{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24311/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24311","id":"gutenberg_24311","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24311","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Preaching"],"text":"Produced by Colin Bell, Jeannie Howse and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |\n    | been preserved.                                           |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |\n    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS\n\n\n\n\nTHE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS\n\n\n_THE YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING, 1891_\n\n\nBY THE\nREV. JAMES STALKER, D.D.\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\n\"IMAGO CHRISTI,\" \"THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST,\" \"THE LIFE OF\nST. PAUL,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n_Quis facit ut quid oportet et quemadmodum oportet dicatur\nnisi in Cujus manu sunt nos et nostri sermones?_\n          ST. AUGUSTINE, _De Doctrina Christiana, iv. 15_\n\nHODDER & STOUGHTON\nLONDON : : MCMXIX\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1891,\nBY\nA.C. ARMSTRONG & SON.\n\n\n\n\nTO THE\nRev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.\n\n\n\n\n                  DIVINITY SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY, }\n                  NEW HAVEN, CONN., APRIL 25, 1891.   }\n\nREV. JAMES STALKER, D.D., GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.\n\nREV. AND DEAR SIR:\n\n_At the close of your instructive and stimulating lectures in the\nLyman Beecher Course before the members of this Theological School, we\ndesire to express to you the satisfaction with which they have been\nlistened to, and we are glad to know that, by their publication in the\nUnited States and Great Britain, the pleasure and profit which we have\nall derived from their delivery will be enjoyed by a wider circle._\n\n     TIMOTHY DWIGHT,\n         _President_.\n\n     GEORGE E. DAY,\n         _Professor of Hebrew_.\n\n     SAMUEL HARRIS,\n         _Professor of Systematic Theology_.\n\n     GEORGE P. FISHER,\n         _Professor of Ecclesiastical History_.\n\n     LEWIS O. BRASTOW,\n         _Professor of Practical Theology_.\n\n     GEORGE B. STEVENS,\n         _Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation_.\n\n     FRANK C. PORTER,\n         _Instructor in Biblical Theology_.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThese nine Lectures on Preaching were delivered, on the Lyman Beecher\nFoundation, to the divinity students of Yale University in the spring\nof this year. With the kind concurrence of the Senate of Yale, five of\nthem were redelivered, on the Merrick Foundation, to the students of\nOhio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio.\n\nIn the Appendix an Ordination Address is reproduced, which I wrote\nwhen I had been only four or five years in the ministry, and which I\nhave been requested to reprint. My friend, the Rev. Dr. Walker, who\nwas present when it was delivered, having published it in _The Family\nTreasury_, another friend, noticing it there, had it printed as a\npamphlet at his own expense and distributed to all the ministers of\nthe Church to which he and I belong. It was a very characteristic act;\nand I have ventured, as a memorial of it, to dedicate this volume to\nhim. I do so, however, not for this reason only, but also because\nthere has been no one in this generation who has done more than he has\ndone, by the example of his own impressive ministry and by his\ngenerous encouragement of younger ministers, to promote the interests\nof preaching in his native land.\n\nMy thanks are due to the Rev. Charles Shaw, who on this as on former\noccasions has kindly assisted me in correcting the press.\n\nGLASGOW, _October 1st, 1891_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\n                                                        PAGE\n\nINTRODUCTORY                                               1\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN OF GOD                              29\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A PATRIOT                                 59\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN OF THE WORD                         91\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A FALSE PROPHET                          125\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN                                    149\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A CHRISTIAN                              179\n\n\nLECTURE VIII.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS AN APOSTLE                               205\n\n\nLECTURE IX.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A THINKER                                237\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nAN ORDINATION CHARGE                                     265\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\nGentlemen, it would be impossible to begin this course of lectures\nwithout expressing my acknowledgments to the Theological Faculty of\nthis University for the great honour they have done me by inviting me\nto occupy this position. When I look over the list of my predecessors\nand observe that it includes such names as Bishop Simpson, Henry Ward\nBeecher, Dr. John Hall, Dr. W.M. Taylor, Dr. Phillips Brooks, Dr.\nA.J.F. Behrends, and Dr. Dale--to mention only those with which it\nopens--I cannot help feeling that it is perhaps a greater honour than\nI was entitled to accept; and I cannot but wish that the preaching of\nthe old country were to be represented on this occasion by some one of\nthe many ministers who would have been abler than I to do it justice.\nIt is with no sense of having attained that I am to speak to you; for\nI always seem to myself to be only beginning to learn my trade; and\nthe furthest I ever get in the way of confidence is to believe that I\nshall preach well next time. However, there may be some advantages in\nhearing one who is not too far away from the difficulties with which\nyou will soon be contending yourselves; and the keenness with which I\nhave felt these difficulties may have made me reflect, more than\nothers to whom the path of excellence has been easier, on the means of\novercoming them.\n\nI warmly reciprocate the sentiments which have led the Faculty to come\nacross the Atlantic the second time for a lecturer, and the liberality\nof mind with which they are wont to overstep the boundaries of their\nown denomination and select their lecturers from all the evangelical\nChurches. It is the first time I have set foot on your continent, but\nI have long entertained a warm admiration for the American people and\na firm faith in their destiny; and I welcome an opportunity which may\nserve, in any degree, to demonstrate the unity which underlies the\nvariety of our evangelical communions, and to show how great are the\nthings in which we agree in comparison with those on which we differ.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe aim of this lectureship, if I have apprehended it aright, is that\nmen who are out on the sea of practical life, feeling the force and\nstrain of the winds and currents of the time, and who therefore\noccupy, to some extent, a different point of view from either students\nor professors, should come and tell you, who are still standing on\nthe _terra firma_ of college life, but will soon also have to launch\nforth on the same element, how it feels out there on the deep.\n\nWell, there is a considerable difference.\n\nThe professorial theory of college life is, that the faculties are\nbeing exercised and the resources collected with which the battles of\nlife are subsequently to be fought and its victories won. And there\nis, no doubt, a great deal of truth in this theory. The acquisitions\nof the class-room will all be found useful in future, and your only\nregret will be that they have not been more extensive and thorough.\nThe gymnastic of study is suppling faculties which will be\nindispensable hereafter. Yet there is room amidst your studies, and\nwithout the slightest disparagement to them, for a message more\ndirectly from life, to hint to you, that more may be needed in the\ncareer to which you are looking forward than a college can give, and\nthat the powers on which success in practical life depends may be\nsomewhat different from those which avail most at your present stage.\n\nThere are two very marked types of intellect to be observed amongst\nmen, which we may call the receptive and the creative. Receptive\nintellect has the power of taking fully in what is addressed to it by\nothers. It separates its acquisitions and distributes them among the\npigeon-holes of the memory. Out of these again it can reproduce them,\nas occasion requires, and even make what may be called permutations\nand combinations among its materials with skill and facility. The\ncreative intellect, on the contrary, is sometimes anything but apt to\nreceive that which people attempt to put into it. Instead of being an\nopen, roomy vessel for holding things, it may be awkwardly shaped, and\nsometimes difficult to open at all. Nor do things pour out of it in a\nstream, as water does from a pitcher; they rather flash out of it,\nlike sparks from the anvil. Instead of possessing its own knowledge,\nit is possessed by it; it burns as it emits it, and its fire is\ncontagious.\n\nThe former is the serviceable intellect at college, but it is the\nlatter which makes the preacher. There may, indeed, here and there, be\nmiraculous professors who attach more importance, and give higher\nmarks, to the indications of the creative intellect than to the\nachievements of the receptive intellect. But few can resist the appeal\nmade by the clear, correct and copious reproduction of what they have\nthemselves supplied. Indeed, they would not, as a rule, be justified\nin doing so; for the first indications of originality are often crude\nand irritating, and they may come to nothing. The creative intellect\nis frequently slow in maturing; it is like those seeds which take more\nthan one season to blossom. But at a flower show it would not be fair\nto withhold the prize from the flower which has blossomed already, and\nreserve it for one which may possibly do so next year.\n\nOf my fellow-students in the class to which I belonged at college, the\ntwo who have since been most successful did not then seem destined for\nfirst places. They were known to be able men, but they were not\nexcessively laborious, and they kept themselves irritatingly detached\nfrom the interests of the college. But the one has since unfolded a\nremarkable originality, which was, no doubt, even then organizing\nitself in the inner depths; and the other, as soon as he entered the\npulpit, turned out to have the power of casting a spell over the minds\nof men. Both had a spark of nature's fire; and this is the possession\nwhich outshines all others when college is over and practical life\nbegun.[1]\n\nBut, if the viewpoint of practical life is different even from the\nprofessorial, it is still more different from that of students; and\nthis may again justify the bringing of a message from the outside\nworld. The difference might be put in many ways; but perhaps it may be\nbest expressed by saying that, while you are among the critics, we are\namong the criticized.\n\nIn the history of nearly all minds of the better sort there is an\nepoch of criticism. The young soul, as it begins to observe, discovers\nthat things around it are not all as they ought to be, and that the\nworld is not so perfect a place as might naturally be expected or as\nit may have been represented to be. The critical faculty awakes and,\nhaving once tasted blood, rushes forth to judge all men and things\nwith cruel ability. This is the stage at which we agree with Carlyle\nin thinking mankind to be mostly fools and pronounce every man over\nfive-and-forty who does not happen to agree with our opinions an old\nfogey. It is the time when we are confident that we could, if we\nchose, single-handed and with ease, accomplish tasks which generations\nof men have struggled with in vain. Only in the meantime we, for our\npart, are not disposed to commit ourselves to any creed or to champion\nany cause, because we are engaged in contemplating all.\n\nThis period occurs, I say, in the history of all men of the abler\nsort; but in students, on account of their peculiar opportunities, the\nsymptoms are generally exceptionally pronounced. Students are the\nchartered libertines of criticism. What a life professors would lead,\nif they only knew what is said about them every day of their lives! I\noften think that three-fourths of every faculty in the country would\ndisappear some morning by a simultaneous act of self-effacement. Of\ncourse ministers do not escape; ecclesiastics and Church courts are\nquite beyond redemption; and principalities and powers in general are\nin the same condemnation.\n\nSuch is the delightful prerogative of the position in which you now\nstand. But, gentlemen, the moment you leave these college gates\nbehind, you have to pass from your place among the critics and take\nyour place among the criticized. That is, you will have to quit the\nwell-cushioned benches, where the spectators sit enjoying the\nspectacle, and take your place among the gladiators in the arena. The\nbinoculars of the community will be turned upon you, and five hundred\nor a thousand people will be entitled to say twice or thrice every\nweek what they think of your performances. You will have to put your\nshoulder under the huge mass of your Church's policy and try to keep\nstep with some thousands whose shoulders are under it too; and the\nreproaches cast by the public and the press at the awkwardness of the\nwhole squad and the unsteadiness of the ark will fall on you along\nwith the rest.\n\nSeriously, this is a tremendous difference. Criticism, however\nbrilliant, is a comparatively easy thing. It is easier to criticize\nthe greatest things superbly than to do even small things fairly well.\nA brief experience of practical life gives one a great respect for\nsome men whom one would not at one time have considered very\nbrilliant, and for work which one would have pronounced very\nimperfect. There is a famous passage in Lucretius, in which he speaks\nof the joy of the mariner who has escaped to dry land, when he sees\nhis shipwrecked companions still struggling in the waves. This is too\nheathenish a sentiment; but I confess I have sometimes experienced a\ntouch of it, when I have beheld one who has distinguished himself by\nhis incisiveness, while still on the _terra firma_ of criticism,\nsuddenly dropped into the bottomless sea of actual life and learning,\namidst his first struggles in the waves, not without gulps of\nsalt-water, the difference between intention and performance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut do not suppose that I am persuading you to give up criticism. On\nthe contrary, this is the natural function of the stage at which you\nare; and probably those who throw themselves most vigorously into it\nnow may also discharge most successfully the functions of the stages\nyet to come. The world reaps not a little advantage from criticism. It\nis a very imperfect world; no generation of its inhabitants does its\nwork as well as it ought to be done, and it is the undoubted right of\nthe next generation to detect its defects; for in this lies the only\nchance of improvement. There is something awe-inspiring in the first\nglance cast by the young on the world in which they find themselves.\nIt is so clear and unbiassed; they distinguish so instantaneously\nbetween the right and the wrong, the noble and the base; and they\nblurt out so frankly what they see. As we grow older, we train\nourselves unawares not to see straight or, if we see, we hold our\npeace. The first open look of young eyes on the condition of the world\nis one of the principal regenerative forces of humanity.\n\nTo begin with, therefore, at all events I will rather come to your\nstandpoint than ask you to come to mine. Indeed, although I have for\nsome time been among the criticized, and my sympathies are with the\npractical workers, my sense of how imperfectly the work is done, and\nof how inadequate our efforts are to the magnitude of the task, grows\nstronger instead of weaker. And it is from this point of view that I\nmean to enter into our subject. I will make use of the facts of my own\ncountry, with which I am familiar; but I do not suppose that the state\nof things among you is substantially different; and you will not have\nmuch difficulty in correcting the picture, to make it correspond with\nyour circumstances, whilst I speak.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the present century there has certainly been an unparalleled\nmultiplication of the instrumentalities for doing the work. The\nmachine of religion, so to speak, has been perfected. The population\nhas been increasing fast; but churches have multiplied at least twice\nas fast. Even in a great city like Glasgow we have a Protestant church\nto every two thousand of the population.[2] And, inside the churches,\nthe multiplication of agencies has been even more surprising. Formerly\nthe minister did almost all the work; and it comprehended little more\nthan the two services on Sunday and the visitation of the\ncongregation; the elders helping him to a small extent in financing\nthe congregation and in a few other matters largely secular. But now\nevery congregation is a perfect hive of Christian activity. In a large\ncongregation the workers are counted by hundreds. Every imaginable\nform of philanthropic and religious appliance is in operation.\nBuildings for Sabbath Schools and Mission Work are added to the\nchurch; and nearly every day of the week has its meeting.\n\nThe machine of religion is large and complicated, and it is manned by\nso many workers that they get in each other's way; but, with all this\nbustling activity, is the work done? This is the question which gives\nus pause. Has the amount of practical Christianity increased in\nproportion to the multiplication of agencies? Are the prospects of\nreligion as much brighter than they used to be as might have been\nexpected after all this expenditure of labour? Is Christianity\ndeepening as well as spreading?\n\nIn Glasgow, where the proportion of churches to population is so high,\nthey speak of two hundred thousand non-church-goers, that is, a third\nof the inhabitants; and, if you go into one of our villages with two\nor three thousand of a population, you in may find three or four\nchurches, belonging to different denominations; but you will usually\nfind even there a considerable body of non-church-goers. Not long ago\nI heard a London clergyman state, that, if, any Sunday morning, you\nwent through the congregations belonging to the Church of England in\nthe district of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in which he\nlabours, you would not, in all of them put together, find one man\npresent for every thousand of the population. One of the English\nbishops recently admitted that in South London his Church is not in\npossession; and certainly no other denomination is. Thus, with all our\nappliances, we have failed even to bring the population within the\nsound of the Gospel.\n\nInside the churches, what is to be said? Is the proportion large of\nthose who have received the Gospel in such a way that their hearts\nhave manifestly been changed by it and their lives brought under its\nsway? We should utterly deceive ourselves if we imagined that real\nChristianity is coextensive with the profession of Christianity. Many\nwho bear the Christian name have neither Christian experience nor\nChristian character, but in their spirit and pursuits are thoroughly\nworldly. Even where religion has taken real hold, is the type very\noften beautiful and impressive? Who can think without shame of the\nlong delay of the Church even to attempt the work of converting the\nheathen? And even yet the sacrifices made for this object are\nludicrously small in proportion either to the magnitude of the problem\nor the wealth of the Christian community. The annual expenditure of\nthe United Kingdom on drink is said to be a hundred times as great as\nthat on foreign missions.\n\nReligion does not permeate life. The Church is one of the great\ninstitutions of the country, and gets its own place. But it is a thing\napart from the common life, which goes on beside it. Business,\npolitics, literature, amusements, are only faintly coloured by it. Yet\nthe mission of Christianity is not to occupy a respectable place\napart, but to leaven life through and through.\n\nVice flourishes side by side with religion. We build the school and\nthe church, and then we open beside them the public-house. The\nChristian community has the power of controlling this traffic; but it\nallows it to go on with all its unspeakable horrors. Thus its own work\nis systematically undone, and faster than the victims can be saved new\nones are manufactured to occupy their places. Of vices which are still\nmore degrading I need not speak. Their prevalence is too patent\neverywhere. If there is any law of Christianity which is obvious and\ninexorable, it is the law of purity. But go where you will in the\nChristian countries, and you will learn that by large sections of\ntheir manhood this law is treated as if it did not exist. The truth is\nthat, in spite of the nations being baptized in the name of Christ,\nheathenism has still the control of much of their life; and it would\nhardly be too much to say that the mission of Christianity is still\nonly beginning.\n\nIn what direction does hope lie? It seems to me that there can be no\nmore important factor in the solution of the problem than the kind of\nmen who fill the office of the ministry. We must have men of more\npower, more concentration on the aims of the ministry, more wisdom,\nbut, above all, more willingness to sacrifice their lives to their\nvocation. We have too tame and conventional a way of thinking about\nour career. Men are not even ambitious of doing more than settling in\na comfortable position and getting through its duties in a respectable\nway. We need to have men penetrated with the problem as a whole, and\nlabouring with the new developments which the times require. The\nprizes of the ministry ought to be its posts of greatest difficulty.\nWhen a student or young minister proves to have the genuine gift, his\nnatural goal should not be a highly paid place in a West End church,\nbut a position where he would be in the forefront of the battle with\nsin and misery. Nowhere else are the great lines of Chapman more\napplicable than in our calling:--\n\n    Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea\n    Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind,\n    Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack,\n    And his rapt ship runs on her side so low\n    That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air.\n\nI am well aware that men of this stamp cannot be made to order. They\nmust, as I have suggested already, have a spark of nature's fire, and,\nbesides that, the Spirit of God must descend on them. Yet I have\nthought that it might be helpful towards this end to go back to the\norigins of preaching, and to study those in whom its primitive spirit\nwas embodied. Perhaps that which we are desiderating could not be\nbetter expressed than by saying that we need a ministry prophetic and\napostolic. And I am going to invite you to study the prophets and\napostles as our models.\n\nThough we may not believe in apostolic succession in the churchly\nsense, we are the successors of the apostles in this sense, that the\napostles filled the office which we hold, or hope to hold, and\nillustrated the manner in which its duties should be discharged in\nsuch a way as to be an example and an inspiration to all its\nsubsequent occupants. The air they breathed was still charged with the\nspirit poured into it by Christ; they were made great by the\ninfluence of His teaching and companionship; the power of the Holy\nGhost, freshly descended, burned on their hearts; and they went forth\non their mission with a force of conviction and a mastery of their\ntask which nothing could resist.\n\nOne among them embodied in himself, above all others, the spirit of\nthat epoch of creative energy. St. Paul is perhaps, after our Lord\nHimself, the most complete embodiment of the ministerial life on all\nits sides which the world has ever seen. And, fortunately, he embodied\nthis spirit not only in deeds, but also in words. Circumstances made\nhim a writer of letters, the most autobiographical form of literature.\nHis friends, such as Timothy and Titus, drew out of him lengthy\nexpressions of the convictions wrought into his mind by the\nexperiences of a lifetime. His enemies, by their accusations, struck\nout of him still ampler and more heartfelt statements of his feelings\nand motives. St. Paul has painted his own portrait at full length, and\nin every line it is the portrait of a minister. There is more in his\nwritings which touches the very quick of our life as ministers than in\nall other writings in existence. It is my desire to reproduce this\nstraight from the sources. I have no intention of going over the\noutward life of St. Paul. This you can find in a hundred books. But I\ndesire to exhibit the very soul of the man, as he himself has revealed\nit to us in his writings.\n\nIf we are the successors of the apostles, the apostles were the\nsuccessors of the prophets, who did for the Church of the Old\nTestament what the apostles did for that of the New. In outward aspect\nand detail, indeed, the life of the prophets differed much from that\nof the apostles. In force of manhood and in variety and brilliance of\ngenius they far excelled them. But their aim was the same. It was to\nmake the kingdom of God come by announcing and enforcing the mind and\nwill of God. And this is our aim too.\n\nThe writings of the prophets are very difficult, and their period is\nless popularly known than any other period of Scripture history,\neither before or after it. But it is beginning to attract more\nattention, and in the near future it will do so much more, because it\nis beginning to be perceived that in it lies the key to the whole Old\nTestament history and literature.[3] The writings of Isaiah especially\nhave of late attracted attention. Commentary after commentary on them\nhas appeared;[4] till now the reader can see his way pretty clearly\nthrough the tangled but enchanting mazes of his writings. With such\nhelps as have been available to me I have endeavoured through the\nwritings to get at the man; and I will take Isaiah as the\nrepresentative of the prophetic spirit in the same way as St. Paul is\nto represent for us the apostles. But here again my aim is neither\nthat of the commentator nor that of the biographer. It is the soul of\nthe man I wish to depict and the spirit of his work.\n\nIt may be thought that, by taking up the subject in this way, I am\nmissing the opportunity of dealing with the practical work of to-day.\nBut I do not think so. There are, indeed, some details nearly always\ndiscussed in lectures on preaching which I do not care to touch. There\nis, for instance, the question of the delivery of sermons--whether the\npreacher should read, or speak _memoriter_, or preach _extempore_.\nThis can be discussed endlessly, and the discussion is always\ninteresting; but, if it were discussed every year for a century, it\nwould be as far from being settled as ever. Besides, it is my duty to\nremember what others have handled exhaustively here before me. Indeed,\nthe Senate mentioned to me that it was desirable that the subject\nshould be taken up from a new point of view. They have been good\nenough to express their approbation of the way in which I mean to\ntreat it; but it is not in deference to their instructions that I take\nit up in this way, but in accordance with the bent of my own mind; and\nI think I see my way to bring to bear on it all the practical\nexperience which I may be in possession of; for I quite recognise that\nthe value of such a course of lectures largely depends on its being,\nfrom beginning to end, what in literature is called a Confession, that\nis, a record of experiences. Although I am to go back to the ages of\nthe apostles and the prophets, I do not intend to stay there. My wish\nis to bring down from thence fire which will kindle your hearts, as\nyou face the world and the tasks of to-day.\n\nThere is another objection, which may have already occurred to some of\nyou, and would doubtless occur to many, as I went along, if I did not\nanticipate it. It may be felt, that both apostles and prophets were so\ndifferently situated from us, especially through the possession of the\ngift of inspiration, that they can be no example for us to follow. To\nthis I will not reply by seeking in any way to minimise their\ninspiration. It is, indeed, difficult to say exactly how their\ninspiration differed from that which is accessible and indispensable\nto us; for we also are entirely dependent for the power and success of\nour work on the same Spirit as spoke through them. But, however\ndifficult it may be to define it, I am one of those who believe that\nthere is a difference, and that it is a great difference. The mind and\nwill of God expressed themselves through the prophets and apostles\nwith a directness and authority which we cannot claim. But the\ndifference is not such as to remove them beyond our imitation.\nAlthough in some, or even many, respects they may be beyond us, this\nis no reason why we may not in others imitate them with the greatest\nadvantage. It will be seen at a glance how little there is in this\nobjection, if it be considered that our Lord Himself is the great\npattern of the ministry. In some respects He is of course much farther\naway from us than either prophets or apostles; yet He is near us as a\nmodel in every detail of our duty. No mode of treating my subject\nwould have been so congenial to me as to set Him forth in this\ncharacter. But, having attempted to do so elsewhere, I have chosen the\nmethod now announced under the conviction, that the nearest approach\nto the study of how Christ fulfilled the duties of the ministry is to\nstudy how prophets and apostles fulfilled them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is one thing more which I should like to say before closing this\nsomewhat miscellaneous introductory lecture. I would not have come to\nlecture to you on this subject if I were not a firm believer in\npreaching. If in what has been already said I have seemed to\ndepreciate its results, this is only because my ideal is so high of\nwhat the pulpit ought to do, and might do.[5] I do not, indeed,\nseparate preaching from the other parts of a minister's life, such as\nthe conducting of the service of the sanctuary, the visitation of the\ncongregation, and taking part in more general public work. As I go on,\nit will be seen, that, so far from undervaluing these, I hold them to\nbe all required even to produce a healthy pulpit power. Yet preaching\nis the central thing in our work. I believe in it, because Christ\nHimself set His stamp on it. Read His sayings, and you will see that\nthis was what He sent forth the servants of His kingdom to do.\n\"Christ,\" says St. Paul, \"sent me not to baptize, but to preach the\nGospel\"; not, I think, thereby ignoring baptism, but putting it and\nall other ceremonies in their proper place of subordination to the\npreaching of the Word.\n\nIt is often charged against the evangelical, and especially the free,\nChurches at the present day, that they give preaching a position of\ntoo great prominence in public worship; and we are counselled to yield\nthe central place to something else. It is put to us, for example,\nwhether our people should not be taught to come to church for the\npurpose of speaking to God rather than in order to be spoken to by\nman. This has a pious sound; but there is a fallacy in it. Preaching\nis not merely the speaking of a man. If it is, then it is certainly\nnot worth coming to church for. Preaching, if it is of the right kind,\nis the voice of God. This we venture to say while well aware of its\nimperfections. In the best of preaching there is a large human element\nbeset with infirmity; yet in all genuine preaching there is conveyed a\nmessage from Heaven. And, while it is good for people to go to church\nthat they may speak to God, it is still better to go that He may speak\nto them. Nor, where God is authentically heard speaking to the heart,\nwill the response of the heart in the other elements of worship be\nlacking. It is the reception of God's message of free grace and\nredeeming love which inspires the true service of praise and prayer;\nand without this the service of the Church is soulless ceremonial.[6]\n\nFrom another side disparagement is frequently cast upon preaching in\nour day. It is said that the printing-press has superseded the\npreacher, and must more and more supersede him. Formerly, when people\ncould not read, and literature was written only for scholars, the\npulpit was a power, because it was the only purveyor of ideas to the\nmultitude; but now the common man has other resources: he has books,\nmagazines, the newspaper: and he can dispense with the preacher. To\nthis it might be answered, that the sermon is not the only thing which\nbrings people to church. Where two or three are met together, there\nare influences generated of a spiritual and social kind which answer\nto deep and permanent wants of human nature. But there is an answer\nmore direct and conclusive. The multiplication of the products of the\nprinting-press and the possession by the multitude of the power of\nreading them are certainly among the most wonderful facts of modern\ntimes, and, I will add without hesitation, among the most gratifying.\nBut what do they mean for the great majority? In the days before the\nage of the press arrived people only knew the gossip of their own\ntown, and this absorbed their thoughts and conversation. Now they hear\nevery morning the gossip of a thousand cities from China to Peru. The\nworld has become for the modern man immensely larger and more\ninteresting than it was to his predecessors; and facts about it are\naccumulated on his mind in overwhelming quantity and bewildering\nvariety. But does this make preaching less necessary to him? It surely\nmakes it far more necessary. He has more need than his fathers had of\nthose supersensible principles which give order and meaning to\nsensible facts. The larger and more wonderful the world becomes, the\nmore urgent becomes the question of the cause which has produced it;\nand, the more the figures multiply which the spectators have to watch\non the theatre of history, the more indispensable becomes the\nknowledge of the argument of the drama. If the pulpit has an authentic\nmessage to deliver about Him whose thought is the ground of all\nexistence, and whose will of love is the explanation of the pain and\nmystery of life, the more cultivated and eager the mind of man\nbecomes, then the more indispensable will the voice of the pulpit be\nfelt to be; and a real decay of the power of the pulpit can only be\ndue either to preachers themselves, when, losing touch with the\nmysteries of revelation, they let themselves down to the level of\nvendors of passing opinion, or to such a shallowing of the general\nmind as will render it incapable of taking an earnest interest in the\nprofounder problems of existence.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1]\n\n    \"A set o' dull, conceited hashes\n    Confuse their brains in college classes,\n    They gang in stirks, and come out asses,\n                Plain truth to speak,\n    An' syne they hope to speel Parnassus\n                By dint o' Greek.\n\n    \"Gi'e me _a'e spark o' nature's fire_,\n    That's a' the learnin' I desire,\n    Then, though I trudge through dub an' mire,\n                At pleuch or cart,\n    My muse, though homely in attire,\n                May touch the heart.\"--BURNS.\n\n[2] \"In 1880 there was in the United States one Evangelical Church\norganization to every 516 of the population. In Boston there is 1 church\nto every 1,600 of the population; in Chicago 1 to 2,081; in New York 1\nto 2,468; in St. Louis 1 to 2,800.\"--_Our Country_, by Rev. Josiah\nStrong, D.D.\n\n[3] See Duhm: _Die Theologie der Propheten_--preface.\n\n[4] Cheyne, Smith, Delitzsch, von Orelli, Dillmann, etc.\n\n[5] \"After eleven years of active preaching I have spent five of hardly\nless active hearing. I have listened carefully to preachers of all\ndegrees and denominations, and some convictions have been burned in upon\nmy mind. Far above all, I have learned to believe in the great\nimportance of preaching--the effect it has on men's lives and thoughts;\ntheir need of it; their pain and loss when it does not help and reach\nthem. I used to think that, if it did men good, they would speak more of\nit. But they pay no compliments to their daily bread; yet it is the\nstaff of their life. If ministers knew the silent appreciation of\nhelpful preaching, they would work, if not harder, at least more\nbrightly and hopefully.... Preachers should remember that the large\nsilent part of their flock is only reached by preaching, and, therefore,\nthey should give their strength to it, and not to little meetings.\nSuppose an average instance: Sunday morning attendance, 250. The\nminister does not preach well; but he works hard during the week, and\nhas, Monday, Literary Society, 15; Tuesday, Young Ladies' Bible Class,\n12; Wednesday, Prayer Meeting, 30; Thursday, Class for Servants, 8;\nFriday, Class for Children, 15. All told, these do not represent more\nthan 50, leaving 200 reached only by preaching, and more or less\ndissatisfied.\"--_Ex sapientis manuscripto penes me._\n\n[6] \"New Testament preaching dates from the day of Pentecost. Tongues of\nfire rested on the assembled Church; and they began to speak with other\ntongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. The word of God, the\ntestimony of Jesus, the gospel of our salvation, preached in tongues of\nmen of every race, was to be the form of power by which the kingdom of\nGod, in our dispensation, should spread abroad and prevail. But the\ntongues were tongues of fire. This fire is, first of all, the Holy\nSpirit, whose quick, pure and living presence it denotes. But then it is\nintimated that the Holy Spirit was to prove Himself fire _in the speech\nof men_. It is intimated that human minds, as they uttered themselves to\ntheir fellows, and human speech in that utterance, were to prove capable\nof taking fire, so as to brighten and burn with the truth and power of\nGod's Spirit. Such was the kind of preaching that was set a-going at\nPentecost, and by it the world was to be won. Other forms of influence\nwere not to be excluded, but this was to have the chief place. The word\nof power, coming burning-hot out of the living mouth of a believing man,\nis the leading form in which the Spirit's presence is evermore to make\nhead in the Church against the world, and is to carry the Church on in\nher mission in the world. This gives us the fundamental view of our work\nas preachers; and nothing more is needed in order to illustrate its\ndignity and glory.\"--PRINCIPAL RAINY.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN OF GOD.\n\n\nIn accordance with the plan announced yesterday, I am to turn your\nattention in the next four lectures to the prophets of the Old\nTestament as patterns for modern preachers; and the special subject\nfor to-day is The Preacher as a Man of God.\n\nTo earnest minds at the stage at which you stand at present no\nquestion could be more interesting than this: How does a right\nministry begin? what are the experiences which justify or compel a man\nto turn his back on all other careers and devote himself to this one?\nOn the minds of some of you this question may be pressing at the\npresent moment with great urgency. It is a question of supreme\nimportance. In most things a good deal depends on beginning well; but\nnowhere is the commencement more momentous than here.\n\nThis is a point on which the greatest emphasis is laid in the history\nof the prophets. We are told how they became prophets. Their ministry\ncommenced with a spiritual experience usually denominated the\nProphetic Call.\n\nSuch experiences are narrated of the greatest prophets. The call of\nMoses was the scene of the Burning Bush, which is detailed at great\nlength in his biography. The next outstanding prophet was Samuel, and\nthere is no better known story in Scripture than the touching account\nof how the Lord called him to be the reformer of an evil age. Each of\nthe three great literary prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel--has\nleft an account of his own call; that of Ezekiel covering nearly three\nwhole chapters. If the smaller prophets do not, as a rule, commemorate\nsimilar experiences of their own, it is not to be inferred that they\ndid not pass through them. The brief compass of their writings is\nsufficient to account for the omission; although perhaps a subjective\nelement may also enter into the explanation. Among ourselves there are\nmen who are able to confide to the public their own most sacred\nexperiences, and habitually make use of them to illustrate and enforce\nthe truth. To others nothing would be more unnatural: they shrink from\nthe most distant allusion to the most sacred moments of their\nspiritual history. Yet these may be worth the whole world to\nthemselves. Both modes of procedure have Scriptural warrant: for some\nof the prophets narrate their calls, and others do not.\n\nIf these calls of distinguished men to God's service be noted one by\none, they will be found to include many of the grandest scenes of\nScripture.[7] There could be no more splendid subject--if I may give\nthe hint in passing--for a course of lectures in the congregation, or\neven for a course, like the present, to students of divinity.\n\nThey exhibit astonishing variety. Moses, for example, was called in\nthe maturity of his powers, but Samuel when he was still a child.\nJeremiah's call bears a certain resemblance to that of Moses, because\nboth resisted the Divine will through inability to speak; but in other\nrespects they are totally dissimilar. Ezekiel's stands altogether by\nitself, and is extremely difficult to unravel; but it is thoroughly\ncharacteristic of his sublime and intricate genius. Nowhere else could\nthere be found a more telling illustration of the diversity of\noperation in which the Spirit of God delights, when He is touching the\nspirit of man, even if He is aiming at identical results.\n\nFor in all cases the effect was the same. The man who was called to be\na prophet was separated by this summons from all other occupations\nwhich could interfere with the service for which God had designated\nhim. His whole being was taken possession of for the Divine purposes\nand subjected to the sway of the Divine inspiration. One of the\ncommonest names of a prophet in the Old Testament is \"a man of God.\"\nThrough constant use this term has lost its meaning for us. But it\nmeant exactly what it said: that the prophet was not his own, but\nGod's man; he belonged to God, who could send him wherever He wished\nand do with him whatever He would. It was the same idea that St. Paul\nexpressed, when he called himself, as he loved to do, \"the slave of\nJesus Christ.\"\n\nIt has sometimes been attempted to explain these scenes away, as if\nthey were not records of actual experience, but only poetic\nrepresentations which the prophets prefixed to their writings, to\nafford their readers a dramatic prefigurement of the general scope of\ntheir prophecies, ideas being freely put into them which the prophets\ndid not themselves possess at the commencement of their career, but\nonly acquired by degrees as their life proceeded.