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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Preacher and His Models + The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 + +Author: James Stalker + +Release Date: January 15, 2008 [EBook #24311] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS *** + + + + +Produced by Colin Bell, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>THE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1>THE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS</h1> + +<h3><i>THE YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING, 1891</i></h3> + +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>BY THE</h4> +<h3>REV. JAMES STALKER, D.D.</h3> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF</h4> + +<h5 class="sc">"Imago Christi," "The Life of Jesus Christ,"<br /> +"The Life of St. Paul," etc.</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4 style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: -1px;"><i>Quis facit ut quid oportet et quemadmodum oportet dicatur<br /> +nisi in Cujus manu sunt nos et nostri sermones?</i></h4> +<h4 style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: right; padding-right: 10%; margin-top: -1px;"><span class="sc">St. Augustine</span>, <i>De Doctrina Christiana, iv. 15</i></h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>HODDER & STOUGHTON<br /> +LONDON : : MCMXIX</h4> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4><span class="sc">Copyright</span>, 1891,<br /> +BY<br /> +A.C. ARMSTRONG & SON.</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>TO THE<br /> +Rev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + + +<p class="right sc">Divinity School of Yale University, }<br /> +New Haven, Conn., April 25, 1891. }</p> + +<h4>REV. JAMES STALKER, D.D., GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.</h4> + +<p class="noin sc">Rev. and Dear Sir:</p> + +<p><i>At the close of your instructive and stimulating lectures in the +Lyman Beecher Course before the members of this Theological School, we +desire to express to you the satisfaction with which they have been +listened to, and we are glad to know that, by their publication in the +United States and Great Britain, the pleasure and profit which we have +all derived from their delivery will be enjoyed by a wider circle.</i></p> + +<div class="block1"> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Timothy Dwight</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>President</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">George E. Day</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Professor of Hebrew</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Samuel Harris</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Professor of Systematic Theology</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">George P. Fisher</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Professor of Ecclesiastical History</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Lewis O. Brastow</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Professor of Practical Theology</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">George B. Stevens</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation</i>.</span></p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Frank C. Porter</span>,<br /> +<span class="indent"><i>Instructor in Biblical Theology</i>.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>PREFACE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>These nine Lectures on Preaching were delivered, on the Lyman Beecher +Foundation, to the divinity students of Yale University in the spring +of this year. With the kind concurrence of the Senate of Yale, five of +them were redelivered, on the Merrick Foundation, to the students of +Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio.</p> + +<p>In the Appendix an Ordination Address is reproduced, which I wrote +when I had been only four or five years in the ministry, and which I +have been requested to reprint. My friend, the Rev. Dr. Walker, who +was present when it was delivered, having published it in <i>The Family +Treasury</i>, another friend, noticing it there, had it printed as a +pamphlet at his own expense and distributed to all the ministers of +the Church to which he and I belong. It was a very characteristic act; +and I have ventured, as a memorial of it, to dedicate this volume to +him. I do so, however, not for this reason <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>only, but also because +there has been no one in this generation who has done more than he has +done, by the example of his own impressive ministry and by his +generous encouragement of younger ministers, to promote the interests +of preaching in his native land.</p> + +<p>My thanks are due to the Rev. Charles Shaw, who on this as on former +occasions has kindly assisted me in correcting the press.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Glasgow</span>, <i>October 1st, 1891</i>.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS.</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc" width="80%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE I.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_I">Introductory</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE II.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_II">The Preacher as a Man of God</a></td> + <td class="tdr">29</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE III.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_III">The Preacher as a Patriot</a></td> + <td class="tdr">59</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE IV.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_IV">The Preacher as a Man of the Word</a></td> + <td class="tdr">91</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE V.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_V">The Preacher as a False Prophet</a></td> + <td class="tdr">125</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE VI.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_VI">The Preacher as a Man</a></td> + <td class="tdr">149</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE VII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_VII">The Preacher as a Christian</a></td> + <td class="tdr">179</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>LECTURE VIII.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_VIII">The Preacher as an Apostle</a></td> + <td class="tdr">205</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">LECTURE IX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LECTURE_IX">The Preacher as a Thinker</a></td> + <td class="tdr">237</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2">APPENDIX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#APPENDIX">An Ordination Charge</a></td> + <td class="tdr">265</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_I" id="LECTURE_I"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE I.</h3> + +<h3>INTRODUCTORY</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE I.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>INTRODUCTORY.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Gentlemen, it would be impossible to begin this course of lectures +without expressing my acknowledgments to the Theological Faculty of +this University for the great honour they have done me by inviting me +to occupy this position. When I look over the list of my predecessors +and observe that it includes such names as Bishop Simpson, Henry Ward +Beecher, Dr. John Hall, Dr. W.M. Taylor, Dr. Phillips Brooks, Dr. +A.J.F. Behrends, and Dr. Dale—to mention only those with which it +opens—I cannot help feeling that it is perhaps a greater honour than +I was entitled to accept; and I cannot but wish that the preaching of +the old country were to be represented on this occasion by some one of +the many ministers who would have been abler than I to do it justice. +It is with no sense of having attained that I am to speak to you; for +I always seem to myself to be only beginning to learn my trade; and +the furthest I ever get in the way of confidence is to believe that I +shall preach well next time. However, there may be some advantages in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>hearing one who is not too far away from the difficulties with which +you will soon be contending yourselves; and the keenness with which I +have felt these difficulties may have made me reflect, more than +others to whom the path of excellence has been easier, on the means of +overcoming them.</p> + +<p>I warmly reciprocate the sentiments which have led the Faculty to come +across the Atlantic the second time for a lecturer, and the liberality +of mind with which they are wont to overstep the boundaries of their +own denomination and select their lecturers from all the evangelical +Churches. It is the first time I have set foot on your continent, but +I have long entertained a warm admiration for the American people and +a firm faith in their destiny; and I welcome an opportunity which may +serve, in any degree, to demonstrate the unity which underlies the +variety of our evangelical communions, and to show how great are the +things in which we agree in comparison with those on which we differ.</p> + +<br /> +<hr class="tb" /> +<br /> + +<p>The aim of this lectureship, if I have apprehended it aright, is that +men who are out on the sea of practical life, feeling the force and +strain of the winds and currents of the time, and who therefore +occupy, to some extent, a different point of view from either students +or professors, should come and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>tell you, who are still standing on +the <i>terra firma</i> of college life, but will soon also have to launch +forth on the same element, how it feels out there on the deep.</p> + +<p>Well, there is a considerable difference.</p> + +<p>The professorial theory of college life is, that the faculties are +being exercised and the resources collected with which the battles of +life are subsequently to be fought and its victories won. And there +is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in this theory. The acquisitions +of the class-room will all be found useful in future, and your only +regret will be that they have not been more extensive and thorough. +The gymnastic of study is suppling faculties which will be +indispensable hereafter. Yet there is room amidst your studies, and +without the slightest disparagement to them, for a message more +directly from life, to hint to you, that more may be needed in the +career to which you are looking forward than a college can give, and +that the powers on which success in practical life depends may be +somewhat different from those which avail most at your present stage.</p> + +<p>There are two very marked types of intellect to be observed amongst +men, which we may call the receptive and the creative. Receptive +intellect has the power of taking fully in what is addressed to it by +others. It separates its acquisitions and distributes them among the +pigeon-holes of the memory. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>Out of these again it can reproduce them, +as occasion requires, and even make what may be called permutations +and combinations among its materials with skill and facility. The +creative intellect, on the contrary, is sometimes anything but apt to +receive that which people attempt to put into it. Instead of being an +open, roomy vessel for holding things, it may be awkwardly shaped, and +sometimes difficult to open at all. Nor do things pour out of it in a +stream, as water does from a pitcher; they rather flash out of it, +like sparks from the anvil. Instead of possessing its own knowledge, +it is possessed by it; it burns as it emits it, and its fire is +contagious.</p> + +<p>The former is the serviceable intellect at college, but it is the +latter which makes the preacher. There may, indeed, here and there, be +miraculous professors who attach more importance, and give higher +marks, to the indications of the creative intellect than to the +achievements of the receptive intellect. But few can resist the appeal +made by the clear, correct and copious reproduction of what they have +themselves supplied. Indeed, they would not, as a rule, be justified +in doing so; for the first indications of originality are often crude +and irritating, and they may come to nothing. The creative intellect +is frequently slow in maturing; it is like those seeds which take more +than one season to blossom. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>But at a flower show it would not be fair +to withhold the prize from the flower which has blossomed already, and +reserve it for one which may possibly do so next year.</p> + +<p>Of my fellow-students in the class to which I belonged at college, the +two who have since been most successful did not then seem destined for +first places. They were known to be able men, but they were not +excessively laborious, and they kept themselves irritatingly detached +from the interests of the college. But the one has since unfolded a +remarkable originality, which was, no doubt, even then organizing +itself in the inner depths; and the other, as soon as he entered the +pulpit, turned out to have the power of casting a spell over the minds +of men. Both had a spark of nature's fire; and this is the possession +which outshines all others when college is over and practical life +begun.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>But, if the viewpoint of practical life is different even from the +professorial, it is still more different from that of students; and +this may again justify the bringing of a message from the outside +world. The difference might be put in many ways; but perhaps it may be +best expressed by saying that, while you are among the critics, we are +among the criticized.</p> + +<p>In the history of nearly all minds of the better sort there is an +epoch of criticism. The young soul, as it begins to observe, discovers +that things around it are not all as they ought to be, and that the +world is not so perfect a place as might naturally be expected or as +it may have been represented to be. The critical faculty awakes and, +having once tasted blood, rushes forth to judge all men and things +with cruel ability. This is the stage at which we agree with Carlyle +in thinking mankind to be mostly fools and pronounce every man over +five-and-forty who does not happen to agree with our opinions an old +fogey. It is the time when we are confident that we could, if we +chose, single-handed and with ease, accomplish tasks which generations +of men have struggled with in vain. Only in the meantime we, for our +part, are not disposed to commit ourselves to any creed or to champion +any cause, because we are engaged in contemplating all.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>This period occurs, I say, in the history of all men of the abler +sort; but in students, on account of their peculiar opportunities, the +symptoms are generally exceptionally pronounced. Students are the +chartered libertines of criticism. What a life professors would lead, +if they only knew what is said about them every day of their lives! I +often think that three-fourths of every faculty in the country would +disappear some morning by a simultaneous act of self-effacement. Of +course ministers do not escape; ecclesiastics and Church courts are +quite beyond redemption; and principalities and powers in general are +in the same condemnation.</p> + +<p>Such is the delightful prerogative of the position in which you now +stand. But, gentlemen, the moment you leave these college gates +behind, you have to pass from your place among the critics and take +your place among the criticized. That is, you will have to quit the +well-cushioned benches, where the spectators sit enjoying the +spectacle, and take your place among the gladiators in the arena. The +binoculars of the community will be turned upon you, and five hundred +or a thousand people will be entitled to say twice or thrice every +week what they think of your performances. You will have to put your +shoulder under the huge mass of your Church's policy and try to keep +step with some thousands <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>whose shoulders are under it too; and the +reproaches cast by the public and the press at the awkwardness of the +whole squad and the unsteadiness of the ark will fall on you along +with the rest.</p> + +<p>Seriously, this is a tremendous difference. Criticism, however +brilliant, is a comparatively easy thing. It is easier to criticize +the greatest things superbly than to do even small things fairly well. +A brief experience of practical life gives one a great respect for +some men whom one would not at one time have considered very +brilliant, and for work which one would have pronounced very +imperfect. There is a famous passage in Lucretius, in which he speaks +of the joy of the mariner who has escaped to dry land, when he sees +his shipwrecked companions still struggling in the waves. This is too +heathenish a sentiment; but I confess I have sometimes experienced a +touch of it, when I have beheld one who has distinguished himself by +his incisiveness, while still on the <i>terra firma</i> of criticism, +suddenly dropped into the bottomless sea of actual life and learning, +amidst his first struggles in the waves, not without gulps of +salt-water, the difference between intention and performance.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>But do not suppose that I am persuading you to give up criticism. On +the contrary, this is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>natural function of the stage at which you +are; and probably those who throw themselves most vigorously into it +now may also discharge most successfully the functions of the stages +yet to come. The world reaps not a little advantage from criticism. It +is a very imperfect world; no generation of its inhabitants does its +work as well as it ought to be done, and it is the undoubted right of +the next generation to detect its defects; for in this lies the only +chance of improvement. There is something awe-inspiring in the first +glance cast by the young on the world in which they find themselves. +It is so clear and unbiassed; they distinguish so instantaneously +between the right and the wrong, the noble and the base; and they +blurt out so frankly what they see. As we grow older, we train +ourselves unawares not to see straight or, if we see, we hold our +peace. The first open look of young eyes on the condition of the world +is one of the principal regenerative forces of humanity.</p> + +<p>To begin with, therefore, at all events I will rather come to your +standpoint than ask you to come to mine. Indeed, although I have for +some time been among the criticized, and my sympathies are with the +practical workers, my sense of how imperfectly the work is done, and +of how inadequate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>our efforts are to the magnitude of the task, grows +stronger instead of weaker. And it is from this point of view that I +mean to enter into our subject. I will make use of the facts of my own +country, with which I am familiar; but I do not suppose that the state +of things among you is substantially different; and you will not have +much difficulty in correcting the picture, to make it correspond with +your circumstances, whilst I speak.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>In the present century there has certainly been an unparalleled +multiplication of the instrumentalities for doing the work. The +machine of religion, so to speak, has been perfected. The population +has been increasing fast; but churches have multiplied at least twice +as fast. Even in a great city like Glasgow we have a Protestant church +to every two thousand of the population.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> And, inside the churches, +the multiplication of agencies has been even more surprising. Formerly +the minister did almost all the work; and it comprehended little more +than the two services on Sunday and the visitation of the +congregation; the elders helping him to a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>small extent in financing +the congregation and in a few other matters largely secular. But now +every congregation is a perfect hive of Christian activity. In a large +congregation the workers are counted by hundreds. Every imaginable +form of philanthropic and religious appliance is in operation. +Buildings for Sabbath Schools and Mission Work are added to the +church; and nearly every day of the week has its meeting.</p> + +<p>The machine of religion is large and complicated, and it is manned by +so many workers that they get in each other's way; but, with all this +bustling activity, is the work done? This is the question which gives +us pause. Has the amount of practical Christianity increased in +proportion to the multiplication of agencies? Are the prospects of +religion as much brighter than they used to be as might have been +expected after all this expenditure of labour? Is Christianity +deepening as well as spreading?</p> + +<p>In Glasgow, where the proportion of churches to population is so high, +they speak of two hundred thousand non-church-goers, that is, a third +of the inhabitants; and, if you go into one of our villages with two +or three thousand of a population, you in may find three or four +churches, belonging to different denominations; but you will usually +find <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>even there a considerable body of non-church-goers. Not long ago +I heard a London clergyman state, that, if, any Sunday morning, you +went through the congregations belonging to the Church of England in +the district of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in which he +labours, you would not, in all of them put together, find one man +present for every thousand of the population. One of the English +bishops recently admitted that in South London his Church is not in +possession; and certainly no other denomination is. Thus, with all our +appliances, we have failed even to bring the population within the +sound of the Gospel.</p> + +<p>Inside the churches, what is to be said? Is the proportion large of +those who have received the Gospel in such a way that their hearts +have manifestly been changed by it and their lives brought under its +sway? We should utterly deceive ourselves if we imagined that real +Christianity is coextensive with the profession of Christianity. Many +who bear the Christian name have neither Christian experience nor +Christian character, but in their spirit and pursuits are thoroughly +worldly. Even where religion has taken real hold, is the type very +often beautiful and impressive? Who can think without shame of the +long delay of the Church even to attempt the work of converting the +heathen? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>And even yet the sacrifices made for this object are +ludicrously small in proportion either to the magnitude of the problem +or the wealth of the Christian community. The annual expenditure of +the United Kingdom on drink is said to be a hundred times as great as +that on foreign missions.</p> + +<p>Religion does not permeate life. The Church is one of the great +institutions of the country, and gets its own place. But it is a thing +apart from the common life, which goes on beside it. Business, +politics, literature, amusements, are only faintly coloured by it. Yet +the mission of Christianity is not to occupy a respectable place +apart, but to leaven life through and through.</p> + +<p>Vice flourishes side by side with religion. We build the school and +the church, and then we open beside them the public-house. The +Christian community has the power of controlling this traffic; but it +allows it to go on with all its unspeakable horrors. Thus its own work +is systematically undone, and faster than the victims can be saved new +ones are manufactured to occupy their places. Of vices which are still +more degrading I need not speak. Their prevalence is too patent +everywhere. If there is any law of Christianity which is obvious and +inexorable, it is the law of purity. But go where you will in the +Christian countries, and you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>will learn that by large sections of +their manhood this law is treated as if it did not exist. The truth is +that, in spite of the nations being baptized in the name of Christ, +heathenism has still the control of much of their life; and it would +hardly be too much to say that the mission of Christianity is still +only beginning.</p> + +<p>In what direction does hope lie? It seems to me that there can be no +more important factor in the solution of the problem than the kind of +men who fill the office of the ministry. We must have men of more +power, more concentration on the aims of the ministry, more wisdom, +but, above all, more willingness to sacrifice their lives to their +vocation. We have too tame and conventional a way of thinking about +our career. Men are not even ambitious of doing more than settling in +a comfortable position and getting through its duties in a respectable +way. We need to have men penetrated with the problem as a whole, and +labouring with the new developments which the times require. The +prizes of the ministry ought to be its posts of greatest difficulty. +When a student or young minister proves to have the genuine gift, his +natural goal should not be a highly paid place in a West End church, +but a position where he would be in the forefront of the battle with +sin and misery. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>Nowhere else are the great lines of Chapman more +applicable than in our calling:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his rapt ship runs on her side so low<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I am well aware that men of this stamp cannot be made to order. They +must, as I have suggested already, have a spark of nature's fire, and, +besides that, the Spirit of God must descend on them. Yet I have +thought that it might be helpful towards this end to go back to the +origins of preaching, and to study those in whom its primitive spirit +was embodied. Perhaps that which we are desiderating could not be +better expressed than by saying that we need a ministry prophetic and +apostolic. And I am going to invite you to study the prophets and +apostles as our models.</p> + +<p>Though we may not believe in apostolic succession in the churchly +sense, we are the successors of the apostles in this sense, that the +apostles filled the office which we hold, or hope to hold, and +illustrated the manner in which its duties should be discharged in +such a way as to be an example and an inspiration to all its +subsequent occupants. The air they breathed was still charged with the +spirit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>poured into it by Christ; they were made great by the +influence of His teaching and companionship; the power of the Holy +Ghost, freshly descended, burned on their hearts; and they went forth +on their mission with a force of conviction and a mastery of their +task which nothing could resist.</p> + +<p>One among them embodied in himself, above all others, the spirit of +that epoch of creative energy. St. Paul is perhaps, after our Lord +Himself, the most complete embodiment of the ministerial life on all +its sides which the world has ever seen. And, fortunately, he embodied +this spirit not only in deeds, but also in words. Circumstances made +him a writer of letters, the most autobiographical form of literature. +His friends, such as Timothy and Titus, drew out of him lengthy +expressions of the convictions wrought into his mind by the +experiences of a lifetime. His enemies, by their accusations, struck +out of him still ampler and more heartfelt statements of his feelings +and motives. St. Paul has painted his own portrait at full length, and +in every line it is the portrait of a minister. There is more in his +writings which touches the very quick of our life as ministers than in +all other writings in existence. It is my desire to reproduce this +straight from the sources. I have no intention of going over the +outward life of St. Paul. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>you can find in a hundred books. But I +desire to exhibit the very soul of the man, as he himself has revealed +it to us in his writings.</p> + +<p>If we are the successors of the apostles, the apostles were the +successors of the prophets, who did for the Church of the Old +Testament what the apostles did for that of the New. In outward aspect +and detail, indeed, the life of the prophets differed much from that +of the apostles. In force of manhood and in variety and brilliance of +genius they far excelled them. But their aim was the same. It was to +make the kingdom of God come by announcing and enforcing the mind and +will of God. And this is our aim too.</p> + +<p>The writings of the prophets are very difficult, and their period is +less popularly known than any other period of Scripture history, +either before or after it. But it is beginning to attract more +attention, and in the near future it will do so much more, because it +is beginning to be perceived that in it lies the key to the whole Old +Testament history and literature.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The writings of Isaiah especially +have of late attracted attention. Commentary after commentary on them +has appeared;<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> till now the reader can see his way pretty clearly +through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>the tangled but enchanting mazes of his writings. With such +helps as have been available to me I have endeavoured through the +writings to get at the man; and I will take Isaiah as the +representative of the prophetic spirit in the same way as St. Paul is +to represent for us the apostles. But here again my aim is neither +that of the commentator nor that of the biographer. It is the soul of +the man I wish to depict and the spirit of his work.</p> + +<p>It may be thought that, by taking up the subject in this way, I am +missing the opportunity of dealing with the practical work of to-day. +But I do not think so. There are, indeed, some details nearly always +discussed in lectures on preaching which I do not care to touch. There +is, for instance, the question of the delivery of sermons—whether the +preacher should read, or speak <i>memoriter</i>, or preach <i>extempore</i>. +This can be discussed endlessly, and the discussion is always +interesting; but, if it were discussed every year for a century, it +would be as far from being settled as ever. Besides, it is my duty to +remember what others have handled exhaustively here before me. Indeed, +the Senate mentioned to me that it was desirable that the subject +should be taken up from a new point of view. They have been good +enough to express their approbation of the way in which I mean to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>treat it; but it is not in deference to their instructions that I take +it up in this way, but in accordance with the bent of my own mind; and +I think I see my way to bring to bear on it all the practical +experience which I may be in possession of; for I quite recognise that +the value of such a course of lectures largely depends on its being, +from beginning to end, what in literature is called a Confession, that +is, a record of experiences. Although I am to go back to the ages of +the apostles and the prophets, I do not intend to stay there. My wish +is to bring down from thence fire which will kindle your hearts, as +you face the world and the tasks of to-day.</p> + +<p>There is another objection, which may have already occurred to some of +you, and would doubtless occur to many, as I went along, if I did not +anticipate it. It may be felt, that both apostles and prophets were so +differently situated from us, especially through the possession of the +gift of inspiration, that they can be no example for us to follow. To +this I will not reply by seeking in any way to minimise their +inspiration. It is, indeed, difficult to say exactly how their +inspiration differed from that which is accessible and indispensable +to us; for we also are entirely dependent for the power and success of +our work on the same Spirit as spoke <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>through them. But, however +difficult it may be to define it, I am one of those who believe that +there is a difference, and that it is a great difference. The mind and +will of God expressed themselves through the prophets and apostles +with a directness and authority which we cannot claim. But the +difference is not such as to remove them beyond our imitation. +Although in some, or even many, respects they may be beyond us, this +is no reason why we may not in others imitate them with the greatest +advantage. It will be seen at a glance how little there is in this +objection, if it be considered that our Lord Himself is the great +pattern of the ministry. In some respects He is of course much farther +away from us than either prophets or apostles; yet He is near us as a +model in every detail of our duty. No mode of treating my subject +would have been so congenial to me as to set Him forth in this +character. But, having attempted to do so elsewhere, I have chosen the +method now announced under the conviction, that the nearest approach +to the study of how Christ fulfilled the duties of the ministry is to +study how prophets and apostles fulfilled them.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There is one thing more which I should like to say before closing this +somewhat miscellaneous introductory lecture. I would not have come to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>lecture to you on this subject if I were not a firm believer in +preaching. If in what has been already said I have seemed to +depreciate its results, this is only because my ideal is so high of +what the pulpit ought to do, and might do.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> I do not, indeed, +separate preaching from the other parts of a minister's life, such as +the conducting of the service of the sanctuary, the visitation of the +congregation, and taking part in more general public work. As I go on, +it will be seen, that, so far from undervaluing these, I hold them to +be all required even to produce a healthy pulpit power. Yet preaching +is the central thing in our work. I believe in it, because Christ +Himself set His stamp on it. Read His <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>sayings, and you will see that +this was what He sent forth the servants of His kingdom to do. +"Christ," says St. Paul, "sent me not to baptize, but to preach the +Gospel"; not, I think, thereby ignoring baptism, but putting it and +all other ceremonies in their proper place of subordination to the +preaching of the Word.</p> + +<p>It is often charged against the evangelical, and especially the free, +Churches at the present day, that they give preaching a position of +too great prominence in public worship; and we are counselled to yield +the central place to something else. It is put to us, for example, +whether our people should not be taught to come to church for the +purpose of speaking to God rather than in order to be spoken to by +man. This has a pious sound; but there is a fallacy in it. Preaching +is not merely the speaking of a man. If it is, then it is certainly +not worth coming to church for. Preaching, if it is of the right kind, +is the voice of God. This we venture to say while well aware of its +imperfections. In the best of preaching there is a large human element +beset with infirmity; yet in all genuine preaching there is conveyed a +message from Heaven. And, while it is good for people to go to church +that they may speak to God, it is still better to go that He may speak +to them. Nor, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>God is authentically heard speaking to the heart, +will the response of the heart in the other elements of worship be +lacking. It is the reception of God's message of free grace and +redeeming love which inspires the true service of praise and prayer; +and without this the service of the Church is soulless ceremonial.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>From another side disparagement is frequently cast upon preaching in +our day. It is said that the printing-press has superseded the +preacher, and must more and more supersede him. Formerly, when people +could not read, and literature was written only for scholars, the +pulpit was a power, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>because it was the only purveyor of ideas to the +multitude; but now the common man has other resources: he has books, +magazines, the newspaper: and he can dispense with the preacher. To +this it might be answered, that the sermon is not the only thing which +brings people to church. Where two or three are met together, there +are influences generated of a spiritual and social kind which answer +to deep and permanent wants of human nature. But there is an answer +more direct and conclusive. The multiplication of the products of the +printing-press and the possession by the multitude of the power of +reading them are certainly among the most wonderful facts of modern +times, and, I will add without hesitation, among the most gratifying. +But what do they mean for the great majority? In the days before the +age of the press arrived people only knew the gossip of their own +town, and this absorbed their thoughts and conversation. Now they hear +every morning the gossip of a thousand cities from China to Peru. The +world has become for the modern man immensely larger and more +interesting than it was to his predecessors; and facts about it are +accumulated on his mind in overwhelming quantity and bewildering +variety. But does this make preaching less necessary to him? It surely +makes it far more necessary. He has more need than his fathers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>had of +those supersensible principles which give order and meaning to +sensible facts. The larger and more wonderful the world becomes, the +more urgent becomes the question of the cause which has produced it; +and, the more the figures multiply which the spectators have to watch +on the theatre of history, the more indispensable becomes the +knowledge of the argument of the drama. If the pulpit has an authentic +message to deliver about Him whose thought is the ground of all +existence, and whose will of love is the explanation of the pain and +mystery of life, the more cultivated and eager the mind of man +becomes, then the more indispensable will the voice of the pulpit be +felt to be; and a real decay of the power of the pulpit can only be +due either to preachers themselves, when, losing touch with the +mysteries of revelation, they let themselves down to the level of +vendors of passing opinion, or to such a shallowing of the general +mind as will render it incapable of taking an earnest interest in the +profounder problems of existence.</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + +<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A set o' dull, conceited hashes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confuse their brains in college classes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They gang in stirks, and come out asses,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Plain truth to speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' syne they hope to speel Parnassus<br /></span> +<span class="i12">By dint o' Greek.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> </span> +<span class="i0">"Gi'e me <i>a'e spark o' nature's fire</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's a' the learnin' I desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, though I trudge through dub an' mire,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">At pleuch or cart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My muse, though homely in attire,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">May touch the heart."<br /></span> +<span class="i12 sc">—Burns.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "In 1880 there was in the United States one Evangelical +Church organization to every 516 of the population. In Boston there is +1 church to every 1,600 of the population; in Chicago 1 to 2,081; in +New York 1 to 2,468; in St. Louis 1 to 2,800."—<i>Our Country</i>, by Rev. +Josiah Strong, D.D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See Duhm: <i>Die Theologie der Propheten</i>—preface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Cheyne, Smith, Delitzsch, von Orelli, Dillmann, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> "After eleven years of active preaching I have spent five +of hardly less active hearing. I have listened carefully to preachers +of all degrees and denominations, and some convictions have been +burned in upon my mind. Far above all, I have learned to believe in +the great importance of preaching—the effect it has on men's lives +and thoughts; their need of it; their pain and loss when it does not +help and reach them. I used to think that, if it did men good, they +would speak more of it. But they pay no compliments to their daily +bread; yet it is the staff of their life. If ministers knew the silent +appreciation of helpful preaching, they would work, if not harder, at +least more brightly and hopefully.... Preachers should remember that +the large silent part of their flock is only reached by preaching, +and, therefore, they should give their strength to it, and not to +little meetings. Suppose an average instance: Sunday morning +attendance, 250. The minister does not preach well; but he works hard +during the week, and has, Monday, Literary Society, 15; Tuesday, Young +Ladies' Bible Class, 12; Wednesday, Prayer Meeting, 30; Thursday, +Class for Servants, 8; Friday, Class for Children, 15. All told, these +do not represent more than 50, leaving 200 reached only by preaching, +and more or less dissatisfied."—<i>Ex sapientis manuscripto penes me.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "New Testament preaching dates from the day of Pentecost. +Tongues of fire rested on the assembled Church; and they began to +speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. The word +of God, the testimony of Jesus, the gospel of our salvation, preached +in tongues of men of every race, was to be the form of power by which +the kingdom of God, in our dispensation, should spread abroad and +prevail. But the tongues were tongues of fire. This fire is, first of +all, the Holy Spirit, whose quick, pure and living presence it +denotes. But then it is intimated that the Holy Spirit was to prove +Himself fire <i>in the speech of men</i>. It is intimated that human minds, +as they uttered themselves to their fellows, and human speech in that +utterance, were to prove capable of taking fire, so as to brighten and +burn with the truth and power of God's Spirit. Such was the kind of +preaching that was set a-going at Pentecost, and by it the world was +to be won. Other forms of influence were not to be excluded, but this +was to have the chief place. The word of power, coming burning-hot out +of the living mouth of a believing man, is the leading form in which +the Spirit's presence is evermore to make head in the Church against +the world, and is to carry the Church on in her mission in the world. +This gives us the fundamental view of our work as preachers; and +nothing more is needed in order to illustrate its dignity and +glory."—<span class="sc">Principal Rainy</span>.</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_II" id="LECTURE_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE II.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF GOD</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE II.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF GOD.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>In accordance with the plan announced yesterday, I am to turn your +attention in the next four lectures to the prophets of the Old +Testament as patterns for modern preachers; and the special subject +for to-day is The Preacher as a Man of God.</p> + +<p>To earnest minds at the stage at which you stand at present no +question could be more interesting than this: How does a right +ministry begin? what are the experiences which justify or compel a man +to turn his back on all other careers and devote himself to this one? +On the minds of some of you this question may be pressing at the +present moment with great urgency. It is a question of supreme +importance. In most things a good deal depends on beginning well; but +nowhere is the commencement more momentous than here.</p> + +<p>This is a point on which the greatest emphasis is laid in the history +of the prophets. We are told how they became prophets. Their ministry +commenced with a spiritual experience usually denominated the +Prophetic Call.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>Such experiences are narrated of the greatest prophets. The call of +Moses was the scene of the Burning Bush, which is detailed at great +length in his biography. The next outstanding prophet was Samuel, and +there is no better known story in Scripture than the touching account +of how the Lord called him to be the reformer of an evil age. Each of +the three great literary prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel—has +left an account of his own call; that of Ezekiel covering nearly three +whole chapters. If the smaller prophets do not, as a rule, commemorate +similar experiences of their own, it is not to be inferred that they +did not pass through them. The brief compass of their writings is +sufficient to account for the omission; although perhaps a subjective +element may also enter into the explanation. Among ourselves there are +men who are able to confide to the public their own most sacred +experiences, and habitually make use of them to illustrate and enforce +the truth. To others nothing would be more unnatural: they shrink from +the most distant allusion to the most sacred moments of their +spiritual history. Yet these may be worth the whole world to +themselves. Both modes of procedure have Scriptural warrant: for some +of the prophets narrate their calls, and others do not.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>If these calls of distinguished men to God's service be noted one by +one, they will be found to include many of the grandest scenes of +Scripture.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> There could be no more splendid subject—if I may give +the hint in passing—for a course of lectures in the congregation, or +even for a course, like the present, to students of divinity.</p> + +<p>They exhibit astonishing variety. Moses, for example, was called in +the maturity of his powers, but Samuel when he was still a child. +Jeremiah's call bears a certain resemblance to that of Moses, because +both resisted the Divine will through inability to speak; but in other +respects they are totally dissimilar. Ezekiel's stands altogether by +itself, and is extremely difficult to unravel; but it is thoroughly +characteristic of his sublime and intricate genius. Nowhere else could +there be found a more telling illustration of the diversity of +operation in which the Spirit of God delights, when He is touching the +spirit of man, even if He is aiming at identical results.</p> + +<p>For in all cases the effect was the same. The man who was called to be +a prophet was separated by this summons from all other occupations +which could interfere with the service for which God had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>designated +him. His whole being was taken possession of for the Divine purposes +and subjected to the sway of the Divine inspiration. One of the +commonest names of a prophet in the Old Testament is "a man of God." +Through constant use this term has lost its meaning for us. But it +meant exactly what it said: that the prophet was not his own, but +God's man; he belonged to God, who could send him wherever He wished +and do with him whatever He would. It was the same idea that St. Paul +expressed, when he called himself, as he loved to do, "the slave of +Jesus Christ."