YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

G-G

PRES.aHOPKINS'S

ilSt

THE PROMISE TO ABBAEA

M.

MISSIONARY SERMON.

BY

MARK HOPKINS, D. D.
President of Williams College.

BOSTON:
PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 42 CONGRESS STREET.
1858.

Note. — The substance of the following Discourse was delivered at Bangor,
Maine, in August last, at the ordination of the Rev. E. F. Roberts, as a
Missionary to Micronesia. It has since been repeated here, and elsewhere —
recently at the Missionary Convention held at Pittsfield — and is now pub
lished at the request of the Mills Theolooioal Society, with the hope that
it may strengthen the faith of the friends of missions.
"Williams College, Jan. 1, 1858.

SERMON.

ROMANS iv. 13.
FOR THE PROMISE, THAT HE SHOULD BE THE HEIR OF THE WORLD, WAS
NOT TO ABRAHAM, OR TO HIS SEED, THROUGH THE LAW, BUT THROUGH
THE RIOHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.
In the passage now read from the word of God, we have,
First, the fact that it entered into the original conception of
the religion of the Bible, that it should be universal. The
promise to Abraham was, that he should be " the heir of the
world." "We have, Secondly, the grand characteristic, from the
first, of the religion of the Bible, and that by which it is
fitted to become universal. Abraham was to be the heir of
the world through the righteousness of faith.
We have, Thirdly, the ground on which the people of
God have expected, and do expect, that this religion will
become universal. The promise was to Abraham.
And we have, Fourthly, as implied in the last, the prin
ciple of action which must sustain those who labor to make
this religion universal — faith in the promise. These points
we now propose to consider.
We say then, First, that it entered into the original con
ception of the religion of the Bible, that it should become
universal.

As it is the object of Christianity, and especially of the
missionary work, to establish a universal religion, it becomes
us to inquire into the origin and history of this idea.
Ideas giving impulse and direction to human thought and
effort, may either originate with God, or with man. The idea
of the law of gravitation did not originate with Newton. It had
been operative in the works of God thousands of years before
he was born, and was as really expressed in the movements
of those works, as a thought is expressed in a sentence. It
lay behind those movements, as the thought behind a sentence;
was presupposed by them, was their upholding and informing
principle. And so we say that the idea of a universal relig
ion originated with God, was communicated by him to man,
and is, to Him, like the law of the planetary motions, one of
those great ideas, in accordance with which, and for the real
ization of which He works. True, this idea may spring at
once from a correct conception of the attributes and claims of
the true God, and so, when once made known, commends
itself to our reason ; still, as man was situated, we say it could
have come only from God.
It was more than four hundred years after the flood, when
the promise referred to in the text, that all the families of the
earth should be blessed in him, was made to Abraham. The
race had been dispersed over the earth, had been divided into
different tribes, with different languages, and idolatry in
various forms had become nearly or quite universal. With
idolatry is naturally connected the idea of local divinities,
and the impression, still prevalent among the heathen, that
each religion is good, and the best for its own locality. The
earth had not been explored. Nothing was known of its
form, or of its extent ; nothing of the capabilities of the race
for extension, or for various forms of culture and organiza
tion. The tendency then was, not to centralization any
where, but to wider dispersions, the reach of which no man
could foresee, and which might be so wide as to sunder per-

