Robert Ellis Thcnpson 
 
 The SencUnr of the Apostles, Tv.70 by Two 
 
 BSZ440 
 r474 
 
tihvavy of t:he theological ^emmarjp 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OP 
 ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
 
 .T4" 
 
The Sending of the Apostles, Two by Two. 
 
 A SERMON y 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON, D. D., 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 " Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The 
 fir sty Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother ; 
 James the son of Zebedee , and J ohn his brother ; Philip, and 
 Bartholomew ; Thomas, and Matthew the publican ; James 
 the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thad- 
 deus : Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also 
 betrayed him. Matthew — x, 2-4. 
 
 " What is the greatest wonder that God hath wrought 
 in a small thing ? " asks an old riddle of the middle ages ;: 
 and the answer is—" The human face, and that God has 
 made so many and no two are alike." Now just as differ- 
 ent as these outer faces of the person, are the inner faces 
 that we call character— no two of them are alike. You dif- 
 fer somewhere from every other child of Adam that has 
 been born into this world of ours. God designed that dif- 
 ference in making you. It is part of your relation to Him, 
 and if you come to know God as truly your friend and 
 your father, you will find that He will make this difference 
 
a channel of some communication to you which has come 
 to no one else. For such is the infinitude of His greatness 
 and His love, as He is thus able to adapt Himself to each 
 one's character according to the specialty and peculiarity 
 of that man, thus using those peculiar things, as well as 
 the common things which belong to us all as members of 
 the race. 
 
 Now while there are these infinite differences in char- 
 acter, so there are also marked resemblances. Men are 
 not altogether different. One man reminds us of another, 
 not perhaps by the outer face of the person at all, but by 
 the inner face of character ; and we gather these resem- 
 blances together in a common thought, and bind them up 
 with a common adjective. We thus come to recognize a 
 certain order and unity underlying this wonderful variety, 
 and equally with it giving character to the world of 
 humanity. 
 
 Now there came into this world One who claimed to 
 be the Son of Man— man not in any narrow or partial 
 sense, but in that broad and universal sense which God 
 thought of when He said: "Let us make man in our 
 own image." He came into this world to gather into one 
 •body all sorts and conditions of men — not a certain class 
 of men, but ,all classes — to establish a Kingdom, which 
 'should be a gathering under one head of all that is in the 
 heavens and in the earth. How did He deal with this 
 wonderful difference in human character? When He 
 selected the officers and ministers of this new Kingdom, 
 ^hat choice did He make? Did He pick out some one 
 'class of men, all of them filled up with zeal and fervor 
 and faith — men who would go to their death at His com- 
 mand — men who never stumbled at any word of His — 
 men of faith, who had no difficulties and without any 
 ordinary weaknesses? Did He call for His ministers, 
 men who would be as flaming fire and winds of strength 
 in His service? If He had done so, how different this 
 'story of the gospels would have been. We should have 
 reiad it then without feeling that it had anything to do 
 
with such people as we are. We should have felt that 
 these apostles were exceptional men — that they were 
 strong where we are weak, that they did not feel our diffi- 
 culties, had not to overcome our weaknesses. We should 
 have said : " It is a wonderful story this of Christ, but 
 somehow it does not take hold of us — it is full of won- 
 derful and lofty teaching, but it does not lay hold of us." 
 
 Turn away from this supposition to the actual story 
 of Christ — the story that the Evangelists have told us 
 with such wonderful candor in these four gospels — two of 
 them written by apostles and two by companions of the 
 apostles, — what a difference we find ! How wonderfully 
 full of love, and tenderness and comfort the story is seen 
 to be. Why, you find that these twelve apostles were just 
 men like ourselves, men of our frailties, men of our weak- 
 nesses, our failures, our doubts. We can look upon the 
 story and see how Christ chose just such men as we are 
 to take part in His ministry and form His first church, 
 and we can feel that there is a place for us in His church. 
 We can feel that we were represented in that first little 
 company, that our doubts were met and overcome — our 
 questions were answered, and that such as we are still 
 welcome to His company as He goes on to do and to 
 teach what He " began to do and to teach " in the Church 
 of the Apostles. 
 
 And when we look into our Lord's dealings with the 
 difference in mind and character among His Apostles, we 
 find there yet another lesson, as showing how this is 
 still to be dealt with in His church. First let us see how 
 each of the three first Evangelists tell of His calling the 
 Apostles. Mark says it was " to be with Him in His 
 ministry." Mark's gospel is the gospel of Christ's min- 
 istry, that is its watchword. It is a short gospel, with 
 few discourses or parables ; but it is full of the tenderness 
 of His service to men. See, for instance, its reference to 
 our Lord's hands: He took her by the hand and lifted 
 her up ; He laid His hand upon the eyes of the blind. 
 The other gospels tell us that He blessed little children — 
 
Mekrk tells us He took them in His arms, put His hands 
 upon them and blessed them. He makes much of the 
 hands — of the touch of Jesus — and then he makes much 
 of His urgency. He is constantly pressing on from one 
 thing to another. Our Lord does one thing ; imme- 
 diately, says Mark, He did something else, as if the time 
 was too short for all He had to do for us. The Greek 
 word for immediately occurs eighty times in the New 
 Testament, and of this eighty just forty are in this short 
 gospel of Mark. Lastly Mark dwells on the fact of Christ 
 ministering to the multitudes of men ; and then after He 
 calls the Disciples to be with Him in His ministry, He 
 sends them out on their ministry two by two. 
 
 Luke, on the other hand, — he gives us the gospel of 
 the Son of Man — Christ in His humanity — Christ in the 
 wonder of His sinless manhood, and so it is that he pre- 
 sents Him to us in the closest, the most intimate, the 
 nearest relation to us. Much that the other Apostles tell 
 vjs that Christ spoke to the multitudes and in public dis- 
 course — Luke tells us that He spoke " as He sat at meat 
 with them," in intimate social intercourse. And so of His 
 parables ; they commonly begin : " A certain man di4 
 thus and so," and set forth the broadest and most univer- 
 sal teaching. As to the calling of the Apostles, he says that 
 our Lord went out into a mountain and spent the night 
 in the mountains in prayer, and when it was day He called 
 UBto Him His disciples, and chose the twelve whom He 
 named Apostles. Luke dwells much on our Lord's 
 prayers.. Here where Christ comes into the closest rela- 
 tion to us, we have His example pressed on us. Even He 
 will do nothing without seeking to know and to do the will 
 of the Father. 
 
 Matthew, on the other hand, gives you the gospel of 
 the promised Messiah, the King of the Jews. Hence it 
 is that although Mark's is the oldest of the gospels, Mat- 
 thew's is rightly put first as furnishing the transition from 
 the Old to the New Testament. It is the most Jewish 
 gospel, a gospel that sets forth Christ's life as a new chap- 
 
5 
 
 ter in the history of the Jewish nation, shownig how the 
 unseen King who had reigned over them through all the 
 past ages of their history, had now in the fullness of tirne 
 come forth to claim the kingdom as His own— to be ^ 
 rejected of His own, " to be delivered to the Gentiles, as 
 Matthew expressly reminds you, and yet to establish that 
 kingdom in the "hearts and fellowship of men, and to be 
 King in spite of His rejectors. So when he presents the 
 work of Christ in calling the Apostles, it is the act of the 
 King arranging the government and falling the offices of 
 His kingdom. He calls unto Him the twelve and gives 
 them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and 
 to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. 
 And when He sends them out on this ministry, He sends 
 them also, as Mark reminds you, two by two. From what 
 Matthew tells us and the way in which he here groups the 
 Apostles by twos, we are able to see how the Master and 
 Kin<^ arranged and disposed of the forces of His King- 
 dom-sending out His Apostles two by two on their 
 errands of mercy and salvation ; and as we examine these 
 six pairs into which the Apostolic college was grouped, 
 we learn how our Lord dealt with the differences of mind 
 and character in the Twelve. 
 
 Let us look at these Apostles as they went out two 
 
 ^^y two: . V , u- 
 
 " First, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his 
 brother." Simon Peter is a familiar, almost a proverbial 
 character— the most outspoken and impetuous of all the 
 Apostles, the man who carried in his head a tongue more 
 dangerous than the sword he used to smite off the ear of 
 the High Priest's servant. Yet he was chosen by the 
 Lord called by Him for His ministry. We should have 
 thought it extremely dangerous to entrust him with such 
 a responsibility in a Church encompassed by enemies who 
 were on the watch for every false step in its leaders. 
 Throughout the whole Gospel story he is everywhere the 
 same impetuous man. " Bid me come to Thee on the 
 water/' is his greeting to our Lord on the Sea of Gallilee 
 
while their boat and their hearts are still shaken by the 
 storm. Even amid the glories of the Mount of ^Trans- 
 figuration, when one might have expected that the three 
 who went up with Him would be awed into silence, Peter 
 bursts out, " Lord, it is good for us to be here ! If Thou 
 wilt, let us make three tabernacles, one for Thee and one 
 for Moses, and one for Elias." And when the Master 
 warns the disciples that they will all forsake Him, Peter 
 lays hold of Christ to rebuke Him, and says — " though 
 they should all fly from Thee, I will not. I am ready to 
 go with Thee, Lord, to prison and to death." But the 
 Master sorrowfully warns him that before the cock crows 
 twice, he will deny Him thrice. And then when the 
 Master, before the Passover, stoops to render His Apos- 
 tles that humble ministry of love, washing their feet as 
 their host, when He came to Peter he said, "Thou shalt 
 never wash my feet." Then when Jesus tells him, "If I 
 wash thee not, thou hast no part with me," he swings as far 
 to the other side: " Lord, not my feet only, but also my 
 hands and my head." And then, a few hours latef, when 
 he was charged by one of Pilate's servants with being one 
 of Christ's disciples, he not only denied it indignantly in 
 his impetuous way, but when they pressed him with being 
 a disciple of Christ's, he denied Him with oaths and with 
 curses — as vehement in the wrong as ever in the right. 
 And our Lord turned and looked at Peter — Omnipotence 
 only looked at the cursing Apostle. It was the supreme 
 test of our Lord's forbearance. It is comparatively easy 
 to bear the reproaches of an enemy, but wh6n'"my 
 friend, who hath eaten of my bread, hath lifted up his 
 heel against me," it is hard to bear — yet the Lord only 
 looked at Peter, and the look broke the man's heart — and 
 he went out into the night and the darkness, weeping 
 bitterly. And then you will remember after the resurrec- 
 tion Jesus says: " Go and tell my disciples and Peter," as 
 much as to say, " Peter says he is not my disciple, but at 
 any rate let him know that I am here, and see if he will 
 come." Then you remember that last scene by the lake^ 
 
7 
 
 side, and the question put thrice: "Simon, son of Jonas, 
 lovest thou me, — lovest thou me, — lovest thou me?" 
 and then Peter, forgetting all the shameful past, bursts 
 into those words of remonstrance — " Lord, thou knowest 
 all things — thou knowest that I love thee." 
 
 This is the man that Christ chose and sent out as His 
 Apostle — not the kind of man you would have chosen for 
 this great work ; you would not have given such a man 
 any such responsibility as this. But the Lord chose him, 
 and sent him out upon this highest of commissions. And 
 he sent with him Andrew, his brother ; a man who seemed 
 in every respect the contrary of Peter. He is far-seeing, 
 prudent, cautious. He sees all the difficulties ahead of 
 him. He is the Apostle the cautious Scotch nation have 
 taken as their patron saint. When the hungry multitudes 
 are gathered in the wilderness, it is Andrew that suggests, 
 as a sort of Committee of Ways and Means, that " There 
 is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small 
 fishes," and then he adds, in his Scotch way, " But what 
 are they among so many?" When the Greeks would see 
 Jesus and come and ask Philip about it, Philip goes and 
 consults the cautious Andrew, as knowing that he will not 
 make any mistake which might excite the Jews against 
 the Master. When the three confidential disciples, along 
 with Andrew, and no doubt at his suggestion, go to ask 
 the Master what is the meaning of this strange prophecy 
 about not one stone of the temple being left upon 
 another, they go secretly, and no doubt at his suggestion 
 also. Every thing we are told of the man presents his 
 character in complete contrast to that of Peter, although 
 they were brothers, and the Master sent them out to- 
 gether. He had need of them both — each needed the 
 other to make up for his own weakness. He needs the 
 boldness of the radical who acts regardless of consequences, 
 and strikes while the iron is hot, seizing the golden mo- 
 ment of opportunity. But He also needs the caution of 
 the conservative, his respect to use and wont, to tradition 
 and habit, his sense of the obstacles in the way. He 
 
8 
 
 needs them both in the service of His Church, He needs 
 those who are bent upon, and who are urgent to have the 
 methods, the usages, the worship, and even the confession 
 of the Church adapted to the demands and necessities of 
 our day. He has need also for those who insist that 
 change shall come, if at all, slowly and gradually ; by- 
 growth and not by leaps ; who will hold fast to what is 
 worthy in the past of the Church. At bottom, the two 
 tempers are not hostile to each other. No man can be 
 truly a radical who is not a conservative also, for if all the 
 past was blundering and error, what reason have we to 
 hope for better in the future? No man can be really a 
 conservative without being a radical also ; for if God was 
 with His Church in the past, leading and guiding it — 
 the living God — will He not be so in the present and the 
 future ? So let Peter and Andrew go together in this 
 ministry, for the Master needs them both. He says that 
 every wise scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom 
 of heaven " is like unto a man which is an householder, 
 which bringeth forth out of his treasure "—what ? New 
 things? Old things? No, but " things new and old." 
 
 The next two are James, the son of Zebedee, and John, 
 his brother. We would have said John, the son of Zebe- 
 dee, and Jarnes, his brother. John looks so much larger 
 to our eye, is much more eminent, being the beloved dis- 
 ciple — the author of the fourth Gospel, of three gracious 
 Epistles and of the wonderful book of Revelation. This 
 apostle stands beside Peter and Paul among the great 
 teachers of the Church, yet here we have " James, the son 
 of Zebedee, and John, his brother." This is because at 
 the time when the first three Gospels and the Acts were 
 written, James was much more eminent and was a father 
 of the Church. This James is called elsewhere " James 
 the Great," to distinguish him from James the less, not 
 because he was more eminent or a bigger man, but be- 
 cause he was older. Now as James, the less, or junior, 
 was a man of full years — this older James must have been 
 past the prime of life — perhaps past sixty when he was 
 
called to be among Christ's disciples. John, on the other 
 hand, although his brother, was the youngest of the Apos- 
 tles, the nearest to the Master's heart, only a mere lad. 
 It was a lad that lay in the Master's bosom on the night 
 of the Last Supper, exciting no jealousy in the others. It 
 was a lad that asked Him the question that even Peter 
 feared to ask. It was a lad that passed unquestioned in 
 Pilate's judgment hall when Peter was challenged, It 
 was this lad of whom it was said that he should remain 
 on the earth until Christ should come again. And he 
 actually lived on for nearly seventy years after his Lord', 
 and then died, the last of the Apostolic college, writing 
 the last gospel and the last epistle. Such was the contrast 
 in their age ; and the Master sent them out together. 
 Age and youth are thus together in the Master's service. 
 So it is that the Lord loves to be served in his Church. 
 As John Keble beautifully says: 
 
 For as of old, when two by two 
 His herald saints the Saviour sent, 
 
 To soften hearts like morning dew, 
 When He to shine in mercy meant. 
 
 So ever more He deems His name 
 Best honored and His way prepared, 
 
 When watching by His altar-fiame, 
 He sees His servants duly paired. 
 
 He loves when youth and age are met. 
 Fervent old age and youth serene ; 
 
 Their high and low in concord set 
 For sacred song, joy's golden mean. 
 
 He loves to see all ages co-operate, age gaining fer- 
 vency from youth, and youth learning serenity from age. 
 The Church is made for all ages. It is distinguished from 
 all other societies except the family, and this Bible is dis- 
 tinguished from all other books that claim to be a revela- 
 tion of the Divine will, by their adaptation to all ages, that 
 was not devised for grown men by grown men. This Bible 
 has lessons at once for youth and age. It comes to the 
 
lO 
 
 young with the story of the world's childhood, and of the 
 wonderful child clothed in glory and wisdom. It has les- 
 sons of wisdom which tax the ripest experience for their 
 comprehension. And the Church is for the young from 
 the moment that God lays His hand upon them in baptism 
 and claims them as His own. It is equally for the aged, 
 the home of their spirits, until the last flickering of the 
 lamp of life ceases, and they find themselves in the arms 
 of everlasting love. Let James and John go together. Let 
 there be no division of ages, no sundrance of these parts 
 of the Church of Christ, but let youth and age go together 
 — old age for counsel and youth for energy and execution. 
 The next two are Philip and Bartholomew. These 
 two stand out in marked contrast as to their intellectual 
 character. Philip is a man that is slow of intelligence, we 
 may call him, with all respect for his goodness and his 
 eminent usefulness, the stupid Apostle. He is able to see 
 only what lies generally on the surface of things, but 
 nothing beyond. When he told Nathaniel that he had 
 found the promised Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth, and 
 Nathaniel said unto him, " Can there any good thing come 
 out of Nazareth ^ " all that Philip can say is " Come and 
 see," although he might have told him of Jonah and others 
 of God's servants who had come out of Nazareth. Again, 
 when the multitudes are hungry in the wilderness, the 
 Master asks Philip, as if to give the slowest scholar in the 
 class a chance, " Where shall we buy bread that these may 
 eat?" Philip can only answer: "Two hundred penny- 
 worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of 
 them may take a little." And then when the Master has 
 been speaking of Himself as the manifestation of the 
 Father, Philip misses the whole point of the discourse, and 
 says : " Lord, show us the Father, and it sufificeth us." 
 Mark how the Lord's sense of his slowness blends with the 
 divine patience of the answer: " Have I been so long with 
 you, and yet hast thou not known me Phihp, — He that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou 
 then — 'Show us the Father?'" That was the kind ef 
 
1 1 
 
 man Philip was — a man that had to understand and preach 
 the wonderful news of the Kingdom, while so slow to lay 
 hold of such things. Yet the Master chooses him, but He 
 sent with him his friend Bartholomew, better known as 
 the Nathaniel of John's gospel. Nathaniel was a man of 
 alert and active mind and quick perceptions, although it 
 was the slow-witted Philip that brought the quick-witted 
 Nathaniel to Christ. No sooner does he hear of a Messiah 
 from Nazareth, than there flashes on him the objection : 
 " Can any good thing come out of that place." But when 
 he yielded to his friend's invitation to " come and see " 
 for himself, and when he found in Christ first a supernat- 
 ural insight and then a divine sympathy, he burst into the 
 confession which he was the first to make, " Thou art the 
 Son of God— Thou art the King of Israel!" He was 
 satisfied in three questions, and satisfied forever. 
 
 Such were these two men, and the Lord sent them out 
 together. So this ought to be the way of His church at 
 all times. There is need of people of slow wit in His 
 church. It is not an assembly of learned divines, each 
 able to distinguish between every doctrine and its counter- 
 feit heresy. There is room in the church for those that 
 know little more than to know Christ. It is a grand thing 
 to know that there is a fellowship here for us all. Some- 
 times in our Presbyterian Churches we are apt to draw 
 the line too high in the demand for doctrinal intelligence 
 and qualifications of that sort which are not demanded by 
 the law of God. Once there applied for membership in 
 our old church, when the late Dr. S. B. Wylie was its 
 Pastor, a poor woman who had very little opportunity of 
 learning these doctrinal niceties, and when the session ex- 
 amined her, she was not able to answer their questions and 
 it was recommended that she wait until she should be bet- 
 ter instructed. As she rose to leave the room she burst 
 into tears, saying, " I don't know all these things, but I 
 know that Christ is my Saviour, and He died for me." 
 And good old Dr. Wylie rose and took her by the hand, 
 and brought her back and set her down again among those 
 
12 
 
 who were to be received into the membership of the 
 church, saying, " My dear sister, after all, that is the sub- 
 stance of the whole matter, and if Christ has welcomed 
 you, we will not send you away." Yes, there is room for 
 such in the Kingdom without knowing much about doc- 
 trines, when they have faith in Jesus Christ that died for 
 them. So Philips have their place in the church, if they 
 also have their dangers. So the Lord chose him, but 
 sent with him Bartholomew, a man of alert intelligence, 
 ready of apprehension, and the very opposite of Philip 
 although they were friends. But he also had his danger 
 — he was in danger of being turned away from the Christ 
 by his own superficial objections such as that : "Can any 
 good come out of Nazareth?" How that kind of ob- 
 jection keeps men away from Christ still — as it did not 
 keep this man. It is because men will not listen to the 
 advice of the slow-witted apostle and " come and see." It 
 is because they do not give earnest and serious consider- 
 ation to the evidence of fact and experience, that they 
 stay outside. " Come and see " how men and nations 
 have been regenerated into a new life by the gospel. 
 " Come and see " how men have been lifted out of a life 
 of sin and impurity into one of noble service to God and 
 to man. Says James Russell Lowell — our chief poet : 
 
 " When the microscopic search of skepticism has 
 turned its attention to human society, and found a place 
 on this planet ten miles square, where a decent man can 
 live in decency, comfort and security, supporting and 
 educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted, man- 
 hood respected, womanhood honored and human life held 
 in due regard — when skeptics can find such a place ten 
 miles square on this globe, where the Gospel of Christ 
 has not gone and cleared the way, and laid the founda- 
 tions, and made decency and security possible, it will 
 then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither 
 and then ventilate their views." 
 