</p> + +<p>It has sometimes been attempted to explain these scenes away, as if +they were not records of actual experience, but only poetic +representations which the prophets prefixed to their writings, to +afford their readers a dramatic prefigurement of the general scope of +their prophecies, ideas being freely put into them which the prophets +did not themselves possess at the commencement of their career, but +only acquired by degrees as their life proceeded.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> They are compared +to such efforts of the poet as the <i>Vision</i> of Robert Burns, in which +he tells how the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>muse of Caledonia appeared to him at the plough, +and, casting her mantle round him and claiming him as her own, +consecrated him the poet of his native land; or the <i>Zueignung</i> of +Goethe, in which he feigns a similar experience which befell him on +the moonlight heights of the German forest. But, though there is a +poetic element in prophecy, the prophetic spirit was too much in +earnest for such figments of the imagination, which are alien to the +severity of the Hebrew genius. Besides, such scenes are not confined +to the Hebrew prophets: they belong to the true religion in all +generations.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Any of the prophetic calls would bring suggestively before us the +topic with which we are occupied to-day; and it is not without regret +that I turn away from the Burning Bush, with its dramatic dialogue +between Jehovah and Moses touching many points which are the very same +as still perplex those who are standing on the threshold of a +ministerial career; from the chamber of the tabernacle, with its +startling voice, in which God opened the heart of Samuel to take in +the purpose of life; and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>from the wonderfully instructive scene in +which the shrinking spirit of Jeremiah met the Divine summons with the +humble cry of deprecation, "Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child," +till the Divine sympathy and wisdom answered his arguments and lifted +him above his fears. But we have agreed to take Isaiah as the +representative of the prophets; and, in spite of these other +attractions, we need not repent of this; for there is nothing in Holy +Writ more unique and sublime than the call of Isaiah, and it is +pregnant in every line with instruction. It is, indeed, far away from +us, and it will require a strong effort to transport ourselves back +over so many centuries and enter sympathetically into the experience +of one who lived in such a widely different world. But it is a real +chapter of human experience. As Isaiah prophesied for fifty or perhaps +even sixty years after this, he must at the time have been in the +prime of his days. In short, he was at the very stage of life at which +you are now, and this is an account of how a young man of three +thousand years ago became a public servant of God.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There are two or three points worth noting before we go on to describe +the scene itself.</p> + +<p>1. It is reported in the sixth chapter of the prophecies of Isaiah. We +should naturally have expected <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>it to stand at the beginning of the +whole book, as do the corresponding scenes in the books of Jeremiah +and Ezekiel; and it is not easy to say why it is not found in this +position. We are perhaps too ready to think of the prophecies of a +prophet as a continuous book, written, in one prolonged effort, on a +single theme, as books are written in modern times. But this is a +misconception. They came together more like the pieces of a lyric +poet. A lyric poet composes his pieces at uncertain intervals of +inspiration; they range over a great variety of subjects; and it may +only be late in life that he thinks of collecting them in a volume. So +the prophecies of the prophet came to him at uncertain and often +lengthy intervals; they were sometimes very brief, no longer than +short lyrics; and we know that he sometimes did not think of any +literary publication of them till long after their oral delivery. A +lyric poet, when collecting his pieces, may adopt any one of several +different principles of arrangement. The simplest way is to insert +them in chronological order; but he may follow some subtle +psychological arrangement, as Wordsworth, for instance, did when his +collected works were published; or he may throw them together at +random, according to the fancy of the moment; and this is perhaps the +commonest case. There seems to be the same variety in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>prophets. +The prophecies of Ezekiel, for example, are arranged on the +chronological principle, but those of Isaiah and Jeremiah are not; and +it is one of the most difficult tasks of interpretation to assign the +different pieces to their original dates. It is doubtful whether there +is any rigid principle at all in Isaiah's prophecies. It is even +doubtful whether the order in which they stand is due to him or to a +disciple or editor, who arranged them after he was dead. We need +hardly, therefore, inquire very strictly why any particular chapter +occurs in its particular place. But it is somewhat awkward that the +sixth chapter stands where it does, in the body of the book, instead +of at the head of it; because this hides its significance from the +general reader. Scholars are agreed, however, that it is an account of +Isaiah's call to be a prophet; and, when this is recognised, every +detail of the scene which it records is invested with new meaning.</p> + +<p>2. It is worthy of note that the event is precisely dated. The chapter +begins with the words, "In the year that King Uzziah died." There are +forms of religious experience which are dateless—processes of slow +and unmarked growth, which may spread themselves over years; but there +are also crises, when experience crystallizes into events so +remarkable that they become standing dates in the lives of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>those who +have enjoyed them, from which they reckon, as other people do from +birth or marriage or the turning-points of their domestic and +commercial history.</p> + +<p>Whether this was the first of such events in the history of Isaiah I +have often wondered. There is nothing unlikely in the suggestion. In +other cases the call to enter into God's work synchronized with the +first real encounter with God Himself. Samuel's call to be a prophet +coincided with his first personal introduction to acquaintance with +Jehovah, whom, it is distinctly stated, he did not previously know; +and St. Paul's call to the apostolate happened at the same time as his +conversion. As we go on, we shall come upon at least one circumstance +which points pretty strongly to the conclusion that this was Isaiah's +first conscious transaction with God.</p> + +<p>3. The place where the incident occurred is also worthy of note. It +was in the temple. Ewald and other able commentators interpret this to +mean the heavenly temple, and suppose that the future prophet was +transported to some imaginary place which he called by this name. But +this is quite a gratuitous suggestion, and it very much weakens the +impressiveness of the whole scene, the very point of which lies in the +fact that it took place on familiar ground. Isaiah was a Jerusalemite, +and the temple was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>most familiar of all haunts to him. He had +witnessed there a thousand times the external ritual of religion—the +worshipping multitudes, the priests, and the paraphernalia of +sacrifice. But now, on the same spot, he was to see a sight in whose +glory all these things would disappear. This is what the critical +moments of religious experience are always meant to do: they +obliterate the familiar externals of religion and reveal the reality +which is hidden behind them; they convert common spots of every-day +experience into the house of God and the gate of heaven.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Such were the circumstances of time and place in which the crisis of +Isaiah's history occurred. One day, in the year that King Uzziah died, +he wended his way, as he had done hundreds of times before, to the +temple; and there that took place which altered the whole course of +his life. Whether in the body or out of the body, we cannot tell, he +saw three successive visions, or rather a threefold vision—a vision +of God, a vision of sin, and a vision of grace.</p> + +<p>1. It began with a Vision of God. The chapter opens with these sublime +words, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord." It is an +astounding statement to come from a prophet of that religion whose +fundamental principle was the spirituality of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>God, "No man hath seen +God at any time"; and, indeed, there is an old rabbinical tradition, +that King Manasseh, who is said to have caused Isaiah to be sawn +asunder, made the alleged impiety of these words the excuse for his +cruelty. But it was a mere excuse; for the difficulty only serves to +prove the transcendent spiritual tact and literary skill of the +prophet, who manages the scene in such a way as to preserve quite +intact the principle of the Divine spirituality. Though he says that +he saw God, he gives no description of Him; only the sights and sounds +round about Him are so described as in the most vivid way to suggest +the Presence which remains unseen. It is as if a historical scene of +ruin and conflagration were represented on canvas, without showing the +burning materials, by painting the glare of light and the emotions of +terror and dismay on the faces of the spectators.</p> + +<p>First, the throne on which God sits is described: it is erected in the +temple, and it is high and lifted up, for He is a great King. But no +description is given of the figure seated on it; only His train—the +billowing folds of His robes—filled the temple. Above the throne, or +rather round it, like the courtiers surrounding the throne of an +Eastern monarch, stand the seraphim. These beings are mentioned only +here in Holy Writ. Their name signifies the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>shining or fiery ones. +They are attendants of the Divine King, bright and swift as fire in +their intelligence and activity. Each has six wings: with twain he +covers his face, and with twain he covers his feet, evidently to +protect his eyes and person from the consuming glory of the Divine +presence, which is thus indicated again without being described; and +with the remaining two he flies, or rather poises himself in his place +ready for flight at the Divine signal.</p> + +<p>Then, amidst these sublime sights break in sounds equally sublime. By +our translation the impression is produced that they come from the +seraphim. But the original is more vague, and the meaning probably is, +that the responsive voices which are heard come from unseen choirs in +opposite quarters of the temple. Unceasingly the strain rises from one +side, unceasingly the answer comes from the other; in the centre the +voices meet and mingle in loud harmony.</p> + +<p>Their burden is, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole +earth is full of His glory." That is, they are celebrating the two +attributes of the Divine character which always most impressed a +Jewish mind—His holiness and His omnipotence. The one is God as He is +in Himself, turned inwards, so to speak. He is absolutely holy, +unapproachable, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>a consuming fire scorching away impurity, falsehood, +and sin of every kind. The other is God as He is in the world, turned +outwards, so to speak; the world's fulness—suns and systems, +mountains and oceans, earthquake and storm, summer's abundance and +winter's terror—all this is His glory, the garment by which He makes +Himself visible.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>The voices swell till the temple rocks, or seems to rock to the +reeling senses of the prophet, and the house is filled with smoke, or +seems to be so, as a mist envelops the swooning spirit of the +spectator. But still, through the mist, there peal, falling like the +strokes of a hammer on the listening heart, the notes of the dread +song, "Holy, holy, holy."</p> + +<p>2. Next ensued a Vision of Sin. The vision of God could not but unseal +a rushing stream of feeling of some kind in Isaiah. But of what kind +would it be? Surely of joyful adoration: the soul, inspired with the +sublimity of these sights and thrilled with these sounds, will rise to +the majesty of the occasion, and the human voice will strike in with +all its force among the angelic voices, crying, "Holy, holy, holy."</p> + +<p>So one might have expected. But the human mind is a strange thing; and +it is difficult to know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>where and how to touch its delicate and +complex mechanism so as to produce any desired effect. You wish to +produce a flow of tender feeling, and you tell a pathetic tale, which +ought, you think, to move the heart. But at every sentence the +features of the listeners harden into more and more rigidity, or even +relax into mocking laughter; whereas the suggestion of a noble +thought, which seems to have nothing to do with pathos, may +instantaneously melt the soul and unseal the fountain of tears. Or is +it the conscience which is to be affected? The clumsy operator begins +to assail it straight with denunciations of sin, but, instead of +producing penitence, he only rouses the whole man into proud and angry +self-defence; whereas a single touch, no heavier than an infant's +finger, applied away up somewhere, remote from conscience, in the +region of the imagination, may send an electric shock down through the +whole being and shake the conscience from centre to circumference.</p> + +<p>Isaiah's mind was one of the most sensitive and complicated ever +bestowed on a human being; but it was now in the hands of its Maker, +who knew how to touch it to fine issues. The Maker's design on this +occasion was to produce in it an overpowering sense of sin; and what +He did was to confront it with infinite holiness and majesty. These +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>brought so near that there was no escape. The poor, finite, +sinful man was held at arm's length, so to speak, in the grasp of the +Infinite and Most Holy; and the result was a total collapse of the +human spirit. Isaiah's eye turned away from the sight of God's glory +back upon himself, and back on his past life; and, in this light, all +appeared foul and hideous. There was sin everywhere—sin in himself +and sin in his environment. He was utterly confounded and swallowed up +of shame and terror. "Woe is me," he groaned, "for I am undone; +because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a +people of unclean lips."</p> + +<p>Why he felt the taint specially on his lips it might not be easy to +tell. Perhaps it was because the angelic song was a challenge to join +in the praise of God, but he felt that the lips of one like him were +not worthy to join in their song. Perhaps—who can tell?—the +besetting sin of his previous life may have been profanity of speech, +as it was evidently a crying sin of his time. This suggestion gives a +shock to the ideas which we associate with Isaiah, and it is hard to +think that the lips which afterwards spoke like angels can ever have +defiled themselves with such a sin. But this is the most natural +meaning of the words, and it is not against the analogy of other +lives. Great saints, and even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>great preachers, are made out of great +sinners; and the memory of an odious and conspicuous sin like this may +sometimes lend a passionate force to subsequent devotion and keep +alive for a lifetime the sense of personal unworthiness.</p> + +<p>3. The last scene in the evolution of this vision, which was surely +more than a vision, was the Vision of Grace. One of the fiery +attendants, who hovered on quivering wing ready to execute the orders +of the Divine King, receiving a command by some unexplained mode of +communication, flew to the altar, and, taking up the tongs, seized +with them a stone from the altar fire. It was neither a coal, as our +rendering gives it, nor a brand, but a heated stone, such as was used, +and is used at the present day, in the East, for conveying heat to a +distance for any purpose for which it might be required. It came from +the altar: it contained God's fire, and God sent it.</p> + +<p>The purpose for which it was required on this occasion was cleansing. +Of cleansing there are in Scripture three symbols. The simplest is +water; and water can purify many things; but there are some things +which water cannot cleanse. A stronger agent is required, and this is +found in fire. You must fling the ore, for example, into the fire, if +you wish to extract from it the pure gold. There is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>third symbol, +which appears in the New Testament as well as the Old, and it is the +most sacred of all. It is blood. Water, fire, blood—these three mean +the same in Scripture. In this case it was fire.</p> + +<p>The seraph flew with the hot stone and laid it on the lips of the +future prophet. Why did he lay it there? Because it was there that +Isaiah felt his sin to be lying. He had said, "I am a man of unclean +lips." The fire burned the sin away. So the seraph said, speaking in +God's name, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is +taken away and thy sin purged." It was the assurance of the Divine +forgiveness, which had come swift as a seraph's flight in answer to +Isaiah's confession.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>Isaiah's preparation was completed in these three successive phases of +experience; and now the purpose was disclosed for which he had been +prepared. From aloft—from the throne high and lifted up—came the +question, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" The King needed +a messenger to bear a message and represent Himself. He had chosen +Isaiah to bear it; yet He did not thrust the commission on him.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He +did not need to do so; for Isaiah had passed through a preparation +which made him not only thoroughly able, but thoroughly willing. He +had been lifted out of time into eternity; and in this one hour of +concentrated experience he had both died and been born again. His life +had been undone and forfeited; but God had given it back to him, and +he felt that now it was not his own. He was thrilling with the power +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>forgiveness, and the impulses towards God—to be near Him, to +serve Him, to do anything for Him—were now far stronger than his +shrinking from Him had been a little before. Therefore of his own free +will and choice he answered the Divine question with, "Here am I, send +me."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Gentlemen, I have gone minutely into the details of this scene in the +life of a representative preacher of the Old Testament, because every +line of it speaks to the deep and subtle movements of our own +experience. What is the inference to be drawn from it? Is it that at +the commencement of a preacher's career there must be a call to the +ministry distinct from the experience of personal salvation? This +inference has often been drawn; but I prefer, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>the meantime at +least, to draw a wider but, I believe, a sounder and more useful +inference. It is this: that the outer must be preceded by the inner; +public life for God must be preceded by private life with God; unless +God has first spoken to a man, it is vain for a man to attempt to +speak for God.</p> + +<p>This principle has an extensive and varied application.</p> + +<p>It applies to the beginnings of the religious life. I should like to +be allowed to say to you, gentlemen, with all the earnestness of which +I am capable, that the prime qualification of a minister is that he be +himself a religious man—that, before he begins to make God known, he +should first himself know God. How this comes to pass, this is not the +place to explain. Only let me say, that it is more than the play upon +us of religious influences from the outside. There must be a reaction +on our own part—an opening of our nature to take in and assimilate +what is brought to bear on us by others. There must be an uprising of +our own will and a deliberate choice of God. Of course in the history +of many there are, at this stage, experiences almost as dramatic and +memorable as this scene in the life of Isaiah; and they may be +composed of nearly identical elements. In some haunt of ordinary +life—perhaps in the church of one's childhood or in the room +consecrated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>by the prayers of early years—there comes a sudden +revelation of God, which transfigures everything. In this great light +the man feels himself to be like an unclean thing, ready to be +condemned and annihilated by the presence of the Thrice Holy. But then +ensues the wonderful revelation of grace, when God takes up the soul +in despair and draws it to His heart, penetrating it with the sense of +forgiveness and the confidence of childhood. It is not surprising that +this new-born life should feel itself at once dedicated to the service +of God. I heard one of our most rising ministers say a short time ago, +that he knew he was to be a minister on the very day of his +conversion, though at the time he was engaged in a totally different +pursuit.</p> + +<p>But this may come later; and it may be the burden of another great +moment of revelation. For, as I have hinted already in this lecture, +the true Christian life is not all a silent, unmarked growth; it has +its crises also, when it rises at a bound to new levels, where new +prospects unfold themselves before it and alter everything. There are +moments in life more precious than days, and there are days which we +would not exchange for years. Swept along with other materials into +the common receptacle of memory, they shine like gold, silver, +precious stones among the wood, hay, stubble of ordinary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>experience. +It is impossible to say how much one such experience may do to direct +and to inspire a life. I believe that many a humble minister has such +an experience hidden in his memory, which he may never have disclosed +to anyone, but which is invested for himself with unfading splendor +and authority, and binds him to the service of God till his dying +day.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>But this principle, which we have drawn for our own use from Isaiah's +call, applies not only to the initial act, but to every subsequent +detail of our life. It is true of every appearance which a minister +makes before a congregation. Unless he has spent the week with God and +received Divine communications, it would be better not to enter the +pulpit or open his mouth on Sunday at all. There ought to be on the +spirit, and even on the face of a minister, as he comes forth before +men, a ray of the glory which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>was seen on the face of Moses when he +came down among the people with God's message from the mount.</p> + +<p>It applies, too, on a larger scale, to the ministerial life as a +whole. Valuable as an initial call may be, it will not do to trade too +long on such a memory. A ministry of growing power must be one of +growing experience. The soul must be in touch with God and enjoy +golden hours of fresh revelation. The truth must come to the minister +as the satisfaction of his own needs and the answer to his +perplexities; and he must be able to use the language of religion, not +as the nearest equivalent he can find for that which he believes +others to be passing through, but as the exact equivalent of that +which he has passed through himself. There are many rules for praying +in public, and a competent minister will not neglect them; but there +is one rule worth all the rest put together, and it is this: Be a man +of prayer yourself; and then the congregation will feel, as you open +your lips to lead their devotions, that you are entering an accustomed +presence and speaking to a well-known Friend. There are arts of study +by which the contents of the Bible can be made available for the +edification of others; but this is the best rule: Study God's Word +diligently for your own edification; and then, when it has become +more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>to you than your necessary food and sweeter than honey or the +honey-comb, it will be impossible for you to speak of it to others +without a glow passing into your words which will betray the delight +with which it has inspired yourself.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Perhaps of all causes of ministerial failure the commonest lies here; +and of all ministerial qualifications, this, although the simplest, is +the most trying. Either we have never had a spiritual experience deep +and thorough enough to lay bare to us the mysteries of the soul; or +our experience is too old, and we have repeated it so often that it +has become stale to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>ourselves; or we have made reading a substitute +for thinking; or we have allowed the number and the pressure of the +duties of our office to curtail our prayers and shut us out of our +studies; or we have learned the professional tone in which things +ought to be said, and we can fall into it without present feeling. +Power for work like ours is only to be acquired in secret; it is only +the man who has a large, varied and original life with God who can go +on speaking about the things of God with fresh interest; but a +thousand things happen to interfere with such a prayerful and +meditative life. It is not because our arguments for religion are not +strong enough that we fail to convince, but because the argument is +wanting which never fails to tell; and this is religion itself. People +everywhere can appreciate this, and nothing can supply the lack of it. +The hearers may not know why their minister, with all his gifts, does +not make a religious impression on them; but it is because he is not +himself a spiritual power.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>There comes to my mind a reminiscence from college days, which grows +more significant to me the longer I live. One Saturday morning at our +Missionary Society there came, at our invitation, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>talk to us about +our future life, the professor who was the idol of the students and +reputed the most severely scientific of the whole staff. We used to +think him keen, too, and cynical; and what we expected was perhaps a +scathing exposure of the weaknesses of ministers or a severe +exhortation to study. It turned out, on the contrary, to be a strange +piece, steeped in emotion and full of almost lyrical tenderness; and I +can still remember the kind of awe which fell on us, as, from this +reserved nature, we heard a conception of the ministry which had +scarcely occurred to any of us before; for he said, that the great +purpose for which a minister is settled in a parish is not to +cultivate scholarship, or to visit the people during the week, or even +to preach to them on Sunday, but it is to live among them as a good +man, whose mere presence is a demonstration which cannot be gainsaid +that there is a life possible on earth which is fed from no earthly +source, and that the things spoken of in church on Sabbath are +realities.</p> + +<p>Side by side with this reminiscence there lives in my memory another, +which also grows more beautiful the more I learn of life. It was my +happiness, when I was ordained, to be settled next neighbour to an +aged and saintly minister. He was a man of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>competent scholarship, and +had the reputation of having been in early life a powerful and popular +preacher. But it was not to these gifts that he owned his unique +influence. He moved through the town, with his white hair and somewhat +staid and dignified demeanour, as a hallowing presence. His very +passing in the street was a kind of benediction, and the people, as +they looked after him, spoke of him to each other with affectionate +veneration. Children were proud when he laid his hand on their heads, +and they treasured the kindly words which he spoke to them. At +funerals and other seasons of domestic solemnity his presence was +sought by people of all denominations. We who laboured along with him +in the ministry felt that his mere existence in the community was an +irresistible demonstration of Christianity and a tower of strength to +every good cause. Yet he had not gained this position of influence by +brilliant talents or great achievements or the pushing of ambition; +for he was singularly modest, and would have been the last to credit +himself with half the good he did. The whole mystery lay in this, that +he had lived in the town for forty years a blameless life, and was +known by everybody to be a godly and prayerful man. He was good enough +to honour me with his friendship; and his example wrote deeply upon +my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>mind these two convictions—that it may sometimes be of immense +advantage to spend a whole lifetime in a single pastorate, and that +the prime qualification for the ministry is goodness.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> "One great part of the history of the Bible is the +history of Calls."—<span class="sc">Dean Church</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> I am sorry to observe that even Mr. G.A. Smith, whose +Commentary on Isaiah is distinguished not only by thorough scholarship +but by what is far rarer in works of the kind—a profusion of just and +inspiring ideas—at this point, following bad examples, says that +there are ideas imported into the account of Isaiah's call which +belonged to a later period of his life. Not only is this wrong +psychologically, because it minimises the divinatory power of the +human spirit in the great moments of experience; but surely it is +utterly wrong artistically, because, if the ideas are historically out +of place, Isaiah himself ought to have felt that, by placing them +there, he was breaking the spell of verisimilitude, on which the +effect of such a picture depends.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This is the literal translation, "The fulness of the +whole world is His glory."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The lips of Jeremiah were also touched in his call by +the hand of God. But the meaning appears to have been different. He +had complained that he could not speak—that he was tongue-tied. The +touch of the Divine hand may have meant that the restraining cord was +loosed, and a free passage made for the utterance of what he had to +say. The words which accompanied the touch suggest, however, a +slightly different idea—"Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth." +The difficulty of Jeremiah was not exactly that of Moses, who, when he +complained that he could not speak, meant that, never having acquired +the art of expressing himself, he could not utter what he had to say, +even though he was full of matter. This was the natural difficulty of +an elderly man; for the art of expression has to be acquired in youth. +But the difficulty of a young man like Jeremiah is not so much to +express what he has to say as to get something worth saying. This was +what Jeremiah complained of; and the touching of his lips meant that +God was putting His own words into his mouth. It was a promise that +the well of ideas in his mind should not run dry, but that God would +give him such a revelation of His mind and will as would supply him +with an ample message to his age. All three cases are full of +instruction and encouragement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "After passing through the fundamental religious +experiences of forgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the +indispensable premises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself. +No direct summons was addressed to him, no compulsion was laid on him; +but he heard the voice of God asking generally for messengers, and he, +on his own responsibility, answered it for himself in particular. He +heard from the Divine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he +was immediately full of the mind that he was the man for the mission, +and of the heart to give himself to it. So great an example cannot be +too closely studied by candidates for the ministry in our own day. +Sacrifice is not the half-sleepy, half-reluctant submission to the +force of circumstance or opinion, in which shape it is so often +travestied among us, but the resolute self-surrender and willing +resignation of a free and reasonable soul. There are many in our day +who look for an irresistible compulsion into the ministry of the +Church; sensitive as they are to the material bias by which men roll +off into other professions, they pray for something of a similar kind +to prevail with them in this direction also. There are men who pass +into the ministry by social pressure or the opinion of the circles +they belong to, and there are men who adopt the profession simply +because it is on the line of least resistance. From which false +beginnings rise the spent force, the premature stoppages, the +stagnancy, the aimlessness and heartlessness, which are the scandals +of the professional ministry and the weakness of the Christian Church +in our day. Men who drift into the ministry, as it is certain so many +do, become mere ecclesiastical flotsam and jetsam, incapable of giving +carriage to any soul across the waters of this life, uncertain of +their own arrival anywhere, and of all the waste of their generation, +the most patent and disgraceful. God will have no driftwood for His +sacrifices, no drift-men for His ministers. Self-consecration is the +beginning of His service, and a sense of our own freedom and our own +responsibility is an indispensable element in the act of +self-consecration."—<span class="sc">G.A. Smith</span>: <i>Isaiah</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I do not know that I have ever seen an entirely +satisfactory statement of what constitutes a call to the ministry. +Probably it is one of those things of the Spirit which cannot be +mathematically defined. The variety of the calls in Scripture warns us +against laying down any scheme to which the experience of every one +must conform. It is the same as with the commencement of the spiritual +life, where also the work of the Spirit of God overflows our +definitions. While some can remember and describe the whole process +through which they have passed, others who exhibit as undeniably the +marks of the Divine handiwork can give comparatively little account of +how it took place. The test of the reality of the change is not its +power of being made into a good story. In the one case, however, as in +the other, a conscientious man will give all diligence to make his +calling and election sure. Excellent chapters on the subject will be +found in Spurgeon's <i>Lectures to My Students</i> and Blaikie's <i>For the +Work of the Ministry</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "You have to be busy men, with many distractions, with +time not your own: and yet, if you are to be anything, there is one +thing you must secure. You must have time to enter into your own heart +and be quiet, you must learn to collect yourselves, to be alone with +yourselves, alone with your own thoughts, alone with eternal realities +which are behind the rush and confusion of moral things, alone with +God. You must learn to shut your door on all your energy, on all your +interests, on your hopes and fears and cares, and in the silence of +your chamber to 'possess your souls.' You must learn to look below the +surface; to sow the seed which you will never reap; to hear loud +voices against you or seductive ones, and to find in your own heart +the assurance and the spell which makes them vain. Whatever you do, +part not with the inner sacred life of the soul whereby we live +<i>within</i> to 'things not seen,' to Christ, and truth and immortality. +Your work, your activity, belong to earth; no real human interest, +nothing that stirs or attracts or that troubles men in this scene of +life, ought to be too great or too little for you. But your thoughts +belong to heaven; and it is to that height that they must rise, it is +<i>there</i> that in solitude and silence they must be rekindled, and +enlarged, and calmed, if even activity and public spirit are not to +degenerate into a fatal forgetfulness of the true purpose of your +calling—a forgetfulness of the infinite tenderness and delicacy, of +the unspeakable sacredness, of the mysterious issues, which belong to +the ministry of souls."—<span class="sc">Dean Church.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> "Habet autem ut obedienter audiatur quantacunque +granditate dictionis majus pondus vita dicentis."—<span class="sc">St. +Augustine.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> As he has been dead for several years, I need not +hesitate to give the name of my dear and honoured friend—the Rev. +James Black, of Dunnikier.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_III" id="LECTURE_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE III.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A PATRIOT</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE III.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A PATRIOT.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>We have committed ourselves, in our mode of dealing with the subject +of these lectures, to the guidance of Scripture; and I have already, +in the opening lecture, alluded to the doubt, which might arise in +some minds that this method might carry us away from the living +questions of the present age. But long experience has taught me to be +very confident in this method of study. It is astonishing how +directly, when trusting to the leading hand of Scripture, one is +conducted to the heart of almost any subject, and how frequently one +is thus compelled to take up delicate aspects of present questions +which one would otherwise timidly avoid; while there is, besides, this +other great advantage, that one can always go forward with a firm +step, having at one's back a Divine warrant and authority. To-day we +shall have an illustration of this; for the method which we are +obeying will carry us straight into the midst of the burning questions +of the hour; and the example of the prophets will press on our +attention an aspect <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>of ministerial duty which the times are urgently +clamouring for, but which it is by no means easy to face. In our last +lecture we were occupied with the call of the prophet to the service +of God; to-day we have to study wherein consisted this service itself.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Here we are at once confronted with a contrast between the work of Old +Testament prophets and that of modern ministers, to which it is by no +means easy to adjust the mind. Our message in modern times is +addressed to the individual; but the message of the prophets was +addressed to the nation. The unit in our minds is always the soul; we +warn every man to flee from the wrath to come; we reason and wrestle +with him in the name of Heaven; we watch over the growth of his +character; and we estimate our success by the number of individuals +brought into the kingdom. In the prophets there is a complete absence +of all this. They are no less in earnest; their aim is equally clear +before them; but the unit in their minds is different: it is the +Jewish state, or at least the city of Jerusalem, as a whole. A recent +commentator<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> on Isaiah has raised the question, whether Isaiah has +a gospel for the individual. He makes out that he has; but it is in a +somewhat round-about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>way; and it is not done without, to some extent, +attributing to Isaiah a point of view which was not his. It was Christ +who introduced the modern point of view. He was the discoverer of the +individual. It was He who taught the world to believe in the dignity +and destiny of the single soul; and He trained His ministers to seek +and save it.</p> + +<p>Isaiah's position, however, is well worth studying, and has its own +lesson for us. Only we must acknowledge it to be what it really is, +and endeavour to place ourselves on his standpoint. To him the New +Testament position was no more possible than the modern view of ethics +was to the ancient philosophers; and the student of philosophy +saturated from birth with the modern ideas of freedom and +individuality, has an exactly similar difficulty to overcome, as he +reads, for example, the <i>Republic</i> of Plato, where the state is +everything and the individual nothing.</p> + +<p>While a message to any individual is rare in the prophetical books, +that which we come upon wherever we open them is a patriotic and +statesman-like appeal on the condition of the country. The prophets +addressed themselves by preference to the heads and representatives of +the people, such as kings, princes and priests; because the power to +effect changes in the situation of the country rested in their hands. +But they also took advantage of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>large popular gatherings, and in some +conspicuous place, such as the city-gate or the court of the temple, +delivered their message, which thus might reach every corner of the +land. A name which they delight to apply to themselves is Watchmen. As +the watchman, stationed on his tower over the city-gate, kept guard +over the safety of the place, giving notice when danger was +approaching and summoning the citizens to defend themselves, so the +prophets from their watch-tower—that is, the position of elevation +and observation which inspiration gave them—watched over the weal of +the state, observing narrowly its condition within, keeping their eye +on the influences to which it was exposed from without, and, when +danger threatened, giving the alarm. Their acquaintance is +extraordinary with the state of every part of the country; and still +more astonishing is their knowledge of surrounding countries. When +they have to speak of Moab or Edom, they seem as familiar with the +towns and rivers, the customs and history of these countries, as with +those of Judah; and they appear to be as well acquainted with what is +going on in the cities on the Nile or the Euphrates as with what is +happening in Jerusalem. No home secretary is as well acquainted with +the internal affairs of his own country, and no foreign secretary with +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>affairs of foreign countries. It was their vocation to be +sensitively alive to all the influences, near or remote, by which +their native land could be affected.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The contents of the prophetic writings, notwithstanding their variety, +easily fall into a few great masses. The chief are these +three—Criticism, Denunciation and Comfort.</p> + +<p>1. There is a great mass of what may be called Criticism. Standing on +their watch-tower and turning their observation on the internal +condition of the state, the prophets could nearly always discern +diseased symptoms in the body corporate, and it was their duty to +point them out. So Isaiah commences his prophecies: "The whole head is +sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto +the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and +putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither +mollified with ointment." And he thus gives expression to the +obligation which was laid on him to make these discoveries known: "Cry +aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people +their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."</p> + +<p>The sins which the prophets had to reprehend were pretty uniform all +through the prophetic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>period; and it is interesting to compare them +with those by which our own age is afflicted. There is no school in +which the conscience can be so well educated to a sense of public sin +as in the writings of the prophets.</p> + +<p>The root evil was always Idolatry. The nation was continually falling +away from the worship of the true God to idols, or at least the +worship of other deities was incorporated with that of Jehovah. This +was always both a symptom of advanced degradation and the head and +fountain of other evils of the worst kind. All the prophets attack it +with all the weapons in their armoury—with hot indignation and close +argument and scalding tears. Isaiah is remarkable for attacking it +with raillery and sarcasm. He takes his readers into the idol workshop +and details the process of their manufacture. He shows us the workmen, +surrounded with their plates of metal and logs of wood, out of which +the god is to be fashioned, and busy with their files and planes, +their axes and hammers, putting together the helpless thing. The +idolmaker, he says, has a fine ash or oak or cedar-tree, and makes a +pretty idol with it; but with the same wood he lights his fire and +cooks his dinner—"He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part +thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast and is satisfied; yea, he +warmeth himself and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>saith, Aha, aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire; +and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he +falleth down unto it and worshippeth it and prayeth unto it, and +saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god."</p> + +<p>Closely associated with idolatry was Luxury. So successful to our +minds is the polemic of a prophet like Isaiah against idolatry that +the wonder to us is that it was ever necessary; and, indeed, there are +few things more puzzling to the ordinary reader of Scripture than the +constant lapses of the people of God into idolatry. How could they, +knowing the true God, exchange a worship so rational and elevated for +the worship of stocks and stones? The explanation is a simple but a +humiliating one. The worship of these foreign deities was accompanied +with sensual excesses, which appealed to the strongest elementary +passions of human nature. Feasts, dances and drunken orgies formed +part of the worship of Baal and the other Canaanite divinities. +Idolatry in Israel was never due to theoretic changes of opinion; it +was only the way in which an outbreak of laxity and luxury manifested +itself. Its equivalent in our day would be an excessive development of +the passion for amusement and excitement, destroying the dignity and +seriousness of life. The wealthy and fashionable classes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>led the way, +as they generally do in periods of moral retrogression; and the worst +symptom of all was when the womanhood of the country surrendered +itself to the prevailing tendencies. This last feature of degradation +had developed itself in Isaiah's day; and he attacks it with a strange +combination of humour and moral indignation: "Because the daughters of +Jerusalem are haughty, and walk with outstretched neck and wanton +eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a tinkling with their +feet, therefore ... the Lord will take away the bravery of their +tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their round +tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers, +the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs and the headbands, the +tablets and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable +suits of apparel and the mantles and the wimples and the crisping +pins, the glasses and the fine linen, and the hoods and the veils; and +it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be +stink, and instead of a girdle a rent, and instead of well-set hair +baldness, and instead of a stomacher a girdle of sackcloth, and +burning instead of beauty."