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Title: Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

Author: Alexander Maclaren

Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8397]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 6, 2003]

Edition: 10

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ***




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EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D., Litt. D.


THE ACTS



EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D., Litt. D.


THE ACTS

_Chaps. I to XII_
VERSE 17.



CONTENTS

THE ASCENSION (Acts i. 1-14)

THE THEME OF ACTS (Acts i. 1, 2; xxviii. 30, 31)

THE FORTY DAYS (Acts i. 3)

THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW (Acts i. 7)

THE APOSTOLIC WITNESSES (Acts i. 21, 22)

THE ABIDING GIFT AND ITS TRANSITORY ACCOMPANIMENTS (Acts ii. 1-13)

THE FOURFOLD SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT (Acts ii. 2, 3, 17; 1 John ii. 20)

PETER'S FIRST SERMON (Acts ii. 32-47)

THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME (Acts ii. 36)

A FOURFOLD CORD (Acts ii. 42)

A PURE CHURCH AN INCREASING CHURCH (Acts ii. 47)

'THEN SHALL THE LAME MAN LEAP AS AN HART' (Acts iii. 1-16)

'THE PRINCE OF LIFE' (Acts iii. 14, 15)

THE HEALING POWER OF THE NAME (Acts iii. 16)

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD (Acts iii. 26)

THE FIRST BLAST OF TEMPEST (Acts iv. 1-14)

WITH AND LIKE CHRIST (Acts iv. 13)

OBEDIENT DISOBEDIENCE (Acts iv. 19-31)

IMPOSSIBLE SILENCE (Acts iv. 20)

THE SERVANT AND THE SLAVES (Acts iv. 25, 27, 29)

THE WHEAT AND THE TARES (Acts iv. 32; v. 11)

WHOM TO OBEY,--ANNAS OR ANGEL? (Acts v. 17-32)

OUR CAPTAIN (Acts v. 31)

GAMALIEL'S COUNSEL (Acts v. 38, 39)

FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT (Acts vi. 3, 5, 8)

STEPHEN'S VISION (Acts vii. 56)

THE YOUNG SAUL AND THE AGED PAUL (Acts vii. 58; Philemon 9)

THE DEATH OF THE MASTER AND THE DEATH OF THE SERVANT
(Acts vii. 59, 60)

SEED SCATTERED AND TAKING ROOT (Acts viii. 1-17)

SIMON THE SORCERER (Acts viii. 21)

A MEETING IN THE DESERT (Acts viii. 26-40)

PHILIP THE EVANGELIST (Acts viii. 40)

GRACE TRIUMPHANT (Acts ix. 1-12; 17-20)

'THIS WAY' (Acts ix. 2)

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE EARLY CHURCH (Acts ix. 31)

COPIES OF CHRIST'S MANNER (Acts ix. 34, 40)

WHAT GOD HATH CLEANSED (Acts x. 1-20)

'GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS' (Acts x. 30-44)

PETER'S APOLOGIA (Acts xi. 1-18)

THE FIRST PREACHING AT ANTIOCH (Acts xi. 20, 21)

THE EXHORTATION OF BARNABAS (Acts xi. 23)

WHAT A GOOD MAN IS, AND HOW HE BECOMES SO (Acts xi. 24)

A NICKNAME ACCEPTED (Acts xi. 26)

THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES (Acts xii. 2)

PETER'S DELIVERANCE FROM PRISON (Acts xii. 5, R.V.)

THE ANGEL'S TOUCH (Acts xii. 7, 23)

'SOBER CERTAINTY' (Acts xii. 11)

RHODA (Acts xii. 13)

PETER AFTER HIS ESCAPE (Acts xii. 17)



THE ASCENSION

'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus
began both to do and teach, 2. Until the day in which He was
taken up, after that He through the Holy Ghost had given
commandments unto the Apostles whom He had chosen: 3. To whom
also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible
proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God: 4. And, being assembled
together with them, commanded them that they should not depart
from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which,
saith He, ye have heard of Me. 5. For John truly baptized with
water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
hence. 6. When they therefore were come together, they asked of
Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the
kingdom to Israel? 7. And He said unto them, It is not for you to
know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His
own power. 8. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost part of the earth. 9. And when He had spoken these
things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received
Him out of their sight. 10. And while they looked stedfastly
toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in
white apparel; l1. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand
ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him
go into heaven. 12. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the
mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's
journey. 13. And when they were come in, they went up into an
upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and
Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the
son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of
James. 14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and
supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and
with His brethren.'--ACTS i. 1-14.

The Ascension is twice narrated by Luke. The life begun by the
supernatural birth ends with the supernatural Ascension, which sets
the seal of Heaven on Christ's claims and work. Therefore the Gospel
ends with it. But it is also the starting-point of the Christ's
heavenly activity, of which the growth of His Church, as recorded in
the Acts, is the issue. Therefore the Book of the Acts of the
Apostles begins with it.

The keynote of the 'treatise' lies in the first words, which describe
the Gospel as the record of what 'Jesus _began_ to do and teach,'
Luke would have gone on to say that this second book of his contained
the story of what Jesus went on to do and teach after He was 'taken
up,' if he had been strictly accurate, or had carried out his first
intention, as shown by the mould of his introductory sentence; but he
is swept on into the full stream of his narrative, and we have to
infer the contrast between his two volumes from his statement of the
contents of his first.

The book, then, is misnamed Acts of the Apostles, both because the
greater number of the Apostles do nothing in it, and because, in
accordance with the hint of the first verse, Christ Himself is the
doer of all, as comes out distinctly in many places where the
critical events of the Church's progress and extension are attributed
to 'the Lord.' In one aspect, Christ's work on earth was finished on
the Cross; in another, that finished work is but the beginning both
of His doing and teaching. Therefore we are not to regard His
teaching while on earth as the completion of Christian revelation. To
set aside the Epistles on the plea that the Gospels contain Christ's
own teaching, while the Epistles are only Paul's or John's, is to
misconceive the relation between the earthly and the heavenly
activity of Jesus.

The statement of the theme of the book is followed by a brief summary
of the events between the Resurrection and Ascension. Luke had spoken
of these in the end of his Gospel, but given no note of time, and run
together the events of the day of the Resurrection and of the
following weeks, so that it might appear, as has been actually
contended that he meant, that the Ascension took place on the very
day of Resurrection. The fact that in this place he gives more
detailed statements, and tells how long elapsed between the
Resurrection Sunday and the Ascension, might have taught hasty
critics that an author need not be ignorant of what he does not
mention, and that a detailed account does not contradict a summary
one,--truths which do not seem very recondite, but have often been
forgotten by very learned commentators.

Three points are signalised as occupying the forty days: commandments
were given, Christ's actual living presence was demonstrated (by
sight, touch, hearing, etc.), and instructions concerning the kingdom
were imparted. The old blessed closeness and continuity of
companionship had ceased. Our Lord's appearances were now occasional.
He came to the disciples, they knew not whence; He withdrew from
them, they knew not whither. Apparently a sacred awe restrained them
from seeking to detain Him or to follow Him. Their hearts would be
full of strangely mingled feelings, and they were being taught by
gentle degrees to do without Him. Not only a divine decorum, but a
most gracious tenderness, dictated the alternation of presence and
absence during these days.

The instructions then given are again referred to in Luke's Gospel,
and are there represented as principally directed to opening their
minds 'that they might understand the Scriptures.' The main thing
about the kingdom which they had then to learn, was that it was
founded on the death of Christ, who had fulfilled all the Old
Testament predictions. Much remained untaught, which after years were
to bring to clear knowledge; but from the illumination shed during
these fruitful days flowed the remarkable vigour and confidence of
the Apostolic appeal to the prophets, in the first conflicts of the
Church with the rulers. Christ is the King of the kingdom, and His
Cross is His throne,--these truths being grasped revolutionised the
Apostles' conceptions. They are as needful for us.

From verse 4 onwards the last interview seems to be narrated.
Probably it began in the city, and ended on the slopes of Olivet.
There was a solemn summoning together of the Eleven, which is twice
referred to (vs. 4, 6). What awe of expectancy would rest on the
group as they gathered round Him, perhaps half suspecting that it was
for the last time! His words would change the suspicion into
certainty, for He proceeded to tell them what they were not to do and
to do, when left alone. The tone of leave-taking is unmistakable.

The prohibition against leaving Jerusalem implies that they would
have done so if left to themselves; and it would have been small
wonder if they had been eager to hurry back to quiet Galilee, their
home, and to shake from their feet the dust of the city where their
Lord had been slain. Truly they would feel like sheep in the midst of
wolves when He had gone, and Pharisees and priests and Roman officers
ringed them round. No wonder if, like a shepherdless flock, they had
broken and scattered! But the theocratic importance of Jerusalem, and
the fact that nowhere else could the Apostles secure such an audience
for their witness, made their 'beginning at Jerusalem' necessary. So
they were to crush their natural longing to get back to Galilee, and
to stay in their dangerous position. We have all to ask, not where we
should be most at ease, but where we shall be most efficient as
witnesses for Christ, and to remember that very often the presence of
adversaries makes the door 'great and effectual.'

These eleven poor men were not left by their Master with a hard task
and no help. He bade them 'wait' for the promised Holy Spirit, the
coming of whom they had heard from Him when in the upper room He
spoke to them of 'the Comforter.' They were too feeble to act alone,
and silence and retirement were all that He enjoined till they had
been plunged into the fiery baptism which should quicken, strengthen,
and transform them.

The order in which promise and command occur here shows how
graciously Jesus considered the Apostles' weakness. Not a word does
He say of their task of witnessing, till He has filled their hearts
with the promise of the Spirit. He shows them the armour of power in
which they are to be clothed, before He points them to the
battlefield. Waiting times are not wasted times. Over-eagerness to
rush into work, especially into conspicuous and perilous work, is
sure to end in defeat. Till we feel the power coming into us, we had
better be still.

The promise of this great gift, the nature of which they but dimly
knew, set the Apostles' expectations on tiptoe, and they seem to have
thought that their reception of it was in some way the herald of the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom. So it was, but in a very
different fashion from their dream. They had not learned so much from
the forty days' instructions concerning the kingdom as to be free
from their old Jewish notions, which colour their question, 'Wilt
Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' They believed
that Jesus could establish His kingdom when He would. They were
right, and also wrong,--right, for He is King; wrong, for its
establishment is not to be effected by a single act of power, but by
the slow process of preaching the gospel.

Our Lord does not deal with their misconceptions which could only be
cured by time and events; but He lays down great principles, which we
need as much as the Eleven did. The 'times and seasons,' the long
stretches of days, and the critical epoch-making moments, are known
to God only; our business is, not to speculate curiously about these,
but to do the plain duty which is incumbent on the Church at all
times. The perpetual office of Christ's people to be His witnesses,
their equipment for that function (namely, the power of the Holy
Spirit coming on them), and the sphere of their work (namely, in
ever-widening circles, Jerusalem, Samaria, and the whole world), are
laid down, not for the first hearers only, but for all ages and for
each individual, in these last words of the Lord as He stood on
Olivet, ready to depart.

The calm simplicity of the account of the Ascension is remarkable. So
great an event told in such few, unimpassioned words! Luke's Gospel
gives the further detail that it was in the act of blessing with
uplifted hands that our Lord was parted from the Eleven. Two
expressions are here used to describe the Ascension, one of which
('was taken up') implies that He was passive, the other of which ('He
went') implies that He was active. Both are true. As in the accounts
of the Resurrection He is sometimes said to have been raised, and
sometimes to have risen, so here. The Father took the Son back to the
glory, the Son left the world and went to the Father. No chariot of
fire, no whirlwind, was needed to lift Him to the throne. Elijah was
carried by such agency into a sphere new to him; Jesus ascended up
where He was before.

No other mode of departure from earth would have corresponded to His
voluntary, supernatural birth. He  carried manhood up to the throne
of God. The cloud which received Him while yet He was well within
sight of the gazers was probably that same bright cloud, the symbol
of the Divine Presence, which of old dwelt between the cherubim. His
entrance into it visibly symbolised the permanent participation, then
begun, of His glorified manhood in the divine glory.

Most true to human nature is that continued gaze upwards after He had
passed into the hiding brightness of the glory-cloud. How many of us
know what it is to look long at the spot on the horizon where the
last glint of sunshine struck the sails of the ship that bore dear
ones away from us! It was fitting that angels, who had heralded His
birth and watched His grave, should proclaim His Second Coming to
earth.

It was gracious that, in the moment of keenest sense of desolation
and loss, the great hope of reunion should be poured into the hearts
of the Apostles. Nothing can be more distinct and assured than the
terms of that angel message. It gives for the faith and hope of all
ages the assurance that He will come; that He who comes will be the
very Jesus who went; that His coming will be, like His departure,
visible, corporeal, local. He will bring again all His tenderness,
all His brother's heart, all His divine power, and will gather His
servants to Himself.

No wonder that, with such hopes flowing over the top of their sorrow,
like oil on troubled waters, the little group went back to the upper
room, hallowed by memories of the Last Supper, and there waited in
prayer and supplication during the ten days which elapsed till
Pentecost. So should we use the interval between any promise and its
fulfilment. Patient expectation, believing prayer, harmonious
association with our brethren, will prepare us for receiving the gift
of the Spirit, and will help to equip us as witnesses for Jesus.



THE THEME OF ACTS

'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that
Jesus began both to do and teach. 2. Until the day in which He
was taken up.'--ACTS i. 1, 2.

'And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and
received all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom
of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.'
--ACTS xxviii. 30, 31.

So begins and so ends this Book. I connect the commencement and the
close, because I think that the juxtaposition throws great light upon
the purpose of the writer, and suggests some very important lessons.
The reference to 'the former treatise' (which is, of course, the
Gospel according to Luke) implies that this Book is to be regarded as
its sequel, and the terms of the reference show the writer's own
conception of what he was going to do in his second volume. 'The
former treatise have I made ... of all that Jesus _began_ both to do
and teach until the day in which He was taken up.' Is not the natural
inference that the latter treatise will tell us what Jesus
_continued_ 'to do and teach' _after_ He was taken up? I think so.
And thus the writer sets forth at once, for those that have eyes to
see, what he means to do, and what he thinks his book is going to be
about.

So, then, the name 'The Acts of the Apostles,' which is not coeval
with the book itself, is somewhat of a misnomer. Most of the Apostles
are never heard of in it. There are, at the most, only three or four
of them concerning whom anything in the book is recorded. But our
first text supplies a deeper reason for regarding that title as
inadequate, and even misleading. For, if the theme of the story be
what Christ did, then the book is, not the 'Acts of the _Apostles_,'
but the 'Acts of _Jesus Christ_' through His servants. He, and He
alone, is the Actor; and the men who appear in it are but instruments
in His hands, He alone being the mover of the pawns on the board.

That conception of the purpose of the book seems to me to have light
cast upon it by, and to explain, the singular abruptness of its
conclusion, which must strike every reader. No doubt it is quite
possible that the reason why the book ends in such a singular
fashion, planting Paul in Rome, and leaving him there, may be that
the date of its composition was that imprisonment of Paul in the
Imperial City, in a part of which, at all events, we know that Luke
was his companion. But, whilst that consideration may explain the
point at which the book stops, it does not explain the way in which
it stops. The historian lays down his pen, possibly because he had
brought his narrative up to date. But a word of conclusion explaining
that it was so would have been very natural, and its absence must
have had some reason. It is also possible that the arrival of the
Apostle in the Imperial City, and his unhindered liberty of preaching
there, in the very centre of power, the focus of intellectual life,
and the hot-bed of corruption for the known world, may have seemed to
the writer an epoch which rounded off his story. But I think that the
reason for the abruptness of the record's close is to be found in the
continuity of the work of which it tells a part. It is the unfinished
record of an incomplete work. The theme is the work of Christ through
the ages, of which each successive depository of His energies can do
but a small portion, and must leave that portion unfinished; the book
does not so much end as stop. It is a fragment, because the work of
which it tells is not yet a whole.

If, then, we put these two things--the beginning and the ending of
the Acts--together, I think we get some thoughts about what Christ
began to do and teach on earth; what He continues to do and teach in
heaven; and how small and fragmentary a share in that work each
individual servant of His has. Let us look at these points briefly.

I. First, then, we have here the suggestion of what Christ began to
do and teach on earth.

Now, at first sight, the words of our text seem to be in strange and
startling contradiction to the solemn cry which rang out of the
darkness upon Calvary. Jesus said, 'It is finished!' and 'gave up the
ghost.' Luke says He 'began to do and teach.' Is there any
contradiction between the two? Certainly not. It is one thing to lay
a foundation; it is another thing to build a house. And the work of
laying the foundation must be finished before the work of building
the structure upon it can be begun. It is one thing to create a
force; it is another thing to apply it. It is one thing to compound a
medicine; it is another thing to administer it. It is one thing to
unveil a truth; it is another to unfold its successive applications,
and to work it into a belief and practice in the world. The former is
the work of Christ which was finished on earth; the latter is the
work which is continuous throughout the ages.

'He began to do and teach,' not in the sense that any should come
after Him and do, as the disciples of most great discoverers and
thinkers have had to do: namely, systematise, rectify, and complete
the first glimpses of truth which the master had given. 'He began to
do and teach,' not in the sense that after He had 'passed into the
heavens' any new truth or force can for evermore be imparted to
humanity in regard of the subjects which He taught and the energies
which He brought. But whilst thus His work is complete, His earthly
work is also initial. And we must remember that whatever distinction
my text may mean to draw between the work of Christ in the past and
that in the present and the future, it does not mean to imply that
when He 'ascended up on high' He had not completed the task for which
He came, or that the world had to wait for anything more, either from
Him or from others, to eke out the imperfections of His doctrine or
the insufficiencies of His work.

Let us ever remember that the initial work of Christ on earth is
complete in so far as the revelation of God to men is concerned.
There will be no other. There is needed no other. Nothing more is
possible than what He, by His words and by His life, by His
gentleness and His grace, by His patience and His Passion, has
unveiled to all men, of the heart and character of God. The
revelation is complete, and he that professes to add anything to, or
to substitute anything for, the finished teaching of Jesus Christ
concerning God, and man's relation to God, and man's duty, destiny,
and hopes, is a false teacher, and to follow him is fatal. All that
ever come after Him and say, 'Here is something that Christ has not
told you,' are thieves and robbers, 'and the sheep will not hear
them.'

In like manner that work of Christ, which in some sense is initial,
is complete as Redemption. 'This Man has offered up one sacrifice for
sins for ever.' And nothing more can He do than He has done; and
nothing more can any man or all men do than was accomplished on the
Cross of Calvary as giving a revelation, as effecting a redemption,
as lodging in the heart of humanity, and in the midst of the stream
of human history, a purifying energy, sufficient to cleanse the whole
black stream. The past work which culminated on the Cross, and was
sealed as adequate and accepted of God in the Resurrection and
Ascension, needs no supplement, and can have no continuation, world
without end. And so, whatever may be the meaning of that singular
phrase, 'began to do and teach,' it does not, in the smallest degree,
conflict with the assurance that He hath ascended up on high, 'having
obtained eternal redemption for us,' and 'having finished the work
which the Father gave Him to do.'

II. But then, secondly, we have to notice what Christ continues to do
and to teach after His Ascension.

I have already suggested that the phraseology of the first of my
texts naturally leads to the conclusion that the theme of this Book
of the Acts is the continuous work of the ascended Saviour, and that
the language is not forced by being thus interpreted is very plain to
any one who will glance even cursorily over the contents of the book
itself. For there is nothing in it more obvious and remarkable than
the way in which, at every turn in the narrative, all is referred to
Jesus Christ Himself.

For instance, to cull one or two cases in order to bring the matter
more plainly before you--When the Apostles determined to select
another Apostle to fill Judas' place, they asked Jesus Christ to show
which 'of these two Thou hast chosen.' When Peter is called upon to
explain the tongues at Pentecost he says, 'Jesus hath shed forth this
which ye now see and hear.' When the writer would tell the reason of
the large first increase to the Church, he says, 'The Lord added to
the Church daily such as should be saved.' Peter and John go into the
Temple to heal the lame man, and their words to him are, 'Do not
think that our power or holiness is any factor in your cure. The Name
hath made this man whole.' It is the Lord that appears to Paul and to
Ananias, to the one on the road to Damascus and to the other in the
city. It is the Lord to whom Peter refers Aeneas when he says, 'Jesus
Christ maketh thee whole.' It was the Lord that 'opened the heart of
Lydia.' It was the Lord that appeared to Paul in Corinth, and said to
him, 'I have much people in this city'; and again, when in the prison
at Jerusalem, He assured the Apostle that he would be carried to
Rome. And so, at every turn in the narrative, we find that Christ is
presented as influencing men's hearts, operating upon outward events,
working miracles, confirming His word, leading His servants, and
prescribing for them their paths, and all which they do is done by
the hand of the Lord with them confirming the word which they spoke.
Jesus Christ is the Actor, and He only is the Actor; men are His
implements and instruments.

The same point of view is suggested by another of the characteristics
of this book, which it shares in common with all Scripture
narratives, and that is the stolid indifference with which it picks
up and drops men, according to the degree in which, for the moment,
they are the instruments of Christ's power. Supposing a man had been
writing Acts of the Apostles, do you think it would have been
possible that of the greater number of them he should not say a word,
that concerning those of whom he does speak he should deal with them
as this book does, barely mentioning the martyrdom of James, one of
the four chief Apostles; allowing Peter to slip out of the narrative
after the great meeting of the Church at Jerusalem; letting Philip
disappear without a hint of what he did thereafter; lodging Paul in
Rome and leaving him there, with no account of his subsequent work or
martyrdom? Such phenomena--and they might be largely multiplied--are
only explicable upon one hypothesis. As long as electricity streams
on the carbon point it glows and is visible, but when the current is
turned to another lamp we see no more of the bit of carbon. As long
as God uses a man the man is of interest to the writers of the
Scriptures. When God uses another one, they drop the first, and have
no more care about him, because their theme is not men and their
doings, but God's doings through men.

On us, and in us, and by us, and for us, if we are His servants,
Jesus Christ is working all through the ages. He is the Lord of
Providence, He is the King of history, in His hand is the book with
the seven seals; He sends His Spirit, and where His Spirit is He is;
and what His Spirit does He does. And thus He continues to teach and
to work from His throne in the heavens.

He continues to teach, not by the communication of new truth. That is
finished. The volume of Revelation is complete. The last word of the
divine utterances hath been spoken until that final word which shall
end Time and crumble the earth. But the application of the completed
Revelation, the unfolding of all that is wrapped in germ in it; the
growing of the seed into a tree, the realisation more completely by
individuals and communities of the principles and truths which Jesus
Christ has brought us by His life and His death--that is the work
that is going on to-day, and that will go on till the end of the
world. For the old Puritan belief is true, though the modern
rationalistic mutilations of it are false, 'God hath more light yet
to break forth'--and our modern men stop there. But what the sturdy
old Puritan said was, 'more light yet to break forth from His holy
Word.' Jesus Christ teaches the ages--through the lessons of
providence and the communication of His Spirit to His Church--to
understand what He gave the world when He was here.

In like manner He works. The foundation is laid, the healing medicine
is prepared, the cleansing element is cast into the mass of humanity;
what remains is the application and appropriation, and incorporation
in conduct, of the redeeming powers that Jesus Christ has brought.
And that work is going on, and will go on, till the end.

Now these truths of our Lord's continuous activity in teaching and
working from heaven may yield us some not unimportant lessons. What a
depth and warmth and reality the thoughts give to the Christian's
relation to Jesus Christ! We have to look back to that Cross as the
foundation of all our hope. Yes! But we have to think, not only of a
Christ who did something for us long ago in the past, and there an
end, but of a Christ who to-day lives and reigns, 'to do and to
teach' according to our necessities. What a sweetness and sacredness
such thoughts impart to all external events, which we may regard as
being the operation of His love, and as moved by the hands that were
nailed to the Cross for us, and now hold the sceptre of the universe
for the blessing of mankind! What a fountain of hope they open in
estimating future probabilities of victory for truth and goodness!
The forces of good and evil in the world seem very disproportionate,
but we forget too often to take Christ into account. It is not _we_
that have to fight against evil; at the best we are but the sword
which Christ wields, and all the power is in the hand that wields it.
Great men die, good men die; Jesus Christ is not dead. Paul was
martyred: Jesus lives; He is the anchor of our hope. We see miseries
and mysteries enough, God knows. The prospects of all good causes
seem often clouded and dark. The world has an awful power of putting
drags upon all chariots that bear blessings, and of turning to evil
every good. You cannot diffuse education, but you diffuse the taste
for rubbish and something worse, in the shape of books. No good thing
but has its shadow of evil attendant upon it. And if we had only to
estimate by visible or human forces, we might well sit down and wrap
ourselves in the sackcloth of pessimism. 'We see not yet all things
put under Him'; but 'we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour,' and
the vision that cheered the first martyr--of Christ 'standing at the
right hand of God'--is the rebuke of every fear and every gloomy
anticipation for ourselves or for the world.

What a lesson of lowliness and of diligence it gives us! The jangling
church at Corinth fought about whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas was
the man to lead the Church, and the experience has been repeated over
and over again. 'Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? but ministers by whom
ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. Be not puffed up one
against another. Be not wise in your own conceits.' You are only a
tool, only a pawn in the hand of the Great Player. If you have
anything, it is because you get it from Him. See that you use it, and
do not boast about it. Jesus Christ is the Worker, the only Worker;
the Teacher, the only Teacher. All our wisdom is derived, all our
light is enkindled. We are but the reeds through which His breath
makes music. And 'shall the axe boast itself,' either 'against' or
apart from 'Him that heweth therewith'?

III. Lastly, we note the incompleteness of each man's share in the
great work.

As I said, the book which is to tell the story of Christ's continuous
unfinished work must stop abruptly. There is no help for it. If it
was a history of Paul it would need to be wound up to an end and a
selvage put to it, but as it is the history of Christ's working, the
web is not half finished, and the shuttle stops in the middle of a
cast. The book must be incomplete, because the work of which it is
the record does not end until 'He shall have delivered up the Kingdom
to the Father, and God shall be all in all.'

So the work of each man is but a fragment of that great work. Every
man inherits unfinished tasks from his predecessors, and leaves
unfinished tasks to his successors. It is, as it used to be in the
Middle Ages, when the hands that dug the foundations, or laid the
first courses, of some great cathedral, were dead long generations
before the gilded cross was set on the apex of the needlespire, and
the glowing glass filled in to the painted windows. Enough for us, if
we lay a stone, though it be but one stone in one of the courses of
the great building.

Luke has left plenty of blank paper at the end of his second
'treatise,' on which he meant that succeeding generations should
write their partial contributions to the completed work. Dear
friends, let us see that we write our little line, as monks in their
monasteries used to keep the chronicle of the house, on which scribe
after scribe toiled at its illuminated letters with loving patience
for a little while, and then handed the pen from his dying hand to
another. What does it matter though we drop, having done but a
fragment? He gathers up the fragments into His completed work, and
the imperfect services which He enabled any of us to do will all be
represented in the perfect circle of His finished work. The Lord help
us to be faithful to the power that works in us, and to leave Him to
incorporate our fragments in His mighty whole!



THE FORTY DAYS

'To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of
the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.'--ACTS i. 3.

The forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension have
distinctly marked characteristics. They are unlike to the period
before them in many respects, but completely similar in others; they
have a preparatory character throughout; they all bear on the future
work of the disciples, and hearten them for the time when they should
be left alone.

The words of the text give us their leading features. They bring
out--

1. Their evidential value, as confirming the fact of the
Resurrection.

'He showed Himself alive after His passion by ... proofs.'

By sight, repeated, to individuals, to companies, to Mary in her
solitary sadness, to Peter the penitent, to the two on the road to
Emmaus. At all hours: in the evening when the doors were shut; in the
morning; in grey twilight; in daytime on the road. At many places--in
houses, out of doors.

The signs of true corporeity--the sight, the eating.

The signs of bodily identity,--'Reach hither thy hand.' 'He showed
them His hands and His side.'

Was this the glorified body?

The affirmative answer is usually rested on the facts that He was not
known by Mary or the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and that He
came into the upper room when the doors were shut. But the force of
these facts is broken by remembering that Mary saw nothing about Him
unlike other men, but supposed Him to be the gardener--which puts the
idea of a glorified body out of the question, and leaves us to
suppose that she was full of weeping indifference to any one.

Then as to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke carefully tells
us that the reason why they did not know Him was _in them_ and not in
Him--that it was 'because their eyes were holden,' not because His
body was changed.

And as to His coming when the doors were shut, why should not that be
like the other miracles, when 'He conveyed Himself away, a multitude
being in the place,' and when He walked on the waters?

There cannot then be anything decidedly built on these facts, and the
considerations on the other side are very strong. Surely the whole
drift of the narrative goes in the direction of representing Christ's
'glory' as beginning with His Ascension, and consequently the 'body
of His glory' as being then assumed. Further, the argument of 1 Cor.
xv. goes on the assumption that 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God,' that is, that the material corporeity is incongruous
with, and incapable of entrance into, the conditions of that future
life, and, by parity of reasoning, that the spiritual body, which is
to be conformed to the body of Christ's glory, is incongruous with,
and incapable of entrance into, the conditions of this earthly life.
As is the environment, so must be the 'body' that is at home in it.

Further, the facts of our Lord's eating and drinking after His
Resurrection are not easily reconcilable with the contention that He
was then invested with the glorified body.

We must, then, think of transfiguration, rather than of resurrection
only, as the way by which He passed into the heavens. He 'slept' but
woke, and, as He ascended, was 'changed.'

II. The renewal of the old bond by the tokens of His unchanged
disposition.

Recall the many beautiful links with the past: the message to Peter;
that to Mary; 'Tell My brethren,' 'He was known in breaking of
bread,' 'Peace be with you!' (repetition from John xvii.), the
miraculous draught of fishes, and the meal and conversation
afterwards, recalling the miracle at the beginning of the closer
association of the four Apostles of the first rank with their Lord.
The forty days revealed the old heart, the old tenderness. He
remembers all the past. He sends a message to the penitent; He renews
to the faithful the former gift of 'peace.'

How precious all this is as a revelation of the impotence of death in
regard to Him and us! It assures us of the perpetuity of His love. He
showed Himself after His passion as the same old Self, the same old
tender Lover. His appearances then prepare us for the last vision of
Him in the Apocalypse, in which we see His perpetual humanity, His
perpetual tenderness, and hear Him saying: 'I am ... the Living One,
and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore.'

These forty days assure us of the narrow limits of the power of
death. Love lives through death, memory lives through it. Christ has
lived through it and comes up from the grave, serene and tender, with
unruffled peace, with all the old tones of tenderness in the voice
that said 'Mary!' So may we be sure that through death and after it
we shall live and be ourselves. We, too, shall show ourselves alive
after we have experienced the superficial change of death.

III. The change in Christ's relations to the disciples and to the
world. 'Appearing unto them by the space of forty days.'

The words mark a contrast to Christ's former constant intercourse
with the disciples. This is occasional; He appears at intervals
during the forty days. He comes amongst them and disappears. He is
seen again in the morning light by the lake-side and goes away. He
tells them to come and meet Him in Galilee. That intermittent
presence prepared the disciples for His departure. It was painful and
educative. It carried out His own word, 'And now I am no more in the
world.'

We observe in the disciples traces of a deeper awe. They say little.
'Master!' 'My Lord and my God!' 'None durst ask Him, Who art Thou?'
Even Peter ventures only on 'Lord, Thou knowest all things,' and on
one flash of the old familiarity: 'What shall this man do?' John, who
recalls very touchingly, in that appendix to his Gospel, the blessed
time when he leaned on Jesus' breast at supper, now only humbly
follows, while the others sit still and awed, by that strange fire on
the banks of the lonely lake.

A clearer vision of the Lord on their parts, a deeper sense of who He
is, make them assume more of the attitude of worshippers, though not
less that of friends. And He can no more dwell with them, and go in
and out among them.

As for the world--'It seeth Me no more, but ye see Me.' He was 'seen
of _them_,' not of others. There is no more appeal to the people, no
more teaching, no more standing in the Temple. Why is this? Is it not
the commentary on His own word on the Cross, 'It is finished!'
marking most distinctly that His work on earth was ended when He
died, and so confirming that conception of His earthly mission which
sees its culmination and centre of power in the Cross?

IV. Instruction and prophecy for the future.

The preparation of the disciples for their future work and condition
was a chief purpose of the forty days. Jesus spoke 'of the things
pertaining to the Kingdom of God.' He also 'gave commandments to the
Apostles.'

Note how much there is, in His conversations with them--

1. Of opening to them the Scriptures. 'Christ must needs suffer,'
etc.

2. Of lessons for their future, thus fitting them for their task.

3. Mark how this transitional period taught them that His going away
was not to be sorrow and loss, but joy and gain, 'Touch Me not, for I
have not yet ascended.'

Our present relation to the ascended Lord is as much an advance on
that of the disciples to the risen Lord, as that was on their
relation to Him during His earthly life. They had more real communion
with Him when, with opened hearts, they heard Him interpret the
Scriptures concerning Himself, and fell at His feet crying 'My Lord
and my God!' though they saw Him but for short seasons and at
intervals, than when day by day they were with Him and knew Him not.
As they grew in love and ripened in knowledge, they knew Him better
and better.

For us, too, these forty days are full of blessed lessons, teaching
us that real communion with Jesus is attained by faith in Him, and
that He is still working in and for us, and is still present with us.
The joy with which the disciples saw Him ascend should live on in us
as we think of Him enthroned. The hope that the angels' message lit
up in their hearts should burn in ours. The benediction which the
Risen Lord uttered on those who have not seen and yet have believed
falls in double measure on those who, though now they see Him not,
yet believing rejoice in Jesus with joy unspeakable and full of
glory.



THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW

_A New Year's Sermon_

'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the
Father hath put in His own power.'--ACTS i. 7.

The New Testament gives little encouragement to a sentimental view of
life. Its writers had too much to do, and too much besides to think
about, for undue occupation with pensive remembrances or imaginative
forecastings. They bid us remember as a stimulus to thanksgiving and
a ground of hope. They bid us look forward, but not along the low
levels of earth and its changes. One great future is to draw all our
longings and to fix our eyes, as the tender hues of the dawn kindle
infinite yearnings in the soul of the gazer. What may come is all
hidden; we can make vague guesses, but reach nothing more certain.
Mist and cloud conceal the path in front of the portion which we are
actually traversing, but when it climbs, it comes out clear from the
fogs that hang about the flats. We can track it winding up to the
throne of Christ. Nothing is certain, but the coming of the Lord and
'our gathering together to Him.'

The words of this text in their original meaning point only to the
ignorance of the time of the end which Christ had been foretelling.
But they may allow of a much wider application, and their lessons are
in entire consonance with the whole tone of Scripture in regard to
the future. We are standing now at the beginning of a New Year, and
the influence of the season is felt in some degree by us all. Not for
the sake of repressing any wise forecasting which has for its object
our preparation for probable duties and exigencies; not for the
purpose of repressing that trustful anticipation which, building on
our past time and on God's eternity, fronts the future with calm
confidence; not for the sake of discouraging that pensive and
softened mood which if it does nothing more, at least delivers us for
a moment from the tyrannous power of the present, do we turn to these
words now; but that we may together consider how much they contain of
cheer and encouragement, of stimulus to our duty, and of calming for
our hearts in the prospect of a New Year. They teach us the limits of
our care for the future, as they give us the limits of our knowledge
of it. They teach us the best remedies for all anxiety, the great
thoughts that tranquillise us in our ignorance, viz. that all is in
God's merciful hand, and that whatever may come, we have a divine
power which will fit us for it; and they bid us anticipate our work
and do it, as the best counterpoise for all vain curiosity about what
may be coming on the earth.

I. The narrow limits of our knowledge of the future.

We are quite sure that we shall die. We are sure that a mingled web
of joy and sorrow, light shot with dark, will be unrolled before us--
but of anything more we are really ignorant. We know that certainly
the great majority of us will be alive at the close of this New Year;
but who will be the exceptions? A great many of us, especially those
of us who are in the monotonous stretch of middle life, will go on
substantially as we have been going on for years past, with our
ordinary duties, joys, sorrows, cares; but to some of us, in all
probability, this year holds some great change which may darken all
our days or brighten them. In all our forward-looking there ever
remains an element of uncertainty. The future fronts us like some
statue beneath its canvas covering. Rolling mists hide it all, except
here and there a peak.

I need not remind you how merciful and good it is that it is so.
Therefore coming sorrows do not diffuse anticipatory bitterness as of
tainted water percolating through gravel, and coming joys are not
discounted, and the present has a reality of its own, and is not
coloured by what is to come.

Then this being so--what is the wise course of conduct? Not a
confident reckoning on to-morrow. There is nothing elevating in
anticipation which paints the blank surface of the future with the
same earthly colours as dye the present. There is no more complete
waste of time than that. Nor is proud self-confidence any wiser,
which jauntily takes for granted that 'tomorrow will be as this day.'
The conceit that things are to go on as they have been fools men into
a dream of permanence which has no basis. Nor is the fearful
apprehension of evil any wiser. How many people spoil the present
gladness with thoughts of future sorrow, and cannot enjoy the
blessedness of united love for thinking of separation!

In brief, it is wise to be but little concerned with the future,
except--

1. In the way of taking reasonable precautions to prepare for its
probabilities.

2. To fit ourselves for its duties.

One future we may contemplate. Our fault is not that we look forward,
but that we do not look far enough forward. Why trouble with the
world when we have heaven? Why look along the low level among the
mists of earth and forests and swamps, when we can see the road
climbing to the heights? Why be anxious about what three hundred and
sixty-five days may bring, when we know what Eternity will bring? Why
divert our God-given faculty of hope from its true object? Why
torment ourselves with casting the fashion of uncertain evils, when
we can enter into the great peace of looking for 'that blessed Hope'?

II. The safe Hands which keep the future.

'The Father hath put in His own power.' We have not to depend upon an
impersonal Fate; nor upon a wild whirl of Chance; nor upon 'laws of
averages,' 'natural laws,' 'tendencies' and 'spirit of the age'; nor
even on a theistic Providence, but upon a Father who holds all things
'in His own power,' and wields all for us. So will not our way be
made right?

Whatever the future may bring, it will be loving, paternal
discipline. He shapes it all and keeps it in His hands. Why should we
be anxious? That great name of 'Father' binds Him to tender, wise,
disciplinary dealing, and should move us to calm and happy trust.

III. The sufficient strength to face the future.

'The power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you' is promised here to the
disciples for a specific purpose; but it is promised and given to us
all through Christ, if we will only take it. And in Him we shall be
ready for all the future.

The Spirit of God is the true Interpreter of Providence. He calms our
nature, and enlightens our understanding to grasp the meaning of all
our experiences. The Spirit makes joy more blessed, by keeping us
from undue absorption in it. The Spirit is the Comforter. The Spirit
fits us for duty.

So be quite sure that nothing will come to you in your earthly
future, which He does not Himself accompany to interpret it, and to
make it pure blessing.

IV. The practical duty in view of the future.

(a) The great thing we ought to look to in the future is our work,--
not what we shall enjoy or what we shall endure, but what we shall
do. This is healthful and calming.

(b) The great remedy for morbid anticipation lies in regarding life
as the opportunity for service. Never mind about the future, let it
take care of itself. Work! That clears away cobwebs from our brains,
as when a man wakes from troubled dreams, to hear 'the sweep of
scythe in morning dew,' and the shout of the peasant as he trudges to
his task, and the lowing of the cattle, and the clink of the hammer.

(c) The great work we have to do in the future is to be witnesses for
Christ. This is the meaning of all life; we can do it in joy and in
sorrow, and we shall bear a charmed life till it be done. So the
words of the text are a promise of preservation.

Then, dear brethren, how do you stand fronting that Unknown? How can
you face it without going mad, unless you know God and trust Him as
your Father through Christ? If you do, you need have no fear. To-
morrow lies all dim and strange before you, but His gentle and strong
hand is working in the darkness and He will shape it right. He will
fit you to bear it all. If you regard it as your supreme duty and
highest honour to be Christ's witness, you will be kept safe,
'delivered out of the mouth of the lion,' that by you 'the preaching
may be fully known.'

If not, how dreary is that future to you, 'all dim and cheerless,
like a rainy sea,' from which wild shapes may come up and devour you!
Love and friendship will pass, honour and strength will fail, life
will ebb away, and of all that once stretched before you, nothing
will be left but one little strip of sand, fast jellying with the
tide beneath your feet, and before you a wild unlighted ocean!



THE APOSTOLIC WITNESSES

'Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the
time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us ... must one
be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.'
--ACTS i. 21, 22.

The fact of Christ's Resurrection was the staple of the first
Christian sermon recorded in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
They did not deal so much in doctrine; they did not dwell very
distinctly upon what we call, and rightly call, the atoning death of
Christ; out they proclaimed what they had seen with their eyes--that
He died and rose again.

And not only was the main subject of their teaching the Resurrection,
but it was the Resurrection in one of its aspects and for one
specific purpose. There are, speaking roughly, three main connections
in which the fact of Christ's rising from the dead is viewed in
Scripture, and these three successively emerge in the consciousness
of the Early Church.

It was, first, a fact affecting Him, a testimony concerning Him,
carrying with it necessarily some great truths with regard to Him,
His character, His nature, and His work. And it was in that aspect
mainly that the earliest preachers dealt with it. Then, as reflection
and the guidance of God's good Spirit led them to understand more and
more of the treasure which lay in the fact, it came to be to them,
next, a pattern, and a pledge, and a prophecy of their own
resurrection. The doctrine of man's immortality and the future life
was evolved from it, and was felt to be implied in it. And then it
came to be, thirdly and lastly, a symbol or figure of the spiritual
resurrection and newness of life into which all they were born who
participated in His death. They knew Him first by His Resurrection;
they then knew 'the power of His Resurrection' as a pledge of their
own; and lastly, they knew it as being the pattern to which they were
to be conformed even whilst here on earth.

The words which I have read for my text are the Apostle Peter's own
description of what was the office of an Apostle--'to be a witness
with us of Christ's Resurrection.' And the statement branches out, I
think, into three considerations, to which I ask your attention now.
First, we have here the witnesses; secondly, we have the sufficiency
of their testimony; and thirdly, we have the importance of the fact
to which they bear their witness. The Apostles are testimony-bearers.
Their witness is enough to establish the fact. The fact to which they
witness is all-important for the religion and the hopes of the world.

I. First, then, the Witnesses.

Here we have the 'head of the Apostolic College,' the 'primate' of
the Twelve, on whose supposed primacy--which is certainly not a
'rock'--such tremendous claims have been built, laying down the
qualifications and the functions of an Apostle. How simply they
present themselves to his mind! The qualification is only personal
knowledge of Jesus Christ in His earthly history, because the
function is only to attest His Resurrection. Their work was to bear
witness to what they had seen with their eyes; and what was needed,
therefore, was nothing more than such familiarity with Christ as
should make them competent witnesses to the fact that He died, and to
the fact that the same Jesus who had died, and whom they knew so
well, rose again and went up to heaven.

The same conception of an Apostle's work lies in Christ's last solemn
designation of them for their office, where their whole commission is
included in the simple words, 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.' It
appears again and again in the earlier addresses reported in this
book. 'This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.'
'Whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.' 'With
great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection.' 'We are
His witnesses of these things.' To Cornelius, Peter speaks of the
Apostles as 'witnesses chosen before of God, who did eat and drink
with Him after He rose from the dead'--and whose charge, received
from Christ, was 'to testify that it is He which was ordained of God
to be the Judge of quick and dead.' Paul at Antioch speaks of the
Twelve, from whom he distinguishes himself, as being 'Christ's
witnesses to _the people_'--and seems to regard them as specially
commissioned to the Jewish nation, while he was sent to 'declare unto
you'--Gentiles--the same 'glad tidings,' in that 'God had raised up
Jesus again.' So we might go on accumulating passages, but these will
suffice.

I need not spend time in elaborating or emphasising the contrast
which the idea of the Apostolic office contained in these simple
words presents to the portentous theories of later times. I need only
remind you that, according to the Gospels, the work of the Apostles
in Christ's lifetime embraced three elements, none of which were
peculiar to them--to be with Christ, to preach, and to work miracles;
that their characteristic work after His Ascension was this of
witness-bearing; that the Church did not owe to them as a body its
extension, nor Christian doctrine its form; that whilst Peter and
James and John appear in the history, and Matthew perhaps wrote a
Gospel, and the other James and Jude are probably the authors of the
brief Epistles which bear their names--the rest of the Twelve never
appear in the subsequent history. The Acts of the Apostles is a
misnomer for Luke's second 'treatise.' It tells the work of Peter
alone among the Twelve. The Hellenists Stephen and Philip, the
Cypriote Barnabas, and the man of Tarsus--greater than them all--
these spread the name of Christ beyond the limits of the Holy City
and the chosen people. The solemn power of 'binding and loosing' was
not a prerogative of the Twelve, for we read that Jesus came where
'the _disciples_ were assembled,' and that 'the _disciples_ were glad
when they saw the Lord'; and 'He breathed on _them_, and said,
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted."'

Where in all this is there a trace of the special Apostolic powers
which have been alleged to be transmitted from them? Nowhere. Who was
it that came and said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord hath sent me that thou
mightest be filled with the Holy Ghost'? A simple 'layman'! Who was
it that stood by, a passive and astonished spectator of the
communication of spiritual gifts to Gentile converts, and could only
say, 'Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift, as He did unto
us, what was I that I could withstand God?' Peter, the leader of the
Twelve!

Their task was apparently a humbler, really a far more important one.
Their place was apparently a lowlier, really a loftier one. They had
to lay broad and deep the basis for all the growth and grace of the
Church, in the facts which they witnessed. Their work abides; and
when the Celestial City is revealed to our longing hearts, in its
foundations will be read 'the names of the twelve Apostles of the
Lamb.' Their office was testimony; and their testimony was to this
effect--'Hearken, we eleven men knew this Jesus. Some of us knew Him
when He was a boy, and lived beside that little village where He was
brought up. We were with Him for three whole years in close contact
day and night. We all of us, though we were cowards, stood afar off
with a handful of women when He was crucified. We saw Him dead. We
saw His grave. We saw Him living, and we touched Him, and handled
Him, and He ate and drank with us; and we, sinners that we are that
tell it you, we went out with Him to the top of Olivet, and we saw
Him go up into the skies. Do you believe us or do you not? We do not
come in the first place to preach doctrines. We are not thinkers or
moralists. We are plain men, telling a plain story, to the truth of
which we pledge our senses. We do not want compliments about our
spiritual elevation, or our pure morality. We do not want reverence
as possessors of mysterious and exclusive powers. We want you to
believe us as honest men, relating what we have seen. There are
eleven of us, and there are five hundred at our back, and we have all
got the one simple story to tell. It is, indeed, a gospel, a
philosophy, a theology, the reconciliation of earth and heaven, the
revelation of God to man, and of man to himself, the unveiling of the
future world, the basis of hope; but we bring it to you first as a
thing that happened upon this earth of ours, which we saw with our
eyes, and of which we are the witnesses.'

To that work there can be no successors. Some of the Apostles were
inspired to be the writers of the authoritative fountains of
religious truth; but that gift did not belong to them all, and was
not the distinctive possession of the Twelve. The power of working
miracles, and of communicating supernatural gifts, was not confined
to them, but is found exercised by other believers, as well as by a
whole 'presbytery.' And as for what was properly their task, and
their qualifications, there can be no succession, for there is
nothing to succeed to, but what cannot be transmitted--the sight of
the risen Saviour, and the witness to His Resurrection as a fact
certified by their senses.

II. The sufficiency of the testimony.

Peter regards (as does the whole New Testament, and as did Peter's
Master, when He appointed these men) the witness which he and his
fellows bore as enough to lay firm and deep the historical fact of
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The first point that I would suggest here is this: if we think of
Christianity as being mainly a set of truths--spiritual, moral,
intellectual--then, of course, the way to prove Christianity is to
show the consistency of that body of truths with one another, their
consistency with other truths, their derivation from admitted
principles, their reasonableness, their adaptation to men's nature,
the refining and elevating effects of their adoption, and so on. If
we think of Christianity, on the other hand, as being first a set of
historical facts which carry the doctrines, then the way to prove
Christianity is not to show how reasonable it is, not to show how it
has been anticipated and expected and desired, not to show how it
corresponds with men's needs and men's longings, not to show what
large and blessed results follow from its acceptance. All these are
legitimate ways of establishing principles; but the way to establish
a fact is only one--that is, to find somebody that can say, 'I know
it, for I saw it.'

And my belief is that the course of modern 'apologetics,' as they are
called--methods of defending Christianity--has followed too slavishly
the devious course of modern antagonism, and has departed from its
real stronghold when it has consented to argue the question on these
(as I take them to be) lower and less sufficing grounds. I am
thankful to adopt all that wise Christian apologists may have said in
regard to the reasonableness of Christianity; its correspondence with
men's wants, the blessings that follow from it, and so forth; but the
Gospel is first and foremost a history, and you cannot prove that a
thing has happened by showing how very desirable it is that it should
happen, how reasonable it is to expect that it should happen, what
good results would follow from believing that it has happened--all
that is irrelevant. Think of it as first a history, and then you are
shut up to the old-fashioned line of evidence, irrefragable as I take
it to be, to which all these others may afterwards be appended as
confirmatory. It is true, because sufficient eye-witnesses assert it.
It did happen, because it is commended to us by the ordinary canons
of evidence which we accept in regard to all other matters of fact.

With regard to the sufficiency of the specific evidence here, I wish
to make only one or two observations.

Suppose you yield up everything that the most craving and
unreasonable modern scepticism can demand as to the date and
authorship of these tracts that make the New Testament, we have still
left four letters of the Apostle Paul, which no one has ever denied,
which the very extremest professors of the 'higher criticism'
themselves accept. These four are the Epistles to the Romans, the
first and second to the Corinthians, and that to the Galatians. The
dates which are assigned to these four letters by any one, believer
or unbeliever, bring them within five-and-twenty years of the alleged
date of Christ's resurrection.

Then what do we find in these undeniably and admittedly genuine
letters, written a quarter of a century after the supposed fact? We
find in all of them reference to it--the distinct allegation of it.
We find in one of them that the Apostle states it as being the
substance of his preaching and of his brethren's preaching, that
'Christ died and rose again according to the Scriptures,' and that He
was seen by individuals, by multitudes, by a whole five hundred, the
greater portion of whom were living and available as witnesses when
he wrote.

And we find that side by side with this statement, there is the
reference to his own vision of the risen Saviour, which carries us up
within ten years of the alleged fact. So, then, by the evidence of
admittedly genuine documents, which are dealing with a state of
things ten years after the supposed resurrection, there was a
unanimous concurrence of belief on the part of the whole primitive
Church, so that even the heretics who said that there was no
resurrection of the dead could be argued with on the ground of their
belief in Christ's Resurrection. The whole Church with one voice
asserted it. And there were hundreds of living men ready to attest
it. It was not a handful of women who fancied they had seen Him once,
very early in the dim twilight of a spring morning--but it was half a
thousand that had beheld Him. He had been seen by them not once, but
often; not far off, but close at hand; not in one place, but in
Galilee and Jerusalem; not under one set of circumstances, but at all
hours of the day, abroad and in the house, walking and sitting,
speaking and eating, by them singly and in numbers. He had not been
seen only by excited expectants of His appearance, but by incredulous
eyes and surprised hearts, who doubted ere they worshipped, and
paused before they said, 'My Lord and my God!' They neither hoped
that He would rise, nor believed that He had risen; and the world may
be thankful that they were 'slow of heart to believe.'

Would not the testimony which can be alleged for Christ's
Resurrection be enough to guarantee any event but this? And if so,
why is it not enough to guarantee this too? If, as nobody denies, the
Early Church, within ten years of Christ's Resurrection, believed in
His Resurrection, and were ready to go, and did, many of them, go to
the death in assertion of their veracity in declaring it, then one of
two things--Either they were right or they were wrong; and if the
latter, one of two things--If the Resurrection be not a fact, then
that belief was either a delusion or a deceit.

It was not a delusion, for such an illusion is altogether unexampled;
and it is absurd to think of it as being shared by a multitude like
the Early Church. Nations have said, 'Our King is not dead--he is
gone away and he will come back.' Loving disciples have said, 'Our
Teacher lives in solitude and will return to us.' But this is no
parallel to these. This is not a fond imagination giving an apparent
substance to its own creation, but sense recognising first the fact,
'He _is_ dead,' and then, in opposition to expectation, and when hope
had sickened to despair, recognising the astounding fact, 'He liveth
that was dead'; and to suppose that that should have been the rooted
conviction of hundreds of men who were not idiots, finds no parallel
in the history of human illusions, and no analogy in such legends as
those to which I have referred.

It was not a myth, for a myth does not grow in ten years. And there
was no motive to frame one, if Christ was dead and all was over. It
was not a deceit, for the character of the men, and the character of
the associated morality, and the obvious absence of all self-
interest, and the persecutions and sorrows which they endured, make
it inconceivable that the fairest building that ever hath been reared
in the world, and which is cemented by men's blood, should be built
upon the mud and slime of a conscious deceit!

And all this we are asked to put aside at the bidding of a glaring
begging of the whole question, and an outrageous assertion which no
man that believes in a God at all can logically maintain, viz. that
no testimony can reach to the miraculous, or that miracles are
impossible.

No testimony reach to the miraculous! Well, put it into a concrete
form. Can testimony not reach to this: 'I know, because I saw, that a
man was dead; I know, because I saw, a dead man live again'? If
testimony can do that, I think we may safely leave the verbal sophism
that it cannot reach to the miraculous to take care of itself.

And, then, with regard to the other assumption--miracle is
impossible. That is an illogical begging of the whole question in
dispute. It cannot avail to brush aside testimony. You cannot smother
facts by theories in that fashion. Again, one would like to know how
it comes that our modern men of science, who protest so much against
science being corrupted by metaphysics, should commit themselves to
an assertion like that? Surely that is stark, staring metaphysics. It
seems as if they thought that the 'metaphysics' which said that there
was anything behind the physical universe was unscientific; but that
the metaphysics which said that there was nothing behind physics was
quite legitimate, and ought to be allowed to pass muster. What have
the votaries of pure physical science, who hold the barren word-
contests of theology and the proud pretensions of philosophy in such
contempt, to do out-Heroding Herod in that fashion, and venturing on
metaphysical assertions of such a sort? Let them keep to their own
line, and tell us all that crucibles and scalpels can reveal, and we
will listen as becomes us. But when they contradict their own
principles in order to deny the possibility of miracle, we need only
give them back their own words, and ask that the investigation of
facts shall not be hampered and clogged with metaphysical prejudices.
No! no! Christ made no mistake when He built His Church upon that
rock--the historical evidence of a resurrection from the dead, though
all the wise men of Areopagus hill may make its cliffs ring with
mocking laughter when we say, upon Easter morning, 'The Lord is risen
indeed!'

III. There is a final consideration connected with these words, which
I must deal with very briefly--the importance of the fact which is
thus borne witness to.

I have already pointed out that the Resurrection of Christ is viewed
in Scripture in three aspects: in its bearing upon His nature and
work, as a pattern for our future, and as a symbol of our present
newness of life. The importance to which I refer now applies only to
that first aspect.

With the Resurrection of Jesus Christ stands or falls the Divinity of
Christ. As Paul said, in that letter to which I have referred,
'Declared to be the Son of God, with power by the resurrection from
the dead.' As Peter said in the sermon that follows this one of our
text, 'God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both
Lord and Christ.' As Paul said, on Mars Hill, 'He will judge the
world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained, whereof He
hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from
the dead.'

The case is this. Jesus lived as we know, and in the course of that
life claimed to be the Son of God. He made such broad and strange
assertions as these--'I and My Father are One.' 'I am the Way, and
the Truth, and the Life.' 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.' 'He
that believeth on Me shall never die.' 'The Son of Man must suffer
many things, and the third day He shall rise again.' Thus speaking He
dies, and rises again and passes into the heavens. That is the last
mightiest utterance of the same testimony, which spake from heaven at
His baptism, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!' If
He be risen from the dead, then His loftiest claims are confirmed
from the throne, and we can see in Him, the Son of God. But if death
holds Him still, and 'the Syrian stars look down upon His grave,' as
a modern poet tells us in his dainty English that they do, then what
becomes of these words of His, and of our estimate of the character
of Him, the speaker? Let us hear no more about the pure morality of
Jesus Christ, and the beauty of His calm and lofty teaching, and the
rest of it. Take away His resurrection from the dead, and we have
left beautiful precepts, and fair wisdom, deformed with a monstrous
self-assertion and the constant reiteration of claims which the event
proves to have been baseless. Either He has risen from the dead or
His words were blasphemy. Men nowadays talk very lightly of throwing
aside the supernatural portions of the Gospel history, and retaining
reverence for the great Teacher, the pure moralist of Nazareth. The
Pharisees put the issue more coarsely and truly when they said, 'That
deceiver said, while He was yet alive, after three days I will rise
again.' Yes! one or the other. 'Declared to be the Son of God with
power by the resurrection from the dead,' or--that which our lips
refuse to say even as a hypothesis!

Still further, with the Resurrection stands or falls Christ's whole
work for our redemption. If He died, like other men--if that awful
bony hand has got its grip upon Him too, then we have no proof that
the cross was anything but a martyr's cross. His Resurrection is the
proof of His completed work of redemption. It is the proof--followed
as it is by His Ascension--that His death was not the tribute which
for Himself He had to pay, but the ransom for us. His Resurrection is
the condition of His present activity. If He has not risen, He has
not put away sin; and if He has not put it away by the sacrifice of
Himself, none has, and it remains. We come back to the old dreary
alternative: 'if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, and our
preaching is vain. Ye are yet in your sins, and they which have
fallen asleep in Christ' with unfulfilled hopes fixed upon a baseless
vision--they of whom we hoped, through our tears, that they live with
Him--they 'are perished.' For, if He be not risen, there is no
resurrection; and, if He be not risen, there is no forgiveness; and,
if He be not risen, there is no Son of God; and the world is
desolate, and the heaven is empty, and the grave is dark, and sin
abides, and death is eternal. If Christ be dead, then that awful
vision is true, 'As I looked up into the immeasurable heavens for the
Divine Eye, it froze me with an empty, bottomless eye-socket.'

There is nothing between us and darkness, despair, death, but that
ancient message, 'I declare unto you the Gospel which I preach, by
which ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that
He was raised the third day according to the Scriptures.'

Well, then, may we take up the ancient glad salutation, 'The Lord is
risen!' and, turning from these thoughts of the disaster and despair
that that awful supposition drags after it, fall back upon sober
certainty, and with the Apostle break forth in triumph, 'Now is
Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that
slept'!



THE ABIDING GIFT AND ITS TRANSITORY ACCOMPANIMENTS

'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with
one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house
where they were sitting. 3. And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4. And
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5. And there
were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation
under heaven. 6. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude
came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard
them speak in his own language. 7. And they were all amazed and
marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which
speak Galileans? 8. And how we hear every man in our own tongue,
wherein we were born? 9. Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in
Pontus, and Asia, 10. Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in
the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and
proselytes. 11. Cretes, and Arabians, we do hear them speak in
our tongues the wonderful works of God. 12. And they were all
amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth
this? 13. Others, mocking, said, These men are full of new
wine.'--ACTS ii. 1-13.

Only ten days elapsed between the Ascension and Pentecost. The
attitude of the Church during that time should be carefully noted.
They obeyed implicitly Christ's command to wait for the 'power from
on high.' The only act recorded is the election of Matthias to fill
Judas's place, and it is at least questionable whether that was not a
mistake, and shown to be such by Christ's subsequent choice of Paul
as an Apostle. But, with the exception of that one flash of doubtful
activity, prayer, supplication, patient waiting, and clinging
together in harmonious expectancy, characterised the hundred and
twenty brethren.

They must have been wrought to an intense pitch of anticipation, for
they knew that their waiting was to be short, and they knew, at least
partially, what they were to receive, namely, 'power from on high,'
or 'the promise of the Father.' Probably, too, the great Feast, so
near at hand, would appear to them a likely time for the fulfilment
of the promise.

So, very early on that day of Pentecost, they betook themselves to
their usual place of assembling, probably the 'large upper room,'
already hallowed to their memories; and in each heart the eager
question would spring, 'Will it be to-day?' It is as true now as it
was then, that the spirits into whom the Holy Spirit breathes His
power must keep themselves still, expectant, prayerful. Perpetual
occupation may be more loss of time than devout waiting, with hands
folded, because the heart is wide open to receive the power which
will fit the hands for better work.

It was but 'the third hour of the day' when Peter stood up to speak;
it must have been little after dawn when the brethren came together.
How long they had been assembled we do not know, but we cannot doubt
how they had been occupied. Many a prayer had gone up through the
morning air, and, no doubt, some voice was breathing the united
desires, when a deep, strange sound was heard at a distance, and
rapidly gained volume, and was heard to draw near. Like the roaring
of a tempest hurrying towards them, it hushed human voices, and each
man would feel, 'Surely now the Gift comes!' Nearer and nearer it
approached, and at last burst into the chamber where they sat silent
and unmoving.

But if we look carefully at Luke's words, we see that what filled the
house was not agitated air, or wind, but 'a sound as of wind.' The
language implies that there was no rush of atmosphere that lifted a
hair on any cheek, or blew on any face, but only such a sound as is
made by tempest. It suggested wind, but it was not wind. By that
first symbolic preparation for the communication of the promised
gift, the old symbolism which lies in the very word 'Spirit,' and had
been brought anew to the disciples' remembrance by Christ's words to
Nicodemus, and by His breathing on them when He gave them an
anticipatory and partial bestowment of the Spirit, is brought to
view, with its associations of life-giving power and liberty. 'Thou
hearest the sound thereof,' could scarcely fail to be remembered by
some in that chamber.

But it is not to be supposed that the audible symbol continued when
the second preparatory one, addressed to the eye, appeared. As the
former had been not wind, but like it, the latter was not fire, but
'as of fire.' The language does not answer the question whether what
was seen was a mass from which the tongues detached themselves, or
whether only the separate tongues were visible as they moved
overhead. But the final result was that 'it sat on each.' The verb
has no expressed subject, and 'fire' cannot be the subject, for it is
only introduced as a comparison. Probably, therefore, we are to
understand 'a tongue' as the unexpressed subject of the verb.

Clearly, the point of the symbol is the same as that presented in the
Baptist's promise of a baptism 'with the Holy Ghost and fire.' The
Spirit was to be in them as a Spirit of burning, thawing natural
coldness and melting hearts with a genial warmth, which should beget
flaming enthusiasm, fervent love, burning zeal, and should work
transformation into its own fiery substance. The rejoicing power, the
quick energy, the consuming force, the assimilating action of fire,
are all included in the symbol, and should all be possessed by
Christ's disciples.

But were the tongue-like shapes of the flames significant too? It is
doubtful, for, natural as is the supposition that they were, it is to
be remembered that 'tongues of fire' is a usual expression, and may
mean nothing more than the flickering shoots of flame into which a
fire necessarily parts.

But these two symbols are only symbols. The true fulfilment of the
great promise follows. Mark the brief simplicity of the quiet words
in which the greatest bestowment ever made on humanity, the beginning
of an altogether new era, the equipment of the Church for her age-
long conflict, is told. There was an actual impartation to men of a
divine life, to dwell in them and actuate them; to bring all good to
victory in them; to illuminate, sustain, direct, and elevate; to
cleanse and quicken. The gift was complete. They were 'filled.' No
doubt they had much more to receive, and they received it, as their
natures became, by faithful obedience to the indwelling Spirit,
capable of more. But up to the measure of their then capacities they
were filled; and, since their spirits were expansible, and the gift
was infinite, they were in a position to grow steadily in possession
of it, till they were 'filled with all the fulness of God.'

Further, 'they were _all_ filled,'--not the Apostles only, but the
whole hundred and twenty. Peter's quotation from Joel distinctly
implies the universality of the gift, which the 'servants and
handmaidens,' the brethren and the women, now received. Herein is the
true democracy of Christianity. There are still diversities of
operations and degrees of possession, but all Christians have the
Spirit. All 'they that believe on Him,' and only they, have received
it. Of old the light shone only on the highest peaks,--prophets, and
kings, and psalmists; now the lowest depths of the valleys are
flooded with it. Would that Christians generally believed more fully
in, and set more store by, that great gift!

As symbols preceded, tokens followed. The essential fact of Pentecost
is neither the sound and fire, nor the speaking with other tongues,
but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that
was the gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor
learned by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the
plain meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues
which their users recognised to be their own. The significance of the
fact will appear presently, but first note the attestation of it by
the multitude.

Of course, the foreign-born Jews, who, from motives of piety, however
mistaken, had come to dwell in Jerusalem, are said to have been 'from
every nation under heaven,' by an obvious and ordinary license. It is
enough that, as the subsequent catalogue shows, they came from all
corners of the then known world, though the extremes of territory
mentioned cover but a small space on a terrestrial globe.

The 'sound' of the rushing wind had been heard hurtling through the
city in the early morning hours, and had served as guide to the spot.
A curious crowd came hurrying to ascertain what this noise of tempest
in a calm meant, and they were met by something more extraordinary
still. Try to imagine the spectacle. As would appear from verse 33,
the tongues of fire remained lambently glowing on each head ('which
ye see'), and the whole hundred and twenty, thus strangely crowned,
were pouring out rapturous praises, each in some strange tongue. When
the astonished ears had become accustomed to the apparent tumult,
every man in the crowd heard some one or more speaking in his own
tongue, language, or dialect, and all were declaring the mighty works
of God; that is, probably, the story of the crucified, ascended
Jesus.

We need not dwell on subordinate questions, as to the number of
languages represented there, or as to the catalogue in verses 9 and
10. But we would emphasise two thoughts. First, the natural result of
being filled with God's Spirit is utterance of the great truths of
Christ's Gospel. As surely as light radiates, as surely as any deep
emotion demands expression, so certainly will a soul filled with the
Spirit be forced to break into speech. If professing Christians have
never known the impulse to tell of the Christ whom they have found,
their religion must be very shallow and imperfect. If their spirits
are full, they will overflow in speech.

Second, Pentecost is a prophecy of the universal proclamation of the
Gospel, and of the universal praise which shall one day rise to Him
that was slain. 'This company of brethren praising God in the tongues
of the whole world represented the whole world which shall one day
praise God in its various tongues' (Bengel). Pentecost reversed
Babel, not by bringing about a featureless monopoly, but by
consecrating diversity, and showing that each language could be
hallowed, and that each lent some new strain of music to the chorus.

It prophesied of the time when 'men of every tribe, and tongue, and
people, and nation' should lift up their voices to Him who has
purchased them unto God with His blood. It began a communication of
the Spirit to all believers which is never to cease while the world
stands. The mighty rushing sound has died into silence, the fiery
tongues rest on no heads now, the miraculous results of the gifts of
the Spirit have passed away also, but the gift remains, and the
Spirit of God abides for ever with the Church of Christ.



THE FOURFOLD SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT

'A rushing mighty wind.' ... 'Cloven tongues like as of
fire.' ... 'I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh.'
--ACTS ii. 2, 3, 17.

'Ye have an unction from the Holy One.'--1 JOHN ii. 20.

Wind, fire, water, oil,--these four are constant Scriptural symbols
for the Spirit of God. We have them all in these fragments of verses
which I have taken for my text now, and which I have isolated from
their context for the purpose of bringing out simply these symbolical
references. I think that perhaps we may get some force and freshness
to the thoughts proper to this day [Footnote: Whit Sunday.] by
looking at these rather than by treating the subject in some more
abstract form. We have then the Breath of the Spirit, the Fire of the
Spirit, the Water of the Spirit, and the Anointing Oil of the Spirit.
And the consideration of these four will bring out a great many of
the principal Scriptural ideas about the gift of the Spirit of God
which belongs to all Christian souls.

I. First, 'a rushing mighty wind.'

Of course, the symbol is but the putting into picturesque form of the
idea that lies in the name. 'Spirit' is 'breath.' Wind is but air in
motion. Breath is the synonym for life. 'Spirit' and 'life' are two
words for one thing. So then, in the symbol, the 'rushing mighty
wind,' we have set forth the highest work of the Spirit--the
communication of a new and supernatural life.

We are carried hack to that grand vision of the prophet who saw the
bones lying, very many and very dry, sapless and disintegrated, a
heap dead and ready to rot. The question comes to him: 'Son of man!
Can these bones live?' The only possible answer, if he consult
experience, is, 'O Lord God! Thou knowest.' Then follows the great
invocation: 'Come from the four winds, O Breath! and breathe upon
these slain that they may live.' And the Breath comes and 'they stand
up, an exceeding great army.' 'It is the Spirit that quickeneth.' The
Scripture treats us all as dead, being separated from God, unless we
are united to Him by faith in Jesus Christ. According to the saying
of the Evangelist, 'They which believe on Him receive' the Spirit,
and thereby receive the life which He gives, or, as our Lord Himself
speaks, are 'born of the Spirit.' The highest and most characteristic
office of the Spirit of God is to enkindle this new life, and hence
His noblest name, among the many by which He is called, is the Spirit
of life.

Again, remember, 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' If
there be life given it must be kindred with the life which is its
source. Reflect upon those profound words of our Lord: 'The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. So is every one
that is born of the Spirit.' They describe first the operation of the
life-giving Spirit, but they describe also the characteristics of the
resulting life.

'The wind bloweth where it listeth.' That spiritual life, both in the
divine source and in the human recipient, is its own law. Of course
the wind has its laws, as every physical agent has; but these are so
complicated and undiscovered that it has always been the very symbol
of freedom, and poets have spoken of these 'chartered libertines,'
the winds, and 'free as the air' has become a proverb. So that Divine
Spirit is limited by no human conditions or laws, but dispenses His
gifts in superb disregard of conventionalities and externalisms. Just
as the lower gift of what we call 'genius' is above all limits of
culture or education or position, and falls on a wool-stapler in
Stratford-on-Avon, or on a ploughman in Ayrshire, so, in a similar
manner, the altogether different gift of the divine, life-giving
Spirit follows no lines that Churches or institutions draw. It falls
upon an Augustinian monk in a convent, and he shakes Europe. It falls
upon a tinker in Bedford gaol, and he writes _Pilgrim's Progress_. It
falls upon a cobbler in Kettering, and he founds modern Christian
missions. It blows 'where it listeth,' sovereignly indifferent to the
expectations and limitations and the externalisms, even of organised
Christianity, and touching this man and that man, not arbitrarily but
according to 'the good pleasure' that is a law to itself, because it
is perfect in wisdom and in goodness.

And as thus the life-giving Spirit imparts Himself according to
higher laws than we can grasp, so in like manner the life that is
derived from it is a life which is its own law. The Christian
conscience, touched by the Spirit of God, owes allegiance to no
regulations or external commandments laid down by man. The Christian
conscience, enlightened by the Spirit of God, at its peril will take
its beliefs from any other than from that Divine Spirit. All
authority over conduct, all authority over belief is burnt up and
disappears in the presence of the grand democracy of the true
Christian principle: 'Ye are all the children of God by faith in
Jesus Christ'; and every one of you possesses the Spirit which
teaches, the Spirit which inspires, the Spirit which enlightens, the
Spirit which is the guide to all truth. So 'the wind bloweth where it
listeth,' and the voice of that Divine Quickener is,

  'Myself shall to My darling be
    Both law and impulse.'

Under the impulse derived from the Divine Spirit, the human spirit
'listeth' what is right, and is bound to follow the promptings of its
highest desires. Those men only are free as the air we breathe, who
are vitalised by the Spirit of the Lord, for 'where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there,' and there alone, 'is liberty.'

In this symbol there lies not only the thought of a life derived,
kindred with the life bestowed, and free like the life which is
given, but there lies also the idea of power. The wind which filled
the house was not only mighty but 'borne onward'--fitting type of the
strong impulse by which in olden times 'holy men spake as they were
"borne onward"' (the word is the same) 'by the Holy Ghost.' There are
diversities of operations, but it is the same breath of God, which
sometimes blows in the softest _pianissimo_ that scarcely rustles the
summer woods in the leafy month of June, and sometimes storms in wild
tempest that dashes the seas against the rocks. So this mighty life-
giving Agent moves in gentleness and yet in power, and sometimes
swells and rises almost to tempest, but is ever the impelling force
of all that is strong and true and fair in Christian hearts and
lives.

The history of the world, since that day of Pentecost, has been a
commentary upon the words of my text. With viewless, impalpable
energy, the mighty breath of God swept across the ancient world and
'laid the lofty city' of paganism 'low; even to the ground, and
brought it even to the dust.' A breath passed over the whole
civilised world, like the breath of the west wind upon the glaciers
in the spring, melting the thick-ribbed ice, and wooing forth the
flowers, and the world was made over again. In our own hearts and
lives this is the one Power that will make us strong and good. The
question is all-important for each of us, 'Have I this life, and does
it move me, as the ships are borne along by the wind?' 'As many as
are impelled by the Spirit of God, they'--_they_--'are the sons of
God.' Is that the breath that swells all the sails of your lives, and
drives you upon your course? If it be, you are Christians; if it be
not, you are not.

II. And now a word as to the second of these symbols--'Cloven tongues
as of fire'--the fire of the Spirit.

I need not do more than remind you how frequently that emblem is
employed both in the Old and in the New Testament. John the Baptist
contrasted the cold negative efficiency of his baptism, which at its
best, was but a baptism of repentance, with the quickening power of
the baptism of Him who was to follow him; when he said, 'I indeed
baptise you with water, but He that cometh after me is mightier than
I. He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' The two
words mean but one thing, the fire being the emblem of the Spirit.

