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HUESTIS. 1884. ■PMi u ii s is Ji Hill- ,.l:^ '■■■}' ' eternal Punishment : A LECTURE DEI IVERED BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL UNION OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MAY 5tii, 1883. I If m BY THE REV. WILLIAM I. SHAW, M.A., LL.B. I ■Hi ■HilMli . t: LITERATURE. (■' 'II 1 : ' ■'. It' The following Works have been consulted by the Lecturer: — Williams. D. (Pre3.)and Smith. . Chaun- F.R.8. and Notes by J. L. Discussion on Universal Salvation. By Rev. T. Merritt and Rev Wilbur Fisk. Exposition and Defence of Universalism. Rev. I. D. Theological Discussion between Rev. Ezra S. Ely, D AbelC. Thomas (Univ.) New Testament Idea of Hell. Bishop Merrill. Love and Penalty. J. P. Thomson, D. D. Universalism Examined, Renounced, and Exposed. M. H. Works of Jonathan Edwards, D. D. Vol. I. discussing Dr cey's Views of Retribution. Eternal Hope. Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D Fernley Lecture, 1878. Rev. G. W. Olver Posnett. Man all Immortal. Rev. D. W. Clarke, D. D. The Doctrine of Annihilation. Rev. J. Baldwin Brown, B.A. The Doctrine of Universal Restorationism Examined. Daniel Isaac. The Doctrine of Future Punishment. W. Cooke, D.D. What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment ? Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. Mercy and Judgment : a Reply to What is of Faith. Rev. Canon Farrar. Exposition of Universalism. John CJ. Power. A Theodicy. Albert T. Bledsoe, LL.D. History of Opinions on ?]ternal Retribution. Edward Beecher, D.D. The Revealed Doctrines of Rewards and Punishments. R. W. Hamilton, D.D. Universalism not of the Bible. Rev. N. D. George. The Future Life. By eminent American scholars. For Ever. M. Randies. Life and Death Eternal. S. C. Bartlett, D.D. Monday Lectures. Joseph Cook. Immortality of the Soul. R. W. Sandis. Immortality of the Soul. K. Mattison. Endless Duration of Punishment. F. A. Lampe. Salvator Mundi. . Samuel Cox. Salvation Here and Hereafter. John Service. Everlasting Punishment. E. M. Goulbourn. The Future Life. Arclibishop Whately. Dorner on the Future State. History of Doctrine. By Hagenbach and by Shedd. Works on Systematic Divinity. By Pope, Hodge, Watson, Cooke, Raymond, and Martensen. f I IV. '^tcinxt. id ETERMAL PUNISHMEHT. n- L. el >n I' " It is a fearful tbinj^ to fall into the hands of the living God," yet " the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works." Again, " Sodom and Gomorrha are set forth as examples sufi'ering the ven- geance of eternal fire," yet " God retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy." How to reconcile these apparently conflicting declarations is a problem it would be extreme narrowness to ignore. The enigma of existence gathers most of its difficulties from the mysterious blending of light and darkness, joy and sorrow, happiness and pain. The grim spectres of sin and suffering flit among the phantoms of our earthly joys, and it is not strange that, wondering at times what can be the source of evil, we say with Dante : The world, indeed, is even so forlorn Of all good, as Thou speakest it, and so swarme With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point The cause out to me, that myself may see And unto others shew it ; for in heaven One places it, and one on earth below. I M tl wni'iiMiiiiMiiiaii 6 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. ■ i\-' I i) 'iili One thing is clear, we are in a world of evil. How- ever it is to be accounted! for, the mystery of suffering confronts us on every hand. " It is appointed unto men once to die ;" that is an article common to all creeds. If we can agree nowhere else, we find at the grave, a place where Atheist, Agnostic, Polytheist, Deist, and Christian are united in their assent to this universal truth. The Christian is no more obliged to explain this truth than his strange companions by that open sepulchre. Any one could state the problem, How came death and its concomitant sufferings ? and as this strange group would consider it, one would be as much responsible tor its solution as another. The dark fact of human suffering still stands all the same, whatever solution of the problem of its existence we may offer. But, passing the bounds of mere physical suf- fering, we discover that we are only on the confines of the gloomy domain of moral evil — a great dark empire of death reaching out so vast we feel certain it stretches away beyond the limits of time, and so blasts by its torments and ruins the victim of despair, that we feel the force of Pollock's description : " A being that had burned Half an eternity, and was to burn For evermore, he looked." J* But such tortures confront us even here and now. And their sulphurous fumes we recognize amid the scenes of earth's crimes and cruelties, the reek of alcohol, the debasement of virtue, the oaths of torments »(» ETKRNAL PUNISHMENT. 7 already begun, the outrages of malice, the crushing of innocence, and the glowing hate of self, and of all be- side. In all such scenes we find distinctly expressed three ideas : God, and justice, and hell. Were there no ray of hope piercing the gloom in this world ; were there no Star of Bethlehem leading to light, and love, and purity ; were there no revelation from the Creator of His gracious will, we would feel spell-bound by the bird of evil omen which the Poet of Despair has de- scribed : Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore, And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor, And my soul from out that shadow, that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted,— Nevermore. But the mind, wearied and worried by the great problem of the existence of evil, finds satisfaction and rest at last in the sure word of prophecy which God has given us, and finds satisfaction nowhere else. I take my stand then, to-day, on the foundation of a few central truths thus divinely revealed, which I do not intend to discuss: 1st. God is. 2nd. The Bible is the only perfect mirror of His nature. " Here the whole Deity is known." 3rd. The Divine nature is equally marked in relation to man by goodness and severity, love and justice, n ! I 4U 8 ETEHNAF, ITMsHMKNT m coinpUHsion an I have thus stated seven elements of the doctrine of the punishment of sin, as they commend themselves to my judgment : 1st. It must reach beyond this life ; 2nd. Its tortures begin at death, in Hades or the Inter- mediate State ; 3rd. It does not necessarily imply cor- poreal sufferings ; 4th. It implies confirmed antagonism to God ; 5th. It implies in the other world a career of sin, itself meriting corresponding punishment ; 6th. It is more than remorse — it is a positive and judicial infliction of punitive suffering ; 7th. Only a minority of the race will be consigned to such torment. (8) The great question still remains, in case the above views be accepted, What Scripture evidence is there of the eternal continuance of this punishment ? If the admission of an opponent could settle this question, it is closed at once with the statements by Theodore Par- ker, in his published sermons : " I believe that Jesus Christ taught eternal torment; I do not accept it on His authority." The candour of these words is only sur- passed by their impious boldness. Without repetition of what I have said in another connection, the eternity of the torments of hell, I re- mark, is evidenced by the cessation at death of all probationary opportunities of salvation. This is im- plied in the exhortation, " Pass the time of your so- journing here in fear," " Redeeming the time," " Lay hold on eternal life," " Seek the Lord while He may be found," " While it is said, To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." After