</p> + +<p>Then there was Oppression. Excessive luxury in the upper classes is +usually accompanied with misery among those at the opposite end of the +social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>scale; because the rich in such a state of society are +heartless, and not only neglect the poor, but oppress them. The +prophets are full of the wrongs inflicted on the weak by the powerful. +The wealthy landowners took advantage of the difficulties of their +less prosperous neighbours to rob them of their holdings and remove +the ancient landmarks; and the courts of law were so corrupt that +those who could not bribe the occupants of the chair of justice had no +chance of redress. The spirit of the constitution was so far violated +that the rich held their own fellow-countrymen in slavery, and did not +even give them the advantage of the year of jubilee. Many a page of +the writings of the prophets looks like a programme for the reform of +abuses with which we are too familiar in our own civilisation. "Woe," +says Jeremiah, "to him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and +his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's services without +wages and giveth him not for his work."</p> + +<p>Last of all there was Hypocrisy. In spite of these sins, crying to +Heaven, there was seldom any lack of religiosity or the outward forms +of religion. Religion was divorced from morality, and ritual was +substituted for righteousness. There is no commoner or weightier +burden in the prophets than this. It is on this subject that Isaiah +lets loose the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>whole force of his prophetic soul in his very first +chapter, where there is a truly appalling picture of the combination +of religious rites the most multiplied with moral abuses the most +clamant: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? +saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat +of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of rams +or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required +this at your hands, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; +incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the +calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the +solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul +hateth; they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them. And, when +ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when +ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. +Wash you; make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before +Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve +the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow."</p> + +<p>Thus did these watchmen search out the moral and religious condition +of the people to the very bottom and, in the most expressive language, +bring <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>home to their fellow-countrymen how they stood in the eyes of +God.</p> + +<p>2. A second large mass of the prophetic writings is occupied with +Denunciation, or the prediction of calamities about to come as the +punishment of sin. As sure as the prophets were that the God of the +universe was a righteous God, so certain were they that the public +sins which they exposed would bring down the wrath of Heaven; for +"though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished."</p> + +<p>The instruments of punishment were not far to seek. Israel was +surrounded by nations which entertained towards her feelings of bitter +hostility and needed only the slightest provocation to attack her. +Such were Edom and Moab, Philistia and Syria. But, above all, she was +hemmed in on both sides by great and warlike powers—Egypt on the one +hand and Assyria or Babylonia on the other. These were incessantly +watching each other, and, in doing so, they had to look across Israel. +She lay in the way which the one had to take in order to get at the +other. The secular historian would say that she could not but fall +sooner or later into the hands of the one or the other, and that she +would probably pass frequently from hand to hand. But to the prophets +these warlike powers were the scourges in God's hand to punish the +sins of His people; and, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>looking outwards from their watch-tower, +after exposing the sins within the state, they announced that the +storm-cloud of calamity was rising from this quarter or that long +before any suspicion of it had dawned on the citizens themselves. +Jehovah turns the hearts of kings and peoples as the rivers of water, +and He stirred up these hostile nations when His people were in need +of chastisement; He could wield their power as the axe which assails a +tree is wielded by the woodman; He could call the mightiest conqueror +to serve His secret purposes, as a man calls a dog to his foot.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> +They did not know that they were being thus used. They had their own +designs, and their hatred and cruelty towards God's people were real +enough. They were even, after doing God's work on His people, to be +punished in turn for the animosity and violence with which they +performed it. But in the meantime the will of Jehovah was +accomplished, and the discipline of His providence wreaked on the sins +of the nation.</p> + +<p>3. The third great element in these books is Comfort. Not +unfrequently, in delivering these predictions of approaching calamity, +the prophets had to put themselves into opposition to popular forms of +patriotism and incur the danger of being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>regarded as enemies of their +country. This was especially the case with Jeremiah, who was burdened +all his life with the sad task of proclaiming that the time for +repentance was past, and the Jewish state, with its capital, must be +destroyed. When the enemy was before the walls of Jerusalem, and the +heads of the state were rallying the citizens to the last and most +sacred duty of defending their hearths and altars, he had still to +predict that resistance was useless; and he was imprisoned as a +traitor, because his words were disheartening the soldiers. When at +last the city fell into the hands of the enemy, he was set free from +imprisonment and loaded with honours by the conqueror as one who had +been a valuable ally. Never was a position more equivocal occupied by +a patriot. Yet never has there beaten in a human breast a heart more +patriotic than Jeremiah's. Patriotism, strong as a man's passion and +tender as a woman's love, is the keynote of every chapter of his +prophecies. This is characteristic of all the prophets. They loved +Israel, and especially the city of Jerusalem, with an ardour of +affection such as has rarely, if ever, been bestowed on any other +country or city on earth. There was something natural in this passion; +for Palestine was a lovely country, whose fruitful plains and +picturesque valleys and vine-clad hills easily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>captivated the hearts +of its inhabitants; and Jerusalem was a city beautiful for situation. +But this natural attachment was transfigured into a higher sentiment. +Jerusalem was the hearth and sanctuary of the true religion. The +country was dear to the hearts of the prophets, because it had been +specially chosen by Jehovah as a home for His people, in which they +might work out their destiny. The people who inhabited this country +were to be married to Jehovah; He was to penetrate them with His +spirit and character; and in them and their seed all nations of the +earth were to be blessed.</p> + +<p>To this sublime conception of the nation the hearts of all the +prophets clung. However unworthy of it their own generation might be, +they believed in the inexhaustible resources of their race, which was +immortal till its destiny was accomplished. It was this faith, +inspiring Isaiah, which enabled him to rally his fellow-countrymen to +the defence of Jerusalem, when, according to all human probabilities, +extinction stared it in the face. And even Jeremiah, though he had to +predict the ruin of the city of his heart, never dreamed for a moment +that its career was at an end; but, looking beyond the calamities of +the immediate future, he predicted that God would restore the +captivity of His people and yet make Zion a praise in the earth. It +was, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>indeed, in times of calamity and suffering that the patriotism +of the prophets burned most ardently. It was then that, speaking in +God's name, they poured out on the stricken city the affection which +breathes in such wonderful words of Isaiah as these: "Can a mother +forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the +son of her womb? Yea, they may forget: yet will I not forget thee. +Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are +continually before Me." The second half of Isaiah,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> addressed to +the exiles in Babylon, overflows with such outbursts of tenderness; +and, although there is obviously a love in them which is more than +human, yet the Divine love could not have found an outlet and a voice +for itself except through a human heart of the most exquisite +sensibility and passionate patriotism.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> The prophets, who could +scourge the people in the height of their prosperity and wantonness +with words which smote like swords, became in the days of calamity the +assiduous ministers of comfort, pouring balm into the wounds of their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>country and never allowing the daughter of Zion to despair of her +future.</p> + +<p>It was then especially that they cultivated the most remarkable of all +the elements of prophecy—the hope of the Messiah. Tragic as was the +failure of the prophets themselves to raise the nation to the +elevation which they saw so clearly to be her destiny, they all +believed that what they had failed to do would yet be done, and that +there would yet be a Jerusalem bright and glorious as a star, and +serving as the star of hope to all the peoples of the earth. Their +confidence in this did not rest solely on the will and power of God in +general; it was guaranteed to them by the belief, which, under +different forms, they all cherished, and taught their countrymen to +cherish, that in the womb of the nation there lay One, to be born in +due time, endowed with powers far greater than their own, who would +take up the task which each of them had had in his turn to lay by +unaccomplished, and carry it forward to its fulfilment—a Child of the +nation who would unite in His character all the attributes in their +fullest perfection which the nation herself ought to have possessed, +and who, though standing high above His fellow-countrymen, would yet +be thoroughly incorporated with them, and, taking on His shoulders the +responsibility of their destiny, would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>never fail to be discouraged +under it, but bear it victoriously to the goal. "Unto us a Child is +born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His +shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the +Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Now, gentlemen, the question is, How far the aspect of the prophetic +activity which we have considered to-day is a model to us?</p> + +<p>It might be argued that this is a stage of preaching which has been +superseded, and that the message of ministers ought now to be +addressed entirely to individuals. This is the theory of preaching on +which many act, without perhaps considering how widely it differs from +the procedure of the prophets. And no doubt much might be said in its +defence. It was a vast step in the development of religion when Jesus +turned from the nation to the individual and taught the world the +value of the soul. Here must ever now lie the stress of Christian +preaching; the preacher is not worthy of the Christian name who does +not know what it is to hunger and thirst for the salvation of +individuals, and who does not esteem the salvation of even one soul +well worth the labour of a lifetime.</p> + +<p>Still it may be doubted whether any stage through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>which preaching has +passed can ever be entirely superseded; and we may well hesitate to +believe that the work of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah is not still work for +us.</p> + +<p>This doubt is further strengthened when we turn to the record of +Christ's own preaching. He is the final standard and incomparable +model. But, though He discovered the soul and taught the world the +value of the individual, His preaching was not exclusively directed to +individuals. It had a public and national side. He cast His protection +over publicans and sinners, not only because they were the children of +men, but also because they were the seed of Abraham; He submitted His +claims to the ecclesiastical authorities of the nation, and, when they +rejected them, He directed against the religious parties the +thunderbolts of His invective. The tears and words of indescribable +tenderness which He poured out upon the city where He was about to be +martyred proved that the patriotism of Isaiah and Jeremiah still +burned in His heart; and He charged His apostles, when sending them +forth to evangelize the world, to begin at Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>If this did not settle the question, the nature of the case would +demonstrate that the preacher's vocation includes a message to the +community as well as to the individual. It will be conceded by all +that the preacher exists for the promotion of righteousness and the +diminution of sin in the world. But sin is not only lodged in the +heart of the individual: it is embodied also in evil customs and +unjust laws, for which the community is responsible. The individual is +largely moulded by his environment; but this may either be so +favourable to goodness that his evil tendencies are restrained and +everything encourages him to do well, or so evil that the worst vices +are easily contracted, while every step in the right direction meets +with a storm of opposition. No one would contend that the chances of a +soul are the same whether it lives among those who watch carefully +over its development and guide its footsteps in the paths of peace, or +among those whose word and example are encouragements to every kind of +sin. Society ought to be a kindly matrix in which incipient life is +nurtured into health and beauty; but it may be a malignant nurse, by +whom the stream of life is poisoned at its very source. If this be so, +then it is as reprehensible in those whose vocation is to watch over +the moral and spiritual development of their fellow-men to be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>indifferent to the conditions by which life is surrounded as it would +be discreditable to the physicians of a city swept year after year by +pestilence, if they took no interest in the insanitary conditions to +which the epidemic was due, but lazily contented themselves with +curing their own patients.</p> + +<p>We seem to have arrived at precisely the point in the Church's history +when her mind and conscience are to awake to this aspect of her duty. +One of the most eminent members of the English bench of bishops said +recently, that the social question is the question which the +Christianity of the present day has to solve; and this sentiment is +being echoed in every quarter. Strange it is how age after age one +word of the message of Christianity after another lays hold of the +Christian mind and becomes for a time the watchword of progress. There +can be little doubt that this is the word for our age. The +extraordinary response given throughout the civilised world to General +Booth's <i>In Darkest England</i> proves how deeply the conscience of the +world is being stirred by the misery and degradation of the outcasts +of society.</p> + +<p>General Booth's book, and other books and pamphlets like it, have +brought home to us the fact, that at the base of our civilisation +there is sweltering a mass of sin and misery, which is not less <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>a +reproach to Christianity than were the publicans and sinners to the +religion of the contemporaries of Christ; because, though the Church +may not, like the Scribes and Pharisees, despise and hate these +outcasts, it has not yet coped effectually with the problem of their +condition; and perhaps their numbers are increasing rather than +diminishing. There are sections of the community in which the +conditions of existence are so evil that childhood is plunged, almost +as soon as it is born, into an element of vice and crime, the bloom of +modesty is rudely rubbed off the soul of womanhood, and manhood is so +beset with temptation that escape is well-nigh impossible. Can anyone +doubt that an Isaiah or a Jeremiah would, in such a state of society, +have lifted up his voice like a trumpet and cast the condition of +these lost children of our people in the face of the luxurious rich, +and especially of the professors of religion? And is it less obvious +that this is still the duty of the modern pulpit?</p> + +<p>It cannot, indeed, be said with truth, that the Church has not faced +the problem. There is one of the causes of social misery, and that the +very chief, against which the Church, especially in your country, has +nobly asserted herself. Drink is the cause to which magistrates and +judges, and all who are brought directly into contact with the fallen +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>criminal classes, attribute three-fourths of the evils of +society. Drink is the despair of every Christian worker who has +ventured down among the pariahs of our civilisation. Against this the +Churches have not been inactive. But we are just beginning to +acknowledge that, though drunkenness is the great cause of misery, +there are other causes behind it which must likewise be coped with. +Why do the people drink? This question, when it is impartially +considered, will bring many abuses of our social system into view, +which must be put out of the way before the evils of drunkenness can +be stopped. Excessively prolonged labour exhausts the system and makes +it crave for artificial stimulus. Excessively low wages, with no +prospect of rising in the world, beget a spirit of recklessness, which +makes men ready to turn to anything that promises to bring a gleam of +sunshine into their monotonous lot. Ill-furnished and insanitary +abodes drive forth their inmates to seek the brightness and comfort of +the saloon. These are specimens of the new questions which demand the +attention of those who feel the reproach of our defective +civilisation.</p> + +<p>There is one type of remedy which the Church has liberally supplied. +To those already fallen she has extended a helping hand. The +Evangelical Revival produced a spirit of philanthropy which has +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>invented schemes for the relief of every form of human woe; and these +have multiplied to almost unmanageable numbers. But we are beginning +to see that, multiply them as we may, they must be totally +insufficient as long as the causes of misery are undealt with. If the +causes remain as strong as ever, new victims will be manufactured as +fast as philanthropy can rescue those already made. The time has come +to ascend higher up the stream than has hitherto been done, and cut it +off at its source. In other words, we must direct the whole force of +Christian philanthropy to the stopping of the causes of social misery.</p> + +<p>For this work new weapons will be required; and perhaps the principal +of these will be legislation. The prophets appealed, as I have said, +to kings and princes, because in their hands lay at that time the +force of government. But this power has now passed, and is daily more +completely passing, into the hands of the people, on whom lies the +responsibility which formerly lay elsewhere. And, if we are to follow +in the footsteps of Isaiah and Jeremiah, we must teach the people to +rise to their responsibility and make use of the weapon which time has +put into their hands for altering the conditions of life. They must +send to the seats of authority, both in the municipality and in the +state, men of public spirit, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>who will act not for their own interest +or for the interest of factions, but for the good of the whole +community; and they must see to it, that the laws and their +administration are such as will make evil-doing difficult and +well-doing easy.</p> + +<p>Of course this will involve conflict with those interests which are +vested in abuses; for there are trades which flourish in the poverty +of the poor and even the vices of the vicious. These enjoy, in many +cases, the advantage of high social standing; and many of the organs +of public opinion will rally to their support. But the Church must +appeal to the Christian conscience and summon forth the resources of +Christian virtue, to meet this new phase of the task which has been +appointed her. Christianity has always, and especially during the last +hundred years, had the open hand of charity; but she will need, during +the next hundred years, to have also a hand which can close itself +firmly over the instrument of government, and make use of it as a +lever for lifting out of the way many great obstacles which are +keeping back the Kingdom of God.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>I am quite aware of the dangers of this new departure which I am +advocating. There is the great danger of undervaluing the work of +saving individual souls. There is the danger of forsaking the Word <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>of +God and converting the pulpit into an organ of secular discussion; +although, on the other hand, there are numerous portions of the Bible +which directly raise the discussion of social problems and, when +otherwise applied, can only be interpreted in a more or less unnatural +sense. There is the danger of making the minister the mouthpiece of a +party. Christian tact and discretion will be necessary at every step. +But surely this is no reason for declining our duty, but only a reason +for bringing out all our resources.</p> + +<p>One consideration which simplifies the problem is, that it is not so +much the place of the minister to intervene in special questions as to +beget in his people a public and patriotic spirit, and to teach them +to look upon the discharge of the duties of citizenship as a part of +Christianity. When our people have been brought to recognise that the +public weal is their concern, and that they are responsible for the +state of society and the conditions of life, they can be left to +themselves to choose the right men to support the right measures.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>Here we can build on a natural foundation. It is natural for a man to +be attached to the place of his birth or the town in which he lives. +The roots of his life are in its soil; his interests bind him to it; +and, if he be at all divinely-souled, its traditions and notable names +cannot fail to lay hold upon his heart. The chances which a city has +of getting its affairs well attended to are measured by the number of +its inhabitants who are animated with such sentiments. In the same +way, it is natural for a man to love his country. Some countries +especially have the power of casting such a spell over the hearts of +their children as binds them to their service. Of my country this +might be said. Small as it is, its beauty, its history and its +romantic associations wield over the hearts of its inhabitants an +extraordinary attraction. Perhaps part of the secret may lie in its +very smallness; for feeling contracts a passionate force within narrow +limits, as our Highland rivers become torrents within their rocky +beds. Of your country also it might be said for different reasons. +America stirs patriotic sentiment, not by its smallness, but by its +largeness and wonderful variety; not by the memories of the past, but +by the boundless possibilities of the future.</p> + +<p>These sentiments exist in the minds of our people already; and we only +need to foster them and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>impregnate them with a Christian element, in +order to produce convictions about public duty which would have the +most blessed results. We might train our people to feel keenly the woe +of mankind and especially the moral blots on the fair fame of their +own city or country. We might get them to cherish a high ideal of what +the place of their abode should be, morally and spiritually, and of +what their country might do in the world. In Scotland there was such +an ideal once: the eye of the dying Covenanter saw, painted on the +mist of the moorland, the vision of a consecrated land ruled by a +covenanted king.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> In England it existed once, in the Puritan days, +when, as Richard Baxter says, England was like to become a land of +saints, a pattern of holiness to the world, and the unmatchable +paradise of the earth. You <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>had it in America once: when your fathers +landed in the <i>Mayflower</i>, they were seeking not merely meat and +drink, or even wealth and plenty, but a home in which their +descendants might grow up in freedom, virtue and religion. We must get +that ideal back again, if, in spite of railroads and industrial armies +and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, we are not to become corrupt +and ready to be swept away with the besom of destruction. We might +train every man on whom our message lays hold to live with the +conviction that it is his duty, before he dies, to do something to +make his own town more beautiful, his country happier, and the world +better.</p> + +<p>As I am addressing some who may before long be wielding a great +influence, let me add one suggestion. In matters such as I have been +speaking of to-day success comes to the man who has a programme. Now +is the time, when you are looking out on the world with the keen eyes +of youth, to note the abuses which need correction and to picture with +the eye of the imagination the improvements which are required to wipe +out the reproach or to elevate the reputation of your country. Fix the +vision in the centre of your mind; keep it ever before you; and your +dream may change to a reality which will modify the conditions of life +for whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>generations of your fellow-men. What could be worthier of +your manhood at its present stage than to be revolving some plan for +the benefit and honour of your country? Even if it should never come +to anything, it will be good that it has been in your heart. But there +is nothing else which is more likely to come to something. "What," +says Alfred de Vigny, "is a great life? It is a thought conceived in +the fervent mind of youth and executed with the solid force of +manhood."</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Rev. G.A. Smith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> These are Isaiah's images.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> For our purpose in these lectures it is of no +consequence whether there were two Isaiahs or only one. We are seeking +to ascertain the leading features of the prophets; and, if we +attribute to one person qualities which were distributed among two, +this will matter little, as long as they are typical qualities of the +prophet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> "The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from +lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity."—<span class="sc">George +Eliot.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Not to mention the social element in His preaching +comprehended in the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. The comparative +absence of the patriotic element from apostolic preaching is chiefly +due to the fact that the apostles were missionaries in cities and +countries where they were strangers. In some respects modern ministers +in settled charges are liker the prophets than the apostles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> For example, there will rarely be any delicacy at the +time of an election in urging on the people that it is their duty to +go to the poll, but it will nearly always be an indiscretion to +indicate from the pulpit for whom they should vote. Very often good +causes are lost or long delayed, not because the sentiment of the +electorate is opposed to them, but because large numbers are too +apathetic to vote at all.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> "When I would cast my mind back to what we have earned +and reaped from these men, it strikes me perhaps more than anything +which I have yet named, that we should thank them for the passionate +quest of a glorious ideal. It is such ideals, even when they are +unattainable, which lift up the character of men and nations. I think +that no worthy historian has yet been found to tell, as it ought to be +told, how much Scotland owes to this splendid vision which these men +sought, the vision of a consecrated land of saints ruled by a +covenanted king, loyal to Christ. It hovered before the rapt eyes of +these saints of Scotland until it well-nigh turned them into seers, it +elevated them until it made them heroes, and though the picture seemed +to fade before the eyes of their children, as though it had been +painted by the morning light on the mist of their own moorland, still, +it has done its work, for it has contributed mightily to educate the +hearts of Scotchmen. But has it so faded? Or is it not simply thrown +forward, as the old Jew learned to throw his Messianic hopes forward, +from one anticipated Christ to another, better and greater yet to +come?"—<span class="sc">J. Oswald Dykes, D.D.</span></p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_IV" id="LECTURE_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE IV.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF THE WORD</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE IV.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF THE WORD.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Gentlemen, in the lecture before last I spoke of the prophet's call to +the service of God, and in the last lecture of the work itself which +he had to do. To-day I am to speak of the instrument with which he did +it.</p> + +<p>This was the Word; the prophet was a Man of the Word. In accomplishing +his great and difficult work he wielded no other weapon. It seems the +frailest of all weapons; for what is a word? It is only a puff of air, +a vibration trembling in the atmosphere for a moment and then +disappearing. But so might one speak of the cloud whose rolling coils +of vapour, changing every moment, seem the least substantial of all +things; yet out of it breaks the forked lightning, which rives the +giant of the forest, and overturns the tower which has defied ten +thousand assailants, and, loosening the crag, sends it thundering down +the mountain-side. Though it be only a weapon of air, the word is +stronger than the sword of the warrior. Words have overturned +dynasties and revolutionised <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>kingdoms. When the right virtue is in +them, they outlast every other work of man. Where are the cities which +were flourishing when David sang? where are the empires whose armies +were making the world tremble when Isaiah wrote? Nineveh and Babylon, +Tyre and Memphis—where are they? But the Psalms of David still +delight, and the wisdom of Isaiah still instructs, the world.</p> + +<p>The prophets were well aware of the temper and force of this weapon +which they wielded. Jeremiah refers with especial frequency to the +power of the word. "Is not My word," he asks, "like a fire, saith the +Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" When +putting this weapon into his hand, the Lord said to him, "See, I have +set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and pull +down, and to destroy and throw down, and to build and to plant." How +was one man to be able to throw down and build up kingdoms? He speaks +as if he were at the head of irresistible legions and equipped with +all the enginery of war. But so he was; for all these and more are in +the word. Such military notions seem to have occurred naturally to the +wielders of it. Another of them says, "The weapons of our warfare are +not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, +casting down imaginations and every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>high thing that exalteth itself +against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every +thought to the obedience of Christ." Yet another of them says, "The +word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged +sword." And Isaiah says, in the name of the Servant of the Lord, "He +hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath +He hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid +me."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The word of the prophets has two aspects: it is, on the one side, a +Message from God, and, on the other, a Message to Men.</p> + +<p>1. The word which the prophets wielded was the word of God. Herein lay +the secret of its power. For the word of God is the thought of God; +and this is more ancient than the stars and lies more deeply embedded +in the constitution of things than the roots of the mountains; it is +the prop by which the universe is sustained. God's word is before all +things, for it created them; and his thoughts are the rails on which +the course of the world runs.</p> + +<p>It was the privilege of the prophets to approach so near to God, to +enter so completely into sympathy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>and fellowship with Him, and to +know so clearly what were His purposes, that their own thoughts became +identical with His; and, therefore, when they spoke, their words were +God's words. Not only do they preface many of their utterances with +"Thus saith the Lord," but—what is far more strange—they often +begin, without any preface, and go on speaking in the first person +singular, when not the prophet but Jehovah is the speaker; as if their +personality were so enveloped in His as to disappear altogether.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>But this remarkable knowledge of the thoughts of God was not given to +the prophets for themselves. The philosopher may shut himself up in +secret to study the laws of the universe and keep his conclusions to +himself; and even the poet perhaps may be so happy in his own vision +of beauty that he does not care to utter his song to the world; but +not so the prophet. He, indeed, was also, in the strictest sense, an +original thinker, and the new conceptions of God which he was +privileged to convey to the world dawned upon his own mind with that +secret delight which makes the creative thinker feel himself to be</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Like some watcher of the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a new planet swims into his ken."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>One of the prophets gives expression to this secret joy when he says, +"Thy words were found and I did eat them, and Thy words were unto me +the joy and the rejoicing of my heart;" and, after a night spent in +receiving revelations, he says, "On this I awaked and beheld, and my +sleep was sweet unto me." But the knowledge of God's mind and will +which the prophets obtained was not for themselves, but for others. It +was not abstract knowledge, but a knowledge of God's will about the +course of history—about "what Israel ought to do." It was, in short, +not only a revelation, but a message.</p> + +<p>Hence, one of the most outstanding characteristics of the prophets was +the sense of being ambassadors charged with a communication which they +were bound to deliver. If those to whom they were sent with it +welcomed them, good and well; but, if not, they were not absolved from +their duty. The man who speaks to men for his own ends—to obtain +influence in the management of their affairs or to display his talents +and win a name—will go on speaking as long as they are inclined to +listen; but, if they do not appreciate his efforts or if he wearies of +the employment, he can betake himself to retirement and be heard no +more. But a prophet could not act thus. His message might arouse +bitter opposition, and often did so: "Woe is me, my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>mother," exclaims +Jeremiah, "that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of +contention to the whole earth." Gladly would he have withdrawn from +the contest, if he could, and sought a lodge in some vast wilderness. +But the sense of being a messenger drove him on: "Then I said, I will +not make mention of Him nor speak any more in His name; but His word +was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was +weary of forbearing, and I could not stay."</p> + +<p>This was what lent the prophets the wonderful courage which +characterized them. They forgot themselves in their message. The fire +of God in their bones would not permit them to hesitate. Whether it +was a frowning king or an infuriated mob the prophet had to brave, he +set his face like a flint. Comfort, reputation, life itself might be +at stake; but he had to speak out all that God had told him, whether +men might bear or whether they might forbear.</p> + +<p>2. The other aspect of the prophets' word was that it was a Message to +Men. If, on the one hand, the word of the prophets was a power because +it was the word or thought of God, it depended, on the other hand, for +its effect on becoming a word which those to whom it was communicated +could repeat in their own vocabulary and thereby turn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>into a thought +of their own; for it was only when men's minds were so modified by the +prophets' words that they began, in their degree, to think the +thoughts of God, that the prophetic message became an influence in +their life. The prophet had, therefore, to stand in a double attitude, +and a double process had to be performed in his mind. He had, in the +first place, to turn himself wholly round to God and away from the +world, and clear his mind of everything else, that he might receive +the message in its purity; but then he had, in the second place, to +turn himself round towards men and, taking their circumstances into +account, deliver the message to them in the most effective way. He had +first to allow the Divine message to master him; but then he had to +turn upon it and master it, before he could be the medium by which it +was conveyed to others.</p> + +<p>The prophets had to go amongst men, even if it were at the risk of +life, and deliver the Divine message. They had to use every device to +make it telling, striking in at every opportunity and giving line upon +line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. They did +not disdain the homeliest means, if it served the purpose. A prophet +would go about in public carrying a yoke on his neck, like a beast of +burden, or lie a whole year on his side, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>to attract attention to some +important truth. More than once we find a prophet setting up a board +in the market-place, with only a few words written on it, into which +he had condensed his message, that the passers-by might read it.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, when it was appropriate, they did not spare +themselves the trouble of cultivating the graces of style by which +words are made attractive and impressive.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The prophetic books are +almost as artistic as poems. Their literary form is not exactly +poetry, though now and then it crosses its own boundary and becomes +poetical. It is a kind of rhythmical prose, governed by laws of its +own, which it carefully observes. All the prophets are not, indeed, +equally careful. Some of them appear to have been too completely +carried away with the message which they had to deliver to think much +of the way of delivering it. But these were not the strongest of the +prophets; and it is worth observing, that those who took the most +pains about the form in which what they had to say was couched have +been the most successful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>prophets in this sense, that they have been +most read by subsequent generations.</p> + +<p>At the head of them all, in this respect, stands Isaiah. If the book +of an ordinary reader of the Bible were examined, it would be found, I +imagine, that Isaiah is thumbed far more than any other portion of the +prophetical writings; and this is due not only to the divinely +evangelical character of his message, but also to the nobly human +style of his language.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> All the resources of poetry and eloquence +are at his command. Every realm of nature ministers to his stores of +imagery; and his language ranges through every mode of beauty and +sublimity, being sometimes like the pealing of silver bells, and +sometimes like the crashing of avalanches, and sometimes like the +songs of seraphim. He is generally supposed to have been a native of +Jerusalem and to have spent his life within its walls. So identified, +indeed, is he with it, that he is coming to be called Isaiah of +Jerusalem; and a recent expounder of his prophecies says that +Jerusalem was more to him than Athens to Demosthenes, Rome to Juvenal, +or Florence to Dante. But, at some period of his life, he must have +had ample experience also of a country life; because the aspects of +the country are mirrored in his pages with incomparable charm.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>He lets us see nature, as it existed in his day, both wild in the +forest and wilderness, and cultivated around the abodes of men; and he +paints for us the figures of the country people themselves and the +labours they went forth to. We see in his pages the trees of the wood +moved by the wind; the willows by the water-courses; the fresh +branches sprouting from the stock of the pollard oak or terebinth. We +hear the doves mourning from the depths of the thicket, and see the +roe, chased by the hunter, disappearing within its shelter, and even +the schoolboy rifling the birds' nests so ruthlessly that "there was +none that moved the wing or opened the mouth or peeped." We see the +swarms of bees and flies resting on the branches in the summer heat; +the ploughshare lying in the furrow; the tow and the distaff; the ox +turning its head to be patted by the hand of its owner, and the ass +trotting off at feeding-time to its master's crib. The prophet looks +with a specially observant and sympathetic eye on the toils of +men—the woodman thinning the trees of the forest; the carpenter, with +saw and axe, turning to his own uses the sycamore and the cedar; the +builder among his bricks and stones; and the farmer, on the exposed +height of the threshing-floor, winnowing his corn with the shovel and +the fan. As is usual in the Bible, the shepherd is portrayed with +special <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>honour, whether he calls out his neighbours to frighten away +the lion from his flock or is seen gathering the lambs in his arms and +carrying them in his bosom. But most of all does the poet-prophet love +to linger in the vineyard, marking accurately all the operations of +the vine-dresser and all the stages of the growth of the vines. We see +the tearing up of the hillside with the mattock, the accumulation of +soil, the gathering out of the stones, the construction of the +winepress and the watch-tower. Then we see the roots planted and +growing from stage to stage—from that "afore the harvest, when the +bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower," to that +when the vineyard is ringing with the songs of the vintage and the +gleaners are picking the last relics from the outermost branches.</p> + +<p>At whatever period these pictures of nature were laid up in the memory +of Isaiah, they came back to him when he was engaged in the work of a +prophet, and supplied the imagery by means of which the Divine truths +which he heralded were made impressive and attractive to his +countrymen and acceptable to all subsequent generations; for men are +so made that they are never so won by the truth as when they see it +reflected in a physical image.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>These two sides of the prophet's activity nearly correspond to what we +should call Thought and Expression. Or, to put it still more broadly, +the preacher must be a man who both has something to say and knows how +to say it. On these two apparently simple qualifications hang all the +science and art of our vocation.</p> + +<p>In reality they are not simple. To have the right thing to say is a +great commandment, and to know the right way to say it is, though +second to it, hardly inferior. But the problem of the ministry is to +have both in perfect equipoise—to utter a word which is at the same +time both a message from God and a message to men.</p> + +<p>It would be possible to be so taken possession of by the message from +God as to lose self-control and even reason itself. In Scripture we +meet with manifestations of prophecy which are akin to madness. Just +as the wind, catching the sail, would, if the ropes were not adjusted +to relieve the strain, overturn the boat, so the Wind of God might +sweep the mind off its balance, the human personality being overborne +by the inrushing inspiration. Thus religion may make a man a fanatic, +who has no control over his own spirit, and no wisdom to choose the +times at which to speak or the terms in which to address his +fellow-men. On the other hand, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>opposite excess is still more +easy. So much stress may be laid on the form of words, and so much +mastery obtained of the art of winning attention, that the necessity +of having a Divine message to deliver or of depending on the power of +the Spirit of God is forgotten. The windy master of words, whose own +spirit is not subdued either by the impression of great thoughts or +the sense of a great responsibility, but who can draw the eyes of men +on his own performances and earn the incense of applause, has always +been too familiar a figure in religion. It is to a man like Isaiah we +must look for the absolute balance of both sides. There you have the +blowing in all its degrees of the Wind of God, from the gentlest +whisper to the force of the tempest, but, at the same time, the most +perfect self-control and the adaptation of the word to the tastes and +necessities of those to whom it was delivered.