You will remember, too, how our Lord Himself employs the same
metaphor when He speaks about His coming to bring fire on the earth,
and His longing to see it kindled into a beneficent blaze. In this
connection the fire is a symbol of a quick, triumphant energy, which
will transform us into its own likeness. There are two sides to that
emblem: one destructive, one creative; one wrathful, one loving.
There are the fire of love, and the fire of anger. There is the fire
of the sunshine which is the condition of life, as well as the fire
of the lightning which burns and consumes. The emblem of fire is
selected to express the work of the Spirit of God, by reason of its
leaping, triumphant, transforming energy. See, for instance, how,
when you kindle a pile of dead green-wood, the tongues of fire spring
from point to point until they have conquered the whole mass, and
turned it all into a ruddy likeness of the parent flame. And so here,
this fire of God, if it fall upon you, will burn up all your
coldness, and will make you glow with enthusiasm, working your
intellectual convictions in fire not in frost, making your creed a
living power in your lives, and kindling you into a flame of earnest
consecration.

The same idea is expressed by the common phrases of every language.
We speak of the fervour of love, the warmth of affection, the blaze
of enthusiasm, the fire of emotion, the coldness of indifference.
Christians are to be set on fire of God. If the Spirit dwell in us,
He will make us fiery like Himself, even as fire turns the wettest
green-wood into fire. We have more than enough of cold Christians who
are afraid of nothing so much as of being betrayed into warm emotion.

I believe, dear brethren, and I am bound to express the belief, that
one of the chief wants of the Christian Church of this generation,
the Christian Church of this city, the Christian Church of this
chapel, is more of the fire of God! We are all icebergs compared with
what we ought to be. Look at yourselves; never mind about your
brethren. Let each of us look at his own heart, and say whether there
is any trace in his Christianity of the power of that Spirit who is
fire. Is our religion flame or ice? Where among us are to be found
lives blazing with enthusiastic devotion and earnest love? Do not
such words sound like mockery when applied to us? Have we not to
listen to that solemn old warning that never loses its power, and,
alas! seems never to lose its appropriateness: 'Because thou art
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth.' We ought to
be like the burning beings before God's throne, the seraphim, the
spirits that blaze and serve. We ought to be like God Himself, all
aflame with love. Let us seek penitently for that Spirit of fire who
will dwell in us all if we will.

The metaphor of fire suggests also--purifying. 'The Spirit of
burning' will burn the filth out of us. That is the only way by which
a man can ever be made clean. You may wash and wash and wash with the
cold water of moral reformation, you will never get the dirt out with
it. No washing and no rubbing will ever cleanse sin. The way to purge
a soul is to do with it as they do with foul clay--thrust it into the
fire and that will burn all the blackness out of it. Get the love of
God into your hearts, and the fire of His Divine Spirit into your
spirits to melt you down, as it were, and then the scum and the dross
will come to the top, and you can skim them off. Two powers conquer
my sin: the one is the blood of Jesus Christ, which washes me from
all the guilt of the past; the other is the fiery influence of that
Divine Spirit which makes me pure and clean for all the time to come.
Pray to be kindled with the fire of God.

III. Then once more, take that other metaphor, 'I will pour out of My
Spirit.'

That implies an emblem which is very frequently used, both in the Old
and in the New Testament, viz., the Spirit as water. As our Lord said
to Nicodemus: 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' The 'water' stands in the same
relation to the 'Spirit' as the 'fire' does in the saying of John the
Baptist already referred to--that is to say, it is simply a symbol or
material emblem of the Spirit. I suppose nobody would say that there
were two baptisms spoken of by John, one of the Holy Ghost and one of
fire,--and I suppose that just in the same way, there are not two
agents of regeneration pointed at in our Lord's words, nor even two
conditions, but that the Spirit is the sole agent, and 'water' is but
a figure to express some aspect of His operations. So that there is
no reference to the water of baptism in the words, and to see such a
reference is to be led astray by sound, and out of a metaphor to
manufacture a miracle.

There are other passages where, in like manner, the Spirit is
compared to a flowing stream, such as, for instance, when our Lord
said, 'He that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water,' and when John saw a 'river of water of life proceeding
from the throne.' The expressions, too, of 'pouring out' and
'shedding forth' the Spirit, point in the same direction, and are
drawn from more than one passage of Old Testament prophecy. What,
then, is the significance of comparing that Divine Spirit with a
river of water? First, cleansing, of which I need not say any more,
because I have dealt with It in the previous part of my sermon. Then,
further, refreshing, and satisfying. Ah! dear brethren, there is only
one thing that will slake the immortal thirst in your souls. The
world will never do it; love or ambition gratified and wealth
possessed, will never do it. You will be as thirsty after you have
drunk of these streams as ever you were before. There is one spring
'of which if a man drink, he shall never thirst' with unsatisfied,
painful longings, but shall never cease to thirst with the longing
which is blessedness, because it is fruition. Our thirst can be
slaked by the deep draught of 'the river of the Water of Life, which
proceeds from the Throne of God and the Lamb.' The Spirit of God,
drunk in by my spirit, will still and satisfy my whole nature, and
with it I shall be glad. Drink of this. 'Ho! every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters!'

The Spirit is not only refreshing and satisfying, but also productive
and fertilising. In Eastern lands a rill of water is all that is
needed to make the wilderness rejoice. Turn that stream on to the
barrenness of your hearts, and fair flowers will grow that would
never grow without it. The one means of lofty and fruitful Christian
living is a deep, inward possession of the Spirit of God. The one way
to fertilise barren souls is to let that stream flood them all over,
and then the flush of green will soon come, and that which is else a
desert will 'rejoice and blossom as the rose.'

So this water will cleanse, it will satisfy and refresh, it will be
productive and will fertilise, and 'everything shall live
whithersoever that river cometh.'

IV. Then, lastly, we have the oil of the Spirit.

'Ye have an unction,' says St. John in our last text, 'from the Holy
One.' I need not remind you, I suppose, of how in the old system,
prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with consecrating oil, as
a symbol of their calling, and of their fitness for their special
offices. The reason for the use of such a symbol, I presume, would
lie in the invigorating and in the supposed, and possibly real,
health-giving effect of the use of oil in those climates. Whatever
may have been the reason for the use of oil in official anointings,
the meaning of the act was plain. It was a preparation for a specific
and distinct service. And so, when we read of the oil of the Spirit,
we are to think that it is that which fits us for being prophets,
priests, and kings, and which calls us to, because it fits us for,
these functions.

You are anointed to be prophets that you may make known Him who has
loved and saved you, and may go about the world evidently inspired to
show forth His praise, and make His name glorious. That anointing
calls and fits you to be priests, mediators between God and man,
bringing God to men, and by pleading and persuasion, and the
presentation of the truth, drawing men to God. That unction calls and
fits you to be kings, exercising authority over the little monarchy
of your own natures, and over the men round you, who will bow in
submission whenever they come in contact with a man all evidently
aflame with the love of Jesus Christ, and filled with His Spirit. The
world is hard and rude; the world is blind and stupid; the world
often fails to know its best friends and its truest benefactors; but
there is no crust of stupidity so crass and dense but that through it
there will pass the penetrating shafts of light that ray from the
face of a man who walks in fellowship with Jesus. The whole nation of
old was honoured with these sacred names. They were a kingdom of
priests; and the divine Voice said of the nation, 'Touch not Mine
anointed, and do My prophets no harm!' How much more are all
Christian men, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, made prophets,
priests, and kings to God! Alas for the difference between what they
ought to be and what they are!

And then, do not forget also that when the Scriptures speak of
Christian men as being anointed, it really speaks of them as being
Messiahs. 'Christ' means _anointed_, does it not? 'Messiah' means
_anointed_. And when we read in such a passage as that of my text,
'Ye have an unction from the Holy One,' we cannot but feel that the
words point in the same direction as the great words of our Master
Himself, 'As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.' By
authority derived, no doubt, and in a subordinate and secondary
sense, of course, we are Messiahs, anointed with that Spirit which
was given to Him, not by measure, and which has passed from Him to
us. 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.'

So, dear brethren, all these things being certainly so, what are we
to say about the present state of Christendom? What are we to say
about the present state of English Christianity, Church and Dissent
alike? Is Pentecost a vanished glory, then? Has that 'rushing mighty
wind' blown itself out, and a dead calm followed? Has that leaping
fire died down into grey ashes? Has the great river that burst out
then, like the stream from the foot of the glaciers of Mont Blanc,
full-grown in its birth, been all swallowed up in the sand, like some
of those rivers in the East? Has the oil dried in the cruse? People
tell us that Christianity is on its death-bed; and the aspect of a
great many professing Christians seems to confirm the statement. But
let us thankfully recognise that 'we are not straitened in God, but
in ourselves.' To how many of us the question might be put: 'Did you
receive the Holy Ghost when you believed?' And how many of us by our
lives answer: 'We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost.' Let us go where we can receive Him; and remember the blessed
words: 'If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him'!



PETER'S FIRST SERMON

'This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 33.
Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath
shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. 34. For David is not
ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said
unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, 35. Until I make Thy
foes Thy footstool. 36. Therefore let all the house of Israel
know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have
crucified, both Lord and Christ. 37. Now when they heard this,
they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the
rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39. For the promise is
unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40. And with many
other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves
from this untoward generation. 41. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto
them about three thousand souls. 42. And they continued
stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43. And fear came upon every
soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. 44.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45. And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all
men, as every man had need. 46. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house,
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 47.
Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord
added to the church daily such as should be saved.'
--ACTS ii. 32-47.

This passage may best be dealt with as divided into three parts: the
sharp spear-thrust of Peter's closing words (vs. 32-36), the wounded
and healed hearers (vs. 37-41), and the fair morning dawn of the
Church (vs. 42-47).

I. Peter's address begins with pointing out the fulfilment of
prophecy in the gift of the Spirit (vs. 14-21). It then declares the
Resurrection of Jesus as foretold by prophecy, and witnessed to by
the whole body of believers (vs. 22-32), and it ends by bringing
together these two facts, the gift of the Spirit and the Resurrection
and Ascension, as effect and cause, and as establishing beyond all
doubt that Jesus is the Christ of prophecy, and the Lord on whom Joel
had declared that whoever called should be saved. We now begin with
the last verse of the second part of the address.

Observe the significant alternation of the names of 'Christ' and
'Jesus' in verses 31 and 32. The former verse establishes that
prophecy had foretold the Resurrection of the Messiah, whoever he
might be; the latter asserts that 'this Jesus' has fulfilled the
prophetic conditions. That is not a thing to be argued about, but to
be attested by competent witnesses. It was presented to the multitude
on Pentecost, as it is to us, as a plain matter of fact, on which the
whole fabric of Christianity is built, and which itself securely
rests on the concordant testimony of those who knew Him alive, saw
Him dead, and were familiar with Him risen.

There is a noble ring of certitude in Peter's affirmation, and of
confidence that the testimony producible was overwhelming. Unless
Jesus had risen, there would neither have been a Pentecost nor a
Church to receive the gift. The simple fact which Peter alleged in
that first sermon, 'whereof we all are witnesses,' is still too
strong for the deniers of the Resurrection, as their many devices to
get over it prove.

But, a listener might ask, what has this witness of yours to do with
Joel's prophecy, or with this speaking with tongues? The answer
follows in the last part of the sermon. The risen Jesus has ascended
up; that is inseparable from the fact of resurrection, and is part of
our testimony. He is 'exalted by,' or, perhaps, at, 'the right hand
of God.' And that exaltation is to us the token that there He has
received from the Father the Spirit, whom He promised to send when He
left us. Therefore it is He--'this Jesus'--who has 'poured forth
this,'--this new strange gift, the tokens of which you see flaming on
each head, and hear bursting in praise from every tongue.

What triumphant emphasis is in that 'He'! Peter quotes Joel's word
'pour forth.' The prophet had said, as the mouthpiece of God, '_I_
will pour forth'; Peter unhesitatingly transfers the word to Jesus.
We must not assume in him at this stage a fully-developed
consciousness of our Lord's divine nature, but neither must we blink
the tremendous assumption which he feels warranted in making, that
the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God meant His exercising
the power which belonged to God Himself.

In verse 34, he stays for a moment to establish by prophecy that the
Ascension, of which he had for the first time spoken in verse 33, is
part of the prophetic characteristics of the Messiah. His
demonstration runs parallel with his preceding one as to the
Resurrection. He quotes Psalm cx., which he had learned to do from
his Master, and just as he had argued about the prediction of
Resurrection, that the dead Psalmist's words could not apply to
himself, and must therefore apply to the Messiah; so he concludes
that it was not 'David' who was called by Jehovah to sit as 'Lord' on
His right hand. If not David, it could only be the Messiah who was
thus invested with Lordship, and exalted as participator of the
throne of the Most High.

Then comes the final thrust of the spear, for which all the discourse
has been preparing. The Apostle rises to the full height of his great
commission, and sets the trumpet to his mouth, summoning 'all the
house of Israel,' priests, rulers, and all the people, to acknowledge
his Master. He proclaims his supreme dignity and Messiahship. He is
the 'Lord' of whom the Psalmist sang, and the prophet declared that
whoever called on His name should be saved; and He is the Christ for
whom Israel looked.

Last of all, he sets in sharp contrast what God had done with Jesus,
and what Israel had done, and the barb of his arrow lies in the last
words, 'whom ye crucified.' And this bold champion of Jesus, this
undaunted arraigner of a nation's crimes, was the man who, a few
weeks before, had quailed before a maid-servant's saucy tongue! What
made the change? Will anything but the Resurrection and Pentecost
account for the psychological transformation effected in him and the
other Apostles?

II. No wonder that 'they were pricked in their heart'! Such a thrust
must have gone deep, even where the armour of prejudice was thick.
The scene they had witnessed, and the fiery words of explanation,
taken together, produced incipient conviction, and the conviction
produced alarm. How surely does the first glimpse of Jesus as Christ
and Lord set conscience to work! The question, 'What shall we do?' is
the beginning of conversion. The acknowledgment of Jesus which does
not lead to it is shallow and worthless. The most orthodox accepter,
so far as intellect goes, of the gospel, who has not been driven by
it to ask his own duty in regard to it, and what he is to do to
receive its benefits, and to escape from his sins, has not accepted
it at all.

Peter's answer lays down two conditions: repentance and baptism. The
former is often taken in too narrow a sense as meaning sorrow for
sin, whereas it means a change of disposition or mind, which will be
accompanied, no doubt, with 'godly sorrow,' but is in itself deeper
than sorrow, and is the turning away of heart and will from past love
and practice of evil. The second, baptism, is 'in the name of Jesus
Christ,' or more accurately, '_upon_ the name,'--that is, on the
ground of the revealed character of Jesus. That necessarily implies
faith in that Name; for, without such faith, the baptism would not be
on the ground of the Name. The two things are regarded as
inseparable, being the inside and the outside of the Christian
discipleship. Repentance, faith, baptism, these three, are called for
by Peter.

But 'remission of sins' is not attached to the immediately preceding
clause, so as that baptism is said to secure remission, but to the
whole of what goes before in the sentence. Obedience to the
requirements would bring the same gift to the obedient as the
disciples had received; for it would make them disciples also. But,
while repentance and baptism which presupposed faith were the normal,
precedent conditions of the Spirit's bestowal, the case of Cornelius,
where the Spirit was given before baptism, forbids the attempt to
link the rite and the divine gift more closely together.

The Apostle was eager to share the gift. The more we have of the
Spirit, the more shall we desire that others may have Him, and the
more sure shall we be that He is meant for all. So Peter went on to
base his assurance, that his hearers might all possess the Spirit, on
the universal destination of the promise. Joel had said, 'on all
flesh'; Peter declares that word to point downwards through all
generations, and outwards to all nations. How swiftly had he grown in
grasp of the sweep of Christ's work! How far beneath that moment of
illumination some of his subsequent actions fell!

We have only a summary of his exhortations, the gist of which was
earnest warning to separate from the fate of the nation by separating
in will and mind from its sins. Swift conviction followed the Spirit-
given words, as it ever will do when the speaker is filled with the
Holy Spirit, and has therefore a tongue of fire. Three thousand new
disciples were made that day, and though there must have been many
superficial adherents, and none with much knowledge, it is perhaps
not fanciful to see in Luke's speaking of them as 'souls' a hint
that, in general, the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah was deep and
real. Not only were three thousand 'names' added to the hundred and
twenty, but three thousand souls.

III. The fair picture of the morning brightness, so soon overclouded,
so long lost, follows. First, the narrative tells how the raw
converts were incorporated in the community, and assimilated to its
character. They, too, 'continued steadfastly' (Acts i. 14). Note the
four points enumerated: 'teaching,' which would be principally
instruction in the life of Jesus and His Messianic dignity, as proved
by prophecy; 'fellowship,' which implies community of disposition and
oneness of heart manifested in outward association; 'breaking of
bread,'--that is, the observance of the Lord's Supper; and 'the
prayers,' which were the very life-breath of the infant Church (i.
14). Thus oneness in faith and in love, participation in the memorial
feast and in devotional acts bound the new converts to the original
believers, and trained them towards maturity. These are still the
methods by which a sudden influx of converts is best dealt with, and
babes in Christ nurtured to full growth. Alas! that so often churches
do not know what to do with novices when they come in numbers.

A wider view of the state of the community as a whole closes the
chapter. It is the first of several landing-places, as it were, on
which Luke pauses to sum up an epoch. A reverent awe laid hold of the
popular mind, which was increased by the miraculous powers of the
Apostles. The Church will produce that impression on the world in
proportion as it is manifestly filled with the Spirit. Do we? The so-
called community of goods was not imposed by commandment, as is plain
from Peter's recognition of Ananias' right to do as he chose with his
property. The facts that Mark's mother, Mary, had a house of her own,
and that Barnabas, her relative, is specially signalised as having
sold his property, prove that it was not universal. It was an
irrepressible outcrop of the brotherly feeling that filled all
hearts. Christ has not come to lay down laws, but to give impulses.
Compelled communism is not the repetition of that oneness of sympathy
which effloresced in the bright flower of this common possession of
individual goods. But neither is the closed purse, closed because the
heart is shut, which puts to shame so much profession of brotherhood,
justified because the liberality of the primitive disciples was not
by constraint nor of obligation, but willing and spontaneous.

Verses 46 and 47 add an outline of the beautiful daily life of the
community, which was, like their liberality, the outcome of the
feeling of brotherhood, intensified by the sense of the gulf between
them and the crooked generation from which they had separated
themselves. Luke shows it on two sides. Though they had separated
from the nation, they clung to the Temple services, as they continued
to do till the end. They had not come to clear consciousness of all
that was involved in their discipleship, It was not God's will that
the new spirit should violently break with the old letter.
Convulsions are not His way, except as second-best. The disciples had
to stay within the fold of Israel, if they were to influence Israel.
The time of outward parting between the Temple and the Church was far
ahead yet.

But the truest life of the infant Church was not nourished in the
Temple, but in the privacy of their homes. They were one family, and
lived as such. Their 'breaking bread at home' includes both their
ordinary meals and the Lord's Supper; for in these first days every
meal, at least the evening meal of every day, was hallowed by having
the Supper as a part of it. Each meal was thus a religious act, a
token of brotherhood, and accompanied with praise. Surely _then_ 'men
did eat angels' food,' and on platter and cup was written 'Holiness
to the Lord.' The ideal of human fellowship was realised, though but
for a moment, and on a small scale. It was inevitable that
divergences should arise, but it was not inevitable that the Church
should depart so far from the brief brightness of its dawn. Still the
sweet concordant brotherhood of these morning hours witnesses what
Christian love can do, and prophesies what shall yet be and shall not
pass.

No wonder that such a Church won favour with all the people! We hear
nothing of its evangelising activity, but its life was such that,
without recorded speech, multitudes were drawn into so sweet a
fellowship. If we were like the Pentecostal Christians, we should
attract wearied souls out of the world's Babel into the calm home
where love and brotherhood reigned, and God would 'add' to _us_ 'day
by day those that were being saved.'



THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME

'Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God
hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and
Christ.'--ACTS ii. 36.

It is no part of my purpose at this time to consider the special
circumstances under which these words were spoken, nor even to enter
upon an exposition of their whole scope. I select them for one
reason, the occurrence in them of the three names by which we
designate our Saviour--Jesus, Lord, Christ. To us they are very
little more than three proper names; they were very different to
these men who listened to the characteristically vehement discourse
of the Apostle Peter. It wanted some courage to stand up at Pentecost
and proclaim on the housetop what he had spoken in the ear long ago,
'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!' To most of his
listeners to say 'Jesus is the Christ' was folly, and to say 'Jesus
is the Lord' was blasphemy.

The three names are names of the same Person, but they proclaim
altogether different aspects of His work and His character. The name
'Jesus' is the name of the Man, and brings to us a Brother; the name
'Christ' is the name of office, and brings to us a Redeemer; the name
'Lord' is the name of dignity, and brings to us a King.

I. First, then, the name Jesus is the name of the Man, and tells us
of a Brother.

There were many men in Palestine who bore the name of 'Jesus' when He
bore it. We find that one of the early Christians had it; and it
comes upon us with almost a shock when we read that 'Jesus, called
Justus,' was the name of one of the friends of the Apostle Paul (Col.
iv. 11). But, through reverence on the part of Christians, and
through horror on the part of Jews, the name ceased to be a common
one; and its disappearance from familiar use has hid from us the fact
of its common employment at the time when our Lord bore it. Though it
was given to Him as indicative of His office of saving His people
from their sins, yet none of all the crowds who knew Him as Jesus of
Nazareth supposed that in His name there was any greater significance
than in those of the 'Simons,' 'Johns,' and 'Judahs' in the circle of
His disciples.

Now the use of Jesus as the proper name of our Lord is very
noticeable. In the Gospels, as a rule, it stands alone hundreds of
times, whilst in combination with any other of the titles it is rare.
'Jesus Christ,' for instance, only occurs, if I count aright, twice
in Matthew, once in Mark, twice in John. But if you turn to the
Epistles and the latter books of the Scriptures, the proportions are
reversed. There you have a number of instances of the occurrence of
such combinations as 'Jesus Christ,' 'Christ Jesus,' 'The Lord
Jesus,' 'Christ the Lord,' and more rarely the full solemn title,
'The Lord Jesus Christ,' but the occurrence of the proper name
'Jesus' alone is the exception. So far as I know, there are only some
thirty or forty instances of its use singly in the whole of the books
of the New Testament outside of the four Evangelists. The occasions
where it is used are all of them occasions in which one may see that
the writer's intention is to put strong emphasis, for some reason or
other, on the Manhood of our Lord Jesus, and to assert, as broadly as
may be, His entire participation with us in the common conditions of
our human nature, corporeal and mental.

And I think I shall best bring out the meaning and worth of the name
by putting a few of these instances before you.

For example, more than once we find phrases like these: 'we believe
that _Jesus_ died,' 'having therefore boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of _Jesus_,' and the like--which emphasise His
death as the death of a man like ourselves, and bring us close to the
historical reality of His human pains and agonies for us. '_Christ_
died' is a statement which makes the purpose and efficacy of His
death more plain, but '_Jesus_ died' shows us His death as not only
the work of the appointed Messiah, but as the act of our brother man,
the outcome of His human love, and never rightly to be understood if
His work be thought of apart from His personality.

There is brought into view, too, prominently, the side of Christ's
sufferings which we are all apt to forget--the common human side of
His agonies and His pains. I know that a certain school of preachers,
and some unctuous religious hymns, and other forms of composition,
dwell, a great deal too much for reverence, upon the mere physical
aspect of Christ's sufferings. But the temptation, I believe, with
most of us is to dwell too little upon that,--to argue about the
death of Christ, to think about it as a matter of speculation, to
regard it as a mysterious power, to look upon it as an official act
of the Messiah who was sent into the world for us; and to forget that
He bore a manhood like our own, a body that was impatient of pains
and wounds and sufferings, and a human life which, like all human
lives, naturally recoiled and shrank from the agony of death.

And whilst, therefore, the great message, 'It is Christ that died,'
is ever to be pondered, we have also to think with sympathy and
gratitude on the homelier representation coming nearer to our hearts,
which proclaims that 'Jesus died.' Let us not forget the Brother's
manhood that had to agonise and to suffer and to die as the price of
our salvation.

Again, when the Scripture would set our Lord before us, as in His
humanity, our pattern and example, it sometimes uses this name, in
order to give emphasis to the thought of His Manhood--as, for
example, in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'looking unto
Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith.' That is to say--a mighty
stimulus to all brave perseverance in our efforts after higher
Christian nobleness lies in the vivid and constant realisation of the
true manhood of our Lord, as the type of all goodness, as having
Himself lived by faith, and that in a perfect degree and manner. We
are to turn away our eyes from contemplating all other lives and
motives, and to 'look off' from them to Him. In all our struggles let
us think of Him. Do not take poor human creatures for your ideal of
excellence, nor tune your harps to their keynotes. To imitate men is
degradation, and is sure to lead to deformity. None of them, is a
safe guide. Black veins are in the purest marble, and flaws in the
most lustrous diamonds. But to imitate Jesus is freedom, and to be
like Him is perfection. Our code of morals is His life. He is the
Ideal incarnate. The secret of all progress is, 'Run--looking unto
Jesus.'

Then, again, we have His manhood emphasised when His sympathy is to
be commended to our hearts. 'The great High Priest, who is passed
into the heavens' is '_Jesus_' ... 'who was in all points tempted
like as we are.' To every sorrowing soul, to all men burdened with
heavy tasks, unwelcome duties, pains and sorrows of the imagination,
or of the heart, or of memory, or of physical life, or of
circumstances--to all there comes the thought, 'Every ill that flesh
is heir to' He knows by experience, and in the Man Jesus we find not
only the pity of a God, but the sympathy of a Brother.

When one of our princes goes for an afternoon into the slums in East
London, everybody says, and says deservedly, 'right!' and 'princely!'
_This_ prince has learned pity in 'the huts where poor men lie,' and
knows by experience all their squalor and misery. The Man Jesus is
the sympathetic Priest. The Rabbis, who did not usually see very far
into the depth of things, yet caught a wonderful glimpse when they
said: 'Messias will be found sitting outside the gate of the city
_amongst the lepers_.' That _is_ where He sits; and the perfectness
of His sympathy, and the completeness of His identification of
Himself with all our tears and our sorrows, are taught us when we
read that our High Priest is not merely Christ the Official, but
Jesus the Man.

And then we find such words as these: 'If we believe that _Jesus_
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God
bring with Him': I think any one that reads with sympathy must feel
how very much closer to our hearts that consolation comes, 'Jesus
rose again,' than even the mighty word which the Apostle uses on
another occasion, 'Christ is risen from the dead.' The one tells us
of the risen Redeemer, the other tells us of the risen Brother. And
wherever there are sorrowing souls, enduring loss and following their
dear ones into the darkness with yearning hearts, they are comforted
when they feel that the beloved dead lie down beside their Brother,
and with their Brother they shall rise again.

So, again, most strikingly, and yet somewhat singularly, in the words
of Scripture which paint most loftily the exaltation of the risen
Saviour to the right hand of God, and His wielding of absolute power
and authority, it is the old human name that is used; as if the
writers would bind together the humiliation and the exaltation, and
were holding up hands of wonder at the thought that a Man had risen
thus to the Throne of the Universe. What an emphasis and glow of hope
there is in such words as these: 'We see not yet all things put under
Him, but we see _Jesus_'--the very Man that was here with us--
'crowned with glory and honour.' So in the Book of the Revelation the
chosen name for Him who sits amidst the glories of the heavens, and
settles the destinies of the universe, and orders the course of
history, is Jesus. As if the Apostle would assure us that the face
which looked down upon him from amidst the blaze of the glory was
indeed the face that he knew long ago upon earth, and the breast that
'was girded with a golden girdle' was the breast upon which he so
often had leaned his happy head.

So the ties that bind us to the Man Jesus should be the human bonds
that knit us to one another, transferred to Him and purified and
strengthened. All that we have failed to find in men we can find in
Him. Human wisdom has its limits, but here is a Man whose word is
truth, who is Himself the truth. Human love is sometimes hollow,
often impotent; it looks down upon us, as a great thinker has said,
like the Venus of Milo, that lovely statue, smiling in pity, but it
has no arms. But here is a love that is mighty to help, and on which
we can rely without disappointment or loss. Human excellence is
always limited and imperfect, but here is One whom we may imitate and
be pure. So let us do like that poor woman in the Gospel story--bring
our precious alabaster box of ointment--the love of these hearts of
ours, which is the most precious thing we have to give. The box of
ointment that we have so often squandered upon unworthy heads--let us
come and pour it upon His, not unmingled with our tears, and anoint
Him, our beloved and our King. This Man has loved each of us with a
brother's heart; let us love Him with all our hearts.

II. So much for the first name. The second--'Christ'--is the name of
office, and brings to us a Redeemer.

I need not dwell at any length upon the original significance and
force of the name; it is familiar, of course, to us all. It stands as
a transference into Greek of the Hebrew Messias; the one and the
other meaning, as we all know, the 'Anointed.' But what is the
meaning of claiming for Jesus that He is anointed? A sentence will
answer the question. It means that He fulfils all which the inspired
imagination of the great ones of the past had seen in that dim Figure
that rose before prophet and psalmist. It means that He is anointed
or inspired by the divine indwelling to be Prophet, Priest, and King
all over the world. It means that He is--though the belief had faded
away from the minds of His generation--a sufferer whilst a Prince,
and appointed to 'turn away unrighteousness' from the world, and not
from 'Jacob' only, by a sacrifice and a death.

I cannot see less in the contents of the Jewish idea, the prophetic
idea, of the Messias, than these points: divine inspiration or
anointing; a sufferer who is to redeem; the fulfiller of all the
rapturous visions of psalmist and of prophet in the past.

And so, when Peter stood up amongst that congregation of wondering
strangers and scowling Pharisees, and said, 'The Man that died on the
Cross, the Rabbi-peasant from half-heathen Galilee, is the Person to
whom Law and Prophets have been pointing,'--no wonder that no one
believed him except those whose hearts were touched, for it is never
possible for the common mind, at any epoch, to believe that a man who
stands beside them is very much bigger than themselves. Great men
have always to die, and get a halo of distance around them, before
their true stature can be seen.

And now two remarks are all I can afford myself upon this point, and
one is this: the hearty recognition of His Messiahship is the centre
of all discipleship. The earliest and the simplest Christian creed,
which yet--like the little brown roll in which the infant beech-
leaves lie folded up--contains in itself all the rest, was this:
'Jesus is Christ.' Although it is no part of my business to say how
much imperfection and confusion of head comprehension may co-exist
with a heart acceptance of Jesus that saves a soul from sin, yet I
cannot in faithfulness to my own convictions conceal my belief that
he who contents himself with 'Jesus' and does not grasp 'Christ' has
cast away the most valuable and characteristic part of the
Christianity which he professes. Surely a most simple inference is
that a _Christian_ is at least a man who recognises the Christship of
Jesus. And I press that upon you, my friends. It is not enough for
the sustenance of your own souls and for the cultivation of a
vigorous religious life that men should admire, howsoever profoundly
and deeply, the humanity of the Lord unless that humanity leads them
on to see the office of the Messiah to whom their whole hearts
cleave. 'Jesus is the Christ' is the minimum Christian creed.

And then, still further, let me remind you how the recognition of
Jesus as Christ is essential to giving its full value to the facts of
the manhood. 'Jesus died!' Yes. What then? What is that to me? Is
that all that I have to say? If His is simply a human death, like all
others, I want to know what makes the story of it a Gospel. I want to
know what more interest I have in it than I have in the death of
Socrates, or in the death of any man or woman whose name was in the
obituary column of yesterday's newspaper. 'Jesus died.' That is a
fact. What is wanted to turn the fact into a gospel? That I shall
know who it was that died, and why He died. 'I declare unto you the
gospel which I preach,' Paul says, 'how that _Christ_ died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures.' The belief that the death of
Jesus was the death of the Christ is needful in order that it shall
be the means of my deliverance from the burden of sin. If it be only
the death of Jesus, it is beautiful, pathetic, as many another
martyr's has been, but if it be the death of Christ, then 'my faith
can lay her hand' on that great Sacrifice 'and know her guilt was
there.'

So in regard to His perfect example. If we only see His manhood when
we are 'looking unto Jesus,' the contemplation of His perfection
would be as paralysing as spectacles of supreme excellence usually
are. But when we can say, '_Christ_ also suffered for us, leaving us
an example,' and so can deepen the thought of His Manhood into that
of His Messiahship, and the conception of His work as example into
that of His work as sacrifice, we can hope that His divine power will
dwell in us to mould our lives to the likeness of His human life of
perfect obedience.

So in regard to His Resurrection and glorious Ascension to the right
hand of God. We have not only to think of the solitary man raised
from the grave and caught up to the throne. If it were only 'Jesus'
who rose and ascended, His Resurrection and Ascension might be as
much to us as the raising of Lazarus, or the rapture of Elijah--
namely, a demonstration that death did not destroy conscious being,
and that a man could rise to heaven; but they would be no more. But
if '_Christ_ is risen from the dead,' He is 'become the first-fruits
of them that slept.' If _Jesus_ has gone up on high, others may or
may not follow in His train. He may show that manhood is not
incapable of elevation to heaven, but has no power to draw others up
after Him. But if _Christ_ is gone up, He is gone to prepare a place
for us, not to fill a solitary throne, and His Ascension is the
assurance that He will lift us too to dwell with Him and share His
triumph over death and sin.

Most of the blessedness and beauty of His Example, all the mystery
and meaning of His Death, and all the power of His Resurrection,
depend on the fact that 'it is _Christ_ that died, yea rather, that
is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.'

III. 'The Lord' is the name of dignity and brings before us the King.

There are three grades, so to speak, of dignity expressed by this one
word 'Lord' in the New Testament. The lowest is that in which it is
almost the equivalent of our own English title of respectful
courtesy, 'Sir,' in which sense it is often used in the Gospels, and
applied to our Lord as to many other of the persons there. The second
is that in which it expresses dignity and authority--and in that
sense it is frequently applied to Christ. The third and highest is
that in which it is the equivalent of the Old Testament 'Lord,' as a
divine name; in which sense also it is applied to Christ in the New
Testament.

The first and last of these may be left out of consideration now: the
central one is the meaning of the word here. I have only time to
touch upon two thoughts--to connect this name of dignity first with
one and then with the other of the two names that we have already
considered.

Jesus is Lord, that is to say, wonderful as it is, His manhood is
exalted to supreme dignity. It is the teaching of the New Testament,
that in Jesus, the Child of Mary, our nature sits on the throne of
the universe and rules over all things. Those rude herdsmen, brothers
of Joseph, who came into Pharaoh's palace--strange contrast to their
tents!--there found their brother ruling over that ancient and highly
civilised land! We have the Man Jesus for the Lord over all. Trust
His dominion and rejoice in His rule, and bow before His authority.
Jesus is Lord.

Christ is Lord. That is to say: His sovereign authority and dominion
are built upon the fact of His being Deliverer, Redeemer, Sacrifice.
His Kingdom is a Kingdom that rests upon His suffering. 'Wherefore
God also hath exalted Him, and given Him a Name that is above every
name.'

It is because He wears a vesture dipped in blood, that 'on the
vesture is the name written "King of kings, and Lord of lords."' It
is 'because He shall deliver the needy when he crieth,' as the
prophetic psalm has it, that 'all kings shall fall down before Him
and all nations shall serve Him.' Because He has given His life for
the world He is the Master of the World. His humanity is raised to
the throne because His humanity stooped to the cross. As long as
men's hearts can be touched by absolute unselfish surrender, and as
long as they can know the blessedness of responsive surrender, so
long will He who gave Himself for the world be the Sovereign of the
world, and the First-born from the dead be the Prince of all the
kings of the earth.

And so, dear friends, our thoughts to-day all point to this lesson--
do not you content yourselves with a maimed Christ. Do not tarry in
the Manhood; do not think it enough to cherish reverence for the
nobility of His soul, the gentle wisdom of His words, the beauty of
His character, the tenderness of His compassion. All these will be
insufficient for your needs. There is more in His mission than these
--even His death for you and for all men. Take Him for your Christ,
but do not lose the Person in the Work, any more than you lose the
work in the Person. And be not content with an intellectual
recognition of Him, but bring Him the faith which cleaves to Him and
His work as its only hope and peace, and the love which, because of
His work as Christ, flows out to the beloved Person who has done it
all. Thus loving Jesus and trusting Christ, you will bring obedience
to your Lord and homage to your King, and learn the sweetness and
power of 'the name that is above every name'--the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ.

May we all be able, with clear and unfaltering conviction of our
understandings and loving affiance of our whole souls, to repeat as
our own the grand words in which so many centuries have proclaimed
their faith--words which shed a spell of peacefulness over stormy
lives, and fling a great light of hope into the black jaws of the
grave: 'I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord!'



A FOURFOLD CORD

'And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and
fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.'
--ACTS ii. 42.

The Early Church was not a pattern for us, and the idea of its
greatly superior purity is very largely a delusion. But still, though
that be true, the occasional glimpses that we get at intervals in the
early chapters of this Book of the Acts of the Apostles do present a
very instructive and beautiful picture of what a Christian society
may be, and therefore of what Christian Churches and Christian
individuals ought to be.

The words that I have read, however, are not the description of the
demeanour of the whole community, but of that portion of it which had
been added so swiftly to the original nucleus on the Day of
Pentecost. Think, on the morning of that day 'the number of the names
was one hundred and twenty,' on the evening of that day it was three
thousand over that number--a sufficiently swift and large increase to
have swamped the original nucleus, unless there had been a great
power of assimilation to itself lodged in that little body. These new
converts held to the Apostolic 'doctrine' and 'fellowship,' and to
'breaking of bread' and to 'prayers,' and so became homogeneous with
the others, and all worked to one end.

Now, these four points which are signalised in this description may
well afford us material for consideration. They give us the ideal of
a Church's inner life, which in the divine order should precede, and
be the basis of, a Church's work in the world. But, while we speak of
an ideal for a Church, let us not forget that it is realised only by
the lives of individuals being conformed to it.

I. The first point, which is fundamental to all the others, is 'They
continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine.'

An earnest desire after fuller knowledge is the basis of all healthy
Christian life. We cannot realise, without a great effort, the
ignorance of these new converts. 'Parthians and Medes and Elamites,'
and Jews gathered from every corner of the Roman world, they had come
up to Jerusalem, and the bulk of them knew no more about Christ and
Christianity than what they picked up out of Peter's sermon on the
Day of Pentecost. But that was enough to change their hearts and
their wills and to lead them to a real faith. And though the
_contents_ of their faith were very incomplete, the _power_ of their
faith was very great. For there is no necessary connection between
the amount believed and the grasp with which it is held. Believing,
they were eager for more light to be poured on to their half-seeing
eyes. They had no Gospels, they had no written record, they had no
means of learning anything about the faith which they were now
professing except listening to one or other of the original Eleven,
with the addition of any of the other 'old disciples'--that is,
_early_ disciples--who might perchance have equal claims to be
listened to as 'witnesses from the beginning.' We shall very much
misunderstand the meaning of the words here, if we suppose that these
novices were dosed with theological instruction, or that 'the
Apostles' doctrine' consisted of such fully developed truths as we
find later on in Paul's writings. If you will look at the first
sermons that Peter is recorded as having delivered, in the early
chapters of the Acts, you will find that he by no means enunciates a
definite theology such as he unfolds in his later Epistle. There is
no word about the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; His designation
is 'Thy holy child Jesus.' There is no word about the atoning nature
of Christ's sacrifice; His death is simply the great crime of the
Jewish people, and His Resurrection the great divine fact witnessing
to the truth of His Messiahship. All that which we now regard, and
rightly regard, as the very centre and living focus of divine truth
was but beginning to shine out on the Apostles' minds, or rather to
gather itself into form, and to shape itself by slow degrees into
propositions. 'The Apostles' teaching'--for 'doctrine' does not
convey to modern ears what Luke meant by the word--must have been
very largely, if not exclusively, of the same kind as is preserved to
us in the four Gospels, and especially in the first three of them.
The recital to these listeners, to whom it was all so fresh and
strange and transcendent, of the story that has become worn and
commonplace to us by its familiarity, of Christ in His birth, Christ
in His gentleness, Christ in His deeds, Christ in the deep words that
the Apostles were only beginning to understand; Christ in His Death,
Resurrection, and Ascension--these were the themes on the narration
of which this company of three thousand waited with such eagerness.

But, of course, there was necessarily involved in the story a certain
amount of what we now call doctrine--that is, theological teaching--
because one cannot tell the story of Jesus Christ, as it is told in
the four Gospels, without impressing upon the hearers the conviction
that His nature was divine and that His death was a sacrifice. Beyond
these truths we know not how far the Apostles went. To these,
perhaps, they did not at first rise. But whether they did so or no,
and although the facts that the hearers were thus eager to receive,
and treasured when they received, are the commonplaces of our Sunday-
schools, and quite uninteresting to many of us, the spirit which
marked these early converts is the spirit that must lie at the
foundation of progressive and healthy Christianity in us. The
consciousness of our own ignorance, of the great sweep of God's
revealed mind and will, the eager desire to fill up the gaps in the
circle, and to widen the diameter, of our knowledge, and the
consequent steadfastness and persistence of our continuance in the
teachings--far fuller and deeper and richer and nobler than were
heard in the upper room at Jerusalem by the first three thousand--
which, through the divine Spirit and the experience of the Church for
nineteen hundred years are available for us, ought to characterise us
all.

Now, dear friends, ask yourselves the question very earnestly, Does
this desire of fuller Christian knowledge at all mark my Christian
character, and does it practically influence my Christian conduct and
life? There are thousands of men and women in all our churches who
know no more about the rich revelation of God in Jesus Christ than
they did on that day long, long ago, when first they began to
apprehend that He was the Saviour of their souls. When I sometimes
get glimpses into the utter Biblical ignorance of educated members of
my own and of other congregations, I am appalled; I do not wonder how
we ministers do so little by our preaching, when the minds of the
people to whom we speak are so largely in such a chaotic state in
reference to Scriptural truth. I believe that there is an intolerance
of plain, sober, instructive Christian teaching from the pulpit,
which is one of the worst signs of the Christianity of this
generation. And I believe that there are a terribly large number of
professing Christians, and good people after a fashion, whose Bibles
are as clean to-day, except on one or two favourite pages, as they
were when they came out of the bookseller's shop years and years ago.
You will never be strong Christians, you will never be happy ones,
until you make conscience of the study of God's Word and 'continue
steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching.' You may produce plenty of
emotional Christianity, and of busy and sometimes fussy work without
it, but you will not get depth. I sometimes think that the complaint
of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews might be turned upside
down nowadays. He says: 'When for the time ye ought to be teachers,
ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles.'
Nowadays we might say in Sunday-schools and other places of church
work: 'When for the time ye ought to be _learners_, you have taken to
teaching before you know what you are teaching, and so neither you
nor your scholars will profit much.' The vase should be full before
you begin to empty it.

Again, there ought to be, and we ought to aim after, an equable
temper of mutual brotherhood conquering selfishness.

'They continued in the Apostles' doctrine and in fellowship.'
'Fellowship' here, as I take it, applies to community of feeling. A
verse or two afterwards it is applied to community of goods, but we
have nothing to do with that subject at present. What is meant is
that these three thousand, as was most natural, cut off altogether
from their ancient associations, finding themselves at once separated
by a great gulf from their nation and its hopes and its religion,
were driven together as sheep are when wolves are prowling around.
And, being individually weak, they held on by one another, so that
many weaknesses might make a strength, and glimmering embers raked
together might break into a flame.

Now, all these circumstances, or almost all of them, that drove the
primitive believers together, are at an end, and the tendencies of
this day are rather to drive Christian people apart than to draw them
together. Differences of position, occupation, culture, ways of
looking at things, views of Christian truth and the like, all come
powerfully in to the reinforcement of the natural selfishness which
tempts us all, unless the grace of God overcomes it. Although we do
not want any hysterical or histrionic presentation of Christian
sympathy and brotherhood, we do need--far more than any of us have
awakened to the consciousness of the need--for the health of our own
souls we need to make definite efforts to cultivate more of that
sense of Christian brotherhood with all that hold the same Lord
Christ, and to realise this truth: that they and we, however
separate, are nearer one another than are we and those nearest to us
who do not share in our Christian faith.

I do not dwell upon this point. It is one on which it is easy to
gush, and it has got a bad name because there has been so much unreal
and sickly talk about it. But if any Christian man will honestly try
to cultivate the brotherly feeling which my text suggests, and to
which our common relation to Jesus Christ binds us, and will try it
in reference to _A_, _B_, or _C_, whom he does not much like, with
whose ways he has no kind of sympathy, whom he believes to be a
heretic, and who perhaps returns the belief about him with interest,
he will find it is a pretty sharp test of his Christian principle.
Let us be real, at any rate, and not pretend to have more love than
we really have in our hearts. And let us remember that 'he that
loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.'

II. Another characteristic which comes out in the words before us is
the blending of worship with life.

'They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine ... and in
breaking of bread.' Commentators who can only see one thing at a
time--and there are a good many of that species--have got up great
discussions as to whether this phrase means eating ordinary meals or
partaking of the Lord's Supper. I venture to say it means both,
because, clearly enough, in the beginning, the common meal was
hallowed by what we now call the Lord's Supper being associated with
it, and every day's evening repast was eaten 'in remembrance of Him.'

So, naturally, and without an idea of anything awful or sacred about
the rite, the first Christians, when they went home after a hard
day's work and sat down to take their own suppers, blessed the bread
and the wine, and whether they ate or drank, did the one and the
other 'in remembrance of Him.'

The gradual growth of the sentiment attaching to the Lord's Supper,
until it reached the portentous height of regarding it as a
'tremendous sacrifice' which could only be administered by priests
with ordained hands in Apostolic succession, can be partly traced
even in New Testament times. The Lord's Supper began as an appendage
to, or rather as a heightening of, the evening meal, and at first, as
this chapter tells us in a subsequent verse, was observed day by day.
Then, before the epoch of the Acts of the Apostles is ended, we find
it has become a weekly celebration, and forms part of the service on
the first day of the week. But even when the observance had ceased to
be daily, the association with an ordinary meal continued, and that
led to the disorders at Corinth which Paul rebuked, and which would
have been impossible if later ideas of the Lord's Supper had existed
then.

The history of the transformation of that simple Supper into 'the
bloodless sacrifice' of the Mass, and all the mischief consequent
thereon, does not concern us now. But it does concern us to note that
these first believers hallowed common things by doing them, and
common food by partaking of it, with the memory of His great
sacrifice in their minds. The poorest fare, the coarsest bread, the
sourest wine, on the humblest table, became a memorial of that dear
Lord. Religion and life, the domestic and the devout, were so closely
braided together that when a household sat at table it was both a
family and a church; and while they were eating their meat for the
strength of their body, they were partaking of the memorial of their
dying Lord.

Is your house like that? Is your daily life like that? Do you bring
the sacred and the secular as close together as that? Are the dying
words of your Master, 'This do in remembrance of Me,' written by you
over everything you do? And so is all life worship, and all worship
hope?

III. The last thing here is habitual devotion.

I suppose the disciples had no forms of set Christian prayers. They
still used the Jewish liturgy, for we read that 'they continued daily
with one accord in the Temple.' I am sure that no two things can be
less like one another than the worship of the primitive Church and
the worship, say, of one of our congregations. Did you ever try to
paint for yourselves, for instance, the scene described in the First
Epistle to the Corinthians? When they came together in their meetings
for worship, 'every one had a psalm, a doctrine, an interpretation.'
'Let the prophets speak, by ones, or at most by twos'; and if another
gets up to interrupt, let the first speaker sit down. Paul goes on to
say, 'Let all things be done decently and in order.' So there must
have been tendencies to disorder, and much at which some of our
modern ecclesiastical martinets would have been very much scandalised
as 'unbecoming.' Wise men are in no haste to change forms. Forms
change of themselves when their users change; but it would be a good
day for Christendom if the faith and devoutness of a community of
believers such as we, for instance, profess to be, were so strong and
so demanding expression as that, instead of my poor voice continually
sounding here, every one of you had a psalm or a doctrine, and every
one of you were able and impelled to speak out of the fulness of the
Spirit which God poured into you. It will come some day; it must come
if Christendom is not to die of its own dignity. But we do not need
to hurry matters, only let us remember that unless a Church continues
steadfast in prayer it is worth very little.

Now, dear brethren, it is said about us Free Churchmen that we think
a great deal too much of preaching and a great deal too little of the
prayers of the congregation. That is a stock criticism. I am bound to
say that there is a grain of truth in it, and that there is not, with
too many of our congregations, as lofty a conception of the power and
blessedness of the united prayers of the congregation as there ought
to be, or else you would not hear about 'introductory services.'
Introductory to what? Do we speak to God merely by way of preface to
one of us talking to his brethren? Is that the proper order? 'They
continued steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching,' no doubt; but also
'steadfastly in prayer.' I pray you to try to make this picture of
the Pentecostal converts the ideal of your own lives, and to do your
best to help forward the time when it shall be the reality in this
church, and in every other society of professing Christians.



A PURE CHURCH AN INCREASING CHURCH

'And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be
saved.'--ACTS ii. 47.

'And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being
saved.'--(R. V.)

You observe that the principal alterations of these words in the
Revised Version are two: the one the omission of 'the church,' the
other the substitution of 'were being saved' for 'such as should be
saved.' The former of these changes has an interest as suggesting
that at the early period referred to the name of 'the church' had not
yet been definitely attached to the infant community, and that the
word afterwards crept into the text at a time when ecclesiasticism
had become a great deal stronger than it was at the date of the
writing of the Acts of the Apostles. The second of the changes is of
more importance. The Authorised Version's rendering suggests that
salvation is a future thing, which in one aspect is partially true.
The Revised Version, which is also by far the more literally
accurate, suggests the other idea, that salvation is a process going
on all through the course of a Christian man's life. And that carries
very large and important lessons.

I. I ask you to notice here, first, the profound conception which the
writer had of the present action of the ascended Christ. 'The Lord
added to them day by day those that were being saved.'

Then Christ (for it is He that is here spoken of as the Lord), the
living, ascended Christ, was present in, and working with, that
little community of believing souls. You will find that the thought
of a present Saviour, who is the life-blood of the Church on earth,
and the spring of action for all good that is done in it and by it,
runs through the whole of this Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The
keynote is struck in its first verses: 'The former treatise have I
made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until
the day in which He was taken up.' That is the description of Luke's
Gospel, and it implies that the Acts of the Apostles is the _second_
treatise, which tells all that Jesus continued to do and teach
_after_ that He was taken up. So the Lord, the ascended Christ, is
the true theme and hero of this book. It is He, for instance, who
sends down the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It is He whom the
dying martyr sees 'standing at the right hand of God,' ready to help.
It is He who appears to the persecutor on the road to Damascus. It is
He who sends Paul and his company to preach in Europe. It is He who
opens hearts for the reception of their message. It is He who stands
by the Apostle in a vision, and bids him 'be of good cheer,' and go
forth upon his work. Thus, at every crisis in the history of the
Church, it is the Lord--that is to say, Christ Himself--who is
revealed as working in them and for them, the ascended but yet ever-
present Guide, Counsellor, Inspirer, Protector, and Rewarder of them
that put their trust in Him. So here it is He that 'adds to the
Church daily them that were being saved.'

I believe, dear brethren, that modern Christianity has far too much
lost the vivid impression of this present Christ as actually dwelling
and working among us. What is good in us and what is bad in us
conspire to make us think more of the past work of an ascended Christ
than of the present work of an indwelling Christ. We cannot think too
much of that Cross by which He has laid the foundation for the
salvation and reconciliation of all the world; but we may easily
think too exclusively of it, and so fix our thoughts upon that work
which He completed when on Calvary He said, 'It is finished!' as to
forget the continual work which will never be finished until His
Church is perfected, and the world is redeemed. If we are a Church of
Christ at all, we have Christ in very deed among us, and working
through us and on us. And unless we have, in no mystical and unreal
and metaphorical sense, but in the simplest and yet grandest prose
reality, that living Saviour here in our hearts and in our
fellowship, better that these walls were levelled with the ground,
and this congregation scattered to the four winds of heaven. The
present Christ is the life of His Church.

Notice, and that but for a moment, for I shall have to deal with it
more especially at another part of this discourse,--the specific
action which is here ascribed to Him. _He_ adds to the Church, not
_we_, not our preaching, not our eloquence, our fervour, our efforts.
These may be the weapons in His hands, but the hand that wields the
weapon gives it all its power to wound and to heal, and it is Christ
Himself who, by His present energy, is here represented as being the
Agent of all the good that is done by any Christian community, and
the Builder-up of His Churches, in numbers and in power.

It is His will for, His ideal of, a Christian Church, that
continuously it should be gathering into its fellowship those that
are being saved. That is His meaning in the establishment of His
Church upon earth, and that is His will concerning it and concerning
us, and the question should press on every society of Christians:
Does our reality correspond to Christ's ideal? Are we, as a portion
of His great heritage, being continually replenished by souls that
come to tell what God has done for them? Is there an unbroken flow of
such into what we call our communion? I speak to you members of this
church, and I ask you to ponder the question,--Is it so? and the
other question, If it is not so, wherefore? 'The Lord added daily,'--
why does not the Lord add daily to us?

II. Let us go to the second part of this text, and see if we can find
an answer. Notice how emphatically there is brought out here the
attractive power of an earnest and pure Church.

My text is the end of a sentence. What is the beginning of the
sentence? Listen,--'All that believed were together, and had all
things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them
to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did
eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God,
and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added.' Yes; of
course. Suppose you were like these people. Suppose this church and
congregation bore stamped upon it, plain and deep as the broad arrow
of the king, these characteristics--manifest fraternal unity, plain
unselfish unworldliness, habitual unbroken devotion, gladness which
had in it the solemnity of Heaven, and a transparent simplicity of
life and heart, which knew nothing of by-ends and shabby, personal
motives or distracting duplicity of purpose--do you not think that
the Lord would add to you daily such as should be saved? Or, to put
it into other words, wherever there is a little knot of men obviously
held together by a living Christ, and obviously manifesting in their
lives and characters the likeness of that Christ transforming and
glorifying them, there will be drawn to them--by natural gravitation,
I was going to say, but we may more correctly say, by the gravitation
which is natural in the supernatural realm--souls that have been
touched by the grace of the Lord, and souls to whom that grace has
been brought the nearer by looking upon _them_. Wherever there is
inward vigour of life there will be outward growth; and the Church
which is pure, earnest, living will be a Church which spreads and
increases.

Historically, it has always been the case that in God's Church
seasons of expansion have followed upon seasons of deepened spiritual
life on the part of His people. And the only kind of growth which is
wholesome, and to be desired in a Christian community, is growth as a
consequence of the revived religiousness of the individuals who make
up the community.

And just in like manner as such a community will draw to it men who
are like-minded, so it will repel from it all the formalist people.
There are congregations that have the stamp of worldliness so deep
upon them that any persons who want to be burdened with as little
religion as may be respectable will find themselves at home there.
And I come to you Christian people here, for whose Christian
character I am in some sense and to some degree responsible, with
this appeal: Do you see to it that, so far as your influence extends,
this community of ours be such as that half-dead Christians will
never think of coming near us, and those whose religion is tepid will
be repelled from us, but that they who love the Lord Jesus Christ
with earnest devotion and lofty consecration, and seek to live
unworldly and saint-like lives, shall recognise in us men like-
minded, and from whom they may draw help. I beseech you--if you will
not misunderstand the expression--make your communion such that it
will repel as well as attract; and that people will find nothing here
to draw them to an easy religion of words and formalism, beneath
which all vermin of worldliness and selfishness may lurk, but will
recognise in us a church of men and women who are bent upon holiness,
and longing for more and more conformity to the divine Master.

Now, if all this be true, it is possible for worldly and stagnant
communities calling themselves 'Churches' to thwart Christ's purpose,
and to make it both impossible and undesirable that He should add to
them souls for whom He has died. It is a solemn thing to feel that we
may clog Christ's chariot-wheels, that there may be so little
spiritual life in us, as a congregation, that, if I may so say, He
dare not intrust us with the responsibility of guarding and keeping
the young converts whom He loves and tends. We may not be fit to be
trusted with them, and that may be why we do not get them. It may not
be good for them that they should be dropped into the refrigerating
atmosphere of such a church, and that may be why they do not come.

Depend upon it, brethren, that, far more than my preaching, your
lives will determine the expansion of this church of ours. And if my
preaching is pulling one way and your lives the other, and I have
half an hour a week for talk and you have seven days for
contradictory life, which of the two do you think is likely to win in
the tug? I beseech you, take the words that I am now trying to speak,
to yourselves. Do not pass them to the man in the next pew and think
how well they fit him, but accept them as needed by you. And
remember, that just as a bit of sealing-wax, if you rub it on your
sleeve and so warm it, develops an attractive power, the Church which
is warmed will draw many to itself. If the earlier words of this
context apply to any Christian community, then certainly its blessed
promise too will apply to it, and to such a church the Lord will 'add
day by day them that are being saved.'

III. And now, lastly, observe the definition given here of the class
of persons gathered into the community.

I have already observed, in the earlier portion of this discourse,
that here we have salvation represented as a process, a progressive
thing which runs on all through life. In the New Testament there are
various points of view from which that great idea of salvation is
represented. It is sometimes spoken of as past, in so far as in the
definite act of conversion and the first exercise of faith in Jesus
Christ the whole subsequent evolution and development are involved,
and the process of salvation has its beginning then, when a man turns
to God. It is sometimes spoken of as present, in so far as the joy of
deliverance from evil and possession of good, which is God, is
realised day by day. It is sometimes spoken of as future, in so far
as all the imperfect possession and pre-libations of salvation which
we taste here on earth prophesy and point onwards to their own
perfecting in the climax of heaven. But all these three points of
view, past, present, and future, may be merged into this one of my
text, which speaks of every saint on earth, from the infantile to the
most mature, as standing in the same row, though at different points;
walking on the same road, though advanced different distances; all
participant of the same process of 'being saved.'

Through all life the deliverance goes on, the deliverance from sin,
the deliverance from wrath. The Christian salvation, then, according
to the teaching of this emphatic phrase, is a process begun at
conversion, carried on progressively through the life, and reaching
its climax in another state. Day by day, through the spring and the
early summer, the sun shines longer in the sky, and rises higher in
the heavens; and the path of the Christian is as the shining light.
Last year's greenwood is this year's hardwood; and the Christian, in
like manner, has to 'grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and
Saviour.' So these progressively, and, therefore, as yet imperfectly,
saved people, were gathered into the Church.

Now I have but two things to say about that. If that be the
description of the kind of folk that come into a Christian Church,
the duties of that Church are very plainly marked. And the first
great one is to see to it that the community help the growth of its
members. There are Christian Churches--I do not say whether ours is
one of them or not--into which, if a young plant is brought, it is
pretty sure to be killed. The temperature is so low that the tender
shoots are nipped as with frost, and die. I have seen people, coming
all full of fervour and of faith, into Christian congregations, and
finding that the average round them was so much lower than their own,
that they have cooled down after a time to the fashionable
temperature, and grown indifferent like their brethren. Let us, dear
friends, remember that a Christian Church is a nursery of imperfect
Christians, and, for ourselves and for one another, try to make our
communion such as shall help shy and tender graces to unfold
themselves, and woo out, by the encouragement of example, the lowest
and the least perfect to lofty holiness and consecration like the
Master's.

And if I am speaking to any in this congregation who hold aloof from
Christian fellowship for more or less sufficient reasons, let me
press upon them, in one word, that if they are conscious of a
possession, however imperfect, of that incipient salvation, their
place is thereby determined, and they are doing wrong if they do not
connect themselves with some Christian Communion, and stand forth as
members of Christ's Church.

And now one last word. I have tried to show you that salvation, in
the New Testament, is regarded as a process. The opposite thing is a
process too. There is a very awful contrast in one of Paul's
Epistles. 'The preaching of the Cross is to them _who are in the act
of perishing_ foolishness; unto us who are _being saved_, it is the
power of God.' These two processes start, as it were, from the same
point, one by slow degrees and almost imperceptible motion, rising
higher and higher, the other, by slow degrees and almost unconscious
descent, sliding steadily and fatally downward ever further and
further. And my point now is that in each of us one or other of these
processes is going on. Either you are slowly rising or you are
slipping down. Either a larger measure of the life of Christ, which
is salvation, is passing into your hearts, or bit by bit you are
dying like some man with creeping paralysis that begins at the
extremities, and with fell, silent, inexorable footstep, advances
further and further towards the citadel of the heart, where it lays
its icy hand at last, and the man is dead. You are either 'being
saved' or you are 'perishing.' No man becomes a devil all at once,
and no man becomes an angel all at once. Trust yourself to Christ,
and He will lift you to Himself; turn your back upon Him, as some of
you are doing, and you will settle down, down, down in the muck and
the mire of your own sensuality and selfishness, until at last the
foul ooze spreads over your head, and you are lost in the bog for
ever.



'THEN SHALL THE LAME MAN LEAP AS AN HART'

'Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour
of prayer, being the ninth hour. 2. And a certain man lame from
his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate
of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that
entered into the temple; 3. Who, seeing Peter and John about to
go into the temple, asked an alms. 4. And Peter, fastening his
eyes upon him, with John, said, Look on us. 5. And he gave heed
unto them, expecting to receive something of them. 6. Then Peter
said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I
thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and
immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 8. And he
leaping up, stood, and walked, and entered with them into the
temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. 9. And all the
people saw him walking and praising God: 10. And they knew that
it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple:
and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had
happened unto him. 11. And as the lame man which was healed held
Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the
porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering. 12. And when
Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why
marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though
by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? 13.
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our
fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and
denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to
let Him go. 14. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and
desired a murderer to be granted unto you; 15. And killed the
Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we
are witnesses. 16. And His name through faith in His name hath
made this man strong, whom ye see and know; yea, the faith which
is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence
of you all.'--ACTS iii. 1-16.

'Many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles' (Acts ii. 43), but
this one is recorded in detail, both because it was conspicuous as
wrought in the Temple, and because it led to weighty consequences.
The narrative is so vivid and full of minute particulars that it
suggests an eye-witness. Was Peter Luke's informant? The style of the
story is so like that of Mark's Gospel that we might reasonably
presume so.

The scene and the persons are first set before us. It was natural
that a close alliance should be cemented between Peter and John, both
because they were the principal members of the quartet which stood
first among the Apostles, and because they were so unlike each other,
and therefore completed each other. Peter's practical force and eye
for externals, and John's more contemplative nature and eye for the
unseen, needed one another. So we find them together in the judgment
hall, at the sepulchre, and here.

They 'went up to the Temple,' or, to translate more exactly and more
picturesquely, 'were going up,' when the incident to be recorded
stayed them. They had passed through the court, and came to a gate
leading into the inner court, which was called 'Beautiful.' from its
artistic excellence, when they were arrested by the sight of a lame
beggar, who had been carried there every day for many years to
appeal, by the display of his helplessness, to the entering
worshippers. Precisely similar sights may be seen to-day at the doors
of many a famous European church and many a mosque. He mechanically
wailed out his formula, apparently scarcely looking at the two
strangers, nor expecting a response. Long habit and many rebuffs had
not made him hopeful, but it was his business to ask, and so he
asked.

Some quick touch of pity shot through the two friends' hearts, which
did not need to be spoken in order that each might feel it to be
shared by the other. So they paused, and, as was in keeping with
their characters, Peter took speech in hand, while John stood by
assenting. Purposed devotion is well delayed when postponed in order
to lighten misery.

There must have been something magnetic in Peter's voice and steady
gaze as he said, 'Look on us!' It was a strange preface, if only some
small coin was to follow. It kindled some flicker of hope of he knew
not what in the beggar. He expected to receive 'something' from them,
and, no doubt, was asking himself what. Expectation and receptivity
were being stirred in him, though he could not divine what was
coming. We have no right to assume that his state of mind was
operative in fitting him to be cured, nor to call his attitude
'faith,' but still he was lifted from his usual dreary hopelessness,
and some strange anticipation was creeping into his heart.

Then comes the grand word of power. Again Peter is spokesman, but
John takes part, though silently. With a fixed gaze, which told of
concentrated purpose, and went to the lame man's heart, Peter
triumphantly avows what most men are ashamed of, and try to hide:
'Silver and gold have I none.' He had 'left all and followed Christ';
he had not made demands on the common stock. Empty pockets may go
along with true wealth.

There is a fine flash of exultant confidence in Peter's next words,
which is rather spoiled by the Authorised Version. He did not say
'_such_ as I have,' as it it was inferior to money, which he had not,
but he said '_what_ I have' (Rev. Ver.),--a very different tone. The
expression eloquently magnifies the power which he possessed as far
more precious than wealth, and it speaks of his assurance that he did
possess it--an assurance which rested, not only on his faith in his
Lord's promise and gift, but on his experience in working former
miracles.

How deep his words go into the obligations of possession! 'What I
have I give' should be the law for all Christians in regard to all
that they have, and especially in regard to spiritual riches. God
gives us these, not only in order that we may enjoy them ourselves,
but in order that we may impart, and so in our measure enter into the
joy of our Lord and know the greater blessedness of giving than of
receiving. How often it has been true that a poor church has been a
miracle-working church, and that, when it could not say 'Silver and
gold have I none' it has also lost the power of saying, 'In the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk'!

The actual miracle is most graphically narrated. With magnificent
boldness Peter rolls out his Master's name, there, in the court of
the Temple, careless who may hear. He takes the very name that had
been used in scorn, and waves it like a banner of victory. His
confidence in his possession of power was not confidence in himself,
but in his Lord. When we can peal forth the Name with as much
assurance of its miracle-working power as Peter did, we too shall be
able to make the lame walk. A faltering voice is unworthy to speak
such words, and will speak them in vain.

The process of cure is minutely described. Peter put out his hand to
help the lame man up, and, while he was doing so, power came into the
shrunken muscles and weak ankles, so that the cripple felt that he
could raise himself, and, though all passed in a moment, the last
part of his rising was his own doing, and what began with his being
'lifted up' ended in his 'leaping up.' Then came an instant of
standing still, to steady himself and make sure of his new strength,
and then he began to walk.

The interrupted purpose of devotion could now be pursued, but with a
gladsome addition to the company. How natural is that 'walking and
leaping and praising God'! The new power seemed so delightful, so
wonderful, that sober walking did not serve. It was a strange way of
going into the Temple, but people who are borne along by the sudden
joy of new gifts beyond hope need not be expected to go quietly, and
sticklers for propriety who blamed the man's extravagance, and would
have had him pace along with sober gait and downcast eyes, like a
Pharisee, did not know what made him thus obstreperous, even in his
devout thankfulness. 'Leaping and praising God' do make a singular
combination, but before we blame, let us be sure that we understand.

One of the old manuscripts inserts a clause which brings out more
clearly that there was a pause, during which the three remained in
the Temple in prayer. It reads, 'And when Peter and John came out, he
came out with them, holding them, and they [the people] being
astonished, stood in the porch,' etc. So we have to think of the
buzzing crowd, waiting in the court for their emergence from the
sanctuary. Solomon's porch was, like the Beautiful gate, on the east
side of the Temple enclosure, and may probably have been a usual
place of rendezvous for the brethren, as it had been a resort of
their Lord.

It was a great moment, and Peter, the unlearned Galilean, the former
cowardly renegade, rose at once to the occasion. Truly it was given
him in that hour what to speak. His sermon is distinguished by its
undaunted charging home the guilt of Christ's death on the nation,
its pitying recognition of the ignorance which had done the deed, and
its urgent entreaty. We here deal with its beginning only. 'Why
marvel ye at this?'--it would have been a marvel if they had not
marvelled. The thing was no marvel to the Apostle, because he
believed that Jesus was the Christ and reigned in Heaven. Miracles
fall into their place and become supremely 'natural' when we have
accepted that great truth.

The fervent disavowal of their 'own power or holiness' as concerned
in the healing is more than a modest disclaimer. It leads on to the
declaration of who is the true Worker of all that is wrought for men
by the hands of Christians. That disavowal has to be constantly
repeated by us, not so much to turn away men's admiration or
astonishment from us, as to guard our own foolish hearts from taking
credit for what it may please Jesus to do by us as His tools.

The declaration of Christ as the supreme Worker is postponed till
after the solemn indictment of the nation. But the true way to regard
the miracle is set forth at once, as being God's glorifying of Jesus.
Peter employs a designation of our Lord which is peculiar to these
early chapters of Acts. He calls Him God's 'Servant,' which is a
quotation of the Messianic title in the latter part of Isaiah, 'the
Servant of the Lord.'

The fiery speaker swiftly passes to contrast God's glorifying with
Israel's rejection. The two points on which he seizes are noteworthy.
'Ye delivered Him up'; that is, to the Roman power. That was the
deepest depth of Israel's degradation. To hand over their Messiah to
the heathen,--what could be completer faithlessness to all Israel's
calling and dignity? But that was not all: 'ye denied Him.' Did Peter
remember some one else than the Jews who had done the same, and did a
sudden throb of conscious fellowship even in that sin make his voice
tremble for a moment? Israel's denial was aggravated because it was
'in the presence of Pilate,' and had overborne his determination to
release his prisoner. The Gentile judge would rise in the judgment to
condemn them, for he had at least seen that Jesus was innocent, and
they had hounded him on to an illegal killing, which was murder as
laid to his account, but national apostasy as laid to theirs.

These were daring words to speak in the Temple to that crowd. But the
humble fisherman had been filled with the Spirit, who is the
Strengthener, and the fear of man was dead in him. If we had never
heard of Pentecost, we should need to invent something of the sort to
make intelligible the transformation of these timid folk, the first
disciples, into heroes. A dead Christ, lying in an unknown grave,
could never have inspired His crushed followers with such courage,
insight, and elastic confidence and gladness in the face of a
frowning world.



'THE PRINCE OF LIFE'

'But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer
to be granted unto you; 15. And killed the Prince of life, whom
God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.'
--ACTS iii. 14, 15.

This early sermon of Peter's, to the people, is marked by a
comparative absence of the highest view of Christ's person and work.
It is open to us to take one of two explanations of that fact. We may
either say that the Apostle was but learning the full significance of
the marvellous events that had passed so recently, or we may say that
he suited his words to his audience, and did not declare all that he
knew.

At the same time, we should not overlook the significance of the
Christology which it does contain. 'His child Jesus' is really a
translation of Isaiah's 'Servant of the Lord.' 'The Holy One and the
Just' is a distinct assertion of Jesus' perfect, sinless manhood, and
'the Prince of Life' plainly asserts Jesus to be the Lord and Source
of it.

Notice, too, the pathetic 'denied': was Peter thinking of the
shameful hour in his own experience? It is a glimpse into the depth
of his penitence, and the tenderness with others' sins which it had
given him, that he twice uses the word here, as if he had said 'You
have done no more than I did myself. It is not for me to heap
reproaches on you. We have been alike in sin--and I can preach
forgiveness to you sinners, because I have received it for myself.'

Notice, too, the manifold antitheses of the words. Barabbas is set
against Christ; the Holy One and the Just against a robber, the
Prince of Life against a murderer. 'You killed'--'the Prince of
Life.' 'You killed'--'God raised.'

There are here three paradoxes, three strange and contradictory
things: the paradoxes of man's perverted and fatal choice, of man's
hate bringing death to the Lord of life, and of God's love and power
causing life to come by death.

I. The paradox of man's fatal choice.

There occurs often in history a kind of irony in which the whole
tendency of a time or of a conflict is summed up in a single act, and
certainly the fact which is referred to here is one of these. Let us
put it as it would have seemed to an onlooker then, leaving out for
the moment any loftier meaning which may attach to it.

Peter's words here, thus boldly addressed to the people, are a strong
testimony to the impression which the character of Christ had made on
His contemporaries. 'The Holy One and the Just' implies moral
perfection. The whole narrative of the Crucifixion brings out that
impression. Pilate's wife speaks with awe of 'that just person.'
'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' 'If I have done evil, bear
witness of the evil.' 'I find no fault in Him.' We may take it for
granted that the impression Jesus made among His contemporaries was,
at the lowest, that He was a pure and good man.

The nation had to choose one of two. Jesus was the one; who was the
other? A man half brigand, half rebel, who had raised some petty
revolt against Rome, more as a pretext for robbery and crime than
from patriotism, and whose hands reeked with blood. And this was the
nation's hero!

The juxtaposition throws a strong light on the people's motive for
rejecting Jesus. The rulers may have condemned Him for blasphemy, but
the people had a more practical reason, and in it no doubt the rulers
shared. It was not because He claimed to be the Messiah that they
gave Him up to Pilate, but because He would not meet their notions of
what the Messiah should be and do. If He had called them to arms, not
a man of them would have betrayed Him to Pilate, but all, or the more
daring of them, would have rallied to His standard. Their hate was
the measure of their deep disappointment with His course. If instead
of showing love and meekness, He had blown up the coals of religious
hatred; if instead of going about doing good, He had mustered the men
of lawless Galilee for a revolt, would these fawning hypocrites have
dragged him to Pilate on the charge of forbidding to give tribute to
Caesar, and of claiming to be a King? Why, there was not one of them
but would have been glad to murder every tax-gatherer in Palestine,
not one of them but bore inextinguishable in his inmost heart the
faith in 'one Christ a King.' And if that meek and silent martyr had
only lifted His finger, He might have had legions of His accusers at
His back, ready to sweep Pilate and his soldiers out of Jerusalem.
They saw Christ's goodness and holiness. It did not attract them.
They wanted a Messiah who would bring them outward freedom by the use
of outward weapons, and so they all shouted 'Not this man but
Barabbas!' The whole history of the nation was condensed in that one
cry--their untamable obstinacy, their blindness to the light of God,
their fierce grasp of the promises which they did not understand,
their hard worldliness, their cruel patriotism, their unquenchable
hatred of their oppressors, which was only equalled by their
unquenchable hatred of those who showed them the only true way for
deliverance.

And this strange paradox is not confined to these Jews. It is
repeated wherever Christ is presented to men. We are told that all
men naturally admire goodness, and so on. Men mostly know it when
they see it, but I doubt whether they all either admire or like it.
People generally had rather have something more outward and tangible.
It is not spiritualising this incident, but only referring it to the
principle of which it is an illustration, to ask you to see in it the
fatal choice of multitudes. Christ is set before us all, and His
beauty is partially seen but is dimmed by externals. Men's desires
are fixed on gross sensuous delights, or on success in business, or
on intellectual eminence, or on some of the thousand other visible
and temporal objects that outshine, to vulgar eyes, the less dazzling
lustre of the things unseen. They appreciate these, and make heroes
of the men who have won them. These are their ideals, but of Jesus
they have little care.