manently, as they did for ages, the relations of different parts
of the race. There was no writing then, no printing, no
system of roads or of intercommunication. The race was
not only idolatrous, but nomadic and predatory. It was a
great thing for Abraham to go out from his kindred and his
father's house, to a land which he knew not of; and nothing
but the special protection of God could have prevented him
from being plundered and slain. War, indeed, not for the
purpose of union, but of plunder and subjection, seems to
have been then, as it was subsequently, the great business
and ground of distinction among men.
Under such circumstances, the suggestion that a universal
religion either was then, or ever could become possible,
would seem entirely aside from the laws of human thought.
It was no light thing thus to claim to know the future for
all time ; and to recognize the highest and only true bond
of unity for the race ; and to conceive that that unity might
be realized, and to utter this with the simplicity and majesty
and unfaltering certainty which we find only in the Scrip
tures. And then, if the suggestion were made, it would seem still
farther aside from the laws of human motive and effort, that
any man should deny himself, and labor for such an end.
Aside from the religion of the Bible, such a person as a
Christian Missionary could not be conceived of. No motive,
merely human, could call men off from their apathy, their
toil, their sensuality, their ambition, and lead them to such
labors as would be requisite to establish a religion that could
become universal. No, my friends, it was not for man, thus
situated, to originate an idea so far-reaching and comprehen
sive, so exciting and elevating, so alien from all that was,
and so consonant with all that ought to be, as that of one,
true, exclusive, universal religion. It was not for any one
individual, especially one who had none of the ordinary
grounds of distinction, who built no city, founded no state,

6
conquered no country, wrote no book, who was a wanderer
dwelling in tents, to conceive of. himself as holding such a
relation to all nations, that they should be blessed in him ;
and the fact that this was foretold of such an individual
nearly four thousand years ago, and that it has come to pass
to such an extent, is conclusive proof that the Bible is from
God, and that the promise will be completely fulfilled.
But strong as this proof is, it becomes more so when we
look at the history of this idea. It had no gradual growth,
was from no tendency of society, or progress of the mind ;
but appeared in its completeness, like an apparition from
heaven. Like such an apparition, it appeared for a moment,
and then departed.
And not only did it thus appear and depart, but it appeared
in combination with an idea that seemed its opposite, and
departed leaving that idea wholly dominant. The chief
marvel connected with this promise is, not its universality
simply, but its combination of universality with exclusive-
ness. The covenant was with Abraham, and its immediate
effect was, not to unite him with others, but to separate him
from them, even from his kindred and his father's house.
This separation continued while he lived, during the lives of
the patriarchs, and became still more exclusive under the
Mosaic dispensation, one great object of which was to sepa
rate the Jews from other nations. Here was a seeming
inconsistency, which could have proceeded only on the deep
est knowledge of what the completed circle of God's prov
idence would be. It was like Columbus seeking the Indies
by sailing in an opposite direction. It was like the change
of the egg into a grub, when the promise had been that
it should be a butterfly. There was doubtless provision for
a three-fold development, as there .is in insect life for a three
fold organization ; but this was utterly beyond the reach of
human ken, and could as little have been foretold by man
without experience, as the changes in the insect.

And indeed, when we look at these three-fold organ
izations of insect life, each preceding one, so slowly and
strangely preparatory, so identical, and yet so diverse ; when
we see it, now creeping upon the earth, now enclosed in its
web, and now floating in freedom and beauty in the upper
air ; and then look at the Patriarchal dispensation passing into
the Mosaic ; at the Mosaic enclosing itself within its web of
rites and ceremonies ; and then, at the expansion and glory
and universality of the Christian dispensation, it is difficult
not to feel that the one is related to the other, though it be
but as the slightest sketch of a great master to his master
piece. May not this be ? Is it too much to believe that He
who forms in the dew-drop the image of the sun, who has
established corresponding ratios of distance between the
leaves of the plant and the orbits of the planets, should thus
show, as in a glass, through the structure and changes of
that which is lowest and most transient in his works, some
thing of the march and glory of that which is highest and
most permanent 1
But however this may be, the promise was made, not only
with no apparent provision for its fulfillment, but in connec
tion with an arrangement by which, in all human probability,
it must have been counter-worked.
Originating thus high up upon the hoary peaks of time,
and in combination with an element apparently its opposite,
this idea, this element of universality, just showed itself, and
then, like water that finds a subterranean channel, it disap
peared. From that time till the coming of Christ, there was
nothing in the history of the world to indicate that such an
element existed. There was nothing to show any tendency
towards universality. Every thing indicated the reverse.
Compared with the nations around them, the people of God
were generally a small people, and their system of polity was
neither attractive nor aggressive. In the course of events,
there was no breath, no token, no movement, to indicate any