</p> + +<p>There is a name sometimes applied by the prophets to themselves which +admirably expresses the combination and balance of these two aspects +of their activity. They call themselves Interpreters. The process of +interpretation is a most interesting one, when it is well done. I have +heard a speaker address with the greatest fervour a multitude who did +not understand a word he was saying; but, as fast as the sentences +fell from his lips, another <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>speaker by his side caught them up and, +in tones as fervid and with gestures as dramatic as his own, rendered +them to the hearers in their own tongue with such effect that the +performance made all the impression of an original speech. An +interpreter is one who receives a message for people in a language +which they do not understand and delivers it to them in their own +tongue. Jehovah was incessantly speaking to His people in the +vicissitudes of their history, but they did not apprehend His meaning. +The prophet, however, understood; he took the Divine message into his +own soul, and then he went and communicated it to the people in terms +with which they were familiar. An interpreter requires to know at +least two languages—that in which the message comes and that in which +it has to be delivered. If he knows either imperfectly, his +interpretation will be proportionately imperfect. No interpreter of +God, perhaps, knows both languages equally well. Some know the Divine +language imperfectly, while they know thoroughly the language of men. +What they say is interesting, fresh and human; but there is not much +of a Divine message in it. Others have got far into the secret of God +and know the Divine language well; but they are not sufficiently +masters of the language of men. These are saintly men and command +reverence by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>their character, but what they say does not find its way +to men's business and bosoms.</p> + +<p>I have seen the same truth put in another way. Tholuck, one of the +most gifted of modern preachers, has made the remark that a sermon +ought to have heaven for its father and the earth for its mother. Why, +he asks, do one half of our sermons miss the mark? It is because, +while they treat of the circumstances and relationships of life in an +interesting way, they do so only in the light which springs from +below, not in that which streams from above; they have the earth for +their mother, but not heaven for their father. And why do the other +half of our sermons fail to touch the heart? It is because, while they +display the heavenly things shining at a distance, they do not bring +them down to the homes and workshops, the highways and byways of +ordinary life; they have heaven for their father, but not the earth +for their mother.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Indeed, gentlemen, the definition of the preacher as a Man of the Word +covers a very large area of our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>duty, and an analysis of its contents +will furnish a kind of natural history of that which is the most +important part of a minister's work from week to week.</p> + +<p>1. To be a Man of the Word is to be a master of the Divine Word. In +the pulpit not only must a man have something to say, but it must be a +message from God. Where is this to be found? We do not now require to +seek it, as the prophets had to do, in the empty void. Their work was +not in vain. They were working for their own times, but they were also +working for all time. The prophets and apostles put into a permanent +form the principles on which the world is governed, and gave classical +expression to the most important truths which man requires to know for +salvation and for the conduct of his life. Thus they are still serving +us, and we can begin where they left off. He who receives the message +of God now finds it in the Word of God.</p> + +<p>Hence one of the primary qualifications of the ministry is an intimate +familiarity with the Scriptures. To this end a large proportion of the +study required of you at college is directed; and the subsequent +habits of ministerial life have to be formed with the same object in +view. A large portion of our work is the searching of the Scriptures, +and a preacher of the highest order will always be a man mighty in +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>Scriptures. We chance at present to be living at a time when the +questions about the Bible are the most numerous and the most difficult +in theology, and many accepted opinions are cast into solution. I dare +say it is the experience of most students of divinity that they are +more perplexed about inspiration and related questions than about any +other subjects. On the other hand, the attention directed to the Bible +was never so great as it is at present; and the methods of studying it +are daily improving. And, in spite of all the difficulties, it is +questionable if there ever was in the Church an intenser conviction +that the voice of God is heard in His Word. The experience of the +ministry deepens this conviction every year. If I may give utterance +to my own experience, I have never come to the end of a close study of +a book of Scripture in the congregation without having both a fresh +respect for its literary character and a profounder impression of its +Divine wisdom. The more the Bible is searched, the more will it be +loved; and the stronger will the conviction grow that its deep truths +are the Divine answers to the deep wants of human nature.</p> + +<p>Yet to deliver the message of God is not merely to read what prophets +and apostles penned and to repeat it by rote. The man who is to be +God's messenger must himself draw near to God and abide in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>His +secret, as they did. The word must detach itself from the book and +become a living element of experience before it can profit even the +reader himself; and much more is this the case, of course, before it +can profit others.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It is the truth which has become a personal +conviction, and is burning in a man's heart so that he cannot be +silent, which is his message. The number of such truths which a man +has appropriated from the Bible and verified in his own experience is +the measure of his power.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> There is all the difference in the world +between the man who thus speaks what he knows from an inner impulse +and the man whose sermon is simply a literary exercise on a Scripture +theme, and who speaks only because Sunday has come round and the bell +rung and he must do his duty.</p> + +<p>The selection of the theme for preaching is to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>determined chiefly +by the power of the Word to lay hold of the conviction of the +preacher. Or, if the subject is prescribed, as when one is lecturing +through a book of the Bible, the points to be treated are to be +determined in this way. Sometimes, as a preacher reads the Word, a +text will leap from the page, so to speak, and, fastening on the mind, +insist on being preached upon. A sermon on such a text is nearly +always successful; and a wise man will, therefore, take care to garner +such texts when they occur to him. He will underline them in his +Bible, or, better still, enter them in a note-book kept for the +purpose, adding a few words perhaps to indicate the first lines of +thought which have occurred to him. These notes may be multiplied from +time to time; and, when the minister turns to a page which has been +thus filled, he will often find his sermon nearly made to his +hand.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Dr. Wendell Holmes tells of Emerson that he kept such a +note-book for subjects on which he might lecture, and for suggestions +of lines of thought which he might follow out. He called it his +Savings Bank, because, though the payments into it were minute, they +gradually swelled to riches; and passages which his hearers and +readers supposed to be outbursts of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>sudden literary creation were +really the results of slow accumulation. If this was necessary for +even a genius like Emerson it will be far more necessary for the +ordinary man. The gold of thought has generally to be collected as +gold dust.</p> + +<p>2. But this already brings me to the second stage of this natural +history, which is, that the preacher must be a master of Human Words. +The message from God which we carry is to become a message to men, and +therefore we must know how to introduce it successfully to their +notice. Strong as our own conviction may be, yet it may be crude and +formless; and, before it can become the conviction of others, it must +take a shape which will arouse their attention. It may belong to a +region of thought with which they are unfamiliar, and it has to be +brought near, until it enters the circle of their own ideas.</p> + +<p>This is the problem of the composition of the sermon, whether this +means the writing of it out or the arrangement of the materials in the +memory in preparation for delivery. And many rules might be given to +help at this point.</p> + +<p>One often recommended is to keep the audience in view to which the +composition is to be addressed. If by this is meant that the writer, +as he sits at his desk, should try to conjure up in his imagination +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>benches of the church and their occupants, I do not know whether +it is a practicable rule or not. But if it means that the preacher, as +he composes his sermon, should keep in view the circumstances of his +hearers—their stage of culture, the subjects in which they are +interested, the Scriptural attainments which they have already made, +and the like—it is one of the prime secrets of the preacher's art, +and I will return to speak of it more fully in a subsequent lecture. I +once heard Mr. Spurgeon preach a characteristic sermon on an unusual +text. It was on these words in Hosea: "I was unto them as they that +take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." To +illustrate the first clause he drew a graphic picture of a London +carter in Cornhill loosening the harness, when his horse had +surmounted the incline, taking the bit out of its mouth, and fastening +on the corn-bag; and he applied the second clause with humorous wisdom +to the behaviour of preachers. As the carter in the stable "lays" the +hay to his horse, so the preacher has to "lay" the food to the +congregation. The carter must not put the food too high, where the +horse cannot reach up to it, nor too low, where it cannot get down to +it, but just where it can seize and devour it with comfort. So the +preacher must neither pitch his message too high, where it will be +above <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>the comprehension of the congregation, nor too low, where it +will not command their respect, but just where they can reach it +easily and comfortably. This quaint illustration has often recurred to +me in the study, and made me anxiously consider whether I was putting +the truth in such a way that the congregation could grasp it.</p> + +<p>Many rules have been proposed for winning the attention of the +congregation. Some have laid stress on commencing the sermon with +something striking. Mr. Moody, the evangelist, whose opinion on such a +subject ought to be valuable, recommends the preacher to crowd in his +best things at the beginning, when the attention is still fresh. +Others have favoured the opposite procedure. During the first half of +the discourse nearly every audience will give the speaker a chance. At +this point, therefore, the heavier and drier things which need to be +said ought to occur. But about the middle of the discourse the +attention begins to waver. Here, therefore, the more picturesque and +interesting things should begin to come; and the very best should be +reserved for the close, so that the impression maybe strongest at the +last.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> St. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>Augustine says that a discourse should instruct, +delight and convince;<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> and perhaps these three impressions should, +upon the whole, follow this order. The more instructive elements—the +facts and explanations—should come first, appealing to the intellect; +then should follow the illustrative and pathetic elements, which touch +the feelings; and then, at the close, should come those moving and +over-awing considerations which stir the conscience and determine the +will. Thus the impression would grow from the commencement to the +close.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>To obtain command of language it is good to hear the best speakers and +to read the best books. It has been my fortune to be acquainted with +a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>good many celebrated preachers; and I have observed that, almost +without exception, they have had a thorough acquaintance with the +whole range of the higher English literature. To have the music of +Shakespeare or Milton echoing in your memory, or to have lingering in +your ear the cadence and sweep of the sentences of Thackeray and De +Quincey, will almost unawares give you a good style.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> In reading +over an old sermon of my own, I can almost tell whether or not, in the +week of its composition, I was reading good literature. In the former +case the language is apt to be full and harmonious, and sprinkled over +with gay flowers of maxim and illustration, whereas in the latter the +style of the performance is apt to be bald and jerky.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>Let me mention one more rule for the composition of the sermon which +appears to me to be the most important of all. It is, to take time. +Begin in time and get done in time—this, I often say to myself, is +the whole duty of a minister. The reason <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>why so many of our sermons +are crude in thought, unbalanced in the arrangement of the materials, +destitute of literary beauty, and unimpressive in delivery, is because +they are begun too late and written too hurriedly. The process of +thinking especially should be prolonged; it is not so important that +the process of writing should be slow. It is when the subject has been +long tossed about in thought that the mind begins to glow about it; +the subject itself gets hot and begins to melt and flash, until at +last it can be poured forth in a facile but glowing stream. Style is +not something added to the thought from the outside. It is simply the +beauty of the truth itself, when you have gone deep enough to find it; +and the worst condemnation of a careless and unattractive style is +that it does the truth injustice.</p> + +<p>3. The preacher ought to be master of the Oral Word. There is a stage +which the truth has to pass through after it has been prepared in the +study for the consumption of the hearers. This is the oral delivery; +and it is a part of the natural history of the sermon which must not +be overlooked. A sermon may be well composed in the study and yet be a +failure in the pulpit. Indeed, this is one of the most critical stages +of the entire process. There are few things more disappointing than to +have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>received a message to deliver and spent a laborious and happy +week in composition, and yet on Sunday, as you descend the pulpit +stair, to know that you have missed the mark. This, however, is far +from an infrequent occurrence. The same sermon may even be a success +on one occasion, and on another a partial or a total failure.</p> + +<p>Wherein a good delivery consists it is difficult to say. It is the +rekindling of the fire of composition in the presence of the +congregation; it is the power of thinking out the subject again on +your feet. This must not be a mere repetition of a byegone process, +but a new and original action of the mind on the spot. Tholuck, to +whom I have already alluded in this lecture, says that a sermon needs +to be born twice: it must be born once in the study in the process of +composition, and it must be born again in the pulpit in the process of +delivery. Many a sermon is a genuine birth of the mind in the study +which in the pulpit is still-born.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>Some preachers have an extraordinary facility of putting themselves at +once, and every time, <i>en rapport</i> with the audience, so that there is +from first to last, whilst they speak, a commerce between the mind in +the pulpit and the minds in the pews. To others this is the most +difficult part of preaching. The difficulty is to get down amongst the +people and to be actually dealing with them. Many a preacher has a +thought, and is putting it into good enough words, but somehow the +people are not listening, and they cannot listen.</p> + +<p>If the Senate of this University were ever to try the experiment of +asking a layman to deliver this course of Lectures on Preaching, I am +certain he would lay more stress on this than we do, and put a clear +and effective—if possible, a graceful and eloquent—delivery among +the chief desiderata of the pulpit. I do not know how it may be among +you; but, when I was at college, we used rather to despise delivery. +We were so confident in the power of ideas that we thought nothing of +the manner of setting them forth. Only have good stuff, we thought, +and it will preach itself. We like to repeat, with <i>Faust</i>,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"True sense and reason reach their aim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With little help from art and rule;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be earnest! then what need to seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The words that best your meaning speak?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>So we thought; and many of us have since suffered for it. We know how +many sermons are preached in the churches of the country every Sunday; +but does anyone know how many are listened to? The newspapers supply +us now and then with statistics of how many hearers are present in our +congregations; but who will tell us what proportion of these are +listeners? If we knew the exact percentage, I suspect, it would appal +us. Yet it is not because there is not good matter in the sermons, but +because it is not properly spoken. In the manufacture of steam-engines +the problem is, I believe, to get as much work as possible out of the +coal consumed. In every engine which has ever yet been constructed +there has been a greater or less waste of heat, which is dispersed +into the surrounding air or carried away by the adjacent portions of +the machinery, without doing work. Engineering skill has been +gradually reducing the amount of this waste and getting a larger and +larger proportion of work out of the fuel; and a perfect engine would +be one in which the whole of the coal consumed had its full equivalent +in work done. One of our problems, it seems to me, is a similar one. +There is an enormous disproportion between the amount of energy +expended during the week in preparation and the amount of impression +made on the hearers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>on Sunday. Ministers do not get enough of result +in the attention, satisfaction and delight of their hearers for the +work they do; and the failure is in the vehicle of communication +between the study and the congregation—that is to say, in the +delivery of the sermon. What I am pleading for is, that there should +be more work to show for the coal consumed.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>4. Allow me, gentlemen, in closing this lecture, to emphasize another +sense in which the prophets were men of the Word, and in which they +are worthy of imitation. They were masters of the Written Word. They +not only spoke the word of God, but wrote it for publication, in a +form sometimes more diffuse and sometimes more compressed than their +oral utterances; and by this means they not only extended their +influence in their own day, but have enormously prolonged it since.</p> + +<p>It is surprising how few of those who have spoken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>the word of God +have cultivated this mode of delivering it; and it is perhaps equally +astonishing how few of those who have cultivated it have done so in +earnest. In the last century, promotion in the Church of England was +won by literary achievement; but the would-be bishop did not generally +think of religious literature: he published a political pamphlet or +edited a Greek play. Among the Scottish Moderates there was a keen +ambition for literary distinction; but it was the more prized the more +remote the fields in which it was won lay from a minister's peculiar +work. This led the Evangelicals to discountenance literary +productivity, which they regarded as springing from unholy motives and +as likely to distract the mind from the true ends of the ministry. But +surely there is a juster point of view than either the Moderate or the +Evangelical. This work ought to be cultivated with precisely the same +aims as preaching and with the same earnestness. When a man is truly +called to it, it brings a vast audience within his range, and there +may rest on it a remarkable blessing. Here is a significant extract +from the history of British Christianity: Richard Baxter wrote <i>A Call +to the Unconverted</i>, and Philip Doddridge was converted by reading it; +Philip Doddridge wrote <i>The Rise and Progress of Religion in the +Soul</i>, and William Wilberforce was converted by reading it; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>Wilberforce wrote the <i>Practical View</i>, and Thomas Chalmers was +converted by reading it. What a far-extending influence does each of +these names represent! The writing of books is perhaps the likeliest +of all avenues by which to carry religious influence to the most +select minds.</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The Servant of the Lord is a prophet; and in the +descriptions of him in this character we can perhaps best see what was +Isaiah's conception of a prophet. See especially ch. lxi. 1-3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See Ewald's Introduction to <i>The Prophets</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Bonorum ingeniorum insignis est indoles, in verbis +verum amare, non verba. Quid enim prodest clavis aurea, si aperire +quod volumus non potest? Aut quid obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando +nihil quærimus, nisi parere quod clausum est? Sed quoniam inter se +habent nonnullam similitudinem vescentes atque discentes, propter +fastidia plurimorum etiam ipsa sine quibus vivi non potest alimenta +condienda sunt."—<span class="sc">St. Augustine.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See the excellent chapter on Isaiah's style in Driver's +<i>Isaiah</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The same idea has long been helpful to me in a third +form—in the following lines of Platen—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Was stets und aller Orten<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sich ewig jung erweist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ist, in gebundenen Worten<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ein ungebundener Geist."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> "Into Ezekiel's hand there was put a roll written within +and without with lamentation and mourning and woe, an objective +revelation which he himself had not written; but, before he could +deliver it to others, he had to eat it: all that was written on it had +to become a part of himself, had to be taken into his inmost +experience and be digested by him, and become his own very life's +blood."—<span class="sc">Marcus Dods, D.D.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This is what our Lord chiefly meant by a teacher's +"treasure"—"Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of God +bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." How much the +treasures of different preachers differ in magnitude! It is worthy of +note that the Saviour calls the preachers of the New Testament +"scribes." In spite of the evil associations of the name He retained +it, because it emphasizes the fact that the Christian preacher is to +be a student and an expounder of Scripture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Some preachers keep an interleaved Bible, in which +references to passages in their reading are entered opposite the texts +which they illustrate—an excellent device.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "The strongest part of all great sermons is the close. +More depends on the last two minutes than on the first ten."—From a +choice little tract on Preaching, by "Prediger."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> He is quoting Cicero. Dixit ergo quidam eloquens, et +verum dixit, ita dicere debere eloquentem, ut doceat, ut delectet, ut +flectat. Deinde addidit: Docere necessitatis est, delectare +suavitatis, flectere victoriae.... Oportet igitur eloquentem +ecclesiasticum, quando suadet aliquid quod agendum est, non solum +docere ut instruat, et delectare ut teneat, verum etiam flectere ut +vincat.—<i>De Doctrina Christiana</i>, IV. 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> An esteemed friend, the Rev. John McMillan of Ullapool, +some years ago repeated to me the following rhyme on the method of +constructing a sermon, and, although I have never succeeded in coming +up to its standard, yet it has often floated before me with advantage +in the hours of composition—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Begin low;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proceed slow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rise higher;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When most impressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be self-possessed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To spirit wed form;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sit down in a storm."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> It will be remembered that John Bright used regularly, +during the session of Parliament, to read aloud from one of the poets +the last thing at night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Tholuck gives another weighty reason why ministers +should know the best literature: In einer Zeit wo Shakespeare eine +stärkere Autorität für Viele ist als Paulus, und ein Distichon +G[oe]thes eine kräftigere Belegstelle als der ganze Römer-und +Galaterbrief, darf der Geistliche, welcher auf seine Gemeinde würken +will, mit ihren Gewährsmänern nicht unbekannt seyn. Wenn irgendwo, so +gilt auch hier des Apostels Wort: <i>Alles ist Euer</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> "Aber nicht bloss die Erzeugung der Predigt geschehe im +heiligen Geist, sondern auch ihr Vortrag. Es lässt sich nicht +aussprechen, welch' ein Unterschied zwischen der Würkung einer +Predigt, welche bloss aus der Erinnerung von der Kanzel +herabgesprochen wird—wie trefflich sie auch übrigens seyn mag—und +welche dort zum zweitenmal geboren wird in lebendigem Glauben.... Die +Predigt muss eine That des Predigers auf seinem Studirzimmer, sie muss +abermals eine That seyn auf der Kanzel; er muss, wenn er herunter +kommt, Mutterfreuden fühlen, Freuden der Mutter, die unter Gottes +Segen ein Kind geboren hat."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Adolphe Monod, himself a distinguished master of the art +of delivery, gives some good hints on it in a paper on <i>The Eloquence +of the Pulpit</i>, translated and published as an article in <i>The British +and Foreign Evangelical Review</i>, January, 1881:—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<p>"In general, people recite too quickly, far too quickly. When a man +speaks, the thoughts and feelings do not come to him all at once; they +take birth little by little in his mind. It is necessary that this +labour and this slowness appear in the reciting, or it will always +come short of nature. Take time to reflect, to feel, and to allow +ideas to come, and hurry your recitation only when constrained by some +particular consideration."...</p> + +<p>"Talk not in the pulpit. An exaggerated familiarity would be a mistake +nearly as great as declamation: it happens more seldom; it is, +nevertheless, found in certain preachers, those especially who have +not studied. The tone of good conversation, but that tone heightened +and ennobled, such appears to me the ideal of pulpit delivery."...</p> + +<p>"In order to rise above the tone of conversation, the majority of +preachers withdraw too far from it. They swell their delivery, and +declaim instead of speaking. Now, when bombast comes in, nature goes +out."</p> + +<p>In regard to the first of these extracts I should say that many Scotch +speakers fail through lack of <i>pace</i> in the delivery. The interest is +lost in the pauses between the sentences. A slow delivery is only +effective when a thought is obviously being born, for which the +audience is kept intently waiting.</p> +</div> + +<p class="noin">But the most remarkable thing in the article is the following +quotation from Talma, the actor:—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<p>"We were rhetoricians and not characters. What scores of academical +discourses on the theatre, how few simple words! But by chance I found +myself one evening in a drawing-room with the leaders of the party of +the Gironde. Their sombre countenance, their anxious look, attracted +my attention. There were there, written in visible letters, strong and +powerful interests. They were men of too much heart for those +interests to be tarnished by selfishness; I saw in them the manifest +proof of the danger of my country. All come to enjoy pleasure; not one +thinking of it! They began to discuss; they touched on the most +thrilling questions of the day. It was grand! Methought I was +attending one of the secret councils of the Romans. 'The Romans must +have spoken like these,' said I. 'Let the country be called France or +Rome, it makes use of the same intonations, speaks the same language: +therefore, if there is no declamation here before me, there was no +declamation down there, in olden times; that is evident!' These +reflections rendered me more attentive. My impressions, though +produced by a conversation thoroughly free from bombast, deepened. 'An +apparent calm in men agitated stirs the soul,' said I; 'eloquence may +then have strength, without the body yielding to disordered +movements.' I even perceived that the discourse, when delivered +without efforts or cries, renders the gesture more powerful and gives +the countenance more expression. All these deputies assembled before +me by chance appear to me much more eloquent in their simplicity than +at the tribune, where, being in spectacle, they think they must +deliver their harangue in the way of actors—and actors as we were +then—that is, declaimers, full of bombast. From that day a new light +flashed on me; I foresaw my art regenerated."</p></div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_V" id="LECTURE_V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE V.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A FALSE PROPHET</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE V.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A FALSE PROPHET.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Upon anyone who is studying the physiognomy of the age of the prophets +there is one disagreeable feature which obtrudes itself so constantly +that even in the briefest sketch it is impossible to pass it by. This +is the activity of the false prophets.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> It culminated in the +lifetime of Jeremiah, whose whole career might almost be described as +a conflict with them. Again and again he and they came to open war; +and on at least one occasion the whole body combined to take away his +life. Ezekiel was scarcely less afflicted by them. They were perhaps +not so prominent an element in the life of Isaiah, but he also refers +to them frequently; and, indeed, their sinister figures haunt the +pages of all the prophets.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>It is a kind of humiliation to speak of them at all, and I would +gladly pass them by; but the figure of the true prophet will rise +before our eyes more clearly by the contrast of the false: and it is +perhaps a duty to look also at the degradations to which our office is +liable. The higher the honour attaching to the ministerial profession, +when it is worthily filled, the deeper is the abuse of which it is +capable in comparison with other callings; and its functions are so +sacred that the man who discharges them must either be a man of God or +a hypocrite. Yet there are plenty of motives of an inferior kind which +may take the place of right ministerial aims. Though it is painful to +speak of such things, yet here again the method which we have adopted +in these lectures, of following the guidance of Scripture, may be +leading us better than we could have chosen ourselves; and it may be +wholesome to have to look at an aspect of our subject which of our own +accord we would avoid.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There are two things in Scripture which I have never been able to +think of without strong movements of fear and self-distrust.</p> + +<p>One of them is that, when the Son of God came to this earth, He was +persecuted and slain by the religious classes. His deadly opponents +were the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>Scribes and Pharisees. But who were the Scribes and +Pharisees? The Scribes occupied almost exactly the position in the +community which is held among us by the literary, the scholastic and +the clerical classes; and the Pharisees were simply what we should now +call the leading religious laymen. Had they been adherents of a false +religion, there would have been nothing surprising in their resistance +to the final revelation of the true God. But the religion which they +professed was the true religion; the Scribes were the expounders of +the Word of God, and the Pharisees occupied the foremost places in the +house of God. Yet, when the Son of Jehovah, whose name they were +called by, appeared amongst them, they rejected Him and took away His +life. Many a time, as I have followed Jesus step by step through His +lifelong conflict with their illwill and contradiction, the question +has pressed itself painfully upon my mind: If He were to come to the +earth now and intervene in our affairs, how would the religious +classes receive Him? and on which side would I be myself? If to any +this question may seem fantastic, let them change it into this other, +which cannot appear idle, though it means exactly the same thing: What +is the attitude of the religious classes to the manifestations of the +spirit of Jesus in the life of to-day? do they welcome them and back +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>them up? or have the new ideas and movements in which Christ is +marching onward to the conquest of the world to reckon on opposition, +even from those who call themselves most loudly by His name?</p> + +<p>The other circumstance which has often affected my mind in the same +way is that which comes before us to-day—that the true prophets of +the Old Testament had to face the opposition, not of heathens, and not +of the openly irreligious among their own countrymen only, but of +those who had the name of God in their mouths and were publicly +recognised as His oracles. To us these are now false prophets, because +time has found them out and the Word of God has branded them with the +title they deserve; but in their own day they were regarded as true +prophets; and doubtless many of them never dreamed that they were not +entitled to the name.</p> + +<p>They must have been a numerous and powerful body. Jeremiah mentions +them again and again along with the king, the princes and the priests, +as if they formed a fourth estate in the realm; and Zephaniah mentions +them in the same way along with the princes, the judges and the +priests. They evidently formed a separate and conspicuous class in the +community. They cannot have been equally bad in every generation; and +there may have been many degrees of deviation among them from the +character <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>of the true prophet; but as a body they were false, and the +true servants of God had to reckon them among the anti-religious +forces which they had to overcome.</p> + +<p>This is an appalling fact—that the public representatives of religion +should ever have been the worst enemies of religion; but it cannot be +denied that even in Christendom, and that not once or twice, the same +condition of things has existed.</p> + +<p>At the time these men did not suppose that this was the position they +held; but history has judged them. It is not easy for a man to admit +the thought into his own mind that in him his office is being +dishonoured and its aim frustrated; and it is far more difficult to do +so if he has the support of the prevailing sentiment and is going +forward triumphantly as a member of the majority. But there is enough +in the history of our order to warn us to watch over ourselves with a +jealous mind, lest we too, while clad in the garb of a sacred +profession and in the authority of an ecclesiastical position, should +be found fighting against God. It will not do to think that, merely +because we sit in Moses' seat and have the Word of God in our mouths, +therefore we must be right. Nor must we be too confident because we +are in the majority. If we have faith in our own views, it is quite +right, indeed, that we should try <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>to make them prevail; and there is +a legitimate joy in seeing a good cause carrying with it the +sympathies and suffrages of men. But we are all too easily persuaded +that our cause is good simply because it can win votes. In +ecclesiastical affairs there is often as feverish a counting of heads +as in party politics. The majority have the same confidence that the +case is finally decided in their favour; and there is the same +exultation over the defeated party, as if their being in the minority +were a clear proof that they were also in the wrong. But this is no +criterion, and time may sternly reverse the victory of the moment. +Even in the Church the side of the false prophets may be the growing +and the winning side, while Jeremiah is left in a minority of one.</p> + +<p>The false prophets were strong, not only in their own numbers, but in +their popularity with the people. This told heavily against the true +prophets; for the people could not believe that the one man, who was +standing alone, was right, and that his opponents, who were many, were +wrong. The seats and the trappings of office always affect the +multitude, who are slow to come to the conclusion that the teachers +under whom they find themselves in providence can be misleading them. +This is, to a certain extent, an honourable sentiment; but it throws +upon public teachers a weighty responsibility. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>If they are going +wrong, they will generally get the majority of the people to follow +them. So completely may this be the case, that by degrees the popular +taste is vitiated and will not endure any other teaching than that to +which it has been accustomed, though it be false. There is no sadder +verse in all prophecy than the complaint of Jeremiah, "The prophets +prophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so." Like prophet, +like people; the public mind may be so habituated to what is false, +and satisfied with it, that it has no taste or even tolerance for the +true.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Jeremiah could not gain a hearing for his stern and weighty +message from ears accustomed to the light and frivolous views of the +false prophets; and to Baruch, his young coadjutor and amanuensis, who +was starting on the prophetic career with the high hopes of youth, he +had to deliver the chilling message, "Seekest thou great things for +thyself? seek them not." The path to popularity and eminence was not +open to anyone who did not speak according to the prevailing fashion.</p> + +<p>The false prophets won and kept their popularity by pandering to the +opinions and prejudices of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>people. The times of Jeremiah were big +with coming calamities, and he had to predict that these calamities +were sure to come; for there were no signs of deep or genuine +repentance, and, indeed, the time for repentance was past. The +self-flattering, ease-loving people hated to hear these disagreeable +facts. Their frivolous minds were engrossed with the gossip and +excitement of the passing day, and it was too great an exertion to +give their attention to the majestic views of the Divine justice and +the far-reaching sweep of the Divine providence to which Jeremiah +tried to direct their attention. They wished to enjoy the present and +to believe that all would come right somehow. The false prophets +flattered these wishes. They said that the calamities which Jeremiah +was foretelling would not come to pass, or that at least they would be +much less formidable than he represented. They were, as Jeremiah says, +like an unconscientious physician, who is afraid to probe the wound to +the bottom, though the life of the patient depends on it. Ezekiel +accuses them of making nightcaps to draw over the eyes and ears of +their countrymen, lest they should see and hear the truth, and of +muffling with a glove the naked hand of God with which the sins of the +people should have been smitten. The constant refrain of their +prophecies was, "Peace, peace," though the storm-clouds of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>retribution were ready to burst. The people said to them, "Prophesy to +us smooth things"; and the false prophets provided the supply +according to the demand.</p> + +<p>We cannot flatter ourselves that this is a danger which belongs +entirely to the past. There will always be a demand for smooth things, +and an appropriate reward for him who is willing to supply them in the +name of God. Popularity is a thing which will always be coveted; and +under certain conditions it is a thing to be thankful for. If it means +that the truth is prevailing and that men are yielding their minds to +its sway, it is a precious gift of heaven. It is a good thing to see +many coming out to hear the Word of God, and to both preacher and +hearers there is a great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in a +full church. But popularity may be purchased at too dear a rate. It +may be bought by the suppression of the truth and the letting down of +the demands of Christianity. There will always be a demand for a +religion which does not agitate the mind too much or interfere with +the pursuits of a worldly life.</p> + +<p>I have seen a very trenchant article from an American pen on the power +of the moneyed members of a church to dictate the tone of the pulpit; +and it is a common accusation against ministers, that they flatter the +prevailing classes in their congregations. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>If their congregations are +wealthy, they are afraid, it is said, to speak up for the poor, even +when justice is calling out on their side; and, if their congregations +are poor, they take the side of the working-man, right or wrong. I +should question whether temptations so gross as these are much felt. +Far more dangerous are the subtler temptations—to truckle to the +spirit of the age, to keep at all hazards on the side of the +cultivated and clever, and to shun those truths the utterance of which +might expose the teacher to the charge of being antiquated and +bigoted. Let a preacher dwell always on the sunny side of the truth +and conceal the shadows, let him enlarge continually on what is simple +and human in Christianity and pass lightly over what is mysterious and +Divine: let him, for example, dwell on the human side of Christ but +say nothing of His deity, let him enforce Christ's example but say +nothing of His atonement, let him extol the better elements of human +nature but say nothing of its depravity, let him preach frequently on +the glories of the next world but never mention its terrors: and very +probably he may be popular and see his Church crowded; but he will be +a false prophet.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Who were these false prophets, and how did there come to be such +numbers of them? These are questions which an attentive reader of the +Bible cannot help asking; but it is not by any means easy to answer +them.</p> + +<p>The prophets whose names have come down to us are not by any means +numerous; but, besides them, there must have been many other true +prophets. There were times when the spirit of religion was breathing +through the community, and then men were not wanting who felt called +to be its organs. The spirit of inspiration might fall on anyone at +any time; no prescribed training was necessary to make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>a man a +prophet. It might come, as it did to Amos, on the husbandman in his +fields or the shepherd among his flock. It might alight on the young +noble amidst the opening pleasures of life, as it did on Isaiah and +Zephaniah; or it might come, as it did on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the +young priest preparing for his sacred functions.</p> + +<p>But some of the more noted prophets endeavoured in a more systematic +way to diffuse the spirit which rested upon themselves, and thus to +multiply the number of the prophets. They founded schools in which +promising young men were gathered and plied with the means of +education available in that age, cultivating music, reading the +writings of the older prophets, and coming under the influence of the +holy man who was at their head. These were the Schools of the +Prophets, and their students were the Sons of the Prophets. Samuel +seems to have been the first founder of these schools. They were +flourishing in the times of Elijah and Elisha, and they probably +continued to exist with varying fortunes in subsequent centuries. +Perhaps all who went through these schools claimed, or could claim, +the prophetic name. Those who took up the profession wore the hairy +mantle and leathern girdle made familiar to us by the figure of John +the Baptist; and they probably subsisted on the gifts of those who +benefited from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>their oracles. Their numbers may have been very large; +we hear of hundreds of prophets even during an idolatrous reign, when +they were exposed to persecution.</p> + +<p>In times when the spirit of inspiration was abroad or when the schools +enjoyed the presence of a master spirit, it is easy to understand how +valuable such institutions may have been, and how they may have been +centres from which religious light and warmth were diffused through +the whole country. But they were liable to deterioration. If the +general tone of religion in the country declined, they partook in the +general decay; an inspiring leader might be taken away and no +like-minded successor arise to fill his place; or men who had received +no real call beforehand might join the school and pass through the +curriculum without receiving it. Only they had learned the trick of +speech and got by rote the language of religion. They had no personal +knowledge of God or message obtained directly from Him; but it was not +difficult to put on the prophet's mantle and talk in the traditional +prophetic tones. The fundamental charge against the false prophets is +always this: "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not +spoken unto them, yet they prophesy."