And is it not true that all such competitors of His, when they lead
men to prefer them to Him, are 'murderers,' in a sadder sense than
Barabbas was? Do they not slay the souls of their admirers? Is it not
but too ghastly a reality that all who thus choose them draw down
ruin on themselves and 'love death'?

This fatal paradox is being repeated every day in the lives of
thousands. The crowds who yelled, 'Not this man but Barabbas!' were
less guilty and less mad than those who to-day cry, 'Not Jesus but
worldly wealth, or fleeting bodily delights, or gratified ambition!'

II. The paradox of Death's seeming conquest over the Lord of Life.

The word rendered 'Prince' means an originator, and hence a leader
and hence a lord. Whether Peter had yet reached a conception of the
divinity of Jesus or not, he had clearly reached a much higher one of
Him than he had attained before His death. In some sense he was
beginning to recognise that His relation to 'life' was loftier and
more mysterious than that of other men. Was it His death only that
thus elevated the disciples' thoughts of Jesus? Strange that if He
died and there an end, such a result should have followed. One would
have expected His death to have shattered their faith in Him, but
somehow it strengthened their faith. Why did they not all continue to
lament, as did the two of them on the road to Emmaus: 'We trusted
that this had been He who should have redeemed Israel'--but now we
trust no more, and our dreams are buried in His grave? Why did they
not go back to Galilee and their nets? What raised their spirits,
their courage, and increased their understanding of Him, and their
faith in Him? How came His death to be the occasion of consolidating,
not of shattering, their fellowship? How came Peter to be so sure
that a man who had died was the 'Prince of Life'? The answer, the
only one psychologically possible, is in what Peter here proclaims to
unwilling ears, 'Whom God raised from the dead.'

The fact of the Resurrection sets the fact of the Death in another
light. Meditating on these twin facts, the Death and Resurrection of
Jesus, we hear Himself speaking as He did to John in Patmos: 'I am
the Living One who became dead, and lo, I am alive for evermore!'

If we try to listen with the ears of these first hearers of Peter's
words, we shall better appreciate his daring paradox. Think of the
tremendous audacity of the claim which they make, that Jesus should
be the 'Prince of Life,' and of the strange contradiction to it which
the fact that they 'killed' Him seems to give. How could death have
power over the Prince of Life? That sounds as if, indeed, the 'sun
were turned into darkness,' or as if fire became ice. That brief
clause 'ye killed the Prince of Life' must have seemed sheer
absurdity to the hearers whose hands were still red with the blood of
Jesus.

But there is another paradox here. It was strange that death should
be able to invade that Life, but it is no less strange that men
should be able to inflict it. But we must not forget that Jesus died,
not because men slew Him, but because He willed to die. The whole of
the narratives of the Crucifixion in the Gospels avoid using the word
'death.' Such expressions as He 'gave up the ghost,' or the like, are
used, implying what is elsewhere distinctly asserted, that His death
was His offering of Himself, the result of His own volition, not of
exhaustion or of torture. Thus, even in dying, He showed Himself the
Lord of Life and the Master of Death. Men indeed fastened Jesus to
the Cross, but He died, not because He was so fastened, but because
He willed to 'make His soul an offering for sin.' Bound as it were to
a rock in the midst of the ocean, He, of His own will, and at His own
time, bowed His head, and let the waves of the sea of death roll over
it.

III. The triumphant divine paradox of life given and death conquered
through a death.

Jesus is 'Prince' in the sense of being source of life to mankind,
just because He died. Hie death is the death of Death. His apparent
defeat is His real victory.

By His death He takes away our sins.

By His death He abolishes death.

The physical fact remains, but all else which makes the 'sting of
death' to men is gone. It is no more a solitude, for He has died, and
thereby He becomes a companion in that hour to every lover of His.
Its darkness changes into light to those who, by 'following Him,'
have, even there, 'the light of life.' This Samson carried away the
gates of the prison on His own strong shoulders when He came forth
from it. It is His to say, 'O death! I will be thy plague.'

By His death He diffuses life.

'The Spirit was not given' till Jesus was 'glorified,' which
glorification is John's profound synonym for His crucifixion. When
the alabaster box of His pure body was broken, the whole house of
humanity was filled with the odour of the ointment.

So the great paradox becomes a blessed truth, that man's deepest sin
works out God's highest act of Love and Pardon.



THE HEALING POWER OF THE NAME

'And His name through faith in His name hath made this man
strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by Him hath
given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.'
--ACTS iii. 16.

Peter said, 'Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own
power or holiness we had made this man to walk?' eagerly disclaiming
being anything else than a medium through which Another's power
operated. Jesus Christ said, 'That ye may know that the Son of Man
hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, take up
thy bed, and walk'--unmistakably claiming to be a great deal more
than a medium. Why the difference? Jesus Christ did habitually in His
miracles adopt the tone on which Moses once ventured when he smote
the rock and said, 'Ye rebels! must _we_ bring the water for you?'
and he was punished for it by exclusion from the Promised Land. Why
the difference? Moses was 'in all his house as a servant, but Christ
as a Son over His own house'; and what was arrogance in the servant
was natural and reasonable in the Son.

The gist of this verse is a reference to Jesus Christ as a source of
miraculous power, not merely because He wrought miracles when on
earth, but because from heaven He gave the power of which Peter was
but the channel. Now it seems to me that in these emphatic and
singularly reduplicated words of the Apostle there are two or three
very important lessons which I offer for your consideration.

I. The first is the power of the Name.

Now the Name of which Peter is speaking is not the collocation of
syllables which are sounded 'Jesus Christ.' His hearers were familiar
with the ancient and Eastern method of regarding names as very much
more than distinguishing labels. They are, in the view of the Old
Testament, attempts at a summary description of things by their
prominent characteristics. They are condensed definitions. And so the
Old Testament uses the expression, the 'Name' of God, as equivalent
to 'that which God is manifested to be.' Hence, in later days--and
there are some tendencies thither even in Scripture--in Jewish
literature 'the Name' came to be a reverential synonym for God
Himself. And there are traces that this peculiar usage with regard to
the divine Name was beginning to shape itself in the Church with
reference to the name of Jesus, even at that period in which my text
was spoken. For instance, in the fifth chapter we read that the
Apostles 'departed from the council rejoicing that they were counted
worthy to suffer shame for the Name,' and we find at a much later
date that missionaries of the Gospel are described by the Apostle
John as going forth 'for the sake of the Name.'

The name of Christ, then, is the representation or embodiment of that
which Christ is declared to be for us men, and it is that Name, the
totality of what He is manifested to be, in which lies all power for
healing and for strengthening. The Name, that is, the whole Christ,
in His nature, His offices, His work, His Incarnation, His Life, His
Death, Resurrection, Session at the right hand of God--it is this
Christ whose Name made that man strong, and will make us strong.
Brethren, let us remember that, while fragments of the Name will have
fragmentary power, as the curative virtue that resides in any
substance belongs to the smallest grain of it, if detached from the
mass--whilst fragments of the Name of Christ have power, thanks be to
Him! so that no man can have even a very imperfect and rudimentary
view of what Jesus Christ is and does, without getting strength and
healing in proportion to the completeness of his conception, yet in
order to realise all that He can be and do, a man must take the whole
Christ as He is revealed.

The Early Church had a symbol for Jesus Christ, a fish, to which they
were led because the Greek word for a fish is made up of the initials
of the words which they conceived to be the Name. And what was it?
'_Jesus Christ_, _God's Son_, _Saviour_'; _Jesus_, humanity;
_Christ_, the apex of Revelation, the fulfilment of prophecy, the
Anointed Prophet, Priest, and King; _Son of God_, the divine nature:
and all these, the humanity, the Messiahship, the divinity, found
their sphere of activity in the last name, which, without them, would
in its fulness have been impossible--_Saviour_. He is not such a
Saviour as He may be to each of us, unless our conception of the Name
grasps these three truths: His humanity, His Messiahship, His
divinity. 'His Name has made this man strong.'

II. Notice how the power of the Name comes to operate.

Now, if you will observe the language of my text, you will note that
Peter says, as it would appear, the same thing twice over: 'His Name,
through faith in His Name, hath made this man strong.' And then, as
if he were saying something else, he adds what seems to be the same
thing: 'Yea! the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect
soundness.'

Now, note that in the first of these two statements nothing appears
except the 'man,' the 'Name,' and 'faith' I take it, though of course
it may be questionable, that that clause refers to the man's faith,
and that we have in it the intentional exclusion of the human
workers, and are presented with the only two parties really
concerned--at the one end the Name, at the other end 'this man made
strong.' And the link of connection between the two in this clause is
faith--that is, the man's trust. But then, if we come to the next
clause, we find that although Peter has just previously disclaimed
all merit in the cure, yet there is a sense in which some one's
faith, working as from without, _gave_ to the man 'this perfect
soundness.' And it seems very natural to me to understand that here,
where human faith is represented as being, in some subordinate sense,
the bestower of the healing which really the Name had bestowed, it is
the faith of the human miracle-worker or medium which is referred to.
Peter's faith did give, but Peter only gave what he had received
through faith. And so let all the praise be given to the water, and
none to the cup.

Whether that be a fair interpretation of the words of my text, with
their singular and apparently meaningless tautology or no, at all
events the principle which is involved in the explanation is one that
I wish to dwell upon briefly now; and that is, that in order for the
Name, charged and supercharged with healing and strengthening power
as it is, to come into operation, there must be a twofold trust.

The healer, the medium of healing, must have faith in the Name. Yes!
of course. In all regions the first requisite, the one indispensable
condition, of a successful propagandist, is enthusiastic confidence
in what he promulgates. 'That man will go far,' said a cynical
politician about one of his rivals; 'he believes every word he says.'
And that is the condition always of getting other people to believe
us. Faith is contagious; men catch from other people's tongues the
accent of conviction. If one wants to enforce any opinion upon
others, the first condition is that he shall be utterly self-
oblivious; and when he is manifestly saying, as the Apostles in this
context did, 'Do not fix your eyes on us, as though we were doing
anything,' then hearts will bow before him, as the trees of the wood
are bowed by the wind.

If that is true in all regions, it is eminently true in regard to
religion. For what we need there most is not to be instructed, but to
be impressed. Most of us have, lying dormant in the bedchamber and
infirmary of our brains, convictions which only need to be awakened
to revolutionise our lives. Now one of the most powerful ways of
waking them is contact with any man in whom they are awake. So all
successful teachers and messengers of Jesus Christ have had this
characteristic in common, however unlike each other they have been.
The divergences of temperament, of moods, of point of view, of method
of working which prevailed even in the little group of Apostles, and
broadly distinguished Paul from Peter, Peter from James, and Paul and
Peter and James from John, are only types of what has been repeated
ever since. Get together the great missionaries of the Cross, and you
would have the most extraordinary collection of miscellaneous
idiosyncrasies that the world ever saw, and they would not understand
each other, as some of them wofully misunderstood each other when
here together. But there was one characteristic in them all, a
flaming earnestness of belief in the power of the Name. And so it did
not matter much, if at all, what their divergences were. Each of them
was fitted for the Master's use.

And so, brethren, here is the reason--I do not say the only reason,
but the main one, and that which most affects us--for the slow
progress, and even apparent failure, of Christianity. It has fallen
into the hands of a Church that does not half believe its own Gospel.
By reason of formality and ceremonial and sacerdotalism and a lazy
kind of expectation that, somehow or other, the benefits of Christ's
love can come to men apart from their own personal faith in Him, the
Church has largely ceased to anticipate that great things can be done
by its utterance of the Name. And if you have, I do not say
ministers, or teachers, or official proclaimers, or Sunday-school
teachers, or the like, but I say if you have a _Church_, that is
honeycombed with doubt, and from which the strength and flood-tide of
faith have in many cases ebbed away, why, it may go on uttering its
formal proclamations of the Name till the Day of Judgment, and all
that will come of it will be--'The man in whom the devils were,
leaped upon them, and overcame them, and said'--as he had a good
right to say--'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?' You
cannot kindle a fire with snowballs. If the town crier goes into a
quiet corner of the marketplace and rings his bell apologetically,
and gives out his message in a whisper, it is small wonder if nobody
listens. And that is the way in which too many so-called Christian
teachers and communities hold forth the Name, as if begging pardon of
the world for being so narrow and old-fashioned as to believe in it
still.

And no less necessary is faith on the other side. The recipient must
exercise trust. This lame man, no doubt, like the other that Paul
looked at in a similar case, had faith to be healed. That was the
length of his tether. He believed that he was going to have his legs
made strong, and they were made strong accordingly. If he had
believed more, he would have got more. Let us hope that he did get
more, because he believed more, at a later day. But in the meantime
the Apostles' faith was not enough to cure him; and it is not enough
for you that Jesus Christ should be standing with all His power at
your elbow, and that, earnestly and enthusiastically, some of
Christ's messengers may press upon you the acceptance of Him as a
Saviour. He is of no good in the world to you, and never will be,
unless you have the personal faith that knits you to Him.

It cannot be otherwise. Depend upon it, if Jesus Christ could save
every one without terms and conditions at all, He would be only too
glad to do it. But it cannot be done. The nature of His work, and the
sort of blessings that He brings by His work, are such as that it is
an impossibility that any man should receive them unless he has that
trust which, beginning with the acceptance by the understanding of
Christ as Saviour, passes on to the assent of the will, and the
outgoing of the heart, and the yielding of the whole nature to Him.
How can a truth do any good to any one who does not believe in it?
How is it possible that, if you do not take a medicine, it will work?
How can you expect to see, unless you open your eyes? How do you
propose to have your blood purified, if you do not fill your lungs
with air? Is it of any use to have gas-fittings in your house, if
they are not connected with the main? Will a water tap run in your
sculleries, if there is no pipe that joins it with the source of
supply? My dear friend, these rough illustrations are only
approximations to the absolute impossibility that Christ can help,
heal, or save any man without the man's personal faith. 'Whosoever
believeth' is no arbitrary limitation, but is inseparable from the
very nature of the salvation given.

III. And now, lastly, note the effects of the power of the Name.

The Apostle puts in two separate clauses what, in the case in hand,
was really one thing--'hath made this man strong,' and 'hath given
him perfect soundness.' Ah! we can part the two, cannot we? There is
the disease, the disease of an alienated heart, of a perverted will,
of a swollen self, all of which we need to have cured and checked
before we can do right. And there is weakness, the impotence to do
what is good, 'how to perform I find not,' and we need to be
strengthened as well as cured. There is only one thing that will do
these two, and that is that Christ's power, ay, and Christ's own
life, should pass, as it will pass if we trust Him, into our foulness
and precipitate all the impurity--into our weakness and infuse
strength. 'A reed shaken with the wind,' and without substance or
solidity to resist, may be placed in what is called a petrifying
well, and, by the infiltration of stony substance into its structure,
may be turned into a rigid mass, like a little bar of iron. So, if
Christ comes into my poor, weak, tremulous nature, there will be an
infiltration into the very substance of my being of a present power
which will make me strong.

My brother, you and I need, first and foremost, the healing, and then
the strength-giving power, which we never find in its completeness
anywhere but in Christ, and which we shall always find in Him.

And now notice, Jesus Christ does not make half cures--'this
_perfect_ soundness.' If any man, in contact with Him, is but half
delivered from his infirmities and purged from his sins, it is not
because Christ's power is inadequate, but because his own faith is
defective.

Christ's cures should be visible to all around. A man's own testimony
is not the most satisfactory. Peter appeals to the bystanders. 'You
have seen him lying here for years, a motionless lump of mendicancy,
at the Temple gate. Now you see him walking and leaping and praising
God. Is it a cure, or is it not?' You professing Christians, would
you like to stand that test, to empanel a jury of people that have no
sympathy with your religion, in order that they might decide whether
you were healed and strengthened or not? It is a good thing for us
when the world bears witness that Jesus Christ's power has come into
us, and made us what we are.

And so, dear friends, I lay all these thoughts on your hearts.
Christ's gift is amply sufficient to deliver us from all evils of
weakness, sickness, incapacity: to endue us with all gifts of
spiritual and immortal strength. But, while the limit of what Christ
gives is His boundless wealth, the limit of what you possess is your
faith. The rainfall comes down in the same copiousness on rock and
furrow, but it runs off the one, having stimulated no growth and left
no blessing, and it sinks into the other and quickens every dormant
germ into life which will one day blossom into beauty. We are all of
us either rock or soil, and which we are depends on the reality, the
firmness, and the force of our faith in Christ. He Himself has laid
down the principle on which He bestows His gifts when He says,
'According to thy faith be it unto thee!'



THE SERVANT OF THE LORD

'Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to
bless you, In turning away every one of you from his iniquities.'
--ACTS iii. 26.

So ended Peter's bold address to the wondering crowd gathered in the
Temple courts around him, with his companion John and the lame man
whom they had healed. A glance at his words will show how
extraordinarily outspoken and courageous they are. He charges home on
his hearers the guilt of Christ's death, unfalteringly proclaims His
Messiahship, bears witness to His Resurrection and Ascension, asserts
that He is the End and Fulfilment of ancient revelation, and offers
to all the great blessings that Christ brings. And this fiery, tender
oration came from the same lips which, a few weeks before, had been
blanched with fear before a flippant maidservant, and had quivered as
they swore, 'I know not the man!'

One or two simple observations may be made by way of introduction.
'Unto you _first_'--'first' implies second; and so the Apostle has
shaken himself clear of the Jews' narrow belief that Messias belonged
to them only, and is already beginning to contemplate the possibility
of a transference of the kingdom of God to the outlying Gentiles.
'God having raised up His Son'--that expression has no reference, as
it might at first seem, to the fact of the Resurrection; but is
employed in the same sense as, and indeed looks back to, previous
words. For he had just quoted Moses' declaration, 'A prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you from your brethren.' So it is
Christ's equipment and appointment for His office, and not His
Resurrection, which is spoken about here. 'His Son Jesus'--the
Revised Version more accurately translates 'His Servant Jesus.' I
shall have a word or two to say about that translation presently, but
in the meantime I simply note the fact.

With this slight explanation let us now turn to two or three of the
aspects of the words before us.

I. First, I note the extraordinary transformation which they indicate
in the speaker.

I have already referred to his cowardice a very short time before.
That transformation from a coward to a hero he shared in common with
his brethren. On one page we read, 'They all forsook Him and fled.'
We turn over half a dozen leaves and we read: 'They departed from the
council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for
His name.' What did that?

Then there is another transformation no less swift, sudden, and
inexplicable, except on one hypothesis. All through Christ's life the
disciples had been singularly slow to apprehend the highest aspects
of His teachings, and they had clung with a strange obstinacy to
their narrow Pharisaic and Jewish notions of the Messiah as coming to
establish a temporal dominion, in which Israel was to ride upon the
necks of the subject nations. And now, all at once, this Apostle, and
his fellows with him, have stepped from these puerile and narrow
ideas out into this large place, that he and they recognise that the
Jew had no exclusive possession of Messiah's blessings, and that
these blessings consisted in no external kingdom, but lay mainly and
primarily in His 'turning every one of you from your iniquities.' At
one time the Apostles stood upon a gross, low, carnal level, and in a
few weeks they were, at all events, feeling their way to, and to a
large extent had possession of, the most spiritual and lofty aspects
of Christ's mission. What did that?

Something had come in between which wrought more, in a short space,
than all the three years of Christ's teaching and companionship had
done for them. What was it? Why did they not continue in the mood
which two of them are reported to have been in, after the
Crucifixion, when they said--'It is all up! we trusted that this had
been He,' but the force of circumstances has shivered the confidence
into fragments, and there is no such hope left for us any longer.
What brought them out of that Slough of Despond?

I would put it to any fair-minded man whether the psychological facts
of this sudden maturing of these childish minds, and their sudden
change from slinking cowards into heroes who did not blanch before
the torture and the scaffold, are accountable, if you strike out the
Resurrection, the Ascension, and Pentecost? It seems to me that, for
the sake of avoiding a miracle, the disbelievers in the Resurrection
accept an impossibility, and tie themselves to an intellectual
absurdity. And I for one would rather believe in a miracle than
believe in an uncaused change, in which the Apostles take exactly the
opposite course from that which they necessarily must have taken, if
there had not been the facts that the New Testament asserts that
there were, Christ's rising again from the dead, and Ascension.

Why did not the Church share the fate of John's disciples, who
scattered like sheep without a shepherd when Herod chopped off their
master's head? Why did not the Church share the fate of that abortive
rising, of which we know that when Theudas, its leader, was slain,
'all, as many as believed on him, came to nought.' Why did these men
act in exactly the opposite way? I take it that, as you cannot
account for Christ except on the hypothesis that He is the Son of the
Highest, you cannot account for the continuance of the Christian
Church for a week after the Crucifixion, except on the hypothesis
that the men who composed it were witnesses of His Resurrection, and
saw Him floating upwards and received into the Shechinah cloud and
lost to their sight. Peter's change, witnessed by the words of my
text--these bold and clear-sighted words--seems to me to be a perfect
monstrosity, and incapable of explication, unless he saw the risen
Lord, beheld the ascended Christ, was touched with the fiery Spirit
descending on Pentecost, and so 'out of weakness was made strong,'
and from a babe sprang to the stature of a man in Christ.

II. Look at these words as setting forth a remarkable view of Christ.

I have already referred to the fact that the word rendered 'son'
ought rather to be rendered 'servant.' It literally means 'child' or
'boy,' and appears to have been used familiarly, just in the same
fashion as we use the same expression 'boy,' or its equivalent
'maid,' as a more gentle designation for a servant. Thus the kindly
centurion, when he would bespeak our Lord's care for his menial,
calls him his 'boy'; and our Bible there translates rightly
'servant.'

Again, the designation is that which is continually employed in the
Greek translation of the Old Testament as the equivalent for the
well-known prophetic phrase 'the Servant of Jehovah,' which, as you
will remember, is characteristic of the second portion of the
prophecies of Isaiah. And consequently we find that, in a quotation
of Isaiah's prophecy in the Gospel of Matthew, the very phrase of our
text is there employed: 'Behold My Servant whom I uphold!'

Now, it seems as if this designation of our Lord as God's Servant was
very familiar to Peter's thoughts at this stage of the development of
Christian doctrine. For we find the name employed twice in this
discourse--in the thirteenth verse, 'the God of our Fathers hath
glorified His Servant Jesus,' and again in my text. We also find it
twice in the next chapter, where Peter, offering up a prayer amongst
his brethren, speaks of 'Thy Holy Child Jesus,' and prays 'that signs
and wonders may be done through the name' of that 'Holy Child.' So,
then, I think we may fairly take it that, at the time in question,
this thought of Jesus as the 'Servant of the Lord' had come with
especial force to the primitive Church. And the fact that the
designation never occurs again in the New Testament seems to show
that they passed on from it into a deeper perception than even it
attests of who and what this Jesus was in relation to God.

But, at all events, we have in our text the Apostle looking back to
that dim, mysterious Figure which rises up with shadowy lineaments
out of the great prophecy of 'Isaiah,' and thrilling with awe and
wonder, as he sees, bit by bit, in the Face painted on the prophetic
canvas, the likeness of the Face into which he had looked for three
blessed years, that now began to tell him more than they had done
whilst their moments were passing.

'The Servant of the Lord'--that means, first of all, that Christ, in
all which He does, meekly and obediently executes the Father's will.
As He Himself said, 'I come not to do Mine own will, but the will of
Him that sent Me.' But it carries us further than that, to a point
about which I would like to say one word now; and that is, the clear
recognition that the very centre of Jewish prophecy is the revelation
of the personality of the Christ. Now, it seems to me that present
tendencies, discussions about the nature and limits of inspiration,
investigations which, in many directions, are to be welcomed and are
fruitful as to the manner of origin of the books of the Old
Testament, and as to their collection into a Canon and a whole--that
all this new light has a counterbalancing disadvantage, in that it
tends somewhat to obscure in men's minds the great central truth
about the revelation of God in Israel--viz. that it was all
progressive, and that its goal and end was Jesus Christ. 'The
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,' and however much we
may have to learn--and I have no doubt that we have a great deal to
learn, about the composition, the structure, the authorship, the date
of these ancient books--I take leave to say that the unlearned
reader, who recognises that they all converge on Jesus Christ, has
hold of the clue of the labyrinth, and has come nearer to the marrow
of the books than the most learned investigators, who see all manner
of things besides in them, and do not see that 'they that went before
cried, saying, Hosanna! Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the
Lord!'

And so I venture to commend to you, brethren--not as a barrier
against any reverent investigation, not as stopping any careful
study--this as the central truth concerning the ancient revelation,
that it had, for its chief business, to proclaim the coming of the
Servant of Jehovah, Jesus the Christ.

III. And now, lastly, look at these words as setting forth the true
centre of Christ's work.

'He has sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you from
his iniquities.' I have already spoken about the gross, narrow,
carnal apprehensions of Messiah's work which cleaved to the disciples
during all our Lord's life here, and which disturbed even the
sanctity of the upper chamber at that last meal, with squabbles about
precedence which had an eye to places in the court of the Messiah
when He assumed His throne. But here Peter has shaken himself clear
of all these, and has grasped the thought that, whatever derivative
and secondary blessings of an external and visible sort may, and
must, come in Messiah's train, _the_ blessing which He brings is of a
purely spiritual and inward character, and consists in turning away
single souls from their love and practice of evil. That is Christ's
true work.

The Apostle does not enlarge as to how it is done. We know how it is
done. Jesus turns away men from sin because, by the magnetism of His
love, and the attractive raying out of influence from His Cross, He
turns them to Himself. He turns us from our iniquities by the
expulsive power of a new affection, which, coming into our hearts
like a great river into some foul Augean stable, sweeps out on its
waters all the filth that no broom can ever clear out in detail. He
turns men from their iniquities by His gift of a new life, kindred
with that from which it is derived.

There is an old superstition that lightning turned whatever it struck
towards the point from which the flash came, so that a tree with its
thousand leaves had each of them pointed to that quarter in the
heavens where the blaze had been.

And so Christ, when He flings out the beneficent flash that slays
only our evil, and vitalises ourselves, turns us to Him, and away
from our transgressions. 'Turn us, O Christ, and we shall be turned.'

Ah, brethren! that is the blessing that we need most, for
'iniquities' are universal; and so long as man is bound to his sin it
will embitter all sweetnesses, and neutralise every blessing. It is
not culture, valuable as that is in many ways, that will avail to
stanch man's deepest wounds. It is not a new social order that will
still the discontent and the misery of humanity. You may adopt
collective economic and social arrangements, and divide property out
as it pleases you. But as long as man continues selfish he will
continue sinful, and as long as he continues sinful _any_ social
order will be pregnant with sorrow, 'and when it is finished it will
bring forth death.' You have to go deeper down than all that, down as
deep as this Apostle goes in this sermon of his, and recognise that
Christ's prime blessing is the turning of men from their iniquities,
and that only after that has been done will other good come.

How shallow, by the side of that conception, do modern notions of
Jesus as the great social Reformer look! These are true, but they
want their basis, and their basis lies only here, that He is the
Redeemer of individuals from their sins. There were people in
Christ's lifetime who were all untouched by His teachings, but when
they found that He gave bread miraculously they said, 'This is of a
truth the Prophet! That's the prophet for my money; the Man that can
make bread, and secure material well-being.' Have not certain modern
views of Christ's work and mission a good deal in common with these
vulgar old Jews--views which regard Him mainly as contributing to the
material good, the social and economical well-being of the world?

Now, I believe that He does that. And I believe that Christ's
principles are going to revolutionise society as it exists at
present. But I am sure that we are on a false scent if we attempt to
preach consequences without proclaiming their antecedents, and that
such preaching will end, as all such attempts have ended, in
confusion and disappointment.

They used to talk about Jesus Christ, in the first French Revolution,
as 'the Good _Sansculotte_.' Perfectly true! But as the basis of
that, and of all representations of Him, that will have power on the
diseases of the community, we have to preach Him as the Saviour of
the individual from his sin.

And so, brethren, has He saved you? Do you begin your notions of
Jesus Christ where His work begins? Do you feel that what you want
most is neither culture nor any superficial and external changes, but
something that will deal with the deep, indwelling, rooted, obstinate
self-regard which is the centre of all sin? And have you gone alone
to Him as a sinful man? As the Apostle here suggests, Jesus Christ
does not save communities. The doctor has his patients into the
consulting-room one by one. There is no applying of Christ's benefits
to men in batches, by platoons and regiments, as Clovis baptized his
Franks; but you have to go, every one of you, through the turnstile
singly, and alone to confess, and alone to be absolved, and alone to
be turned, from your iniquity.

If I might venture to alter the position of words in my text, I would
lay them, so modified, on the hearts of all my friends whom my words
may reach now, and say, 'Unto you--_unto thee_, God, having raised up
His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, _first_ in turning away every
one of you from his iniquities.'



THE FIRST BLAST OF TEMPEST

'And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain
of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, 2. Being
grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus
the resurrection from the dead. 3. And they laid hands on them,
and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now even-tide.
4. Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the
number of the men was about five thousand. 5. And it came to pass
on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, 6. And
Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and
as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered
together at Jerusalem. 7. And when they had set them in the
midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done
this? 8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them,
Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, 9. If we this day
be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what
means he is made whole; 10. Be it known unto you all, and to all
the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even
by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. 11. This is the
stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become
the head of the corner. 12. Neither is there salvation in any
other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved. 13. Now when they saw the boldness of
Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and
ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them,
that they had been with Jesus. 14. And beholding the man which
was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against
it.'--ACTS iv. 1-14.

Hitherto the Jewish authorities had let the disciples alone, either
because their attention had not been drawn even by Pentecost and the
consequent growth of the Church, or because they thought that to
ignore the new sect was the best way to end it. But when its leaders
took to vehement preaching in Solomon's porch, and crowds eagerly
listened, it was time to strike in.

Our passage describes the first collision of hostile authority with
Christian faith, and shows, as in a glass, the constant result of
that collision in all ages.

The motives actuating the assailants are significantly analysed, and
may be distributed among the three classes enumerated. The priests
and the captain of the Temple would be annoyed by the very fact that
Peter and John taught the people: the former, because they were
jealous of their official prerogative: the latter, because he was
responsible for public order, and a riot in the Temple court would
have been a scandal. The Saddueees were indignant at the substance of
the teaching, which affirmed the resurrection of the dead, which they
denied, and alleged it as having occurred 'in Jesus.'

The position of Sadducees and Pharisees is inverted in Acts as
compared with the Gospels. While Christ lived, the Pharisees were the
soul of the opposition to Him, and His most solemn warnings fell on
them; after the Resurrection, the Sadducees head the opposition, and
among the Pharisees are some, like Gamaliel and afterwards Paul, who
incline to the new faith. It was the Resurrection that made the
difference, and the difference is an incidental testimony to the fact
that Christ's Resurrection was proclaimed from the first. To ask
whether Jesus had risen, and to examine the evidence, were the last
things of which the combined assailants thought. This public activity
of the Apostles threatened their influence or their pet beliefs, and
so, like persecutors in all ages, they shut their eyes to the
important question, 'Is this preaching true or false?' and took the
easier course of laying hands on the preachers.

So the night fell on Peter and John in prison, the first of the
thousands who have suffered bonds and imprisonment for Christ, and
have therein found liberty. What lofty faith, and what subordination
of the fate of the messengers to the progress of the message, are
expressed in that abrupt introduction, in verse 4, of the statistics
of the increase of the Church from that day's work! It mattered
little that it ended with the two Apostles in custody, since it ended
too with five thousand rejoicing in Christ.

The arrest seems to have been due to a sudden thought on the part of
the priests, captain, and Sadducees, without commands from the
Sanhedrin or the high priest. But when these inferior authorities had
got hold of their prisoners, they probably did not quite know what to
do with them, and so moved the proper persons to summon the
Sanhedrin. In all haste, then, a session was called for next morning.
'Rulers, elders, and scribes' made up the constituent members of the
court, and the same two 'high priests' who had tried Jesus are there,
attended by a strong contingent of dependants, who could be trusted
to vote as they were bidden. Annas was an _emeritus_ high priest,
whose age and relationship to Caiaphas, the actual holder of the post
and Annas's son-in-law, gave him an influential position. He retained
the title, though he had ceased to hold the office, as a cleric
without a charge is usually called 'Reverend.'

It was substantially the same court which had condemned Jesus, and
probably now sat in the same hall as then. So that Peter and John
would remember the last time when they had together been in that
room, and Who had stood in the criminal's place where they now were
set.

The court seems to have been somewhat at a loss how to proceed. The
Apostles had been arrested for their words, but they are questioned
about the miracle. It was no crime to teach in the Temple, but a
crime might be twisted out of working a miracle in the name of any
but Jehovah. To do that would come near blasphemy or worshipping
strange gods. The Sanhedrin knew what the answer to their question
would be, and probably they intended, as soon as the anticipated
answer was given, to 'rend their clothes,' and say, as they had done
once before, 'What need we further witnesses? They have spoken
blasphemy.' But things did not go as was expected. The crafty
question was put. It does not attempt to throw doubt on the reality
of the miracle, but there is a world of arrogant contempt in it, both
in speaking of the cure as 'this,' and in the scornful emphasis with
which, in the Greek, 'ye' stands last in the sentence, and implies,
'ye poor, ignorant fishermen.'

The last time that Peter had been in the judgment-hall his courage
had oozed out of him at the prick of a maid-servant's sharp tongue,
but now he fronts all the ecclesiastical authorities without a
tremor. Whence came the transformation of the cowardly denier into
the heroic confessor, who turns the tables on his judges and accuses
them? The narrative answers. He was 'filled with the Holy Ghost.'
That abiding possession of the Spirit, begun on Pentecost, did not
prevent special inspiration for special needs, and the Greek
indicates that there was granted such a temporary influx in this
critical hour.

One cannot but note the calmness of the Apostle, so unlike his old
tumultuous self. He begins with acknowledging the lawful authority of
the court, and goes on, with just a tinge of sarcasm, to put the
vague 'this' of the question in its true light. It was 'a good deed
done to an impotent man,' for which John and he stood there. Singular
sort of crime that! Was there not a presumption that the power which
had wrought so 'good' a deed was good? 'Do men gather grapes of
thorns?' Many a time since then Christianity has been treated as
criminal, because of its beneficence to bodies and souls.

But Peter rises to the full height of the occasion, when he answers
the Sanhedrin's question with the pealing forth of his Lord's name.
He repeats in substance his former contrast of Israel's treatment of
Jesus and God's; but, in speaking to the rulers, his tone is more
severe than it was to the people. The latter had been charged, at
Pentecost and in the Temple, with crucifying _Jesus_; the former are
here charged with crucifying the _Christ_. It was their business to
have tested his claims, and to have welcomed the Messiah. The guilt
was shared by both, but the heavier part lay on the shoulders of the
Sanhedrin.

Mark, too, the bold proclamation of the Resurrection, the stone of
offence to the Sadducees. How easy it would have been for them to
silence the Apostle, if they could have pointed to the undisturbed
and occupied grave! That would have finished the new sect at once. Is
there any reason why it was not done but the one reason that it could
not be done?

Thus far Peter has been answering the interrogation legally put, and
has done as was anticipated. Now was the time for Annas and the rest
to strike in; but they could not carry out their programme, for the
fiery stream of Peter's words does not stop when they expected, and
instead of a timid answer followed by silence, they get an almost
defiant proclamation of the Name, followed by a charge against them,
which turns the accused into the accuser, and puts them at the bar.
Peter learned to apply the passage in the Psalm (v. 11) to the
rulers, from his Master's use of it (Matt. xxi. 42); and there is no
quaver in his voice nor fear in his heart when, in the face of all
these learned Rabbis and high and mighty dignitaries, he brands them
as foolish builders, blind to the worth of the Stone 'chosen of God,
and precious,' and tells them that the course of divine Providence
will run counter to their rejection of Jesus, and make him the very
'Head of the corner,'--the crown, as well as the foundation, of God's
building.

But not even this bold indictment ends the stream of his speech. The
proclamation of the power of the Name was fitly followed by pressing
home the guilt and madness of rejecting Jesus, and that again by the
glad tidings of salvation for all, even the rejecters. Is not the
sequence in Peter's defence substantially that which all Christian
preaching should exhibit? First, strong, plain proclamation of the
truth; then pungent pressing home of the sin of turning away from
Jesus; and then earnest setting forth of the salvation in His name,--
a salvation wide as the world, and deep as our misery and need, but
narrow, inasmuch as it is 'in none other.' The Apostle will not end
with charging his hearers with guilt, but with offering them
salvation. He will end with lifting up 'the Name' high above all
other, and setting it in solitary clearness before, not these rulers
only, but the whole world. The salvation which it had wrought on the
lame man was but a parable and picture of the salvation from all ills
of body and spirit, which was stored in that Name, and in it alone.

The rulers' contempt had been expressed by their emphatic ending of
their question with that 'ye.' Peter expresses his brotherhood and
longing for the good of his judges by ending his impassioned, or,
rather, inspired address with a loving, pleading 'we.' He puts
himself on the same level with them as needing salvation, and would
fain have them on the same level with himself and John as receiving
it. That is the right way to preach.

Little need be said as to the effect of this address. Whether it went
any deeper in any susceptible souls or not, it upset the schemes of
the leaders. Something in the manner and matter of it awed them into
wonder, and paralysed them for the time. Here was the first instance
of the fulfilment of that promise, which has been fulfilled again and
again since, of 'a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall
not be able to gainsay nor resist.' 'Unlearned,' as ignorant of
Rabbinical traditions, and 'ignorant,' or, rather, 'private,' as
holding no official position, these two wielded a power over hearts
and consciences which not even official indifference and arrogance
could shake off. Thank God, that day's experience is repeated still,
and any of us may have the same Spirit to clothe us with the same
armour of light!

The Sanhedrin knew well enough that the Apostles had been with Jesus,
and the statement that 'they took knowledge of them' cannot mean that
that fact dawned on the rulers for the first time. Rather it means
that their wonder at the 'boldness' of the two drove home the fact of
their association with Him to their minds. That association explained
the marvel; for the Sanhedrin remembered how He had stood, meek but
unawed, at the same bar. They said to themselves, 'We know where
these men get this brave freedom of speech,--from that Nazarene.'
Happy shall we be if our demeanour recalls to spectators the ways of
our Lord!

How came the lame man there? He had not been arrested with the
Apostles. Had he voluntarily and bravely joined them? We do not know,
but evidently he was not there as accused, and probably had come as a
witness of the reality of the miracle. Notice the emphatic
'standing,' as in verse 10,--a thing that he had never done all his
life. No wonder that the Sanhedrin were puzzled, and settled down to
the 'lame and impotent conclusion' which follows. So, in the first
round of the world-long battle between the persecutors and the
persecuted, the victory is all on the side of the latter. So it has
been ever since, though often the victors have died in the conflict.
'The Church is an anvil which has worn out many hammers,' and the
story of the first collision is, in essentials, the story of all.



WITH AND LIKE CHRIST

'Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and
they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.'
--ACTS iv. 13.

Two young Galilean fishermen, before the same formidable tribunal
which a few weeks before had condemned their Master, might well have
quailed. And evidently 'Annas, the high priest, and Caiaphas, and
John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high
priest,' were very much astonished that their united wisdom and
dignity did not produce a greater impression on these two
contumacious prisoners. They were 'unlearned,' knowing nothing about
Rabbinical wisdom; they were 'ignorant,' or, as the word ought rather
to be rendered, 'persons in a private station,' without any kind of
official dignity. And yet there they stood, perfectly unembarrassed
and at their ease, and said what they wanted to say, all of it, right
out. So, as great astonishment crept over the dignified ecclesiastics
who were sitting in judgment upon them, their astonishment led them
to remember what, of course, they knew before, only that it had not
struck them so forcibly, as explaining the Apostles' demeanour--
viz.,'that they had been with Jesus.' So they said to themselves:
'Ah, that explains it all! There is the root of it. The company that
they have kept accounts for their unembarrassed boldness.'

Now, I need not notice by more than a word in passing, what a
testimony it is to the impression that that meek and gracious
Sufferer had made upon His judges, that when they saw these two men
standing there unfaltering, they began to remember how that other
Prisoner had stood. And perhaps some of them began to think that they
had made a mistake in that last trial. It is a testimony to the
impression that Christ had made that the strange demeanour of His two
servants recalled the Master to the mind of the judges.

I. The first thing that strikes us here is the companionship that
transforms.

The rulers were partly right, and they were partly wrong. The source
from which these men had drawn their boldness was their being with
Christ; but it was not such companionship with Christ, as Annas and
Caiaphas had in view, that had given them courage. For as long as the
Apostles had His personal presence with them, there was no
perceptible transforming or elevating process going on in them; and
it was not until after they had lost that corporeal presence that
there came upon them the change which even the prejudiced eyes of
these judges could not help seeing.

The writer of Acts gives a truer explanation with which we may fill
out the incomplete explanation of the rulers, when he says, 'Then
Peter, _filled with the Holy Ghost_, said unto them.' Ah, that is it!
They had been with Jesus all the days that He went in and out amongst
them. They had companioned with Him, and they had gained but little
from it. But when He went away, and they were relegated to the same
kind of companionship with Him that you and I have or may have, then
a change began to take place on them. And so the companionship that
transforms is not what the Apostle calls 'knowing Christ after the
flesh,' but inward communion with Him, the companionship and
familiarity which are as possible for us as for any Peter or John of
them all, and without which our Christianity is nothing but sounding
brass and tinkling cymbal.

They were 'with Jesus,' as each of us may be. Their communion was in
no respect different from the communion that is open and
indispensable to any real Christian. To be with Him is possible for
us all. When we go to our daily work, when we are compassed about by
distracting and trivial cares, when men come buzzing round us, and
the ordinary secularities of life seem to close in upon us like the
walls of a prison, and to shut out the blue and the light--oh! it is
hard, but it _is_ possible, for every one of us to think these all
away, and to carry with us into everything that blessed thought of a
Presence that is not to be put aside, that sits beside me at my study
table, that stands beside you at your tasks, that goes with you in
shop and mart, that is always near, with its tender encircling, with
its mighty protection, with its all-sufficing sweetness and power. To
be with Christ is no prerogative, either of Apostles and teachers of
the primitive age, or of saints that have passed into the higher
vision; but it is possible for us all. No doubt there are as yet
unknown forms and degrees of companionship with Christ in the future
state, in comparison with which to be 'present in the body is to be
absent from the Lord'; but in the inmost depth of reality, the soul
that loves is where it loves, and has whom it loves ever with it.
'Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,' and we may be
with Christ if only we will honestly try hour by hour to keep
ourselves in touch with Him, and to make Him the motive as well as
the end of the work that other men do along with us, and do from
altogether secular and low motives.

Another phase of being with Christ lies in frank, full, and familiar
conversation with Him. I do not understand a dumb companionship. When
we are with those that we love, and with whom we are at ease, speech
comes instinctively. If we are co-denizens of the Father's house with
the Elder Brother, we shall talk to Him. We shall not need to be
reminded of the 'duty of prayer,' but shall rather instinctively and
as a matter of course, without thinking of what we are doing, speak
to Him our momentary wants, our passing discomforts, our little
troubles. There may be a great deal more virtue in monosyllabic
prayers than in long liturgies. Little jets of speech or even of
unspoken speech that go up to Him are likely to be heart-felt and to
be heard. It is said of Israel's army on one occasion, 'they cried
unto God in the battle, and He was entreated of them.' Do you think
that theirs would be very elaborate prayers? Was there any time to
make a long petition when the sword of a Philistine was whizzing
about the suppliant's ears? It was only a cry, but it _was_ a cry;
and so 'He was entreated of them.' If we are 'with Christ' we shall
talk to Him; and if we are with Christ He will talk to us. It is for
us to keep in the attitude of listening and, so far as may be, to
hush other voices, in order that His may be heard, If we do so, even
here 'shall we ever be with the Lord.'

II. Now, note next the character that this companionship produces.

Annas and Caiaphas said to each other: 'Ah, these two have been with
that Jesus! That is where they have got their boldness. They are like
Him.'

As is the Master, so is the servant. That is the broad, general
principle that lies in my text. To be with Christ makes men
Christlike. A soul habitually in contact with Jesus will imbibe
sweetness from Him, as garments laid away in a drawer with some
preservative perfume absorb fragrance from that beside which they
lie. Therefore the surest way for Christian people to become what God
would have them to be, is to direct the greater part of their effort,
not so much to the acquirement of individual characteristics and
excellences, as to the keeping up of continuity of communion with the
Master. Then the excellences will come. Astronomers, for instance,
have found out that if they take a sensitive plate and lay it so as
to receive the light from a star, and keep it in place by giving it a
motion corresponding with the apparent motion of the heavens, for
hours and hours, there will become visible upon it a photographic
image of dim stars that no human eye or telescope can see. Persistent
lying before the light stamps the image of the light upon the plate.
Communion with Christ is the secret of Christlikeness. So instead of
all the wearisome, painful, futile attempts at tinkering one's own
character apart from Him, here is the royal road. Not that there is
no effort in it. We must never forget nor undervalue the necessity
for struggle in the Christian life. But that truth needs to be
supplemented with the thought that comes from my text--viz. that the
fruitful direction in which the struggle is to be mainly made lies in
keeping ourselves in touch with Jesus Christ, and if we do that, then
transformation comes by beholding. 'We all, reflecting as a mirror
does, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image.'
'They have been with Jesus,' and so they were like Him.

But now look at the specific kinds of excellence which seem to have
come out of this communion. 'They beheld the _boldness_ of Peter and
John.' The word that is translated 'boldness' no doubt conveys that
idea, but it also conveys another. Literally it means 'the act of
saying everything.' It means openness of unembarrassed speech, and so
comes to have the secondary signification, which the text gives, of
'boldness.'

Then, to be with Christ gives a living knowledge of Him and of truth,
far in advance of the head knowledge of wise and learned people. It
was a fact that these two knew nothing about what Rabbi _This_, or
Rabbi _That_, or Rabbi _The Other_ had said, and yet could speak, as
they had been speaking, large religious ideas that astonished these
hide-bound Pharisees, who thought that there was no way to get to the
knowledge of the revelation of God made to Israel, except by the road
of their own musty and profitless learning. Ay! and it always is so.
An ounce of experience is worth a ton of theology. The men that have
summered and wintered with Jesus Christ may not know a great many
things that are supposed to be very important parts of religion, but
they have got hold of the central truth of it, with a power, and in a
fashion, that men of books, and ideas, and systems, and creeds, and
theological learning, may know nothing about. 'Not many wise men
after the flesh, not many mighty, are called.' Let a poor man at his
plough-tail, or a poor woman in her garret, or a collier in the pit,
have Jesus Christ for their Companion, and they have got the kernel;
and the gentlemen that like such diet may live on the shell if they
will, and can. Religious ideas are of little use unless there be
heart-experiences; and heart-experiences are wonderful teachers of
religious truth.

Again, to be with Christ frees from the fear of man. It was a new
thing for such persons as Peter and John to stand cool and unawed
before the Council. Not so very long ago one of the two had been
frightened into a momentary apostasy by dread of being haled before
the rulers, and now they are calmly heroic, and threats are idle
words to them. I need not point to the strong presumption, raised by
the contrast of the Apostles' past cowardice and present courage, of
the occurrence of some such extraordinary facts as the Resurrection,
the Ascension, and the Descent of the Spirit. Something had happened
which revolutionised these men. It was their communion with Jesus,
made more real and deep by the cessation of His bodily presence,
which made these unlearned and non-official Galileans front the
Council with calmly beating hearts and unfaltering tongues.
Doubtless, temperament has much to do with courage, but, no doubt, he
who lives near Jesus is set free from undue dependence on things seen
and on persons. Perfect love casts out fear, not only of the Beloved,
but of all creatures. It is the bravest thing in the world.

Further, to be with Christ will open a man's lips. The fountain, if
it is full, must well up. 'Light is light which circulates. Heat is
heat which radiates.' The true possession of Jesus Christ will always
make it impossible for the possessor to be dumb. I pray you to test
yourselves, as I would that all professing Christians should test
themselves, by that simple truth, that a full heart must find
utterance. The instinct that drives a man to speak of the thing in
which he is interested should have full play in the Christian life.
It seems to me a terribly sad fact that there are such hosts of good,
kind people, with some sort of religion about them, who never feel
any anxiety to say a word to any soul concerning the Master whom they
profess to love. I know, of course, that deep feeling is silent, and
that the secrets of Christian experience are not to be worn on the
sleeve for daws to peck at. And I know that the conventionalities of
this generation frown very largely upon the frank utterance of
religious convictions on the part of religious people, except on
Sundays, in Sunday-schools, pulpits, and the like. But for all that,
what is in you will come out. If you have never felt 'I was weary of
forbearing, and I could not stay,' I do not think that there is much
sign in you of a very deep or a very real being with Jesus.

III. The last point to be noted is, the impression which such a
character makes.

It was not so much what Peter and John said that astonished the
Council, as the fact of their being composed and bold enough to say
anything.

A great deal more is done by character than by anything else. Most
people in the world take their notions of Christianity from its
concrete embodiments in professing Christians. For one man that has
read his Bible, and has come to know what religion is thereby, there
are a hundred that look at you and me, and therefrom draw their
conclusions as to what religion is. It is not my sermons, but your
life, that is the most important agency for the spread of the Gospel
in this congregation. And if we, as Christian people, were to live so
as to make men say, 'Dear me, that is strange. That is not the kind
of thing that one would have expected from that man. That is of a
higher strain than he is of. Where did it come from, I wonder?' 'Ah,
he learned it of that Jesus'--if people were constrained to speak in
that style to themselves about us, dear friends, and about all our
brethren, England would be a different England from what it is to-
day. It is Christians' lives, after all, that make dints in the
world's conscience.

Do you remember one of the Apostle's lovely and strong metaphors?
Paul says that that little Church in Thessalonica rung out clear and
strong the name of Jesus Christ--resonant like the clang of a bugle,
'so that we need not to speak anything.' The word that he employs for
'sounded out' is a technical expression for the ringing blast of a
trumpet. Very small penny whistles would be a better metaphor for the
instruments which the bulk of professing Christians play on.

'Adorn the doctrine of Christ.' And that you may, listen to His own
word, which says all I have been trying to say in this sermon: 'Abide
in Me. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in
the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.'



OBEDIENT DISOBEDIENCE

'But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God,
judge ye. 20. For we cannot but speak the things which we have
seen and heard. 21. So when they had further threatened them,
they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them,
because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which
was done. 22. For the man was above forty years old, on whom this
miracle of healing was shewed. 23. And being let go they went to
their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and
elders had said unto them. 24. And when they heard that, they
lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord,
Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and
all that in them is: 25. Who by the mouth of Thy servant David
hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain
things? 26. The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were
gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. 27.
For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and
the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28. For to do
whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.
29. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto Thy
servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy word, 30. By
stretching forth Thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders
may be done by the name of Thy holy child Jesus. 31. And when
they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled
together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they
spake the word of God with boldness.'--ACTS iv. 19-31.

The only chance for persecution to succeed is to smite hard and
swiftly. If you cannot strike, do not threaten. Menacing words only
give courage. The rulers betrayed their hesitation when the end of
their solemn conclave was but to 'straitly threaten'; and less heroic
confessors than Peter and John would have disregarded the prohibition
as mere wind. None the less the attitude of these two Galilean
fishermen is noble and singular, when their previous cowardice is
remembered. This first collision with civil authority gives, as has
been already noticed, the main lines on which the relations of the
Church to hostile powers have proceeded.

I. The heroic refusal of unlawful obedience. We shall probably not do
injustice to John if we suppose that Peter was spokesman. If so, the
contrast of the tone of his answer with all previously recorded
utterances of his is remarkable. Warm-hearted impulsiveness, often
wrong-headed and sometimes illogical, had been their mark; but here
we have calm, fixed determination, which, as is usually its manner,
wastes no words, but in its very brevity impresses the hearers as
being immovable. Whence did this man get the power to lay down once
for all the foundation principles of the limits of civil obedience,
and of the duty of Christian confession? His words take rank with the
ever-memorable sayings of thinkers and heroes, from Socrates in his
prison telling the Athenians that he loved them, but that he must
'obey God rather than you,' to Luther at Worms with his 'It is
neither safe nor right to do anything against conscience. Here I
stand; I can do nothing else. God help me! Amen.' Peter's words are
the first of a long series.

This first instance of persecution is made the occasion for the clear
expression of the great principles which are to guide the Church. The
answer falls into two parts, in the first of which the limits of
obedience to civil authority are laid down in a perfectly general
form to which even the Council are expected to assent, and in the
second an irresistible compulsion to speak is boldly alleged as
driving the two Apostles to a flat refusal to obey.

It was a daring stroke to appeal to the Council for an endorsement of
the principle in verse 19, but the appeal was unanswerable; for this
tribunal had no other ostensible reason for existence than to enforce
obedience to the law of God, and to Peter's dilemma only one reply
was possible. But it rested on a bold assumption, which was
calculated to irritate the court; namely, that there was a blank
contradiction between their commands and God's, so that to obey the
one was to disobey the other. When that parting of the ways is
reached, there remains no doubt as to which road a religious man must
take.

The limits of civil obedience are clearly drawn. It is a duty,
because 'the powers that be are ordained of God,' and obedience to
them is obedience to Him. But if they, transcending their sphere,
claim obedience which can only be rendered by disobedience to Him who
has appointed them, then they are no longer His ministers, and the
duty of allegiance falls away. But there must be a plain conflict of
commands, and we must take care lest we substitute whims and fancies
of our own for the injunctions of God. Peter was not guided by his
own conceptions of duty, but by the distinct precept of his Master,
which had bid him speak. It is not true that it is the cause which
makes the martyr, but it is true that many good men have made
themselves martyrs needlessly. This principle is too sharp a weapon
to be causelessly drawn and brandished. Only an unmistakable
opposition of commandments warrants its use; and then, he has little
right to be called Christ's soldier who keeps the sword in the
scabbard.

The articulate refusal in verse 20 bases itself on the ground of
irrepressible necessity: 'We cannot but speak.' The immediate
application was to the facts of Christ's life, death, and glory. The
Apostles could not help speaking of these, both because to do so was
their commission, and because the knowledge of them and of their
importance forbade silence. The truth implied is of wide reach.
Whoever has a real, personal experience of Christ's saving power, and
has heard and seen Him, will be irresistibly impelled to impart what
he has received. Speech is a relief to a full heart. The word,
concealed in the prophet's heart, burned there 'like fire in his
bones, and he was weary of forbearing.' So it always is with deep
conviction. If a man has never felt that he must speak of Christ, he
is a very imperfect Christian. The glow of his own heart, the pity
for men who know Him not, his Lord's command, all concur to compel
speech. The full river cannot be dammed up.

II. The lame and impotent conclusion of the perplexed Council. How
plain the path is when only duty is taken as a guide, and how
vigorously and decisively a man marches along it! Peter had no
hesitation, and his resolved answer comes crashing in a straight
course, like a cannon-ball. The Council had a much more ambiguous
oracle to consult in order to settle their course, and they hesitate
accordingly, and at last do a something which is a nothing. They
wanted to trim their sails to catch popular favour, and so they could
not do anything thoroughly. To punish or acquit was the only
alternative for just judges. But they were not just; and as Jesus had
been crucified, not because Pilate thought Him guilty, but to please
the people, so His Apostles were let off, not because they were
innocent, but for the same reason. When popularity-hunters get on the
judicial bench, society must be rotten, and nearing its dissolution.
To 'decree unrighteousness by a law' is among the most hideous of
crimes. Judges 'willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,' are
portents indicative of corruption. We may remark here how the
physician's pen takes note of the patient's age, as making his cure
more striking, and manifestly miraculous.

III. The Church's answer to the first assault of the world's power.
How beautifully natural that is, 'Being let go, they went to their
own,' and how large a principle is expressed in the naive words! The
great law of association according to spiritual affinity has much to
do in determining relations here. It aggregates men, according to
sorts; but its operation is thwarted by other conditions, so that
companionship is often misery. But a time comes when it will work
unhindered, and men will be united with their like, as the stones on
some sea-beaches are laid in rows, according to their size, by the
force of the sea. Judas 'went to his own place,' and, in another
world, like will draw to like, and prevailing tendencies will be
increased by association with those who share them.

The prayer of the Church was probably the inspired outpouring of one
voice, and all the people said 'Amen,' and so made it theirs. Whose
voice it was which thus put into words the common sentiment we should
gladly have known, but need not speculate. The great fact is that the
Church answered threats by prayer. It augurs healthy spiritual life
when opposition and danger neither make cheeks blanch with fear nor
flush with anger. No man there trembled nor thought of vengeance, or
of repaying threats with threats. Every man there instinctively
turned heavenwards, and flung himself, as it were, into God's arms
for protection. Prayer is the strongest weapon that a persecuted
Church can use. Browning makes a tyrant say, recounting how he had
tried to crush a man, that his intended victim

  'Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed,
    So _I_ was afraid.'

The contents of the prayer are equally noteworthy. Instead of
minutely studying it verse by verse, we may note some of its salient
points. Observe its undaunted courage. That company never quivered or
wavered. They had no thought of obeying the mandate of the Council.
They were a little army of heroes. What had made them so? What but
the conviction that they had a living Lord at God's right hand, and a
mighty Spirit in their spirits? The world has never seen a
transformation like that. Unique effects demand unique causes for
their explanation, and nothing but the historical truth of the facts
recorded in the last pages of the Gospels and first of the Acts
accounts for the demeanour of these men.

Their courage is strikingly marked by their petition. All they ask is
'boldness' to speak a word which shall not be theirs, but God's. Fear
would have prayed for protection; passion would have asked
retribution on enemies. Christian courage and devotion only ask that
they may not shrink from their duty, and that the word may be spoken,
whatever becomes of the speakers. The world is powerless against men
like that. Would the Church of to-day meet threats with like
unanimity of desire for boldness in confession? If not, it must be
because it has not the same firm hold of the Risen Lord which these
first believers had. The truest courage is that which is conscious of
its weakness, and yet has no thought of flight, but prays for its own
increase.

We may observe, too, the body of belief expressed in the prayer.
First it lays hold on the creative omnipotence of God, and thence
passes to the recognition of His written revelation. The Church has
begun to learn the inmost meaning of the Old Testament, and to find
Christ there. David may not have written the second Psalm. Its
attribution to him by the Church stands on a different level from
Christ's attribution of authorship, as, for instance, of the hundred
and tenth Psalm. The prophecy of the Psalm is plainly Messianic,
however it may have had a historical occasion in some forgotten
revolt against some Davidic king; and, while the particular incidents
to which the prayer alludes do not exhaust its far-reaching
application, they are rightly regarded as partly fulfilling it. Herod
is a 'king of the earth,' Pilate is a 'ruler'; Roman soldiers are
Gentiles; Jewish rulers are the representatives of 'the people.'
Jesus is 'God's Anointed.' The fact that such an unnatural and daring
combination of rebels was predicted in the Psalm bears witness that
even that crime at Calvary was foreordained to come to pass, and that
God's hand and counsel ruled. Therefore all other opposition, such as
now threatened, will turn out to be swayed by that same Mighty Hand,
to work out His counsel. Why, then, should the Church fear? If we can
see God's hand moving all things, terror is dead for us, and threats
are like the whistling of idle wind.

Mark, too, the strong expression of the Church's dependence on God.
'Lord' here is an unusual word, and means 'Master,' while the Church
collectively is called 'Thy servants,' or properly, 'slaves.' It is a
different word from that of 'servant' (rather than 'child') applied
to Jesus in verses 27 and 30. God is the Master, we are His 'slaves,'
bound to absolute obedience, unconditional submission, belonging to
Him, not to ourselves, and therefore having claims on Him for such
care as an owner gives to his slaves or his cattle. He will not let
them be maltreated nor starved. He will defend them and feed them;
but they must serve him by life, and death if need be. Unquestioning
submission and unreserved dependence are our duties. Absolute
ownership and unshared responsibility for our well-being belong to
Him.

Further, the view of Christ's relationship to God is the same as
occurs in other of the early chapters of the Acts. The title of 'Thy
holy Servant Jesus' dwells on Christ's office, rather than on His
nature. Here it puts Him in contrast with David, also called 'Thy
servant.' The latter was imperfectly what Jesus was perfectly. His
complete realisation of the prophetic picture of the Servant of the
Lord in Isaiah is emphasised by the adjective 'holy,' implying
complete devotion or separation to the service of God, and unsullied,
unlimited moral purity. The uniqueness of His relation in this aspect
is expressed by the definite article in the original. He is _the_
Servant, in a sense and measure all His own. He is further _the_
Anointed Messiah. This was the Church's message to Israel and the
stay of its own courage, that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed and
perfect Servant of the Lord, who was now in heaven, reigning there.
All that this faith involved had not yet become clear to their
consciousness, but the Spirit was guiding them step by step into all
the truth; and what they saw and heard, not only in the historical
facts of which they were the witnesses, but in the teaching of that
Spirit, they could not but speak.

The answer came swift as the roll of thunder after lightning. They
who ask for courage to do God's will and speak Christ's name have
never long to wait for response. The place 'was shaken,' symbol of
the effect of faithful witness-bearing, or manifestation of the power
which was given in answer to their prayer. 'They were all filled with
the Holy Ghost,' who now did not, as before, confer ability to speak
with other tongues, but wrought no less worthily in heartening and
fitting them to speak 'in their own tongue, wherein they were born,'
in bold defiance of unlawful commands.

The statement of the answer repeats the petition verbatim: 'With all
boldness they spake the word.' What we desire of spiritual gifts we
get, and God moulds His replies so as to remind us of our petitions,
and to show by the event that these have reached His ear and guided
His giving hand.



IMPOSSIBLE SILENCE

'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.'
--ACTS iv. 20.

The context tells us that the Jewish Council were surprised, as they
well might be, at the boldness of Peter and John, and traced it to
their having been with Jesus. But do you remember that they were by
no means bold when they were with Jesus, and that the bravery came
after what, in ordinary circumstances, would have destroyed any of it
in a man? A leader's execution is not a usual recipe for heartening
his followers, but it had that effect in this case, and the Peter who
was frightened out of all his heroics by a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued
servant-maid, a few weeks after bearded the Council and 'rejoiced
that he was counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name.' It was not
Christ's death that did that, and it was not His life that did that.
You cannot understand, to use a long word, the 'psychological'
transformation of these cowardly deniers who fled and forsook Him,
unless you bring in three things: Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost.
Then it is explicable.

However the boldness came; these two men before the Council were
making an epoch at that moment, and their grand words are the Magna
Charta of the right of every sincere conviction to free speech. They
are the direct parent of hundreds of similar sayings that flash out
down the world's history. Two things Peter and John adduced as making
silence impossible--a definite divine command, and an inward impulse.
'Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye. We cannot but speak the things which we have
seen and heard.'

But I wish to use these words now in a somewhat wider application.
They may suggest that there are great facts which make silence and
non-aggressiveness an impossibility for an individual or a Church,
and that by the very law of its being, a Church must be a missionary
Church, and a Christian cannot be a dumb Christian, unless he is a
dead Christian. And so I turn to look at these words as suggesting to
us two or three of the grounds on which Christian effort, in some
form or another, is inseparable from Christian experience.

And, first, I wish you to notice that there is--

I. An inward necessity which makes silence impossible.

'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,' is a
principle that applies far more widely than to the work of a
Christian Church, or to any activity that is put in force to spread
the name of Jesus Christ. For there is a universal impulse which
brings it about that whatever, in the nature of profound conviction,
of illuminating truth, especially as affecting moral and spiritual
matters, is granted to any man, knocks at the inner side of the door
of his lips, and demands an exit and free air and utterance. As
surely as the tender green spikelet of the springing corn pushes its
way through the hard clods, or as the bud in the fig-tree's polished
stem swells and opens, so surely whatever a man, in his deepest
heart, knows to be true, calls upon him to let it out and manifest
itself in his words and in his life. 'We believe, and therefore
speak,' is a universal sequence. There were four leprous men long ago
that, in their despair, made their way into the camp of the
beleaguering enemy, found it empty; and after they feasted
themselves--and small blame to them--then flashed upon them the
thought, 'We do not well, this is a day of good tidings, and we hold
our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some evil will befall
us.' Something like that is the uniform accompaniment of all profound
conviction. And if so, especially imperative and urgent will this
necessity be, wherever there is true Christian life. For whether we
consider the greatness of the gift that is imparted to us, in the
very act of our receiving that Lord, or whether we consider the
soreness of the need of a world that is without Him, surely there can
be nothing that so reinforces the natural necessity and impulse to
impart what we possess of truth or beauty or goodness as the
greatness of the unspeakable gift, and the wretchedness of a world
that wants it. Brethren, there are many things that come in the way--
and perhaps never more than in our own generation--of Christian men
and women making direct and specific efforts, by lip as well as by
life, to speak about Jesus Christ to other people. There is the
standing hindrance of love of ease and selfish absorption in our own
concerns. There are the conventional hindrances of our canons of
social intercourse which make it 'bad form' to speak to men about
anything beneath the surface, and God forbid that I should urge any
man to a brusque, and indiscriminate, and unwise forcing of his faith
upon other people. But I believe, that deep down below all these
reasons, there are two main reasons why the practice of the clear
utterance of their faith on the part of Christian people is so rare.
The one is a deficient conception of what the Gospel is, and the
other is a feeble grasp of it for ourselves. If you do not think that
you have very much to say, you will not be very anxious to say it;
and if your notion of Christianity, and of Christ's relation to the
world, is that of the superficial professing Christian, then of
course you will be smitten with no earnestness of desire to impart
the truth to others. Types of Christianity which enfeeble or obscure
the central thought of Christ's work for the salvation of a world
that needs a Saviour, and is perishing without Him, never were, never
are, never will be, missionary or aggressive. There is no driving
force in them. They have little to say, and naturally they are in no
hurry to say it. But there is a deeper reason than that. I said a
minute ago that a dumb Christian was an impossibility unless he were
a dead Christian. And _there_ is the reason why so many of us feel so
little, so very little, of that knocking at the door of our hearts,
and saying, 'Let me out!' which we should feel if we deeply believed,
and felt, as well as intellectually accepted, the gospel of our
salvation.

The cause of a silent Church is a defective conception of the Gospel
entrusted to it, or a feeble grasp of the same. And as our silence or
indifference is the symptom, so by reaction it is in its turn the
cause of a greater enfeeblement of our faith, and of a weaker grasp
of the Gospel. Of course I know that it is perfectly possible for a
man to talk away his convictions, and I am afraid that that
temptation which besets all men of my profession, is not always
resisted by us as it ought to be. But, on the other hand, sure am I
that no better way can be devised of deepening my own hold of the
truths of Christianity than an honest, right attempt to make another
share my morsel with me. Convictions bottled, like other things
bottled up, are apt to evaporate and to spoil. They say that
sometimes wine-growers, when they go down into their cellars, find in
a puncheon no wine, but a huge fungus. That is what befalls the
Christianity of people that never let air in, and never speak their
faith out. 'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and
heard'; and if we do not speak, the vision fades and the sound
becomes faint.

Now there is another side to this same inward necessity of which I
have been speaking, on which I must just touch. I have referred to
the impulse which flows from the possession of the Gospel. There is
an impulse which flows from that which is but another way of putting
the same thing, the union with Jesus Christ, which is the result of
our faith in the Gospel. If I am a Christian I am, in a very profound
and real sense, one with Jesus Christ, and have His Spirit for the
life of my spirit. And in the measure in which I am thus one with
Him, I shall look at things as He looks at them, and do such things
as He did. If the mind of Jesus Christ is in us 'Who for the joy that
was set before Him endured the Cross,' who 'counted not equality with
God a thing to be desired, but made Himself of no reputation,' and
'was found in fashion as a man,' then we too shall feel that our work
in the world is not done, and our obligations to Him are not
discharged, unless to the very last particle of our power we spread
His name. Brethren, if there were no commandment at all from Christ's
lips laying upon His followers the specific duty of making His gospel
known, still this inward impulse of which I am speaking would have
created all the forms of Christian aggressiveness which we see round
about us, because, if we have Christ and His Gospel in our hearts,
'we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.'

And now turn to another aspect of this matter. There is--

II. A command which makes silence criminal.

I do not need to do more than remind you of the fact that the very
last words which our Lord has left us according to the two versions
of them which are given in the Gospel of Matthew, and the beginning
of this Book of the Acts, coincide in this. 'You are to be My
witnesses to the ends of the earth. Go ye into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature.' Did you ever think what an
extraordinary thing it is that that confident anticipation of a
worldwide dominion, and of being Himself adapted to all mankind, in
every climate and in every age, and at every stage of culture, should
have been the conviction which the departing Christ sought to stamp
upon the minds of those eleven poor men? What audacity! What
tremendous confidence! What a task to which to set them! What an
unexampled belief in Himself and His work! And it is all coming true;
for the world is finding out, more and more, that Jesus Christ is its
Saviour and its King.

This commandment which is laid upon us Christian men submerges all
distinctions of race, and speech, and nationality, and culture. There
are high walls parting men off from one another. This great message
and commission, like some rising tide, rolls over them all, and
obliterates them, and flows boundless, having drowned the
differences, from horizon to horizon, east and west and south and
north.

Now let me press the thought that this commandment makes indifference
and silence criminal. We hear people talk, people whose Christianity
it is not for me to question, though I may question two things about
it, its clearness and its depth--we hear them talk as if to help or
not to help, in the various forms of Christian activity, missionary
or otherwise, was a matter left to their own inclination. No! it is
not. Let us distinctly understand that to help or not to help is not
the choice open to any man who would obey Jesus Christ. Let us
distinctly understand--and God grant that we may all feel it more--
that we dare not stand aside, be negligent, do nothing, leave other
people to give and to toil, and say, 'Oh! my sympathies do not go in
that direction.' Jesus Christ told you that they were to go in that
direction, and if they do not, so much the worse for the sympathies
for one thing, and so much the worse for you, the rebel, the
disobedient in heart. I do not want to bring down this great gift and
token of love which Jesus Christ has given to His servants, in
entrusting them with the spread of the Gospel, to the low level of a
mere commandment, but I do sometimes think that the tone of feeling,
ay! and of speech, and still more the manner of action, among
professing Christian people, in regard to the whole subject of the
missionary work of God's Church, shows that they need to be reminded;
as the Duke of Wellington said, 'There are your marching orders!' and
the soldier who does not obey his marching orders is a mutineer.
There is a definite commandment which makes indifference criminal.

There is another thing I should like to say, viz. that this definite
commandment overrides everything else. We hear a great deal from
unsympathetic critics, which is but a reproduction of an old grumble
that did not come from a very creditable source. 'To what purpose is
this waste?' Why do you not spend your money upon technical schools,
soup-kitchens, housing of the poor, and the like? Well, our answer
is, 'He told us.' We hear, too, especially just in these days, a
great deal about the necessity for increased caution in pursuing
missionary operations in heathen lands. And some people that do not
know anything about the subject have ventured to say, for instance,
that the missionaries are responsible for Chinese antagonism to
Europeans, and for similar phenomena. Well, we are ready to be as
wise and prudent as you like. We do not ask any consuls to help us.
Our brethren are men who have hazarded their lives; and I never heard
of a Baptist missionary running under the skirts of an ambassador, or
praying the government to come and protect him. We do not ask for
cathedrals to be built, or territory to be ceded, as compensation for
the loss of precious lives. But if these advisers of caution mean no
more than they say, 'Caution!' we agree. But if they mean, what some
of them mean, that we are to be silent for fear of consequences,
then, whether it be prime ministers, or magistrates, or mobs that say
it, our answer is, 'Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than
unto God, judge ye! We cannot but speak the things which we have seen
and heard.'

So, lastly, there is--

III. The bond of brotherhood which makes silence unnatural.

I have spoken of an inward impulse. That thought turns our attention
to our own hearts. I have spoken of a definite command; that turns
our eyes to the Throne. I speak now of a bond of brotherhood. That
sends our thoughts out over the whole world. There is such a bond.
Jesus Christ by His Incarnation has taken the nature of every man
upon Himself, and has brought all men into one. Jesus Christ 'by the
grace of God, has tasted death for every man,' and has brought all
men into unity. And so the much-abused and vulgarised conception of
'fraternity,' and even the very word 'humanity,' are the creation of
Christianity, and flow from these two facts--the Cradle of Bethlehem
and the Cross of Calvary, besides that prior one that 'God hath made
of one blood all nations of men.' If that be so, then what flows from
that unity, from that brotherhood thus sacredly founded upon the
facts of the life and death of Jesus Christ, the world's Redeemer?
This to begin with, that Christian men are bound to look out over
humanity with Christ's eyes, and not--as is largely the case to-day--
to regard other nations as enemies and rivals, and the 'lower races'
as existing to be exploited for our wealth, to be coerced for our
glory, to be conquered for our Empire. We have to think of them as
Jesus Christ thought. I cannot but remember days in England when the
humanitarian sentiment in regard to the inferior races was far more
vigorous, and far more operative in national life than it is to-day.
I can go back in boyhood's memory to the emancipation of the West
Indian slaves, and that was but the type of the general tendency of
thought amongst the better minds of England in those days. Would that
it were so now!

But further, brethren, we as Christian people have laid upon us this
responsibility by that very bond of brotherhood, that we should carry
whithersoever our influence may go the great message of the Elder
Brother who makes us all one. We give much to the 'heathen'
populations within our Empire or the reach of our trade. We give them
English laws, English science, English literature, English outlooks
on life, the English tongue, English vices--opium, profligacy, and
the like. Are these all the gifts that we are bound to carry to
heathen lands? Dynamos and encyclopaedias, gin and rifles, shirtings
and castings? Have we not to carry Christ? And all the more because
we are so closely knit with so many of them. I wonder how many of you
get the greater part of your living out of India and China?