[8] They are compared\nto such efforts of the poet as the _Vision_ of Robert Burns, in which\nhe tells how the muse of Caledonia appeared to him at the plough,\nand, casting her mantle round him and claiming him as her own,\nconsecrated him the poet of his native land; or the _Zueignung_ of\nGoethe, in which he feigns a similar experience which befell him on\nthe moonlight heights of the German forest. But, though there is a\npoetic element in prophecy, the prophetic spirit was too much in\nearnest for such figments of the imagination, which are alien to the\nseverity of the Hebrew genius. Besides, such scenes are not confined\nto the Hebrew prophets: they belong to the true religion in all\ngenerations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAny of the prophetic calls would bring suggestively before us the\ntopic with which we are occupied to-day; and it is not without regret\nthat I turn away from the Burning Bush, with its dramatic dialogue\nbetween Jehovah and Moses touching many points which are the very same\nas still perplex those who are standing on the threshold of a\nministerial career; from the chamber of the tabernacle, with its\nstartling voice, in which God opened the heart of Samuel to take in\nthe purpose of life; and from the wonderfully instructive scene in\nwhich the shrinking spirit of Jeremiah met the Divine summons with the\nhumble cry of deprecation, \"Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child,\"\ntill the Divine sympathy and wisdom answered his arguments and lifted\nhim above his fears. But we have agreed to take Isaiah as the\nrepresentative of the prophets; and, in spite of these other\nattractions, we need not repent of this; for there is nothing in Holy\nWrit more unique and sublime than the call of Isaiah, and it is\npregnant in every line with instruction. It is, indeed, far away from\nus, and it will require a strong effort to transport ourselves back\nover so many centuries and enter sympathetically into the experience\nof one who lived in such a widely different world. But it is a real\nchapter of human experience. As Isaiah prophesied for fifty or perhaps\neven sixty years after this, he must at the time have been in the\nprime of his days. In short, he was at the very stage of life at which\nyou are now, and this is an account of how a young man of three\nthousand years ago became a public servant of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are two or three points worth noting before we go on to describe\nthe scene itself.\n\n1. It is reported in the sixth chapter of the prophecies of Isaiah. We\nshould naturally have expected it to stand at the beginning of the\nwhole book, as do the corresponding scenes in the books of Jeremiah\nand Ezekiel; and it is not easy to say why it is not found in this\nposition. We are perhaps too ready to think of the prophecies of a\nprophet as a continuous book, written, in one prolonged effort, on a\nsingle theme, as books are written in modern times. But this is a\nmisconception. They came together more like the pieces of a lyric\npoet. A lyric poet composes his pieces at uncertain intervals of\ninspiration; they range over a great variety of subjects; and it may\nonly be late in life that he thinks of collecting them in a volume. So\nthe prophecies of the prophet came to him at uncertain and often\nlengthy intervals; they were sometimes very brief, no longer than\nshort lyrics; and we know that he sometimes did not think of any\nliterary publication of them till long after their oral delivery. A\nlyric poet, when collecting his pieces, may adopt any one of several\ndifferent principles of arrangement. The simplest way is to insert\nthem in chronological order; but he may follow some subtle\npsychological arrangement, as Wordsworth, for instance, did when his\ncollected works were published; or he may throw them together at\nrandom, according to the fancy of the moment; and this is perhaps the\ncommonest case. There seems to be the same variety in the prophets.\nThe prophecies of Ezekiel, for example, are arranged on the\nchronological principle, but those of Isaiah and Jeremiah are not; and\nit is one of the most difficult tasks of interpretation to assign the\ndifferent pieces to their original dates. It is doubtful whether there\nis any rigid principle at all in Isaiah's prophecies. It is even\ndoubtful whether the order in which they stand is due to him or to a\ndisciple or editor, who arranged them after he was dead. We need\nhardly, therefore, inquire very strictly why any particular chapter\noccurs in its particular place. But it is somewhat awkward that the\nsixth chapter stands where it does, in the body of the book, instead\nof at the head of it; because this hides its significance from the\ngeneral reader. Scholars are agreed, however, that it is an account of\nIsaiah's call to be a prophet; and, when this is recognised, every\ndetail of the scene which it records is invested with new meaning.\n\n2. It is worthy of note that the event is precisely dated. The chapter\nbegins with the words, \"In the year that King Uzziah died.\" There are\nforms of religious experience which are dateless--processes of slow\nand unmarked growth, which may spread themselves over years; but there\nare also crises, when experience crystallizes into events so\nremarkable that they become standing dates in the lives of those who\nhave enjoyed them, from which they reckon, as other people do from\nbirth or marriage or the turning-points of their domestic and\ncommercial history.\n\nWhether this was the first of such events in the history of Isaiah I\nhave often wondered. There is nothing unlikely in the suggestion. In\nother cases the call to enter into God's work synchronized with the\nfirst real encounter with God Himself. Samuel's call to be a prophet\ncoincided with his first personal introduction to acquaintance with\nJehovah, whom, it is distinctly stated, he did not previously know;\nand St. Paul's call to the apostolate happened at the same time as his\nconversion. As we go on, we shall come upon at least one circumstance\nwhich points pretty strongly to the conclusion that this was Isaiah's\nfirst conscious transaction with God.\n\n3. The place where the incident occurred is also worthy of note. It\nwas in the temple. Ewald and other able commentators interpret this to\nmean the heavenly temple, and suppose that the future prophet was\ntransported to some imaginary place which he called by this name. But\nthis is quite a gratuitous suggestion, and it very much weakens the\nimpressiveness of the whole scene, the very point of which lies in the\nfact that it took place on familiar ground. Isaiah was a Jerusalemite,\nand the temple was the most familiar of all haunts to him. He had\nwitnessed there a thousand times the external ritual of religion--the\nworshipping multitudes, the priests, and the paraphernalia of\nsacrifice. But now, on the same spot, he was to see a sight in whose\nglory all these things would disappear. This is what the critical\nmoments of religious experience are always meant to do: they\nobliterate the familiar externals of religion and reveal the reality\nwhich is hidden behind them; they convert common spots of every-day\nexperience into the house of God and the gate of heaven.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch were the circumstances of time and place in which the crisis of\nIsaiah's history occurred. One day, in the year that King Uzziah died,\nhe wended his way, as he had done hundreds of times before, to the\ntemple; and there that took place which altered the whole course of\nhis life. Whether in the body or out of the body, we cannot tell, he\nsaw three successive visions, or rather a threefold vision--a vision\nof God, a vision of sin, and a vision of grace.\n\n1. It began with a Vision of God. The chapter opens with these sublime\nwords, \"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord.\" It is an\nastounding statement to come from a prophet of that religion whose\nfundamental principle was the spirituality of God, \"No man hath seen\nGod at any time\"; and, indeed, there is an old rabbinical tradition,\nthat King Manasseh, who is said to have caused Isaiah to be sawn\nasunder, made the alleged impiety of these words the excuse for his\ncruelty. But it was a mere excuse; for the difficulty only serves to\nprove the transcendent spiritual tact and literary skill of the\nprophet, who manages the scene in such a way as to preserve quite\nintact the principle of the Divine spirituality. Though he says that\nhe saw God, he gives no description of Him; only the sights and sounds\nround about Him are so described as in the most vivid way to suggest\nthe Presence which remains unseen. It is as if a historical scene of\nruin and conflagration were represented on canvas, without showing the\nburning materials, by painting the glare of light and the emotions of\nterror and dismay on the faces of the spectators.\n\nFirst, the throne on which God sits is described: it is erected in the\ntemple, and it is high and lifted up, for He is a great King. But no\ndescription is given of the figure seated on it; only His train--the\nbillowing folds of His robes--filled the temple. Above the throne, or\nrather round it, like the courtiers surrounding the throne of an\nEastern monarch, stand the seraphim. These beings are mentioned only\nhere in Holy Writ. Their name signifies the shining or fiery ones.\nThey are attendants of the Divine King, bright and swift as fire in\ntheir intelligence and activity. Each has six wings: with twain he\ncovers his face, and with twain he covers his feet, evidently to\nprotect his eyes and person from the consuming glory of the Divine\npresence, which is thus indicated again without being described; and\nwith the remaining two he flies, or rather poises himself in his place\nready for flight at the Divine signal.\n\nThen, amidst these sublime sights break in sounds equally sublime. By\nour translation the impression is produced that they come from the\nseraphim. But the original is more vague, and the meaning probably is,\nthat the responsive voices which are heard come from unseen choirs in\nopposite quarters of the temple. Unceasingly the strain rises from one\nside, unceasingly the answer comes from the other; in the centre the\nvoices meet and mingle in loud harmony.\n\nTheir burden is, \"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole\nearth is full of His glory.\" That is, they are celebrating the two\nattributes of the Divine character which always most impressed a\nJewish mind--His holiness and His omnipotence. The one is God as He is\nin Himself, turned inwards, so to speak. He is absolutely holy,\nunapproachable, a consuming fire scorching away impurity, falsehood,\nand sin of every kind. The other is God as He is in the world, turned\noutwards, so to speak; the world's fulness--suns and systems,\nmountains and oceans, earthquake and storm, summer's abundance and\nwinter's terror--all this is His glory, the garment by which He makes\nHimself visible.[9]\n\nThe voices swell till the temple rocks, or seems to rock to the\nreeling senses of the prophet, and the house is filled with smoke, or\nseems to be so, as a mist envelops the swooning spirit of the\nspectator. But still, through the mist, there peal, falling like the\nstrokes of a hammer on the listening heart, the notes of the dread\nsong, \"Holy, holy, holy.\"\n\n2. Next ensued a Vision of Sin. The vision of God could not but unseal\na rushing stream of feeling of some kind in Isaiah. But of what kind\nwould it be? Surely of joyful adoration: the soul, inspired with the\nsublimity of these sights and thrilled with these sounds, will rise to\nthe majesty of the occasion, and the human voice will strike in with\nall its force among the angelic voices, crying, \"Holy, holy, holy.\"\n\nSo one might have expected. But the human mind is a strange thing; and\nit is difficult to know where and how to touch its delicate and\ncomplex mechanism so as to produce any desired effect. You wish to\nproduce a flow of tender feeling, and you tell a pathetic tale, which\nought, you think, to move the heart. But at every sentence the\nfeatures of the listeners harden into more and more rigidity, or even\nrelax into mocking laughter; whereas the suggestion of a noble\nthought, which seems to have nothing to do with pathos, may\ninstantaneously melt the soul and unseal the fountain of tears. Or is\nit the conscience which is to be affected? The clumsy operator begins\nto assail it straight with denunciations of sin, but, instead of\nproducing penitence, he only rouses the whole man into proud and angry\nself-defence; whereas a single touch, no heavier than an infant's\nfinger, applied away up somewhere, remote from conscience, in the\nregion of the imagination, may send an electric shock down through the\nwhole being and shake the conscience from centre to circumference.\n\nIsaiah's mind was one of the most sensitive and complicated ever\nbestowed on a human being; but it was now in the hands of its Maker,\nwho knew how to touch it to fine issues. The Maker's design on this\noccasion was to produce in it an overpowering sense of sin; and what\nHe did was to confront it with infinite holiness and majesty. These\nwere brought so near that there was no escape. The poor, finite,\nsinful man was held at arm's length, so to speak, in the grasp of the\nInfinite and Most Holy; and the result was a total collapse of the\nhuman spirit. Isaiah's eye turned away from the sight of God's glory\nback upon himself, and back on his past life; and, in this light, all\nappeared foul and hideous. There was sin everywhere--sin in himself\nand sin in his environment. He was utterly confounded and swallowed up\nof shame and terror. \"Woe is me,\" he groaned, \"for I am undone;\nbecause I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a\npeople of unclean lips.\"\n\nWhy he felt the taint specially on his lips it might not be easy to\ntell. Perhaps it was because the angelic song was a challenge to join\nin the praise of God, but he felt that the lips of one like him were\nnot worthy to join in their song. Perhaps--who can tell?--the\nbesetting sin of his previous life may have been profanity of speech,\nas it was evidently a crying sin of his time. This suggestion gives a\nshock to the ideas which we associate with Isaiah, and it is hard to\nthink that the lips which afterwards spoke like angels can ever have\ndefiled themselves with such a sin. But this is the most natural\nmeaning of the words, and it is not against the analogy of other\nlives. Great saints, and even great preachers, are made out of great\nsinners; and the memory of an odious and conspicuous sin like this may\nsometimes lend a passionate force to subsequent devotion and keep\nalive for a lifetime the sense of personal unworthiness.\n\n3. The last scene in the evolution of this vision, which was surely\nmore than a vision, was the Vision of Grace. One of the fiery\nattendants, who hovered on quivering wing ready to execute the orders\nof the Divine King, receiving a command by some unexplained mode of\ncommunication, flew to the altar, and, taking up the tongs, seized\nwith them a stone from the altar fire. It was neither a coal, as our\nrendering gives it, nor a brand, but a heated stone, such as was used,\nand is used at the present day, in the East, for conveying heat to a\ndistance for any purpose for which it might be required. It came from\nthe altar: it contained God's fire, and God sent it.\n\nThe purpose for which it was required on this occasion was cleansing.\nOf cleansing there are in Scripture three symbols. The simplest is\nwater; and water can purify many things; but there are some things\nwhich water cannot cleanse. A stronger agent is required, and this is\nfound in fire. You must fling the ore, for example, into the fire, if\nyou wish to extract from it the pure gold. There is a third symbol,\nwhich appears in the New Testament as well as the Old, and it is the\nmost sacred of all. It is blood. Water, fire, blood--these three mean\nthe same in Scripture. In this case it was fire.\n\nThe seraph flew with the hot stone and laid it on the lips of the\nfuture prophet. Why did he lay it there? Because it was there that\nIsaiah felt his sin to be lying. He had said, \"I am a man of unclean\nlips.\" The fire burned the sin away. So the seraph said, speaking in\nGod's name, \"Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is\ntaken away and thy sin purged.\" It was the assurance of the Divine\nforgiveness, which had come swift as a seraph's flight in answer to\nIsaiah's confession.[10]\n\nIsaiah's preparation was completed in these three successive phases of\nexperience; and now the purpose was disclosed for which he had been\nprepared. From aloft--from the throne high and lifted up--came the\nquestion, \"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?\" The King needed\na messenger to bear a message and represent Himself. He had chosen\nIsaiah to bear it; yet He did not thrust the commission on him.[11] He\ndid not need to do so; for Isaiah had passed through a preparation\nwhich made him not only thoroughly able, but thoroughly willing. He\nhad been lifted out of time into eternity; and in this one hour of\nconcentrated experience he had both died and been born again. His life\nhad been undone and forfeited; but God had given it back to him, and\nhe felt that now it was not his own. He was thrilling with the power\nof forgiveness, and the impulses towards God--to be near Him, to\nserve Him, to do anything for Him--were now far stronger than his\nshrinking from Him had been a little before. Therefore of his own free\nwill and choice he answered the Divine question with, \"Here am I, send\nme.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGentlemen, I have gone minutely into the details of this scene in the\nlife of a representative preacher of the Old Testament, because every\nline of it speaks to the deep and subtle movements of our own\nexperience. What is the inference to be drawn from it? Is it that at\nthe commencement of a preacher's career there must be a call to the\nministry distinct from the experience of personal salvation? This\ninference has often been drawn; but I prefer, in the meantime at\nleast, to draw a wider but, I believe, a sounder and more useful\ninference. It is this: that the outer must be preceded by the inner;\npublic life for God must be preceded by private life with God; unless\nGod has first spoken to a man, it is vain for a man to attempt to\nspeak for God.\n\nThis principle has an extensive and varied application.\n\nIt applies to the beginnings of the religious life. I should like to\nbe allowed to say to you, gentlemen, with all the earnestness of which\nI am capable, that the prime qualification of a minister is that he be\nhimself a religious man--that, before he begins to make God known, he\nshould first himself know God. How this comes to pass, this is not the\nplace to explain. Only let me say, that it is more than the play upon\nus of religious influences from the outside. There must be a reaction\non our own part--an opening of our nature to take in and assimilate\nwhat is brought to bear on us by others. There must be an uprising of\nour own will and a deliberate choice of God. Of course in the history\nof many there are, at this stage, experiences almost as dramatic and\nmemorable as this scene in the life of Isaiah; and they may be\ncomposed of nearly identical elements. In some haunt of ordinary\nlife--perhaps in the church of one's childhood or in the room\nconsecrated by the prayers of early years--there comes a sudden\nrevelation of God, which transfigures everything. In this great light\nthe man feels himself to be like an unclean thing, ready to be\ncondemned and annihilated by the presence of the Thrice Holy. But then\nensues the wonderful revelation of grace, when God takes up the soul\nin despair and draws it to His heart, penetrating it with the sense of\nforgiveness and the confidence of childhood. It is not surprising that\nthis new-born life should feel itself at once dedicated to the service\nof God. I heard one of our most rising ministers say a short time ago,\nthat he knew he was to be a minister on the very day of his\nconversion, though at the time he was engaged in a totally different\npursuit.\n\nBut this may come later; and it may be the burden of another great\nmoment of revelation. For, as I have hinted already in this lecture,\nthe true Christian life is not all a silent, unmarked growth; it has\nits crises also, when it rises at a bound to new levels, where new\nprospects unfold themselves before it and alter everything. There are\nmoments in life more precious than days, and there are days which we\nwould not exchange for years. Swept along with other materials into\nthe common receptacle of memory, they shine like gold, silver,\nprecious stones among the wood, hay, stubble of ordinary experience.\nIt is impossible to say how much one such experience may do to direct\nand to inspire a life. I believe that many a humble minister has such\nan experience hidden in his memory, which he may never have disclosed\nto anyone, but which is invested for himself with unfading splendor\nand authority, and binds him to the service of God till his dying\nday.[12]\n\nBut this principle, which we have drawn for our own use from Isaiah's\ncall, applies not only to the initial act, but to every subsequent\ndetail of our life. It is true of every appearance which a minister\nmakes before a congregation. Unless he has spent the week with God and\nreceived Divine communications, it would be better not to enter the\npulpit or open his mouth on Sunday at all. There ought to be on the\nspirit, and even on the face of a minister, as he comes forth before\nmen, a ray of the glory which was seen on the face of Moses when he\ncame down among the people with God's message from the mount.\n\nIt applies, too, on a larger scale, to the ministerial life as a\nwhole. Valuable as an initial call may be, it will not do to trade too\nlong on such a memory. A ministry of growing power must be one of\ngrowing experience. The soul must be in touch with God and enjoy\ngolden hours of fresh revelation. The truth must come to the minister\nas the satisfaction of his own needs and the answer to his\nperplexities; and he must be able to use the language of religion, not\nas the nearest equivalent he can find for that which he believes\nothers to be passing through, but as the exact equivalent of that\nwhich he has passed through himself. There are many rules for praying\nin public, and a competent minister will not neglect them; but there\nis one rule worth all the rest put together, and it is this: Be a man\nof prayer yourself; and then the congregation will feel, as you open\nyour lips to lead their devotions, that you are entering an accustomed\npresence and speaking to a well-known Friend. There are arts of study\nby which the contents of the Bible can be made available for the\nedification of others; but this is the best rule: Study God's Word\ndiligently for your own edification; and then, when it has become\nmore to you than your necessary food and sweeter than honey or the\nhoney-comb, it will be impossible for you to speak of it to others\nwithout a glow passing into your words which will betray the delight\nwith which it has inspired yourself.[13]\n\nPerhaps of all causes of ministerial failure the commonest lies here;\nand of all ministerial qualifications, this, although the simplest, is\nthe most trying. Either we have never had a spiritual experience deep\nand thorough enough to lay bare to us the mysteries of the soul; or\nour experience is too old, and we have repeated it so often that it\nhas become stale to ourselves; or we have made reading a substitute\nfor thinking; or we have allowed the number and the pressure of the\nduties of our office to curtail our prayers and shut us out of our\nstudies; or we have learned the professional tone in which things\nought to be said, and we can fall into it without present feeling.\nPower for work like ours is only to be acquired in secret; it is only\nthe man who has a large, varied and original life with God who can go\non speaking about the things of God with fresh interest; but a\nthousand things happen to interfere with such a prayerful and\nmeditative life. It is not because our arguments for religion are not\nstrong enough that we fail to convince, but because the argument is\nwanting which never fails to tell; and this is religion itself. People\neverywhere can appreciate this, and nothing can supply the lack of it.\nThe hearers may not know why their minister, with all his gifts, does\nnot make a religious impression on them; but it is because he is not\nhimself a spiritual power.[14]\n\nThere comes to my mind a reminiscence from college days, which grows\nmore significant to me the longer I live. One Saturday morning at our\nMissionary Society there came, at our invitation, to talk to us about\nour future life, the professor who was the idol of the students and\nreputed the most severely scientific of the whole staff. We used to\nthink him keen, too, and cynical; and what we expected was perhaps a\nscathing exposure of the weaknesses of ministers or a severe\nexhortation to study. It turned out, on the contrary, to be a strange\npiece, steeped in emotion and full of almost lyrical tenderness; and I\ncan still remember the kind of awe which fell on us, as, from this\nreserved nature, we heard a conception of the ministry which had\nscarcely occurred to any of us before; for he said, that the great\npurpose for which a minister is settled in a parish is not to\ncultivate scholarship, or to visit the people during the week, or even\nto preach to them on Sunday, but it is to live among them as a good\nman, whose mere presence is a demonstration which cannot be gainsaid\nthat there is a life possible on earth which is fed from no earthly\nsource, and that the things spoken of in church on Sabbath are\nrealities.\n\nSide by side with this reminiscence there lives in my memory another,\nwhich also grows more beautiful the more I learn of life. It was my\nhappiness, when I was ordained, to be settled next neighbour to an\naged and saintly minister. He was a man of competent scholarship, and\nhad the reputation of having been in early life a powerful and popular\npreacher. But it was not to these gifts that he owned his unique\ninfluence. He moved through the town, with his white hair and somewhat\nstaid and dignified demeanour, as a hallowing presence. His very\npassing in the street was a kind of benediction, and the people, as\nthey looked after him, spoke of him to each other with affectionate\nveneration. Children were proud when he laid his hand on their heads,\nand they treasured the kindly words which he spoke to them. At\nfunerals and other seasons of domestic solemnity his presence was\nsought by people of all denominations. We who laboured along with him\nin the ministry felt that his mere existence in the community was an\nirresistible demonstration of Christianity and a tower of strength to\nevery good cause. Yet he had not gained this position of influence by\nbrilliant talents or great achievements or the pushing of ambition;\nfor he was singularly modest, and would have been the last to credit\nhimself with half the good he did. The whole mystery lay in this, that\nhe had lived in the town for forty years a blameless life, and was\nknown by everybody to be a godly and prayerful man. He was good enough\nto honour me with his friendship; and his example wrote deeply upon\nmy mind these two convictions--that it may sometimes be of immense\nadvantage to spend a whole lifetime in a single pastorate, and that\nthe prime qualification for the ministry is goodness.[15]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] \"One great part of the history of the Bible is the history of\nCalls.\"--DEAN CHURCH.\n\n[8] I am sorry to observe that even Mr. G.A. Smith, whose Commentary on\nIsaiah is distinguished not only by thorough scholarship but by what is\nfar rarer in works of the kind--a profusion of just and inspiring\nideas--at this point, following bad examples, says that there are ideas\nimported into the account of Isaiah's call which belonged to a later\nperiod of his life. Not only is this wrong psychologically, because it\nminimises the divinatory power of the human spirit in the great moments\nof experience; but surely it is utterly wrong artistically, because, if\nthe ideas are historically out of place, Isaiah himself ought to have\nfelt that, by placing them there, he was breaking the spell of\nverisimilitude, on which the effect of such a picture depends.\n\n[9] This is the literal translation, \"The fulness of the whole world is\nHis glory.\"\n\n[10] The lips of Jeremiah were also touched in his call by the hand of\nGod. But the meaning appears to have been different. He had complained\nthat he could not speak--that he was tongue-tied. The touch of the\nDivine hand may have meant that the restraining cord was loosed, and a\nfree passage made for the utterance of what he had to say. The words\nwhich accompanied the touch suggest, however, a slightly different\nidea--\"Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth.\" The difficulty of\nJeremiah was not exactly that of Moses, who, when he complained that he\ncould not speak, meant that, never having acquired the art of expressing\nhimself, he could not utter what he had to say, even though he was full\nof matter. This was the natural difficulty of an elderly man; for the\nart of expression has to be acquired in youth. But the difficulty of a\nyoung man like Jeremiah is not so much to express what he has to say as\nto get something worth saying. This was what Jeremiah complained of; and\nthe touching of his lips meant that God was putting His own words into\nhis mouth. It was a promise that the well of ideas in his mind should\nnot run dry, but that God would give him such a revelation of His mind\nand will as would supply him with an ample message to his age. All three\ncases are full of instruction and encouragement.\n\n[11] \"After passing through the fundamental religious experiences of\nforgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable\npremises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself. No direct summons\nwas addressed to him, no compulsion was laid on him; but he heard the\nvoice of God asking generally for messengers, and he, on his own\nresponsibility, answered it for himself in particular. He heard from the\nDivine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately\nfull of the mind that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart\nto give himself to it. So great an example cannot be too closely studied\nby candidates for the ministry in our own day. Sacrifice is not the\nhalf-sleepy, half-reluctant submission to the force of circumstance or\nopinion, in which shape it is so often travestied among us, but the\nresolute self-surrender and willing resignation of a free and reasonable\nsoul. There are many in our day who look for an irresistible compulsion\ninto the ministry of the Church; sensitive as they are to the material\nbias by which men roll off into other professions, they pray for\nsomething of a similar kind to prevail with them in this direction also.\nThere are men who pass into the ministry by social pressure or the\nopinion of the circles they belong to, and there are men who adopt the\nprofession simply because it is on the line of least resistance. From\nwhich false beginnings rise the spent force, the premature stoppages,\nthe stagnancy, the aimlessness and heartlessness, which are the scandals\nof the professional ministry and the weakness of the Christian Church in\nour day. Men who drift into the ministry, as it is certain so many do,\nbecome mere ecclesiastical flotsam and jetsam, incapable of giving\ncarriage to any soul across the waters of this life, uncertain of their\nown arrival anywhere, and of all the waste of their generation, the most\npatent and disgraceful. God will have no driftwood for His sacrifices,\nno drift-men for His ministers. Self-consecration is the beginning of\nHis service, and a sense of our own freedom and our own responsibility\nis an indispensable element in the act of self-consecration.\"--G.A.\nSMITH: _Isaiah_.\n\n[12] I do not know that I have ever seen an entirely satisfactory\nstatement of what constitutes a call to the ministry. Probably it is one\nof those things of the Spirit which cannot be mathematically defined.\nThe variety of the calls in Scripture warns us against laying down any\nscheme to which the experience of every one must conform. It is the same\nas with the commencement of the spiritual life, where also the work of\nthe Spirit of God overflows our definitions. While some can remember and\ndescribe the whole process through which they have passed, others who\nexhibit as undeniably the marks of the Divine handiwork can give\ncomparatively little account of how it took place. The test of the\nreality of the change is not its power of being made into a good story.\nIn the one case, however, as in the other, a conscientious man will give\nall diligence to make his calling and election sure. Excellent chapters\non the subject will be found in Spurgeon's _Lectures to My Students_ and\nBlaikie's _For the Work of the Ministry_.\n\n[13] \"You have to be busy men, with many distractions, with time not\nyour own: and yet, if you are to be anything, there is one thing you\nmust secure. You must have time to enter into your own heart and be\nquiet, you must learn to collect yourselves, to be alone with\nyourselves, alone with your own thoughts, alone with eternal realities\nwhich are behind the rush and confusion of moral things, alone with God.\nYou must learn to shut your door on all your energy, on all your\ninterests, on your hopes and fears and cares, and in the silence of your\nchamber to 'possess your souls.' You must learn to look below the\nsurface; to sow the seed which you will never reap; to hear loud voices\nagainst you or seductive ones, and to find in your own heart the\nassurance and the spell which makes them vain. Whatever you do, part not\nwith the inner sacred life of the soul whereby we live _within_ to\n'things not seen,' to Christ, and truth and immortality. Your work, your\nactivity, belong to earth; no real human interest, nothing that stirs or\nattracts or that troubles men in this scene of life, ought to be too\ngreat or too little for you. But your thoughts belong to heaven; and it\nis to that height that they must rise, it is _there_ that in solitude\nand silence they must be rekindled, and enlarged, and calmed, if even\nactivity and public spirit are not to degenerate into a fatal\nforgetfulness of the true purpose of your calling--a forgetfulness of\nthe infinite tenderness and delicacy, of the unspeakable sacredness, of\nthe mysterious issues, which belong to the ministry of souls.\"--DEAN\nCHURCH.\n\n[14] \"Habet autem ut obedienter audiatur quantacunque granditate\ndictionis majus pondus vita dicentis.\"--ST. AUGUSTINE.\n\n[15] As he has been dead for several years, I need not hesitate to give\nthe name of my dear and honoured friend--the Rev. James Black, of\nDunnikier.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A PATRIOT.\n\n\nWe have committed ourselves, in our mode of dealing with the subject\nof these lectures, to the guidance of Scripture; and I have already,\nin the opening lecture, alluded to the doubt, which might arise in\nsome minds that this method might carry us away from the living\nquestions of the present age. But long experience has taught me to be\nvery confident in this method of study. It is astonishing how\ndirectly, when trusting to the leading hand of Scripture, one is\nconducted to the heart of almost any subject, and how frequently one\nis thus compelled to take up delicate aspects of present questions\nwhich one would otherwise timidly avoid; while there is, besides, this\nother great advantage, that one can always go forward with a firm\nstep, having at one's back a Divine warrant and authority. To-day we\nshall have an illustration of this; for the method which we are\nobeying will carry us straight into the midst of the burning questions\nof the hour; and the example of the prophets will press on our\nattention an aspect of ministerial duty which the times are urgently\nclamouring for, but which it is by no means easy to face. In our last\nlecture we were occupied with the call of the prophet to the service\nof God; to-day we have to study wherein consisted this service itself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere we are at once confronted with a contrast between the work of Old\nTestament prophets and that of modern ministers, to which it is by no\nmeans easy to adjust the mind. Our message in modern times is\naddressed to the individual; but the message of the prophets was\naddressed to the nation. The unit in our minds is always the soul; we\nwarn every man to flee from the wrath to come; we reason and wrestle\nwith him in the name of Heaven; we watch over the growth of his\ncharacter; and we estimate our success by the number of individuals\nbrought into the kingdom. In the prophets there is a complete absence\nof all this. They are no less in earnest; their aim is equally clear\nbefore them; but the unit in their minds is different: it is the\nJewish state, or at least the city of Jerusalem, as a whole. A recent\ncommentator[16] on Isaiah has raised the question, whether Isaiah has\na gospel for the individual. He makes out that he has; but it is in a\nsomewhat round-about way; and it is not done without, to some extent,\nattributing to Isaiah a point of view which was not his. It was Christ\nwho introduced the modern point of view. He was the discoverer of the\nindividual. It was He who taught the world to believe in the dignity\nand destiny of the single soul; and He trained His ministers to seek\nand save it.\n\nIsaiah's position, however, is well worth studying, and has its own\nlesson for us. Only we must acknowledge it to be what it really is,\nand endeavour to place ourselves on his standpoint. To him the New\nTestament position was no more possible than the modern view of ethics\nwas to the ancient philosophers; and the student of philosophy\nsaturated from birth with the modern ideas of freedom and\nindividuality, has an exactly similar difficulty to overcome, as he\nreads, for example, the _Republic_ of Plato, where the state is\neverything and the individual nothing.\n\nWhile a message to any individual is rare in the prophetical books,\nthat which we come upon wherever we open them is a patriotic and\nstatesman-like appeal on the condition of the country. The prophets\naddressed themselves by preference to the heads and representatives of\nthe people, such as kings, princes and priests; because the power to\neffect changes in the situation of the country rested in their hands.\nBut they also took advantage of large popular gatherings, and in some\nconspicuous place, such as the city-gate or the court of the temple,\ndelivered their message, which thus might reach every corner of the\nland. A name which they delight to apply to themselves is Watchmen. As\nthe watchman, stationed on his tower over the city-gate, kept guard\nover the safety of the place, giving notice when danger was\napproaching and summoning the citizens to defend themselves, so the\nprophets from their watch-tower--that is, the position of elevation\nand observation which inspiration gave them--watched over the weal of\nthe state, observing narrowly its condition within, keeping their eye\non the influences to which it was exposed from without, and, when\ndanger threatened, giving the alarm. Their acquaintance is\nextraordinary with the state of every part of the country; and still\nmore astonishing is their knowledge of surrounding countries. When\nthey have to speak of Moab or Edom, they seem as familiar with the\ntowns and rivers, the customs and history of these countries, as with\nthose of Judah; and they appear to be as well acquainted with what is\ngoing on in the cities on the Nile or the Euphrates as with what is\nhappening in Jerusalem. No home secretary is as well acquainted with\nthe internal affairs of his own country, and no foreign secretary with\nthe affairs of foreign countries. It was their vocation to be\nsensitively alive to all the influences, near or remote, by which\ntheir native land could be affected.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe contents of the prophetic writings, notwithstanding their variety,\neasily fall into a few great masses. The chief are these\nthree--Criticism, Denunciation and Comfort.\n\n1. There is a great mass of what may be called Criticism. Standing on\ntheir watch-tower and turning their observation on the internal\ncondition of the state, the prophets could nearly always discern\ndiseased symptoms in the body corporate, and it was their duty to\npoint them out. So Isaiah commences his prophecies: \"The whole head is\nsick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto\nthe head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and\nputrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither\nmollified with ointment.\" And he thus gives expression to the\nobligation which was laid on him to make these discoveries known: \"Cry\naloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people\ntheir transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.\"\n\nThe sins which the prophets had to reprehend were pretty uniform all\nthrough the prophetic period; and it is interesting to compare them\nwith those by which our own age is afflicted. There is no school in\nwhich the conscience can be so well educated to a sense of public sin\nas in the writings of the prophets.\n\nThe root evil was always Idolatry. The nation was continually falling\naway from the worship of the true God to idols, or at least the\nworship of other deities was incorporated with that of Jehovah. This\nwas always both a symptom of advanced degradation and the head and\nfountain of other evils of the worst kind. All the prophets attack it\nwith all the weapons in their armoury--with hot indignation and close\nargument and scalding tears. Isaiah is remarkable for attacking it\nwith raillery and sarcasm. He takes his readers into the idol workshop\nand details the process of their manufacture. He shows us the workmen,\nsurrounded with their plates of metal and logs of wood, out of which\nthe god is to be fashioned, and busy with their files and planes,\ntheir axes and hammers, putting together the helpless thing. The\nidolmaker, he says, has a fine ash or oak or cedar-tree, and makes a\npretty idol with it; but with the same wood he lights his fire and\ncooks his dinner--\"He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part\nthereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast and is satisfied; yea, he\nwarmeth himself and saith, Aha, aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire;\nand the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image; he\nfalleth down unto it and worshippeth it and prayeth unto it, and\nsaith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.\"\n\nClosely associated with idolatry was Luxury. So successful to our\nminds is the polemic of a prophet like Isaiah against idolatry that\nthe wonder to us is that it was ever necessary; and, indeed, there are\nfew things more puzzling to the ordinary reader of Scripture than the\nconstant lapses of the people of God into idolatry. How could they,\nknowing the true God, exchange a worship so rational and elevated for\nthe worship of stocks and stones? The explanation is a simple but a\nhumiliating one. The worship of these foreign deities was accompanied\nwith sensual excesses, which appealed to the strongest elementary\npassions of human nature. Feasts, dances and drunken orgies formed\npart of the worship of Baal and the other Canaanite divinities.\nIdolatry in Israel was never due to theoretic changes of opinion; it\nwas only the way in which an outbreak of laxity and luxury manifested\nitself. Its equivalent in our day would be an excessive development of\nthe passion for amusement and excitement, destroying the dignity and\nseriousness of life. The wealthy and fashionable classes led the way,\nas they generally do in periods of moral retrogression; and the worst\nsymptom of all was when the womanhood of the country surrendered\nitself to the prevailing tendencies. This last feature of degradation\nhad developed itself in Isaiah's day; and he attacks it with a strange\ncombination of humour and moral indignation: \"Because the daughters of\nJerusalem are haughty, and walk with outstretched neck and wanton\neyes, walking and mincing as they go, making a tinkling with their\nfeet, therefore ... the Lord will take away the bravery of their\ntinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls and their round\ntires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers,\nthe bonnets and the ornaments of the legs and the headbands, the\ntablets and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable\nsuits of apparel and the mantles and the wimples and the crisping\npins, the glasses and the fine linen, and the hoods and the veils; and\nit shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be\nstink, and instead of a girdle a rent, and instead of well-set hair\nbaldness, and instead of a stomacher a girdle of sackcloth, and\nburning instead of beauty.\"\n\nThen there was Oppression. Excessive luxury in the upper classes is\nusually accompanied with misery among those at the opposite end of the\nsocial scale; because the rich in such a state of society are\nheartless, and not only neglect the poor, but oppress them. The\nprophets are full of the wrongs inflicted on the weak by the powerful.