</p> + +<p>If I am right in tracing the origin of false <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>prophecy to the schools +of the prophets, this gives a suggestive hint as to the point at which +the same danger may beset ourselves. It is obviously the duty of the +authorities of the Church to make provision for the training of those +who are to be the future ministers of the Gospel; and it is natural +for those who have the honour of the Church at heart to covet for her +service the talents of the gifted. Parents, too, will often be found +cherishing an intense desire that the choicest of their sons should +become ministers. These wishes of superiors have a legitimate +influence in determining the choice of our life-work. The wishes and +prayers of pious parents are especially entitled to have very great +weight. Yet there is a danger of an outward influence of this kind +being substituted for genuine personal experience and an inward call. +When, a generation ago, in the rural parts of England, the church in +many a parish was looked upon as "a living," to be allocated to a +junior member of the family, who was educated for the position as a +matter of course, the custom, whatever happy results it might produce +in exceptional cases, was not fitted to fill the pulpits of the land +with men of prophetic character. The pious wishes of parents, however +beautiful they may be, require to be made absolutely conditional on a +vocation of a higher <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>kind; otherwise we get a manufactured ministry, +without a message, in place of men in whom the spirit of inspiration +is stirring and who speak because they believe.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Having no message of their own, what were the false prophets to do? +The best they could do was to repeat and imitate what had been said by +their predecessors. It is with this Jeremiah reproaches them when he +says, "Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal +My words everyone from his neighbour." The older prophets used to +begin their utterances with the phrase, "the burden of the Lord;" and +Jeremiah complains that this had become an odious cant term in the +mouths of his contemporaries; and in the same way Zechariah complains +that in his day the great word "comfort," which from the lips of +Isaiah had descended like dew from heaven on the parched hearts of the +people of God, had become a dry and hackneyed phrase in the mouths of +false prophets. How dangerous this habit of stealing the words of +others might become, when practical issues were involved, may be +illustrated by a striking example. The inviolability of Jerusalem had +been a principle of the older prophets, which was quite true for their +times; and Isaiah had made use of it for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>rousing his fellow-citizens +from despair, when the army of Sennacherib stood before the gates. But +in Jeremiah's time the change of circumstances had made it to be no +longer true; and yet the false prophets kept on repeating it; and no +doubt they seemed both to themselves and others to be occupying a +strong position when, in opposing him, they could allege that they +were standing on the same ground as Isaiah. All the time, however, +they were betraying those who listened to them.</p> + +<p>There is a sense in which the truth of God is unchangeable; it is like +Himself—the same yesterday and to-day and forever. But there is +another sense in which it is continually changing. Like the manna, it +descends fresh every morning, and, if it is kept till to-morrow, it +breeds loathsome worms. Isaiah describes the true prophet as one who +has the tongue of the learner—not of the learned, as the Authorised +Version gives it—and whose ear is opened every morning to hear the +message of the new day. What was truth for yesterday may be falsehood +for to-day; and only he is a trustworthy interpreter of God who is +sensitive to the indications of present providence.</p> + +<p>It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the only form which +false prophecy can take is a dried-up orthodoxy, mumbling over the +shibboleths <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>of yesterday. If he who stands forward as a speaker for +God is out of touch with God and has really no Divine message, he may +make good the lack of a true Divine word in many ways. The easiest way +is, no doubt, to fall back on some accepted word of yesterday; but he +may also strike out on the path of originality, announcing a gospel +for to-morrow, constructed by his own fancy, which has no Divine +sanction. Neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy is a guarantee: the only +guarantee is a humble mind living in the secret of the Lord.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>I have mentioned that the prophets subsisted on the contributions of +those to whom their oracles were supposed to be valuable. There is, +indeed, very little information on this head; but they are accused of +prophesying for bread, and avarice and a greedy appetite for the good +things of this life are reproaches frequently cast at them. It is not +likely that prophecy can ever have been a paying profession, but it +would appear to have been at least a means of livelihood; and there +are indications that those who enjoyed an exceptional popularity may +have occupied a high social standing. Ezekiel, whose characterizations +of the false prophets are remarkably striking, uses about them a +significant figure of speech. He says that, while a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>true prophet was +like a wall of fire to his country, standing in the breach when danger +threatened and defending it with his life, the false prophets were +like the foxes that burrow among the ruins of fallen cities. What +mattered it to them that their country was degraded, if only they had +found comfortable places for themselves?</p> + +<p>This also is a painful side of the subject. It is inevitable that the +ministry should become a means of livelihood, and yet it is fatal to +pursue it with this in view. It is the least lucrative of the +professions, and yet, in the pressure of modern life, it may tempt men +to join it merely as a profession. Even if it has been entered upon +from higher motives, the attrition of domestic necessities may dry up +the nobler motives and convert the minister into a hireling who thinks +chiefly of his wages.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The commercial spirit is nearly omnipotent +in our day; and men who can buy everything for money <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>think that +ministers are procurable in the same way. Thus they tempt men away +with bribes of money from work to which God has called them. I am far +from questioning the importance of the mission of the pulpit to the +wealthier classes; and we must have men of culture to preach to the +cultivated. I would no more think of setting up the poor against the +rich, as the exclusive objects of the Church's attention, than the +rich against the poor. But perhaps the most essential work of the +Church at the present time is to win and to hold the working classes. +I should like to see ministers coveting work among them; and let him +who has learned to wield such an audience, where he can speak with the +freedom and force of nature, beware of being bribed away to a position +where he will be tamed and domesticated, and have his teeth drawn and +his claws cut.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>So monotonous is the evil side of the false prophets that one longs +for a gleam of something good in them. Can they not at least be +pitied? May they not have been weak men, who were elevated to a +position which proved too much for them? The times were full of change +and difficulty, and it required a clear eye to see the indications of +Providence. It is not everyone who has the genius of an Isaiah or the +magnificent moral courage of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>Jeremiah. Was it not possible to take +a milder view of the world than Jeremiah did and yet be a true man? +May they not at least have been mistaken, when they ventured to emit +prophecies which history falsified?</p> + +<p>Such sentiments easily arise in us; but they are driven back by what +we read of the personal character of these men. "Both prophet and +priest," says Jeremiah, "are profane; yea, in My house have I found +their wickedness, saith the Lord." "I have seen," he says in God's +name, "in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit +adultery and walk in lies." Jeremiah's view of them might be thought +to be coloured by his own melancholy temperament; but Isaiah's is not +less severe: "The priest and the prophet," he says, "have erred +through wine, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way +through strong drink." And he gives this terrible picture of them: +"His watchmen are blind, they are ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, +they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they +are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds +that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone to +his gain from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and +we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as +this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>day and still more abundant." The representations in the other +prophets are to the same effect. Zephaniah passes on the whole class +the sweeping judgment, that they are light and treacherous persons. +But the lowest deep is reached in Zechariah, who foresees a time, +close at hand, when the very name of prophet will be a byword, and the +father and mother of anyone who pretends to prophesy will thrust him +through, to deliver themselves from the reproach of having any +connection with him.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>The influence of such a travesty of the sacred office as these +passages describe must have been deplorable; and without doubt it was +one of the principal causes of the overthrow of the Jewish State. +Jeremiah says expressly, that from the prophets profaneness had gone +out over the whole land. They who, from their position and profession, +ought to have been an example to their fellow-countrymen were the very +reverse. They were the companions of the profane and licentious in +their revels, and they joined with scorners in scoffing at those who +led a strict and holy life. So God charges them by the lips of +Ezekiel: "Ye have made the hearts of the righteous sad, whom I have +not made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he +should not return from his wicked way."</p> + +<p>This is a terrible picture. Yet there have been epochs in the history +of the Christian, and even of the Protestant Church, when its features +have been reproduced with too faithful literality. Let us be thankful +that we live in a happier time; but let us also remember the maxim, +"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." If a +Church lose the Spirit of God, there is no depth of corruption to +which it may not rapidly descend; and a degraded Church is the most +potent factor of national decay.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Allow me, gentlemen, to say, in closing, that I believe the question, +what is to be the type and the tone of the ministry in any generation, +is decided in the theological seminaries. What the students are there, +the ministers of the country will be by-and-by. And, while the +discipline of the authorities and the exhortations and example of +professors may do something, the tone of the college is determined by +the students themselves. The state of feeling in a theological +seminary ought to be such, that any man living a life inconsistent +with his future profession should feel thoroughly uncomfortable, and +have the conviction driven in upon his conscience every day, that the +ministry is no place for him.</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> As this subject is somewhat novel, the following +collection of texts may be acceptable; but it is not given as +exhaustive:—</p> + +<p>Isa. ii. 6; xxviii. 7; xxx. 10, 11; xlvii. 13; lvi. 10-12.</p> + +<p>Jer. ii. 8, 26; iv. 9; v. 31; vi. 14; xiv. 13-16; xviii. 18; xxiii. +9-40 (<i>locus classicus</i>); xxvi. 8; xxvii. 9, 16; xxviii. xxix. 8.</p> + +<p>Ezek. xii. 24; xiii. (<i>locus classicus</i>); xiv. 9; xx. 25; xxi. 23; xxii. 25, 28.</p> + +<p>Micah ii. 11; iii. 5, 11.</p> + +<p>Zeph. iii. 4.</p> + +<p>Zech. x. 2; xiii. 2-4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> "Sicut autem cuius pulchrum corpus et deformis est +animus, magis dolendus est, quam si deforme haberet et corpus, ita qui +eloquenter ea quæ falsa sunt dicunt, magis miserandi sunt, quam si +talia deformiter dicerent."—<span class="sc">St. Augustine.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Even popularity honestly won may be a great snare. +Vanity, it must be allowed, is probably the commonest clerical +weakness; and, when it is yielded to, it deforms the whole character. +There are few things more touching or instructive than the entries in +Dr. Chalmers' journal, which show with what earnestness he was praying +against this, in the height of his popularity, as a besetting sin. If +this were common, there would not be the slight accent of contempt +attached to the name of the popular preacher which now belongs to it +in the mouths of men. The publicity which beats on the pulpit makes +veracity, down to the bottom of the soul, more necessary in the +clerical than in any other calling. "A prime virtue in the pulpit is +mental integrity. The absence of it is a subtle source of moral +impotence. It concerns other things than the blunt antipodes +represented by a truth and a lie. Argument which does not satisfy a +preacher's logical instinct; illustration which does not commend +itself to his æsthetic taste; a perspective of doctrine which is not +true to the eye of his deepest insight; the use of borrowed materials +which offend his sense of literary equity; an emotive intensity which +exaggerates his conscious sensibility; an impetuosity of delivery +which overworks his thought; gestures and looks put on for scenic +effect; an eccentric elocution, which no <i>human</i> nature ever +fashioned; even a shrug of the shoulder, thought of and planned for +beforehand—these are causes of enervation in sermons which may be +otherwise well framed and sound in stock. They sap a preacher's +personality and neutralise his magnetism. They are not true, and he +knows it. Hearers may know nothing of them theoretically, yet may feel +the full brunt of their negative force practically."—<span class="sc">Austin +Phelps</span>, D.D., <i>My Note Book</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> "That which in its idea is the divinest of earthy +employments has necessarily come to be also a profession, a line of +life, with its routine, its commonplace, its poverty and deterioration +of motive, its coarseness of feeling. It cannot but be so. It is part +of the conditions of our mortality. Even earnest purpose, even zealous +and laborious service, cannot alone save from the lowered tone and +dulness of spirit which are our insensible but universal and +inveterate enemies in all the business of real life. And that torpor +and insensibility and deadness to what is high and great is, more than +any other evil, the natural foe of all that is characteristic and +essential in the Christian ministry; for that ministry is one of life +and reality, or it is nothing."—<span class="sc">Dean Church.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> This may perhaps help to determine the age of the +portion of Zechariah to which this passage belongs. Is there any proof +elsewhere that a degradation of the prophetic office as deep as this +had taken place, or was imminent, at the period to which it is usually +assigned?</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_VI" id="LECTURE_VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VI.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A MAN</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VI.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A MAN.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Gentlemen, in the foregoing lectures I have finished, as far as time +permitted, what I had to say on the work of our office, as it is +illustrated by the example of the prophets; and to-day we turn to the +other branch of the subject—to study the modern work of the ministry +in the light cast upon it by the example of the apostles.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>When we quit the Old Testament and open the New, we come upon another +great line of preachers to whom we must look up as patterns. The voice +of prophecy, after centuries of silence, was heard again in John the +Baptist, and his ministry of repentance will always have its value as +indicating a discipline by which the human spirit is prepared for +comprehending and appreciating Christ. I have already given the reason +why I am not at present to touch on the preaching of Christ Himself, +although the subject draws one's mind like a magnet. After Christ, the +first great Christian preacher was St. Peter; and between him and St. +Paul there are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>many subordinate figures, such as Stephen, Philip the +Evangelist and Apollos, beside whom it would be both pleasant and +profitable to linger. But we have agreed to take St. Paul as the +representative of apostolic preaching, and I will do so more +exclusively than I took Isaiah as the representative of the prophets.</p> + +<p>It is, I must confess, with regret that I pass St. Peter by. There is +a peculiar interest attaching to him as the first great Christian +preacher; and there is something wonderfully attractive in his rude, +but vigorous and lovable personality. Besides, a study of the +influences by which he was transmuted from the unstable and +untrustworthy precipitancy of his earlier career into the rocklike +firmness which made him fit to be a foundation-stone on which the +Church was built would have taught us some of the most important +truths which we require to learn; because these influences were, +first, his long and close intimacy with Christ and, secondly, the +outpouring on him, at Pentecost, of the Holy Spirit; and there are no +influences more essential than these to the formation of the +ministerial character.</p> + +<p>But I have no hesitation in devoting to St. Paul the remainder of this +course; because, as I indicated in the opening lecture, there is no +other figure in any age which so deserves to be set up as the model of +Christian ministers. In him all the sides <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>of the ministerial +character were developed in almost supernatural maturity and harmony; +and, besides, the materials for a full delineation are available. It +is my intention to speak of St. Paul, first, as a Man; secondly, as a +Christian; thirdly, as an Apostle; and fourthly, as a Thinker.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>To-day, then, we begin with St. Paul as a Man. If I had had time to +set before you what St. Peter's life has to teach us, its great lesson +would have been what Christianity can make of a nature without special +gifts and culture, and how the two influences which formed +him—intimacy with Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit—can supply +the place of talents and educational advantages; for it is evident +that, but for Christ, Peter would never have been anything more than +an unknown fisherman. But St. Paul's case teaches rather the opposite +lesson—how Christianity can consecrate and use the gifts of nature, +and how talent and genius find their noblest exercise in the ministry +of Christ. Paul would, in all probability, have made a notable figure +in history, even if he had never become a Christian; and, although he +himself delighted to refer all that he became and did to Christ, it is +evident that the big nature of the man entered also as a factor into +his Christian history.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>Once at least St. Paul recognises this point of view himself, when he +says, that God separated him to His service from his mother's womb. In +Jeremiah's mind the same idea was awakened still more distinctly at +the time of his call, when Jehovah said to him, "Before I formed thee +in the belly I knew thee, and, before thou camest forth out of the +womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the +nations." This implies that, in the original formation of his body and +mind, God conferred on him those gifts which made him capable of a +great career. Here we touch on one of the deepest mysteries of +existence. There is nothing more mysterious than the behaviour of +nature, when in her secret laboratories she presides over the shaping +of the rudiments of life and distributes those gifts, which, according +as they are bestowed with an affluent or a niggardly hand, go so far +to determine the station and degree which each shall occupy in the +subsequent competitions of the world. It is especially mysterious how +into a soul here and there, as it passes forth, she breathes an extra +whiff of the breath of life, and so confers on it the power of being +and doing what others attempt to be and do in vain.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly St. Paul was one of these favourites of fortune. Nature +designed him in her largest and noblest mould, and hid in his +composition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>a spark of celestial fire. This showed itself in a +certain tension of purpose and flame of energy which marked his whole +career. He was never one of those pulpy, shapeless beings who are +always waiting on circumstances to determine their form; he was rather +the stamp itself, which impressed its image and superscription on +circumstances.</p> + +<p>1. He was a supremely ethical nature. This perhaps was his fundamental +peculiarity. Life could under no circumstances have seemed to him a +trifle. The sense of responsibility was strong in him from the +beginning. He was trained in a strict school; for the law of life +prescribed to the race of which he was a member was a severe one; but +he responded to it, and there never was a time when the deepest +passion of his nature was not to receive the approval of God. Touching +the righteousness which was in the law, he was blameless. After his +conversion he laid bare unreservedly the sins of his past; but there +were none of those dalliances with the flesh to confess into which +soft and self-indulgent natures easily fall. He could never have +allowed himself that which would have robbed him of his self-respect. +His sense of honour was keen. When, in his subsequent life, he was +accused of base things—lying, hypocrisy, avarice and darker sins—he +felt intense pain, crying out like one wounded, and he hurled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>the +accusations from him with the energy of a self-respecting nature. It +was always his endeavour to keep a conscience void of offence not only +towards God, but also towards men; and one of his most frequently +reiterated injunctions to those who were in any way witnesses for +Christ was to seek to approve themselves as honest men even to those +who were without. He was speaking out of his own heart when he said to +all, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, +whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever +things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any +praise, think on these things."</p> + +<p>I cannot help pausing here to say, that he will never be a preacher +who does not know how to get at the conscience; but how should he know +who has not himself a keen sense of honour and an awful reverence for +moral purity? We are making a great mistake about this. We are +preaching to the fancy, to the imagination, to intellect, to feeling, +to will; and, no doubt, all these must be preached to; but it is in +the conscience that the battle is to be won or lost.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> The great +difficulty of missionary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>work is that in the heathen there is, as a +rule, hardly any conscience: it has almost to be created before they +can be Christianized. In many parts of Christendom it is dying out; +and, where it is extinct, the whole work of Christianity has to be +done over again.</p> + +<p>2. St. Paul's intellectual gifts are so universally recognised that it +is hardly worth while to refer to them. They are most conspicuously +displayed in his exposition of Christianity, on which I shall speak in +the closing lecture. But in the meantime I remark, that his +intellectual make was not at all that usually associated in our minds +with the system-builder.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, massive, thorough and severe. But it was not in the +least degree stiff and pedantic. It was, on the contrary, an intellect +of marvelous flexibility. There was no material to which it could not +adapt itself and no feat which it could not perform. You may observe +this, for example, in the diverse ways in which he addresses different +audiences. In one town he has to address a congregation of Jews; in +another a gathering of heathen rustics; in a third a crowd of +philosophers. To the Jews he invariably speaks, to begin with, about +the heroes of their national history; to the ignorant heathen he talks +about the weather and the crops; and to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>Athenians he quotes their +own poets and delivers a high-strung oration; yet in every case he +arrives naturally at his own subject and preaches the gospel to each +audience in the language of its own familiar ideas. Even outside of +his own peculiar sphere altogether, St. Paul was equal to every +occasion. During his voyage to Rome, when the skill of the sailors was +baffled and the courage of the soldiers worn out by the long-continued +stress of weather, he alone remained cheerful and clearheaded; he +virtually became captain of the ship, and he saved the lives of his +fellow-passengers over and over again.</p> + +<p>We think of the intellect of the system-builder as cold. But there is +never any coldness about St. Paul's mind. On the contrary, it is +always full of life and all on fire. He can, indeed, reason closely +and continuously; but, every now and then, his thought bursts up +through the argument like a flaming geyser and falls in showers of +sparks. Then the argument resumes its even tenor again; but these +outbursts are the finest passages in St. Paul. In the same way, +Shakespeare, I have observed, while moving habitually on a high level +of thought and music, will, every now and then, pause and, spreading +his wings, go soaring and singing like a lark sheer up into the blue. +When the thought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>which has lifted him is exhausted, he gracefully +descends and resumes on the former level; but these flights are the +finest passages in Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>3. The intellectual superiority of St. Paul is universally +acknowledged; and to those who only know him at a distance this is his +outstanding peculiarity. But the close student of his life and +character knows, that, great as he was in intellect, he was equally +great in heart, perhaps even greater. One of the subtlest students of +his life, the late Adolphe Monod, of the French Church, has fixed on +this as the key to his character. He calls him the Man of Tears, and +shows with great persuasiveness that herein lay the secret of his +power.</p> + +<p>It is certainly remarkable, when you begin to look into the subject, +how often we see St. Paul in the emotional mood, and even in tears. In +his famous address to the Ephesian elders he reminded them that he had +served the Lord among them with many tears, and again, that he had not +ceased to warn everyone night and day with tears. It is not what we +should have expected in a man of such intellectual power. But this +makes his tears all the more impressive. When a weak, effeminate man +weeps, he only makes himself ridiculous; but it is a different +spectacle when a man like St. Paul is seen weeping; because we know +that the strong nature <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>could not have been bent except by a storm of +feeling.</p> + +<p>His affection for his converts is something extraordinary. Some have +believed that there is evidence to prove that in youth his heart had +suffered a terrible bereavement. It is supposed that he had been +married, but lost his wife early. He never sought to replace the loss, +and he never spoke of it. But the affection of his great heart, long +pent up, rushed forth into the channel of his work. His converts were +to him in place of wife and children. His passion for them is like a +strong natural affection. His epistles to them are, in many places, as +like as they can be to love-letters. Listen to the terms in which he +addresses them: "Ye are in our heart to die and live with you"; "I +will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though, the more +abundantly I love you, the less I be loved"; "Therefore, my brethren, +dearly beloved and longed for, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly +beloved."</p> + +<p>To his fellow-labourers in the Gospel especially, his heart went out +in unbounded affection. The long lists of greetings at the close of +his epistles, in which the characters and services of individuals are +referred to with such overflowing generosity and yet with such fine +discrimination, are unconscious monuments to the largeness of his +heart. He could hardly mention a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>fellow-worker without breaking forth +into a glowing panegyric: "Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my +partner and fellow-helper concerning you; or our brethren be inquired +of, they are the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ."</p> + +<p>There is no more conclusive proof of the depth and sincerity of St. +Paul's heart than the affection which he inspired in others; for it is +only the loving who are loved. None perhaps are more discriminating in +this respect than young men. A hard or pedantic nature cannot win +them. But St. Paul was constantly surrounded with troops of young men, +who, attracted by his personality, were willing to follow him through +fire and water or to go on his messages wherever he might send them. +And that he could win mature minds in the same way is proved by the +great scene at Miletus, already referred to, where the elders of +Ephesus, at parting with him, "all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck +and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the word which he said, that +they should see his face no more."</p> + +<p>The nature of St. Paul's work no doubt immensely developed this side +of his character, but, before passing from the subject, it is worth +remembering how the circumstances of his birth and upbringing were +providentially fitted to broaden his sympathies, even before he became +a Christian. He was not simply a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>Jew, but a Hebrew of the Hebrews; +and he felt all the pride of a child of that race to which pertained +the adoption and the glory and the covenant, and the giving of the +law, and the service of God, and the promises. He could always put +himself in touch at once with a Jewish audience by going back on +associations which were as dear to himself as to them. Yet, although +so thoroughly a Jew, he belonged by birth to a larger world. He was +not born within the boundaries of Palestine, where his sympathies +would have been cramped and his horizon narrowed, but in a Gentile +city, famous for its beauty, its learning and its commerce; and he +was, besides, a freeborn citizen of Rome. We know from his own lips +that he was proud of both distinctions; and he thus acquired a +cosmopolitan spirit and learned to think of himself as a man amongst +men.</p> + +<p>Nor ought we, perhaps, to omit here to recall the fact, that he +learned in his youth the handicraft of tent-making. This brought him +into close contact with common men, whose language he learned to speak +and whose life he learned to know—acquirements which were to be of +supreme utility in his subsequent career.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Gentlemen, it is generally agreed that a certain modicum of natural +gifts is necessary for those who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>think of entering the ministry. Here +is Luther's list of the qualifications of a minister: you will observe +that most of them are gifts of nature: 1. He should be able to teach +plainly and in order. 2. He should have a good head. 3. Good power of +language. 4. A good voice. 5. A good memory. 6. He should know when to +stop. 7. He should be sure of what he means to say. 8. And be ready to +stake body and soul, goods and reputation, on its truth. 9. He should +study diligently. 10. And suffer himself to be vexed and criticized by +everyone.</p> + +<p>The first consciousness of the possession of unusual powers is not +unfrequently accompanied by an access of vanity and self-conceit. The +young soul glories in the sense, probably vastly exaggerated, of its +own pre-eminence and anticipates, on an unlimited scale, the triumphs +of the future. But there is another way in which this discovery may +act. The consciousness of unusual powers may be accompanied with a +sense of unusual responsibility, the soul inquiring anxiously about +the intention of the Giver of all gifts in conferring them. It was in +this way that Jeremiah was affected by the information that special +gifts had been conferred on him in the scene to which I have already +referred in this lecture. He concluded at once that he had been +blessed with exceptional talents in order that he might serve his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>God +and his country with them. And surely in a gifted nature there could +be no saner ambition than, if God permitted it, to devote its powers +to the ministry of His Son.</p> + +<p>There is no other profession which is so able to absorb and utilise +talents of every description. This is manifest in regard to such +talents as those mentioned by Luther—a good voice, a good memory, +etc. But there is hardly a power or an attainment of any kind which a +minister cannot use in his work. How philosophical power can serve him +may be seen in the preaching of Dr. Chalmers, whose sermons were +always cast in a philosophical mould. The philosophy was not very +deep; it was not too difficult for the common man; but it gave the +preaching a decided air of distinction. How scientific acquirements +may be utilised is shown in the sermons of some of our foremost living +preachers, who find an inexhaustible supply of illustrations in their +scientific studies. Literary style may supply the feather to wing the +arrow of truth to its mark. That poetic power may serve the preacher +it is not necessary to prove on the spot where Ray Palmer wrote "My +faith looks up to Thee." Business capacity is needed in church courts +and in the management of a congregation. In some other professions men +have to bury half their talents; but in ours there is no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>talent which +will not find appropriate and useful exercise.</p> + +<p>We perhaps lay too much stress, however, on intellectual gifts and +attainments. These are the only ones which are tested by our +examinations in college; yet there are moral qualities which are just +as essential.</p> + +<p>The polish given by education tells, no doubt; but the size of the +primordial mass of manhood tells still more. In a quaint book of +Reminiscences recently published from the pen of a notable minister of +the last generation in the Highlands of Scotland, Mr. Sage of Resolis, +there is a criticism recorded, which was passed by a parishioner on +three successive ministers of a certain parish: "Our first minister," +said he, "was a man, but he was not a minister; our second was a +minister, but he was not a man; and the one we have at present is +neither a man nor a minister."</p> + +<p>There is no demand which people make more imperatively in our day than +that their minister should be a man. It is not long since a minister +was certain of being honoured simply because he belonged to the +clerical profession and wore the clerical garb. People, as the saying +was, respected his cloth. But ours is a democratic age, and that state +of public feeling is passing away. There is no lack of respect, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>indeed, for ministers who are worthy of the name; perhaps there is +more of it than ever. But it is not given now to clerical pretensions, +but only to proved merit. People do not now respect the cloth, unless +they find a man inside it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the educational preparation through which we pass at college +is not too favourable to this kind of power. In the process of cutting +and polishing the natural size of the diamond runs the risk of being +reduced. When we are all passed through the same mill, we are apt to +come out too much alike. A man ought to be himself. Your Emerson +preached this doctrine with indefatigable eloquence. Perhaps he +exaggerated it; but it is a true doctrine; and it is emphatically a +doctrine for preachers. What an audience looks for, before everything +else, in the texture of a sermon is the bloodstreak of experience; and +truth is doubly and trebly true when it comes from a man who speaks as +if he had learned it by his own work and suffering.</p> + +<p>It will generally be noticed in any man who makes a distinct mark as a +preacher that there is in his composition some peculiarity of +endowment or attainment on which he has learned to rely. It may be an +emotional tenderness as in McCheyne, or a moral intensity as in +Robertson of Brighton, or intellectual subtlety as in Candlish, or +psychological <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>insight as in Beecher. But something distinctive there +must be, and, therefore, one of the wisest of rules is, Cultivate your +strong side.</p> + +<p>But what tells most of all is the personality as a whole. This is one +of the prime elements in preaching. The effect of a sermon depends, +first of all, on what is said, and next, on how it is said; but, +hardly less, on who says it. There are men, says Emerson, who are +heard to the ends of the earth though they speak in a whisper.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> We +are so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect +on how we are disposed towards him who speaks. The regular hearers of +a minister gradually form in their minds, almost unawares, an image of +what he is, into which they put everything which they themselves +remember about him and everything which they have heard of his record; +and, when he rises on Sunday in the pulpit, it is not the man visible +there at the moment that they listen to, but this image, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>stands +behind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every +sentence which he utters.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Closely connected with the force of personality is the other power, +which St. Paul possessed in so supreme a degree, of taking an interest +in others. It is the manhood in ourselves which enables us to +understand the human nature of our hearers; and we must have had +experience of life, if we are to preach to the life of men.</p> + +<p>Some ministers do this extremely little. Not once but many a time, I +have heard a minister on the Sabbath morning, when he rose up and +began to pray, plunging at once into a theological meditation; and in +all the prayers of the forenoon there would scarcely be a single +sentence making reference to the life of the people during the week. +Had you been a stranger alighted from another planet, you would never +have dreamed that the human beings assembled there had been toiling, +rejoicing and sorrowing for six days; that they had mercies to give +thanks for and sins to be forgiven; or that they had children at home +to pray for and sons across the sea.</p> + +<p>There is an unearthly style of preaching, if I may use the term, +without the blood of human life in it: the people with their burdens +in the pews—the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>burden of home, the burden of business, the burden +of the problems of the day—whilst, in the pulpit, the minister is +elaborating some nice point, which has taken his fancy in the course +of his studies, but has no interest whatever for them. Only now and +then a stray sentence may pull up their wandering attention. Perhaps +he is saying, "Now some of you may reply"; and then follows an +objection to what he has been stating which no actual human being +would ever think of making. But he proceeds elaborately to demolish +it, while the hearer, knowing it to be no objection of his, retires +into his own interior.</p> + +<p>If what was said in a former lecture about the distinctive difference +between the preaching of the Old Testament and that of the new be +considered, it will at once be recognised how vital is this aspect of +the matter. The prophets of the Old Testament, in common with the +thinkers of antiquity in general, thought of men in masses and +regarded the individual only as a fragment of a larger whole. But +Christ introduced an entirely new way of thinking. To Him the +individual was a whole in himself; beneath the habiliments of even the +humblest member of the human family there was hidden what was more +precious than the entire material world; and on the issues of every +life was suspended an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>immortal destiny. This faith may be said to +have made Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world; for He saw in the +lost children of men that which made Him live to seek them and die to +save them. And it is by this same faith and vision that anyone is +qualified to be a fellow-worker with Christ. No one will ever be able +to engage with any success in the work of human salvation who does not +see men to be infinitely the most interesting objects in the world, +and who does not stand in awe before the solemn destiny and the +sublime possibilities of the soul. It is by the growth and the glow of +this faith that the worth of all ministerial work is measured.</p> + +<p>It is far easier, however, to acknowledge this view in the abstract +than to cherish it habitually towards the actual men and women of our +own sphere and our own vicinity. That man is the most interesting +object in the world; that the soul is precious; and that it is better +for a human being to lose the whole world than to miss his +destiny—these are now commonplaces, which everyone who bears the +Christian name will acknowledge. Yet in reality few live under their +power. Many a one who has paid the tribute of love and admiration to +the spectacle of Christ's compassion for the outcasts, and melted with +æsthetic emotion before a picture of the Woman taken in Adultery or +the Woman that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>was a Sinner, has never once attempted to save an +actual woman of the same kind in his own city, and would be utterly at +a loss if such a one, in an hour of remorse, were to throw herself on +his pity and protection. There is a great difference between a sinner +in a book or a picture and a sinner in the flesh. Multitudes in their +hearts believe that all the remarkable and interesting people lived +long ago or that, at any rate, if any are now alive, they live many +miles away from their vicinity. They believe that there were +remarkable people in the first or the ninth century, but by no means +in the nineteenth; they believe that there are interesting people in +Paris or London or New York; but they have never discovered anything +wonderful in those living in their own village or in their own street. +Many who consider themselves enlightened will tell you that their +neighbours are a poor lot. They fancy that, if they were living +somewhere else, fifty or a hundred miles away, they would find company +worthy of themselves; though it is ten to one that, if they made the +change, their new neighbours would be a poor lot also.</p> + +<p>If a minister allows himself to harbour sentiments of this sort, he is +lost.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> No one will ever win men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>who does not believe in them. The +true minister must be able to see in the meanest man and woman a +revelation of the whole of human nature; and in the peasant in the +field, and even the infant in the cradle, connections which reach +forth high as heaven and far as eternity. All that is greatest in king +or kaiser exists in the poorest of his subjects; and the elements out +of which the most delicate and even saintly womanhood is made exist in +the commonest woman who walks the streets. The harp of human nature is +there with all its strings complete; and it will not refuse its music +to him who has the courage to take it up and boldly strike the +strings. The great preacher is he who, wherever he is speaking, among +high or low, goes straight for those elements which are common to all +men, and casts himself with confidence on men's intelligence and +experience, believing that the just suggestions of reason and the +terrors of conscience, the sense of the nobility of goodness and the +pathos of love and pity are common to them all.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>Let me close this lecture with a few words on a great subject, to +which a whole lecture might have been profitably devoted.</p> + +<p>No safer piece of advice could be tendered you than to let the +beginning of your ministry be marked by care for the young. This is +work which more than any other will encourage yourselves, and it is +more likely than any other to establish you in the affections of a +congregation.</p> + +<p>To work successfully among children you must know their life and have +the <i>entrée</i> of their little world of interests, excitements, prizes +and hopes. It is not difficult to get it, if only we are simple and +genuine. Children will approach their minister gladly, and make him +their confidant, if only he is accessible to them. By the ministers of +an older generation they were kept at an awful distance. When they +were out of temper or doing wrong, they were threatened with a visit +from the minister in the same way as they might be threatened with the +policeman, or the parish beadle, or a still more awful functionary of +the universe. This, let us hope, has passed away, and in most parishes +a ministerial visit is spoken of as a promise instead of a threat. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>A +minister is proud nowadays if a child flies up to him in the street +and ruffles his feathers with boisterous familiarity, or if a group of +children pin him into the corner of a room and order him, under pains +and penalties, to tell them a story. We are returning to the ideal of +Goldsmith, in the <i>Deserted Village</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The service past, around the pious man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With steady zeal each loyal rustic ran;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even children followed with endearing wile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>More important even than accessibility is genuine respect for the +children.