Surely, if there is a place in England where the missionary appeal
should be responded to, it is Manchester. 'As a nest hast thou
gathered the riches of the nations.' What have you given? Make up the
balance-sheet, brethren. 'We are debtors,' let us put down the
items:--

Debtors by a common brotherhood.

Debtors by the possession of Christ for ourselves.

Debtors by benefits received.

Debtors by injuries inflicted.

The debit side of the account is heavy. Let us try to discharge some
portion of the debt, in the fashion in which the Apostle from whom I
have been quoting thought that he would best discharge it when, after
declaring himself debtor to many kinds of men, he added, 'So as much
as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel.' May we all say, more
truly than we have ever said before, 'We cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard!'



THE SERVANT AND THE SLAVES

'Thy servant David...'; 'Thy Holy Servant Jesus...'; 'Thy
servants...'--ACTS iv. 26, 27, 29.

I do not often take fragments of Scripture for texts; but though
these are fragments, their juxtaposition results in by no means
fragmentary thoughts. There is obvious intention in the recurrence of
the expression so frequently in so few verses, and to the elucidation
of that intention my remarks will be directed. The words are parts of
the Church's prayer on the occasion of its first collision with the
civil power. The incident is recorded at full length because it is
the _first_ of a long and bloody series, in order that succeeding
generations might learn their true weapon and their sure defence.
Prayer is the right answer to the world's hostility, and they who
only ask for courage to stand by their confession will never ask in
vain. But it is no part of my intention to deal either with the
incident or with this noble prayer.

A word or two of explanation may be necessary as to the language of
our texts. You will observe that, in the second of them, I have
followed the Revised Version, which, instead of 'Thy holy child,' as
in the Authorised Version, reads 'Thy holy Servant.' The alteration
is clearly correct. The word, indeed, literally means 'a child,' but,
like our own English 'boy,' or even 'man,' or 'maid,' it is used to
express the relation of servant, when the desire is to cover over the
harsher features of servitude, and to represent the servant as a part
of the family. Thus the kindly centurion, who besought Jesus to come
and heal his servant, speaks of him as his 'boy.' And that the word
is here used in this secondary sense of 'servant' is unmistakable.
For there is no discernible reason why, if stress were meant to be
laid on Christ as being the Son of God, the recognised expression for
that relationship should not have been employed. Again, the Greek
translation of the Old Testament, with which the Apostles were
familiar, employs the very phrase that is here used as its
translation of the well-known Old Testament designation of the
Messiah, 'the Servant of the Lord' and the words here are really a
quotation from the great prophecies of the second part of the Book of
Isaiah. Further, the same word is employed in reference to King David
and in reference to Jesus Christ. In regard to the former, it is
evident that it must have the meaning of 'servant'; and it would be
too harsh to suppose that in the compass of so few verses the same
expression should be used, at one time in the one signification, and
at another in the other. So, then, David and Jesus are in some sense
classified here together as both servants of God. That is the first
point that I desire to make.

Then, in regard to the third of my texts, the expression is not the
same there as in the other two. The disciples do not venture to take
the loftier designation. Rather they prefer the humble one, 'slaves,'
bondmen, the familiar expression found all through the New Testament
as almost a synonym to Christians.

So, then, we have here three figures: the Psalmist-king, the Messiah,
the disciples; Christ in the midst, on the one hand a servant with
whom He deigns to be classed, on the other hand the slaves who,
through Him, have become sons. And I think I shall best bring out the
intended lessons of these clauses in their connection if I ask you to
note these two contrasts, the servants and the Servant; the Servant
and the slaves. 'David Thy servant'; 'Thy holy Servant Jesus'; us
'Thy servants.'

I. First, then, notice the servants and the Servant.

The reason for the application of the name to the Psalmist lies, not
so much in his personal character or in his religious elevation, as
in the fact that he was chosen of God for a specific purpose, to
carry on the divine plans some steps towards their realisation.
Kings, priests, prophets, the collective Israel, as having a specific
function in the world, and being, in some sense, the instruments and
embodiments of the will of God amongst men, have in an eminent degree
the designation of His 'servants.' And we might widen out the thought
and say that all men who, like the heathen Cyrus, are God's
shepherds, though they do not know it--guided by Him, though they
understand not whence comes their power, and blindly do His work in
the world, being 'epoch-making' men, as the fashionable phrase goes
now--are really, though in a subordinate sense, entitled to the
designation.

But then, whilst this is true, and whilst Jesus Christ comes into
this category, and is one of these special men raised up and adapted
for special service in connection with the carrying out of the divine
purpose, mark how emphatically and broadly the line is drawn here
between Him and the other members of the class to which, in a certain
sense, He does belong. Peter says, 'Thy servant David,' but he says
'Thy _holy_ Servant Jesus.' And in the Greek the emphasis is still
stronger, because the definite article is employed before the word
'servant.' '_The_ holy Servant of Thine'--that is His specific and
unique designation.

There are many imperfect instruments of the divine will. Thinkers and
heroes and saints and statesmen and warriors, as well as prophets and
priests and kings, are so regarded in Scripture, and may profitably
be so regarded by us; but amongst them all there is One who stands in
their midst and yet apart from them, because He, and He alone, can
say, 'I have done all Thy pleasure, and into my doing of Thy pleasure
no bitter leaven of self-regard or by-ends has ever, in the faintest
degree, entered.' 'Thy holy Servant Jesus' is the unique designation
of _the_ Servant of the Lord.

And what is the meaning of _holy_? The word does not originally and
primarily refer to character so much as to relation to God. The root
idea of holiness is not righteousness nor moral perfectness, but
something that lies behind these--viz, separation for the service and
uses of God. The first notion of the word is consecration, and, built
upon that and resulting from it, moral perfection. So then these men,
some of whom had lived beside Jesus Christ for all those years, and
had seen everything that He did, and studied Him through and through,
had summered and wintered with Him, came away from the close
inspection of His character with this thought; He is utterly and
entirely devoted to the service of God, and in Him there is neither
spot nor wrinkle nor blemish such as is found in all other men.

I need not remind you with what strange persistence of affirmation,
and yet with what humility of self-consciousness, our Lord Himself
always claimed to be in possession of this entire consecration, and
complete obedience, and consequent perfection. Think of human lips
saying, 'I do always the things that please Him.' Think of human lips
saying, 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.' Think of a
man whose whole life's secret was summed up in this: 'As the Father
hath given Me commandment, _so_'--no more, no less, no otherwise--'so
I speak.' Think of a man whose inspiring principle was, consciously
to himself, 'not My will, but Thine be done'; and who could say that
it was so, and not be met by universal ridicule. There followed in
Jesus the moral perfectness that comes from such uninterrupted and
complete consecration of self to God. 'Thy servant David,'--what
about Bathsheba, David? What about a great many other things in your
life? The poet-king, with the poet-nature so sensitive to all the
delights of sense, and so easily moved in the matter of pleasure, is
but like all God's other servants in the fact of imperfection. In
every machine power is lost through friction; and in every man, the
noblest and the purest, there is resistance to be overcome ere motion
in conformity with the divine impulse can be secured. We pass in
review before our minds saints and martyrs and lovely characters by
the hundred, and amongst them all there is not a jewel without a
flaw, not a mirror without some dint in it where the rays are
distorted, or some dark place where the reflecting surface has been
rubbed away by the attrition of sin, and where there is no reflection
of the divine light. And then we turn to that meek Figure who stands
there with the question that has been awaiting an answer for nineteen
centuries upon His lips, and is unanswered yet: 'Which of you
convinceth Me of sin?' 'He is the holy Servant,' whose consecration
and character mark Him off from all the class to which He belongs as
the only one of them all who, in completeness, has executed the
Father's purpose, and has never attempted anything contrary to it.

Now there is another step to be taken, and it is this. The Servant
who stands out in front of all the group--though the noblest names in
the world's history are included therein--could not be _the_ Servant
unless He were the Son. This designation, as applied to Jesus Christ,
is peculiar to these three or four earlier chapters of the Acts of
the Apostles. It is interesting because it occurs over and over again
there, and because it never occurs anywhere else in the New
Testament. If we recognise what I think must be recognised, that it
is a quotation from the ancient prophecies, and is an assertion of
the Messianic character of Jesus, then I think we here see the Church
in a period of transition in regard to their conceptions of their
Lord. There is no sign that the proper Sonship and Divinity of our
Lord was clear before them at this period. They had the facts, but
they had not yet come to the distinct apprehension of how much was
involved in these. But, if they knew that Jesus Christ had died and
had risen again--and they knew that, for they had seen Him--and if
they believed that He was the Messiah, and if they were certain that
in His character of Messiah there had been faultlessness and absolute
perfection--and they were certain of that, because they had lived
beside Him--then it would not be long before they took the next step,
and said, as I say, 'He cannot be the Servant unless He is more than
man.'

And we may well ask ourselves the question, if we admit, as the world
does admit, the moral perfectness of Jesus Christ, how comes it that
this Man alone managed to escape failures and deflections from the
right, and sins, and that He only carried through life a stainless
garment, and went down to the grave never having needed, and not
needing then, the exercise of divine forgiveness? Brethren, I venture
to say that it is hopeless to account for Jesus Christ on
naturalistic principles; and that either you must give up your belief
in His sinlessness, or advance, as the Christian Church as a whole
advanced, to the other belief, on which alone that perfectness is
explicable: 'Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ! Thou art the
Everlasting Son of the Father!'

II. And so, secondly, let us turn to the other contrast here--the
Servant and the slaves.

I said that the humble group of praying, persecuted believers seemed
to have wished to take a lower place than their Master's, even whilst
they ventured to assume that, in some sense, they too, like Him, were
doing the Father's will. So they chose, by a fine instinct of
humility rather than from any dogmatical prepossessions, the name
that expresses, in its most absolute and roughest form, the notion of
bondage and servitude. He is the Servant; we standing here are
slaves. And that this is not an overweighting of the word with more
than is meant by it seems to be confirmed by the fact that in the
first clause of this prayer, we have, for the only time in the New
Testament, God addressed as 'Lord' by the correlative word to
_slave_, which has been transferred into English, namely, _despot_.

The true position, then, for a man is to be God's slave. The harsh,
repellent features of that wicked institution assume an altogether
different character when they become the features of my relation to
Him. Absolute submission, unconditional obedience, on the slave's
part; and on the part of the Master complete ownership, the right of
life and death, the right of disposing of all goods and chattels, the
right of separating husband and wife, parents and children, the right
of issuing commandments without a reason, the right to expect that
those commandments shall be swiftly, unhesitatingly, punctiliously,
and completely performed--these things inhere in our relation to God.
Blessed the man who has learned that they do, and has accepted them
as his highest glory and the security of his most blessed life! For,
brethren, such submission, absolute and unconditional, the blending
and the absorption of my own will in His will, is the secret of all
that makes manhood glorious and great and happy.

Remember, however, that in the New Testament these names of slave and
owner are transferred to Christians and Jesus Christ. 'The Servant'
has His slaves; and He who is God's Servant, and does not His own
will but the Father's will, has us for His servants, imposes His will
upon us, and we are bound to render to Him a revenue of entire
obedience like that which He hath laid at His Father's feet.

Such slavery is the only freedom. Liberty does not mean doing as you
like, it means liking as you ought, and doing that. He only is free
who submits to God in Christ, and thereby overcomes himself and the
world and all antagonism, and is able to do that which it is his life
to do. A prison out of which we do not desire to go is no restraint,
and the will which coincides with law is the only will that is truly
free. You talk about the bondage of obedience. Ah! 'the weight of too
much liberty' is a far sorer bondage. They are the slaves who say,
'Let us break His bonds asunder, and cast away His cords from us';
and they are the free men who say, 'Lord, put Thy blessed shackles on
my arms, and impose Thy will upon my will, and fill my heart with Thy
love; and then will and hands will move freely and delightedly.' 'If
the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'

Such slavery is the only nobility. In the wicked old empires, as in
some of their modern survivals to-day, viziers and prime ministers
were mostly drawn from the servile classes. It is so in God's
kingdom. They who make themselves God's slaves are by Him made kings
and priests, and shall reign with Him on earth. If we are slaves,
then are we sons and heirs of God through Jesus Christ.

Remember the alternative. You cannot be your own masters without
being your own slaves. It is a far worse bondage to live as chartered
libertines than to walk in the paths of obedience. Better serve God
than the devil, than the world, than the flesh. Whilst they promise
men liberty, they make them 'the most abject and downtrodden vassals
of perdition.'

The Servant-Son makes us slaves and sons. It matters nothing to me
that Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the law of God; it is so much
the better for Him, but of no value for me, unless He has the power
of making me like Himself. And He has it, and if you will trust
yourselves to Him, and give your hearts to Him, and ask Him to govern
you, He will govern you; and if you will abandon your false liberty
which is servitude, and take the sober freedom which is obedience,
then He will bring you to share in His temper of joyful service; and
even we may be able to say, 'My meat and my drink is to do the will
of Him that sent me,' and truly saying that, we shall have the key to
all delights, and our feet will be, at least, on the lower rungs of
the ladder whose top reaches to Heaven.

'What fruit had ye in the things of which ye are now ashamed? But
being made free from sin, and become the slaves of God, ye have your
fruit unto holiness; and the end everlasting life.' Brethren, I
beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye yield yourselves to Him,
crying, 'O Lord, truly I am Thy servant. Thou hast loosed my bonds.'



THE WHEAT AND THE TARES

'And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of
one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which
he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.'
--ACTS iv. 32.

'And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as
heard these things.'--ACTS v. 11.

Once more Luke pauses and gives a general survey of the Church's
condition. It comes in appropriately at the end of the account of the
triumph over the first assault of civil authority, which assault was
itself not only baffled, but turned to good. Just because persecution
had driven them closer to God and to one another, were the disciples
so full of brotherly love and of grace as Luke delights to paint
them.

I. We note the fair picture of what the Church once was. The recent
large accessions to it might have weakened the first feelings of
brotherhood, so that it is by no means superfluous to repeat
substantially the features of the earlier description (Acts ii. 44,
45). 'The multitude' is used with great meaning, for it was a triumph
of the Spirit's influence that the warm stream of brotherly love ran
through so many hearts, knit together only by common submission to
Jesus. That oneness of thought and feeling was the direct issue of
the influx of the Spirit mentioned as the blessed result of the
disciples' dauntless devotion (Acts iv. 31). If our Churches were
'filled with the Holy Ghost,' we too should be fused into oneness of
heart and mind, though our organisations as separate communities
continued, just as all the little pools below high-water mark are
made one when the tide comes up.

The first result and marvellous proof of that oneness was the so-
called 'community of goods,' the account of which is remarkable both
because it all but fills this picture, and because it is broken into
two by verse 33, rapidly summarising other characteristics. The two
halves may be considered together, and it may be noted that the
former presents the sharing of property as the result of brotherly
unity, while the latter traces it ('for,' v. 34) to the abundant
divine grace resting on the whole community. The terms of the
description should be noted, as completely negativing the notion that
the fact in question was anything like compulsory abolition of the
right of individual ownership. 'Not one of them said that aught of
the things which he possessed was his own.' That implies that the
right of possession was not abolished. It implies, too, that the
common feeling of brotherhood was stronger than the self-centred
regard which looks on possessions as to be used for self. Thus they
possessed as though they possessed not, and each held his property as
a trust from God for his brethren.

We must observe, further, that the act of selling was the owners', as
was the act of handing the proceeds to the Apostles. The community
had nothing to do with the money till it had been given to them.
Further, the distribution was not determined by the rule of equality,
but by the 'need' of the recipients; and its result was not that all
had share and share alike, but that 'none lacked.'

There is nothing of modern communism in all this, but there is a
lesson to the modern Church as to the obligations of wealth and the
claims of brotherhood, which is all but universally disregarded. The
spectre of communism is troubling every nation, and it will become
more and more formidable, unless the Church learns that the only way
to lay it is to live by the precepts of Jesus and to repeat in new
forms the spirit of the primitive Church. The Christian sense of
stewardship, not the abolition of the right of property, is the cure
for the hideous facts which drive men to shriek 'Property is theft.'

Luke adds two more points to his survey,--the power of the Apostolic
testimony, and the great grace which lay like a bright cloud on the
whole Church. The Apostles' special office was to bear witness to the
Resurrection. They held a position of prominence in the Church by
virtue of having been chosen by Jesus and having been His companions,
but the Book of Acts is silent about any of the other mysterious
powers which later ages have ascribed to them. The only Apostles who
appear in it are Peter, John, and James, the last only in a
parenthesis recording His martyrdom. Their peculiar work was to say,
'Behold! we saw, and know that He died and rose again.'

II. The general description is followed by one example of the
surrender of wealth, which is noteworthy as being done by one
afterwards to play a great part in the book, and also as leading on
to an example of hypocritical pretence. Side by side stand Barnabas
and the wretched couple, Ananias and Sapphira.

Luke introduces the new personage with some particularity, and, as He
does not go into detail without good reason, we must note his
description. First, the man's character is given, as expressed in the
name bestowed by the Apostles, in imitation of Christ's frequent
custom. He must have been for some time a disciple, in order that his
special gift should have been recognised. He was a 'son of
exhortation'; that is, he had the power of rousing and encouraging
the faith and stirring the believing energy of the brethren. An
example of this was given in Antioch, where he 'exhorted them all,
that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.' So much
the more beautiful was his self-effacement when with Paul, for it was
the latter who was 'the chief speaker.' Barnabas felt that his gift
was less than his brother's, and so, without jealousy, took the
second place. He, being silent, yet speaketh, and bids us learn our
limits, and be content to be surpassed.

We are next told his rank. He was a Levite. The tribe to which a
disciple belongs is seldom mentioned, but probably the reason for
specifying Barnabas' was the same as led Luke, in another place, to
record that 'a great company of the priests was obedient to the
faith.' The connection of the tribe of Levi with the Temple worship
made accessions from it significant, as showing how surely the new
faith was creeping into the very heart of the old system, and winning
converts from the very classes most interested in opposing it.
Barnabas' significance is further indicated by the notice that he was
'a man of Cyprus,' and as such, the earliest mentioned of the
Hellenists or foreign-born and Greek-speaking Jews, who were to play
so important a part in the expansion of the Church.

His first appearance witnessed to the depth and simple genuineness of
his character and faith. The old law forbidding Levites to hold land
had gradually become inoperative, and perhaps Barnabas' estate was in
Cyprus, though more probably it was, like that of his relative Mary,
the mother of Mark, in Jerusalem. He did as many others were doing,
and brought the proceeds to the assembly of the brethren, and there
publicly laid them at the Apostles' feet, in token of their authority
to administer them as they thought well.

III. Why was Barnabas' act singled out for mention, since there was
nothing peculiar about it? Most likely because it stimulated Ananias
and his wife to imitation. Wherever there are signal instances of
Christian self-sacrifice, there will spring up a crop of base copies.
Ananias follows Barnabas as surely as the shadow the substance. It
was very likely a pure impulse which led him and his wife to agree to
sell their land; and it was only when they had the money in their
hands, and had to take the decisive step of parting with it, and
reducing themselves to pennilessness, that they found the surrender
harder than they could carry out. Satan spoils many a well-begun
work, and we often break down half-way through a piece of Christian
unselfishness. Well begun is half--but only half--ended.

Be that as it may, Peter's stern words to Ananias put all the stress
of the sin on its being an acted lie. The motives of the trick are
not disclosed. They may have been avarice, want of faith, greed of
applause, reluctance to hang back when others were doing like
Barnabas. It is hard to read the mingled motives which lead ourselves
wrong, and harder to separate them in the case of another. How much
Ananias kept back is of no moment; indeed, the less he retained the
greater the sin; for it is baser, as well as more foolish, to do
wrong for a little advantage than for a great one.

Peter's two questions bring out very strikingly the double source of
the sin. 'Why hath Satan filled thy heart?'--an awful antithesis to
being filled with the Spirit. Then there is a real, malign Tempter,
who can pour evil affections and purposes into men's hearts. But he
cannot do it unless the man opens his heart, as that 'why?' implies.
The same thought of our co-operation and concurrence, so that,
however Satan suggests, it is we who are guilty, comes out in the
second question, 'How is it that _thou_ hast conceived this thing in
thy heart?' Reverently we may venture to say that not only Christ
stands at the door and knocks, but that the enemy of Him and His
stands there too, and he too enters 'if any man opens the door.'
Neither heaven nor hell can come in unless we will.

The death of Ananias was not inflicted by Peter, 'Hearing these
words' he 'fell down and' died. Surely that expression suggests that
the stern words had struck at his life, and that his death was the
result of the agitation of shame and guilt which they excited. That
does not at all conflict with regarding his death as a punitive
divine act.

One can fancy the awed silence that fell on the congregation, and the
restrained, mournful movement that ran through it when Sapphira
entered. Why the two had not come in company can only be conjectured.
Perhaps the husband had gone straight to the Apostles after
completing the sale, and had left the wife to follow at her
convenience. Perhaps she had not intended to come at all, but had
grown alarmed at the delay in Ananias' return. She may have come in
fear that something had gone wrong, and that fear would be increased
by her not seeing her husband in her quick glance round the company.

If she came expecting to receive applause, the silence and constraint
that hung over the assembly must have stirred a fear that something
terrible had happened, which would be increased by Peter's question.
It was a merciful opportunity given her to separate herself from the
sin and the punishment; but her lie was glib, and indicated
determination to stick to the fraud. That moment was heavy with her
fate, and she knew it not; but she knew that she had the opportunity
of telling the truth, and she did not take it. She had to make the
hard choice which we have sometimes to make, to be true to some
sinful bargain or be true to God, and she chose the worse part. Which
of the two was tempter and which was tempted matters little. Like
many a wife, she thought that it was better to be loyal to her
husband than to God, and so her honour was 'rooted in dishonour,' and
she was falsely true and truly false.

The judgment on Sapphira was not inflicted by Peter. He foretold it
by his prophetic power, but it was the hand of God which vindicated
the purity of the infant Church. The terrible severity of the
punishment can only be understood by remembering the importance of
preserving the young community from corruption at the very beginning.
Unless the vermin are cleared from the springing plant, it will not
grow. As Achan's death warned Israel at the beginning of their
entrance into the promised land, so Ananias and Sapphira perished,
that all generations of the Church might fear to pretend to self-
surrender while cherishing its opposite, and might feel that they
have to give account to One who knows the secrets of the heart, and
counts nothing as given if anything is surreptitiously kept back.



WHOM TO OBEY,--ANNAS OR ANGEL?

'Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him,
(which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with
indignation, 18. And laid their hands on the apostles, and put
them in the common prison. 19. But the angel of the Lord by night
opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, 20.
Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of
this life. 21. And when they heard that, they entered into the
temple early in the morning, and taught. But the high priest
came, and they that were with him, and called the council
together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent
to the prison to have them brought. 22. But when the officers
came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told,
23. Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and
the keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had
opened, we found no man within. 24. Now when the high priest and
the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these
things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. 25. Then
came one and told them, saying. Behold, the men whom ye put in
prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. 26.
Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without
violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been
stoned. 27. And when they had brought them, they set them before
the council: and the high priest asked them, 28. Saying, Did not
we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name?
and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and
intend to bring this man's blood upon us. 29. Then Peter and the
other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather
than men. 30. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye
slew and hanged on a tree. 31. Him hath God exalted with His
right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance
to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 32. And we are His witnesses
of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath
given to them that obey Him.'--ACTS v. 17-32.

The Jewish ecclesiastics had been beaten in the first round of the
fight, and their attempt to put out the fire had only stirred the
blaze. Popular sympathy is fickle, and if the crowd does not shout
with the persecutors, it will make heroes and idols of the
persecuted. So the Apostles had gained favour by the attempt to
silence them, and that led to the second round, part of which is
described in this passage.

The first point to note is the mean motives which influenced the
high-priest and his adherents. As before, the Sadducees were at the
bottom of the assault; for talk about a resurrection was gall and
wormwood to them. But Luke alleges a much more contemptible emotion
than zeal for supposed truth as the motive for action. The word
rendered in the Authorised Version 'indignation,' is indeed literally
'zeal,' but it here means, as the Revised Version has it, nothing
nobler than 'jealousy.' 'Who are those ignorant Galileans that they
should encroach on the office of us dignified teachers? and what
fools the populace must be to listen to them! Our prestige is
threatened. If we don't bestir ourselves, our authority will be
gone.' A lofty spirit in which to deal with grave movements of
opinion, and likely to lead its possessors to discern truth!

The Sanhedrin, no doubt, talked solemnly about the progress of error,
and the duty of firmly putting it down, and, like Jehu, said, 'Come,
and see our zeal for the Lord'; but it was zeal for greetings in the
marketplace, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the other
advantages of their position. So it has often been since. The
instruments which zeal for truth uses are argument, Scripture, and
persuasion. That zeal which betakes itself to threats and force is,
at the best, much mingled with the wrath and jealousy of man.

The arrest of the Apostles and their committal to prison was simply
for detention, not punishment. The rulers cast their net wider this
time, and secured all the Apostles, and, having them safe under lock
and key, they went home triumphant, and expecting to deal a decisive
blow to-morrow. Then comes one of the great 'buts' of Scripture.
Annas and Caiaphas thought that they had scored a success, but an
angel upset their calculations. To try to explain the miracle away is
hopeless. It is wiser to try to understand it.

The very fact that it did not lead to the Apostles' deliverance, but
that the trial and scourging followed next day, just as if it had not
happened, which has been alleged as a proof of its uselessness, and
inferentially of its falsehood, puts us on the right track. It was
not meant for their deliverance, but for their heartening, and for
the bracing of all generations of Christians, by showing, at the
first conflict with the civil power, that the Lord was with His
Church. His strengthening power is operative when no miracle is
wrought. If His servants are not delivered, it is not that He lacks
angels, but that it is better for them and the Church that they
should lie in prison or die at the stake.

The miracle was a transient revelation of a perpetual truth, and has
shed light on many a dark dungeon where God's servants have lain
rotting. It breathed heroic constancy into the Twelve. How striking
and noble was their prompt obedience to the command to resume the
perilous work of preaching! As soon as the dawn began to glimmer over
Olivet, and the priests were preparing for the morning sacrifice,
there were these irrepressible disturbers, whom the officials thought
they had shut up safely last night, lifting up their voices again as
if nothing had happened. What a picture of dauntless persistence, and
what a lesson for us! The moment the pressure is off, we should
spring back to our work of witnessing for Christ.

The bewilderment of the Council comes in strong contrast with the
unhesitating action of the Apostles. There is a half ludicrous side
to it, which Luke does not try to hide. There was the pompous
assembling of all the great men at early morning, and their dignified
waiting till their underlings brought in the culprits. No doubt,
Annas put on his severest air of majesty, and all were prepared to
look their sternest for the confusion of the prisoners. The prison,
the Temple, and the judgment hall, were all near each other. So there
was not long to wait. But, behold! the officers come back alone, and
their report shakes the assembly out of its dignity. One sees the
astonished underlings coming up to the prison, and finding all in
order, the sentries patrolling, the doors fast (so the angel had shut
them as well as opened them), and then entering ready to drag out the
prisoners, and--finding all silent. Such elaborate guard kept over an
empty cage!

It was not the officers' business to offer explanations, and it does
not seem that any were asked. One would have thought that the
sentries would have been questioned. Herod went the natural way to
work, when he had Peter's guards examined and put to death. But Annas
and his fellows do not seem to have cared to inquire how the escape
had been made. Possibly they suspected a miracle, or perhaps feared
that inquiry might reveal sympathisers with the prisoners among their
own officials. At any rate, they were bewildered, and lost their
heads, wondering what was to come next, and how this thing was to
end.

The further news that these obstinate fanatics were at their old work
in the Temple again, must have greatly added to the rulers'
perplexity, and they must have waited the return of the officers sent
off for the second time to fetch the prisoners, with somewhat less
dignity than before. The officers felt the pulse of the crowd, and
did not venture on force, from wholesome fear for their own skins. An
excited mob in the Temple court was not to be trifled with, so
persuasion was adopted. The brave Twelve went willingly, for the
Sanhedrin had no terrors for them, and by going they secured another
opportunity of ringing out their Lord's salvation. Wherever a
Christian can witness for Christ, he should be ready to go.

The high-priest discreetly said nothing about the escape. Possibly he
had no suspicion of a miracle, but, even if he had, chapter iv. 16
shows that that would not have led to any modification of his
hostility. Persecutors, clothed with a little brief authority, are
strangely blind to the plainest indications of the truth spoken by
their victims. Annas did not know what a question about the escape
might bring out, so he took the safer course of charging the Twelve
with disobedience to the Sanhedrin's prohibition. How characteristic
of all his kind that is! Never mind whether what the martyr says is
true or not. He has broken our law, and defied our authority; that is
enough. Are we to be chopping logic, and arguing with every ignorant
upstart who chooses to vent his heresies? Gag him,--that is easier
and more dignified.

A world of self-consequence peeps out in that '_we_ straitly charged
you,' and a world of contempt peeps out in the avoidance of naming
Jesus. 'This name' and 'this man' is the nearest that the proud
priest will come to soiling his lips by mentioning Him. He bears
unconscious testimony to the Apostles' diligence, and to the popular
inclination to them, by charging them with having filled the city
with what he contemptuously calls '_your_ teaching,' as if it had no
other source than their own ignorant notions.

Then the deepest reason for the Sanhedrin's bitterness leaks out in
the charge of inciting the mob to take vengeance on them for the
death of Jesus. It was true that the Apostles had charged that guilt
home on them, but not on them only, but on the whole nation, so that
no incitement to revenge lay in the charge. It was true that they had
brought 'this man's blood' on the rulers, but only to draw them to
repentance, not to hound at them their sharers in the guilt. Had
Annas forgot 'His blood be on us, and on our children'? But, when an
evil deed is complete, the doers try to shuffle off the
responsibility which they were ready to take in the excitement of
hurrying to do it. Annas did not trouble himself about divine
vengeance; it was the populace whom he feared.

So, in its attempt to browbeat the accused, in its empty airs of
authority, in its utter indifference to the truth involved, in its
contempt for the preachers and their message, in its brazen denial of
responsibility, its dread of the mob, and its disregard of the far-
off divine judgment, his bullying speech is a type of how
persecutors, from Roman governors down, have hectored their victims.

And Peter's brave answer is, thank God! the type of what thousands of
trembling women and meek men have answered. His tone is severer now
than on his former appearance. Now he has no courteous recognition of
the court's authority. Now he brushes aside all Annas's attempts to
impose on him the sanctity of its decrees, and flatly denies that the
Council has any more right to command than any other 'men.' They
claimed to be depositaries of God's judgments. This revolutionary
fisherman sees nothing in them but 'men,' whose commands point one
way, while God's point the other. The angel bade them 'speak'; the
Council had bid them be dumb. To state the opposition was to
determine their duty. Formerly Peter had said 'judge ye' which
command it is right to obey. Now, he wraps his refusal in no folds of
courtesy, but thrusts the naked 'We must obey God' in the Council's
face. That was a great moment in the history of the world and the
Church. How much lay in it, as in a seed,--Luther's 'Here I stand, I
can do none other. God help me! Amen'; Plymouth Rock, and many a
glorious and blood-stained page in the records of martyrdom.

Peter goes on to vindicate his assumption that in disobeying Annas
they are obeying God, by reiterating the facts which since Pentecost
he had pressed on the national conscience. Israel had slain, and God
had exalted, Jesus to His right hand. That was God's verdict on
Israel's action. But it was also the ground of hope for Israel; for
the exaltatior of Jesus was that He might be 'Prince [or Leader] and
Saviour,' and from His exalted hand were shed the gifts of
'repentance and remission of sins,' even of the great sin of slaying
Him. These things being so, how could the Apostles be silent? Had not
God bid them speak, by their very knowledge of these? They were
Christ's witnesses, constituted as such by their personal
acquaintance with Him and their having seen Him raised and ascending,
and appointed to be such by His own lips, and inspired for their
witnessing by the Holy Spirit shed on them at Pentecost. Peter all
but reproduces the never-to-be-forgotten words heard by them all in
the upper room, 'He shall bear witness of Me: and ye also shall bear
witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.' Silence
would be treason. So it is still. What were Annas and his bluster to
men whom Christ had bidden to speak, and to whom He had given the
Spirit of the Father to speak in them?



OUR CAPTAIN

'Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince.'
--ACTS v. 31.

The word rendered 'Prince' is a rather infrequent designation of our
Lord in Scripture. It is only employed in all four times--twice in
Peter's earlier sermons recorded in this Book of the Acts; and twice
in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In a former discourse of the Apostle's
he had spoken of the crime of the Jews in killing 'the Prince of
life.' Here he uses the word without any appended epithet. In the
Epistle to the Hebrews we read once of the 'Captain of Salvation,'
and once of the 'Author of Faith.'

Now these three renderings 'Prince,' 'Captain,' 'Author,' seem
singularly unlike. But the explanation of their being all
substantially equivalent to the original word is not difficult to
find. It seems to mean properly a Beginner, or Originator, who takes
the lead in anything, and hence the notions of chieftainship and
priority are easily deduced from it. Then, very naturally, it comes
to mean something very much like _cause_; with only this difference,
that it implies that the person who is the Originator is Himself the
Possessor of that of which He is the Cause to others. So the two
ideas of a Leader, and of a Possessor who imparts, are both included
in the word.

My intention in this sermon is to deal with the various forms of this
expression, in order to try to bring out the fulness of the notion
which Scripture attaches to this leadership of Jesus Christ. He is
first of all, generally, as our text sets Him forth, the Leader,
absolutely. Then there are the specific aspects, expressed by the
other three passages, in which He is set forth as the Leader through
death to life; the Leader through suffering to salvation; and the
Leader in the path of faith. Let us look, then, at these points in
succession.

I. First, we have the general notion of Christ the Leader.

Now I suppose we are all acquainted with the fact that the names
'Joshua' and 'Jesus' are, in the original, one. It is further to be
noticed that, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which
was familiar to Peter's hearers, the word of our text is that
employed to describe the office of the military leaders of Israel. It
is still further to be observed that, in all the instances in the New
Testament, it is employed in immediate connection with the name of
Jesus. Now, putting all these things together, remembering to whom
Peter was speaking, remembering the familiarity which many of his
audience must have had with the Old Testament in its Greek
translation, remembering the identity of the two names Joshua and
Jesus, it is difficult to avoid the supposition that the expression
of our text is coloured by a reference to the bold soldier who
successfully led his brethren into the Promised Land. Joshua was the
'Captain of the Lord's host' to lead them to Canaan; the second
Joshua is the Captain of the Host of the Lord to lead them to a
better rest. Of all the Old Testament heroes perhaps there is none,
at first sight, less like the second Joshua than the first was. He is
only a rough, plain, prompt, and bold soldier. No prophet was he, no
word of wisdom ever fell from his lips, no trace of tenderness was in
anything that he did; meekness was alien from his character, he was
no sage, he was no saint, but decisive, swift, merciless when
necessary, full of resource, sharp and hard as his own sword. And yet
a parallel may be drawn.

The second Joshua is the Captain of the Lord's host, as was typified
to the first one, in that strange scene outside the walls of Jericho,
where the earthly commander, sunk in thought, was brooding upon the
hard nut which he had to crack, when suddenly he lifted up his eyes,
and beheld a man with a drawn sword. With the instinctive alertness
of his profession and character, his immediate question was, 'Art
thou for us or for our enemies?' And he got the answer 'No! I am not
on thy side, nor on the other side, but thou art on Mine. As Captain
of the Lord's host am I come up.'

So Jesus Christ, the 'Strong Son of God,' is set forth by this
military emblem as being Himself the first Soldier in the army of
God, and the Leader of all the host. We forget far too much the
militant character of Jesus Christ. We think of His meekness, His
gentleness, His patience, His tenderness, His humility, and we cannot
think of these too much, too lovingly, too wonderingly, too
adoringly, but we too often forget the strength which underlay the
gentleness, and that His life, all gracious as it was, when looked at
from the outside, had beneath it a continual conflict, and was in
effect the warfare of God against all the evils and the sorrows of
humanity. We forget the courage that went to make the gentleness of
Jesus, the daring that underlay His lowliness; and it does us good to
remember that all the so-called heroic virtues were set forth in
supreme form, not in some vulgar type of excellence, such as a
conqueror, whom the world recognises, but in that meek King whose
weapon was love, yet was wielded with a soldier's hand.

This general thought of Jesus Christ as the first Soldier and Captain
of the Lord's army not only opens for us a side of His character
which we too often pass by, but it also says something to us as to
what our duties ought to be. He stands to us in the relation of
General and Commander-in-Chief; then we stand to Him in the relation
of private soldiers, whose first duty is unhesitating obedience, and
who in doing their Master's will must put forth a bravery far higher
than the vulgar courage that is crowned with wreathed laurels on the
bloody battlefield, even the bravery that is caught from Him who 'set
His face as a flint' to do His work.

Joshua's career has in it a great stumbling-block to many people, in
that merciless destruction of the Canaanite sinners, which can only
be vindicated by remembering, first, that it was a divine
appointment, and that God has the right to punish; and, second, that
those old days were under a different law, or at least a less
manifestly developed law of loving-kindness and mercy than, thank
God! we live in. But whilst we look with wonder on these awful scenes
of destruction, may there not lie in them the lesson for us that
antagonism and righteous wrath against evil in all its forms is the
duty of the soldiers of Christ? There are many causes to-day which to
further and fight for is the bounden duty of every Christian, and to
further and fight for which will tax all the courage that any of us
can muster. Remember that the leadership of Christ is no mere pretty
metaphor, but a solemn fact, which brings with it the soldier's
responsibilities. When our Centurion says to us, 'Come!' we must
come. When He says to us, 'Go!' we must go. When He says to us 'Do
this!' we must do it, though heart and flesh should shrink and fail.
Unhesitating obedience to His authoritative command will deliver us
from many of the miseries of self-will; and brave effort at Christ's
side is as much the privilege as the duty of His servants and
soldiers.

II. So note, secondly, the Leader through death to life.

Peter, in the sermon which is found in the third chapter of this Book
of the Acts, has his mind and heart filled with the astounding fact
of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, and in the same
breath as he gives forth the paradoxical indictment of the Jewish
sin, 'You have killed the Prince of Life'--the Leader of Life--he
also says, 'And God hath raised Him from the dead.' So that the
connection seems to point to the risen and glorified life into which
Christ Himself passed, and by passing became capable of imparting it
to others. The same idea is here as in Paul's other metaphor: 'Now is
Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that
slept'--the first sheaf of the harvest, which was carried into the
Temple and consecrated to God, and was the pledge and prophecy of the
reaping in due season of all the miles of golden grain that waved in
the autumn sunshine. 'So,' says Peter, 'He is the Leader of Life, who
Himself has passed through the darkness, for "you killed Him";
mystery of mysteries as it is that you should have been able to do
it, deeper mystery still that you should have been willing to do it,
deepest mystery of all that you did it not when you did it, but that
"He became dead and is alive for evermore." You killed the Prince of
Life, and God raised Him from the dead.'

He has gone before us. He is 'the first that should rise from the
dead.' For, although the partial power of His communicated life did
breathe for a moment resuscitation into two dead men and one dead
maiden, these shared in no resurrection-life, but only came back
again into mortality, and were quickened for a time, but to die at
last the common death of all. But Jesus Christ is the first that has
gone into the darkness and come back again to live for ever. Across
the untrodden wild there is one track marked, and the footprints upon
it point both ways--to the darkness and from the darkness. So the
dreary waste is not pathless any more. The broad road that all the
generations have trodden on their way into the everlasting darkness
is left now, and the 'travellers pass by the byway' which Jesus
Christ has made by the touch of His risen feet.

Thus, not only does this thought teach us the priority of His
resurrection-life, but it also declares to us that Jesus Christ,
possessing the risen life, possesses it to impart it. For, as I
remarked in my introductory observations, the conception of this word
includes not only the idea of a Leader, but that of One who, Himself
possessing or experiencing something, gives it to others. All men
rise again. Yes, 'but every man in his own order.' There are two
principles at work in the resurrection of all men. They are raised on
different grounds, and they are raised to different issues. They that
are Christ's are brought again from the dead, because the life of
Christ is in them; and it is as 'impossible' that they, as that 'He,
should be holden of it.' Union with Jesus Christ by simple faith is
the means, and the only means revealed to us, whereby men shall be
raised from the dead at the last by a resurrection which is anything
else than a prolonged death. As for others, 'some shall rise unto
shame and everlasting contempt,' rising dead, and dead after they are
risen--dead as long as they live. There be two resurrections, whether
simultaneous in time or not is of no moment, and all of us must have
our part in the one or the other; and faith in Jesus Christ is the
only means by which we can take a place in the great army and
procession that He leads down into the valley and up to the sunny
heights.

If He be the Leader through death unto life, then it is certain that
all who follow in His train shall attain to His side and shall share
in His glory. The General wears no order which the humblest private
in the ranks may not receive likewise, and whomsoever He leads, His
leading will not end till He has led them close to His side, if they
trust Him. So, calmly, confidently, we may each of us look forward to
that dark journey waiting for us all. All our friends will leave us
at the tunnel's mouth, but He will go with us through the gloom, and
bring us out into the sunny lands on the southern side of the icy
white mountains. The Leader of our souls will be our Guide, not only
unto death, but far beyond it, into His own life.

III. So, thirdly, note the Leader through suffering to salvation.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is written, 'It became Him for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the Captain'--or the Leader--'of their salvation
perfect through sufferings.' That expression might seem at first to
shut Jesus Christ out from any participation in the thing which He
gives. For salvation is His gift, but not that which He Himself
possesses and enjoys; but it is to be noticed that in the context of
the words which I have quoted, 'glory' is put as substantially
synonymous with salvation, and that the whole is suffused with the
idea of a long procession, as shown by the phrase, 'bringing many
sons.' Of this procession Jesus Christ Himself is the Leader.

So, clearly, the notion in the context now under consideration is
that the life of Jesus Christ is the type to which all His servants
are to be conformed. He is the Representative Man, who Himself passes
through the conditions through which we are to pass, and Himself
reaches the glory which, given to us, becomes salvation.

'Christ is perfected through sufferings.' So must we be. Perfected
through sufferings? you say. Then did His humanity need perfecting?
Yes, and No. There needed nothing to be hewn away from that white
marble. There was nothing to be purged by fire out of that pure life.
But I suppose that Jesus Christ's human nature needed to be unfolded
by life; as the Epistle to the Hebrews says, 'He learned obedience,
though He were a Son, through the things which He suffered.' And
fitness for His office of leading us to glory required to be reached
through the sufferings which were the condition of our forgiveness
and of our acceptance with God. So, whether we regard the word as
expressing the agony of suffering in unfolding His humanity, or in
fitting Him for His redeeming work, it remains true that He was
perfected by His sufferings.

So must we be. Our characters will never reach the refinement, the
delicacy, the unworldliness, the dependence upon God, which they
require for their completion, unless we have been passed through many
a sorrow. There are plants which require a touch of frost to perfect
them, and we all need the discipline of a Father's hand. The sorrows
that come to us all are far more easily borne when we think that
Christ bore them all before us. It is but a blunted sword which
sorrow wields against any of us; it was blunted on His armour. It is
but a spent ball that strikes us; its force was exhausted upon Him.
Sorrow, if we keep close to Him, may become solemn joy, and knit us
more thoroughly to Himself. Ah, brother! we can better spare our joys
than we can spare our sorrows. Only let us cleave to Him when they
fall upon us.

Christ's sufferings led Him to His glory, so will ours if we keep by
His side--and only if we do. There is nothing in the mere fact of
being tortured and annoyed here on earth, which has in itself any
direct and necessary tendency to prepare us for the enjoyment, or to
secure to us the possession, of future blessedness. You often hear
superficial people saying, 'Oh! he has been very much troubled here,
but there will be amends for it hereafter.' Yes; God would wish to
make amends for it hereafter, but He cannot do so unless we comply
with the conditions. And it needs that we should keep close to Jesus
Christ in sorrow, in order that it should work for us 'the peaceable
fruit of righteousness.' The glory will come if the patient endurance
has preceded, and has been patience drawn from Jesus.

  'I wondered at the beauteous hours,
  The slow result of winter showers,
  You scarce could see the grass for flowers.'

The sorrows that have wounded any man's head like a crown of thorns
will be covered with the diadem of Heaven, if they are sorrows borne
with Christ.

IV. Lastly, we have Jesus, the Leader in the path of faith.

'The Author of faith,' says the verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
'Author' does not cover all the ground, though it does part of it. We
must include the other ideas which I have been trying to set forth He
is 'Possessor' first and 'Giver' afterwards. For Jesus Christ Himself
is both the Pattern and the Inspirer of our faith. It would unduly
protract my remarks to dwell adequately upon this; but let me just
briefly hint some thoughts connected with it.

Jesus Christ Himself walked by continual faith. His manhood depended
upon God, just as ours has to depend upon Jesus. He lived in the
continued reception of continual strength from above by reason of His
faith, just as our faith is the condition of our reception of His
strength. We are sometimes afraid to recognise the fact that the Man
Jesus, who is our pattern in all things, is our pattern in this, the
most special and peculiarly human aspect of the religious life. But
if Christ was not the first of believers, His pattern is wofully
defective in its adaptation to our need. Rather let us rejoice in the
thought that all that great muster-roll of the heroes of the faith,
which the Epistle to the Hebrews has been dealing with, have for
their Leader--though, chronologically, He marches in the centre--
Jesus Christ, of whose humanity this is the document and proof that
He says, in the Prophet's words: 'I will put My trust in Him.'

Remember, too, that the same Jesus who is the Pattern is the Object
and the Inspirer of our faith; and that if we fulfil the conditions
in the text now under consideration, 'looking off' from all others,
stimulating and beautiful as their example may be, sweet and tender
as their love may be, and 'looking unto Jesus,' He will be in us, and
above us--in us to inspire, and above us to receive and to reward our
humble confidence.

So, dear friends, it all comes to this, 'Follow thou Me!' In that
commandment all duty is summed, and in obeying it all blessedness and
peace are ensured. If we will take Christ for our Captain, He will
teach our fingers to fight. If we obey Him we shall not want
guidance, and be saved from perplexities born of self-will. If we
keep close to Him and turn our eyes to Him, away from all the false
and fleeting joys and things of earth, we shall not walk in darkness,
howsoever earthly lights may be quenched, but the gloomiest path will
be illuminated by His presence, and the roughest made smooth by His
bleeding feet that passed along it. If we follow Him, He will lead us
down into the dark valley, and up into the blessed sunshine, where
participation in His own eternal life and glory will be salvation. If
we march in His ranks on earth, then shall we

  'With joy upon our heads arise
  And meet our Captain in the skies.'



GAMALIEL'S COUNSEL

'Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this counsel
or this work be of men, it will come to nought: 39. But if it be
of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to
fight against God.'--ACTS v. 38, 39.

The little that is known of Gamaliel seems to indicate just such a
man as would be likely to have given the advice in the text. His was
a character which, on its good side and by its admirers, would be
described as prudent, wise, cautious and calm, tolerant, opposed to
fanaticism and violence. His position as president of the Sanhedrin,
his long experience, his Rabbinical training, his old age, and his
knowledge that the national liberty depended on keeping things quiet,
would be very likely to exaggerate such tendencies into what his
enemies would describe as worldly shrewdness without a trace of
enthusiasm, indifference to truth, and the like.

It is, of course, possible that he bases his counsel of letting the
followers of Jesus alone, on the grounds which he adduces, because he
knew that reasons more favourable to Christians would have had no
weight with the Sanhedrin. Old Church traditions make him out to have
been a Christian, and the earliest Christian romance, a very singular
book, of which the main object was to blacken the Apostle Paul,
roundly asserts that at the date of this advice he was 'secretly our
brother,' and that he remained in the Sanhedrin to further Christian
views. But there seems not the slightest reason to suppose that. He
lived and died a Jew, spared the sight of the destruction of
Jerusalem which, according to his own canon in the text, would have
proved that the system to which he had given his life was not of God;
and the only relic of his wisdom is a prayer against Christian
heretics.

It is remarkable that he should have given this advice; but two
things occur to account for it. Thus far Christianity had been very
emphatically the preaching of the Resurrection, a truth which the
Pharisees believed and held as especially theirs in opposition to the
Sadducees, and Gamaliel was old and worldly-wise enough to count all
as his friends who were the enemies of his enemies. He was not very
particular where he looked for allies, and rather shrank from helping
Sadducees to punish men whose crime was that they 'preached through
Jesus a resurrection from the dead.'

Then the Jewish rulers had a very ticklish part to play. They were
afraid of any popular shout which might bring down the avalanche of
Roman power on them, and they were nervously anxious to keep things
quiet. So Gamaliel did not wish to have any fuss made about 'these
men,' lest it should be supposed that another popular revolt was on
foot; and he thought that to let them alone was the best way to
reduce their importance. Perhaps, too, there was a secret hope in the
old man's mind, which he scarcely ventured to look at and dared not
speak, that here might be the beginning of a rising which had more
promise in it than that abortive one under Theudas. He could not
venture to say this, but perhaps it made him chary of voting for
repression. He had no objection to let these poor Galileans fling
away their lives in storming against the barrier of Rome. If they
fail, it is but one more failure. If they succeed, he and his like
will say that they have done well. But while the enterprise is too
perilous for him to approve or be mixed up in it, he would let it
have its chance.

Note that Gamaliel regards the whole movement as the probable germ of
an uprising against Rome, as is seen from the parallels that he
quotes. It is not as a religious teaching which is true or false, but
as a political agitation, that he looks at Christianity.

It is to his credit that he stood calm and curbed the howling of the
fanatics round him, and that he was the first and only Jewish
authority who counselled abstinence from persecution.

It is interesting to compare him with Gallio, who had a glimpse of
the true relation of the civil magistrate to religious opinion.
Gamaliel has a glimpse of the truth of the impotence of material
force against truth, how it is of a quick and spiritual essence,
which cannot be cleaved in pieces with a sword, but lives on in spite
of all. But while all this may be true, the advice on the whole is a
low and bad one. It rests on false principles; it takes a false view
of a man's duty; it is not wholly sincere; and it is one impossible
to be carried out. It is singularly in accordance with many of the
tendencies of this age, and with modes of thought and counsels of
action which are in active operation amongst us to-day, and we may
therefore criticise it now.

I. Here is disbelief professing to be 'honest doubt.' Gamaliel
professes not to have materials for judging. 'If--if'; was it a time
for 'ifs'? What was that Sanhedrin there for, but to try precisely
such cases as these?

They had had the works of Christ; miracles which they had
investigated and could not disprove; a life which was its own
witness; prophecies fulfilled; His own presence before their bar; the
Resurrection and the Pentecost.

I am not saying whether these facts were enough to have convinced
them, nor even whether the alleged miracles were true. All that I am
concerned with is that, so far as we know, neither Gamaliel nor any
of his tribe had ever made the slightest attempt to inquire into
them, but had, without examination, complacently treated them as
lies. All that body of evidence had been absolutely ignored. And now
he is, with his 'ifs,' posing as very calm and dispassionate.

So to-day it is fashionable to doubt, to hang up most of the
Christian truths in the category of uncertainties.

(_a_) When that is the fashion, we need to be on our guard.

(_b_) If you doubt, have you ever taken the pains to examine?

(_c_) If you doubt, you are bound to go further, and either reach
belief or rejection. Doubt is not the permanent condition for a man.
The central truth of Christianity is either to be received or
rejected.

II. Here is disbelief masquerading as suspension of judgment.

Gamaliel talked as if he did not know, or had not decided in his own
mind, whether the disciples' claims for their Master were just or
not. But the attitude of impartiality and hesitation was the cover of
rooted unbelief. He speaks as if the alternative was that either this
'counsel and work' was 'of man' or 'of God.' But he would have been
nearer the truth if he had stated the antithesis--God or devil; a
glorious truth or a hell-born lie. If Christ's work was not a
revelation from above, it was certainly an emanation from beneath.

We sometimes hear disbelief, in our own days, talking in much the
same fashion. Have we never listened to teachers who first of all
prove to their own satisfaction that Jesus is a myth, that all the
gospel story is unreliable, and all the gospel message a dream, and
then turn round and overflow in praise of Him and in admiration of
it? Browning's professor in _Christmas Day_ first of all reduces 'the
pearl of price' to dust and ashes, and then

  'Bids us, when we least expect it,
  Take back our faith--if it be not just whole,
  Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it.'

And that is very much the tone of not a few very superior persons to-
day. But let us have one thing or the other--a Christ who was what He
claimed to be, the Incarnate Word of God, who died for our sins and
rose again for our justification; or a Galilean peasant who was
either a visionary or an impostor, like Judas of Galilee and Theudas.

III. Here is success turned into a criterion of truth.

It is such, no doubt, in the long run, but not till then, and so till
the end it is utterly false to argue that a thing is true because
multitudes think it to be so. The very opposite is more nearly true.
It in usually minorities who have been right.

Gamaliel laid down an immoral principle, which is only too popular
to-day, in relation to religion and to much else.

IV. Here is a selfish neutrality pretending to be judicial calmness.

Even if it were true that success is a criterion, we have to help God
to ensure the success of His truth. No doubt, taking sides is very
inconvenient to a cool, tolerant man of the world. And it is
difficult to be in a party without becoming a partisan. We know all
the beauty of mild, tolerant wisdom, and that truth is usually shared
between combatants, but the dangers of extremes and exaggeration must
be faced, and perhaps these are better than the cool indifference of
the eclectic, sitting apart, holding no form of creed, but
contemplating all. It is not good for a man to stand aloof when his
brethren are fighting.

In every age some great causes which are God's are pressing for
decision. In many of them we may be disqualified for taking sides.
But feel that you are bound to cast your influence on the side which
conscience approves, and bound to settle which side that is,
Deborah's fierce curse against Meroz because its people came not up
to the help of the Lord against the mighty was deserved.

But the region in which such judicial calmness, which shrinks from
taking its side, is most fatal and sadly common, is in regard to our
own individual relation to Jesus, and in regard to the establishment
of His kingdom among men.

'He that is not with Me is against Me.' Neutrality is opposition. Not
to gather with Him is to scatter. Not to choose Him is to reject Him.

Gamaliel had a strange notion of what constituted 'refraining from
these men and letting them alone,' and he betrayed his real position
and opposition by his final counsel to scourge them, before letting
them go. That is what the world's neutrality comes to.

How poor a figure this politic ecclesiastic, mostly anxious not to
commit himself, ready to let whoever would risk a struggle with Rome,
so that he kept out of the fray and survived to profit by it, cuts
beside the disciples, who had chosen their side, had done with 'ifs,'
and went away from the Council rejoicing 'that they were counted
worthy to suffer shame for His Name'! Who would not rather be Peter
or John with their bleeding backs than Gamaliel, sitting soft in his
presidential chair, and too cautious to commit himself to an opinion
whether the name of Jesus was that of a prophet or a pretender?



FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT

'Men ... full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.' ... 'A man full of
faith and of the Holy Ghost....' 'Stephen, full of faith and
power.'--ACTS vi. 3, 5, 8.

I have taken the liberty of wrenching these three fragments from
their context, because of their remarkable parallelism, which is
evidently intended to set us thinking of the connection of the
various characteristics which they set forth. The first of them is a
description, given by the Apostles, of the sort of man whom they
conceived to be fit to look after the very homely matter of stifling
the discontent of some members of the Church, who thought that their
poor people did not get their fair share of the daily ministration.
The second and third of them are parts of the description of the
foremost of these seven men, the martyr Stephen. In regard to the
first and second of our three fragmentary texts, you will observe
that the cause is put first and the effect second. The 'deacons' were
to be men 'full of the Holy Ghost,' and that would make them 'full of
wisdom.' Stephen was 'full of faith,' and that made him 'full of the
Holy Ghost.' Probably the same relation subsists in the third of our
texts, of which the true reading is not, as it appears in our
Authorised Version, 'full of faith and power,' but as it is given in
the Revised Version, 'full of grace and power.' He was filled with
grace--by which apparently is here meant the sum of the divine
spiritual gifts--and therefore he was full of power. Whether that is
so or not, if we link these three passages together, as I have taken
the liberty of doing, we get a point of view appropriate for such a
day [Footnote: Preached on Whit Sunday.] as this, when all that calls
itself Christendom is commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit,
and His abiding influence upon the Church. So I simply wish to gather
together the principles that come out of these three verses thus
concatenated.

I. We may all, if we will, be full of the Holy Spirit.

If there is a God at all, there is nothing more reasonable than to
suppose that He can come into direct contact with the spirits of the
men whom He has made. And if that Almighty God is not an Almighty
indifference, or a pure devil--if He is love--then there is nothing
more certain than that, if He can touch and influence men's hearts
towards goodness and His own likeness, He most certainly will.

The probability, which all religion recognises, and in often crude
forms tries to set forth, and by superstitious acts to secure, is
raised to an absolute certainty, if we believe that Jesus Christ, the
Incarnate Truth, speaks truth to us about this matter. For there is
nothing more certain than that the characteristic which distinguishes
Him from all other teachers, is to be found not only in the fact that
He did something for us on the Cross, as well as taught us by His
word; but that in His teaching He puts in the forefront, not the
prescriptions of our duty, but the promise of God's gift; and ever
says to us, 'Open your hearts and the divine influences will flow in
and fill you and fit you for all goodness.' The Spirit of God fills
the human spirit, as the mysterious influence which we call life
permeates and animates the whole body, or as water lies in a cup.

Consider how that metaphor is caught up, and from a different point
of view is confirmed, in regard to the completeness which it
predicates, by other metaphors of Scripture. What is the meaning of
the Baptist's saying, 'He shall baptise you in the Holy Ghost and
fire'? Does that not mean a complete immersion in, and submersion
under, the cleansing flood? What is the meaning of the Master's own
saying, 'Tarry ye... till ye be clothed with power from on high'?
Does not that mean complete investiture of our nakedness with that
heavenly-woven robe? Do not all these emblems declare to us the
possibility of a human spirit being charged to the limits of its
capacity with a divine influence?

We do not here discuss questions which separate good Christian people
from one another in regard of this matter. My object now is not to
lay down theological propositions, but to urge upon Christian men the
acquirement of an experience which is possible for them. And so,
without caring to enter by argument on controversial matters, I
desire simply to lay emphasis upon the plain implication of that
word, '_filled_ with the Holy Ghost.' Does it mean less than the
complete subjugation of a man's spirit by the influence of God's
Spirit brooding upon him, as the prophet laid himself on the dead
child, lip to lip, face to face, beating heart to still heart, limb
to limb, and so diffused a supernatural life into the dead? That is
an emblem of what all you Christian people may have if you like, and
if you will adopt the discipline and observe the conditions which God
has plainly laid down.

That fulness will be a growing fulness, for our spirits are capable,
if not of infinite, at any rate of indefinite, expansion, and there
is no limit known to us, and no limit, I suppose, which will ever be
reached, so that we can go no further--to the possible growth of a
created spirit that is in touch with God, and is having itself
enlarged and elevated and ennobled by that contact. The vessel is
elastic, the walls of the cup of our spirit, into which the new wine
of the divine Spirit is poured, widen out as the draught is poured
into them. The more a man possesses and uses of the life of God, the
more is he capable of possessing and the more he will receive. So a
continuous expansion in capacity, and a continuous increase in the
amount of the divine life possessed, are held out as the happy
prerogative and possibility of a Christian soul.

This Stephen had but a very small amount of the clear Christian
knowledge that you and I have, but he was leagues ahead of most
Christian people in regard to this, that he was 'filled with the Holy
Spirit.' Brethren, you can have as much of that Spirit as you want.
It is my own fault if my Christian life is not what the Christian
lives of some of us, I doubt not, are. 'Filled with the Holy Spirit'!
rather a little drop in the bottom of the cup, and all the rest
gaping emptiness; rather the fire died down, Pentecostal fire though
it be, until there is scarcely anything but a heap of black cinders
and grey ashes in your grate, and a little sandwich of flickering
flame in one corner; rather the rushing mighty wind died down into
all but a dead calm, like that which afflicts sailing-ships in the
equatorial regions, when the thick air is deadly still, and the empty
sails have not strength even to flap upon the masts; rather the
'river of the water of life' that pours 'out of the throne of God,
and of the Lamb,' dried up into a driblet.

That is the condition of many Christian people. I say not of which of
us. Let each man settle for himself how that may be. At all events
here is the possibility, which may be realised with increasing
completeness all through a Christian man's life. We may be filled
with the Holy Spirit.

II. If we are 'full of faith' we shall be filled with the Spirit.

That is the condition as suggested by one of our texts--'a man full
of faith,' and therefore 'of the Holy Ghost.' Now, of course, I
believe, as I suppose all people who have made any experience of
their own hearts must believe, that before a soul exercises
confidence in Jesus Christ, and passes into the household of faith,
there have been playing upon it the influences of that divine
Comforter whose first mission is to 'convince the world of sin.' But
between such operations as these, which I believe are universally
diffused, wheresoever the Word of God and the message of salvation
are proclaimed--between such operations as these, and those to which
I now refer, whereby the divine Spirit not only operates upon, but
dwells in, a man's heart, and not only brings conviction to the world
of sin, there is a wide gulf fixed; and for all the hallowing,
sanctifying, illuminating and strength-giving operations of that
divine Spirit, the pre-requisite condition is our trust. Jesus Christ
taught us so, in more than one utterance, and His Apostle, in
commenting on one of the most remarkable of His sayings on this
subject, says, 'This spake He concerning the Holy Spirit which _they
that believed_ in Him were to receive.' Faith is the condition of
receiving that divine influence. But what kind of faith? Well, let us
put away theological words. If you do not believe that there is any
such influence to be got, you will not get it. If you do not want it,
you will not get it. If you do not expect it, you will not get it. If
professing to believe it, and to wish it, and to look for it, you are
behaving yourself in such a way as to show that you do not really
desire it, you will never get it. It is all very well to talk about
faith as the condition of receiving that divine Spirit. Do not let us
lose ourselves in the word, but try to translate the somewhat
threadbare expression, which by reason of its familiarity produces
little effect upon some of us, and to turn it into non-theological
English. It just comes to this,--if we are simply trusting ourselves
to Jesus Christ our Lord, and if in that trust we do believe in the
possibility of even _our_ being filled with the divine Spirit, and if
that possibility lights up a leaping flame of desire in our hearts
which aspires towards the possession of such a gift, and if belief
that our reception of that gift is possible because we trust
ourselves to Jesus Christ, and longing that we may receive it,
combine to produce the confident expectation that we shall, and if
all of these combine to produce conduct which neither quenches nor
grieves that divine Guest, then, and only then, shall we indeed be
filled with the Spirit.

I know of no other way by which a man can receive God into his heart
than by opening his heart for God to come in. I know of no other way
by which a man can woo--if I may so say--the Divine Lover to enter
into his spirit than by longing that He would come, waiting for His
coming, expecting it, and being supremely blessed in the thought that
such a union is possible. Faith, that is trust, with its appropriate
and necessary sequels of desire and expectation and obedience, is the
completing of the electric circuit, and after it the spark is sure to
come. It is the opening of the windows, after which sunshine cannot
but flood the chamber. It is the stretching out of the hand, and no
man that ever, with love and longing, lifted an empty hand to God,
dropped it still empty. And no man who, with penitence for his own
act, and trust in the divine act, lifted blood-stained and foul hands
to God, ever held them up there without the gory patches melting
away, and becoming white as snow. Not 'all the perfumes of Araby' can
sweeten those bloody hands. Lift them up to God, and they become
pure. Whosoever wishes that he may, and believes that he shall,
receive from Christ the fulness of the Spirit, will not be
disappointed. Brethren, 'Ye have not because ye ask not.' 'If ye,
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,' shall not
'your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'

III. Lastly, if we are filled with the Spirit we shall be 'full of
wisdom, grace, and power.'

The Apostles seemed to think that it was a very important business to
look after a handful of poor widows, and see that they had their fair
share in the dispensing of the modest charity of the half-pauper
Jerusalem church, when they said that for such a purely secular thing
as that a man would need to be 'full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.'
Surely, something a little less august might have served their turn
to qualify men for such a task! 'Wisdom' here, I suppose, means
practical sagacity, common sense, the power of picking out an
impostor when she came whining for a dole. Very commonplace virtues!
--but the Apostles evidently thought that such everyday operations of
the understanding as these were not too secular and commonplace to
owe their origin to the communication to men of the fulness of the
Holy Spirit.

May we not take a lesson from that, that God's great influences, when
they come into a man, do not concern themselves only with great
intellectual problems and the like, but that they will operate to
make him more fit to do the most secular and the most trivial things
that can be put into his hand to do? The Holy Ghost had to fill
Stephen before he could hand out loaves and money to the widows in
Jerusalem.

And do you not think that your day's work, and your business
perplexities, come under the same category? Perhaps the best way to
secure understanding of what we ought to do, in regard to very small
and secular matters, is to keep ourselves very near to God, with the
windows of our hearts opened towards Jerusalem, that all the guidance
and light that can come from Him may come into us. Depend upon it,
unless we have God's guidance in the trivialities of life, ninety per
cent., ay! and more, of our lives will be without God's guidance;
because trivialities make up life. And unless my Father in heaven can
guide me about what we, very mistakenly, call 'secular' things, and
what we very vulgarly call trivial things, His guidance is not worth
much. The Holy Ghost will give you wisdom for to-morrow, and all its
little cares, as well as for the higher things, of which I am not
going to speak now, because they do not come within my text.

'Full of grace,'--that is a wide word, as I take it. If, by our
faith, we have brought into our hearts that divine influence, the
Spirit of God does not come empty-handed, but He communicates to us
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, whatsoever things
are fair and honourable, whatsoever things in the eyes of men are
worthy to be praised, and by the tongues of men have been called
virtue. These things will all be given to us step by step, not
without our own diligent co-operation, by that divine Giver. Effort
without faith, and faith without effort, are equally incomplete, and
the co-operation of the two is that which is blessed by God.

Then the things which are 'gracious,' that is to say, given by His
love, and also gracious in the sense of partaking of the celestial
beauty which belongs to all virtue, and to all likeness in character
to God, these things will give us a strange, supernatural _power_
amongst men. The word is employed in my third text, I presume, in its
narrow sense of miracle-working power, but we may fairly widen it to
something much more than that. Our Lord once said, when He was
speaking about the gift of the Holy Spirit, that there were two
stages in its operation. In the first, it availed for the refreshment
and the satisfying of the desires of the individual; in the second it
became, by the ministration of that individual, a source of blessing
to others. He said, 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me and
drink,' and then, immediately, 'He that believeth on Me, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water.' That is to say, whoever
lives in touch with God, having that divine Spirit in his heart, will
walk amongst men the wielder of an unmistakable power, and will be
able to bear witness to God, and move men's hearts, and draw them to
goodness and truth. The only power for Christian service is the power
that comes from being clothed with God's Spirit. The only power for
self-government is the power that comes from being clothed with God's
Spirit. The only power which will keep us in the way that leads to
life, and will bring us at last to the rest and the reward, is the
power that comes from being clothed with God's Spirit.

I am charged to all who hear me now with this message. Here is a gift
offered to you. You cannot pare and batter at your own characters so
as to make them what will satisfy your own consciences, still less
what will satisfy the just judgment of God; but you can put yourself
under the moulding influences of Christ's love. Dear brethren, the
one hope for dead humanity, the bones very many and very dry, is that
from the four winds there should come the breath of God, and breathe
in them, and they shall live, 'an exceeding great army.' Forget all
else that I have been saying now, if you like, but take these two
sentences to your hearts, and do not rest till they express your own
personal experience; If I am to be good I must have God's Spirit
within me. If I am to have God's Spirit within me, I must be 'full of
faith.'



STEPHEN'S VISION

'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on
the right hand of God'--ACTS vii. 56.

I. The vision of the Son of Man, or the abiding manhood of Jesus.

Stephen's Greek name, and his belonging to the Hellenistic part of
the Church, make it probable that he had never seen Jesus during His
earthly life. If so, how beautiful that he should thus see and
recognise Him! How significant, in any case, is it he should
instinctively have taken on his lips that name, 'the Son of Man,' to
designate Him whom he saw, through the opened heavens, standing on
the right hand of God! We remember that in the same Council-chamber
and before the same court, Jesus had lashed the rulers into a
paroxysm of fury by declaring, 'Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of power,' and now here is one of His
followers, almost, as it were, flinging in their teeth the words
which they had called 'blasphemy,' and witnessing that he, at all
events, saw their partial fulfilment. They saw only the roof of the
chamber, or, if the Council met in the open court of the Temple, the
quivering blue of the Syrian sky; but to him the blue was parted, and
a brighter light than that of its lustre was flashed upon his inward
eye. His words roused them to an even wilder outburst than those of
Jesus had set loose, and with yells of fury, and stopping their ears
that they might not hear the blasphemy, they flung themselves on him,
unresisting, and dragged him to his doom. Their passion is a measure
of the preciousness to the Christian consciousness of that which
Stephen saw, and said that he saw.

Whatever more the great designation, 'Son of Man,' means, it
unmistakably means the embodiment of perfect manhood. Stephen's
vision swept into his soul, as on a mighty wave, the fact,
overwhelming if it had not been so transcendently strengthening to
the sorely bestead prisoner, that the Jesus whom he had trusted
unseen, was still the same Jesus that He had been 'in the days of His
flesh,' and, with whatever changes, still was 'found in fashion as a
man.' He still 'bent on earth a brother's eye.' Whatever He had
dropped from Him as He ascended, His manhood had not fallen away,
and, whatever changes had taken place in His body so as to fit it for
its enthronement in the heavens, all that had knit Him to His humble
friends on earth was still His. The bonds that united Him and them
had not been snapped by being stretched to span the distance between
the Council-chamber and the right hand of God. His sympathy still
continued. All that had won their hearts was still in Him, and every
tender remembrance of His love and leading was transformed into the
assurance of a present possession. He was still the Son of Man.

We are all too apt to feel as if the manhood of Jesus was now but a
memory, and, though our creed affirms the contrary, yet our faith has
difficulty in realising the full force and blessedness of its
affirmations. For the Resurrection and Ascension seem to remove Him
from close contact with us, and sometimes we feel as if we stretch
out groping fingers into the dark and find no warm human hand to
grasp. His exaltation seems to withdraw Him from our brotherhood, and
the cloud, though it is a cloud of glory, sometimes seems to hide Him
from our sight. The thickening veil of increasing centuries becomes
more and more difficult for faith to pierce. What Stephen saw was not
for him only but for us all, and its significance becomes more and
more precious as we drift further and further away in time from the
days of the life of Jesus on earth. More and more do we need to make
very visible to ourselves this vision, and to lay on our hearts the
strong consolation of gazing steadfastly into heaven and seeing there
the Son of Man. So we shall feel that He is all to us that He was to
those who companied with Him here. So shall we be more ready to
believe that 'this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as He
went,' and that till He come, He is knit to us and we to Him, by the
bonds of a common manhood.

II. The vision of the Son of Man at the right hand of God, or the
glory of the Man Jesus.

We will not discuss curious questions which may be asked in
connection with Stephen's vision, such as whether the glorified
humanity of Jesus implies His special presence in a locality; but
will rather try to grasp its bearings on topics more directly related
to more important matters than dim speculations on points concerning
which confident affirmations are sure to be wrong. Whether the
representation implies locality or not, it is clear that the deepest
meaning of the expression 'the right hand of God,' is the energy of
His unlimited power, and that, therefore, the deepest meaning of the
expression 'to be at His right hand,' is wielding the might of the
divine Omnipotence. The vision is but the visible confirmation of
Jesus' words, 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth.'

It is to be taken into account that Scripture usually represents the
Christ as seated at the right hand of God, and that posture, taken in
conjunction with that place, indicates the completion of His work,
the majestic calm of His repose, like that creative rest, which did
not follow the creative work because the Worker was weary, but
because He had fulfilled His ideal. God rested because His work was
finished, and was 'very good.' So Jesus sits, because He, too, has
finished His work on earth. 'When,' and because 'He had by Himself
purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of God.'

Further, that place at the right hand of God certifies that He is the
Judge.

Further, it is a blessed vision for His children, as being the sure
pledge of their glory.

It is a glorious revelation of the capabilities of sinless human
nature.

It makes heaven habitable for us.

'I go to prepare a place for you.' An emigrant does not feel a
stranger in new country, if his elder brother has gone before him,
and waits to meet him when he lands. The presence of Jesus makes that
dim, heavenly state, which is so hard to imagine, and from which we
often feel that even its glories repel, or, at least, do not attract,
home to those who love Him. To be where He is, and to be as He is--
that is heaven.

III. The vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,
or the ever-ready help of the glorified Jesus.

The divergence of the vision from the usual representation of the
attitude of Jesus is not the least precious of its elements. Stephen
saw Him 'standing,' as if He had risen to His feet to see His
servant's need and was preparing to come to his help.

What a rush of new strength for victorious endurance would flood
Stephen's soul as he beheld his Lord thus, as it were, starting to
His feet in eagerness to watch and to succour! He looks down from
amid the glory, and His calm repose does not involve passive
indifference to His servant's sufferings. Into it comes full
knowledge of all that they bear for Him, and His rest is not the
negation of activity on their behalf, but its intensest energy. Just
as one of the Gospels ends with a twofold picture, which at first
sight seems to draw a sad distinction between the Lord 'received up
into heaven and set down at the right hand of God,' and His servants
left below, who 'went everywhere, preaching the word,' but of which
the two halves are fused together by the next words, 'the Lord also
working with them,' so Stephen's vision brought together the
glorified Lord and His servant, and filled the martyr's soul with the
fact that He not only 'worked,' but suffered with those who suffered
for His sake.

That vision is a transient revelation of an eternal fact. Jesus knows
and shares in all that affects His servants. He stands in the
attitude to help, and He wields the power of God. He is, as the
prophet puts it, 'the Arm of the Lord,' and the cry, 'Awake, O Arm of
the Lord!' is never unanswered. He helps His servants by actually
directing the course of Providence for their sakes. He helps by
wielding the forces of nature on their behalf. He 'rebukes kings for
their sake, saying, Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no
harm.' He helps by breathing His own life and strength into them. He
helps by disclosing to them the vision of Himself. He helps even
when, like Stephen, they are apparently left to the murderous hate of
their enemies, for what better help could any of His followers get
from Him than that He should, as Stephen prayed that He would,
receive their spirit, and 'so give His beloved sleep'? Blessed they
whose lives are lighted by that Vision, and whose deaths are such a
falling on sleep!