\nThe wealthy landowners took advantage of the difficulties of their\nless prosperous neighbours to rob them of their holdings and remove\nthe ancient landmarks; and the courts of law were so corrupt that\nthose who could not bribe the occupants of the chair of justice had no\nchance of redress. The spirit of the constitution was so far violated\nthat the rich held their own fellow-countrymen in slavery, and did not\neven give them the advantage of the year of jubilee. Many a page of\nthe writings of the prophets looks like a programme for the reform of\nabuses with which we are too familiar in our own civilisation. \"Woe,\"\nsays Jeremiah, \"to him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and\nhis chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's services without\nwages and giveth him not for his work.\"\n\nLast of all there was Hypocrisy. In spite of these sins, crying to\nHeaven, there was seldom any lack of religiosity or the outward forms\nof religion. Religion was divorced from morality, and ritual was\nsubstituted for righteousness. There is no commoner or weightier\nburden in the prophets than this. It is on this subject that Isaiah\nlets loose the whole force of his prophetic soul in his very first\nchapter, where there is a truly appalling picture of the combination\nof religious rites the most multiplied with moral abuses the most\nclamant: \"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?\nsaith the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat\nof fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of rams\nor of he-goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required\nthis at your hands, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations;\nincense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the\ncalling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the\nsolemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul\nhateth; they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them. And, when\nye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when\nye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.\nWash you; make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before\nMine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve\nthe oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow.\"\n\nThus did these watchmen search out the moral and religious condition\nof the people to the very bottom and, in the most expressive language,\nbring home to their fellow-countrymen how they stood in the eyes of\nGod.\n\n2. A second large mass of the prophetic writings is occupied with\nDenunciation, or the prediction of calamities about to come as the\npunishment of sin. As sure as the prophets were that the God of the\nuniverse was a righteous God, so certain were they that the public\nsins which they exposed would bring down the wrath of Heaven; for\n\"though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.\"\n\nThe instruments of punishment were not far to seek. Israel was\nsurrounded by nations which entertained towards her feelings of bitter\nhostility and needed only the slightest provocation to attack her.\nSuch were Edom and Moab, Philistia and Syria. But, above all, she was\nhemmed in on both sides by great and warlike powers--Egypt on the one\nhand and Assyria or Babylonia on the other. These were incessantly\nwatching each other, and, in doing so, they had to look across Israel.\nShe lay in the way which the one had to take in order to get at the\nother. The secular historian would say that she could not but fall\nsooner or later into the hands of the one or the other, and that she\nwould probably pass frequently from hand to hand. But to the prophets\nthese warlike powers were the scourges in God's hand to punish the\nsins of His people; and, looking outwards from their watch-tower,\nafter exposing the sins within the state, they announced that the\nstorm-cloud of calamity was rising from this quarter or that long\nbefore any suspicion of it had dawned on the citizens themselves.\nJehovah turns the hearts of kings and peoples as the rivers of water,\nand He stirred up these hostile nations when His people were in need\nof chastisement; He could wield their power as the axe which assails a\ntree is wielded by the woodman; He could call the mightiest conqueror\nto serve His secret purposes, as a man calls a dog to his foot.[17]\nThey did not know that they were being thus used. They had their own\ndesigns, and their hatred and cruelty towards God's people were real\nenough. They were even, after doing God's work on His people, to be\npunished in turn for the animosity and violence with which they\nperformed it. But in the meantime the will of Jehovah was\naccomplished, and the discipline of His providence wreaked on the sins\nof the nation.\n\n3. The third great element in these books is Comfort. Not\nunfrequently, in delivering these predictions of approaching calamity,\nthe prophets had to put themselves into opposition to popular forms of\npatriotism and incur the danger of being regarded as enemies of their\ncountry. This was especially the case with Jeremiah, who was burdened\nall his life with the sad task of proclaiming that the time for\nrepentance was past, and the Jewish state, with its capital, must be\ndestroyed. When the enemy was before the walls of Jerusalem, and the\nheads of the state were rallying the citizens to the last and most\nsacred duty of defending their hearths and altars, he had still to\npredict that resistance was useless; and he was imprisoned as a\ntraitor, because his words were disheartening the soldiers. When at\nlast the city fell into the hands of the enemy, he was set free from\nimprisonment and loaded with honours by the conqueror as one who had\nbeen a valuable ally. Never was a position more equivocal occupied by\na patriot. Yet never has there beaten in a human breast a heart more\npatriotic than Jeremiah's. Patriotism, strong as a man's passion and\ntender as a woman's love, is the keynote of every chapter of his\nprophecies. This is characteristic of all the prophets. They loved\nIsrael, and especially the city of Jerusalem, with an ardour of\naffection such as has rarely, if ever, been bestowed on any other\ncountry or city on earth. There was something natural in this passion;\nfor Palestine was a lovely country, whose fruitful plains and\npicturesque valleys and vine-clad hills easily captivated the hearts\nof its inhabitants; and Jerusalem was a city beautiful for situation.\nBut this natural attachment was transfigured into a higher sentiment.\nJerusalem was the hearth and sanctuary of the true religion. The\ncountry was dear to the hearts of the prophets, because it had been\nspecially chosen by Jehovah as a home for His people, in which they\nmight work out their destiny. The people who inhabited this country\nwere to be married to Jehovah; He was to penetrate them with His\nspirit and character; and in them and their seed all nations of the\nearth were to be blessed.\n\nTo this sublime conception of the nation the hearts of all the\nprophets clung. However unworthy of it their own generation might be,\nthey believed in the inexhaustible resources of their race, which was\nimmortal till its destiny was accomplished. It was this faith,\ninspiring Isaiah, which enabled him to rally his fellow-countrymen to\nthe defence of Jerusalem, when, according to all human probabilities,\nextinction stared it in the face. And even Jeremiah, though he had to\npredict the ruin of the city of his heart, never dreamed for a moment\nthat its career was at an end; but, looking beyond the calamities of\nthe immediate future, he predicted that God would restore the\ncaptivity of His people and yet make Zion a praise in the earth. It\nwas, indeed, in times of calamity and suffering that the patriotism\nof the prophets burned most ardently. It was then that, speaking in\nGod's name, they poured out on the stricken city the affection which\nbreathes in such wonderful words of Isaiah as these: \"Can a mother\nforget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the\nson of her womb? Yea, they may forget: yet will I not forget thee.\nBehold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are\ncontinually before Me.\" The second half of Isaiah,[18] addressed to\nthe exiles in Babylon, overflows with such outbursts of tenderness;\nand, although there is obviously a love in them which is more than\nhuman, yet the Divine love could not have found an outlet and a voice\nfor itself except through a human heart of the most exquisite\nsensibility and passionate patriotism.[19] The prophets, who could\nscourge the people in the height of their prosperity and wantonness\nwith words which smote like swords, became in the days of calamity the\nassiduous ministers of comfort, pouring balm into the wounds of their\ncountry and never allowing the daughter of Zion to despair of her\nfuture.\n\nIt was then especially that they cultivated the most remarkable of all\nthe elements of prophecy--the hope of the Messiah. Tragic as was the\nfailure of the prophets themselves to raise the nation to the\nelevation which they saw so clearly to be her destiny, they all\nbelieved that what they had failed to do would yet be done, and that\nthere would yet be a Jerusalem bright and glorious as a star, and\nserving as the star of hope to all the peoples of the earth. Their\nconfidence in this did not rest solely on the will and power of God in\ngeneral; it was guaranteed to them by the belief, which, under\ndifferent forms, they all cherished, and taught their countrymen to\ncherish, that in the womb of the nation there lay One, to be born in\ndue time, endowed with powers far greater than their own, who would\ntake up the task which each of them had had in his turn to lay by\nunaccomplished, and carry it forward to its fulfilment--a Child of the\nnation who would unite in His character all the attributes in their\nfullest perfection which the nation herself ought to have possessed,\nand who, though standing high above His fellow-countrymen, would yet\nbe thoroughly incorporated with them, and, taking on His shoulders the\nresponsibility of their destiny, would never fail to be discouraged\nunder it, but bear it victoriously to the goal. \"Unto us a Child is\nborn, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His\nshoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the\nMighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, gentlemen, the question is, How far the aspect of the prophetic\nactivity which we have considered to-day is a model to us?\n\nIt might be argued that this is a stage of preaching which has been\nsuperseded, and that the message of ministers ought now to be\naddressed entirely to individuals. This is the theory of preaching on\nwhich many act, without perhaps considering how widely it differs from\nthe procedure of the prophets. And no doubt much might be said in its\ndefence. It was a vast step in the development of religion when Jesus\nturned from the nation to the individual and taught the world the\nvalue of the soul. Here must ever now lie the stress of Christian\npreaching; the preacher is not worthy of the Christian name who does\nnot know what it is to hunger and thirst for the salvation of\nindividuals, and who does not esteem the salvation of even one soul\nwell worth the labour of a lifetime.\n\nStill it may be doubted whether any stage through which preaching has\npassed can ever be entirely superseded; and we may well hesitate to\nbelieve that the work of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah is not still work for\nus.\n\nThis doubt is further strengthened when we turn to the record of\nChrist's own preaching. He is the final standard and incomparable\nmodel. But, though He discovered the soul and taught the world the\nvalue of the individual, His preaching was not exclusively directed to\nindividuals. It had a public and national side. He cast His protection\nover publicans and sinners, not only because they were the children of\nmen, but also because they were the seed of Abraham; He submitted His\nclaims to the ecclesiastical authorities of the nation, and, when they\nrejected them, He directed against the religious parties the\nthunderbolts of His invective. The tears and words of indescribable\ntenderness which He poured out upon the city where He was about to be\nmartyred proved that the patriotism of Isaiah and Jeremiah still\nburned in His heart; and He charged His apostles, when sending them\nforth to evangelize the world, to begin at Jerusalem.[20]\n\nIf this did not settle the question, the nature of the case would\ndemonstrate that the preacher's vocation includes a message to the\ncommunity as well as to the individual. It will be conceded by all\nthat the preacher exists for the promotion of righteousness and the\ndiminution of sin in the world. But sin is not only lodged in the\nheart of the individual: it is embodied also in evil customs and\nunjust laws, for which the community is responsible. The individual is\nlargely moulded by his environment; but this may either be so\nfavourable to goodness that his evil tendencies are restrained and\neverything encourages him to do well, or so evil that the worst vices\nare easily contracted, while every step in the right direction meets\nwith a storm of opposition. No one would contend that the chances of a\nsoul are the same whether it lives among those who watch carefully\nover its development and guide its footsteps in the paths of peace, or\namong those whose word and example are encouragements to every kind of\nsin. Society ought to be a kindly matrix in which incipient life is\nnurtured into health and beauty; but it may be a malignant nurse, by\nwhom the stream of life is poisoned at its very source. If this be so,\nthen it is as reprehensible in those whose vocation is to watch over\nthe moral and spiritual development of their fellow-men to be\nindifferent to the conditions by which life is surrounded as it would\nbe discreditable to the physicians of a city swept year after year by\npestilence, if they took no interest in the insanitary conditions to\nwhich the epidemic was due, but lazily contented themselves with\ncuring their own patients.\n\nWe seem to have arrived at precisely the point in the Church's history\nwhen her mind and conscience are to awake to this aspect of her duty.\nOne of the most eminent members of the English bench of bishops said\nrecently, that the social question is the question which the\nChristianity of the present day has to solve; and this sentiment is\nbeing echoed in every quarter. Strange it is how age after age one\nword of the message of Christianity after another lays hold of the\nChristian mind and becomes for a time the watchword of progress. There\ncan be little doubt that this is the word for our age. The\nextraordinary response given throughout the civilised world to General\nBooth's _In Darkest England_ proves how deeply the conscience of the\nworld is being stirred by the misery and degradation of the outcasts\nof society.\n\nGeneral Booth's book, and other books and pamphlets like it, have\nbrought home to us the fact, that at the base of our civilisation\nthere is sweltering a mass of sin and misery, which is not less a\nreproach to Christianity than were the publicans and sinners to the\nreligion of the contemporaries of Christ; because, though the Church\nmay not, like the Scribes and Pharisees, despise and hate these\noutcasts, it has not yet coped effectually with the problem of their\ncondition; and perhaps their numbers are increasing rather than\ndiminishing. There are sections of the community in which the\nconditions of existence are so evil that childhood is plunged, almost\nas soon as it is born, into an element of vice and crime, the bloom of\nmodesty is rudely rubbed off the soul of womanhood, and manhood is so\nbeset with temptation that escape is well-nigh impossible. Can anyone\ndoubt that an Isaiah or a Jeremiah would, in such a state of society,\nhave lifted up his voice like a trumpet and cast the condition of\nthese lost children of our people in the face of the luxurious rich,\nand especially of the professors of religion? And is it less obvious\nthat this is still the duty of the modern pulpit?\n\nIt cannot, indeed, be said with truth, that the Church has not faced\nthe problem. There is one of the causes of social misery, and that the\nvery chief, against which the Church, especially in your country, has\nnobly asserted herself. Drink is the cause to which magistrates and\njudges, and all who are brought directly into contact with the fallen\nand criminal classes, attribute three-fourths of the evils of\nsociety. Drink is the despair of every Christian worker who has\nventured down among the pariahs of our civilisation. Against this the\nChurches have not been inactive. But we are just beginning to\nacknowledge that, though drunkenness is the great cause of misery,\nthere are other causes behind it which must likewise be coped with.\nWhy do the people drink? This question, when it is impartially\nconsidered, will bring many abuses of our social system into view,\nwhich must be put out of the way before the evils of drunkenness can\nbe stopped. Excessively prolonged labour exhausts the system and makes\nit crave for artificial stimulus. Excessively low wages, with no\nprospect of rising in the world, beget a spirit of recklessness, which\nmakes men ready to turn to anything that promises to bring a gleam of\nsunshine into their monotonous lot. Ill-furnished and insanitary\nabodes drive forth their inmates to seek the brightness and comfort of\nthe saloon. These are specimens of the new questions which demand the\nattention of those who feel the reproach of our defective\ncivilisation.\n\nThere is one type of remedy which the Church has liberally supplied.\nTo those already fallen she has extended a helping hand. The\nEvangelical Revival produced a spirit of philanthropy which has\ninvented schemes for the relief of every form of human woe; and these\nhave multiplied to almost unmanageable numbers. But we are beginning\nto see that, multiply them as we may, they must be totally\ninsufficient as long as the causes of misery are undealt with. If the\ncauses remain as strong as ever, new victims will be manufactured as\nfast as philanthropy can rescue those already made. The time has come\nto ascend higher up the stream than has hitherto been done, and cut it\noff at its source. In other words, we must direct the whole force of\nChristian philanthropy to the stopping of the causes of social misery.\n\nFor this work new weapons will be required; and perhaps the principal\nof these will be legislation. The prophets appealed, as I have said,\nto kings and princes, because in their hands lay at that time the\nforce of government. But this power has now passed, and is daily more\ncompletely passing, into the hands of the people, on whom lies the\nresponsibility which formerly lay elsewhere. And, if we are to follow\nin the footsteps of Isaiah and Jeremiah, we must teach the people to\nrise to their responsibility and make use of the weapon which time has\nput into their hands for altering the conditions of life. They must\nsend to the seats of authority, both in the municipality and in the\nstate, men of public spirit, who will act not for their own interest\nor for the interest of factions, but for the good of the whole\ncommunity; and they must see to it, that the laws and their\nadministration are such as will make evil-doing difficult and\nwell-doing easy.\n\nOf course this will involve conflict with those interests which are\nvested in abuses; for there are trades which flourish in the poverty\nof the poor and even the vices of the vicious. These enjoy, in many\ncases, the advantage of high social standing; and many of the organs\nof public opinion will rally to their support. But the Church must\nappeal to the Christian conscience and summon forth the resources of\nChristian virtue, to meet this new phase of the task which has been\nappointed her. Christianity has always, and especially during the last\nhundred years, had the open hand of charity; but she will need, during\nthe next hundred years, to have also a hand which can close itself\nfirmly over the instrument of government, and make use of it as a\nlever for lifting out of the way many great obstacles which are\nkeeping back the Kingdom of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am quite aware of the dangers of this new departure which I am\nadvocating. There is the great danger of undervaluing the work of\nsaving individual souls. There is the danger of forsaking the Word of\nGod and converting the pulpit into an organ of secular discussion;\nalthough, on the other hand, there are numerous portions of the Bible\nwhich directly raise the discussion of social problems and, when\notherwise applied, can only be interpreted in a more or less unnatural\nsense. There is the danger of making the minister the mouthpiece of a\nparty. Christian tact and discretion will be necessary at every step.\nBut surely this is no reason for declining our duty, but only a reason\nfor bringing out all our resources.\n\nOne consideration which simplifies the problem is, that it is not so\nmuch the place of the minister to intervene in special questions as to\nbeget in his people a public and patriotic spirit, and to teach them\nto look upon the discharge of the duties of citizenship as a part of\nChristianity. When our people have been brought to recognise that the\npublic weal is their concern, and that they are responsible for the\nstate of society and the conditions of life, they can be left to\nthemselves to choose the right men to support the right measures.[21]\n\nHere we can build on a natural foundation. It is natural for a man to\nbe attached to the place of his birth or the town in which he lives.\nThe roots of his life are in its soil; his interests bind him to it;\nand, if he be at all divinely-souled, its traditions and notable names\ncannot fail to lay hold upon his heart. The chances which a city has\nof getting its affairs well attended to are measured by the number of\nits inhabitants who are animated with such sentiments. In the same\nway, it is natural for a man to love his country. Some countries\nespecially have the power of casting such a spell over the hearts of\ntheir children as binds them to their service. Of my country this\nmight be said. Small as it is, its beauty, its history and its\nromantic associations wield over the hearts of its inhabitants an\nextraordinary attraction. Perhaps part of the secret may lie in its\nvery smallness; for feeling contracts a passionate force within narrow\nlimits, as our Highland rivers become torrents within their rocky\nbeds. Of your country also it might be said for different reasons.\nAmerica stirs patriotic sentiment, not by its smallness, but by its\nlargeness and wonderful variety; not by the memories of the past, but\nby the boundless possibilities of the future.\n\nThese sentiments exist in the minds of our people already; and we only\nneed to foster them and impregnate them with a Christian element, in\norder to produce convictions about public duty which would have the\nmost blessed results. We might train our people to feel keenly the woe\nof mankind and especially the moral blots on the fair fame of their\nown city or country. We might get them to cherish a high ideal of what\nthe place of their abode should be, morally and spiritually, and of\nwhat their country might do in the world. In Scotland there was such\nan ideal once: the eye of the dying Covenanter saw, painted on the\nmist of the moorland, the vision of a consecrated land ruled by a\ncovenanted king.[22] In England it existed once, in the Puritan days,\nwhen, as Richard Baxter says, England was like to become a land of\nsaints, a pattern of holiness to the world, and the unmatchable\nparadise of the earth. You had it in America once: when your fathers\nlanded in the _Mayflower_, they were seeking not merely meat and\ndrink, or even wealth and plenty, but a home in which their\ndescendants might grow up in freedom, virtue and religion. We must get\nthat ideal back again, if, in spite of railroads and industrial armies\nand wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, we are not to become corrupt\nand ready to be swept away with the besom of destruction. We might\ntrain every man on whom our message lays hold to live with the\nconviction that it is his duty, before he dies, to do something to\nmake his own town more beautiful, his country happier, and the world\nbetter.\n\nAs I am addressing some who may before long be wielding a great\ninfluence, let me add one suggestion. In matters such as I have been\nspeaking of to-day success comes to the man who has a programme. Now\nis the time, when you are looking out on the world with the keen eyes\nof youth, to note the abuses which need correction and to picture with\nthe eye of the imagination the improvements which are required to wipe\nout the reproach or to elevate the reputation of your country. Fix the\nvision in the centre of your mind; keep it ever before you; and your\ndream may change to a reality which will modify the conditions of life\nfor whole generations of your fellow-men. What could be worthier of\nyour manhood at its present stage than to be revolving some plan for\nthe benefit and honour of your country? Even if it should never come\nto anything, it will be good that it has been in your heart. But there\nis nothing else which is more likely to come to something. \"What,\"\nsays Alfred de Vigny, \"is a great life? It is a thought conceived in\nthe fervent mind of youth and executed with the solid force of\nmanhood.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[16] Rev. G.A. Smith.\n\n[17] These are Isaiah's images.\n\n[18] For our purpose in these lectures it is of no consequence whether\nthere were two Isaiahs or only one. We are seeking to ascertain the\nleading features of the prophets; and, if we attribute to one person\nqualities which were distributed among two, this will matter little, as\nlong as they are typical qualities of the prophet.\n\n[19] \"The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that\nwere not felt to be moved by human pity.\"--GEORGE ELIOT.\n\n[20] Not to mention the social element in His preaching comprehended in\nthe doctrine of the Kingdom of God. The comparative absence of the\npatriotic element from apostolic preaching is chiefly due to the fact\nthat the apostles were missionaries in cities and countries where they\nwere strangers. In some respects modern ministers in settled charges are\nliker the prophets than the apostles.\n\n[21] For example, there will rarely be any delicacy at the time of an\nelection in urging on the people that it is their duty to go to the\npoll, but it will nearly always be an indiscretion to indicate from the\npulpit for whom they should vote. Very often good causes are lost or\nlong delayed, not because the sentiment of the electorate is opposed to\nthem, but because large numbers are too apathetic to vote at all.\n\n[22] \"When I would cast my mind back to what we have earned and reaped\nfrom these men, it strikes me perhaps more than anything which I have\nyet named, that we should thank them for the passionate quest of a\nglorious ideal. It is such ideals, even when they are unattainable,\nwhich lift up the character of men and nations. I think that no worthy\nhistorian has yet been found to tell, as it ought to be told, how much\nScotland owes to this splendid vision which these men sought, the vision\nof a consecrated land of saints ruled by a covenanted king, loyal to\nChrist. It hovered before the rapt eyes of these saints of Scotland\nuntil it well-nigh turned them into seers, it elevated them until it\nmade them heroes, and though the picture seemed to fade before the eyes\nof their children, as though it had been painted by the morning light on\nthe mist of their own moorland, still, it has done its work, for it has\ncontributed mightily to educate the hearts of Scotchmen. But has it so\nfaded? Or is it not simply thrown forward, as the old Jew learned to\nthrow his Messianic hopes forward, from one anticipated Christ to\nanother, better and greater yet to come?\"--J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN OF THE WORD.\n\n\nGentlemen, in the lecture before last I spoke of the prophet's call to\nthe service of God, and in the last lecture of the work itself which\nhe had to do. To-day I am to speak of the instrument with which he did\nit.\n\nThis was the Word; the prophet was a Man of the Word. In accomplishing\nhis great and difficult work he wielded no other weapon. It seems the\nfrailest of all weapons; for what is a word? It is only a puff of air,\na vibration trembling in the atmosphere for a moment and then\ndisappearing. But so might one speak of the cloud whose rolling coils\nof vapour, changing every moment, seem the least substantial of all\nthings; yet out of it breaks the forked lightning, which rives the\ngiant of the forest, and overturns the tower which has defied ten\nthousand assailants, and, loosening the crag, sends it thundering down\nthe mountain-side. Though it be only a weapon of air, the word is\nstronger than the sword of the warrior. Words have overturned\ndynasties and revolutionised kingdoms. When the right virtue is in\nthem, they outlast every other work of man. Where are the cities which\nwere flourishing when David sang? where are the empires whose armies\nwere making the world tremble when Isaiah wrote? Nineveh and Babylon,\nTyre and Memphis--where are they? But the Psalms of David still\ndelight, and the wisdom of Isaiah still instructs, the world.\n\nThe prophets were well aware of the temper and force of this weapon\nwhich they wielded. Jeremiah refers with especial frequency to the\npower of the word. \"Is not My word,\" he asks, \"like a fire, saith the\nLord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?\" When\nputting this weapon into his hand, the Lord said to him, \"See, I have\nset thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and pull\ndown, and to destroy and throw down, and to build and to plant.\" How\nwas one man to be able to throw down and build up kingdoms? He speaks\nas if he were at the head of irresistible legions and equipped with\nall the enginery of war. But so he was; for all these and more are in\nthe word. Such military notions seem to have occurred naturally to the\nwielders of it. Another of them says, \"The weapons of our warfare are\nnot carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,\ncasting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself\nagainst the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every\nthought to the obedience of Christ.\" Yet another of them says, \"The\nword of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged\nsword.\" And Isaiah says, in the name of the Servant of the Lord, \"He\nhath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath\nHe hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid\nme.\"[23]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe word of the prophets has two aspects: it is, on the one side, a\nMessage from God, and, on the other, a Message to Men.\n\n1. The word which the prophets wielded was the word of God. Herein lay\nthe secret of its power. For the word of God is the thought of God;\nand this is more ancient than the stars and lies more deeply embedded\nin the constitution of things than the roots of the mountains; it is\nthe prop by which the universe is sustained. God's word is before all\nthings, for it created them; and his thoughts are the rails on which\nthe course of the world runs.\n\nIt was the privilege of the prophets to approach so near to God, to\nenter so completely into sympathy and fellowship with Him, and to\nknow so clearly what were His purposes, that their own thoughts became\nidentical with His; and, therefore, when they spoke, their words were\nGod's words. Not only do they preface many of their utterances with\n\"Thus saith the Lord,\" but--what is far more strange--they often\nbegin, without any preface, and go on speaking in the first person\nsingular, when not the prophet but Jehovah is the speaker; as if their\npersonality were so enveloped in His as to disappear altogether.[24]\n\nBut this remarkable knowledge of the thoughts of God was not given to\nthe prophets for themselves. The philosopher may shut himself up in\nsecret to study the laws of the universe and keep his conclusions to\nhimself; and even the poet perhaps may be so happy in his own vision\nof beauty that he does not care to utter his song to the world; but\nnot so the prophet. He, indeed, was also, in the strictest sense, an\noriginal thinker, and the new conceptions of God which he was\nprivileged to convey to the world dawned upon his own mind with that\nsecret delight which makes the creative thinker feel himself to be\n\n        \"Like some watcher of the skies\n    When a new planet swims into his ken.\"\n\nOne of the prophets gives expression to this secret joy when he says,\n\"Thy words were found and I did eat them, and Thy words were unto me\nthe joy and the rejoicing of my heart;\" and, after a night spent in\nreceiving revelations, he says, \"On this I awaked and beheld, and my\nsleep was sweet unto me.\" But the knowledge of God's mind and will\nwhich the prophets obtained was not for themselves, but for others. It\nwas not abstract knowledge, but a knowledge of God's will about the\ncourse of history--about \"what Israel ought to do.\" It was, in short,\nnot only a revelation, but a message.\n\nHence, one of the most outstanding characteristics of the prophets was\nthe sense of being ambassadors charged with a communication which they\nwere bound to deliver. If those to whom they were sent with it\nwelcomed them, good and well; but, if not, they were not absolved from\ntheir duty. The man who speaks to men for his own ends--to obtain\ninfluence in the management of their affairs or to display his talents\nand win a name--will go on speaking as long as they are inclined to\nlisten; but, if they do not appreciate his efforts or if he wearies of\nthe employment, he can betake himself to retirement and be heard no\nmore. But a prophet could not act thus. His message might arouse\nbitter opposition, and often did so: \"Woe is me, my mother,\" exclaims\nJeremiah, \"that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of\ncontention to the whole earth.\" Gladly would he have withdrawn from\nthe contest, if he could, and sought a lodge in some vast wilderness.\nBut the sense of being a messenger drove him on: \"Then I said, I will\nnot make mention of Him nor speak any more in His name; but His word\nwas in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was\nweary of forbearing, and I could not stay.\"\n\nThis was what lent the prophets the wonderful courage which\ncharacterized them. They forgot themselves in their message. The fire\nof God in their bones would not permit them to hesitate. Whether it\nwas a frowning king or an infuriated mob the prophet had to brave, he\nset his face like a flint. Comfort, reputation, life itself might be\nat stake; but he had to speak out all that God had told him, whether\nmen might bear or whether they might forbear.\n\n2. The other aspect of the prophets' word was that it was a Message to\nMen. If, on the one hand, the word of the prophets was a power because\nit was the word or thought of God, it depended, on the other hand, for\nits effect on becoming a word which those to whom it was communicated\ncould repeat in their own vocabulary and thereby turn into a thought\nof their own; for it was only when men's minds were so modified by the\nprophets' words that they began, in their degree, to think the\nthoughts of God, that the prophetic message became an influence in\ntheir life. The prophet had, therefore, to stand in a double attitude,\nand a double process had to be performed in his mind. He had, in the\nfirst place, to turn himself wholly round to God and away from the\nworld, and clear his mind of everything else, that he might receive\nthe message in its purity; but then he had, in the second place, to\nturn himself round towards men and, taking their circumstances into\naccount, deliver the message to them in the most effective way. He had\nfirst to allow the Divine message to master him; but then he had to\nturn upon it and master it, before he could be the medium by which it\nwas conveyed to others.\n\nThe prophets had to go amongst men, even if it were at the risk of\nlife, and deliver the Divine message. They had to use every device to\nmake it telling, striking in at every opportunity and giving line upon\nline, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. They did\nnot disdain the homeliest means, if it served the purpose. A prophet\nwould go about in public carrying a yoke on his neck, like a beast of\nburden, or lie a whole year on his side, to attract attention to some\nimportant truth. More than once we find a prophet setting up a board\nin the market-place, with only a few words written on it, into which\nhe had condensed his message, that the passers-by might read it.\n\nOn the other hand, when it was appropriate, they did not spare\nthemselves the trouble of cultivating the graces of style by which\nwords are made attractive and impressive.[25] The prophetic books are\nalmost as artistic as poems. Their literary form is not exactly\npoetry, though now and then it crosses its own boundary and becomes\npoetical. It is a kind of rhythmical prose, governed by laws of its\nown, which it carefully observes. All the prophets are not, indeed,\nequally careful. Some of them appear to have been too completely\ncarried away with the message which they had to deliver to think much\nof the way of delivering it. But these were not the strongest of the\nprophets; and it is worth observing, that those who took the most\npains about the form in which what they had to say was couched have\nbeen the most successful prophets in this sense, that they have been\nmost read by subsequent generations.\n\nAt the head of them all, in this respect, stands Isaiah. If the book\nof an ordinary reader of the Bible were examined, it would be found, I\nimagine, that Isaiah is thumbed far more than any other portion of the\nprophetical writings; and this is due not only to the divinely\nevangelical character of his message, but also to the nobly human\nstyle of his language.[26] All the resources of poetry and eloquence\nare at his command. Every realm of nature ministers to his stores of\nimagery; and his language ranges through every mode of beauty and\nsublimity, being sometimes like the pealing of silver bells, and\nsometimes like the crashing of avalanches, and sometimes like the\nsongs of seraphim. He is generally supposed to have been a native of\nJerusalem and to have spent his life within its walls. So identified,\nindeed, is he with it, that he is coming to be called Isaiah of\nJerusalem; and a recent expounder of his prophecies says that\nJerusalem was more to him than Athens to Demosthenes, Rome to Juvenal,\nor Florence to Dante. But, at some period of his life, he must have\nhad ample experience also of a country life; because the aspects of\nthe country are mirrored in his pages with incomparable charm.\n\nHe lets us see nature, as it existed in his day, both wild in the\nforest and wilderness, and cultivated around the abodes of men; and he\npaints for us the figures of the country people themselves and the\nlabours they went forth to. We see in his pages the trees of the wood\nmoved by the wind; the willows by the water-courses; the fresh\nbranches sprouting from the stock of the pollard oak or terebinth. We\nhear the doves mourning from the depths of the thicket, and see the\nroe, chased by the hunter, disappearing within its shelter, and even\nthe schoolboy rifling the birds' nests so ruthlessly that \"there was\nnone that moved the wing or opened the mouth or peeped.\" We see the\nswarms of bees and flies resting on the branches in the summer heat;\nthe ploughshare lying in the furrow; the tow and the distaff; the ox\nturning its head to be patted by the hand of its owner, and the ass\ntrotting off at feeding-time to its master's crib. The prophet looks\nwith a specially observant and sympathetic eye on the toils of\nmen--the woodman thinning the trees of the forest; the carpenter, with\nsaw and axe, turning to his own uses the sycamore and the cedar; the\nbuilder among his bricks and stones; and the farmer, on the exposed\nheight of the threshing-floor, winnowing his corn with the shovel and\nthe fan. As is usual in the Bible, the shepherd is portrayed with\nspecial honour, whether he calls out his neighbours to frighten away\nthe lion from his flock or is seen gathering the lambs in his arms and\ncarrying them in his bosom. But most of all does the poet-prophet love\nto linger in the vineyard, marking accurately all the operations of\nthe vine-dresser and all the stages of the growth of the vines. We see\nthe tearing up of the hillside with the mattock, the accumulation of\nsoil, the gathering out of the stones, the construction of the\nwinepress and the watch-tower. Then we see the roots planted and\ngrowing from stage to stage--from that \"afore the harvest, when the\nbud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower,\" to that\nwhen the vineyard is ringing with the songs of the vintage and the\ngleaners are picking the last relics from the outermost branches.\n\nAt whatever period these pictures of nature were laid up in the memory\nof Isaiah, they came back to him when he was engaged in the work of a\nprophet, and supplied the imagery by means of which the Divine truths\nwhich he heralded were made impressive and attractive to his\ncountrymen and acceptable to all subsequent generations; for men are\nso made that they are never so won by the truth as when they see it\nreflected in a physical image.\n\nThese two sides of the prophet's activity nearly correspond to what we\nshould call Thought and Expression. Or, to put it still more broadly,\nthe preacher must be a man who both has something to say and knows how\nto say it. On these two apparently simple qualifications hang all the\nscience and art of our vocation.\n\nIn reality they are not simple. To have the right thing to say is a\ngreat commandment, and to know the right way to say it is, though\nsecond to it, hardly inferior. But the problem of the ministry is to\nhave both in perfect equipoise--to utter a word which is at the same\ntime both a message from God and a message to men.\n\nIt would be possible to be so taken possession of by the message from\nGod as to lose self-control and even reason itself. In Scripture we\nmeet with manifestations of prophecy which are akin to madness. Just\nas the wind, catching the sail, would, if the ropes were not adjusted\nto relieve the strain, overturn the boat, so the Wind of God might\nsweep the mind off its balance, the human personality being overborne\nby the inrushing inspiration. Thus religion may make a man a fanatic,\nwho has no control over his own spirit, and no wisdom to choose the\ntimes at which to speak or the terms in which to address his\nfellow-men. On the other hand, the opposite excess is still more\neasy. So much stress may be laid on the form of words, and so much\nmastery obtained of the art of winning attention, that the necessity\nof having a Divine message to deliver or of depending on the power of\nthe Spirit of God is forgotten. The windy master of words, whose own\nspirit is not subdued either by the impression of great thoughts or\nthe sense of a great responsibility, but who can draw the eyes of men\non his own performances and earn the incense of applause, has always\nbeen too familiar a figure in religion. It is to a man like Isaiah we\nmust look for the absolute balance of both sides. There you have the\nblowing in all its degrees of the Wind of God, from the gentlest\nwhisper to the force of the tempest, but, at the same time, the most\nperfect self-control and the adaptation of the word to the tastes and\nnecessities of those to whom it was delivered.\n\nThere is a name sometimes applied by the prophets to themselves which\nadmirably expresses the combination and balance of these two aspects\nof their activity. They call themselves Interpreters. The process of\ninterpretation is a most interesting one, when it is well done. I have\nheard a speaker address with the greatest fervour a multitude who did\nnot understand a word he was saying; but, as fast as the sentences\nfell from his lips, another speaker by his side caught them up and,\nin tones as fervid and with gestures as dramatic as his own, rendered\nthem to the hearers in their own tongue with such effect that the\nperformance made all the impression of an original speech. An\ninterpreter is one who receives a message for people in a language\nwhich they do not understand and delivers it to them in their own\ntongue. Jehovah was incessantly speaking to His people in the\nvicissitudes of their history, but they did not apprehend His meaning.\nThe prophet, however, understood; he took the Divine message into his\nown soul, and then he went and communicated it to the people in terms\nwith which they were familiar. An interpreter requires to know at\nleast two languages--that in which the message comes and that in which\nit has to be delivered. If he knows either imperfectly, his\ninterpretation will be proportionately imperfect. No interpreter of\nGod, perhaps, knows both languages equally well. Some know the Divine\nlanguage imperfectly, while they know thoroughly the language of men.\nWhat they say is interesting, fresh and human; but there is not much\nof a Divine message in it. Others have got far into the secret of God\nand know the Divine language well; but they are not sufficiently\nmasters of the language of men. These are saintly men and command\nreverence by their character, but what they say does not find its way\nto men's business and bosoms.\n\nI have seen the same truth put in another way. Tholuck, one of the\nmost gifted of modern preachers, has made the remark that a sermon\nought to have heaven for its father and the earth for its mother. Why,\nhe asks, do one half of our sermons miss the mark? It is because,\nwhile they treat of the circumstances and relationships of life in an\ninteresting way, they do so only in the light which springs from\nbelow, not in that which streams from above; they have the earth for\ntheir mother, but not heaven for their father. And why do the other\nhalf of our sermons fail to touch the heart? It is because, while they\ndisplay the heavenly things shining at a distance, they do not bring\nthem down to the homes and workshops, the highways and byways of\nordinary life; they have heaven for their father, but not the earth\nfor their mother.[27]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIndeed, gentlemen, the definition of the preacher as a Man of the Word\ncovers a very large area of our duty, and an analysis of its contents\nwill furnish a kind of natural history of that which is the most\nimportant part of a minister's work from week to week.\n\n1. To be a Man of the Word is to be a master of the Divine Word. In\nthe pulpit not only must a man have something to say, but it must be a\nmessage from God. Where is this to be found? We do not now require to\nseek it, as the prophets had to do, in the empty void. Their work was\nnot in vain. They were working for their own times, but they were also\nworking for all time. The prophets and apostles put into a permanent\nform the principles on which the world is governed, and gave classical\nexpression to the most important truths which man requires to know for\nsalvation and for the conduct of his life. Thus they are still serving\nus, and we can begin where they left off. He who receives the message\nof God now finds it in the Word of God.\n\nHence one of the primary qualifications of the ministry is an intimate\nfamiliarity with the Scriptures. To this end a large proportion of the\nstudy required of you at college is directed; and the subsequent\nhabits of ministerial life have to be formed with the same object in\nview. A large portion of our work is the searching of the Scriptures,\nand a preacher of the highest order will always be a man mighty in\nthe Scriptures. We chance at present to be living at a time when the\nquestions about the Bible are the most numerous and the most difficult\nin theology, and many accepted opinions are cast into solution. I dare\nsay it is the experience of most students of divinity that they are\nmore perplexed about inspiration and related questions than about any\nother subjects. On the other hand, the attention directed to the Bible\nwas never so great as it is at present; and the methods of studying it\nare daily improving. And, in spite of all the difficulties, it is\nquestionable if there ever was in the Church an intenser conviction\nthat the voice of God is heard in His Word. The experience of the\nministry deepens this conviction every year. If I may give utterance\nto my own experience, I have never come to the end of a close study of\na book of Scripture in the congregation without having both a fresh\nrespect for its literary character and a profounder impression of its\nDivine wisdom. The more the Bible is searched, the more will it be\nloved; and the stronger will the conviction grow that its deep truths\nare the Divine answers to the deep wants of human nature.\n\nYet to deliver the message of God is not merely to read what prophets\nand apostles penned and to repeat it by rote. The man who is to be\nGod's messenger must himself draw near to God and abide in His\nsecret, as they did. The word must detach itself from the book and\nbecome a living element of experience before it can profit even the\nreader himself; and much more is this the case, of course, before it\ncan profit others.[28] It is the truth which has become a personal\nconviction, and is burning in a man's heart so that he cannot be\nsilent, which is his message. The number of such truths which a man\nhas appropriated from the Bible and verified in his own experience is\nthe measure of his power.[29] There is all the difference in the world\nbetween the man who thus speaks what he knows from an inner impulse\nand the man whose sermon is simply a literary exercise on a Scripture\ntheme, and who speaks only because Sunday has come round and the bell\nrung and he must do his duty.\n\nThe selection of the theme for preaching is to be determined chiefly\nby the power of the Word to lay hold of the conviction of the\npreacher. Or, if the subject is prescribed, as when one is lecturing\nthrough a book of the Bible, the points to be treated are to be\ndetermined in this way. Sometimes, as a preacher reads the Word, a\ntext will leap from the page, so to speak, and, fastening on the mind,\ninsist on being preached upon. A sermon on such a text is nearly\nalways successful; and a wise man will, therefore, take care to garner\nsuch texts when they occur to him. He will underline them in his\nBible, or, better still, enter them in a note-book kept for the\npurpose, adding a few words perhaps to indicate the first lines of\nthought which have occurred to him. These notes may be multiplied from\ntime to time; and, when the minister turns to a page which has been\nthus filled, he will often find his sermon nearly made to his\nhand.[30] Dr. Wendell Holmes tells of Emerson that he kept such a\nnote-book for subjects on which he might lecture, and for suggestions\nof lines of thought which he might follow out. He called it his\nSavings Bank, because, though the payments into it were minute, they\ngradually swelled to riches; and passages which his hearers and\nreaders supposed to be outbursts of sudden literary creation were\nreally the results of slow accumulation. If this was necessary for\neven a genius like Emerson it will be far more necessary for the\nordinary man. The gold of thought has generally to be collected as\ngold dust.\n\n2. But this already brings me to the second stage of this natural\nhistory, which is, that the preacher must be a master of Human Words.\nThe message from God which we carry is to become a message to men, and\ntherefore we must know how to introduce it successfully to their\nnotice. Strong as our own conviction may be, yet it may be crude and\nformless; and, before it can become the conviction of others, it must\ntake a shape which will arouse their attention. It may belong to a\nregion of thought with which they are unfamiliar, and it has to be\nbrought near, until it enters the circle of their own ideas.\n\nThis is the problem of the composition of the sermon, whether this\nmeans the writing of it out or the arrangement of the materials in the\nmemory in preparation for delivery. And many rules might be given to\nhelp at this point.\n\nOne often recommended is to keep the audience in view to which the\ncomposition is to be addressed. If by this is meant that the writer,\nas he sits at his desk, should try to conjure up in his imagination\nthe benches of the church and their occupants, I do not know whether\nit is a practicable rule or not. But if it means that the preacher, as\nhe composes his sermon, should keep in view the circumstances of his\nhearers--their stage of culture, the subjects in which they are\ninterested, the Scriptural attainments which they have already made,\nand the like--it is one of the prime secrets of the preacher's art,\nand I will return to speak of it more fully in a subsequent lecture. I\nonce heard Mr. Spurgeon preach a characteristic sermon on an unusual\ntext. It was on these words in Hosea: \"I was unto them as they that\ntake off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.\" To\nillustrate the first clause he drew a graphic picture of a London\ncarter in Cornhill loosening the harness, when his horse had\nsurmounted the incline, taking the bit out of its mouth, and fastening\non the corn-bag; and he applied the second clause with humorous wisdom\nto the behaviour of preachers. As the carter in the stable \"lays\" the\nhay to his horse, so the preacher has to \"lay\" the food to the\ncongregation. The carter must not put the food too high, where the\nhorse cannot reach up to it, nor too low, where it cannot get down to\nit, but just where it can seize and devour it with comfort. So the\npreacher must neither pitch his message too high, where it will be\nabove the comprehension of the congregation, nor too low, where it\nwill not command their respect, but just where they can reach it\neasily and comfortably. This quaint illustration has often recurred to\nme in the study, and made me anxiously consider whether I was putting\nthe truth in such a way that the congregation could grasp it.\n\nMany rules have been proposed for winning the attention of the\ncongregation. Some have laid stress on commencing the sermon with\nsomething striking. Mr. Moody, the evangelist, whose opinion on such a\nsubject ought to be valuable, recommends the preacher to crowd in his\nbest things at the beginning, when the attention is still fresh.\nOthers have favoured the opposite procedure. During the first half of\nthe discourse nearly every audience will give the speaker a chance. At\nthis point, therefore, the heavier and drier things which need to be\nsaid ought to occur. But about the middle of the discourse the\nattention begins to waver. Here, therefore, the more picturesque and\ninteresting things should begin to come; and the very best should be\nreserved for the close, so that the impression maybe strongest at the\nlast.[31] St. Augustine says that a discourse should instruct,\ndelight and convince;[32] and perhaps these three impressions should,\nupon the whole, follow this order. The more instructive elements--the\nfacts and explanations--should come first, appealing to the intellect;\nthen should follow the illustrative and pathetic elements, which touch\nthe feelings; and then, at the close, should come those moving and\nover-awing considerations which stir the conscience and determine the\nwill. Thus the impression would grow from the commencement to the\nclose.[33]\n\nTo obtain command of language it is good to hear the best speakers and\nto read the best books. It has been my fortune to be acquainted with\na good many celebrated preachers; and I have observed that, almost\nwithout exception, they have had a thorough acquaintance with the\nwhole range of the higher English literature. To have the music of\nShakespeare or Milton echoing in your memory, or to have lingering in\nyour ear the cadence and sweep of the sentences of Thackeray and De\nQuincey, will almost unawares give you a good style.[34] In reading\nover an old sermon of my own, I can almost tell whether or not, in the\nweek of its composition, I was reading good literature. In the former\ncase the language is apt to be full and harmonious, and sprinkled over\nwith gay flowers of maxim and illustration, whereas in the latter the\nstyle of the performance is apt to be bald and jerky.[35]\n\nLet me mention one more rule for the composition of the sermon which\nappears to me to be the most important of all. It is, to take time.\nBegin in time and get done in time--this, I often say to myself, is\nthe whole duty of a minister. The reason why so many of our sermons\nare crude in thought, unbalanced in the arrangement of the materials,\ndestitute of literary beauty, and unimpressive in delivery, is because\nthey are begun too late and written too hurriedly. The process of\nthinking especially should be prolonged; it is not so important that\nthe process of writing should be slow. It is when the subject has been\nlong tossed about in thought that the mind begins to glow about it;\nthe subject itself gets hot and begins to melt and flash, until at\nlast it can be poured forth in a facile but glowing stream. Style is\nnot something added to the thought from the outside. It is simply the\nbeauty of the truth itself, when you have gone deep enough to find it;\nand the worst condemnation of a careless and unattractive style is\nthat it does the truth injustice.\n\n3. The preacher ought to be master of the Oral Word. There is a stage\nwhich the truth has to pass through after it has been prepared in the\nstudy for the consumption of the hearers. This is the oral delivery;\nand it is a part of the natural history of the sermon which must not\nbe overlooked. A sermon may be well composed in the study and yet be a\nfailure in the pulpit. Indeed, this is one of the most critical stages\nof the entire process. There are few things more disappointing than to\nhave received a message to deliver and spent a laborious and happy\nweek in composition, and yet on Sunday, as you descend the pulpit\nstair, to know that you have missed the mark. This, however, is far\nfrom an infrequent occurrence. The same sermon may even be a success\non one occasion, and on another a partial or a total failure.\n\nWherein a good delivery consists it is difficult to say. It is the\nrekindling of the fire of composition in the presence of the\ncongregation; it is the power of thinking out the subject again on\nyour feet. This must not be a mere repetition of a byegone process,\nbut a new and original action of the mind on the spot. Tholuck, to\nwhom I have already alluded in this lecture, says that a sermon needs\nto be born twice: it must be born once in the study in the process of\ncomposition, and it must be born again in the pulpit in the process of\ndelivery. Many a sermon is a genuine birth of the mind in the study\nwhich in the pulpit is still-born.[36]\n\nSome preachers have an extraordinary facility of putting themselves at\nonce, and every time, _en rapport_ with the audience, so that there is\nfrom first to last, whilst they speak, a commerce between the mind in\nthe pulpit and the minds in the pews. To others this is the most\ndifficult part of preaching. The difficulty is to get down amongst the\npeople and to be actually dealing with them. Many a preacher has a\nthought, and is putting it into good enough words, but somehow the\npeople are not listening, and they cannot listen.\n\nIf the Senate of this University were ever to try the experiment of\nasking a layman to deliver this course of Lectures on Preaching, I am\ncertain he would lay more stress on this than we do, and put a clear\nand effective--if possible, a graceful and eloquent--delivery among\nthe chief desiderata of the pulpit. I do not know how it may be among\nyou; but, when I was at college, we used rather to despise delivery.\nWe were so confident in the power of ideas that we thought nothing of\nthe manner of setting them forth. Only have good stuff, we thought,\nand it will preach itself. We like to repeat, with _Faust_,\n\n    \"True sense and reason reach their aim\n    With little help from art and rule;\n    Be earnest! then what need to seek\n    The words that best your meaning speak?\"\n\nSo we thought; and many of us have since suffered for it. We know how\nmany sermons are preached in the churches of the country every Sunday;\nbut does anyone know how many are listened to? The newspapers supply\nus now and then with statistics of how many hearers are present in our\ncongregations; but who will tell us what proportion of these are\nlisteners? If we knew the exact percentage, I suspect, it would appal\nus. Yet it is not because there is not good matter in the sermons, but\nbecause it is not properly spoken. In the manufacture of steam-engines\nthe problem is, I believe, to get as much work as possible out of the\ncoal consumed. In every engine which has ever yet been constructed\nthere has been a greater or less waste of heat, which is dispersed\ninto the surrounding air or carried away by the adjacent portions of\nthe machinery, without doing work. Engineering skill has been\ngradually reducing the amount of this waste and getting a larger and\nlarger proportion of work out of the fuel; and a perfect engine would\nbe one in which the whole of the coal consumed had its full equivalent\nin work done. One of our problems, it seems to me, is a similar one.\nThere is an enormous disproportion between the amount of energy\nexpended during the week in preparation and the amount of impression\nmade on the hearers on Sunday. Ministers do not get enough of result\nin the attention, satisfaction and delight of their hearers for the\nwork they do; and the failure is in the vehicle of communication\nbetween the study and the congregation--that is to say, in the\ndelivery of the sermon. What I am pleading for is, that there should\nbe more work to show for the coal consumed.[37]\n\n4. Allow me, gentlemen, in closing this lecture, to emphasize another\nsense in which the prophets were men of the Word, and in which they\nare worthy of imitation. They were masters of the Written Word. They\nnot only spoke the word of God, but wrote it for publication, in a\nform sometimes more diffuse and sometimes more compressed than their\noral utterances; and by this means they not only extended their\ninfluence in their own day, but have enormously prolonged it since.\n\nIt is surprising how few of those who have spoken the word of God\nhave cultivated this mode of delivering it; and it is perhaps equally\nastonishing how few of those who have cultivated it have done so in\nearnest. In the last century, promotion in the Church of England was\nwon by literary achievement; but the would-be bishop did not generally\nthink of religious literature: he published a political pamphlet or\nedited a Greek play. Among the Scottish Moderates there was a keen\nambition for literary distinction; but it was the more prized the more\nremote the fields in which it was won lay from a minister's peculiar\nwork. This led the Evangelicals to discountenance literary\nproductivity, which they regarded as springing from unholy motives and\nas likely to distract the mind from the true ends of the ministry. But\nsurely there is a juster point of view than either the Moderate or the\nEvangelical. This work ought to be cultivated with precisely the same\naims as preaching and with the same earnestness. When a man is truly\ncalled to it, it brings a vast audience within his range, and there\nmay rest on it a remarkable blessing. Here is a significant extract\nfrom the history of British Christianity: Richard Baxter wrote _A Call\nto the Unconverted_, and Philip Doddridge was converted by reading it;\nPhilip Doddridge wrote _The Rise and Progress of Religion in the\nSoul_, and William Wilberforce was converted by reading it;\nWilberforce wrote the _Practical View_, and Thomas Chalmers was\nconverted by reading it. What a far-extending influence does each of\nthese names represent! The writing of books is perhaps the likeliest\nof all avenues by which to carry religious influence to the most\nselect minds.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[23] The Servant of the Lord is a prophet; and in the descriptions of\nhim in this character we can perhaps best see what was Isaiah's\nconception of a prophet. See especially ch. lxi. 1-3.\n\n[24] See Ewald's Introduction to _The Prophets_.\n\n[25] \"Bonorum ingeniorum insignis est indoles, in verbis verum amare,\nnon verba. Quid enim prodest clavis aurea, si aperire quod volumus non\npotest? Aut quid obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil quaerimus,\nnisi parere quod clausum est? Sed quoniam inter se habent nonnullam\nsimilitudinem vescentes atque discentes, propter fastidia plurimorum\netiam ipsa sine quibus vivi non potest alimenta condienda sunt.\"--ST.\nAUGUSTINE.\n\n[26] See the excellent chapter on Isaiah's style in Driver's _Isaiah_.\n\n[27] The same idea has long been helpful to me in a third form--in the\nfollowing lines of Platen--\n\n    \"Was stets und aller Orten\n      Sich ewig jung erweist\n    Ist, in gebundenen Worten\n      Ein ungebundener Geist.\"\n\n[28] \"Into Ezekiel's hand there was put a roll written within and\nwithout with lamentation and mourning and woe, an objective revelation\nwhich he himself had not written; but, before he could deliver it to\nothers, he had to eat it: all that was written on it had to become a\npart of himself, had to be taken into his inmost experience and be\ndigested by him, and become his own very life's blood.\"--MARCUS DODS,\nD.D.\n\n[29] This is what our Lord chiefly meant by a teacher's\n\"treasure\"--\"Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of God\nbringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.\" How much the\ntreasures of different preachers differ in magnitude! It is worthy of\nnote that the Saviour calls the preachers of the New Testament\n\"scribes.\" In spite of the evil associations of the name He retained it,\nbecause it emphasizes the fact that the Christian preacher is to be a\nstudent and an expounder of Scripture.\n\n[30] Some preachers keep an interleaved Bible, in which references to\npassages in their reading are entered opposite the texts which they\nillustrate--an excellent device.\n\n[31] \"The strongest part of all great sermons is the close. More depends\non the last two minutes than on the first ten.\"--From a choice little\ntract on Preaching, by \"Prediger.\"\n\n[32] He is quoting Cicero. Dixit ergo quidam eloquens, et verum dixit,\nita dicere debere eloquentem, ut doceat, ut delectet, ut flectat. Deinde\naddidit: Docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere\nvictoriae.... Oportet igitur eloquentem ecclesiasticum, quando suadet\naliquid quod agendum est, non solum docere ut instruat, et delectare ut\nteneat, verum etiam flectere ut vincat.--_De Doctrina Christiana_, IV.\n13.\n\n[33] An esteemed friend, the Rev. John McMillan of Ullapool, some years\nago repeated to me the following rhyme on the method of constructing a\nsermon, and, although I have never succeeded in coming up to its\nstandard, yet it has often floated before me with advantage in the hours\nof composition--\n\n    \"Begin low;\n    Proceed slow;\n    Rise higher;\n    Take fire;\n    When most impressed\n    Be self-possessed;\n    To spirit wed form;\n    Sit down in a storm.\"\n\n[34] It will be remembered that John Bright used regularly, during the\nsession of Parliament, to read aloud from one of the poets the last\nthing at night.\n\n[35] Tholuck gives another weighty reason why ministers should know the\nbest literature: In einer Zeit wo Shakespeare eine staerkere Autoritaet\nfuer Viele ist als Paulus, und ein Distichon Goethes eine kraeftigere\nBelegstelle als der ganze Roemer-und Galaterbrief, darf der Geistliche,\nwelcher auf seine Gemeinde wuerken will, mit ihren Gewaehrsmaenern nicht\nunbekannt seyn. Wenn irgendwo, so gilt auch hier des Apostels Wort:\n_Alles ist Euer_.\n\n[36] \"Aber nicht bloss die Erzeugung der Predigt geschehe im heiligen\nGeist, sondern auch ihr Vortrag. Es laesst sich nicht aussprechen, welch'\nein Unterschied zwischen der Wuerkung einer Predigt, welche bloss aus der\nErinnerung von der Kanzel herabgesprochen wird--wie trefflich sie auch\nuebrigens seyn mag--und welche dort zum zweitenmal geboren wird in\nlebendigem Glauben.... Die Predigt muss eine That des Predigers auf\nseinem Studirzimmer, sie muss abermals eine That seyn auf der Kanzel; er\nmuss, wenn er herunter kommt, Mutterfreuden fuehlen, Freuden der Mutter,\ndie unter Gottes Segen ein Kind geboren hat.\"\n\n[37] Adolphe Monod, himself a distinguished master of the art of\ndelivery, gives some good hints on it in a paper on _The Eloquence of\nthe Pulpit_, translated and published as an article in _The British and\nForeign Evangelical Review_, January, 1881:--\n\n   \"In general, people recite too quickly, far too quickly. When a\n   man speaks, the thoughts and feelings do not come to him all at\n   once; they take birth little by little in his mind. It is\n   necessary that this labour and this slowness appear in the\n   reciting, or it will always come short of nature. Take time to\n   reflect, to feel, and to allow ideas to come, and hurry your\n   recitation only when constrained by some particular\n   consideration.\"...\n\n   \"Talk not in the pulpit. An exaggerated familiarity would be a\n   mistake nearly as great as declamation: it happens more seldom;\n   it is, nevertheless, found in certain preachers, those\n   especially who have not studied. The tone of good conversation,\n   but that tone heightened and ennobled, such appears to me the\n   ideal of pulpit delivery.\"...\n\n   \"In order to rise above the tone of conversation, the majority\n   of preachers withdraw too far from it. They swell their\n   delivery, and declaim instead of speaking. Now, when bombast\n   comes in, nature goes out.\"\n\n   In regard to the first of these extracts I should say that many\n   Scotch speakers fail through lack of _pace_ in the delivery.\n   The interest is lost in the pauses between the sentences. A\n   slow delivery is only effective when a thought is obviously\n   being born, for which the audience is kept intently waiting.\n\nBut the most remarkable thing in the article is the following quotation\nfrom Talma, the actor:--\n\n   \"We were rhetoricians and not characters. What scores of\n   academical discourses on the theatre, how few simple words! But\n   by chance I found myself one evening in a drawing-room with the\n   leaders of the party of the Gironde. Their sombre countenance,\n   their anxious look, attracted my attention. There were there,\n   written in visible letters, strong and powerful interests. They\n   were men of too much heart for those interests to be tarnished\n   by selfishness; I saw in them the manifest proof of the danger\n   of my country. All come to enjoy pleasure; not one thinking of\n   it! They began to discuss; they touched on the most thrilling\n   questions of the day. It was grand! Methought I was attending\n   one of the secret councils of the Romans. 'The Romans must have\n   spoken like these,' said I. 'Let the country be called France\n   or Rome, it makes use of the same intonations, speaks the same\n   language: therefore, if there is no declamation here before me,\n   there was no declamation down there, in olden times; that is\n   evident!' These reflections rendered me more attentive. My\n   impressions, though produced by a conversation thoroughly free\n   from bombast, deepened. 'An apparent calm in men agitated stirs\n   the soul,' said I; 'eloquence may then have strength, without\n   the body yielding to disordered movements.' I even perceived\n   that the discourse, when delivered without efforts or cries,\n   renders the gesture more powerful and gives the countenance\n   more expression. All these deputies assembled before me by\n   chance appear to me much more eloquent in their simplicity than\n   at the tribune, where, being in spectacle, they think they must\n   deliver their harangue in the way of actors--and actors as we\n   were then--that is, declaimers, full of bombast. From that day\n   a new light flashed on me; I foresaw my art regenerated.\"\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A FALSE PROPHET.\n\n\nUpon anyone who is studying the physiognomy of the age of the prophets\nthere is one disagreeable feature which obtrudes itself so constantly\nthat even in the briefest sketch it is impossible to pass it by. This\nis the activity of the false prophets.[38] It culminated in the\nlifetime of Jeremiah, whose whole career might almost be described as\na conflict with them. Again and again he and they came to open war;\nand on at least one occasion the whole body combined to take away his\nlife. Ezekiel was scarcely less afflicted by them. They were perhaps\nnot so prominent an element in the life of Isaiah, but he also refers\nto them frequently; and, indeed, their sinister figures haunt the\npages of all the prophets.\n\nIt is a kind of humiliation to speak of them at all, and I would\ngladly pass them by; but the figure of the true prophet will rise\nbefore our eyes more clearly by the contrast of the false: and it is\nperhaps a duty to look also at the degradations to which our office is\nliable. The higher the honour attaching to the ministerial profession,\nwhen it is worthily filled, the deeper is the abuse of which it is\ncapable in comparison with other callings; and its functions are so\nsacred that the man who discharges them must either be a man of God or\na hypocrite. Yet there are plenty of motives of an inferior kind which\nmay take the place of right ministerial aims. Though it is painful to\nspeak of such things, yet here again the method which we have adopted\nin these lectures, of following the guidance of Scripture, may be\nleading us better than we could have chosen ourselves; and it may be\nwholesome to have to look at an aspect of our subject which of our own\naccord we would avoid.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are two things in Scripture which I have never been able to\nthink of without strong movements of fear and self-distrust.\n\nOne of them is that, when the Son of God came to this earth, He was\npersecuted and slain by the religious classes. His deadly opponents\nwere the Scribes and Pharisees. But who were the Scribes and\nPharisees? The Scribes occupied almost exactly the position in the\ncommunity which is held among us by the literary, the scholastic and\nthe clerical classes; and the Pharisees were simply what we should now\ncall the leading religious laymen. Had they been adherents of a false\nreligion, there would have been nothing surprising in their resistance\nto the final revelation of the true God. But the religion which they\nprofessed was the true religion; the Scribes were the expounders of\nthe Word of God, and the Pharisees occupied the foremost places in the\nhouse of God. Yet, when the Son of Jehovah, whose name they were\ncalled by, appeared amongst them, they rejected Him and took away His\nlife. Many a time, as I have followed Jesus step by step through His\nlifelong conflict with their illwill and contradiction, the question\nhas pressed itself painfully upon my mind: If He were to come to the\nearth now and intervene in our affairs, how would the religious\nclasses receive Him? and on which side would I be myself? If to any\nthis question may seem fantastic, let them change it into this other,\nwhich cannot appear idle, though it means exactly the same thing: What\nis the attitude of the religious classes to the manifestations of the\nspirit of Jesus in the life of to-day? do they welcome them and back\nthem up? or have the new ideas and movements in which Christ is\nmarching onward to the conquest of the world to reckon on opposition,\neven from those who call themselves most loudly by His name?\n\nThe other circumstance which has often affected my mind in the same\nway is that which comes before us to-day--that the true prophets of\nthe Old Testament had to face the opposition, not of heathens, and not\nof the openly irreligious among their own countrymen only, but of\nthose who had the name of God in their mouths and were publicly\nrecognised as His oracles. To us these are now false prophets, because\ntime has found them out and the Word of God has branded them with the\ntitle they deserve; but in their own day they were regarded as true\nprophets; and doubtless many of them never dreamed that they were not\nentitled to the name.\n\nThey must have been a numerous and powerful body. Jeremiah mentions\nthem again and again along with the king, the princes and the priests,\nas if they formed a fourth estate in the realm; and Zephaniah mentions\nthem in the same way along with the princes, the judges and the\npriests. They evidently formed a separate and conspicuous class in the\ncommunity. They cannot have been equally bad in every generation; and\nthere may have been many degrees of deviation among them from the\ncharacter of the true prophet; but as a body they were false, and the\ntrue servants of God had to reckon them among the anti-religious\nforces which they had to overcome.\n\nThis is an appalling fact--that the public representatives of religion\nshould ever have been the worst enemies of religion; but it cannot be\ndenied that even in Christendom, and that not once or twice, the same\ncondition of things has existed.\n\nAt the time these men did not suppose that this was the position they\nheld; but history has judged them. It is not easy for a man to admit\nthe thought into his own mind that in him his office is being\ndishonoured and its aim frustrated; and it is far more difficult to do\nso if he has the support of the prevailing sentiment and is going\nforward triumphantly as a member of the majority. But there is enough\nin the history of our order to warn us to watch over ourselves with a\njealous mind, lest we too, while clad in the garb of a sacred\nprofession and in the authority of an ecclesiastical position, should\nbe found fighting against God. It will not do to think that, merely\nbecause we sit in Moses' seat and have the Word of God in our mouths,\ntherefore we must be right. Nor must we be too confident because we\nare in the majority. If we have faith in our own views, it is quite\nright, indeed, that we should try to make them prevail; and there is\na legitimate joy in seeing a good cause carrying with it the\nsympathies and suffrages of men. But we are all too easily persuaded\nthat our cause is good simply because it can win votes. In\necclesiastical affairs there is often as feverish a counting of heads\nas in party politics. The majority have the same confidence that the\ncase is finally decided in their favour; and there is the same\nexultation over the defeated party, as if their being in the minority\nwere a clear proof that they were also in the wrong. But this is no\ncriterion, and time may sternly reverse the victory of the moment.\nEven in the Church the side of the false prophets may be the growing\nand the winning side, while Jeremiah is left in a minority of one.\n\nThe false prophets were strong, not only in their own numbers, but in\ntheir popularity with the people. This told heavily against the true\nprophets; for the people could not believe that the one man, who was\nstanding alone, was right, and that his opponents, who were many, were\nwrong. The seats and the trappings of office always affect the\nmultitude, who are slow to come to the conclusion that the teachers\nunder whom they find themselves in providence can be misleading them.\nThis is, to a certain extent, an honourable sentiment; but it throws\nupon public teachers a weighty responsibility. If they are going\nwrong, they will generally get the majority of the people to follow\nthem. So completely may this be the case, that by degrees the popular\ntaste is vitiated and will not endure any other teaching than that to\nwhich it has been accustomed, though it be false. There is no sadder\nverse in all prophecy than the complaint of Jeremiah, \"The prophets\nprophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so.\" Like prophet,\nlike people; the public mind may be so habituated to what is false,\nand satisfied with it, that it has no taste or even tolerance for the\ntrue.[39] Jeremiah could not gain a hearing for his stern and weighty\nmessage from ears accustomed to the light and frivolous views of the\nfalse prophets; and to Baruch, his young coadjutor and amanuensis, who\nwas starting on the prophetic career with the high hopes of youth, he\nhad to deliver the chilling message, \"Seekest thou great things for\nthyself? seek them not.\" The path to popularity and eminence was not\nopen to anyone who did not speak according to the prevailing fashion.\n\nThe false prophets won and kept their popularity by pandering to the\nopinions and prejudices of the people. The times of Jeremiah were big\nwith coming calamities, and he had to predict that these calamities\nwere sure to come; for there were no signs of deep or genuine\nrepentance, and, indeed, the time for repentance was past. The\nself-flattering, ease-loving people hated to hear these disagreeable\nfacts. Their frivolous minds were engrossed with the gossip and\nexcitement of the passing day, and it was too great an exertion to\ngive their attention to the majestic views of the Divine justice and\nthe far-reaching sweep of the Divine providence to which Jeremiah\ntried to direct their attention. They wished to enjoy the present and\nto believe that all would come right somehow. The false prophets\nflattered these wishes. They said that the calamities which Jeremiah\nwas foretelling would not come to pass, or that at least they would be\nmuch less formidable than he represented. They were, as Jeremiah says,\nlike an unconscientious physician, who is afraid to probe the wound to\nthe bottom, though the life of the patient depends on it. Ezekiel\naccuses them of making nightcaps to draw over the eyes and ears of\ntheir countrymen, lest they should see and hear the truth, and of\nmuffling with a glove the naked hand of God with which the sins of the\npeople should have been smitten. The constant refrain of their\nprophecies was, \"Peace, peace,\" though the storm-clouds of\nretribution were ready to burst. The people said to them, \"Prophesy to\nus smooth things\"; and the false prophets provided the supply\naccording to the demand.\n\nWe cannot flatter ourselves that this is a danger which belongs\nentirely to the past. There will always be a demand for smooth things,\nand an appropriate reward for him who is willing to supply them in the\nname of God. Popularity is a thing which will always be coveted; and\nunder certain conditions it is a thing to be thankful for. If it means\nthat the truth is prevailing and that men are yielding their minds to\nits sway, it is a precious gift of heaven. It is a good thing to see\nmany coming out to hear the Word of God, and to both preacher and\nhearers there is a great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in a\nfull church. But popularity may be purchased at too dear a rate. It\nmay be bought by the suppression of the truth and the letting down of\nthe demands of Christianity. There will always be a demand for a\nreligion which does not agitate the mind too much or interfere with\nthe pursuits of a worldly life.\n\nI have seen a very trenchant article from an American pen on the power\nof the moneyed members of a church to dictate the tone of the pulpit;\nand it is a common accusation against ministers, that they flatter the\nprevailing classes in their congregations. If their congregations are\nwealthy, they are afraid, it is said, to speak up for the poor, even\nwhen justice is calling out on their side; and, if their congregations\nare poor, they take the side of the working-man, right or wrong. I\nshould question whether temptations so gross as these are much felt.\nFar more dangerous are the subtler temptations--to truckle to the\nspirit of the age, to keep at all hazards on the side of the\ncultivated and clever, and to shun those truths the utterance of which\nmight expose the teacher to the charge of being antiquated and\nbigoted. Let a preacher dwell always on the sunny side of the truth\nand conceal the shadows, let him enlarge continually on what is simple\nand human in Christianity and pass lightly over what is mysterious and\nDivine: let him, for example, dwell on the human side of Christ but\nsay nothing of His deity, let him enforce Christ's example but say\nnothing of His atonement, let him extol the better elements of human\nnature but say nothing of its depravity, let him preach frequently on\nthe glories of the next world but never mention its terrors: and very\nprobably he may be popular and see his Church crowded; but he will be\na false prophet.[40]\n\nWho were these false prophets, and how did there come to be such\nnumbers of them? These are questions which an attentive reader of the\nBible cannot help asking; but it is not by any means easy to answer\nthem.\n\nThe prophets whose names have come down to us are not by any means\nnumerous; but, besides them, there must have been many other true\nprophets. There were times when the spirit of religion was breathing\nthrough the community, and then men were not wanting who felt called\nto be its organs. The spirit of inspiration might fall on anyone at\nany time; no prescribed training was necessary to make a man a\nprophet. It might come, as it did to Amos, on the husbandman in his\nfields or the shepherd among his flock. It might alight on the young\nnoble amidst the opening pleasures of life, as it did on Isaiah and\nZephaniah; or it might come, as it did on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the\nyoung priest preparing for his sacred functions.\n\nBut some of the more noted prophets endeavoured in a more systematic\nway to diffuse the spirit which rested upon themselves, and thus to\nmultiply the number of the prophets. They founded schools in which\npromising young men were gathered and plied with the means of\neducation available in that age, cultivating music, reading the\nwritings of the older prophets, and coming under the influence of the\nholy man who was at their head. These were the Schools of the\nProphets, and their students were the Sons of the Prophets. Samuel\nseems to have been the first founder of these schools. They were\nflourishing in the times of Elijah and Elisha, and they probably\ncontinued to exist with varying fortunes in subsequent centuries.\nPerhaps all who went through these schools claimed, or could claim,\nthe prophetic name. Those who took up the profession wore the hairy\nmantle and leathern girdle made familiar to us by the figure of John\nthe Baptist; and they probably subsisted on the gifts of those who\nbenefited from their oracles. Their numbers may have been very large;\nwe hear of hundreds of prophets even during an idolatrous reign, when\nthey were exposed to persecution.\n\nIn times when the spirit of inspiration was abroad or when the schools\nenjoyed the presence of a master spirit, it is easy to understand how\nvaluable such institutions may have been, and how they may have been\ncentres from which religious light and warmth were diffused through\nthe whole country. But they were liable to deterioration. If the\ngeneral tone of religion in the country declined, they partook in the\ngeneral decay; an inspiring leader might be taken away and no\nlike-minded successor arise to fill his place; or men who had received\nno real call beforehand might join the school and pass through the\ncurriculum without receiving it. Only they had learned the trick of\nspeech and got by rote the language of religion. They had no personal\nknowledge of God or message obtained directly from Him; but it was not\ndifficult to put on the prophet's mantle and talk in the traditional\nprophetic tones. The fundamental charge against the false prophets is\nalways this: \"I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not\nspoken unto them, yet they prophesy.\"\n\nIf I am right in tracing the origin of false prophecy to the schools\nof the prophets, this gives a suggestive hint as to the point at which\nthe same danger may beset ourselves. It is obviously the duty of the\nauthorities of the Church to make provision for the training of those\nwho are to be the future ministers of the Gospel; and it is natural\nfor those who have the honour of the Church at heart to covet for her\nservice the talents of the gifted. Parents, too, will often be found\ncherishing an intense desire that the choicest of their sons should\nbecome ministers. These wishes of superiors have a legitimate\ninfluence in determining the choice of our life-work. The wishes and\nprayers of pious parents are especially entitled to have very great\nweight. Yet there is a danger of an outward influence of this kind\nbeing substituted for genuine personal experience and an inward call.\nWhen, a generation ago, in the rural parts of England, the church in\nmany a parish was looked upon as \"a living,\" to be allocated to a\njunior member of the family, who was educated for the position as a\nmatter of course, the custom, whatever happy results it might produce\nin exceptional cases, was not fitted to fill the pulpits of the land\nwith men of prophetic character. The pious wishes of parents, however\nbeautiful they may be, require to be made absolutely conditional on a\nvocation of a higher kind; otherwise we get a manufactured ministry,\nwithout a message, in place of men in whom the spirit of inspiration\nis stirring and who speak because they believe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHaving no message of their own, what were the false prophets to do?\nThe best they could do was to repeat and imitate what had been said by\ntheir predecessors. It is with this Jeremiah reproaches them when he\nsays, \"Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal\nMy words everyone from his neighbour.\" The older prophets used to\nbegin their utterances with the phrase, \"the burden of the Lord;\" and\nJeremiah complains that this had become an odious cant term in the\nmouths of his contemporaries; and in the same way Zechariah complains\nthat in his day the great word \"comfort,\" which from the lips of\nIsaiah had descended like dew from heaven on the parched hearts of the\npeople of God, had become a dry and hackneyed phrase in the mouths of\nfalse prophets. How dangerous this habit of stealing the words of\nothers might become, when practical issues were involved, may be\nillustrated by a striking example. The inviolability of Jerusalem had\nbeen a principle of the older prophets, which was quite true for their\ntimes; and Isaiah had made use of it for rousing his fellow-citizens\nfrom despair, when the army of Sennacherib stood before the gates. But\nin Jeremiah's time the change of circumstances had made it to be no\nlonger true; and yet the false prophets kept on repeating it; and no\ndoubt they seemed both to themselves and others to be occupying a\nstrong position when, in opposing him, they could allege that they\nwere standing on the same ground as Isaiah. All the time, however,\nthey were betraying those who listened to them.\n\nThere is a sense in which the truth of God is unchangeable; it is like\nHimself--the same yesterday and to-day and forever. But there is\nanother sense in which it is continually changing. Like the manna, it\ndescends fresh every morning, and, if it is kept till to-morrow, it\nbreeds loathsome worms. Isaiah describes the true prophet as one who\nhas the tongue of the learner--not of the learned, as the Authorised\nVersion gives it--and whose ear is opened every morning to hear the\nmessage of the new day. What was truth for yesterday may be falsehood\nfor to-day; and only he is a trustworthy interpreter of God who is\nsensitive to the indications of present providence.\n\nIt would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the only form which\nfalse prophecy can take is a dried-up orthodoxy, mumbling over the\nshibboleths of yesterday. If he who stands forward as a speaker for\nGod is out of touch with God and has really no Divine message, he may\nmake good the lack of a true Divine word in many ways. The easiest way\nis, no doubt, to fall back on some accepted word of yesterday; but he\nmay also strike out on the path of originality, announcing a gospel\nfor to-morrow, constructed by his own fancy, which has no Divine\nsanction. Neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy is a guarantee: the only\nguarantee is a humble mind living in the secret of the Lord.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have mentioned that the prophets subsisted on the contributions of\nthose to whom their oracles were supposed to be valuable. There is,\nindeed, very little information on this head; but they are accused of\nprophesying for bread, and avarice and a greedy appetite for the good\nthings of this life are reproaches frequently cast at them. It is not\nlikely that prophecy can ever have been a paying profession, but it\nwould appear to have been at least a means of livelihood; and there\nare indications that those who enjoyed an exceptional popularity may\nhave occupied a high social standing. Ezekiel, whose characterizations\nof the false prophets are remarkably striking, uses about them a\nsignificant figure of speech. He says that, while a true prophet was\nlike a wall of fire to his country, standing in the breach when danger\nthreatened and defending it with his life, the false prophets were\nlike the foxes that burrow among the ruins of fallen cities. What\nmattered it to them that their country was degraded, if only they had\nfound comfortable places for themselves?\n\nThis also is a painful side of the subject. It is inevitable that the\nministry should become a means of livelihood, and yet it is fatal to\npursue it with this in view. It is the least lucrative of the\nprofessions, and yet, in the pressure of modern life, it may tempt men\nto join it merely as a profession. Even if it has been entered upon\nfrom higher motives, the attrition of domestic necessities may dry up\nthe nobler motives and convert the minister into a hireling who thinks\nchiefly of his wages.[41] The commercial spirit is nearly omnipotent\nin our day; and men who can buy everything for money think that\nministers are procurable in the same way. Thus they tempt men away\nwith bribes of money from work to which God has called them. I am far\nfrom questioning the importance of the mission of the pulpit to the\nwealthier classes; and we must have men of culture to preach to the\ncultivated. I would no more think of setting up the poor against the\nrich, as the exclusive objects of the Church's attention, than the\nrich against the poor. But perhaps the most essential work of the\nChurch at the present time is to win and to hold the working classes.\nI should like to see ministers coveting work among them; and let him\nwho has learned to wield such an audience, where he can speak with the\nfreedom and force of nature, beware of being bribed away to a position\nwhere he will be tamed and domesticated, and have his teeth drawn and\nhis claws cut.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo monotonous is the evil side of the false prophets that one longs\nfor a gleam of something good in them. Can they not at least be\npitied? May they not have been weak men, who were elevated to a\nposition which proved too much for them? The times were full of change\nand difficulty, and it required a clear eye to see the indications of\nProvidence. It is not everyone who has the genius of an Isaiah or the\nmagnificent moral courage of a Jeremiah. Was it not possible to take\na milder view of the world than Jeremiah did and yet be a true man?\nMay they not at least have been mistaken, when they ventured to emit\nprophecies which history falsified?\n\nSuch sentiments easily arise in us; but they are driven back by what\nwe read of the personal character of these men. \"Both prophet and\npriest,\" says Jeremiah, \"are profane; yea, in My house have I found\ntheir wickedness, saith the Lord.\" \"I have seen,\" he says in God's\nname, \"in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit\nadultery and walk in lies.\" Jeremiah's view of them might be thought\nto be coloured by his own melancholy temperament; but Isaiah's is not\nless severe: \"The priest and the prophet,\" he says, \"have erred\nthrough wine, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way\nthrough strong drink.\" And he gives this terrible picture of them:\n\"His watchmen are blind, they are ignorant; they are all dumb dogs,\nthey cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they\nare greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds\nthat cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone to\nhis gain from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and\nwe will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as\nthis day and still more abundant.\" The representations in the other\nprophets are to the same effect. Zephaniah passes on the whole class\nthe sweeping judgment, that they are light and treacherous persons.\nBut the lowest deep is reached in Zechariah, who foresees a time,\nclose at hand, when the very name of prophet will be a byword, and the\nfather and mother of anyone who pretends to prophesy will thrust him\nthrough, to deliver themselves from the reproach of having any\nconnection with him.[42]\n\nThe influence of such a travesty of the sacred office as these\npassages describe must have been deplorable; and without doubt it was\none of the principal causes of the overthrow of the Jewish State.\nJeremiah says expressly, that from the prophets profaneness had gone\nout over the whole land. They who, from their position and profession,\nought to have been an example to their fellow-countrymen were the very\nreverse. They were the companions of the profane and licentious in\ntheir revels, and they joined with scorners in scoffing at those who\nled a strict and holy life. So God charges them by the lips of\nEzekiel: \"Ye have made the hearts of the righteous sad, whom I have\nnot made sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he\nshould not return from his wicked way.\"\n\nThis is a terrible picture. Yet there have been epochs in the history\nof the Christian, and even of the Protestant Church, when its features\nhave been reproduced with too faithful literality. Let us be thankful\nthat we live in a happier time; but let us also remember the maxim,\n\"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.\" If a\nChurch lose the Spirit of God, there is no depth of corruption to\nwhich it may not rapidly descend; and a degraded Church is the most\npotent factor of national decay.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAllow me, gentlemen, to say, in closing, that I believe the question,\nwhat is to be the type and the tone of the ministry in any generation,\nis decided in the theological seminaries. What the students are there,\nthe ministers of the country will be by-and-by. And, while the\ndiscipline of the authorities and the exhortations and example of\nprofessors may do something, the tone of the college is determined by\nthe students themselves. The state of feeling in a theological\nseminary ought to be such, that any man living a life inconsistent\nwith his future profession should feel thoroughly uncomfortable, and\nhave the conviction driven in upon his conscience every day, that the\nministry is no place for him.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[38] As this subject is somewhat novel, the following collection of\ntexts may be acceptable; but it is not given as exhaustive:--\n\nIsa. ii. 6; xxviii. 7; xxx. 10, 11; xlvii. 13; lvi. 10-12.\n\nJer. ii. 8, 26; iv. 9; v. 31; vi. 14; xiv. 13-16; xviii. 18; xxiii. 9-40\n(_locus classicus_); xxvi. 8; xxvii. 9, 16; xxviii. xxix. 8.\n\nEzek. xii. 24; xiii. (_locus classicus_); xiv. 9; xx. 25; xxi. 23; xxii.\n25, 28.\n\nMicah ii. 11; iii. 5, 11.\n\nZeph. iii. 4.\n\nZech. x. 2; xiii. 2-4.\n\n[39] \"Sicut autem cuius pulchrum corpus et deformis est animus, magis\ndolendus est, quam si deforme haberet et corpus, ita qui eloquenter ea\nquae falsa sunt dicunt, magis miserandi sunt, quam si talia deformiter\ndicerent.\"--ST. AUGUSTINE.\n\n[40] Even popularity honestly won may be a great snare. Vanity, it must\nbe allowed, is probably the commonest clerical weakness; and, when it is\nyielded to, it deforms the whole character. There are few things more\ntouching or instructive than the entries in Dr. Chalmers' journal, which\nshow with what earnestness he was praying against this, in the height of\nhis popularity, as a besetting sin. If this were common, there would not\nbe the slight accent of contempt attached to the name of the popular\npreacher which now belongs to it in the mouths of men. The publicity\nwhich beats on the pulpit makes veracity, down to the bottom of the\nsoul, more necessary in the clerical than in any other calling. \"A prime\nvirtue in the pulpit is mental integrity. The absence of it is a subtle\nsource of moral impotence. It concerns other things than the blunt\nantipodes represented by a truth and a lie. Argument which does not\nsatisfy a preacher's logical instinct; illustration which does not\ncommend itself to his aesthetic taste; a perspective of doctrine which is\nnot true to the eye of his deepest insight; the use of borrowed\nmaterials which offend his sense of literary equity; an emotive\nintensity which exaggerates his conscious sensibility; an impetuosity of\ndelivery which overworks his thought; gestures and looks put on for\nscenic effect; an eccentric elocution, which no _human_ nature ever\nfashioned; even a shrug of the shoulder, thought of and planned for\nbeforehand--these are causes of enervation in sermons which may be\notherwise well framed and sound in stock. They sap a preacher's\npersonality and neutralise his magnetism. They are not true, and he\nknows it. Hearers may know nothing of them theoretically, yet may feel\nthe full brunt of their negative force practically.\"--AUSTIN PHELPS,\nD.D., _My Note Book_.\n\n[41] \"That which in its idea is the divinest of earthy employments has\nnecessarily come to be also a profession, a line of life, with its\nroutine, its commonplace, its poverty and deterioration of motive, its\ncoarseness of feeling. It cannot but be so. It is part of the conditions\nof our mortality. Even earnest purpose, even zealous and laborious\nservice, cannot alone save from the lowered tone and dulness of spirit\nwhich are our insensible but universal and inveterate enemies in all the\nbusiness of real life. And that torpor and insensibility and deadness to\nwhat is high and great is, more than any other evil, the natural foe of\nall that is characteristic and essential in the Christian ministry; for\nthat ministry is one of life and reality, or it is nothing.\"--DEAN\nCHURCH.\n\n[42] This may perhaps help to determine the age of the portion of\nZechariah to which this passage belongs. Is there any proof elsewhere\nthat a degradation of the prophetic office as deep as this had taken\nplace, or was imminent, at the period to which it is usually assigned?\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A MAN.\n\n\nGentlemen, in the foregoing lectures I have finished, as far as time\npermitted, what I had to say on the work of our office, as it is\nillustrated by the example of the prophets; and to-day we turn to the\nother branch of the subject--to study the modern work of the ministry\nin the light cast upon it by the example of the apostles.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen we quit the Old Testament and open the New, we come upon another\ngreat line of preachers to whom we must look up as patterns. The voice\nof prophecy, after centuries of silence, was heard again in John the\nBaptist, and his ministry of repentance will always have its value as\nindicating a discipline by which the human spirit is prepared for\ncomprehending and appreciating Christ. I have already given the reason\nwhy I am not at present to touch on the preaching of Christ Himself,\nalthough the subject draws one's mind like a magnet. After Christ, the\nfirst great Christian preacher was St. Peter; and between him and St.\nPaul there are many subordinate figures, such as Stephen, Philip the\nEvangelist and Apollos, beside whom it would be both pleasant and\nprofitable to linger. But we have agreed to take St. Paul as the\nrepresentative of apostolic preaching, and I will do so more\nexclusively than I took Isaiah as the representative of the prophets.\n\nIt is, I must confess, with regret that I pass St. Peter by. There is\na peculiar interest attaching to him as the first great Christian\npreacher; and there is something wonderfully attractive in his rude,\nbut vigorous and lovable personality. Besides, a study of the\ninfluences by which he was transmuted from the unstable and\nuntrustworthy precipitancy of his earlier career into the rocklike\nfirmness which made him fit to be a foundation-stone on which the\nChurch was built would have taught us some of the most important\ntruths which we require to learn; because these influences were,\nfirst, his long and close intimacy with Christ and, secondly, the\noutpouring on him, at Pentecost, of the Holy Spirit; and there are no\ninfluences more essential than these to the formation of the\nministerial character.\n\nBut I have no hesitation in devoting to St. Paul the remainder of this\ncourse; because, as I indicated in the opening lecture, there is no\nother figure in any age which so deserves to be set up as the model of\nChristian ministers. In him all the sides of the ministerial\ncharacter were developed in almost supernatural maturity and harmony;\nand, besides, the materials for a full delineation are available. It\nis my intention to speak of St. Paul, first, as a Man; secondly, as a\nChristian; thirdly, as an Apostle; and fourthly, as a Thinker.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo-day, then, we begin with St. Paul as a Man. If I had had time to\nset before you what St. Peter's life has to teach us, its great lesson\nwould have been what Christianity can make of a nature without special\ngifts and culture, and how the two influences which formed\nhim--intimacy with Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit--can supply\nthe place of talents and educational advantages; for it is evident\nthat, but for Christ, Peter would never have been anything more than\nan unknown fisherman. But St. Paul's case teaches rather the opposite\nlesson--how Christianity can consecrate and use the gifts of nature,\nand how talent and genius find their noblest exercise in the ministry\nof Christ. Paul would, in all probability, have made a notable figure\nin history, even if he had never become a Christian; and, although he\nhimself delighted to refer all that he became and did to Christ, it is\nevident that the big nature of the man entered also as a factor into\nhis Christian history.\n\nOnce at least St. Paul recognises this point of view himself, when he\nsays, that God separated him to His service from his mother's womb. In\nJeremiah's mind the same idea was awakened still more distinctly at\nthe time of his call, when Jehovah said to him, \"Before I formed thee\nin the belly I knew thee, and, before thou camest forth out of the\nwomb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the\nnations.\" This implies that, in the original formation of his body and\nmind, God conferred on him those gifts which made him capable of a\ngreat career. Here we touch on one of the deepest mysteries of\nexistence. There is nothing more mysterious than the behaviour of\nnature, when in her secret laboratories she presides over the shaping\nof the rudiments of life and distributes those gifts, which, according\nas they are bestowed with an affluent or a niggardly hand, go so far\nto determine the station and degree which each shall occupy in the\nsubsequent competitions of the world. It is especially mysterious how\ninto a soul here and there, as it passes forth, she breathes an extra\nwhiff of the breath of life, and so confers on it the power of being\nand doing what others attempt to be and do in vain.\n\nUndoubtedly St. Paul was one of these favourites of fortune. Nature\ndesigned him in her largest and noblest mould, and hid in his\ncomposition a spark of celestial fire. This showed itself in a\ncertain tension of purpose and flame of energy which marked his whole\ncareer. He was never one of those pulpy, shapeless beings who are\nalways waiting on circumstances to determine their form; he was rather\nthe stamp itself, which impressed its image and superscription on\ncircumstances.\n\n1. He was a supremely ethical nature. This perhaps was his fundamental\npeculiarity. Life could under no circumstances have seemed to him a\ntrifle. The sense of responsibility was strong in him from the\nbeginning. He was trained in a strict school; for the law of life\nprescribed to the race of which he was a member was a severe one; but\nhe responded to it, and there never was a time when the deepest\npassion of his nature was not to receive the approval of God. Touching\nthe righteousness which was in the law, he was blameless. After his\nconversion he laid bare unreservedly the sins of his past; but there\nwere none of those dalliances with the flesh to confess into which\nsoft and self-indulgent natures easily fall. He could never have\nallowed himself that which would have robbed him of his self-respect.\nHis sense of honour was keen. When, in his subsequent life, he was\naccused of base things--lying, hypocrisy, avarice and darker sins--he\nfelt intense pain, crying out like one wounded, and he hurled the\naccusations from him with the energy of a self-respecting nature. It\nwas always his endeavour to keep a conscience void of offence not only\ntowards God, but also towards men; and one of his most frequently\nreiterated injunctions to those who were in any way witnesses for\nChrist was to seek to approve themselves as honest men even to those\nwho were without. He was speaking out of his own heart when he said to\nall, \"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,\nwhatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever\nthings are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any\npraise, think on these things.\"\n\nI cannot help pausing here to say, that he will never be a preacher\nwho does not know how to get at the conscience; but how should he know\nwho has not himself a keen sense of honour and an awful reverence for\nmoral purity? We are making a great mistake about this. We are\npreaching to the fancy, to the imagination, to intellect, to feeling,\nto will; and, no doubt, all these must be preached to; but it is in\nthe conscience that the battle is to be won or lost.[43] The great\ndifficulty of missionary work is that in the heathen there is, as a\nrule, hardly any conscience: it has almost to be created before they\ncan be Christianized. In many parts of Christendom it is dying out;\nand, where it is extinct, the whole work of Christianity has to be\ndone over again.\n\n2. St. Paul's intellectual gifts are so universally recognised that it\nis hardly worth while to refer to them. They are most conspicuously\ndisplayed in his exposition of Christianity, on which I shall speak in\nthe closing lecture. But in the meantime I remark, that his\nintellectual make was not at all that usually associated in our minds\nwith the system-builder.\n\nIt was, indeed, massive, thorough and severe. But it was not in the\nleast degree stiff and pedantic. It was, on the contrary, an intellect\nof marvelous flexibility. There was no material to which it could not\nadapt itself and no feat which it could not perform. You may observe\nthis, for example, in the diverse ways in which he addresses different\naudiences. In one town he has to address a congregation of Jews; in\nanother a gathering of heathen rustics; in a third a crowd of\nphilosophers. To the Jews he invariably speaks, to begin with, about\nthe heroes of their national history; to the ignorant heathen he talks\nabout the weather and the crops; and to the Athenians he quotes their\nown poets and delivers a high-strung oration; yet in every case he\narrives naturally at his own subject and preaches the gospel to each\naudience in the language of its own familiar ideas. Even outside of\nhis own peculiar sphere altogether, St. Paul was equal to every\noccasion. During his voyage to Rome, when the skill of the sailors was\nbaffled and the courage of the soldiers worn out by the long-continued\nstress of weather, he alone remained cheerful and clearheaded; he\nvirtually became captain of the ship, and he saved the lives of his\nfellow-passengers over and over again.\n\nWe think of the intellect of the system-builder as cold. But there is\nnever any coldness about St. Paul's mind. On the contrary, it is\nalways full of life and all on fire. He can, indeed, reason closely\nand continuously; but, every now and then, his thought bursts up\nthrough the argument like a flaming geyser and falls in showers of\nsparks. Then the argument resumes its even tenor again; but these\noutbursts are the finest passages in St. Paul. In the same way,\nShakespeare, I have observed, while moving habitually on a high level\nof thought and music, will, every now and then, pause and, spreading\nhis wings, go soaring and singing like a lark sheer up into the blue.\nWhen the thought which has lifted him is exhausted, he gracefully\ndescends and resumes on the former level; but these flights are the\nfinest passages in Shakespeare.\n\n3. The intellectual superiority of St. Paul is universally\nacknowledged; and to those who only know him at a distance this is his\noutstanding peculiarity. But the close student of his life and\ncharacter knows, that, great as he was in intellect, he was equally\ngreat in heart, perhaps even greater. One of the subtlest students of\nhis life, the late Adolphe Monod, of the French Church, has fixed on\nthis as the key to his character. He calls him the Man of Tears, and\nshows with great persuasiveness that herein lay the secret of his\npower.\n\nIt is certainly remarkable, when you begin to look into the subject,\nhow often we see St. Paul in the emotional mood, and even in tears. In\nhis famous address to the Ephesian elders he reminded them that he had\nserved the Lord among them with many tears, and again, that he had not\nceased to warn everyone night and day with tears. It is not what we\nshould have expected in a man of such intellectual power. But this\nmakes his tears all the more impressive. When a weak, effeminate man\nweeps, he only makes himself ridiculous; but it is a different\nspectacle when a man like St. Paul is seen weeping; because we know\nthat the strong nature could not have been bent except by a storm of\nfeeling.\n\nHis affection for his converts is something extraordinary. Some have\nbelieved that there is evidence to prove that in youth his heart had\nsuffered a terrible bereavement. It is supposed that he had been\nmarried, but lost his wife early. He never sought to replace the loss,\nand he never spoke of it. But the affection of his great heart, long\npent up, rushed forth into the channel of his work. His converts were\nto him in place of wife and children. His passion for them is like a\nstrong natural affection. His epistles to them are, in many places, as\nlike as they can be to love-letters. Listen to the terms in which he\naddresses them: \"Ye are in our heart to die and live with you\"; \"I\nwill very gladly spend and be spent for you, though, the more\nabundantly I love you, the less I be loved\"; \"Therefore, my brethren,\ndearly beloved and longed for, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly\nbeloved.\"\n\nTo his fellow-labourers in the Gospel especially, his heart went out\nin unbounded affection. The long lists of greetings at the close of\nhis epistles, in which the characters and services of individuals are\nreferred to with such overflowing generosity and yet with such fine\ndiscrimination, are unconscious monuments to the largeness of his\nheart. He could hardly mention a fellow-worker without breaking forth\ninto a glowing panegyric: \"Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my\npartner and fellow-helper concerning you; or our brethren be inquired\nof, they are the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ.\"\n\nThere is no more conclusive proof of the depth and sincerity of St.\nPaul's heart than the affection which he inspired in others; for it is\nonly the loving who are loved. None perhaps are more discriminating in\nthis respect than young men. A hard or pedantic nature cannot win\nthem. But St. Paul was constantly surrounded with troops of young men,\nwho, attracted by his personality, were willing to follow him through\nfire and water or to go on his messages wherever he might send them.\nAnd that he could win mature minds in the same way is proved by the\ngreat scene at Miletus, already referred to, where the elders of\nEphesus, at parting with him, \"all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck\nand kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the word which he said, that\nthey should see his face no more.\"\n\nThe nature of St. Paul's work no doubt immensely developed this side\nof his character, but, before passing from the subject, it is worth\nremembering how the circumstances of his birth and upbringing were\nprovidentially fitted to broaden his sympathies, even before he became\na Christian. He was not simply a Jew, but a Hebrew of the Hebrews;\nand he felt all the pride of a child of that race to which pertained\nthe adoption and the glory and the covenant, and the giving of the\nlaw, and the service of God, and the promises. He could always put\nhimself in touch at once with a Jewish audience by going back on\nassociations which were as dear to himself as to them. Yet, although\nso thoroughly a Jew, he belonged by birth to a larger world. He was\nnot born within the boundaries of Palestine, where his sympathies\nwould have been cramped and his horizon narrowed, but in a Gentile\ncity, famous for its beauty, its learning and its commerce; and he\nwas, besides, a freeborn citizen of Rome. We know from his own lips\nthat he was proud of both distinctions; and he thus acquired a\ncosmopolitan spirit and learned to think of himself as a man amongst\nmen.\n\nNor ought we, perhaps, to omit here to recall the fact, that he\nlearned in his youth the handicraft of tent-making. This brought him\ninto close contact with common men, whose language he learned to speak\nand whose life he learned to know--acquirements which were to be of\nsupreme utility in his subsequent career.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGentlemen, it is generally agreed that a certain modicum of natural\ngifts is necessary for those who think of entering the ministry. Here\nis Luther's list of the qualifications of a minister: you will observe\nthat most of them are gifts of nature: 1. He should be able to teach\nplainly and in order. 2. He should have a good head. 3. Good power of\nlanguage. 4. A good voice. 5. A good memory. 6. He should know when to\nstop. 7. He should be sure of what he means to say. 8. And be ready to\nstake body and soul, goods and reputation, on its truth. 9. He should\nstudy diligently. 10. And suffer himself to be vexed and criticized by\neveryone.\n\nThe first consciousness of the possession of unusual powers is not\nunfrequently accompanied by an access of vanity and self-conceit. The\nyoung soul glories in the sense, probably vastly exaggerated, of its\nown pre-eminence and anticipates, on an unlimited scale, the triumphs\nof the future. But there is another way in which this discovery may\nact. The consciousness of unusual powers may be accompanied with a\nsense of unusual responsibility, the soul inquiring anxiously about\nthe intention of the Giver of all gifts in conferring them. It was in\nthis way that Jeremiah was affected by the information that special\ngifts had been conferred on him in the scene to which I have already\nreferred in this lecture. He concluded at once that he had been\nblessed with exceptional talents in order that he might serve his God\nand his country with them. And surely in a gifted nature there could\nbe no saner ambition than, if God permitted it, to devote its powers\nto the ministry of His Son.\n\nThere is no other profession which is so able to absorb and utilise\ntalents of every description. This is manifest in regard to such\ntalents as those mentioned by Luther--a good voice, a good memory,\netc. But there is hardly a power or an attainment of any kind which a\nminister cannot use in his work. How philosophical power can serve him\nmay be seen in the preaching of Dr. Chalmers, whose sermons were\nalways cast in a philosophical mould. The philosophy was not very\ndeep; it was not too difficult for the common man; but it gave the\npreaching a decided air of distinction. How scientific acquirements\nmay be utilised is shown in the sermons of some of our foremost living\npreachers, who find an inexhaustible supply of illustrations in their\nscientific studies. Literary style may supply the feather to wing the\narrow of truth to its mark. That poetic power may serve the preacher\nit is not necessary to prove on the spot where Ray Palmer wrote \"My\nfaith looks up to Thee.\" Business capacity is needed in church courts\nand in the management of a congregation. In some other professions men\nhave to bury half their talents; but in ours there is no talent which\nwill not find appropriate and useful exercise.\n\nWe perhaps lay too much stress, however, on intellectual gifts and\nattainments. These are the only ones which are tested by our\nexaminations in college; yet there are moral qualities which are just\nas essential.\n\nThe polish given by education tells, no doubt; but the size of the\nprimordial mass of manhood tells still more. In a quaint book of\nReminiscences recently published from the pen of a notable minister of\nthe last generation in the Highlands of Scotland, Mr. Sage of Resolis,\nthere is a criticism recorded, which was passed by a parishioner on\nthree successive ministers of a certain parish: \"Our first minister,\"\nsaid he, \"was a man, but he was not a minister; our second was a\nminister, but he was not a man; and the one we have at present is\nneither a man nor a minister.\"\n\nThere is no demand which people make more imperatively in our day than\nthat their minister should be a man. It is not long since a minister\nwas certain of being honoured simply because he belonged to the\nclerical profession and wore the clerical garb. People, as the saying\nwas, respected his cloth. But ours is a democratic age, and that state\nof public feeling is passing away. There is no lack of respect,\nindeed, for ministers who are worthy of the name; perhaps there is\nmore of it than ever. But it is not given now to clerical pretensions,\nbut only to proved merit. People do not now respect the cloth, unless\nthey find a man inside it.\n\nPerhaps the educational preparation through which we pass at college\nis not too favourable to this kind of power. In the process of cutting\nand polishing the natural size of the diamond runs the risk of being\nreduced. When we are all passed through the same mill, we are apt to\ncome out too much alike. A man ought to be himself. Your Emerson\npreached this doctrine with indefatigable eloquence. Perhaps he\nexaggerated it; but it is a true doctrine; and it is emphatically a\ndoctrine for preachers. What an audience looks for, before everything\nelse, in the texture of a sermon is the bloodstreak of experience; and\ntruth is doubly and trebly true when it comes from a man who speaks as\nif he had learned it by his own work and suffering.\n\nIt will generally be noticed in any man who makes a distinct mark as a\npreacher that there is in his composition some peculiarity of\nendowment or attainment on which he has learned to rely. It may be an\nemotional tenderness as in McCheyne, or a moral intensity as in\nRobertson of Brighton, or intellectual subtlety as in Candlish, or\npsychological insight as in Beecher. But something distinctive there\nmust be, and, therefore, one of the wisest of rules is, Cultivate your\nstrong side.\n\nBut what tells most of all is the personality as a whole. This is one\nof the prime elements in preaching. The effect of a sermon depends,\nfirst of all, on what is said, and next, on how it is said; but,\nhardly less, on who says it. There are men, says Emerson, who are\nheard to the ends of the earth though they speak in a whisper.[44] We\nare so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect\non how we are disposed towards him who speaks. The regular hearers of\na minister gradually form in their minds, almost unawares, an image of\nwhat he is, into which they put everything which they themselves\nremember about him and everything which they have heard of his record;\nand, when he rises on Sunday in the pulpit, it is not the man visible\nthere at the moment that they listen to, but this image, which stands\nbehind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every\nsentence which he utters.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nClosely connected with the force of personality is the other power,\nwhich St. Paul possessed in so supreme a degree, of taking an interest\nin others. It is the manhood in ourselves which enables us to\nunderstand the human nature of our hearers; and we must have had\nexperience of life, if we are to preach to the life of men.\n\nSome ministers do this extremely little. Not once but many a time, I\nhave heard a minister on the Sabbath morning, when he rose up and\nbegan to pray, plunging at once into a theological meditation; and in\nall the prayers of the forenoon there would scarcely be a single\nsentence making reference to the life of the people during the week.\nHad you been a stranger alighted from another planet, you would never\nhave dreamed that the human beings assembled there had been toiling,\nrejoicing and sorrowing for six days; that they had mercies to give\nthanks for and sins to be forgiven; or that they had children at home\nto pray for and sons across the sea.\n\nThere is an unearthly style of preaching, if I may use the term,\nwithout the blood of human life in it: the people with their burdens\nin the pews--the burden of home, the burden of business, the burden\nof the problems of the day--whilst, in the pulpit, the minister is\nelaborating some nice point, which has taken his fancy in the course\nof his studies, but has no interest whatever for them. Only now and\nthen a stray sentence may pull up their wandering attention. Perhaps\nhe is saying, \"Now some of you may reply\"; and then follows an\nobjection to what he has been stating which no actual human being\nwould ever think of making. But he proceeds elaborately to demolish\nit, while the hearer, knowing it to be no objection of his, retires\ninto his own interior.\n\nIf what was said in a former lecture about the distinctive difference\nbetween the preaching of the Old Testament and that of the new be\nconsidered, it will at once be recognised how vital is this aspect of\nthe matter. The prophets of the Old Testament, in common with the\nthinkers of antiquity in general, thought of men in masses and\nregarded the individual only as a fragment of a larger whole. But\nChrist introduced an entirely new way of thinking. To Him the\nindividual was a whole in himself; beneath the habiliments of even the\nhumblest member of the human family there was hidden what was more\nprecious than the entire material world; and on the issues of every\nlife was suspended an immortal destiny. This faith may be said to\nhave made Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world; for He saw in the\nlost children of men that which made Him live to seek them and die to\nsave them. And it is by this same faith and vision that anyone is\nqualified to be a fellow-worker with Christ. No one will ever be able\nto engage with any success in the work of human salvation who does not\nsee men to be infinitely the most interesting objects in the world,\nand who does not stand in awe before the solemn destiny and the\nsublime possibilities of the soul. It is by the growth and the glow of\nthis faith that the worth of all ministerial work is measured.\n\nIt is far easier, however, to acknowledge this view in the abstract\nthan to cherish it habitually towards the actual men and women of our\nown sphere and our own vicinity. That man is the most interesting\nobject in the world; that the soul is precious; and that it is better\nfor a human being to lose the whole world than to miss his\ndestiny--these are now commonplaces, which everyone who bears the\nChristian name will acknowledge. Yet in reality few live under their\npower. Many a one who has paid the tribute of love and admiration to\nthe spectacle of Christ's compassion for the outcasts, and melted with\naesthetic emotion before a picture of the Woman taken in Adultery or\nthe Woman that was a Sinner, has never once attempted to save an\nactual woman of the same kind in his own city, and would be utterly at\na loss if such a one, in an hour of remorse, were to throw herself on\nhis pity and protection. There is a great difference between a sinner\nin a book or a picture and a sinner in the flesh. Multitudes in their\nhearts believe that all the remarkable and interesting people lived\nlong ago or that, at any rate, if any are now alive, they live many\nmiles away from their vicinity. They believe that there were\nremarkable people in the first or the ninth century, but by no means\nin the nineteenth; they believe that there are interesting people in\nParis or London or New York; but they have never discovered anything\nwonderful in those living in their own village or in their own street.\nMany who consider themselves enlightened will tell you that their\nneighbours are a poor lot. They fancy that, if they were living\nsomewhere else, fifty or a hundred miles away, they would find company\nworthy of themselves; though it is ten to one that, if they made the\nchange, their new neighbours would be a poor lot also.\n\nIf a minister allows himself to harbour sentiments of this sort, he is\nlost.[45] No one will ever win men who does not believe in them. The\ntrue minister must be able to see in the meanest man and woman a\nrevelation of the whole of human nature; and in the peasant in the\nfield, and even the infant in the cradle, connections which reach\nforth high as heaven and far as eternity. All that is greatest in king\nor kaiser exists in the poorest of his subjects; and the elements out\nof which the most delicate and even saintly womanhood is made exist in\nthe commonest woman who walks the streets. The harp of human nature is\nthere with all its strings complete; and it will not refuse its music\nto him who has the courage to take it up and boldly strike the\nstrings. The great preacher is he who, wherever he is speaking, among\nhigh or low, goes straight for those elements which are common to all\nmen, and casts himself with confidence on men's intelligence and\nexperience, believing that the just suggestions of reason and the\nterrors of conscience, the sense of the nobility of goodness and the\npathos of love and pity are common to them all.[46]\n\nLet me close this lecture with a few words on a great subject, to\nwhich a whole lecture might have been profitably devoted.\n\nNo safer piece of advice could be tendered you than to let the\nbeginning of your ministry be marked by care for the young. This is\nwork which more than any other will encourage yourselves, and it is\nmore likely than any other to establish you in the affections of a\ncongregation.\n\nTo work successfully among children you must know their life and have\nthe _entree_ of their little world of interests, excitements, prizes\nand hopes. It is not difficult to get it, if only we are simple and\ngenuine. Children will approach their minister gladly, and make him\ntheir confidant, if only he is accessible to them. By the ministers of\nan older generation they were kept at an awful distance. When they\nwere out of temper or doing wrong, they were threatened with a visit\nfrom the minister in the same way as they might be threatened with the\npoliceman, or the parish beadle, or a still more awful functionary of\nthe universe. This, let us hope, has passed away, and in most parishes\na ministerial visit is spoken of as a promise instead of a threat. A\nminister is proud nowadays if a child flies up to him in the street\nand ruffles his feathers with boisterous familiarity, or if a group of\nchildren pin him into the corner of a room and order him, under pains\nand penalties, to tell them a story. We are returning to the ideal of\nGoldsmith, in the _Deserted Village_:--\n\n    \"The service past, around the pious man\n    With steady zeal each loyal rustic ran;\n    Even children followed with endearing wile,\n    And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.\"\n\nMore important even than accessibility is genuine respect for the\nchildren.\n\nWe ought to respect their intelligence. When we are preaching to them,\nwe should give them our very best. I venture to say, that a much\nlarger proportion of the sermons preached to children is never written\nout than of sermons to adults. The preacher, having thought of two or\nthree lines of remark and got hold of two or three stories, enters the\npulpit with these materials lying loosely in his mind, and trusts to\nthe moment for the style of the sermon. Of course, if a man has\ntrained himself to preach in this way always, it is all right; but, if\nnot, it is a mistake. Children are greatly affected by felicity of\narrangement and the music of language; they do not know to what their\npleasure is due, but they feel it; and, if a preacher has the power\nof original thought or of beautiful diction, there is no occasion when\nhe should be more liberal in the use of it than when he is addressing\nthem.[47] The truth is, it is a complete mistake to make the\nchildren's sermon so different from other sermons as to create the\nimpression that it is the only utterance from the pulpit to which they\nare expected to listen. It is not easy to get children to begin to\nlisten at all to what is said in church; the children's sermon is a\ndevice to catch their attention; but it ought also to be a bridge\nconducting them over to the habit of listening to all that is said\nthere. If they acquire the habit, they are our best hearers. A boy of\ntwelve or thirteen can follow nearly anything; and there is no keener\ncritic of the logic of a discourse or warmer appreciator of any\npassage which is worthy of admiration.\n\nBut, while we respect the intelligence of the young, there is\nsomething else which we need to believe in still more. We do not half\nrealise the drama of religious impression going on in the minds of\nchildren. We forget our own childhood and the movements excited in our\nchildish breasts under the preaching of the Word--how real the things\nunseen were to us; how near God was, His eye flashing on us through\nthe darkness; how our hearts melted at the sufferings of Christ; how\nthey swelled with unselfish aspirations as we listened to the stories\nof heroic lives; how distinctly the voice of conscience spoke within\nus; and how we trembled at the prospect of death, judgment and\neternity. What we were then, other children are now; and what went on\nin us is going on in them. It is the man who believes this and reveres\nit who will reap the harvest in the field of childhood.\n\nThere is no surer way to secure for ourselves the interest of the old\nthan to take an interest in the young. Of course a forced interest in\nchildren, shown with this in view, would be hypocrisy and deserve\ncontempt. We must love the children for their own sakes. Yet we may\nquite legitimately nourish our interest in the young by observing that\nit is one of the strongest instincts of human nature which makes\nfathers and mothers feel kindnesses shown to their children to be the\ngreatest benefits which can be conferred on themselves. An Edinburgh\nminister, who has had conspicuous success in preaching to children as\nwell as in every other department of the work of his sacred office,\nonce, in a gathering of divinity students, of whom I was one, told an\nincident from his own life which is almost too sacred to be repeated\nby any lips except his own, but which I hope he will excuse me for\nenriching you with, as it puts in a memorable form one of the truest\nsecrets of ministerial success. On the morning of the day when he was\ngoing to be ordained to his first charge, he was leaving his home in\nthe country to travel to the city, and his mother came to the door to\nbid him good-bye. Holding his hand at parting, she said, \"You are\ngoing to be ordained to-day, and you will be told your duty by those\nwho know it far better than I do; but I wish you to remember one thing\nwhich perhaps they may not tell you--remember, that, whenever you lay\nyour hand on a child's head, you are laying it on its mother's heart.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[43] \"The Sybarites of to-day will tolerate a sermon which is delicate\nenough to flatter their literary sensuality; but it is their taste which\nis charmed, not their conscience which is awakened: their principle of\nconduct escapes untouched.... Amusement, instruction, morals, are\ndistinct _genres_.\"--AMIEL.\n\n[44] The finest description of a speaker known to me is this of Lord\nBacon in Ben Jonson's _Discoveries_; and it is evident that it was the\nman rather than the manner or even the matter which made the impression:\n\"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of\ngravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare or pass by a\njest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly,\nmore weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he\nuttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His\nhearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He\ncommanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his\ndevotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of\nevery man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.\"\n\n[45] It has often astonished me to observe how easily ministers' wives\nin this respect find for themselves the right path. One would think it\nwould be very difficult sometimes for those who have been brought up in\ncities or in a secluded circle to adapt themselves suddenly to a remote\nand unselect society; and they have not, like their husbands, had the\nopportunity of meditating long on the duties of a public position. A\nhearty and cordial humanity in the members of a minister's family lends\nan immense assistance to his work. A minister ought to belong to no\nclass of society, but to have the power of moving without constraint in\nevery class.\n\n[46] \"Not a heart but has its romance, not a life which does not hide a\nsecret which is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope,\ncomedy, tragedy; even under the petrifaction of old age, as in the\ntwisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agitations and tortures of\nyouth. This thought is the magic wand of poets and preachers.\"--_Amiel._\n\n[47] This may be a reason for rather devoting a whole diet of worship to\nthe children once a month or once a quarter than only giving them a few\nminutes every Sabbath. But many follow the latter practice with\nexcellent results. Perhaps there ought to be something specially for the\nchildren at every service. If I may mention my own practice, I have,\nduring my whole ministry, preached to children once a month; and every\nSunday I have a children's hymn in the forenoon and a prayer for\nchildren in the afternoon.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A CHRISTIAN.\n\n\nIn the last lecture I spoke of St. Paul as a Man, showing how\nremarkable were his endowments and acquirements, and how these told in\nhis apostolic career. But it was not through these that he was what he\nwas. Great as were the gifts bestowed on him by nature and cultivated\nby education, they were utterly inadequate to produce a character and\na career like his. It was what Christianity added to these that made\nhim St. Paul.\n\nIt is right enough that we should now recognise the importance of his\nnatural gifts and trace out the ways in which Providence was shaping\nhis life towards its true aim before he was conscious of it. But St.\nPaul himself had hardly patience for such cool reflections. He turned\naway with strong aversion from his pre-Christian life as something\ncondemned and lost; and he delighted to attribute all that he was and\ndid to the influence of Christ alone. In my last lecture I quoted a\nsingle passage to show that he himself recognised that his natural\nendowments had been bestowed in order to fit him for the peculiar\nwork which he was destined to accomplish in the world; but I question\nif from all his writings I could have quoted another passage to the\nsame effect. It was only for a moment that he allowed himself to stand\non this point of view; whereas we could quote from every part of his\nwritings such sayings as these: \"By the grace of God I am what I am\";\n\"I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of\nGod in me\"; \"It is no more I that live, but Christ liveth in me.\"\n\nThat this was his habitual way of estimating his own achievements is\nstrikingly illustrated by his mode of thinking and speaking of certain\ndefects in the equipment with which nature had supplied him for the\ncareer on which he was embarked. Gifted as he was, even he did not\npossess all gifts. He lacked one or two of those which might have been\nthought most essential to his success.\n\nIt would appear that he lacked the rotund voice and copious diction of\nthe orator; for his critics were able to allege that, whilst his\nwritten style was powerful, his spoken style was contemptible.\nPainters have represented him as a kind of demi-god, with the stature\nof an athlete and the grace of an Apollo. But he seems to have been\ndiminutive in stature; and there appears to be evidence to prove that\nthere was that in his appearance which, at first sight, rather\nrepelled than attracted an audience. He felt these defects keenly, and\ncould not but wish sometimes that they were removed. But his habitual\nand settled feeling about them was, that he ought to look upon them as\nsources of strength rather than as weaknesses, because they made him\nrely the more on the strength of Christ. This was an unfailing\nresource, on which he felt that he could draw without limit. And so he\ngloried in his infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon\nhim.[48]\n\nIt might be said that it was only the enthusiasm of Paul which made\nhim attribute to Christ that which really belonged to himself. But his\nown point of view is the just one. It was Christ who made him; and, if\nwe are to understand a ministry like his, we must try to measure the\ninfluence of Christ upon him, or, in other words, investigate the\nelements of his Christianity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n1. Paul could claim that even in his pre-Christian days he had lived\nin all good conscience towards both God and man. Yet this profession\nof uprightness does not prevent him from confessing elsewhere that\ndeep down in his consciousness there had been a mortal struggle\nbetween the principles of good and evil, in which the good was far\nfrom always winning the victory: \"We all,\" he acknowledges, \"had our\nconversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the\ndesires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children\nof wrath even as others.\" In the seventh chapter of Romans he has\ndrawn a picture of this struggle, and it is to the very life.\nTheologians have, indeed, disputed among themselves as to the stage of\nexperience there referred to--whether it is the state of an\nunconverted or of a converted man. But the human heart has no\ndifficulty in interpreting it. The more thoroughly anyone is a man,\nthe more easily will he understand it; and especially the more upright\nand conscientious anyone is, the more certainly must he have\nexperienced what is described in words like these, \"That which I do I\nallow not, for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that do\nI\"; \"For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not\nthat I do\"; \"I find, then, a law that, when I would do good, evil is\npresent with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man;\nbut I see another law in my members warring against the law of my\nmind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my\nmembers. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body\nof this death?\" Thus Paul had been a lost man, in hopeless bondage to\nsin.\n\nBut he had to repent of his own righteousness as well as of his sin.\nHe had inherited the passionate longing of the Jewish race for\nfellowship with God--the longing expressed a hundred times in the\npoetry of his fathers in words like these: \"As the hart panteth after\nthe waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God\"; \"My soul\nthirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear\nbefore God?\" He had been taught that the great prize of life is to be\nwell-pleasing to God, and he had learned the lesson with all the\npassionate earnestness of his nature. Yet he never could attain to\nthat for which he longed. There always seemed to be a cloud on the\nDivine face, and he was kept at a distance. Luther went through the\nvery same experience. His was also a passionately religious nature,\nand he strove with all his might to get into the sunshine of God's\nface; but his efforts were entirely baffled. Wash them as he would,\nhis hands were never clean.\n\nWhat could an earnest nature do in such circumstances but seek to\nbring still greater sacrifices? Probably this was the source of Paul's\nzeal in the work of the persecutor. He was vindicating the honour of\nGod when he exterminated the enemies of God. The work must have gone\nsorely against the grain of a nature as sensitive as his, especially\nwhen he saw scenes, like the death of Stephen, in which the gentleness\nand heroism of his victims shone out with unearthly beauty. But he\nonly flung himself more passionately into his task; because, the more\ntrying it was, the greater was the merit of doing it, and the more\ncertain was he of winning at last the full approval of God.\n\nThis portion of Paul's career seems to be capable of complete\nvindication on the ground of conscientiousness. Indeed, in reviewing\nit, he stands sometimes on this point of view himself, and says that\nGod had mercy on him because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. But\noftener he thinks of it with overwhelming shame and remorse. The whole\ncourse of life which had logically led up to work so inhuman in its\ndetails and so directly in the face of God's purposes was\ndemonstrated by the issue to have been utterly ungodly. His thoughts\nhad not been God's thoughts nor his ways God's ways. The scenes of the\npersecution, when, haling men and women, he cast them into prison; the\nhatred and fury which in those days had raged in his breast; the\nefforts which he had put forth to oppose the cause of Christ, which it\nwas his firm resolution to extinguish to its last embers--these\nmemories would never afterwards quit his mind. They kept him humble;\nfor he felt that he was the least of the apostles, who was not worthy\nto be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the Church of God.\nHe called himself the chief of sinners, and believed that God had in\nhis case exhaustively displayed the whole wealth of His mercy for a\npattern to all subsequent generations.\n\nThe first element of St. Paul's Christianity, then, was the penitence\nof a lost man and a great sinner, who owed to Christ the forgiveness\nof his sins and the redemption of his life from an evil career. And he\nbelieved that Christ had purchased these benefits for him by the\nsacrifice of His own life.\n\n2. The second great element of St. Paul's Christianity was his\nConversion, which set a gulf between the portion of his life which\npreceded and the portion which followed it. It was the chief date of\nhis life, and confronted him every time he looked back. Its influence\nextended to every part of his experience; but perhaps its most\nimportant effect was to set Christ up within him as a living Person,\nof whose reality he was absolutely assured.\n\nProbably Paul's opposition to Christianity was from the first very\nspecially opposition to Christ Himself. When he struck at the\ndisciples, he was really striking at the Master through them. It is\neasy to conceive what an affront the pretensions of Jesus must have\nbeen felt to be by Paul. Jesus had been a man of about his own age--a\nyoung man; he had sprung from the lowest of the people, being a\nvillager and mechanic; he had never sat in the schools of learning;\nthe men of ability and authority had had no hesitation in condemning\nHim. That such a one should be esteemed the Messiah of the Jews and\nworshipped as if He were Divine, raised a storm of indignation in the\nheart of Paul.\n\nProbably nothing could have converted him except the miraculous\noccurrence which God employed. Christ had to come to him in person and\nin a visible shape--in the shape of the glorified humanity which He\nwears somewhere in that empire of God which we call Heaven. Paul knew\nthe light in which he was enveloped to be a Divine light; the sound of\nthe voice calling him was the thunder which from of old had been\nrecognised by the race to which he belonged as the voice of God; he\nwas looking straight up to the place of God; and in that place he saw\nJesus, whom he was persecuting. Most Divine of all, however, were the\nsweetness, the clemency and the respect of the words in which he was\naddressed. This Jesus, against whom he was raging, came to him, not\nwith corresponding rage, to take vengeance and destroy him, but with\nwinning words of truth and with the call to a high and blessed\nvocation. It was this which broke the heart of Paul and attached him\nto Christ forever.\n\nHe always afterwards believed that what took place on this occasion\nwas what I have said--that Jesus of Nazareth descended from the right\nhand of God to prove to him who He was and to claim him as His servant\nand apostle--and never afterwards did he for a moment doubt that the\nman whom his fellow-countrymen had crucified, and whom he himself had\npersecuted, was seated on the throne of heaven, clothed with Divine\nblessedness and omnipotence.\n\nOf course others have doubted this. It may be said that what Paul saw\nwas only a vision, and that therefore his new life was founded on a\nmistake. I believe his own account to be the correct one; but perhaps\nwe need not dogmatize too much about what he saw; because it was not\nin reality on any theory of this vision that his faith was founded. It\nwas not because he saw Christ that day with the bodily eye, or\nbelieved he did so, that he became or continued a Christian; it was\nbecause, trusting Christ, thus revealed, he obtained that for which he\nhad all his life been longing: he was no longer banished or kept at a\ndistance, but brought nigh to God; he was reconciled, and the love of\nGod was shed abroad in his heart. He had all his lifetime been asking\nin despair, \"What must I do to be saved?\" but now he was saved. The\nhumiliating bondage in which his spiritual nature had been held was\ndissolved, and, following Christ, he advanced from victory to victory.\n\nThis is the test of all conversions; it is the best evidence of\nChristianity; and it is the power of preaching. We believe in Christ\nnot only because there is sufficient historical evidence that He\nexisted eighteen hundred years ago and did such acts as proved that He\nwas sent from God, but because He proves Himself to be living now by\nthe transformation which He brings to pass in those who put their\ntrust in Him. We are certain that there is a Saviour, because He has\nsaved ourselves. I am happy to see that this evidence of our religion\nis at present coming again to the front. One of your younger\nscholars, Dr. Stearns of Bangor, Maine, has developed it, in a book\njust published, with great breadth of theological knowledge; and a\nformer Yale lecturer, Dr. Dale of Birmingham, has given a telling\nexposition of it at the same time.[49] This is the vital force of\npreaching. We are witnesses to Christ--not merely to a Christ who\nlived long ago and did wonders, but to a Christ who is alive now and\nis still doing moral miracles. And the virtue of any man's testimony\nlies in his being able to say that he has himself seen the Christ whom\nhe preaches to others, and himself experienced the power which he\nrecommends others to seek.\n\n3. After his conversion the whole life of St. Paul was comprehended in\none word; and this word was Christ. There has often in modern times\nbeen a Christianity which has contained very little of Christ. Mr.\nSage, of Resolis, one of whose quaint sayings I quoted in my last\nlecture, has solemnly left it on record that, when he was a student at\nAberdeen, the Professor of Divinity, who was also Principal of the\nUniversity, in a three years' course of lectures on the principles of\nthe Christian religion, never once mentioned the name of Christ; and\nin those times sermons were perfectly common in which there was not\nthe slightest allusion to the Saviour. In our day this is entirely\nchanged. Yet we are also surrounded with a Christianity which is\nextremely vague. Almost every sentiment in which there is anything\ndevout or humane receives the name of Christian; and the question\nwhich many are asking is how little it is necessary for one who claims\nthe Christian name to believe and profess. Even this question may,\nindeed, in some cases indicate a state of mind far from unpromising,\nwhich requires the utmost pastoral sympathy and skill; but, if we wish\nto know what Christianity is in its power, we must not live in this\nunhealthy region, but find a Christianity in which the distinctively\nChristian element is not a minimum but a maximum. Such was St. Paul's\nChristianity. Its most prominent peculiarity was that there was so\nmuch of Christ in it. He expressed this in the characteristic saying,\n\"To me to live is Christ,\" which was only a Greek way of saying, To me\nlife is Christ; and, from whatever side we look at his life, we see\nthat this was true.\n\nChrist had obtained, and He retained, an extensive hold on his\nemotional nature. St. Paul's was a large heart, and it was all\nChrist's. We are shy of speaking of our personal feeling towards the\nSaviour; and we probably feel pretty often that the conventional\nterms of affection for Him, which are made use of, for example, in the\nhymns of the Church, transcend our actual experience. St. Paul, on the\ncontrary, has no hesitation in employing about Christ the language\ncommonly used to describe the most absorbing passion, when love is\nfilling life with a sweet delirium and making everything easy which\nhas to be done for the sake of its object. St. Paul's achievements and\nself-denials were almost more than human; but his own explanation of\nthem was simple: \"The love of Christ constraineth us.\" He had to\nforego the prizes which to other men make life worth living; but what\ndid he care? \"I count them but dung,\" he says, \"that I may win\nChrist.\" If only he retained one thing, he was willing to let all\nothers go: \"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall\ntribulation or distress or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or\nperil or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors\nthrough Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor\nlife, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor\nthings to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be\nable to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our\nLord.\" These sound like the fervours of first love; but they are the\nwords of a man at the height of his powers. And in old age he was\nstill the same: still to him Christ was the star of life, and the hope\nof being with Him had annihilated the terrors of death: \"I am in a\nstrait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ,\nwhich is far better.\"\n\nBut Christ was enthroned in St. Paul's intellect no less than in his\nheart. It was an intellect vast in its compass and restless in its\nmovements; but all its movements circled round Christ, and its most\npowerful efforts were put forth to reach the full height of His glory.\nEveryone acquainted with his writings knows how full of Christ they\nare. What is technically called his Christology is both splendid and\nprofound; but, indeed, his whole thinking is Christological; he saw\nthe whole universe in Christ.\n\nPerhaps, however, we see even more suggestively how his whole mind was\noccupied with this subject by observing the way in which the mere\nincidental mention of the name of Christ sends him off into the most\nsublime statements regarding Him. For example, when he is speaking to\nhusbands about loving their wives, the thought strikes him that this\nlove is like that of Christ to His people; and he breaks forth:\n\"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and\ngave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the\nwashing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a\nglorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.\" In\nlike manner, happening to be recommending generosity, he thinks of the\ngenerosity of Christ, and away he breaks into an incomparable\ndescription of His descent from the throne of the Highest to the death\nof the cross: \"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,\nwho, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with\nGod,\" and so on; and, not content with following Him down, in\naccordance with the thought with which he started, he pursues the\nsubject under the impulse of sheer love, following Him up to the\nhighest heaven: \"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given\nHim a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every\nknee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things\nunder the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus\nChrist is Lord to the glory of God the Father.\" When is it that the\nmind thus starts off into a subject at any chance hint or suggestion,\npouring out the most astonishing ideas in the most felicitous\nlanguage? It is only when it is possessed with it, and when its ideas\nare so hot and molten, that they are ready to avail themselves of any\noutlet.\n\nWhat may be called the inner or spiritual life of St. Paul may most of\nall be said to have been all Christ. His own theory of this innermost\nlife is that it is a kind of living over again of the life of Christ:\nwe die with Him to sin; we are buried with Him in baptism; as He rose,\nso we rise again to newness of life; He ascended to sit on the throne\nof the Father, and we are seated with Him in heavenly places. He is\nthe very soil in which this life grows, and the atmosphere which it\nbreathes; a Christian is \"a man in Christ,\" and all the functions of\nhis interior and even of his exterior life are performed in this\nelement: he speaks in Christ, he marries in Christ, he dies in Christ,\nand in the resurrection he will rise in Christ.\n\nThis is what would be called the mysticism of St. Paul; and doctrines\nresembling this have sometimes been associated in religion with\nfantastic speculation and unpractical dreaming. In St. Paul, however,\nmysticism had no such results. If there was any part of his life on\nwhich the influence of Christ was more conspicuous than another, it\nwas the practical part. To him any pretended connection or intercourse\nwith Christ in secret had no meaning unless its outcome was visible in\na Christlike life--\"If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is\nnone of His.\"\n\nTo his own person he applied this principle in the most rigorous\nmanner. Christ, he is fond of saying, lives in him; he almost speaks\nas if in his flesh the Son of God had experienced a second\nincarnation; but he relentlessly draws the practical conclusion. When\nChrist lived in His own earthly tabernacle, what did He live for? It\nwas for the salvation of men; He went about continually doing good; He\nlived to seek and save the lost. If so, then, living in St. Paul, He\nmust have the same purpose--to make use of his powers of mind and body\nfor the salvation of the world. In this way Christ was really still\ncarrying on the work which had been interrupted by His death. St. Paul\ndares to say that he is filling up that which was lacking of Christ's\nsufferings for the sake of His body, the Church. He says that the\nheart of Christ is yearning after men in his heart; that the mind of\nChrist is scheming for the kingdom of God in his brain; he even\ncompares the marks of persecution on his body to the wounds of Christ.\n\nThere is nowhere else on record--at least there was not till St. Paul\nhad taught it to the Christian world--such a merging of one life in\nanother. And it is all the more remarkable when it is considered how\nbig and strong a nature St. Paul's was. If any other man might have\ncoveted an original and independent life, surely he was entitled to\nbe something in the world; but he had utterly sunk himself into the\necho and the organ of Another.[50]\n\nGentlemen, I have taken up nearly the whole of the lecture with this\nminute analysis of St. Paul's Christianity for two reasons.\n\nI have done so, first, because I wish to create in your minds a genial\nestimate of the man himself whom I am setting up in this course of\nlectures as the model for preachers. It is not uncommon to speak as if\nthe earliest apostles had been formed by their association with Jesus,\nand, strong only in their affection for Him, had gone forth to tell\nthe world the simple story of His life and death; but St. Paul, being\na man of a colder nature and of strong intellectual proclivities, drew\nChristianity away from the person of Jesus and transmuted it into a\nhard intellectual system. I think I have proved that this is a\ntotally mistaken impression, which does gross injustice to the great\nApostle. None of the apostles, not even St. John, was more filled with\nthe glow of personal attachment to Christ. He had a larger nature than\nany of them, but it was penetrated with this passion through and\nthrough. Being of the intellectual type, he could not help thinking\nout Christianity: but Christ entered into every thought he had about\nit.\n\nThe other reason why I have attempted to analyze so fully to-day the\nChristian experience of St. Paul is because I believe that the great\nmotive of the ministry lies here--the very pulse of the machine.[51]\n\nThere are many motives which may go to constitute a powerful ministry\nand enable us to rejoice in our vocation. I have dealt with some of\nthem already in this course of lectures. There is, for example, the\none with which I dealt in my last lecture, that the ministry gives\nsatisfying and exhilarating employment to all the powers of the mind.\nThere is, again, that which I mentioned in an earlier lecture, that\nours is a patriotic service: we are doing the very best for our\ncountry when we are permeating its life with the spirit of true\nreligion. An aspect of the ministry which attracts many minds at\npresent is that it is a service to humanity; the heart and conscience\nof the age are stirred by the misery of the poor, and this is the most\nobvious and effective mode of rescue. These are inspiring motives; and\nothers might be mentioned. But far more important than them all is a\nstrong personal attachment to the Saviour. This is the motive of the\nministry which goes deepest and wears longest.\n\nIt may have many roots. It may be rooted in impressive convictions\nabout the person of the Saviour and enthusiastic admiration of His\ncharacter. It may spring from a profound sense of the lost condition\nfrom which He has rescued ourselves and of the destiny to which He has\nraised us. It may be due most of all to the impression made on our\nmind and heart by the sacrifice at the cost of which Jesus procured\nsalvation for us. And here the depth or shallowness of our theology\nwill be sure to tell. If our views are superficial either of the\ndifference which salvation has made to ourselves or of what Christ did\nto constitute Himself the Saviour, the likelihood is that we shall\nlove little. It is the man who knows that he has been forgiven much\nand saved at a great cost, who loves much. And the amount of love is\nthe measure of sacrifice.\n\nIn all ages this has been the secret of devoted lives. It has made the\ngreat preachers--St. Augustine and St. Bernard, Luther and Wesley,\nSamuel Rutherford and McCheyne. It has made those too who have not\nbeen great in the eyes of men, but by their self-denying lives have\nmade the kingdom of God to come. In one of his sonnets Matthew Arnold\ntells of meeting with a minister, \"ill and o'erworked,\" on a broiling\nAugust day in the East End of London, and asking him how he fared in\nthat scene of sin and sorrow. \"Bravely,\" was the answer, \"for I of\nlate have been much cheered with thought of Christ.\" It is said to\nhave been an actual incident.[52] At all events, it is the explanation\nof thousands of heroic lives passed in similar desperate situations.\nAt present the adherents of a humanitarian philanthropism are loud in\nproclaiming the woes of the world, as if they had been the first to\ndiscover them, and propounding schemes for their amelioration; but\ntheir methods have all been anticipated by the humble followers of\nJesus; and nine-tenths of the genuine philanthropic work of the world\nare being done by men and women who make no noise, but who cannot\nhelp working for the ends of Jesus, because His love is burning in\ntheir very bones, and because the life of Christ in them cannot help\nmanifesting itself after its kind. Down the Christian centuries there\nhas come floating a kind of hymn: the words are said to be by St.\nPatrick: the sentiment may well be called the music to which the true\nChurch militant has always marched:--\n\n  Christ with me, Christ before be,\n  Christ behind me, Christ within me,\n  Christ beneath me, Christ above me,\n  Christ at my right, Christ at my left,\n  Christ in the fort,\n  Christ in the chariot seat,\n  Christ in the poop,\n  Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,\n  Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me,\n  Christ in every eye that sees me,\n  Christ in every ear that hears me.[53]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[48] The most charming chapter of Adolphe Monod's _Saint Paul_ is on the\nsubject of these two paragraphs. It is difficult to quote from it,\nbecause one would like to quote it all; but I allow myself the pleasure\nof borrowing these golden sentences: \"C'est qu'en depit de tant de\npromesses faites a la foi, nous sommes toujours plus on moins affaiblis\npar un reste de force propre, comme nous sommes toujours plus on moins\ntroubles par un reste de propre justice, que les plus humbles eux-memes\ntrainent partout avec eux. Cette malheureuse force propre, cette\neloquence propre, cette science propre, cette influence propre, forme en\nnous comme un petit sanctuaire favori, que notre orgueil jaloux tient\nferme a la force Dieu, pour s'y reserver un dernier refuge. Mais si nous\npouvions devenir enfin faibles tout de bon et desesperer absolument de\nnous-memes, la force de Dieu, se repandant dans tout notre homme\ninterieur et s' infiltrant jusque dans ses plus secrets replis, nous\nremplirait jusqu'en toute plenitude de Dieu; par ou, la force de l'homme\netant echangee contre la force de Dieu, rien ne nous serait impossible,\nparce que rien n'est impossible a Dieu.\"\n\n[49] Stearns, _The Evidence of Christian Experience_; Dale, _The Living\nChrist and the Four Gospels_.\n\n[50] \"I feel most strongly that man, in all that he does or can do which\nis beautiful, great or good, is but the organ and the vehicle of\nsomething or some one higher than himself. This feeling is religion. The\nreligious man takes part with a tremor of sacred joy in those phenomena\nof which he is the intermediary but not the source, of which he is the\nscene but not the author, or rather the poet. He lends them voice, hand,\nwill and help, but he is respectfully careful to efface himself, that he\nmay alter as little as possible the higher work of the Genius who is\nmaking a momentary use of him. A pure emotion deprives him of\npersonality and annihilates the self in him. Self must perforce\ndisappear when it is the Holy Spirit who speaks, when it is God who\nacts. This is the mood in which the prophet hears the call, the young\nmother feels the movement of the child within, the preacher watches the\ntears of his audience. So long as we are conscious of self, we are\nlimited, selfish, held in bondage.\"--AMIEL.\n\n[51] As enthusiasm for Christ is the soul of preaching as far as the\npreacher is concerned, so in a spiritual congregation there will always\nbe found a jealous desire for this element in what they hear.\n\n[52] See an article by the Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., in _The Evangelical\nMagazine_, April, 1891.\n\n[53] Here may be introduced a few notes which are to me of inestimable\nvalue. The happiness of my visit to the States, which was great, was\novershadowed at the close by the news of the death of the best friend I\nhad on earth--the Rev. Robert W. Barbour, of Bonskeid. None who knew him\nwill need to have it explained why I should think of him at this point;\nbecause, while he had drunk deeply of the spirit of the time and was\npossessed of a rare love for men, the deepest source of the sacred\nextravagance with which he lavished himself and his many talents on\nevery good cause was nothing else than the passion for Christ which I am\ntrying in this lecture to illustrate. He took a warm interest in this\ncourse of lectures, and sent me the following Aphorisms on Preaching, to\nbe used as I might think fit. I reproduce them entire, as they came from\nhim. Perhaps they were the very last literary work he did:--\n\n   _The Book and the Library._ The preacher must be master of many\n   books, and servant of one.\n\n   _Closet and Desk._ Study as though thou mightest preach for\n   fifty years; pray as though thou mightest preach for five.\n\n   _Divine and Human._ Speak as though the mouth were God's; but\n   let the voice be a man's.\n\n   _First and Second Aims._ All gifts (presence, voice, gesture,\n   culture, style, and so on) may be wings, if kept behind one's\n   back; the moment they are seen they become dead weights.\n\n   Two strings to one's bow will do with any shafts but the arrows\n   of the King. Letters, the press, the lyre, the porch, must\n   stand in the background behind \"this one thing.\"\n\n   Think less and less of everything else, and more and more of\n   thy message.\n\n   _Aims and No Aims._ Aim at something, you will hit it; also\n   draw your bow at a venture.\n\n   \"_Make full proof of thy ministry._\" Try every method--writing,\n   reading, committing, extending, extemporising. Imitate every\n   man, but mimic none. Nothing makes a preacher like preaching.\n\n      Whence comes it that my nature is subdued\n      To that it works in, like the dyer's hand.\n\n   _Pulpit Form._ Respect your hearers. Do not gird at them; angle\n   for them--and agonize. Address yourself to one at a time--first\n   to the man in the pulpit. He who has hit himself first will not\n   miss others. He who trembles at the word of the Lord, men will\n   tremble at his word. (Borrowed) A preacher must either be\n   afraid of his audience or his audience of him.\n\n   _Janua Domini._ Always enter the pulpit by the Door (John x. 7).\n\n   _Contents and Omissions._ Put everything you can into every\n   address. Omit everything you can from every address.\n\n   \"_Faith cometh by hearing._\" Therefore, to begin with, be\n   audible. The Sermon on the Mount commences thus: \"He opened His\n   mouth\" (Matt. v. 2).\n\n   _Time and Eternity._ Speak to men's fleeting hopes and passing\n   interests; speak also to their grey hairs and to their midnight\n   hours.\n\n   _Ultimata._ Desire to prophesy (1 Cor. xiv. 1); covet to\n   prophesy (_ib._ 39); do not preach if thou darest be silent (1\n   Cor. ix. 16).\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS AN APOSTLE.\n\n\nGentlemen, in the two last lectures we have investigated two of the\nprincipal sources--perhaps I might say the two principal sources--of a\nminister's power--his manhood and his Christianity. These may be\ncalled the two natural springs out of which work for men and God\nproceeds. Out of these it comes as a direct necessity of nature. If\nanyone is much of a man--if there be in him much fire and force, much\nenergy of conviction--it will be impossible for him to pass through so\ngreat an experience as the reception of Christianity without making it\nknown; and, if he be much of a Christian--if there be in him much of\nthe spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of self-sacrifice and\nbenevolence--it will be impossible for him to refrain from approaching\nmen in their sin and misery and endeavouring to communicate to them\nthe secret of blessedness. He will make but a poor minister who would\nnot be an earnest worker for God and man, even if he were not a\nminister.\n\nThese impulses were conspicuously strong in St. Paul. Yet there was\nalso another source from which he drew the motives of his ministry.\nThis was the fact that God had appointed him to the office of an\napostle and allotted him a specific sphere of activity as the apostle\nof the Gentiles.\n\nThe other two sources of motive are, as I have said, natural; this\none, on the contrary, is official. This may raise a prejudice against\nit. So many and such grave mistakes have been made through regarding\nofficial appointment as the only warrant for Christian work, to the\nprejudice of the antecedent qualifications of a genuine and\nsympathetic manhood and a deep personal Christianity, without which it\nis nothing, that there is a disposition to ignore this kind of motive\naltogether. But St. Paul acknowledges it. Although he was always, no\ndoubt, far more of a man and a Christian than an official, yet, in\nreply to opposition, he insists with great vehemence on his apostolic\nrank; and evidently he felt that this imposed on him additional\nobligations to be earnest and faithful in the work to which his manly\nand Christian instincts prompted him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is, indeed, of great consequence to anyone who has become a\nChristian, and who begins to feel stirring in his breast those\nimpulses to serve God and bless the world which are native to the\nChristian spirit, to obtain a definite sphere to fill and a definite\nwork to do. Otherwise these God-inspired impulses, expressing\nthemselves in mere words and sentiments, gradually decay through want\nof exercise, or they are dispersed over so many objects that nothing\nis done. But, when a special task is obtained, the force of these\nsentiments is concentrated upon it and transmuted into actual work.\nThe Christian man says: Here is my own task; if I do not accomplish\nit, no one else can; this is my corner in the great labour-field,\nwhich I, and no one else, have to make fruitful and beautiful; I shall\nbe answerable to the Judge of all at the last for the manner in which\nthe work assigned to me is done.\n\nSuch sentiments had a strong hold of the mind of St. Paul. One of his\ncommonest ways of thinking of his office was as a stewardship, which\nhe was administering, and for which by-and-by he would have to render\na reckoning. \"And,\" says he, \"it is required in stewards that a man be\nfound faithful.\"[54] Similarly, he thought of himself as a workman\nwith a certain portion of a temple to build; but the great Taskmaster\nwas coming round in the evening to inspect the work--ay, and even to\ntest it with fire; and, when that testing-time came, he desired to be\na workman not needing to be ashamed. All the work of his apostleship\nappeared to him a curriculum which he had to cover before he could win\nthe prize of the Divine approval. This is his favourite figure of\nspeech, and he applies it in many directions.\n\nFor example, the athlete in the racecourse has to keep himself in\ntraining and to put every muscle on the stretch. So St. Paul felt the\nobligation to put every power he possessed into his work. \"Give\nthyself wholly to them,\" he says to a young fellow-labourer about his\nduties; and what he preached he practised. \"Stir up the grace of God\nthat is in thee,\" he says to the same friend again; and he called on\nhis own nature continually for the utmost exertion of its powers. He\nwas always growing; but the increment of his faculty and influence\nwent all to the same object.\n\nAn athlete in the games naturally laid aside every weight, divesting\nhimself of everything which might impede his running and rob him of\nthe prize. He dared not glance aside at any object which would take\nhis eye off the goal. So St. Paul sacrificed everything for the\nGospel's sake; he had but one end and no by-ends. He was often,\nindeed, accused of aiming at some end of his own. With especial\npersistency he was accused of avarice. It is very ludicrous now to\nthink of this great man having been supposed capable of so mean a\nvice. But his motives were too high and pure to be intelligible to his\naccusers, and they naturally attributed to him the motive which was\nthe strongest of which they were conscious themselves. But they only\nbrought out the true greatness of the man. He believed in the right of\npreachers of the Gospel to live by the Gospel, and he looked forward\nto the general recognition of this as soon as Christianity had\nobtained a footing in the world. But he himself lived above all such\nclaims. He accepted support from his converts, indeed, and thanked God\nfor it, when he had good reason to think that his motives were\nunderstood. But, where they were suspected or the success of the\nGospel seemed to be in any degree endangered by his acceptance of\nmoney, he would not take a cent, but would rather sit up half the\nnight and work his fingers to the bone to earn his livelihood. There\nis no sublimer scene in history than the great Apostle, who was\nbearing the weight of Christianity on his shoulders and carrying the\nfuture of the world beneath his robe, toiling with his hands for his\nliving by the side of Aquila and Priscilla, in order that he might\nkeep Christianity from being tarnished with the faintest suspicion of\nmercenary motives.\n\nGentlemen, among the many attractions of our calling on which I should\nlike to congratulate you this is not the least, that it provides a\ndefinite sphere for the exercise of the benevolent impulses which you\nmay feel as men and as Christians and, by exercising, develops them.