</p> + +<p>We ought to respect their intelligence. When we are preaching to them, +we should give them our very best. I venture to say, that a much +larger proportion of the sermons preached to children is never written +out than of sermons to adults. The preacher, having thought of two or +three lines of remark and got hold of two or three stories, enters the +pulpit with these materials lying loosely in his mind, and trusts to +the moment for the style of the sermon. Of course, if a man has +trained himself to preach in this way always, it is all right; but, if +not, it is a mistake. Children are greatly affected by felicity of +arrangement and the music of language; they do not know to what their +pleasure is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>due, but they feel it; and, if a preacher has the power +of original thought or of beautiful diction, there is no occasion when +he should be more liberal in the use of it than when he is addressing +them.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> The truth is, it is a complete mistake to make the +children's sermon so different from other sermons as to create the +impression that it is the only utterance from the pulpit to which they +are expected to listen. It is not easy to get children to begin to +listen at all to what is said in church; the children's sermon is a +device to catch their attention; but it ought also to be a bridge +conducting them over to the habit of listening to all that is said +there. If they acquire the habit, they are our best hearers. A boy of +twelve or thirteen can follow nearly anything; and there is no keener +critic of the logic of a discourse or warmer appreciator of any +passage which is worthy of admiration.</p> + +<p>But, while we respect the intelligence of the young, there is +something else which we need to believe in still more. We do not half +realise the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>drama of religious impression going on in the minds of +children. We forget our own childhood and the movements excited in our +childish breasts under the preaching of the Word—how real the things +unseen were to us; how near God was, His eye flashing on us through +the darkness; how our hearts melted at the sufferings of Christ; how +they swelled with unselfish aspirations as we listened to the stories +of heroic lives; how distinctly the voice of conscience spoke within +us; and how we trembled at the prospect of death, judgment and +eternity. What we were then, other children are now; and what went on +in us is going on in them. It is the man who believes this and reveres +it who will reap the harvest in the field of childhood.</p> + +<p>There is no surer way to secure for ourselves the interest of the old +than to take an interest in the young. Of course a forced interest in +children, shown with this in view, would be hypocrisy and deserve +contempt. We must love the children for their own sakes. Yet we may +quite legitimately nourish our interest in the young by observing that +it is one of the strongest instincts of human nature which makes +fathers and mothers feel kindnesses shown to their children to be the +greatest benefits which can be conferred on themselves. An Edinburgh +minister, who has had conspicuous success in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>preaching to children as +well as in every other department of the work of his sacred office, +once, in a gathering of divinity students, of whom I was one, told an +incident from his own life which is almost too sacred to be repeated +by any lips except his own, but which I hope he will excuse me for +enriching you with, as it puts in a memorable form one of the truest +secrets of ministerial success. On the morning of the day when he was +going to be ordained to his first charge, he was leaving his home in +the country to travel to the city, and his mother came to the door to +bid him good-bye. Holding his hand at parting, she said, "You are +going to be ordained to-day, and you will be told your duty by those +who know it far better than I do; but I wish you to remember one thing +which perhaps they may not tell you—remember, that, whenever you lay +your hand on a child's head, you are laying it on its mother's heart."</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> "The Sybarites of to-day will tolerate a sermon which is +delicate enough to flatter their literary sensuality; but it is their +taste which is charmed, not their conscience which is awakened: their +principle of conduct escapes untouched.... Amusement, instruction, +morals, are distinct <i>genres</i>."—<span class="sc">Amiel.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> The finest description of a speaker known to me is this +of Lord Bacon in Ben Jonson's <i>Discoveries</i>; and it is evident that it +was the man rather than the manner or even the matter which made the +impression: "Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was +full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare or +pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, +more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less +idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of +his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, +without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry +and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his +power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make +an end."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> It has often astonished me to observe how easily +ministers' wives in this respect find for themselves the right path. +One would think it would be very difficult sometimes for those who +have been brought up in cities or in a secluded circle to adapt +themselves suddenly to a remote and unselect society; and they have +not, like their husbands, had the opportunity of meditating long on +the duties of a public position. A hearty and cordial humanity in the +members of a minister's family lends an immense assistance to his +work. A minister ought to belong to no class of society, but to have +the power of moving without constraint in every class.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> "Not a heart but has its romance, not a life which does +not hide a secret which is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere +grief, hope, comedy, tragedy; even under the petrifaction of old age, +as in the twisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agitations and +tortures of youth. This thought is the magic wand of poets and +preachers."—<i>Amiel.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> This may be a reason for rather devoting a whole diet of +worship to the children once a month or once a quarter than only +giving them a few minutes every Sabbath. But many follow the latter +practice with excellent results. Perhaps there ought to be something +specially for the children at every service. If I may mention my own +practice, I have, during my whole ministry, preached to children once +a month; and every Sunday I have a children's hymn in the forenoon and +a prayer for children in the afternoon.</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_VII" id="LECTURE_VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VII.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A CHRISTIAN</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A CHRISTIAN.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>In the last lecture I spoke of St. Paul as a Man, showing how +remarkable were his endowments and acquirements, and how these told in +his apostolic career. But it was not through these that he was what he +was. Great as were the gifts bestowed on him by nature and cultivated +by education, they were utterly inadequate to produce a character and +a career like his. It was what Christianity added to these that made +him St. Paul.</p> + +<p>It is right enough that we should now recognise the importance of his +natural gifts and trace out the ways in which Providence was shaping +his life towards its true aim before he was conscious of it. But St. +Paul himself had hardly patience for such cool reflections. He turned +away with strong aversion from his pre-Christian life as something +condemned and lost; and he delighted to attribute all that he was and +did to the influence of Christ alone. In my last lecture I quoted a +single passage to show that he himself recognised that his natural +endowments had been bestowed in order to fit him for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>peculiar +work which he was destined to accomplish in the world; but I question +if from all his writings I could have quoted another passage to the +same effect. It was only for a moment that he allowed himself to stand +on this point of view; whereas we could quote from every part of his +writings such sayings as these: "By the grace of God I am what I am"; +"I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of +God in me"; "It is no more I that live, but Christ liveth in me."</p> + +<p>That this was his habitual way of estimating his own achievements is +strikingly illustrated by his mode of thinking and speaking of certain +defects in the equipment with which nature had supplied him for the +career on which he was embarked. Gifted as he was, even he did not +possess all gifts. He lacked one or two of those which might have been +thought most essential to his success.</p> + +<p>It would appear that he lacked the rotund voice and copious diction of +the orator; for his critics were able to allege that, whilst his +written style was powerful, his spoken style was contemptible. +Painters have represented him as a kind of demi-god, with the stature +of an athlete and the grace of an Apollo. But he seems to have been +diminutive in stature; and there appears to be evidence to prove that +there was that in his appearance which, at first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>sight, rather +repelled than attracted an audience. He felt these defects keenly, and +could not but wish sometimes that they were removed. But his habitual +and settled feeling about them was, that he ought to look upon them as +sources of strength rather than as weaknesses, because they made him +rely the more on the strength of Christ. This was an unfailing +resource, on which he felt that he could draw without limit. And so he +gloried in his infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon +him.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p>It might be said that it was only the enthusiasm of Paul which made +him attribute to Christ that which really belonged to himself. But his +own point of view is the just one. It was Christ who made him; and, if +we are to understand a ministry like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>his, we must try to measure the +influence of Christ upon him, or, in other words, investigate the +elements of his Christianity.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>1. Paul could claim that even in his pre-Christian days he had lived +in all good conscience towards both God and man. Yet this profession +of uprightness does not prevent him from confessing elsewhere that +deep down in his consciousness there had been a mortal struggle +between the principles of good and evil, in which the good was far +from always winning the victory: "We all," he acknowledges, "had our +conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the +desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children +of wrath even as others." In the seventh chapter of Romans he has +drawn a picture of this struggle, and it is to the very life. +Theologians have, indeed, disputed among themselves as to the stage of +experience there referred to—whether it is the state of an +unconverted or of a converted man. But the human heart has no +difficulty in interpreting it. The more thoroughly anyone is a man, +the more easily will he understand it; and especially the more upright +and conscientious anyone is, the more certainly must he have +experienced what is described in words like these, "That which I do I +allow not, for what I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>would that do I not, but what I hate that do +I"; "For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not +that I do"; "I find, then, a law that, when I would do good, evil is +present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; +but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my +mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my +members. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body +of this death?" Thus Paul had been a lost man, in hopeless bondage to +sin.</p> + +<p>But he had to repent of his own righteousness as well as of his sin. +He had inherited the passionate longing of the Jewish race for +fellowship with God—the longing expressed a hundred times in the +poetry of his fathers in words like these: "As the hart panteth after +the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God"; "My soul +thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear +before God?" He had been taught that the great prize of life is to be +well-pleasing to God, and he had learned the lesson with all the +passionate earnestness of his nature. Yet he never could attain to +that for which he longed. There always seemed to be a cloud on the +Divine face, and he was kept at a distance. Luther went through the +very same experience. His was also a passionately <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>religious nature, +and he strove with all his might to get into the sunshine of God's +face; but his efforts were entirely baffled. Wash them as he would, +his hands were never clean.</p> + +<p>What could an earnest nature do in such circumstances but seek to +bring still greater sacrifices? Probably this was the source of Paul's +zeal in the work of the persecutor. He was vindicating the honour of +God when he exterminated the enemies of God. The work must have gone +sorely against the grain of a nature as sensitive as his, especially +when he saw scenes, like the death of Stephen, in which the gentleness +and heroism of his victims shone out with unearthly beauty. But he +only flung himself more passionately into his task; because, the more +trying it was, the greater was the merit of doing it, and the more +certain was he of winning at last the full approval of God.</p> + +<p>This portion of Paul's career seems to be capable of complete +vindication on the ground of conscientiousness. Indeed, in reviewing +it, he stands sometimes on this point of view himself, and says that +God had mercy on him because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. But +oftener he thinks of it with overwhelming shame and remorse. The whole +course of life which had logically led up to work so inhuman in its +details and so directly in the face of God's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>purposes was +demonstrated by the issue to have been utterly ungodly. His thoughts +had not been God's thoughts nor his ways God's ways. The scenes of the +persecution, when, haling men and women, he cast them into prison; the +hatred and fury which in those days had raged in his breast; the +efforts which he had put forth to oppose the cause of Christ, which it +was his firm resolution to extinguish to its last embers—these +memories would never afterwards quit his mind. They kept him humble; +for he felt that he was the least of the apostles, who was not worthy +to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the Church of God. +He called himself the chief of sinners, and believed that God had in +his case exhaustively displayed the whole wealth of His mercy for a +pattern to all subsequent generations.</p> + +<p>The first element of St. Paul's Christianity, then, was the penitence +of a lost man and a great sinner, who owed to Christ the forgiveness +of his sins and the redemption of his life from an evil career. And he +believed that Christ had purchased these benefits for him by the +sacrifice of His own life.</p> + +<p>2. The second great element of St. Paul's Christianity was his +Conversion, which set a gulf between the portion of his life which +preceded and the portion which followed it. It was the chief date of +his life, and confronted him every time he looked back. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>Its influence +extended to every part of his experience; but perhaps its most +important effect was to set Christ up within him as a living Person, +of whose reality he was absolutely assured.</p> + +<p>Probably Paul's opposition to Christianity was from the first very +specially opposition to Christ Himself. When he struck at the +disciples, he was really striking at the Master through them. It is +easy to conceive what an affront the pretensions of Jesus must have +been felt to be by Paul. Jesus had been a man of about his own age—a +young man; he had sprung from the lowest of the people, being a +villager and mechanic; he had never sat in the schools of learning; +the men of ability and authority had had no hesitation in condemning +Him. That such a one should be esteemed the Messiah of the Jews and +worshipped as if He were Divine, raised a storm of indignation in the +heart of Paul.</p> + +<p>Probably nothing could have converted him except the miraculous +occurrence which God employed. Christ had to come to him in person and +in a visible shape—in the shape of the glorified humanity which He +wears somewhere in that empire of God which we call Heaven. Paul knew +the light in which he was enveloped to be a Divine light; the sound of +the voice calling him was the thunder which from of old had been +recognised by the race <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>to which he belonged as the voice of God; he +was looking straight up to the place of God; and in that place he saw +Jesus, whom he was persecuting. Most Divine of all, however, were the +sweetness, the clemency and the respect of the words in which he was +addressed. This Jesus, against whom he was raging, came to him, not +with corresponding rage, to take vengeance and destroy him, but with +winning words of truth and with the call to a high and blessed +vocation. It was this which broke the heart of Paul and attached him +to Christ forever.</p> + +<p>He always afterwards believed that what took place on this occasion +was what I have said—that Jesus of Nazareth descended from the right +hand of God to prove to him who He was and to claim him as His servant +and apostle—and never afterwards did he for a moment doubt that the +man whom his fellow-countrymen had crucified, and whom he himself had +persecuted, was seated on the throne of heaven, clothed with Divine +blessedness and omnipotence.</p> + +<p>Of course others have doubted this. It may be said that what Paul saw +was only a vision, and that therefore his new life was founded on a +mistake. I believe his own account to be the correct one; but perhaps +we need not dogmatize too much about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>what he saw; because it was not +in reality on any theory of this vision that his faith was founded. It +was not because he saw Christ that day with the bodily eye, or +believed he did so, that he became or continued a Christian; it was +because, trusting Christ, thus revealed, he obtained that for which he +had all his life been longing: he was no longer banished or kept at a +distance, but brought nigh to God; he was reconciled, and the love of +God was shed abroad in his heart. He had all his lifetime been asking +in despair, "What must I do to be saved?" but now he was saved. The +humiliating bondage in which his spiritual nature had been held was +dissolved, and, following Christ, he advanced from victory to victory.</p> + +<p>This is the test of all conversions; it is the best evidence of +Christianity; and it is the power of preaching. We believe in Christ +not only because there is sufficient historical evidence that He +existed eighteen hundred years ago and did such acts as proved that He +was sent from God, but because He proves Himself to be living now by +the transformation which He brings to pass in those who put their +trust in Him. We are certain that there is a Saviour, because He has +saved ourselves. I am happy to see that this evidence of our religion +is at present coming again to the front. One of your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>younger +scholars, Dr. Stearns of Bangor, Maine, has developed it, in a book +just published, with great breadth of theological knowledge; and a +former Yale lecturer, Dr. Dale of Birmingham, has given a telling +exposition of it at the same time.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> This is the vital force of +preaching. We are witnesses to Christ—not merely to a Christ who +lived long ago and did wonders, but to a Christ who is alive now and +is still doing moral miracles. And the virtue of any man's testimony +lies in his being able to say that he has himself seen the Christ whom +he preaches to others, and himself experienced the power which he +recommends others to seek.</p> + +<p>3. After his conversion the whole life of St. Paul was comprehended in +one word; and this word was Christ. There has often in modern times +been a Christianity which has contained very little of Christ. Mr. +Sage, of Resolis, one of whose quaint sayings I quoted in my last +lecture, has solemnly left it on record that, when he was a student at +Aberdeen, the Professor of Divinity, who was also Principal of the +University, in a three years' course of lectures on the principles of +the Christian religion, never once mentioned the name of Christ; and +in those times sermons were perfectly common in which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>there was not +the slightest allusion to the Saviour. In our day this is entirely +changed. Yet we are also surrounded with a Christianity which is +extremely vague. Almost every sentiment in which there is anything +devout or humane receives the name of Christian; and the question +which many are asking is how little it is necessary for one who claims +the Christian name to believe and profess. Even this question may, +indeed, in some cases indicate a state of mind far from unpromising, +which requires the utmost pastoral sympathy and skill; but, if we wish +to know what Christianity is in its power, we must not live in this +unhealthy region, but find a Christianity in which the distinctively +Christian element is not a minimum but a maximum. Such was St. Paul's +Christianity. Its most prominent peculiarity was that there was so +much of Christ in it. He expressed this in the characteristic saying, +"To me to live is Christ," which was only a Greek way of saying, To me +life is Christ; and, from whatever side we look at his life, we see +that this was true.</p> + +<p>Christ had obtained, and He retained, an extensive hold on his +emotional nature. St. Paul's was a large heart, and it was all +Christ's. We are shy of speaking of our personal feeling towards the +Saviour; and we probably feel pretty often that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>conventional +terms of affection for Him, which are made use of, for example, in the +hymns of the Church, transcend our actual experience. St. Paul, on the +contrary, has no hesitation in employing about Christ the language +commonly used to describe the most absorbing passion, when love is +filling life with a sweet delirium and making everything easy which +has to be done for the sake of its object. St. Paul's achievements and +self-denials were almost more than human; but his own explanation of +them was simple: "The love of Christ constraineth us." He had to +forego the prizes which to other men make life worth living; but what +did he care? "I count them but dung," he says, "that I may win +Christ." If only he retained one thing, he was willing to let all +others go: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall +tribulation or distress or persecution, 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 Jesus Christ our +Lord." These sound like the fervours of first love; but they are the +words of a man at the height of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>his powers. And in old age he was +still the same: still to him Christ was the star of life, and the hope +of being with Him had annihilated the terrors of death: "I am in a +strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, +which is far better."</p> + +<p>But Christ was enthroned in St. Paul's intellect no less than in his +heart. It was an intellect vast in its compass and restless in its +movements; but all its movements circled round Christ, and its most +powerful efforts were put forth to reach the full height of His glory. +Everyone acquainted with his writings knows how full of Christ they +are. What is technically called his Christology is both splendid and +profound; but, indeed, his whole thinking is Christological; he saw +the whole universe in Christ.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, however, we see even more suggestively how his whole mind was +occupied with this subject by observing the way in which the mere +incidental mention of the name of Christ sends him off into the most +sublime statements regarding Him. For example, when he is speaking to +husbands about loving their wives, the thought strikes him that this +love is like that of Christ to His people; and he breaks forth: +"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and +gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a +glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." In +like manner, happening to be recommending generosity, he thinks of the +generosity of Christ, and away he breaks into an incomparable +description of His descent from the throne of the Highest to the death +of the cross: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, +who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with +God," and so on; and, not content with following Him down, in +accordance with the thought with which he started, he pursues the +subject under the impulse of sheer love, following Him up to the +highest heaven: "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given +Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every +knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things +under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus +Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." When is it that the +mind thus starts off into a subject at any chance hint or suggestion, +pouring out the most astonishing ideas in the most felicitous +language? It is only when it is possessed with it, and when its ideas +are so hot and molten, that they are ready to avail themselves of any +outlet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>What may be called the inner or spiritual life of St. Paul may most of +all be said to have been all Christ. His own theory of this innermost +life is that it is a kind of living over again of the life of Christ: +we die with Him to sin; we are buried with Him in baptism; as He rose, +so we rise again to newness of life; He ascended to sit on the throne +of the Father, and we are seated with Him in heavenly places. He is +the very soil in which this life grows, and the atmosphere which it +breathes; a Christian is "a man in Christ," and all the functions of +his interior and even of his exterior life are performed in this +element: he speaks in Christ, he marries in Christ, he dies in Christ, +and in the resurrection he will rise in Christ.</p> + +<p>This is what would be called the mysticism of St. Paul; and doctrines +resembling this have sometimes been associated in religion with +fantastic speculation and unpractical dreaming. In St. Paul, however, +mysticism had no such results. If there was any part of his life on +which the influence of Christ was more conspicuous than another, it +was the practical part. To him any pretended connection or intercourse +with Christ in secret had no meaning unless its outcome was visible in +a Christlike life—"If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is +none of His."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>To his own person he applied this principle in the most rigorous +manner. Christ, he is fond of saying, lives in him; he almost speaks +as if in his flesh the Son of God had experienced a second +incarnation; but he relentlessly draws the practical conclusion. When +Christ lived in His own earthly tabernacle, what did He live for? It +was for the salvation of men; He went about continually doing good; He +lived to seek and save the lost. If so, then, living in St. Paul, He +must have the same purpose—to make use of his powers of mind and body +for the salvation of the world. In this way Christ was really still +carrying on the work which had been interrupted by His death. St. Paul +dares to say that he is filling up that which was lacking of Christ's +sufferings for the sake of His body, the Church. He says that the +heart of Christ is yearning after men in his heart; that the mind of +Christ is scheming for the kingdom of God in his brain; he even +compares the marks of persecution on his body to the wounds of Christ.</p> + +<p>There is nowhere else on record—at least there was not till St. Paul +had taught it to the Christian world—such a merging of one life in +another. And it is all the more remarkable when it is considered how +big and strong a nature St. Paul's was. If any other man might have +coveted an original <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>and independent life, surely he was entitled to +be something in the world; but he had utterly sunk himself into the +echo and the organ of Another.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>Gentlemen, I have taken up nearly the whole of the lecture with this +minute analysis of St. Paul's Christianity for two reasons.</p> + +<p>I have done so, first, because I wish to create in your minds a genial +estimate of the man himself whom I am setting up in this course of +lectures as the model for preachers. It is not uncommon to speak as if +the earliest apostles had been formed by their association with Jesus, +and, strong only in their affection for Him, had gone forth to tell +the world the simple story of His life and death; but St. Paul, being +a man of a colder nature and of strong intellectual proclivities, drew +Christianity away from the person of Jesus and transmuted it into a +hard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>intellectual system. I think I have proved that this is a +totally mistaken impression, which does gross injustice to the great +Apostle. None of the apostles, not even St. John, was more filled with +the glow of personal attachment to Christ. He had a larger nature than +any of them, but it was penetrated with this passion through and +through. Being of the intellectual type, he could not help thinking +out Christianity: but Christ entered into every thought he had about +it.</p> + +<p>The other reason why I have attempted to analyze so fully to-day the +Christian experience of St. Paul is because I believe that the great +motive of the ministry lies here—the very pulse of the machine.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>There are many motives which may go to constitute a powerful ministry +and enable us to rejoice in our vocation. I have dealt with some of +them already in this course of lectures. There is, for example, the +one with which I dealt in my last lecture, that the ministry gives +satisfying and exhilarating employment to all the powers of the mind. +There is, again, that which I mentioned in an earlier lecture, that +ours is a patriotic service: we are doing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>the very best for our +country when we are permeating its life with the spirit of true +religion. An aspect of the ministry which attracts many minds at +present is that it is a service to humanity; the heart and conscience +of the age are stirred by the misery of the poor, and this is the most +obvious and effective mode of rescue. These are inspiring motives; and +others might be mentioned. But far more important than them all is a +strong personal attachment to the Saviour. This is the motive of the +ministry which goes deepest and wears longest.</p> + +<p>It may have many roots. It may be rooted in impressive convictions +about the person of the Saviour and enthusiastic admiration of His +character. It may spring from a profound sense of the lost condition +from which He has rescued ourselves and of the destiny to which He has +raised us. It may be due most of all to the impression made on our +mind and heart by the sacrifice at the cost of which Jesus procured +salvation for us. And here the depth or shallowness of our theology +will be sure to tell. If our views are superficial either of the +difference which salvation has made to ourselves or of what Christ did +to constitute Himself the Saviour, the likelihood is that we shall +love little. It is the man who knows that he has been forgiven <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>much +and saved at a great cost, who loves much. And the amount of love is +the measure of sacrifice.</p> + +<p>In all ages this has been the secret of devoted lives. It has made the +great preachers—St. Augustine and St. Bernard, Luther and Wesley, +Samuel Rutherford and McCheyne. It has made those too who have not +been great in the eyes of men, but by their self-denying lives have +made the kingdom of God to come. In one of his sonnets Matthew Arnold +tells of meeting with a minister, "ill and o'erworked," on a broiling +August day in the East End of London, and asking him how he fared in +that scene of sin and sorrow. "Bravely," was the answer, "for I of +late have been much cheered with thought of Christ." It is said to +have been an actual incident.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> At all events, it is the explanation +of thousands of heroic lives passed in similar desperate situations. +At present the adherents of a humanitarian philanthropism are loud in +proclaiming the woes of the world, as if they had been the first to +discover them, and propounding schemes for their amelioration; but +their methods have all been anticipated by the humble followers of +Jesus; and nine-tenths of the genuine philanthropic work of the world +are being done by men and women who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>make no noise, but who cannot +help working for the ends of Jesus, because His love is burning in +their very bones, and because the life of Christ in them cannot help +manifesting itself after its kind. Down the Christian centuries there +has come floating a kind of hymn: the words are said to be by St. +Patrick: the sentiment may well be called the music to which the true +Church militant has always marched:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Christ with me, Christ before be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ behind me, Christ within me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ beneath me, Christ above me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ at my right, Christ at my left,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in the fort,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in the chariot seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in the poop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in every eye that sees me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ in every ear that hears me.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The most charming chapter of Adolphe Monod's <i>Saint +Paul</i> is on the subject of these two paragraphs. It is difficult to +quote from it, because one would like to quote it all; but I allow +myself the pleasure of borrowing these golden sentences: "C'est qu'en +dépit de tant de promesses faites à la foi, nous sommes toujours plus +on moins affaiblis par un reste de force propre, comme nous sommes +toujours plus on moins troublés par un reste de propre justice, que +les plus humbles eux-mêmes traînent partout avec eux. Cette +malheureuse force propre, cette éloquence propre, cette science +propre, cette influence propre, forme en nous comme un petit +sanctuaire favori, que notre orgueil jaloux tient fermé à la force +Dieu, pour s'y réserver un dernier refuge. Mais si nous pouvions +devenir enfin faibles tout de bon et désespérer absolument de +nous-mêmes, la force de Dieu, se répandant dans tout notre homme +intérieur et s' infiltrant jusque dans ses plus secrets replis, nous +remplirait jusqu'en toute plénitude de Dieu; par où, la force de +l'homme étant échangée contre la force de Dieu, rien ne nous serait +impossible, parce que rien n'est impossible à Dieu."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Stearns, <i>The Evidence of Christian Experience</i>; Dale, +<i>The Living Christ and the Four Gospels</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> "I feel most strongly that man, in all that he does or +can do which is beautiful, great or good, is but the organ and the +vehicle of something or some one higher than himself. This feeling is +religion. The religious man takes part with a tremor of sacred joy in +those phenomena of which he is the intermediary but not the source, of +which he is the scene but not the author, or rather the poet. He lends +them voice, hand, will and help, but he is respectfully careful to +efface himself, that he may alter as little as possible the higher +work of the Genius who is making a momentary use of him. A pure +emotion deprives him of personality and annihilates the self in him. +Self must perforce disappear when it is the Holy Spirit who speaks, +when it is God who acts. This is the mood in which the prophet hears +the call, the young mother feels the movement of the child within, the +preacher watches the tears of his audience. So long as we are +conscious of self, we are limited, selfish, held in +bondage."—<span class="sc">Amiel.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> As enthusiasm for Christ is the soul of preaching as far +as the preacher is concerned, so in a spiritual congregation there +will always be found a jealous desire for this element in what they +hear.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> See an article by the Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., in <i>The +Evangelical Magazine</i>, April, 1891.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Here may be introduced a few notes which are to me of +inestimable value. The happiness of my visit to the States, which was +great, was overshadowed at the close by the news of the death of the +best friend I had on earth—the Rev. Robert W. Barbour, of Bonskeid. +None who knew him will need to have it explained why I should think of +him at this point; because, while he had drunk deeply of the spirit of +the time and was possessed of a rare love for men, the deepest source +of the sacred extravagance with which he lavished himself and his many +talents on every good cause was nothing else than the passion for +Christ which I am trying in this lecture to illustrate. He took a warm +interest in this course of lectures, and sent me the following +Aphorisms on Preaching, to be used as I might think fit. I reproduce +them entire, as they came from him. Perhaps they were the very last +literary work he did:—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<p><i>The Book and the Library.</i> The preacher must be master of many books, +and servant of one.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span><i>Closet and Desk.</i> Study as though thou mightest preach for fifty +years; pray as though thou mightest preach for five.</p> + +<p><i>Divine and Human.</i> Speak as though the mouth were God's; but let the +voice be a man's.</p> + +<p><i>First and Second Aims.</i> All gifts (presence, voice, gesture, culture, +style, and so on) may be wings, if kept behind one's back; the moment +they are seen they become dead weights.</p> + +<p>Two strings to one's bow will do with any shafts but the arrows of the +King. Letters, the press, the lyre, the porch, must stand in the +background behind "this one thing."</p> + +<p>Think less and less of everything else, and more and more of thy +message.</p> + +<p><i>Aims and No Aims.</i> Aim at something, you will hit it; also draw your +bow at a venture.</p> + +<p>"<i>Make full proof of thy ministry.</i>" Try every method—writing, +reading, committing, extending, extemporising. Imitate every man, but +mimic none. Nothing makes a preacher like preaching.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whence comes it that my nature is subdued<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To that it works in, like the dyer's hand.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><i>Pulpit Form.</i> Respect your hearers. Do not gird at them; angle for +them—and agonize. Address yourself to one at a time—first to the man +in the pulpit. He who has hit himself first will not miss others. He +who trembles at the word of the Lord, men will tremble at his word. +(Borrowed) A preacher must either be afraid of his audience or his +audience of him.</p> + +<p><i>Janua Domini.</i> Always enter the pulpit by the Door (John x. 7).</p> + +<p><i>Contents and Omissions.</i> Put everything you can into every address. +Omit everything you can from every address.</p> + +<p>"<i>Faith cometh by hearing.</i>" Therefore, to begin with, be audible. The +Sermon on the Mount commences thus: "He opened His mouth" (Matt. v. +2).</p> + +<p><i>Time and Eternity.</i> Speak to men's fleeting hopes and passing +interests; speak also to their grey hairs and to their midnight hours.</p> + +<p><i>Ultimata.</i> Desire to prophesy (1 Cor. xiv. 1); covet to prophesy +(<i>ib.</i> 39); do not preach if thou darest be silent (1 Cor. ix. 16).</p> +</div></div> + + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_VIII" id="LECTURE_VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VIII.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS AN APOSTLE</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE VIII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS AN APOSTLE.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Gentlemen, in the two last lectures we have investigated two of the +principal sources—perhaps I might say the two principal sources—of a +minister's power—his manhood and his Christianity. These may be +called the two natural springs out of which work for men and God +proceeds. Out of these it comes as a direct necessity of nature. If +anyone is much of a man—if there be in him much fire and force, much +energy of conviction—it will be impossible for him to pass through so +great an experience as the reception of Christianity without making it +known; and, if he be much of a Christian—if there be in him much of +the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of self-sacrifice and +benevolence—it will be impossible for him to refrain from approaching +men in their sin and misery and endeavouring to communicate to them +the secret of blessedness. He will make but a poor minister who would +not be an earnest worker for God and man, even if he were not a +minister.</p> + +<p>These impulses were conspicuously strong in St. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>Paul. Yet there was +also another source from which he drew the motives of his ministry. +This was the fact that God had appointed him to the office of an +apostle and allotted him a specific sphere of activity as the apostle +of the Gentiles.</p> + +<p>The other two sources of motive are, as I have said, natural; this +one, on the contrary, is official. This may raise a prejudice against +it. So many and such grave mistakes have been made through regarding +official appointment as the only warrant for Christian work, to the +prejudice of the antecedent qualifications of a genuine and +sympathetic manhood and a deep personal Christianity, without which it +is nothing, that there is a disposition to ignore this kind of motive +altogether. But St. Paul acknowledges it. Although he was always, no +doubt, far more of a man and a Christian than an official, yet, in +reply to opposition, he insists with great vehemence on his apostolic +rank; and evidently he felt that this imposed on him additional +obligations to be earnest and faithful in the work to which his manly +and Christian instincts prompted him.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It is, indeed, of great consequence to anyone who has become a +Christian, and who begins to feel stirring in his breast those +impulses to serve God and bless the world which are native to the +Christian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>spirit, to obtain a definite sphere to fill and a definite +work to do. Otherwise these God-inspired impulses, expressing +themselves in mere words and sentiments, gradually decay through want +of exercise, or they are dispersed over so many objects that nothing +is done. But, when a special task is obtained, the force of these +sentiments is concentrated upon it and transmuted into actual work. +The Christian man says: Here is my own task; if I do not accomplish +it, no one else can; this is my corner in the great labour-field, +which I, and no one else, have to make fruitful and beautiful; I shall +be answerable to the Judge of all at the last for the manner in which +the work assigned to me is done.</p> + +<p>Such sentiments had a strong hold of the mind of St. Paul. One of his +commonest ways of thinking of his office was as a stewardship, which +he was administering, and for which by-and-by he would have to render +a reckoning. "And," says he, "it is required in stewards that a man be +found faithful."<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> Similarly, he thought of himself as a workman +with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>a certain portion of a temple to build; but the great Taskmaster +was coming round in the evening to inspect the work—ay, and even to +test it with fire; and, when that testing-time came, he desired to be +a workman not needing to be ashamed. All the work of his apostleship +appeared to him a curriculum which he had to cover before he could win +the prize of the Divine approval. This is his favourite figure of +speech, and he applies it in many directions.</p> + +<p>For example, the athlete in the racecourse has to keep himself in +training and to put every muscle on the stretch. So St. Paul felt the +obligation to put every power he possessed into his work. "Give +thyself wholly to them," he says to a young fellow-labourer about his +duties; and what he preached he practised. "Stir up the grace of God +that is in thee," he says to the same friend again; and he called on +his own nature continually for the utmost exertion of its powers. He +was always growing; but the increment of his faculty and influence +went all to the same object.</p> + +<p>An athlete in the games naturally laid aside every weight, divesting +himself of everything which might impede his running and rob him of +the prize. He dared not glance aside at any object which would take +his eye off the goal. So St. Paul sacrificed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>everything for the +Gospel's sake; he had but one end and no by-ends. He was often, +indeed, accused of aiming at some end of his own. With especial +persistency he was accused of avarice. It is very ludicrous now to +think of this great man having been supposed capable of so mean a +vice. But his motives were too high and pure to be intelligible to his +accusers, and they naturally attributed to him the motive which was +the strongest of which they were conscious themselves. But they only +brought out the true greatness of the man. He believed in the right of +preachers of the Gospel to live by the Gospel, and he looked forward +to the general recognition of this as soon as Christianity had +obtained a footing in the world. But he himself lived above all such +claims. He accepted support from his converts, indeed, and thanked God +for it, when he had good reason to think that his motives were +understood. But, where they were suspected or the success of the +Gospel seemed to be in any degree endangered by his acceptance of +money, he would not take a cent, but would rather sit up half the +night and work his fingers to the bone to earn his livelihood. There +is no sublimer scene in history than the great Apostle, who was +bearing the weight of Christianity on his shoulders and carrying the +future of the world beneath his robe, toiling with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>his hands for his +living by the side of Aquila and Priscilla, in order that he might +keep Christianity from being tarnished with the faintest suspicion of +mercenary motives.