THE YOUNG SAUL AND THE AGED PAUL
[Footnote: To the young.]

'...the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet,
whose name was Saul.'--ACTS vii. 58.

'...Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.'
--PHILEMON 9.

A far greater difference than that which was measured by years
separated the young Saul from the aged Paul. By years, indeed, the
difference was, perhaps, not so great as the words might suggest, for
Jewish usage extended the term of youth farther than we do, and began
age sooner. No doubt, too, Paul's life had aged him fast, and
probably there were not thirty years between the two periods. But the
difference between him and himself at the beginning and the end of
his career was a gulf; and his life was not evolution, but
revolution.

At the beginning you see a brilliant young Pharisee, Gamaliel's
promising pupil, advanced above many who were his equals in his own
religion, as he says himself; living after its straitest sect, and
eager to have the smallest part in what seemed to him the righteous
slaying of one of the followers of the blaspheming Nazarene. At the
end he was himself one of these followers. He had cast off, as folly,
the wisdom which took him so much pains to acquire. He had turned his
back upon all the brilliant prospects of distinction which were
opening to him. He had broken with countrymen and kindred. And what
had he made of it? He had been persecuted, hunted, assailed by every
weapon that his old companions could fashion or wield; he is a
solitary man, laden with many cares, and accustomed to look perils
and death in the face; he is a prisoner, and in a year or two more he
will be a martyr. If he were an apostate and a renegade, it was not
for what he could get by it.

What made the change? The vision of Jesus Christ. If we think of the
transformation on Saul, its causes and its outcome, we shall get
lessons which I would fain press upon your hearts now. Do you wonder
that I would urge on you just such a life as that of this man as your
highest good?

I. I would note, then, first, that faith in Jesus Christ will
transform and ennoble any life.

It has been customary of late years, amongst people who do not like
miracles, and do not believe in sudden changes of character, to
allege that Paul's conversion was but the appearance, on the surface,
of an underground process that had been going on ever since he kept
the witnesses' clothes. Modern critics know a great deal more about
the history of Paul's conversion than Paul did. For to him there was
no consciousness of undermining, but the change was instantaneous. He
left Jerusalem a bitter persecutor, exceeding mad against the
followers of the Nazarene, thinking that Jesus was a blasphemer and
an impostor, and His disciples pestilent vermin, to be harried off
the face of the earth. He entered Damascus a lowly disciple of that
Christ. His conversion was not an underground process that had been
silently sapping the foundations of his life; it was an explosion.
And what caused it? What was it that came on that day on the Damascus
road, amid the blinding sunshine of an Eastern noontide? The vision
of Jesus Christ. An overwhelming conviction flooded his soul that He
whom he had taken to be an impostor, richly deserving the Cross that
He endured, was living in glory, and was revealing Himself to Saul
then and there. That truth crumbled his whole past into nothing; and
he stood there trembling and astonished, like a man the ruins of
whose house have fallen about his ears. He bowed himself to the
vision. He surrendered at discretion without a struggle.
'Immediately,' says he, 'I was not disobedient to the heavenly
vision,' and when he said 'Lord, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?'
he flung open the gates of the fortress for the Conqueror to come in.
The vision of Christ reversed his judgments, transformed his
character, revolutionised his life.

That initial impulse operated through all the rest of his career.
Hearken to him: 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. To me to
live is Christ. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we
die, we die unto the Lord. Living or dying, we are the Lord's.' 'We
labour that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him.'
The transforming agency was the vision of Christ, and the bowing of
the man's whole nature before the seen Saviour.

Need I recall to you how noble a life issued from that fountain? I am
sure that I need do no more than mention in a word or two the
wondrous activity, flashing like a flame of fire from East to West,
and everywhere kindling answering flames, the noble self-oblivion,
the continual communion with God and the Unseen, and all the other
great virtues and nobleness which came from such sources as these. I
need only, I am sure, remind you of them, and draw this lesson, that
the secret of a transforming and noble life is to be found in faith
in Jesus Christ. The vision that changed Paul is as available for you
and me. For it is all a mistake to suppose that the essence of it is
the miraculous appearance that flashed upon the Apostle's eyes. He
speaks of it himself, in one of his letters, in other language, when
he says, 'It pleased God to reveal His Son _in_ me.' And that
revelation in all its fulness, in all its sweetness, in all its
transforming and ennobling power, is offered to every one of us. For
the eye of faith is no less gifted with the power of direct and
certain vision--yea! is even more gifted with this--than is the eye
of sense. 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded though one rose from the dead.' Christ is revealed to
each one of us as really, as veritably, and the revelation may become
as strong an impulse and motive in our lives as ever it was to the
Apostle on the Damascus road. What is wanted is not revelation, but
the bowed will--not the heavenly vision, but obedience to the vision.
I suppose that most of you think that you believe all that about
Jesus Christ, which transformed Gamaliel's pupil into Christ's
disciple. And what has it done for you? In many cases, nothing. Be
sure of this, dear young friends, that the shortest way to a life
adorned with all grace, with all nobility, fragrant with all
goodness, and permanent as that life which does the will of God must
clearly be, is this, to bow before the seen Christ, seen in His word,
and speaking to your hearts, and to take His yoke and carry His
burden. Then you will build upon what will stand, and make your days
noble and your lives stable. If you build on anything else, the
structure will come down with a crash some day, and bury you in its
ruins. Surely it is better to learn the worthlessness of a non-
Christian life, in the light of His merciful face, when there is yet
time to change our course, than to see it by the fierce light of the
great White Throne set for judgment. We must each of us learn it here
or there.

II. Faith in Christ will make a joyful life, whatever its
circumstances.

I have said that, judged by the standard of the Exchange, or by any
of the standards which men usually apply to success in life, this
life of the Apostle was a failure. We know, without my dwelling more
largely upon it, what he gave up. We know what, to outward
appearance, he gained by his Christianity. You remember, perhaps, how
he himself speaks about the external aspects of his life in one
place, where he says 'Even unto this present hour we both hunger and
thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain
dwelling-place, and labour, working with our own hands. Being
reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we
entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, and as the
offscouring of all things unto this day.'

That was one side of it. Was that all? This man had that within him
which enabled him to triumph over all trials. There is nothing more
remarkable about him than the undaunted courage, the unimpaired
elasticity of spirit, the buoyancy of gladness, which bore him high
upon the waves of the troubled sea in which he had to swim. If ever
there was a man that had a bright light burning within him, in the
deepest darkness, it was that little weather-beaten Jew, whose
'bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible.' And what was
it that made him master of circumstances, and enabled him to keep
sunshine in his heart when winter bound all the world around him?
What made this bird sing in a darkened cage? One thing--the continual
presence, consciously with Him by faith, of that Christ who had
revolutionised his life, and who continued to bless and to gladden
it. I have quoted his description of his external condition. Let me
quote two or three words that indicate how he took all that sea of
troubles and of sorrows that poured its waves and its billows over
him. 'In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him
that loved us.' 'As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our
consolation aboundeth also by Christ.' 'For which cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day
by day.' 'Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.' 'I have
learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.' 'As
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, yet possessing all things.'

There is the secret of blessedness, my friends; there is the fountain
of perpetual joy. Cling to Christ, set His will on the throne of your
hearts, give the reins of your life and of your character into His
keeping, and nothing 'that is at enmity with joy' can either 'abolish
or destroy' the calm blessedness of your spirits.

You will have much to suffer; you will have something to give up.
Your life may look, to men whose tastes have been vulgarised by the
glaring brightnesses of this vulgar world, but grey and sombre, but
it will have in it the calm abiding blessedness which is more than
joy, and is diviner and more precious than the tumultuous transports
of gratified sense or successful ambition. Christ is peace, and He
gives His peace to us; and then He gives a joy which does not break
but enhances peace. We are all tempted to look for our gladness in
creatures, each of which satisfies but a part of our desire. But no
man can be truly blessed who has to find many contributories to make
up his blessedness. That which makes us rich must be, not a multitude
of precious stones, howsoever precious they may be, but one Pearl of
great price; the one Christ who is our only joy. And He says to us
that He gives us Himself, if we behold Him and bow to Him, that His
joy might remain in us, and that our joy might be full, while all
other gladnesses are partial and transitory. Faith in Christ makes
life blessed. The writer of Ecclesiastes asked the question which the
world has been asking ever since: 'Who knoweth what is good for a man
in this life, all the days of this vain life which he passeth as a
shadow?' You young people are asking, 'Who will show us any good?'
Here is the answer--Faith in Christ and obedience to Him; that is the
good part which no man taketh from us. Dear young friend, have you
made it yours?

III. Faith in Christ produces a life which bears being looked back
upon.

In a later Epistle than that from which my second text is taken, we
get one of the most lovely pictures that was ever drawn, albeit it is
unconsciously drawn, of a calm old age, very near the gate of death;
and looking back with a quiet heart over all the path of life. I am
not going to preach to you, dear friends, in the flush of your early
youth, a gospel which is only to be recommended because it is good to
die by, but it will do even you, at the beginning, no harm to realise
for a moment that the end will come, and that retrospect will take
the place in your lives which hope and anticipation fill now. And I
ask you what you expect to feel and say then?

What did Paul say? 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness.' He was not self-righteous; but it is
possible to have lived a life which, as the world begins to fade,
vindicates itself as having been absolutely right in its main trend,
and to feel that the dawning light of Eternity confirms the choice
that we made. And I pray you to ask yourselves, 'Is my life of that
sort?' How much of it would bear the scrutiny which will have to
come, and which in Paul's case was so quiet and calm? He had had a
stormy day, many a thundercloud had darkened the sky, many a tempest
had swept across the plain; but now, as the evening draws on, the
whole West is filled with a calm amber light, and all across the
plain, right away to the grey East, he sees that he has been led by,
and has been willing to walk in, the right way to the 'City of
habitation.' Would that be your experience if the last moment came
now?

There will be, for the best of us, much sense of failure and
shortcoming when we look back on our lives. But whilst some of us
will have to say, 'I have played the fool and erred exceedingly,' it
is possible for each of us to lay himself down in peace and sleep,
awaiting a glorious rising again and a crown of righteousness.

Dear young friends, it is for you to choose whether your past, when
you summon it up before you, will look like a wasted wilderness, or
like a garden of the Lord. And though, as I have said, there will
always be much sense of failure and shortcoming, yet that need not
disturb the calm retrospect; for whilst memory sees the sins, faith
can grasp the Saviour, and quietly take leave of life, saying, 'I
know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which
I have committed to Him against that day.'

So I press upon you all this one truth, that faith in Jesus Christ
will transform, will ennoble, will make joyous your lives whilst you
live, and will give you a quiet heart in the retrospect when you come
to die. Begin right, dear young friends. You will never find it so
easy to take any decisive step, and most of all this chiefest step,
as you do to-day. You will get lean and less flexible as you get
older. You will get set in your ways. Habits will twine their
tendrils round you, and hinder your free movement. The truth of the
Gospel will become commonplace by familiarity. Associations and
companions will have more and more power over you; and you will be
stiffened as an old tree-trunk is stiffened. You cannot count on to-
morrow; be wise to-day. Begin this year aright. Why should you not
now see the Christ and welcome Him? I pray that every one of us may
behold Him and fall before Him with the cry, 'Lord! what wilt Thou
have me to do?'



THE DEATH OF THE MASTER AND THE DEATH OF THE SERVANT


'And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit. 60. And he kneeled down, and cried with
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And, when
he had said this, he fell asleep.'--ACTS vii. 59, 60.

This is the only narrative in the New Testament of a Christian
martyrdom or death. As a rule, Scripture is supremely indifferent to
what becomes of the people with whom it is for a time concerned. As
long as the man is the organ of the divine Spirit he is somewhat; as
soon as that ceases to speak through him he drops into
insignificance. So this same Acts of the Apostles--if I may so say--
kills off James the brother of John in a parenthesis; and his is the
only other martyrdom that it concerns itself even so much as to
mention.

Why, then, this exceptional detail about the martyrdom of Stephen?
For two reasons: because it is the first of a series, and the Acts of
the Apostles always dilates upon the first of each set of things
which it describes, and condenses about the others. But more
especially, I think, because if we come to look at the story, it is
not so much an account of Stephen's death as of Christ's power in
Stephen's death. And the theme of this book is not the acts of the
Apostles, but the acts of the risen Lord, in and for His Church.

There is no doubt but that this narrative is modelled upon the story
of our Lord's Crucifixion, and the two incidents, in their
similarities and in their differences, throw a flood of light upon
one another.

I shall therefore look at our subject now with constant reference to
that other greater death upon which it is based. It is to be observed
that the two sayings on the lips of the proto-martyr Stephen are
recorded for us in their original form on the lips of Christ, in
_Luke's_ Gospel, which makes a still further link of connection
between the two narratives.

So, then, my purpose now is merely to take this incident as it lies
before us, to trace in it the analogies and the differences between
the death of the Master and the death of the servant, and to draw
from it some thoughts as to what it is possible for a Christian's
death to become, when Christ's presence is felt in it.

I. Consider, in general terms, this death as the last act of
imitation to Christ.

The resemblance between our Lord's last moments and Stephen's has
been thought to have been the work of the narrator, and,
consequently, to cast some suspicion upon the veracity of the
narrative. I accept the correspondence, I believe it was intentional,
but I shift the intention from the writer to the actor, and I ask why
it should not have been that the dying martyr should consciously, and
of set purpose, have made his death conformable to his Master's
death? Why should not the dying martyr have sought to put himself (as
the legend tells one of the other Apostles in outward form sought to
do) in Christ's attitude, and to die as He died?

Remember, that in all probability Stephen died on Calvary. It was the
ordinary place of execution, and, as many of you may know, recent
investigations have led many to conclude that a little rounded knoll
outside the city wall--not a 'green hill,' but still 'outside a city
wall,' and which still bears a lingering tradition of connection with
Him--was probably the site of that stupendous event. It was the place
of stoning, or of public execution, and there in all probability, on
the very ground where Christ's Cross was fixed, His first martyr saw
'the heavens opened and Christ standing on the right hand of God.' If
these were the associations of the place, what more natural, and even
if they were not, what more natural, than that the martyr's death
should be shaped after his Lord's?

Is it not one of the great blessings, in some sense the greatest of
the blessings, which we owe to the Gospel, that in that awful
solitude where no other example is of any use to us, His pattern may
still gleam before us? Is it not something to feel that as life
reaches its highest, most poignant and exquisite delight and beauty
in the measure in which it is made an imitation of Jesus, so for each
of us death may lose its most poignant and exquisite sting and
sorrow, and become something almost sweet, if it be shaped after the
pattern and by the power of His? We travel over a lonely waste at
last. All clasped hands are unclasped; and we set out on the
solitary, though it be 'the common, road into the great darkness.'
But, blessed be His Name! 'the Breaker is gone up before us,' and
across the waste there are footprints that we

  'Seeing, may take heart again.'

The very climax and apex of the Christian imitation of Christ may be
that we shall bear the image of His death, and be like Him then.

Is it not a strange thing that generations of martyrs have gone to
the stake with their hearts calm and their spirits made constant by
the remembrance of that Calvary where Jesus died with more of
trembling reluctance, shrinking, and apparent bewildered unmanning
than many of the weakest of His followers? Is it not a strange thing
that the death which has thus been the source of composure, and
strength, and heroism to thousands, and has lost none of its power of
being so to-day, was the death of a Man who shrank from the bitter
cup, and that cried in that mysterious darkness, 'My God! Why hast
Thou forsaken Me?'

Dear brethren, unless with one explanation of the reason for His
shrinking and agony, Christ's death is less heroic than that of some
other martyrs, who yet drew all their courage from Him.

How come there to be in Him, at one moment, calmness unmoved, and
heroic self-oblivion, and at the next, agony, and all but despair? I
know only one explanation, 'The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of
us all.' And when He died, shrinking and trembling, and feeling
bewildered and forsaken, it was your sins and mine that weighed Him
down. The servant whose death was conformed to his Master's had none
of these experiences because he was only a martyr.

The Lord had them, because He was the Sacrifice for the whole world.

II. We have here, next, a Christian's death as being the voluntary
entrusting of the spirit to Christ.

'They stoned Stephen.' Now, our ordinary English idea of the manner
of the Jewish punishment of stoning, is a very inadequate and
mistaken one. It did not consist merely in a miscellaneous rabble
throwing stones at the criminal, but there was a solemn and appointed
method of execution which is preserved for us in detail in the
Rabbinical books. And from it we gather that the _modus operandi_ was
this. The blasphemer was taken to a certain precipitous rock, the
height of which was prescribed as being equal to that of two men. The
witnesses by whose testimony he had been condemned had to cast him
over, and if he survived the fall it was their task to roll upon him
a great stone, of which the weight is prescribed in the Talmud as
being as much as two men could lift. If he lived after that, then
others took part in the punishment.

Now, at some point in that ghastly tragedy, probably, we may suppose
as they were hurling him over the rock, the martyr lifts his voice in
this prayer of our text.

As they were stoning him he 'called upon'--not _God_, as our
Authorised Version has supplied the wanting word, but, as is obvious
from the context and from the remembrance of the vision, and from the
language of the following supplication, 'called upon _Jesus_, saying,
Lord Jesus! receive my spirit.'

I do not dwell at any length upon the fact that here we have a
distinct instance of prayer to Jesus Christ, a distinct recognition,
in the early days of His Church, of the highest conceptions of His
person and nature, so as that a dying man turns to Him, and commits
his soul into His hands. Passing this by, I ask you to think of the
resemblance, and the difference, between this intrusting of the
spirit by Stephen to his Lord, and the committing of His spirit to
the Father by His dying Son. Christ on the Cross speaks to God;
Stephen, on Calvary, speaks, as I suppose, to Jesus Christ. Christ,
on the Cross, says, 'I commit.' Stephen says, 'Receive,' or rather,
'Take.' The one phrase carries in it something of the notion that our
Lord died not because He must, but because He would; that He was
active in His death; that He chose to summon death to do its work
upon Him; that He 'yielded up His spirit,' as one of the Evangelists
has it, pregnantly and significantly. But Stephen says, 'Take!' as
knowing that it must be his Lord's power that should draw his spirit
out of the coil of horror around him. So the one dying word has
strangely compacted in it authority and submission; and the other
dying word is the word of a simple waiting servant. The Christ says,
'I commit.' 'I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to
take it again.' Stephen says, 'Take my spirit,' as longing to be away
from the weariness and the sorrow and the pain and all the hell of
hatred that was seething and boiling round about him, but yet knowing
that he had to wait the Master's will.

So from the language I gather large truths, truths which
unquestionably were not present to the mind of the dying man, but are
all the more conspicuous because they were unconsciously expressed by
him, as to the resemblance and the difference between the death of
the martyr, done to death by cruel hands, and the death of the
atoning Sacrifice who gave Himself up to die for our sins.

Here we have, in this dying cry, the recognition of Christ as the
Lord of life and death. Here we have the voluntary and submissive
surrender of the spirit to Him. So, in a very real sense, the
martyr's death becomes a sacrifice, and he too dies not merely
because he must, but he accepts the necessity, and finds blessedness
in it. We need not be passive in death; we need not, when it comes to
our turn to die, cling desperately to the last vanishing skirts of
life. We may yield up our being, and pour it out as a libation; as
the Apostle has it, 'If I be offered as a drink-offering upon the
sacrifice of your faith, I joy and rejoice.' Oh! brethren, to die
_like_ Christ, to die yielding oneself to Him!

And then in these words there is further contained the thought coming
gleaming out like a flash of light into some murky landscape--of
passing into perennial union with Him. 'Take my spirit,' says the
dying man; 'that is all I want. I see Thee standing at the right
hand. For what hast Thou started to Thy feet, from the eternal repose
of Thy session at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? To help
and succour me. And dost Thou succour me when Thou dost let these
cruel hands cast me from the rock and bruise me with heavy stones?
Yes, Thou dost. For the highest form of Thy help is to take my
spirit, and to let me be with Thee.'

Christ delivers His servant from death when He leads the servant into
and through death. Brothers, can you look forward thus, and trust
yourselves, living or dying, to that Master who is near us amidst the
coil of human troubles and sorrows, and sweetly draws our spirits, as
a mother her child to her bosom, into His own arms when He sends us
death? Is that what it will be to you?

III. Then, still further, there are other words here which remind us
of the final triumph of an all-forbearing charity.

Stephen had been cast from the rock, had been struck with the heavy
stone. Bruised and wounded by it, he strangely survives, strangely
somehow or other struggles to his knees even though desperately
wounded, and, gathering all his powers together at the impulse of an
undying love, prays his last words and cries, 'Lord Jesus! Lay not
this sin to their charge!'

It is an echo, as I have been saying, of other words, 'Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.' An echo, and yet an
independent tone! The one cries 'Father!' the other invokes the
'Lord.' The one says, 'They know not what they do'; the other never
thinks of reading men's motives, of apportioning their criminality,
of discovering the secrets of their hearts. It was fitting that the
Christ, before whom all these blind instruments of a mighty design
stood patent and naked to their deepest depths, should say, 'They
know not what they do.' It would have been unfitting that the
servant, who knew no more of his fellows' heart than could be guessed
from their actions, should have offered such a plea in his prayer for
their forgiveness.

In the very humiliation of the Cross, Christ speaks as knowing the
hidden depths of men's souls, and therefore fitted to be their Judge,
and now His servant's prayer is addressed to Him as actually being
so.

Somehow or other, within a very few years of the time when our Lord
dies, the Church has come to the distinctest recognition of _His_
Divinity to whom the martyr prays; to the distinctest recognition of
_Him_ as the Lord of life and death whom the martyr asks to take his
spirit, and to the clearest perception of the fact that He is the
Judge of the whole earth by whose acquittal men shall be acquitted,
and by whose condemnation they shall be condemned.

Stephen knew that Christ was the Judge. He knew that in two minutes
he would be standing at Christ's judgment bar. His prayer was not,
'Lay not my sins to my charge,' but 'Lay not this sin to their
charge.' Why did he not ask forgiveness for himself? Why was he not
thinking about the judgment that he was going to meet so soon? He had
done all that long ago. He had no fear about that judgment for
himself, and so when the last hour struck, he was at leisure of heart
and mind to pray for his persecutors, and to think of his Judge
without a tremor. Are you? If you were as near the edge as Stephen
was, would it be wise for you to be interceding for other people's
forgiveness? The answer to that question is the answer to this other
one,--have you sought your pardon already, and got it at the hands of
Jesus Christ?

IV. One word is all that I need say about the last point of analogy
and contrast here--the serene passage into rest: 'When he had said
this he fell asleep.'

The New Testament scarcely ever speaks of a Christian's death as
death but as sleep, and with other similar phrases. But that
expression, familiar and all but universal as it is in the Epistles,
in reference to the death of believers, is never in a single instance
employed in reference to the death of Jesus Christ. He did die that
you and I may live. His death was death indeed--He endured not merely
the physical fact, but that which is its sting, the consciousness of
sin. And He died that the sting might be blunted, and all its poison
exhausted upon Him. So the ugly thing is sleeked and smoothed; and
the foul form changes into the sweet semblance of a sleep-bringing
angel. Death is gone. The physical fact remains, but all the misery
of it, the essential bitterness and the poison of it is all sucked
out of it, and it is turned into 'he fell asleep,' as a tired child
on its mother's lap, as a weary man after long toil.

  'Thou thy worldly task hast done,
  Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.'

Death is but sleep now, because Christ has died, and that sleep is
restful, conscious, perfect life.

Look at these two pictures, the agony of the one, the calm triumph of
the other, and see that the martyr's falling asleep was possible
because the Christ had died before. And do you commit the keeping of
your souls to Him now, by true faith; and then, living you may have
Him with you, and, dying, a vision of His presence bending down to
succour and to save, and when you are dead, a life of rest conjoined
with intensest activity. To sleep in Jesus is to awake in His
likeness, and to be satisfied.



SEED SCATTERED AND TAKING ROOT

'And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there
was a great persecution against the church which was at
Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the
regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2. And devout
men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation
over him. 3. As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering
into every house, and haling men and women committed them to
prison. 4. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went
everywhere preaching the word. 5. Then Philip went down to the
city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. 6. And the people
with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake,
hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. 7. For unclean
spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were
possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were
lame, were healed. 8. And there was great joy in that city, 9.
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in
the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria,
giving out that himself was some great one: 10. To whom they all
gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is
the great power of God. 11. And to him they had regard, because
that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. 12. But
when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the
kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized,
both men and women. 13. Then Simon himself believed also: and
when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered,
beholding the miracles and signs which were done. 14. Now when
the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had
received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: 15.
Who, when they were come down prayed for them, that they might
receive the Holy Ghost: 16 (For as yet he was fallen upon none of
them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) 17.
Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Ghost.'--ACTS viii. 1-17.

The note of time in verse 1 is probably to be rendered as in the
Revised Version, 'on that day.' The appetite for blood roused by
Stephen's martyrdom at once sought for further victims. Thus far the
persecutors had been the rulers, and the persecuted the Church's
leaders; but now the populace are the hunters, and the whole Church
the prey. The change marks an epoch. Luke does not care to make much
of the persecution, which is important to him chiefly for its bearing
on the spread of the Church's message. It helped to diffuse the
Gospel, and that is why he tells of it. But before proceeding to
narrate how it did so, he gives us a picture of things as they stood
at the beginning of the assault.

Three points are noted: the flight of the Church except the Apostles,
the funeral of Stephen, and Saul's eager search for the disciples. We
need not press 'all,' as if it were to be taken with mathematical
accuracy. Some others besides the Apostles may have remained, but the
community was broken up. They fled, as Christ had bid them do, if
persecuted in one city. Brave faithfulness goes with prudent self-
preservation, and a valuable 'part of valour is discretion.' But the
disciples who fled were not necessarily less courageous than the
Apostles who remained, nor were the latter less prudent than the
brethren who fled. For _noblesse oblige_; high position demands high
virtues, and the officers should be the last to leave a wreck. The
Apostles, no doubt, felt it right to hold together, and preserve a
centre to which the others might return when the storm had blown
itself out.

In remarkable contrast with the scattering Church are the 'devout
men' who reverently buried the martyr. They were not disciples, but
probably Hellenistic Jews (Acts ii. 5); perhaps from the synagogue
whose members had disputed with Stephen and had dragged him to the
council. His words or death may have touched them, as many a time the
martyr's fire has lighted others to the martyr's faith. Stephen was
like Jesus in his burial by non-disciples, as he had been in his
death.

The eager zeal of the young Pharisee brought new severity into the
persecution, in his hunting out his victims in their homes, and in
his including women among his prisoners. There is nothing so cruel as
so-called religious zeal. So Luke lifts the curtain for a moment, and
in that glimpse of the whirling tumult of the city we see the three
classes, of the brave and prudent disciples, ready to flee or to
stand and suffer as duty called; the good men who shrunk from
complicity with a bloodthirsty mob, and were stirred to sympathy with
his victims; and the zealot, who with headlong rage hated his brother
for the love of God. But the curtain drops, and Luke turns to his
true theme. He picks up the threads again in verse 4, telling of the
dispersal of the disciples, with the significant addition of their
occupation when scattered,--'preaching the word.'

The violent hand of the persecutor acted as the scattering hand of
the sower. It flung the seeds broadcast, and wherever they fell they
sprouted. These fugitives were not officials, nor were they
commissioned by the Apostles to preach. Without any special command
or position, they followed the instincts of believing hearts, and, as
they carried their faith with them, they spoke of it wherever they
found themselves. A Christian will be impelled to speak of Christ if
his personal hold of Him is vital. He should need no ecclesiastical
authorisation for that. It is riot every believer's duty to get into
a pulpit, but it _is_ his duty to 'preach Christ.' The scattering of
the disciples was meant by men to put out the fire, but, by Christ,
to spread it. A volcanic explosion flings burning matter over a wide
area.

Luke takes up one of the lines of expansion, in his narrative of
Philip's doings in Samaria, which he puts first because Jesus had
indicated Samaria first among the regions beyond Judaea (i. 8).
Philip's name comes second in the list of deacons (vi. 5), probably
in anticipation of his work in Samaria. How unlike the forecast by
the Apostles was the actual course of things! They had destined the
seven for purely 'secular' work, and regarded preaching the word as
their own special engagement. But Stephen saw and proclaimed more
clearly than they did the passing away of Temple and ritual; and
Philip, on his own initiative, and apparently quite unconscious of
the great stride forward that he was taking, was the first to carry
the gospel torch into the regions beyond. The Church made Philip a
'deacon,' but Christ made him an 'evangelist'; and an evangelist he
continued, long after he had ceased to be a deacon in Jerusalem (xxi.
8).

Observe, too, that, as soon as Stephen is taken away, Philip rises up
to take his place. The noble army of witnesses never wants recruits.
Its Captain sends men to the front in unbroken succession, and they
are willing to occupy posts of danger because He bids them. Probably
Philip fled to Samaria for convenience' sake, but, being there, he
probably recalled Christ's instructions in chapter i. 8, repealing
His prohibition in Matthew x. 5. What a different world it would be,
if it was true of Christians now that they 'went down into the city
of So-and-So and proclaimed Christ'! Many run to and fro, but some of
them leave their Christianity at home, or lock it up safely in their
travelling trunks.

Jerusalem had just expelled the disciples, and would fain have
crushed the Gospel; despised Samaria received it with joy. 'A foolish
nation' was setting Israel an example (Deut. xxxii. 21; Rom. x. 19).
The Samaritan woman had a more spiritual conception of the Messiah
than the run of Jews had, and her countrymen seem to have been ready
to receive the word. Is not the faith of our mission converts often a
rebuke to us?

But the Gospel met new foes as well as new friends on the new soil.
Simon the sorcerer, probably a Jew or a Samaritan, would have been
impossible on Jewish ground, but was a characteristic product of that
age in the other parts of the Roman empire. Just as, to-day, people
who are weary of Christianity are playing with Buddhism, it was
fashionable in that day of unrest to trifle with Eastern magic-
mongers; and, of course, demand created supply, and where there was a
crowd of willing dupes, there soon came to be a crop of profit-
seeking deceivers. Very characteristically, the dupes claimed more
for the deceiver than he did for himself. He probably could perform
some simple chemical experiments and conjuring tricks, and had a
store of what sounded to ignorant people profound teaching about deep
mysteries, and gave forth enigmatical utterances about his own
greatness. An accomplished charlatan will leave much to be inferred
from nods and hints, and his admirers will generally spin even more
out of them than he meant. So the Samaritans bettered Simon's 'some
great one' into 'that power of God which is called great,' and saw in
him some kind of emanation of divinity.

The quack is great till the true teacher comes, and then he dwindles.
Simon had a bitter pill to swallow when he saw this new man stealing
his audience, and doing things which he, with his sorceries, knew
that he only pretended to do. Luke points very clearly to the
likeness and difference between Simon and Philip by using the same
word ('gave heed') in regard to the Samaritan's attitude to both,
while in reference to Philip it was 'the things spoken by' him, and
in reference to Simon it was himself to which they attended. The one
preached Christ, the other himself; the one 'amazed' with
'sorceries,' the other brought good tidings and hid himself, and his
message called, not for stupid, open-mouthed astonishment, but for
belief and obedience to the name of Jesus. The whole difference
between the religion of Jesus and the superstitions which the world
calls religions, is involved in the significant contrast, so
inartificially drawn.

'Simon also himself believed.' Probably there was in his action a
good deal of swimming with the stream, in the hope of being able to
divert it; but, also, he may have been all the more struck by
Philip's miracles, because he knew a real one, by reason of his
experience of sham ones. At any rate, neither Philip nor Luke drew a
distinction between his belief and that of the Samaritans; and, as in
their cases, his baptism followed on his profession of belief. But he
seems not to have got beyond the point of wondering at the miracles,
as it is emphatically said that he did even after his baptism. He
believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but was more interested in
studying Philip to find out how he did the miracles than in listening
to his teaching. Such an imperfect belief had no transforming power,
and left him the same man as before, as was soon miserably manifest.

The news of Philip's great step forward reached the Apostles by some
unrecorded means. It is not stated that Philip reported his action,
as if to superiors whose authorisation was necessary. More probably
the information filtered through other channels. At all events,
sending a deputation was natural, and needs not to be regarded as
either a sign of suspicion or an act necessary in order to supplement
imperfections inherent in the fact that Philip was not an Apostle.
The latter meaning has been read--not to say forced--into the
incident; but Luke's language does not support it. It was not because
they thought that the Samaritans were not admissible to the full
privileges of Christians without Apostolic acts, but because they
'heard that Samaria had received the word,' that the Apostles sent
Peter and John.

The Samaritans had not yet received the Holy Ghost--that is, the
special gifts, such as those of Pentecost. That fact proves that
baptism is not necessarily and inseparably connected with the gift of
the Spirit; and chapter x. 44, 47, proves that the Spirit may be
given before baptism. As little does this incident prove that the
imposition of Apostolic hands was necessary in order to the
impartation of the Spirit. Luke, at any rate, did not think so; for
he tells how Ananias' hand laid on the blind Saul conveyed the gift
to him. The laying on of hands is a natural, eloquent symbol, but it
was no prerogative of the Apostles (Acts x. 17; 1 Tim. iv. 14).

The Apostles came down to Samaria to rejoice in the work which their
Lord had commanded, and which had been begun without their help, to
welcome the new brethren, to give them further instruction, and to
knit closely the bonds of unity between the new converts and the
earlier ones. But that they came to bestow spiritual gifts which,
without them, could not have been imparted, is imported into, not
deduced from, the simple narrative of Luke.



SIMON THE SORCERER

'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is
not right in the sight of God.'--ACTS viii. 21.

The era of the birth of Christianity was one of fermenting opinion
and decaying faith. Then, as now, men's minds were seething and
unsettled, and that unrest which is the precursor of great changes in
intellectual and spiritual habitudes affected the civilised world.
Such a period is ever one of predisposition to superstition. The one
true bond which unites God and man being obscured, and to the
consciousness of many snapped, men's minds become the prey of
visionary terrors. Demand creates supply, and the magician and
miracle-worker, the possessor of mysterious ways into the Unknown, is
never far off at such a time. Partly deceived and partly deceiving,
he is as sure a sign of the lack of profound religious conviction and
of the presence of unsatisfied religious aspirations in men's souls,
as the stormy petrel or the floating seaweed is of a tempest on the
seas.

So we find the early preachers of Christianity coming into frequent
contact with pretenders to magical powers. Sadly enough, they were
mostly Jews, who prostituted their clearer knowledge to personal
ends, and having tacked on to it some theosophic rubbish which they
had learned from Alexandria, or mysticism which had filtered to them
from the East, or magic arts from Phrygia, went forth, the only
missionaries that Judaism sent out, to bewilder and torture men's
minds. What a fall from Israel's destination, and what a lesson for
the stewards of the 'oracles of God'!

Of such a sort were Elymas, the sorcerer whom Paul found squatting at
the ear of the Roman Governor of Cyprus; the magicians at Ephesus;
the vagabond Jews exorcists, who with profitable eclecticism, as they
thought, tried to add the name of Jesus as one more spell to their
conjurations; and, finally, this Simon the sorcerer. Established in
Samaria, he had been juggling and conjuring and seeing visions, and
professing to be a great mysterious personality, and had more than
permitted the half-heathen Samaritans, who seem to have had more
religious susceptibility and less religious knowledge than the Jews,
and so were a prepared field for all such pretenders, to think of him
as in some sense an incarnation of God, and perhaps to set him up as
a rival or caricature of Him who in the neighbouring Judaea was being
spoken of as the power of God, God manifest in the flesh.

To the city thus moved comes no Apostle, but a Christian man who
begins to preach, and by miracles and teaching draws many souls to
Christ.

The story of Simon Magus in his attitude to the Gospel is a very
striking and instructive one. It presents for our purpose now mainly
three points to which I proceed to refer.

I. An instance of a wholly unreal, because inoperative, faith.

'He believed,' says the narrative, and believing was baptized. It is
worth noting, in passing, how the profession of faith without
anything more was considered by the Early Church sufficient. But
obviously his was no true faith. The event showed that it was not.

What was it which made his faith thus unreal?

It rested wholly on the miracles and signs; he 'wondered' when he saw
them. Of course, miracles were meant to lead to faith; but if they
did not lead on to a deeper sense of one's own evil and need, and so
to a spiritual apprehension, then they were of no use.

The very beginning of the story points to the one bond that unites to
God, as being the sense of need and the acceptance with heart and
will of the testimony of Jesus Christ. Such a disposition is shown in
the Samaritans, who make a contrast with Simon in that they believed
Philip _preaching_, while Simon believed him _working miracles_. The
true place of miracles is to attract attention, to prepare to listen
to the word. They are only introductory. A faith may be founded on
them, but, on the other hand, the impressions which they produce may
be evanescent. How subordinate then, their place at the most! And the
one thing which avails is a living contact of heart and soul with
Jesus Christ.

Again, Simon's belief was purely an affair of the understanding. We
are not to suppose, I think, that he merely believed in Philip as a
miracle-worker; he must have had some notion about Philip's Master,
and we know that it was belief in Jesus as the Christ that qualified
in the Apostolic age for baptism. So it is reasonable to suppose that
he had so much of head knowledge. But it was only head knowledge.
There was in it no penitence, no self-abandonment, no fruit in holy
desires; or in other words, there was no heart. It was credence, but
not trust.

Now it does not matter how much or how little you know about Jesus
Christ. It does not matter how you have come to that knowledge. It
does not matter though you have received Christian ordinances as
Simon had. If your faith is not a living power, leading to love and
self-surrender, it is really nought. And here, on its earliest
conflict with heathen magic, the gospel proclaims by the mouth of the
Apostle what is true as to all formalists and nominal Christians:
'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, _for_ thy heart is
not right.' One thing only unites to God--a faith which cleanses the
heart, a faith which lays hold on Christ with will and conscience, a
faith which, resting on penitent acknowledgment of sin, trusts wholly
to His great mercy.

II. An instance of the constant tendency to corrupt Christianity with
heathen superstition.

The Apostles' bestowal of the Holy Ghost, which was evidently
accompanied by visible signs, had excited Simon's desire for so
useful an aid to his conjuring, and he offers to buy the power,
judging of them by himself, and betraying that what he was ready to
buy he was also intending to sell.

The offer to buy has been taken as his great sin. Surely it was but
the outcome of a greater. It was not only what he offered, but what
he desired, that was wrong. He wanted that on 'whomsoever I lay
hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.' That preposterous wish was
quite as bad as, and was the root of, his absurd offer to bribe
Peter. Bribe Peter, indeed! Some of Peter's successors would have
been amenable to such considerations, but not the horny-handed
fisherman who had once said, 'Silver and gold have I none.'

Peter's answer, especially the words of my text, puts the Christian
principle in sharp antagonism to the heathen one.

Simon regards what is sacred and spiritual purely as part of his
stock-in-trade, contributing to his prestige. He offers to buy it.
And the foundation of all his errors is that he regards spiritual
gifts as capable of being received and exercised apart altogether
from moral qualifications. He does not think at all of what is
involved in the very name, 'the Holy Ghost.'

Now, on the other hand, Peter's answer lays down broadly and sharply
the opposite truth, the Christian principle that a heart right in the
sight of God is the indispensable qualification for all possession of
spiritual power, or of any of the blessings which Jesus gives.

How the heart is made right, and what constitutes righteousness is
another matter. That leads to the doctrine of repentance and faith.

The one thing that makes such participation impossible is being and
continuing in 'the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity.' Or,
to put it into more modern words, all the blessings of the Gospel are
a gift of God, and are bestowed only on moral conditions. Faith which
leads to love and personal submission to the will of God makes a man
a Christian. Therefore, outward ordinances are only of use as they
help a man to that personal act.

Therefore, no other man or body of men can do it for us, or come
between us and God.

And in confirmation, notice how Peter here speaks of forgiveness. His
words do not sound as if he thought that he held the power of
absolution, but he tells Simon to go to God who alone can forgive,
and refers Simon's fate to God's mercy.

These tendencies, which Simon expresses so baldly, are in us all, and
are continually reappearing. How far much of what calls itself
Christianity has drifted from Peter's principle laid down here, that
moral and spiritual qualifications are the only ones which avail for
securing 'part or lot in the matter' of Christ's gifts received for,
and bestowed on, men! How much which really rests on the opposite
principle, that these gifts can be imparted by men who are supposed
to possess them, apart altogether from the state of heart of the
would-be recipient, we see around us to-day! _Simony_ is said to be
the securing ecclesiastical promotion by purchase. But it is much
rather the belief that 'the gift of God can be purchased with'
anything but personal faith in Jesus, the Giver and the Gift. The
effects of it are patent among us. Ceremonies usurp the place of
faith. A priesthood is exalted. The universal Christian prerogative
of individual access to God is obscured. Christianity is turned into
a kind of magic.

III. An instance of the worthlessness of partial convictions.

Simon was but slightly moved by Peter's stern rebuke. He paid no heed
to the exhortation to pray for forgiveness and to repent of his
wickedness, but still remained in substantially his old error, in
that he accredited Peter with power, and asked him to pray for him,
as if the Apostle's prayer would have some special access to God
which his, though he were penitent, could not have. Further, he
showed no sense of sin. All that he wished was that 'none of the
things which ye have spoken come upon me.'

How useless are convictions which go no deeper down than Simon's did!

What became of him we do not know. But there are old ecclesiastical
traditions about him which represent him as a bitter enemy in future
of the Apostle. And Josephus has a story of a Simon who played a
degrading part between Felix and Drusilla, and who is thought by some
to have been he. But in any case, we have no reason to believe that
he ever followed Peter's counsel or prayed to God for forgiveness. So
he stands for us as one more tragic example of a man, once 'not far
from the kingdom of God' and drifting ever further away from it,
because, at the fateful moment, he would not enter in. It is hard to
bring such a man as near again as he once was. Let us learn that the
one key which opens the treasury of God's blessings, stored for us
all in Jesus, is our own personal faith, and let us beware of
shutting our ears and our hearts against the merciful rebukes that
convict us of 'this our wickedness,' and point us to the 'Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the world,' and therefore our sin.



A MEETING IN THE DESERT

'And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and
go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem
unto Gaza, which is desert. 27. And he arose and went: and,
behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under
Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her
treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, 28. Was
returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Esaias the prophet.
29. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself
to this chariot. 80. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him
read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou
readest? 31. And he said, How can I, except some man should guide
me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
32. The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led
as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his
shearer, so opened He not His mouth: 33. In His humiliation His
judgment was taken away; and who shall declare His generation?
for His life is taken from the earth. 34. And the eunuch answered
Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this?
of himself, or of some other man? 35. Then Philip opened his
mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him
Jesus. 36. And as they went on their way, they came unto a
certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth
hinder me to be baptized? 37. And Philip said, If thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 38. And he commanded
the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the
water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. 39. And
when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord
caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went
on his way rejoicing. 40. But Philip was found at Azotus: and
passing through, he preached in all the cities, till he came to
Caesarea.'--ACTS viii. 26-40.

Philip had no special divine command either to flee to, or to preach
in, Samaria, but 'an angel of the Lord' and afterwards 'the Spirit,'
directed him to the Ethiopian statesman. God rewards faithful work
with more work. Samaria was a borderland between Jew and Gentile, but
in preaching to the eunuch Philip was on entirely Gentile ground. So
great a step in advance needed clear command from God to impel to it
and to justify it.

I. We have, then, first, the new commission. Philip might well wonder
why he should be taken away from successful work in a populous city,
and despatched to the lonely road to Gaza. But he obeyed at once. He
knew not for what he was sent there, but that ignorance did not
trouble or retard him. It should be enough for us to see the next
step. 'We walk by faith, not by sight,' for we none of us know what
comes of our actions, and we get light as we go. Do to-day's plain
duty, and when to-morrow is to-day its duty will be plain too. The
river on which we sail winds, and not till we round the nearest bend
do we see the course beyond. So we are kept in the peaceful posture
of dependent obedience, and need to hold our communications with God
open, that we may be sure of His guidance.

No doubt, as Philip trudged along till he reached the Gaza road, he
would have many a thought as to what he was to find there, and, when
he came at last to the solitary track, would look eagerly over the
uninhabited land for an explanation of his strange and vague
instructions. But an obedient heart is not long left perplexed, and
he who looks for duty to disclose itself will see it in due time.

II. So we have next the explanation of the errand. Luke's 'Behold!'
suggests the sudden sight of the great man's cortege in the distance.
No doubt, he travelled with a train of attendants, as became his
dignity, and would be conspicuous from afar. Philip, of course, did
not know who he was when he caught sight of him, but Luke tells his
rank at once, in order to lay stress on it, as well as to bring out
the significance of his occupation and subsequent conversion. Here
was a full-blooded Gentile, an eunuch, a courtier, who had been drawn
to Israel's God, and was studying Israel's prophets as he rode.
Perhaps he had chosen that road to Egypt for its quietness. At any
rate, his occupation revealed the bent of his mind.

Philip felt that the mystery of his errand was solved now, and he
recognised the impulse to break through conventional barriers and
address the evidently dignified stranger, as the voice of God's
Spirit, and not his own. How he was sure of that we do not know, but
the distinction drawn between the former communication by an angel
and this from the Spirit points to a clear difference in his
experiences, and to careful discrimination in the narrator. The
variation is not made at random. Philip did not mistake a buzzing in
his ears from the heating of his own heart for a divine voice. We
have here no hallucinations of an enthusiast, but plain fact.

How manifestly the meeting of these two, starting so far apart, and
so ignorant of each other and of the purpose of their being thrown
together, reveals the unseen hand that moved each on his own line,
and brought about the intersection of the two at that exact spot and
hour! How came it that at that moment the Ethiopian was reading, of
all places in his roll, the very words which make the kernel of the
gospel of the evangelical prophet? Surely such 'coincidences' are a
hard nut to crack for deniers of a Providence that shapes our ends!

It is further to be noticed that the eunuch's conversion does not
appear to have been of importance for the expansion of the Church. It
exercised no recorded influence, and was apparently not communicated
to the Apostles, as, if it had been, it could scarcely have failed to
have been referred to when the analogous case of Cornelius was under
discussion. So, divine intervention and human journeying and work
were brought into play simply for the sake of one soul which God's
eye saw to be ripe for the Gospel. He cares for the individual, and
one sheep that can be reclaimed is precious enough in the Shepherd's
estimate to move His hand to action and His heart to love. Not
because he was a man of great authority at Candace's court, but
because he was yearning for light, and ready to follow it when it
shone, did the eunuch meet Philip on that quiet road.

III. The two men being thus strangely brought together, we have next
the conversation for the sake of which they were brought together.
The eunuch was reading aloud, as people not very much used to books,
or who have some difficult passage in hand, often do. Philip must
have been struck with astonishment when he caught the, to him,
familiar words, and must have seen at once the open door for his
preaching. His abrupt question wastes no time with apologies or
polite, gradual approaches to his object. Probably the very absence
of the signs of deference to which he was accustomed impressed the
eunuch with a dim sense of the stranger's authority, which would be
deepened by the home-thrust of his question.

The wistful answer not only shows no resentment at the brusque
stranger's thrusting himself in, but acknowledges bewilderment, and
responds to the undertone of proffered guidance in the question. A
teacher has often to teach a pupil his ignorance, to begin with; but
it should be so done as to create desire for instruction, and to
kindle confidence in him as instructor. It is insolent to ask,
'Understandest thou?' unless the questioner is ready and able to help
to understand.

The invitation to a seat in the great man's chariot showed how
eagerness to learn had obliterated distinctions of rank, and swiftly
knit a new bond between these two, who had never heard of each other
five minutes before. A true heart will hail as its best and closest
friend him who leads it to know God's mind more clearly. How earthly
dignities dwindle when God's messenger lays hold of a soul!

So the chariot rolls on, and through the silence of the desert the
voices of these two reach the wondering attendants, as they plod
along. The Ethiopian was reading the Septuagint translation of
Isaiah, which, though it missed part of the force of the original,
brought clearly before him the great figure of a Sufferer, meek and
dumb, swept from the earth by unjust judgment. He understood so much,
but what he did not understand was who this great, tragic Figure
represented. His question goes to the root of the matter, and is a
burning question to-day, as it was all these centuries ago on the
road to Gaza. Philip had no doubt of the answer. Jesus was the 'lamb
dumb before its shearers.' This is not the place to enter on such
wide questions, but we may at least affirm that, whatever advance
modern schools have made in the criticism and interpretation of the
Old Testament, the very spirit of the whole earlier Revelation is
missed if Jesus is not discerned as the Person to whom prophet and
ritual pointed, in whom law was fulfilled and history reached its
goal.

No doubt much instruction followed. How long they had rode together
before they came to 'a certain water' we know not, but it cannot have
been more than a few hours. Time is elastic, and when the soil is
prepared, and rain and sunlight are poured down, the seed springs up
quickly. People who deny the possibility of 'sudden conversions' are
blind to facts, because they wear the blinkers of a theory. Not
always have they who 'anon with joy receive' the word 'no root in
themselves.'

As is well known, the answer to the eunuch's question (v. 37) is
wanting in authoritative manuscripts. The insertion may have been due
to the creeping into the text of a marginal note. A recent and most
original commentator on the Acts (Blass) considers that this, like
other remarkable readings found in one set of manuscripts, was
written by Luke in a draft of the book, which he afterwards revised
and somewhat abbreviated into the form which most of the manuscripts
present. However that may be, the required conditions in the doubtful
verse are those which the practice of the rest of the Acts shows to
have been required. Faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God was the
qualification for the baptisms there recorded.

And there was no other qualification. Philip asked nothing about the
eunuch's proselytism, or whether he had been circumcised or not. He
did not, like Peter with Cornelius, need the evidence of the gift of
the Spirit before he baptized; but, notwithstanding his experience of
an unworthy candidate in Simon the sorcerer, he unhesitatingly
administered baptism. There was no Church present to witness the
rite. We do not read that the Holy Ghost fell on the eunuch.

That baptism in the quiet wady by the side of the solitary road,
while the swarthy attendants stood in wonder, was a mighty step in
advance; and it was taken, not by an Apostle, nor with ecclesiastical
sanction, but at the bidding of Christian instinct, which recognised
a brother in any man who had faith in Jesus, the Son of God. The new
faith is bursting old bonds. The universality of the Gospel is
overflowing the banks of Jewish narrowness. Probably Philip was quite
unconscious of the revolutionary nature of his act, but it was done,
and in it was the seed of many more.

The eunuch had said that he could not understand unless some man
guided him. But when Philip is caught away, he does not bewail the
loss of his guide. He went on his road with joy, though his new faith
might have craved longer support from the crutch of a teacher, and
fuller enlightenment. What made him able to do without the guide that
a few hours before had been so indispensable? The presence in his
heart of a better one, even of Him whom Jesus promised, to guide His
servants into all truth. If those who believe that Scripture without
an authorised interpreter is insufficient to lead men aright, would
consider the end of this story, they might find that a man's
dependence on outward teachers ceases when he has God's Spirit to
teach him, and that for such a man the Word of God in his hand and
the Spirit of God in his spirit will give him light enough to walk
by, so that, in the absence of all outward instructors, he may still
be filled with true wisdom, and in absolute solitude may go 'on his
way rejoicing.'



PHILIP THE EVANGELIST

'But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached
in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.'--ACTS viii. 40.

The little that is known about Philip, the deacon and evangelist, may
very soon be told. His name suggests, though by no means
conclusively, that he was probably one of the so-called Hellenists,
or foreign-born and Greek-speaking Jews. This is made the more
probable because he was one of the seven selected by the Church, and
after that selection appointed by the Apostles, to dispense relief to
the poor. The purpose of the appointment being to conciliate the
grumblers in the Hellenist section of the Church, the persons chosen
would probably belong to it. He left Jerusalem during the persecution
'that arose after the death of Stephen.' As we know, he was the first
preacher of the Gospel in Samaria; he was next the instrument
honoured to carry the Word to the first heathen ever gathered into
the Church; and then, after a journey along the sea-coast to
Caesarea, the then seat of government, he remained in that place in
obscure toil for twenty years, dropped out of the story, and we hear
no more of him but for one glimpse of his home in Caesarea.

That is all that is told about him. And I think that if we note the
contrast of the office to which men called him, and the work to which
God set him; and the other still more striking contrast between the
brilliancy of the beginning of his course, and the obscurity of his
long years of work, we may get some lessons worth the learning. I
take, then, not only the words which I read for my text, but the
whole of the incidents connected with Philip, as our starting-point
now; and I draw from them two or three very well-worn, but none the
less needful, pieces of instruction.

I. First, then, we may gather a thought as to Christ's sovereignty in
choosing His instruments.

Did you ever notice that events exactly contradicted the intentions
of the Church and of the Apostles, in the selection of Philip and his
six brethren? The Apostles said, 'It is not reason that we should
leave the Word of God and serve tables. Pick out seven relieving-
officers; men who shall do the secular work of the Church, and look
after the poor; and we will give ourselves to prayer and to the
ministry of the Word.' So said man. And what did facts say? That as
to these twelve, who were to 'give themselves to prayer and the
ministry of the Word,' we never hear that by far the larger
proportion of them were honoured to do anything worth mentioning for
the spread of the Gospel. Their function was to be 'witnesses,' and
that was all. But, on the other hand, of the men that were supposed
to be fitted for secular work, two at all events had more to do in
the expansion of the Church, and in the development of the universal
aspects of Christ's Gospel, than the whole of the original group of
Apostles. So Christ picks His instruments. The Apostles may say,
'These shall do so-and-so; and we will do so-and-so.' Christ says,
'Stephen shall proclaim a wider Gospel than the Apostles at first had
caught sight of, and Philip shall be the first who will go beyond the
charmed circle of Judaism, and preach the Gospel.'

It is always so. Christ chooses His instruments where He will; and it
is not the Apostle's business, nor the business of an ecclesiastic of
any sort, to settle his own work or anybody else's. The Commander-in-
Chief keeps the choosing of the men for special service in His own
hand. The Apostolic College said, 'Let them look after the poor, and
leave us to look after the ministry of the Word'; Christ says, 'Go
and join thyself to that chariot, and speak there the speech that I
shall bid thee.'

Brethren, do you listen for that voice calling you to your tasks, and
never mind what men may be saying. Wait till _He_ bids, and you will
hear Him speaking to you if you will keep yourselves quiet. Wait till
He bids you, and then be sure that you do it. Christ chooses His
instruments, and chooses them often in strange places.

II. The next lesson that I would take from this story is the
spontaneous speech of a believing heart.

There came a persecution that scattered the Church. Men tried to
fling down the lamp; and all that they did was to spill the oil, and
it ran flaming wherever it flowed. For the scattered brethren,
without any Apostle with them, with no instruction given to them to
do so, wherever they went carried their faith with them; and, as a
matter of course, wherever they went they spoke their faith. And so
we read that, not by appointment, nor of set purpose, nor in
consequence of any ecclesiastical or official sanction, nor in
consequence of any supernatural and distinct commandment from heaven,
but just because it was the natural thing to do, and they could not
help it, they went everywhere, these scattered men of Cyprus and
Cyrene, preaching the word.

And when this Philip, whom the officials had relegated to the secular
work of distributing charity, found himself in Samaria, he did the
like. The Samaritans were outcasts, and Peter and John had wanted to
bring down fire from heaven to consume them. But Philip could not
help speaking out the truth that was in his heart.

So it always will be: we can all talk about what we are interested
in. The full heart cannot be condemned to silence. If there is no
necessity for speech felt by a professing Christian, that professing
Christian's faith is a very superficial thing. 'We cannot but speak
the things that we have seen and heard,' said one of the Apostles,
thereby laying down the great charter of freedom of speech for all
profound convictions. 'Thy word was as a fire in my bones when I
said, I will speak no more in Thy name,' so petulant and self-willed
was I, 'and I was weary with forbearing,' and ashamed of my rash vow;
'and I could not stay.'

Dear friends, do you carry with you the impulse for utterance of
Christ's name wherever you go? And is it so sweet in your hearts that
you cannot but let its sweetness have expression by your lips?
Surely, surely this spontaneous instinctive utterance of Philip, by
which a loving heart sought to relieve itself, puts to shame the
'dumb dogs' that make up such an enormous proportion of professing
Christians. And surely such an experience as his may well throw a
very sinister light on the reality--nay! I will not say the
_reality_, that would be too uncharitable--but upon the depth and
vitality of the profession of Christianity which these silent ones
make.

III. Another lesson that seems to me strikingly illustrated by the
story with which we are concerned, is the guidance of a divine hand
in common life, and when there are no visible nor supernatural signs.

Philip goes down to Samaria because he must, and speaks because he
cannot help it. He is next bidden to take a long journey, from the
centre of the land, away down to the southern desert; and at a
certain point there the Spirit says to him, 'Go! join thyself to this
chariot.' And when his work with the Ethiopian statesman is done,
then he is swept away by the power of the Spirit of God, as Ezekiel
had been long before by the banks of the river Chebar, and is set
down, no doubt all bewildered and breathless, at Azotus--the ancient
Ashdod--the Philistine city on the low-lying coast. Was Philip less
under Christ's guidance when miracle ceased and he was left to
ordinary powers? Did he feel as if deserted by Christ, because,
instead of being swept by the strong wind of heaven, he had to tramp
wearily along the flat shore with the flashing Mediterranean on his
left hand reflecting the hot sunshine? Did it seem to him as if his
task in preaching the Gospel in these villages through which he
passed on his way to Caesarea was less distinctly obedience to the
divine command than when he heard the utterance of the Spirit, 'Go
down to the road which leads to Gaza, which is desert'? By no means.
To this man, as to every faithful soul, the guidance that came
through his own judgment and common sense, through the instincts and
impulses of his sanctified nature, by the circumstances which he
devoutly believed to be God's providence, was as truly direct divine
guidance as if all the angels of heaven had blown commandment with
their trumpets into his waiting and stunned ears.

And so you and I have to go upon our paths without angel voices, or
chariots of storm, and to be contented with divine commandments less
audible or perceptible to our senses than this man had at one point
in his career. But if we are wise we shall hear Him speaking the
word. We shall not be left without His voice if we wait for it,
stilling our own inclinations until His solemn commandment is made
plain to us, and then stirring up our inclinations that they may sway
us to swift obedience. There is no gulf, for the devout heart,
between what is called miraculous and what is called ordinary and
common. Equally in both does God manifest His will to His servants,
and equally in both is His presence perceived by faith. We do not
need to envy Philip's brilliant beginning. Let us see that we imitate
his quiet close of life.

IV. The last lesson that I would draw is this--the nobility of
persistence in unnoticed work.

What a contrast to the triumphs in Samaria, and the other great
expansion of the field for the Gospel effected by the God-commanded
preaching to the eunuch, is presented by the succeeding twenty years
of altogether unrecorded but faithful toil! Persistence in such
unnoticed work is made all the more difficult, and to any but a very
true man would have been all but impossible, by reason of the
contrast which such work offered to the glories of the earlier days.
Some of us may have been tried in a similar fashion, all of us have
more or less the same kind of difficulty to face. Some of us perhaps
may have had gleams, at the beginning of our career, that seemed to
give hope of fields of activity more brilliant and of work far better
than we have ever had or done again in the long weary toil of daily
life. There may have been abortive promises, at the commencement of
your careers, that seemed to say that you would occupy a more
conspicuous position than life has had really in reserve for you. At
any rate, we have all had our dreams, for

  'If Nature put not forth her power
  About the opening of the flower,
  Who is there that could live an hour?'

and no life is all that the liver of it meant it to be when he began.
We dream of building palaces or temples, and we have to content
ourselves if we can put up some little shed in which we may shelter.

Philip, who began so conspicuously, and so suddenly ceased to be the
special instrument in the hands of the Spirit, kept plod, plod,
plodding on, with no bitterness of heart. For twenty years he had no
share in the development of Gentile Christianity, of which he had
sowed the first seed, but had to do much less conspicuous work. He
toiled away there in Caesarea patient, persevering, and contented,
because he loved the work, and he loved the work because he loved Him
that had set it. He seemed to be passed over by his Lord in His
choice of instruments. It was he who was selected to be the first man
that should preach to the heathen. But did you ever notice that
although he was probably in Caesarea at the time, Cornelius was not
bid to apply to _Philip_, who was at his elbow, but to send to Joppa
for the Apostle Peter? Philip might have sulked and said: 'Why was I
not chosen to do this work? I will speak no more in this Name.'

It did not fall to his lot to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. One who
came after him was preferred before him, and the Hellenist Saul was
set to the task which might have seemed naturally to belong to the
Hellenist Philip. He too might have said, 'He must increase, but I
must decrease.' No doubt he did say it in spirit, with noble self-
abnegation and freedom from jealousy. He cordially welcomed Paul to
his house in Caesarea twenty years afterwards, and rejoiced that one
sows and another reaps; and that so the division of labour is the
multiplication of gladness.

A beautiful superiority to all the low thoughts that are apt to mar
our persistency in unobtrusive and unrecognised work is set before us
in this story. There are many temptations to-day, dear brethren, what
with gossiping newspapers and other means of publicity for everything
that is done, for men to say, 'Well, if I cannot get any notice for
my work I shall not do it.'

Boys in the street will refuse to join in games, saying, 'I shall not
play unless I am captain or have the big drum.' And there are not
wanting Christian men who lay down like conditions. 'Play well thy
part' wherever it is. Never mind the honour. Do the duty God
appoints, and He that has the two mites of the widow in His treasury
will never forget any of our works, and at the right time will tell
them out before His Father, and before the holy angels.



GRACE TRIUMPHANT

'And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against
the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, 2. And
desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he
found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might
bring them hound unto Jerusalem. 3. And as he journeyed, he came
near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light
from heaven: 4. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice
saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? 5. And he
said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 6.
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt Thou have
me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the
city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. 7. And the men
which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but
seeing no man. 8. And Saul arose from the earth: and when his
eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand,
and brought him into Damascus. 9. And he was three days without
sight, and neither did eat nor drink. 10. And there was a certain
disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in
a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold. I am here, Lord. 11. And
the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is
called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called
Saul, of Tarsus; for, behold, he prayeth, 12. And hath seen in a
vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on
him, that he might receive his sight.... 17. And Ananias went his
way, and entered Into the house; and putting his hands on him
said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee
in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. 18. And
immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and
he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized. 19. And
when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul
certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. 20. And
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the
Son of God.'--ACTS ix. 1-12; 17-20.

This chapter begins with 'but,' which contrasts Saul's persistent
hatred, which led him to Gentile lands to persecute, with Philip's
expansive evangelistic work. Both men were in profound earnest, both
went abroad to carry on their work, but the one sought to plant what
the other was eager to destroy. If the 'but' in verse 1 contrasts,
the 'yet' connects the verse with chapter viii. 3. Saul's fury was no
passing outburst, but enduring. Like other indulged passions, it grew
with exercise, and had come to be as his very life-breath, and now
planned, not only imprisonment, but death, for the heretics.

Not content with carrying his hateful inquisition into the homes of
the Christians in Jerusalem, he will follow the fugitives to
Damascus. The extension of the persectution was his own thought. He
was not the tool of the Sanhedrin, but their mover. They would
probably have been content to cleanse Jerusalem, but the young zealot
would not rest till he had followed the dispersed poison into every
corner where it might have trickled. The high priest would not
discourage such useful zeal, however he might smile at its excess.

So Saul got the letters he asked, and some attendants, apparently, to
help him in his hunt, and set off for Damascus. Painters have
imagined him as riding thither, but more probably he and his people
went on foot. It was a journey of some five or six days. The noon of
the last day had come, and the groves of Damascus were, perhaps, in
sight. No doubt, the young Pharisee's head was busy settling what he
was to begin with when he entered the city, and was exulting in the
thought of how he would harry the meek Christians, when the sudden
light shone.

At all events, the narrative does not warrant the view, often taken
now, that there had been any preparatory process in Saul's mind,
which had begun to sap his confidence that Jesus was a blasphemer,
and himself a warrior for God. That view is largely adopted in order
to get rid of the supernatural, and to bolster up the assumption that
there are no sudden conversions; but the narrative of Luke, and
Paul's own references, are dead against it. At one moment he is 'yet
breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the
Lord,' and in almost the next he is prone on his face, asking, 'Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?' It was not a case of a landslide
suddenly sweeping down, but long prepared for by the gradual
percolation of water to the slippery understrata, but the solid earth
was shaken, and the mountain crashed down in sudden ruin.

The causes of Saul's conversion are plain in the narrative, even
though the shortened form is adopted, which is found in the Revised
Version. The received text has probably been filled out by additions
from Paul's own account in chapter xxvi. First came the blaze of
light outshining the midday sun, even in that land where its beams
are like swords. That blinding light 'shone round about him,'
enveloping him in its glory. Chapter xxvi. (verse 13) tells that his
companions also were wrapped in the lustre, and that all fell to the
earth, no doubt in terror.

Saul is not said, either in this or in his own accounts, to have seen
Jesus, but I Corinthians xv. 8 establishes that he did so, and
Ananias (v. 17) refers to Jesus as having 'appeared.' That
appearance, whatever may have been the psychological account of it,
was by Paul regarded as being equal in evidential value to the flesh-
and-blood vision of the risen Lord which the other Apostles witnessed
to, and as placing him in the same line as a witness.

It is to be noted also, that, while the attendants saw the light,
they were not blinded, as Saul was; from which it may be inferred
that he saw with his bodily eyes the glorified manhood of Jesus, as
we are told that one day, when He returns as Judge, 'every eye shall
see Him.' Be that as it may,--and we have not material for
constructing a theory of the manner of Christ's appearance to Saul,--
the overwhelming conviction was flooded into his soul, that the Jesus
whom he had thought of as a blasphemer, falsely alleged to have risen
from the dead, lived in heavenly glory, amid celestial brightness too
dazzling for human eyes.

The words of gentle remonstrance issuing from the flashing glory went
still further to shake the foundations of the young Pharisee's life;
for they, as with one lightning gleam, laid hare the whole madness
and sin of the crusade which he had thought acceptable to God. 'Why
persecutest thou Me?' Then the odious heretics were knit by some
mysterious bond to this glorious One, so that He bled in their wounds
and felt their pains! Then Saul had been, as his old teacher dreaded
they of the Sanhedrin might be, fighting against God! How the reasons
for Saul's persecution had crumbled away, till there were none left
with which to answer Jesus' question! Jesus lived, and was exalted to
glory. He was identified with His servants. He had appeared to Saul,
and deigned to plead with him.

No wonder that the man who had been planning fresh assaults on the
disciples ten minutes before, was crushed and abject as he lay there
on the road, and these tremendous new convictions rushed like a
cataract over and into his soul! No wonder that the lessons burned in
on him in that hour of destiny became the centre-point of all his
future teaching! That vision revolutionised his thinking and his
life. None can affirm that it was incompetent to do so.

Luke's account here, like Paul's in chapter xxii., represents further
instructions from Jesus as postponed till Saul's meeting with
Ananias, while Paul's other account in chapter xxvi. omits mention of
the latter, and gives the substance of what he said in Damascus as
said on the road by Jesus. The one account is more detailed than the
other, that is all. The gradual unfolding of the heavenly purpose
which our narrative gives is in accord with the divine manner. For
the moment enough had been done to convert the persecutor into the
servant, to level with the ground his self-righteousness, to reveal
to him the glorified Jesus, to bend his will and make it submissive.
The rest would be told him in due time.

The attendants had fallen to the ground like him, but seem to have
struggled to their feet again, while he lay prostrate. They saw the
brightness, but not the Person: they heard the voice, but not the
words. Saul staggered by their help to his feet, and then found that
with open eyes he was blind. Imagination or hallucination does not
play tricks of that sort with the organs of sense.

The supernatural is too closely intertwined with the story to be
taken out of it without reducing it to tatters. The greatest of
Christian teachers, who has probably exercised more influence than
any man who ever lived, was made a Christian by a miracle. That fact
is not to be got rid of. But we must remember that once when He
speaks of it He points to God's revelation of His Son '_in_ Him' as
its essential character. The external appearance was the vehicle of
the inward revelation. It is to be remembered, too, that the miracle
did not take away Saul's power of accepting or rejecting the Christ;
for he tells Agrippa that he was 'not disobedient to the heavenly
vision.'

What a different entry he made into Damascus from what he expected,
and what a different man it was that crawled up to the door of Judas,
in the street that is called Straight, from the self-confident young
fanatic who had left Jerusalem with the high priest's letters in his
bosom and fierce hate in his heart!

Ananias was probably not one of the fugitives, as his language about
Saul implies that he knew of his doings only by hearsay. The report
of Saul's coming and authority to arrest disciples had reached
Damascus before him, with the wonderful quickness with which news
travels in the East, nobody knows how. Ananias's fears being quieted,
he went to the house where for three days Saul had been lying lonely
in the dark, fasting, and revolving many things in his heart. No
doubt his Lord had spoken many a word to him, though not by vision,
but by whispering to his spirit. Silence and solitude root truth in a
soul. After such a shock, absolute seclusion was best.

Ananias discharged his commission with lovely tenderness and power.
How sweet and strange to speaker and hearer would that 'Brother Saul'
sound! How strong and grateful a confirmation of his vision would
Ananias's reference to the appearance of the Lord bring! How humbly
would the proud Pharisee bow to receive, laid on his head, the hands
that he had thought to bind with chains! What new eyes would look out
on a world in which all things had become new, when there fell from
them as it had been scales, and as quickly as had come the blinding,
so quickly came the restored vision!

Ananias was neither Apostle nor official, yet the laying on of his
hands communicated 'the Holy Ghost.' Saul received that gift before
baptism, not after or through the ordinance. It was important for his
future relations to the Apostles that he should not have been
introduced to the Church by them, or owed to them his first human
Christian teaching. Therefore he could say that he was 'an Apostle,
not from men, neither through man.' It was important for us that in
that great instance that divine gift should have been bestowed
without the conditions accompanying, which have too often been
regarded as necessary for, its possession.



'THIS WAY'

'Any of this way.'--ACTS ix. 2

The name of 'Christian' was not applied to themselves by the
followers of Jesus before the completion of the New Testament. There
were other names in currency before that designation--which owed its
origin to the scoffing wits of Antioch--was accepted by the Church.
They called themselves 'disciples,' 'believers, 'saints,' 'brethren,'
as if feeling about for a title.

Here is a name that had obtained currency for a while, and was
afterwards disused. We find it five times in the Book of the Acts of
the Apostles, never elsewhere; and always, with one exception, it
should be rendered, as it is in the Revised Version, not '_this_
way,' as if being one amongst many, but '_the_ way,' as being the
only one.

Now, I have thought that this designation of Christians as 'those of
the way' rests upon a very profound and important view of what
Christianity is, and may teach us some lessons if we will ponder it;
and I ask your attention to two or three of these for a few moments
now.

I. First, then, I take this name as being a witness to the conviction
that in Christianity we have the only road to God.

There may be some reference in the name to the remarkable words of
our Lord Jesus Christ: 'I am the Way. No man cometh to the Father but
by Me,'--words of which the audacity is unparalleled and
unpardonable, except upon the supposition that He bears an unique
relation to God on the one hand, and to all mankind upon the other.
In them He claims to be the sole medium of communication between
heaven and earth, God and man. And that same exclusiveness is
reflected in this name for Christians. It asserts that faith in Jesus
Christ, the acceptance of His teaching, mediation and guidance, is
the only path that climbs to God, and by it alone do we come into
knowledge of, and communion with, our divine Father.

I do not dwell upon the fact that, according to our Lord's own
teaching, and according to the whole New Testament, Christ's work of
making God known to man did not begin with His Incarnation and
earthly life, but that from the beginning that eternal Word was the
agent of all divine activity in creation, and in the illumination of
mankind. So that, not only all the acts of the self-revealing God
were through Him, but that from Him, as from the light of men, came
all the light in human hearts, of reason and of conscience, by which
there were and are in all men, some dim knowledge of God, and some
feeling after, or at the lowest some consciousness of, Him. But the
historical facts of Christ's incarnation, life, death, resurrection,
and ascension are the source of all solid certitude, and of all clear
knowledge of our Father in Heaven. His words are spirit and life; His
works are unspoken words; and by both He declares unto His brethren
the Name, and is the self-manifestation of, the Father.

Think of the contrast presented by the world's conceptions of
Godhead, and the reality as unveiled in Christ! On the one hand you
have gods lustful, selfish, passionate, capricious, cruel, angry,
vile; or gods remote, indifferent, not only passionless, but
heartless, inexorable, unapproachable, whom no man can know, whom no
man can love, whom no man can trust. On the other hand, if you look
at Christ's tears as the revelation of God; if you look at Christ's
ruth and pity as the manifestation of the inmost glory of the divine
nature; if you take your stand at the foot of the Cross--a strange
place to see 'the power of God and the wisdom of God'!--and look up
there at Him dying for the world, and are able to say, 'Lo! this is
our God! through all the weary centuries we have waited for Him, and
this is He!' then you can understand how true it is that there, and
there only, is the good news proclaimed that lifts the burden from
every heart, and reveals God the Lover and the Friend of every soul.

And if, further, we consider the difference between the dim
'peradventures,' the doubts and fears, the uncertain conclusions
drawn from questionable, and often partial, premises, which
confessedly never amount to demonstration, if we consider the
contrast between these and the daylight of fact which we meet in
Jesus Christ, His love, life, and death, then we can feel how
superior in certitude, as in substance, the revelation of God in
Jesus is to all these hopes, longings, doubts, and how it alone is
worthy to be called the knowledge of God, or is solid enough to abide
comparison with the certainties of the most arrogant physical
science.