death comes what ? the judgment. This we know with certainty, 41 (: i li}\ }l i TiiyiilttiiiiiHil*?:iiiiiffi i'r , < j>J^jst, their sufferings are un- just, for all punishment iliat does not reform is cruel. In the apocalyptic vision v e read that when the fifth angel poured out his vial of wrath, the wicked " gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the Gcd of Heaven because of their pains and their sores, and rf^pented not of their deeds." This harmonizes with the verdict of history, that punishment, in most instances, does not reform but harden. Yet it is just ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 87 and necessary. The whole objection before us, based on the divine benevolence, simply loses sight of other attributes of God which are of e([ual importance. The world needs to l)e told that God is good ; but to-day it needs more to be told that God is just, and to be made to " Feel how awful goodness is." "Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God;" or, as it is in the Genevan Bible, and Cranmer's, and Tyndale's, "the kindness and rigorousness of God." This clause contains the substance of the gospel. (3) Again, it is objected that if hell be a state of conlirmed sinfulness, it makes sin there a necessity, and consequently it loses its criminality. The objector seeks to betray us into a Calvinistic necessitarianism, which we, of course, reject. God dooms no man to sin, either here or hereafter. It is not so much that the soul will sin forever because it is consigned to hell, but rather it is consigned to hell because, in its own freedom, it wills to sin forever. Adam's offence entails corruption upon the human race, but the human race is in no wise responsible for Adam's offence, and there- fore not for the inherited corruption ; but the doomed spirit entails upon himself in eternity a state of con- firmed antagonism to God by his own choice in life. The choice is his own, not Adam's, not the Almighty's, but his own, and here is surely a sufHcient basis for his perpetual responsibility to God for the conse- quences of his choice. This state of confirmed sinful- iii.! *« wn w u w n)» i f i jw f Aa. ' jiim tf*' ^ 'nMUfOtikmmimu i $w m [I: ■ 38 ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. ness is sometimes reached even in this world; still, it is not a state of absolutely necessary sinfulness, for it might have been avoided. Sin ceases to be sin when it is necessitated. Jerry McAuley's testimony, in the Water Street Mission, New York, is very wise and relevant. He says : " I used to ask, Why had God made me a thief and a rascal, while He gave other people money and fun ? And then it came across me that He hadn't done one o' these things. It was me that brought myself to what I was." (4) The next objection I notice is based on the social relationships that may have subsisted between the saved and the lost in this life, an objection which, I confess, seems at first sight, very serious. Says the objector, " Do you tell me that a father is going to be perfectly happy, singing psalms in heaven, when he knows that his son is enduring the torments of eternal damnation ? " I readily admit — I glory in the fact — that no religion condemns and abhors like the Christian religion those who are " without natural aftection," but the ground I take is, that the same divine book contains these three things : Due regard for the bonds of kindred, the unalloyed happiness of the redeemed, and the eternal sufferings of the lost. Reconcile them as we may, they are all there. I have no more right to reject the last than the first. 1 presume that the redeemed spirit is so completely in harmony with God that he finds perfect satisfaction in all that God does. To say that I so love my sovereign that I would in- dignantly resist any attempt made upon her life or her i ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 39 authority, though the regicide were my own child, is to suppose a circumstance by no means remarkable. Now, if the Sovereign opposed be the Supreme Ruler, the fountain of all good, 1 can conceive it possible that the redeemed spirit may be so lost in God as to regard with perfect satisfaction the execution of His judg- ments, whomsoever they may crush. This very faith makes me the more earnest here, that my child be not among those upon whom shall descend like an ava- lanche the terrors of those judgments. But let us look into the matter a little further. Are the angels per- fectly happy ? Yes. But how can that be, since ages ago their fellows lost their first estate, and they have since been "in everlasting chains, under darkness?" Again, are the redeemed now happy, and will they continue so ? Yes, assuredly. Bat how can that be, when, according to the Restorationist, for a thousand or a million of years their lost friends are in torment ? The thouorht that these torments shall terminate may affect the degree of -iistress for the lost, if such the saved at all have; but assuredly cannot remove the distress itself on the supposition of the objector. But. just here I wish to ask again, Does any earthly parent love his offspring more than God loves His creatures ? Yet God is perfectly and infinitely happy in His own self-existent glory and goodness ; and withal He wit- nesses " the whole creation groaning and travailing together in pain," and His intelligent cr':;ptm'es suffering indescribable anguish, in many instuxiLes, too, when they are innocent. If the great Fai-Iier God can witness iM in !' p, t UmI ^i:U w wm 40 ETERNAL PUNISHMExNT. ■h ' such sufferinors, 1 am contident that in some way He will enable His ransomed ones to regard with perfect contentment every exercise of His high prerogative, whether in wrath or mercy, that their language may be : " So let all thine enemies perish, Lord, but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." (5) Again, it is objected that the perpetuity of sin and its punishment in hell will forever detract from the divine glory. I do not think so. I believe the glory and majesty of Queen Victoria's rule are as much displayed in our prisons as among law-abiding subjects. The objector falls into the palpable error of Voltaire, who tries to thrust us into a dilemma by saying, " Your God is either unable "or unwilling to put an end to sin. He seems to be opposed to sin. He cannot, therefore, be omnipotent." As if the natural omnipo- tence of God determined the moral character of His creatures. Is virtue a matter of mechanics ? Is good- ness produced by physical force ? Can electricity or gravitation or any other of the great natural forces, which are God's fingers, clutch a sinner and lift him up into purity and obedience ? The objector is simply forgettinfi: that in the discussion before us we are in the realm of the moral, not of the physical. If the perpetuity of sin seems mysterious, it is certainly much less so than its origin. Archbishop Whately said very appropriately, " I will undertake to explain the final condition of the wicked, when some one will explain the existence of the wicked." But meet !" •' ETKRNAL PUNISHMKNT. 41 ill startling and shocking of all would be an attempted violent termination of sin by physical force. When it is objected that it is not in harmony with our senti- ments and with the fitness of things that sin should be eternal, I reply that it is not in harmony with our sentiments that sin should exist at all. But in the mani- festation of our vanity in opposition to certain facts in the divine government, do we not deserve the re- proof of Butler, when he says, " We make very free by our sentiments, if I mistake not, with the divine goodness by our speculations," or the sterner reproof of revelation, " Moreover, the Lord answered Job, and said. Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him ? He that reproveth God, let him answer it." We may depend upon it, God will look after the fitness of things without our instructing Him how to rule a universe. I have now iried to answer all the objections I Cftu think of against the Scriptural doctrine of Re- cribuUon. In conclusion, I submit that, as ministers, Wf; noed to regard this doctrine as a most vital one in reveaku religion. I think the minister is making a Kiost serious error, who, with a spurious catholicity, slights this truth, and either says nothing about it, or speaks very ambiguously. If this be not a vital doc- trine I know not what is. But, says the objector, " May not a Restorationist get to heaven ? " I answer, b'^ reminding the objector, especially if he be an Ar- minian, that he may take the whole round of Christian doctrine, and, according to the test he is trying to P t-J 5 i ;l i I 'i l\ ! ». ii i, \-i zxmon. THE COMING ONE. m " When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come ? or look we for another ?" "Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; how the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached."— Luke vii. 20 and 22. iff- (i f i'm These messengers came from John, confined in the gloomy prison at Makor, to Jesus amid the absorbing activities of Nain. The changes have been rung con- cerning the reasons that impelled John to formulate and forward this brief but pertinent message. It is not, however, relevant to our purpose to-day to enter the chase after the correct verdict in such a wide field of conjectural opinions. Suffice it to say I'at that most splendid eulogy pronounced over His grand Fore- runner, by the Royal Master, forever protects his motives and character inviolate. If the fiery preacher of the wilderness, chafed by the tyrannous chain of the contemptible Herod, found his firm conviction of the friendship and sympathy of Jesus tested to its very 4 ;*.« I fm ft' {f\ MRI ' i'll ^1 ?l B 50 THE COMING ONE. foundation, is it a matter of wonder ? If, as the eye of the caj^ed eagle filmed within the dark, dank walls of the Idumoean dnnf];eon, John suffered moment?- * intense, heart-breaking despondency, is it more t i seized the spirits of the brave, intrepid leaders of the former and later times ? Was it not thus with even a Moses, an Elijah, and a Paul ? Even so sank the hearts of Savonarola and Jerome in the prison-cells of Florence and Constance, and the agitated soul of Luther in the castle of Wartburg. Our attention centres, however, in the matter of this message and the reply. It is a subject fraught with an interest vital as salvation, wide as the race, and far-reaching as eternity. As this Prophet of ^ Desert was the last and gre'atest of all God's ]\- sengers, heralding the Advent of the Messiah, so now he is the embodied Voice of many an imprisoned spirit, of many an unhappy skeptic, many a wandering tribe, and of many a heathen nation, crying : " Art thou he that should come ? or look we for another ?" Let us prayerfully consider : I. The Momentous Im- port of John's question ; and II. The Decisive Testi- mony of Christ's answer. I. THE MOMENTOUS IMPORT OF JOHN'S QUESTION : " ART THOU HE THAT SHOULD COME ?" The import we affirm, because the weighty signifi- cance of this question is not inferential, but intrin- sical. It grows out of the forceful phrase, " He that should come." , I n THE COMING ONE. 51 n (a) There confronts us, therefore, the cardinal neces- sity that No7ue One shoLild come ! Some one wiser than the wisest; better than the best; diviner than the divinest of earth and man. Some Shepherd to leave the ninety and nine safely enfolded, and search the wilderness for the lost sheep. Some Deliverer of the enslaved peoples ; some Redeemer of the race — an Emmanuel, God with, us, should come ! The wants and woes of humanity imperiously demanded His coming. Men had sought for Him, but by searching could not find Him ; not even by all of Himself the Creator has ingrained in the soul of man, nor by all that can be clearly seen in His Eternal Power and Godhead in the things which do appear. The ancient world, by the mouth of its best sons, confessed that it had long groped for God, but had not found Him. In all literature there is nothing more pathetic than the wail of despair wrung out in the utterances of the most gifted scholars of Greece and Rome touching this failure. Hear Plato voice the conclusion of all : " We must wait for some one — be he god or inspired man — to take away the darkness from our eyes." (6) Some one "should come," according to the Divine plan and prediction. The plan of Jehovah was, that a Redeeming Ruler of mankind should come forth from the Father into the world. Each of the great epochs of Old Testament revelation bore testimony to the coming of this Saviour — mighty to save. Indeed, scarcely had the " Fall " occurred, when the early promise shed bright- :1 u w ■ ;»i ;U n if! li U\ ^"^Hf MHi 52 THE COMING ONE. \{ ^r '\ ness upon the gloom of Eden, by announcing the remedy for the ruin. Before the sentence was pro- nounced upon the guilty pair and their posterity, the golden promise was given, that One should come in the flesh, who would " bruise the serpent's head." The Patriarchs saw Him coming, afar off, and wore glad. The Mosaic institution of Sacrifice traced His approach in lines of fire and blood. Emphatically, to his appearing gave all the Prophets witness. Indeed, " The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." By them all He proclaimed, " Lo, I come !" until John, the last and greatest, finished the roll of testi- mony, witnessing : " He that cometh after me is pre- ferred before me, because he was before me." Note, moreover, how specific the very phraseology became, containing the prediction of His coming. When the Greek language, of such exceptional grace, spread- ing from the ancient centre of Philosophy and Art, became the tongue of the Hebrew people, the expecta- tion of the Redeemer was condensed into a Greek phrase the precise equivalent of the Hebrew Yaveh — Jehovah. This was, 6 epxonevoq — the Coming One — or He who should come. This is the indentical phrase found in the message of John, in the original. He bid his brethren ask Jesus : " Art thou. Ho erko- menos ?" (c) Some one " should come," as a Deliverer, to meet the general Ex^yectation of the Race. As, says Robertson, " The Expectation of the mani- festation of God is the mystery which lies beneath i i THE COMING ONE. the history of the whole ancient world." The germ of ihis Expectation was planted in the human mind in Eden ; and wheresoever scattered, the sustaining, inspiring sentiment of the race was, the coming of the Ideal Man. We are not surprised that the Hebrew People, be- cause of the glowing predictions of their Prophets; and remembering that all their types, symbols, ceremonies, and altars, and all the gorgeous ritual of the Temple were but foreshado wings of the coming Messiah, were wont to sweep the horizon to discern the first beams of His rising. We are not surprised that this distin- guished nation, of whom, as pertaining to the flesh, Christ was to come, should have been stirred with profoundest anticipations. We do not wonder that their holy hermits in the caves of their sacred moun- tains ; or Simeon, Zacharias and Anna in the Temple, should be found, "Looking for the Consolation ox Israel." Yet we cannot but be thrilled by the pleasing surprise at the concurrent yearning of the Gentile World. The throbbing Expectation of some wonder- ful Personage to change and mould the destinies of the race was not confined to the Jews, but was diffused throughout the whole Earth. Humanity was deeply conscious that it had left its moorings ; and it tossed restlessly about, eagerly longing for the coming of the Helmsman. The royal Stranger was impersonated in Melchisedec, King of Salem. The hope of His appearing sustained the suffering Patriarch of Idumaea, and inspired his I i ;M |j- ;i I.:| PW ^i:! 