/WV * 9 ^W*WJ ^mmm. yyyYjygVuu v - : : v .. .* : vv w^v^W'\: &B$& *%mmmt;k . . *> w ^wv-~- ^yJQ^B v ^wy^vwvy. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. iWiystWi * jWySA^; I J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f Li ^v?y y*AMc&& V v V- w v^iif «^ yy ^ "iWi ^KwrS^A* ''vwgw^ w MWi^W*©*©^^ A&Sfi&tf!^- «* *r^%^fflftV>$$sffift*tt iS^^^^M^ VwwvL^VwW^,,^ M; W i M 'vwvy^vvy. VWW^/WWWvV^v v/v^ vV V WV^VJ aajWWWW v V^%v v> WSs^Ma/ VWv>V^w^v ' ' v r; t- v w v j^iyv #a»gw*v ^w^^Z^ W^^i^fc ysxyv^w^ vvW^V* v - r . . e « >;. :? c c ■ is ^ ^ w v V v r 3 . ;, - , mwym WVw fwv'w vvww /^&£ v >* VWVWV fcAtf& *AM"*^^ PAUL A MODEL BACCALAUREATE DISCOURSE TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 1860, AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, BY NATHAN LORD. PRESIDENT. ft., * $ HANOVER : PRINTED AT THE DARTMOUTH PRESS. I860. ■ y ..4, m d DISCOURSE. 1 COR. II : 2. for i determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. A strong determination marks a strong man. It is an act of the will ; and the will is the exponent and factor of an anterior and ulterior affection. What a man loves he wills to be, to do, to pursue, to enjoy. There could be no willing but for this antecedent principle of love. But for this consequent willing there could be no subsequent act. The man acting is the man carrying out, voluntarily, his inwrought impelling love, be it good or bad. " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The principle of love is vital and essential. It is known only to God. The actual which proceeds from it, is definable and measurable by the standards he has given us. Such is the simplicity of Scripture which we obscure by our speculations. A strong self-will proves a strong self-love. Hence an ambitious man, an avaricious, licentious, vindic- tive man, or the earnest speculatist, heresiarch, fa- natic, revolutionist, will be strong, each in his own way. By subtlety, chicane, or violence, he will seek to bend all things to his bad purpose ; and his passion, 4 growing by what it feeds on, will give him temporary influence and notoriety, as far as he can engage the sym- pathies, or pervert the judgments, of other minds. He will be injurious, or destructive, according to his abili- ties. The devil is almost infinitely powerful from his profound bad love, - that is, his hate to God, actuating his comprehensive intellect. What terrific resolve Mil- ton ascribes to him : — " Evil ! be thou my good." Divine grace in measure destroys the natural selfish love, and substitutes a new and Divine affection. This new Divine love is likely to be in proportion to the old selfish love. He who is capable of loving himself much, is also capable, when renewed, of loving Christ much. Thus it often happens that the men who are worst by nature, are best by grace. Paul, as a natural man, was the chief of sinners. But a new love made him just as remarkable a saint, - an earnest preacher of the faith which once he destroyed. Paul was a pattern man. His great love to Christ produced a strong will, and his strong will, Divinely de- termined, made him a great character. It wrought sin- gleness of purpose, attention, reflection, judgment, con- sistency, steadiness, patience, obedience, and an un- wavering confidence in God. An irresolute man would have failed in the very prospect of the labors, perils and sufferings which he encountered, as matters of course, and made nothing of for Christ's sake. His remark- able figure should be before every man who would live to any purpose in this world. It as much concerns this graduating Class, in their order, as it concerned the 5 Apostle in his order. Any man, of whatever calling or profession, is bound, as really as any other man, to be a Christian, and to put his Christianity before him as the guide of life. Christ crucified is set before the world al- ways that the secrets of all hearts may be revealed, and it will be our test in the day that hastens. All other ap- parent good, be it wit, genius, taste, learning, eloquence, place, fame, wealth, power, without Christ, will prove to have been not a real good, but an occasion of severer judgment. I preach to the Class now only in view of that future. Every thing else is insignificant in the comparison. Paul's strong determination gave him this remarkable peculiarity ; - he was decidedly both positive and nega- tive, not one-sided, dogmatic, obstinate, petulant, hate- ful, censorious, revengeful, but comprehensive, true, sincere, frank, generous and highminded. We are never at a loss to know what he believed, or what he did not believe ; what he would do, or what he would not do ; nor for what reasons. Christianity lifted him out of our common predicaments. Most men are either positive, or negative, or both these so mixed and confused as to neu- tralize each other. They affirm truth, but deny not er- ror ; or they deny error, but affirm not truth ; or they affirm and deny the same truth or error at the same time, or at different times, as occasions serve, and are incon- sistent. They reason now from one set of premises and then another and a different, so that a correct artificial logic draws them, of course, to different conclusions, and the resultant is a more dangerous falsehood. Paul was 6 never doubtful. He was positive of Christ, and nega- tive of whatever the natural man is prone to make a sub- stitute for him. The Romanists prefer Peter, and more suitably than they imagine ; for Peter both affirmed and denied his Lord, as they have always done, professing, in terms, the reality, but practically accepting only the sign of it. And there are many Protestant Peters who follow Christ till they meet with difficulties, and then forsake him, sometimes without weeping and repenting afterwards. Once scared, they are always shy of dan- gers, and flee, like hirelings, when they see a wolf. Or they