There never was a time in the history of the world when, so clearly
and unmistakably, every thinking soul amongst cultivated nations was
being brought up to this alternative--Christ, the Revealer of God, or
no knowledge of God at all. The old dreams of heathenism are
impossible for us; modern agnosticism will make very quick work of a
deism which does not cling to the Christ as the Revealer of the
Godhead. And I, for my part, believe that there is one thing, and one
thing only, which will save modern Europe from absolute godlessness,
and that is the coming back to the old truth, 'No man hath seen God'
by sense, or intuition, or reason, or conscience, 'at any time. The
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared Him.'

But it is not merely as bringing to us the only certain knowledge of
our Father God that Christianity is 'the way,' but it is also because
by it alone we come into fellowship with the God whom it reveals to
us. If there rises up before your mind the thought of Him in the
Heavens, there will rise up also in your consciousness the sense of
your own sin. And that is no delusion nor fancy; it is the most
patent fact, that between you and your Father in Heaven, howsoever
loving, tender, compassionate, and forgiving, there lies a great
gulf. You cannot go to God, my brother, with all that guilt heaped
upon your conscience; you cannot come near to Him with all that mass
of evil which you know is there, working in your soul. How shall a
sinful soul come to a holy God? And there is only one answer--that
great Lord, by His blessed death upon the Cross, has cleared away all
the mountains of guilt and sin that rise up frowning between each
single soul and the Father in Heaven; and through Him, by a new and
living way, which He hath opened for us, we have entrance to God, and
dwell with Him.

And it is not only that He brings to us the knowledge of God, and
that He clears away all obstacles, and makes fellowship between God
and us possible for the most polluted and sinful of spirits, but it
is also that, by the knowledge of His great love to us, love is
kindled in our hearts, and we are drawn into that path which, as a
matter of fact, we shall not tread unless we yield to the magnetic
attraction of the love of God as revealed 'in the face of Jesus
Christ.'

Men do not seek fellowship with God until they are drawn to Him by
the love that is revealed upon the Cross. Men do not yield their
hearts to Him until their hearts are melted down by the fire of that
Infinite divine love which disdained not to be humiliated and refused
not to die for their sakes. Practically and really we come to God,
when--and I venture upon the narrowness of saying, _only_ when--God
has come to us in His dear Son. '_The_ way' to God is through Christ.
Have you trod it, my friend--that new and living way, which leads
within the veil, into the secrets of loving communion with your
Father in Heaven?

II. Then there is another principle, of which this designation of our
text is also the witness, viz., that in Christianity we have the path
of conduct and practical life traced out for us all.

The 'way of a man' is, of course, a metaphor for his outward life and
conduct. It is connected with the familiar old image which belongs to
the poetry of all languages, by which life is looked at as a journey.
That metaphor speaks to us of the continual changefulness of our
mortal condition; it speaks to us, also, of the effort and the
weariness which often attend it. It proclaims also the solemn thought
that a man's life is a unity, and that, progressive, it goes some
whither, and arrives at a definite goal.

And that idea is taken up in this phrase, '_the_ way,' in such a
fashion as that there are two things asserted: first, that
Christianity provides _a_ way, a path for the practical activity,
that it moulds our life into a unity, that it prescribes the line of
direction which it is to follow, that it has a starting-point, and
stages, and an end; also, that Christianity is _the_ way for
practical life, the only path and mode of conduct which corresponds
with all the obligations and nature of a man, and which reason,
conscience, and experience will approve. Let us look, just for a
moment or two, at these two thoughts: Christianity is _a_ way;
Christianity is _the_ way.

It is a way. These early disciples must have grasped with great
clearness and tenacity the practical side of the Gospel, or they
would never have adopted this name. If they had thought of it as
being only a creed, they would not have done so.

And it is not only a creed. All creed is meant to influence conduct.
If I may so say, _credenda_, 'things to be believed,' are meant to
underlie the _agenda_, the things to be done. Every doctrine of the
New Testament, like the great blocks of concrete that are dropped
into a river in order to lay the foundation of a bridge, or the
embankment that is run across a valley in order to carry a railway
upon it,--every doctrine of the New Testament is meant to influence
the conduct, the 'walk and conversation,' and to provide a path on
which activity may advance and expatiate.

I cannot, of course, dwell upon this point with sufficient
elaboration, or take up one after another the teachings of the New
Testament, in order to show how close is their bearing upon practical
life. There is plenty of abstract theology in the form of theological
systems, skeletons all dried up that have no life in them. There is
nothing of that sort in the principles as they lie on the pages of
the New Testament. There they are all throbbing with life, and all
meant to influence life and conduct.

Remember, my friend, that unless your Christianity is doing that for
you, unless it has prescribed a path of life for you, and moulded
your steps into a great unity, and drawn you along the road, it is
nought,--nought!

But the whole matter may be put into half a dozen sentences. The
living heart of Christianity, either considered as a revelation to a
man, or as a power within a man, that is to say, either objective or
subjective, is love. It is the revelation of the love of God that is
the inmost essence of it as revelation. It is love in my heart that
is the inmost essence of it as a fact of my nature. And is not love
the most powerful of all forces to influence conduct? Is it not 'the
fulfilling of the law,' because its one single self includes all
commandments, and is the ideal of all duty, and also because it is
the power which will secure the keeping of all the law which itself
lays down?

But love may be followed out into its two main effects. These are
self-surrender and imitation. And I say that a religious system which
is, in its inmost heart and essence, love, is thereby shown to be the
most practical of all systems, because thereby it is shown to be a
great system of self-surrender and imitation.

The deepest word of the Gospel is, 'Yield yourselves to God.' Bring
your wills and bow them before Him, and say, 'Here am I; take me, and
use me as a pawn on Thy great chessboard, to be put where Thou wilt.'
When once a man's will is absorbed into the divine will, as a drop of
water is into the ocean, he is free, and has happiness and peace, and
is master and lord of himself and of the universe. That system which
proclaims love as its heart sets in action self-surrender as the most
practical of all the powers of life.

Love is imitation. And Jesus Christ's life is set before us as the
pattern for all our conduct. We are to follow In His footsteps. These
mark our path. We are to follow Him, as a traveller who knows not his
way will carefully tread in the steps of his guide. We are to imitate
Him, as a scholar who is learning to draw will copy every touch of
the master's pencil.

Strange that that short life, fragmentarily reported in four little
tracts, full of unapproachable peculiarities, and having no part in
many of the relationships which make so large a portion of most
lives, is yet so transparently under the influence of the purest and
broadest principles of righteousness and morality as that every age
and each sex, and men of all professions, idiosyncrasies,
temperaments, and positions, all stages of civilisation and culture,
of every period, and of every country, may find in it the all-
sufficient pattern for them!

Thus in Christianity we have a way. It prescribes a line of direction
for the life, and brings all its power to bear in marking the course
which we should pursue and in making us willing and able to pursue
it.

How different, how superior to all other systems which aspire to
regulate the outward life that system is! It is superior, in its
applicability to all conditions. It is a very difficult thing for any
man to apply the generalities of moral law and righteousness to the
individual cases in his life. The stars are very bright, but they do
not show me which street to turn up when I am at a loss; but Christ's
example comes very near to us, and guides us, not indeed in regard to
questions of prudence or expediency, but in regard to all questions
of right or wrong. It is superior, in the help it gives to a soul
struggling with temptation. It is very hard to keep law or duty
clearly before our eyes at such a moment, when it is most needful to
do so. The lighthouse is lost in the fog, but the example of Jesus
Christ dissipates many mists of temptation to the heart that loves
Him; and 'they that follow Him shall not walk in darkness.'

It is superior in this, further, that patterns fail because they are
only patterns, and cannot get themselves executed, and laws fail
because they are only laws and cannot get themselves obeyed. What is
the use of a signpost to a man who is lame, or who does not want to
go down the road, though he knows it well enough? But Christianity
brings both the commandment and the motive that keeps the
commandment.

And so it is _the_ path along which we can travel. It is the only
road that corresponds to all our necessities, and capacities, and
obligations.

It is the only path, my brother, that will be approved by reason,
conscience, and experience. The greatest of our English mystics says
somewhere--I do not profess to quote with verbal accuracy--'There are
two questions which put an end to all the vain projects and designs
of human life. The one is, "What for?" the other, "What good will the
aim do you if attained?"'

If we look at 'all the ways of men' calmly, and with due regard to
the wants of their souls, reason cannot but say that they are 'vain
and melancholy.' If we consult our own experience we cannot but
confess that whatsoever we have had or enjoyed, apart from God, has
either proved disappointing in the very moment of its possession, or
has been followed by a bitter taste on the tongue; or in a little
while has faded, and left us standing with the stalk in our hands
from which the bloom has dropped. Generation after generation has
sighed its 'Amen!' to the stern old word: 'Vanity of vanities; all is
vanity!' And here to-day, in the midst of the boasted progress of
this generation, we find cultured men amongst us, lapped in material
comfort, and with all the light of this century blazing upon them,
preaching again the old Buddhist doctrine that annihilation is the
only heaven, and proclaiming that life is not worth living, and that
'it were better not to be.'

Dear brother, one path, and one path only, leads to what all men
desire--peace and happiness. One path, and one path only, leads to
what all men know they ought to seek--purity and godliness. We are
like men in the backwoods, our paths go circling round and round, we
have lost our way. 'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of
them, for he knoweth not how to come to the city.' Jesus Christ has
cut a path through the forest. Tread you in it, and you will find
that it is 'the way of pleasantness' and 'the path of peace.'

III. And now, one last word. This remarkable designation seems to me
to be a witness also to another truth, viz. that in Christianity we
have the only way home.

The only way home! All other modes and courses of life and conduct
stop at the edge of a great gulf, like some path that goes down an
incline to the edge of a precipice, and the heedless traveller that
has been going on, not knowing whither it led, tilts over when he
comes there. Every other way that men can follow is broken short off
by death. And if there were no other reason to allege, that is enough
to condemn them. What is a man to do in another world if all his life
long he has only cultivated tastes which want this world for their
gratification? What is the sensualist to do when he gets there? What
is the shrewd man of business in Manchester to do when he comes into
a world where there are no bargains, and he cannot go on 'Change on
Tuesdays and Fridays? What will he do with himself? What does he do
with himself now, when he goes away from home for a month, and does
not get his ordinary work and surroundings? What will he do then?
What will a young lady do in an other world, who spends her days here
in reading trashy novels and magazines? What will any of us do who
have set our affections and our tastes upon this poor, perishing,
miserable world? Would you think it was common sense in a young man
who was going to be a doctor, and took no interest in anything but
farming? Is it not as stupid a thing for men and women to train
themselves for a condition which is transient, and not to train
themselves for the condition into which they are certainly going?

And, on the other hand, the path that Christ makes runs clear on,
without a break, across the gulf, like some daring railway bridge
thrown across a mountain gorge, and goes straight on on the other
side without a curve, only with an upward gradient. The manner of
work may change; the spirit of the work and the principles of it will
remain. Self-surrender will be the law of Heaven, and 'they shall
follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.' Better to begin here as we
mean to end yonder! Better to begin here what we can carry with us,
in essence though not in form, into the other life; and so, through
all the changes of life, and through the great change of death, to
keep one unbroken straight course! 'They go from strength to
strength; every one of them in Zion appeareth before God'.

We live in an else trackless waste, but across the desert Jesus
Christ has thrown a way; too high for ravenous beasts to spring on or
raging foes to storm; too firm for tempest to overthrow or make
impair able; too plain for simple hearts to mistake. We may all
journey on it, if we will, and 'come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon our heads.'

Christ is the Way. O brother I trust thy sinful soul to His blood and
mediation, and thy sins will be forgiven. And then, loving Him,
follow Him. 'This is the way; walk ye in it.'



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE EARLY CHURCH

'So the Church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria had
peace, being edified; and, walking in the fear of the Lord, and
in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied.'--ACTS ix. 31
(R.V.).

A man climbing a hill stops every now and then to take breath and
look about him; and in the earlier part of this Book of the Acts of
the Apostles there are a number of such landing-places where the
writer suspends the course of his narrative, in order to give a
general notion of the condition of the Church at the moment. We have
in this verse one of the shortest, but perhaps the most significant,
of these resting-places. The original and proper reading, instead of
'the Churches,' as our Version has it, reads 'the Church' as a whole
--the whole body of believers in the three districts named--Judaea,
Galilee, and Samaria--being in the same circumstances and passing
through like experiences. The several small communities of disciples
formed a whole. They were 'churches' individually; they were
collectively 'the Church.' Christ's order of expansion, given in
chapter i., had been thus far followed, and the sequence here sums up
the progress which the Acts has thus far recorded. Galilee had been
the cradle of the Church, but the onward march of the Gospel had
begun at Jerusalem. Before Luke goes on to tell how the last part of
our Lord's programme--'to the uttermost parts of the earth'--began to
be carried into execution by the conversion of Cornelius, he gives us
this bird's-eye view. To its significant items I desire to draw your
attention now.

There are three of them: outward rest, inward progress, outward
increase.

I. Outward rest.

'Then had the Church rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and
Samaria.'

The principal persecutor had just been converted, and that would
somewhat damp the zeal of his followers. Saul having gone over to the
enemy, it would be difficult to go on harrying the Church with the
same spirit, when the chief actor was turned traitor. And besides
that, historians tell us that there were political complications
which gave both Romans and Jews quite enough to do to watch one
another, instead of persecuting this little community of Christians.
I have nothing to do with these, but this one point I desire to make,
that the condition of security and tranquillity in which the Church
found itself conduced to spiritual good and growth. This has not
always been the case. As one of our quaint divines says, 'as in
cities where ground is scarce men build high up, so in times of
straitness and persecution the Christian community, and the
individuals who compose it, are often raised to a higher level of
devotion than in easier and quieter times.' But these primitive
Christians utilised this breathing-space in order to grow, and having
a moment of lull and stillness in the storm, turned it to the highest
and best uses. Is that what you and I do with our quiet times? None
of us have any occasion to fear persecution or annoyance of that
sort, but there are other thorns in our pillows besides these, and
other rough places in our beds, and we are often disturbed in our
nests. When there does come a quiet time in which no outward
circumstances fret us, do we seize it as coming from God, in order
that, with undistracted energies, we may cast ourselves altogether
into the work of growing like our Master and doing His will more
fully? How many of us, dear brethren, have misused both our adversity
and our prosperity by making the one an occasion for deeper
worldliness, and the other a reason for forgetting Him in the
darkness as in the light? To be absorbed by earthly things, whether
by the enjoyment of their possession or by the bitter pain and misery
of their withdrawal, is fatal to all our spiritual progress, and only
they use things prosperous and things adverse aright, who take them
both as means by which they may be wafted nearer to their God.
Whatsoever forces act upon us, if we put the helm right and trim the
sails as we ought, they will carry us to our haven. And whatsoever
forces act upon us, if we neglect the sailor's skill and duty, we
shall be washed backwards and forwards in the trough of the sea, and
make no progress in the voyage. 'Then had the Church rest'--and grew
lazy? 'Then had the Church rest'--and grew worldly? Then was I happy
and prosperous and peaceful in my home and in my business, and I
said, 'I shall never be moved,' and I forgot my God? 'Then had the
Church rest, and was edified.'

Now, in the next place, note the

II. Inward progress.

There are difficulties about the exact relation of the clauses here
to one another, the discussion of which would be fitter for a
lecture-room than for a pulpit. I do not mean to trouble you with
these, but it seems to me that we may perhaps best understand the
writer's intention if we throw together the clauses which stand in
the middle of this verse, and take them as being a description of the
inward progress, being 'edified' and 'walking in the fear of the
Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.' There are two things,
then--the being 'edified' and 'walking'; and I wish to say a word or
two about each of them.

Now that word 'edified' and the cognate one 'edification' have been
enfeebled in signification so as to mean very much less than they did
to Luke. When we speak of 'being edified,' what do we mean? Little
more than that we have been instructed, and especially that we have
been comforted. And what is the instrument of edification in our
ordinary religious parlance? Good words, wise teaching, or pious
speech. But the New Testament means vastly more than this by the
word, and looks not so much to other people's utterances as to a
man's own strenuous efforts, as the means of edification. Much
misunderstanding would have been avoided if our translators had
really translated, instead of putting us off with a Latinised word
which to many readers conveys little meaning and none of the
significant metaphor of the original. 'Being edified' sounds very
theological and far away from daily life. Would it not sound more
real if we read 'being built up'? That is the emblem of the process
that ought to go on, not only in the Christian community as a whole,
but in every individual member of it. Each Christian is bound to
build himself up and to help to build up other Christians; and God
builds them all up by His Spirit. We have brought before us the
picture of the rising of some stately fabric upon a firm foundation,
course by course, stone by stone, each laid by a separate act of the
builder's hand, and carefully bedded in its place until the whole is
complete.

That is one emblem of the growth of the Christian community and of
the Christian individual, and the other clause that is coupled with
it in the text seems to me to give the same idea under a slightly
different figure. The rising of a stately building and the advance on
a given path suggest substantially the same notion of progress.

And of these two metaphors, I would dwell chiefly on the former,
because it is the less familiar of the two to modern readers, and
because it is of some consequence to restore it to its weight and
true significance in the popular mind. Edification, then, is the
building up of Christian character, and it involves four things: a
foundation, a continuous progress, a patient, persistent effort, and
a completion.

Now, Christian men and women, this is our office for ourselves, and,
according to our faculty and opportunities, for the Churches with
which we may stand connected, that on the foundation which is Jesus
Christ--'and other foundation can no man lay'--we all should slowly,
carefully, unceasingly be at our building work; each day's
attainment, like the course of stones laid in some great temple,
becoming the basis upon which to-morrow's work is to be piled, and
each having in it the toil of the builder and being a result and
monument of his strenuous effort, and each being built in, according
to the plan that the great Architect has given, and each tending a
little nearer to the roof-tree, and the time that 'the top stone
shall be brought forth with the shout of rejoicing.' Is that a
transcript of my life and yours? Do we make a business of the
cultivation of Christian character thus? Do we rest the whole
structure of our lives upon Jesus Christ? And then, do we, hour by
hour, moment by moment, lay the fair stones, until

  'Firm and fair the building rise,
    A temple to His praise.'

The old worn metaphor, which we have vulgarised and degraded into a
synonym for a comfortable condition produced by a brother's words,
carries in it the solemnest teaching as to what the duty and
privilege of all Christian souls is-to 'build themselves up for an
habitation of God through the Spirit.'

But note further the elements of which this progress consists. May we
not suppose that both metaphors refer to the clauses that follow, and
that 'the fear of the Lord' and 'the comfort of the Holy Ghost' are
the particulars in which the Christian is built up and walks?

'The fear of the Lord' is eminently an Old Testament expression, and
occurs only once or twice in the New. But its meaning is thoroughly
in accordance with the loftiest teaching of the new revelation. 'The
fear of the Lord' is that reverential awe of Him, by which we are
ever conscious of His presence with us, and ever seek, as our supreme
aim and end, to submit our wills to His commandment, and to do the
things that are pleasing in His sight. Are you and I building
ourselves up in that? Do we feel more thrillingly and gladly to-day
than we did yesterday, that God is beside us? And do we submit
ourselves more loyally, more easily, more joyously to His will, in
blessed obedience, now than ever before? Have we learned, and are we
learning, moment by moment, more of that 'secret of the Lord' which
'is with them that fear Him,' and of that 'covenant' which 'He will
show' to them? Unless we do, our growth in Christian character is a
very doubtful thing. And are we advancing, too, in that other element
which so beautifully completes and softens the notion of the fear of
the Lord, 'the encouragement' which the divine Spirit gives us? Are
we bolder to-day than we were yesterday? Are we ready to meet with
more undaunted confidence whatever we may have to face? Do we feel
ever increasing within us the full blessedness and inspiration of
that divine visitant? And do these sweet communications take all the
'torment' away from 'fear,' and leave only the bliss of reverential
love? They who walk in the fear of the Lord, and who with the fear
have the courage that the divine Spirit gives, will 'have rest,' like
the first Christians, whatsoever storms may howl around them, and
whatsoever enemies may threaten to disturb their peace.

And so, lastly, note

III. The outward growth.

Thus building themselves up, and thus growing, the Church 'was
multiplied.' Of course it was. Christian men and women that are
spiritually alive, and who, because they are alive, grow, and grow in
these things, the manifest reverence of God, and the manifest
'comfort' of the divine Spirit's giving, will commend their gospel to
a blind world. They will be an attractive force in the midst of men,
and their inward growth will make them eager to hold forth the word
of life, and will give them 'a mouth and wisdom' which nothing but
genuine spiritual experience can give.

And so, dear friends, especially those of you who set yourselves to
any of the many forms of Christian work which prevail in this day,
learn the lesson of my text, and make sure of '_a_' before you go on
to '_b_,' and see to it that before you set yourselves to try to
multiply the Church, you set yourselves to build up yourselves in
your most holy faith.

We hear a great deal nowadays about 'forward movements,' and I
sympathise with all that is said in favour of them. But I would
remind you that the precursor of every genuine forward movement is a
Godward movement, and that it is worse than useless to talk about
lengthening the cords unless you begin with strengthening the stakes.
The little prop that holds up the bell-tent that will contain half-a-
dozen soldiers will be all too weak for the great one that will cover
a company. And the fault of some Christian people is that they set
themselves to work upon others without remembering that the first
requisite is a deepened and growing godliness and devotion in their
own souls. Dear friends, begin at home, and remember that whilst what
the world calls eloquence may draw people, and oddities _will_ draw
them, and all sorts of lower attractions will gather multitudes for a
little while, the one solid power which Christian men and women can
exercise for the numerical increase of the Church is rooted in, and
only tenable through, their own personal increase day by day in
consecration and likeness to the Saviour, in possession of the
Spirit, and in loving fear of the Lord.



COPIES OF CHRIST'S MANNER

'And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole:
arise, and make thy bed.... 40. But Peter put them all forth, and
kneeled down and prayed; and, turning him to the body, said,
Tabitha, arise.--ACTS ix. 34, 40.

I have put these two miracles together, not only because they were
closely connected in time and place, but because they have a very
remarkable and instructive feature in common. They are both evidently
moulded upon Christ's miracles; are distinct imitations of what Peter
had seen Him do. And their likenesses to and differences from our
Lord's manner of working are equally noteworthy. It is to the lessons
from these two aspects, common to both miracles, that I desire to
turn now.

I. First, notice the similarities and the lesson which they teach.

The two cases before us are alike, in that both of them find
parallels in our Lord's miracles. The one is the cure of a paralytic,
which pairs off with the well-known story in the Gospels concerning
the man that was borne by four, and let down through the roof into
Christ's presence. The other of them, the raising of Dorcas, or
Tabitha, of course corresponds with the three resurrections of dead
people which are recorded in the Gospels.

And now, note the likenesses. Jesus Christ said to the paralysed man,
'Arise, take up thy bed.' Peter says to Aeneas, 'Arise, and make thy
bed.' The one command was appropriate to the circumstances of a man
who was not in his own house, and whose control over his long-disused
muscles in obeying Christ's word was a confirmation to himself of the
reality and completeness of his cure. The other was appropriate to a
man bedridden in his own house; and it had precisely the same purpose
as the analogous injunction from our Lord, 'Take up thy bed and
walk.' Aeneas was lying at home, and so Peter, remembering how Jesus
Christ had demonstrated to others, and affirmed to the man himself,
the reality of the miraculous blessing given to him, copies his
Master's method, 'Aeneas, make thy bed.' It is an echo and
resemblance of the former incident, and is a distinct piece of
imitation of it.

And then, if we turn to the other narrative, the intentional moulding
of the manner of the miracle, consecrated in the eyes of the loving
disciple, because it was Christ's manner, is still more obvious. When
Jesus Christ went into the house of Jairus there was the usual
hubbub, the noise of the loud Eastern mourning, and He put them all
forth, taking with Him only the father and mother of the damsel, and
Peter with James and John. When Peter goes into the upper room, where
Tabitha is lying, there are the usual noise of lamentation and the
clack of many tongues, extolling the virtues of the dead woman. He
remembers how Christ had gone about His miracle, and he, in his turn,
'put them all forth.' Mark, who was Peter's mouthpiece in his Gospel,
gives us the very Aramaic words which our Lord employed when He
raised the little girl, _Talitha_, the Aramaic word for 'a damsel,'
or young girl; _cumi_, which means in that language 'arise.' Is it
not singular and beautiful that Peter's word by the bedside of the
dead Dorcas is, with the exception of one letter, absolutely
identical? Christ says, _Talitha cumi_. Peter remembered the formula
by which the blessing was conveyed, and he copied it. 'Tabitha cumi!'
Is it not clear that he is posing after his Master's attitude; that
he is, consciously or unconsciously, doing what he remembered so well
had been done in that other upper room, and that the miracles are
both of them shaped after the pattern of the miraculous working of
Jesus Christ?

Well, now, although we are no miracle-workers, the very same
principle which underlay these two works of supernatural power is to
be applied to all our work, and to our lives as Christian people. I
do not know whether Peter _meant_ to do like Jesus Christ or not; I
think rather that he was unconsciously and instinctively dropping
into the fashion that to him was so sacred. Love always delights in
imitation; and the disciples of a great teacher will unconsciously
catch the trick of his intonation, even the awkwardness of his
attitudes or the peculiarities of his way of looking at things--only,
unfortunately, outsides are a good deal more easily imitated than
insides. And many a disciple copies such external trifles, and talks
in the tones that have, first of all, brought blessed truths to him,
whose resemblance to his teacher goes very little further. The
principle that underlies these miracles is just this--get near Jesus
Christ, and you will catch His manner. Dwell in fellowship with Him,
and whether you are thinking about it or not, there will come some
faint resemblance to that Lord into your characters and your way of
doing things, so that men will 'take knowledge of you that you have
been with Jesus.' The poor bit of cloth which has held some precious
piece of solid perfume will retain fragrance for many a day
afterwards, and will bless the scentless air by giving it forth. The
man who keeps close to Christ, and has folded Him in his heart, will,
like the poor cloth, give forth a sweetness not his own that will
gladden and refresh many nostrils. Live in the light, and you will
become light. Keep near Christ, and you will be Christlike. Love Him,
and love will do to you what it does to many a wedded pair, and to
many kindred hearts: it will transfuse into you something of the
characteristics of the object of your love. It is impossible to trust
Christ, to obey Christ, to hold communion with Him, and to live
beside Him, without becoming like Him. And if such be our inward
experience, so will be our outward appearance.

But there may be a specific point given to this lesson in regard to
Christian people's ways of doing their work in the world and helping
and blessing other folk. Although, as I say, we have no miraculous
power at our disposal, we do not need it in order to manifest Jesus
Christ and His way of working in our work. And if we dwell beside
Him, then, depend upon it, all the characteristics--far more precious
than the accidents of manner, or tone, or attitude in working a
miracle--all the characteristics so deeply and blessedly stamped upon
His life of self-sacrifice and man-helping devotion will be
reproduced in us. Jesus Christ, when He went through the wards of the
hospital of the world, was overflowing with quick sympathy for every
sorrow that met His eye. If you and I are living near Him, we shall
never steel our hearts nor lock up our sensibilities against any
suffering that it is within our power to stanch or to alleviate.
Jesus Christ never grudged trouble, never thought of Himself, never
was impatient of interruption, never repelled importunity, never sent
away empty any outstretched hand. And if we live near Him, self-
oblivious willingness to spend and be spent will mark our lives, and
we shall not consider that we have the right of possession or of sole
enjoyment of any of the blessings that are given to us. Jesus Christ,
according to the beautiful and significant words of one of the
Gospels, 'healed them that had need of healing.' Why that singular
designation for the people that were standing around Him but to teach
us that wide as men's necessity was His sympathy, and that broad as
the sympathy of Christ were the help and healing which He brought?
And so, with like width of compassion, with like perfectness of self-
oblivion, with equal remoteness from consciousness of superiority or
display of condescension, Christian men should go amongst the
sorrowful and the sad and the outcast and do their miracles--'greater
works' than those which Christ did, as He Himself has told us--after
the manner in which He did His. If they did, the world would be a
different place, and the Church would be a different Church, and you
would not have people writing in the newspapers to demonstrate that
Christianity was 'played out.'

II. Further, note the differences and the lessons from them.

Take the first of the two miracles. 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole: arise, and make thy bed.' That first clause points to the
great difference. Take the second miracle, 'Jesus Christ put them all
forth, and stretched out His hand, and said, Damsel, arise!' 'Peter
put them all forth, ... and said, Tabitha, arise!' but between the
putting forth and the miracle he did something which Christ did not
do, and he did not do something which Christ did do. 'He kneeled down
and prayed.' Jesus Christ did not do that. 'And Jesus put forth His
hand, and said, Arise!' Peter did not do that. But he put forth his
hand _after_ the miracle was wrought; not to communicate life, but to
help the living woman to get to her feet; and so, both by what he did
in his prayer and by what he did not do after Christ's pattern, the
extension of the hand that was the channel of the vitality, he drew a
broad distinction between the servant's copy and the Master's
original.

The lessons from the differences are such as the following.

Christ works miracles by His inherent power; His servants do their
works only as His instruments and organs. I need not dwell upon the
former thought; but it is the latter at which I wish to look for a
moment. The lesson, then, of the difference is that Christian men, in
all their work for the Master and for the world, are ever to keep
clear before themselves, and to make very obvious to other people,
that they are nothing more than channels and instruments. The less
the preacher, the teacher, the Christian benefactor of any sort puts
himself in the foreground, or in evidence at all, the more likely are
his words and works to be successful. If you hear a man, for
instance, preaching a sermon, and you see that he is thinking about
himself, he may talk with the tongues of men and of angels, but he
will do no good to anybody. The first condition of work for the Lord
is--hide yourself behind your message, behind your Master, and make
it very plain that His is the power, and that you are but a tool in
the Workman's hand.

And then, further, another lesson is, Be very sure of the power that
will work in you. What a piece of audacity it was for Peter to go and
stand by the paralytic man's couch and say, 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ
maketh thee whole.' Yes, audacity; unless he had been in such
constant and close touch with his Master that he was sure that his
Master was working through him. And is it not beautiful to see how
absolutely confident he is that Jesus Christ's work was not ended
when He went up into heaven; but that there, in that little stuffy
room, where the man had lain motionless for eight long years, Jesus
Christ was present, and working? O brethren, the Christian Church
does not half enough believe in the actual presence and operation of
Jesus Christ, here and now, in and through all His servants! We are
ready enough to believe that He worked when He was in the world long
ago, that He is going to work when He comes back to the world, at
some far-off future period. But do we believe that He is verily
putting forth His power, in no metaphor, but in simple reality, at
present and here, and, if we will, through us?

'Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.' Be sure that if you keep near
Christ, if you will try to mould yourselves after His likeness, if
you expect Him to work through you, and do not hinder His work by
self-conceit and self-consciousness of any sort, then it will be no
presumption, but simple faith which He delights in and will
vindicate, if you, too, go and stand by a paralytic and say, 'Jesus
Christ maketh thee whole,' or go and stand by people dead in
trespasses and sins and say, after you have prayed, 'Arise.'

We are here for the very purpose for which Peter was in Lydda and
Joppa--to carry on and copy the healing and the quickening work of
Christ, by His present power, and after His blessed example.



WHAT GOD HATH CLEANSED

'There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a
centurion of the band called the Italian band, 2. A devout man,
and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms
to the people, and prayed to God alway. 3. He saw in a vision
evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming
in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 4. And when he looked
on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said
unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial
before God. 5. And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon,
whose surname is Peter: 6. He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner,
whose house is by the sea-side: he shall tell thee what thou
oughtest to do. 7. And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius
was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a
devout soldier of them that waited on him continually; 8. And
when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to
Joppa. 9. On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew
nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about
the sixth hour: 10. And he became very hungry, and would have
eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, 11. And
saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as
it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down
to the earth: 12. Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of
the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the
air. 13. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and
eat. 14. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any
thing that is common or unclean. 15. And the voice spake unto him
again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou
common. 16. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up
again into heaven. 17. Now while Peter doubted in himself what
this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which
were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon's house, and
stood before the gate, 18. And called, and asked whether Simon,
which was surnamed Peter, were lodged there. 19. While Peter
thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three
men seek thee. 20. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go
with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.'--ACTS x. 1-
20.

The Church was at first in appearance only a Jewish sect; but the
great stride is now to be taken which carries it over the border into
the Gentile world, and begins its universal aspect. If we consider
the magnitude of the change, and the difficulties of training and
prejudice which it had to encounter in the Church itself, we shall
not wonder at the abundance of supernatural occurrences which
attended it. Without some such impulse, it is difficult to conceive
of its having been accomplished.

In this narrative we see the supernatural preparation on both sides.
God, as it were, lays His right hand on Cornelius, and His left on
Peter, and impels them towards each other. Philip had already
preached to the Ethiopian, and probably the anonymous brethren in
Acts xi. 20 had already spoken the word to pure Greeks at Antioch;
but the importance of Peter's action here is that by reason of his
Apostleship, his recognition of Gentile Christians becomes the act of
the whole community. His entrance into Cornelius's house ended the
Jewish phase of the Church. The epoch was worthy of divine
intervention, and the step needed divine warrant. Therefore the
abundance of miracle at this point is not superfluous.

I. We have the vision which guided the seeker to the light. Caesarea,
as the seat of government, was the focus of Gentilism, and that the
Gospel should effect a lodgment there was significant. Still more so
was the person whom it first won,--an officer of the Roman army, the
very emblem of worldly power, loathed by every true Jew. A centurion
was not an officer of high rank, but Cornelius's name suggests the
possibility of his connection with a famous Roman family, and the
name of the 'band' or 'cohort,' of which his troop was part, suggests
that it was raised in Italy, and therefore properly officered by
Romans. His residence in Judaea had touched his spirit with some
knowledge of, and reverence for, the Jehovah whom this strange people
worshipped. He was one of a class numerous in these times of
religious unrest, who had been more or less affected by the pure
monotheism of the Jew.

It is remarkable that the centurions of the New Testament are all
more or less favourably inclined towards Christ and Christianity, and
the fact has been laid hold of to throw doubt on the narratives; but
it is very natural that similarity of position and training should
have produced similarity of thought; and that three or four such
persons should have come in contact with Jesus and His Apostles makes
no violent demands on probability, while there was no occasion to
mention others who were not like-minded. Quartered for considerable
periods in the country, and brought into close contact with its
religion, and profoundly sceptical of their own, as all but the
lowest minds then were, Cornelius and his brother in arms and spirit
whose faith drew wondering praise from Jesus, are bright examples of
the possibility of earnest religious life being nourished amid grave
disadvantages, and preach a lesson, often neglected, that we should
be slow to form unfavourable opinions of classes of men, or to decide
that those of such and such a profession, or in such and such
circumstances, must be of such and such a character.

It would have seemed that the last place to look for the first
Gentile Christian would have been in the barracks at Caesarea; and
yet there God's angel went for him, and found him. It has often been
discussed whether Cornelius was a 'proselyte' or not. It matters very
little. He was drawn to the Jews' religion, had adopted their hours
of prayer, reverenced their God, had therefore cast off idolatry,
gave alms to the people as acknowledgment that their God was his God,
and cultivated habitual devotion, which he had diffused among his
household, both of slaves and soldiers. It is a beautiful picture of
a soul feeling after a deeper knowledge of God, as a plant turns its
half-opened flowers to the sun.

Such seekers do not grope without touching. It is not only 'unto
the seed of Jacob' that God has never said, 'Seek ye Me in vain.'
The story has a message of hope to all such seekers, and sheds
precious light on dark problems in regard to the relation of such
souls in heathen lands to the light and love of God, The vision
appeared to Cornelius in the manner corresponding to his spiritual
susceptibility, and it came at the hour of prayer. God's angels
ever draw near to hearts opened by desire to receive them. Not in
visible form, but in reality, 'bright-harnessed angels stand' all
around the chamber where prayer is made. Our hours of supplication
are God's hours of communication.

The vision to Cornelius is not to be whittled down to a mental
impression. It was an objective, supernatural appearance,--whether to
sense or soul matters little. The story gives most graphically the
fixed gaze of terror which Cornelius fastened on the angel, and very
characteristically the immediate recovery and quick question to which
his courage and military promptitude helped him. 'What is it, Lord?'
does not speak of terror, but of readiness to take orders and obey.
'Lord' seems to be but a title of reverence here.

In the angel's answer, the order in which prayers and alms are named
is the reverse of that in verse 2. Luke speaks as a man, beginning
with the visible manifestation, and passing thence to the inward
devotion which animated the external beneficence. The angel speaks as
God sees, beginning with the inward, and descending to the outward.
The strong 'anthropomorphism' of the representation that man's prayer
and alms keep God in mind of him needs no vindication and little
explanation. It substitutes the mental state which in us originates
certain acts for the acts themselves. God's 'remembrance' is in
Scripture frequently used to express His loving deeds, which show
that their recipient is not forgotten of Him.

But the all-important truth in the words is that the prayers and alms
(coming from a devout heart) of a man who had never heard of Jesus
Christ were acceptable to God. None the less Cornelius needed Jesus,
and the recompense made to him was the knowledge of the Saviour. The
belief that in many a heathen heart such yearning after a dimly known
God has stretched itself towards light, and been accepted of God,
does not in the least conflict with the truth that 'there is none
other Name given among men, whereby we must be saved,' but it sheds a
bright and most welcome light of hope into that awful darkness.
Christ is the only Saviour, but it is not for us to say how far off
from the channel in which it flows the water of life may percolate,
and feed the roots of distant trees. Cornelius's religion was not a
substitute for Christ, but was the occasion of his being led to
Christ, and finding full, conscious salvation there. God leads
seeking souls by His own wonderful ways; and we may leave all such in
His hand, assured that no heart ever hungered after righteousness and
was not filled.

The instruction to send for Peter tested Cornelius's willingness to
be taught by an unknown Jew, and his belief in the divine origin of
the vision. The direction given by which to find this teacher was not
promising. A lodger in a tan-yard by the seaside was certainly not a
man of position or wealth. But military discipline helped religious
reverence; and without delay, as soon as the angel 'was departed' (an
expression which gives the outward reality of the appearance
strongly), Cornelius's confidential servants, sympathisers with him
in his religion, were told all the story, and before nightfall were
on their march to Joppa. Swift obedience to whatever God points out
as our path towards the light, even if it seem somewhat unattractive,
will always mark our conduct if we really long for the light, and
believe that He is pointing our way.

II. The vision which guided the light-bearer to the seeker.--All
through the night the messengers marched along the maritime plain in
which both Caesarea and Joppa lay, much discussing, no doubt, their
strange errand, and wondering what they would find. The preparation
of Peter, which was as needful as that of Cornelius, was so timed as
to be completed just as the messengers stood at the tanner's door.

The first point to note in regard to it is its scene. It is of
subordinate importance, but it can scarcely have been entirely
unmeaning, that the flashing waters of the Mediterranean, blazing in
midday sunshine, stretched before Peter's eyes as he sat on the
housetop 'by the seaside.' His thoughts may have travelled across the
sea, and he may have wondered what lay beyond the horizon, and
whether there were men there to whom Christ's commission extended.
'The isles' of which prophecy had told that they should 'wait for His
law' were away out in the mysterious distance. Some expansion of
spirit towards regions beyond may have accompanied his gaze. At all
events, it was by the shore of the great highway of nations and of
truth that the vision which revealed that all men were 'cleansed'
filled the eye and heart of the Apostle, and told him that, in his
calling as 'fisher of men,' a wider water than the land-locked Sea of
Galilee was his.

We may also note the connection of the form of the vision with his
circumstances. His hunger determined its shape. The natural bodily
sensations coloured his state of mind even in trance, and afforded
the point of contact for God's message. It does not follow that the
vision was only the consequence of his hunger, as has been suggested
by critics who wish to get rid of the supernatural. But the form
which it took teaches us how mercifully God is wont to mould His
communications according to our needs, and how wisely He shapes them,
so as to find entrance through even the lower wants. The commonest
bodily needs may become avenues for His truth, if our prayer
accompanies our hunger.

The significance of the vision is plain to us, though Peter was 'much
perplexed' about it. In the light of the event, we understand that
the 'great sheet let down from heaven by four corners,' and
containing all manner of creatures, is the symbol of universal
humanity (to use modern language). The four corners correspond to the
four points of the compass,--north, south, east, and west,--the
contents to the swarming millions of men. Peter would perceive no
more in the command to 'kill and eat' than the abrogation of Mosaic
restrictions. Meditation was needful to disclose the full extent of
the revolution shadowed by the vision and its accompanying words. The
old nature of Peter was not so completely changed but that a flash of
it breaks out still. The same self-confidence which had led him to
'rebuke' Jesus, and to say, 'This shall not be unto Thee,' speaks in
his unhesitating and irreverent 'Not so, Lord!'

The naive reason he gives for not obeying--namely, his never having
done as he was now bid to do--is charmingly illogical and human. God
tells him to do a new thing, and his reason for not doing it is that
it is new. Use and wont are set up by us all against the fresh
disclosures of God's will. The command to kill and eat was not
repeated. It was but the introduction to the truth which was repeated
thrice, the same number of times as Peter had denied his Master and
had received his charge to feed His sheep.

That great truth has manifold applications, but its direct purpose as
regards Peter is to teach that all restrictions which differentiated
Jew from Gentile are abolished. 'Cleansing' does not here apply to
moral purifying, but to the admission of all mankind to the same
standing as the Jew. Therefore the Gospel is to be preached to all
men, and the Jewish Christian has no pre-eminence.

Peter's perplexity as to the meaning of the vision is very
intelligible. It was not so plain as to carry its own interpretation,
but, like most other of God's teachings, was explained by
circumstances. What was next done made the best commentary on what
had just been beheld. While patient reflection is necessary to do due
honour to God's teachings and to discover their bearing on events, it
is generally true that events unfold their significance as meditation
alone never can. Life is the best commentator on God's word. The
three men down at the door poured light on the vision on the
housetop. But the explanation was not left to circumstances. The
Spirit directed Peter to go with the messengers, and thus taught him
the meaning of the enigmatical words which he had heard from heaven.

It is to be remembered that the Apostle had no need of fresh
illumination as to the world-wide preaching of the Gospel. Christ's
commission to 'the uttermost parts of the earth' ever rang in his
ears, as we may be sure. But what he did need was the lesson that the
Gentiles could come into the Church without going through the gate of
Judaism. If all peculiar sanctity was gone from the Jew, and all men
shared in the 'cleansing,' there was no need for keeping up any of
the old restrictions, or insisting on Gentiles being first received
into the Israelitish community as a stage in their progress towards
Christianity.

It took Peter and the others years to digest the lesson given on the
housetop, but he began to put it in practice that day. How little he
knew the sweep of the truth then declared to him! How little we have
learned it yet! All exclusiveness which looks down on classes or
races, all monkish asceticism which taboos natural appetites and
tastes, all morbid scrupulosity which shuts out from religious men
large fields of life, all Pharisaism which says 'The temple of the
Lord are we,' are smitten to dust by the great words which gather all
men into the same ample, impartial divine love, and, in another
aspect, give Christian culture and life the charter of freest use of
all God's fair world, and place the distinction between clean and
unclean in the spirit of the user rather than in the thing used.
'Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled...
is nothing pure.'



'GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS'

'And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this
hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a
man stood before me in bright clothing, 31. And said, Cornelius,
thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in
the sight of God. 32. Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither
Simon, whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one
Simon a tanner by the sea-side: who, when he cometh, shall speak
unto thee. 83. Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou
hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here
present before God, to hear all things that art commanded thee
of God. 34. Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I
perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35. But in every
nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with Him. 35. The word which God sent unto the children
of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all:)
37. That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout
all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John
preached; 38. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all
that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him. 39. And
we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of
the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
40. Him God raised up the third day, and shewed Him openly; 41.
Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God,
even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from
the dead. 42. And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and
to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the
Judge of quick and dead. 43. To Him give all the prophets
witness, that through His Name whosoever believeth in Him shall
receive remission of sins. 44. While Peter yet spake these
words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.'
--ACTS x. 30-44.

This passage falls into three parts: Cornelius's explanation, Peter's
sermon, and the descent of the Spirit on the new converts. The last
is the most important, and yet is told most briefly. We may surely
recognise the influence of Peter's personal reminiscences in the
scale of the narrative, and may remember that Luke and Mark were
thrown together in later days.

I. Cornelius repeats what his messengers had already told Peter, but
in fuller detail. He tells how he was occupied when the angel
appeared. He was keeping the Jewish hour of prayer, and the fact that
the vision came to him as he prayed had attested to him its heavenly
origin. If we would see angels, the most likely place to behold them
is in the secret place of prayer. He tells, too, that the command to
send for Peter was a consequence of God's remembrance of his prayer
('therefore,' verse 32). His prayers and alms showed that he was 'of
the light,' and therefore he was directed to what would yield further
light.

The command to send for Peter is noteworthy in two respects. It was,
first, a test of humility and obedience. Cornelius, as a Roman
officer, would be tempted to feel the usual contempt for one of the
subject race, and, unless his eagerness to know more of God's will
overbore his pride, to kick at the idea of sending to beg the favour
of the presence and instruction of a Jew, and of one, too, who could
find no better quarters than a tanner's house. The angel's voice
commanded, but it did not compel. Cornelius bore the test, and
neither waived aside the vision as a hallucination to which it was
absurd for a practical man to attend, nor recoiled from the lowliness
of the proposed teacher. He pocketed official and racial loftiness,
and, as he emphasises, 'forthwith' despatched his message. It was as
if an English official in the Punjab had been sent to a Sikh 'Guru'
for teaching.

The other remarkable point about the command is that Philip was
probably in Caesarea at the time. Why should Peter have been brought,
then, by two visions and two long journeys? The subsequent history
explains why. For the storm of criticism in the Jerusalem church
provoked by Cornelius's baptism would have raged with tenfold fury if
so revolutionary an act had been done by any less authoritative
person than the leader of the Apostles. The Lord would stamp His own
approval on the deed which marked so great an expansion of the
Church, and therefore He makes the first of the Apostles His agent,
and that by a double vision.

'Thou hast well done that thou art come,'--a courteous welcome, with
just a trace of the doubt which had occupied Cornelius during the
'four days,' whether this unknown Jew would obey so strange an
invitation. Courtesy and preparedness to receive the unknown message
beautifully blend in Cornelius's closing words, which do not directly
ask Peter to speak, but declare the auditors' eagerness to hear, as
well as their confidence that what he says will be God's voice.

A variant reading in verse 33 gives 'in thy sight' for 'in the sight
of God,' and has much to recommend it. But in any case we have here
the right attitude for us all in the presence of the uttered will and
mind of God. Where such open-eared and open-hearted preparedness
marks the listeners, feebler teachers than Peter will win converts.
The reason why much earnest Christian teaching is vain is the
indifference and non-expectant attitude of the hearers, who are not
hearkeners. Seed thrown on the wayside is picked up by the birds.

II. Peter's sermon is, on the whole, much like his other addresses
which are abundantly reported in the early part of the Acts. The
great business of the preachers then was to tell the history of
Jesus. Christianity is, first, a recital of historical events, from
which, no doubt, principles are deduced, and which necessarily lead
on to doctrines; but the facts are first.

But the familiar story is told to Cornelius with some variation of
tone. And it is prefaced by a great word, which crystallises the
large truth that had sprung into consciousness and startling power in
Peter, as the result of his own and Cornelius's experience. He had
not previously thought of God as 'a respecter of persons,' but the
conviction that He was not had never blazed with such sun-clearness
before him as it did now. Jewish narrowness had, unconsciously to
himself, somewhat clouded it; but these four days had burned in on
him, as if it were a new truth, that 'in every nation' there may be
men accepted of God, because they 'fear Him and work righteousness.'

That great saying is twisted from its right meaning when it is
interpreted as discouraging the efforts of Christians to carry the
Gospel to the heathen; for, if the 'light of nature' is sufficient,
what was Peter sent to Caesarea for? But it is no less maltreated
when evangelical Christians fail to grasp its world-wide
significance, or doubt that in lands where Christ's name has not been
proclaimed there are souls groping for the light, and seeking to obey
the law written on their hearts. That there are such, and that such
are 'accepted of Him,' and led by His own ways to the fuller light,
is obviously taught in these words, and should be a welcome thought
to us all.

The tangled utterances which immediately follow, sound as if speech
staggered under the weight of the thoughts opening before the
speaker. Whatever difficulty attends the construction, the intention
is clear,--to contrast the limited scope of the message, as confined
to the children of Israel, with its universal destination as now made
clear. The statement which in the Authorised and Revised Versions is
thrown into a parenthesis is really the very centre of the Apostle's
thought. Jesus, who has hitherto been preached to Israel, is 'Lord of
all,' and the message concerning Him is now to be proclaimed, not in
vague outline and at second hand, as it had hitherto reached
Cornelius, but in full detail, and as a message in which he was
concerned.

Contrast the beginning and the ending of the discourse,--'the word
sent unto the children of Israel' and 'every one that believeth on
Him shall receive remission of sins.' A remarkable variation in the
text is suggested by Blass in his striking commentary, who would omit
'Lord' and read, 'The word which He sent to the children of Israel,
bringing the good tidings of peace through Jesus Christ,--this [word]
belongs to all.' That reading does away with the chief difficulties,
and brings out clearly the thought which is more obscurely expressed
in a contorted sentence by the present reading.

The subsequent _resume_ of the life of Jesus is substantially the
same as is found in Peter's other sermons. But we may note that the
highest conceptions of our Lord's nature are not stated. It is hard
to suppose that Peter after Pentecost had not the same conviction as
burned in his confession, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God.' But in these early discourses neither the Divinity and
Incarnation nor the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is set forth. He is
the Christ, 'anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.' God is
with Him (Nicodemus had got as far as that). He is 'ordained of God
to be the judge of quick and dead.'

We note, too, that His teaching is not touched upon, nor any of the
profounder aspects of His work as the Revealer of God, but His
beneficence and miraculous deliverances of devil-ridden men. His
death is declared, but without any of the accusations of His
murderers, which, like lance-thrusts, 'pricked' Jewish hearers. Nor
is the efficacy of that death as the sacrifice for the world's sin
touched upon, but it is simply told as a fact, and set in contrast
with the Resurrection. These were the plain facts which had first to
be accepted.

The only way of establishing facts is by evidence of eye-witnesses.
So Peter twice (verses 39, 41) adduces his own and his colleagues'
evidence. But the facts are not yet a gospel, unless they are further
explained as well as established. Did such things happen? The answer
is, 'We saw them.' What did they mean? The answer begins by adducing
the 'witness' of the Apostles to a different order of truths, which
requires a different sort of witness. Jesus had bidden them 'testify'
that He is to be Judge of living and dead; that is, of all mankind.
Their witness to that can only rest on His word.

Nor is that all. There is yet another body of 'witnesses' to yet
another class of truths. 'All the prophets' bear witness to the great
truth which makes the biography of the Man the gospel for all men,--
that the deepest want of all men is satisfied through the name which
Peter ever rang out as all-powerful to heal and bless. The
forgiveness of sins through the manifested character and work of
Jesus Christ is given on condition of faith to any and every one who
believes, be he Jew or Gentile, Galilean fisherman or Roman
centurion. Cornelius may have known little of the prophets, but he
knew the burden of sin. He did not know all that we know of Jesus,
and of the way in which forgiveness is connected with His work, but
he did know now that it was connected, and that this Jesus was risen
from the dead, and was to be the Judge. His faith went out to that
Saviour, and as he heard he believed.

III. Therefore the great gift, attesting the divine acceptance of him
and the rest of the hearers, came at once. There had been no
confession of their faith, much less had there been baptism, or
laying on of Apostolic hands. The sole qualification and condition
for the reception of the Spirit which John lays down in his Gospel
when he speaks of the 'Spirit, which they that believe on Him should
receive,' was present here, and it was enough. Peter and his brethren
might have hesitated about baptizing an uncircumcised believer. The
Lord of the Church showed Peter that He did not hesitate.

So, like a true disciple, Peter followed Christ's lead, and though
'they of the circumcision' were struck with amazement, he said to
himself, 'Who am I, that I should withstand God?' and opened his
heart to welcome these new converts as possessors of 'like precious
faith' as was demonstrated by their possession of the same Spirit.
Would that Peter's willingness to recognise all who manifest the
Spirit of Christ, whatever their relation to ecclesiastical
regulations, had continued the law and practice of the Church!



PETER'S APOLOGIA

'And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that
the Gentiles had also received the word of God. 2. And when
Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the
circumcision contended with him, 3. Saying, Thou wentest in to
men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. 4. But Peter
rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by
order unto them, saying, 5. I was in the city of Joppa praying:
and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it
had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners;
and it came even to me: 6. Upon the which when I had fastened
mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth,
and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 7.
And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay, and eat.
8. But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath
at any time entered into my mouth. 9. But the voice answered me
again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou
common. 10. And this was done three times: and all were drawn up
again into heaven. 11. And, behold, immediately there were three
men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea
unto me. 12. And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing
doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we
entered into the man's house: 13. And he shewed us how he had
seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send
men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; 14.
Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall
be saved. 15. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on
them, as on us at the beginning. 16. Then remembered I the word
of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water;
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 17. Forasmuch then
as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand
God? 18. When they heard these things, they held their peace,
and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles
granted repentance unto life.'--ACTS xi. 1-18.

Peter's action in regard to Cornelius precipitated a controversy
which was bound to come if the Church was to be anything more than a
Jewish sect. It brought to light the first tendency to form a party
in the Church. 'They... of the circumcision' were probably 'certain
of the sect of the Pharisees which believed,' and were especially
zealous for all the separating prescriptions of the ceremonial law.
They were scarcely a party as yet, but the little rift was destined
to grow, and they became Paul's bitterest opponents through all his
life, dogging him with calumnies and counterworking his toil. It is a
black day for a Church when differences of opinion lead to the
formation of cliques. Zeal for truth is sadly apt to enlist spite,
malice, and blindness to a manifest work of God, as its allies.

Poor Peter, no doubt, expected that the brethren would rejoice with
him in the extension of the Gospel to 'the Gentiles,' but his
reception in Jerusalem was very unlike his hopes. The critics did not
venture to cavil at his preaching to Gentiles. Probably none of them
had any objection to such being welcomed into the Church, for they
can scarcely have wished to make the door into it narrower than that
into the synagogue, but they insisted that there was no way in but
through the synagogue. By all means, said they, let Gentiles come,
but they must first become Jews, by submitting to circumcision and
living as Jews do. Thus they did not attack Peter for preaching to
the Roman centurion and his men, but for eating with them. That
eating not only was a breach of the law, but it implied the reception
of Cornelius and his company into the household of God, and so
destroyed the whole fabric of Jewish exclusiveness. We condemn such
narrowness, but do many of us not practise it in other forms?
Wherever Christians demand adoption of external usages, over and
above exercise of penitent faith, as a condition of brotherly
recognition, they are walking in the steps of them 'of the
circumcision.'

Peter's answer to the critics is the true answer to all similar
hedging up of the Church, for he contents himself with showing that
he was only following God's action in every step of the way which he
took, and that God, by the gift of the divine Spirit, had shown that
He had taken these uncircumcised men into His fellowship, before
Peter dared to 'eat with them.' He points to four facts which show
God's hand in the matter, and thinks that he has done enough to
vindicate himself thereby. The first is his vision on the housetop.
He tells that he was praying when it came, and what God shows to a
praying spirit is not likely to mislead. He tells that he was 'in a
trance,'--a condition in which prophets had of old received their
commands. That again was a guarantee for the divine origin of the
vision in the eyes of every Jew, though nowadays it is taken by anti-
supernaturalists as a demonstration of its morbidness and
unreliableness. He tells of his reluctance to obey the command to
'kill and eat.' A flash of the old brusque spirit impelled his flat
refusal, 'Not so, Lord!' and his daring to argue with his Lord still,
as he had done with Him on earth. He tells of the interpreting and
revolutionary word, evoked by his audacious objection, and then he
tells how 'this was done thrice,' so that there could be no mistake
in his remembrance of it, and then that the whole was drawn up into
heaven,--a sign that the purpose of the vision was accomplished when
that word was spoken. What, then, was the meaning of it?

Clearly it swept away at once the legal distinction of clean and
unclean meats, and of it, too, may be spoken what Mark, Peter's
mouthpiece, writes of earthly words of Christ's: 'This He said,
making all meats clean.' But with the sweeping away of that
distinction much else goes, for it necessarily involves the
abrogation of the whole separating ordinances of the law, and of the
distinction between clean and unclean persons. Its wider application
was not seen at the moment, but it flashed on him, no doubt, when
face to face with Cornelius. God had cleansed him, in that his
prayers had 'gone up for a memorial before God,' and so Peter saw
that 'in every nation,' and not among Jews only, there might be men
cleansed by God. What was true of Cornelius must be true of many
others. So the whole distinction between Jew and Gentile was cut up
by the roots. Little did Peter know the width of the principle
revealed to him then, as all of us know but little of the full
application of many truths which we believe. But he obeyed so much of
the command as he understood, and more of it gradually dawned on his
mind, as will always be the case if we obey what we know.

The second fact was the coincident arrival of the messengers and the
distinct command to accompany them. Peter could distinguish quite
assuredly his own thoughts from divine instructions, as his account
of the dialogue in the trance shows. How he distinguished is not
told; that he distinguished is. The coincidence in time clearly
pointed to one divine hand working at both ends of the line,--
Caesarea and Joppa. It interpreted the vision which had 'much
perplexed' Peter as to what it 'might mean.' But he was not left to
interpret it by his own pondering. The Spirit spoke authoritatively,
and the whole force of his justification of himself depends on the
fact that he knew that the impulse which made him set out to Caesarea
was not his own. If the reading of the Revised Version is adopted in
verse 12, 'making no distinction,' the command plainly referred to
the vision, and showed Peter that he was to make no distinction of
'clean and unclean' in his intercourse with these Gentiles.

The third fact is the vision to Cornelius, of which he was told on
arriving. The two visions fitted into each other, confirmed each
other, interpreted each other. We may estimate the greatness of the
step in the development of the Church which the admission of
Cornelius into it made, and the obstacles on both sides, by the fact
that both visions were needed to bring these two men together. Peter
would never have dreamed of going with the messengers if he had not
had his narrowness beaten out of him on the housetop, and Cornelius
would never have dreamed of sending to Joppa if he had not seen the
angel. The cleft between Jew and Gentile was so wide that God's hand
had to be applied on both sides to press the separated parts
together. He had plainly done it, and that was Peter's defence.

The fourth fact is the gift of the Spirit to these Gentiles. That is
the crown of Peter's vindication, and his question, 'Who was I, that
I could withstand God?' might be profitably pondered and applied by
those whose ecclesiastical theories oblige them to deny the 'orders'
and the 'validity of the sacraments' and the very name of a Church,
to bodies of Christians who do not conform to their polity. If God,
by the gift of His Spirit manifest in its fruits, owns them, they
have the true 'notes of the Church,' and 'they of the circumcision'
who recoil from recognising them do themselves more harm thereby than
they inflict on these. 'As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these are the sons of God,' even though some brother may be 'angry'
that the Father welcomes them.



THE FIRST PREACHING AT ANTIOCH

'And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they
ware come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord
Jesus. 21. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great
number believed, and turned unto the Lord.'--ACTS xi. 20, 21.

Thus simply does the historian tell one of the greatest events in the
history of the Church. How great it was will appear if we observe
that the weight of authority among critics and commentators sees here
an extension of the message of salvation to Greeks, that is, to pure
heathens, and not a mere preaching to Hellenists, that is, to Greek-
speaking Jews born outside Palestine.

If that be correct, this was a great stride forward in the
development of the Church. It needed a vision to overcome the
scruples of Peter, and impel him to the bold innovation of preaching
to Cornelius and his household, and, as we know, his doing so gave
grave offence to some of his brethren in Jerusalem. But in the case
before us, some Cypriote and African Jews--men of no note in the
Church, whose very names have perished, with no official among them,
with no vision nor command to impel them, with no precedent to
encourage them, with nothing but the truth in their minds and the
impulses of Christ's love in their hearts--solve the problem of the
extension of Christ's message to the heathen, and, quite unconscious
of the greatness of their act, do the thing about the propriety of
which there had been such serious question in Jerusalem.

This boldness becomes even more remarkable if we notice that the
incident of our text may have taken place before Peter's visit to
Cornelius. The verse before our text, 'They which were scattered
abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled, ...
preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only,' is almost a
_verbatim_ repetition of words in an earlier chapter, and evidently
suggests that the writer is returning to that point of time, in order
to take up another thread of his narrative contemporaneous with those
already pursued. If so, three distinct lines of expansion appear to
have started from the dispersion of the Jerusalem church in the
persecution--namely, Philip's mission to Samaria, Peter's to
Cornelius, and this work in Antioch. Whether prior in time or no, the
preaching in the latter city was plainly quite independent of the
other two. It is further noteworthy that this, the effort of a
handful of unnamed men, was the true 'leader'--the shoot that grew.
Philip's work, and Peter's so far as we know, were side branches,
which came to little; this led on to a church at Antioch, and so to
Paul's missionary work, and all that came of that.

The incident naturally suggests some thoughts bearing on the general
subject of Christian work, which we now briefly present.

I. Notice the spontaneous impulse which these men obeyed.

Persecution drove the members of the Church apart, and, as a matter
of course, wherever they went they took their faith with them, and,
as a matter of course, spoke about it. The coals were scattered from
the hearth in Jerusalem by the armed heel of violence. That did not
put the fire out, but only spread it, for wherever they were flung
they kindled a blaze. These men had no special injunction 'to preach
the Lord Jesus.' They do not seem to have adopted this line of action
deliberately, or of set purpose. 'They believed, and therefore
spoke.' A spontaneous impulse, and nothing more, leads them on. They
find themselves rejoicing in a great Saviour-Friend. They see all
around them men who need Him, and that is enough. They obey the
promptings of the voice within, and lay the foundations of the first
Gentile Church.

Such a spontaneous impulse is ever the natural result of our own
personal possession of Christ. In regard to worldly good the
instinct, except when overcome by higher motives, is to keep the
treasure to oneself. But even in the natural sphere there are
possessions which to have is to long to impart, such as truth and
knowledge. And in the spiritual sphere, it is emphatically the case
that real possession is always accompanied by a longing to impart.
The old prophet spoke a universal truth when he said: 'Thy word was
as a fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I
could not stay.' If we have found Christ for ourselves, we shall
undoubtedly wish to speak forth our knowledge of His love.
Convictions which are deep demand expression. Emotion which is strong
needs utterance. If our hearts have any fervour of love to Christ in
them, it will be as natural to tell it forth, as tears are to sorrow
or smiles to happiness. True, there is a reticence in profound
feeling, and sometimes the deepest love can only 'love and be
silent,' and there is a just suspicion of loud or vehement
protestations of Christian emotion, as of any emotion. But for all
that, it remains true that a heart warmed with the love of Christ
needs to express its love, and will give it forth, as certainly as
light must radiate from its centre, or heat from a fire.

Then, true kindliness of heart creates the same impulse. We cannot
truly possess the treasure for ourselves without pity for those who
have it not. Surely there is no stranger contradiction than that
Christian men and women can be content to keep Christ as if He were
their special property, and have their spirits untouched into any
likeness of His divine pity for the multitudes who were as 'sheep
having no shepherd.' What kind of Christians must they be who think
of Christ as 'a Saviour for me,' and take no care to set Him forth as
'a Saviour for you'? What should we think of men in a shipwreck who
were content to get into the lifeboat, and let everybody else drown?
What should we think of people in a famine feasting sumptuously on
their private stores, whilst women were boiling their children for a
meal and men fighting with dogs for garbage on the dunghills? 'He
that withholdeth bread, the people shall curse him.' What of him who
withholds the Bread of Life, and all the while claims to be a
follower of the Christ, who gave His flesh for the life of the world?

Further, loyalty to Christ creates the same impulse. If we are true
to our Lord, we shall feel that we cannot but speak up and out for
Him, and that all the more where His name is unloved and unhonoured.
He has left His good fame very much in our hands, and the very same
impulse which hurries words to our lips when we hear the name of an
absent friend calumniated should make us speak for Him. He is a
doubtfully loyal subject who, if he lives among rebels, is afraid to
show his colours. He is already a coward, and is on the way to be a
traitor. Our Master has made us His witnesses. He has placed in our
hands, as a sacred deposit, the honour of His name. He has entrusted
to us, as His selectest sign of confidence, the carrying out of the
purposes for which on earth His blood was shed, on which in heaven
His heart is set. How can we be loyal to Him if we are not forced by
a mighty constraint to respond to His great tokens of trust in us,
and if we know nothing of that spirit which said: 'Necessity is laid
upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!' I do not
say that a man cannot be a Christian unless he knows and obeys this
impulse. But, at least, we may safely say that he is a very weak and
imperfect Christian who does not.

II. This incident suggests the universal obligation on all Christians
to make known Christ.

These men were not officials. In these early days the Church had a
very loose organisation. But the fugitives in our narrative seem to
have had among them none even of the humble office-bearers of
primitive times. Neither had they any command or commission from
Jerusalem. No one there had given them authority, or, as would
appear, knew anything of their proceedings. Could there be a more
striking illustration of the great truth that whatever varieties of
function may be committed to various officers in the Church, the work
of telling Christ's love to men belongs to every one who has found it
for himself or herself? 'This honour have all the saints.'

Whatever may be our differences of opinion as to Church order and
offices, they need not interfere with our firm grasp of this truth.
'Preaching Christ,' in the sense in which that expression is used in
the New Testament, implies no one special method of proclaiming the
glad tidings. A word written in a letter to a friend, a sentence
dropped in casual conversation, a lesson to a child on a mother's
lap, or any other way by which, to any listeners, the great story of
the Cross is told, is as truly--often more truly--preaching Christ as
the set discourse which has usurped the name.

We profess to believe in the priesthood of all believers, we are
ready enough to assert it in opposition to sacerdotal assumptions.
Are we as ready to recognise it as laying a very real responsibility
upon us, and involving a very practical inference as to our own
conduct? We all have the power, therefore we all have the duty. For
what purpose did God give us the blessing of knowing Christ
ourselves? Not for our own well-being alone, but that through us the
blessing might be still further diffused.

  'Heaven doth with us as men with torches do,
    Not light them for themselves.'

'God hath shined into our hearts' that we might give to others 'the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ.' Every Christian is solemnly bound to fulfil this divine
intention, and to take heed to the imperative command, 'Freely ye
have received, freely give.'

III. Observe, further, the simple message which they proclaimed.

'Preaching the Lord Jesus,' says the text--or more accurately
perhaps--'preaching Jesus as Lord.' The substance, then, of their
message was just this--proclamation of the person and dignity of
their Master, the story of the human life of the Man, the story of
the divine sacrifice and self-bestowment by which He had bought the
right of supreme rule over every heart; and the urging of His claims
on all who heard of His love. And this, their message, was but the
proclamation of their own personal experience. They had found Jesus
to be for themselves Lover and Lord, Friend and Saviour of their
souls, and the joy they had received they sought to share with these
Greeks, worshippers of gods and lords many.

Surely anybody can deliver that message who has had that experience.
All have not the gifts which would fit for public speech, but all who
have 'tasted that the Lord is gracious' can somehow tell how gracious
He is. The first Christian sermon was very short, and it was very
efficacious, for it 'brought to Jesus' the whole congregation. Here
it is: 'He first findeth his brother Simon, and saith unto him, We
have found the Messias.' Surely we can all say that, if we have found
Him. Surely we shall all long to say it, if we are glad that we have
found Him, and if we love our brother.

Notice, too, how simple the form as well as the substance of the
message. 'They _spake_.' It was no set address, no formal utterance,
but familiar, natural talk to ones and twos, as opportunity offered.
The form was so simple that we may say that there was none. What we
want is that Christian people should speak anyhow. What does the
shape of the cup matter? What does it matter whether it be gold or
clay? The main thing is that it shall bear the water of life to some
thirsty lip. All Christians have to preach, as the word is used here,
that is, to tell the good news. Their task is to carry a message--no
refinement of words is needed for that--arguments are not needed.
They have to tell it simply and faithfully, as one who only cares to
repeat what he has had given to him. They have to tell it
confidently, as having proved it true. They have to tell it
beseechingly, as loving the souls to whom they bring it. Surely we
can all do that, if we ourselves are living on Christ and have drunk
into His Spirit. Let His mighty salvation, experienced by yourselves,
be the substance of your message, and let the form of it be guided by
the old words, 'It shall be, when the Spirit of the Lord is come upon
thee, that thou shalt do as occasion shall serve thee.'

IV. Notice, lastly, the mighty Helper who prospered their work.

'The hand of the Lord was with them.' The very keynote of this Book
of the Acts is the work of the ascended Christ in and for His Church.
At every turning-point in the history, and throughout the whole
narratives, forms of speech like this occur, bearing witness to the
profound conviction of the writer that Christ's active energy was
with His servants, and Christ's Hand the origin of all their security
and of all their success.

So this is a statement of a permanent and universal fact. We do not
labour alone; however feeble our hands, that mighty Hand is laid on
them to direct their movements and to lend strength to their
weakness. It is not our speech which will secure results, but His
presence with our words which will bring it about that even through
them a great number shall believe and turn to the Lord. There is our
encouragement when we are despondent. There is our rebuke when we are
self-confident. There is our stimulus when we are indolent. There is
our quietness when we are impatient. If ever we are tempted to think
our task heavy, let us not forget that He who set it helps us to do
it, and from His throne shares in all our toils, the Lord still, as
of old, working with us. If ever we feel that our strength is
nothing, and that we stand solitary against many foes, let us fall
back upon the peace-giving thought that one man against the world,
with Christ to help him, is always in the majority, and let us leave
issues of our work in His hands, whose hand will guard the seed sown
in weakness, whose smile will bless the springing thereof.

How little any of us know what will become of our poor work, under
His fostering care! How little these men knew that they were laying
the foundations of the great change which was to transform the
Christian community from a Jewish sect into a world-embracing Church!
So is it ever. We know not what we do when simply and humbly we speak
His name. The far-reaching results escape our eyes. Then, sow the
seed, and He will 'give it a body as it pleaseth Him.' On earth we
may never know the fruits of our labours. They will be among the
surprises of heaven, where many a solitary worker shall exclaim with
wonder, as he looks on the hitherto unknown children whom God hath
given him, 'Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?'
Then, though our names may have perished from earthly memories, like
those of the simple fugitives of Cyprus and Cyrene, who 'were the
first that ever burst' into the night of heathendom with the torch of
the Gospel in their hands, they will be written in the Lamb's book of
life, and He will confess them in the presence of His Father in
heaven.



THE EXHORTATION OF BARNABAS
[Footnote: Preached before the Congregational Union of England and
Wales.]

'Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and
exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave
unto the Lord.'--ACTS xi. 23.

The first purely heathen converts had been brought into the Church by
the nameless men of Cyprus and Cyrene, private persons with no office
or commission to preach, who, in simple obedience to the instincts of
a Christian heart, leaped the barrier which seemed impassable to the
Church in Jerusalem, and solved the problem over which Apostles were
hesitating. Barnabas is sent down to see into this surprising new
phenomenon, and his mission, though probably not hostile, was, at all
events, one of inquiry and doubt. But like a true man, he yielded to
facts, and widened his theory to suit them. He saw the tokens of
Christian life in these Gentile converts, and that compelled him to
admit that the Church was wider than some of his friends in Jerusalem
thought. A pregnant lesson for modern theorists who, on one ground or
another of doctrine or of orders, narrow the great conception of
Christ's Church! Can you see 'the grace of God' in the people? Then
they are in the Church, whatever becomes of your theories, and the
sooner you let them out so as to fit the facts, the better for you
and for them.

Satisfied as to their true Christian character, Barnabas sets himself
to help them to grow. Now, remember how recently they had been
converted; how, from their Gentile origin, they can have had next to
no systematic instruction; how the taint of heathen morals, such as
were common in that luxurious, corrupt Antioch, must have clung to
them; how unformed must have been their loose Church organisation--
and remembering all this, think of this one exhortation as summing up
all that Barnabas had to say to them. He does not say, Do this, or
Believe that, or Organise the other; but he says, Stick to Jesus
Christ the Lord. On this commandment hangs all the law; it is the one
all-inclusive summary of the duties of the Christian life.

So, brethren and fathers, I venture to take these words now, as
containing large lessons for us all, appropriate at all times, and
especially in a sermon on such an occasion as the present.

We may deal with the thoughts suggested by these words very simply,
just looking at the points as they lie--what Barnabas _saw_, what he
_felt_, what he _said_.

I. What Barnabas saw.

The grace of God here has very probably the specific meaning of the
miracle-working gift of the Holy Spirit. That is rendered probable by
the analogy of other instances recorded in the Acts of the Apostles,
such as Peter's experience at Caesarea, where all his hesitations and
reluctance were swept away when 'the Holy Ghost fell on them as on us
at the beginning, and they spake with tongues.' If so, what convinced
Barnabas that these uncircumcised Gentiles were Christians like
himself, may have been their similar possession of the visible and
audible effects of that gift of God. But the language does not compel
this interpretation; and the absence of all distinct reference to
these extraordinary powers as existing there, among the new converts
at Antioch, may be intended to mark a difference in the nature of the
evidence. At any rate, the possibly intentional generality of the
expression is significant and fairly points to an extension of the
spiritual gifts much beyond the limits of miraculous powers. There
are other ways by which the grace of God may be seen and heard, thank
God! than by speaking with tongues and working miracles; and the
first lesson of our text is that wherever that grace is made visible
by its appropriate manifestations, there we are to recognise a
brother.

Augustine said, 'Where Christ is there is the Church,' and that is
true, but vague; for the question still remains, 'And where _is_
Christ?' The only satisfying answer is, Christ is wherever Christlike
men manifest a life drawn from, and kindred with, His life. And so
the true form of the dictum for practical purposes comes to be:
'Where the grace of Christ is visible, there is the Church.'