54 THE COMING ONE. 1 l ! } ■■ : s immortal utterance : " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth." It fired the lips of the sorcerer-Seer. Baalam. It was the theme of Confucius, Seutonius, Tacitus, and of the Sibylline Oracle. It was the marvellous — if not the inspired — prediction o" he fourth Eclogue of Rome's immortal bard, Virgil. And it seems a fair presumption that Longfellow credited the North American Indians with some traditional memories of Messianic Expectation among their an- cestors. In his graphic Song of Hiawatha he has — *' Gitche Manito, the mighty, The creator of the nations " — looking down, from the " Mountains of the Prairie," upon the wranglings and dissensions of the warrior tribes, and thus addressing them : *' Oh my children ! my poor children ! I will send a Prophet to you, A Deliverer of the nations, Who shall guide you and shall teach you, Who shall toil and suffer with you. If you listen to his counsels. You will multiply and prosper ; If his warning pass unheeded, You will fade away and perish ! " But, whatever the modern poet may conjecture, at the historic date of the Advent the world had reached its crisis. To the Jew and Gentile it was " a fulness of time;" and the common heart was stirred to its depths by the magnetic force of the Coming One. Europe v^ THE COMING ONE. 55 expected Him from the East ; and Asia looked for Him from the West; and then the East and the West gravitated toward Judea. " Put a flower into a dark room, and let the light shine in through the keyhole ; the flower will instinctively turn towards the door, and stretch out its tiny leaves to be kissed by the sun- beam." There is a sympathy between the flower and the light. So, the world was shut up in darkness. There was but one sky partly relieved by faint streaks of celestial light, and toward those beams of the rising Sun of Righteousness the religious nature of universal man quivered and gravitated. The wise men of the Gentile world came from the East to Jerusalem, en- quiring : " Where is he that is born king of the Jews ; for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him ?" (d) The onomentous import of John's question centres in a person — " Art thou He ?" All men sought — all expected — a person. The world's weary-heart hunger ; its sickness and its sighs demanded not a pre- scription of healing, but a Physician ; not a theory of deliverance, but a Deliverer. The contention is per- tinent : " If man were only a thing, he might be con- tent among things. Were man nothing but intellect, he might be satisfied with a theory. Were man nothing but a conscience, he might find peace in a religion." But man, tha person, in his complex nature and with his whole being, imperiously claims a Person as his " alabama " — the supreme rest of his tired nature. ■■I i m 56 THE COMING ONE. 1 * I ! *. Now, a Wonderful Person has come ; and John's challenge, in effect, is — Art thou who hast come, He who " should come ?" Is there certainty at last ? Other men have come in other days and lands. 1. Heathenism, not content with theories of Philo- sophy and systems of government, had embodied her hopes in men such as Homer, Hannibal, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander. In Imperial Rome you find the most singular instance of this endeavour. Rome means 'power ; and Julius Caesar, just a few years before the birth of Jesus Christ, regarding himself as the incar- nation of this power, sought to subvert the liberties of his country by aspiring to a throne. This was, more- over, the throne of that King that, according to the oracle of the Temple, was to arise at that time ; whose reign should be without bounds, and whose adminis- tration should secure universal peace and prosperity. 2. It is noteworthy that Judaism, too, had sought to meet humanity's longing for a personal Saviour. The Jews had furnished several false Messiahs. In many quarters the cry was heard: " Lo! here is Christ, or Christ is there." No wonder, therefore, that when that marvel, the Voice, thrilled the multitudes on the verdant banks of the Jordan, or in the dreary depths of the wilderness, the people flocked about him and pressed him with the enquiry: "Art thou he, art thou he, that should come ?" And John the Baptist con- fessed and denied not, but confessed he was not the Christ. Alas ! Both Judaism and Heathenism had signally failed to find the expected Deliverer of the THE COMING ONE. 57 Nations. All the bright lights had gone out in dark- ness, all experiments had proved abortive. The world was brought to a solemn and hopeless pause. The crisis-hour of the race had come. The shadows of things in the heavens they had seen once and again in their dreams and visions, but the things themselves they had not beheld. Yet the vision of the shadow argued the existence of the reality somewhere. We should never see the shadow of an eagle gliding softly across the field, if a real eagle were not just then flying in the air. We should never see stars in the silvery lake, if real stars were not shining in the sky. So the image of a heavenly Messenger traced along the valleys or mirrored in the ceremonials of the peoples of earth, unmistakably witnessed the existence of the " Desire of all Nations." These yearnings amid uncertainty roused rather than lulled the masses. Just as all men in the regions where the sun is hid for many months, console themselves with the hope of his appearing, and fixing their gaze at the point when they expect his dawn, they quit ordinary pursuits, dress in their richest attire, and climb the highest hills to greet his first rays, so was it with the rising of the Sun of Right- eousness. From Alps, Andes, and Lebanon, eager eyes settled their gaze upon Bethlehem, and, lo ! the Light of the World shone upon them that " sat in darkness and the region and shadow of death," a " Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel." hi ^ i\ i M 58 THE COMING ONE. ^ 1 fi ' i: ::■!] ■J II. THE DECISIVE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST S ANSWER. " Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; how the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached." " The greatness of the ancient world culminated in Socrates and Plato ; and the greatness of Socrates and Plato culminated in their power to ask questions, and not in their power to answer them." So the great- ness of the Old Testament Prophets culminated in John : and the greatness of John culminated in his power to ask questions, and not in his power to answer them. But the full-orbed greatness of Jesus is seen in His power to answer' these questions with a wealth of wisdom and an infinitude of Divinity essen- tially His own. Sir Matthew Hale, that eminent jurist, once said : "More can be learned from some people's questions than from other people's answers." Be it so : but this is the Masters answer to the peoples' question. No more vital, all-comprehending enquiry could be made. Prophecy and Type had minutely specified the World's Hope, the Saviour of the race; the suffering, reigning Lord, He was foretold : " a Child born ; a Son given." The child of man, the Son of God. The son of David, while David's Lord. Is this Jesus of Nazareth He ? Is this Ho erkonienos ? 