\nThese impulses may be the strongest and most sacred in our nature. But\nin other occupations, in the excitement and competition of life, they\nare in great danger of being slowly extinguished. In our calling, on\nthe contrary, they receive constant opportunities of nurture and\ndevelopment. Their healthy and spontaneous activity is the soul of\nministerial work; and this is stimulated by the sense of\nresponsibility to fill the sphere allotted to us and exhaust its\npossibilities.\n\nBut, besides the sense of duty, there is a stimulus of a still more\naffecting kind which comes to a man when he is set over a congregation\nof his own. When I first was settled in a church, I discovered a thing\nof which nobody had told me and which I had not anticipated, but which\nproved a tremendous aid in doing the work of the ministry. I fell in\nlove with my congregation. I do not know how otherwise to express it.\nIt was as genuine a blossom of the heart as any which I have ever\nexperienced. It made it easy to do anything for my people; it made it\na perfect joy to look them in the face on Sunday morning. I do not\nknow if this is a universal experience; but I should think it is\ncommon. For my part, I like to meet a man who thinks his own\ncongregation, however small it may be, the most important one in the\nChurch and is rather inclined to bore you with its details. When a man\nthus falls in love with his people, the probability is that something\nof the same kind happens to them likewise. Just as a wife prefers her\nown husband to every other man, though surely she does not necessarily\nsuppose him to be the most brilliant specimen in existence, so a\ncongregation will generally be found to prefer their own minister, if\nhe is a genuine man, to every other, although surely not always\nentertaining the hallucination that he is a paragon of ability. Thus\nto love and to be loved is the secret of a happy and successful\nministry.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTaking up the responsibilities of his office in the spirit which I\nhave described, St. Paul would have found any sphere, however limited,\nlaborious. But, in point of fact, the sphere allotted to him was an\nenormous one. It was nothing less than the whole Gentile world.\n\nThe known world was not, indeed, in that age, of anything like the\nsame dimensions as it is today. It consisted only of a narrow disc of\ncountries round the shores of the Mediterranean. Yet to any other man\nthe vocation to evangelize it all must have been bewildering and even\nparalyzing. St. Paul, however, accepted it in all seriousness, and\never afterwards, till the day of his death, he regarded the\npopulations of these countries as people to whom he owed the message\nof the Gospel. Speaking of the two recognised divisions of the Gentile\nworld of that day, he says, \"I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the\nbarbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise.\"\n\nOf course he did not live long enough to preach the Gospel to all the\ninhabitants of even the little world of his day. Yet it is amazing to\nthink of the range of his labours. He preached in nearly all the great\ncities of that world--in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Athens, Rome and\nmany others--his predilection for cities being obviously due to the\nhope that, when Christ was made known in these crowded centres, the\nsound of his doctrine would echo through the surrounding regions. And\nthis hope was justified. The cities in the province of Asia, for\nexample, to which St. John sent the letters in the beginning of\nRevelation, were probably all evangelized from Ephesus by converts of\nSt. Paul, though he himself may have visited none of them but\nEphesus. The passion burned continually in his mind to get forward and\ncover new ground. He could not bear to build on another man's\nfoundation. The wide unfulfilled provinces of his apostolate ever\ncalled him on.\n\nHis first journey was merely a circuit of the countries bordering to\nthe west and north on his own native Cilicia, and lay chiefly among\nbarbarians. But the second, after a still more extended tour among the\nbarbarians, brought him to the borders of that wonderful world of\nculture and renown in which dwelt the Greeks as distinguished from the\nbarbarians. He was standing on the shore of Asia and looking across to\nthe shore of Europe. In Europe were the two great eyes of the Gentile\nworld--Athens and Rome--the one the centre of its wisdom and the other\nof its power. How could the Apostle of the Gentiles help wishing to\npreach the Gospel there? He crossed the narrow strait, and then\nadvanced from one Greek town to another, till he stood on the very\nspot where Socrates had taught and Demosthenes thundered. In his third\njourney he had to concentrate his work on Ephesus; because, like a\nskilful general, he would not leave territory in the rear unconquered.\nBut Rome was now the aim of all his desires--Rome, the very citadel of\nthe world which he had to conquer. He approached it at last in the\ngarb of a prisoner and in a gang of prisoners. But, as we follow him,\nwe feel as if we were going with a victorious army to take part in a\ngrand triumph. Indeed, as you accompany this great spirit, this is\noften the feeling you have. He had it himself. \"Thanks be unto God,\"\nhe says, \"who always causeth us to triumph.\" Only to his mind the\noccupant of the car of victory was not himself, but Christ; he was\nonly a satellite, showering largess in the name of the Victor among\nthe crowd around the chariot-wheels.\n\nSuch is the image of the Apostle which grows on the imagination as we\nread his extraordinary life. Yet there was another side. To us now his\ncareer is heroic and glorious; but to him, at the time, it was beset\nwith innumerable obstacles; and, wonderful as were his labours, more\nwonderful still were his sufferings. He went from town to town\nincessantly; but seldom did he leave any place without having been in\nperil of his life. Sometimes the mob rose against him and only left\nhim when they had cast out of their town his apparently lifeless body,\nas they would have flung away the carcase of a dog. Sometimes the\nauthorities apprehended him and subjected him to the rigour of the\nlaw. But hear the catalogue of his sufferings from his own lips: \"Are\nthey ministers of Christ? so am I: in labours more abundant, in\nstripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft; of the\nJews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten\nwith rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and\na day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of\nwaters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in\nperils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the\nwilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in\nweariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in cold and nakedness;\nbesides those things which are without, that which cometh upon me\ndaily, the care of all the churches.\" Yet, when he wrote this, he was\nonly midway in his career.\n\nThese incidents are glorified now by the influence of time, but, when\nthey had to be endured, they were real and painful enough. To take but\na single instance, what must it have been to a man of such sensitive\nhonour and engaged only in doing good to be so frequently in the hands\nof the police and in the company of malefactors? In his epistles he\ncannot conceal the irritation caused by his \"chain.\" Although in\nvictorious moods he felt himself, as we have seen, borne onwards in\ntriumph, in other moods he felt himself at the opposite extreme: \"I\nthink that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were\nappointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to\nangels and to men; we are made as the filth of the world and are the\noffscourings of all things\"; the reference being to the gladiators\nwhose cheap lives were sacrificed to embellish the conqueror's\ntriumph.\n\nYet it was never long before he could rally from such depression at\nthe thought of the cause in which he suffered all; and his habitual\nmood, in the face of accumulating difficulties, was expressed in these\nheart-stirring words, \"None of these things move me, neither count I\nmy life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy\nand the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify\nthe Gospel of the grace of God.\"\n\nIt is good to linger beside one who was so faithful to his charge, so\nhard a worker and so patient a sufferer. We may learn from these\nextraordinary labours and sufferings to do honest work and to endure\nhardness ourselves.\n\nOur sphere is, indeed, very different from his. His was so vast as to\nbe almost limitless; ours may be very circumscribed. He was\ncontinually moving from place to place and encountering new people; we\nmay have to labour among the same handful of people for a lifetime. He\nlived amidst daily novelty and excitement; we may have to fulfil an\nexistence of deep monotony. And all the disadvantages do not belong\nto the large, difficult and dangerous lot. It may seem easy to be\nfaithful in a small sphere and to exhaust all its possibilities. But\nthe narrow lot has its trials as well as the wide one, and perhaps it\ndoes not require less virtue to overcome them. A stronger sense of\nduty may be needed to prepare an honest sermon week by week to a small\nand comparatively ignorant congregation than to bear the brunt of\ndanger in an exposed post of the mission field.[55]\n\nNowhere can the ministry be easy if its responsibilities are realised\nand its duties honestly discharged. Look forward, I would say to you,\nto a labourious life. If you are thinking of the ministry otherwise,\nyou had better turn back. Ours is a more crowded existence than that\nof any other profession.\n\nThere is the work of study and preaching. I do not know the details of\na minister's week among you; but in Scotland ministers have, as a\nrule, two discourses to prepare for Sunday, besides a lesson for the\nBible Class, which may involve as much work as a sermon; and we have\nat least one week-day meeting at which a lengthy address is given.\nFor these four discourses subjects have to be found; materials for\nexposition and illustration have to be collected; the mind has first\nto make each subject its own and then to shape it into a form suitable\nfor popular effect. A sermon may sometimes, indeed, come in a flash,\nand perhaps there is something of sudden discovery in the very best\nwork; but even then time is required to work out the thought and\nenrich it with subsidiary thinking; and there are many discourses\nwhich are of no value without extensive investigation and the patient\nworking-up of the quarried materials. Then follows the writing. This\nwill take at least six or eight hours for a discourse, and may easily\ntake much more. Many ministers do not write more than one discourse a\nweek fully out, and probably they are wise; but many write two. Here,\nthen, there is obviously ample work for a long forenoon on five days\nof the week. I have always had to add the afternoon of Friday and\nSaturday, and often the evening as well. Then comes the hard and\nexciting work of Sunday. It is a religious duty to rest on Monday, as\nwe do not get the bodily rest of the Sabbath.[56]\n\nThere is the work of visitation. The sick and the bed-ridden must be\nvisited; and it is of enormous profit to visit the whole congregation\nfrom house to house. As Dr. Chalmers said, the directest way to a\nman's heart is generally through the door of his home. Acquaintance\nwith the actual circumstances of the families of the congregation\ngives wonderful reality and point to the prelections of Sunday. Our\nsermons must rise out of the congregation if they are ever to reach\ndown to it again. Here, it is evident, there is abundant work for the\nafternoons which study leaves free. Many ministers have to add one or\ntwo evenings, the evening being the best time to find their people at\nhome.\n\nThere is a third mass of work of an exceedingly miscellaneous\ncharacter which absorbs much time and strength. It includes such\nduties as performing the ceremonies at baptisms, marriages and\nfunerals; organizing the work of the congregation; attending church\ncourts and sitting on committees; serving on school boards and the\nboards of benevolent societies; preaching from home and addressing the\nmeetings of neighbour ministers; writing official letters; raising\nmoney; receiving visitors; writing for the press. It would be easy for\nministers in positions of any prominence to spend their whole time in\nduties of this description, none of which might appear useless; so\ngreat is the multitude of the claims which pour in from every side.\n\nI have said nothing of the time required for keeping abreast of the\nliterature of the day or for cultivating an intellectual specialty. It\nis extraordinary what some of the busiest men achieve in this respect;\nbut it is only managed by an economy and even penury of time for which\na kind of genius is requisite. Of course there are seasons of the year\nwhen the pressure of public engagements is not so great; and ministers\nare allowed longer holidays than other professional men. A couple of\nhours a day given from a holiday to great reading may shoot threads of\nfresh colour through the whole web of a season's work. Nor have I said\nanything of the time necessary for thinking over the devotional\nportion of the service of the sanctuary, though in our churches, where\nfree prayer prevails, this deserves as careful attention as the\nsermon.\n\nThe glimpse which I have given you into the details of a minister's\nweek will help you to realise that the life which lies before you is a\nlabourious one. Of course the labour may be shirked. Ministers have\ntheir time in their own hands; they have no office hours; and, I\nsuppose, a minister's life may be more ignobly idle than any other\nprofessional man's. That is, if he has no conscience.\n\nHow far a man who is conscientious and works hard may be justified in\ndevoting himself to one branch of ministerial work for which he has\nspecial aptitudes or predilections, it is difficult to judge. Perhaps\nthe Protestant Church has failed in making use of special gifts. Some\neminent preachers, for example, neglect pastoral visitation;[57] and\nthere are, I suppose, many ministers who keep out of more general\npublic work, because they have no taste for it. There may be some gain\nin this; but there is also loss. When a preacher does not visit, he is\napt to become an orator, who dazzles but does not feed the flock. When\na minister keeps himself apart from public interests, the Church to\nwhich he belongs is likely to be weak at that point.\n\nThe most fatal neglect is that of study; and perhaps it is the\ncommonest. The part of our work which needs most moral resolution is\nundoubtedly the sermon--to get it begun, studied, written and\nfinished. It requires the discipline of years in even the most\nconscientious to win the mastery of themselves in this particular; and\nit is probably at this point that three-fourths of all ministerial\nfailures take place. It is not the reading of the material bearing on\nthe subject which is difficult; indeed, this may be luxuriously\nprolonged, till it is too late to think and write the sermon out. The\nhard and sour toil lies in facing the sweat of thought and the\nirksomeness of writing; although, when the difficulty is overcome, the\nhappiness and triumph of our calling lie here also.\n\nOf course this difficulty is greatest in the small sphere. Here the\ntemptation is, to be overcome by the monotony of the situation, to\nallow the powers to stagnate, to feel that anything will do, and put\nthe people off with that which has cost no exertion. \"I know,\" says\none who wields a trenchant pen,[58] \"how plausible the excuses are,\nand I know what relaxation of study results in--laziness in the\nmorning, increasing excesses in the daily papers, increased interest\nin gardening, several more pipes a day, and so forth. Breakfast comes\nfinally to its long-deferred end about ten; then there is a\nconsultation with the gardener, which is, of course, business, and\nmakes the idler feel that really his active habits are returning; then\ntwo letters have to be answered; then, just as he means to go to his\nstudy, he sees Mr. Fritterday passing, and before he has finished his\ncolloquy over the hedge with him, it is past midday. When he does get\nto his study, _Macmillan_ or _Blackwood_ is lying on his table, and he\nfeels he cannot settle till he knows what is the fate of the heroine\nof the current story, or his window overlooks the busy hayfield of his\nneighbour, and he becomes ten times more interested in that work than\nin his own; and so his whole forenoon is gone, and he is summoned to\ndinner before he has earned his salt by one decent hand's turn.\"\n\nThis kind of temptation, however, is not confined to the man in the\nsmall and easy situation: it is the common temptation of all\nministers. Only in the city it comes in another form. The man who has\na large congregation and a little popularity is beset with calls from\nevery quarter to engage in every kind of duty outside his own sphere.\nHis doorbell never ceases ringing. Every applicant supposes his own\ncase the most important. There is a whirl of excitement, and there is\nan exhilaration in being able in many ways to serve the public. But,\nif the man gives up his habits of study, he is lost. His appearances\nbecome commonplace; the public tire of him, and throw him aside as\nruthlessly as they have senselessly idolized him. Robert Hall used to\nsay that, when the devil saw that a minister was likely to be useful\nin the church, his way of disposing of him was to get on his back and\nride him to death with engagements.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo follow the course of St. Paul's labours and sufferings on the grand\nscale produces an overwhelming impression of earnestness and devotion;\nyet it is even more by entering into the minute details of his\nactivity that we find the apostle. One who has to deal with vast\nmasses is apt to overlook details; and it is so even in the work of\nChrist. An evangelist, for example, moving from place to place and\nsurrounded with multitudes, may know very little of individuals. The\nminister of a large congregation is exposed to the same temptation.\nIndeed, we are all too desirous of crowds and too little occupied with\nthe units of which they are composed. But this is the greatest of all\nmistakes. St. Paul, amidst the constant change of scene and the\npressure of large bodies of people in which he lived, never overlooked\nindividuals. In his speech to the elders of Ephesus he could challenge\nthem to bear witness that he had taught not only publicly but from\nhouse to house, and had warned everyone night and day with tears.\nWhile, like his Master, he was moved by the sight of a multitude and\nwelcomed the opportunity of making known the glad tidings to many, he\nwas quite as ready to preach to the small company of women of whom\nLydia was one at the riverside or to the soldier to whom he was\nchained in the Roman prison.\n\nSt. Paul was never a mere evangelist. The evangelist's work is to deal\nwith the initial stage of the Christian life: he has to bring men to\ndecision; and, when this is done, he passes on, leaving to other\nagencies whatever more may be required. An evangelist sometimes knows\nvery little of what becomes of his converts after he has quitted the\nplace. But St. Paul was as eager about this as about the first\nimpressions. However small the company of the converted might be, he\nformed them into a Christian Church, and ordained elders in every\ncity. He often left an assistant behind to carry on and consolidate\nthe work which he had begun. When at a distance, he was always eager\nfor news about his churches. His epistles are full of such anxieties;\nand, indeed, his epistles themselves are the best monument of his\npastoral care; for they were written to ask after the welfare of those\nwhom he had left behind, or to give counsel on points about which they\nhad consulted him. They brim over with the expressions of a tender and\nheartfelt love. He is able to assure those to whom he is writing that\nhe is praying for them, and that not only in the mass but one by one.\nHe kept their faces and names alive in his memory by thus recalling\nthem at the throne of grace; and his life must have been one long\nprayer about his work.\n\nSometimes he lets the prayer which he has been offering slip through\nhis pen; and then we see how high was the ideal of Christian\nattainment which he cherished on behalf of his converts. He was not\ncontent that they had turned from their old sins and taken the first\nsteps in the Divine life. He longed to see them becoming creditable\nspecimens of Christianity and ornaments to the Church--complete men,\nthoroughly furnished unto all good works. It was life itself to him to\nhear of their progress: \"Now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord.\"\nAnd the crown to which he looked forward as the reward of all his\ntoils and sufferings was to be permitted at last to present the soul\nof everyone of them as a chaste virgin to Christ.\n\nGentlemen, I believe that almost any preacher, on reviewing a ministry\nof any considerable duration, would confess that his great mistake had\nbeen the neglect of individuals. If I may be permitted a personal\nreference: when, not long ago, I had the opportunity, as I was passing\nfrom one charge to another, of reviewing a ministry of twelve years,\nthe chief impression made on me, as I looked back, was that this was\nthe point at which I had failed; and I said to myself that henceforth\nI would write Individuals on my heart as the watchword of my ministry.\n\nWe make impressions in the church; but we do not follow them up, to\nsee that the decision is arrived at and the work of God accomplished;\nand so they are dissipated by the influences of the world; and those\nwho have experienced them are perhaps made worse instead of better. It\nis a very significant thing that is said of the pastor in our Lord's\nparable--that he sought the lost sheep \"until he found it.\" We seek:\nwe even seek labouriously and painfully: but we frequently leave off\njust before finding.\n\nA minister told me that, on the Saturday evening before his first\nSunday in his first charge, the experienced minister who was to\nintroduce him to his people next day was strolling with him in the\nvicinity of the village and talking about his duties, when they\nchanced to pass a plantation of trees. Pointing to them, the aged\nminister asked, \"If you had to cut these trees down, how would you go\nabout it? would you go round the whole plantation, giving each tree a\nsingle blow, and then go round them all again, giving each a second\nblow\"? \"Well, no,\" he answered, \"I think I should attack one tree and\ncut at it till it came down; and then go on and do the same to a\nsecond and a third, and so forth.\" \"Well,\" said his experienced\nfriend, \"that is the way you must do here. After you have been settled\na short time, you will discover which families and individuals are\nmost impressed by your first efforts, and you must devote yourself to\nthese susceptible souls, till you have won them thoroughly; and then\nin their enthusiasm for yourself and their willingness to work for the\ncongregation you will have the best foundation for a successful\nministry.\"\n\nIn a former lecture I spoke of the power of discerning in men and\nwomen of every class and condition the humanity which is common to all\nand speaking straight to that, without reference to the superficial\ndifferences which distinguish class from class and one individual from\nanother. But ministerial sympathy has to embrace what is peculiar to\nclasses and individuals as well as what is common to all. Though St.\nPaul, like his Master, had a powerful grasp of what is universal in\nhumanity, yet to the Jew he made himself a Jew, that he might gain the\nJew, and to them that were without law as without law, that he might\ngain them who were without law; he was made all things to all men,\nthat he might gain the more.\n\nHis persuasion obviously was, that God was trying, by His revelation\namong those who possessed the Written Word, and by His providence\namong those who did not possess it, to lead His children by divers\nways to Himself; and his own duty was to join himself to each company\nat the stage which it had reached and offer to become its conductor.\nThe Jew was more advanced, and he met him where he was; the Gentile\nwas further behind, and he had to go back and approach him also where\nhe stood, that he might win his confidence and be allowed to lead him\non.\n\nThis is the persuasion which gives a minister faith in his own work.\nThe souls of men are God's. His providence is a discipline intended to\nlead them to Himself; there are none with whom His Spirit does not\nstrive. And it is only as our work co-operates with His that it is of\nany effect. Where God has been working, opening and softening the\nheart, very simple efforts, put forth at the right moment, may go a\nlong way, and the work of God be quickly done.\n\nWhat situation could be more pathetic to a sensitive and sympathetic\nmind than that of a minister when he stands up in the pulpit and looks\ndown on the congregation? What a variety of conditions are before him!\nIn one pew there is a man who during the week has been fighting a\nlosing battle with his business and sees himself on the verge of\nbankruptcy; in the next may be a merchant into whose lap fortune has\nbeen pouring her gifts in handfuls. Here is a mother who is thinking\nof her son who has just left his home and is sailing on the sea; and\nthere a girl whose heart is rejoicing in the happy dreams of youth. On\nthe right may be a young man who is trembling on the brink of the\ngreat temptation of his life, and on the left another who is reeking\nfrom some orgy of secret sin. There is endless variety; yet none are\nuninteresting; and probably there is no one but, if you could meet him\nexactly where he stands, would respond to the influence which you\nbring. It arrests men when you are able to show such a knowledge of\nthe human heart that they feel themselves discovered; and it disposes\na man to answer to your call if he sees that you are familiar with the\ncircumstances in which he will have to lead the life to which you are\ninviting him, and that you appreciate the difficulties of the\nsituation. Therefore the more a minister knows of the variety of\nactual life the better; and, if he is to do really effective work, he\nmust know how to come down from the pulpit and put himself alongside\nof individuals.[59]\n\nHere I might again recommend the work of visitation and the practice\nof being accessible at home to the visits of those who come with\nconfidences to communicate; but let me rather close this lecture with\na word or two on some of the more favourable opportunities which\nministerial life affords for direct dealing with individuals.[60]\n\nOne of the best opportunities of this kind is when parents come\nseeking baptism for their children. When you are speaking in their\nchildren's interest, men will welcome an amount of faithfulness which\nthey would not endure at other times. You can show how much their\nchildren's welfare in time and eternity may depend on their own\nreligious condition; you can urge the duty of family worship; and you\nmust have very little skill if you cannot get very close to their\nhearts. Especially when a man comes about the baptism of his first\nchild, he is perhaps in the most favourable state for an earnest talk\nin which you can ever find him. His soul is opened with tenderness\nand overawed with the mystery of life; he is longing with his whole\nheart to do his best for his child; and, if you show him that the best\nhe can do for it is to become connected with the great source of holy\ninfluence himself, there is no other occasion on which a good\nimpression is more likely to be made.\n\nThe other opportunity which I should like to mention is when the young\ncome to join the Church. I well remember that, when I was a student,\nthere was no part of a minister's duty to which I looked forward with\nso much fear and trembling as this; for I had the conviction, which I\nstill have, that it is our duty at this crisis to bring the question\nof personal salvation in the most direct and solemn way before every\nintending communicant, and that it is ministerial treason to let the\nopportunity slip. Some of you may be looking forward to this with the\nsame feelings; and, therefore, I am happy to tell you that in practice\nit is not nearly so difficult as it seems at a distance. The\napplicants themselves expect you to be faithful; if you are, they will\nhonour you for it, and, if not, they will be disappointed. If they get\nthe opportunity, they are far franker than you would expect. No doubt\nit is delicate work, and one has to guard against harshness and\nanything inquisitorial; but it yields the most blessed results. This\nis the harvest-time of the minister's year, when he sees that his\nlabour is not in vain. Even one such close talk, brought about in this\nway or otherwise, casts a glow of reality into one's work which does\nnot pass away for weeks; and, if a minister is so highly honoured as\nto receive many of these confidences, he acquires a skill in laying\nhis finger on the very pulse of his hearers' deepest life which\nnothing else can give.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[54] An indication of the intensity with which St. Paul's mind worked\nupon the subject of the ministry is to be found in the number and\nvariety of his metaphors for it. The following are those which I have\nnoted, but there may be more--nurse (1 Thess. ii. 7), father (1 Cor. iv.\n15), gardener (1 Cor. iii. 6), labourer (1 Cor. iii. 9), builder (1 Cor.\niii. 10), servant (1 Cor. iv. 1), bondman (2 Tim. ii. 24), steward (1\nCor. iv. 1), ambassador (Eph. vi. 20), soldier (1 Tim. vi. 12), herald\n(1 Tim. ii. 7), shepherd (Acts xx. 28), workman (2 Tim. ii. 15), athlete\n(1 Tim. iv. 7), vessel (2 Tim. ii. 21).\n\n[55] \"Go where you can do most _for_ men, not where you can get most\n_from_ men.\n\n\"Be more concerned about your ability than about your opportunity, and\nabout your walk with God than either.\n\n\"Your sphere is where you are most needed.\n\n\"There is no place without its difficulties: by removing you may change\nthem, it may be you will increase them; but you cannot escape\nthem.\"--PREDIGER.\n\n[56] \"A sermon which costs little is worth as much as it has cost. Yet\nmeasure not the value of the sermon by the length and hardness of your\nlabour.\"--DUPANLOUP.\n\n[57] The first Sunday I was in America, I worshipped in the churches of\nRev. Dr. W.M. Taylor and Rev. Dr. John Hall, who are, I suppose, the two\nmost eminent ministers of New York; and I was astonished to hear both of\nthem intimate that they would visit in certain streets during the week.\nThere are no ministers anywhere more immersed than these in every kind\nof public duty; yet they find time for regular pastoral visitation. On\ncoming home, I mentioned this fact to an equally eminent minister in my\nown country. \"Well,\" said he, \"when I came to the city, the elders of my\ncongregation advised me not to visit, and I followed their advice; but\nit was the worst advice I ever got.\"\n\n[58] Dr. Marcus Dods.\n\n[59] \"Get others to talk: what a man says to you has more influence upon\nhim than all you can say to him.\n\n\"It is not the time of sickness so much as the time of convalescence\nthat decides the future life. Remember this, and seize opportunities.\"\n--PREDIGER.\n\n[60] \"Much of the Gospels is taken up with conversations between Christ\nand individuals. Teaching so startling and difficult as His, with such\nan element in it of attraction and hope, naturally drew around Him many\nwho sought to know further what this Gospel meant. He, on His part, was\nas eager to meet inquirers as they were to seek Him; and we find that He\nbestowed as much care and pains in expounding the nature of His kingdom\nto individuals as He did when He was speaking to great multitudes. The\naudience, if small, was fit. Not only so, but we find that He put\nHimself in the way of individuals.\"--NICOLL, _The Incarnate Saviour_.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IX.\n\nTHE PREACHER AS A THINKER.\n\n\nGentlemen, in the foregoing lectures I have adverted very little to\nthe studies, in preparation for the work of the ministry, with which\nyou are at present occupied. Indeed, I have rather ostentatiously kept\nto a standpoint at some distance from the academic one, for reasons\nwhich I explained in the opening lecture. But the clue which I have\nendeavoured faithfully to follow has brought us at last to this point\nalso; and I welcome the opportunity of saying something about the more\nintellectual aspects of our work. The subject to-day is the Preacher\nas a Thinker.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn my last lecture I spoke of the vast sphere of operations assigned\nto St. Paul and of the almost superhuman exertions which he made to\nfill it. But what did he exert himself to fill it with? It was not\nmerely to overtake the ground and be himself present in so many\ncountries and cities that he was so zealous. That which drove him on\nwas the glorious message of which he was the bearer, with the sound\nof which he desired to fill the world. He often combines these two\nideas in his writings--that the Gentile world had been committed to\nhim as a trust, to care for the souls which it contained, and that the\nGospel had been committed to him as a trust, to be communicated to the\nGentiles. These two things were included in his apostolate--on the one\nhand, the care of the heathen world, and, on the other, the\npublication of the Gospel.\n\nOf course he had not, like the original apostles, heard the Gospel\nfrom the lips of Christ; but he had received it directly from Christ\nin some other way; and you know how vigorously he claimed that he had\nnot received it from man and was not indebted to the other apostles\nfor it. He frequently calls it his own gospel, and he maintains it to\nbe as authentic and authoritative as that preached by any of the other\napostles. How it was revealed to him we cannot tell. This is the same\nmystery as we encountered in studying the prophets of the Old\nTestament. Both prophets and apostles speak with a knowledge of the\nmind and will of God which has a certainty and authority peculiar to\ntheir writings. We ought to speak, if we speak at all, with certainty\nand authority too; but there is a difference between ours and theirs.\nI know how difficult it is to define the difference; we cover it up\nwith the vague word Inspiration; but I do not see any use in hiding\nfrom ourselves that it exists.\n\nAdmitting, however, that there is this mystery, yet we can see, in\nsome respects, how the truth, when it came, dealt with St. Paul, and\nhow his mind was exercised about it; and in these respects he is not\nbeyond our imitation.\n\nWhat I wish to emphasize in this lecture is, that Christianity did\nspecially lay hold of him in the region of the intellect. It is meant\nto lay hold of all parts of the inner man--the feelings, the\nconscience, the will, the intellect; and it may lay hold of certain\npeople more fully in one part of their being and of others in another\naccording to their constitutional peculiarities. Some suppose--and\nperhaps they are not far wrong--that the first preaching of the Gospel\nconsisted of little more than the simple story of the life and death\nof Jesus; that those who heard it sympathetically began forthwith to\nlive new lives in imitation of Christ; and that this was the most of\ntheir Christianity. In a fine and peculiar nature like that of St.\nJohn, again, the Gospel caught hold chiefly in the region of the\nemotions; and his Christianity was a mystical union and fellowship\nbetween the Saviour and the soul. St. Paul was not by any means\ndeficient in the other elements of humanity; but he was conspicuously\nstrong in intellect. That is to say, he was one of those natures to\nwhich it is a necessity to know the why and the wherefore of\neverything--of the universe in which they live, of the experiences\nthrough which they pass, of the ends which they are called upon to\npursue. This natural tendency was strengthened by the training of an\neducated man. And therefore the Gospel came to him as a message of\ntruth, which cleared up the mysteries of existence and presented the\nuniverse to the mind as a realm of order.\n\nSt. Paul often expresses the intense intellectual satisfaction which\nChristianity brought him, and the joy he experienced in applying it to\nthe solution of the problems of life. The light which Christianity\ncast on the universe was to him, he says, like the morning of\ncreation, when God said, Let there be light, and there was light.\nBefore, all was darkness and chaos, but then all became sunshine and\norder. He often speaks with wondering gratitude of the fact that the\nmystery which had been hidden from ages and from generations had been\nrevealed to him: Eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had entered\ninto the heart of man, the things which God had prepared for them that\nlove Him, but God had revealed them unto him by His Spirit. And by\nthis mystery he meant the tangle of God's providence in history,\nwhich the coming of Christ disentangled and smoothed out into a web\nwhose pattern the mind could discern.\n\nHaving himself received Christianity as an intellectual system, he\nvery specially addressed himself to the intellect of others. The door\nof the kingdom of heaven, it has been beautifully said, can only be\nopened from the inside; but to that observation this other may be\nadded, that in a sense there are many doors, but each man can only\nopen to others the one by which he has entered himself. Christianity\nhad come to St. Paul as the truth about God and the world and himself.\nThere was plenty of emotion besides; but the emotion for him came\nafter the clear intellectual conviction and sprang out of it. And he\nexpected that others would receive Christianity in the same way.\nTherefore he never spared the minds of those he addressed; he expected\nthem to think; and he would have said that, if they would not open and\nexert their minds, they could not receive Christianity.\n\nI hardly know anything more puzzling than the audacity with which he\ncast himself on the minds of his hearers and trusted them to\nunderstand him, when he was thinking his strongest and his deepest.\nImagine an epistle of his arriving in Rome or Ephesus, and read out\nin the audience of the church for the first time. Who were the\nhearers? The majority of them were slaves; many had till a short time\nbefore been unconcerned about religion; in all probability not a tithe\nof them could read or write. Yet what did Paul give them? Not milk for\nbabes; not a compost of stories and practical remarks; but the Epistle\nto the Romans, with its strict logic and grand ideas, or the Epistle\nto the Ephesians, with its involved sentences and profound mysticism.\nHe must have believed that they would understand what he wrote, though\nscholarship has considered it necessary to pile up a mountain of\ncommentaries on these epistles. Christianity, as it went through the\ncities of the world in St. Paul's person, must have gone as a great\nintellectual awakening, which taught men to use their minds in\ninvestigating the profoundest problems of life.\n\nHow deeply he was interested in the intellectual reception of the\nGospel is shown by the earnestness with which he prays that his\nconverts may excel in mental grasp of the truth. \"I pray,\" he says,\n\"that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all\njudgment.\" And again he says, \"Making mention of you in my prayers,\nthat the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give\nunto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,\nthe eyes of your understanding being enlightened,\" etc.\n\nBut nothing proves so clearly the value which he set on this element\nof Christianity as his earnestness that his version of the Gospel\nshould be kept pure and entire. He called upon younger ministers, like\nTimothy and Titus, to guard it as a precious treasure and to transmit\nit to faithful men who would be able to teach others also. It filled\nhim with the most poignant anxiety and pain when the minds of his\nconverts were assailed with doctrines subversive of the truth which he\nhad taught. He had to encounter assaults of this kind coming from the\nside of orthodoxy as well as of heterodoxy, and no small portion of\nhis energy had to be expended in refuting them. You remember, for\nexample, with what a heat of zeal and affection he cast himself on the\nGalatians, when they had lent an ear to false teachers: \"O foolish\nGalatians, who hath bewitched you?\" \"If any man preach any other\ngospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be\naccursed.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGentlemen, you are going to be teachers of Christianity, and this\nimplies that you should yourselves have mastered it in thought. A\ncertain number of people will be more or less dependent on you for\nthe view they have of Christianity; and this really means the view\nthey have of all the most important and solemn objects of existence;\nfor to them all things will be comprehended in Christianity; and on\nyou will largely depend whether this view is true or false, narrow or\nnoble.\n\nIt would be difficult to exaggerate the importance to men and women of\ntheir fundamental convictions about this universe in which they live.\nThere is current, indeed, at present a way of speaking about the\nintellect, as if, while all the other faculties have to do with\nreligion, it were only an intruder; and there is a way of speaking\nabout definite religious truth which really implies, if any strict\nmeaning is to be attached to it, that in religion, when the truth is\nnot found, the opposite may answer quite as well; and yet, strange to\nsay, this language is usually to be heard from the lips of those who\nmake special claims to intellectuality and affect to be the special\nchampions of truth. But the intellect is a noble faculty and has an\nimportant office in religion. It is, properly speaking, antecedent to\nboth feeling and will; and what is put into it determines both what\nfeeling and choice will be. People are often, indeed, swept into the\nChurch on some current of feeling; and the pressure on every side of\nthe Christian society, along with the examples of superior\nChristians, does much to develop the religious nature; but probably in\nthe great crises of temptation, when a flood of passion or some great\nworldly opportunity is about to sweep a man away from his connection\nwith Christ, that which keeps hold of him is the force of\nconviction--if the roots of his mind have gone deep down and clasped\nthemselves about the great verities of the faith. Our Lord Himself\ncalled the truth the foundation on which the whole structure of life\nis built. All that a man is and does depends, in the last resort, on\nwhat he knows and believes. It will be a calamity for your hearers, if\nfrom your preaching they are not able by degrees to put together in\ntheir minds a conception of Christianity both true and elevating,\nwhich will supply them with the fundamental principles of their life.\n\nBesides this sacred obligation to our people, there is the obligation\nto the truth itself. This was felt by St. Paul profoundly. A\nrevelation of Christianity had been committed to him, and he had to\npresent it in all its splendour and apply it to all the details of\nlife. So the Word of God is committed to us, and we are responsible\nfor delivering its whole message. If we take up a single text of the\nBible, our merit as preachers lies in bringing out attractively and\ncomprehensively the truth which it contains. It would be considered\nstill more meritorious to present the whole message contained in a\nbook of the Bible; and it would be quite in accordance with the\ntheological fashion of the time if a preacher were able to show that\nhe was master of some single section of Scripture, say, the Prophets\nof the Old Testament or the writings of St. John. I do not know why we\nshould hesitate about the next step, which, if we have gone so far, we\nare logically bound to take--the mastery of the message of the Bible\nas a whole. This is what we are responsible for. The Bible is the\nmessage of the mind and will of the loving and redeeming God; and this\nwe are bound to deliver in such a way that neither its truth nor its\nglory will suffer in our hands.