That great truth is sinned against and denied in many ways. Most
chiefly, perhaps, by the successors in modern garb of the more Jewish
portion of that Church at Jerusalem who sent Barnabas to Antioch.
They had no objection to Gentiles entering the Church, but they must
come in by the way of circumcision; they quite believed that it was
Christ who saved, and His grace which sanctified, but they thought
that His grace would only flow in a given channel; and so do their
modern representatives, who exalt sacraments, and consequently
priests, to the same place as the Judaizers in the early Church did
the rite of the old Covenant. Such teachers have much to say about
the notes of the Church, and have elaborated a complicated system of
identification by which you may know the genuine article, and unmask
impostors. The attempt is about as wise as to try to weave a network
fine enough to keep back a stream. The water will flow through the
closest meshes, and when Christ pours out the Spirit, He is apt to do
it in utter disregard of notes of the Church, and of channels of
sacramental grace.

We Congregationalists, who have no orders, no sacraments, no
Apostolic succession; who in order not to break loose from Christ and
conscience have had to break loose from 'Catholic tradition,' and
have been driven to separation by the true schismatics, who have
insisted on another bond of Church unity than union to Christ, are
denied nowadays a place in His Church.

The true answer to all that arrogant assumption and narrow pedantry
which confine the free flow of the water of life to the conduits of
sacraments and orders, and will only allow the wind that bloweth
where it listeth to make music in the pipes of their organs, is
simply the homely one which shivered a corresponding theory to atoms
in the fair open mind of Barnabas.

The Spirit of Christ at work in men's hearts, making them pure and
gentle, simple and unworldly, refining their characters, elevating
their aims, toning their whole being into accord with the music of
His life, is the true proof that men are Christians, and that
communities of such men are Churches of His. Mysterious efficacy is
claimed for Christian ordinances. Well, the question is a fair one:
Is the type of Christian character produced within these sacred
limits, which we are hopelessly outside, conspicuously higher and
more manifestly Christlike than that nourished by no sacraments, and
grown not under glass, but in the unsheltered open? Has not God set
His seal on these communities to which we belong? With many faults
for which we have to be, and are, humble before Him, we can point to
the lineaments of the family likeness, and say, 'Are they Hebrews? so
are we. Are they Israelites? so are we. Are they the seed of Abraham?
so are we.'

Once get that truth wrought into men's minds, that the true test of
Christianity is the visible presence of a grace in character which is
evidently God's, and whole mountains of prejudice and error melt
away. We are just as much in danger of narrowing the Church in
accordance with our narrowness as any 'sacramentarian' of them all.
We are tempted to think that no good thing can grow up under the
baleful shadow of that tree, a sacerdotal Christianity. We are
tempted to think that all the good people are Dissenters, just as
Churchmen are to think that nobody can be a Christian who prays
without a prayer-book. Our own type of denominational character--and
there is such a thing--comes to be accepted by us as the all but
exclusive ideal of a devout man; and we have not imagination enough
to conceive, nor charity enough to believe in, the goodness which
does not speak our dialect, nor see with our eyes. Dogmatical
narrowness has built as high walls as ceremonial Christianity has
reared round the fold of Christ, And the one deliverance for us all
from the transformed selfishness, which has so much to do with
shaping all these wretched narrow theories of the Church, is to do as
this man did--open our eyes with sympathetic eagerness to see God's
grace in many an unexpected place, and square our theories with His
dealings.

It used to be an axiom that there was no life in the sea beyond a
certain limit of a few hundred feet. It was learnedly and
conclusively demonstrated that pressure and absence of light, and I
know not what beside, made life at greater depths impossible. It was
proved that in such conditions creatures could not live. And then,
when that was settled, the _Challenger_ put down her dredge five
miles, and brought up healthy and good-sized living things, with eyes
in their heads, from that enormous depth. So, then, the savant had to
ask, _How_ can there be life? instead of asserting that there cannot
be; and, no doubt, the answer will be forth coming some day.

We have all been too much accustomed to set arbitrary limits to the
diffusion of the life of Christ among men. Let us rather rejoice when
we see forms of beauty, which bear the mark of His hand, drawn from
depths that we deemed waste, and thankfully confess that the bounds
of our expectation, and the framework of our institutions, do not
confine the breadth of His working, nor the sweep of His grace.

II. What Barnabas felt.

'He was glad.' It was a triumph of Christian principle to recognise
the grace of God under new forms, and in so strange a place. It was a
still greater triumph to hail it with rejoicing. One need not have
wondered if the acknowledgment of a fact, dead in the teeth of all
his prejudices, and seemingly destructive of some profound
convictions, had been somewhat grudging. Even a good, true man might
have been bewildered and reluctant to let go so much as was destroyed
by the admission--'Then hath God granted to the Gentiles also
repentance unto life,'--and might have been pardoned if he had not
been able to do more than acquiesce and hold his peace. We are
scarcely just to these early Jewish Christians when we wonder at
their hesitation on this matter, and are apt to forget the enormous
strength of the prejudices and sacred conviction which they had to
overcome. Hence the context seems to consider that the quick
recognition of Christian character on the part of Barnabas, and his
gladness at the discovery, need explanation, and so it adds, with
special reference to these, as it would seem, 'for he was a good man,
full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,' as if nothing short of such
characteristics could have sufficiently emancipated him from the
narrowness that would have refused to discern the good, or the
bitterness that would have been offended at it.

So, dear brethren, we may well test ourselves with this question:
Does the discovery of the working of the grace of God outside the
limits of our own Churches and communions excite a quick, spontaneous
emotion of gladness in _our_ hearts? It may upset some of our
theories; it may teach us that things which we thought very
important, 'distinctive principles' and the like, are not altogether
as precious as we thought them; it may require us to give up some
pleasant ideas of our superiority, and of the necessary conformity of
all good people to our type. Are we willing to let them all go, and
without a twinge of envy or a hanging back from prejudice, to welcome
the discovery that 'God fulfils Himself in many ways'? Have we
schooled ourselves to say honestly, 'Therein I do rejoice, yea, and
will rejoice'?

There is much to overcome if we would know this Christlike gladness.
The good and the bad in us may both oppose it. The natural deeper
interest in the well-being of the Churches of our own faith and
order, the legitimate ties which unite us with these, our
conscientious convictions, our friendships, the _esprit de corps_
born of fighting shoulder to shoulder, will, of course, make our
sympathies flow most quickly and deeply in denominational channels.
And then come in abundance of less worthy motives, some altogether
bad and some the exaggeration of what is good, and we get swallowed
up in our own individual work, or in that of our 'denomination,' and
have but a very tepid joy in anybody else's prosperity.

In almost every town of England, your Churches, and those to which I
belong, with Presbyterians and Wesleyans, stand side by side. The
conditions of our work make some rivalry inevitable, and none of us,
I suppose, object to that. It helps to keep us all diligent: a sturdy
adherence to our several 'distinctive principles' and an occasional
hard blow in fair fight on their behalf we shall all insist upon. Our
brotherhood is all the more real for frank speech, and 'the animated
No!' is an essential in all intercourse which is not stagnant or
mawkish. There is much true fellowship and much good feeling among
all these. But we want far more of an honest rejoicing in each
other's success, a quicker and truer manly sympathy with each other's
work, a fuller consciousness of our solidarity in Christ, and a
clearer exhibition of it before the world.

And on a wider view, as our eyes travel over the wide field of
Christendom, and our memories go back over the long ages of the story
of the Church, let gladness, and not wonder or reluctance, be the
temper with which we see the graces of Christian character lifting
their meek blossoms in corners strange to us, and breathing their
fragrance over the pastures of the wilderness. In many a cloister, in
many a hermit's cell, from amidst the smoke of incense, through the
dust of controversies, we should see, and be glad to see, faces
bright with the radiance caught from Christ. Let us set a jealous
watch over our hearts that self-absorption, or denominationalism, or
envy do not make the sight a pain instead of a joy; and let us
remember that the eye-salve which will purge our dim sight to behold
the grace of God in all its forms is that grace itself, which ever
recognises its own kindred, and lives in the gladness of charity, and
the joy of beholding a brother's good. If we are to have eyes to know
the grace of God when we see it, and a heart to rejoice when we know
it, we must get them as Barnabas got his, and be good men, because we
are full of the Holy Ghost, and full of the Holy Ghost because we are
full of faith.

III. What Barnabas said.

'He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave
unto the Lord.' The first thing that strikes one about this all-
sufficient directory for Christian life is the emphasis with which it
sets forth 'the Lord' as the one object to be grasped and held. The
sum of all objective Religion is Christ--the sum of all subjective
Religion is cleaving to Him. A living Person to be laid hold of, and
a personal relation to that Person, such is the conception of
Religion, whether considered as revelation or as inward life, which
underlies this exhortation. Whether we listen to His own words about
Himself, and mark the altogether unprecedented way in which He was
His own theme, and the unique decisiveness and plainness with which
He puts His own personality before us as the Incarnate Truth, the
pattern for all human conduct, the refuge and the rest for the world
of weary ones; or whether we give ear to the teaching of His
Apostles; from whatever point of view we approach Christianity, it
all resolves itself into the person of Jesus Christ. He is the
_Revelation_ of God; theology, properly so called, is but the
formulating of the facts which He gives us; and for the modern world
the alternative is, Christ the manifested God, or no God at all,
other than the shadow of a name. He is the perfect _Exemplar_ of
humanity! The law of life and the power to fulfil the law are both in
Him; and the superiority of Christian morality consists not in this
or that isolated precept, but in the embodiment of all goodness in
His life, and in the new motive which He supplies for keeping the
commandment. Wrenched away from Him, Christian morality has no being.
He is the sacrifice for the world, the salvation of which flows from
what He does, and not merely from what He taught or was. His
personality is the foundation of His work, and the gospel of
forgiveness and reconciliation is all contained in the name of Jesus.

There is a constant tendency to separate the results of Christ's life
and death, whether considered as revelation, atonement, or ethics,
from Him, and unconsciously to make these the sum of our Religion,
and the object of our faith. Especially is this the case in times of
restless thought and eager canvassing of the very foundations of
religious belief, like the present. Therefore it is wholesome for us
all to be brought back to the pregnant simplicity of the thought
which underlies this text, and to mark how vividly these early
Christians apprehended a living Lord as the sum and substance of all
which they had to grasp.

There is a whole world between the man to whom God's revelation
consists in certain doctrines given to us by Jesus Christ, and the
man to whom it consists in that Christ Himself. Grasping a living
person is not the same as accepting a proposition. True, the
propositions are about Him, and we do not know Him without them. But
equally true, we need to be reminded that _He_ is our Saviour and not
_they_, and that God has revealed Himself to us not in words and
sentences but in a life.

For, alas! the doctrinal element has overborne the personal among all
Churches and all schools of thought, and in the necessary process of
formulating and systematising the riches which are in Jesus, we are
all apt to confound the creeds with the Christ, and so to manipulate
Christianity until, instead of being the revelation of a Person and a
gospel, it has become a system of divinity. Simple, devout souls have
to complain that they cannot find even a dead Christ, to say nothing
of a living one, for the theologians have 'taken away their Lord, and
they know not where they have laid Him.'

It is, therefore, to be reckoned as a distinct gain that one result
of the course of more recent thought, both among friends and foes,
has been to make all men feel more than before, that all revelation
is contained in the living person of Jesus Christ. So did the Church
believe before creeds were. So it is coming to feel again, with a
consciousness enriched and defined by the whole body of doctrine,
which has flowed from Him during all the ages. That solemn, gracious
Figure rises day by day more clearly before men, whether they love
Him or no, as the vital centre of this great whole of doctrines,
laws, institutions, which we call Christianity. Round the story of
His life the final struggle is to be waged. The foe feels that, so
long as that remains, all other victories count for nothing. We feel
that if that goes, there is nothing to keep. The principles and the
precepts will perish alike, as the fair palace of the old legend,
that crumbled to dust when its builder died. But so long as He stands
before mankind as He is painted in the Gospel, it will endure. If all
else were annihilated, Churches, creeds and all, leave us these four
Gospels, and all else would be evolved again. The world knows now,
and the Church has always known, though it has not always been true
to the significance of the fact, that Jesus Christ is Christianity,
and that because He lives, it will live also.

And consequently the sum of all personal religion is this simple act
described here as _cleaving to Him_.

Need I do more than refer to the rich variety of symbols and forms of
expression under which that thought is put alike by the Master and by
His servants? Deepest of all are His own great words, of which our
text is but a feeble echo, 'Abide in Me, and I in you.' Fairest of
all is that lovely emblem of the vine, setting forth the sweet
mystery of our union with Him. Far as it is from the outmost pliant
tendril to the root, one life passes to the very extremities, and
every cluster swells and reddens and mellows because of its
mysterious flow. 'So also is Christ.' We remember how often the
invitation flowed from His lips, _Come_ unto Me; how He was wont to
beckon men away from self and the world with the great command,
_Follow_ Me; how He explained the secret of all true life to consist
in _eating_ Him. We may recall, too, the emphasis and perpetual
reiteration with which Paul speaks of being 'in Jesus' as the
condition of all blessedness, power, and righteousness; and the
emblems which he so often employs of the building bound into a whole
on the foundation from which it derives its stability, of the body
compacted and organised into a whole by the head from which it
derives its life.

We begin to be Christians, as this context tells us, when we 'turn to
the Lord.' We continue to be Christians, as Barnabas reminded these
ignorant beginners, by 'cleaving to the Lord.' Seeing, then, that our
great task is to preserve that which we have as the very foundation
of our Christian life, clearly the truest method of so keeping it
will be the constant repetition of the act by which we got it at
first. In other words, faith joined us to Christ, and continuously
reiterated acts of faith keep us united to Him. So, if I may venture,
fathers and brethren, to cast my words into the form of exhortation,
even to such an audience as the present, I would earnestly say, Let
us cleave to Christ by continual renewal of our first faith in Him.

The longest line may be conceived of as produced simply by the motion
of its initial point. So should our lives be, our progress not
consisting in leaving our early acts of faith behind us, but in
repeating them over and over again till the points coalesce in one
unbroken line which goes straight to the Throne and Heart of Jesus.
True, the repetition should be accompanied with fuller knowledge,
with calmer certitude, and should come from a heart ennobled and
encircled by a Christ-possessing past. As in some great symphony the
theme which was given out in low notes on one poor instrument recurs
over and over again, embroidered with varying harmonies, and
unfolding a richer music, till it swells into all the grandeur of the
triumphant close, so our lives should be bound into a unity, and in
their unity bound to Christ by the constant renewal of our early
faith, and the fathers should come round again to the place which
they occupied when as children they first knew Him that is 'from the
beginning' to the end one and the same.

Such constant reiteration is needed, too, because yesterday's trust
has no more power to secure to-day's union than the shreds of cloth
and nails which hold last year's growth to the wall will fasten this
year's shoots. Each moment must be united to Christ by its own act of
faith, or it will be separated from Him. So living in the Lord we
shall be strong and wise, happy and holy. So dying in the Lord we
shall be of the dead who are blessed. So sleeping in Jesus we shall
at the last be found in Him at that day, and shall be raised up
together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus.

But more specially let us cleave to Christ by habitual contemplation.
There can be no real continuous closeness of intercourse with Him,
except by thought ever recurring to Him amidst all the tumult of our
busy days. I do not mean professional thinking or controversial
thinking, of which we ministers have more than enough. There is
another mood of mind in which to approach our Lord than these, a mood
sadly unfamiliar, I am afraid, in these days: when poor Mary has
hardly a chance of a reputation for 'usefulness' by the side of busy,
bustling Martha--that still contemplation of the truth which we
possess, not with the view of discovering its foundations, or
investigating its applications, or even of increasing our knowledge
of its contents, but of bringing our own souls more completely under
its influence, and saturating our being with its fragrance. The
Church has forgotten how to meditate. We are all so occupied arguing
and deducing and elaborating, that we have no time for retired, still
contemplation, and therefore lose the finest aroma of the truth we
profess to believe. Many of us are so busy thinking about
Christianity that we have lost our hold of Christ. Sure I am that
there are few things more needed by our modern religion than the old
exhortation, 'Come, My people, enter into thy chambers and shut thy
doors about thee.' Cleave to the Lord by habitual play of meditative
thought on the treasures hidden in His name, and waiting like gold in
the quartz, to be the prize of our patient sifting and close gaze.

And when the great truths embodied in Him stand clear before us, then
let us remember that we have not done with them when we have _seen_
them. Next must come into exercise the moral side of faith, the
voluntary act of trust, the casting ourselves on Him whom we behold,
the making our own of the blessings which He holds out to us. Flee to
Christ as to our strong habitation to which we may continually
resort. Hold tightly by Christ with a grasp which nothing can slacken
(that whitens your very knuckles as you clutch Him), lean on Christ
all your weight and all your burdens. Cleave to the Lord with full
purpose of heart.

Let us cleave to the Lord by constant outgoings of our love to Him.
That is the bond which unites human spirits together in the only real
union, and Scripture teaches us to see in the sweetest, sacredest,
closest tie that men and women can know, a real, though faint, shadow
of the far deeper and truer union between Christ and us. The same
love which is the bond of perfectness between man and man, is the
bond between us and Christ. In no dreamy, semi-pantheistic fusion of
the believer with his Lord do we find the true conception of the
unity of Christ and His Church, but in a union which preserves the
individualities lest it should slay the love. Faith knits us to
Christ, and faith is the mother of love, which maintains the blessed
union. So let us not be ashamed of the _emotional_ side of our
religion, nor deem that we can cleave to Christ unless our hearts
twine their tendrils round Him, and our love pours its odorous
treasures on His sacred feet, not without weeping and embraces. Cold
natures may carp, but Love is justified of her children, and Christ
accepts the homage that has a heart in it. Cleaving to the Lord is
not merely love, but it is impossible without it. The order is Faith,
Love, Obedience--that threefold cord knits men to Christ, and Christ
to men. For the understanding, a continuous grasp of Him as the
object of thought. For the heart, a continuous outgoing to Him as the
object of our love. For the will, a continuous submission to Him as
the Lord of our obedience. For the whole nature, a continuous
cleaving to Him as the object of our faith and worship.

Such is the true discipline of the Christian life. Such is the all-
sufficient command; as for the newest convert from heathenism, with
little knowledge and the taint of his old vices in his soul, so for
the saint fullest of wisdom and nearest the Light.

It _is_ all-sufficient. If Barnabas had been like some of us, he
would have had a very different style of exhortation. He would have
said, 'This irregular work has been well done, but there are no
authorised teachers here, and no provision has been made for the due
administration of the sacraments of the Church. The very first thing
of all is to give these people the blessing of bishops and priests.'
Some of us would have said, 'Valuable work has been done, but these
good people are terribly ignorant. The best thing would be to get
ready as soon as possible some manual of Christian doctrine, and in
the meantime provide for their systematic instruction in at least the
elements of the faith.' Some of us would have said, 'No doubt they
have been converted, but we fear there has been too much of the
emotional in the preaching. The moral side of Christianity has not
been pressed home, and what they chiefly need is to be taught that it
is not feeling, but righteousness. Plain, practical instruction in
Christian duty is the one thing they want.'

Barnabas knew better. He did not despise organisation, nor orthodoxy,
nor practical righteousness, but he knew that all three, and
everything else that any man needed for his perfecting would come, if
only the converts kept near to Christ, and that nothing else was of
any use if they did not. That same conviction should for us settle
the relative importance which we attach to these subordinate and
derivative things, and to the primary and primitive duty. Obedience
to it will secure them. They, without it, are not worth securing.

We spend much pains and effort nowadays in perfecting our
organisations and consolidating our resources, and I have not a word
to say against that. But heavier machinery needs more power in the
engine, and that means greater capacity in your boilers and more fire
in your furnace. The more complete our organisation, the more do we
need a firm hold of Christ, or we shall be overweighted by it, shall
be in danger of burning incense to our own net, shall be tempted to
trust in drill rather than in courage, in mechanism rather than in
the life drawn from Christ. On the other hand, if we put as our first
care the preservation of the closeness of our union with Christ, that
life will shape a body for itself, and 'to every seed its own body.'

True conceptions of Him, and a definite theology, are good and
needful. Let us cleave to Him with mind and heart, and we shall
receive all the knowledge we need, and be guided into the deep things
of God. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and
the basis of all theology is the personal possession of Him who is
'the wisdom of God' and 'the Light of the world.' Every one that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. _Pectus facit Theologum_.

Plain, straightforward morality and everyday righteousness are better
than all emotion and all dogmatism and all churchism, says the world,
and Christianity says much the same; but plain, straightforward
righteousness and everyday morality come most surely when a man is
keeping close to Christ. In a word, everything that can adorn the
character with beauty, and clothe the Church with glorious apparel,
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, all that the world
or God calls virtue and crowns with praise, they are all in their
fulness in Him, and all are most surely derived from Him by keeping
fast hold of His hand, and preserving the channels clear through
which His manifold grace may flow into our souls. The same life is
strength in the arm, pliancy in the fingers, swiftness in the foot,
light in the eye, music on the lips; so the same grace is Protean in
its forms, and to His servants who trust Him Christ ever says, 'What
would ye that I should do unto you? Be it even as thou wilt.' The
same mysterious power lives in the swaying branch, and in the veined
leaf, and in the blushing clusters. With like wondrous
transformations of the one grace, the Lord pours Himself into our
spirits, filling all needs and fitting for all circumstances.
Therefore for us all, individuals and Churches, this remains the
prime command, 'With purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord.' Dear
brethren in the ministry, how sorely we need this exhortation! Our
very professional occupation with Christ and His truth is full of
danger for us; we are so accustomed to handle these sacred themes as
a means of instructing or impressing others that we get to regard
them as our weapons, even if we do not degrade them still further by
thinking of them as our stock-in-trade and means of oratorical
effect. We must keep very firm hold of Christ for ourselves by much
solitary communion, and so retranslating into the nutriment of our
own souls the message we bring to men, else when we have preached to
others we ourselves may he cast away. All the ordinary tendencies
which draw men from Him work on us, and a host of others peculiar to
ourselves, and all around us run strong currents of thought which
threaten to sweep many away. Let us tighten our grasp of Him in the
face of modern doubt; and take heed to ourselves that neither vanity,
nor worldliness, nor sloth; neither the gravitation earthward common
to all, nor the temptations proper to our office; neither unbelieving
voices without nor voices within, seduce us from His side. There only
is our peace, there our wisdom, there our power.

Subtly and silently the separating forces are ever at work upon us,
and all unconsciously to ourselves our hold may relax, and the flow
of this grace into our spirits may cease, while yet we mechanically
keep up the round of outward service, nor even suspect that our
strength is departed from us. Many a stately elm that seems full of
vigorous life, for all its spreading boughs and clouds of dancing
leaves, is hollow at the heart, and when the storm comes goes down
with a crash, and men wonder, as they look at the ruin, how such a
mere shell of life with a core of corruption could stand so long. It
rotted within, and fell at last, because its roots did not go deep
down to the rich soil, where they would have found nourishment, but
ran along near the surface among gravel and stones. If we would stand
firm, be sound within, and bring forth much fruit, we must strike our
roots deep in Him who is the anchorage of our souls, and the
nourisher of all our being.

Hearken, beloved brethren, in this great work of the ministry, not to
the exhortation of the servant, but to the solemn command of the
Master, 'Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye
abide in Me.' And let us, knowing our own weakness, take heed of the
self-confidence that answers, 'Though all should forsake Thee, yet
will not I,' and turn the vows which spring to our lips into the
lowly prayer, 'My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken Thou me
according to Thy word.' Then, thinking rather of His cleaving to us
than of our cleaving to Him, let us resolutely take as the motto of
our lives the grand words: 'I follow after, if that I may lay hold of
that for which I am also laid hold of by Christ Jesus!'



WHAT A GOOD MAN IS, AND HOW HE BECOMES SO

'He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.'
--ACTS xi, 24.

'A good man.' How easily that title is often gained! There is,
perhaps, no clearer proof that men are bad than the sort of people
whom they consent to call good.

It is a common observation that all words describing moral excellence
tend to deteriorate and to contract their meaning, just as bright
metal rusts by exposure, or coins become light and illegible by use.
So it comes to pass that any decently respectable man, especially if
he has an easy temper and a dash of frankness and good humour, is
christened with this title 'good.' The Bible, which is the verdict of
the Judge, is a great deal more chary in its use of the word. You
remember how Jesus Christ once rebuked a man for addressing Him so,
not that He repudiated the title, but that the giver had bestowed it
lightly and out of mere conventional politeness. The word is too
noble to be applied without very good reason.

But here we have a picture of Barnabas hung in the gallery of
Scripture portraits, and this is the description of it in the
catalogue, 'He was a good man.'

You observe that my text is in the nature of an analysis. It begins
at the outside, and works inwards. 'He was a good man.' Indeed;--how
came he to be so? He was 'full of the Holy Ghost.' Full of the Holy
Ghost, was he? How came he to be that? He was 'full of faith.' So the
writer digs down, as it were, till he gets to the bed-rock, on which
all the higher strata repose; and here is his account of the way in
which it is possible for human nature to win this resplendent title,
and to be adjudged of God as 'good,' 'full of the Holy Ghost and of
faith.'

So these three steps in the exposition of the character and its
secret will afford a framework for what I have to say now.

I. Note, then, first, the sort of man whom the Judge will call
'good.'

Now, I suppose I need not spend much time in massing together, in
brief outline, the characteristics of Barnabas. He was a Levite,
belonging to the sacerdotal tribe, and perhaps having some slight
connection with the functions of the Temple ministry. He was not a
resident in the Holy Land, but a Hellenistic Jew, a native of Cyprus,
who had come into contact with heathenism in a way that had beaten
many a prejudice out of him. We first hear of him as taking a share
in the self-sacrificing burst of brotherly love, which, whether it
was wise or not, was noble. 'He, having land, sold it, and brought
the money, and laid it at the Apostles' feet.' And, as would appear
from a reference in one of Paul's letters, he had to support himself
afterwards by manual labour.

Then the next thing that we hear of him is that, when the young man
who had been a persecuting Pharisee, and the rising hope of the anti-
Christian party, all at once came forward with some story of a vision
which he had seen on the road to Damascus, and when the older
Christians were suspicious of a trick to worm himself into their
secrets by a pretended conversion, Barnabas, with the generosity of
an unsuspicious nature, which often sees deeper into men than do
suspicious eyes, was the first to cast the aegis of his recognition
round him. In like manner, when Christianity took an entirely
spontaneous and, to the Church at Jerusalem, rather unwelcome new
development and expansion, when some unofficial believers, without
any authority from headquarters, took upon themselves to stride clean
across the wall of separation, and to speak of Jesus Christ to blank
heathens, and found, to the not altogether gratified surprise of the
Christians at Jerusalem, 'that on the Gentiles also was poured out
the gift of the Holy Ghost,' it was Barnabas who was sent down to
look into this surprising new phenomenon, and we read that 'when he
came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.' The reason why he
rejoiced over the manifestation of the grace of God in such a strange
form was because 'he was a good man,' and his goodness recognised
goodness in others and was glad at the work of the Lord. The new
condition of affairs sent him to look for Paul, and to put him to
work. Then we find him set apart to missionary service, and the
leader of the first missionary band, in which he was accompanied by
his friend Saul. He acquiesced frankly, and without a murmur, in the
superiority of the junior, and yielded up pre-eminence to him quite
willingly. The story of that missionary journey begins 'Barnabas and
Saul,' but very soon it comes to be 'Paul and Barnabas,' and it keeps
that order throughout. He was an older man than Paul, for when at
Lystra the people thought that the gods had come down in the likeness
of men; Barnabas was Jupiter, and Paul the quick-footed Mercury,
messenger of the gods. He was in the work before Paul was thought of,
and it must have taken a great deal of goodness to acquiesce in 'He
must increase and I must decrease.' Then came the quarrel between
them, the foolish fondness for his runaway nephew John Mark, whom he
insisted on retaining in a place for which he was conspicuously
unfitted. And so he lost his friend, the confidence of the Church,
and his work. He sulked away into Cyprus; he had his nephew, for whom
he had given up all these other things. A little fault may wreck a
life, and the whiter the character the blacker the smallest stain
upon it.

We do not hear anything more of him. Apparently, from one casual
allusion, he continued to serve the Lord in evangelistic work, but
the sweet communion of the earlier days, and the confident friendship
with the Apostle, seem to have come to an end with that sharp
contention. So Barnabas drops out of the rank of Christian workers.
And yet 'he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.'

Now I have spent more time than I meant over this brief outline of
the sort of character here pointed at. Let me just gather into one or
two sentences what seem to me to be the lessons of it. The first is
this, that the tap-root of all goodness is reference to God and
obedience to Him. People tell us that morality is independent of
religion. I admit that many men are better than their creeds, and
many men are worse than their creeds; but I would also venture to
assert that morality is the garment of religion; the body of which
religion is the soul; the expression of religion in daily life. And
although I am not going to say that nothing which a man does without
reference to God has any comparative goodness in it, or that all the
acts which are thus void of reference to Him stand upon one level of
evil, I do venture to say that the noblest deed, which is not done in
conscious obedience to the will of God, lacks its supreme nobleness.
The loftiest perfection of conduct is obedience to God. And whatever
excellence of self-sacrifice, 'whatsoever things lovely and of good
report,' there may be, apart from the presence of this perfect
motive, those deeds are imperfect. They do not correspond either to
the whole obligations or to the whole possibilities of man, and,
therefore, they are beneath the level of the highest good. Good is
measured by reference to God.

Then, further, let me remark that one broad feature which
characterises the truest goodness is the suppression of self. That is
only another way of saying the same thing as I have been saying. It
is illustrated for us all through this story of Barnabas. Whosoever
can say, 'I think not of myself, but of others; of the cause; of the
help I can give to men; and I lay not goods only, nor prejudices
only, nor the pride of position and the supremacy of place only at
the feet of God, but I lay down my whole self; and I desire that self
may be crucified, that God may live in me,'--he, and only he, has
reached the height of goodness. Goodness requires the suppression of
self.

Further, note that the gentler traits of character are pre-eminent in
Christian goodness. There is nothing about this man heroic or
exceptional. His virtues are all of the meek and gracious sort--those
which we relegate sometimes to an inferior place in our estimates.
These things make but a poor show by the side of some of the tawdry
splendours of what the vulgar world calls virtues. It requires an
educated eye to see the harmony of the sober colouring of some great
painter. A child, a clown, a vulgar person--and there are such in all
ranks--will prefer flaring reds and blues and yellows heaped together
in staring contrast. A thrush or a blackbird is but a soberly clad
creature by the side of macaws and paroquets; but the one has a song
and the others have only a screech. The gentle virtues are the truly
Christian virtues--patience and meekness and long-suffering and
sympathy and readiness to efface oneself for the sake of God and of
men.

So there is a bit of comfort for us commonplace, humdrum people, to
whom God has only given one or two talents, and who can never expect
to make a figure before men. We may be little violets below a stone,
if we cannot be flaunting hollyhocks and tiger lilies. We may have
the beauty of goodness in us after Christ's example, and that is
better than to be great.

Barnabas was no genius. He was not even a genius in goodness; he did
not strike out anything original and out of the way. He seems to have
been a commonplace kind of man enough; but 'he was a good man.' And
the weakest and the humblest of us may hope to have the same thing
said of us, if we will.

And then, note further, that true goodness, thank God! does not
exclude the possibility of falling and sinning. There is a black spot
in this man's history; and there are black spots in the histories of
all saints. Thank God! the Bible is, as some people would say, almost
brutally frank in telling us about the imperfections of the best.
Very often imperfections are the exaggerations of characteristic
goodnesses, and warn us to take care that we do not push, as Barnabas
did, our facility to the point of criminal complicity with
weaknesses; and that we do not indulge, instead of strenuously
rebuking when need is. Never let our gentleness fall away, like a
badly made jelly, into a trembling heap, and never let our strength
gather itself together into a repulsive attitude, but guard against
the exaggeration of virtue into vice.

Remember that whilst there may be good men who sin, there is One
entire and flawless, in whom all types of excellence do meet, and who
alone of humanity can front the verdict of the world, and has fronted
it now for nineteen centuries, with the question upon His lips, which
none have dared to answer, 'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?'

II. Secondly, notice the divine Helper who makes men good.

Luke, if he be the writer of the Acts, goes on with his analysis. He
has done with the first fold, the outer garment, as it were; he
strips it off and shows us the next fold, 'full of the Holy Ghost.'

A divine Helper, not merely a divine influence, but a divine Person,
who not only helps men from without, but so enters into a man as that
the man's whole nature is saturated with Him--that is strange
language. Mystical and unreal I dare say some of you may think it,
but let us consider whether some such divine Helper is not plainly
pointed as necessary, by the experience of every man that ever
honestly tried to make himself good.

I have no doubt that I am speaking to many persons who, more or less
constantly and courageously and earnestly, have laboured at the task
of self-improvement and self-culture. I venture to think that, if
their standard of what they wish to attain is high, their confession
of what they have attained will be very low. Ah, brother! if we think
of what it is that we need to make us good--viz. the strengthening of
these weak wills of ours, which we cannot strengthen but to a very
limited degree by any tonics that we can apply, or any supports with
which we may bind them round; if we consider the resistance which
ourselves, our passions, our tastes, our habits, our occupations
offer, and the resistance which the world around us, friends,
companions, and all the aggregate, dread and formidable, of material
things present to our becoming, in any lofty and comprehensive sense
of the term, good men and women, I think we shall be ready to listen,
as to a true Gospel, to the message that says, 'You do not need to do
it by yourself.' You have got the wolf by the ears, perhaps, for a
moment, but there is tremendous strength in the brute, and your hands
and wrists will ache in holding him presently, and what will happen
then? You do not need to try it yourself. There is a divine Helper
standing at your sides and waiting to strengthen you, and that Helper
does not work from outside; He will pass within, and dwell in your
hearts and mould and strengthen your wills to what is good, and
suppress your inclinations to evil, and, by His inward presence,
teach 'your hands to war and your fingers to fight.'

Surely, surely, the experience of the world from the beginning,
confirmed by the consciousness and conscience of every one of us,
tells us that of ourselves we are impotent, and that the good that is
within the reach of our unaided efforts is poor and fragmentary and
superficial indeed.

The great promise of the Gospel is precisely this promise. We
terribly limit and misunderstand what we call the Gospel if we give
such exclusive predominance to one part of it, as some of us are
accustomed to do. Thank God I the first word that Jesus Christ says
to any soul is, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee.' But that first word has
a second that follows it, 'Arise! and walk!' and it is for the sake
of the second that the first is spoken. The gift of pardon, the
consciousness of acceptance, the fact of reconciliation with God, the
closing of the doors of the place of retribution, the quieting of the
stings of accusing conscience, all these are but meant to be
introductory to that which Jesus Christ Himself, in the Gospel of
John, emphatically calls more than once '_the_ gift of God,' which He
symbolised by 'living water,' which whosoever drank should never
thirst, and which whosoever possessed would give it forth in living
streams of holy life and noble deeds. The promise of the Gospel is
the promise of new life, derived from Christ and maintained in us by
the indwelling Spirit, which will come like fresh reinforcements to
an all but beaten army in some hard-fought field, which will stand
like a stay behind a man, to us almost blown over by the gusts of
temptation, which will strengthen what is weak, raise what is low,
illumine what is dark, and will make us who are evil good with a
goodness given by God through His Son.

Surely there is nothing more congruous with that divine character
than that He who Himself is good, and good from Himself, should
rejoice in making us, His poor children, into His own likeness.
Surely He would not be good unless He delighted to make us good.
Surely it is something very like presumption in men to assert that
the direct communication of the Spirit of God with the spirits whom
God has made is an impossibility. Surely it is flying in the face of
Scripture teaching to deny that such communication is a promise.
Surely it is a flagrant contradiction of the depths of Christian
experience to falter in the belief that it is a very solid reality.

'Full of the Holy Ghost,' as a vessel might be to its brim of golden
wine; Christian men and women! does that describe you? Full? A
dribbling drop or two in the bottom of the jar. Whose fault is it?
Why, with that rushing mighty wind to fill our sails if we like,
should we be lying in the sickly calms of the tropics, with the pitch
oozing out of the seams, and the idle canvas flapping against the
mast? Why, with those tongues of fire hovering over our heads, should
we be cowering over grey ashes in which there lives a little spark?
Why, with that great rushing tide of the river of the water of life,
should we be like the dry watercourses of the desert, with bleached
and white stones baking where the stream should be running? 'O! Thou
that art named the House of Israel, is the Spirit of the Lord
straitened? Are these His doings?'

III. And so, lastly, we are shown how that divine Helper comes to
men.

'Full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.' There is no goodness without
the impulse and indwelling of the divine Spirit, and there is no
divine Spirit to dwell in a man's heart without that man's trusting
in Jesus Christ. The condition of receiving the gift that makes us
good is simply and solely that we should put our trust in Jesus
Christ the Giver. That opens the door, and the divine Spirit enters.

True! there are convincing operations which He effects upon the
world; but these are not in question here. These come prior to, and
independent of, faith. But the work of the Spirit of God, present
within us to heal and hallow us, has as condition our trust in Jesus
Christ, the Great Healer. If you open a chink, the water will come
in. If you trust in Jesus Christ, He will give you the new life of
His Spirit, which will make you free from the law of sin and death.
That divine Spirit 'which they that believe in Him should receive'
delights to enter into every heart where His presence is desired.
Faith is desire; and desires rooted in faith cannot be in vain. Faith
is expectation; and expectations based upon the divine promise can
never be disappointed. Faith is dependence, and dependence that
reckons upon God, and upon God's gift of His Spirit, will surely be
recompensed.

The measure in which we possess the power that makes us good depends
altogether upon ourselves. 'Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.'
You may have as much of God as you want, and as little as you will.
The measure of your faith will determine at once the measure of your
goodness, and of your possession of the Spirit that makes good. Just
as when the prophet miraculously increased the oil in the cruse, the
golden stream flowed as long as they brought vessels, and stayed when
there were no more, so as long as we open our hearts for the
reception, the gift will not be withheld, but God will not let it run
like water spilled upon the ground that cannot be gathered up. If we
will desire, if we will expect, if we will reckon on, if we will look
to, Jesus Christ, and, beside all this, if we will honestly use the
power that we possess, our capacity will grow, and the gift will
grow, and our holiness and purity will grow with it.

Some of you have been trying more or less continuously, all your
lives, to mend your own characters and improve yourselves. Brethren,
there is a better way than that. A modern poet says--

  'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
  These three alone lift life to sovereign power.'

Taken by itself that is pure heathenism. Self cannot improve self.
Put self into God's keeping, and say, 'I cannot guard, keep, purge,
hallow mine own self. Lord, do Thou do it for me!' It is no use to
try to build a tower whose top shall reach to heaven. A ladder has
been let down on which we may pass upwards, and by which God's angels
of grace and beauty will come down to dwell in our hearts. If the
Judge is to say of each of us, 'He was a good man,' He must also be
able to say, 'He was full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.'



A NICKNAME ACCEPTED

'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch'
--ACTS xi. 26.

Nations and parties, both political and religious, very often call
themselves by one name, and are known to the outside world by
another. These outside names are generally given in contempt; and yet
they sometimes manage to hit the very centre of the characteristics
of the people on whom they are bestowed, and so by degrees get to be
adopted by them, and worn as an honour.

So it has been with the name 'Christian.' It was given at the first
by the inhabitants of the Syrian city of Antioch, to a new sort of
people that had sprung up amongst them, and whom they could not quite
make out. They would not fit into any of their categories, and so
they had to invent a new name for them. It is never used in the New
Testament by Christians about themselves. It occurs here in this
text; it occurs in Agrippa's half-contemptuous exclamation: 'You seem
to think it is a very small matter to make me--me, a king!--a
Christian, one of those despised people!' And it occurs once more,
where the Apostle Peter is specifying the charges brought against
them: 'If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but
let him glorify God on this behalf (1 Peter iv. 16). That sounds like
the beginning of the process which has gone on ever since, by which
the nickname, flung by the sarcastic men of Antioch, has been turned
into the designation by which, all over the world, the followers of
Jesus Christ have been proud to call themselves.

Now in this text there are the outside name by which the world calls
the followers of Jesus Christ, and one of the many interior names by
which the Church called itself. I have thought it might be profitable
now to put all the New Testament names for Christ's followers
together, and think about them.

I. So, to begin with, we deal with this name given by the world to
the Church, which the Church has adopted.

Observe the circumstances under which it was given. A handful of
large-hearted, brave men, anonymous fugitives belonging to the little
Church in Jerusalem, had come down to Antioch; and there, without
premeditation, without authority, almost without consciousness--
certainly without knowing what a great thing they were doing--they
took, all at once, as if it were the most natural thing in the world,
a great step by preaching the Gospel to pure heathen Greeks; and so
began the process by which a small Jewish sect was transformed into a
world-wide church. The success of their work in Antioch, amongst the
pure heathen population, has for its crowning attestation this, that
it compelled the curiosity-hunting, pleasure-loving, sarcastic
Antiocheans to find out a new name for this new thing; to write out a
new label for the new bottles into which the new wine was being put.
Clearly the name shows that the Church was beginning to attract the
attention of outsiders.

Clearly it shows, too, that there was a novel element in the Church.
The earlier disciples had been all Jews, and could be lumped together
along with their countrymen, and come under the same category. But
here was something that could not be called either Jew or Greek,
because it embraced both. The new name is the first witness to the
cosmopolitan character of the primitive Church. Then clearly, too,
the name indicates that in a certain dim, confused way, even these
superficial observers had got hold of the right notion of what it was
that _did_ bind these people together. They called them 'Christians'
--Christ's men, Christ's followers. But it was only a very dim
refraction of the truth that had got to them; they had no notion that
'Christ' was not a proper name, but the designation of an office; and
they had no notion that there was anything peculiar or strange in the
bond which united its adherents to Christ. Hence they called His
followers 'Christians,' just as they would have called Herod's
followers 'Herodians,' in the political world, or Aristotle's
followers 'Aristotelians' in the philosophical world. Still, in their
groping way, they bad put their finger on the fact that the one power
that held this heterogeneous mass together, the one bond that bound
up 'Jew and Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free' into one
vital unity, was a personal relation to a living Person. And so they
said--not understanding the whole significance of it, but having got
hold of the right end of the clue--they said, 'They are Christians!'
'Christ's people,' 'the followers of this Christ.'

And their very blunder was a felicity. If they had called them
'Jesuits' that would have meant the followers of the mere man. They
did not know how much deeper they had gone when they said, not
followers of Jesus, but 'followers of Christ'; for it is not Jesus
the Man, but Jesus Christ, the Man with His office, that makes the
centre and the bond of the Christian Church.

These, then, are the facts, and the fair inferences from them. A
plain lesson here lies on the surface. The Church--that is to say,
the men and women who make its members--should draw to itself the
notice of the outside world. I do not mean by advertising, and
ostentation, and sounding trumpets, and singularities, and
affectations. None of all these are needed. If you are live
Christians it will be plain enough to outsiders. It is a poor comment
on your consistency, if, being Christ's followers, you can go through
life unrecognised even by 'them that are without.' What shall we say
of leaven which does _not_ leaven, or of light which does _not_
shine, or of salt which does _not_ repel corruption? It is a poor
affair if, being professed followers of Jesus Christ, you do not
impress the world with the thought that 'here is a man who does not
come under any of our categories, and who needs a new entry to
describe _him_.' The world ought to have the same impression about
you which Haman had about the Jews--'Their laws are diverse from all
people.'

Christian professors, are the world's names for each other enough to
describe you by, or do you need another name to be coined for you in
order to express the manifest characteristics that you display? The
Church that does not _provoke_ the attention--I use the word in its
etymological, not its offensive sense--the Church that does not call
upon itself the attention and interest of outsiders, is not a Church
as Jesus Christ meant it to be, and it is not a Church that is worth
keeping alive; and the sooner it has decent burial the better for
itself and for the world!

There is another thing here, viz.: this name suggests that the clear
impression made by our conduct and character, as well as by our
words, should be that we belong to Jesus Christ. The eye of an
outside observer may be unable to penetrate the secret of the deep
sweet tie uniting us to Jesus, but there should be no possibility of
the most superficial and hasty glance overlooking the fact that we
_are_ His. He should manifestly be the centre and the guide, the
impulse and the pattern, the strength and the reward, of our whole
lives. We are Christians. That should be plain for all folks to see,
whether we speak or be silent. Brethren, is it so with you? Does your
life need no commentary of your words in order that men should know
what is the hidden spring that moves all its wheels; what is the
inward spirit that co-ordinates all its motions into harmony and
beauty? Is it true that like 'the ointment of the right hand which
bewrayeth itself' your allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the
overmastering and supreme authority which He exercises upon you, and
upon your life, 'cannot be hid'? Do you think that, without your
words, if you, living in the way you do, were put down into the
middle of Pekin, as these handful of people were put down into the
middle of the heathen city of Antioch, the wits of the Chinese
metropolis would have to invent a name for you, as the clever men of
Antioch did for these people; and do you think that if they had to
invent a name, the name that would naturally come to their lips,
looking at you, would be 'Christians,' 'Christ's men'? If it would
not, there is something wrong.

The last word that I say about this first part of my text is this. It
is a very sad thing, but it is one that is always occurring, that the
world's inadequate notions of what makes a follower of Jesus Christ
get accepted by the Church. Why was it that the name 'Christian' ran
all over Christendom in the course of a century and a half? I believe
very largely because it was a conveniently vague name; because it did
not describe the deepest and sacredest of the bonds that unite us to
Jesus Christ. Many a man is quite willing to say, 'I am a Christian,'
who would hesitate a long time before he said, 'I am a believer,' 'I
am a disciple.' The vagueness of the name, the fact that it erred by
defect in not touching the central, deepest relation between man and
Jesus Christ, made it very appropriate to the declining spirituality
and increasing formalism of the Christian Church in the post-
Apostolic age. It is a sad thing when the Church drops its standard
down to the world's notion of what It ought to be, and adopts the
world's name for itself and its converts.

II. I turn now to set side by side with this vague, general, outside
name the more specific and _interior_ names--if I may so call them--
by which Christ's followers at first knew themselves.

The world said, 'You are Christ's men'; and the names which were
self-imposed and are now to be considered might be taken as being the
Church's explanation of what the world was fumbling at when it so
called them. There are four of them: of course, I can only just touch
on them.

(_a_) The first is in this verse-'_disciples_.' The others are
_believers_, _saints_, _brethren_. These four are the Church's own
christening of itself; its explanation and expansion, its deepening
and heightening, of the vague name given by the world.

As to the first, _disciples_, any concordance will show that the name
was employed almost exclusively during the time of Christ's life upon
earth. It is the only name for Christ's followers in the Gospels; it
occurs also, mingled with others, in the Acts of the Apostles, and it
never occurs thereafter.

The name 'disciple,' then, carries us back to the historical
beginning of the whole matter, when Jesus was looked upon as a Rabbi
having followers called disciples; just as were John the Baptist and
his followers, Gamaliel and his school, or Socrates and his. It sets
forth Christ as being the Teacher, and His followers as being His
adherents, His scholars, who learned at His feet.

Now that is always true. _We_ are Christ's scholars quite as much as
were the men who heard and saw with their eyes and handled with their
hands, of the Word of Life. Not by words only, but by gracious deeds
and fair, spotless life, He taught them and us and all men to the end
of time, our highest knowledge of God of whom He is the final
revelation, our best knowledge of what men should and shall be by His
perfect life in which is contained all morality, our only knowledge
of that future in that He has died and is risen and lives to help and
still to teach. He teaches us still by the record of His life, and by
the living influence of that Spirit whom He sends forth to guide us
into all truth. He is the Teacher, the only Teacher, the Teacher for
all men, the Teacher of all truth, the Teacher for evermore. He
speaks from Heaven. Let us give heed to His voice.

But that Name is not enough to tell all that He is to us, or we to
Him, and so after He had passed from earth it unconsciously and
gradually dropped out of use by the disciples, as they felt a
deepened bond uniting them to Him who was not only their Teacher of
the Truth which was Himself, but was their Sacrifice and Advocate
with the Father. And for all who hold the, as I believe, essentially
imperfect conception of Jesus Christ as being mainly a Teacher,
either by word or by pattern; whether it be put into the old form or
into the modern form of regarding Him as the Ideal and Perfect Man,
it seems to me a fact well worthy of consideration, that the name of
disciple and the relation expressed by it were speedily felt by the
Christian Church to be inadequate as a representation of the bond
that knit them to Him. He is our Teacher, we His scholars. He is more
than that, and a more sacred bond unites us to Him. As our Master we
owe Him absolute submission. When He speaks, we have to accept His
dictum. What He says is truth, pure and entire. His utterance is the
last word upon any subject that He touches, it is the ultimate
appeal, and the Judge that ends the strife. We owe Him submission, an
open eye for all new truth, constant docility, as conscious of our
own imperfections, and a confident expectation that He will bless us
continuously with high and as yet unknown truths that come from His
inexhaustible stores of wisdom and knowledge.

(_b_) Teacher and scholars move in a region which, though it be
important, is not the central one. And the word that was needed next
to express what the early Church felt Christ was to them, and they to
Him, lifts us into a higher atmosphere altogether,--'_believers_,'
they who are exercising not merely intellectual submission to the
dicta of the Teacher, but who are exercising living trust in the
person of the Redeemer. The belief which is faith is altogether a
higher thing than its first stage, which is the belief of the
understanding. There is in it the moral element of trust. We believe
a truth, we trust a Person; and the trust which we are to exercise in
Jesus Christ, and which knits us to Him, is our trust in Him, not in
any character that we may choose to ascribe to Him, but in the
character in which He is revealed in the New Testament--Redeemer,
Saviour, Manifest God; and therefore, the Infinite Friend and Helper
of our souls.

That trust, my brethren, is the one bond that binds, men to God, and
the one thing that makes us Christ's men. Apart from it, we may be
very near Him, but we are not joined to Him. By it, and by it alone,
the union is completed, and His power and His grace flow into our
spirits. Are you, not merely a 'Christian,' in the world's notion,
being bound in some vague way to Jesus Christ, but are you a
Christian in the sense of trusting your soul's salvation to Him?

(_c_) Then, still further, there is another name--'_saints_.' It has
suffered perhaps more at the hands both of the world and of the
Church than any other. It has been taken by the latter and restricted
to the dead, and further restricted to those who excel, according to
the fantastic, ascetic standard of mediaeval Christianity. It has
suffered from the world in that it has been used with a certain
bitter emphasis of resentment at the claim of superior purity
supposed to be implied in it, and so has come to mean on the world's
lips one who pretends to be better than other people and whose
actions contradict his claim. But the name belongs to all Christ's
followers. It makes no claim to special purity, for the central idea
of the word 'saint' is not purity. Holiness, which is the English for
the Latinised 'sanctity,' holiness which is attributed in the Old
Testament to God first, to men only secondarily, does not primarily
mean _purity_, but _separation_. God is holy, inasmuch as by that
whole majestic character of His, He is lifted above all bounds of
creatural limitations, as well as above man's sin. A sacrifice, the
Sabbath, a city, a priest's garment, a mitre--all these things are
'holy,' not when they are pure, but when they are devoted to Him. And
men are holy, not because they are clean, but because by free self-
surrender they have consecrated themselves to Him.

Holiness is consecration, that is to say, holiness is giving myself
up to Him to do what He will with. 'I am holy' is not the declaration
of my estimate 'I am pure,' but the declaration of the fact 'I am
thine, O Lord.' So the New Testament idea of saint has in it these
elements--consecration, consecration resting on faith in Christ, and
consecration leading to separation from the world and its sin. And
that glad yielding of oneself to God, as wooed by His mercies, and
thereby drawn away from communion with our evil surroundings and from
submission to our evil selves, must be a part of the experience of
every true Christian. All His people are saints, not as being pure,
but as being given up to Him, in union with whom alone will the
cleansing powers flow into their lives and clothe them with 'the
righteousness of saints.' Have you thus consecrated yourself to God?

(_d_) The last name is '_brethren_,'--a name which has been much
maltreated both by the insincerity of the Church, and by the sarcasm
of the world. It has been an unreal appellation which has meant
nothing and been meant to mean nothing, so that the world has said
that our 'brethren' signified a good deal less than their 'brothers.'
''Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true.'

But what I ask you to notice is that the main thing about that name
'brethren' is not the relation of the brethren to one another, but
their common relation to their Father.

When we call ourselves as Christian people 'brethren,' we mean first
this: that we are the possessors of a supernatural life, which has
come from one Father, and which has set us in altogether new
relations to one another, and to the world round about us. Do you
believe that if you have any of that new life which comes through
faith in Jesus Christ, then you are the brethren of all those that
possess the same?

As society becomes more complicated, as Christian people grow unlike
each other in education, in social position, in occupation, in their
general outlook into the world, it is more and more difficult to feel
what is nevertheless true: that any two Christian people, however
unlike each other, are nearer each other in the very roots of their
nature, than a Christian and a non-Christian, however like each
other. It is difficult to feel that, and it is getting more and more
difficult, but for all that it is a fact.

And now I wish to ask you, Christian men and women, whether you feel
more at home with people who love Jesus Christ--as you say that you
love Him--or whether you like better to be with people who do not?

There are some of you who choose your intimate associates, whom you
ask to your homes and introduce to your children as desirable
companions, with no reference at all to their religious character.
The duties of your position, of course, oblige each of you to be much
among people who do not share your faith, and it is cowardly and
wrong to shrink from the necessity. But for Christian people to make
choice of heart friends, or close intimates, among those who have no
sympathy with their professed belief about, and love to, Jesus
Christ, does not say much for the depth and reality of their
religion. A man is known by the company he keeps, and if your friends
are picked out for other reasons, and their religion is no part of
their attraction, it is not an unfair conclusion that there are other
things for which you care more than you do for faith in Jesus Christ
and love to Him. If you deeply feel the bond that knits you to
Christ, and really live near to Him, you will be near to your
brethren. You will feel that 'blood is thicker than water,' and
however like you may be to irreligious people in many things, you
will feel that the deepest bond of all knits you to the poorest, the
most ignorant, the most unlike you in social position; ay! and the
most unlike you in theological opinion, who love the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity.

Now that is the sum of the whole matter. And my last word to you is
this: Do not you be contented with the world's vague notions of what
makes Christ's man. I do not ask you if you are Christians; plenty of
you would say: 'Oh yes! of course! Is not this a Christian country?
Was not I christened when I was a child? Are we not all members of
the Church of England by virtue of our birth? Yes! of course I am!'

I do not ask you that; _I_ do not ask you anything; but I pray you to
ask yourselves these four questions: Am I Christ's scholar? Am I
believing on Him? Am I consecrated to Him? Am I the possessor of a
new life from Him? And never give yourselves rest until you can say
humbly and yet confidently, 'Yes! thank God, I am!'



THE MARTYRDOM OF JAMES

'Herod killed James the brother of John with the sword.'
--ACTS xii. 2.

One might have expected more than a clause to be spared to tell the
death of a chief man and the first martyr amongst the Apostles.
James, as we know, was one of the group of the Apostles who were in
especially close connection with Jesus Christ. He is associated in
the Gospels with Peter and his brother John, and is always named
before John, as if he were the more important of the two, by reason
of age or of other circumstances unknown to us. But yet we know next
to nothing about him. In the Acts of the Apostles he is a mere lay
figure; his name is only mentioned in the catalogue at the beginning,
and here again in the brief notice of his death. The reticent and
merely incidental character of the notice of his martyrdom is
sufficiently remarkable. I think the lessons of the fact, and of the,
I was going to say, slight way in which the writer of this book
refers to it, may perhaps be most pointedly brought out if we take
four contrasts--James and Stephen, James and Peter, James and John,
James and James. Now, if we take these four I think we shall learn
something.

I. First, then, James and Stephen.

Look at the different scale on which the incidents of the deaths of
these two are told: the martyrdom of the one is beaten out over
chapters, the martyrdom of the other is crammed into a corner of a
sentence. And yet, of the two men, the one who is the less noticed
filled the larger place officially, and the other was only a simple
deacon and preacher of the Word. The fact that Stephen was the first
Christian to follow his Lord in martyrdom is not sufficient to
account for the extraordinary difference. The difference is to be
sought for in another direction altogether. The Bible cares so little
about the people whom it names because its true theme is the works of
God, and not of man; and the reason why the 'Acts of the Apostles'
kills off one of the chief Apostles in this fashion is simply that,
as the writer tells us, his theme is 'all that _Jesus_' continued 'to
do and to teach after He was taken up.' Since it is Christ who is the
true actor, it matters uncommonly little what becomes of James or of
the other ten. This book is _not_ the 'Acts of the Apostles,' but it
is the Acts of Jesus Christ.

I might suggest, too, in like manner, that there is another contrast
which I have not included in my four, between the scale on which the
death of Jesus Christ is told by Luke, and that on which this death
is narrated. What is the reason why so disproportionate a space of
the Gospel is concerned with the last two days of our Lord's life on
earth? What is the reason why years are leaped over in silence and
moments are spread out in detail, but that the death of a man is only
a death, but the death of the Christ is the life of the world? It is
little needful that we should have poetical, emotional, picturesque
descriptions of martyrdoms and the like in a book which is altogether
devoted to tracking the footsteps of Christ in history; and which
regards men as nothing more than the successive instruments of His
purpose, and the depositories of His grace.

Another lesson which we may draw from the reticence in the case of
the Apostle, and the expansiveness in the case of the protomartyr, is
that of a wise indifference to the utterly insignificant accident of
posthumous memory or oblivion of us and our deeds and sufferings.
James sleeps none the less sweetly in his grave, or, rather, wakes
none the less triumphantly in heaven, because his life and death are
both so scantily narrated. If we 'self-infold the large results' of
faithful service, we need not trouble ourselves about its record on
earth.

But another lesson which may be learned from this cursory notice of
the Apostle's martyrdom is--how small a thing death really is! Looked
at from beside the Lord of life and death, which is the point of view
of the author of this narrative, 'great death' dwindles to a very
little thing. We need to revise our notions if we would understand
how trivial it really is. To us it frowns like a black cliff blocking
the upper end of our valley, but there is a path round its base, and
though the throat of the pass be narrow, it has room for us to get
through and up to the sunny uplands beyond. From a mountain top the
country below seems level plain, and what looked like an impassable
precipice has dwindled to be indistinguishable. The triviality of
death, to those who look upon it from the heights of eternity, is
well represented by these brief words which tell of the first breach
thereby in the circle of the Apostles.

II. There is another contrast, James and Peter.

Now this chapter tells of two things: the death of one of that pair
of friends; the miracle that was wrought for the deliverance of the
other from death. Why could not the parts have been exchanged, or why
could not the miraculous hand that was stretched out to save the one
fisherman of Bethsaida have been put forth to save the other? Why
should James be slain, and Peter miraculously delivered? A question
easily asked; a question not to be answered by us. We may say that
the one was more useful for the development of the Church than the
other. But we have all seen lives that, to our poor vision, seemed to
be all but indispensable, ruthlessly swept away, and lives that
seemed to be, and were, perfectly profitless, prolonged to extreme
old age. We may say that maturity of character, development of
Christian graces, made the man ready for glory. But we have all seen
some struck down when anything but ready; and others left for the
blessing of mankind many, many a day after they were far fitter for
heaven than thousands that, we hope, have gone there.

So all these little explanations do not go down to the bottom of the
matter, and we are obliged just to leave the whole question in the
loving Hands that hold the keys of life and death for us all. Only we
may be sure of this, that James was as dear to Christ as Peter was,
and that there was no greater love shown in sending the angel that
delivered the one out of the 'hand of Herod and from all the
expectation of the people of the Jews,' than was shown in sending the
angel that stood behind the headsman and directed the stroke of the
fatal sword on the neck of the other.

The one was as dear to the Christ as the other--ay, and the one was
as surely, and more blessedly, delivered 'from the mouth of the lion'
as the other was, though the one seemed to be dragged from his teeth,
and the other seemed to be crushed by his powerful jaws. James
escaped from Herod when Herod slew him but could not make him
unfaithful to his Master, and his deliverance was not less complete
than the deliverance of his friend.

But let us remember, also, that if thus, to two equally beloved,
there were dealt out these two different fates, it must be because
that evil, which, as I said, is not so great as it looks, is also not
so bitter as it tastes, and there is no real evil, for the loving
heart, in the stroke that breaks its bands and knits it to Jesus
Christ. If we are Christians, the deepest desire of our souls is
fuller communion with our Lord. We realise that, in some stunted and
scanty measure, by life; but oh! is it not strange that we should
shrink from that change which will enable us to realise it fully and
eternally? The contrast of James and Peter may teach us the equal
love that presides over the life of the living and the death of the
dying.

III. Another contrast is that of James and John.

The close union, and subsequent separation by this martyrdom, of that
pair of brothers is striking and pathetic. They seem to have together
pursued their humble trade of fishermen in the little fishing village
of Bethsaida, apparently as working partners with their father
Zebedee. They were not divided by discipleship, as was the sad fate
of many a brother delivered by a brother to death. If we may attach
any weight to the suggestion that the expression in John's narrative,
'He first findeth _his own_ brother, Simon,' implies that 'the other
disciple' did the same by _his_ brother, James was brought to Jesus
by John, and new tenderness and strength thereby given to their
affection. They were closely associated in their Apostleship, and
were together the companions of Jesus in the chief incidents of His
life. They were afterwards united in the leadership of the Church. By
death they were separated very far: the one the first of all the
Apostles to 'become a prey to Satan's rage,' the other 'lingering out
his fellows all,' and 'dying in bloodless age,' living to be a
hundred years old or more, and looking back through all the long
parting to the brother who had joined with him in the wish that even
Messiah's Kingdom should not part them, and yet had been parted so
soon and parted so long.

Ah! may we not learn the lesson that we should recognise the mercy
and wisdom of the ministry of Death the separator, and should tread
with patience the lonely road, do calmly the day's work, and tarry
till He comes, though those that stood beside us be gone? We may look
forward with the assurance that 'God keeps a niche in heaven to hide
our idols'; and 'albeit He breaks them to our face,' yet shall we
find them again, like Memnon's statue, vocal in the rising sunshine
of the heavens.

The brothers, so closely knit, so soon parted, so long separated,
were at last reunited. Even to us here, with the chronology of earth
still ours, the few years between the early martyrdom of James and
the death of the centenarian John seem but a span. The lapse of the
centuries that have rolled away since then makes the difference of
the dates of the two deaths seem very small, even to us. What a mere
nothing it will have looked to them, joined together once more before
God!

IV. Lastly, James and James. In his hot youth, when he deserved the
name of a son of thunder--so energetic, boisterous, I suppose,
destructive perhaps, he was--he and his brother, and their foolish
mother, whose name is kindly not told us, go to Christ and say,
'Grant that we may sit, the one on Thy right hand and the other on
Thy left, in Thy kingdom.' That was what he wished and hoped for, and
what he got was years of service, and a taste of persecution, and
finally the swish of the headsman's sword.

And so our dreams get disappointed, and their disappointment is often
the road to their fulfilment, for Jesus Christ was answering James'
prayer, 'Grant that we may sit on Thy right hand in Thy kingdom,'
when He called him to Himself, by the brief and bloody passage of
martyrdom. James said, when he did not know what he meant, and the
vow was noble though it was ignorant, 'we can drink of the cup that
Thou drinkest.' And all honour to him! he stuck to his vow; and when
the cup was proffered to him he manfully, and like a Christian, took
it and drank it to the dregs; and, I suppose, went silently to his
grave. But the change between his ardent anticipations and his calm
resignation, and between his foolish dream and the stern reality, may
well teach us that, whether our wishes he fulfilled or disappointed,
they all need to be purified, and that the disappointment of them on
earth is often God's way of fulfilling them for us in higher fashion
than we dreamed or asked.

So, brethren, let us leave for ourselves, and for all dear ones, that
question of living or dying, to His decision. Only let us be sure
that whether our lives be long like John's, or short like James',
'living or dying we are the Lord's.' And then, whatever be the length
of life or the manner of death, both will bring us the fulfilment of
our highest wishes, and will lead us to His side at whose right hand
all those shall sit who have loved Him here, and, though long parted,
shall be reunited in common enjoyment of the pleasures for evermore
which bloom unfading there. 'And so shall we ever be with the Lord.'



PETER'S DELIVERANCE FROM PRISON

'Peter therefore was kept in the prison: but prayer was made
earnestly of the Church unto God for him.'--ACTS xii. 5 (R.V.)

The narrative of Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison is full
of little vivid touches which can only have come from himself. The
whole tone of it reminds us of the Gospel according to St. Mark,
which is in like manner stamped with peculiar minuteness and
abundance of detail. One remembers that at a late period in the life
of the Apostle Paul, Mark and Luke were together with him; and no
doubt in those days in Rome, Mark, who had been Peter's special
companion and is called by one of the old Christian writers his
'interpreter,' was busy in telling Luke the details about Peter which
appear in the first part of this Book of the Acts.

The whole story seems to me to be full of instruction as well as of
picturesque detail; and I desire to bring out the various lessons
which appear to me to lie in it.

I. The first of them is this: the strength of the helpless.

Look at that eloquent 'but' in the verse that I have taken as a
starting-point: 'Peter therefore was kept in prison, _but_ prayer was
made earnestly of the Church unto God for him.' There is another
similarly eloquent 'but' at the end of the chapter:

'Herod ... was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost, _but_ the Word
of God grew and multiplied.' Here you get, on the one hand, all the
pompous and elaborate preparations--'four quaternions of soldiers'--
four times four is sixteen--sixteen soldiers, two chains, three gates
with guards at each of them, Herod's grim determination, the people's
malicious expectation of having an execution as a pleasant sensation
with which to wind up the Passover Feast. And what had the handful of
Christian people? Well, they had prayer; and they had Jesus Christ.
That was all, and that is more than enough. How ridiculous all the
preparation looks when you let the light of that great 'but' in upon
it! Prayer, earnest prayer, 'was made of the Church unto God for
him.' And evidently, from the place in which that fact is stated, it
is intended that we should say to ourselves that it was _because_
prayer was made for him that what came to pass did come to pass. It
is not jerked out as an unconnected incident; it is set in a logical
sequence. 'Prayer was made earnestly of the Church unto God for him'
--and so when Herod would have brought him forth, behold, the angel
of the Lord came, and the light shined into the prison. It is the
same sequence of thought that occurs in that grand theophany in the
eighteenth Psalm, 'My cry entered into His ears; then the earth shook
and trembled'; and there came all the magnificence of the
thunderstorm and the earthquake and the divine manifestation; and
this was the purpose of it all--'He sent from above, He took me, He
drew me out of many waters.' The whole energy of the divine nature is
set in motion and comes swooping down from highest heaven to the
trembling earth. And of that fact the one end is one poor man's cry,
and the other end is his deliverance. The moving spring of the divine
manifestation was an individual's prayer; the aim of it was the
individual's deliverance. A little water is put into a hydraulic ram
at the right place, and the outcome is the lifting of tons. So the
helpless men who could only pray are stronger than Herod and his
quaternions and his chains and his gates. 'Prayer was made,'
therefore all that happened was brought to pass, and Peter was
delivered.

Peter's companion, James, was killed off, as we read in a verse or
two before. Did not the Church pray for him? Surely they did. Why was
their prayer not answered, then? God has not any step-children. James
was as dear to God as Peter was. One prayer was answered; was the
other left unanswered? It was the divine purpose that Peter, being
prayed for, should be delivered; and we may reverently say that, if
there had not been the many in Mary's house praying, there would have
been no angel in Peter's cell.

So here are revealed the strength of the weak, the armour of the
unarmed, the defence of the defenceless. If the Christian Church in
its times of persecution and affliction had kept itself to the one
weapon that is allowed it, it would have been more conspicuously
victorious. And if we, in our individual lives--where, indeed, we
have to do something else besides pray--would remember the lesson of
that eloquent 'but,' we should be less frequently brought to
perplexity and reduced to something bordering on despair. So my first
lesson is the strength of the weak.

II. My next is the delay of deliverance.

Peter had been in prison for some time before the Passover, and the
praying had been going on all the while, and there was no answer. Day
after day 'of the unleavened bread' and of the festival was slipping
away. The last night had come; 'and the same night' the light shone,
and the angel appeared. Why did Jesus Christ not hear the cry of
these poor suppliants sooner? For their sakes; for Peter's sake; for
our sakes; for His own sake. For the eventual intervention, at the
very last moment, and yet at a sufficiently early moment, tested
faith. And look how beautifully all bore the test. The Apostle who
was to be killed to-morrow is lying quietly sleeping in his cell. Not
a very comfortable pillow he had to lay his head upon, with a chain
on each arm and a legionary on each side of him. But he slept; and
whilst he was asleep Christ was awake, and the brethren were awake.
Their faith was tested, and it stood the test, and thereby was
strengthened. And Peter's patience and faith, being tested in like
manner and in like manner standing the test, were deepened and
confirmed. Depend upon it, he was a better man all his days, because
he had been brought close up to Death and looked it in the fleshless
eye-sockets, unwinking and unterrified. And I dare say if, long
after, he had been asked, 'Would you not have liked to have escaped
those two or three days of suspense, and to have been let go at an
earlier moment?' he would have said, 'Not for worlds! For I learned
in those days that my Lord's time is the best. I learned patience'--a
lesson which Peter especially needed--'and I learned trust.'

Do you remember another incident, singularly parallel in essence,
though entirely unlike in circumstances, to this one? The two weeping
sisters at Bethany send their messenger across the Jordan, grudging
every moment that he takes to travel to the far-off spot where Jesus
is. The message sent is only this: 'He whom Thou lovest is sick.'
What an infinite trust in Christ's heart that form of the message
showed! They would not say 'Come!'; they would not ask Him to do
anything; they did not think that to do so was needful: they were
quite sure that what He would do would be right.

And how was the message received? 'Jesus loved Martha and Mary and
Lazarus.' Well, did that not make Him hurry as fast as He could to
the bedside? No; it rooted Him to the spot. 'He abode, _therefore_'--
because He loved them--'two days still in the same place where He
was,' to give him plenty of time to die, and the sisters plenty of
time to test their confidence in Him. Their confidence does not seem
to have altogether stood the test. 'Lord, if Thou hadst been here my
brother had not died.' 'And why wast Thou _not_ here?' is implied.
Christ's time was the best time. It was better to get a dead brother
back to their arms and to their house than that they should not have
lost him for those dreary four days. So delay tests faith, and makes
the deliverance, when it comes, not only the sweeter, but the more
conspicuously divine. So, brother, 'men ought always to pray, and not
to faint'--always to trust that 'the Lord will help them, and that
right early.'

III. The next lesson that I would suggest is the leisureliness of the
deliverance.

A prisoner escaping might be glad to make a bolt for it, dressed or
undressed, anyhow. But when the angel comes into the cell, and the
light shines, look how slowly and, as I say, leisurely, he goes about
it. 'Put on thy shoes.' He had taken them off, with his girdle and
his upper garment, that he might lie the less uncomfortably. 'Put on
thy shoes; lace them; make them all right. Never mind about these two
legionaries; they will not wake. Gird thyself; tighten thy girdle.
Put on thy garment. Do not be afraid. Do not be in a hurry; there is
plenty of time. Now, are you ready? Come!' It would have been quite
as easy for the angel to have whisked him out of the cell and put him
down at Mary's door; but that was not to be the way. Peter was led
past all the obstacles--'the first ward,' and the soldiers at it;
'the second ward,' and the soldiers at it; 'and the third gate that
leads into the city,' which was no doubt bolted and barred. There was
a leisurely procession through the prison.

Why? Because Omnipotence is never in a hurry, and God, not only in
His judgments but in His mercies, very often works slowly, as becomes
His majesty. 'Ye shall not go out with haste; nor go by flight, for
the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel shall be your
rereward.' We are impatient, and hurry our work over; God works
slowly; for He works certainly. That is the law of the divine working
in all regions; and we have to regulate the pace of our eager
expectation so as to fall in with the slow, solemn march of the
divine purposes, both in regard to our individual salvation and the
providences that affect us individually, and in regard to the world's
deliverance from the world's evils. 'An inheritance may be gotten
hastily in the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed.'
'He that believeth shall not make haste.'

IV. We see here, too, the delivered prisoner left to act for himself
as soon as possible.

As long as the angel was with Peter, he was dazed and amazed. He did
not know--and small blame to him--whether he was sleeping or waking;
but he gets through the gates, and out into the empty street,
glimmering in the morning twilight, and the angel disappears, and the
slumbering city is lying around him. When he is _left_ to himself, he
_comes_ to himself. He could not have passed the wards without a
miracle, but he can find his way to Mary's house without one. He
needed the angel to bring him as far as the gate and down into the
street, but he did not need him any longer. So the angel vanished
into the morning light, and then he felt himself, and steadied
himself, when responsibility came to him. That is the thing to sober
a man. So he stood in the middle of the unpeopled street, and 'he
considered the thing,' and found in his own wits sufficient guidance,
so that he did not miss the angel. He said to himself, 'I will go to
Mary's house.' Probably he did not know that there were any praying
there, but it was near, and it was, no doubt, convenient in other
respects that we do not know of. The economy of miraculous power is a
remarkable feature in Scriptural miracles. God never does anything
for us that we could do for ourselves. Not but that our doing for
ourselves is, in a deeper sense, His working on us and in us, but He
desires us to take the share that belongs to us in completing the
deliverance which must begin by supernatural intervention of a
Mightier than the angel, even the Lord of angels.

And so this little picture of the angel leading Peter through the
prison, and then leaving him to his own common sense and courage as
soon as he came out into the street, is just a practical illustration
of the great text, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God that worketh in you.'



THE ANGEL'S TOUCH

'And, behold, the angel of the Lord ... smote Peter....
23. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him [Herod].'
--ACTS xii. 7, 23.

The same heavenly agent performs the same action on Peter and on
Herod. To the one, his touch brings freedom and the dropping off of
his chains; to the other it brings gnawing agonies and a horrible
death. These twofold effects of one cause open out wide and solemn
thoughts, on which it is well to look.

I. The one touch has a twofold effect.

So it is always when God's angels come, or God Himself lays His hand
on men. Every manifestation of the divine power, every revelation of
the divine presence, all our lives' experiences, are charged with the
solemn possibility of bringing us one or other of two directly
opposite results. They all offer us an alternative, a solemn 'either
--or.'