8
such principle ; and yet we find it bursting up in prophecy,
along the track of time, like fountains in the desert, and so
as to show a divine and irrepressible force. *
And the striking point here, one affording conclusive proof
of the truth of the Bible, is that the utterances and over
flowings of prophecy became more distinct and full, as the
prospect of their fulfillment, on the grounds of experience
and probability, became more and more dark. It was when
the idolatries of the heathen had become multiplied and con
firmed, when the glory of Israel had declined, and the
nation was ready to go into captivity, or had already gone,
that we find the utterances of her poets and prophets most
fully inspired with this idea. "With great variety of expres
sion, and with unmistakable clearness, they foretell a time
when wars shall cease, and the peaceable kingdom of Im-
manuel shall be every where established. "Nation," say
they, " shall not lift up sword against nation." " The idols
He shall utterly abolish." "The mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and
all nations shall flow unto it." " The kingdom, and domin
ion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most
High." « The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of
the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." "From
the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same,
my name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every
place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure
offering." The next point to be noticed in the history of this idea, is
the place it occupies in the Christian dispensation. And
here the marvel is not less, and wholly unaccountable except
on the supposition that Christ was what he claimed to be.
Like that of the being of a God,' this is one of those ideas
which the Saviour did not so much formally announce, as
take for granted. He assumed it as entering into his relig-

ion, as a matter of course, and in this there was unspeakable
grandeur. He said, "I am the light of the world." "The
field is the world." He commanded his disciples to " go
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
Here we find this idea appealing at the opening of the
new dispensation, as it had before at that of the old ; but
whereas it was then a prophecy, it was now a purpose. The
transition from a mere thought, a conception, an imagination,
to a purpose, is a great one ; and, in comparing the old dis
pensation with the new, it is here that we find one of the
great points both of identity and of transition. The under
lying conception in the old dispensation was an ultimate
universality. That was really its glory, and it was only by
the adoption of that as an object and a purpose, that the
religion of Christ could become the fulfillment, the antitype,
the expansion, the transfiguration of the old dispensation.
Accordingly we behold Christ — doubtless the one solitary
person of the race who had ever cherished, or even formed
such a purpose — taking the ancient promise, eliminating its
really great element and placing that in front, and then saying
to the world, " I am not come to destroy the law and
the prophets, but to fulfill." So doing, he became the cen
tral point towards which all in the past that belonged to the
old covenant converged, and from which all in the great
future must radiate and expand. As he alone gave to the
law its spiritual interpretation, so did he alone give to the
promise its true expansion. If, then, Christ was not from
God, how unaccountable in him the idea even of a uni
versal religion ! How much more so that he should quietly,
and as it were unconsciously, assume it as a part of his sys
tem ! How much more still, that in him, in him alone, it
should become a purpose ! And most of all, that he should
announce that this purpose would be accomplished by his
own crucifixion ! " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all
men unto me." 2

10
In the history of this idea, but one step remains. Re
ceiving it from Christ now in the form of a purpose, the
disciples, immediately after his resurrection, commenced their
labors for its reaUzation. Then was seen the true spirit of
Christian missionaries; a spirit of self-denial and faith,
which, if it could return into the church, would soon cause
the gospel to be preached in every nation under heaven.
Then every church was of course a missionary society, and
every church member held himself ready to serve the church,
and the great Head of the church, wherever he might be
called. But those days passed away. The spirit of worldliness
and of self-aggrandizement stole in. The man of sin began
to assert his supremacy, and the night of the dark ages set
in. The Eeformation was a great work ; but, as its name
imports, it was a work within the church, and it was not till
recent times that she began again to feel the mspiration of
this great purpose. But now the apathy of ages is broken.
The church begins to remember that she is the heir of the
world ; the voice of the ancient promise rises and swells
upon her ear ; it seems like a new revelation, and she feels
that it is time to arise and take possession of the promised
inheritance. It is almost within our own day, that " the
angel having the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation,
and kindred, and tongue, and people," has renewed his
flight ; and we trust that flight shall not cease till there shall
be heard in heaven those great voices saying, " The king
doms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Such is a slight sketch of the origin and progress of that
great idea which was involved in the promise made to
Abraham. Let us now consider, Secondly, as indicated in the text, that
grand characteristic of the religion of the Bible by which it

11
is fitted to become universal. Abraham was to be the heir
of the world through the righteousness of faith.
And here it is certainly remarkable, that in that transaction
with the father of the faithful, in which the old dispensation
commenced, there should be found, in such close connection
with that idea of universality which was to be the consum
mation of the religion, the peculiarity by which that religion
should be distinguished from all others, and should be fitted
to become universal. The promise to Abraham was, that he
should be the heir of the world, and it was the very believing
of this that was counted to him for righteousness. So says
the Apostle. " Abraham believed God, and it was counted
to him for righteousness." In believing this, he believed in
a Saviour to come, and so he became the heir of the world,
"not through the law, but through the righteousness of
faith." The term " righteousness," is here used by the Apostle
to signify a mode of justification. Ordinarily, " the right
eousness of God " would indicate a personal quality in him ;
but as used in this Epistle, it indicates the method which he
has adopted of constituting and declaring his people right
eous ; that is, the justification which is of God. Thus in
the third chapter, 21st and 22d verses, "But now, the right
eousness of God without the law is manifested, being wit
nessed by the law and the prophets ; even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all that believe." Certainly, God has no personal right
eousness " without the law," or, " which is by faith of Jesus
Christ." Here then we have, brought face to face in the text, the
only two modes of justification before God, that are possible ;
and we are told that the religion for man — for the race — is
not to be through the law, or any of its works, but through
the righteousness of faith ; that is, that it is to be a justifica
tion wholly free and gratuitous. " It is of faith, that it might

12
be by grace." This it is that makes the gospel to be what it
is — the evangel, the good tidings, a proclamation of mercy
and of free salvation. This is the central evangelical ele
ment. It presupposes the claims of Law, else there could
be no salvation. It presupposes the Atonement, " that God
might be just, while he justifies the ungodly;" but the salva
tion itself is wholly free. There is no condition even, but
that of acceptance. Kepentance and faith are sometimes
said to be conditions ; but in this it is forgotten that holiness
itself is essentially the salvation, and that repentance and
faith are but the forms in which holiness must necessarily
begin. They are the acceptance.
That this characteristic of justification by faith, that is, of
a free salvation, fits the religion to become universal, is plain,
because it recognizes man simply as a sinner. It knows
nothing of him in any other relation; nothing of age, or
sex, or rank, or wealth, or knowledge, or country, or color,
or race. There is here, "neither Greek nor Jew, circum
cision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all, and in all." "In Jesus Christ, nei
ther circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but
faith that worketh by love." Wherever, therefore, there is
a human being who knows that he is a sinner, and desires to
be delivered from the power and curse of sin, there this doc
trine will be welcome. 0, how welcome ! It is no system
of metaphysics, or of dogmas ; it is a proclamation ; it is
good tidings ; it is rest to the weary, peace to the tempest-
tossed ; it is forgiveness and free salvation.
Here the gospel is broadly distinguished from all mere
systems of development, and training, and culture, which
require time and a system of appliances. And this distinc
tion is so vital that it was signalized by our Saviour in the
salvation of the thief on the cross. Both the thieves reviled
him, but one of them had but to turn upon him the eye of
faith and say, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into