\n\nHow this is to be done, of course it requires wisdom to decide, and\nthere will doubtless be different ways for different men and for\ndifferent times. In a former generation a president of this\ncollege[61] preached in the College Chapel straight through the\ndoctrines of Christianity, taking them up one by one in systematic\norder; and his book was long a model to preachers both in this country\nand Great Britain. He was preaching to an academic audience, and there\nare probably few congregations for which such a course would be\nsuitable now; although I know at least one able young minister in a\ncountry village who has been pursuing this method from the\ncommencement of his ministry. Once a month he gives a sermon of the\ncourse; perhaps his people do not know that he is doing so; but he is\ngiving his own mind the discipline of investigating the doctrines of\nChristianity in their order; and I am certain both that he himself is\ngrowing a strong man in the process and that his people, though\nunconsciously, are getting the benefit of it. In the Lutheran and\nEpiscopal Churches the observance of the Christian festivals gives\noccasion for regularly bringing the circle of the grand Christian\nfacts before the minds of the people. We have not this guidance; but a\nfaithful minister is bound to make sure that he is preaching with\nsufficient frequency on the leading Christian facts and doctrines, and\nthat he is not omitting any essential element of Christianity.[62]\n\nNot unfrequently ministers are exhorted to cultivate extreme\nsimplicity in their preaching. Everything ought, we are told, to be\nbrought down to the comprehension of the most ignorant hearer, and\neven of children. Far be it from me to depreciate the place of the\nsimplest in the congregation; it is one of the best features of the\nChurch of the present day that it cares for the lambs. I dealt with\nthis subject, not unsympathetically I hope, in a former lecture. But\ndo not ask us to be always speaking to children or to beginners. Is\nthe Bible always simple? Is Job simple, or Isaiah? Is the Epistle to\nthe Romans simple, or Galatians? This cry for simplicity is\nthree-fourths intellectual laziness; and that Church is doomed in\nwhich there is not supplied meat for men as well as milk for babes. We\nowe the Gospel not only to the barbarian but also to the Greek, not\nonly to the unwise but also to the wise.[63]\n\nI do not believe, however, that it is only in cultured congregations\nthat this element of preaching is required. There is no greater\nmistake than to suppose that you will drive the common man away from\nthe Church by strong intellectual preaching. You will do so no doubt\nif you preach over his head,[64] and use a language which he does not\nunderstand. You must find him where he is, and either speak to him in\nhis own language or teach him yours by slow degrees. But, if you\naccommodate yourself to him so far, you will find him alert and\nwilling to accompany you; you will find that he has not only sturdy\nlimbs for climbing, but even wings for soaring to the heights of\ntruth.\n\nA greater difficulty lies in the preacher himself. At the beginning of\nhis ministry he may be encumbered with doubts and far from clear in\nhis faith. This is a real obstacle, and the first years of ministerial\nlife may be a time of great perplexity and pain. I suspect our\ncongregations have often a good deal to suffer while we are\nendeavouring to preach ourselves clear. It is vicarious suffering; for\nthey do not know what is perplexing us. They have to stand by and look\non while their minister is fighting his doubts. But, if he is a true\nman, it is worth their while to wait. If these are the pangs of\nintellectual birth, and the truth is merely divesting itself of a\ntraditional form in order to invest itself in a form which is his own,\nhe will preach with far greater power when the process is complete,\nand he is able to speak with the strength of personal conviction.\n\nBut, gentlemen, it is important for you to see that your opening\nministry is not enveloped in mist simply because you have never made a\nreal study of Christianity. This, I am afraid, is the commonest source\nof a vague theology. In a former lecture I have recommended a wide\nacquaintance with the masterpieces of literature; but some able men at\ncollege substitute this for the studies of their profession; and this\nis a fatal mistake. Literature ought to be a supplement to these, not\na substitute for them. I have watched the subsequent career of more\nthan one student who had pursued this course; and I must say it is not\nencouraging. Their supply of ideas soon runs out; their tone becomes\nsecular; and the people turn away from them dissatisfied.\n\nA student ought, while at college, to make himself master of at least\none or two of the great books of the Christian centuries in which\nChristianity is exhibited as a whole by a master mind. If I may be\nallowed to mention my own experience, it happened to me, more by\nchance, perhaps, than wise choice, to master, when I was a student,\nthree such books. One was Owen's work on _The Holy Spirit_, another\nWeiss' _New Testament Theology_, and the third Conybeare and Howson's\n_Life and Epistles of St. Paul_. Each of these may be said, in its own\nway, to exhibit Christianity entire, and I learned them almost by\nheart, as one does a text-book. I was not then thinking much of\nsubsequent benefit; but I can say, that each of them has ever since\nbeen a quarry out of which I have dug, and probably I have hardly ever\npreached a sermon which has not exhibited traces of their influence.\n\nThere is another valuable result which will follow from the early\nmastery of books of this kind. You will be laying the foundation of\nthe habit of what may be called Great Reading, by which I mean the\nsystematic study of great theological works in addition to the special\nreading for the work of each Sunday. Week by week a conscientious\nminister has to do an immense amount of miscellaneous reading in\ncommentaries, dictionaries, etc., in connection with the discourses in\nhand; but, in addition to this, he should be enriching the subsoil of\nhis mind by larger efforts in wider fields. It is far from easy to\ncarry this on in a busy pastorate; and it is almost impossible unless\nthe foundation has been laid at college.[65]\n\nOne more hint I should like to give: it is a reminiscence from a\ncasual lecture which I listened to when a student and profited by.\nBesides attending to theological studies in general, one ought to have\na specialty. The minister, and even the student before he leaves\ncollege, should be spoken of as the man who knows this or that.\nPerhaps the best specialty to choose is some subject which is just\ncoming into notice, such as, at present, Comparative Religion, or\nChristian Ethics, or, best of all, Biblical Theology. Such a\nspecialty, early taken up, is like a well dug on one's property, which\nyear by year becomes deeper. All the little streams and rivulets of\nreading and experience find their way into it; and almost unawares the\nhappy possessor comes to have within himself a fountain which makes it\nimpossible that his mind should ever run dry.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf course I cannot attempt to give here even the slightest sketch of\nthe doctrinal system of St. Paul; but there are two characteristics of\nit which I should like to mention in closing, as they are essential to\nthe right management of the element of preaching with which I have\noccupied you to-day.\n\nThe thinking of St. Paul went hand in hand with his experience. His\nChristianity began in a great experience, in which he discovered the\nsecret of life and found peace with God. He set his mind to reflect\nupon this, so as to comprehend how it came about and what it involved;\nand the theology of the first part of his apostolate was nothing but\nthe result of these broodings under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.\nThese in their turn, however, brought him still nearer to God and\ncloser to Christ; and so he obtained new and deeper experiences, of\nwhich the doctrines of his more advanced life are again the\nexposition. Thus his thinking was both experimental and progressive.\nIf his Epistles be arranged in chronological order, it will easily be\nseen that there is a splendid growth in his theology from first to\nlast. He never, indeed, gave up the doctrines of his earlier life;\nthere is no inconsistency between one part of his writings and\nanother; but neither his experience nor his thinking ever stood still;\nhe made his first doctrines the foundations on which he reared a\nstructure which was rising higher and higher to the very close of his\nlife.\n\nSt. Paul had the heartiest scorn for intellectualism in religion\ndivorced from experience; and it cannot be denied that it is this\ndivorce which has brought contempt on the intellectual element in\npreaching. When doctrine is preached as mere dogma, imposed as a form\non the mind of the preacher from without, no wonder it is dry and\nbarren. It is when the preacher's own experience is growing, and he is\ncoming up with the doctrines of Christianity one by one as the natural\nexpression for what he knows in his deepest consciousness to be true,\nthat he utters the truth with power. Never, perhaps, is a sermon so\nliving as when the preacher has found out the truth during the week as\na novelty to himself, and comes forth on Sunday to deliver it with the\njoy of discovery.\n\nThe other feature to which I wish to draw attention is the perfect\nbalance in St. Paul of the doctrinal and the ethical. If reproach has\nbeen cast on the intellectual element in preaching by its want of\nconnection with experience, this has been done no less by its want of\nconnection with conduct. But St. Paul is not open to this reproach.\nThis is made clear by the very external form of his writings. An\nEpistle of St. Paul is divided into two parts, the first containing\ndoctrines and the second practical rules for the conduct of life; and\nnot unfrequently the two parts are of about equal length.\n\nBut the connection is far closer than this. In St. Paul's mind all the\ngreat doctrines of the Gospel were living fountains of motives for\nwell-doing; and even the smallest and commonest duties of every-day\nlife were magnified and made sacred by being connected with the facts\nof salvation. Take a single instance. There is no plainer duty of\nevery-day life than telling the truth. Well, how does St. Paul treat\nit? \"Lie not one to another,\" he says, \"seeing ye have put off the old\nman with his deeds.\" Thus truthfulness flows out of regeneration.\nTreating of the same subject again, he says, \"Lie not one to another,\nfor ye are members one of another,\" deriving the duty from the union\nof believers to one another through their common union with\nChrist.[66] Thus does St. Paul everywhere show great principles in\nsmall duties and stamp the commonest actions of life with the image\nand the superscription of Christ.\n\nThis balance between the doctrinal and the moral is difficult to\nmaintain. Seldom has the mind of the Church been able to preserve it\nfor any length of time. It has oscillated from one kind of\none-sidedness to another, sometimes exalting doctrines and neglecting\nduties and at other times preaching up morality and disparaging\ndoctrine. To which side the balance may be dipping at the present time\namong you I do not know; but among us, I should say, it was from\ndoctrines towards duties.\n\nPerhaps in the last generation we had too much preaching of doctrine,\nor rather I should say, too little preaching of duty. Younger\npreachers are beginning to dwell much on a nobler conception of the\nChristian life, and there is a strong demand for practical preaching.\nUndoubtedly there is room for a healthy development in this direction.\nYet this is a transition about which our country has good cause to be\njealous; because it passed through a terrible experience of the\neffects of preaching morality without doctrine. I question if in the\nwhole history of the pulpit there is a document more worthy of the\nattention of preachers than the address which Dr. Chalmers sent to the\npeople of his first charge at Kilmeny, when he was leaving it for\nGlasgow. It is well known that for seven years after his settlement in\nthis rural parish he was ignorant of the Gospel and preached only the\nplatitudes of the Moderate creed; but, the grace of God having\nvisited his heart, he lived for other five years among his people as a\ntrue ambassador of Christ, beseeching them in Christ's name to be\nreconciled to God. This is his summing up of the results of the two\nperiods:--\n\n\"And here I cannot but record the effect of an actual though\nundesigned experiment, which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years\namong you. For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the\nmeanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable\narts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character\nwhich awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the\npests and the disturbers of human society. Now, could I, upon the\nstrength of these warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up\nhis stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and the liar\nhis deviations from truth, I should have felt all the repose of one\nwho had gotten his ultimate object. It never occurred to me that all\nthis might have been done, and yet the soul of every hearer have\nremained in full alienation from God; and that, even could I have\nestablished in the bosom of one who stole such a principle of\nabhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty that he was prevailed upon to\nsteal no more, he might still have retained a heart as completely\nunturned to God and as totally unpossessed by a principle of love to\nHim as before. In a word, though I might have made him a more upright\nand honourable man, I might have left him as destitute of the essence\nof religious principle as ever. But the interesting fact is, that\nduring the whole of that period in which I made no attempt against the\nnatural enmity of the mind to God; while I was inattentive to the way\nin which this enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the one\nhand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the Gospel\nsalvation; while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature\nstands afar off, is brought near to the heavenly Lawgiver, whom he has\noffended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as\nstripped Him of all the importance of His character and His offices;\neven at this time I certainly did press the reformations of honour and\ntruth and integrity among my people; but I never once heard of any\nsuch reformations having been effected amongst them. If there was\nanything at all brought about in this way, it was more than ever I got\nany account of. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with which I\nurged the virtues and the proprieties of social life had the weight of\na feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not till\nI got impressed by the utter alienation of the heart in all its\ndesires and affections from God; it was not till reconciliation to Him\nbecame the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial\nexertions; it was not till I took the Scriptural way of laying the\nmethod of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer\nof forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their\nacceptance, and the Holy Spirit, given through the channel of Christ's\nmediatorship to all who ask Him, was set before them as the unceasing\nobject of their dependence and their prayers; in one word, it was not\ntill the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and\nessential elements in the business of a soul providing for its\ninterest with God and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard\nof any of those subordinate reformations which I aforetime made the\nearnest and the zealous, but, I am afraid, at the same time the\nultimate object of my earlier ministrations. Ye servants, whose\nscrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice, and drawn forth in\nmy hearing a delightful testimony from your masters, what mischief you\nwould have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacraments been\naccompanied by the sloth and the remissness, and what, in the\nprevailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted the allowable\npurloining of your earlier days. But a sense of your Heavenly Master's\neye has brought another influence to bear upon you; and, while you\nare thus striving to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all\nthings, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the land\nto the acknowledgment of the faith. You have at least taught me that\nto preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality in\nall its branches; and out of your humble cottages have I gathered a\nlesson, which I pray God I may be enabled to carry with all its\nsimplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring with all the power of\nits subduing efficacy upon the voices of a more crowded population.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is nothing which I should more like to leave ringing in your\nears than this remarkable statement of my great fellow-countryman. But\nI cannot close and bid you farewell without expressing the happiness\nwhich I have derived from these weeks spent in your society and\nthanking you for the extremely encouraging attendance with which you\nhave honoured me from first to last. To the authorities of the\ncollege, as well as to many citizens of this town, I have to express\nmy indebtedness for an amount of kindness and courtesy which I can\nnever forget, and which will always make my visit to this country one\nof the pleasantest of memories.\n\nLet us, in parting, commend each other to the grace of God:\n\n    O God our Father, the infinite Power, the perfect Wisdom and\n    the immortal Love, in Thy hands are all our ways, and the\n    success of our purposes proceeds from Thee alone. Follow with\n    Thy blessing our intercourse together and the work which we\n    have now completed. Bless this University--its president, its\n    professors and students. May knowledge grow in it from more to\n    more, and, along with knowledge, reverence and love. May those\n    especially who are preparing for the ministry of Thy Son be\n    filled with Thy Spirit, and in due time may they prove\n    faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. Bless them in their\n    studies, in their fellowship with one another, and in their\n    efforts to advance Thy kingdom. We commend each other\n    affectionately to Thee; be our God and our Guide in life and\n    in death, in time and in eternity. For Christ's sake. Amen.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[61] The earlier President Dwight.\n\n[62] \"Great subjects insure solid thinking. Solid thinking prompts a\nsensible style, an athletic style, on some themes a magnificent style,\nand on all themes a natural style.\"--PHELPS, _My Note-book_.\n\n[63] \"We owe it to the Church, we owe it to the time in which God has\ncalled us to labour, we owe it to the restless and perplexed but often\nhonest minds in whose presence we carry on our ministry, to be not\nmerely a hard-working but a learned clergy. To those great questions\nwhich both stir and disquiet men, we are bound to bring that knowledge\nwhich will give us a claim to be listened to. 'Know as much as you can;'\nthat ought to be the rule to which an educated clergyman should hold\nhimself forever tied. A clergyman ought to be a _student_, a reader and\na thinker, to the very end.\"--DEAN CHURCH.\n\n[64] Richard Baxter confesses that he deliberately preached over the\nheads of his people once a year, for the purpose of keeping them humble\nand showing them what their minister could do every Sunday of the year,\nif he chose!\n\n[65] \"A sentence of Pascal would sometimes shoot more light and life\nthrough a sermon than all the commentators upon the text since the days\nof Noah.\"--PRINCIPAL RAINY.\n\n[66] Rev. Dr. Henderson, of Crieff, told me a story which illustrates in\nan amusing yet significant way the change which passed over the\nreligious mind of Scotland in the beginning of the present century. His\nfather, the late Rev. Dr. Henderson, of Glasgow, when newly licensed,\nwas preaching, on the Saturday before a communion, for an extremely\nModerate minister of the dignified and pompous school. \"I do not know,\nMr. Henderson,\" said the latter, \"what is the difference between you\nevangelicals and us; but I suppose it is that you preach doctrines,\nwhile we preach duties.\" \"I do not know about that,\" said Mr. Henderson;\n\"we preach duties too.\" \"Well,\" said the old man, \"for example, my\naction sermon to-morrow is to be on lying; and my divisions are--first,\nthe nature of lying; secondly, the sin of lying; and thirdly, the\nconsequences of lying: now what could you add to that?\" \"Well,\" replied\nMr. Henderson, \"I would add two things--first, 'Lie not one to another,\nseeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds,' and secondly,\n'Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we\nare members one of another.'\" \"Mr. Henderson, these suggestions are\nadmirable: I shall add them to my discourse!\"\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nAN ORDINATION CHARGE\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nAN ORDINATION CHARGE.[67]\n\n\nI should like to connect what I have to say with a text of Scripture,\nwhich you may remember as a motto for this occasion. Take, then, that\npastoral exhortation to a young minister in 1 Tim. iv. 16: \"Take heed\nunto thyself, and to the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this\nthou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.\"\n\nThere are three subjects recommended in this text to one in your\nposition--_first_, yourself; _second_, your doctrine; _third_, those\nthat hear you.\n\n\nI. _Take heed unto thyself._--Perhaps there is no profession which so\nthoroughly as ours tests and reveals what is in a man--the stature of\nhis manhood, the mass and quality of his character, the poverty or\nrichness of his mind, the coldness or warmth of his spirituality.\nThese all come out in our work, and become known to our congregation\nand the community in which we labour.\n\nWhen a man comes into a neighbourhood, as you are doing now, he is to\na large extent an unknown quantity; and it is very touching to observe\nthe exaggeration with which we are generally looked on at first,\npeople attributing to us a sort of indefinite largeness. But it is\nmarvellous how soon the measure of a man is taken, how he finds his\nlevel in the community, and people know whether he is a large or a\npetty man, whether he is a thinker or not, whether he is a deeply\nreligious man or not. The glamour of romance passes off, and\neverything is seen in the light of common day.\n\nThe sooner this takes place the better. A true man does not need to\nfear it. He is what he is, and nothing else. He cannot by taking\nthought add one cubit to his stature. Any exaggeration of his image in\nthe minds of others does not in reality make him one inch bigger than\nhe is.\n\nIt seems to me to lie at the very root of a right ministerial life to\nbe possessed with this idea--to get quit of everything like pretence\nand untruthfulness, to wish for no success to which one is not\nentitled, and to look upon elevation into any position for which one\nis unfit as a pure calamity.\n\nThe man's self--the very thing he is, standing with his bare feet on\nthe bare earth--this is the great concern. This is the self to which\nyou are to take heed--what you really are, what you are growing to,\nwhat you may yet become.\n\nAll our work is determined by this--the spirit and power of our\npreaching, the quality of the influence we exert, and the tenor of our\nwalk and conversation. We can no more rise above ourselves than water\ncan rise above its own level. We may, indeed, often fail to do\nourselves justice, and sometimes may do ourselves more than justice.\nBut that is only for a moment; the total impression made by ourselves\nis an unmistakable thing. What is in us must come out, and nothing\nelse. All we say and do is merely the expression of what we are.\n\nEvidently, therefore, there can be nothing so important as carefully\nto watch over our inner life, and see that it be large, sweet and\nspiritual, and that it be growing.\n\nYet the temptations to neglect and overlook this and turn our\nattention in other directions are terribly strong. The ministerial\nlife is a very outside life; it is lived in the glare of publicity; it\nis always pouring out. We are continually preaching, addressing\nmeetings, giving private counsel, attending public gatherings, going\nfrom home, frequenting church courts, receiving visits, and occupied\nwith details of every kind. We live in a time when all men are busy,\nand ministers are the busiest of men. From Monday morning till Sunday\nnight the bustle goes on continually.\n\nOur life is in danger of becoming _all_ outside. We are called upon to\nexpress ourselves before conviction has time to ripen. Our spirits get\ntoo hot and unsettled to allow the dew to fall on them. We are\ncompelled to speak what is merely the recollection of conviction which\nwe had some time ago, and to use past feelings over again. Many a day\nyou will feel this; you will long with your whole heart to escape away\nsomewhere into obscurity, and be able to keep your mouth closed for\nweeks. You will know the meaning of that great text for ministers,\n\"The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury,\"--that is, it shallows\nthe spirit within.\n\nThis is what we have to fight against. The people we live among and\nthe hundred details of our calling will steal away our inner life\naltogether, if they can. And then, what is our outer life worth? It is\nworth nothing. If the inner life get thin and shallow, the outer life\nmust become a perfunctory discharge of duties. Our preaching will be\nempty, and our conversation and intercourse unspiritual, unenriching\nand flavourless. We may please our people for a time by doing all they\ndesire and being at everybody's call; but they will turn round on us\nin disappointment and anger in the day when, by living merely the\nouter life, we have become empty, shallow and unprofitable.\n\nTake heed to thyself! If we grow strong and large inwardly, our people\nwill reap the fruit of it in due time: our preaching will have sap and\npower and unction; and our intercourse will have about it the breath\nof another world.\n\nWe _must_ find time for reading, study, meditation and prayer. We\nshould at least insist on having a large forenoon, up, say, to two\no'clock every day, clear of interruptions. These hours of quietness\nare our real life! It is these that make the ministerial life a grand\nlife. When we are shut in alone, and, the spirit having been silenced\nand collected by prayer, the mind gets slowly down into the heart of a\ntext, like a bee in a flower, it is like heaven upon earth; it is as\nif the soul were bathing itself in morning dews; the dust and fret are\nwashed off, and the noises recede into the distance; peace comes; we\nmove aloft in another world--the world of ideas and realities; the\nmind mounts joyfully from one height to another; it sees the common\nworld far beneath, yet clearly, in its true meaning and size and\nrelations to other worlds. And then one comes down on Sabbath, to\nspeak to the people, calm, strong and clear, like Moses from the\nmount, and with a true Divine message.\n\nIn so doing, my dear brother, thou shalt save thyself. Lose your inner\nlife, and you lose yourself, sure enough; for that _is_ yourself. You\nwill often have to tell your people that salvation is not the one act\nof conversion, nor the one act of passing through the gate of heaven\nat last; but the renewal, the sanctification, the growth, into large\nand symmetrical stature, of the whole character. Tell that to yourself\noften too. We take it for granted that you are a regenerated man, or\nwe would not have ordained you to be a minister of the Gospel to-day.\nBut it is possible for a man to be regenerate and to be a minister,\nand yet to remain very worldly, shallow, undeveloped and unsanctified.\nWe who are your brethren in the ministry could tell sad histories in\nillustration of this out of our own inner life. We could tell you how,\nin keeping the vineyard of others, we have often neglected our own;\nand how now, at the end of years of ministerial activity and incessant\ntoil, we turn round and look with dismay at our shallow characters,\nour unenriched minds, and our lack of spirituality and Christlikeness.\nO brother! take heed to thyself--save thyself!\n\n\nII. _Take heed to the Doctrine._--A very little experience of\npreaching will convince you that in relation to the truth which you\nhave to minister week by week to your people you will have to sustain\na double character--that of an interpreter of Scripture and that of a\nprophet.\n\nLet me first say something of the former. With whatever high-flown\nnotions a man may begin his ministry, yet, if he is to stay for years\nin a place and keep up a fresh kind of preaching and build up a\ncongregation, delivering such discourses as Scotchmen like to hear, he\nwill find that he must heartily accept the _role_ of an interpreter of\nScripture, and lean on the Bible as his great support.\n\nThis is your work; the Book is put into your hands to-day, that you\nmay unfold its contents to your people, conveying them into their\nminds by all possible avenues and applying them to all parts of their\ndaily life.\n\nIt is a grand task. I cannot help congratulating you on being ordained\nto the ministry to-day, for this above everything, that the Bible is\nhenceforth to be continually in your hands; that the study of it is to\nbe the work of your life; that you are to be continually sinking and\nbathing your mind in its truths; and that you are to have the pleasure\nof bringing forth what you have discovered in it to feed the minds of\nmen. The ministerial profession is to be envied more for this than\nanything else. I promise you that, if you be true to it, this Book\nwill become dearer to you every day; it will enrich every part of your\nnature; you will become more and more convinced that it is the Word of\nGod and contains the only remedy for the woes of man.\n\nBut be true to it! The Bible will be what I have said to you only if\nyou go deep into it. If you keep to the surface, you will weary of it.\nThere are some ministers who begin their ministry with a certain\nquantity of religious doctrine in their mind, and what they do all\ntheir life afterwards is to pick out texts and make them into vessels\nto hold so much of it. The vessels are of different shapes and sizes,\nbut they are all filled with the same thing; and oh! it is poor stuff,\nhowever orthodox and evangelical it may seem.\n\nTo become a dearly loved friend and an endless source of intellectual\nand spiritual delight, the Bible must be thoroughly studied. We must\nnot pour our ideas into it, but apply our minds to it and faithfully\nreceive the impressions which it makes on them. One learns thus to\ntrust the Bible as an inexhaustible resource and lean back upon it\nwith all one's might. It is only such preaching, enriching itself out\nof the wealth of the Bible and getting from it freshness, variety and\npower, that can build up a congregation and satisfy the minds of\nreally living Christians.\n\nThe intellectual demand on the pulpit is rapidly rising. I should like\nto draw your earnest attention to a revolution which is silently\ntaking place in Scotland, but is receiving from very few the notice\nwhich it deserves. I refer to the changes that are being made by the\nnew system of national education. No one can have travelled much for\nseveral years past through this part of the island without his\nattention being attracted by the new and imposing school buildings\nrising in almost every parish. These are the index of a revolution;\nfor inside, in their management and in the efficiency of the\neducation, there has also been an immense change. I venture to say\nthat nothing which has taken place in Scotland this century--and I am\nremembering both the Reform Bill and the Disruption--will be found to\nhave been of more importance. There will be a far more educated\nScotland to preach to in a short time, which will demand of the\nministry a high intellectual standard. It is a just demand. Our people\nshould go away from the church feeling that they have received new and\ninteresting information, that their intellects have been illuminated\nby fresh and great ideas, and that to hear their minister regularly is\na liberal education.\n\nNothing will meet this demand except thorough study of Scripture by\nminds equipped with all the technical helps, as well as enriched by\nthe constant reading of the best literature, both on our own and\nkindred subjects. One of our hymns says that the Bible \"gives a light\nto every age; it gives, but borrows none.\" Nothing could be more\nuntrue. The Bible borrows light from every age and from every\ndepartment of human knowledge. Whatever especially makes us acquainted\nwith the mysterious depths of human nature is deserving of our\nattention. The Bible and human nature call to each other like deep\nunto deep. Every addition to our knowledge of man will be a new key to\nopen the secrets of the Word; and the deeper you go in your preaching\ninto the mysteries of the Word, the more subtle and powerful will be\nthe springs you touch in the minds and hearts of your hearers.\n\nBut preparation of this sort for the pulpit is not easy. It requires\ntime, self-conquest and hard work. Perhaps the greatest ministerial\ntemptation is idleness in study--not in going about and doing\nsomething, but in finding and rightly using precious hours in one's\nlibrary, avoiding reverie and light or desultory reading, and sticking\nhard and fast to the Sabbath work. I, for one, must confess that I\nhave had, and still have, a terrible battle to fight for this. No men\nhave their time so much at their own disposal as we. I often wish we\nhad regular office-hours, like business men; but even that would not\nremedy the evil, for every man shut up alone in a study is not\nstudying. Nothing can remedy it but faithfulness to duty and love of\nwork.\n\nYou will find it necessary to be hard at it from Tuesday morning to\nSaturday night. If you lecture, as I trust you will--for it brings\none, far more than sermonising, into contact with Scripture--you will\nknow your subject at once, and be able to begin to read on it. The\ntext of the other discourse should be got by the middle of the week at\nlatest, and the more elaborate of the two finished on Friday. This\nmakes a hard week; but it has its reward. There are few moods more\nsplendid than a preacher's when, after a hard week's work, during\nwhich his mind has been incessantly active on the truth of God and his\nspirit exalted by communion with the Divine Spirit, he appears before\nhis congregation on Sabbath, knowing he has an honestly gotten message\nto lavish on them; just as there can be no coward and craven more\nabject than a minister with any conscience who appears in the pulpit\nafter an idle, dishonest week, to cheat his congregation with a diet\nof fragments seasoned with counterfeit fervour.\n\nBut, besides being an interpreter of Scripture, a true minister fills\nthe still higher position of a prophet. This congregation has asked\nyou to become its spiritual overseer. But a minister is no minister\nunless he come to his sphere of labour under a far higher\nsanction--unless he be sent from God, with a message in his heart\nwhich he is burning to pour forth upon men. An apostle (that is, a\nmessenger sent from God) and a prophet (that is, a man whose lips are\nimpatient to speak the Divine message which his heart is full of)\nevery true minister must be. I trust you have such a message, the\nsubstance of which you could at this moment, if called upon, speak out\nin very few words. There is something wrong if from a man's preaching\nhis hearers do not gather by degrees a scheme of doctrine--a message\nwhich the plainest of them could give account of.\n\nWhat this message should be, there exists no doubt at all in the\nChurch of which you have to-day been ordained a minister. It can be\nnothing else than the evangelical scheme, as it has been understood\nand expounded by the greatest and most godly minds in all generations\nof the Church and preached with fresh power in this country since the\nbeginning of the present century. It has proved itself the power of\nGod, to the revival of the Church and the conversion of souls,\nwherever it has been faithfully proclaimed; and it is a great trust\nwhich is committed to your hands to-day to be one of its heralds and\nconservators.\n\nNot that we in this generation are to pledge ourselves to preach\nnothing except what was preached last generation. That would be a poor\nway of following in the footsteps of men who thought so independently\nand so faithfully fulfilled their own task. The area of topics\nintroduced in the pulpit is widening, I think. Why should it not? The\nBible is far greater and wider than any school or any generation; and\nwe will fearlessly commit ourselves to it and go wherever it carries\nus, even though it should be far beyond the range of topics within\nwhich we are expected to confine ourselves. Your congregation will put\none utterance side by side with another; and, if you are a truly\nevangelical man, there will be no fear of their mistaking your\nstandpoint. There is no kind of preaching so wearisome and\nunprofitable as an anxious, constrained and formal repetition of the\nmost prominent points of evangelical doctrine. The only cure for this\nis to keep in close contact with both human nature and the Bible, and\nbe absolutely faithful to the impressions which they make.\n\nYet take heed that your doctrine be such as will save them that hear\nyou. What saving doctrine is has been determined in this land by a\ngrand experiment; and it is only faithfulness to the history of\nScotland, as well as to God and your people, to make it the sum and\nsubstance and the very breath of life for all you preaching. Our\ncalling is emphatically \"the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that\nGod was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing\ntheir trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of\nreconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God\ndid beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled\nto God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we\nmight be made the righteousness of God in Him.\" This is the glorious\nmessage of the Gospel, which alone can meet the deep spiritual wants\nof men.\n\nPreach it out of a living experience. Bunyan, in his autobiography,\ngives an account of his own preaching, telling how, for the first two\nyears of his ministry, he dwelt continually on the terrors of the law,\nbecause he was then quailing beneath them himself; how for the next\ntwo years he discoursed chiefly on Christ in his offices, because he\nwas then enjoying the comfort of these doctrines; and how, for a third\ncouple of years, the mystery of union to Christ was the centre both of\nhis preaching and his experience; and so on. That appears to me the\nvery model of a true ministry--to be always preaching the truth one is\nexperiencing oneself at the time, and so giving it out fresh, like a\ndiscovery just made; while at the same time the centre of gravity, so\nto speak, of one's doctrine is constantly in motion, passing from one\nsection of the sphere of evangelical truth to another, till it has in\nsuccession passed through them all.\n\n\nIII. _Take heed to them that hear you._--I almost envy you the new joy\nthat will fill your heart soon, when you fairly get connected with\nyour congregation. The first love of a minister for his own flock is\nas original and peculiar a blossom of the heart as any other that\ncould be named. And the bond that unites him to those whom he has been\nthe means of converting or raising to higher levels of life is one of\nthe tenderest in existence.\n\nYou have come to a hearty people, who will be quite disposed to put a\ngood construction on all you do. This is a busy community, that\nappreciates a man who works hard. If you do your work faithfully and\npreach with the heart and the head, they will come to hear you. It is\nwonderful how lenient those who hear us are. You will wonder, I\ndaresay, some Sabbaths, that they sit to hear you at all, or that,\nhaving heard you, they ever come back again. But, if a man is really\ntrue, he is not condemned for a single poor sermon. Honesty and\nthorough work and good thinking are not so easily found in the world\nthat a man who generally exhibits them can be neglected. If we fail,\nit must surely generally be our own fault.\n\nThe more we put ourselves on a level with the people the better. We\nstoop to conquer. It is better to feel that we belong to the\ncongregation than that it belongs to us. I like to think of the\nminister as only one of the congregation set apart by the rest for a\nparticular purpose. A congregation is a number of people associated\nfor their moral and spiritual improvement. And they say to one of\ntheir number, Look, brother, we are busy with our daily toils and\nconfused with domestic and worldly cares; we live in confusion and\ndarkness; but we eagerly long for peace and light to cheer and\nilluminate our life; and we have heard there is a land where these are\nto be found--a land of repose and joy, full of thoughts that breathe\nand words that burn: but we cannot go thither ourselves; we are too\nembroiled in daily cares: come, we will elect you, and set you free\nfrom our toils, and you shall go thither for us, and week by week\ntrade with that land and bring us its treasures and its spoils. Oh,\nwoe to him who accepts this election, and yet, failing through\nidleness to carry on the noble merchandise, appears week by week\nempty-handed or with merely counterfeit treasure in his hands! Woe to\nhim too, if, going to that land, he forgets those who sent him and\nspends his time there in selfish enjoyment of the delights of\nknowledge! Woe to him if he does not week by week return laden, and\never more richly laden, and saying, Yes, brothers, I have been to that\nland; and it is a land of light and peace and nobleness: but I have\nnever forgotten you and your needs and the dear bonds of brotherhood;\nand look, I have brought back this, and this, and this: take it to\ngladden and purify your life!\n\nI esteem it one of the chief rewards of our profession, that it makes\nus respect our fellow-men. It makes us continually think of even the\nmost degraded of them as immortal souls, with magnificent undeveloped\npossibilities in them--as possible sons of God, and brethren of\nChrist, and heirs of heaven. Some men, by their profession, are\ncontinually tempted to take low views of human nature. But we are\nforced to think worthily of it. A minister is no minister who does not\nsee wonder in the child in the cradle and in the peasant in the field\nrelations with all time behind and before, and all eternity above and\nbeneath. Not but that we see the seamy side too--the depths as well as\nthe heights. We get glimpses of the awful sin of the heart; we are\nmade to feel the force of corrupt nature's mere inert resistance to\ngood influences; we have to feel the pain of the slowness of the\nmovement of goodness, as perhaps no other men do. Yet love and undying\nfaith in the value of the soul and hope for all men are the\nmainsprings of our activity.\n\nFor the end we always aim at is to save those who hear us. Think what\nthat is! What a magnificent life work! It is to fight against sin, to\ndestroy the works of the devil, to make human souls gentle, noble and\ngodlike, to help on the progress of the world, to sow the seed of the\nfuture, to prepare the population of heaven, to be fellow-sufferers\nand fellow-workers with Christ, and to glorify God.\n\nThis is your work; and the only true measure of ministerial success is\nhow many souls you save--save in every sense--in the sense of\nregeneration, and sanctification and redemption.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[67] Delivered at the Ordination of the Rev. William Agnew, Gallatown,\nKirkcaldy, 1879.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |\n    |                                                           |\n    | Page  67: humilitating replaced with humiliating          |\n    | Page 137: propets replaced with prophets                  |\n    | Page 162: subequent replaced with subsequent              |\n    | Page 189: ruth replaced with truth                        |\n    | Page 193: delirum replaced with delirium                  |\n    |                                                           |\n    +-----------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"The Preacher and His Models: The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":63630}