The Gospel too comes charged with that double possibility, and is the
intensest and most fateful example of the dual effect of all God's
messages and dealings. Just as the ark maimed Dagon and decimated the
Philistine cities and slew Uzzah, but brought blessing and prosperity
to the house of Obed-edom, just as the same pillar was light to
Israel all the night long, but cloud and darkness to the Egyptians,
so is Christ set 'for the fall of' some and 'for the rising of'
others amidst the 'many in Israel,' and His Gospel is either 'the
savour of life unto life or of death unto death,' but in both cases
is in itself 'unto God,' one and the same 'sweet savour in Christ.'

II. These twofold effects are parts of one plan and purpose.

Peter's liberation and Herod's death tended in the same direction--to
strengthen and conserve the infant Church, and thus to prepare the
way for the conquering march of the Gospel. And so it is in all God's
self-revelations and manifested energies, whatever may be their
effects. They come from one source and one motive, they are
fundamentally the operations of one changeless Agent, and, as they
are one in origin and character, so they are one in purpose. We are
not to separate them into distinct classes and ascribe them to
different elements in the divine nature, setting down this as the
work of Love and that as the outcome of Wrath, or regarding the acts
of deliverance as due to one part of that great whole and the acts of
destruction as due to another part of it. The angel was the same, and
his celestial fingers were moved by the same calm, celestial will
when he smote Peter into liberty and life, and Herod to death.

God changes His ways, but not His heart. He changes His acts, but not
His purposes. Opposite methods conduce to one end, as winter storms
and June sunshine equally tend to the yellowed harvest.

III. The character of the effects depends on the men who are touched.

As is the man, so is the effect of the angel's touch. It could only
bring blessing to the one who was the friend of the angel's Lord, and
it could bring only death to the other, who was His enemy. It could
do nothing to the Apostle but cause his chains to drop from his
wrists, nor anything to the vainglorious king but bring loathsome
death.

This, too, is a universal truth. It is we ourselves who settle what
God's words and acts will be to us. The trite proverb, 'One man's
meat is another man's poison,' is true in the highest regions. It is
eminently, blessedly or tragically true in our relation to the
Gospel, wherein all God's self-revelation reaches its climax, wherein
'the arm of the Lord' is put forth in its most blessed energy,
wherein is laid on each of us the touch, tender and more charged with
blessing than that of the angel who smote the calmly sleeping
Apostle. That Gospel may either be to us the means of freeing us from
our chains, and leading us out of our prison-house into sunshine and
security, or be the fatal occasion of condemnation and death. Which
it shall be depends on ourselves. Which shall I make it for myself?



'SOBER CERTAINTY'

'And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a
surety, that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me
out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the
people of the Jews.'--ACTS xii. 11.

Where did Luke get his information of Peter's thoughts in that hour?
This verse sounds like first-hand knowledge. Not impossibly John Mark
may have been his informant, for we know that both were in Rome
together at a later period. In any case, it is clear that, through
whatever channels this piece of minute knowledge reached Luke, it
must have come originally from Peter himself. And what a touch of
naturalness and evident truth it is! No wonder that the Apostle was
half dazed as he came from his dungeon, through the prison corridors
and out into the street. To be wakened by an angel, and to have such
following experiences, would amaze most men.

I. The bewilderment of the released captive.

God's mercies often come suddenly, and with a rush and a completeness
that outrun our expectations and our power of immediate
comprehension. And sometimes He sends us sorrows in such battalions
and so overwhelming that we are dazed for the moment. A Psalmist
touched a deep experience when he sang, 'When the Lord turned again
the captivity of Zion, we were like unto them that dream.'

The angel has to be gone before we are sure that he was really here.
The tumult of emotion in an experience needs to be calmed down before
we understand the experience. Reflection discovers more of heaven and
of God in the great moments of our lives than was visible to us while
we were living through them,

There is one region in which this is especially true--that of the
religious life. There sometimes attend its beginnings in a soul a
certain excitement and perturbation which disable from calm realising
of the greatness of the change which has passed. And it is well when
that excitement is quieted down and succeeded by meditative
reflection on the treasures that have been poured into the lap,
almost as in the dark. No man understands what he has received when
he first receives Christ and Christ's gifts. It occupies a lifetime
to take possession of that which we possess from the first in Him,
and the oldest saint is as far from full possession of the
unspeakable and infinite 'gift of God,' as the babes in Christ are.

But, looking more generally at this characteristic of not rightly
understanding the great epochs of our lives till they are past, we
may note that, while in part it is inevitable and natural, there is
an element of fault in it. If we lived in closer fellowship with God,
we should live in an atmosphere of continual calm, and nothing,
either sorrowful or joyful, would be able so to sweep us off our feet
that we should be bewildered by it. Astonishment would never so fill
our souls as that we could not rightly appraise events, nor should we
need any time, even in the thick of the most wonderful experiences,
to 'come to' ourselves and discern the angel.

But if it be so that our lives disclose their meanings best, when we
look back on them, how much of the understanding of them, and the
drawing of all its sweetness out of each event in them, is entrusted
to memory! And how negligent of a great means of happiness and
strength we are, if we do not often muse on 'all the way by which God
the Lord has led us these many years in the wilderness'! It is
needful for Christian progress to 'forget the things that are
behind,' and not to let them limit our expectations nor prescribe our
methods, but it is quite as needful to remember our past, or rather
God's past with us, in order to confirm our grateful faith and
enlarge our boundless hope.

II. The disappearance of the angel.

Why did he leave Peter standing there, half dazed and with his
deliverance incomplete? He 'led him through one street' only, and
'straightway departed from him.' The Apostle delivered by miracle has
now to use his brains. One distinguishing characteristic of New
Testament miracles is their economy of miraculous power. Jesus raised
Lazarus, for He alone could do that, but other hands must 'loose him
and let him go,' He gave life to Jairus's little daughter, but He bid
others 'give her something to eat' God does nothing for us that we
can do for ourselves. That economy was valuable as a preservative of
the Apostles from the possible danger of expecting or relying on
miracles, and as stirring them to use their own energies. Reliance on
divine power should not lead us to neglect ordinary means. Alike in
the natural and in the spiritual life we have to do our part, and to
be sure that God will do His.

III. The symbol here of a greater deliverance.

Fancy may legitimately employ this story as setting forth for us
under a lovely image the facts of Christian death, if only we
acknowledge that such a use is entirely the work of fancy. But,
making that acknowledgment, may we not make the use? Is not Death,
too, God's messenger to souls that love Him, 'mighty and beauteous,
though his face be hid'? Would it not be more Christian-like, and
more congruous with our eternal hope, if we pictured him thus than by
the hideous emblems of our cemeteries and tombs? He comes to Christ's
servants, and his touch is gentle though his fingers are icy-cold. He
removes only the chains that bind us, and we ourselves are
emancipated by his touch. He leads us to 'the iron gate that leadeth
into the city,' and it opens to us 'of its own accord.' But he
disappears as soon as our happy feet have touched the pavement of
that street of the city which is 'pure gold, as transparent as
glass,' and in the midst of which flows the river of the crystal-
bright 'water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb.' Then, when we see the Face as of the sun shining in his
strength, we shall come to ourselves, and 'know of a surety that the
Lord hath sent His angel and delivered' us from all our foes and ills
for evermore.



RHODA

'A damsel ... named Rhoda.'--ACTS xii 13.

'Rhoda' means 'a rose,' and _this_ rose has kept its bloom for
eighteen hundred years, and is still sweet and fragrant! What a
lottery undying fame is! Men will give their lives to earn it; and
this servant-girl got it by one little act, and never knew that she
had it, and I suppose she does not know to-day that, everywhere
throughout the whole world where the Gospel is preached, 'this that
she hath done is spoken of as a memorial to her.' Is the love of fame
worthy of being called 'the last infirmity of noble minds'? Or is it
the delusion of ignoble ones? Why need we care whether anybody ever
hears of us after we are dead and buried, so long as God knows about
us? The 'damsel named Rhoda' was little the better for the
immortality which she had unconsciously won.

Now there is a very singular resemblance between the details of this
incident and those of another case, when Peter was recognised in dim
light by his voice, and the Evangelist Luke, who is the author of the
Acts of the Apostles, seems to have had the resemblance between the
two scenes--that in the high priest's palace and that outside Mary's
door--in his mind, because he uses in this narrative a word which
occurs, in the whole of the New Testament, only here and in his
account of what took place on that earlier occasion. In both
instances a maid-servant recognises Peter by his voice, and in both
'she constantly affirms' that it was so. I do not think that there is
anything to be built upon the resemblance, but at all events I think
that the use of the same unusual word in the two cases, and nowhere
else, seems to suggest that Luke felt how strangely events sometimes
double themselves; and how the Apostle who is here all but a martyr
is re-enacting, with differences, something like the former scene,
when he was altogether a traitor. But, be that as it may, there are
some lessons which we may gather from this vivid picture of Rhoda and
her behaviour on the one side of the door, while Peter stood
hammering, in the morning twilight, on the other.

I. We may notice in the relations of Rhoda to the assembled believers
a striking illustration of the new bond of union supplied by the
Gospel.

Rhoda was a slave. The word rendered in our version 'damsel' means a
female slave. Her name, which is a Gentile name, and her servile
condition, make it probable that she was not a Jewess. If one might
venture to indulge in a guess, it is not at all unlikely that her
mistress, Mary, John Mark's mother, Barnabas' sister, a well-to-do
woman of Jerusalem, who had a house large enough to take in the
members of the Church in great numbers, and to keep up a considerable
establishment, had brought this slave-girl from the island of Cyprus.
At all events, she was a slave. In the time of our Lord, and long
after, these relations of slavery brought an element of suspicion,
fear, and jealous espionage into almost every Roman household,
because every master knew that he passed his days and nights among
men and women who wanted nothing better than to wreak their vengeance
upon him. A man's foes were eminently those of his own household. And
now here this child-slave, a Gentile, has been touched by the same
mighty love as her mistress; and Mary and Rhoda were kneeling
together in the prayer-meeting when Peter began to hammer at the
door. Neither woman thought now of the unnatural, unwholesome
relation which had formerly bound them. In God's good time, and by
the slow process of leavening society with Christian ideas, that
diabolical institution perished in Christian lands. Violent
reformation of immoralities is always a blunder. 'Raw haste' is
'half-sister to delay.' Settlers in forest lands have found that it
is endless work to grub up the trees, or even to fell them. 'Root and
branch' reform seldom answers. The true way is to girdle the tree by
taking off a ring of bark round the trunk, and letting nature do the
rest. Dead trees are easily dealt with; living ones blunt many axes
and tire many arms, and are alive after all. Thus the Gospel waged no
direct war with slavery, but laid down principles which, once they
are wrought into Christian consciousness, made its continuance
impossible. But, pending that consummation, the immediate action of
Christianity was to ameliorate the condition of the slave. The whole
aspect of the ugly thing was changed as soon as master and slave
together became the slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel has
the same sort of work to do to-day, and there are institutions in
full flourishing existence in this and every other civilised
community as entirely antagonistic to the spirit and principles of
Christianity as Roman slavery was. I, for my part, believe that the
one uniting bond and healing medicine for society is found in Jesus
Christ; and that in Him, and that the principles deducible from His
revelation by word and work, applied to all social evils, are their
cure, and their only cure. That slight, girlish figure standing at
the door of Mary, her slave and yet her sister in Christ, may be
taken as pointing symbolically the way by which the social and civic
evils of this day are to be healed, and the war of classes to cease.

II. Note how we get here a very striking picture of the sacredness
and greatness of small common duties.

Bhoda came out from the prayer-meeting to open the gate. It was her
business, as we say, 'to answer the door,' and so she left off
praying to go and do it. So doing, she was the means of delivering
the Apostle from the danger which still dogged him. It was of little
use to be praying on one side of the shut door when on the other he
was standing in the street, and the day was beginning to dawn;
Herod's men would be after him as soon as daylight disclosed his
escape. The one thing needful for him was to be taken in and
sheltered. So the praying group and the girl who stops praying when
she hears the knock, to which it was her business to attend, were
working in the same direction. It is not necessary to insist that no
heights or delights of devotion and secret communion are sufficient
excuses for neglecting or delaying the doing of the smallest and most
menial task which is our task. If your business is to keep the door,
you will not be leaving, but abiding in, the secret place of the Most
High, if you get up from your knees in the middle of your prayer, and
go down to open it. The smallest, commonest acts of daily life are
truer worship than is rapt and solitary communion or united prayer,
if the latter can only be secured by the neglect of the former.
Better to be in the lower parts of the house attending to the humble
duties of the slave than to be in the upper chamber, uniting with the
saints in supplication and leaving tasks unperformed.

Let us remember how we may find here an illustration of another great
truth, that the smallest things, done in the course of the quiet
discharge of recognised duty, and being, therefore, truly worship of
God, have in them a certain quality of immortality, and may be
eternally commemorated. It was not only the lofty and unique
expression of devotion, which another woman gave when she broke the
alabaster box to anoint the feet of the Saviour which were to be
pierced with nails to-morrow, that has been held worthy of undying
remembrance. The name and act of a poor slave girl have been
commemorated by that Spirit who preserves nothing in vain, in order
that we should learn that things which we vulgarly call great, and
those which we insolently call small, are regarded by Him, not
according to their apparent magnitude, but according to their motive
and reference to Him. He says, 'I will never forget any of their
works'; and this little deed of Rhoda's, like the rose petals that
careful housekeepers in the country keep upon the sideboard in china
bowls to diffuse a fragance through the room, is given us to keep in
memory for ever, a witness of the sanctity of common life when filled
with acts of obedience to Him.

III. The same figure of the 'damsel named Rhoda' may give us a
warning as to the possibility of forgetting very plain duties under
the pressure of very legitimate excitement.

'She opened not the door for gladness,' but ran in and told them. And
if, whilst she was running in with her message, Herod's quaternions
of soldiers had come down the street, there would have been 'no small
stir' in the church as to 'what had become of Peter.' He would have
gone back to his prison sure enough. Her _first_ duty was to open the
door; her _second_ one was to go and tell the brethren, 'we have got
him safe inside'; but in the rush of joyous emotions she naively
forgot what her first business was, 'lost her head,' as we say, and
so went off to tell that he was outside, instead of letting him in.
Now joy and sorrow are equally apt to make us forget plain and
pressing duties, and we may learn from this little incident the old-
fashioned, but always necessary advice, to keep feeling well under
control, to use it as impulse, not as guide, and never to let
emotion, which should be down in the engine-room, come on deck and
take the helm. It is dangerous to obey feeling, unless its decrees
are countersigned by calm common sense illuminated by Scripture.
Sorrow is apt to obscure duty by its darkness, and joy to do so by
its dazzle. It is hard to see the road at midnight, or at midday when
the sun is in our eyes. Both need to be controlled. Duty remains the
same, whether my heart is beating like a sledge-hammer, or whether
'my bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne.' Whether I am sad or
glad, the door that God has given me to watch has to be opened and
shut by me. And whether I am a door-keeper in the house of the Lord,
like Rhoda in Mary's, or have an office that people think larger and
more important, the imperativeness of my duties is equally
independent of my momentary emotions and circumstances. Remember,
then, that duty remains while feeling fluctuates, and that, sorrowful
or joyful, we have still the same Lord to serve and the same crown to
win.

IV. Lastly, we have here an instance of a very modest but positive
and fully-warranted trust in one's own experience in spite of
opposition.

I need not speak about that extraordinary discussion which the
brethren got up in the upper room. They had been praying, as has
often been remarked, for Peter's deliverance, and now that he is
delivered they will not believe it. I am afraid that there is often a
dash of unbelief in immediate answers to our prayers mingling with
the prayers. And although the petitions in this case were intense and
fervent, as the original tells us, and had been kept up all night
long, and although their earnestness and worthiness are guaranteed by
the fact that they were answered, yet when the veritable Peter, in
flesh and blood, stood before the door, the suppliants first said to
the poor girl, 'Thou art mad,' and then, 'It is his angel! It cannot
be he.' Nobody seems to have thought of going to the door to see
whether it was he or not, but they went on arguing with Rhoda as to
whether she was right or wrong. The unbelief that alloys even golden
faith is taught us in this incident.

Rhoda 'constantly affirmed that it was so,' like the other porteress
that had picked out Peter's voice amongst the men huddled round the
fire in the high priest's chamber.

The lesson is--trust your own experience, whatever people may have to
say against it. If you have found that Jesus Christ can help you, and
has loved you, and that your sins have been forgiven, because you
have trusted in Him, do not let anybody laugh or talk you out of that
conviction. If you cannot argue, do like Rhoda, 'constantly affirm
that it is so.' That is the right answer, especially if you can say
to the antagonistic party, 'Have you been down to the door, then, to
see?' And if they have to say 'No!' then the right answer is, 'You go
and look as I did, and you will come back with the same belief which
I have.'

So at last they open the door and there he stands. Peter's hammer,
hammer, hammer at the gate is wonderfully given in the story. It goes
on as a kind of running accompaniment through the talk between Rhoda
and the friends. It might have put a stop to the conversation, one
would have thought. But Another stands at the door knocking, still
more persistently, still more patiently. 'Behold! I stand at the door
and knock. If any man open the door I will come in.'



PETER AFTER HIS ESCAPE

'But he, beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace,
declared unto them how the Lord had brought him forth out of the
prison. And he said, Go shew these things unto James, and to the
brethren, And he departed, and went into another place.'
--ACTS xii. 17.

When the angel 'departed from him,' Peter had to fall back on his own
wits, and they served him well. He 'considered the thing,' and
resolved to make for the house of Mary. He does not seem to have
intended to remain there, so dangerously near Herod, but merely to
have told its inmates of his deliverance, and then to have hidden
himself somewhere, till the heat of the hunt after him was abated.
Apparently he did not go into the house at all, but talked to the
brethren, when they came trooping after Rhoda to open the gate. The
signs of haste in the latter part of the story, where Peter has to
think and act for himself, contrast strikingly with the majestic
leisureliness of the action of the angel, who gave his successive
commands to him to dress completely, as if careless of the sleeping
legionaries who might wake at any moment. There was need for haste,
for the night was wearing thin, and the streets of Jerusalem were no
safe promenade for a condemned prisoner, escaped from his guards.

We do not deal here with the scene in Mary's house and at the gate.
We only note, in a word, the touch of nature in Rhoda's forgetting to
open 'for gladness,' and so leaving Peter in peril, if a detachment
of his guards had already been told off to chase him. Equally true to
nature, alas, is the incredulity of the praying 'many,' when the
answer to their prayers was sent to them. They had rather believe
that the poor girl was 'mad' or that, for all their praying, Peter
was dead, and this was his 'angel,' than that their intense prayer
had been so swiftly and completely answered. Is their behaviour not a
mirror in which we may see our own?

Very like Peter, as well as very intelligible in the circumstances,
is it that he 'continued knocking,' Well he might, and evidently his
energetic fusillade of blows was heard even above the clatter of
eager tongues, discussing Rhoda's astonishing assertions. Some one,
at last, seems to have kept his head sufficiently to suggest that
perhaps, instead of disputing whether these were true or not, it
might be well to go to the door and see. So they all went in a body,
Rhoda being possibly afraid to go alone, and others afraid to stay
behind, and there they saw his veritable self. But we notice that
there is no sign of his being taken in and refreshed or cared for. He
waved an imperative hand, to quiet the buzz of talk, spoke two or
three brief words, and departed.

I. Note Peter's account of his deliverance.

We have often had occasion to remark that the very keynote of this
Book of Acts is the working of Christ from heaven, which to its
writer is as real and efficient as was His work on earth. Peter here
traces his deliverance to 'the Lord.' He does not stay to mention the
angel. His thoughts went beyond the instrument to the hand which
wielded it. Nor does he seem to have been at all astonished at his
deliverance. His moment of bewilderment, when he did not know whether
he was dreaming or awake, soon passed, and as soon as 'the sober
certainty of his waking bliss' settled on his mind, his deliverance
seemed to him perfectly natural. What else was it to be expected that
'the Lord' would do? Was it not just like Him? There was nothing to
be astonished at, there was everything to be thankful for. That is
how Christian hearts should receive the deliverances which the Lord
is still working for them.

II. Note Peter's message to the brethren.

James, the Lord's brother, was not an Apostle. That he should have
been named to receive the message indicates that already he held some
conspicuous position, perhaps some office, in the Church. It may also
imply that there were no Apostles in Jerusalem then. We note also
that the 'many' who were gathered in Mary's house can have been only
a small part of the whole. We here get a little glimpse into the
conditions of the life of a persecuted Church, which a sympathetic
imagination can dwell on till it is luminous. Such gatherings as
would attract notice had to be avoided, and what meetings were held
had to be in private houses and with shut doors, through which
entrance was not easy. Mary's 'door' had a 'gate' in it, and only
that smaller postern, which admitted but one at a time, was opened to
visitors, and that after scrutiny. But though assemblies were
restricted, communications were kept up, and by underground ways
information of events important to the community spread through its
members. The consciousness of brotherhood was all the stronger
because of the common danger, the universal peril had not made the
brethren selfish, but sympathetic. We may note, too, how great a
change had come since the time when the Christians were in favour
with all the people, and may reflect how fickle are the world's
smiles for Christ's servants.

III. Note Peter's disappearance.

All that is said of it is that he 'went into another place.' Probably
Luke did not know where he went. It would be prudent at the time to
conceal it, and the habit of concealment may have survived the need
for it. But two points suggest themselves in regard to the Apostle's
flight. There may be a better use for an Apostle than to kill him,
and Christ's boldest witnesses are sometimes bound to save themselves
by fleeing into another city. To hide oneself 'till the calamity be
overpast' may be rank cowardice or commendable prudence. All depends
on the circumstances of each case. Prudence is an element in courage,
and courage without it is fool-hardiness. There are outward dangers
from which it is Christian duty to run, and there are outward dangers
which it is Christian duty to face. There are inward temptations
which it is best to avoid, as there are others which have to be
fought to the death. Peter was as brave and braver when he went and
hid himself, than when he boasted, 'Though all should forsake Thee,
yet will not I!' A morbid eagerness for martyrdom wrought much harm
in the Church at a later time. The primitive Church was free from it.

But we must not omit to note that here Peter is dropped out of the
history, and is scarcely heard of any more. We have a glimpse of him
in chapter xv., at the Council in Jerusalem, but, with that
exception, this is the last mention of him in Acts. How little this
Book cares for its heroes! Or rather how it has only one Hero, and
one Name which it celebrates, the name of that Lord to whom Peter
ascribed his deliverance, and of whom he himself declared that 'there
is none other Name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be
saved.'



END OF VOL. I.



EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.

THE ACTS

_CHAP. XIII TO END_



CONTENTS

TO THE REGIONS BEYOND (Acts xiii. 1-13)

WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL (Acts xiii. 9)

JOHN MARK (Acts xiii. 13)

THE FIRST PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR (Acts xiii. 26-39)

LUTHER--A STONE ON THE CAIRN (Acts xiii. 36, 37)

REJECTERS AND RECEIVERS (Acts xiii. 44-52; xiv. 1-7)

UNWORTHY OF LIFE (Acts xiii. 46)

'FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST' (Acts xiii. 52)

DEIFIED AND STONED (Acts xiv. 11-22)

DREAM AND REALITY (Acts xiv. 11)

'THE DOOR OF FAITH' (Acts xiv. 27)

THE BREAKING OUT OF DISCORD (Acts xv. 1-6)

THE CHARTER OF GENTILE LIBERTY (Acts xv. 12-29)

A GOOD MAN'S FAULTS (Acts xv. 37, 38)

HOW TO SECURE A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE (Acts xvi. 10, 11)

PAUL AT PHILIPPI (Acts xvi. 13, R.V.)

THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI (Acts xvi. 19-34)

THE GREAT QUESTION AND THE PLAIN ANSWER (Acts xvi. 30, 31)

THESSALONICA AND BEREA (Acts xvii. 1-12)

PAUL AT ATHENS (Acts xvii. 22-34)

THE MAN WHO IS JUDGE (Acts xvii. 31)

PAUL AT CORINTH (Acts xviii. 1-11)

'CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD' (Acts xviii. 5)

GALLIO (Acts xviii. 14, 15)

TWO FRUITFUL YEARS (Acts xix. 1-12)

WOULD-BE EXORCISTS (Acts xix. 15)

THE FIGHT WITH WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS (Acts xix. 21-34)

PARTING COUNSELS (Acts xx. 22-85)

A FULFILLED ASPIRATION (Acts xx. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 7)

PARTING WORDS (Acts xx. 32)

THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING (Acts xx. 35)

DRAWING NEARER TO THE STORM (Acts xxi. 1-15)

PHILIP THE EVANGELIST (Acts xxi. 8)

AN OLD DISCIPLE (Acts xxi. 16)

PAUL IN THE TEMPLE (Acts xxi. 27-39)

PAUL ON HIS OWN CONVERSION (Acts xxii. 6-16)

ROME PROTECTS PAUL (Acts xxii. 17-30)

CHRIST'S WITNESSES (Acts xxiii. 11)

A PLOT DETECTED (Acts xxiii. 12-22)

A LOYAL TRIBUTE (Acts xxiv. 2, 3)

PAUL BEFORE FELIX (Acts xxiv. 10-25)

FELIX BEFORE PAUL (Acts xxiv. 25)

CHRIST'S REMONSTRANCES (Acts xxvi. 14)

FAITH IN CHRIST (Acts xxvi. 18)

'BEFORE GOVERNORS AND KINGS' (Acts xxvi. 19-32)

'THE HEAVENLY VISION' (Acts xxvi. 19)

'ME A CHRISTIAN!' (Acts xxvi. 28)

TEMPEST AND TRUST (Acts xxvii 13-26)

A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH (Acts xxvii. 23)

A TOTAL WRECK, ALL HANDS SAVED (Acts xxvii. 30-44)

AFTER THE WRECK (Acts xxviii. 1-16)

THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL (Acts xxviii. 17-31)

PAUL IN ROME (Acts xxviii. 30, 31)



TO THE REGIONS BEYOND

'Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain
prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called
Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought
up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2. As they ministered to
the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas
and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. 3. And when
they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they
sent them away. A. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost,
departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. 5.
And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in
the synagogues of the Jews; and they had also John to their
minister. 6. And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos,
they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name
was Bar-jesus: 7. Which was with the deputy of the country,
Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul,
and desired to hear the word of God. 8. But Elymas the sorcerer
(for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to
turn away the deputy from the faith. 9. Then Saul, (who also is
called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him,
10. And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child
of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11. And now, behold,
the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not
seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a
mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him
by the hand. 12. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done,
believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. 13. Now
when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga
in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to
Jerusalem.'--ACTS xiii. 1-13.

We stand in this passage at the beginning of a great step forward.
Philip and Peter had each played a part in the gradual expansion of
the church beyond the limits of Judaism; but it was from the church
at Antioch that the messengers went forth who completed the process.
Both its locality and its composition made that natural.

I. The solemn designation of the missionaries is the first point in
the narrative. The church at Antioch was not left without signs of
Christ's grace and presence. It had its band of 'prophets and
teachers.' As might be expected, four of the five named are
Hellenists,--that is, Jews born in Gentile lands, and speaking
Gentile languages. Barnabas was a Cypriote, Simeon's byname of Niger
('Black') was probably given because of his dark complexion, which
was probably caused by his birth in warmer lands. He may have been a
North African, as Lucius of Cyrene was. Saul was from Tarsus, and
only Manaen remains to represent the pure Palestinian Jew. His had
been a strange course, from being foster-brother of the Herod who
killed John to becoming a teacher in the church at Antioch. Barnabas
was the leader of the little group, and the younger Pharisee from
Tarsus, who had all along been Barnabas's _protege_, brought up the
rear.

The order observed in the list is a little window which shows a great
deal. The first and last names all the world knows; the other three
are never heard of again. Immortality falls on the two, oblivion
swallows up the three. But it matters little whether our names are
sounded in men's ears, if they are in the Lamb's book of life.

These five brethren were waiting on the Lord by fasting and prayer.
Apparently they had reason to expect some divine communication, for
which they were thus preparing themselves. Light will come to those
who thus seek it. They were commanded to set apart two of their
number for 'the work whereunto I have called them.' That work is not
specified, and yet the two, like carrier pigeons on being let loose,
make straight for their line of flight, and know exactly whither they
are to go.

If we strictly interpret Luke's words ('I _have_ called them'), a
previous intimation from the Spirit had revealed to them the sphere
of their work. In that case, the _separation_ was only the
recognition by the brethren of the divine appointment. The inward
call must come first, and no ecclesiastical designation can do more
than confirm that. But the solemn designation by the Church
identifies those who remain behind with the work of those who go
forth; it throws responsibility for sympathy and support on the
former, and it ministers strength and the sense of companionship to
the latter, besides checking that tendency to isolation which
accompanies earnestness. To go forth on even Christian service,
unrecognised by the brethren, is not good for even a Paul.

But although Luke speaks of the Church sending them away, he takes
care immediately to add that it was the Holy Ghost who 'sent them
forth.' Ramsay suggests that 'sent them away' is not the meaning of
the phrase in verse 3, but that it should be rendered 'gave them
leave to depart.' In any case, a clear distinction is drawn between
the action of the Church and that of the Spirit, which constituted
Paul's real commission as an Apostle. He himself says that he was an
Apostle, 'not from men, neither through man.'

II. The events in the first stage of the journey are next summarily
presented. Note the local colouring in 'went _down_ to Seleucia,' the
seaport of Antioch, at the mouth of the river. The missionaries were
naturally led to begin at Cyprus, as Barnabas's birthplace, and that
of some of the founders of the church at Antioch.

So, for the first time, the Gospel went to sea, the precursor of so
many voyages. It was an 'epoch-making moment' when that ship dropped
down with the tide and put out to sea. Salamis was the nearest port
on the south-eastern coast of Cyprus, and there they landed,--
Barnabas, no doubt, familiar with all he saw; Saul probably a
stranger to it all. Their plan of action was that to which Paul
adhered in all his after work,--to carry the Gospel to the Jew first,
a proceeding for which the manner of worship in the synagogues gave
facilities. No doubt, many such were scattered through Cyprus, and
Barnabas would be well known in most.

They thus traversed the island from east to west. It is noteworthy
that only now is John Mark's name brought in as their attendant. He
had come with them from Antioch, but Luke will not mention him, when
he is telling of the sending forth of the other two, because Mark was
not sent by the Spirit, but only chosen by his uncle, and his
subsequent defection did not affect the completeness of their
embassy. His entirely subordinate place is made obvious by the point
at which he appears.

Nothing of moment happened on the tour till Paphos was reached. That
was the capital, the residence of the pro-consul, and the seat of the
foul worship of Venus. There the first antagonist was met. It is not
Sergius Paulus, pro-consul though he was, who is the central figure
of interest to Luke, but the sorcerer who was attached to his train.
His character is drawn in Luke's description, and in Paul's fiery
exclamation. Each has three clauses, which fall 'like the beats of a
hammer.' 'Sorcerer, false prophet, Jew,' make a climax of wickedness.
That a Jew should descend to dabble in the black art of magic, and
play tricks on the credulity of ignorant people by his knowledge of
some simple secrets of chemistry; that he should pretend to prophetic
gifts which in his heart he knew to be fraud, and should be recreant
to his ancestral faith, proved him to deserve the penetrating
sentence which Paul passed on him. He was a trickster, and knew that
he was: his inspiration came from an evil source; he had come to hate
righteousness of every sort.

Paul was not flinging bitter words at random, or yielding to passion,
but was laying the black heart bare to the man's own eyes, that the
seeing himself as God saw him might startle him into penitence. 'The
corruption of the best is the worst.' The bitterest enemies of God's
ways are those who have cast aside their early faith. A Jew who had
stooped to be a juggler was indeed causing God's 'name to be
blasphemed among the Gentiles.'

He and Paul each recognised in the other his most formidable foe.
Elymas instinctively felt that the pro-consul must be kept from
listening to the teaching of these two fellow-countrymen, and 'sought
to _pervert_ him from the faith,' therein _perverting_ (the same word
is used in both cases) 'the right ways of the Lord'; that is,
opposing the divine purpose. He was a specimen of a class who
attained influence in that epoch of unrest, when the more cultivated
and nobler part of Roman society had lost faith in the old gods, and
was turning wistfully and with widespread expectation to the
mysterious East for enlightenment.

So, like a ship which plunges into the storm as soon as it clears the
pier-head, the missionaries felt the first dash of the spray and
blast of the wind directly they began their work. Since this was
their first encounter with a foe which they would often have to meet,
the duel assumes importance, and we understand not only the fulness
of the narrative, but the miracle which assured Paul and Barnabas of
Christ's help, and was meant to diffuse its encouragement along the
line of their future work. For Elymas it was chastisement, which
might lead him to cease to pervert the ways of the Lord, and himself
begin to walk in them. Perhaps, after a season, he did see 'the
better Sun.'

Saul's part in the incident is noteworthy. We observe the vivid
touch, he 'fastened his eyes on him.' There must have been something
very piercing in the fixed gaze of these flashing eyes. But Luke
takes pains to prevent our thinking that Paul spoke from his own
insight or was moved by human passion. He was 'filled with the Holy
Ghost,' and, as His organ, poured out the scorching words that
revealed the cowering apostate to himself, and announced the merciful
punishment that was to fall. We need to be very sure that we are
similarly filled before venturing to imitate the Apostle's tone.

III. The shifting of the scene to the mainland presents some
noteworthy points. It is singular that there is no preaching
mentioned as having been attempted in Perga, or anywhere along the
coast, but that the two evangelists seem to have gone at once across
the great mountain range of Taurus to Antioch of Pisidia.

A striking suggestion is made by Ramsay to the effect that the reason
was a sudden attack of the malarial fever which is endemic in the
low-lying coast plains, and for which the natural remedy is to get up
among the mountains. If so, the journey to Antioch of Pisidia may not
have been in the programme to which John Mark had agreed, and his
return to Jerusalem may have been due to this departure from the
original intention. Be that as it may, he stands for us as a beacon,
warning against hasty entrance on great undertakings of which we have
not counted the cost, no less than against cowardly flight from work,
as soon as it begins to involve more danger or discomfort than we had
reckoned on.

John Mark was willing to go a-missionarying as long as he was in
Cyprus, where he was somebody and much at home, by his relationship
to Barnabas; but when Perga and the climb over Taurus into strange
lands came to be called for, his zeal and courage oozed out at his
finger-ends, and he skulked back to his mother's house at Jerusalem.
No wonder that Paul 'thought not good to take with them him who
withdrew from them.' But even such faint hearts as Mark's may take
courage from the fact that he nobly retrieved his youthful error, and
won back Paul's confidence, and proved himself 'profitable to him for
the ministry.'



WHY SAUL BECAME PAUL

'Saul (who also is called Paul)' ...--ACTS xiii. 9

Hitherto the Apostle has been known by the former of these names,
henceforward he is known exclusively by the latter. Hitherto he has
been second to his friend Barnabas, henceforward he is first. In an
earlier verse of the chapter we read that 'Barnabas and Saul' were
separated for their missionary work, and again, that it was 'Barnabas
and Saul' for whom the governor of Cyprus sent, to hear the word of
the Lord. But in a subsequent verse of the chapter we read that 'Paul
and his company loosed from Paphos.'

The change in the order of the names is significant, and the change
in the names not less so. Why was it that at this period the Apostle
took up this new designation? I think that the coincidence between
his name and that of the governor of Cyprus, who believed at his
preaching, Sergius Paulus, is too remarkable to be accidental. And
though, no doubt, it was the custom for the Jews of that day,
especially for those of them who lived in Gentile lands, to have, for
convenience' sake, two names, one Jewish and one Gentile--one for use
amongst their brethren, and one for use amongst the heathen--still we
have no distinct intimation that the Apostle bore a Gentile name
before this moment. And the fact that the name which he bears now is
the same as that of his first convert, seems to me to point the
explanation.

I take it, then, that the assumption of the name of Paul instead of
the name of Saul occurred at this point, stood in some relation to
his missionary work, and was intended in some sense as a memorial of
his first victory in the preaching of the Gospel.

I think that there are lessons to be derived from the substitution of
one of these names for the other which may well occupy us for a few
moments.

I. First of all, then, the new name expresses a new nature.

Jesus Christ gave the Apostle whom He called to Himself in the early
days, a new name, in order to prophesy the change which, by the
discipline of sorrow and the communication of the grace of God,
should pass over Simon Barjona, making him into a Peter, a 'Man of
Rock.' With characteristic independence, Saul chooses for himself a
new name, which shall express the change that he feels has passed
over his inmost being. True, he does not assume it at his conversion,
but that is no reason why we should not believe that he assumes it
because he is beginning to understand what it is that has happened to
him at his conversion.

The fact that he changes his name as soon as he throws himself into
public and active life, is but gathering into one picturesque symbol
his great principle; 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new
creature. Old things are passed away and all things are become new.'

So, dear brethren, we may, from this incident before us, gather this
one great lesson, that the central heart of Christianity is the
possession of a new life, communicated to us through faith in that
Son of God, Who is the Lord of the Spirit. Wheresoever there is a
true faith, there is a new nature. Opinions may play upon the surface
of a man's soul, like moonbeams on the silver sea, without raising
its temperature one degree or sending a single beam into its dark
caverns. And that is the sort of Christianity that satisfies a great
many of you--a Christianity of opinion, a Christianity of surface
creed, a Christianity which at the best slightly modifies some of our
outward actions, but leaves the whole inner man unchanged.

Paul's Christianity meant a radical change in his whole nature. He
went out of Jerusalem a persecutor, he came into Damascus a
Christian. He rode out of Jerusalem hating, loathing, despising Jesus
Christ; he groped his way into Damascus, broken, bruised, clinging
contrite to His feet, and clasping His Cross as his only hope. He
went out proud, self-reliant, pluming himself upon his many
prerogatives, his blue blood, his pure descent, his Rabbinical
knowledge, his Pharisaical training, his external religious
earnestness, his rigid morality; he rode into Damascus blind in the
eyes, but seeing in the soul, and discerning that all these things
were, as he says in his strong, vehement way, 'but dung' in
comparison with his winning Christ.

And his theory of conversion, which he preaches in all his Epistles,
is but the generalisation of his own personal experience, which
suddenly, and in a moment, smote his old self to shivers, and raised
up a new life, with new tastes, views, tendencies, aspirations, with
new allegiance to a new King. Such changes, so sudden, so
revolutionary, cannot be expected often to take place amongst people
who, like us, have been listening to Christian teaching all our
lives. But unless there be this infusion of a new life into men's
spirits which shall make them love and long and aspire after new
things that once they did not care for, I know not why we should
speak of them as being Christians at all. The transition is described
by Paul as 'passing from death unto life.' That cannot be a surface
thing. A change which needs a new name must be a profound change. Has
our Christianity revolutionised our nature in any such fashion? It is
easy to be a Christian after the superficial fashion which passes
muster with so many of us. A verbal acknowledgment of belief in
truths which we never think about, a purely external performance of
acts of worship, a subscription or two winged by no sympathy, and a
fairly respectable life beneath the cloak of which all evil may
burrow undetected--make the Christianity of thousands. Paul's
Christianity transformed him; does yours transform you? If it does
not, are you quite sure that it _is_ Christianity at all?

II. Then, again, we may take this change of name as being expressive
of a life's work.

_Paul_ is a Roman name. He strips himself of his Jewish connections
and relationships. His fellow-countrymen who lived amongst the
Gentiles were, as I said at the beginning of these remarks, in the
habit of doing the same thing; but they carried _both_ their names;
their Jewish for use amongst their own people, their Gentile one for
use amongst Gentiles. Paul seems to have altogether disused his old
name of Saul. It was almost equivalent to seceding from Judaism. It
is like the acts of the renegades whom one sometimes hears of, who
are found by travellers, dressed in turban and flowing robes, and
bearing some Turkish name, or like some English sailor, lost to home
and kindred, who deserts his ship in an island of the Pacific, and
drops his English name for a barbarous title, in token that he has
given up his faith and his nationality.

So Paul, contemplating for his life's work preaching amongst the
Gentiles, determines at the beginning, 'I lay down all of which I
used to be proud. If my Jewish descent and privileges stand in my way
I cast them aside. "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as
touching the law, a Pharisee,"--all these I wrap together in one
bundle, and toss them behind me that I may be the better able to help
some to whom they would have hindered my access.' A man with a heart
will throw off his silken robes that his arm may be bared to rescue,
and his feet free to run to succour.

So we may, from the change of the Apostle's name, gather this lesson,
never out of date, that the only way to help people is to go down to
their level. If you want to bless men, you must identify yourself
with them. It is no use standing on an eminence above them, and
patronisingly talking down to them. You cannot scold, or hector, or
lecture men into the possession and acceptance of religious truth if
you take a position of superiority. As our Master has taught us, if
we want to make blind beggars see we must take the blind beggars by
the hand.

The spirit which led the Apostle to change the name of Saul, with its
memories of the royal dignity which, in the person of its great
wearer, had honoured his tribe, for a Roman name is the same which he
formally announces as a deliberately adopted law of his life. 'To
them that are without law I became as without law ... that I might
gain them that are without law ... I am made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some.'

It is the very inmost principle of the Gospel. The principle that
influenced the servant in this comparatively little matter, is the
principle that influenced the Master in the mightiest of all events.
'He who was in the form of God, and thought not equality with God a
thing to be eagerly snatched at, made Himself of no reputation, and
was found in fashion as a man and in form as a servant, and became
obedient unto death.' 'For as much as the children were partakers of
flesh and blood, He Himself likewise took part of the same'; and the
mystery of incarnation came to pass, because when the Divine would
help men, the only way by which the Infinite love could reach its end
was that the Divine should become man; identifying Himself with those
whom He would help, and stooping to the level of the humanity that He
would lift.

And as it is the very essence and heart of Christ's work, so, my
brother, it is the condition of all work that benefits our fellows.
It applies all round. We must stoop if we would raise. We must put
away gifts, culture, everything that distinguishes us, and come to
the level of the men that we seek to help. Sympathy is the parent of
all wise counsel, because it is the parent of all true understanding
of our brethren's wants. Sympathy is the only thing to which people
will listen, sympathy is the only disposition correspondent to the
message that we Christians are entrusted with. For a Christian man to
carry the Gospel of Infinite condescension to his fellows in a spirit
other than that of the Master and the Gospel which he speaks, is an
anomaly and a contradiction.

And, therefore, let us all remember that a vast deal of so-called
Christian work falls utterly dead and profitless, for no other reason
than this, that the doers have forgotten that they must come to the
level of the men whom they would help, before they can expect to
bless them.

You remember the old story of the heroic missionary whose heart
burned to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst captives, and as
there was no other way of reaching them, let himself be sold for a
slave, and put out his hands to have the manacles fastened upon them.
It is the law for all Christian service; become like men if you will
help them,--'To the weak as weak, all things to all men, that we
might by all means save some.'

And, my brother, there was no obligation on Paul's part to do
Christian work which does not lie on you.

III. Further, this change of name is a memorial of victory.

The name is that of Paul's first convert. He takes it, as I suppose,
because it seemed to him such a blessed thing that at the very moment
when he began to sow, God helped him to reap. He had gone out to his
work, no doubt, with much trembling, with weakness and fear. And lo!
here, at once, the fields were white already to the harvest,

Great conquerors have been named from their victories; Africanus,
Germanicus, Nelson of the Nile, Napier of Magdala, and the like. Paul
names himself from the first victory that God gives him to win; and
so, as it were, carries ever on his breast a memorial of the wonder
that through him it had been given to preach, and that not without
success, amongst the Gentiles 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.'

That is to say, this man thought of it as his highest honour, and the
thing best worthy to be remembered about his life, that God had
helped him to help his brethren to know the common Master. Is that
your idea of the best thing about a life? What would you, a
professing Christian, like to have for an epitaph on your grave? 'He
was rich; he made a big business in Manchester'; 'He was famous, he
wrote books'; 'He was happy and fortunate'; or, 'He turned many to
righteousness'? This man flung away his literary tastes, his home
joys, and his personal ambition, and chose as that for which he would
live, and by which he would fain be remembered, that he should bring
dark hearts to the light in which he and they together walked.

His name, in its commemoration of his first success, would act as a
stimulus to service and to hope. No doubt the Apostle, like the rest
of us, had his times of indolence and languor, and his times of
despondency when he seemed to have laboured in vain, and spent his
strength for nought. He had but to say 'Paul' to find the antidote to
both the one and the other, and in the remembrance of the past to
find a stimulus for service for the future, and a stimulus for hope
for the time to come. His first convert was to him the first drop
that predicts the shower, the first primrose that prophesies the
wealth of yellow blossoms and downy green leaves that will fill the
woods in a day or two. The first convert 'bears in his hand a glass
which showeth many more.' Look at the workmen in the streets trying
to get up a piece of the roadway. How difficult it is to lever out
the first paving stone from the compacted mass! But when once it has
been withdrawn, the rest is comparatively easy. We can understand
Paul's triumph and joy over the first stone which he had worked out
of the strongly cemented wall and barrier of heathenism; and his
conviction that having thus made a breach, if it were but wide enough
to let the end of his lever in, the fall of the whole was only a
question of time. I suppose that if the old alchemists had turned but
one grain of base metal into gold they might have turned tons, if
only they had had the retorts and the appliances with which to do it.
And so, what has brought one man's soul into harmony with God, and
given one man the true life, can do the same for all men. In the
first fruits we may see the fields whitening to the harvest. Let us
rejoice then, in any little work that God helps us to do, and be sure
that if so great be the joy of the first fruits, great beyond speech
will be the joy of the ingathering.

IV. And now last of all, this change of name is an index of the
spirit of a life's work.

'Paul' means 'little'; 'Saul' means 'desired.' He abandons the name
that prophesied of favour and honour, to adopt a name that bears upon
its very front a profession of humility. His very name is the
condensation into a word of his abiding conviction: 'I am less than
the least of all saints.' Perhaps even there may he an allusion to
his low stature, which may be pointed at in the sarcasm of his
enemies that his letters were strong, though his bodily presence was
'weak.' If he was, as Renan calls him, 'an ugly little Jew,' the name
has a double appropriateness.

But, at all events, it is an expression of the spirit in which he
sought to do his work. The more lofty the consciousness of his
vocation the more lowly will a true man's estimate of himself be. The
higher my thought of what God has given me grace to do, the more
shall I feel weighed down by the consciousness of my unfitness to do
it. And the more grateful my remembrance of what He has enabled me to
do, the more shall I wonder that I have been enabled, and the more
profoundly shall I feel that it is not my strength but His that has
won the victories.

So, dear brethren, for all hope, for all success in our work, for all
growth in Christian grace and character, this disposition of lowly
self-abasement and recognised unworthiness and infirmity is
absolutely indispensable. The mountain-tops that lift themselves to
the stars are barren, and few springs find their rise there. It is in
the lowly valleys that the flowers grow and the rivers run. And it is
they who are humble and lowly in heart to whom God gives strength to
serve Him, and the joy of accepted service.

I beseech you, then, learn your true life's task. Learn how to do it
by identifying yourselves with the humbler brethren whom you would
help. Learn the spirit in which it must be done; the spirit of lowly
self-abasement. And oh! above all, learn this, that unless you have
the new life, the life of God in your hearts, you have no life at
all.

Have you, my brother, that faith by which we receive into our spirits
Christ's own Spirit, to be our life? If you have, then you are a new
creature, with a new name, perhaps but dimly visible and faintly
audible, amidst the imperfections of earth, but sure to shine out on
the pages of the Lamb's Book of Life; and to be read 'with tumults of
acclaim' before the angels of Heaven. 'I will give him a white stone,
and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he
that receiveth it.'



JOHN MARK

'... John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem.'
--ACTS xiii. 13.

The few brief notices of John Mark in Scripture are sufficient to
give us an outline of his life, and some inkling of his character. He
was the son of a well-to-do Christian woman in Jerusalem, whose house
appears to have been the resort of the brethren as early as the
period of Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison. As the cousin
of Barnabas he was naturally selected to be the attendant and secular
factotum of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. For
some reason, faint-heartedness, lack of interest, levity of
disposition, or whatever it may have been, he very quickly abandoned
that office and returned to his home. His kindly-natured and
indulgent relative sought to reinstate him in his former position on
the second journey of Paul and himself. Paul's kinder severity
refused to comply with the wish of his colleague Barnabas, and so
they part, and Barnabas and Mark sail away to Cyprus, and drop out of
the Acts of the Apostles. We hear no more about him until near the
end of the Apostle Paul's life, when the Epistles to the Colossians
and Philemon show him as again the companion of Paul in his
captivity. He seems to have left him in Rome, to have gone to Asia
Minor for a space, to have returned to the Apostle during his last
imprisonment and immediately prior to his death, and then to have
attached himself to the Apostle Peter, and under his direction and
instruction to have written his Gospel.

Now these are the bones of his story; can we put flesh and blood upon
them: and can we get any lessons out of them? I think we may; at any
rate I am going to try.

I. Consider then, first, his--what shall I call it? well, if I may
use the word which Paul himself designates it by, in its correct
signification, we may call it his--apostasy.

It was not a departure from Christ, but it was a departure from very
plain duty. And if you will notice the point of time at which Mark
threw up the work that was laid upon him, you will see the reason for
his doing so. The first place to which the bold evangelists went was
Cyprus. Barnabas was a native of Cyprus, which was perhaps the reason
for selecting it as the place in which to begin the mission. For the
same reason, because it was the native place of his relative, it
would be very easy work for John Mark as long as they stopped in
Cyprus, among his friends, with people that knew him, and with whom
no doubt he was familiar. But as soon as they crossed the strait that
separated the island from the mainland, and set foot upon the soil of
Asia Minor, so soon he turned tail; like some recruit that goes into
battle, full of fervour, but as soon as the bullets begin to 'ping'
makes the best of his way to the rear. He was quite ready for
missionary work as long as it was easy work; quite ready to do it as
long as he was moving upon known ground and there was no great call
upon his heroism, or his self-sacrifice; he does not wait to test the
difficulties, but is frightened by the imagination of them, does not
throw himself into the work and see how he gets on with it, but
before he has gone a mile into the land, or made any real experience
of the perils and hardships, has had quite enough of it, and goes
away back to his mother in Jerusalem.

Yes, and we find exactly the same thing in all kinds of strenuous
life. Many begin to run, but one after another, as 'lap' after 'lap'
of the racecourse is got over, has had enough of it, and drops on one
side; a hundred started, and at the end the field is reduced to three
or four. All you men that have grey hairs on your heads can remember
many of your companions that set out in the course with you, 'did run
well' for a little while: what has become of them? This thing
hindered one, the other thing hindered another; the swiftly formed
resolution died down as fast as it blazed up; and there are perhaps
some three or four that, 'by patient continuance in well-doing,' have
been tolerably faithful to their juvenile ideal; and to use the
homely word of the homely Abraham Lincoln, kept 'pegging away' at
what they knew to be the task that was laid upon them.

This is very 'threadbare' morality, very very familiar and old-
fashioned teaching; but I am accustomed to believe that no teaching
is threadbare until it is practised; and that however well-worn the
platitudes may be, you and I want them once again unless we have
obeyed them, and done all which they enjoin. And so in regard to
every career which has in it anything of honour and of effort, let
John Mark teach us the lesson not swiftly to begin and
inconsiderately to venture upon a course, but once begun to let
nothing discourage, 'nor bate one jot of heart or hope, but still
bear up and steer right onward.'

And still further and more solemnly still, how like this story is to
the experience of hundreds and thousands of young Christians! Any man
who has held such an office as I hold, for as many years as I have
filled it, will have his memory full--and, may I say, his eyes not
empty--of men and women who began like this man, earnest, fervid,
full of zeal, and who, like him, have slackened in their work; who
were Sunday-school teachers, workers amongst the poor, I know not
what, when they were young men and women, and who now are idle and
unprofitable servants.

Some of you, dear brethren, need the word of exhortation and earnest
beseeching to contrast the sluggishness, the indolence of your
present, with the brightness and the fervour of your past. And I
beseech you, do not let your Christian life be like that snow that is
on the ground about us to-day--when it first lights upon the earth,
radiant and white, but day by day gets more covered with a veil of
sooty blackness until it becomes dark and foul.

Many of us have to acknowledge that the fervour of early days has
died down into coldness. The river that leapt from its source
rejoicing, and bickered amongst the hills in such swift and musical
descent, creeps sluggish and almost stagnant amongst the flats of
later life, or has been lost and swallowed up altogether in the
thirsty and encroaching sands of a barren worldliness. Oh! my
friends, let us all ponder this lesson, and see to it that no
repetition of the apostasy of this man darken our Christian lives and
sadden our Christian conscience.

II. And now let me ask you to look next, in the development of this
little piece of biography, to Mark's eclipse.

Paul and Barnabas differed about how to treat the renegade. Which of
them was right? Would it have been better to have put him back in his
old post, and given him another chance, and said nothing about the
failure; or was it better to do what the sterner wisdom of Paul did,
and declare that a man who had once so forgotten himself and
abandoned his work was not the man to put in the same place again?
Barnabas' highest quality, as far as we know, was a certain kind of
broad generosity and rejoicing to discern good in all men. He was a
'son of consolation'; the gentle kindness of his natural disposition,
added to the ties of relationship, influenced him in his wish
regarding his cousin Mark. He made a mistake. It would have been the
cruellest thing that could have been done to his relative to have put
him back again without acknowledgment, without repentance, without
his riding quarantine for a bit, and holding his tongue for a while.
He would not then have known his fault as he ought to have known it,
and so there would never have been the chance of his conquering it.

The Church manifestly sympathised with Paul, and thought that he took
the right view; for the contrast is very significant between the
unsympathising silence which the narrative records as attending the
departure of Barnabas and Mark--'Barnabas took Mark, and sailed away
to Cyprus'--and the emphasis with which it tells us that the other
partner in the dispute, Paul, 'took Silas and departed, being
recommended by the brethren to the grace of God.'

The people at Antioch had no doubt who was right, and I think they
were right in so deciding. So let us learn that God treats His
renegades as Paul treated Mark, and not as Barnabas would have
treated him, He is ready, even infinitely ready, to forgive and to
restore, but desires to see the consciousness of the sin first, and
desires, before large tasks are re-committed to hands that once have
dropped them, to have some kind of evidence that the hands have grown
stronger and the heart purified from its cowardice and its
selfishness. Forgiveness does not mean impunity. The infinite mercy
of God is not mere weak indulgence which so deals with a man's
failures and sins as to convey the impression that these are of no
moment whatsoever. And Paul's severity which said: 'No, such work is
not fit for such hands until the heart has been "broken and healed,"'
is of a piece with God's severity which is love. 'Thou wast a God
that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their
inventions.' Let us learn the difference between a weak charity which
loves too foolishly, and therefore too selfishly, to let a man
inherit the fruit of his doings, and the large mercy which knows how
to take the bitterness out of the chastisement, and yet knows how to
chastise.

And still further, this which I have called Mark's eclipse may teach
us another lesson, viz., that the punishment for shirking work is to
be denied work, just as the converse is true, that in God's
administration of the world and of His Church, the reward for
faithful work is to get more to do, and the filling a narrower sphere
is the sure way to have a wider sphere to fill. So if a man abandons
plain duties, then he will get no work to do. And that is why so many
Christian men and women are idle in this world; and stand in the
market-place, saying, with a certain degree of truth, 'No man hath
hired us.' No; because so often in the past tasks have been presented
to you, forced upon you, almost pressed into your unwilling hands,
that you have refused to take; and you are not going to get any more.
You have been asked to work,--I speak now to professing Christians--
duties have been pressed upon you, fields of service have opened
plainly before you, and you have not had the heart to go into them.
And so you stand idle all the day now, and the work goes to other
people that will do it. Thus God honours them, and passes you by.

Mark sails away to Cyprus, he does not go back to Jerusalem; he and
Barnabas try to get up some little schismatic sort of mission of
their own. Nothing comes of it; nothing ought to have come of it. He
drops out of the story; he has no share in the joyful conflicts and
sacrifices and successes of the Apostle. When he heard how Paul, by
God's help, was flaming like a meteor from East to West, do you not
think he wished that he had not been such a coward? When the Lord was
opening doors, and he saw how the work was prospering in the hands of
ancient companions, and Silas filled the place that he might have
filled, if he had been faithful to God, do you not think the bitter
thought occupied his mind, of how he had flung away what never could
come back to him now? The punishment of indolence is absolute
idleness.

So, my friends, let us learn this lesson, that the largest reward
that God can give to him that has been faithful in a few things, is
to give him many things to be faithful over. Beware, all of you
professing Christians, lest to you should come the fate of the
slothful servant with his one burled talent, to whom the punishment
of burying it unused was to lose it altogether; according to that
solemn word which was fulfilled in the temporal sphere in this story
on which I am commenting: 'To him that hath shall be given, and from
him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away.'

III. Again consider the process of recovery.

Concerning it we read nothing indeed in Scripture; but concerning it
we know enough to be able at least to determine what its outline must
have been. The silent and obscure years of compulsory inactivity had
their fruit, no doubt. There is only one road, with well-marked
stages, by which a backsliding or apostate Christian can return to
his Master. And that road has three halting-places upon it, through
which the heart must pass if it have wandered from its early faith,
and falsified its first professions. The first of them is the
consciousness of the fall, the second is the resort to the Master for
forgiveness; and the last is the deepened consecration to Him.

The patriarch Abraham, in a momentary lapse from faith to sense,
thought himself compelled to leave the land to which God had sent
him, because a famine threatened; and when he came back from Egypt,
as the narrative tells us with deep significance, he went to the
'place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning; to the altar
which lie had reared at the first.' Yes, my friends, we must begin
over again, tread all the old path, enter by the old wicket-gate,
once more take the place of the penitent, once more make acquaintance
with the pardoning Christ, once more devote ourselves in renewed
consecration to His service. No man that wanders into the wilderness
but comes back by the King's highway, if he comes back at all.

IV. And so lastly, notice the reinstatement of the penitent renegade.

If you turn at your leisure to the remaining notices of John Mark in
Scripture, you will find, in two of Paul's Epistles of the captivity,
viz., those to the Colossians and Philemon, references to him; and
these references are of a very interesting and beautiful nature. Paul
says that in Rome Mark was one of the four born Jews who had been a
cordial and a comfort to him in his imprisonment. He commends him, in
the view of a probable journey, to the loving reception of the church
at Colosse, as if they knew something derogatory to his character,
the impression of which the Apostle desired to remove. He sends to
Philemon the greetings of the repentant renegade in strange
juxtaposition with the greetings of two other men, one who was an
apostate at the end of his career instead of at the beginning, and of
whom we do not read that he ever came back, and one who all his life
long is the type of a faithful friend and companion, 'Mark, Demas,
Luke' are bracketed as greeting Philemon; the first a runaway that
came back, the second a fugitive who, so far as we know, never
returned, and the last the faithful friend throughout.

And then in Paul's final Epistle, and in almost the last words of it,
we read his request to Timothy. 'Take Mark, and bring him with thee,
for he is profitable to me for the ministry.' The first notice of him
was: 'They had John to their minister'; the last word about him is:
'he is profitable for the ministry.' The Greek words in the original
are not identical, but their meaning is substantially the same. So
notwithstanding the failure, notwithstanding the wise refusal of Paul
years before to have anything more to do with him, he is now
reinstated in his old office, and the aged Apostle, before he dies,
would like to have the comfort of his presence once more at his side.
Is not the lesson out of that, this eternal Gospel that even early
failures, recognised and repented of, may make a man better fitted
for the tasks from which once he fled? Just as they tell us--I do not
know whether it is true or not, it will do for an illustration--just
as they tell us that a broken bone renewed is stronger at the point
of fracture than it ever was before, so the very sin that we commit,
when once we know it for a sin, and have brought it to Christ for
forgiveness, may minister to our future efficiency and strength. The
Israelites fought twice upon one battlefield. On the first occasion
they were shamefully defeated; on the second, on the same ground, and
against the same enemies, they victoriously emerged from the
conflict, and reared the stone which said, 'Ebenezer!' 'Hitherto the
Lord hath helped us.'

And so the temptations which have been sorest may be overcome, the
sins into which we most naturally fall we may put our foot upon; the
past is no specimen of what the future may be. The page that is yet
to be written need have none of the blots of the page that we have
turned over shining through it. Sin which we have learned to know for
sin and to hate, teaches us humility, dependence, shows us where our
weak places are. Sin which is forgiven knits us to Christ with deeper
and more fervid love, and results in a larger consecration. Think of
the two ends of this man's life--flying like a frightened hare from
the very first suspicion of danger or of difficulty, sulking in his
solitude, apart from all the joyful stir of consecration and of
service; and at last made an evangelist to proclaim to the whole
world the story of the Gospel of the Servant. God works with broken
reeds, and through them breathes His sweetest music.

So, dear brethren, 'Take with you words, and return unto the Lord;
say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously,' and
the answer will surely be:--'I will heal their backsliding; I will
love them freely; I will be as the dew unto Israel.'



THE FIRST PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR

'Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and
whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this
salvation sent. 27. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their
rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the
prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled
them in condemning Him. 28. And though they found no cause of
death in Him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.
29. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of Him, they
took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a sepulchre. 30. But
God raised Him from the dead: 31. And He was seen many days of
them which came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are
His witnesses unto the people. 32. And we declare unto you glad
tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers,
33. God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that
He hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the
second psalm. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. 34.
And as concerning that He raised Him up from the dead, now no
more to return to corruption, He said on this wise, I will give
you the sure mercies of David. 35. Wherefore He saith also in
another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see
corruption. 36. For David, after he had served his own generation
by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers,
and saw corruption: 37. But He, whom God raised again, saw no
corruption. 38. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,
that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of
sins: 39. And by Him all that believe are justified from all
things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of
Moses.'--ACTS xiii. 26-39.

The extended report of Paul's sermon in the synagogue at Antioch of
Pisidia marks it, in accordance with Luke's method, as the first of a
series. It was so because, though the composition of the audience was
identical with that of those in the synagogues of Cyprus, this was
the beginning of the special work of the tour, the preaching in the
cities of Asia Minor. The part of the address contained in the
passage falls into three sections,--the condensed narrative of the
Gospel facts (vs. 26-31), the proof that the resurrection was
prophesied (vs. 32-37), and the pungent personal application (v. 38
to end).

I. The substance of the narrative coincides, as it could not but do,
with Peter's sermons, but yet with differences, partly due to the
different audience, partly to Paul's idiosyncrasy. After the
preceding historical _resume_, he girds himself to his proper work of
proclaiming the Gospel, and he marks the transition in verse 26 by
reiterating his introductory words.

His audience comprised the two familiar classes of Jews and Gentile
proselytes, and he seeks to win the ears of both. His heart goes out
in his address to them all as 'brethren,' and in his classing himself
and Barnabas among them as receivers of the message which he has to
proclaim. What skill, if it were not something much more sacred, even
humility and warm love, lies in that 'to _us_ is the word of this
salvation sent'! He will not stand above them as if he had any other
possession of his message than they might have. He, too, has received
it, and what he is about to say is not his word, but God's message to
them and him. That is the way to preach.

Notice, too, how skilfully he introduces the narrative of the
rejection of Jesus as the reason why the message has now come to them
his hearers away in Antioch. It is 'sent forth' 'to us,' Asiatic
Jews, _for_ the people in the sacred city would not have it. Paul
does not prick his hearers' consciences, as Peter did, by charging
home the guilt of the rejection of Jesus on them. They had no share
in that initial crime. There is a faint purpose of dissociating
himself and his hearers from the people of Jerusalem, to whom the
Dispersion were accustomed to look up, in the designation, 'they that
dwell in Jerusalem, and _their_ rulers.' Thus far the Antioch Jews
had had hands clean from that crime; they had now to choose whether
they would mix themselves up with it.

We may further note that Paul says nothing about Christ's life of
gentle goodness, His miracles or teaching, but concentrates attention
on His death and resurrection. From the beginning of his ministry
these were the main elements of his 'Gospel' (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). The
full significance of that death is not declared here. Probably it was
reserved for subsequent instruction. But it and the Resurrection,
which interpreted it, are set in the forefront, as they should always
be. The main point insisted on is that the men of Jerusalem were
fulfilling prophecy in slaying Jesus. With tragic deafness, they knew
not the voices of the prophets, clear and unanimous as they were,
though they heard them every Sabbath of their lives, and yet they
fulfilled them. A prophet's words had just been read in the
synagogue; Paul's words might set some hearer asking whether a veil
had been over his heart while his ears had heard the sound of the
word.

The Resurrection is established by the only evidence for a historical
fact, the testimony of competent eyewitnesses. Their competence is
established by their familiar companionship with Jesus during His
whole career; their opportunities for testing the reality of the
fact, by the 'many days' of His appearances.

Paul does not put forward his own testimony to the Resurrection,
though we know, from 1 Corinthians xv. 8, that he regarded Christ's
appearance to him as being equally valid evidence with that afforded
by the other appearances; but he distinguishes between the work of
the Apostles, as 'witnesses unto the people'--that is, the Jews of
Palestine--and that of Barnabas and himself. They had to bear the
message to the regions beyond. The Apostles and he had the same work,
but different spheres.

II. The second part turns with more personal address to his hearers.
Its purport is not so much to preach the Resurrection, which could
only be proved by testimony, as to establish the fact that it was the
fulfilment of the promises to the fathers. Note how the idea of
fulfilled prophecy runs in Paul's head. The Jews had _fulfilled_ it
by their crime; God _fulfilled_ it by the Resurrection. This
reiteration of a key-word is a mark of Paul's style in his Epistles,
and its appearance here attests the accuracy of the report of his
speech.

The second Psalm, from which Paul's first quotation is made, is
prophetic of Christ, inasmuch as it represents in vivid lyrical
language the vain rebellion of earthly rulers against Messiah, and
Jehovah's establishing Him and His kingdom by a steadfast decree.
Peter quoted its picture of the rebels, as fulfilled in the coalition
of Herod, Pilate, and the Jewish rulers against Christ. The Messianic
reference of the Psalm, then, was already seen; and we may not be
going too far if we assume that Jesus Himself had included it among
things written in the Psalms 'concerning Himself,' which He had
explained to the disciples after the Resurrection. It depicts Jehovah
speaking to Messiah, _after_ the futile attempts of the rebels: 'This
day have I begotten Thee.' That day is a definite point in time. The
Resurrection was a birth from the dead; so Paul, in Colossians i. 18,
calls Jesus 'the first begotten from the dead.' Romans i. 4,'declared
to be the Son of God ... by the resurrection from the dead,' is the
best commentary on Paul's words here.

The second and third quotations must apparently be combined, for the
second does not specifically refer to resurrection, but it promises
to 'you,' that is to those who obey the call to partake in the
Messianic blessings, a share in the 'sure' and enduring 'mercies of
David'; and the third quotation shows that not 'to see corruption'
was one of these 'mercies.' That implies that the speaker in the
Psalm was, in Paul's view, David, and that his words were his
believing answer to a divine promise. But David was dead. Had the
'sure mercy' proved, then, a broken reed? Not so: for Jesus, who is
Messiah, and is God's 'Holy One' in a deeper sense than David was,
has not seen corruption. The Psalmist's hopes are fulfilled in Him,
and through Him, in all who will 'eat' that their 'souls may live,'

III. But Paul's yearning for his brethren's salvation is not content
with proclaiming the fact of Christ's resurrection, nor with pointing
to it as fulfilling prophecy; he gathers all up into a loving, urgent
offer of salvation for every believing soul, and solemn warning to
despisers. Here the whole man flames out. Here the characteristic
evangelical teaching, which is sometimes ticketed as 'Pauline' by way
of stigma, is heard. Already had he grasped the great antithesis
between Law and Gospel. Already his great word 'justified' has taken
its place in his terminology. The essence of the Epistles to Romans
and Galatians is here. Justification is the being pronounced and
treated as not guilty. Law cannot justify. 'In Him' we are justified.
Observe that this is an advance on the previous statement that
'through Him' we receive remission of sins.

'In Him' points, thought but incidentally and slightly, to the great
truth of incorporation with Jesus, of which Paul had afterwards so
much to write. The justifying in Christ is complete and absolute. And
the sole sufficient condition of receiving it is faith. But the
greater the glory of the light the darker the shadow which it casts.
The broad offer of complete salvation has ever to be accompanied with
the plain warning of the dread issue of rejecting it. Just because it
is so free and full, and to be had on such terms, the warning has to
be rung into deaf ears, 'Beware _therefore_!' Hope and fear are
legitimately appealed to by the Christian evangelist. They are like
the two wings which may lift the soul to soar to its safe shelter in
the Rock of Ages.



LUTHER--A STONE ON THE CAIRN

'For David, after he had served his own generation by the
will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers,
and saw corruption: 37. But He, whom God raised again, saw
no corruption.'--ACTS xiii. 36, 37.

I take these words as a motto rather than as a text. You will have
anticipated the use which I purpose to make of them in connection
with the Luther Commemoration. They set before us, in clear sharp
contrast, the distinction between the limited, transient work of the
servants and the unbounded, eternal influence of the Master. The
former are servants, and that but for a time; they do their work,
they are laid in the grave, and as their bodies resolve into their
elements, so their influence, their teaching, the institutions which
they may have founded, disintegrate and decay. He lives. His relation
to the world is not as theirs; He is 'not for an age, but for all
time.' Death is not the end of His work. His Cross is the eternal
foundation of the world's hope. His life is the ultimate, perfect
revelation of the divine Nature which can never be surpassed, or
fathomed, or antiquated. Therefore the last thought, in all
commemorations of departed teachers and guides, should be of Him who
gave them all the force that they had; and the final word should be:
'They were not suffered to continue by reason of death, this Man
continueth ever.'

In the same spirit then as the words of my text, and taking them as
giving me little more than a starting-point and a framework, I draw
from them some thoughts appropriate to the occasion.

I. First, we have to think about the limited and transient work of
this great servant of God.

The miner's son, who was born in that little Saxon village four
hundred years ago, presents at first sight a character singularly
unlike the traditional type of mediaeval Church fathers and saints.
Their ascetic habits, and the repressive system under which they were
trained, withdraw them from our sympathy; but this sturdy peasant,
with his full-blooded humanity, unmistakably a man, and a man all
round, is a new type, and looks strangely out of place amongst
doctors and mediaeval saints.

His character, though not complex, is many-sided and in some respects
contradictory. The face and figure that look out upon us from the
best portraits of Luther tell us a great deal about the man. Strong,
massive, not at all elegant; he stands there, firm and resolute, on
his own legs, grasping a _Bible_ in a muscular hand. There is plenty
of animalism--a source of power as well as of weakness--in the thick
neck; an iron will in the square chin; eloquence on the full, loose
lips; a mystic, dreamy tenderness and sadness in the steadfast eyes--
altogether a true king and a leader of men!

The first things that strike one in the character are the iron will
that would not waver, the indomitable courage that knew no fear, the
splendid audacity that, single-handed, sprang into the arena for a
contest to the death with Pope, Emperors, superstitions, and devils;
the insight that saw the things that were 'hid from the wise and
prudent,' and the answering sincerity that would not hide what he
saw, nor say that he saw what he did not.

But there was a great deal more than that in the man. He was no mere
brave revolutionary, he was a cultured scholar, abreast of all the
learning of his age, capable of logic-chopping and scholastic
disputation on occasion, and but too often the victim of his own
over-subtle refinements. He was a poet, with a poet's dreaminess and
waywardness, fierce alternations of light and shade, sorrow and joy.
All living things whispered and spoke to him, and he walked in
communion with them all. Little children gathered round his feet, and
he had a big heart of love for all the weary and the sorrowful.

Everybody knows how he could write and speak. He made the German
language, as we may say, lifting it up from a dialect of boors to
become the rich, flexible, cultured speech that it is. And his Bible,
his single-handed work, is one of the colossal achievements of man;
like Stonehenge or the Pyramids. 'His words were half-battles,' 'they
were living creatures that had hands and feet'; his speech, direct,
strong, homely, ready to borrow words from the kitchen or the gutter,
is unmatched for popular eloquence and impression. There was music in
the man. His flute solaced his lonely hours in his home at
Wittemberg; and the Marseillaise of the Reformation, as that grand
hymn of his has been called, came, words and music, from his heart.
There was humour in him, coarse horseplay often; an honest, hearty,
broad laugh frequently, like that of a Norse god. There were coarse
tastes in him, tastes of the peasant folk from whom he came, which
clung to him through life, and kept him in sympathy with the common
people, and intelligible to them. And withal there was a
constitutional melancholy, aggravated by his weary toils, perilous
fightings, and fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep
mire where there was no standing; and which sighs through all his
life. The penitential Psalms and Paul's wail: 'O wretched man that I
am,' perhaps never woke more plaintive echo in any human heart than
they did in Martin Luther's.

Faults he had, gross and plain as the heroic mould in which he was
cast. He was vehement and fierce often; he was coarse and violent
often. He saw what he did see so clearly, that he was slow to believe
that there was anything that he did not see. He was oblivious of
counterbalancing considerations, and given to exaggerated,
incautious, unguarded statements of precious truths. He too often
aspired to be a driver rather than a leader of men; and his strength
of will became obstinacy and tyranny. It was too often true that he
had dethroned the pope of Rome to set up a pope at Wittemberg. And
foul personalities came from his lips, according to the bad
controversial fashion of his day, which permitted a licence to
scholars that we now forbid to fishwives.

All that has to be admitted; and when it is all admitted, what then?
This is a fastidious generation; Erasmus is its heroic type a great
deal more than Luther--I mean among the cultivated classes of our
day--and that very largely because in Erasmus there is no quick
sensibility to religious emotion as there is in Luther, and no
inconvenient fervour. The faults are there--coarse, plain, palpable--
and perhaps more than enough has been made of them. Let us remember,
as to his violence, that he was following the fashion of the day;
that he was fighting for his life; that when a man is at death-grips
with a tiger he may be pardoned if he strikes without considering
whether he is going to spoil the skin or not; and that on the whole
you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude. Men fought then
with bludgeons; they fight now with dainty polished daggers, dipped
in cold, colourless poison of sarcasm. