The most of them were preached during the term of last year (1891-92). The exceptions to this are chiefly due to the desii'e to include in the volume sermons of two of the professors in the seminary who were taken from it diu-ing the first half of that term — the late Drs. C. W. Hodge and C. A. Aiken. The volume is gi-eatly enriched, and at the same time a truer conspectus is given of the year's preacliing in the chapel, by the inclusion in it also of sermons by two of the officers of the seminary who ai'e as closely identified with it as the professors themselves, and who frequently grace its pulpit — President Patton and Dean Murray of the college. The sermons of President Patton here printed are distinctly college sermons, and belong to the opening and close of the coUege year. Dean Murray's were preached in the seminary chapel. The fact that these sermons are addressed to iv PREFACE. an audience composed almost entirely of divinity students has no doubt given them a special char- acter. Among other things it has brought it about that they are, as a class, rather didactic than evangelizing sermons. If on one side this may be a weakness, possibly on another it may be not altogether without some advantage. There is good reason, at any rate, to hope that a body of sermons addi-essed to a distinctively Christian audience may not be without general usefulness. A thoughtful passage from a recent work by Prof. William Milligan, D.D., of the University of Aber- deen (''The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord," p. 281), may be quoted here in support of such a hope. In justice to Dr. Milligan it must be remembered that in the immediate vicinity of this passage he fuUy recognizes the importance and duty of evangelizing preaching. Bearing this in mind, the following remarks will doubtless be instructive : " Important as the sacred writers knew their message to the world to be, they never fail to exhibit the conviction that it was even more important to the churches ; that, while they had no doubt to convert unbelievers, it was still more imper- atively required that they should edify believers and carry them on unto perfection ; and that the different members of the Body needed to be compacted into one, each working well in its own place, and all working smoothly together, before the Church could successfully accomplish her mission. PREFACE. V Hence the exhortations to growth in every Chiistian gi'aee with which the New Testament Epistles abound ; hence the joy of thankfulness with which every manifestation of that growth was hailed by the Apostles and apostolic men who wrote them ; hence the prominence continually assigned to that order of things which, embodying the precept of om* Lord, fii'st makes the tree good that its fruit may be good also ; and hence, to take only one noteworthy example from the writings of St. Paul, when that Apostle tells us of the object which the ascended Lord had in view by the gift of his various ministries, the conversion of the world is not mentioned. Everything has relation to the Church. Apos- tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are given ' for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministeiing, unto the building up of the body of Christ ; till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stat- ure of the fullness of Christ, . . . from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together, , . . maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.' " On some such ground as this, it may be hoped that these sermons may be useful in much broader circles than that for which they were originally prepared, and to which they were in the fii'st in- stance preached. CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. By Prof. William Henry Green, D.D., LL.D. '^Father, I will that tliey also, wJiom tJiou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given we,"— John 17 : 24. IF our minds were in perfect harmony with the mind of Christ our views would in many re- spects be greatly altered. Many things that we now desire and long for would lose much of their attractiveness j and other things that we dread and shiink from would cease to be unwelcome. The great Redeemer is in this chapter giving utterance to the desires of his heart on behalf of his people. And the closing petition, the crowning one of all, is that they might be with him to behold his glory. He had been with them here in his humili- ation and life of toilsome sorrow. But the termi- nation of his work on earth was now rapidly ap- proaching, and he was shortly to leave the world and enter into his glory. The anticipated departure of their Lord, whom they loved and upon whom they .2 PROFESSOR GREEN. leaned for more, far more, tlian any merely human fi-iend or teacher could have brought them, had Med theii' hearts with sadness and grief. How lonely, cheerless, helpless would they be in this world if Jesus were taken away from them ! But the sepa- ration, which grieved them so much, shall not last forever. It is his will that they should be with him where he is. The last and highest blessing that he solicits for them is then- removal from earth to heaven. This is desirable in the first place that they may be delivered fi-om the contact and contamination of evil. He had before prayed that while they were in the world they might be kept from the evil which so abounds in it. It is a priceless benefit to have a divine shield ioterposed between us and aU surrounding dangers ; to be enabled to walk dry- shod through the ver}^ midst of the tempestuous sea, and while the waves thereof roar and are trou- bled, and its billows thi-eaten to ingulf us, to find that they are held back by an almighty arm and a pathway cloven before us, so that we can pass un- harmed along our perilous way. It is an inestima- ble blessing to have divine guidance and heavenly supplies in the desert, the cloud and the fire going before us in the trackless waste; and while on ever\^ hand nothing appears but barren and arid CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 3 sands, in the midst of which it seems as though we must certainly famish and perish from thii'st, to find that the clouds are bidden to rain down food upon us day by day and the rock to pom- forth its cooling streams. But the beneficence is more com- plete which not merely guards and protects in the midst of evils, but dissipates and removes the evils themselves ; which brings the people safely to the shore beyond the reach of the angry waves of the sea ; and which leads them out of the waste and howling wilderness and fixes their secure abode in the land flowing with milk and honey. ' This is a world of e\dl, and evil is inseparably connected with every condition here. Blessed be God, it is not a world of unmingled evil. There is much in it to be gi'ateful for ; much that is good and holy and pure 5 much that turns our thoughts to Grod ; much that is adapted to help us upward toward him and to quicken and stimulate us in his service. There is the converse and companionship of the good. There are those among us who de- serve to be styled the excellent of the earth, whose spu-it is pure and Christ-hke, whose conversation is in heaven, who breathe a heavenly atmosphere, and their faces are radiant from their devout and holy intercourse with God. Wc find it not only dehght- ful and refreshing, but elevating and ennobling, to 4 PROFESSOR GREEN. come into contact with them. We cannot be with them without being sensibly warmed by the glow of holy affections which burns in their bosoms, without ha\dng a livelier interest awakened within us in the things of God. We come forth from their society and find that the objects of faith have assumed a more practical reality to us ; our con- victions are freshened and deepened that the mat- ters of eternity are really the great concern ; and we have gathered new inward resolves that they shall henceforth supremely engage our thoughts and our activities. But we return to the compan- ionship of ordinary men more on a level with our- selves, and we resemble a soHtary coal drawn forth from among blazing embers and laid amidst lumps of ice, where it is speedily blackened and chilled. We relapse again into our customary state. We fall to the condition of those around us, above which our poor, weak aspirations ai*e insufficient to raise us. The most of those around us are ab- sorbed with the world — busily, eagerly pressing their earthly schemes, occupied with earthly cares, engaged in earthly pursuits, revehng in earthly pleasures, extolling the worth of earthly things, living as though this world were all. And they who have the love of God in their hearts hide it so far out of sight that we often scarcely feel the dif- CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 5 ference between them and others. And thus our friends, our associates, the companions of our daily life, go rushing on in the same heedless chase of earthly vanities, and we speed on with the multi- tude, unable to breast the current or to resist the accumulated pressure which sweeps us along with those who surround us. (^''Oh, to be lifted out of this fatal whirl, to be where we should be buoyed up and helped onward instead of being di-awn downward by those who are about us ! If those choice spirits who are so helpful to us could be with us always, ever lending us their aid, and theirs the only influences to which we were subjected ! If we could be in a commu- nity made up of the good alone, where the love of Christ reigned in every heart and all were pos- sessed of his pure and blessed Spiiit, so that from the whole circle of oui' companionship should come only influences that were quickening, elevating, and purifying ! But such a community is not to be found in this world, which is one of mingled good and evil, and where too often the bad predominates. It is only in the heavenly gloiy that a society of unmixed good is realized. Into that world nothing defiled or that defileth shall ever enter; the companion- ship is with angels and the glorified spirits of the 6 PROFESSOR GREEN. just; all that pass tliither from this world have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and aU theii- weaknesses and imperfections have been removed. There all Ups are vocal with the praises of Him who sits upon the throne, and of the Lamb ; every heai-t is responsive to each utterance of the divine wiU 5 eveiy breast swells with thankfulness and ]oji\A gi-atitude for all the blessings of redeeming love ; the image of Christ is reflected in every form 5 untarnished ex- cellence radiates from all. How is it possible to move in such society as this without being borne aloft by the spirit which pervades the whole, with- out being ourselves absorbed in that one supreme, controlling object of interest which dwells in every heart, without kindling into admiration of that one theme which glows on eveiy tongue, without gazing T\dth fond delight upon that one center of attrac- tion to which all eyes are turned, without sharing in the love and purity and holiness which every- where prevail ? There are the angels who shouted over the new-born creation and who have watched with growing wonder and dehght the developments of God's plan of grace from that day to this; whose voices blended in that sweet chorus heard by the shepherds of Bethlehem when the Lord of gloiy was born a babe ; who gazed with indescrib- CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 7 able amazement upon the astonishing scenes of Gethsemane and of Calvary ; who saw the Son of God, when his humiliation was ended, reascend the skies and amid the acclamations of the entire heavenly host assume his seat on the right hand of God 5 and who have since gone forth with willing feet on numberless ministries of love to the heirs of salvation. There are the patriarchs, who have found the city of foundations for which they once looked and longed. There are the prophets, who eagerly watched for the coming dawn before the day had broken, and who foretold its future bright- ness. There are the apostles, who companied with Jesus in the days of his flesh. There is the noble army of martyrs, who suffered the loss of all things and gave up life itself for the love they bore his name. There is the entire array of those of every age, and out of every clime and nation, who have lived the life of faith and gotten the victory over sin and corruption j the real heroes, the true nobil- ity of earth, living and d}dng in obscurity and pov- erty it may be, hidden from the sight of men, de- spised, maligned, suffering obloquy and reproach, of whom the world was not worthy, their names emblazoned on no scroll of fame, yet held in honor there and written in the Lamb's book of life. There, too, are our own kindred and friends who have de- PROFESSOR GREEN. parted iu the faith and hope of the Gospel, not as we knew them here in the feebleness of mortal clay, but transfigured and transformed, made equal unto the angels, made like to the Son of God himseK. What a goodly assemblage is this, what a world to be introduced into! What invigoration to every holy principle, what stimulus to every right affec- tion, what enlargement of soul, what confirmation in all that is right and good ! What pulses of heavenly life would grow out of the very contact with the heavenly world ! So that we can here see one reason why the loving Redeemer did not end his supplications when he had prayed that his peo- ple should be kept from the evil that is in the world ; but he likewise adds, " Father, I vnR that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." And then the world itself, in which we live, ham- pers and restrains us. All that we are conversant with here, our occupations, pleasures, possessions, bind our hearts to earth and hold us back from God. The \dsible, tangible, and outward obtrudes itself upon us at ever\^ turn. We are surrounded on every hand and at all times by sensible things ; they force themselves upon our attention, they engage our thoughts. The necessities of our daily existence compel us to be largely occupied with them. What shall we eat, what shall we drink. CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 9 wherewithal shall we be clothed? are questions that are daily recurring and cannot be pushed alto- gether aside. But the spiritual, the heavenly, and the divine are out of sight and beyond the reach of any of our senses. It is only by faith! that we are assured of them. It requires an effort to bring them before our minds, and constantly repeated efforts to keep them there. The clamor and din of worldliness so stim our ears that we fail to hear the appeals that God and eternity and salvation are making to us. And as the hand held near the eyes will shut out from sight the immense globe of the sun, so do the temporal and the fleeting and the unsubstantial things of earth, by sheer proximitj^, to a great extent exclude from our thoughts and our affections things that are eternal and unchang- ing, the true, enduring realities. We are fettered by sense, and we can no more emancipate our- selves from these bonds than we can rid ourselves of the law of gravitation and soar upward to the stars. We are not, indeed, left whoUy without help in this matter. We have the Word of God, revealing things to us in their just proportions, recording the unerring judgments of the Most High regard- ing earth and heaven, things present and things to come. We have the sacred ordinances and means 10 PROFESSOR GREEN, of gi*ace, which ai-e channels of divine influence upon oiu* souls. We have our Sabbaths and sea- sons of devotion, when divine things do or should wholly engage oiu' thoughts and are brought near to us ) when the world, its scenes and cares, are shut out, and God and Chiist and salvation occupy our minds. Nevertheless we are at an immense disadvantage all the while. We know that the earth is as a point compared with the vastly greater magnitude of the fixed stars that stud the nightly heavens. Yet, in spite of all that we know and believe, we cannot alter the fact that they do appear differently to outward sense. The world seems to be of enormous size, and the star but a twinkling, inconsiderable point. But if om' position were changed, how would everything alter and adjust itself at once ! If instead of standing on the earth we were transported to the star, that twinkling point would become the boundless globe, and this tiny earth would vanish out of sight. It is possible, indeed, by divine grace to live even in this cold and frozen region. God can and does preserve his children from the evil that is in the world. There is a stunted vegetation in the midst of polar snows which continues to exist even in those dreary desolations, checked and benumbed in the long night and dreadful winter, but never CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 11 wholly extinguislied ; so that when the siin returns — though his rays fall aslant and are shorn of much of then- fervor — and the frozen gi-ound is slightly thawed at the surface, these little plants peep up in their brief summer and put forth then* tiny leaves and open theii' little buds, in a manner at once surprising and beautiful to behold. Yes, the abounding goodness of God has produced and maintains life even there, though all about is so deadening and uncongenial. And there are grace- ful forms of beauty to admire, and lovely tints and handiwork that speaks of the skill of the great Artist. The adventurous voyager who has pushed his bark amid the perils of the icy sea to that re- mote inhospitable region beholds them with aston- ishment. Yet they are weak and puny after all. They cannot be otherwise, from the conditions of their growth. The marvel is that they can exist at all. What are they in comparison with the size and beauty and endless variety, and rich, bewilder- ing profusion and boundless range of tropical vege- tation, where the fertile earth, warmed by the con- stant rays of the vertical sun, sends up its teeming products, covering continents with giant forests and a limitless expanse of verdure, gorgeously ar- rayed with painted bloom, grass, shrubs, and trees crowding every inch of space, decked with gay flow- 12 PROFESSOR GREEN. ers of every brilliant hue, boughs bending beneath their burden of luscious fruits, the air filled with agreeable perfumes, and the odor of sweet spices wafted from every side. Shall not the great Hus- bandman transplant what with immense care he has been nurturing here amid chilling blasts and inhospitable winters into the paradise prepared for them above, where " everlasting spring abides and never- withering flowers " ? Into what new and vig- orous life shall they not develop, what unexpected beauty shall they not unfold, what noble growths shall arise out of these sparse and stunted forms ! It is possible to maintain the life of God in this unfriendly world, though at this vast distance from our Father's house, the great realities removed from sight, and everything about us tending to draw us away from our true end. It is neverthe- less possible to learn to see God in ever}i:hing and to serve God in aU we do, whether we eat or drink, stiU glorifying him 5 to live near to God at all times, to walk with him in aU the concerns of every day as a man walketh with his friend, to grasp the eternal substance to the disregard of the fleeting shadows, even though these latter press themselves upon every sense and the former can only be at- tained to by an earnest struggle. It is possible by the grace of God to lead a life of faith, to walk by CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 13 faith and not by outward sense j to resist the temp- tations to worldliness and self-indulgence and self- seeking which grow out of eveiy circumstance of our situation, out of our necessary occupations, and out of our most innocent pleasures 5 to hold out even against the solicitations of our great adver- sary, which beset us on every side, and the snares with which he would entangle us to our ruin. And what is the hardest of all, it is possible to maintain a successful fight against one's own inward corrup- tions. For we have to contend not only against the world and Satan, but against our own evil pro- pensities and passions, against the law of sin which is in om* members, the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spmt struggling against the flesh ; oui'selves at war against ourselves, treachery with- in leagued with foes without, so that we cannot be sure even of ourselves, and dare not trust ourselves. Our most dangerous enemies are, in fact, within. And yet in spite of all and through all God's children may be kept, and are kept. God giveth them the victory. But it is at the price of inces- sant vigilance. It is by a perpetual struggle, and they carry on their warfare at fearful odds. They may be thankful if they come off with their lives from the desperate encounter. They cannot well avoid being scarred and wounded in the fight 5 and 14 PROFESSOR GREEN. they will be obliged to drag themselves along in their forced marches, faint with fatigue and loss of blood, dispirited sometimes and almost disheart- ened, as though the war would never end. But it shall end, and end gloriously, too. Oh, what loud ringing cheers go up from the lips of the veteran soldier as he catches sight of the flag of victory, and sees the signal displayed which tells him that the ranks of the foe have everywhere given way in disordered rout ! The field is won. The victory is assured. The weary campaign is over. Friends gather tearful around the pallid corpse — the face in meek repose, the eyes closed, never to weep again, the bosom still, never to heave an- other sigh. But the glad spirit, which has taken its upward flight from that wasted form, is already singing its new-born song of thanksgiving and triumph before the throne, and rejoicing in the ful- fillment of the Savioui^'s prayer, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." This prayer of Jesus looks, as we have now seen, to the deliverance of his people from a world of sin. It has another negative feature of great pre- ciousness at which we must also glance before we can proceed to consider the positive blessings which it contemplates. This is also a world of suffering CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 15 and sorrow ; and when the Saviour prays that they whom the Father has given him may be with him where he is, he prays that they may be released from all the suffeiing and the sorrow that the world contains. Not but there is much here to be thankful for, much true happiness, much to enjoy, many prolific springs of satisfaction and delight. This world has with the most benevolent regard to the wants of our nature been adapted to minister to our grati- fication. Every sense is an inlet of pleasure, and the objects are numberless from which this pleas- ure may be derived. Light is sweet to the eyes. The ear is charmed with melody of sound. Food has a reUsh, which delights our taste. Our intel- lectual natui-e is aroused and pleasurably excited by the multitudinous objects of knowledge, which excite our interest and stimulate inquiries that are their own reward. Our social nature finds satis- faction in the company of friends and solace in all that is engaging and delightful in domestic life. And for oui' spiritual nature there is graciously provided the joy of salvation, the joy of pardoned sin, the joy of holy intercourse with God and com- munion with his saints, the joy of the Holy Ghost, which passes through every gi-adation from calm and peaceful frames to raptures that are unspeak- 16 PROFESSOR GREEN. able and full of glory. There are numerous sources of rich enjoyment in this world which it would argue criminal ingi-atitude to overlook or to depre- ciate. There are fountains of elevated and rational gratification at which we may di*ink and drink again. He who has a thankful heart for God's mercies will always find mercies in his lot to be thankful for. And yet we cannot annul the fact that God has cursed the ground on wliich we tread for the sins of men. It brings forth thorns and thistles^ and man must wring his bread from it by the sweat of his brow. He is born to trouble, and this is a heritage from which he cannot escape. He who expects perfect and unalloyed satisfaction here ex- pects what never can be found. The same sensitive organization which renders us susceptible to pleas- ure exposes us likewise to pain. Every possibility of gratification involves a corresponding liability to suffering. Every added possession is a new lia- bility to loss. Each glad anticipation shows us capable of its reverse, the poignancy of disappoint- ment or the heartsickness of hope deferred. He who can smile can weep. Joys that bloom may wither on the stem, and the bright morning may be overcast with clouds. What anxieties gather around every valued treasure ! Oh, the distressing CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 17 instability of eai'thly good ! How it casts its bale- ful shadow over eveiy scene of present enjoyment ! Who knows what shaU be on the morrow ? Riches take to themselves wings and fly away. Friends that gather around us like the birds of spring may also, like birds of passage, take their flight. And the nearest, dearest group of all, the precious do- mestic chicle — ah ! each beloved form only pre- sages the anguish of an additional parting that sooner or later must take place. From this instability of earthly good, and expos- ure to privation and suffering, the people of God have no exemption. They have the same liabilities to pains and losses and griefs as other men. They have their fuU share of ti'ials and afflictions. They are, in fact, characteristically, as a class, the afflicted and the sufferers. The petition of their Lord that they should be kept from the evil that is in the world does not screen them from outward troubles. On the contrar}^, our heavenly Father uses trouble and affliction as chastisements for their good 5 though for the present not joyous but grievous, they work out the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Through much tribulation it is ordained that they should enter into the kingdom of heaven. " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scoui^geth every son whom he receiveth." This is designed to pro- 18 PROFESSOR GREEN. mote theii- highest welfare by the infinite love and grace of him who doeth all things well. But the bitter is still bitter j and it makes us shudder as we swallow it, though we know there is healing in the draught. And the sorrows of God's children are no less keenly felt because they have learned sub- mission to the divine will and reverently kiss the rod. The very tenderness of their heart makes them, in fact, more sensitive to the stroke j and it adds a new element of poignancy to their grief that his hand of love should have found it neces- sary to afflict them. And then there is, besides, a large class of pain- ful experiences which are pecuhar to pious souls. There are inward griefs and apprehensions, and distressing doubts and feai's, and painful struggles and mortifications, and penitent tears and bitter regrets over spiritual delinquencies, and periods of depression and darkness from the hiding of the Lord's face, and the lack of that sense of his favor which is essential to their inward peace. These are trials that the world knows nothing of, and yet which sometimes force from the wrestling, strug- gling child of God deep-drawn sighs and the half- desponding exclamation, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? When will the day dawn and the shadows flee away ? " CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 19 Oh, what a blissful sense of rest shall possess the ransomed soul when this weaiisome round of suf- fering is at an end — ^when the wandering exile has at last reached his Fathei^s house, and the sorrow- ing child of God has found repose upon his Sav- iour's breast ; the toils of life all ended, its burdens all laid down, the inward tumult stilled. Hence- forth he shall have no more experience of pain or grief or woe, no aching brow, no fevered pulse, no wearied limbs, no load of care ; beyond all reach of harm, safe from ever^^ foe, forever safe in heaven. But I must not dwell here : I hasten to remark that the petition of oui- Lord reaches far beyond all that we have yet considered. Deliverance from this world of sin and suffering is but a preliminary implication in this comprehensive prayer. It is but the necessary antecedent to the blessedness which he supplicates for his people, not that blessed- ness itself. He prays that they may be with him and behold his glory. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. To depart and be with Christ, says the Apostle, is far better. To be with Christ, whom, having not seen, we love ; and in whom, though now we see him not, yet believ- ing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glor}^ What rapture in the thought of beholding 20 PROFESSOR GREEN. the face of our Redeemer and oui- Lord, who from love to us forsook the glories of heaven to suffer and die for our salvation j to see the very head that was crowned with thorns, the hands that were pierced with nails, the face that sweat great drops of blood in the agony of the garden, the lips from which issued such words of grace and tenderness and compassion ! To see Jesus, who snatched us from perdition by the sacrifice of himseK ; to whom we have clung by eager faith as our only hope for pardon and peace with God and everlasting life j that gracious Saviour, who has been our all-in-all, who has spoken peace to our troubled souls and whispered to our contrite hearts, " Thy sins be for- given thee " ; who has borne with us in our weak- ness and our waywardness j who has cheered us in our hours of despondency and gloom 5 who has sustained and helped us by his grace and led us all along our course, and guarded and sheltered us and given us the victory, and shed his love abroad in our hearts, and purged us from our sins and de- hvered us out of aU our fears, and prepared a man- sion for us in his own blessed abode, and opened heaven for us and brought us safel}^ there to be with him forever. Oh, with what bursting gratitude and joy and love will the ransomed soul gaze and gaze forever, unwearied, on the sa<;red form of him CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 21 who loved us and washed us from oui- sins in his own blood, while his adoring amazement, glad sur- prise, and admiring, thankful love swell beyond all bounds. What higher idea can we have of su- preme felicity than to be with Jesus where he is ? But the petition of the text proceeds '^ that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me." The glory of the uncreated Son of God — what a transcendent vision must that be ! It was a dis- tinguished privilege to see the Son of God in human form in his lowly humiliation. The apostle John, who saw this form once lit up by the momentary radiance of the transfiguration, and who through- out his earthly ministry had seen the manifestations of heavenly love and grace daily beaming forth from the person of Jesus, writes of what was thus displayed on earth before his own eyes, '' We have seen his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father." And our Lord said to his disciples that companied with him during his abode on earth, " Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see : for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them." To see the Son of God even when he walked in Judea and in Galilee in the form of a servant, and to feel that the man before us is really the incarnate God ; to see tokens of a 22 PROFESSOR GREEN. power resident in him to which all nature yielded prompt obedience ; to see the tempest hushed and the raging waves subside at his command ; to hear that voice which opened the eyes of the bhnd and gave hearing to the deaf and life to the dead, and with divine authority could say to a weeping sin- ner, ^'Thy sins ai-e forgiven thee "5 to have him tell us of heavenly things who has been himself in heaven, and testifies what he has seen, and teU us of God, who had been with God from eternity, and was God; to behold him who is the very image of the invisible God, to observe the perfections of the Godhead miiTored in his life and coming forth in all his acts — what awe would possess our souls as we reverently gazed upon the form of God man- ifest in the flesh ! And what an unspeakable priv- ilege it would be to be permitted to feel in our own souls the power of that presence, and to place ourselves beneath the molding, quickening, saving energy which emanated from him. What a com- panionship would this be, beyond all parallel of privilege or blessing on earth ! Such honor was granted to the early disciples of our Lord. But no mortal eye was ever permitted to behold his un- veiled glory. Earth has its brilliant spectacles, its grand and showy pageants, such as the splendors of a corona- CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 23 tion, when the resources of an empire are sum- moned to add magnificence to royalty. The mon- arch all ablaze with jewels and regal decoration ; his attendant guards and princely retinue with brilliant and varied uniforms and streaming ban- ners, with martial music moving in stately proces- sion amid chiming bells and peals of artillery and surging masses wild with enthusiasm and rending the air -vvdth loud acclaim ; the spacious and vener- able halls proudly adorned; the imposing cere- monies, the insignia of royalty displayed, the crown and the scepter committed to him who holds them by hereditary right from a long line of kings traced back to remote antiquity, and representative of an acknowledged sway over widespread dominions and millions of loyal population — all this is grandly impressive. But what is all the pomp and majestic greatness of earth to the splendors which suiTOund the mon- arch of the skies ? The brilliancy, which is feebly represented by the sun shining in its strength ; the great white throne, and from the face of him that sits on it the earth and heavens flee away; the surrounding multitudes of the heavenly host, angels that excel in strength, celestial principalities and powers; thousand thousands minister unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before 24 PROFESSOR GREEN. him, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the an- cient of days, his kingdom an everlasting kingdom, his word a word of omnipotence, his scepter sway- ing the universe; himself adored and worshiped and praised by countless multitudes of glorious and holy creatures, who ascribe to him without ceasing blessing and honor and glory and power. Oh, the unimagined magnificence of the scene that opens to the gaze of him in whom the petition is fulfilled, " Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." And while the soul of the glorified saint is rav- ished by the sight of these divine splendors, it is chiefly the thought that this exalted glory is the glory of Jesus which transports him with the most supreme dehght. The Sa\dour whom he has feeblj^ tried to love, whom in his feeble measure he has sought to glorify, and in whose spreading kingdom here on earth he has found his liveliest satisfac- tion, is praised as he cannot praise him. How it rejoices him to see in place of the poor, unworthy tribute rendered to Jesus on the earth, the exalted homage of the skies ; to see that Jesus is praised and adored by multitudes on multitudes, who honor him as he deserves to be honored and adored ; to see that if the earth is slack in rendering him horn- CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 25 age, all heaven is vocal with liis praise ; that such glory lias been given him by his Father as is com- mensiu-ate with the greatness of his redeeming work ; and that notwithstanding the poor, imworthy return which is all that he can render to this ador- able and gracious Saviour, he has received an ade- quate reward for all his love and all his pains in the exaltation and glory which have in consequence been bestowed upon him. And if the ransomed soul, transported with the spectacle of his Redeem- er's glory, can do no more, he can at least with a rejoicing heart add one more voice to the universal choi-us, ^' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re- ceive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." But the rapture of gazing is not all that is linked with beholding the glory of Christ. How can one stand in the sunshine and not be illuminated, or approach the fire and not be warmed, or be set in constant contact with the beautiful and the true and not be instructed and refined? The glory of Christ is not a mere spectacle to be passively be- held, but a power ever radiating forth upon those who gaze upon it. It not only entrances with de- Ught, it is transforming. Life, holiness, salvation, stream forth from liim who is the fountain of life and heaUng. Even here at this vast distance, be- 26 PROFESSOR GREEN. holding in his Word as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image ; the work of transformation and sanctification goes for- ward, though with much remaining imperfection. But there we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. To be with Jesus and to behold his glory is to be eveiy moment drinking in with every sense the knowledge of him whom to know is eter- nal life. It is to be brought with no intei-posing hindrance into the most intimate communion and fellowship with him who is the overflowuig foun- tain of all good, and by whom we shaU be filled to the utmost of our ever-enlarging capacities with the fullness of God. But we have not yet reached the limit of the Saviour's petition in the text. Though we have long since passed the boundaiy of all that tlie human nund can comprehend, or imagination can conceive, there is another particular yet to be added. We know not what we say when we utter it. We only feel that above these enrapturing heights of glory, of which we have been endeavoring to catch a faint and feeble glimpse, there rises yet another, higher and more glorious still. When Jesus prays that his people may behold his glory, he means something more than that they should witness a spectacle, even with the added CHRIST'S DESIRE FOR HIS PEOPLE. 27 thought that this spectacle should produce a bene- ficial and transforming effect upon them. He means not to have them stand like Moses on the top of Pisgah to view afar the enchanting prospect of the Canaan he should never enter. To ^'see death '' is in Scriptiu'e phrase not merely to witness it but to experience itj to "see corruption" is to become a prey to corruption ; to " see sorrow " is to be sorrowful 5 to " see good days " is to have a glad and joyful time ; to " see the kingdom of God " is to pai-take of its benefits ; and to " behold Christ's glory" is to be a sharer of that glory. " The glory which thou hast given me/' says Jesus, " I have given them." " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." The glory which beatified saints, behold, is their own. It is the gloiy of then* Re- deemer and their Savioui-, achieved by him for them, bestowed by him upon them. They are one with him, and all that he has is theirs. But we cannot scan, we cannot even trace the outline of these pinnacles of glory. The imagina- tion reels and thought is bewildered, and the sum- mits are hidden in the brightness of the throne itself. We cannot follow the luminous upward track of the ascending saint. He vanishes fi-om our 28 PROFESSOR GREEN. sight ill the blaze of ever-accumulating glory. We only know that the petition is fulfilled, " Father, I Tvdll that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Brethren, pardon one additional word. This is the end which Jesus sohcits for all his followers j this is the result which he has contemplated from the beginning ; this is the design of all his work for them ; this is the design of all his work in them ; this is the bm-den of his intercessions on their be- half. Is this what we are living for, and striving after, and reaching unto — the center of our hopes, the object of our desires, the mark toward which our sti'uggles are directed ? Is om* heart fixed not on an eartlily but a heavenly aim, and does this enter into om^ daily and constant thoughts and plans, so that heaven seems to us not a \dolent rupture of all that precedes, a sudden stop to our pursuits, an abandonment of cherished plans, a re- versal of all that we were engaged in, but rather its legitimate, expected, longed-for consequence, the last step forward in the direction that we have been urging our way, and which puts the proper finish to our whole lives. Is our treasm*e in heaven, or is it on the earth ? The answer to this question will reveal to which world -we belong, and in which world we shall take oui* portion. THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. By the LATE Prof. Caspar Wistar Hodge, D.D., LL.D. "Iliai-e yet many things to say unto you, hut ye cannot hear them now. Howheit when he, the Sjririt of truth, is come, he n-m guide you into all truth : for he shall not speak of himself ; hut tchatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.'^ — John 16 : 12-15. CHRIST is to be glorified by the Spirit. He hmnbled himself in his incarnation, m assum- ing the form of a servant, and in submitting him- self to death. This work is now accompUshed. The Father is glorified in his obedience, and his reward remains. He is to go away, to go to the Father, to be glorified with that glor}' which he had before the world was made. The Spu'it dwell- ing in his humanity, fills him with the power and the glory of God, so that what in his humihation was the veil of Godhead, becomes in his exaltation its adequate expression. He fills heaven with the 29 30 PROFESSOR HODGE. splendor of the presence of the glory of God, and is the object of the adoration of saints and an- gels. But the Spii'it glorifies Chi'ist not only in his personal exaltation, but in his Church: "He shall glorif}^ nie : for he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." The glory of Christ is to be manifested in the completion of his work of re- demption. He has received the Spirit that he may give the Spirit to his Chui'ch. This is his ascension gift, which can-ies into execution the work which he came to do, and thus manifests his glory. The Spirit is to convince of sin, to work faith in men, to unite to Christ, to communicate his life, to pro- cure the victory over the world, and to bring his people to the enjoyment of his glory in eternity. The fundamental fact with regard to this work of the Holy Spirit is that it is accomphshed by means of the truth. Christ describes it as a process of teaching. ''He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." '' I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will lead you into aU truth." The Spuit, indeed, as a divine agent, acts immedi- ately on the soul, imparts the principle of new life, detei-mines the will, and influences the affec- tions : but in all the conscious activities of the soul THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 31 the truth is the iustriimeut by which he works, and the sphere of all the activities of the new life. Jesus promises the Spirit to enable believers to keep his commandments 5 as such he is the " Spii'it of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth in you." The indwell- ing Spirit is a spirit of knowledge. He promises the Spirit to unite to himself in order to fruit- bearing. And again, he says of the branches, in order to their fruitfulness, "Ye are clean through the word wliich I have spoken unto you." He is to give life 5 '^ and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The promise to prayer is conditioned on the revelation of his name. The mystical theory of religion, therefore, which depreciates the truths of revelation, and wliich claims priority for a divine love and obedi- ence, in immediate contemplation and personal communion with God, arrays itseK against the plain teaching of Christ. Because Christ identifies the truth wliich the Spirit is to bring with the truth which he taught. It is of the same character, and addressed to the intelligence, claiming faith, and operating practically on the conscience. He had taught them of the Father, and the Spirit was to 32 PROFESSOR HODGE. carry on his teaching to completion in the same way. And the criterion for truth in the teaching is not the inward Hght, making every man a law J;o himself, or the Chui'ch as mediator of truth, but it is that what the Spirit is to communicate is the things of Chi'ist. " He shall take of the things that are mine, and show them to you : " thus identifying his whole revelation of truth in his person and teaching with that which the Spu-it should after- ward communicate. To love this truth is to love the Spirit ; to look away from the Scriptures for the truth is to give eay to other spirits, to whose teaching there is attached no promise of the revela- tion of the glory of the Lord. I. In this supreme promise of our Saviour we see the unity of the dispensations. The salvation promised is wrought by Christ ; and the Spirit se- cui-es it to every believer. Regeneration, sanctifica- tiou, glorification, are his work, and tliis work is radiant with light and love, because it consists in bringing Christ to us, in binding us to him, and in making all our service to be replete with his pres- ence and to tend to his glory. II. In this promise we read clearly the basis of our faith in revelation, and in the inspiration of the writings of the New Testament. An acute com- mentator has remarked that at John 14 : 25, 2G we THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 33 have the warrant for the inspiration of the Gospels : '' These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." And here also is the warrant for the inspiration of the Epistles: "When he, the Spu'it of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. ... He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." It is impossible to conceive how the authority of the Master could be conveyed to the teaching of the disciples more emphatically than is here done by Christ. He identifies his teaching and the teaching of the Spiidt as parts of a whole: his teaching is carrying out my teaching; it is calling to remembrance what I have told you ; it is completing what I have begun. And to make the unity emphatic, he explains why he had reserved so much of his own teaching, and committed the work of revelation to the Spirit. He, in his incar- nation and Hfe, comprised all saving truth. He was the revealer of God and the truth and the life. But while some things he had taught while yet with them, he had many things to say which must be postponed, because they could not bear them yet. 34 PROFESSOR HODGE. He had taught them of the spirituahty of his king- dom, of its universal apphcation, of the duties to God and man which it demanded, of the love of the Father in our salvation, of his own divine claims and the necessity of faith in him. He had taught them of the necessity of his dying in order to their coming glory ; but they were so preoccupied with the notions of a temporal kingdom that the}^ could not bear the conception of the cross. He had taught that his kingdom was for all men ; but their Jewish pride could not brook the idea that salva- tion was by faith only, and on equal terms for all men J these truths they could not bear. There was the natural limitation of their receptivity to be estimated. The change from the old to the new order, the idea of the incarnation and of the king- dom to be established, were an intellectual revolu- tion quite enough for one generation to receive and to realize. There were their Jewish prejudices to be considered, which colored all theu' concep- tions, and perverted their apprehension of the truth which Christ taught. Besides this, the full concep- tion of the relation of Christ's death to the doctrine of the Atonement could not be positively formu- lated until after his death had occurred 5 nor the adequate apprehension of his divine claims and mediatorial government attained until after the THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 35 resurrection and the ascension had afforded the material facts upon which the doctrine was based. And still more, the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was essential to illumine their minds and convey the promised inward strength, by which they could understand these stupendous truths. What is old to us was new to them ; what is full of spir- itual attraction to us required for them the renun- ciation of the most cherished hopes ; what is to us most manifestly divine seemed to them to contra- dict the express teaching of their Scriptm-es. So Christ, as a wise teacher, imparted the germ of truth as they were able to bear it, and when he promised the Spirit to carry forward this teaching he made it impossible to conceive of it as differing in kind, or in any essential, except mode of revela- tion. He was to take of the things which were Christ's, and show them to the disciples. That this promise to the disciples is specific, and constitutes them the inspired teachers of the Church after them, is proved first of all, (1) by the circum- stances of Christ's address to them. They are in the upper chamber, at the last supper, separated from* the body of believers, plunged in grief at the approaching separation. He tells them that his departure means his exaltation, and that his exaltation means his giving them the Spirit, who 36 PROFESSOR HODGE. should teach them all things. He distinguishes them from others when he prays for them, and not for them only, but for all who should after believe 'Hhi'ough their word." (2) It is proved next by the whole history of their selection and separation from the body of disciples, to be witnesses for him, both of his res- urrection and of his teaching. "The Comforter shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." '^ As the Father hath sent me into the world, so have I sent you into the world." " Whoso heareth you heareth me, and whosoever receiveth me re- ceiveth him that sent me." "If they have not kept my saying, how shaU they keep your word ? " It is one of the central facts of the life of Christ that the work of founding and instructing the future Church was prepared for by the appoint- ment of the body of Apostles, and the charism of the Spiiit is but the necessary qualification for the work. (3) It is seen further in the great commission specially given to the eleven, to go into all the world, "and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (4) It is seen still further in the scope of the THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 37 promise given to them. This is not simj^ly to en- lighten them, so that they ^vould spiritually appre- hend essential truth, so that their faith should not rest on human evidence but on the power of God. It is more than that the Spirit should so unfold the truth that they should be able to apprehend the love of God, and be sanctified and prepared for heaven. It is that they should complete his work. That primary revelation of truth, which was to be authoritative for the Church and de- mand the faith of all, and which he had only par- tially made, they were to make complete. The Spirit should take of the things wliich were his. And the measure and scope of this truth is stated : " AU things that the Father hath are mine ; there- fore I said that he shall take of mine and shaU show it unto you." Evidently whatever of divine truth is communicable, in its whole comprehensive scope and sublime elevation, is here conveyed. No human intellect can embrace the measure of this bestowment. No Christian Church can claim to have exhausted it. There are illimitable heights and depths here, which belong alone to the Divine Being, and can characterize a vehicle of truth only such as the Spirit of God himself can constitute. ^\niich wiU you have, the Bible to open to you the eternal depths of the Di\dne Being, or the mystic's 38 PROFESSOR HODGE. consciousness when he reduces to expression the summary of his feelings f (5) But if on the one hand we find Christ giving ffhthority to the disciples, and on the other the dis- ciples after Pentecost assiuning authority on the ground of Christ's appointment, the conclusion is irresistible that we must accept from them their own statement as to the natiu'e and extent of their inspiration. It is therefore a perfectly logical posi- tion, as it is the only Scriptural position, that our doctrine of the inspii'ation of the wi-itings is to be derived from the T\Titings themselves. If Ckrist has referred us to the Apostles as teachers of the truths which he would have us know, certainly this primary truth of the authority of the Script- ures themselves can be no exception. AU ques- tions as to the extent of this inspiration, as to its exclusive authority, as to whether it extends to words as well as doctrines, as to whether it is infallible or inerrant or not, are simply questions to be referred to the Word itself. Whenever it claims authority we are bound to accord it abso- lute trust. The question of inerrancy, which upon these principles must be reduced to the very naiTOwest limits, can be a question to be determined by ob- servation onlv when it can be shown that it is THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 39 covered by no claim of authority; for where an apostle makes that claim we must hear him as we would hear Christ. And that for the whole sub- stance of the teaching, in the separate writings of the New Testament as well as in the New Testa- ment as a whole, they do claim authority as the guides of faith, as the rule of life, can be denied only by very reckless assertion. We read it in the stress laid on the fact of then- appointment by Christ ; in the constant m-gency with which Paul claims his equality on this point with the original apostles 5 in the express assertion, " I, Paul, an apos- tle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." We read it in the constant demand for faith in their message and obedience to their in- junctions. It is implied in their indignant rejection of all humanly devised error which would contradict or modify the Gospel as they had taught it : '' If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." We see it in the whole conception of the Gospel as a body of revealed ti-uth committed to them, and by them to the Church, which the 40 PROFESSOR HODGE. Church is bound to guard as its peculiar trust, and for the sake of which, specifically, the organization of the Church, with its specified ofiices, was in- stituted according to the Pastoral Epistles. We read it most clearly in Paul's argument in 1 Corin- thians, where he contrasts the vahdity and effect of revealed truth with the speculations of phi- losophy : " Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual;" i.e., spiritual truths with spiritual words. We see it in the miraculous at- testations to which apostles appealed to support their claim of supernatural authority. And we see it in the unity of the Scriptures ; in the accord of apostolic teaching with the teaching of Chi'ist; in the historic development of the revelation, in ac- cord with the existing wants of the churches ; in the whole tone of divinity, as with tenderness and fidelity the divine oracles open to us the deep things of God. It is one kind of rehgion to make the divine Word the test of our characters, and to be enabled by the Spirit to recognize its divine quality. It is a very different kind of religion to THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 41 bring the Bible to the test of oiir religious feelings, and to decide whether or not it is of God by its accord with the responses of those feelings. III. The New Testament doctrine of the Canon bases itself on the authority of Christ in this promise. Those books which by clear historical proof can be shown to have belonged to the col- lection given by the apostles to the churches, or in their separate issue to have been given by them as the revelation of truth, come to us with the author- ity of the apostles, and their authority conveys to us the sanction of the Lord. As was the Old Testament to him, so he gives us the New Testa- ment for our guidance. We are constantly told that this is antiquated ; that it is mere traditional- ism; that the new Apologetic is based upon our recognition of Christ in the Word; and that the Bible is truth to us because ^' it finds us." Thank God if it finds us ! So does Tennyson find us, and so do Shakespeare and Seneca and Sophocles. If we are to judge by the opposition to some of the distinctive doctrines of the Bible, it is only part of it that " finds us." It finds us when it tells us that we are weak and need help ; but when it tells us we are guilty and need forgiveness, we are not so sure of it. It finds us when it offers a better life and a better hope ; but when it declares the right- 42 PROFESSOR HODGE. eous judgment of God on all sin, the response becomes very weak. It finds us when we read of the universal Fatherhood of God, of the unfathom- able love, of the helpful sympathy of Christ ; but when it tells of the resplendent justice on which the creature cannot look and live, or of the atoning sacrifice, or of the sovereignty of grace, there is no inward response. This new conception of God, to which the milder and more loving theology of this end of the century has come, is not the God of the Bible. The New Testament only has given us Jesus Christ. Surely we cannot, on the claim of the authority of Christ, reject the authority of the New Testament ! IV. The promise of the Spirit is the promise of spiritual illumination to all believers. It is con- fessedly difficult in the interpretation of this dis- course of our Saviour to distinguish accurately what applies to apostles only, and what to the Church at large; what conveys the promise of inspiration, and what of spmtual illumination to all believers. And yet the distinction is essential ; for if it be disregarded, if the promises of revela- tion and inspiration be appUed to aU believers, the authority of the apostles and their wi'itings is re- duced to the common level of the religious thought of men of peculiar genius and peculiar ad van- THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 43 tages; or, on the other hand, the inward light common to all is elevated to equal or superior authority to the Word of God. It is, however, in analogy with the general teaching of Christ that his doctrine of the work of the Spirit should be given in the germ, and not unfolded ; in its broad outlines, and not specialized. And as we have found clear evidence that some of these words can be realized in their full sense only in the inspiration of the apostles, so we find no less clear proof that the supreme gift of the Spii-it is not confined to them. And this proof consists, first, in the fact that he assigns to the work of the Spirit now prom- ised the imparting of the Chi'istian life, in all its graces which are the common heritage of all believers. The Spirit, who is to lead us into truth, is thereby to unite us to Christ ; to constitute the life of Christ in his Church j to bring to us the love of the Father; to enable us to beheve in Chi'ist; to work in us obedience to his will ; to secure the hearing of prayer ; to cause us to bring forth finiit unto God ; to gain the victory over the world ; and, finally, to bring us to the beatific vision of God in the better life. Obviously, the promise is not ex- clusively to the apostles. The second proof is the close relation between 44 PROFESSOR HODGE. the spii'itual illumination, which is common to all, and the superadded revelation and inspiration, which is promised to the apostles. They need this spiritual knowledge and personal apprehension of the truth before they can convey it to others. It is no mechanical but a H^ing force that lifts them to heights of view of divine things v/hence they discern the glories of Chi-ist and convey them to us. In his measure — not of authority to others, not as the teacher of the whole Church, but for his own spiritual satisfaction — the humblest Chi'istian has in kind the same knowledge of the divine power and light and gi-ace which is in the Word of Christ as had Paul or John. And thirdly, as before, the promise of authority to the apostles points us to their own teaching for the fuller unfolding of the distinction between that grace of the knowledge of the Spirit, which is com- mon and necessary for all, and those peculiar gifts which make then- wiitings authoritative. These truths, which only the Spmt can com- municate, can only be apprehended by the Spirit. Precisel}^ then* divine quality, which separates them from all other deliverances of truth, is only apprehended by a divine influence in the soul. The life-giving power, which conveys faith and love and hope, which goes from the particular truth to THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 45 the relations and sees ttie harmonies and beauties of the whole, which sees in the Word in all its parts the revelation of the Father and the glory of the Son, is by spu-itual discernment. This blessed gift, comprehending all gifts, is thus the unity of the Christian hfe, bringing Chi'ist to dwell in us ; and through the instrumentality of the Word, by the authority of the Scriptures, it works out our complete salvation, for "He takes of the things that are Christ's, and shows them unto us." Your future ministry is cast in times of great theological unrest. Foundations are broken upj truths long accepted are brought anew into ques- tion ; the very principles upon which the certitude of belief is to rest are under debate. There is no use in these days for men of a light and easy temper, who make up their judgment hastily on the most vital questions, or who Uke to be in the advance of all changes, and easily renounce the most sacred of heritages. Men should be sober and thoughtful ; they should be students of histor}^ ; they should be prayerful students of the Bible. Change is not necessarily advance. The majestic testimony of the Church in all time is that its ad- vances in spiritual life have always been toward and not away from the Bible, and in proportion to the reverence for, and power of realizing in prac- 46 PROFESSOR HODGE. tical life, the revealed Word. The watchword of the modern school is, on every hand, ''Back to Christ ! " Surely we say ^'Amen ! " From every departure of thought or life, let us go back to Christ. But it is one thing to reahze afresh the life and teaching of Christ in the historic spirit, in relation to what is to come, as the germinal planting of a future harvest of life and doctrine ; it is a very different thing to go back to Christ by the rejection of all subsequent revelation, which is based on his authority and is the Uving develop- ment of his teaching. They tell us that it is not the "Christ of the creeds" to whom we should go. " The Church has lost the Spu-it of Christ," it is said, "because she has attended to the doctrines about him, confining her conception in scholastic forms, disputing about consubstantiahty, and per- son, and natui-e, and satisfaction to justice, and thereby losing the living pulse of sympathy and love and practical life in his teaching." So far as the Chm-ch has sacrificed life to mere theological science, it is to be repented of and amended. But when the process of generalization and definition and coordination of Scripture facts is sneered at, the charge is simple puerility; and when the assertion is that logical definition has interfered with reverential love and obedience, it is reckless THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT, 47 slander of the Spii'it-led liistory of the Church of Christ. We are pointed back of the Chi-ist of the Church theology to the Christ of the New Testament. But we cannot stop there. Because the Christ of Paul is not the living and personal Christ, but a person of theological debate. The questions of preexistence, of revelation, of humihation, of exaltation — espe- cially the legal aspect of his work, satisfying jus- tice and working righteousness — have begun this process of " disastrous disfigai'ement " of the sacred things, whicli the Chui'ch has carried onward. We must not rest in apostolic conceptions, but go back to the fountain-head, the historic Chi*ist of the Gospels. But even here the Christ of John has already begun to be overlaid with foreign specula- tive elements. Tender, sublime, spii-itual, offering mystical union and exalting love indeed, but at the same time asserting with unfaltering authority his equality with God, asserting that life depends on faith in him, magnifying the divine sovereignty and efficacious gi-ace. Here are speculative ele- ments which may interfere with the simplicity and truth of the figure, and we therefore come back to the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels. But there we are cautioned that these Gospels were wi-itten late in the life of the Church, and we must carefully 48 PROFESSOR HODGE. tlistinguish between wliat Christ really did and taught, and what is ascribed to liini by the growing misconception of the Church theology. And when, at last, we have reached this teaching, rich, pro- found, divine, containing in germinal form the whole of the ti-uth afterward communicated by the Spirit, we are still fui'ther taught that we must discriminate carefully in the teaching of Christ himself between what belongs merely to the prej- udices of his day and generation, and the message that he is commissioned of God to impart. He comes not with infallible revelation, teaching the things of God out of his conscious omniscience, we are told; but one tells us that his Messianic consciousness grows out of his consciousness of ethical oneness vAih. God ] and another that it is an inference fi'om his universal love for men and his desire for their salvation. In the one sphere he is not only limited in knowledge, but may be entirely mistaken. In the other sphere he brings to us the truth which is our life. And we are to distinguish, by the light within, what is really of Chi-ist and what is not. We, on our part, accept this motto, ''Back to Christ." And as his parting word, we hear him tell the disciples that he would send the Spii'it, who should lead them into all truth. We, on this THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 49 authority, accept tlie teacliiiig of Paid and John concerning him. And so far as the Chiu-ch has by this promised guidance unfolded the truth of reve- lation, we accept her interpretation of the Script- ui-es. Here is the New Testament criterion of truth. Here is Christ's most sacred parting legacy. Here is our choice of method. Which do you choose, Christ or Barahbas ? Away from Christ, as im- parted by the Spu-it, we may not have the life he promises. For his promise to the Church to be with it alway to the end of the world is by that Holy Spirit. VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. By the late Prof. Charles A. Aiken, Ph.D., D.D. '^And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies : hut they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth ; for they pro- ceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord." — Jeremiah 9 : 3. rriHE reading of the Revised Version gives us a -^ slight change in the form of the rendering, without altering essentially the conception : "And they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth J for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord." If the fact be so, and the prophet's arraignment of his people be true, his bitter grief is abundantly justified. The omen is of evil, and evil only. Let it be from ignorance, mistake, moral imbecility, cowardice, or a more positive and flagrant dis- loyalty, when men are strong, but not for the truth, valiant, but not for the truth, the sign is of present evil and greater evil to come. Therefore the prophet would seek in the wilderness a lodging-place of 50 VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 51 wa^^aring men, where, his head waters and his eyes a very fountain of tears, he might weep for the slain of the daughters of his people. . You have not forgotten how fine a picture Bunyan sketches in his '^ Pilgrim's Progress " of one who is '' valiant for truth." It is just as Chi-istiana and her children are entering upon the eighth and last step of their pilgrimage that Greatheart and his company overtake this hero. Refusing to join the three who had beset him, Wildhead, Inconsiderate and Pragmatic, refusing also to go back at their bidding, he had fought them and put them to flight, caring nothing for numbers, because " little or more are nothing to liim that has the truth on his side " ; praying to his king, " who I knew could hear me and aiford invisible help, and that was sufficient for me " j using confidently and to good purpose 'Hhe right Jerusalem blade in his hand, with which one may venture upon an angel " ; at the same time, with the practical earnestness and energy that come of faith, clinging to his sword- hilt with a grip so firm that the blood ran through his fingers ; and when he was asked to give account of his former Life, summing up all by saying, " I believed, and therefore came out and got into the way, fought all that set themselves against me, and by believing am come to this place." Plainly, 52 PROFESSOR AIKEN. whatever his valor might be he knew and pro- claimed that its spring was in his faith. This is the t}^e of character which our text by contrast bi'ings before us. Over such a robust and valorous faith there were no need to weep one's eyes away in the wilderness. It may be worth our while to study this type of character in four aspects : (1) In its relation to the nature, rights, and claims of truth ; (2) in its rela- tion to the highest capacities, dignities, and respon- sibihties of manhood ; (3) in its relation to the just caU and sore peril of souls about us that may be saved, perhaps saved by one vahant for the truth while no other strength or valor would help them j and (4) in its relation to our professed loyalty to Jesus Christ. Let it be borne in mind aU along the Ime of our thought that we cannot come even into quiet pos- session of the truth without overcoming the oppo- sition of forces, within and without, which would keep us from it ; that we cannot, except by a high and sustained valor, bring om- own hues into true and fuU conformity to the truth where so much is to be accomplished in molding character and life into this likeness, and where antagonism is so stubborn ; that after we have gained the truth and begun to put on the image of the truth, we are not yAUANT FOR THE TRUTH. 53 to be left in peace in the enjo^TQent of our pos- session and its benefits, but must maintain every acquisition at the point of the sword ; that we are bound to sup23ort actively and aggressively truth's claim to a universal dominion ; that even in the sorest exigencies of our own experience we are never for a moment absolved from the obligation to remember and care for others' needs and perils ; and that the glorious Captain of om* salvation de- serves and demands the service of good soldiers, each stri\T.ng 'Hhat he may please him who en- rolled him as a soldier." And let us fiu'ther keep in mind that valor is nourished and sustained by truth, for which there is no possible equivalent or substitute. " Valiant for truth." What, then, is truth, that for it one can be, should be, valiant? Truth is real. Truth is accessible and may be kno\\Ti. Truth is precious. Truth imposes in every direc- tion obligations that cannot be met except by the most genuine and resolute valor. If Home Tooke was right in his et^Tnolog;^^, truth would seem to be one of the most uncertain, unreliable of things, or the instinct to have been in this case strangely at fault by which names are given to things. He tells us that truth is primarily ivliat one trowefJi. To trow is to think, believe, or 54 PROFESSOR AIKEN. suppose. What the world " troweth " is as variable, doubtful and unsubstantial as diversities of power, opportunity, diligence, fidelity, sanity can make it. The best philologists of our own generation, how- ever, refer the word to a root meaning, '^ to believe," and draw upon the whole group of related languages and dialects to show that truth is "firm, strong, solid, reliable, an}i:hing that will hold." It should seem, then, that we ought not to believe anything but what is firm, established, and that truth is what we rightly believe. We are not playing with words. To the Hebrew thought expressing itself in word-building, truth is something that has stabil- ity, that is fixed and sure. To the Greek it is the unconcealed reality of that which had been veiled. If this is truth, we have in it something to strive after, something to stand on, something to offer to and urge upon others that is better than a waking fancy or a dream of the night. We accept this judgment of the great mind of the race — Hebrew, Greek, Germanic — and hold that tmth is the real, the established, the abiding. For this our highest powers can be summoned into action, while noth- ing but a poor counterfeit of our best activity can be called forth in behaK of that which is known or seriously suspected to be unreal. The sophist may be adroit, dexterous in disposition and argument, VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 55 and selfishly eager for victories. The pettifogging advocate in any profession may gain brief successes by natural powers and discipline, aided by sheer audacity. This is a result and proof of the world's disorder. Man is for truth and truth for man — both real. And truth is accessible and may be known. No agnostic can be a Valiant for Truth. Quixotic endeavors after the unattainable may supply enter- taining reading for idle hours, or possibly suggest curious studies in psychology. Our cuiiosity, busy and scheming, impertinent and sometimes impious, may direct its adventures toward lofty and distant realms that are not for us. Our real and serious and right concern is rather with the truth that is near, inviting and demanding knowledge, threaten- ing our indifference or neglect with serious loss or heavy penalty. The realms are broad enough the natural reason may traverse, incited by higher motives, cheered by brighter prospects, than ever girded and sent out King Arthur's knights, or any other heroes of the days of chivalry. But natu- ral reason is not the only discoverer of truth, nor is nature its only depository. Fossils buried for uncounted ages in the rocks are not its only prophets. No biological analysis can reach all its elements : no scientific imagination can construct 56 PROFESSOR AIKEN. its entire fabric. The statistician cannot tabulate all its facts. PhilosopherSj in the endless involu- tions and evolutions of their speculations, miss much of it. He who gave us reason and nature, whose they are, and whom they should ever serve, has come in pity to the relief of our impotence and bewilderment by the disclosures that his Spirit makes. When we ask for bread he does not answer us with stones and reptiles only, and bid us get our sustenance from them. He comes down to us fi'om above, not always and only up to us from below. To abase the swelling pride that loves to contemplate itself as standing at the top of the long development of being, he tells us of sin and helplessness and ruin, and then of love and grace and salvation. In the Gospel ^'the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men." Here is truth that is real. Here is truth that may be known. Of all precious truth, truth on which souls can be nourished, truth to which lives can be safely conformed, here is that which is most precious — truth that enters most deeply and per- manently into character and takes hold of destiny. Of all truth worthy and suited to stimulate man's highest powers to the most sustained and most in- tense efficiency, here is that which is worthiest and most suited. Of all truth that is of such kind VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 57 and in such relations to us that it is not only worth our while, but in every way incumbent upon us to put forth our highest valor to gain it and to hold it, here is the most essential. We are bidden, " Buy the truth and sell it not." And this is not a mere appeal to our self-interest. It is not left to the decision of our taste whether truth shall attract and please us or not. It is not submitted to our mere option in any way. The world's wise men might mean no more than this by the proverb. But what the wisdom of inspira- tion commends, the divine authority commands ; thus we gain the truth at whatever cost, and never pai-t with it at any price. Truth, especially this sacred truth, encompasses us with obligations. For this acquisition we do not merely do well to pay the price of toil and struggle ; we fail grossly and widely in duty if we withhold the price. And what we have so dearly bought at the price of our humbled pride, at the price of our falling out with the fashion of this world "which passeth away," what we win by the surrender of our seK-suffi- ciency and imaginary independence, by our reso- lute seK-mastery, our vigorous effort, and what- ever besides the attainment may cost, we are to hold against all seductions and all assaults, "val- iant for the truth." 58 PROFESSOR AIKEN. Our second question was to be : What is the manly valor that can find any fair and proper field for its exercise — its fairest and most proper field 4ii connection with truth ? What is the relation of truth on the one side to valor, and on the other to manhood ? Yalor, a word that caiTies us back so easily to the days and the deeds of knightly prow- ess, adventui-e and achievement, starts with the primary idea of health and strength. It is not mere boldness, bravery, courage, but moves in a liigher plane, and is instinct with a loftier inspira- tion. These may have their source chiefly in the physical and animal, that which we share with the bull-dog and the gorilla ; while valor is a knightly grace, and makes account mainly of the ideal. Medieval chivalry was sometimes fantastic in its manifestations. Yet in those centuries which in- tervened between general barbarism and our mod- ern civilization it did much to lift men out of their gi'ossness. It was a fighting grace; yet it had much to do with the whole character. To be a valiant soldier was more than to be robust and fearless. Of course we recognize different types and degrees of valor, as well as different spheres and occasions for its exercise. We shall esteem that the truest valor in which there is the fullest consciousness and manifestation of manhood, with yALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 59 the clearest conception and the most persistent ad- herence to worthy ends of manly endeavor. There can then be nothing forced or unnatural in the phrase of our text, " valiant for the truth." For what should a true man be vahant rather than for the acquisition, maintenance, and service of the truth — truth known as real, judged to be important, valued as precious? And what esti- mate must we put upon the manhood that can be "strong in the land, but not for truth" — ener- getic, daring, resolved, and persistent for lower and grosser interests, but not for the truth ? The manhood that is most sound and healthy recog- nizes most promptly and broadly its relationship to truth, knows its affinity for truth, responds most heartily to the claim and challenge of the truth, enlists with the least of hesitation or re- serve in the search for the service of the truth. " A man who will take the world easily will never take it grandly," we are told. An ambitious man- hood sees in connection with the truth prizes most worthy of its ambition. A courageous manhood, if it might choose its sphere, would ask to show itself in behalf of so good a cause, where the diffi- culties and perils, and the success, mean so much. For this it will most patiently and thoroughly dis- cipline itseK, and toil most strenuously. It knows 60 PROFESSOR. AIKEN. that it is vindicating and honoring itself by the same activities by which it is most exalting truth. It can most easily, gladly and completely forget itself and make least account of toils and pains and cost when maintaining the cause of truth or promoting some interest of oui' fellow-men in con- nection with the truth. And this choice and devo- tion find a quick and large reward, as truth min- isters to the manliness that offers its best in its behalf, the richest rewards coming, of course, from the highest moral and sphntual truth. The truth that stands nearest to Christ has the best right to say, " Them that honor me I will honor." But looking beyond oui'selves, beyond results anticipated for ourselves, beyond obhgations that bind us in our own behalf, by what caU from without does truth most authoritatively and effect- ively summon valor to its aid? This was to be our third inquiry. " Victory in a tournament " of olden time, the historian Hallam tells us, ''was little less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in the field, since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valor." This does not mean that the display of valor be- fore the assembled beauty and rank of courts was valued above valor itself. The valor must exist to be displayed. And before we condemn the yALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 61 motive as "wholly ignoble we should recall to mind the appeal with which the tweKth chapter of He- brews opens: "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so gi'eat a cloud of wit- nesses." These displays of valor on the tented field were accounted an augury of triumphs to be won on fields where graver issues were at stake ; where some imperiled life or treasure was to be rescued, some essential but questioned honor to be vindicated, some great wrong to be redressed, some grand right to be gained or defended. It was not mere and weak sentiment that strove to recover the Holy Land or some sacred shrine from the hands of the Paynim, or that followed the ban- ner of one's liege lord or the standard of the cross to new conquests. It was worth much to aU com- ing ages that high ideals should be brought down into the gross lives of men and made efficient there. The first appeals which truth makes to us, the first obligations which it imposes on us, are in its own behaK and our own behaK. We are first to make this rich endowment our own. Here is a treasure that we gain by finding it and submitting ourselves to it. We do not command, but sur- render. Our command is consequent upon and proportionate to our obedience, our success to our 62 PROFESSOR AIKEhl. submission. And the valor that is called into requisition before this result is reached is real and of the finest quality. We have the truth only when it possesses us. All other mastery must be dislodged, all other dominion cast off. The effort by which we gain, and the grasp with which we hold the truth, or rather with which it holds us, mean the overcoming of many natui'al and moral diffi- culties and opportunities. Indolence is to be mas- tered, and all the bias of one's nature to evil and error. Stubborn habits are to be broken up, riot- ous and groveling tastes subdued. Many a breach is to be made and can-ied in the walls of prejudice and evil association, many an abstraction swept away, many a foe vanquished. A good soldier he wiU have proved himself who has surrendered and subjected himself fully to the truth. But we are not at Hberty to look no further than to our own enrichment with the amplest treasui-es of wisdom and knowledge, and enlargement of om- own na- tui'es, and invigoration of our own powers, the manifold satisfactions, enjoyments, and dignities that come to us Tvdth and by the truth. Truth is imperial, not only in the quality of the authority which it asserts and the richness of the bounty which it dispenses, but also in the breadth of the dominion to which it lays claim. We have l/ALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 63 made our first obedience when we have yielded ourselves to the truth. We are to go on proclaim- ing truth's rights, and helping it to gain rule over others. We vindicate the rights of the truth while we secure blessings to our fellow-men through truth's ascendency over them. And this obligation and opportunity subject our manhood to some of the most searching tests by which we are ever tried. Are we capable of taking larger \iews of truth than those which connect it with some pros- pect of advantage to ourselves? Do we esteem it for what it is, and not only for what it brings us? And what is the measui-e of our discernment of the rights and needs of others— and what is our response ? His is a poor starvehng manhood that cannot be stirred to interest and effort and sacri- fice in the assertion of others' rights and the promotion of theii' good. The knightly spirit prompted as much as thisj shall the Christian spirit be content with less? There is a natural largeness of soul that can appreciate others' jeopardy, and stir itself to avert or relieve it. A low and common nature is dull of sense to all these calls fi'om without. It puts narrow interpretations on those obligations which it cannot wholly dis- own. The manly and Christian spu-it has large conceptions of right and duty. 64 PROFESSOR AIKEN. And then truth, while imperial in its rights, is sometimes imperiled by denial and attack, and that at the hands of the very men whose allegiance it claims. Its rights are contested 5 its very credentials are challenged. It encounters not merely the nega- tive resistance of ignorance and dullness, of low tastes and sensual and earthly preoccupations ; it is met by a more positive impeachment. He who is valiant for truth will no more suffer it to fight its own battles than a true knight would have resorted to any such evasion in a cause to which he was committed. And the response which we make to the summons of assailed truth gives opportunity to display some of the finest qualities that belonged to the old knighthood — unswerving loyalty, cour- age, endurance, self-sacrifice. Both New Testament and Old Testament em- phasize this part of a good soldier's duty toward sacred truth. "Fight the good fight of faith," "knowing that I am set for the defense of the Gospel." "Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the e\'il day." " Stand, therefore." Across an inter- val of many centuries more, perhaps from the time of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem, come those stirring words of the forty-eighth Psalm: "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the VALlAhlT FOR THE TRUTH. 65 towers thereof ; mark ye well her bulwarks." She needs and has her towers and bulwai"ks, and there is for us a post of duty there at the defense of truth. If Paul the aggressive evangelist is an ex- ample for study and imitation, Paul the apologist is no less so. Our broader study of questioned truth brightens many an evidence, confirms many a conviction, kindles a new enthusiasm for the assertion and defense of truth's claim, and subjects to new tests our professions of devotion. It puts to the proof our aptness, while it calls forth our energy. But truth is never content to stand long on the defensive. The defense is soon turned into attack. Error may be content with compromise ; truth is satisfied with nothing less than estabhshed dominion. But there is another call for valor in behaK of Christian truth higher than that which comes from our feUow-men and their claims upon it. What Christ is on the one side to the truth and on the other side to us, and what the truth is to him, supply a new inspiration and strength, and add a new quality to Christian endeavor — a personal quality that was wanting before. He who is val- iant for the truth because of what it is in its real- ity and reliableness shows his discernment. He who is valiant for the truth because of what it is 66 PROFESSOR AIKEN. to manhood shows a wise self-appreciation. He who is valiant for the truth because of the claim his fellow-men have upon it, and upon him if he has it in his possession, shows that he knows his place, his obligation, his opportunity as a man among men. He who is vEiliant for the truth for Christ's sake shows that he knows and honors his Lord, and would make him indeed Lord of all. Consider what Christ is to the substance of the truth; what he is to the authority and efficiency of the truth ; and what the truth is to him in the assertion and manifestation of his Lordship. The truth is not only Christ's as its great Re- vealer ; the truth is Christ as its gi-eat revelation. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." If we invert each of these phrases, we are not un- sound in logic or false to fact. To liim who asks, What is the way? we answer. The tvay is Christ. To him who would know, What is the life? we make reply, The life is Christ. And we proclaim, as that which is of the highest concern to man to know, the truth is Christ. He is the gi'eat embodi- ment of truth — truth incarnate. What he was, over and above all that he said, teaches us what we should seek in vain to learn elsewhere. He was the chief revelOition of the nature, the power, the love, the saving grace of God. What is God ? VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 67 What is holiness? What is redemption for sin- ners? He did not simply speak as never man spake on these high themes. We look to, we lay hold upon, himself, and find that he is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanc- tification and redemption. This is not bold metaphor merely; it is assui'ed fact. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." We are "complete in him." "In whom" (not merely by receiving and following information that he sup- plies) " we have our redemption through his blood, and forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace." He did indeed bear a witness above all other witness to the truth. " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." But his witness was more in what he was and what he did than in all that he said. " Grace and truth came" (not "were given" as the law "was given" by Moses) by Christ. How this adds to the authority and to the efficiency of the truth! And see what use he makes of the truth. By it he tests and measures men: his disciples, "He that is of the truth heareth my voice," the voice of the Teacher, the voice of the Truth : his enemies, " Because I tell you the truth, ye beheve me not." They reject in one act the truth and him, and show 68 PROFESSOR AIKEN. what they are. When he shall enter on his high and awfnl function as judge, peopling two worlds as he says, ''Come, ye blessed! Depart, ye cursed ! " it is according to the treatment of the truth that he makes his award. " Unto them that are factious and obey not the truth, but obey un- righteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish." Meanwhile it is largely by the instrumentality of the truth that those who are his ai-e made holy — " Seeing you have purified your souls in yoiu- obe- dience to the tmth." His Church, "the Church of the living God," is declared to be '' the pillar and ground of the truth." This it can never be by a mere passive support and upholding of a truth im- posed. The Church (eKKXT^aia) is a body "called out" by God's heralds, his Spirit, his Son, to abide, to stand, to be established. But however stable, the hving Chui'ch of the living God, intrusted with the upholding of his Hving truth, must have in exercise all that is active, forceful, courageous, and aggressive in the Christian life. And therefore, because of the fullness and sig- nificance of the several representations of what Christ is to the truth, and the truth to Christ, it is all the more manifest that they who are loyal to Christ will be for this reason and in this measure VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 69 valiant for the truth. We do no violence to the words of the sixtieth Psahn when we give them this specific appUcation : '^ Thou [0 Christ] hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may- be displayed because of the truth." The banner is a symbol of union and allegiance, a rallying-point for the mustering or moving host, a continual source of inspiration. Moses, after the battle with Amalek, built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi ('^The Lord," i.e., Jehovah, '4s my banner"). Those whose banner is not only the Lord's, but the Lord himself, cannot need any higher summons or motive to be valiant for the truth. This will be to the grateful, loving, loyal Christian the motive of motives — that Chi'ist, his Lord, is what he is to the truth, and that the truth is what it is to Christ. In our day, however, many influences are at work to neutralize the effect of all these considera- tions and appeals. There are subtle and plausible philosophies in vogue, and not among the learned only, that would make it absurd and preposterous to be very confident, or much in earnest in behalf of the truth. Pilate's question is popular : What is truth? and it is pressed upon us persistently from many sides with a sinister emphasis. For there are those who doubt, and there are those who 70 PROFESSOR AIKEN. teach men to doubt, whether there are any reliable criteria of truth — whether there is for us any cer- tain truth. And there are others whose material- istic faith reduces to a paltry minimum the worth of truth. Then there is the theoretical secularism and the practical secularism, that would have us waive these doubtful and fruitless questionings in view of the reality, the nearness, the urgency of those material necessities and interests that de- mand, for oui'selves and for others, all our thoughts and all our efficiency. It is not the hoarse clamor of the commune only which insists that the ideal and the spiritual must wait until more practical problems are solved. The infatuation of pleasure, the idolatry of gain, stifle in many more even the power of appreciating enthusiasm and earnestness in behalf of truth. In another quarter another class of untoward influences is at work, and the issue of the working is not yet in sight. A beUef is professed in higher things, in the reality and importance of truth, in respect to which one may possibly have deep and strong convictions, proiided he does not in any way by word or deed give too vehement or re- peated expression to it. The air is fuU of the praises of catholicity and toleration. Some hold it presumptuous, others grossly discourteous, others VALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 71 scliismatic, that confidence should be expressed and earnestness manifested in anything that goes be- yond the commonplaces of truth. Platitudes are admissible to any extent. Clear-cut faiths firmly held, vigorously defended, energetically urged upon others, are unfashionable. We know, however, of a Broad Churchism, that is tolerant not merely of diversities but of contradictions, that would re- mand zeal of a type exhibited by prophets and apostles to the centuries that are well left behind. We have heard pleadings for a thing so good in itself, and in measure good for so many practical reasons, as Christian union, which we find our- selves compelled to watch with double scrutiny since they would reduce to such a minimum the truth that we may be allowed to profess and pro- claim, and for which we are permitted to be valiant, and since from that minimum so much is excluded that has been in the past so inspiring to Chris- tian hope, so sustaining to Christian strength and heroism. This is an evil day for polemics and scholastics, and dogmatists and denominationahsts. The only man who may be valiant without falling into disrepute is the irenic ; he may be as dogmatic and combative as you please. We involuntarily caU to mind the unpopularity of Elijah, the troubler of Israel, with Ahab. In the view of some there 72 PROFESSOR AIKEN. are no other troublers of Israel like the persistent, aggressive behevers in truth. And on still another side constant pressure is put upon us to suppress part of our witness to the truth. The world is a great believer in the doctrine of the in\dsible Church— the Church that does not show the power of the truth and its own unswer\dng loy- alty to the truth by the conformity of its life to the truth. We may be allowed to beUeve what we are constrained to believe — or what we please— if only we do not let the truth too much change our conduct. Our creed may be the longest and the hardest and the most obnoxious, if we will conduct our business according to the maxims and methods of the world — entertain ourselves with its amusements, follow its capricious and imperious fashions. If there is no very noticeable difference in life between the Church and the world, the world wlQ not so much trouble itseK about our belief, except now and then slyly to propose the pertinent question, how we rec- oncile our conduct to our creed. Here, again, is a field in which Christian valor has an opportunity to show itseK, in vindicating the right of truth, and illustrating the power of truth to rule the life. In some social circles this is the severest test to which Christian valor is subjected. In view of all this we ask, Has "Valiant for yALIANT FOR THE TRUTH. 73 Truth," then, had his day ? May we say for him no more than ^' Peace to his ashes " ? In our national and social affairs a wholesome, timely, and needed reaction has begun to set in against the false cathohcity that was undermining the public welfare. Patriotism and statesmanship have begun to deal at various points with the ques- tion whether we have not swung open somewhat too widely the doors of our national hospitality. Our loud invitation — '^ Ho, every one ! " — has gone beyond the limits of pubHc safet}^ We are watch- ing somewhat more closely the immigrants across the two gi*eat oceans. We begin to question whether we are equal to the entertainment, govern- ment and assimilation of such a mixed multitude, who faU a-lusting so soon and so grossly after liberties and indulgences that are so strange, in- tolerable and abhorrent to us. We object to the emptying upon our shores of the poorhouses and prisons and slums and lazarettos of the Old World ,• we send back the imported refuse, and hold the importers responsible. Economists, and not dema- gogues of labor only, are writing on our statute- books restrictions upon the unlimited importation of foreign labor. Propositions are pending, or are awaiting introduction in our national Senate, against the free admission of anarchists and the 74 PROFESSOR AIKEN. deluded converts of Mormon emissaries. We have been stirred to a new ^dgilance in behalf of onr Christian and Puritan Sabbath, our social purity, our temperate temperance. Our rehgious press, our home missionary societies, our Evangelical Alh- ance, are arousing us to consider what a vast work we have already accumulated upon our hands. Let the good work go on. Let it make us watch- ful in the sphere of our religious life. The sons of Covenanters and Pilgrims and Huguenots — and these were they that laid the foundations both of Church and State among us — should not too readily and cheaply sell their birthright, or sleep while it is stolen from them. What would they have been, what should we have been, but for this love of truth and this valor for the truth? We must learn how to enlarge our love without expense to our faith 5 how to find and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace without the surrender of truth. And in proportion as needs are multi- plied and intensified we must be only the more loyal to the truth and its Lord, and vaUant for it and for him. SALVATION AS A WORK. By Pkof. William M. Paxton, D.D., LL.D. "Being confident of this vei'y thing, that he tohich hath he- gun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." — Philippians 1:6. ■^"TT^ORK is the subject of this text. The world ^^ is full of busy work ; the din of toil and the hum of industry is ever in our ears. But there is another work. Simultaneous with this work of the world, mingling with it, but rising above it in grandeur and importance, is another work — a di\dne work — a work for the salvation of souls. It is a work that has a strange secret of power. It is unseen and mysterious. It interpen- etrates the world's work and often overreaches it. It draws men more effectually than the attractions of the world's enjo}Tnents. It often separates them from worldly gains by the motive of more enduring riches. This work is going on busily amidst the world's active industries. Its agencies are organ- ized; wherever men gather in the market-place, there is one to say, '' Go ye into the vineyard." A 75 76 PROFESSOR PAXTON. divine message is meeting men in every avenue of life. The merchant hears it on 'Change, and stops to repeat the mysterious sound, " Lay up for yoiu'- self treasures in heaven." The farmer stops his plow in the furrow as he listens to the strange words, " Break ye up the fallow ground, and sow to yourselves in righteousness." The workman amidst the din and clank of machineiy hears a still small voice, more penetrating than the din of toil, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" The swift trains freighted with a nation's merchandise bear with them the agencies of the Gospel. The ships that carry the world's commerce carry also the missionary and the Bible to extend this work to the ends of the earth. This work is not only, like the world's work, external, but also invisible, secret, and mysterious. It is a work in the souls of men, quickening, re- newing, transforming. It generates a new life, forms a new character, and lifts man into alliance with God. Oh, there is nothing more sublime than to think that amidst all the noise and turmoil of the outward world this busy and mysterious work is silently going on in the souls of men, assimilat- ing them to the divine image, and preparing upon this earth the great family of God and the king- dom of heaven. SALyATlON AS A WORK. Ti This is the work that is presented to us in the text. Salvation as a ivork is here described in a minute and beautiful detail. I. It is a good worl. ''He who hath begun a good worlc in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." It is good in its experience. Nothing is so dehght- ful as salvation, nothing else brings such present enjoyment, or so meets the wants and desires of our troubled and agitated spirits. In every other work we wander in disquietude through the circuit of humanity, but this brings us at once to the Creator, and, having found the center of rest and satisfaction, we wander no more. One distinguished for knowledge and wisdom records his experience of salvation thus : "So long as I strove after earthly good and earthly wisdom there was in this striving nothing but restlessness and disquiet ; but now in the hope of salvation all my cares and desires have become so tranquiHzed that there is continual peace.'' To this he adds : '' I long thought that life ceased when religion be- gan 5 but, behold ! I have found that then first I lived when I began to love " (Tholuck). Such, indeed, is salvation with every one in whom the good work is truly experienced. They only then begin to Hve. The past, with all that they caUed pleasure and 78 PROFESSOR PAXTON. enjoyment, seems unworthy to be called life. The new life is so much higher and nobler, its pulses beat with such an intenser thrill, and its issues of love, joy and hope impart such a present, conscious bliss, that they seem as if waking up for the first time to real existence. The sun shines brighter, the earth is robed in new beauty, the sky glitters with a richer glory ; existence assumes a grander aspect, action a higher aim, hope a nobler object, and the soul a sublimer destiny. Such and so good is salvation in its actual enjoy- ment. The language of the Prophet, in the utter- ance of his own experience, is the language of every one whose heart thriUs under a felt sense of salva- tion : ''I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God 5 for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isaiah 61 : 10). II. This good tvorJc is, secondly j described in the text as an inward or internal worJc. "He which hath begun a good work in yo\iP It is not a work with- out, but a ivorli within. When some visitors were admiring the books of the large library of a pious prelate, he replied, " One thought of devotion outweighs them aU." This was a fine expression of the superior value of that which is inward and spiritual. True religion has SALVATION AS A IVORK. 79 its visible and external expressions, but they have no value unless they spring from a devout heart. Our Lord pointed out this distinction when he commended the gift of the widow's mite. Ex- ternally and visibly the gift was insignificant, but internally and spiritually it was of great value, because it expressed the devout self-sacrifice of the widow's hesirt. It is a great and sublime fact that the Holy Ghost, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, dwells in the Christian. True religion is the new life with which he quickens the soul ; hence rehgion is essentially a work within. All the issues of the Christian life must come from the heart. Re- demption is a work without, a work wrought for US; but salvation is a good work wrought in us. If the external work of redemption is not appro- priated and experienced in its internal efficacy, it is aU in vain. Obvious as all this is, it is strangely misconceived and perverted. In this age of exter- nalism, when so much thought and energy is ex- pended upon that which is outward and material, it seems impossible to get people to understand the inwardness of true rehgion. It is misconceived by many wlio mistalce rites and ceremonies for true religion. It -is the old mistake of the Pharisees, which our Lord so strongly re- 80 PROFESSOR PAXTON. buked, repeated age after age. They substitute the form for the power of godliness. The Scriptures everywhere teach that true religion consists in truth and purity in the inward parts. The Apostle Paul warns us that nothing outward is of any avail except as connected with a devout heart ; that proph- ecy, alms-giving, and even martjTdom, are noth- ing without love. " Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me noth- ing" (1 Cor. 13 : 3). '' The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14 :17). The inwardness of true religion is also miscon- ceived hy those ivho mistalce morality for religion. Of these there are several classes. There are rational- istic theories of ethics which sever morality from religion, making religion simply a sentiment and moral conduct the essential thing. The result is to kill both morality and religion. There are some who confound the work of reformation with the work of salvation. They imagine that because they have reformed some of their external habits they are Christians. This is often a simple mis- take springing from an ignorance or misconcep- tion of the truth of God. There are others (and in this age of external action it is to be feared it is a SALTATION AS A IVORK. 81 large class) who give themselves so exclusively to the activities of what is called Christian and benev- olent work that they neglect to realize the inward- ness of true reUgion in their own experience, or to develop those interior elements of spiritual life without which they are "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." There are still others who seem to have the idea that morahty will produce religion in then* hearts ; and by entering upon the practice of moral duties they indulge the expectation that this wiU lead to an experience of religion in their own souls. All these classes agree in one thing — in over- looking or ignoring the inwardness of true relig- ion; failing to realize that it is a good work wrought in them by the grace of God. They are all attempting to make the fruit good without first making the tree good^ or to purify the stream with- out first cleansing the fountain. All these efforts to externalize reUgion are included in oiu* Lord's rebuke when he said : "Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter ; but your inward part is full of ravening and wicked- ness. Ye fools, did not he, that made that which is without, make that which is within also ? " (Luke 11 : 39, 40.) Dr. James W. Alexander said, speaking to young men : " Inward, inward we must go for the 82 PROFESSOR PAXTON. true elaboration of gracious virtues. We may give ourselves too exclusively to visible activities, and have to take up the lamentation, ^ They have made me keeper of vineyards, but mine own vineyard I have not kept.' It is a great moment in a man's life when he awakes to the conviction that of all the works he has to perform the greatest is within his own breast." III. This good ivorTi is, thirdly, described in the text as a divine ivorh. "Being confident of this very thing, that he " (that is, God) " which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jessu Christ." It is a work which God begins, per- forms (or carries forward), and finishes in the day of Jesus Christ. It seems rather singular, in view of so distinct an inspired announcement, that this should be precisely the point of divergence between the two great theological systems which have di- vided the Chm'ch for so many ages. The question is. Who begins the work of salvation ? The Armin- ian answers, Man himself 5 the first movement of the soul to God begins in the self -determining power of the human will. The Calvinist, upon the other hand, maintains that the work begins with God, and owes aU its efi&cacy, in its origin, contin- uance and consummation, to divine gi-ace. It is easy to see on which side of the question the Apos- SALVATION AS A U^'ORK. 83 tie stands^ when in the text he attributes the whole work from first to last to the power of God. In- deed, if the Bible be received as the word of God, and its simple teachings be left unadulterated by the interpretations of a worldly philosophy, there can be no doubt upon this point. That salvation is the good worTi of God follows, first, from its internal character. If it be a work in us, then he alone who made the soul can enter in to rectify and reconstruct it. Secondly, from the nature of the worh It is a cre- ation. Who can create but he who spake and it was done? It is a resurrection. Who but God can raise the dead 1 '' You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins " (Eph. 2:1). The soul thus raised is then illuminated, and who but he who commanded light to shine out of darkness can shine into oui- minds, ^^to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ"? Thirdly, this follows from the Scripture descriptions of salvation as the ivorl of God in all its issues. Its origin is in God. " Brethren beloved of the Lord," says the Apostle, "we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation" (2 Thess. 2: 13, 14). Its source is in God. "He hatli saved us, 84 PROFESSOR PAXTON. and called us T\itli an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus be- fore the world began" (2 Tim. 1:9). Its appoint- ment is of God. " For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5 : 9). Its execution is of God. '^It is God which worketh in you both to w^ill and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2 : 13). Its grant is of God. '' This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son " (1 John 5 : 11). Its efficacy is of God. " He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God " (2 Cor. 5:5). Its continuance is of God. "He is able to keep you from falling, and to present you fault- less before the presence of his glory with exceed- ing joy" (Jude 24). Accordingly we read that the whole company of the redeemed from the earth, out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, as the}^ stand before the throne and the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands, cry with a loud voice : " Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb "(Rev. 7:9, 10). lY. Again, Jet us notice as a fourth point that sal- vation is described in our text as a 2>^ogressive worJc. " He who hath begun a good work in you will per- SALIVATION AS A IVORK. 85 form itJ^ The idea is that of a continuous, pro- gressive performance. He will cany it on to its ultimate completion in the day of Jesus Christ. All the works of God are progressive. The cre- ation of the world was not instantaneous and per- fect, but gradual and progressive, as the plastic hand of the Creator wrought amid chaos bruiging beauty and order out of confusion, molding the world, spreading out the heavens, fashioning the stars, ordaining the sun and moon, garnishing the earth, till aU stood forth in the perfection of beauty, and he pronounced it good. Revelation in like manner progi-essed continuously from the first dim dawn of antediluvian promise through the faint, glimmering morning of the patriarchal age and the increasing light of the prophetic period to the full-orbed, noontide effulgence of the cross of Christ. Such also is the law of gradual and continuous progress in the work of grace ; hence it is com- pared in the Scriptures to everything that is char- acterized by growth. To the priiici]}U of vegetation, as described by our Lord : " First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.'^ It is like the mustard-seed, in its first appearance the small- est, and in its ultimate development the greatest, of all trees. In like manner it is compared to light, 86 PROFESSOR PAXTON. growing brighter and brighter to the perfect day. To life, at first infantile, but the babe in Christ gi'ows to the stature of the perfect man in Christ .Jesus. To the progress of industrial labor: "Ye also as lively stones ai-e built up a spiritual house " (1 Peter 2:5). To the oidgroivth of mechanical skill : '^ He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God" (2 Cor. 5: 5). Notice for a moment the point of this last figure. As the mechanic forges his bar and works it by a progressive process for a specific purpose, so "he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God." If a piece of fine, polished, flexible steel could tell the histor}^ of the processes which have made it what it is, it would have to tell of much work done upon it, and of a great change wrought in it. It was once a dark, impure mass, scarcely to be distinguished from the stones with which it was mixed and incorporated. It would have to tell of the force that dug it out of dark- ness, of the blows that broke it into pieces, of the crucible in which it was closely imprisoned, of the heaps of charcoal that overlaid and of the intense fires melting the metal, changing the charcoal into a subtle gas, and forcing the new element to mix mth the whole substance of the iron. It would have to teU, too, how again and again it had to SALTATION AS A IVORK. 87 feel the heavy blows of the hammer, the heat of the fui'ious fii*e, the plunge into hissing, steaming water, and how it was not till after much pro- tracted labor that the dull, heavy, brittle iron became steel, rivaling in brightness the polished silver, and in toughness the strongest cable. In like manner the Christian is wrought by God himself for his present work and futui'e destiny. All the trials and temptations, all the sorrows and suffering, aU the various changes and chances of the Christian's life, are just the blows of the hammer or the flames of the furnace that in God's providence and grace are preparing him for his futui'e bliss. So that if a saint already bright and glittering in his inherit- ance of Kght could tell us of the processes by which he was made what he is, he would have to tell how he was dug out of the hole of the pit, of many a melting crucible, of many a plunge into the water, of many a blow of the hammer, of the fires that have been piled over and around him in the fui-nace of afiSiction, diiving into his softened spirit that divine piinciple which has changed, not indeed the substance, but the character and qualities of his nature, giving strength instead of weakness, and infusing the grace that bends to the will of God. He would have to tell of these pro- cesses long continued and again reapplied, of fire 88 PROFESSOR PAXTON. kindled upon fire and blow succeeding blow, and that it was not until after mucli working and pro- gressive refining that he was made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. V. Our text furnishes another invaluable point of doctrinal instruction. This blessed, internal, di- vine, progressive work is here described as a work that will assitredhj be completed. Of this the Apostle gives us a double expression of his confidence. ^^ Being confident of this very thing, ''^ it is a point about which there can be no room for doubt that " he who hath begun a good work in you ivill per- form it till the day of Jesus Christ." 1. This strong confidence of the Apostle is based upon the character of Ood. The simple fact that God hath begun a good work was the assurance that he would complete it. If salvation were the work of man, if either the beginning, continuance, or termination of the work depended upon our- selves, there could be no groimd of certainty or confidence in the matter. But the simple fact that God has begun a good work in us leaves no room fco doubt but he will carry it on to its uttermost perfection. God abandons nothing that he under- takes. There are no unfinished worlds or systems, no half -made or forsaken works of his hands. Be- sides this, there can be no reason why he should SAtyATION AS A WORK. 89 begin such a work and then abandon it. It cannot be because lie lias no power to complete it, or be- cause there are more enemies to be overcome than he had supposed. There is no evidence in the works of creation of any change of plan, or of his having forsaken what he began, from disappoint- ment or disgust. He tells us himself what judg- ment should be formed of a builder who, having begun at great expense to erect a house, should leave it unfinished. Shall we, then, suppose that God, who hath purchased om* souls with the blood of his dear Son, and has laid in our heai'ts the foun- dation of his spii'itual temple, will at last leave tliai for the habitation of devils which he has been so long forming for himself? The very supposition is absm^d, and its maintenance blasphemous. To suppose that God would leave unfinished a work which he has ah*eady begun is to impute weakness and imperfection to the all-perfect and ever-blessed God. 2. Willie tins confidence might rest rvitJi perfect security upon tlie dasis of tlie cliiine character, it has also for its foundation the sure ^Vord of di line prom- ise. These promises are of two kinds : (1) That nothing shall destroy this work, yot temptation, for " God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will 90 PROFESSOR PAXTON. with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it " (1 Cor. 10 : 13). Not sin, for ^^sin shall not have dominion over you" (Romans 6 : 14). Not Satan, for the " God of all peace shall bruise Satan imder your feet shortly " (Romans 16 ; 20). All this the Saviour compre- hends in one single promise : "I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand " (John 10:28). (2) Added to these are promises of actual grace and strength, and assurances that he will carry on and perfect the work. '^As thy day so shall thy strength be" (Deut. 33 : 25). " The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger" (Job 17 : 9). "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Cor. 12:9). "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13 : 5). " Though the mountains depart and the hills be removed, my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed" (Isaiah 54:10). The Spmt of Truth, pointing to the grand inheritance beyond the grave, assures us that it is "reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1 Peter 1:4 5). In view of all these assm-ances, we may boldly take our SALVATION AS A IVORK. 91 stand with the Apostle upon the strength and covenant promise of God, and throw out our chal- lenge to the world: ^^Who shall lay an}i:hing to the charge of God's elect?" (Romans 8 : 33, 39.) VI. Finally^ our text informs us of the time when this work will he completed. " Will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ/^ that is, the day of his second coming, the day of his glorious appearing, when he shall come T^dthout sin unto salvation, to be admired in all his saints, but to the terror of all his enemies. '' Behold, he cometh with clouds j and every eye shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him " (Rev. 1:7). This day is called his day, because it will be the day of his glory and triumph, when he shaU see the travail of his soul and be satisfied, when aU enemies shall be put under his feet, and every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Upon this day, the coronation-day of the King of Glory, when the trumpet shall sound, and all that are in their graves shall hear the call of the Son of Man and come forth, a voice, we are told, shall issue from the throne, saying, ''It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 21 : 6). It is done. Redemption is done, salvation is fin- ished; he who began the good work in you, the 92 PROFESSOR PAXTON. Alpha of its incipiency, is now the Omega of its completion. He hath performed it until the day of Jesus Christ. The simple truth thus taught us is, salvation wiU be finished tlien — and this is the confidence of the Christian ; and not tiU then — and this is the death of presumptuous perfectionism. But is not salva- tion complete at death? Nay, verily. The salva- tion of the soul is, for on that very day it shall be ^ith Chiist in Paradise ; but not of the body, for it must repose in the grave till the Resurrection. At death, therefore, salvation is but half achieved. The soul is disenthi*alled, but the body, oiu* dear mortal half, lies in the dust endui'ing the dishonors of the gi-ave and the bondage of corruption. Until the day of Jesus Christ, therefore, we wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body, for it also shall be delivered from the bondage of cor- ruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Then, when the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and our happy spirits reunited to bodies now glori- fied, salvation will be finished. The soul and the body rewedded in a holy, happy, and indissoluble union is salvation in its uttermost perfection. In conclusion, the whole subject resolves itself into one single inquir^^ : Is this good work begun in you ? Without it you are of no value. Salva- SALy/ITION AS A WORK. 93 tion is the tie that connects man with his Creator and binds him to his throne. If the tie does not exist; existence has no object. You float away a worthless atom in the universe, its proper attrac- tion all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. But with this work begun in you, you are one of the precious sons of God, for whom this earth was reared and canopied with yon bright and burning blazonr}^ Without it you have missed the end of your creation, you are the cast-off lumber of crea- tion, forever to be bui^ned; but with it you are God's workmanship, and inheritors of an heirdom of glory. The efficiency is God's, the instrumen- tality is yours. It is youi's to work, to '' work out your own salvation, with fear and trembling '' ; it is God's to " work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." INCARNATE TRUTH. Bt Prof. Benjamin B. Warfield, D.D., LL.D. "And the Word icas made flesh, and dicelt among us, . . . full of . . . truth.''—Jom^l:U. npHE obvious resemblance between the prologue -*- to John's Gospel and the proem of Genesis is not a matter of mere phraseology and external form. As the one, in the brief compass of a few verses, paints the whole history of the creation of a universe with a 'vdvidness which makes the quick- ened imagination a witness of the process, so the other in still briefer compass traces the whole his- tory of the re-creation of a dead world into newness of life. In both we are first pointed back into the depths of eternity, when only God was. In both we are bidden to look upon the chaotic darkness of lawless matter or of lawless souls, over which the brooding Spirit was yet to move. In both, as the tremendous pageants are unroUed before our eyes, we are made to see the Living God ; and to see him as the Light and the Life of the world, the De- 94 INCARNATE TRUTH. 95 stroyer of all darkness, the Author of all good. Here too, however, the Old Testament revelation is the preparation for the better to come. In it we see God as the God of power and of wisdom, the Author and Orderer of all j in this we see him as the God of goodness and mercy, the Restorer and Redeemer of the lost. Law was given thi^ough Moses 5 gi'ace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Through what a sublime sweep does the Apostle lead oui* panting thought as he strives to tell us who and what the Word is, and what he has done for men. He lifts the veil of time, that we may peer into the changeless abyss of eternity and see him as he is, in the mystery of his being, along with God and yet one with God — ^in some deep sense distinct from God, in some higher sense identical with God. Then he shows us the divine work which he has wrought in time. He is the All- Creator — '^ all things were made by him, and with- out hiTTi was not anything made that hath been made." He is the All-Illuminator — he ''was the true Light that hghteth every man that cometh into the world." And now in these last days he has become the All-Redeemer — prepared for by his prophet, he came to his own, and his own received him not 5 but " as many as received him," without regard to race or previous preparation, ''he gave 96 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. to them the right to become children of God, to them that believe on his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Then the climax of this great discourse breaks on us as we are told how the Word, when he came to his own, manifested himself to flesh. It was by himself becoming flesh, and tab- ernacling among us, full of grace and truth. He came as Creator, as Revealer, as Redeemer : as Cre- ator, preparing a body for his habitation ; as Reveal- er, " trailing clouds of glory as he came '^ j as Re- deemer, heaping grace on grace. It is clear that it is primarily in its aspect as a revelation of God that John is here contemplating the incarnation. Accordingly, he bears his per- sonal witness to it as such : " The "Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and ice beheld his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten of the Father." Accordingly, too, he summons the prophetic witness of the forerunner. And accordingly, still further, he closes the whole with a declaration of the nature of the revelation made, and its guarantee in the re- lation of the incarnated Word to the Father : " No man hath seen God at any time ; God only-begotten which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath de- clared him." In the special verse from which we have taken INCARNATE TRUTH. 97 our text we perceive, then, that John isJoearing his personal witness: ^^And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and ive beheld his glory. ^^ He is teUing us what of his own immediate knowledge he knows — testifying what he had heard, what he had seen with his eyes, what he had beheld and his hands had handled. An eye-witness to Christ's majesty, he had seen his glory and beai's his willing witness to it. Nor must we fancy that he gives us merely a subjective opinion of his own, as if he were telling us only that the man Jesus was so full of grace and truth in his daily walk that he, look- ing upon him admii-ingly, had been led to conject- ure that he was more than man. He testifies not to subjective opinion but to objective fact. We observe that the testimony is made up of three as- sertions. First, we have the fact, the objective fact, of the incarnation asserted : "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Secondly, we have the self-evidencing glory of the incarna- tion asserted : "And we beheld his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten of the Father." And thii-dly, we have the characteristic elements which entered into and constituted the glory which he brought from heaven with him and exhibited to men, as- serted: "Full of grace and truth." Jesus Christ was incarnated love and tmth. And precisely what 98 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. John witnesses is, that the Word did become flesh, and dwelt among men, full of grace and truth, and that the blaze of this his glory was manifest to every seeing eye that looked upon him. Now it seems evident, fui^ther, that John had an especial form of the manifestation of love and truth before his mind when he wrote these words. He is thinking of the covenant God, who proclaimed himself to Moses on the mount when he descended on the cloud as ^' Jehovah, Jehovah, a God fiill of compassion, and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth." He is thinking of David's prayer, "O prepare loving- kindness and truth" J and his heart biu-ns within him as he sees them now prepared. It is the thought of Christ's redeeming work which is filling his mind, and which leads him to sum up the revela- tion of the incarnation in the revelation of love and truth. Therefore he says, not "love," but " grace " — undeserved love to sinners. And in "truth" he is thinking chiefly of Christ's "faith- fulness." The divine glory that rested as a nim- bus on the Lord's head was compounded before all else of his ineffable love for the unlovely, of his changeless faitlifulness to the unfaithful. For in Christ, God conmiended his love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. INCARNATE TRUTH. 99 Nevertheless, it would be a serious error to con- fine the words as here used to this single implica- tion. This is rather the culmination and climax of their meaning than the whole extent and imple- tion of it. Christ is not only love as manifested in grace, but as the God of love manifest in the flesh he is love itself in all its height and breadth. Not only the loftiest reaches of love, love for the undeserving, find then* model in him, but all the love that is in the world finds its som-ce and must seek its support in him. His was the love that wept at the grave of a friend and over the earthly sorrows of Jerusalem, that yearned T\dth the be- reaved mother at Nain, and took the little children into his ai'ms to bless them; as well as the love that availed to offer himself a sacrifice for sin. In like manner, that John has especially in mind here the highest manifestations of truth — our Lord's trustiness in the great work of salvation — in no way empties the word of its lower connotations. He is still the true Light that lightetli every man that cometh into the world ; and all the truth that is in the world comes from him and must seek its strength in him. ^' We beheld his glory," says the Apostle, ^^fulV^ — complete, perfect — "of grace and truth." And perfection of love and truth avails for all theii' manifestations. This man, the man 100 PROFESSOR WARFIELD. Christ Jesus, could not act in any relation other- wise than lovingly, could not speak on any subject otherwise than truly. He is the pure fountain of love and truth. I. We confine ourselves on the present occasion to the latter of the two chai-acteristics here brought together. And, doing so, the first message which the declaration brings us is one so obvious that, in cii'cumstances other than those in which we are now standing, it would seem an insult to oui' intel- ligence to direct attention to it. It is this, that since Jesus Chi-ist oui* Lord, the manifested Jeho- vah, was as such the incarnation of ti-uth, no state- ment which ever fell fi-om his hps can have con- tained any admixtui*e of error. This is John's tes- timony. For let us remind ourselves again that he is here bearing his witness, not to the essential truth of the di\dne nature incarnated in our Lord prior to its incarnation, but to the fullness of tnith which dwelt in the God-man: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glorj^, . . . full of . . . truth." More — it is the testimony of our Lord himseK. " I," he declared, with his majestic and pregnant bre\dty, " I am the Truth." Nor dare we fancy that his plenitude of truth is exhausted in his witness to the great and eternal verities of religion, while the pettier affairs INCARNATE TRUTH. 101 of earth and man are beyond its reach. His own norm of judgment is that only he that is faithful in the least may be trusted with the gi*eat. And it was testified of him not only that he knew whence he came and w^hither he went, but equally that he knew all men and needed not that any should bear witness of man, for he himseK knew what was in man. He himself suspends his trustworthiness as to heavenly things upon his trustworthiness as to earthly things : "Verily, verily, I say unto you, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen 5 and ye receive not our mtness. If I told you earthly things and ye beheve not, how shall ye be- lieve if I tell you heavenly things ? " Are we beating the air when we remind ourselves of such things ? Would that we were ! But alas ! we are fallen on evil days, when we need to defend the ti'uth of incarnate truth itself against the as- persions of even its professed fi-iends. Oh, the un- imaginable lengths to which the intellectual pride of men will carry them ! Has one spun out some flimsy fancy as to the origin and composition of certain Old Testament books, which is found to clash with Jesus' testimony to their authorship and trustworthiness? We are coolly told that "as a teacher of spii'itual truth sent from God and full of God he is universal," but " as a logician and critic 102 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. he belongs to his times/' and therefore had ^'a definite, restricted outfit and outlook, which could be only those of his o^ti day and generation." >^ Why should he be supposed to know the science of the criticism of the Old Testament/' we are asked, " which began to exist centuries after his death ? " Does another cherish opinions as to the interpreta- tion of certain Old Testament passages which will not square with the use that Chi'ist makes of them ? He teUs us at once that ^'interpretation is essen- tially a scientific function, and one conditioned by the existence of scientific means, which, in relation to the Old Testament, were only imperfectly at the command of Jesus." Has another adopted precon- ceptions which render our Lord's dealings with the demoniacs distasteful to him ? He too reminds us that the habit of ascribing disease to demoniacal influences was universal in Jesus' day, and that we can scarcely expect him to be free from the cur- rent errors of his time. Let us cut even deeper. When one desu-es to break out a " larger hope " for those who die impenitent than Christ's teachings win allow, he suggests that in his efforts to lead his hearers to repentance Jesus spoke habitually as a popular preacher, and far more strongly than he could have permitted himself to do had he been an exact theologian. When another burns with a zeal INCARNATE TRUTH. 103 for moral reform which is certainly not according to knowledge, he suggests that we have reached a stage of ethical development when " new and larger perceptions of truth " have brought " new and larger perceptions of duty '' than were attainable in Christ's day, and are accordingly bound to govern our lives by stricter rules than would apply to him in that darker age. Or, to sum up the whole, we have been recently told plainly that " Christ in his man- hood was not the equal of Newton in mathematical knowledge," and not " the equal of Wellhausen in literary criticism," because — so we are actually told — the pursuit of such sciences requires " much ex- ercise of mind." Is, then, the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world gone out in darkness ? What is left us of the Truth Indeed, who proclaims him- seK no more the Way and the Life than the Truth, if his testimony cannot be trusted as to the nature, origin, authority, and meaning of the Scriptures of which his own Spirit was the inspirer j as to the constitution of that spiritual world of which he is the Creator and the King ; as to the nature of that future state which it is his to determine as Judge ; or as to the moral life of which he is the sole au- thor ? Yet these are devout men who are propagating such teachings ; and each has of course his own way 104 PROFESSOR JVARFIELD. of saving himself from conscious blasphemy in erecting his own tiiought above the thought of the God-man. The most popular way at present is to suggest that when God became man he so surren- dered the attributes of divinity as that, though God, he had shrunk to the capacity of man, and, accept- ing the weaknesses, become subject also to the lim- itations of a purely human life in the world. Thus it is sought to save the veracity of the Lord at the expense of his knowledge, his truthfulness at the expense of his truth. But who can fail to see that, were this true, the sorrowing world would be left, like Mary standing weeping in the garden and oYy- ing, " They have taken away my Lord " ? Where then would be Christ our Prophet? Who could assure us of his trustiness in his witness to his one- ness with God, to his mission from God, to the completeness of his work for our salvation ? Faith has received a serious wound, as it has been well phrased, if we are to believe that Jesus Christ could have been deceived; if we are to beheve that he could — wittingly or unwittingly — deceive, faith has received its death-blow. Let us bless the Lord, then, that he has left us little excuse for doubting in so important a matter. To the law and the testimony. Is the man Christ Jesus dramatized before us in the length and breadth INCARNATE TRUTH. 105 of that marvelous history which fills these four Gos- pels, as a child of his times, limited by the intel- lectual outlook of his times, or rather as a teacher to his times, sent from God as no more the power of God than the msdom of God ? Is he represented to us as leai-ning what he taught us fi'om men, or, as he himself bore witness, from God ? — " My teach- ing is not mine, but his that sent me ; '' '^ I am come down out of heaven," and '^ he that hath sent me is true " ; and ^^ the things that I have heard from him, these speak I unto the world." Did he even in his boyhood amaze the Doctors in the temple by his understanding (Luke 2 : 47) ? Did he know even " letters," not having learned them from man (John 7 : 15) ? Did he see Nathanael when, under the fig-tree, he bowed in secret prayer (John 1 : 47) ? Did he know without human informant all things that ever the Samaritan woman did (John 4 : 29) ? Did he so search the heart of man that he saw the thoughts of his enemies (Matt. 9:4); knew that one of the twelve whom he had chosen was a " devil " (John 6 : 70) ; led Peter to cry in his adoring dis- tress, ^' Lord, thou knowest all things, thou know- est that I love thee " (John 20 : 17) ; and called out the testimony of John that " he knew aU men, and needed not that any should bear witness concern- ing man, for he himself knew what was in man " 106 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. (John 2 : 25) ; as well as the testimony of all the disciples that they knew that he came from God, because "he knew all things" (John 16 : 30) ? * But why need we go into the details that are spread from one end to the other of these Gospels ? In our text itself John bears witness that the full- ness of truth which dwelt in the incarnate Word so glorified all his life as to mai-k him out as the Son of God : " The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory as of an only- begotten of the Father, full of truth." We surely need not fear to take oui' stand not only by the truthfulness but by the truth of our Lord. We surely need not shrink fi^om, with the utmost sim- plicity, embracing, proclaiming, and hving by his views of God and the universe, of man and the world. It was he that made the world ; and with- out him was not anything made that hath been made. Who shaU teach him how its beams were laid or how its structure has gi'own ? It was he that revealed the Word. Who shaU teach him how were written or what is intended by the words which he himself gave through his servants the prophets ? It is he who is at once the Source and Standard of the moral law, and the Fount and Ori- gin of all compassion for sinful man. Who shall teach him what it is right to do, or how it is loving INCARNATE TRUTH. 107 to deal with the children of men f We need not fear lest we be asked to credit Jesus against the truth ; we may confide wholly in him^ because he is the Truth. II. Nor let us do this timidly. Trust is never timid. Just because Jesus is the Truth, while we without reserve accept, proclaim, and live by every word which he has spoken, not fearing that after all it may prove to be false, we may with equal confidence accept, proclaim, and live by every other truth that may be made known to us, not feariag that after a while it may prove to contradict the Truth himself. Thus we may be led to the formu- lation of a second message which the text brings us : That since Jesus Christ oui- Lord, the Founder of our religion, was the very incarnation of truth, no truth can be antagonistic to the rehgion which he founded. John teUs us that he was the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ; and we may read this as meaning that as the Word of God, the great Revealer, it is he that leads man by whatever path to the attainment of whatever truth. There is, then, no truth in the world which does not come from him. It matters not through what channel it finds its struggling way into our consciousness or to our recognition, — whether our darkened eyes are enabled to catch 108 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. theii' glimpse of it by the light of natiu'e, as we say, by the light of reason, by the light of history, or by the hght of criticism. These may be but broken lights ) but they are broken lights of that one Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Every fragment of truth which they re- veal to us comes fi'om him who is the Truth, and is rendered gi^eat and holy as a revelation from and of him. We must not, then, as Christians, assume an attitude of antagonism toward the truths of rea- son, or the truths of philosophy, or the truths of science, or the truths of history, or the truths of criticism. As children of the light, we must be careful to keep oui'selves open to eveiy ray of Hght. If it is light, its soui'ce must be sought in him who is the true Light 5 if it is truth, it belongs of right to him who is the plenitude of truth. All natural truths must be — in vaiying degrees indeed, but all ti'uly — in some sense commentaries on the super- naturally revealed truth ; and by them we may be led to fuller and more accurate comprehension of it. Nature is the handiwork of God in space ; his- tory' marks his pathway through time. And both nature and history are as infallible teachers as revelation itself, could we but skill to read their message aright. It is distressingly easy to misin- INCARNATE TRUTH. 109 terpret them ; but their employment in the elucida- tion of Scriptui'e is, in principle, closely analogous to the interpretation of one Scripture by another, though written by another human hand and at an interval of an age of time. God speaks through his instruments. Prediction interprets prediction j doctrine, doctrine 5 and fact, fact. Wherever a gleam of light is caught, it illuminates^ The true Light, fi'om whatsoever reflected, ligliteth. Let us, then, cultivate an attitude of courage as over against the investigations of the day. None should be more zealous in them than we. None should be more quick to discern truth in every field, more hospitable to receive it, more loyal to follow it whithersoever it leads. It is not for Christians to be lukewarm in regard to the investi- gations and discoveries of the time. Rather, the followers of the Truth Indeed can have no safety, in science or in philosophy, save in the arms of truth. It is for us, therefore, as Christians, to push investigation to the utmost ; to be leaders in every science ; to stand in the van of criticism ; to be the first to catch in every field the voice of the Revealer of truth, who is also our Redeemer. The curse of the Church has been her apathy to truth, in which she has too often left to her enemies that study of nature and of history and philosophy, and even 110 PROFESSOR H^ARFIELD. that iiivestigation of her own peculiar treasures, the Scriptures of God, which should have been her chief concern. Thus she has often been forced to learn from the inadvertent or unwilling testimony of her foes the facts she has needed to protect her- self from then- assaults. And thus she has been led to borrow from them false theories in philosophy, science, and criticism, to make unnecessary conces- sions to them, and to expose herself, as they changed their positions from time to time, to unnecessary disgrace. What has the Church not suffered from her unwillingness to engage in truly scientific work! She has nothing to fear from truth j but she has everything to fear, and she has already suffered nearly eveiything, from ignorance. All truth belongs to us as followers of Christ, the Truth ; let us at length enter into our inheritance. III. In so speaking, we have already touched somewhat upon a third message which our text brings us : That since Christ Jesus our Lord and Master is incarnate Truth, we as his children must love the truth. Like him, we must be so single of eye, so stead- fast in purpose, so honest in word, that no guile can be found in our mouth. The philosophers have sought variously for the sanction of truth. Kant found it in the respect a man owes to the INCARNATE TRUTH. Ill dignity of his own moral nature: the liar must despise himself because l}ing is pai-tial suicide — it is the renunciation of what we are and the substitution of a feigned man in our place. Fichte found it in our sense of justice toward om- fellow- men : to he is to lead others astray and subject theu' freedom to our selfish ends — it is ultimately to destroy society by destroying trust among men. From each of these points of view a powerful motive to truth may be developed. It is unmanly to he ; it is unneighborly to he. It wiU destroy both our seK-respect and all social Hfe. But for us as Christians no sanction can approach in power that derived from the simple fact that as Christians we are "of the Tmth" j that we are not of him who when he speaketh a he speaketh of his own^ who is a har and the father thereof, but of him who is the fullness of truth — who is light and in whom is no darkness at all. As the children of truth, truth is our essential nature; and to he is to sin against that incarnate Truth who is also our Lord and Re- deemer—in whom, we are told, no hai* can have part or share. Bare avoidance of falsehood is far, however, from fulfilling our whole duty as lovers of truth. There is a positive duty, of course, as well as this negative one beckoning us. We have already noted the im- 112 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. pulse which should thence arise to investigation and research. If all tiTith is a revelation of oni' Lord; what zeal we should have to possess it, that we may the better know him ! As childi'en of the truth we must love the truth, every" truth in its own order, and therefore especially and above all others those truths w^hich have been revealed by God for the salvation of the world. How tenacious we should be in holding them, how persistent in prop- agating them, how insistent in bearing our wit- ness to them ! " To this end was I born," said our Lord himself, '' and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.'' And we too, as his servants, must be, each in his place, witnesses of the truth. This is the high function that has been given us as followers of Jesus : as the Father sent him into the world, so he has sent us into the world, to bear witness of the truth. We all know in the midst of what dangers, in the midst of what deaths, those who have gone before us have fulfilled this trust. " Martyrs," we call them 5 and we call them such truly. For '•'' martyrs " means " witnesses " ; and they bore their witness despite cross and sword, fire and raging beasts. So constant was their witness, so undis- mayed, that this proverb has enshrined their eulogy INCARNATE TRUTH. 113 for all time, that " the blood of the martp's was the seed of the Chui'ch." They were our fathers : have we inherited theii' spirit ? If we be Christians at all, must not we too be "martp's/' "witnesses"? mnst not we too steadfastly bear oiu' witness to the truth assailed in oiu' time ? There may be no more fii-es lighted for our quivering flesh : are there no more temptations to a guilty silence or a weak evasion ? Surely there is witness still to be borne, and we are they to bear it. The popular poet of the day sings against "the hard God served in Jerusalem," and aU the world goes after him. But we — do we not know him to be the God of our sal- vation? the God who hath lovingly predestinated us unto the adoption of sons, thi-ough Jesus Chi'ist, unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his gi-ace ? May God grant that in times like these, when men wiU not endure the sound doctrine, we may be enabled by his grace to bear unwavering witness to the glory of the Lord God Almighty, who " hath made every- thing for its own purpose, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." Need we pause further to enforce that highest form of the love of the truth, the love of the Gospel of God's gi^ace, which braves aU things for the pure joy of making known the riches of his love to fallen 114 PROFESSOR IVARFIELD. men ? The missionary spirit is the noblest fruit of the love of truth 5 the missionary's simple procla- mation the highest form of witness-beaiing to the J^ruth. This spirit is no stranger among yon. And I am persuaded that your hearts are bm-ning within you as you think that to you '' this gi^ace has been given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the stewardship of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God." You need not that I should ex- hort you to remember that above all else '4t is re- quired in stewards that a man be found faithful." May God grant that while you may ask in wonder, as you contemplate the work of yom* ministry. Who is sufacient for these things ? you may be able to say, like Paul, ^' We are not as the many, corrupt- ing the Word of God ; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." May God gi-ant that the desire which flamed in Paul may burn in you too : Oh could I tell ye surely would believe it ! Oh could I only say what I have seen ! How should I tell or how can ye receive it, How till He bringeth you where I have been? Give me a voice, a cry and a complaining, — Oh let my sound be stormy in their ears ! Throat that would shout but cannot stay for straining, Eyes that would weep but cannot wait for tears. FIRST INTERVIEW WITH THE CHRIST. By Prof. John D. Davis, Ph.D. "And tJie ttvo disciples heard Mm speak, and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned, and heheld them following, and saith imto them. What seek ye? And they said unto him, BdbU (which is to say, being interpreted. Master), where abidest thou? He saith unto them. Come, and ye shall see. They came there- fore and saw where he abode ; and they abode with him that day : it tvas about the tenth hour. One of the tico that heard John speaJc, and folloived him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He findeth first his oivn brother Simon, and saith unto him. We have found the Messiah (which is, being interpreted, Christ). He brought him unto Jesus."— J om^ 1 : 37-42. ONE of the two that heard John speak and fol- lowed Jesus was Andrew, who some weeks later was caUed to leave all and f oUow the Master permanently, and who later still was set apart to be an apostle. The other was John, who hkewise was afterward called to permanent feUowship and then to apostleship. At least the inference that he was John is warranted by the fact that John, who alone records the event, manifests the disposition to nar- rate such incidents only as came, in whole or in 115 116 PROFESSOR DAVIS. part, mider his own observation ; by the fact that the minute, graphic description likewise indicates an eye-witness ; by the fact that, though he men- tions two men with Jesus, he leaves one unnamed — the customary modest method of John in refer- ring to himself (21 : 2, 7). Andrew and John could and did make a living for themselves. No shiftlessness in them. Both were fishermen, perhaps then as afterward part- ners in business (Luke 5 :10 ; Mark 1 :16). One at least had inherited from his father habits of indus- try, and both belonged to thrifty families, possessed some little propert}^, and hired help in their work. Andrew and John were, moreover, at this time, before they had felt the influence of Jesus, religious men, products of institutional religion. We must not undervalue this. We must not forget that, although Jesus had occasion to say, "Woe unto thee, Bethsaidaj woe unto thee, Capernaum," he was not condemning the religion of these cities in itseK, but only the spirit which animated the wor- shipers. The instituted religion was a power for good. With all its defects, with all its extreme views, nevertheless it maintained, amidst the dark- ness of a polytheistic age, the worship of the one, the true God ; jealously guarded the honor of his name, as Jewish blood shed by Seleucidan and FIRST INTERVIEIV IVITH THE CHRIST. 117 Roman testified ; taught the observance of the Sab- bath by rest and pubHc services ; inculcated a lofty morality ; and had lately produced characters like Simeon and Anna, Zacharias and Ehzabeth, Joseph and Mary. Into this visible Church Andrew and John had been publicly admitted as infants, under its influence they had grown to manhood, and they came to Jesus with the mass of their religious be- liefs correct. The minds of these men did not need to be unmade, but simply enlightened. But more : Andrew and John were disciples of John the Baptist. They had visited the preacher at the Jordan, their eyes had been opened to sin, they had heard his call, had been baptized unto repentance, and, whatever their conduct may have been in the past, were resolved henceforth to live in newness of life and in accordance with the spirit of Israel's faith. It is not strange that these men came to Jesus ; not strange that they were the first to come. Men careless about making provision for the near future are logically and generally careless about making provision for the remote and eternal futm-e. Men under the influence of false systems of religion, the nations of heathenism for example, are as a nile won for Christ only by the toil and patience and training of years. Men who see sin in the deed 118 PROFESSOR DA^IS. only and are content when the outside of the plat- ter has been cleaned, men who confound respecta- bility of life with righteousness in God's sight, do not follow Christ, for they know no need of him. Such cases are indeed not hopeless. It is a glory of Christ that he has hfted a shiftless, criminal Jerry McAuley out of vice into virtue; that his truth has led a nation of cannibals to put away cruelty and idolatry in a day; that his words pierced the self-sufficient, moral Nicodemus and won his allegiance. But this is not natural, it is exceptional. The men we expect to come to Jesus are the earnest spirits of the nation, who have been trained in the fear of the Lord from youth up, who have been taught of salvation through the Christ, who have been to Jordan and have realized and resolved that the ax must be laid to the root of the tree, that sin must be destroyed in the heart. For such, as it was for Andrew and John, it is only a step to Jesus, only a step to a life-long fellowship with the Master. May we not pause here to consider what this means with reference to our methods of work ? Is it wise for us to seek to carry the good news of sal- vation post-haste and as mere heralds through the world ? Or shaU the Christian Church, to whose trust has been committed the Gospel, in its work FIRST INTERVIEIV IVITH THE CHRIST. 119 of transmission and extension found and foster cliiirches, establish schools, gather in the children, train them in the maxims of wisdom, teach them the law of God and his holy fear, seek to impress upon them the guilt and loathsomeness of sin, show them that its roots are in the heart, and point them to the Christ as prophet, priest, and king? Success does not always attend such efforts j but history from the time of John the Baptist until now declares that that is the true way. As we scatter to all parts of the earth on the Master's business, let us remember this. To whatever part of this comprehensive work you may be called, whether teaching rudiments or unfolding the glory of Christ to eager, anxious souls, remember that your work is a necessary part of the great whole, and do it for Christ's sake. There is a difference of privilege, but the same work. Aim to prepare Andrews and Johns. Jesus turned, beheld the two men following, and said unto them, " What seek ye ? " They said unto him, ^' Rabbi, we seek to know where thou abidest." He said unto them, "Come, and ye shall see." They came, saw where he abode, and tar- ried with him that day. He had just come from the wilderness victor over temptation, triumphant in faith and purpose. His act was an inten- 120 PROFESSOR DAVIS. tional revelation, the first revelation of liis public ministry. It showed to those men the possibility of fellow- ship with the Christ. How gracious he was ! Re- garded with awe by their teacher the Baptist, de- clared by him to be the God-chosen King, the ardently desired Messiah, they felt him to be far above them. They had followed at a distance respectfully, timidly ; venturing only to come near enough to learn where he dwelt. He, however, noticed them, trusted them, did honor to their manhood, granted their request to know where he dwelt by inviting them to his abiding-place, walked side by side with them thither, and talked with them by the way. John the Baptist had spoken glorious things about the Great Unknown who stood in their midst, but the haK had not been told. Suddenly a great Hght had shined upon them. The Christ was full of grace. But not only did the Christ's attitude reveal graciousness, it showed his fearless openness. He was ready to be seen as he was : to take them at once, without preparation, and show them his plain lodgings, probably a booth ; to let them study his manner of life, to examine him himself. He was like the neighboring river in which they had been baptized, like the huge mountains behind which FIRST INTERVIEJV IVITH THE CHRIST. 121 the declining sun was about to set, Eke the deep blue sky overhead — fuU of mystery, but hiding nothing. He that had eyes to see and eai's to hear, a mind to think and a heart to feel, might study and know who he is. No wonder that afterward one of these two men who followed Jesus described him as one whom he had seen with his eyes, whom he had heard, whom his hands had handled — full of grace and truth. Jesus did nothing secretly ; he ever taught openly in the Temple ] he performed his mighty works indifferently where. Jesus had revealed to Andrew and John the possibility of intimate fellowship with him. And ^^ they abode with him that day." Afterward An- drew sought out his brother Simon and said unto him, "We have found the Messiah." Behold the effect of intercourse with Jesus. Their brief inter- view with Jesus had wrought in them the convic- tion that he was the Christ. "We have found the Messiah." And yet there was apparently nothing extraor- dinary in that interview. Jesus certainly wrought no miracle ; for that was delayed, as we know, until the marriage at Cana, and then called forth a new faith in these men. There was no miracle ; and, we judge, not even a revelation of that superhuman knowledge which he manifested a day or so later 122 PROFESSOR DAVIS. when he said to Nathanael, ^^ Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." The Apostle John in narrating the first meeting of himself and Andrew with Jesus records it as a simple interview ; memorable, not by mighty deeds, but by its effects upon two lives. It was, moreover, the same Jesus that had min- gled with men for thirty years. Why, then, should he who was merely respected in Nazareth so might- ily impress these men now ? In part, because while a youth in his father's house he had not been pointed out to men as the Messiah. The story of his birth and of his presentation in the Temple belonged to the privacy of the family. The fi-iends of the Bap- tist's parents knew of Zacharias' dumbness, and of his fervent declaration, when his tongue was loosed, that the son who had just been born to him should be the forerunner of the Messiah ; but there is no reason to suppose that the kindred of the Baptist knew an}iihing connected with the birth of Jesus. It is true also that the shepherds had looked upon the child, and that wise men from the east had come to Herod asking where he should be bom that was to be King of the Jews. But the shepherds returned to their work in the fields, the wise men had quietly left the country, and Joseph had taken Mary and the young child into Egypt. Herod's excitement FIRST INTERVIEIV IVITH THE CHRIST. 123 occasioned by the visit of the Magi, leading to the convocation of the doctors of the law to declare unto him where the Christ should be born and re- flecting itself in anxiety thi'oughout the city as to what course the freak would take, had been allayed when Herod sent armed men to Bethlehem to slay all the babes of two years and under. When after two years the parents of Jesus again settled in Nazareth, it was merely noised abroad that the car- penter and his wife had come back from Egypt and a first-born child with them. When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, there were apparently but two persons ahve who were acquainted with his early histoiy, Mary and John the Baptist ; and these two beheved on him. John had probably heard from his mother regarding his cousin, but he had refrained from pointing him out until authorized. Mary treasured the events connected with the infant Jesus and pon- dered them in her heart. She alone was left as wit- ness, and it is doubtless due chiefly to the testimony of this woman that we owe oui- knowledge of the early life of the Master. Jesus had not affected his fellow-townsmen as he was now affecting the two fishermen, partly because his title was unproclaimed. His beautiful character had indeed been recognized ; he grew in favor with God and man. His insight 124 PROFESSOR DAVIS. into the Scriptures as early as his twelfth year was acknowledged by the doctors of the law at Jerusa- lem J and there is some reason to suppose that he had been accepted by the Nazarenes as a reader of the Word of God in their synagogue. He was in- deed a light ) but he was a light shining in dark- ness, the darkness comprehending it not. But again, while in Nazareth not only had he been unproclaimed, he had hidden his hght 5 now his hour had come. At Jordan he had been anointed by the Spirit for the work 5 in the wilder- ness he had been chastened by temptation, and had emerged consecrated to his mission ; from the Bap- tist he had received official announcement. Hence- forth he is able and wilhng to reveal himseK and his doctrine fully and fi'eely to men. Andrew and John catch the first glimpse of that revelation, are the first to see the effects of that conflict and feel the influence of the ennobled soul. But even that was not enough to account for the mighty impression the Christ made upon those two friends ; for when Jesus later returned to Nazareth and offered himself to his countrymen, they led him to the brow of the hill upon which their city was built, and would have cast him headlong over the brink. Testimony and character impressed Pilate also 5 but they did not make the Roman a follower FIRST INTERyiElV IVITH THE CHRIST. 125 of the Christ. Since his day testimony and char- acter have impressed thousands, so that with Rous- seau they confess that the hfe and death of Jesus are those of a God ; and yet they refuse to bow in loyal allegiance to him. In the case of Andrew and John the impression was made upon men prepared. The two fi-iends had already turned from sin to God. The contrite i. heart joj^ully receives the approved Christ 5 and \ therefore again we say, Aim to prepare men for Christ by leading them to repentance. In the early ,• days of this centuiy in western Pennsylvania the mighty servants of God who labored in that then wilderness followed this method. Gathering the people together in Nature's temples, holding what many suppose to be the first camp-meetings, day after day they preached the law, the heart's guilt, the wrath of God, until the audience cast them- selves prostrate on the groimd undone. Then, and not tiU then, was the gracious Saviour held up, sin- ners beheved and arose, and a sturdy, godly gener- ation sprang into being. From the days of John the Baptist until now it is in men awake and re- pentant that testimony to the Christ confirmed by his character is effectual. And now let us ask what there was in this special interview with Jesus that convinced these men that 126 PROFESSOR DAVIS. he was the Christ. As ah-eady noticed, there was no miracle 5 so far as known, no display of superhu- man knowledge. There was, however, the man— his personality, his aspect. There was the manner- supreme grace w^arming the heart, awakening affec- tion ; frank openness begetting confidence. There was the talk— as of one with authority, and not as the scribes, at which long before the doctors in the Temple had marveled ; talk of which the gi-acious- ness later at Nazareth awakened the wonder of his fellow-citizens 5 talk which more than once by its unanswerable logic and heart-searchhig power silenced the wily questioner ; talk which disarmed the opposition of men sent to lay hands on him, and called forth from them the declaration, '' Never man spake as this man " j talk which, on the way to Emmaus, the speaker unrecognized, caused the hearts of two downcast disciples to burn within them. It was these things, the man, the manner, the converse, which convinced Andrew and John that they had found the Messiah 5 yea more, which wrought in them the belief that an inter\dew with Jesus would convince other men also : for Andrew sought his brother, saying, "We have found the Messiah," and brought him to Jesus; and Philip told Nathanael that they had found him of whom FIRST INTERVIEIV IVITH THE CHRIST. 127 Moses in the law and tlie prophets did speak, Jesus of Nazareth ; and to the rejoinder, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " replied, ^^ Come and see." And in these elements there is evidence of Mes- siahship of great convincing power. 1. It is impossible to close the eyes to the fact that, as promised in the Mosaic law, a masterful Prophet had arisen like unto Moses ; whose right to acknowledgment stood attested, for unquestion- ably he spake according to the law and the testi- mony. 2. Not only was a Prophet undoubtedly before them, they recognized in him the predicted charac- ter also of the sei^ant of the Lord. In his gracious- ness and sympathy they read the story, " Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen, in whom my soul delighteth. ... He shaU not qtj, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shaU he not quench." ^^He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim Kberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Brethren, it wlQ be your privilege, as it was the privilege of Peter and Paul, to prove from the Scriptures of the Old Testament that Jesus is the 128 PROFESSOR DA^IS. veritable, long-promised Christ. The temptation is too often }delded to, to build the argument solely on minute predictions, to cite those passages only which refer, and which have ever been understood by the Jews to refer, to the place of the Chi-ist's birth and to other incidents of his history. We would utter no word of condemnation against such an argument when made with scholarly discrimina- tion and adequate knowledge. It subserves one purpose of prophecy j it is authorized by the New Testament ; it is a mighty weapon for attack and defense -, it satisfies the craving for definite proof. But do not stop with this argument, neglecting the weightier matter. Gro to the valley of the Jordan and learn from the two disciples who first followed Jesus that before the events of his life had been enacted, before there were definite incidents to which minute predictions in any number could be applied, there was enough in Jesus to con\ince that the fulfillment of prophecy was there. Jesus in himself and Jesus during the Christian era has realized the predicted character, and that is the great argument from prophecy. 3. There was perhaps a third element which cor- roborated their faith. His was a character in con- trast to then* own. We cannot tell how clear to their minds at this interview was the wide differ- FIRST INTERVIEIV IVITH THE CHRIST. 129 ence between them and the Master. But if their senses were acute enough to discern it. the contrast convinced. I beheve that a man whose eyes are open to the subtle nature, the guilt and the loath- someness of sin ; a man who in gi'ief and hatred thereof has tui-ned from it unto God ; who as he contends with e\il, struggles ^vith adversity, and journeys through mysterious dai-kness, keeps his eyes fixed on Jesus in like but yet fiercer conflict, and finds Jesus, in contrast with himself, ever the strong, patient, uncomplaining, trustfid, obedient, sinless Son of the heavenly Father— gazing thus with senses exercised and keen, cannot fail to rec- ognize in Jesus, and in this teeming world in Jesus alone, the King. The figui-e stands sohtary in earth's history who is glorious in holiness. There stood a mighty Prophet; there was the predicted character of the Lord's Sen^ant; there was a peerless One. The good news proclaimed by John the Baptist was true. The Christ had indeed come. • RELIGION IN COLLEGE.* By PRESfDENT Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D. "I ivrite unto you, young men.'^ — 1. John 2 : 13. XF any one should say that it is intrinsically -^ harder for men to be reUgious than women, I do not know that I should dispute the proposition. I certainly should not do it without making allow- ance for the special temptations to which men are subject, the irreligious atmospheres into which they are thrown, and the many influences unfriendly to reUgion which seem to beset husbands, sons and brothers, of which wives and mothers and sisters are in a measure at least happily ignorant. And so I can understand the special interest with which an audience of men is regarded, and the special ground for gratitude that there is when in some time of religious interest the claims of the Gospel take hold of men. There is good reason, too, for the particular in- terest that is felt in young men, and above all, * Preached at the opening of the college year. 130 RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 131 the religious life of young men. For they seem to carry with them the world's fortunes. The passing generation sees the promise of its o^vn immortality in the rich new life of these young men. Their life is all before them. They have no past. Then- fut- ui'e is, so to speakj a matter of then- ot^ti making. We commit the world of the futui'e to their senses ; the bright electric nights to their \dsion ; the new discoveries of science to their admiration. "We shall not live to see the day, but you will/' we are accustomed to say, and so we use the younger gen- eration to give ourselves an artificial longevity. There is a peculiar sympathy which a yoimg man awakens in us — awakens, I mean, especially in men. We understand him. How much of our life he is repeating! How in all he does he seenTs to be plagiarizing from the book of our own memoiy! His hopes, his ambitions, his dreams, his enthusi- asms, sometimes his magnified estimate of himself and his disregard of the wisdom of his elders — have we not experienced it all? His follies, too, and his blunders, his non-malicious wi'ong-doing, sometimes even his sins — did we not go before him ? Ah then, unless we are selfish, unless we are unwilling that others shall excel us — here is the secret of our anxiety, of our interest in the weKare of these young lives. It is the contrast between 132 • PRESIDENT PATTON. ourselves conditioned, handicapped by age, by liabit, by the momentum we have gathered in the rush down the stream, and these young men with theu' futm-e before them and in their own hands that di'aws us to them. If we had our lives to live over again, we say, we should act differently. We should study this and not neglect that. But now it is too late, and we must make the best of such undisciphned or ill-disciplined powers as we have. But these young men we think can avoid these mistakes J and we would fain, if they would let us act as pilot for them, steer them clear of the rocks on which our own barks were well-nigh ship- wrecked years ago. Oh, how wise and good the race would be if wisdom were cumulative, and we the heirs of all the ages had come into possession of an unwasted inheritance ! And when to youth we add the advantage of in- tellectual culture we magnify the interest felt in those who possess them both. For it needs no prophet to see in them the men who for good or ill will shape the history of the next generation. Men fail sometimes to fulfill the promise of their youth. They grow sick or lose heart, or succumb to lux- ury, or fall into evil habits ; but for all that the world's hope and the world's future are with the educated young men of to-day. RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 133 The college graduate is of more importance, I dare say, than the undergraduate. It is fair to sup- pose that he is a larger factor in the gi-eat world's life. Indeed, it is in order to get ready for that great world that we come to college ; and so be- cause the graduate has gone out from us we must not on that account hold him in light esteem. But it is the undergraduate who has special interest in our eyes. There are good reasons for this. The coUege world is mi generis. College life changes a man the moment he begins to live it. Men come hither from aU parts of the country ; they represent different habits of thought, states of society, and modes of existence. And when they ai'e here they preserve an individuality that saves them from any loss of identity in their intercourse with one an- other. They can be separated into groups accord- ing to several principles of division, and these groups have appropriate designations in our rich academic vernacular. But to the outside world they aU look alike, they think alike, they talk alike, they are imbued with the same spirit and seem to possess a common life. They have theu- burning questions and their organs of opinion. They have their own vocabulary and, to a certain extent, their own code of ethics. There are good and bad features in this segre- 134 PRESIDENT PATTON. gated academic life. - It would be better on some accounts if we were in closer sjrmpathy with the every-day life of the world. But on the other hand there is something elevating in the ideas that bring about this state of things. A man need not study hard in order to keep his academic standing, but the studious men give college life its character. And there is that in intellectual work that separates a man from the world. Bring men of intellectual tastes together and you of necessity establish an intellectual caste. You create a community that loves refinement and that protests against all that is sordid and vulgarizing. I am expressing myself, therefore, in the tamest words when I say that no audience can excite my interest like the one that faces me to-day. You are standing on the threshold of manhood or have barely crossed it. You have had your first glimpses of the new world of thought and knowledge that is open to youi' exploration. You have begun to feel your own power and to try your strength in grappling with the great questions of life and des- tiny. Your thoughts have not yet dug for them- selves the grooves which make the thinking of some people easy by making it narrow and repeti- tious. You have hardly decided yet what channels your energies shall run in, and you hke to keep it RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 135 still an open question what your profession shall be, lest you come prematui-ely into bondage to a career. You are at the transition stage, perhaps, in your religious life, when the faith of childhood is hardening into reasoned conviction, or when per- haps you fear a schism between your reason and your heart. And in the short life of an academic generation you will go out from this unique under- graduate existence into the larger life of the world, helped, it may be— God forbid that you should be hindered— in yoiu* dealings with these great ques- tions by what you hear from us who meanwhile are your oflcial guides. I ask no greater pri\ilege on earth than that I may be able from time to time to speak in a worthy, helpful way from this pulpit to you and to those who, after you, shall occupy these pews. My text does not shut me up to any given hne of thought, but you will already have gathered that my remarks will be based upon the relations of re- ligion to college life. Let me have your attention, then, while I say a few words in reference to two questions : 1. How religion should affect your col- lege life. 2. How college life should affect your religion. I. I take it for gi^anted that, in a certain sense at least, most of you are religious men. Many of you 136 PRESIDENT PATTO'N. are avowedly so. You come for the most part from religious homes. You are men of religious convic- tions, even though you may have given no formal expression to your convictions. You have not dis- carded the faith in which you were trained, though possibly you have not made any acknowledgment of it. You will so far admit the claims of the Gospel as to recognize your obligations to con- form to its teaching, however much in the case of some of you your lives may contradict that teaching. How should the Gospel, as you have been taught it, affect your college career ? How should it oper- ate upon that individual and corporate life of which we are bound to take cognizance in the administra- tion of college affairs ? The day has gone by when it was necessary to show that a man might be a Christian and at the same time enjoy life. The Christian who thinks that depression of spirits is a sign of piety belongs to an extinct type. When it is ui'ged, therefore, that athletic sports foster a manly spirit and de- velop healthy tissue ; when it is said that the ele- ment of emulation is necessary to give them zest ; and when without undue waste of time, without the sacrifice — as has confessedly been the case in more than one instance — of an entire session's work RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 137 in the class-room, when, without contributing to the gambling habit. — which has already become a national cui-se — the representatives of leading col- leges engage in honorable and gentlemanly con- tests for supremacy; I do not feel that there is in all this any necessary compromise of Christian principle, and it would never occur to me to re- pent at my leisure of any impulsive enthusiasm that I may have evinced. There is no reason why a man should forfeit his manliness by being a Christian. He should cultivate a gentle spirit, and the passive \di'tues have a high place among the Christian graces. With the etiquette, with the unwritten code of honor existing among undergraduates which controls so much of then- relation to one another and to college authorities, I have a great deal of S}Tnpathy ; though I think that some good principles are allowed too wide a range of applica- tion. A man is not called upon — at least in ordi- nary circumstances — to be a tale-bearer or a spy even in the interests of religion. I have no diffi- culty in making pretty large concessions to under- graduate sentiment in more things than one. It would be hard for you to make demands with re- spect to the inviolability of personality and the rights of manhood that I am not prepared to grant. You sustain relations to the governing body of this 138 PRESIDENT PATTON. college that give rise to perplexing problems and that involve difficulties that you hardly appreciate. But I would rather bear with the difficulties than t^ke an unbidden step across the thi-eshold of your inner life. The incredulous look, the suggestion that impeaches your motive, the inquiry that need- lessly assails the very citadel of your manhood, you have a right to be aggrieved at. There is no fun- damental difference of sentiment between profess- ors and students in this college so far as these matters are concerned, though it is more than like- ly there may be a difference of emphasis. You would YQYj properly have us remember that you are men. "We, on the other hand, cannot well for- get that you are young men. That is the whole of it. And it should not be a matter of offense if, when I speak of the excellences of your life, I call your attention to some of its limitations. When you and I are old enough we shall be se- date perhaps, calm, self-contained, judicial. Now, however, our friends must bear with us ; and if we are only ingenuous, kind-hearted, and responsive to affectionate treatment, they must give us credit for it ; and we must not take it ill if they tell us plainly that we are impulsive, hot-headed, swayed by feeling, and a trifle inconsiderate. I dare say we are. But if we are Christians, and we profess RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 139 to make practical use of Christian principles, we should study to conform our conduct to these prin- ciples. It will not do for us to fall back upon our Christian faith as an atonement for oui' unchristian practice. There are a great many ways in which I might profitably apply Chi-istian principle to college life. I think the lack of conscientiousness is perhaps a serious matter with all of us. Many a man, I am sure, would find a spur to diligence in study if he would seriously interrogate his conscience as to the use of his own time and his father's money during his undergi-aduate days. Many a man would be saved from the indiscretions incident to the young gregarious life of college students if he would take time to reflect upon his personal accountability to God. And here I am reminded of one or two at least of the faults that are characteristic of your class which I think your religion ought to enable you to redress. We must rely upon personal religion to correct the evil tendency of the gregarious habit in college students by the assertion of individual responsi- bility'. There is a tendency for the individual to lose himself in the organism that he belongs to. That there is a good side to this I can very readily allow. It saves a man from conceit, it is a check 140 PRESIDENT PATTON. upon the egotism that intellectual life is so apt to foster, it is a lesson in the great art of bearing one another's bui'dens, it is an illustration of the truth that we are members one of another — when a stu- dent is ready to sink personal advantage for the honor of his class, or when all make common cause in the interest of one. We should lose much if we did not have the instinct that leads us to realize a corporate life. The Church is founded upon this idea. When one member suffers all the members suffer with it. Society itself presupposes it. And when, in our selfishness, in our greed of distinction or of gain, in our pride of intellect and self-suffi- ciency, we isolate ourselves, or are cut off from fel- lowship by the tacit mandate of oiu' fellows, we are working for the disintegration of social life. I love the principle that lies at the bottom of corporate undergraduate class-sentiment. It is to a great extent a peculiarity of American colleges. It is something that our system of prizes offered in com- petition has so far not superseded. And much as I believe in giving honor where honor is due, and holding out inducements for high intellectual at- tainment, I should be sorry if a spirit of individu- alism, of jealous and querulous antagonism, should ever grow up among the undergraduates of our colleges, that would make it necessary for Professor RELIGION IN COLLEGE. HI Biyce to qualify the generous words wliicli lie uses in his recent book on the American Conunonwealth, when, after speaking of some of the characteristics of the American University, he says: "The other merit is that the love of knowledge and truth is not, among the better minds, vulgarized by being made the slave of competition and of the passion for quick and conspicuous success. An American student is not induced by his university to think less of the intrinsic value of what he is learning than of how far it wiU pay in an examination, nor does he regard his ablest fellow-students as his rivals over a difficult course for high stakes, rivals whose speed and strength he must be constantly comparing with his own." There is, however, a bad side to this corporate or class sentiment, and it is that under the operation of it a man will let his conscience sleep and make the corporate sentiment do her work. You do not like to seem peculiar; you do not care to be over-righteous or over-wise. You do not think that there can be much harm in what all the rest approve. And so, true to your gregarious instincts, true to that subtle law of your nature that affirms the solidarity of social hfe, you force conscience to abdicate when she stands up for the sovereignty of the individual, and you fol- low the multitude to do evH. I do not know a 142 PRESIDENT PATTON. more needed lesson among college men than that concerning the sacredness of the individual con- science. There is a gi'eat deal in the inspiration of a common cause j but there is a limit to a man's obligation to sacrifice his personality even in a good cause. Let no man invade yom- self -hood. Do not put your personality into a common fund. Do not tamper with the autonomy of your own conscience by putting it under the control of an organization. I look upon it as one of the most disastrous things in our moral life to-day that we are so under the tyranny of public sentiment, so conditioned by the fear of what other people will say or think, that we do not give our conscience a fair chance, and in consequence are beginning to lose the sense of face-to-face accountabiUty to God. If this be so, even with regard to things that at least can be said to have good motives behind them, how much more are we to be blamed when we allow ourselves to tolerate or take part in proceed- iags that we would have no thought of defending, except on the plea that they all do it. We must also rely upon the religious convictions of Christian men to correct a false doctrine of rela- tivity that prevails among college students. Theo- retically we are agreed : right is right ; wrong is wrong ) always, everywhere. Practically, it is oth- RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 143 erwise. There is one standard for the individual, another for the organization. Let ns not deal with this question by way of excessive refinement. Cases do differ, and where conduct is considered, time, place, and circumstances must be considered. There is no rudeness offered by a slap on the shoulder where that is a recognized mode of salutation among comrades. Whether enteiing your house without knocking is an insult or only a sign of friendship depends on what oui' relations ai*e. Whether a given act is an injury depends on how it is taken : Volenti non fit injuria : those old Romans put a great deal of sense into their maxims. And yet there is an abuse of this idea of relativity in morals that calls for very serious consideration. If you say that it goes everywhere and affects Chi-istians generally, I am sorry to admit that this is true. Some men do in Europe what they will not do at home. Some are dishonest and untruthful in the minor matters and conventionalities of Hfe, who in more serious things are very scrupulous and honest. This, however, is no excuse for that phase of rela- tivity with which we are made familiar in college morals according to which a freshman's room is an exception to the law that a man's house is his castle ; according to which it is wrong to he, but right to deceive a professor ; according to which it 144 PRESIDENT PATTON. is wrong to steal, but right to take aids to reflection into an examination hall. Let me not be understood as making a sweeping allegation in what I say. I am aware of the high moral tone that prevails in this college ; and that the matters referred to are of comparatively infre- quent occurrence, and that when they do occur it is but rarely that they imply any fixed determina- tion of character. In respect to some of these matters there is a growing sentiment among under- graduates that will soon, I hope, become so strong as to supersede both law and police; for I have more confidence in the Chiistian conscience than I have in any other agency. Our hope of reforming coUege morals hes in addressing the conscience. It is only as laws reach the conscience that they have much practical value. Therefore, when they are oppressive and suggest injustice, they should be modified in the interest of morality. We must look, then, to ihe religious men of the coUege to exert positive influence in the creation of a proper public sentiment. They are numerous enough, they are possessed of sufficient weight of character, and theu^ influential position in the gi'eat centers of undergi-aduate influence is great enough, to enable them to control sentiment ; and when it is understood that undergi-aduate sentiment wiU RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 145 not tolerate the presence of the man who habitually defies the law of God and of good manners^ the era of academic freedom will dawn. I appeal, therefore, to your Christian sentiments and youi' religious convictions, gentlemen, as the basis, and the only basis upon which we can pro- ceed, toward the abolition of multitudinous laws, toward the repeal of regulations that seem in the judgment of some to be out of keeping with the life of full-grown men. I think there are some things that a man's man- liness should do for him, and that certainly his re- ligion should do for him. It should give him such a conscientious desire to receive instruction that it would not be necessary to keep a double-entry ac- count of his attendance in the class-room, with a debit to absence and a credit to excuse ; it should inspire even a somewhat feeble person with strength to stand on his feet dm-ing the singing of a morn- ing hymn; and it should furnish a motive for a proper use of time in the acquisition of knowledge that would make it a superfluous labor for pro- fessors to find mathematical equivalents in whole numbers and fractions of an examination paper that represents in too many cases the indolence of a term and the industry of the night before. You complain of bondage and sigh for freedom. 146 PRESIDENT PATTON. I sympathize T\dtli you. I am on youi* side. But the matter is in your own hands. And when in reference to those things that now make laws a necessity there shall have come about that change of sentiment that plainly says, ^^ When I was a child I thought as a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things " — then, too, will come the freedom that you seek ; for the law will cease to be statute by being transformed into life, and it will thence- forth be the perfect law of liberty. In what I have been sa}4ng I have had special reference to the bearing of your rehgious profes- sion upon your corporate life as a student-body and upon the relation which you sustain as a body of undergraduates to the coUege authorities. I have not said anything about the influence which your religion should exert in keeping you from spiritual harm : and one would think that if Christian con- victions are worth anything they should enable you to say " No " to temptation, and resist soHcitations to vice. It is to be feared, however, that there is a great deal of weak rehgion in the world, and I am afraid that matters are not improved by the unmanly way in which we sometimes talk upon the subject. It is a pity that we accustom ourselves to this effeminate mode of regarding Christian RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 147 faith : when instead of being a shield which pro- tects us from assaults, instead of being a stout club with which we knock temptation on the head, instead of being a sword wherewith we slay our spiritual enemies, it is regarded rather as a very weak companion that we must nurse tenderly and that cannot go out at night. I wish there were more robust piety in the world and less of the sickly kind. There would then be less occasion for the solicitude that parents now feel regarding the religious health of their sons who come to college. I must, however, respect this solicitude. II. Having, therefore, spoken in the first place on the question, How religion should affect your coUege life, I must now speak on the question. How coUege life should affect your religion. Many an anxious parent is raising this question to-day. He knows that in this seat of learning his son wiU have many advantages of an intellectual kind, but he wonders whether he wiU not also be exposed to a great many temptations, and whether in his gain of learning he may not lose his soul. There can be no doubt that a college man has to face tempta- tions. We do our best to keep immoral influences out of the college, and I believe in dealing with these influences with a strong hand. When com- mon fame accuses a man of exerting a corrupting 148 PRESIDENT PATTON. influence in the college, I want no maxims from the common law to stand in the way of college purity. Do not quote under such circumstances the doctrine of second jeopardy, or say that the law looks in favore)n litae. Do not tell me that a man is innocent until he is found to be guilty, or suppose that the provisions of the criminal suit will apply to college procedure. There are times when a man should be held guilty until he is found innocent, and when it is for him to vindicate him- self and not for us to convict him. But when we have done our best, it will be im- possible for us to guarantee those who come here against temptations. Adolescence has its perils, and I do not know that a man would escape them if he remained at home. Parents sometimes speak of the special temptations of college Hf e : as though there were no temptations in business 5 as though clerks in banks and in brokers' offices were all the time under holy influences ; as though the philoso- phers of Wall Street were somehow in closer touch with the ten commandments. I suppose that men in shops and on farms have to face temptation. A man may shun his kind, but he cannot shun him- self. He may avoid all company but his own, and sometimes that is the worst. There are pei-ils to morals, and there are perils RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 149 to faith in connection with a college life — probably no greater in college than elsewhere. Men some- times make sad failures in college. They leave home with good intentions and noble purpose, but are weak-willed and wanting in stabihty, form bad companionships, and are led into corrupting prac- tices. They come from homes where they have been kept under constant watch and have had to give strict account of their time, and find even the limited freedom allowed them here too much for them: they become indolent and lose relish for study. They are thrown into a larger companion- ship than they had ever known before, and when they find that their capacity for leadership in all that is daring and in contravention of established law has made them popular, their scholarly ambi- tions die a very easy death. I fear lest there may be some of you who are making these mistakes, and I am sorry for you -, but I am more sony for your fathers and mothers who sent you here, and whose agony of disappointment I think no one can well understand who has not had boys of his own. And yet a man who suc- cumbs to temptation in college would in all proba- bility fare no better elsewhere. Sooner or later a man must learn to take care of himself. He must come into possession of his freedom, and it is no 150 PRESIDENT PATTON. small pai't of a good education to prepare a man in the best manner for the use of that freedom. I do not think that it is wise to perpetuate in college the methods of the preparatory school. Rules there must be, but they should be as few and simple as possible. Requirements of attendance there should be, and a proper method of enforcing them, but they should be in keeping with the advancing years, the maturing powers, and the approaching manhood of those to whom they apply. And it seems to me that it is one of the special features of your life here that you come into possession of that freedom of thought and action that you rightly prize as one of the chief attributes of your man- hood, under the best conditions. You are invested with the franchises of manhood in a time and way that suggest personal responsibility 5 and so that instead of opening a door for self-indulgence, they become a factor in your moral education. I do not think that the college student feels on his twenty-first birthday an impulse to throw off the yoke of parental authority ; I am inclined to sup- pose that he is only made the more conscious by the occasion that he must soon take the responsi- bility of his future in his own keeping. You are living under conditions best fitted to make you feel what Dr. Chalmers called the expulsive power of a RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 151 new affection. You are dealing with serious prob- lems. You are reading the best books. Your em- ployments are elevating. You are handling great questions in history, morals, economics, politics; and whether these questions are treated under dis- tinctively religious conceptions or not, they suggest rehgious ideas, for they suggest the idea of the fit- ting, the best, the right, the true. You are not sim- ply studying facts. You ai-e not asking merely what is, but what ought to be. You are forming ideals, and when you are doing that you are on the border-land of religion. It is not religious preju- dice, it is sound philosophy that Principal Shairp gives utterance to when he says that religion is the goal of culture. A man's studies should have a moral as well as an intellectual influence upon him. Physics should make him more truthful. Astronomy more reverent. Literature more genial. Social Science more benev- olent. Philosophy more believing. The law of the , Lord is perfect. Nature teaches that as well as Scripture. The star keeps its appointment with the observer, and the belated Frenchman only re- vealed his vanity and his ignorance when he asked the astronomer to encore the eclipse. And besides this indirect religious influence that serious study in all lines is fitted to exert, there is in this college 152 PRESIDENT PATTON. especially, and I trust there always will be, a body of men who, however strong they may be in their departments, and however enthusiastic they may "be in the prosecution of them, are not ashamed to say : '' I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son." To this Christian influence many a man in the years to come will express obligation for the perpetuation of his religious faith. Many a man will say when asked what saved him from skepticism, in words that bear a different meaning from that which he who wrote them intended : "For rigorous teachers seized my youtli And purged its faith and trimmed its fire, Showed me the high white Star of Truth, There bade me gaze and there aspire." There are, as I have already said, perils of faith as well as perils of morals in connection with a career in coUege. This is unavoidable. The possi- bility of religious doubt can be avoided only by avoiding religious questions altogether j and relig- ious questions can be avoided only by deliberately choosing a life of stupidity and ignorance. All questions are at bottom religious questions; all inquiries have rehgious implications. Back of physics lie metaphysics. Behind the facts of his- tory" lies the philosophy of history. Economic RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 153 questions raise ethical problems, and our view of ethical problems will depend very much upon whether we believe in God. College men have also among them those who are under strong impulse to antagonize established beliefs, or who seek to show originality by constructing a universe of their own. There are conceited men who show their intellectual pride by treating religious faith with scorn ; and weak-minded men who come under the spell of a favorite author and cannot admire his style without imbibing his views. And there are be- sides those who feel honestly, earnestly, interested in knowing for themselves the reasons for the faith in which they were trained. They will not consent to hold a merely traditional creed, and, though it cost them many a struggle, are determined to reach bed- rock before they consent -to build the house of faith. The man of this sort^ — I have great respect for him — is very apt to be an educated man : " Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out ; There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. " He fought his doubts and gathered strength ; He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the specters of the mind And laid them ; thus he came, at length, To find a stronger faith his own." 154 PRESIDENT PATTON. And yet when we remember how skepticism par rades itself in our newspapers, pubhshes itself in our magazines, lectures to us from the rostrum, and assails om* ears in the street-car ; when we see the facility with which the charlatan poses as a philosopher, and how a witty infidel can produce the impression of being the sum of all wisdom, we need not suppose that the college student is ex- posed to any special temptations. On the contrary, the very conditions under which he carries on his work are favorable to the conservation of his re- ligious faith. You have learned very little, my friends, if you have not already learned that the kings of thought — those, that is to say, who reign by divine right — are very different from those who have been crowned kings by an undiscriminating public. Real culture is aristocratic ; and you will naturally be legitimists in your intellectual partisanships. You will not let Tyndall speak as your author- ity in physics, nor regard Haeckel as infallible in biology, and you will not credit Herbei-t Spencer with the omniscience that his ambitious system would seem to imply. Your training has taught you that a man does not acquire a right to speak with authority on all subjects because he has made one subject his own. You know the limits of de- RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 155 monstrative certainty, and you know, as the com- mon mind does not know, that men are makmg demands for a kind and a degree of proof for his- toric Christianity that^ applied to other subjects, would tlirow the whole business of investigation into hopeless bankruptcy. You will not raise fool- ish questions regarding the trustworthiness of the entire text of Scripture when you are told that the best manuscripts do not support the statement in the gospel about the angel at the pool of Bethesda ; for you have no doubt about Virgil's poem, though the lines beginning, ^^ IlJe ego qui quo7idam/' etc., that in the old editions stood at the opening of the -^neid, are now understood to be spurious. You will not wonder whether your New Testament is the genuine product of the writers whose names are affixed to its parts, because we have lost the autograph copies and the text has been edited out of manuscripts of a later day; for part of your education consists in teaching you the facts con- cerning the transmission of ancient books, and you are reading to-day, without a shadow of doubt as to their genuineness, the love-poems of Catullus to Lesbia, when we know that our exist- ing text was made out of a single manuscript that turned up in Verona in the fourteenth century. Differences of opinion among theologians and 156 PRESIDENT PATTON. the rancor of theological debate will appear as shallow arguments with you — though they are sometimes urged as possessing great importance — against the possibility of any knowledge upon the topics they concern ) for there is hardly a sub- ject in your curriculum that has not had a history of conflicting sentiments and that is not at this moment represented by rival schools. I regard the conditions of your training here as favorable in the highest degree to your religious life. You are receiving a discipline of your powers that should save you from the sophistries to which the uneducated f aU such easy victims. You are ac- quiring a knowledge of the great subjects of de- bate^ and an estimate of the men who have most right to be regarded as authorities respecting them, that will keep you from calling any man master whose only claim to such recognition is his entertaining declamation. Besides that, you are dealing with secular themes under Christian con- ceptions, and your attention is turned to the spe- cific evidences that accredit those Christian concep- tions. There is also an undergraduate sentiment represented by the ripest scholars and the men of highest intellectual rank among us that is not only favorable to Christian life, but also aggressively and earnestlv interested in Christian work. So RELIGION IN COLLEGE. 157 that, if your religious life is not strengthened and stimulated by youi* connection with the coUege, the fault will not be with the college, but with you. I know that there is a band of Christian young men in this college who are self-denjdng and un- sparing of effort and pains in their endeavor to bring religious motives to bear upon their fellow- students; and I can hope for nothing better for some of you than that you may come within the scope of their influence. I speak with due allow- ance for temptations that beset students in every college, but I am nevertheless of the opinion that there ai*e no circumstances under which a man is so likely to receive good impressions, and to be af- fected by rehgious influences that will abide through his whole Hfe, as during the four yeai's of a coUege course in an institution founded, as this is, upon Christian principles, and administered with special regard to the maintenance of vital piety. But I must remind you of the personal responsibility that you should feel in this matter. You can make your coUege career very much what you choose to make it. I hope that it will prove a blessing to you, and that you will go out into the world with a larger equipment of both faith and knowledge. But to secure this result a great deal depends upon yourselves, and what you will do will be deter- 158 PRESIDENT PATTON. mined very largely by the way you begin. Better late than never, is a good motto ; but — better not be late. It is better to begin right than to dis- cover toward the close of the year that you have made a mistake. Let me counsel you, then, to make your life in college a religious life; to interest yourselves in religious matters ; to identify yourselves with the Christian elements in the college that seek your co- operation ; and to give studious regard to the main- tenance of religious habits and the fostering of religious convictions. Let your religion control your coUege life, and then you may rest assured that your college life will react in strengthening, maturing, deepening, broadening, and elevating your Christian faith. THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT.* By President Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D. "For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." — 2 Cor. 3:6. rpHERE is no doubt, I suppose, that when the -*- Apostle made use of this familiar antithe- sis he intended in the first place to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel; between the written code, with its rigid requirements, which can only awaken a sense of helplessness and only intensify the feeling of loss, and the indwelling, grace-bestowing, comfort-giving Spirit. But it can hardly be questioned that the words of this verse may be properly used in a wider sense, and that this wider sense is at least implicitly recognized by the Apostle himself. I should only be illustrating the truth of the text understood in this broader sense were I to insist upon a literalism of inter- pretation that would tolerate no appUcation of it outside of the sphere within which it was originally employed ; and I think I can better serve the pur- pose I have in view to-day, and can better adapt * A baccalaureate sermon. 159 160 PRESIDENT PATTON. my discourse to the circumstances of tMs time and place, by taking advantage of some of the more obvious contrasts which these words are so well fitted to suggest. I. It is true that the word ^lewma here has special reference to the Holy Spirit, but it also signifies the human spirit, and, with the word gramma as the other term of the antithesis, I think there is noth- ing violent or strained in making the suggested contrast between Language and Thought the first topic for consideration. Thought and not the mode of its expression, mind and not the drapery in which it is enveloped, should be our first concern. It is fatal to elevating work to let energy terminate in the letter. The fliTYi of the true scholar is to go behind the letter to the spirit. The bare suggestion of language as the means of communicating thought presents to us one of the most wonderful facts in life. It is the commonplace, after aU, that is the most myste- rious. Thought leaps the chasm of two separate personalities and excites no wonder. "We lay bare the secrets of our inner life to each other and then wondei: at actio in distans and cavil at the possibil- ity of divine communication. So easy is it to strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. To think and speak ; to have ideas and register THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 161 them ; to make ourselves plain ; to find a common measure of thought among the many coins of speech J to converse with our contemporaries in the morning newspaper and hold fellowship with the dead in the books that keep their memories alive — this, if we only stopped to consider it, is the marvel of existence. A mystery, I grant, and one made no easier of solution by the suicidal philoso- pher who tries through pages of labored excogi- tation to reduce thought to mechanism, and then sends his book with his compliments to the cour- teous reader, in the hope that he will think that the author is a thinker of uncommon intellect in thus demonstrating with such convincing logic, and such array of physiological testimony, that there is no thought and no thinker at aU. Thought is mind's protest against materialism. We need no other. Language is thought's por- trait, the print of thought's finger. It is easy to see, therefore, why the study of language, as dis- tinguished from literature, should occupy a high place in the academic curriculum. It is of great moment to understand the forms of thought, to follow its curves and watch its subtleties and nice- ties of distinction, as we are able to do after it has been hardened and colored in speech. You may leani a great deal of psychology from the Greek 162 PRESIDENT PATTON. prepositions. The subjunctive mood will often prove a shorter road to the human mind than the psychometric experiments of Fechner and Wundt. We may, however, make too much of philology ; and even though we had to be satisfied with less gram- mar, I would have more literature. Let us read Milton rather than read about him, and read him as we love to read him rather than at the snail's pace indicated by Ruskin. Give us the story of Achilles in the pages of Derby and Bryant if we must choose between an English translation and a few dog's-eared pages of the Greek original. B^ (5' aKECJV TTapa diva 7ro?iV(f>Xoia(3oLO OaXdaari^ — the line is a picture ; the rhythm is exquisite ; the sound an echo of the sense. Give us time to fol- low Chryses as he moves sadly along the shore, and let this vision of beauty excuse us from the " prin- cipal pai'ts " of iiaivco ; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Translation is difficult work, as we have been so recently reminded by Mr. Pater and Mr. LoweU. To do it well requires that we should know the letter, but it requires also — what is more difficult to attain — that we should catch the spirit of the author, that we should see with his eyes and rethink his thoughts. It is a pretty con- ceit of Marion Crawford which leads him, in one of THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 163 his later works, to represent Hs hero as taMng ad- vantage of the recent advances in electrical science — thereby removing the barriers that separate him from the unseen world — and holding face-to-face fellowship " with the immortals." This is exactly what a liberal education is intended to do. This is what it has done for you, if you have improved your opportunities here, unless our methods are deplorably bad. This is why we learn Latin and Greek and master the difficulties of vocabulary. I do not deny that it is of advantage to know the laws of phonetic change, and that there is intellect- ual training in the knowledge of word forms. But when classical training is useful only as dumb-bells and parallel-bars are useful, it is writing a com- mentary^ on my text. Master syntax for disciplinary ends ; and master it also, as Richard de Bury says, that we may thereby open royal roads into litera- ture. But remember that the thought is more than the word ; that at best the word is but a symbol, a suggestion of the thought, and rarely its equivalent. He who reads literally reads poorly. Even juris- prudence, the science that holds speech to strictest account, admits that there are times when we must not only judge what a man intends to say by what he says, but what he says by what he obviously meant to say. H(jeret in literd, Jiceret in cortice. 164 PRESIDENT PATTON. There is too little classical study of the purely literary kind among us. We either know as spe- ciahsts and know little else, or we know practically nothing. And it is probably hard to unite the functions of the general and the special scholar. Few men can expend energy on the letter sufficient to write the notes to Mayor's " Juvenal/' and then write an "advertisement" to the volume that quiv- ers in every line with sympathetic interest in the questions of the day. I say nothing regarding letters which is not true of science also. For the facts which the man of science handles are only the letters with which he is trying to spell out the thought embodied in them. He may amuse himself with the shapes of these letters, put them in bundles and give them names, but so long as he is simply engaged with facts he is employed in business no better than playing chess or solving puzzles. It is when he hits upon some key to Nature's cipher, it is when he is using his facts in verification of an hypothesis that stands for thought, that he is doing work worthy of scientific fame. Otherwise he is only a census-taker in the kingdom of nature ; a cata- loguer in the Hbrary of truth, writing titles and reading the backs of books. Let not the humanist, however, speak to the dis- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 165 paragement of science, for if he is only using lan- guage as material for the exercise of his own thought, if the results of his labors are not the basis of generalizations that stand for thought, then he is simply collecting facts, gathering useless knowledge, printing interminable masses of un- readable material. And indeed this, to a large ex- tent, is the condition of things to-day. We are over-specializing ; and the danger is that our schol- ars will become simply operatives under a great system of contract labor 5 full of opinions on sub- jects of which we have no knowledge, and full of knowledge on subjects that give no basis for opinion. We are overwhelmed with material, and in danger of being submerged in the mass -of facts which we cannot reduce to system. How often, as we see ambition spurred to new endeavor, are we reminded of these words of the text: the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Ah, Science, you want fact ! You proclaim the sovereignty of fact, the reign of law, the almighti- ness of induction, the empire of sense. Your vo- taries have reduced history to science, and philoso- phy to science, and religion to science, and language to science ; and when you have done all, what have you gained? A mass of unorganized material; a box of Chinese puzzles ; a rubbish-heap of mono- 166 PRESIDENT PATTON. graphs on Greek adverbs, Coptic manuscripts, Babylonian pottery, the Pythagorean theory of the universe, and so forth, without order and without plan — or else there is a thought, an idea, a general- ization behind it all. The destiny of it all is death and the dunghill, or else there is some informing, quickening idea to give it shape and comeliness. Do your best : the philosopher, the apostle of the idea, is needed to make these dry bones live. Whose thought, then, lies behind this language of fact? Is it your subjective state that you have been imposing upon Nature as the law of her op- erations when you have formulated the doctrine of gravitation ? Is it your subjectivity that imposes a meaning upon " Hamlet " and " Faust," no thanks to Shakespeare and Goethe ? WiU you split the differ- ence between the two rival philosophers by an ar- bitrary decision to be objective in your recognition of the fact, and subjective in your explanation of the fact? Or wiU you see behind the letter the spirit ] behind the fact the idea that gives meaning to the fact and makes you a sharer in the thought of God ? I do not wonder that the man of science magnifies his office and feels proud of his high call- ing. Back of the barriers of speech, indeed, that melt away with our knowledge of a foreign tongue, stand " the immortals," and we may converse with THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 167 them to our heart's content. But back of the syl- lables of science, and waiting only for the spirit of reverence for its enjoyment, lies fellowship with God. The literary ai-tist has recalcitrant material to deal with. With the author thought is too volatile, and with the translator language is too opaque. So that between the incapacity of the containing vessel and the chance of spilling in our attempts to decant it into another, we run the risk of losing some of the wine of genius. This is true of human thought; how much more true must it be of divine thought. We cannot give too much attention, then, to the very words in which our Bible is written, and the more fully we beheve in its inspiration, the more anxious we shall be to have a correct text and a close translation. But we may have both and miss the spirit of revelation. We may have a bald lit- eralism of rendering that sacrifices good English to Greek idiom, and saves the letter at the expense of the spirit. We may load our memory with ^' vari- ous readings," and be so microscopic in our study of the text as to be unable to see the full contour of a divine idea. We may carry reverence for the Word to the extent of being: undiscriminatinof wor- shipers of words, and by our unintelligent literalism miss the meaning that the words convey. When I find men treating metaphor as fact and reading 168 PRESIDENT PATTON. poetry as they would construe an act of Congress, seeking a spiritual sense in every commonplace expression, missing the point of the parable of the prodigal son by asking who was the " elder brother," and invoking the joint assistance of chemistry and the Book of Leviticus in the interpretation of the parable of the leaven, I feel that Matthew Arnold, with all his faults, at least deserves credit for re- minding us that the Bible is to be treated as litera- ture. But we must go further before we can be said to have passed beyond the letter in our study of Scripture. For though as literature it may be read with due regard to the historical conditions under which it was produced, with proper attention to differences of style and form of composition, we have not read it as we should when we have mas- tered its geographical details, studied its archaeology, learned to prize the beauties of Isaiah and Job, or appreciate the high moral level of the Sermon on the Mount. To regard the Bible simply as litera^ tore provokes in me a feeling akin to that which I have for the system once in vogue of making the Gospel of John an easy introduction to the study of Greek. We degi-ade the book by teaching it under false pretenses. We dishonor truth when we teach it with a sxippressio veri. I am in full sym- pathy with the idea that the Bible — the English THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT 169 Bible, if you like that way of describing it better — should have a place in the college curriculum ; but I want it understood that it is to be taught with distinct regard to its divine authority and the great doctrines of redemption that it contains. You have made but a poor use of your facilities here, my friends, if you are not able to make the distinction I have named. This indeed is no small part of education. We have tried to train you so as to bring you under the power of ideas. We have aimed to educate you so that you may become scholars, and not pedants; jurists, and not petti- foggers ; men of science, and not the bottle-washers of a laboratory ; theologians, and not textualists ; religious men who think again through God's Word the thoughts of God, and not dealers in cant phrases or slaves of a stupid literalism. II. The same antithesis with which we are dealing may serve also to stand for the contrast between the accidental and the essential in matters of liter- ary judgment and of religious opinions. Print does not discriminate. Even punctuation is a mod- ern device, and jurisprudence disdains it to this day. It gives no weight to the commas and semi- colons with which we sprinkle our pages, sometimes in default of a clear style or a correct syntax. It allows no ^^llgar italics to lend artificial emphasis 170 PRESIDENT PATTON. to what is written, but leaves the thought to make its way to the mind with no other presupposition than the intelligence of the reader. This is indeed often a large demand, but there seems to be as yet no sufficient substitute for brains ; and to one nor- mally furnished in this regard it is a self-evident proposition that, though the printed word does not say so, all thoughts are not of equal value nor wor- thy of the same emphasis. No obhgation rests upon us, for instance, to treat all the poet's verse as of equal beauty and force because he has not seen fit to show any favoritism to the children of his brain. It is not our fault that there are only three lines worth remembering in Wordsworth^s '' Peter Bell." All that is said is not worth repeat- ing. All human deeds are not worth recording. Worthless when new, they do not gain importance with the lapse of time. The phonograph that lis- tens to-day and reproduces the nonsense of conver- sation a hundred years hence will amuse, but it will not edify. It occurs to me to say this when I con- sider the prevalent mania for original research. Just now it is affecting historians and men of let- ters. You may know history — ^you may have your Gibbon, your HaUam, and your Freeman at your fingers' ends — but you are no historian unless you have studied the sources. If, however, you have THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 171 discovered a manuscript that will add a new chap- ter to the life of some tenth-rate Cavalier or Round- head, if you can come forth from your labors with the dust of an old library on your fingers, you have earned the title to fame. But why? Why dis- criminate thus against the man who knows much in favor of him who produces little ? Do I deny that your work is good ? By no means. That you have brought something new to light, and so have made a contribution to knowledge ? No. Or that your work has given you good training in the use of tools ? No. Nor would I deny that it is a useful thing for our young civil engineers to survey the college campus every year, or measui-e the Brook- lyn Bridge. I am only thinking that you lack per- spective ) that you are mistaking pains and trouble and a monopoly of useless information for history ; that 3^ou ai-e in danger of putting all facts upon the same level and of ranking the genealog}^ of a Mayflower family with the Norman Conquest. You are deceived by the letter and miss the spirit. You have adopted Gradgi^ind's philosophy. The demand is for facts, and so it comes to pass that in the ex- amination paper Oklahoma counts for as much as Thermopylas, and the date of the last constitutional amendment is thought to have as good a right to a vacant memory cell as a.d. 1453 or 1688. 172 PRESIDENT PATTON. We read books and study the history of opinion often with the same disregard of proportion — re- membering what we ought to forget and forgetting what we ought to remember 5 making no allowance for circumstances, and giving the same value to obiter dicta that we accord to reasoned opinions. Find Calvin tripping in a casual remark, then vilify his system : this is what men do. Or because one calls himself a disciple of Augustine, hold him re- sponsible for all that Augustine taught, as though one must beheve in the virtues of tar- water because he is a Berkleyan. Uneducated men, perhaps, find it hard to make the distinctions between essence and accident here referred to. All statements appear to them like items on a ledger to be reckoned in the same way. But educated men ought to know better. They ought to know that a man can be a Lutheran with- out believing all that Luther believed, or accept the Hegehan conception of the universe without sympa- thizing in detail with Hegel's peculiar views. It ought not to be difficult to understand that a creed statement may be accurate in doctrinal content though colored by the time in which it was written, and dealing with conditions of thought that no longer exist. And it must also be evident that it would be hard to avoid the appearance of anachro- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 173 nism if we undertook to weave the thoughts of this generation into a document that on its title-page purports to have been written two hundi'ed and fifty years ago. A little exercise of judgment, however, a little effort to distinguish between essence and accident, abiding fact and accidental setting — in short, to read the spirit in the letter would save all the trouble. We may as well learn to exercise this power of judgment on the creeds, for we shall have to exercise it on the Scriptures. All Scripture is in- spired, but it does not all possess the same rehg- ious value. All Scripture is truth, but all Script- ural truth is not of equal importance. Essential to the organic structure of the Bible all of it un- doubtedly is, but not equally essential to spiritual life and religious education. When men say they wish the Bible to be taught without doctrine, I reply that the doctrines of the Bible are more important than much of the Bible itself. The sense of Script- m'e is the Scripture, and rather than miss the sense we could afford to do without certain forms of Bible knowledge. There is in the Bible, as in other hter- ature, what may be called the essential and the acci- dental, and it is an act of intelligence to distinguish between them. I read the Cosmogony and get out of it the doctrine of creation, the ascent of life, the 174 PRESIDENT PATTON. supremacy of man and his primeval purity. I am willing to fill up the great categories of Genesis with the help of science, and so make the general- izations that follow the study of one of God's books help in the interpretation of the other. I read in the words of the Saviour the generic ideas that should control social existence and the great prin- ciples that should guide conduct, but I do not sup- pose that the illustration of a principle should be construed with hteral exactness. I do not expect to handle venomous reptiles with impunity. I do not expect faith to supersede medical treatment or cure organic disease 5 and I do not find either in the Sermon on the Mount or in the apostolic com- munity of goods an argument for socialism and the denial of the rights of property. I believe that Paul was inculcating an important principle when he discouraged the appearance of Christians as litigants in heathen courts; but I would not on that account conclude that aU litigation is sin, and that the legal profession is incompatible with Chris- tianity. To be sure the distinction between essence and accident involves serious responsibility, for in attempting to make it we may err. I am sure that Arnold erred and that his literary judgment was warped by his prejudices when he made ethics the main thing in Scripture and represented the dog- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 175 mas of Christianity as the accidents of PauHne teaching. For what is the Bible? What is the evolution of Biblical ideas but the growth of a few great dogmatic conceptions ? The essence of Script- ure, the core of the Old Testament and the New, is the doctrine that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, and that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not im- puting unto men their trespasses. It is the divine purpose that brings the Bible into line with the facts of the material world. It is the Incarnation that gives organic character to Scripture. It is human guilt that constitutes the great presupposi- tion of Revelation. It is the doctrine of faith as man's response to the overtures of love that meets the exigencies of man's moral nature and makes the Bible the best and greatest message that man ever had. Why, then, do men teU me that they wish the Bible taught religiously but not doctri- naUy ? Why do educated men who have been taught to distinguish between the letter and the spirit show such proneness to mistake when they touch relig- ious themes? Yet the world is fuU of men who speak in this way. These are the men who stand in our pulpits and preach on the patience of Job and the moral courage of Daniel ; who find material for sentimental sermons in the seasons, and enter- 176 PRESIDENT PATTON. taining sermons in the social follies of the day, and practical sermons in the importance of sleep or the need of restricting immigration, but who are silent respecting the tremendous fact of sin and the dog- matic significance of atoning blood. I do not say that such men are handling the Word of God deceitfully, for I am willing to have them plead guilty, if they prefer, to an unscholarly stupidity that prevents them from seeing that the bleeding Christ is the central fact of Scripture. Let me beg you, gentlemen, to heed this lesson of the text. Cultivate a wise discrimination. Read the best books. Seize upon master thoughts. Get hold of the big end of the questions that invite your scru- tiny. Distinguish between what is vital and what is of no importance. Gamer the wheat; let the chaff go. Rest your opinions on broad and deep rational foundations. Follow this method in re- ligion. A few principles, a few facts, carry the whole fabric of Christianity. Follow the great trend of evidence, and do not halt for minor diffi- culties. Let the great outlying facts of Christianity determine your faith, and do not let trifles feed your doubt. You are sticking in the bark, you may be sure, when you let a textual difficulty, or an historical discrepancy, or a hard question in ethics, or a dogmatic mystery, hinder your accept- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. Ill ance of the historic Christ as the Savioui* of the world. III. I come now to the consideration of another distinction suggested by the text. It is difficult to resist the feeling that there was in Paul's mind the contrast between the rigid fixity of the letter on the one hand and the plastic spontaneity of the spirit on the other. Litera scripta manet. The written word does not change. But the living organism is constantly adjusting itself to new conditions, and changing to suit them. We have then the fixed and the variable, unbending law and changing life. The history of the world, of society, of religious opinion, is to a large extent the history of these two factors in their relations to each other. The legal code becomes too narrow to suit the exigencies of an expanding life, and it changes in fact but not in form. The needed work is done, but the forms of law are saved by legal fiction. TJhi jus iU re- medium 'j but there is no remedy at common law, and equity finds one through the edict of the prgetor or the decisions of the chancellor. We have a writ- ten constitution as the basis of government, and the powers of the coordinate branches of government are defined. But time develops the old conflict between the unyielding law and the li%ing organ- ism, with the odds, as Professor Wilson shows, in 178 PRESIDENT PATTON. favor of the organism. We formulate om* faith in creed statements, and after a century or two find that the Church and the creed are not in exact ac- cord. There is nothing to wonder at. It is the old question of the letter and the spirit. The letter has controlled the life. It has given the law to its varia- tions. Pohtical development in this land will fol- low the Lines of the Constitution. Theological de- velopment will foUow the lines of the creed that controls it. Unless the letter goes into the life of the organism it wiU become a dead letter j and if it goes into it, it wiU be modified and colored by cir- cumstances of time and place. Now this question of the fixed and the variable is a much larger one than that of creed revision. It is at the root of nearly aU the great questions of to-day. Men are realizing as never before the solidarity of mankind. The old Pelagian conception of individu- ahsm is abandoned and there is a tendency to go to the opposite extreme. Individual opinion is hushed in the presence of advancing waves and irresistible movements, as they are caUed, and we are warned against the foUy of trying to stop the rising tide. In the case of very advanced thinkers this worship of the Zeitgeist is associated with the denial of all a priori ideas. Standards of measurement there are none. The movement is recognized, but there is THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 179 no criterion by which to judge it, and the ideas that limit it and give it shape are ignored. Men say we must study the facts in an historical spirit and gather oui- induction out of what we see. The science of ethics becomes the science of what is, rather than of what ought to be, and if a doctrine of right survives at all, it is the doctrine that what- ever is is right. In the name of reason I protest against this tendency of thought. As a sovereign thinker with- in the realm of my own acti\dties, I refuse to abdicate under the terrorism of popular sentiment. I refuse to say that because the avalanche is irre- sistible, therefore it is right. I refuse to drown my reason in a tidal wave. And when any idea in philosophy or politics or theology is ^^in the air," I claim the right to examine its creden- tials and scrutinize its claims before I give it my acceptance. Historic movements, as well as the actions of individual men, must be judged by fixed principles. It is easy, then, for me to define my position in regard to what is called progressive theology. WiU you tie the Church to the letter or give her the free life of the spirit ? How will you adjust the relations between the letter and the spirit ; the Church and the creed ; the organism and the law of its development ? According to Schleier- 180 PRESIDENT PATTON. macher, the New Testament is only the recorded religious experience of the apostolic age, genetic- ally related to the ages following, but giving no rubric and imposing no law\ It follows, then, that there is no standard of faith, that truth is relative, and that the Christian organism is a law unto itself. The Roman Catholic, again, says that the organism is infallible and can speak in the present t^nse. It is not necessary^, therefore, to beheve that all divine revelation is contained in the Bible. Transubstantiation came by way of doctrinal evolution with the second council of Nice, and papal infallibility within the present generation. The doctrine of evolution applied to theology by Cardinal Newman helps Rome to ad- just the relation between the fixed and the vari- able. Protestants, however, have the written word as their only rule of faith. Changing taste cannot obliterate its doctrines. Organic drifts cannot vacate words of their historic sense. We cannot eliminate doctrines because we do not like them, or insert new ones because popular sentiment caUs for them. What is written is written. The Clu-istian consciousness can no more change the meaning of a Greek word than it can upset the multiplication table. There is no legal fiction that can modify^ or change the Word of God. When THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 181 men say, as in effect they do, that the old concep- tion of a sovereign God does not suit our repub- lican ideas, they only blaspheme. And when by- and-by they will seek to dethrone him and plainly say that each generation must elect its own Ruler and dictate his administrative policy, they will only carry to their logical consequences some of the prev- alent ideas of to-day. I do not deny, however, that important truth is hinted at in the doctrine known as the Christian Consciousness. I am no advocate of ecclesiastical immobility. The Christian Church is not an exact copy in mode of worship, methods of administration, and form of government of the Church of the New Testament. We have discontinued the holy kiss^ and feet washing is no part of Christian hospitality. We have salaried ministers and surphced choirs, neither being known to the Apostolic Church. We have tried to foster the apostolic spii'it and perpetu- ate apostolic ideas, but the Church has altered her mode of life and work to suit altered conditions of society. Paul said that under certain circum- stances he would refuse the meat offered in sacri- fice to idols, and would not drink wine that had any idolatrous associations. Interpret him liter- ally and his words have no application to modern life, for the conditions that controlled his decision 182 PRESIDENT PATTON. no longer exist. ' Change his decision into a man- date of abstinence and at once you tyrannize over the conscience and rob the act of abstinence of all ethical significance. Generalize the statement, how- ever, and yon have the great law of altruistic mo- rality which, after all abatements for selfishness have been made, is the most potent factor in our practical life. And so with doctrine. The dogmas of Chris- tianity are fixed. The Bible does not change and we have no extra-biblical revelation. But a dog- ma that is only read in the Bible or stated and subscribed to in a creed is only a dead letter. It must go into oui* life and be part of our intel- lectual and moral experience. But going into our individual and our organic life it adjusts itself to changing conditions, although unchanged itself. It win be read with a different emphasis in differ- ent periods ; it wiU be interpreted in the light of the burning questions of those periods ; it will be brought into relation with science and philosophy, and acquire fresh interest from generation to gen- eration from the new polemic conditions that are constantly emerging. Paul's vocabulary was af- fected by his contact with philosophy. Ours wiU be. The attempt to eliminate philosophy from theology is a vain attempt. The two departments THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT 183 deal largely with the same subjects and cover common gi-ound. All the material, whatever be its source, whatever be its authorit}^, that goes to make our theory of the universe must pass into our Hf e and bear the impress of our thought ; and as we think in philosophy so we shall be compelled to think in theology. We handle the same ques- tions regarding God, freedom, and immoi-tality that Paul did, that Augustine did, that Thomas Aquinas did, that Calvin did; and though the Scriptures have not changed, and our reading of them, so far as these topics are concerned, is not materially different from that of the men that have been named, we see the same truth under different conditions. Our heretics are not Cerin- thus and Celsus, but Spencer and Kuenen. Our foe is not credulity, but agnosticism. And as conditions change, our mode of presenting the unchangeable truth must also change. Remem- ber, however, that if the letter without the life is dead, the life needs the letter to give law to its movement. Do not be deceived by the cry that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Do not hastily assume that every great movement is an inspired movement. We have no personal infallibility. We believe in no corporate infalli- bility. We have no faith in the inspiration of 184 PRESIDENT PATTON. large masses of men. When, therefore, under the influence of those who would have us put our faith in the organism rather than tie it to the written word, we begin to lose faith in the author- ity of Scripture, we give up our only basis of Christian certitude. lY. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Out- ward rule and inward principle are the two great agencies that operate on human conduct, and they seem contrasted in the text. There is the inner principle in bent of inclination and dominant pur- pose seeking expression in our spontaneities ; and here is the objective code by which we seek to guide our life, and which is put before us as an instructive and restraining influence. The world, says Mr. Lecky, is governed by its ideals. It is what we love to do that we do well. By help of rule alone men write no books and paint no pict- ures that wear the stamp of genius. They per- form no acts of heroism in grudging compliance with law ; they shine in none of the beauties of high and holy character when they have simply schooled themselves to follow another's will. Work done in conformity with rule is drudgery and a weariness of the flesh. There is the morality of principle and the morality of outward conformity. That there is a place for the morality of ex- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 185 ternalism and precept, of law and obedience to command, I do not doubt, yet I sometimes tliink that life is made more burdensome than it need be, and that we hinder rather than help the higher interests of morality by the excessive mul- tiplication of rules. The State goes as far as it ought in encroaching upon the freedom of the individual ; the Church is taking liberties with the rights of conscience in saying that its members shaU do this and shall not do that. We go to col- lege and a code of instructions is the first lesson we are required to learn. We enter business and we find ourselves girt about by rule. We are more unwilling every day to assume that men will act right from principle, and more disposed to think that they love to do wrong. Wholesale suspicion is the law of society. We are multiply- ing the machinery of detection. We cr^^. Who will keep the keepers ? We are insuring ourselves at increasing cost against the dishonesty of those whom we have trusted. We watch the clerk at his desk and the student in his examination. We put a beU-punch in the hands of the conductor and set traps for the night watchman. In forms more or less visible and in ways more or less irritating to the feelings, we proclaim our inabiUty to trust men and our conviction that all men are liars. 186 PRESIDENT PATTON. Necessary all this may be for protection, thougli I still believe that we owe more to conscience than to all our complicated machinery of police. But the trouble is that men suppose that all this is moral education. There is an impression that you make men moral when you make them fear to do wrong, and that by repressing wrong-doing you are elevating character. Make wrong-doing so difficult that right-doing will be easier and it is thought you will make men moral. And un- doubtedly a great deal of the world's morality is of this sort. A man obeys the law because he fears the penalty. He will lose his place, or incur the odium of society, or be visited with social ostracism, or miss his diploma, and there- fore he wiU do as he is told. And there are good men who fail to see that there is no morality in this. Not only do they fail to see it, but the opinion seems to be gaining ground that we can build up character by this system of externahsms. Men not only obey laws imposed by society for its own protection, but they take pledges, make prom- ises, multiply vows for their own edification, and in place of the freedom of the spirit they are going back to the legalism of an older dispensation, are rejoicing in the bondage of the letter. They should know, however, that enforced obedi- THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 187 euce is not moral education. Character is an en- dogenous plant and grows from within. IVIilitary training teaches men to obey law, but it does not teach them to love it. Deserters ai-e shot ; so the soldier does not desert. That is all. Kant is right. The law that comes from without is not ethical. There is no morality in doing right through calcu- lation of consequences. Hence only self-legislated law is moral. Though it be God's law, it must be autonomous before it is ethical. It must address the conscience and be approved as good. It must become a maxim of reason and not a mere com- mand. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The State, of course, must protect itself, and its main end is therefore not moral education. This must be left to the Church. But what is to be our aim in the administration of a coUege ? Shall we consider the good order of the organization, or the moral improvement of the student f It might be easy to do either ; it may be hard to combine the twoj but we must combine them. There must be rules, but they should be few, and the application of them should address the conscience. We must prepare men for the fran- chises which they are so soon to inherit, by respect- ing their manhood and avoiding aU petty legisla- tion. We must protect the organism and at the 188 PRESIDENT P ATT ON. same time labor for the good of the individual. We must hold law subservient to the end for which it is enacted and bend the rule if it be necessary in order to save the man. We must consider, it is true, the welfare of the mass, but we must some- times, if need be, leave the ninety-and-nine, and care for the one who has gone astray. The college student is ingenuous, as a rule. He makes mistakes and falls into mischief or sin. But the case is rare when you do not find something in him that draws you to him. He is frank. He will admit that he has abused kindness, trifled with good-nature, and acted meanly. He is sorry that he did so, and his chmax of regret is generally the thought of his mothei*'s anguish and his father's sorrow. I have a large place in my heart for the man who is capable of this filial love. But, my brother, you must stand on higher ground than this. You are going out to face the temptations of the world. You will be confronted with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It is not enough that you recognize the authority of the outward law. You should make it an inner principle. It is not enough that wrong conduct be avoided because it is dishonorable and will bring disgrace. Learn to avoid it because it is wrong. Learn to do right because it is right. THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 189 Learn to feel the sanctions of a higher morality; and when your evil-doing fills you with regret let it be because you have sinned against God and put a stain upon your soul. V. And now, gentlemen of the gi^aduating class, let me say a single closing word. This week marks an important era in the calendar of yom* life. It means the severance of old ties ; the full assump- tion of personal responsibility, and the facing of the futm-e. We have tried hard to fit you for the work of life. We have not done what we might have done,- partly perhaps through our neglect, partly also thi-ough your neglect. But to some ex- tent in all of you, I trust, and to a large extent in most of you, I know, our aim has been realized. In sending you out into the world we are making a contribution to its working force of which we have no reason to be ashamed. We have tried to make the education we have given you a commentaiy upon the words that I have chosen for my text. We have tried to foster in you high ideals in liter- ature and high aims in science. We have tried to discipline your powers so that you will see the parts of truth in their proper relations to each other and in just proportion. We have tried to show that the unchanging Word of God is not a fossil to be laid upon the shelf, but the direct- 190 PRESIDENT PATTON. ing principle of the life^ the inspiration of its movement, and the law of its variation. We have tried to teach you also that the essence of all moraUty is a self-enunciated law of obhgation, commanding without condition and despising cal- culation. And we have not forgotten in the services of this sanctuary that the contrast between the letter and the spirit bears witness also to another contrast between Law and Gospel, to which reference was made in the beginning of this discourse. The Apostle did not mean to disparage the Law when he contrasted it with the Gospel. The Gospel did not supersede the Law, it only supplemented it. The Law is holy, just, and good. It came from God, and is the expression of his will. It is perfect but unrelenting. It teUs us what we ought to do. It sets before us an ideal that excites our admira- tion and provokes despair. You accept it as just, but you cannot comply with it. You resolve and fail. You promise and break your vow. You make an effort and fall short. But the Law ac- cepts no excuse and makes no allowance. There is no pity in its tones. It meets your contrition with no encouraging word. Its face is rigid and its voice is hard. Your passing grade, it tells you, is a hundred, and you have failed. That is aU it has THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 191 to say. It measures; it does not pity. It tabu- lates results ; it does not forgive. The Law is the embodiment of God's will, but there is also another embodiment of that will. And when, conscious of your failure, you go to Jesus and say, "0 Master, I know I ought to have done better, and I feel ashamed," then will come a look of such exquisite tenderness upon his face that will say before the words are spoken. Thy sins are forgiven thee ; go in peace. When, after fruitless endeavor to learn the lessons of life and do its work, we go to him and say, " O Divine Teacher, I would fain learn, but I am very slow, and my poor powers are not equal to this high task," he wiU say to you again, ''Have patience, child, and I wiU teach thee. I will put my Spirit within thee. I will perfect my strength in thy weakness." The Law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Have fellowship with Christ. Walk with him. Turn ever to him for comfort, for strength, for guidance. Serve hiTu while you live, and by-and-by you shall be Like him, and you shall see him as he is. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. By Prof. James 0. Murray, D.D., LL.D. "Aiid it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." —Luke 6:12. A LMOST every thougMful person has known -^•-*^ moods in which the solitude and silenee of nature came like balm upon the hurt soul. It was refreshing and comforting to get away from con- tact with man, from vices that disgust us, and pet- tiness that vexes us, and deceit that affronts us, into contact with the calm, sweet refreshings of nature and communion with God. So we may suppose our Lord, only in an immeasurably purer spirit, to have betaken himself gladly from the un- belief and the hardness, from the mercenary spiiit of the loaves and fishes and the hateful Pharisaic pride, from the miseiy and the degradation, into this mountain-top far from all sights or sounds of man. " The scene of this lonely vigil is the same, in all probability, as that of the Sermon on the Mount." As described by recent observers, ^' it is a 192 CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 193 hill with a siiininit which closely resembles an Ori- ental saddle with its two high peaks. On the west it rises very Httle above the level of a broad and undulating plain ; on the east it sinks precipitately toward a plateau, on which lies, immediately be- neath the cliffs, the village of Hattin ; and from this plateau the traveler descends through a wild and tropic gorge to the shining levels of the Lake of Galilee. It is the only conspicuous hill on the western side of the lake, and it is singularly adapted by its conformation both to form a place for short retirement and a rendezvous for gathering multi- tudes." Hither at nightfall, alone, wean^, burdened with a world's redemption, came Christ to pray. The stars came out one by one above him, the silence deepened around him as the night wore on, and when, after midnight had passed and the morn- ing star stood in the heavens, the first ray of dawn tipped the trans-Jordanic hills, Christ was still in this communion with his Father. It is not, then, so much Christ fleeing from the harassing, disap- pointing, mournful contact with men and men's sins and miseries into the vernal quiet and refresh- ing beauty of nature, as it is Christ in this night of prayer on a mountain-top disclosing to man prayer in the highest ranges of spiritual experience, which aiTests us and challenges an eager and a solemn 194 PROFESSOR MURRAY. attention. Chrisfs devotional habits or Christ as a man of prayer gives us our theme. In the outset, and before any attempt is made to combine in one picture the scattered notices of his prayers, it should be noted that there is something wonderfully attractive and powerfully suggestive in this view of Christ. It contrasts so mightily with that of the same Christ stilling tempests, cast- ing out evil spirits, raising the dead. And this not only as it reverses Christ's position, bringing him to his knees or on his face as a supplicant for help, whereas winds and seas and devils and the very dead had but just obeyed his voice, but stiU more as it shows him entered into our deepest and most sacred human experiences, those of communion with God in prayer, in sore soul-struggles, in soli- tary, anxious, possibly bitter experiences. To gain any fit impression of how deeply and pervasively prayer entered into the human life of Chiist, we must study the four Gospels and put together their separate notices of his devotional hfe. Over the life of Jesus preparatory to his public ministry, that thirty years at Nazareth, for the most part a thick veil hangs. But this we do know, that he was trained in the Old Testament Scriptures, and the spirit of the Old Testament Scriptures is the spirit of prayer all the way through, from Jacob's CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 195 wrestling with the Angel to Daniel's supplications toward Jerusalem. How natural, then, to find, as we do find, that his pubhc ministr}^ began, as it ended, in prayer. " Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being bap- tized, and praying, the heaven was opened." That opened heaven was the avenue through which his supplications found their way to God his Father till death closed his lips in silence. The Evangel- ists are not effusive and declamatory on this theme. They even treat it with a sacred reserve, seldom lifting the veil from the sacred privacy. But when- ever it is lifted, what we see rivets the impression that prayerfulness comes into the life of Jesus in no secondary nor incidental way, but as its under- tone, its substrata on which his pubhc life and ministry repose. The EvangeUsts have singled out instances of Christ's devotions, his prayers at the remarkable junctures of his history' — when he was baptized, when he was transfigured, when he chose the twelve apostles, when one of them was to be sifted like wheat, when he was to be separated from his disciples, when his soul was coming under its great agony, and when he bowed his head to death. The impression which such records make on us is that these prayers are the indexes to his whole life as a life of prayerfulness. They suggest 196 PROFESSOR MURRAY. to US the fact that he made so much of prayer as to avail himself of every possible outward aid to devotion. He who was careful to instruct men 'that they were to enter into their closet and shut to the door and pray to God in secret — ^he sought the stillness of night-seasons and mountain-tops, the calming influences of perfect solitude far from the madding crowd. These notices disclose to us the fact that Christ's devotional Hf e here and there came out in transcendent intensity and volume, taking for its needed expression whole nights upon mountain-tops. Pause a moment and think of Christ's praying through that night, from watch to watch, tUl the breaking day called him to labor. We know not for what he prayed, we know not what blessedness of heavenly communion or what agonies of wresthng supplication the still heavens above him witnessed; whether Gethsemane were foreshadowed or Hermon renewed. If, however, we notice carefully the fact that in all such records prayer holds a prominent place in what may be called the emergencies of Christ's history, we cannot fail to be impressed by such prayers as revelations of Christ's devotional Hf e. For being made in all things like unto his brethren, there came to him, as there come to all of us, critical periods in Hfe, when existence suddenly takes on deeper responsi- CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 197 bilities. It is some grave question to affect the whole future of life for us— a change which will surely project its influences into eternity for our- selves and for those dear to us. It is the memora- ble thing in the history of the Redeemer that he entered on no such period without prayer. Look again at that night of prayer on the mountain-top. Consider to what it is the prelude. The time has come for the Saviour to associate with himself the men who were to be the founders of his Church on earth. The whole futui-e of that Church is to be affected by the transaction. It is the question of Peter and James and John. His selection is made after the night of prayer, and they go out to their mighty responsible work under the canopy of a Redeemer's night-long supplication to God. In the course of his ministry another and yqyy different experience rises before him. For some purpose, not directly revealed— perhaps to strengthen the faith of his disciples in himself by disclosing to them some of his essential glories j perhaps to strengthen his own heart by some transcendent communion with the heavenly world — for some great purpose he is to be transfigured before the dis- ciples and before the wondering, adoring ages. But he passes under the great change through the gates of prayer. ^^As lie prayed, the fashion of his coiinte- 198 PROFESSOR MURRAY. nance was altered.^' Drawing near the close of his ministry, when the hour and the meaning of his great sacrifice press themselves upon his soul with so marvelous distinctness and poignancy, he ex- claims, " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? " And he answers his own question by a prayer to his Father in heaven. At last the ministry is drawing to its close. The last supper is celebrated; the last discourses are uttered. His teaching mounts to its sublimest reach and stretches to its utmost range. As he began his public ministry by prayer so must it be closed in prayer ; and thus was breathed forth the last, the intercessory prayer of Christ, which rises into a grandeur of supplication so subdued, so ten- der, that it is the very holy of holies of inspiration. These all were emergencies of labor, emergencies of suffering. How fruitful in every age have they not been in evoking from human lips plaintive, passionate cries to Heaven. We look into the shades of Gethsemane, and see stretched out in dim outline beneath the olive trees the prostrate Son of God. We hear a prayer ; it struggles up into utterance, every word palpitating with a great anguish. Thrice — thrice it smites our ears and pierces the heavens : " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." The cup did not pass, but CHRIST /IS A MAN OF PRAYER. 199 an angel came. And then, oh then, in the supreme moment, when the sacrifice was complete and re- demption was finished, once more Christ prayed, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and his life went out in the breathing of a prayer. Olivet, Hermon, Gethsemane, Calvary — what views they give us of the praying Christ ! These emer- gencies of his history fall, as you perceive, into two classes. They are emergencies of labor or suffer- ing. Either he has some vaster responsibilities to meet, or his soul is to pass under the baptism of some great anguish, and in both he needs to pray, in both does pray, and teaches us how to pray in both. In just those periods, at just those points of his life when sacred destinies are most densely gathered, those passages in his history on which, therefore, the gaze of men would be most intensely fixed, there we find him praying. So do Christ's prayers He at the veiy heart of his ministrj^ His devotional habits were marked by the two great traits of intensity and perseverance. He who taught that men ought always to pray and not to faint, rose up a great while before day and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed, or spent a night of solitude in supplication. Prayer was no occasional, sporadic element in Christ's life. The fountain leaping fai' into the air shows the deeply 200 PROFESSOR MURRAY. hidden spring; and so prayer comes to the fore- front in the life of Christ. Side by side with teach- ings, with deeds, with sufferings which proclaim him the God incarnate, the man divine, Christ's prayers show what celestial forces played through that life, finding it so perfectly human in its expe- riences of want, and making it so perfectly divine in its blessedness of supply. Still we must advance one step farther and see how Christ's prayerfulness was balanced by Christ's laboriousness. It has not always been the case that so-called men of prayer have been men of Christian toil. Much, indeed, of so-caUed communion with God seems to be an end in itself, looking to enjoyment or to a sort of spiritual development, which is pie- tism, but not piety. The mystics of the Middle Ages, like John Tauler, some more modern mys- tics, like Madame Guyon, approached dangerously near such an error, if they did not topple over its verge. There is an ignorant piety full of emotion- alism, which is fluent in prayer, works itseK up into a sort of ecstasy, but which has apparently no moral basis. But without going at length into these fearful distortions of true prayerfulness, which shock and disgust aU right-minded people, skeptics and intelligent believers alike, we may find some food for thought in the great disparity for CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 201 many of us between the amount of our prajdng and the amount of our working. How often we have prayed with undoubted fervor and sincerity for the kingdom of God ! If by an effort of memory we could recall the numbers of such prayers ive have offered, and if by any disclosure we could see the numbers of prayers the saints of all ages have offered, and could compare them with the actual labors put forth, manifold as these have been, we should be overwhelmed with the enormous disparity between praying and working. It is so easy to pray, and so hard to work — ^that is, it is so easy to go through the motions or forms of prayer j but to work — there comes the test of courage, endurance, faith. To say, " Thy kingdom come," and to feel that it would be so blessed and so glorious if it only would come, this is surely no thorny path to tread. But to translate the prayer into action, to do the deed on which the coming kingdom depends, " ay, there's the rub." The moment, however, we look at prayer as it stands in the Hfe of any saint of God, Old Testa- ment or New, that moment we see no such disparity existiug. Every man of prayer is a man of toil too. Elijah prayed, and the heavens gave no rain. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave forth the rain abundantly. He was a man of Hke passions 202 PROFESSOR MURRAY. as we are. But look at that stern, mighty old prophet, majestic figure that he is, of uncompromis- ing fidehty in a time of apostasy, and see how in him mighty labors kept even pace with mighty prayers. The same thing is true of Paul. His simple but appealing words show us the man, whose very conversion was heralded by the words, '' Be- hold, he prayeth." '^Mght and day praying exceed- ingly for ^jouP But all this life of devotion, how it rises against a mighty background of toil and suffering for his Lord. In Christ, however, most conspicuously are the two elements joined — ^the praying and the working. Paint his devotional life in never so vivid colors, his working life keeps in harmony with every tint and outline. In fact, what gives this picture in the text — Christ praying alone on the mountain-top through the long night-watches — ^its great power and glory is that he went to that mountain-top after one day of toil, and would come down from it to engage in another exactly like it ; so that if a disciple could say of his imrecorded works, the world itself could not contain the books that might be written to record them, it might also be said that those works of Jesus, so incessant, so numberless, so gracious, are only the outgrowth of an answer- ing prayerfulness. Nor can we duly estimate the CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 203 prayerf ulness of Christ till we look at his prayers as intercessory prayers. The intercession of Christ is one divine func- tion of his priestly office. He is now fulfilling it, at the right hand of God. One design cer- tainly of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to acquaint us with the nature and the blessedness of the sacerdotal ministry now exercised by Christ in behaK of his people. It must differ from his aton- ing work. That is finished — complete. It must rest upon and depend on the atoning work, for that is urged as the ground of his intercession. What- ever it is in nature or manifestation, it fills heaven with praise and earth with blessing. Now, of this heavenly intercession some of his earthly suppHca- tions are beautiful types. Indeed, in one sense, as his whole life was vicarious, so all his praying is vicarious. If it was in form prayer a blessing to himself, it is in fact prayer that he might thereby bless the world he came to redeem. But his prayers often assumed directly the intercessory form and style. As such, they interpret to us what are the heavenly intercessions within the veil still offered for his people. Young children were brought to him that he should put his hands upon them and pray. " And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." Christ praying for 204 PROFESSOR MURRAY. a gi'oup of children — does this seem to any mind a lowly office for him to assume ? If so, it is only because the question of childhood is feebly con- ceived and its immense range overlooked, or be- cause the blessed truth is unappreciated that the very greatness of divine love is often manifest in the feebleness and helplessness of the objects toward which it is exercised. When, a generation since, a gifted Christian poetess wrote her "Cry of the Children," the Christian world was roused by her pathetic, indignant song. What was it, after all, but a faint echo from a Christian woman's soul of what ages before had been heard in Pales- tine, when Christ made his prayer for childhood ? Still more specifically and powerfully does Christ commend to our hearts the intercessory type of prayer in his words to the apostle Peter: "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Christ knew this disciple stood in imminent peril ; that his soul would shortly be shaken in gusts of temptation, "as when one thresheth wheat upon the threshing floor and winnoweth it." The story of Simon Peter's denial of his Lord is the actual commentary on this word of the Lord. What kept him safe in that terrible hour fi'om final, utter CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 205 apostasy ? What saved him from a shipwreck of faith, hopeless, irretrievable, disastrous ? That in- tercession of Christ — that, and that alone. " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." There was evidently an hour when Jesus bore in prayer to his Father the case of this imperiled disciple, when Christ pleaded for him at the throne of grace, and forever illustrated for all men and all time the great doctrine of intercession. It is only, however, when we turn to Christ's last or intercessory prayer, recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, that we can grasp any fit conception of what Christ's earthly intercessions were for fullness and richness. What vastness of range, as it covers the whole body of the faithful, that great multi- tude which no man can number, gathered from the east and the west, the north and the south, and who stood to Christ as all those who had been given him ! What ages of Christian toil and Chris- tian conflict, suffering and testimony, self-sacrifice and aspiration, it covers, as the one body of Chris- tian discipleship is brought under the terms of this prayer! What richness, what amplitude of peti- tion, as it stretches away from sanctification on earth to glorification in heaven, from holy ward against the evil that is in the world, to partici- pation and so perception of the glory which Christ 206 PROFESSOR MURRAY. has and had before the foundation of the world. As his miracles are the fit symbols of his power, so this intercessory prayer is the fit symbol of his in- tercessions in heaven, interpreting and endearing them to our human hearts as we slowly and pain- fully struggle upward along the path of Christian discipline, sorrow, and toil. And thus, indeed, are we brought to see the fact that Christ, in these prayers of an earthly interces- sion, reveals to us the moral grandeur as well as preciousness there is in prayer. If a man could only pray for himself, if by some limitation in the nature of things, or in the immutable sovereignty of God, every soul had the privilege for itseK alone, even then such a boon offered to all were a price- less blessing. But now, as intercession for others, how prayer rises and swells into moral grandeur and moral worth ! Jesus, standing with his disci- ples about the table on which the sacrament of the last supper was yet to be celebrated, and as thej were about to start for the garden across the brook Kedron, lifts his eyes to heaven. But he has al- ready looked down through the ages, far across continents then unknown, and sees the fast gath- ering throng of his disciples j sees them toiling, witnessing, suffering for his sake ; sees the faithful leaders in one generation die, and those of the next CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 207 run to take their places j sees aJl the di-eadfol cor- ruptions, all the stern conflicts, aU the sad heresies and schisms, all the triumphs too, and growths, as the blessed leaven slowly leavens the whole lump ; and as he looks on the whole up to the very end, he prays for all those who should beheve on him through the word of his apostles. And from this scene on earth we look reverently up to his throne in heaven, where he ever liveth to make interces- sion for us. This study of Christ's devotional habits leads straight to several lessons touching on vital spir- itual interests. First, as to the individual, we can see how large a place prayer ought to hold in everj' human life. Did Jesus Christ find such need of prayer ? Was he in his sinless manhood so beset by duties and pressed by responsibilities and sorrows that he had need of this strong crying and tears ? We may be sure that he who was the Truth prayed because prayer met, and prayer only could meet, actual, living, daily wants. But if this is true for Christ, how much more for men, who are sinful and weak and ignorant. What an awful vacuum is a prayerless life ! There is not a soul before me, not one, but is so encompassed with infirmities, and yet has so much of Christian responsibility in one shape or other to meet j but is so poorly equipped 208 PROFESSOR MURRAY. for service of Christ, compared with what he should be as a servant of the Lord j but has so many and so pressing spiritual wants, that if such a life be prayerless, it is a moral anomaly bafiSing all expla- nation, save that which comes in an unbelieving and hardened heart. In fact, it is the privilege of man to pray, because we have a Mediator with God — Christ Jesus. Prayer, then, in human life, by rea- son of its needs so manifold and pressing, by reason of its perils so various and so imminent, by reason of its opportunities so gracious and so fleeting — prayer ought to come to the front in every man's life as a spiritual power, a power with God. Thus it stands in the Mf e of Christ. Thus he has put it for all men by his own divine example. Effectual and fervent praying may sound depths, as it may test qualities of manhood, which working never can. Secondly, as to the body of Christian disciple- ship. For as an agency in promoting the king- dom of God on earth, prayer is to be put, not side by side with the preaching of the Word and ordinances, but above them. They are nothing except a divine influence vitalizes them, and that divine influence the power of the Spirit of God, that comes only along the channels opened by prayer. So Christ, in the model of all prayer, taught his disciples to say, '^ Thy kingdom come." CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 209 Prayer as an agency for promoting the kingdom of God is prayer in its form of intercession. It has all the moral grandeui* and all the divine tenderness which are reflected from Christ's prayer for the behevers of all ages. And the danger which now more than any other threatens us is that we shall be found looking away from the sole efficacious element in spiritual growth^ the might of God's Spirit, to what is adventitious, subordi- nate — to the mere instrument, to the '' drawing ele- ment " in the pulpit, to the '' live element " in the prayer-meeting, to the blackboard element in the Sunday-school, to the thousand and one expedi- ents devised for making religion interesting; whereas, if we did but remember it, one breath of God's spirit on a human soul, one touch of that Spirit on the long-sealed spiritual vision, and the whole soul is alert and absorbed by the gi-eat spir- itual interests, by truth, by the means of grace. No need now for the spicery of rehgious entertain- ments. The soul has come to find in the sober, earnest following of Christ what expands all its powers and meets all its wants. While this age, as all ages past, can forget the ancient warn- ing, ^^ Cursed is the man that malceth an arm of flesh his trust," only at deadly peril and unutter- able loss, there is this difference between Chi'ist's 210 PROFESSOR MURRAY. praying and our own. He always prayed aright ; we ask amiss. And we enter into the secret of Christ's praying only as we pray to our heavenly Father above all fear of violating natural laws, and in the perfect confidence that God can answer any wise prayer, and have the whole system of laws move majestically forward, untroubled as the slumber of an infant. '' Thinkest thou that I can- not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me twelve legions of angels ? " This was the faith of Jesus in prayer, that by the opening of his lips in a suppUcation he could fill the sky above him with twelve legions of angels, hovering above his head, a canopy of defense from all harm, and filling the air with their shining squadrons. This should be our faith in prayer, that it will bring into our lives and into the lives of others, unnum- bered and matchless blessings which will never come unless our lips open to pray. Cure your doubts about prayer by looking to Jesus. Philos- ophy will not cure them, but the example of a praying Christ may and can cure your weakness of faith in prayer by recalling the sincerity and strength of Christ's confidence in it, and its mani- fest answers in his history. Come into his theory of prayer, and it shall cease to wear any tentative, experimental look. It shall be a power with God. CHRIST AS A MAN OF PRAYER. 211 Rebuke all your bad habits as to prayer, aU your indolence in and suppression of prayer, by tliis study of the devotional habits of Christ, not as an abstraction in theological science, but as a lifelike thing in the history of Jesus. Put no more excuses before God for your meagerness in prayer because of your distracted life. Learn from Jesus how to bring the calming influences of prayer into the distractions of your business. Seek, as he sought, every outward aid to prayer: stillness of night- seasons, freshness of morning dawn, solitude of sequestered places. Then shall prayer in your life rise to the majesty and worth of its office — as com- mimion with Heaven. THE TRANSFIGURATION OF LIFE BY CHRIST. By Prof. James 0. Murray, D.D., LL.D. "And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was whit^ and glistening." — Luke 9:29. rriHERE are two "ways of looking at the Trans- -L figuration of our Lord, or rather two lights in which the wonderful incident may be viewed. One reflects it simply as related in its scope and meaning to the person of our Saviour, and to some teaching upon his character and work. In this view it has connection with Christian life only as that life is interested in any disclosure of our Lord's glory. The broader and deeper conception sees in it all this, and besides this, the truth that in Christ everything is transfigured for a Chris- tian. As we are taught that the splendors of his transfiguration reached even to his garments, and while the fashion of his countenance was altered and did shine as the sun, his raiment became exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth 212 THE TRANSFIGURATION OF LIFE BY CHRIST. 213 could whiten it, so the transfiguration of Christ spreads over and touches with heavenly glories what- ever he dwells in. For his name is Emmanuel — God with us. " The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The whole mount was transformed by the bright overshadowing cloud. Even the dis- ciples caught some of the reflected glories, and longed to abide there. An adoring and simple Christian faith dehghts to see, therefore, in this scene a symboHc teaching as well as a transcendent historic fact in the life of Jesus. That teaching is, our Lord transfigures life for his disciples, sets their whole human earthly existence in new lights. The incarnate Saviour was so glorified, that we might understand that he has power to shed trans- figuration-glories over that life in which he came down from heaven to take part I shall try to show how he can do this, and actually does do this for many a Christian soul, by unfolding vaiious human experiences as thus transfigured in Christ. First, then, look at earthly cares '-in this new transfiguring Ught which may shine on them from Hermon. Subtracting at once from daily life all its unnecessary cares, those made by our artificial and foolish wants, by our pride or by our inordinate, racing ambitious, the actual burden of necessary cares is very gi-eat. Those belonging to man in 214 PROFESSOR MURRAY. his sphere, and to woman in hers, household cares and business cares, sacred as the home can make them, severe and engrossing as business life exacts, all such absorb our time, tax our energies and our patience and our skill, and seemingly enter into life as its controlling element. Other burdens come into life as occasions. Their pressure is intermittent. These are constant. Their pressure is never lifted. I do not see that wealth seems to make much difference in the matter, for though apparently it has the power to purchase exemption from much that is wearisome, it has its own bur- dens to carry. The world is full of careworn faces among rich and poor, and where the face may be unwrinkled yet the heart is careworn. There is no social science that can rid us of these cares of life. They are in it by divine appointment for a discipline of character. The noblest type of life has them most characteristically in it. For civil- ized life differs from savage life 5 among many other things, prominently in this, that it sees and assumes the legitimate and real burdens of care which God has assigned to life, and only by seeing and assuming which our human life can advance to its completeness for the individual, for society, for the state, and for the Church. Yet in a worldly or a stoical — that is, an unspir- THE TRANSFIGURATION OF LIFE BY CHRIST. 215 itual, uncliristLLke — way of looking at this feature of our existence, it resolves itseK into so much drtidg- ery. It makes up a large part of what are called the ^^ worries ^^ of life. The energies and the pa- tience and the skill are gathered up to encounter them, because the livelihood or the bodily comfort, or at best the fortune or the competence which is to purchase exemption from them, hes at the end of the road dragging itseK wearily and roughly through them. How welcome is sometimes the slumber at the close of a day full of such ceaseless drudgeries, in which for a few hours they are buried in a welcome oblivion! How cheerless, vexatious, harassing is the night season in which these drudgeries are laid on sleepless pillows, where they hold a witches' dance before the unwilling but compelled imagination in distorted shapes ! It seems also to make little difference as to the relative dignity of these cares of hf e. If men high in stations of public life told aU they knew of its drudgeries, something of its glamour would cer- tainly vanish. It is simply nobler drudgery than what falls to the lot of the hodcarrier or the wash- erwoman. Now, if there is no way by which all such earthly drudgeries can be transfigured, brought into some new light, and made even to shine with some heavenly radiance, then for by far the greater 216 PROFESSOR MURRAY. part of mankind and womankind the moil and toil of life are hard, dull, oppressive realities, from which there are occasional brief respites, yet which make the work, the daily occupation a stem, stub- bom necessity, and that is all the a