13
thy kingdom," and instantly the reply was, " To-day thou
shalt be with me in paradise." All his relations and pros
pects were changed in a moment. Hence the gospel may be
carried at once to the ignorant, the degraded, the abandoned.
Clothed with supernatural power, there is no depth of deg
radation or extremity of suffering which it cannot reach. To
the hut of poverty, it bears a wealth which the world cannot
give ; to the dungeon of the captive, the liberty wherewith
Christ makes men free ; and, though rejected till then, yet,
in the hour of sickness and death, it can gild the pallid coun
tenance with the light of hope, and the radiance of a celestial
joy- But not merely because it regards man solely as a sinner,
and makes salvation a gift, does this principle of justification
by faith adapt Christianity to become universal. It thus
adapts it because it is as simple as one of the great laws of
nature, and is yet as complex in its relations, and as pervading
in its results, as are those laws. How simple it is ! Only to
beheve ! And yet it will adjust rightly all the relations of
man to God, to himself, and to society.
Without faith in God, man is alienated from him, and can
neither love nor obey him. With it, the filial relation is
restored. This involves a recognition of the paramount
claims of God ; it involves ultimate heirship, and all essential
good. Without this faith, man rests upon his native goodness and
on his works, and thus is fostered pride, that primal sin of
the spirit, not only in its relations to God, but to itself. But
this doctrine strikes at the root of all pride. It leaves man,
in respect to salvation, no ground of his own, not the least
self-righteousness, and this brings him to the foot of the cross.
It is when he feels his own utter destitution, and only then,
that he will come and ask at the hand of mercy, free and
sovereign, what he needs. This is submission; and when the

14
pride that struggled against this departs, then comes in peace,
and a cheerful obedience, born of gratitude and love.
But in thus adjusting the relations of man to God and to
himself, those of society will be adjusted also. A true relig
ion must include a perfect morality. Self-adjustment implies
it. But justification by faith has a special relation to those
pervading and unutterable evils in society, which spring from
superstition and formalism. These it would sweep utterly
away. They always imply works as opposed to faith, and
not works from faith. They imply something outward, done
on the supposition that it will avail to some extent as the
ground of salvation. Of these, especially' of the spirit of
formalism, how full is the whole world ! How full es
pecially of superstition, are the papal and heathen worlds !
How appalling the power which these give to man over the
conscience of his fellow ; and through this, how mighty the
support they have lent to systems of civil oppression ! They
have sat as an incubus upon the nations. They have con
verted the very church and temple of God into a den of
thieves and the stronghold of tyranny. But when this has
been done, the simple sling and stone by which these giants
have been slain, is the doctrine of justification by faith. It
was the proclamation of this by Luther, that caused the
knees of the papacy to smite together ; and now, there is no
doctrine so hated by Eome, and by all who tend thitherward.
This is the doctrine that Eome really combats at every point,
that heathenism and tyranny every where combat, because
this alone brings all men into immediate relation to Christ as
the sole Head of the Church, and so, dispenses with all those
forms and intermediate agencies through which they have
been degraded and oppressed. Before this, would vanish at
once the confessional, and indulgences, and penances, and
pilgrimages, and masses, and prayers for the dead, and
prayers to saints, and mawkish mixtures of modern senti-