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, among the many attractions of our calling on which I should +like to congratulate you this is not the least, that it provides a +definite sphere for the exercise of the benevolent impulses which you +may feel as men and as Christians and, by exercising, develops them. +These impulses may be the strongest and most sacred in our nature. But +in other occupations, in the excitement and competition of life, they +are in great danger of being slowly extinguished. In our calling, on +the contrary, they receive constant opportunities of nurture and +development. Their healthy and spontaneous activity is the soul of +ministerial work; and this is stimulated by the sense of +responsibility to fill the sphere allotted to us and exhaust its +possibilities.</p> + +<p>But, besides the sense of duty, there is a stimulus of a still more +affecting kind which comes to a man when he is set over a congregation +of his own. When I first was settled in a church, I discovered a thing +of which nobody had told me and which I had not anticipated, but which +proved a tremendous aid in doing the work of the ministry. I fell in +love with my congregation. I do not know how otherwise to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>express it. +It was as genuine a blossom of the heart as any which I have ever +experienced. It made it easy to do anything for my people; it made it +a perfect joy to look them in the face on Sunday morning. I do not +know if this is a universal experience; but I should think it is +common. For my part, I like to meet a man who thinks his own +congregation, however small it may be, the most important one in the +Church and is rather inclined to bore you with its details. When a man +thus falls in love with his people, the probability is that something +of the same kind happens to them likewise. Just as a wife prefers her +own husband to every other man, though surely she does not necessarily +suppose him to be the most brilliant specimen in existence, so a +congregation will generally be found to prefer their own minister, if +he is a genuine man, to every other, although surely not always +entertaining the hallucination that he is a paragon of ability. Thus +to love and to be loved is the secret of a happy and successful +ministry.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Taking up the responsibilities of his office in the spirit which I +have described, St. Paul would have found any sphere, however limited, +laborious. But, in point of fact, the sphere allotted to him was an +enormous one. It was nothing less than the whole Gentile world.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>The known world was not, indeed, in that age, of anything like the +same dimensions as it is today. It consisted only of a narrow disc of +countries round the shores of the Mediterranean. Yet to any other man +the vocation to evangelize it all must have been bewildering and even +paralyzing. St. Paul, however, accepted it in all seriousness, and +ever afterwards, till the day of his death, he regarded the +populations of these countries as people to whom he owed the message +of the Gospel. Speaking of the two recognised divisions of the Gentile +world of that day, he says, "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the +barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise."</p> + +<p>Of course he did not live long enough to preach the Gospel to all the +inhabitants of even the little world of his day. Yet it is amazing to +think of the range of his labours. He preached in nearly all the great +cities of that world—in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Athens, Rome and +many others—his predilection for cities being obviously due to the +hope that, when Christ was made known in these crowded centres, the +sound of his doctrine would echo through the surrounding regions. And +this hope was justified. The cities in the province of Asia, for +example, to which St. John sent the letters in the beginning of +Revelation, were probably all evangelized from Ephesus by converts of +St. Paul, though he himself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>may have visited none of them but +Ephesus. The passion burned continually in his mind to get forward and +cover new ground. He could not bear to build on another man's +foundation. The wide unfulfilled provinces of his apostolate ever +called him on.</p> + +<p>His first journey was merely a circuit of the countries bordering to +the west and north on his own native Cilicia, and lay chiefly among +barbarians. But the second, after a still more extended tour among the +barbarians, brought him to the borders of that wonderful world of +culture and renown in which dwelt the Greeks as distinguished from the +barbarians. He was standing on the shore of Asia and looking across to +the shore of Europe. In Europe were the two great eyes of the Gentile +world—Athens and Rome—the one the centre of its wisdom and the other +of its power. How could the Apostle of the Gentiles help wishing to +preach the Gospel there? He crossed the narrow strait, and then +advanced from one Greek town to another, till he stood on the very +spot where Socrates had taught and Demosthenes thundered. In his third +journey he had to concentrate his work on Ephesus; because, like a +skilful general, he would not leave territory in the rear unconquered. +But Rome was now the aim of all his desires—Rome, the very citadel of +the world which he had to conquer. He approached it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>at last in the +garb of a prisoner and in a gang of prisoners. But, as we follow him, +we feel as if we were going with a victorious army to take part in a +grand triumph. Indeed, as you accompany this great spirit, this is +often the feeling you have. He had it himself. "Thanks be unto God," +he says, "who always causeth us to triumph." Only to his mind the +occupant of the car of victory was not himself, but Christ; he was +only a satellite, showering largess in the name of the Victor among +the crowd around the chariot-wheels.</p> + +<p>Such is the image of the Apostle which grows on the imagination as we +read his extraordinary life. Yet there was another side. To us now his +career is heroic and glorious; but to him, at the time, it was beset +with innumerable obstacles; and, wonderful as were his labours, more +wonderful still were his sufferings. He went from town to town +incessantly; but seldom did he leave any place without having been in +peril of his life. Sometimes the mob rose against him and only left +him when they had cast out of their town his apparently lifeless body, +as they would have flung away the carcase of a dog. Sometimes the +authorities apprehended him and subjected him to the rigour of the +law. But hear the catalogue of his sufferings from his own lips: "Are +they ministers of Christ? so am I: in labours <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>more abundant, in +stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft; of the +Jews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten +with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and +a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of +waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in +perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the +wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in +weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in cold and nakedness; +besides those things which are without, that which cometh upon me +daily, the care of all the churches." Yet, when he wrote this, he was +only midway in his career.</p> + +<p>These incidents are glorified now by the influence of time, but, when +they had to be endured, they were real and painful enough. To take but +a single instance, what must it have been to a man of such sensitive +honour and engaged only in doing good to be so frequently in the hands +of the police and in the company of malefactors? In his epistles he +cannot conceal the irritation caused by his "chain." Although in +victorious moods he felt himself, as we have seen, borne onwards in +triumph, in other moods he felt himself at the opposite extreme: "I +think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were +appointed to death; for we are made a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>spectacle unto the world and to +angels and to men; we are made as the filth of the world and are the +offscourings of all things"; the reference being to the gladiators +whose cheap lives were sacrificed to embellish the conqueror's +triumph.</p> + +<p>Yet it was never long before he could rally from such depression at +the thought of the cause in which he suffered all; and his habitual +mood, in the face of accumulating difficulties, was expressed in these +heart-stirring words, "None of these things move me, neither count I +my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy +and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify +the Gospel of the grace of God."</p> + +<p>It is good to linger beside one who was so faithful to his charge, so +hard a worker and so patient a sufferer. We may learn from these +extraordinary labours and sufferings to do honest work and to endure +hardness ourselves.</p> + +<p>Our sphere is, indeed, very different from his. His was so vast as to +be almost limitless; ours may be very circumscribed. He was +continually moving from place to place and encountering new people; we +may have to labour among the same handful of people for a lifetime. He +lived amidst daily novelty and excitement; we may have to fulfil an +existence of deep monotony. And all the disadvantages do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>not belong +to the large, difficult and dangerous lot. It may seem easy to be +faithful in a small sphere and to exhaust all its possibilities. But +the narrow lot has its trials as well as the wide one, and perhaps it +does not require less virtue to overcome them. A stronger sense of +duty may be needed to prepare an honest sermon week by week to a small +and comparatively ignorant congregation than to bear the brunt of +danger in an exposed post of the mission field.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>Nowhere can the ministry be easy if its responsibilities are realised +and its duties honestly discharged. Look forward, I would say to you, +to a labourious life. If you are thinking of the ministry otherwise, +you had better turn back. Ours is a more crowded existence than that +of any other profession.</p> + +<p>There is the work of study and preaching. I do not know the details of +a minister's week among you; but in Scotland ministers have, as a +rule, two discourses to prepare for Sunday, besides a lesson for the +Bible Class, which may involve as much work as a sermon; and we have +at least one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>week-day meeting at which a lengthy address is given. +For these four discourses subjects have to be found; materials for +exposition and illustration have to be collected; the mind has first +to make each subject its own and then to shape it into a form suitable +for popular effect. A sermon may sometimes, indeed, come in a flash, +and perhaps there is something of sudden discovery in the very best +work; but even then time is required to work out the thought and +enrich it with subsidiary thinking; and there are many discourses +which are of no value without extensive investigation and the patient +working-up of the quarried materials. Then follows the writing. This +will take at least six or eight hours for a discourse, and may easily +take much more. Many ministers do not write more than one discourse a +week fully out, and probably they are wise; but many write two. Here, +then, there is obviously ample work for a long forenoon on five days +of the week. I have always had to add the afternoon of Friday and +Saturday, and often the evening as well. Then comes the hard and +exciting work of Sunday. It is a religious duty to rest on Monday, as +we do not get the bodily rest of the Sabbath.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>There is the work of visitation. The sick and the bed-ridden must be +visited; and it is of enormous profit to visit the whole congregation +from house to house. As Dr. Chalmers said, the directest way to a +man's heart is generally through the door of his home. Acquaintance +with the actual circumstances of the families of the congregation +gives wonderful reality and point to the prelections of Sunday. Our +sermons must rise out of the congregation if they are ever to reach +down to it again. Here, it is evident, there is abundant work for the +afternoons which study leaves free. Many ministers have to add one or +two evenings, the evening being the best time to find their people at +home.</p> + +<p>There is a third mass of work of an exceedingly miscellaneous +character which absorbs much time and strength. It includes such +duties as performing the ceremonies at baptisms, marriages and +funerals; organizing the work of the congregation; attending church +courts and sitting on committees; serving on school boards and the +boards of benevolent societies; preaching from home and addressing the +meetings of neighbour ministers; writing official letters; raising +money; receiving visitors; writing for the press. It would be easy for +ministers in positions of any prominence to spend their whole time in +duties of this description, none of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>which might appear useless; so +great is the multitude of the claims which pour in from every side.</p> + +<p>I have said nothing of the time required for keeping abreast of the +literature of the day or for cultivating an intellectual specialty. It +is extraordinary what some of the busiest men achieve in this respect; +but it is only managed by an economy and even penury of time for which +a kind of genius is requisite. Of course there are seasons of the year +when the pressure of public engagements is not so great; and ministers +are allowed longer holidays than other professional men. A couple of +hours a day given from a holiday to great reading may shoot threads of +fresh colour through the whole web of a season's work. Nor have I said +anything of the time necessary for thinking over the devotional +portion of the service of the sanctuary, though in our churches, where +free prayer prevails, this deserves as careful attention as the +sermon.</p> + +<p>The glimpse which I have given you into the details of a minister's +week will help you to realise that the life which lies before you is a +labourious one. Of course the labour may be shirked. Ministers have +their time in their own hands; they have no office hours; and, I +suppose, a minister's life may be more ignobly idle than any other +professional man's. That is, if he has no conscience.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>How far a man who is conscientious and works hard may be justified in +devoting himself to one branch of ministerial work for which he has +special aptitudes or predilections, it is difficult to judge. Perhaps +the Protestant Church has failed in making use of special gifts. Some +eminent preachers, for example, neglect pastoral visitation;<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and +there are, I suppose, many ministers who keep out of more general +public work, because they have no taste for it. There may be some gain +in this; but there is also loss. When a preacher does not visit, he is +apt to become an orator, who dazzles but does not feed the flock. When +a minister keeps himself apart from public interests, the Church to +which he belongs is likely to be weak at that point.</p> + +<p>The most fatal neglect is that of study; and perhaps it is the +commonest. The part of our work which needs most moral resolution is +undoubtedly the sermon—to get it begun, studied, written and +finished. It requires the discipline of years in even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>the most +conscientious to win the mastery of themselves in this particular; and +it is probably at this point that three-fourths of all ministerial +failures take place. It is not the reading of the material bearing on +the subject which is difficult; indeed, this may be luxuriously +prolonged, till it is too late to think and write the sermon out. The +hard and sour toil lies in facing the sweat of thought and the +irksomeness of writing; although, when the difficulty is overcome, the +happiness and triumph of our calling lie here also.</p> + +<p>Of course this difficulty is greatest in the small sphere. Here the +temptation is, to be overcome by the monotony of the situation, to +allow the powers to stagnate, to feel that anything will do, and put +the people off with that which has cost no exertion. "I know," says +one who wields a trenchant pen,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> "how plausible the excuses are, +and I know what relaxation of study results in—laziness in the +morning, increasing excesses in the daily papers, increased interest +in gardening, several more pipes a day, and so forth. Breakfast comes +finally to its long-deferred end about ten; then there is a +consultation with the gardener, which is, of course, business, and +makes the idler feel that really his active habits are returning; then +two letters have to be answered; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>then, just as he means to go to his +study, he sees Mr. Fritterday passing, and before he has finished his +colloquy over the hedge with him, it is past midday. When he does get +to his study, <i>Macmillan</i> or <i>Blackwood</i> is lying on his table, and he +feels he cannot settle till he knows what is the fate of the heroine +of the current story, or his window overlooks the busy hayfield of his +neighbour, and he becomes ten times more interested in that work than +in his own; and so his whole forenoon is gone, and he is summoned to +dinner before he has earned his salt by one decent hand's turn."</p> + +<p>This kind of temptation, however, is not confined to the man in the +small and easy situation: it is the common temptation of all +ministers. Only in the city it comes in another form. The man who has +a large congregation and a little popularity is beset with calls from +every quarter to engage in every kind of duty outside his own sphere. +His doorbell never ceases ringing. Every applicant supposes his own +case the most important. There is a whirl of excitement, and there is +an exhilaration in being able in many ways to serve the public. But, +if the man gives up his habits of study, he is lost. His appearances +become commonplace; the public tire of him, and throw him aside as +ruthlessly as they have senselessly idolized him. Robert Hall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>used to +say that, when the devil saw that a minister was likely to be useful +in the church, his way of disposing of him was to get on his back and +ride him to death with engagements.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>To follow the course of St. Paul's labours and sufferings on the grand +scale produces an overwhelming impression of earnestness and devotion; +yet it is even more by entering into the minute details of his +activity that we find the apostle. One who has to deal with vast +masses is apt to overlook details; and it is so even in the work of +Christ. An evangelist, for example, moving from place to place and +surrounded with multitudes, may know very little of individuals. The +minister of a large congregation is exposed to the same temptation. +Indeed, we are all too desirous of crowds and too little occupied with +the units of which they are composed. But this is the greatest of all +mistakes. St. Paul, amidst the constant change of scene and the +pressure of large bodies of people in which he lived, never overlooked +individuals. In his speech to the elders of Ephesus he could challenge +them to bear witness that he had taught not only publicly but from +house to house, and had warned everyone night and day with tears. +While, like his Master, he was moved by the sight of a multitude <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>and +welcomed the opportunity of making known the glad tidings to many, he +was quite as ready to preach to the small company of women of whom +Lydia was one at the riverside or to the soldier to whom he was +chained in the Roman prison.</p> + +<p>St. Paul was never a mere evangelist. The evangelist's work is to deal +with the initial stage of the Christian life: he has to bring men to +decision; and, when this is done, he passes on, leaving to other +agencies whatever more may be required. An evangelist sometimes knows +very little of what becomes of his converts after he has quitted the +place. But St. Paul was as eager about this as about the first +impressions. However small the company of the converted might be, he +formed them into a Christian Church, and ordained elders in every +city. He often left an assistant behind to carry on and consolidate +the work which he had begun. When at a distance, he was always eager +for news about his churches. His epistles are full of such anxieties; +and, indeed, his epistles themselves are the best monument of his +pastoral care; for they were written to ask after the welfare of those +whom he had left behind, or to give counsel on points about which they +had consulted him. They brim over with the expressions of a tender and +heartfelt love. He is able to assure those to whom he is writing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>that +he is praying for them, and that not only in the mass but one by one. +He kept their faces and names alive in his memory by thus recalling +them at the throne of grace; and his life must have been one long +prayer about his work.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he lets the prayer which he has been offering slip through +his pen; and then we see how high was the ideal of Christian +attainment which he cherished on behalf of his converts. He was not +content that they had turned from their old sins and taken the first +steps in the Divine life. He longed to see them becoming creditable +specimens of Christianity and ornaments to the Church—complete men, +thoroughly furnished unto all good works. It was life itself to him to +hear of their progress: "Now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord." +And the crown to which he looked forward as the reward of all his +toils and sufferings was to be permitted at last to present the soul +of everyone of them as a chaste virgin to Christ.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, I believe that almost any preacher, on reviewing a ministry +of any considerable duration, would confess that his great mistake had +been the neglect of individuals. If I may be permitted a personal +reference: when, not long ago, I had the opportunity, as I was passing +from one charge to another, of reviewing a ministry of twelve years, +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>chief impression made on me, as I looked back, was that this was +the point at which I had failed; and I said to myself that henceforth +I would write Individuals on my heart as the watchword of my ministry.</p> + +<p>We make impressions in the church; but we do not follow them up, to +see that the decision is arrived at and the work of God accomplished; +and so they are dissipated by the influences of the world; and those +who have experienced them are perhaps made worse instead of better. It +is a very significant thing that is said of the pastor in our Lord's +parable—that he sought the lost sheep "until he found it." We seek: +we even seek labouriously and painfully: but we frequently leave off +just before finding.</p> + +<p>A minister told me that, on the Saturday evening before his first +Sunday in his first charge, the experienced minister who was to +introduce him to his people next day was strolling with him in the +vicinity of the village and talking about his duties, when they +chanced to pass a plantation of trees. Pointing to them, the aged +minister asked, "If you had to cut these trees down, how would you go +about it? would you go round the whole plantation, giving each tree a +single blow, and then go round them all again, giving each a second +blow"? "Well, no," he answered, "I think I should attack one tree and +cut at it till it came down; and then go on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>and do the same to a +second and a third, and so forth." "Well," said his experienced +friend, "that is the way you must do here. After you have been settled +a short time, you will discover which families and individuals are +most impressed by your first efforts, and you must devote yourself to +these susceptible souls, till you have won them thoroughly; and then +in their enthusiasm for yourself and their willingness to work for the +congregation you will have the best foundation for a successful +ministry."</p> + +<p>In a former lecture I spoke of the power of discerning in men and +women of every class and condition the humanity which is common to all +and speaking straight to that, without reference to the superficial +differences which distinguish class from class and one individual from +another. But ministerial sympathy has to embrace what is peculiar to +classes and individuals as well as what is common to all. Though St. +Paul, like his Master, had a powerful grasp of what is universal in +humanity, yet to the Jew he made himself a Jew, that he might gain the +Jew, and to them that were without law as without law, that he might +gain them who were without law; he was made all things to all men, +that he might gain the more.</p> + +<p>His persuasion obviously was, that God was trying, by His revelation +among those who possessed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>Written Word, and by His providence +among those who did not possess it, to lead His children by divers +ways to Himself; and his own duty was to join himself to each company +at the stage which it had reached and offer to become its conductor. +The Jew was more advanced, and he met him where he was; the Gentile +was further behind, and he had to go back and approach him also where +he stood, that he might win his confidence and be allowed to lead him +on.</p> + +<p>This is the persuasion which gives a minister faith in his own work. +The souls of men are God's. His providence is a discipline intended to +lead them to Himself; there are none with whom His Spirit does not +strive. And it is only as our work co-operates with His that it is of +any effect. Where God has been working, opening and softening the +heart, very simple efforts, put forth at the right moment, may go a +long way, and the work of God be quickly done.</p> + +<p>What situation could be more pathetic to a sensitive and sympathetic +mind than that of a minister when he stands up in the pulpit and looks +down on the congregation? What a variety of conditions are before him! +In one pew there is a man who during the week has been fighting a +losing battle with his business and sees himself on the verge of +bankruptcy; in the next may be a merchant into whose lap <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>fortune has +been pouring her gifts in handfuls. Here is a mother who is thinking +of her son who has just left his home and is sailing on the sea; and +there a girl whose heart is rejoicing in the happy dreams of youth. On +the right may be a young man who is trembling on the brink of the +great temptation of his life, and on the left another who is reeking +from some orgy of secret sin. There is endless variety; yet none are +uninteresting; and probably there is no one but, if you could meet him +exactly where he stands, would respond to the influence which you +bring. It arrests men when you are able to show such a knowledge of +the human heart that they feel themselves discovered; and it disposes +a man to answer to your call if he sees that you are familiar with the +circumstances in which he will have to lead the life to which you are +inviting him, and that you appreciate the difficulties of the +situation. Therefore the more a minister knows of the variety of +actual life the better; and, if he is to do really effective work, he +must know how to come down from the pulpit and put himself alongside +of individuals.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>Here I might again recommend the work of visitation and the practice +of being accessible at home to the visits of those who come with +confidences to communicate; but let me rather close this lecture with +a word or two on some of the more favourable opportunities which +ministerial life affords for direct dealing with individuals.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>One of the best opportunities of this kind is when parents come +seeking baptism for their children. When you are speaking in their +children's interest, men will welcome an amount of faithfulness which +they would not endure at other times. You can show how much their +children's welfare in time and eternity may depend on their own +religious condition; you can urge the duty of family worship; and you +must have very little skill if you cannot get very close to their +hearts. Especially when a man comes about the baptism of his first +child, he is perhaps in the most favourable state for an earnest talk +in which you can ever find him. His soul is opened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>with tenderness +and overawed with the mystery of life; he is longing with his whole +heart to do his best for his child; and, if you show him that the best +he can do for it is to become connected with the great source of holy +influence himself, there is no other occasion on which a good +impression is more likely to be made.</p> + +<p>The other opportunity which I should like to mention is when the young +come to join the Church. I well remember that, when I was a student, +there was no part of a minister's duty to which I looked forward with +so much fear and trembling as this; for I had the conviction, which I +still have, that it is our duty at this crisis to bring the question +of personal salvation in the most direct and solemn way before every +intending communicant, and that it is ministerial treason to let the +opportunity slip. Some of you may be looking forward to this with the +same feelings; and, therefore, I am happy to tell you that in practice +it is not nearly so difficult as it seems at a distance. The +applicants themselves expect you to be faithful; if you are, they will +honour you for it, and, if not, they will be disappointed. If they get +the opportunity, they are far franker than you would expect. No doubt +it is delicate work, and one has to guard against harshness and +anything <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>inquisitorial; but it yields the most blessed results. This +is the harvest-time of the minister's year, when he sees that his +labour is not in vain. Even one such close talk, brought about in this +way or otherwise, casts a glow of reality into one's work which does +not pass away for weeks; and, if a minister is so highly honoured as +to receive many of these confidences, he acquires a skill in laying +his finger on the very pulse of his hearers' deepest life which +nothing else can give.</p> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> An indication of the intensity with which St. Paul's +mind worked upon the subject of the ministry is to be found in the +number and variety of his metaphors for it. The following are those +which I have noted, but there may be more—nurse (1 Thess. ii. 7), +father (1 Cor. iv. 15), gardener (1 Cor. iii. 6), labourer (1 Cor. +iii. 9), builder (1 Cor. iii. 10), servant (1 Cor. iv. 1), bondman (2 +Tim. ii. 24), steward (1 Cor. iv. 1), ambassador (Eph. vi. 20), +soldier (1 Tim. vi. 12), herald (1 Tim. ii. 7), shepherd (Acts xx. +28), workman (2 Tim. ii. 15), athlete (1 Tim. iv. 7), vessel (2 Tim. +ii. 21).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "Go where you can do most <i>for</i> men, not where you can +get most <i>from</i> men.</p> + +<p class="noin">"Be more concerned about your ability than about your opportunity, and +about your walk with God than either.</p> + +<p class="noin">"Your sphere is where you are most needed.</p> + +<p class="noin">"There is no place without its difficulties: by removing you may +change them, it may be you will increase them; but you cannot escape +them."—<span class="sc">Prediger.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> "A sermon which costs little is worth as much as it has +cost. Yet measure not the value of the sermon by the length and +hardness of your labour."—<span class="sc">Dupanloup.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> The first Sunday I was in America, I worshipped in the +churches of Rev. Dr. W.M. Taylor and Rev. Dr. John Hall, who are, I +suppose, the two most eminent ministers of New York; and I was +astonished to hear both of them intimate that they would visit in +certain streets during the week. There are no ministers anywhere more +immersed than these in every kind of public duty; yet they find time +for regular pastoral visitation. On coming home, I mentioned this fact +to an equally eminent minister in my own country. "Well," said he, +"when I came to the city, the elders of my congregation advised me not +to visit, and I followed their advice; but it was the worst advice I +ever got."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Dr. Marcus Dods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> "Get others to talk: what a man says to you has more +influence upon him than all you can say to him.</p> + +<p class="noin">"It is not the time of sickness so much as the time of convalescence +that decides the future life. Remember this, and seize +opportunities."—<span class="sc">Prediger.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> "Much of the Gospels is taken up with conversations +between Christ and individuals. Teaching so startling and difficult as +His, with such an element in it of attraction and hope, naturally drew +around Him many who sought to know further what this Gospel meant. He, +on His part, was as eager to meet inquirers as they were to seek Him; +and we find that He bestowed as much care and pains in expounding the +nature of His kingdom to individuals as He did when He was speaking to +great multitudes. The audience, if small, was fit. Not only so, but we +find that He put Himself in the way of individuals."—<span class="sc">Nicoll</span>, +<i>The Incarnate Saviour</i>.</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LECTURE_IX" id="LECTURE_IX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LECTURE IX.</h3> + +<h3>THE PREACHER AS A THINKER</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>LECTURE IX.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE PREACHER AS A THINKER.</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Gentlemen, in the foregoing lectures I have adverted very little to +the studies, in preparation for the work of the ministry, with which +you are at present occupied. Indeed, I have rather ostentatiously kept +to a standpoint at some distance from the academic one, for reasons +which I explained in the opening lecture. But the clue which I have +endeavoured faithfully to follow has brought us at last to this point +also; and I welcome the opportunity of saying something about the more +intellectual aspects of our work. The subject to-day is the Preacher +as a Thinker.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>In my last lecture I spoke of the vast sphere of operations assigned +to St. Paul and of the almost superhuman exertions which he made to +fill it. But what did he exert himself to fill it with? It was not +merely to overtake the ground and be himself present in so many +countries and cities that he was so zealous. That which drove him on +was the glorious message of which he was the bearer, with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>sound +of which he desired to fill the world. He often combines these two +ideas in his writings—that the Gentile world had been committed to +him as a trust, to care for the souls which it contained, and that the +Gospel had been committed to him as a trust, to be communicated to the +Gentiles. These two things were included in his apostolate—on the one +hand, the care of the heathen world, and, on the other, the +publication of the Gospel.</p> + +<p>Of course he had not, like the original apostles, heard the Gospel +from the lips of Christ; but he had received it directly from Christ +in some other way; and you know how vigorously he claimed that he had +not received it from man and was not indebted to the other apostles +for it. He frequently calls it his own gospel, and he maintains it to +be as authentic and authoritative as that preached by any of the other +apostles. How it was revealed to him we cannot tell. This is the same +mystery as we encountered in studying the prophets of the Old +Testament. Both prophets and apostles speak with a knowledge of the +mind and will of God which has a certainty and authority peculiar to +their writings. We ought to speak, if we speak at all, with certainty +and authority too; but there is a difference between ours and theirs. +I know how difficult it is to define the difference; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>we cover it up +with the vague word Inspiration; but I do not see any use in hiding +from ourselves that it exists.</p> + +<p>Admitting, however, that there is this mystery, yet we can see, in +some respects, how the truth, when it came, dealt with St. Paul, and +how his mind was exercised about it; and in these respects he is not +beyond our imitation.</p> + +<p>What I wish to emphasize in this lecture is, that Christianity did +specially lay hold of him in the region of the intellect. It is meant +to lay hold of all parts of the inner man—the feelings, the +conscience, the will, the intellect; and it may lay hold of certain +people more fully in one part of their being and of others in another +according to their constitutional peculiarities. Some suppose—and +perhaps they are not far wrong—that the first preaching of the Gospel +consisted of little more than the simple story of the life and death +of Jesus; that those who heard it sympathetically began forthwith to +live new lives in imitation of Christ; and that this was the most of +their Christianity. In a fine and peculiar nature like that of St. +John, again, the Gospel caught hold chiefly in the region of the +emotions; and his Christianity was a mystical union and fellowship +between the Saviour and the soul. St. Paul was not by any means +deficient in the other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>elements of humanity; but he was conspicuously +strong in intellect. That is to say, he was one of those natures to +which it is a necessity to know the why and the wherefore of +everything—of the universe in which they live, of the experiences +through which they pass, of the ends which they are called upon to +pursue. This natural tendency was strengthened by the training of an +educated man. And therefore the Gospel came to him as a message of +truth, which cleared up the mysteries of existence and presented the +universe to the mind as a realm of order.</p> + +<p>St. Paul often expresses the intense intellectual satisfaction which +Christianity brought him, and the joy he experienced in applying it to +the solution of the problems of life. The light which Christianity +cast on the universe was to him, he says, like the morning of +creation, when God said, Let there be light, and there was light. +Before, all was darkness and chaos, but then all became sunshine and +order. He often speaks with wondering gratitude of the fact that the +mystery which had been hidden from ages and from generations had been +revealed to him: Eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had entered +into the heart of man, the things which God had prepared for them that +love Him, but God had revealed them unto him by His Spirit. And by +this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>mystery he meant the tangle of God's providence in history, +which the coming of Christ disentangled and smoothed out into a web +whose pattern the mind could discern.</p> + +<p>Having himself received Christianity as an intellectual system, he +very specially addressed himself to the intellect of others. The door +of the kingdom of heaven, it has been beautifully said, can only be +opened from the inside; but to that observation this other may be +added, that in a sense there are many doors, but each man can only +open to others the one by which he has entered himself. Christianity +had come to St. Paul as the truth about God and the world and himself. +There was plenty of emotion besides; but the emotion for him came +after the clear intellectual conviction and sprang out of it. And he +expected that others would receive Christianity in the same way. +Therefore he never spared the minds of those he addressed; he expected +them to think; and he would have said that, if they would not open and +exert their minds, they could not receive Christianity.</p> + +<p>I hardly know anything more puzzling than the audacity with which he +cast himself on the minds of his hearers and trusted them to +understand him, when he was thinking his strongest and his deepest. +Imagine an epistle of his arriving in Rome or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>Ephesus, and read out +in the audience of the church for the first time. Who were the +hearers? The majority of them were slaves; many had till a short time +before been unconcerned about religion; in all probability not a tithe +of them could read or write. Yet what did Paul give them? Not milk for +babes; not a compost of stories and practical remarks; but the Epistle +to the Romans, with its strict logic and grand ideas, or the Epistle +to the Ephesians, with its involved sentences and profound mysticism. +He must have believed that they would understand what he wrote, though +scholarship has considered it necessary to pile up a mountain of +commentaries on these epistles. Christianity, as it went through the +cities of the world in St. Paul's person, must have gone as a great +intellectual awakening, which taught men to use their minds in +investigating the profoundest problems of life.</p> + +<p>How deeply he was interested in the intellectual reception of the +Gospel is shown by the earnestness with which he prays that his +converts may excel in mental grasp of the truth. "I pray," he says, +"that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all +judgment." And again he says, "Making mention of you in my prayers, +that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give +unto you the spirit of wisdom and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>revelation in the knowledge of Him, +the eyes of your understanding being enlightened," etc.</p> + +<p>But nothing proves so clearly the value which he set on this element +of Christianity as his earnestness that his version of the Gospel +should be kept pure and entire. He called upon younger ministers, like +Timothy and Titus, to guard it as a precious treasure and to transmit +it to faithful men who would be able to teach others also. It filled +him with the most poignant anxiety and pain when the minds of his +converts were assailed with doctrines subversive of the truth which he +had taught. He had to encounter assaults of this kind coming from the +side of orthodoxy as well as of heterodoxy, and no small portion of +his energy had to be expended in refuting them. You remember, for +example, with what a heat of zeal and affection he cast himself on the +Galatians, when they had lent an ear to false teachers: "O foolish +Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" "If any man preach any other +gospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be +accursed."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Gentlemen, you are going to be teachers of Christianity, and this +implies that you should yourselves have mastered it in thought. A +certain number of people will be more or less dependent on you for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>the view they have of Christianity; and this really means the view +they have of all the most important and solemn objects of existence; +for to them all things will be comprehended in Christianity; and on +you will largely depend whether this view is true or false, narrow or +noble.</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance to men and women of +their fundamental convictions about this universe in which they live. +There is current, indeed, at present a way of speaking about the +intellect, as if, while all the other faculties have to do with +religion, it were only an intruder; and there is a way of speaking +about definite religious truth which really implies, if any strict +meaning is to be attached to it, that in religion, when the truth is +not found, the opposite may answer quite as well; and yet, strange to +say, this language is usually to be heard from the lips of those who +make special claims to intellectuality and affect to be the special +champions of truth. But the intellect is a noble faculty and has an +important office in religion. It is, properly speaking, antecedent to +both feeling and will; and what is put into it determines both what +feeling and choice will be. People are often, indeed, swept into the +Church on some current of feeling; and the pressure on every side of +the Christian society, along with the examples of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>superior +Christians, does much to develop the religious nature; but probably in +the great crises of temptation, when a flood of passion or some great +worldly opportunity is about to sweep a man away from his connection +with Christ, that which keeps hold of him is the force of +conviction—if the roots of his mind have gone deep down and clasped +themselves about the great verities of the faith. Our Lord Himself +called the truth the foundation on which the whole structure of life +is built. All that a man is and does depends, in the last resort, on +what he knows and believes. It will be a calamity for your hearers, if +from your preaching they are not able by degrees to put together in +their minds a conception of Christianity both true and elevating, +which will supply them with the fundamental principles of their life.</p> + +<p>Besides this sacred obligation to our people, there is the obligation +to the truth itself. This was felt by St. Paul profoundly. A +revelation of Christianity had been committed to him, and he had to +present it in all its splendour and apply it to all the details of +life. So the Word of God is committed to us, and we are responsible +for delivering its whole message. If we take up a single text of the +Bible, our merit as preachers lies in bringing out attractively and +comprehensively the truth which it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>contains. It would be considered +still more meritorious to present the whole message contained in a +book of the Bible; and it would be quite in accordance with the +theological fashion of the time if a preacher were able to show that +he was master of some single section of Scripture, say, the Prophets +of the Old Testament or the writings of St. John. I do not know why we +should hesitate about the next step, which, if we have gone so far, we +are logically bound to take—the mastery of the message of the Bible +as a whole. This is what we are responsible for. The Bible is the +message of the mind and will of the loving and redeeming God; and this +we are bound to deliver in such a way that neither its truth nor its +glory will suffer in our hands.