are caught by a pleasant semblance or affectation. They make a school, an hypothesis, an interpretation, a criticism, an almsgiving, a Rabbi, equivalent to a living faith. Not so Paul. From the day that Ananias found him at Damascus, and gave the Lord's message to him, till the day of his death, he was true to Christ, and re- fused whatever concerned not his kingdom and glory. What things were gain to him he counted loss for Christ, that he might be found in him, having the righteousness of faith. There has never been such a perfect human model for young men. Let us observe it more particu- larly. Paul was evidently a man of uncommon abilities, large observation, and knowledge adequate to all the purposes of his calling. But he made no account of them, and never seemed to think of them. He was no egotist, never swelled, nor put himself forward. He affected nothing of parade or show. Of his worldly figure noth- ing is said in the sacred books except a hint or two that 7 he was not distinguished for personal beauty, elegant discourse, or courtly manners. It concerns me not to speak of him in these respects, even if there were more to be said ; but of his Christian excellence : - First, the groundwork ; viz., his faith. I call it a work, for it was the product of the Holy Spirit in his conversion ; -and groundwork, because faith is at the foundation of all true excellence. Whether the new love, of which I have spoken, precedes the work of faith, or is cotemporaneous with it, or what is their or- der, is of little consequence, except for curiosity. It is practically enough that love supposes an object which is Christ, and faith which works by love, makes Christ evident to the loving mind. It gives substance - both form and life- to his blessed image, and so awakens, di- rects and sustains the soul in its new voluntary activity. All there is in that loved object to stir the powers of the soul in any variety of study or labor, thenceforth produces its natural effect, according to the degree of faith. The loving man, like Paul, seeing and accepting Christ, as faith presents him, is fired with a holy zeal to serve him, and makes small account of difficulties and perils, or death itself, for his sake. It was faith that moved those old worthies, — the divines, physicians, lawyers, states- men, artizans, and others of their times, whom Paul de- scribes in the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews, — that great cloud of witnesses which compasseth us about. No man, except perhaps an Apostle, needs it more than young men just going out from under teachers and gov- ernors into the confused and stormy world. If over and 8 above a liberal education, or good morals, or a high in- tellectual view of things, or a capacity for large attain- ments, or humane dispositions, or a sentimental interest in the physical happiness of men — a mere philanthro- py — or a romantic expectation of civilizing and reform- ing ungainly people, and giving a greater spring to the humanities of the world, -if over and above these I saw a Divine principle of faith, I should look for a legitimate and effectual use of these natural endowments. Other- wise, however they might serve some present political interests of society, they would be of no account in ref- erence to the true and ultimate ends of life, and would very possibly defeat them ; because no other foundation can any man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus, and any substituted reliance is very apt, by reversing the order of Providence, to insure and aggravate a fatal issue. It is the Pharisaism of all times which, in the long run, is more injurious to individuals and society than the coarser forms of huma*n wickedness, and which Christ reproved more than any other vice of the human soul. But let us observe how it is that faith has this pre- eminence ; viz. because man's relations to God and to a spiritual world infinitely exceed the relations of his earth- ly state, and cannot be measured by them. It is be- cause our earthly relations have their chief importance from their bearing upon our state beyond the grave, and would otherwise be of scarcely any consequence at all. We might as well be Epicureans at once. If there be an end of us when we die, all we want is a little natural wisdom and prudence to look out for the few years that 9 are allotted to us here, and it might be questionable whether it were, on the whole, a benefit to live at all. How different are the facts. We have a conscious moral nature, accountable, immortal, and the present is merely a state of discipline and trial in reference to an endless life. Every man has a natural sense of this, and his sober reasonings confirm it. But the natural instincts, or rea- son, or conscience, cannot comprehend our vast relations. They could not if these relations were now as originally constituted by God. But they have been infinitely dis- turbed by sin. There is no end to the irregularities which now exist in the whole known system of the world. It is a broken-up world as to every man's own soul, and all the related creatures of God, and must be ordered and governed, and treated accordingly. It would be ruinous to apply to things actual abstract principles which be- long only to the possible or desirable. It would be like making or repairing a clock, or a steam engine, by the pure Mathematics. A more practical science is indispen- sable. Gabriel could not adjust the existing derange- ments of the earth and man. He could not change a this- tle into a rose, nor restore a soul, nor control the wrathful elements, nor put a hateful being into fellowship with his neighbor, nor reduce refractory subjects to the govern- ment of God. This is of God alone. What then could our perverted powers effect, in this regard, except to show us our need of supernatural enlightenment ? But a revelation of things above reason is addressed, of course, to faith, and faith, of necessity, is the only groundwork of true knowledge, wisdom, or virtue. It is the ground 10 work of Natural Religion, which is as really from God as Christianity itself, which he has in fact republished in Holy Scripture, to be received by us not as our poor faculties expound it, but in matter, manner and form as he reveals it. Natural Religion, however, is not the Gospel, nor like it, and therefore Paul merely asserted without discussing it. He had a higher mission, be- cause Natural Religion had been perverted by the false traditions of human wisdom, and all flesh had corrupted its way. Who ever lived up to Natural Religion as it is laid down in the Book of Proverbs ? Much mere the Ten Commandments, and the emblematical Gospel of Eden and Sinai had been buried up in the inglorious heaps of rabbinical philosophy. All the confusions of the world had increased as the world had grown old in sin. A new dispensation was necessary to convince the world of sin, and righteousness, and judgment ; to propound redemption through atoning blood, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost ; and give us access to a throne of mer- cy. Christ crucified for sin ; the crucified Christ send- ing forth his Spirit ; Christ convulsing the earth and its nations in relation to the ends of moral government ; Christ, in the fulness of time, regaining the government of the lost world ; Christ taking possession of the prom- ised kingdom ; Christ bringing his people with him in a glorious resurrection ; Christ exalted above all thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers ; Christ removing the curse from the broken-up earth and man, and introducing the whole groaning and travailing cre- ation into the glorious liberty of the sons of God ; - this 11 is the blessed Gospel revealed to faith. What could we otherwise have known beforehand, or by reference to any past experience, of these Divine realities ? Or what but faith could be a valid basis of true intelligence and virtue ? And so of all things whatever, for they hang- together from the throne of God. Those subjects which are peculiar to Christianity and distinctive of it, stand in such relation to all other things, that without it every thing is known only as it is disordered by the fall, and is very vanity. Christianity itself, without these elements, in their miraculous connexions and enforcements, is but a book, a name, or a mere ethical system of no more ac- count than the teachings of the natural sense or reason, requiring not faith, but speculation ; not an endowed ministry, but mere philosophers ; not churches, but acad- emies ; not a Holy Spirit to enlighten and renew the soul, but cultivated masters to excite its torpid energies, and a thrifty civilization to draw them out ; not a fel- lowship and communion of saints to preserve a healthful activity of the powers, but stimulants and narcotics to force them by the rivalries and competitions of a self- seeking world. Men are fallen, ignorant, perverse, proud, deceitful, hateful and hating one another, every where. They are so always. This is the fundamental fact of all the Revelations, - and we remain of this character, de- spite all other discipline, and possibly all the more for other discipline, but as taught, restored and justified by- Christ alone. The whole God-hating world is to be lift- ed out of its slough of sin and despair, and the tallest part of it with the greatest difficulty, as he himself af- 12 firms, only by him. What lever is strong enough for this but the cross ? Where shall we place its fulcrum but on the everlasting rock ? What instrumental power shall move it but the hand of faith ? Christ, therefore, was Paul's foundation, and he .determined to know inwardly, and to make known outwardly, nothing else. And but for a similar purpose we must fail, in the comprehensive sense of failure, of every thing, whether of the natural or the supernatural, of time or of eternity. cc No man cometh unto the Father but by me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." II. We observe now the substance of Paul's charac- ter, practically ; viz. his acting always agreeably to his faith. Here Paul should be suffered to explain himself, and other Scriptures also to speak for him, lest by our pri- vate interpretations, we fall, on the one hand, into the error of the Romanists, and make our duty to Christ to consist mainly in doing reverence to a crucifix ; or, on the other hand, the error of the speculative Protestant, who, pantheistically, sweeps all things that are related to Christianity, into it, as if they were integral parts of it, and virtually rates the human and Divine as identical, or, at least, equivalents. Our Protestant error is the more plausible and captivating to undiscerning minds, because it affects to magnify Christianity. But it is the more dangerous on that account, because it magnifies Christianity only by its human additions, which, in the long run, dishonor, in being suffered to overshadow, it. 13 We come to idolize our theories, to put the commentary above the text, and substitute for doctrine the com- mandments of men. To a sincere mind the specious fal- lacy is evident ; for things that are related to other things, are not included in them, and may be indefinite- ly different from them. Things in the natural world are related to things in the supernatural world, but form no part of them, and cannot be interpreters of them ; and even things natural, though related to each other, may be radically unlike. All things relate to Christ ; - the starry heavens ; the depths of the earth and of the sea ; all intelligences and their works ; all literature, art, sci- ence, philosophy, governments, laws, trade, commerce, manners and customs, whatever we include in civiliza- tion. They exist and are carried on in reference to the ends of moral government. Christianity, by its inciden- tal and collateral influence, makes and marks the differ- ence between one age and country and another. It is the common test of all things, and they rise or fall through their conformity or disagreement with it. But they are no part of it, nor like it. Christianity comes into the world because they are unlike it, and contrary to it, and need a restitution by it. When we commend and ad- vance them we do not necessarily commend and advance Christianity, and we may do it harm, just as it is in oth- er departments of the general system. Mathematics is related to agriculture, trade, the mechanic arts, the fine arts. But what should we say of the student or teacher of Mathematics, who should spend his time in discussing husbandry, or carpentry, poetry, music, or painting ? 14 What would he or his pupils know about the Mathemat- ics, or of these other branches, without having a mathe- matical foundation ? So the Christian is made so by Christianity, and Christianity is not art, or science, or philosophy. It intermeddles not with agriculture, trade, commerce, legislation, politics, but with individual men of all parties, pursuits and interests, to infuse into them its own proper spirit, on the basis of its own distinctive facts and principles, and combine their influence for the common good. Otherwise it reproves and denounces them . Its forces are centripetal and, of course, counteract our natural tendencies to eccentricity, confusion and destruc- tion. Christianity is for principles, not for modes and forms ; for the spirit, not for meats and drinks ; or for the outward and the natural, only as the new life of God affects them, and finds its way out practically through them. We go not to the cross to learn how to make houses, tools, books ; to plough, sow, or navigate ; to frame or administer governments ; - all which things are for the probation and discipline of our natural faculties ; but on what common basis, with what principles, in what spirit, and to what ends these natural works should be performed. Paul was, by trade, a tent-maker. Whether he made better tents after he was converted, history has not informed us. Very likely not ; for probably he then cared less for an earthly than a heavenly tabernacle. But he made them honestly, and became a more useful citi- zen, if not a more tasteful artizan, and, so far, gave a haalthier tone, if not a higher adornment to the civiliza- tion of his times. But if, in his intercourse with men, 15 he had discussed tent-making instead of Christ, or been ambitious to gain a patent for some new discovery, as doubtless he could have done, with his great abilities, what would have become of the souls of men ? How would the elect Gentiles have been gathered in ? Better tents might have made his converts more comfortable, or distinguished, or politically capable, but not better Chris- tians ; and what were better tents or palaces at the ex- pense or risk of Christian virtue ? Let earthly things, whether of intellect or skill, have their proper place ; but they are not the heavenly, and to make them virtually equivalent to the heavenly, or measures and expounders of it, is to bring heaven down to earth without a blessing with it. Many earthly things that were even right and lawful, Paul thought not ex- pedient ; and he was not a man to follow an abstract right, and much less an abstract notion, against the dic- tates of practical wisdom and benevolence, and to the greater disturbance of the present state of things. But let us understand him more aptly and precisely. Thus : -Paul rejects what the world calls the excellency of speech and of wisdom, and accepts what it calls fool- ishness. By wisdom he explains himself to mean what- ever views the natural mind takes of natural things, or of the things of the kingdom of God, in distinction from what God reveals of them by his word, and interprets to the believing mind by his Spirit. By excellency of speech he signifies the affected and artful discourse by which the rhetoricians set forth this vain natural wisdom to captivate undiscerning and light-headed people. And 16 he calls foolishness that which the natural man rejects as such, because it exceeds his faculties, and could not be discovered or comprehended by them. So the philoso - phers at Athens, -the wisest men of the earth, - mock- ed at him because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. They affirmed that the resurrection was an impossibility. They had the laws of nature to back them, and were sure of their ground. Incontro- vertibly it was a natural impossibility. According to nature they were right, and they had a right to know and assert it. But it was not a supernatural impossibility, not absolutely impossible and absurd, as that an object should be in two different places at the same time, or that a tri- angle should be equal to a square. They had no right, on the basis of admitted facts, to set up theories that ig- nored, or controverted, or practically annulled ,' related facts that existed in a higher sphere, beyond their nat- ural comprehension, and revealed to faith alone. It was their fallacy and their sin, that what God said about these matters they simply rejected, or squared to their natural ideas; and they had no right to reason upon hy- potheses that left God out of the government of his own world, or that divorced his natural from his moral system. God who made man could certainly redeem him, and raise him from the dead. The Creator of the heavens and the earth could subvert them by flood or fire, and create new heavens and a new earth. What God says he has done, or will do, in these, respects, is the absolute of wisdom. That infinitely higher than Greek or Roman wisdom, Paul had reached, and was not 17 ashamed of it. If his adversaries were sure, as they had a right to be, from their stand-point, - for their logic from their partial premises was correct, - he was doubly sure from his higher postulates, and more comprehensive reasoning, and hence both his positive and negative re- solve. He could confidently affirm his own doctrine, and deny their one-sided philosophy, for it assumed to reason from a lower department of Providence against a higher altogether above reach and comprehension except as God should reveal it, and was consequently false. It left out the very primordial and vital element on which ev- ery thing depended - the living God. It could not then possibly be true, though it stood in the Areopagus. That higher department of God's universal sovereign- ty, for which all the inferior were made, and subsist, and have their orders and disorders, their actions and reac- tions, their destructions and new creations, till the ends of moral government are answered, revelation miracu- lously opens, substantiates, enforces, puts every thing below it, in proper relation and subserviency to it, and requires us to govern ourselves accordingly. Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. His enlarged soul took in, in measure, the comprehensive scheme, worshipped the despised Nazarene who manifested to him such glories of the Divine government, and Christ became his guide. F^r above the most dignified school of his own nation, far above the wise men of the Areopagus, he rose in the dignity of his Christian manliness, reprov- ed their blind traditions, their gilded but shallow soph- istries, declared the unknown God, witnessed to Jesus 18 and the Resurrection, and gave fearful warning that God would no longer wink at the ignorance of foolish men, hut would hasten to judge the world in righteousness hy that man whom he had ordained, whereof he had given assurance unto all men, hy the resurrection of the dead. Great was the Revelation thenceforth to be the measure of wisdom, and Ihe rule of life to a deluded world. Paul had received it astonished, confounded, blinded, but sus- tained, recovered, emboldened, and he stood to it, though he had been exceedingly mad against it, through untold oppositions, perils and sufferings, to his dying day. He has ^i his record ; has set us an example ; has put it to the generations of scholars, and to all people to solve practically the problem which is now proposed to the world for its probation and trial, during the present Christian age ; viz. whether the natural or the supernat- ural, the wisdom of men or the wisdom of God shall be the guide of life. Great will be the controversy in these last days, and terrible will be the judgment of ungodly men It is, however, observable that Paul denounces not the natural, fallen, darkened, insufficient though it be, but on- ly rejects the universal human perversions of it, denies its practical sufficiency, and affirms Christ as the only true light that liiihteth every man that cometh into the world. Nature is great even in its fall and disorder ; great are its general laws, its relations, its causes and effects, its antecedents and consequents. For some uses and purposes of our natural life in this world, it is suf- ficient, upon a due and regulated observance ; that is, 19 for food, and drink, and raiment, for intellectual disci- pline, for political and social interests. But greater than nature or its laws is the God of nature, the lawgiver, the first, medial and final Cause ; greater is moral govern- ment ; greater, for the ends of moral government, are the suspension of general laws, the reversal of order, the dis- turbance of relations, overturnings and destructions in the great system of the world, till Christ shall have put all things under him. Great is the present state of things, to be studied in its facts and phenomena, their modes and laws, to be improved so far as we can im- prove it while the curse of sin remains upon it, and its frictions, jarrings, convulsions and deaths succeed each other in reference to the ends of a probationary state. That study is our appointed work, our trial and disci- pline, till probation shall end, and the symbolic day of judgment shall begin, and eternal issues shall be declar- ed. But if any man thinks to gain true science or vir- tue in any branch of natural knowledge, or depart- ment of natural affairs, without reference to their super- natural relations, or their concern with moral govern- ment, as set forth in Scripture, he will find, at length, that his partial judgment has misled him, and that he has built his house upon the sand. But to the right ordering of ourselves amidst the fric- tion and difficulties of this present state, we need to make a more experimental application of the life and lessons of our pattern man. This is important. Let us suppose then a hopeful young man, h recent Graduate, who has some incipient though yet imperfect faith, rather an edu- 20 cation;*] than thoroughly experimental faith in Christ, and proposes, as he leaves his College, to do what good he can, in his day and generation wherever Providence n: ay cast his lot. Suppose him, after a while, thrown into comparatively ignorant and irreligious society, say off among the new settlements; or what is still more in point of Paul's example, suppose him a teacher, preacher, physician, diplomatist, factor, in some parts of the une vangelized world, or among the apostate, effete Christian nations, or the dying-out Mohammedans of the east, where some of you, in all likelihood, will find your way. Or rather, suppose him back two thousand years, in some dissolute part of the Roman Empire, and then judge from the analogies or differences of the case. The panorama,- the whole scene that opens there - how different from these College scenes, how different from our own country round about, where the doctrines of the cross have, in some measure, refined and dignified society, where we have, as we think, and as may be true, the best part of the best race of earth, regular Anglo- Saxon blood coursing through our veins ; and may say, like as Paul said, "I am a Roman citizen. " It looks worse to him as he analyzes it in detail. He perceive arbitrary and despotic governments and a besotted peo- ple, no churches or schoolhouses, no comely homesteads, no mechanical improvements, no institutions of the arts and sciences, and though, physically, every prospect pleases, man is vile, abject and miserable. Suppose him now excited, affected, but not yet lifted above his edu- cational and popular ideas, to take up his argument as a 21 tn ere philosopher, or philanthropist, or negative Chris* tian, that these wretched people are not susceptible of the refined and elevating influences of Christianity in their present state. They must be washed, and cleansed, and civilized, must have more liberal governments, and equal laws, better education, a better husbandry, and a better economy in general, in order to the attainment of the true ends of life. Suppose our learned benefactor to lay out his strength according this humanitarian theory, and undertake a reform of society politically, education- ally, aesthetically ; suppose him, I mean, to follow his negative secular logic straight along, and to make his practice correspond to his finespun speculations. How would he come out ? In his zeal for a higher civiliza- tion, that is, for overturning, remodelling and recon- structing society according to his philosophical ideas, what would happen ? He would come up square against the universal prejudices and sympathies of the people, and provoke wonder, distrust, jealousy and opposition, not because of his Christianity, for by the supposition, he has not begun to play the Christian, not positive, like Paul, of Christ, but negative only of the real or suppos- ed antichrists. He would put himself before society as a hater and not a lover ; not a constructor, but a destroy- er ; and raise a storm against which his shining romance and onesided expedients would be as powerless as a zephyr against the sirocco. The learned men, such as there were, would take him to task for attacking their theories without proposing any that had adaptation to existing facts, or immediate practical necessities of society, or, at 22 least, that had any higher sanction than that of a merely speculative wisdom. The idolaters would assail him for spurning their mythologies before the introduction of a more credible and authoritative religion ; and the govern- ments for sowing discord and sedition, upturning inveter- ate customs or institutions which, however imperfect, were yet better than general anarchy, and possibly neces- sary, in the existing state of things, to prevent general dissolution. Would not our excellent reformer find to his cost that he had begun at the wrong end ? Before he had projected Christ, -" the way, and the truth, and the life," - he would be banished or beheaded. C?esar would be too hard for him while he withheld the tribute-mon- ey, and assumed virtually to legislate over, or to over- throw " the powers that be," ordained of God, and necessary as the granite ridges t) hold the world to- gether. But did not Paul and all the Apostles encounter diffi- culties in proclaiming Christ and him crucified alone ? Certainly they did, and in similar circumstances others would be likely to do the same, to an extent, in every period. But there is this vast difference. They began and continued with Christ, were positive of him, and nothing else, and let human expedients alone. They found nature sick, deranged, and went to their work not empirically with drenching and violence, and not dream- ily with homoepathic specifics, that are practically mere amusements and are nothing, but scientifically, like the great physician — -the loving, generous, disinterested, all-comprehending Christ, — not to destroy, like Peter, 23 whom our Lord reproved for bis intemperate and vindic- tive zeal, but to save ; to restore by converting ; to re- form by sanctifying ; to make the tree good that its fruit might be good. That is the difference. And what was the consequence ? Not that they did not suffer ; but it was for Christ's sake and not their own mistakes ; for sound principles, and not for a shallow policy. So they glorified God and dishonored, not themselves in the fire. Some of them the fire could not burn, nor the lions de- vour, as those remarkable young men, long before, ^n the court of Babylon, young students possibly, just out of some Jewish College, or school of the Prophets, taught first and last the relation of all things to the moral gov- ernment of God. And what was another consequence ? They sowed the seeds of grace over the deserts of the world, and that precise effect which God designed by Christianity was accomplished in the ingathering of a peculiar people out of all the commercial world, and whatever blessing has come to the distressed nations of the earth, since the ascension of our Lord. There was the greatest fruit of grace where there had been the greatest want of it, and it will remain, amidst the dis- cordant, wicked civilizations of the world, " Till o'er our ransomed natu.-e, The Lamb for sinners slain, Redeemer, King, Creator, Returns in bliss to reign." But once more ; - let us suppose that the Christian part of the world, captivated by worldly ideas of a per- fect state, and in accordance with any world- theory of setting up the kingdom of God upon the earth, should 24 be able, by some magnetic power, yet unknown, to over- turn, in a day, the abuses of ages, and introduce, a} once, a type of civilization more refined than had ever before existed on the earth, answerable, for example, to Utopia, or a Platonic commonwealth. But, by the sup- position, Christ is not yet there, nor Revelation to guide the excited minds of men, nor Holy Spirit to convert them. All that is to be on the next stage of progress to perfection. We have gotten our handmaid to Chris- tianity, — wisdom, and excellent speech, wealth, re- finement, political power, and a state of universal free- dom. What help will our handmaid afford us towards the settlement of a perfect state ? Let Paul him- self answer experimentally and historically in view of all that had happened on the earth up to his time, or would be likely, according to the laws of fallen mind, to hap- pen in all times. He will advise us that when men, without Christian virtue, have become wise, knowledge has puffed them up ; or mighty, their wealth and power have made them self-reliant, independent, and overbear- ing ; or noble, their fictitious grandeur has eclipsed the unpretending lights of humble merit, and made them contemptuous of wiser and better though less ostentatious men ; and that when they have had the liberty which they valued above all things, they have turned it into licentiousness, and their precious fruit has become rot- ten before it co;dd become ripe. Paul will convince us that Christ came into this world for judgment, that they who see not might see, and that they who see might be made blind ; and that in the ingathering of his chosen, 25 he has made very little account of these imaginary, sec- ular preliminaries of salvation, but, contrarily, ' has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty, and base things of the world, and things that are despised, yea, and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are, tha flesh might glory in his presence.' We shall learn from Scripture that to the poor the Gospel is preached ; that the beatitudes are all referable to states of mind and habits of life wholly opposed to the spirit of the world ; that Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom, and Dives lifting up his eyes in torment ; that the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before the Scribes and Pharisees ; and that, although God, in his great mercy, has saved some of all classes of mankind, yet the tallest and most highly civilized have had a probation propor- tioned to their privileges, and have been saved with the greatest difficulty, as if by fire, or as if a camel should go through the eye of a needle. All Scripture and ex- perience will assure us that the greater our natural ele- vatiou the more likely we are to be giddy and to fall ; that our dangers are proportioned to our blessings ; and that if any man will be saved he must take up his cross and follow Christ, just as Christ learned obedience by the things that he suffered. We learn out of our infal- lible directory, that if men have every thing else without Christ they are worse than nothing, and were better drowned in the sea ; that all reform that is really such works out from Christ, and not in towards him ; that all 4 26 true prosperity begins with Christ, and that there is no good whatever that does not otherwise ensue to a great- er evil ; for moral government will have its course and issue, though the universe take up with any contrary theory, or affect practically to reverse the eternal plan. All such affectation our Lord most significantly reproves as the putting of new wine into old bottles, or new cloth into an old garment : the bottles are burst, and the rent is made worse. This is a slow lesson and a hard one ; but it has high authority, as well in experience as in Scripture. Or, just to vary the effect of these observa- tion* ; -it is as if our pleasant valley, or the prairies of the west, or the deltas of the south, or of Egypt, or all the glorions east, were covered with sumptuous dwellings surrounded with Eden-like parterres, the dwellers all as by a magic touch made healthy, strong, and beautiful, enriched by more than Athenian litera- ture, art, science and philosophy, the governments con- stituted after the highest models imaginable on earth • in a word, physically and intellectually as God pronounc- ed his original creation - very good, - wanting nothing but that original innocence and purity from which Adam by transgression fell. But they are fallen and sinful still, and the cherubim and flaming sword still keep the way of the tree of life. What, in thirty years, for aught that naturalism could effect, would become of all that wealth, learning, freedom, beauty, and magnificence ? If Adam fell in the Paradise which God created, what would become of his selfish children in such a paradise as they could manufacture on their own account ? Do 27 I need to ask of those who have read their Bibles, and had a sound conviction of their own depravity, or prac- tical acquaintance with the selfishness and wickedness of the world ? There will be a day, — God's name be praised, — when the whole accursed wilderness of earth shall be as Eden, and the desert as the garden of the Lord ; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanks- giving and the voice of melody. But this will be the consequence of Christ's investiture with his promised kingdom, when they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Then we shall have not the mere dream of a perfect state — paradise regained by our speculative wisdom, our mechanical expedients, our con- fident and frothy declamations, our might and power, which have always disappointed men and nations when they have awaked to the complications, coufusions, and strifes of a sin-cursed world ; but the glorious vision of faith, - the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and the angel shall proclaim through the midst of heaven, - " Now the kingdoms of this world have become the king- doms of our Lord and of his Christ." God be thanked for that assurance by which we cheerfully and earnestly toil and struggle on, in Christian hope, for such im- provement as is possible of the present state of things. In confirmation of the views above expressed, it is sufficient to remark in closing, that well instructed and experienced Christian men, when Paul is brought dis- tinctly before them, join with him in referring his char- acter to the supernatural grace of God which made him 28 what he was, and assert the same cause as alone sufficient to produce a like effect in others. For every Christian well remembers that he became a Christian, not by intellec- tual discipline, or ceremonial observances ; not by the outside reformation of his morals, or his manners ; and not by any merely onesided, negative virtue in renounc- ing, denouncing, or opposing evil. All that labor and travail only plunged him into lower depths. He studied, reformed and toiled, struggled and fought in vain. De- spite all his attempts to restore his soul, every thing went wrong and worse with him, till God's mercy tri- umphed, and Christ was formed in him the hope of glory. ' Then only did he begin to live anew, and use his powers aright, when he felt the constraining influence of a Sav- ior's love. I have seen this nowhere more than among young men and students. What is true of one is true essentially of all, any where, at any time, among any people, - pagan, Jewish, Mohammedan, or Christian, in any age, on a great scale or on a small, with a family, a college, a nation, the world, as with an individual soul ; for ' as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.' Nay, a family, a college, a nation, the world, can be brought back to God only as one by one the individuals who compose it receive Christ by a liv- ing faith. Otherwise we accumulate our spiritual diffi- culties, and confirm our habits if not of outward wicked- ness, yet of more refined and dangerous selfishness, and aggravate our guilt, as our Lord emphatically taught the self-justifying classes of his day. But with Christ God freely gives us all things. Then, what our forms 29 and reforms, mechanisms and expedients, policy or pow- er, could not otherwise effect, is done. Then the idols fall ; nature revives ; man wakes from his sleep of death • God's ordinances are set up in strength and majesty ; knowledge, wisdom and virtue rule the affairs of men. Pride, envy, jealousy, malice, deceit, injustice, oppress- ion, cruelty, chicane, intrigue, violence, and crime, give place to the heavenly influence, and God in very deed dwells with men upon the earth. God and not man made the world. God governs the world. God and not man must save it. He will not give his glory to another. Young Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : As ever before, and always as I have opportunity while I live to reach you by discourse, so now, on this last Sabbath together in this house of God, I would seek to refresh your minds with what seem to me the truths of this Holy Book. I would excite, and guide and sus- tain you by the eminent example of one who was deter- mined to know them and nothing else. Now, let me kindly ask you, - for I seek your good, - what want you ? What do you propose to yourselves as you leave these halls? The greatness of this world ? It is a sham, a bubble. Though you gain it, you gain the false at the sacrifice of the true. Be humble, then, with Paul, and real greatness will ensue, not that which so many seek as the end of life, but that which is an ordained conse- quence of seeking life's great end. Before such honor is humility. Do you affect the wisdom of the world ? But remember that the " wisdom of this world is foolish- 30 ness with God." " The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." Be fools with Paul, and your vessels, then emptied of conceits and vanities, will be filled with the treasures of heavenly knowledge. Do you affect the power of the world 1 How soon is the staff broken, and lies rotten in the dust. Or while you use it for the ends of earth, it reacts and strikes you down. " I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. But he passed away and lo, he was not ; I sought him, but he could not be found." Be weak with Paul, and God shall clothe you with a never-dying or relaxing strength. One of you shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thou- sand to flight. Do you affect happiness — that de- lusive end which a spurious morality and a secu- lar theology so much in our day exalt ? But remem- ber that your happiness is of infinitely less consequence than the honor of your Creator, and that he holds what man esteems the well-being of worlds as of no account in comparison with the ends of his holy government ; aud that they who laugh now shall mourn and weep. Suffer with Paul ; for " tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed. " Or do you affect life ? But he that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for Christ's sake shall keep it unto life eternal. Die daily with Paul, and be partakers also of a better res- urrection. What more, what better, what else, speaking after a Christian fashion, can I say ? Do you want all things ? Be Christ's, and all things are yours — Paul, 31 Apollos, Cephas, — you may appropriate essentially all their gifts. The world, or life, or death, or things pres- ent, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or perse- cution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." c< Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to keep you from falling, and to give you an inheritance among them that are sancti- fied by faith." IMMMJMA A'^.A lw^ A^^^'V^" wm^mfm wm, :tfM S^iffl5i ?P/\A* ■ n >"Q?ftm* mteftfy^h* W\Ae« Kf^flllif 1 * MM fa ftAffe* *AA •MSPT^SB^aK'e f\A*/ v ft«to ^h*r\kihh W^fm^ff^^^H^i\^ l^A a^ - - \ - . - 1 •« r^Ff .FJhfAGl Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: June 2005 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve Cranberry Township. 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