15
mentalism and mediaeval superstitions ;— all the modifications
of superstition, in short, whether in the heathen, or the
nominally Christian world ; and in place of these there would
come the simple worship of God in spirit and in truth, and
" the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."
This, then, is the doctrine for man as a sinner. It is for
all, and to be received by all in precisely the same way. It
is for the king, for without it he must become poorer and
more powerless than the lowest of his subjects who receive
it ; it is for the scholar and the philosopher, for without
it they have no light that will not go out in the darkness
of the tomb ; and this too is the doctrine for the poor
benighted heathen, for he too is a man and a sinner.
But while we say that there is thus an adaptation and a
tendency in the religion of the Bible to become universal, we
yet say that this has not been, and is not now, the ground on
which the people of God expect that it will become so. That
ground, as is stated in our Third proposition, which we now
proceed to consider, is the promise of God. " The promise
was to Abraham."
In reasoning from adaptations and tendencies, we must
regard, not those only, but also obstacles and opposing
influences. There is in the seed a tendency to grow, but
this may be so checked and thwarted by an adverse soil
and climate, that no one would predict of the plant, that
it would ever reach its full size, or, perhaps, even maintain a
feeble and sickly life. So with the religion of the Bible.
Till the time of Christ, neither its adaptation nor tendency to
become universal could have been perceived ; and since then,
such have been its reverses and perversions, for long periods,
that no human sagacity could have predicted its ultimate
triumph. Missionary zeal has not been stimulated by a phi
losophical perception of adaptations and tendencies. There
never has been a time when, on grounds of mere reason,

16
and without reference to supernatural agency, it would have
been rational to predict even the continuance of a pure Chris
tianity. It would not be rational to predict it now. We
hear much, indeed, at present, of civilization and commerce ;
of science and the arts; of ocean steamers and ocean tele
graphs ; and it is thought, by some, that these herald and
will secure the progress of Christianity. These we would not
undervalue. They are the indirect product of Christianity,
but there is in them literally nothing to move it forward.
They may. be as the wheels upon which it shall move, but
even then it will be only as the "spirit of the living crea
ture is in the wheels." Let the vitalizing force of Chris
tianity be withdrawn from society, and the car of civiliza
tion will be unfastened from its engine, and will come to a
stop. But Christianity itself has moved on by a divine
energy ; it has advanced against all calculations of probabil
ities, and only by conflict. Its life has been through death.
That life has been in God, and from God. It must be so
still, and He only can assure us of its continuance, or predict
its range.
The future can be known by us only in two ways — either
from the experience of the past, or from the promise or pre
diction of one who has it under his control. These grounds
are quite distinct, and may seem, and be, opposed to each
other. The prediction of a final conflagration and general
judgment, is in opposition to all experience. In such cases,
there is a conflict between the evidence for the permanence
of the present system and the truth of the promise. This
has sometimes been called a conflict between reason and
faith, but is really only a question for reason, of evidence
and of fact ; and it is not difficult to show, on grounds of
reason, that confidence in the word of a moral being who
can control the future, must be a firmer basis of belief than
any experience of the past can be. Only admit that there is
a God,, and that this universe is controlled for moral ends, as

17
it must be if he be God, and it will be seen at once, from
the very nature of the element of experience, that it must be
as nothing when opposed to the word of God, and that there
can, therefore, be no conflict between faith and reason, respect
ing any of the great facts of the future, revealed in the Bible.
What is it for a particular order in a material system to come
to an end ? Another, and a better order may succeed it ; but
if the truth of God fail, that is a subversion of all founda
tions, and an end of all order, physical and moral. Hence
the promise of God is rationally the firmest ground on which
confidence can rest ; and it is precisely and only on this that
we do rest in our belief that this world shall be given to
Christ. We believe the promise ; and belief in a promise,
from confidence in the promiser, is faith.
This brings us to consider, finally, the principle of action
which must sustain those, and especially missionaries, who
labor to make this religion universal — Faith in the promise.
The labors and trials of the missionary are peculiar. This
is not, as is often supposed, because he must leave friends
and country, and break up cherished associations, and go and
dwell among a strange, a heathen, and a degraded people-
Others do this, and in great numbers, from the love of gain.
His great trial is, when he has reached a heathen shore, in
giving himself there, during the best years of his life, with
no hope of any thing but a bare support, in singleness of
heart, with earnestness, with diligence, with watchfulness and
prayer, in the midst of apathy, ignorance, low vice, suspicion
and opposition, to the work of enlightening and saving a
people whom he knows only as the children of a common
Father, and as those for whom Christ died. To do this, is
not of nature unrenewed. It requires the support, not merely
of a high aim, but of a divine principle ; and such is faith.
Here faith is regarded not merely as a ground of belief,
nor yet in its relations to a mode of justification by God, but
3

18
as a principle of action. Being not simply belief, but confi
dence, and belief only from confidence, it takes hold of the
emotive nature, and so may become a principle of action.
Being confidence in God, it may become the strongest, the
deepest, the most pervading, as well as the most rational
principle by which we can be moved. This is needed, not
by missionaries only. It has been, and is, distinctively, the
religious principle — the source of strength and endurance to
the whole church. This, as was just said, is a divine prin
ciple. It is apart from, all others; it may be opposed to
them. It does not judge by sense, or by past experience.
Let its warrant be clear, and it knows nothing of difficulties
or impossibilities. It says, " With God all things are pos
sible." If called upon to step out of the ship into the water,
it will step out. It believes in a God who is mightier than
nature; and hence its range of expectation is not limited by
nature, and it can believe in future events, and labor for
future consummations, of which nature and experience can
furnish no ground of expectation. Hence, too, to those who
judge from nature and experience only, its projects must
seem madness, its hope delusive, and its labors inexplicable.
By those of them who condescend to notice it at all, it is
looked upon with a pity, sometimes wondering, but oftener
derisive. This antagonism has always existed, and always
will. But faith holds on its way, and the mockers die, and
the great plans of God, of which they never had even a
glimpse, move on. This is no untried principle. At the
opening of the old dispensation, in connection with the very
promise referred, to in the text, God purposely laid upon it a
stress and a pressure that tested its power. " By faith, Abra
ham, when he was called to go out into a place which he
should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he
went out, not knowing whither he went." " By faith, when
he was tried, he offered up Isaac, and he that had received
the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it

19
was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called." « He stag
gered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was
strong in faith, giving glory to God." "By faith," also,
"Moses," the head of the Jewish dispensation, " esteemed
the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt, and endured as seeing Him who is invisible." " By
faith, the Israelites passed through the Eed Sea ; " by faith
the ancient worthies performed their wonders. Nor has this
principle lost its power under the new dispensation. It sup
ported the Apostles as it did Abraham. It sustained the
martyrs. It carried Luther to the Diet of Worms. It led
our Pilgrim Fathers across the ocean ; and when modern
missionaries have gone out, like Abraham, into some place
which the church should afterwards receive for an inher
itance, not knowing whither they went, they have gone by
faith. And so they go now, thus honoring the Lord Jesus,
and giving the best possible testimony to the value of that
salvation which he came to bring. No, this principle has
not lost its power ; it never can lose it while God lives, and
man is his child.
Having thus considered the points proposed, I ask you to
notice their remarkable combination in the text. We have
here, not only the promise of a universal religion, so wonder
ful ; and its freeness by which it is fitted to become universal,
not less wonderful ; and the promise as the sole basis of our
expectation, putting this religion wholly aside from nature
and above it ; but in our labors to make this religion univer
sal, we have the impulse and strength of that very confidence
by which the promise was originally accepted, and by which
we ourselves accepted of a free salvation.
From this subject I observe, first, that the object of the
missionary is the noblest that can call forth the energies of
man. Some labor solely for pay. These are hirelings.
Some, again, labor from the inspiration of the idea they

20
would realize. It is in them as a fire in their bones, and if
it be a moral one, they are moulded into its image. Such are
artists, patriots, philanthropists, heroes ; and of the kind of
inspiration that is in all these, there can be no more perfect
example than the true missionary. His object is wider in its
range, and more beneficial in its results, than any other.
Men labor for civil liberty and human rights, but a thorough
religious revolution and renovation would involve such indi
vidual, as well as social and civil changes, as would secure
all the rights and the highest well-being of man. Let there
but be the spiritual regeneration of all into the image of one
who represents a perfect manhood ; let there be the mutual
attractions which must flow from such a similarity ; let there
be the subjection of all to the same moral laws, and the union
of all in love to the same common Saviour, and the best pur
poses of all revolutions would be reached. Society would
be moulded into the image of heaven.
We see, in the second place, that the missionary work is
not chimerical, and the certainty of the ultimate triumph of
the religion of the Bible.
This idea of a universal religion, as we have seen, origi
nated with God ; its realization was foretold by his prophets
in the darkest hours ; it was adopted by the Saviour ; was
made by him a purpose and a command ; and we have reason
to believe, from the movements of Providence, and from the
fact that the religious nature is central in man, that this is the
central idea in the administration of the world. Nothing
short of this has ever been proposed by the church of Christ ;
and now, when she is awake to it as but once before, how
grandly does the voice of the old promise, that has bided its
time for four thousand years, mingle itself with the expectations
and hopes of an awakening race, with the portents of change,
and with those movements of Providence which have been of
late, and are now as the sound of a going in the tops of the
mulberry trees.

21
Only when the time is ripe, do great events spring from
little causes. It is but fifty-one years ago, that a few young
men knelt in prayer for the heathen, beside a haystack. As
their prayers ceased, the sun, which had been hidden by a
passing storm, shone forth, and the bow of promise spanned •
the eastern sky. It was the token of God upon the cloud.
From that day to this, his smile has rested on the cause. It
is less than fifty years since the American Board, of which
that meeting was the germ, was formed, and now it may be
said of its missionary stations, as has been said of the mili
tary posts of Great Britain, that the sun never sets upon
them. As he rises in the farthest East, he beholds them,
first, in China, then in India, then in Persia, then in the
Turkish empire, then in Western Africa, then among the
Indians on this continent, then in the Sandwich Islands, and
then in Micronesia; thus belting the globe. Not by the
drum-beat, calling to arms, are his morning beams welcomed
at all these stations ; but by the voice of prayer, and the
proclamation of " peace on earth, good-will to men." Every
where those walls of exclusion which, fifty years ago, rose to
the very heavens, are prostrate. Every where there is a
feeling of unrest, and of indefinite yearning, and the moral
and social elements of a world wait the plastic hand of a pure
Christianity. The period of those dispersions by which
relations were sundered, is now past. The divergency was
not, as it seemed, in straight lines, but upon a globe, and in
a circle which now tends to its completion. The tendency
to unity through science, the arts, and commerce, as well as
through missionary labors, is not less remarkable than the
original tendency to dispersion. The nations are fast nearing
a point of intercommunication and reciprocal influence,
where that which is effete must be swept away, and that
which is artificial must be destroyed ; and the feebler moral
forces must give way before those which have an undying
life from nature and from God. Towards this point there

22
has been a tendency from the beginning. The movement
has indeed been slow, and not such as man would have
expected ; but it has been analogous to the great movements
of God in his providence and in his works. So, if we may
credit the geologists, has this earth reached its present state.
So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows
crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree, with long
intervals of repose and of apparent death. So comes on the
spring, with battling elements and frequent reverses, with
snow-banks and violets, and, if we had no experience, we
might be doubtful what the end would be. But we know
that back of all this, beyond these fluctuations, away in the
serene heavens, the sun is moving steadily on ; that these
very agitations of the elements and seeming reverses, are not
only the sign, but the result of his approach, and that the
full warmth and radiance of the summer noontide are sure to
come. So, 0 Divine Eedeemer, Sun of Righteousness, come
thou ! So will He come. It may be through clouds and
darkness and tempest; but the heaven where He is, is
serene; He is "travelling in the greatness of his strength;"
and as surely as the throne of God abides, we know He shall
yet reach the height and splendor of the highest noon, and
that the light of millennial glory shall flood the earth.
Who then is in sympathy with Christ ? What are we
willing to do to help forward this great cause ?

3 9002