</p> + +<p>How this is to be done, of course it requires wisdom to decide, and +there will doubtless be different ways for different men and for +different times. In a former generation a president of this +college<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> preached in the College Chapel straight through the +doctrines of Christianity, taking them up one by one in systematic +order; and his book was long a model to preachers both in this country +and Great Britain. He was preaching to an academic audience, and there +are probably few congregations for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>which such a course would be +suitable now; although I know at least one able young minister in a +country village who has been pursuing this method from the +commencement of his ministry. Once a month he gives a sermon of the +course; perhaps his people do not know that he is doing so; but he is +giving his own mind the discipline of investigating the doctrines of +Christianity in their order; and I am certain both that he himself is +growing a strong man in the process and that his people, though +unconsciously, are getting the benefit of it. In the Lutheran and +Episcopal Churches the observance of the Christian festivals gives +occasion for regularly bringing the circle of the grand Christian +facts before the minds of the people. We have not this guidance; but a +faithful minister is bound to make sure that he is preaching with +sufficient frequency on the leading Christian facts and doctrines, and +that he is not omitting any essential element of Christianity.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<p>Not unfrequently ministers are exhorted to cultivate extreme +simplicity in their preaching. Everything ought, we are told, to be +brought down to the comprehension of the most ignorant hearer, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>and +even of children. Far be it from me to depreciate the place of the +simplest in the congregation; it is one of the best features of the +Church of the present day that it cares for the lambs. I dealt with +this subject, not unsympathetically I hope, in a former lecture. But +do not ask us to be always speaking to children or to beginners. Is +the Bible always simple? Is Job simple, or Isaiah? Is the Epistle to +the Romans simple, or Galatians? This cry for simplicity is +three-fourths intellectual laziness; and that Church is doomed in +which there is not supplied meat for men as well as milk for babes. We +owe the Gospel not only to the barbarian but also to the Greek, not +only to the unwise but also to the wise.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> + +<p>I do not believe, however, that it is only in cultured congregations +that this element of preaching is required. There is no greater +mistake than to suppose that you will drive the common man away from +the Church by strong intellectual preaching. You will do so no doubt +if you preach over his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>head,<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> and use a language which he does not +understand. You must find him where he is, and either speak to him in +his own language or teach him yours by slow degrees. But, if you +accommodate yourself to him so far, you will find him alert and +willing to accompany you; you will find that he has not only sturdy +limbs for climbing, but even wings for soaring to the heights of +truth.</p> + +<p>A greater difficulty lies in the preacher himself. At the beginning of +his ministry he may be encumbered with doubts and far from clear in +his faith. This is a real obstacle, and the first years of ministerial +life may be a time of great perplexity and pain. I suspect our +congregations have often a good deal to suffer while we are +endeavouring to preach ourselves clear. It is vicarious suffering; for +they do not know what is perplexing us. They have to stand by and look +on while their minister is fighting his doubts. But, if he is a true +man, it is worth their while to wait. If these are the pangs of +intellectual birth, and the truth is merely divesting itself of a +traditional form in order to invest itself in a form which is his own, +he will preach with far greater power when the process is complete, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>and he is able to speak with the strength of personal conviction.</p> + +<p>But, gentlemen, it is important for you to see that your opening +ministry is not enveloped in mist simply because you have never made a +real study of Christianity. This, I am afraid, is the commonest source +of a vague theology. In a former lecture I have recommended a wide +acquaintance with the masterpieces of literature; but some able men at +college substitute this for the studies of their profession; and this +is a fatal mistake. Literature ought to be a supplement to these, not +a substitute for them. I have watched the subsequent career of more +than one student who had pursued this course; and I must say it is not +encouraging. Their supply of ideas soon runs out; their tone becomes +secular; and the people turn away from them dissatisfied.</p> + +<p>A student ought, while at college, to make himself master of at least +one or two of the great books of the Christian centuries in which +Christianity is exhibited as a whole by a master mind. If I may be +allowed to mention my own experience, it happened to me, more by +chance, perhaps, than wise choice, to master, when I was a student, +three such books. One was Owen's work on <i>The Holy Spirit</i>, another +Weiss' <i>New Testament Theology</i>, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>third Conybeare and Howson's +<i>Life and Epistles of St. Paul</i>. Each of these may be said, in its own +way, to exhibit Christianity entire, and I learned them almost by +heart, as one does a text-book. I was not then thinking much of +subsequent benefit; but I can say, that each of them has ever since +been a quarry out of which I have dug, and probably I have hardly ever +preached a sermon which has not exhibited traces of their influence.</p> + +<p>There is another valuable result which will follow from the early +mastery of books of this kind. You will be laying the foundation of +the habit of what may be called Great Reading, by which I mean the +systematic study of great theological works in addition to the special +reading for the work of each Sunday. Week by week a conscientious +minister has to do an immense amount of miscellaneous reading in +commentaries, dictionaries, etc., in connection with the discourses in +hand; but, in addition to this, he should be enriching the subsoil of +his mind by larger efforts in wider fields. It is far from easy to +carry this on in a busy pastorate; and it is almost impossible unless +the foundation has been laid at college.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>One more hint I should like to give: it is a reminiscence from a +casual lecture which I listened to when a student and profited by. +Besides attending to theological studies in general, one ought to have +a specialty. The minister, and even the student before he leaves +college, should be spoken of as the man who knows this or that. +Perhaps the best specialty to choose is some subject which is just +coming into notice, such as, at present, Comparative Religion, or +Christian Ethics, or, best of all, Biblical Theology. Such a +specialty, early taken up, is like a well dug on one's property, which +year by year becomes deeper. All the little streams and rivulets of +reading and experience find their way into it; and almost unawares the +happy possessor comes to have within himself a fountain which makes it +impossible that his mind should ever run dry.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Of course I cannot attempt to give here even the slightest sketch of +the doctrinal system of St. Paul; but there are two characteristics of +it which I should like to mention in closing, as they are essential to +the right management of the element of preaching with which I have +occupied you to-day.</p> + +<p>The thinking of St. Paul went hand in hand with his experience. His +Christianity began in a great experience, in which he discovered the +secret of life <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>and found peace with God. He set his mind to reflect +upon this, so as to comprehend how it came about and what it involved; +and the theology of the first part of his apostolate was nothing but +the result of these broodings under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. +These in their turn, however, brought him still nearer to God and +closer to Christ; and so he obtained new and deeper experiences, of +which the doctrines of his more advanced life are again the +exposition. Thus his thinking was both experimental and progressive. +If his Epistles be arranged in chronological order, it will easily be +seen that there is a splendid growth in his theology from first to +last. He never, indeed, gave up the doctrines of his earlier life; +there is no inconsistency between one part of his writings and +another; but neither his experience nor his thinking ever stood still; +he made his first doctrines the foundations on which he reared a +structure which was rising higher and higher to the very close of his +life.</p> + +<p>St. Paul had the heartiest scorn for intellectualism in religion +divorced from experience; and it cannot be denied that it is this +divorce which has brought contempt on the intellectual element in +preaching. When doctrine is preached as mere dogma, imposed as a form +on the mind of the preacher from without, no wonder it is dry and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>barren. It is when the preacher's own experience is growing, and he is +coming up with the doctrines of Christianity one by one as the natural +expression for what he knows in his deepest consciousness to be true, +that he utters the truth with power. Never, perhaps, is a sermon so +living as when the preacher has found out the truth during the week as +a novelty to himself, and comes forth on Sunday to deliver it with the +joy of discovery.</p> + +<p>The other feature to which I wish to draw attention is the perfect +balance in St. Paul of the doctrinal and the ethical. If reproach has +been cast on the intellectual element in preaching by its want of +connection with experience, this has been done no less by its want of +connection with conduct. But St. Paul is not open to this reproach. +This is made clear by the very external form of his writings. An +Epistle of St. Paul is divided into two parts, the first containing +doctrines and the second practical rules for the conduct of life; and +not unfrequently the two parts are of about equal length.</p> + +<p>But the connection is far closer than this. In St. Paul's mind all the +great doctrines of the Gospel were living fountains of motives for +well-doing; and even the smallest and commonest duties of every-day +life were magnified and made sacred by being connected with the facts +of salvation. Take <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>a single instance. There is no plainer duty of +every-day life than telling the truth. Well, how does St. Paul treat +it? "Lie not one to another," he says, "seeing ye have put off the old +man with his deeds." Thus truthfulness flows out of regeneration. +Treating of the same subject again, he says, "Lie not one to another, +for ye are members one of another," deriving the duty from the union +of believers to one another through their common union with +Christ.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Thus does St. Paul everywhere show great principles in +small duties and stamp the commonest actions of life with the image +and the superscription of Christ.</p> + +<p>This balance between the doctrinal and the moral is difficult to +maintain. Seldom has the mind of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>Church been able to preserve it +for any length of time. It has oscillated from one kind of +one-sidedness to another, sometimes exalting doctrines and neglecting +duties and at other times preaching up morality and disparaging +doctrine. To which side the balance may be dipping at the present time +among you I do not know; but among us, I should say, it was from +doctrines towards duties.</p> + +<p>Perhaps in the last generation we had too much preaching of doctrine, +or rather I should say, too little preaching of duty. Younger +preachers are beginning to dwell much on a nobler conception of the +Christian life, and there is a strong demand for practical preaching. +Undoubtedly there is room for a healthy development in this direction. +Yet this is a transition about which our country has good cause to be +jealous; because it passed through a terrible experience of the +effects of preaching morality without doctrine. I question if in the +whole history of the pulpit there is a document more worthy of the +attention of preachers than the address which Dr. Chalmers sent to the +people of his first charge at Kilmeny, when he was leaving it for +Glasgow. It is well known that for seven years after his settlement in +this rural parish he was ignorant of the Gospel and preached only the +platitudes of the Moderate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>creed; but, the grace of God having +visited his heart, he lived for other five years among his people as a +true ambassador of Christ, beseeching them in Christ's name to be +reconciled to God. This is his summing up of the results of the two +periods:—</p> + +<p>"And here I cannot but record the effect of an actual though +undesigned experiment, which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years +among you. For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the +meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable +arts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character +which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the +pests and the disturbers of human society. Now, could I, upon the +strength of these warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up +his stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and the liar +his deviations from truth, I should have felt all the repose of one +who had gotten his ultimate object. It never occurred to me that all +this might have been done, and yet the soul of every hearer have +remained in full alienation from God; and that, even could I have +established in the bosom of one who stole such a principle of +abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty that he was prevailed upon to +steal no more, he might still have retained a heart as completely +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>unturned to God and as totally unpossessed by a principle of love to +Him as before. In a word, though I might have made him a more upright +and honourable man, I might have left him as destitute of the essence +of religious principle as ever. But the interesting fact is, that +during the whole of that period in which I made no attempt against the +natural enmity of the mind to God; while I was inattentive to the way +in which this enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the one +hand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the Gospel +salvation; while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature +stands afar off, is brought near to the heavenly Lawgiver, whom he has +offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as +stripped Him of all the importance of His character and His offices; +even at this time I certainly did press the reformations of honour and +truth and integrity among my people; but I never once heard of any +such reformations having been effected amongst them. If there was +anything at all brought about in this way, it was more than ever I got +any account of. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with which I +urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life had the weight of +a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not till +I got impressed by the utter alienation of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>heart in all its +desires and affections from God; it was not till reconciliation to Him +became the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial +exertions; it was not till I took the Scriptural way of laying the +method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer +of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their +acceptance, and the Holy Spirit, given through the channel of Christ's +mediatorship to all who ask Him, was set before them as the unceasing +object of their dependence and their prayers; in one word, it was not +till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and +essential elements in the business of a soul providing for its +interest with God and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard +of any of those subordinate reformations which I aforetime made the +earnest and the zealous, but, I am afraid, at the same time the +ultimate object of my earlier ministrations. Ye servants, whose +scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice, and drawn forth in +my hearing a delightful testimony from your masters, what mischief you +would have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacraments been +accompanied by the sloth and the remissness, and what, in the +prevailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted the allowable +purloining of your earlier days. But a sense of your Heavenly Master's +eye has brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>another influence to bear upon you; and, while you +are thus striving to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all +things, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the land +to the acknowledgment of the faith. You have at least taught me that +to preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality in +all its branches; and out of your humble cottages have I gathered a +lesson, which I pray God I may be enabled to carry with all its +simplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring with all the power of +its subduing efficacy upon the voices of a more crowded population."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There is nothing which I should more like to leave ringing in your +ears than this remarkable statement of my great fellow-countryman. But +I cannot close and bid you farewell without expressing the happiness +which I have derived from these weeks spent in your society and +thanking you for the extremely encouraging attendance with which you +have honoured me from first to last. To the authorities of the +college, as well as to many citizens of this town, I have to express +my indebtedness for an amount of kindness and courtesy which I can +never forget, and which will always make my visit to this country one +of the pleasantest of memories.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>Let us, in parting, commend each other to the grace of God:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>O God our Father, the infinite Power, the perfect Wisdom and +the immortal Love, in Thy hands are all our ways, and the +success of our purposes proceeds from Thee alone. Follow with +Thy blessing our intercourse together and the work which we +have now completed. Bless this University—its president, its +professors and students. May knowledge grow in it from more to +more, and, along with knowledge, reverence and love. May those +especially who are preparing for the ministry of Thy Son be +filled with Thy Spirit, and in due time may they prove +faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. Bless them in their +studies, in their fellowship with one another, and in their +efforts to advance Thy kingdom. We commend each other +affectionately to Thee; be our God and our Guide in life and +in death, in time and in eternity. For Christ's sake. Amen.</p></div> + +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> The earlier President Dwight.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> "Great subjects insure solid thinking. Solid thinking +prompts a sensible style, an athletic style, on some themes a +magnificent style, and on all themes a natural +style."—<span class="sc">Phelps</span>, <i>My Note-book</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> "We owe it to the Church, we owe it to the time in which +God has called us to labour, we owe it to the restless and perplexed +but often honest minds in whose presence we carry on our ministry, to +be not merely a hard-working but a learned clergy. To those great +questions which both stir and disquiet men, we are bound to bring that +knowledge which will give us a claim to be listened to. 'Know as much +as you can;' that ought to be the rule to which an educated clergyman +should hold himself forever tied. A clergyman ought to be a <i>student</i>, +a reader and a thinker, to the very end."—<span class="sc">Dean Church.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Richard Baxter confesses that he deliberately preached +over the heads of his people once a year, for the purpose of keeping +them humble and showing them what their minister could do every Sunday +of the year, if he chose!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> "A sentence of Pascal would sometimes shoot more light +and life through a sermon than all the commentators upon the text +since the days of Noah."—<span class="sc">Principal Rainy.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Rev. Dr. Henderson, of Crieff, told me a story which +illustrates in an amusing yet significant way the change which passed +over the religious mind of Scotland in the beginning of the present +century. His father, the late Rev. Dr. Henderson, of Glasgow, when +newly licensed, was preaching, on the Saturday before a communion, for +an extremely Moderate minister of the dignified and pompous school. "I +do not know, Mr. Henderson," said the latter, "what is the difference +between you evangelicals and us; but I suppose it is that you preach +doctrines, while we preach duties." "I do not know about that," said +Mr. Henderson; "we preach duties too." "Well," said the old man, "for +example, my action sermon to-morrow is to be on lying; and my +divisions are—first, the nature of lying; secondly, the sin of lying; +and thirdly, the consequences of lying: now what could you add to +that?" "Well," replied Mr. Henderson, "I would add two things—first, +'Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his +deeds,' and secondly, 'Putting away lying, speak every man truth with +his neighbour; for we are members one of another.'" "Mr. Henderson, +these suggestions are admirable: I shall add them to my discourse!"</p></div> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>APPENDIX</h3> + +<h3>AN ORDINATION CHARGE</h3> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>APPENDIX.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>AN ORDINATION CHARGE.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor"><span style="font-weight: normal;">[67]</span></a></h4> +<br /> + +<p>I should like to connect what I have to say with a text of Scripture, +which you may remember as a motto for this occasion. Take, then, that +pastoral exhortation to a young minister in 1 Tim. iv. 16: "Take heed +unto thyself, and to the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this +thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee."</p> + +<p>There are three subjects recommended in this text to one in your +position—<i>first</i>, yourself; <i>second</i>, your doctrine; <i>third</i>, those +that hear you.</p> + +<br /> + +<p>I. <i>Take heed unto thyself.</i>—Perhaps there is no profession which so +thoroughly as ours tests and reveals what is in a man—the stature of +his manhood, the mass and quality of his character, the poverty or +richness of his mind, the coldness or warmth of his spirituality. +These all come out in our work, and become known to our congregation +and the community in which we labour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>When a man comes into a neighbourhood, as you are doing now, he is to +a large extent an unknown quantity; and it is very touching to observe +the exaggeration with which we are generally looked on at first, +people attributing to us a sort of indefinite largeness. But it is +marvellous how soon the measure of a man is taken, how he finds his +level in the community, and people know whether he is a large or a +petty man, whether he is a thinker or not, whether he is a deeply +religious man or not. The glamour of romance passes off, and +everything is seen in the light of common day.</p> + +<p>The sooner this takes place the better. A true man does not need to +fear it. He is what he is, and nothing else. He cannot by taking +thought add one cubit to his stature. Any exaggeration of his image in +the minds of others does not in reality make him one inch bigger than +he is.</p> + +<p>It seems to me to lie at the very root of a right ministerial life to +be possessed with this idea—to get quit of everything like pretence +and untruthfulness, to wish for no success to which one is not +entitled, and to look upon elevation into any position for which one +is unfit as a pure calamity.</p> + +<p>The man's self—the very thing he is, standing with his bare feet on +the bare earth—this is the great concern. This is the self to which +you are to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>take heed—what you really are, what you are growing to, +what you may yet become.</p> + +<p>All our work is determined by this—the spirit and power of our +preaching, the quality of the influence we exert, and the tenor of our +walk and conversation. We can no more rise above ourselves than water +can rise above its own level. We may, indeed, often fail to do +ourselves justice, and sometimes may do ourselves more than justice. +But that is only for a moment; the total impression made by ourselves +is an unmistakable thing. What is in us must come out, and nothing +else. All we say and do is merely the expression of what we are.</p> + +<p>Evidently, therefore, there can be nothing so important as carefully +to watch over our inner life, and see that it be large, sweet and +spiritual, and that it be growing.</p> + +<p>Yet the temptations to neglect and overlook this and turn our +attention in other directions are terribly strong. The ministerial +life is a very outside life; it is lived in the glare of publicity; it +is always pouring out. We are continually preaching, addressing +meetings, giving private counsel, attending public gatherings, going +from home, frequenting church courts, receiving visits, and occupied +with details of every kind. We live in a time when all men are busy, +and ministers are the busiest of men. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>From Monday morning till Sunday +night the bustle goes on continually.</p> + +<p>Our life is in danger of becoming <i>all</i> outside. We are called upon to +express ourselves before conviction has time to ripen. Our spirits get +too hot and unsettled to allow the dew to fall on them. We are +compelled to speak what is merely the recollection of conviction which +we had some time ago, and to use past feelings over again. Many a day +you will feel this; you will long with your whole heart to escape away +somewhere into obscurity, and be able to keep your mouth closed for +weeks. You will know the meaning of that great text for ministers, +"The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury,"—that is, it shallows +the spirit within.</p> + +<p>This is what we have to fight against. The people we live among and +the hundred details of our calling will steal away our inner life +altogether, if they can. And then, what is our outer life worth? It is +worth nothing. If the inner life get thin and shallow, the outer life +must become a perfunctory discharge of duties. Our preaching will be +empty, and our conversation and intercourse unspiritual, unenriching +and flavourless. We may please our people for a time by doing all they +desire and being at everybody's call; but they will turn round on us +in disappointment and anger in the day when, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>by living merely the +outer life, we have become empty, shallow and unprofitable.</p> + +<p>Take heed to thyself! If we grow strong and large inwardly, our people +will reap the fruit of it in due time: our preaching will have sap and +power and unction; and our intercourse will have about it the breath +of another world.</p> + +<p>We <i>must</i> find time for reading, study, meditation and prayer. We +should at least insist on having a large forenoon, up, say, to two +o'clock every day, clear of interruptions. These hours of quietness +are our real life! It is these that make the ministerial life a grand +life. When we are shut in alone, and, the spirit having been silenced +and collected by prayer, the mind gets slowly down into the heart of a +text, like a bee in a flower, it is like heaven upon earth; it is as +if the soul were bathing itself in morning dews; the dust and fret are +washed off, and the noises recede into the distance; peace comes; we +move aloft in another world—the world of ideas and realities; the +mind mounts joyfully from one height to another; it sees the common +world far beneath, yet clearly, in its true meaning and size and +relations to other worlds. And then one comes down on Sabbath, to +speak to the people, calm, strong and clear, like Moses from the +mount, and with a true Divine message.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>In so doing, my dear brother, thou shalt save thyself. Lose your inner +life, and you lose yourself, sure enough; for that <i>is</i> yourself. You +will often have to tell your people that salvation is not the one act +of conversion, nor the one act of passing through the gate of heaven +at last; but the renewal, the sanctification, the growth, into large +and symmetrical stature, of the whole character. Tell that to yourself +often too. We take it for granted that you are a regenerated man, or +we would not have ordained you to be a minister of the Gospel to-day. +But it is possible for a man to be regenerate and to be a minister, +and yet to remain very worldly, shallow, undeveloped and unsanctified. +We who are your brethren in the ministry could tell sad histories in +illustration of this out of our own inner life. We could tell you how, +in keeping the vineyard of others, we have often neglected our own; +and how now, at the end of years of ministerial activity and incessant +toil, we turn round and look with dismay at our shallow characters, +our unenriched minds, and our lack of spirituality and Christlikeness. +O brother! take heed to thyself—save thyself!</p> + +<br /> + +<p>II. <i>Take heed to the Doctrine.</i>—A very little experience of +preaching will convince you that in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>relation to the truth which you +have to minister week by week to your people you will have to sustain +a double character—that of an interpreter of Scripture and that of a +prophet.</p> + +<p>Let me first say something of the former. With whatever high-flown +notions a man may begin his ministry, yet, if he is to stay for years +in a place and keep up a fresh kind of preaching and build up a +congregation, delivering such discourses as Scotchmen like to hear, he +will find that he must heartily accept the <i>rôle</i> of an interpreter of +Scripture, and lean on the Bible as his great support.</p> + +<p>This is your work; the Book is put into your hands to-day, that you +may unfold its contents to your people, conveying them into their +minds by all possible avenues and applying them to all parts of their +daily life.</p> + +<p>It is a grand task. I cannot help congratulating you on being ordained +to the ministry to-day, for this above everything, that the Bible is +henceforth to be continually in your hands; that the study of it is to +be the work of your life; that you are to be continually sinking and +bathing your mind in its truths; and that you are to have the pleasure +of bringing forth what you have discovered in it to feed the minds of +men. The ministerial profession is to be envied more for this than +anything else. I promise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>you that, if you be true to it, this Book +will become dearer to you every day; it will enrich every part of your +nature; you will become more and more convinced that it is the Word of +God and contains the only remedy for the woes of man.</p> + +<p>But be true to it! The Bible will be what I have said to you only if +you go deep into it. If you keep to the surface, you will weary of it. +There are some ministers who begin their ministry with a certain +quantity of religious doctrine in their mind, and what they do all +their life afterwards is to pick out texts and make them into vessels +to hold so much of it. The vessels are of different shapes and sizes, +but they are all filled with the same thing; and oh! it is poor stuff, +however orthodox and evangelical it may seem.</p> + +<p>To become a dearly loved friend and an endless source of intellectual +and spiritual delight, the Bible must be thoroughly studied. We must +not pour our ideas into it, but apply our minds to it and faithfully +receive the impressions which it makes on them. One learns thus to +trust the Bible as an inexhaustible resource and lean back upon it +with all one's might. It is only such preaching, enriching itself out +of the wealth of the Bible and getting from it freshness, variety and +power, that can build up a congregation and satisfy the minds of +really living Christians.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>The intellectual demand on the pulpit is rapidly rising. I should like +to draw your earnest attention to a revolution which is silently +taking place in Scotland, but is receiving from very few the notice +which it deserves. I refer to the changes that are being made by the +new system of national education. No one can have travelled much for +several years past through this part of the island without his +attention being attracted by the new and imposing school buildings +rising in almost every parish. These are the index of a revolution; +for inside, in their management and in the efficiency of the +education, there has also been an immense change. I venture to say +that nothing which has taken place in Scotland this century—and I am +remembering both the Reform Bill and the Disruption—will be found to +have been of more importance. There will be a far more educated +Scotland to preach to in a short time, which will demand of the +ministry a high intellectual standard. It is a just demand. Our people +should go away from the church feeling that they have received new and +interesting information, that their intellects have been illuminated +by fresh and great ideas, and that to hear their minister regularly is +a liberal education.</p> + +<p>Nothing will meet this demand except thorough study of Scripture by +minds equipped with all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>technical helps, as well as enriched by +the constant reading of the best literature, both on our own and +kindred subjects. One of our hymns says that the Bible "gives a light +to every age; it gives, but borrows none." Nothing could be more +untrue. The Bible borrows light from every age and from every +department of human knowledge. Whatever especially makes us acquainted +with the mysterious depths of human nature is deserving of our +attention. The Bible and human nature call to each other like deep +unto deep. Every addition to our knowledge of man will be a new key to +open the secrets of the Word; and the deeper you go in your preaching +into the mysteries of the Word, the more subtle and powerful will be +the springs you touch in the minds and hearts of your hearers.</p> + +<p>But preparation of this sort for the pulpit is not easy. It requires +time, self-conquest and hard work. Perhaps the greatest ministerial +temptation is idleness in study—not in going about and doing +something, but in finding and rightly using precious hours in one's +library, avoiding reverie and light or desultory reading, and sticking +hard and fast to the Sabbath work. I, for one, must confess that I +have had, and still have, a terrible battle to fight for this. No men +have their time so much at their own disposal as we. I often wish we +had regular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>office-hours, like business men; but even that would not +remedy the evil, for every man shut up alone in a study is not +studying. Nothing can remedy it but faithfulness to duty and love of +work.</p> + +<p>You will find it necessary to be hard at it from Tuesday morning to +Saturday night. If you lecture, as I trust you will—for it brings +one, far more than sermonising, into contact with Scripture—you will +know your subject at once, and be able to begin to read on it. The +text of the other discourse should be got by the middle of the week at +latest, and the more elaborate of the two finished on Friday. This +makes a hard week; but it has its reward. There are few moods more +splendid than a preacher's when, after a hard week's work, during +which his mind has been incessantly active on the truth of God and his +spirit exalted by communion with the Divine Spirit, he appears before +his congregation on Sabbath, knowing he has an honestly gotten message +to lavish on them; just as there can be no coward and craven more +abject than a minister with any conscience who appears in the pulpit +after an idle, dishonest week, to cheat his congregation with a diet +of fragments seasoned with counterfeit fervour.</p> + +<p>But, besides being an interpreter of Scripture, a true minister fills +the still higher position of a prophet. This congregation has asked +you to become its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>spiritual overseer. But a minister is no minister +unless he come to his sphere of labour under a far higher +sanction—unless he be sent from God, with a message in his heart +which he is burning to pour forth upon men. An apostle (that is, a +messenger sent from God) and a prophet (that is, a man whose lips are +impatient to speak the Divine message which his heart is full of) +every true minister must be. I trust you have such a message, the +substance of which you could at this moment, if called upon, speak out +in very few words. There is something wrong if from a man's preaching +his hearers do not gather by degrees a scheme of doctrine—a message +which the plainest of them could give account of.</p> + +<p>What this message should be, there exists no doubt at all in the +Church of which you have to-day been ordained a minister. It can be +nothing else than the evangelical scheme, as it has been understood +and expounded by the greatest and most godly minds in all generations +of the Church and preached with fresh power in this country since the +beginning of the present century. It has proved itself the power of +God, to the revival of the Church and the conversion of souls, +wherever it has been faithfully proclaimed; and it is a great trust +which is committed to your hands to-day to be one of its heralds and +conservators.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>Not that we in this generation are to pledge ourselves to preach +nothing except what was preached last generation. That would be a poor +way of following in the footsteps of men who thought so independently +and so faithfully fulfilled their own task. The area of topics +introduced in the pulpit is widening, I think. Why should it not? The +Bible is far greater and wider than any school or any generation; and +we will fearlessly commit ourselves to it and go wherever it carries +us, even though it should be far beyond the range of topics within +which we are expected to confine ourselves. Your congregation will put +one utterance side by side with another; and, if you are a truly +evangelical man, there will be no fear of their mistaking your +standpoint. There is no kind of preaching so wearisome and +unprofitable as an anxious, constrained and formal repetition of the +most prominent points of evangelical doctrine. The only cure for this +is to keep in close contact with both human nature and the Bible, and +be absolutely faithful to the impressions which they make.</p> + +<p>Yet take heed that your doctrine be such as will save them that hear +you. What saving doctrine is has been determined in this land by a +grand experiment; and it is only faithfulness to the history of +Scotland, as well as to God and your people, to make it the sum and +substance and the very breath <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>of life for all you preaching. Our +calling is emphatically "the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that +God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing +their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of +reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God +did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled +to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we +might be made the righteousness of God in Him." This is the glorious +message of the Gospel, which alone can meet the deep spiritual wants +of men.</p> + +<p>Preach it out of a living experience. Bunyan, in his autobiography, +gives an account of his own preaching, telling how, for the first two +years of his ministry, he dwelt continually on the terrors of the law, +because he was then quailing beneath them himself; how for the next +two years he discoursed chiefly on Christ in his offices, because he +was then enjoying the comfort of these doctrines; and how, for a third +couple of years, the mystery of union to Christ was the centre both of +his preaching and his experience; and so on. That appears to me the +very model of a true ministry—to be always preaching the truth one is +experiencing oneself at the time, and so giving it out fresh, like a +discovery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>just made; while at the same time the centre of gravity, so +to speak, of one's doctrine is constantly in motion, passing from one +section of the sphere of evangelical truth to another, till it has in +succession passed through them all.</p> + +<br /> + +<p>III. <i>Take heed to them that hear you.</i>—I almost envy you the new joy +that will fill your heart soon, when you fairly get connected with +your congregation. The first love of a minister for his own flock is +as original and peculiar a blossom of the heart as any other that +could be named. And the bond that unites him to those whom he has been +the means of converting or raising to higher levels of life is one of +the tenderest in existence.</p> + +<p>You have come to a hearty people, who will be quite disposed to put a +good construction on all you do. This is a busy community, that +appreciates a man who works hard. If you do your work faithfully and +preach with the heart and the head, they will come to hear you. It is +wonderful how lenient those who hear us are. You will wonder, I +daresay, some Sabbaths, that they sit to hear you at all, or that, +having heard you, they ever come back again. But, if a man is really +true, he is not condemned for a single poor sermon. Honesty and +thorough work and good thinking are not so easily found in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>world +that a man who generally exhibits them can be neglected. If we fail, +it must surely generally be our own fault.</p> + +<p>The more we put ourselves on a level with the people the better. We +stoop to conquer. It is better to feel that we belong to the +congregation than that it belongs to us. I like to think of the +minister as only one of the congregation set apart by the rest for a +particular purpose. A congregation is a number of people associated +for their moral and spiritual improvement. And they say to one of +their number, Look, brother, we are busy with our daily toils and +confused with domestic and worldly cares; we live in confusion and +darkness; but we eagerly long for peace and light to cheer and +illuminate our life; and we have heard there is a land where these are +to be found—a land of repose and joy, full of thoughts that breathe +and words that burn: but we cannot go thither ourselves; we are too +embroiled in daily cares: come, we will elect you, and set you free +from our toils, and you shall go thither for us, and week by week +trade with that land and bring us its treasures and its spoils. Oh, +woe to him who accepts this election, and yet, failing through +idleness to carry on the noble merchandise, appears week by week +empty-handed or with merely counterfeit treasure in his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>hands! Woe to +him too, if, going to that land, he forgets those who sent him and +spends his time there in selfish enjoyment of the delights of +knowledge! Woe to him if he does not week by week return laden, and +ever more richly laden, and saying, Yes, brothers, I have been to that +land; and it is a land of light and peace and nobleness: but I have +never forgotten you and your needs and the dear bonds of brotherhood; +and look, I have brought back this, and this, and this: take it to +gladden and purify your life!</p> + +<p>I esteem it one of the chief rewards of our profession, that it makes +us respect our fellow-men. It makes us continually think of even the +most degraded of them as immortal souls, with magnificent undeveloped +possibilities in them—as possible sons of God, and brethren of +Christ, and heirs of heaven. Some men, by their profession, are +continually tempted to take low views of human nature. But we are +forced to think worthily of it. A minister is no minister who does not +see wonder in the child in the cradle and in the peasant in the field +relations with all time behind and before, and all eternity above and +beneath. Not but that we see the seamy side too—the depths as well as +the heights. We get glimpses of the awful sin of the heart; we are +made to feel the force of corrupt nature's mere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>inert resistance to +good influences; we have to feel the pain of the slowness of the +movement of goodness, as perhaps no other men do. Yet love and undying +faith in the value of the soul and hope for all men are the +mainsprings of our activity.</p> + +<p>For the end we always aim at is to save those who hear us. Think what +that is! What a magnificent life work! It is to fight against sin, to +destroy the works of the devil, to make human souls gentle, noble and +godlike, to help on the progress of the world, to sow the seed of the +future, to prepare the population of heaven, to be fellow-sufferers +and fellow-workers with Christ, and to glorify God.</p> + +<p>This is your work; and the only true measure of ministerial success is +how many souls you save—save in every sense—in the sense of +regeneration, and sanctification and redemption.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> +<br /> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Delivered at the Ordination of the Rev. William Agnew, +Gallatown, Kirkcaldy, 1879.</p></div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 67: humilitating replaced with humiliating<br /> +Page 137: propets replaced with prophets<br /> +Page 162: subequent replaced with subsequent<br /> +Page 189: ruth replaced with truth<br /> +Page 193: delirum replaced with delirium<br /> +</div> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Preacher and His Models, by James Stalker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS *** + +***** This file should be named 24311-h.htm or 24311-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/1/24311/ + +Produced by Colin Bell, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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