 How much of the skepticism among young men grows 
 out of this unwillingness to come and see. It is said of 
 
13 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, whom Niebuhr pronounced the 
 greatest statesman of his age, that in his youth he fell 
 into the habit, then prevalent, of ridiculing the Gospel 
 and the Christian religion, and that on one occasion he 
 had gone further in this direction than ever before ; and 
 as he stood at his own door, after knocking for admission 
 and waiting for the door to be opened, the thought 
 flashed on him: "If you had been given the meanest 
 retaining fee you ever had, you would gave given that 
 case more thought than you ever gave to this that claims 
 to be the only hope of mankind ;" and before the door 
 opened he resolved to " come and see," and Alexander 
 Hamilton became an humble disciple of Christ. If men 
 would only " come and see " as he came, how much less 
 there would be of the folly that makes a mock of sin. 
 ■" Come and see," — they are the words of the stupid apos- 
 tle, who made no professed claim to wisdom, and yet 
 wrought to wise ends in a brighter man. And the Master 
 did not part them ; Philip and Bartholomew were sent out 
 together. 
 
 The next two are Thomas and Matthew the publican. 
 Thomas is known to us all — a disciple that has passed 
 into a proverb as the "doubter." We would hardly 
 admit him into the Church now, after all these centuries 
 of growth and confirmation in the Gospel, and yet the 
 Lord took him. His doubting comes out in more places 
 than one. The Lord has been saying that Lazarus is 
 dead, and He must go back to Judea. Thomas said: 
 " Let us also go that we may die with him." Unbelief 
 prompted those words ; they mean : " He does not know 
 what a risk He is running, or how those Jews hate Him. 
 But, at most, they can but kill us, so let us go." Another 
 time he flatly contradicts the Master, who has been say- 
 ing of His departure from them : " Whither I go ye know, 
 and the way ye know." Thomas said to Him : " Lord, 
 we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know 
 the way ?" Then you remember that remarkable scene 
 after the resurrection, when the disciples said to him : 
 
14 
 
 "Thomas, \\c have seen the Lord!" and Thomas said to 
 them : " Except I shall see in His hands the print of the 
 nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.'^' 
 Even that evidence was <^ranted to this doubtin*^ Apostle, 
 and Thomas fell upon his knees and cried out : " My Lord 
 and my Ciod I" What a man for the Lord to choose as 
 an apostle, the minister and founder of a Church based 
 on faith ! Yet the Lord chose him, and bore with him, 
 as with many another like him since that day, partly for 
 Our sakes as well as for His own, that it mi^ht be on 
 record that the Apostles were not a group of silly de^ 
 votees, ready to believe anything that was told them, but 
 had among them men who insisted on proof evidence as 
 distinctly as any modern man of science could. Au- 
 gustine says : " Thomas doubted that we may never 
 doubt!" 
 
 So the Master chose him as an apostle ; for He had 
 use for him ; but when He sent Thomas out, He sent 
 with him Matthew, the publican, a man of tried and tested 
 loyalty. This man was a collector of taxes — not for the 
 Roman government, but for himself. He had bought 
 them from the government and so he is sitting at the 
 receipt of customs and the Master passed by, and said 
 unto him : " Follow me," and he arose and left all — left 
 his worldly substance — and followed Him. He had 
 doubtless heard the Master preaching, and his heart had 
 been touched ; so when Christ called him, this man, who 
 sat down that day a publican, rose up with a new spirit, 
 as a true Israelite, and lived to write the most Jewish of 
 the Gospels. This man had fearless faith and followed 
 without a question or a doubt, and the Lord sent him and 
 the doubter out together. Fearless faith and .honest 
 doubt are not enemies ; they are the best of friends. Cole- 
 ridge well says : " Do not be afraid to doubt if you want 
 to believe." The doubter who wants to believe will end 
 as Thomas did, on his knees before Christ, with his mouth 
 full of praise and thanksgiving. But the man who wants 
 not to believe should be afraid to doubt, for his doubting 
 
15 
 
 then will carry him further and further away from Christ. 
 Honest doubt is but another kind of faith — the horror of 
 it implies unbelief, a dread that the truth will not bear 
 examination, that its pillars are rotten. As Tennyson 
 says, though with something of exaggeration : 
 
 There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds. 
 