1. His humanity. We may rest assured John was not troubled on this point. Jesus was his own kins- THE COMING ONE. 59 man, according to the flesh. Then Jesus Himself had taken especial pains to show that He is in a cardinal, generic sense, " the Son of Man." A living Welsh writer puts this aspect of our Lord's nature with freshness and force : " He is humanity condensed, the second edition of our nature revised and amended by the Author. He is man, thorough man, growing out of the depths of our nature. The sea on the sur- face is divided into waves. Go down, and you will soon come to a region where there are no waves, where there is nothing but water. So humanity on the sur- face is broken into nationalities and individualities. But go down a little way, and you will soon come to a region where differences give place to resemblances, entities, and every man is like every other man. Now, Jesus Christ emerges from the profoundest depths of our nature, from the region of entities. He is not Jew, nor Greek, nor Roman, but Man." 2. His Godhead. Nor had John any misgivings touching the Godhead of Jesus. He was the " man sent from God," who bore witness that Jesus, who " came after him, was preferred before him," the only begotten Son of God. John had seen " the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him :" and he had heard " A voice out of the heavens, saying. This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." John had baptized Him for His official work of Prophet, Priest and King. Besides, he uttered and reiterated the cry : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." m M ^ 60 THE COMING ONE. I :.. ! i il \ 'I I II So with the Apostles and Disciples, this doctrine was a conviction. His own mysterious Being had touched their inner being, and made it vibrate with the knowledge of His Divinity. When He said to them, " Whom do ye say that I, the Son of Man, am ? " Peter earned His benediction by answering for all, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." They were sound in the true Christology. They were wholly free from the taint of Arian and Apollinarian Heresies. 3. May not this investigation of the depth and meaning of John's question, help us the better to grasp and appreciate the force of Christ's answer ? You will remember that daring but most triumphant experi- ment made by Benjamin Franklin. Seeing a cluster of thunder-clouds hanging overhead, he let fly into their midst a paper kite to which was attached a me- tallic chain. His knuckles having touched the chain connecting him with the wild lightnings, he was sur- prised and thrilled with sparks from the electrical cur- rent — since made such a messenger of intelligence to man. So John's question, bold and urgent, pierced the clouds of opinion that were floating in society con- cerning Jesus Christ, and drew from Him the evi- dential formula that forever dispels all vagueness and uncertainty about the true mission and methods of the Redeemer and His claims to Messiaship. A, Let us consider specially the decisive testimony furnished by Christ in His answer to John. This reply crystallizes into the immutable axiom, that Christianity THE COMING ONE. 61 challenges credence upon proof and not upon authority. Jesus does not say to John's ''Art thou He?" — "I am He," and that is enoui^jh to know. Accordinor to in- spired prediction, miraculous works of healing were to be the broad seal of heaven to the Prince Messiah. Jesus performed most noted cures before the face of the messengers, and sent them back to tell John the things they had seen and heard. You have — 1. The iiositive proof of practical facts constitute the Divine method. It is not by mythical incantations, or the ambiguous, oracular utterances of ancient heathenism or modern spiritualism ; not with earth- quake, tempest, fire, and sword, but with the mild, potent logic of facts. Not words but deeds, the actions that speak more loudly than words. This method best suits the Divine nature and human needs. All the volitions of the Infinite mind are deeds. He stamps every material thing with His seal and super- scription. He moulds every atom into a letter, and every work into a word. On this principle Christ wrought the deeds that make up the gospel — a mosaic of facts. He did what all other systems only pro- mised. And His works meet man's deepest wants. It is by deeds and deeds we can see and comprehend, we are really convinced and satisfied. 2. Christ's miraculous works as a Demonstration. The miracles of our Lord did not so much establish His claim, and make His doctrines true, as demonstrate and make manifest their truth. Take the case of the Tichborne claimant. Either he is the genuine or an H M 62 THE COMING ONE. i ^1 It impostor from the outset ; but it is by the evidence adduced that the issue is determined. So in Mathe- matics. Every proposition in Euclid is true before it is put on the blackboard ; and the mechanical process but demonstrates the pre-existent truthfulness. So of Jesus the Christ who "should come." His doctrines and claims were true independently of the miracles ; but the truth of the miracles clearly demonstrate the validity of his doctrines and claims. In this respect, therefore, a single fact is worth a thousand arguments; because with moral systems and agents the final test must ever be practical efficiency. (a) This demonstrative method is fitted to the popu- lar demand. To test the forxie of evidence, we must not forget there are two classes of mind involved. First, the Reflective type, moved by moral character rather than by any physical manifestation of power. The life of Christ will influence such more than His works. Second, the Perceptive type of mind, in- fluenced by things occurring before the eyes, startling to the senses, such as the supernatural works of Christ. Every age has had minds of both orders. In one age the one had pre-eminence, in another the oppo- site one ; and in different stages of the same mind, both types may appear. (b) This law of mind has a counterpart in a dual law of times. History is made up of two alternating Periods. One Period is creative, giving birth to new truths and forces. The other Period is Reflective : no new truths spring up, but the old are analyzed and J ! THE COMING ONE. 63 classified. The age of Moses was Creative, the age of the Judges Reflective. The age of the Prophets was Crea- tive, that of the Scribes Reflective. Witli the advent of Christ and the labours of His apostles, came another Creative Period. New truths of ineftable beauty and purity were born, and new and mighty forces were evolved, pertaining to the character and kingdom of Christ. In that Creative Period the Perceptive class of mind, perforce of things seen and heard, predomi- nated. Therefore when the Jewish world would know from Jesus, "Art thou He that should come?" and when the Gentile world w^ould enquire of Him, " Art thou the Desire of all Nations ? " they challenge : "What dost thou '}(Jork ?" "What sign showest thou ?" (c) This view will gain force when we remember that all the Saviour's miracles of Mercv and Benevo- lence were symbols of spiritual healing. They were Parables of the Gospel kingdom ; — each from its own angle a minature of the one great miracle which He is continually working in the regeneration of the human soul. Take, for instance, those wonderful works enu- merated in the text, where the supernatural power is interposed to arrest disease and restore life. These miracles were not contrary to nature, but operated to neutralize that which is contrary to nature, — to re- medy the abnormal. Disease is not man's normal state ; and death is not only not natural, but anti- natural. But Jesus, in healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, interposed to bring back the subjects to their true normal condition. He restored ^1 ,.■■'; mmmmmmm G4 THE COMING ONE. ■t. ', , each to the possession of his health and himself, which is the Creator's ideal of physical humanity. So pre- cisely sin is unnatural to the soul. Depravity is not true spiritual wholeness, health. It is abnormal. It is disease, and our Lord's physical cures foreshadowed the restoration to their normal spiritual condition ; when He shall have healed all their diseases, forgiven all the'ir iniquities, and renewed them in the image of Him that created them in riofhteousness and true holi- ness. Therefore, in the process of this renewal, every blind eye lighted proclaims Jesus the " Light of the World." Every deaf ear opened is the pledge that multitudes, heedless of spiritual things, shall " hearken and hear and their soul shall live." Every case of leprosy cleansed proclaims, " Clean " — the Keyword of the Kingdom of God — and that Christ proposes the purification of the whole world by the sacrifice of Himself. Every dead form raised to life guarantees that He will raise dead souls into newness of life. " In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." Not the light was the life, but the life was the light. A modern philosopher, who would recast the religion of the Bible, declares the g-reat desideratum of the world is "Sweetness and Light." But ^p's , Christ affirms the great need of the world to '"Tis life, whereof our nerves are bc.cMt, More life, and fuller, that we want." Thus we see that Christ's displa}" of power on the plane of common life, is a type of His work in the sphere of grace. It is His method of leading from the THE COMING ONE. 65 seen and temporal to the unseen and spiritual. In a distinguished gallery at Rome, Guido's famous paint- ing of Aurora is on the ceiling, and thus the visitor cannot examine it there with profit. But a mirror has been placed in the room at such an angle as to present a reflection of the picture at a point where the spec- tator can conveniently study it at his leisure. So the refren crating work of the Holy Spirit, whereby the " image of the heavenly " is brought out on the human soul, is far beyond our inspection ; but in Christ's miracles of healing — as in a mirror — we have manifold reflections of the Divine Artist's renewal of the heart, even " the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." In our Lord's cure of the Paralytic, we have furnished us a beautiful illustration of the evidential force of phys- ical healing. Jesus had said, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven." But the cavilling Jews charged Him with blasphemy, demanding, " Who can forgive sins but God only ?" Now Jesus met them on their chosen battle-ground. Here let me paraphrase a little. Jesus in effect said to the objectors : Ye claim that no one can forgive sins but God only ? Yes. Ye affirm with equal force and persistency, that no one but God alone can cure a man sick of the palsy ? Yes. Very well then. Ye have heard me pronounce this man's sins forgiven, but ye discredit the fact because ye cannot see the heart and discern a spiritual cure. But now, if I can cure this man's body which ye do see, and which act of healing ye regard equally the tf ( f. rf^^ 66 THE COMING ONE. !ij 1 1' '^■i>t^ work of God with the pardon of sin, then ye must admit my power to effect the spiritual healing by the demonstration of my power on the physical ? They had to say, Yes. Then said Jesus to the sick of the palsy, " Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thy house." And immediately the paralytic arose and walked. Thank God for the decisive testimony, once for all and forever; and though no miracles are repeated now, none are 'required, for those that are historical form a permanent Mirror, perpetually reflecting the power of Christ to forgive sins, though the performance itself lies in a department beyond the range of human in- spection. Whether, then, it be true or not, as Drummond affirms, that " Natural Laws and Spiritual Laws are Identical" there is surely pertinence in his classifica- tion : " Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, but as Spirtual Laws, Laws which at one end are dealing with Matter, and at the other with Spirit. The visible is the ladder up to the invisible ; the temporal is but the scaffolding of the eternal." And thus, too, a scriptural coloring gilds Milton's question : — "What if earth Be but tlie shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like more than on earth is thought ? " B. These are the Positive Proofs by practical Facts, which make the first instalment of this decisive testi- mony. And what is demonstrated for Christ Him- self is also and equally for Christianity. ji THE COMING ONE. 67 1. Does that class of Scientists that would fain divorce what God hath joined together haughtily de- mand of Christianity — facts'? loudly boasting that their teachings ever appeal to facts — self -evident facts. To their chosen data, then, we welcome them, for Christianity is a solid structure of Facts. Does the infidel deride our Faith and Works system and require of us *' the sign " of Philosophy ? Then we adduce experience against his speculations : and we triumphantly array what Christianity has done, in the face of what he tells us Philosophy is. Does Utilitarianism magnify its purpose to improve the circumstances of society ? Christianity proposes to improve society itself. Is Utilitarianism content to do men good ? Christianity exists to make men good. Yes verily ! To change the lion to the lamb, the vulture to the dove — to expel the demon of envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness, and clothe the subject in his right mind ; to transform the wilderness into a fruitful field, and make the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose — these constitute the proud aim, and the glorious accomplishment of a Christian utili- tarianism. Is Christianity depreciated, scorned by the ancient and idolatrous system of Religion ? Her uniform triumphs enforce the retort : " What Age have ye morally transformed, what nation regenerated?" In- deed, in sorrow for the unhappy peoples, we must allow the indictment of a modern writer. " The Religions of the heathen nations are to-day the greatest obstruc- 68 THE COMING ONE. I tion in the way of their progress. Mahometanism is now acting as a check upon the growth of the Arab and all the other tribes subjugated to its yoke. Bud- dhism acts like a nightmare on the natives of the East, dwarfing the teeming millions of India. The religion of Confucious presses like an incubus on China, ef- fectually repressing all mental and spiritual develop- ment." Alas, alas! In those fair and fertile lands, "Where every prospect pleases, only man is vile!" Does Roman Catholicism presume to unchurch Protestantism ? Then compare her Austria, Italy Spain, Ireland, Quebec, with Germany, England^ America, Ontario, or even the Latin States of Switzer- land, which are Protestant, with the German States, which are Roman Catholic. History and modern in- telligence distinguish the difference. It was left to Gambetta and his pious Minister of Religion, Paul Bert, to confound Protestantism with Popery. Beyond question the world's heart throbs yearningly for the world's Redeemer to-day. The Greek " would see Jesus," and tlie Jew devontfully enquires : " What think ye of Christ ?" The Japanese are testing "The Jesus Religion," and at home the prejudiced Nathan- iels "come and see " whether any good thing can come out of this Nazareth. Everywhere the practical men of these pre-eminently practical times require the evi- dence Jesus sent John, " things seen and heard," and they subject each ecclesiastical body to the crucial challenjre, "Art thou the Church that should come, or look we for another ?" Thoy care not so much for 'ii|| THE COMING ONE. 69 i. boasted antiquity or assumed Apostolicity as for life and action. They want deeds, not creeds. They seek not so much epistles of commendation to some one, or from any one, as to behold regenerated multitudes — "Epistles, read and known of all men." This dis- criminating age echoes the song : — " Ye different sects who all declare — *Lo! here is Christ,' or 'Christ is there, Your stronger proofs divinely give And show us where the Christians live. " Finally — Mark the final Clause in the Cumulative Testimony for Christ and Christianity. The Gospel preached to the Poor — the God Spell — good neius, "the Gospel of the grace of God," "the Gospel of the Kingdom," "the Gospel of Christ," "the glorious Gos- pel of the blessed God," — this Gospel preached to the poor. (a) Note the fact itself as filed in evidence. Christ expressly named the fact, "to the poor the Gospel is preached," as conclusive proof to John that He was Ho erkomenos. (b) Let us calculate the force of this fact. It is given the last, but not, hence, the least. It is the greatest element in the decisive testimony on the point at issue. Christ Himself adduced it as the crowning proof of His Divine character and commission. He thus forever elevated Moral supreme over Miraculous evidence. He thus affirmed it easier to suspend the laws of nature than to reverse the usages of society — f 70 THE COMING ONE. ■I H^i easier to open the eyes of the blind, cure the leper, and even to raise the dead, than to cause the Day Star to arise upon dark minds, to purify sinful hearts, and raise dead souls into newness of life. Thus potentially evidential is the fact that, the Gospel is preached to the poor. But let not this rush us to the conclusion, that this choice of the Son of God, by dignifying the poor, has discriminated against the Rich. Our Lord gladly blessed the household of Jairus, just after He had made whole the impoverished woman amid the pressing throng. He dispensed Salvation as cheerfully to Zaccheus the rich ruler as to Lazarus the beggar. At His feast, the " Rich and the poor meet together." What Christ proclaims in trumpet-tones to the ages by this Parable of Poverty is, that while the hungry rich will be ever joyfully welcomed to the Marriage Supper, Jesus does not rate them as the especial, much less the exclusive, guests to His feast. But it is the characteristic, the distinctive feature of "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," that to the very poorest of the poor the plenitude of the Gospel provision is pro- claimed and furnished "without money and without price." (c) This signet stamp of King Jesus upon the Poor, is but the tyj^e, the sample, of His Redemptive scheme. He came not to bless race, but Man. The Son of Man will save individual, universal Man as Man. He would resurrect, develop the ideal Man. Where will He so soon find him as among the poor ? There is THE COMING ONE. 7r with them less of the conventional, and more of the nornfial, ingenuous, simple, and human. Thus the seeking Saviour finds Humanity — Man, not rank. "Rank is but the guinea's stamp, Man is the gold for all that ! " (d) The Gospel for all the world must compass all the social conditions of man. Jesus meets the require- ment. He came to found a religious Democracy, — organize a Christian Commonwealth : to elevate the masses, and lift the lowest of the race to God. How must He do it ? When the famous Victoria Bridge must span the magnificent St. Lawrence at Montreal, the Coffer-dam must help the engineer to sink the Titan piers to the solid Laurentia :* rock. So Jesus Christ must sink to the level of the lowest stratum of society. Aye, more. He must lay the Rock of Ages under the lowest layer of lost humanity ; for all idio- syncrasies of character, all conventional distinctions are but the upper strata, which vary locally, while beneath all these lie everywhere the solid primeval rocks. Thank God ! to this deepest depth the love of Christ sunk Him to save. He laid His foundation below all influence, and, by the verdict of men. He threw Himself away. He was "made sin," "having become a curse for us." Here sounds the deep-bass note of the song of Redemption. "Christ crucified" is the climax .of the Gospel story. The "Child born," the "Son given," do not comprise all the elements of the Christian system. He was born to die. Golgotha is Ml 72 THE COMING ONE. '!l the complement of Bethlehem. "The Cross" is the croT7n of the Nazarene. On it Jesus "tasted death for every man." Thus, then, by blood, He became the Friend of the friendless, the Patron of the Poor. Hence the universal adaptation of the Gospel message, addressing itself to the great rudimentary character- istics and the universal wants of human nature. It passes through all surface distinctions, and goes right down to the depths of the central identities, to the flaming heart of the race, where we are all alike. Not, then, to this or that sort of man, but to all sorts and conditions of men ; to man as man, be he philoso- pher or fool, sovereign or serf. Thus, the Gospel becomes the heritage of the poor, deeded by the sign-manual of the King, who hath chosen "them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom ;" and, as candi- date for universal suffrage, has significantly selected the lowliest among all peoples to constitute His per- petual constituency. A. Mark the Divinity of the Gospel Testimony. Its Divinity is registered in its Novelty. It is the potent innovation of all history. To sink to the lowest, in order to reach the highest, to win distinc- tion by alliance with the outcast, is certainly some- thing new under the sun. This fact essentially dis- tinguishes, differentiates the Christian from all other systems. The choice is unique, the plan original. There is no precedent for it, no prepossession in its favour. Hitherto nothing but contempt was felt for THE COMING ONE. 73 ' the poor among all the great Statesmen and Philan- thropists of the world. The Autocthonic theory, feebly urged by some recent writers, largely obtained then. Its doctrine is, that every nation is indigenous to the soil upon which it is found, having developed out of the earth like the flowers and trees. The con- tention is, that no organic connection exists among the peoples of earth. Hence the Greeks, esteeming themselves the aristo- cracy of the world, contemptuously despised all nations as Barbarians. Then, in turn, the Freeman despised the slave ; the Sage the simple. The Rich — yea all — contemned the poor. They were raied as chattels rather than creatures. They were valued as property, not persons. They were not an integral part of society, but its conveniences and drudges, aids to state luxury — tools of the ambitious, and war-material in the conflict of Kings. As a consequence, no Philanthropist, fired with the idea of some social reform, ever conceived the motive of beginning with the poor. Even the Jewish Rabbis were not an honorable exception. They were not " moved with compassion for the multitude," they did not glow with "the enthusiasm of humanity." They sought not the flock, but the fleece. They scornfully said of the poor: "This people"— this rabble — "that knoweth not the law is accursed." With this. Heathenism was on a par. Plato, the apostle of Pagan philosophj^ had inscribed in large, legible characters over the portals of his celebrated Academy : " No admission except for Ul \l m 74 THE COMING ONE. Geometricians." But Jesus Christ has written in letters of fire over the ever-open gateway into the School of Salvation, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (a) The Divineness of the Gospel Testimony ap- pears further in the method of its proclamation. Preaching, the Divine Master's method of conveying His message, is itself Divine. It is rightly claimed that preaching is an institute peculiar to the Gospel- It is an agency, previously unknown, which Christian- ity created for itself, to be foi'ever its chosen mode of utterance. There vms a Dispensation when Ritual and Ceremonial were of God ; for Moses had then fashioned "after the pattern showed him in the Mount." But as Christianity is neither " a wisdom " for "Greeks," nor "a sign" for Jews, nor a philosophy for Rationalists, nor a millenary for Ritualists, nor a " Wafer " for an " altar," but a Gospel message from God to man — preaching, purely, must ever be the ap- propriate vehicle. (h) As with preaching, there is a Divinity about Preachers. I would not unduly magnify the office. I remember the incumbents are but " Earthen vessels." But these Vessels are " chosen " of God, and holy. The Commandment, "Go, preach," is holy: the anointing unction is the Holy Spirit. He alone makes Preachers, whatever their previous and subsequent training and t THE COMING ONE. 75 furnishing. Even the Apostles were not preachers before Pentecost. Then tongues were given ; that was the birthday of preachers. " The new message brought new utterance. It created spokesmen of its own." The narrative says : " They were filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak." The divinity of Minis- terial testimony appears the more when you remember that this Agent is testhnony embodied. He is not only a " Minister," but also a " witness." Paul, who '* testified" in Jerusalem, was to " ivitness" for his Lord at Rome also. The ascending Head of the Church announced the general truth, " Ye shall be my witnesses, unto the uttermost parts of the earth." A witness speaks of something which he knows. The Apostolic preachers said : " We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Their testimony em- braced not only matters of fact, but matters of experi- ence. Experience is a chief element in evangelistic efficiency. To have known the disease, and then the cure ; to " know whom they have believed " them- selves, and so testify, is the most cogent of all argu- ments. Jurists will tell you that one word of evidence from an unimpeachable witness outweighs ten thou- sand words of professional pleading. Courts of Justice can better dispense with Lawyers than witnesses. On some of the most crucial occasions of his most event- ful life, Paul, that master logician, employed this most persuasive argument. He told them the simple, ma- gical story of his conversion from a persecutor to a preacher. Among the many excellences and gifts of I i 11 ^)i. 76 THE COMING ONE, i w the early Methodist preachers was this master habit of testifying. In many a polemical fray, in the teeth of many a persecuting storm, as well as in the histor- ical log "Meeting-house," and rousing old-time "Camp- meeting," they rang out the burning words with tongues of fire : — " What we have felt and seen, With confidence Wts tell ; And publish to the sons of men The signs infallible. " God help us all to prove the worthy sons of such noble sires ! See to it, especially you, my young brethren, that amid the golden advantages of Univer- sity and Theological Halls, you never lose the " roll," experience, nor the skill to wield this " sword of the Spirit," testimony. The great want of the age is a witnessing Ministry. In the face of Agnosticism, Ingersollism, ]and all "false doctrine, heresy and schism," preach and testify concerning your personal knowledge of the Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, of " Christ crucified," of a Risen, living Saviour, of an all- prevalent Intercessor, of the King of Kings on the " holy hill of Zion," whose is the " Kingdom, and the Dominion, and the Glory." And while you witness to all, and pass by none^ remember that the specialty of your mission is to the poor. You may have learned that one rendering of this axiomatic testimony to the genuineness of Jesus and Christianity, " the poor have the Gospel preached THE COMING ONE. 77 I to them," is " the poor have taken to preach the Gospel." Has it not been, ever since the days of the " fishermen," that the majority of the best Christian Ministers have come from the ranks of the poor ? And is it not equally true that most of them have lived and died comparatively poor ? notwithstanding that their lives and labors contribute more than all commerce, government, and mere education to conserve the integrity of empire, and to ensure the probity and progress of the peoples of earth. Is not Angel 1 James' contention a marvel of fact, that " Preached sermons are the cheapest of all cheap things in this age of mar- vellous cheapness ?" Nothing in this world to-day is so grand and unanswerable an evidence of the Godhead of Jesus, and the Divine nature and mission of Chris- tianity, as the perpetual succession of an army of ardent, able, self-denying preachers of the Gospel, in these times of so many open avenues to wealth, fame, and power. Brethren, be worthy your noble heritage of example, of your high calling, of your exalted dignity and peerless destiny ! If you should remain poor men, don't be poor preachers; but be sure to preach to the poor ! Be in this succession : — " As poor, yet making many rich!" Let us not discriminate against the poor in social caste, in Church accommo- dation, or in Evangelistic and Missionary Enterj)rises, To all tribes essentially, as to the " Red Man " literally, we must cry : " Lo ! the Poor Indian !" No Church, whether its Polity be Episcopal or Presbyterian, its Iff-' ^mmmmm Iff 78 THE COMING ONE. t , name Baptist or Methodist, can grow away from the poor but at the risk of becoming an ecclesiastical tree, "twice dead, plucked up by the roots." I am no alarmist on this score, however. I rejoice in the loy- alty of the Churches to their Head, their fidelity in witnessing for Him, and "battling for the Lord " effec- tually, if not 'popularly, "An Army with Banners." Matthew Arnold says : "Clergymen and ministers of religion are full of lamentation over what they call the spread of scepticism, and because of the little hold which religion now has on the lapsed mnassea of the people!" I have not heard any Jeremiahs around. Have you? I fear it is but this "dogma" of a Seer, whose attitude is that of a modern Balaam toward Israel. He would "nationalize" religion, as George would "nationalize" property. These are self-sent heralds of "another Gospel." And they are not alone in these days of novelty. There is any quantity of cheap sentimentalism, fuss and cant, gush and gammon about the Poor, and the "Laboring classes," among Land-leaguers, Communists, Nihilists, Politicians, and Demagogues. But the Church can point to the legiti- mate fruitage from Gospel sowing, not only in millions of saved men and w^omen, but also, and specially, such Christian and Philanthropic agencies as Asylums, Poor Houses, Orphanages, Reformatories, Ragged Schools, Cheap Literature, Free Libraries, Abolition and Temperance Societies, the Extended Franchise, the Ballot, Sunday-schools, Home Missions, and Missions THE COMING ONE. 79 to the destituce and heathen, and humbly but trium- phantly exclaim, "the .signs of our Apostleship are these." And all this because we " Know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ : that, though He was rich, yet for your sakcs He became poor ; that ye through His poverty might be rich ! " it I ( M ) OFFK'EKS FOR 1S84IBKIC!^ READING FOU "FKLLOnSIIII*. Rev. J. R. Isaac. Rev. J. H. Robinson. Rev. A. G. Harris. Rev. Thomas Cobb. Rev. S. D. Chown. Rev. A. C. Wilson. Roy. Wm. Timberhike. * Rev. Geo. C. Poyser. Rev. Wm. Knox. Rev. W. H. Gane. *" Course" completed. N.B. — All meml)ers who pay their annual fee of ^1 will be pre- sented with a copy of the " Annual Lecture and Sermon." ! I