 Who fights his doubts and gathers strength, 
 And will not makfe his judgment blind. 
 But faces spectres of the mind, 
 
 And lays them, thus he comes at length 
 
 To find a stronger faith his own, 
 The Power is with him in the night 
 Which made the darkness and the light, 
 
 And dwells not in the light alone. 
 
 So let Thomas and Matthew, fearless faith and fearless 
 search, go forth together. 
 
 The next two are James, the son of Alpheus, and 
 Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus. This is James, 
 the less, so-called, to distinguish him from James, the 
 brother of John. He is also called James, the Lord's 
 brother, and James, the Just — and that last is the word 
 which tells us most about him. His mind and character 
 are shown in his epistle — an epistle of rebukes for the 
 loose tongue, the godless lives and empty professions 
 which he found in the churches. Its keynote is : " Show 
 me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my 
 faith by my works." Thaddeus, who is also called " Judas, 
 not Iscariot," also " Jude, the Lord's brother," also has 
 left us a lesson, the Epistle of St. Jude, and it also is an 
 epistle of rebukes — for the false teachers that have broken 
 in like wild boars are wasting the Lord's vineyard. Its 
 watchword is : " Contend earnestly for the faith ! " He 
 was a man of definite, clear, sharply-cut convictions, as ap- 
 pears also in the Gospel of John. Christ says to them that 
 He will manifest Himself to those who love Him. Judas, 
 not Iscariot, said unto him: " Lord, how is it that Thou 
 
i6 
 
 Avilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the World?" 
 He wanted a definition — he must get a definite answer 
 about difificult things. He was as eager for that as a 
 whole synod of divines. Such is the contrast in the two: 
 the man of practice and the man of faith. And the Lord 
 sent them out together. So Christ is best served in his 
 Church — when faith and practice, Jude and James, go 
 hand in hand, you must not separate them. This Gospel 
 is not mere morality, as James even will show us ; nor is 
 it mere theology, as Jude will show. The Christ it shows 
 us is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and what 
 God has joined together — power unto life and wisdom 
 unto doctrine — let no man put asunder. Attempt to do 
 it and what is the result ? Separate Christian morals 
 from the great principles of Christian truth and you will 
 have a mere bundle of rules without any power over the 
 hearts and lives of men. Separate Christian doctrine 
 from life and practice, and you will have left a valley of 
 dry bones, an endless and wearisome hair-splitting and 
 contention over trifles. But when James and Jude go 
 together, then the Church grows both in faith and in god- 
 liness. 
 
 And now we come to the last pair of the twelve — 
 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot. Heretofore we 
 have been dealing with two types of mind and character, 
 for both of which there is room and welcome in the king- 
 dom ; but here we have two, one of which is welcome and 
 the other is not. Simon, the Canaanite, belongs to the 
 Church, but as to Judas Iscariot — as Peter said of him — 
 ■" He went out from us, because he was not of us." 
 
 Simon the Canaanite is called also Simon the Zealot, 
 the two epithets meaning the same thing. He belonged 
 to the sect of Zealots, which was the extreme party of the 
 Jews. These men were the very opposite of the time- 
 serving Herodians. They banded together to keep the 
 Holy Land clean of idolatry, by inflicting swift and 
 secret vengeance on all who profaned it by heathen prac- 
 tices. And in this they were protected, as the Jews re- 
 
17 
 
 garded zeal as a fruit and evidence of Divine inspiration, 
 and thus they enjoyed impunity in doing things where 
 others would have been punished. Thus it is that when 
 GUT Master went to the Temple and drove out the money- 
 changers and those that bought and sold therein, no one 
 interfered with Him, because He was understood to claim 
 the immunity of a Zealot. Simon had belonged to the 
 Zealots, which tells us of what temper of mind he was, 
 and doubtless when he is admitted into fellowship with 
 Christ, carried his zeal with him into Christ's service. 
 His motto, as that of his party has been : " Independence 
 at any price." Now it would be : " Christ at any price ! " 
 — all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
 of Christ ! 
 
 But what shall we say of Judas? — the man whose very 
 ivame has become a curse, the bitterest word anger can 
 fling at its object. We put his sin too far away from us. 
 We think of it as something monstrous, abnormal, im- 
 possible to us. In truth it is the sanest sin of all. Judas 
 Iscariot was a minimum Christian ; that was the secret of 
 his fall. He was drawn to Christ by some kind of at- 
 traction and was willing to do what would entitle him to 
 a place among Christ's disciples, and as his faith had no 
 zeal in it, it gave way. He showed his spirit when Mary 
 took the costly ointment and anointed her Master's feet,. 
 ajid he says : " Why was not this sold for three hundred 
 pence and given to the poor?" Ah, Judas! some gifts 
 are too precious for Christ, some offerings too great to 
 make to Him, some worship too much to render to Him | 
 He hesitated at a complete surrender and so he fell. He 
 is the only one in the Gospel that ever counts anything ; 
 all the rest give without counting. He counted the three 
 hundred pence, the value of the ointment, and the thirty 
 pieces of silver — the price of his Master. In his life and 
 death is a warning for all of us. As against Judas Iscariot 
 we must all stand with Simon, the Zealot, and with Mary 
 of Bethany, in the self-surrender of a love that gives 
 Christ the best — gives Him everything. " The virtue is 
 
not safe that is not enthusiastic," says a modern writer. 
 The faith is not safe that is not zealous. When we begin 
 to count and reckon how much love is absolutely required 
 to give us rank as Christians, how much (or how little) 
 holiness will get us into heaven, then we are on perilous 
 ground, near by the traitor Apostle— " Judas Iscariot, 
 which also betrayed Him." 
 
 And now, dear friends, as we look upon the whole of 
 this story, at the Apostles gathered thus into the fellow- 
 ship of the first Church, and sent forth two by two, do we 
 not see in it a lesson of Christ's wonderful wisdom and 
 goodness in thus binding into one brotherhood these in- 
 exhaustible varieties of character and temperament, and 
 finding for each its place and its work. As we look upon 
 it, we can feel and say, each of us, there is a place and 
 welcome for me. I am not called upon to measure my 
 faith or my service by any other man's. I am called to 
 faith, unfeigned and true service, according to my nature, 
 and my ability, and can leave the rest to Him. 
 
 And when we see how our Lord sent out His apostles 
 two by two, joining together those who differed the most 
 from each other and thus were the best able to help each 
 other, by making one whole man out of two halves, we 
 learn another lesson of His dealings with His Church. 
 We see that it is His purpose that these differences of 
 mind and character and condition should be not a cause 
 of division and dissension in His Church, but a means of 
 binding His servants together more closely for effectual 
 service. But the Church has not learnt this lesson of 
 Divine love and wisdom. We have not gone forth to- 
 gether, but more often against each other, making these 
 innocent differences of telnper, and habit of mind, the 
 plea for sectarian divisions, much more than any grounds 
 of truth imperiled or righteousness outraged. This is 
 why the world has not fallen before the testimony of the 
 Church; has not believed that the Father has sent Him 
 to gather humanity out of its isolations and sorrows into 
 one body under its true Head; because it has had no 
 
19 
 
 • 
 
 evidence that all His own people are one in Him as He is 
 one with the Father. We have not been a united 
 " household of faith," but have been biting and devouring 
 one another because of the very things He gave to bind 
 us closer together. We have been like troops that, in 
 the heat and smoke of the battle, pour volley after vol- 
 ley into the ranks of companions in arms; or, like the two 
 ships of war, which spent the night in bombarding each 
 other, and then when the sun rose saw it was the same 
 flag which floated over two shattered hulks, over two 
 decks slippery with blood. Let us pray for the dawn of 
 that blessed da}' in whose light we shall be able to rec- 
 ognize as brethren all who love the common Master, and 
 come to mind not our own things only, but the things of 
 others — the gifts and graces with which He has been 
 pleased to enrich the lives and the fellowships of our 
 fellow-Christians of other names. 
 
 You remember that wonderful prayer of the Apostle 
 in his Epistle to the Ephesians : " For this cause I bow 
 my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from 
 whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named, 
 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His 
 glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the 
 inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; 
 that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able 
 to comprehend with all saints " — mark the expression, 
 *' with all saints," not you in your little corner and I in 
 mine, both shut in by a sectarian fence from the rest of 
 Christendom — " what is the breadth, and length, and 
 depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which 
 passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the ful- 
 ness of God." And then he passes from prayer to praise: 
 " Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
 above all that we ask or think, according to (right in the 
 line of) the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory 
 in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world 
 without end. Amen." 
 

 The Sending of the Apostles, Two by Two. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 The Rev. ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON, D.D., 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Preached in 
 
 THE WALNUT STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 West Philadelphia. 
 
 May i8, 1890. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
PAMPHIET BINDER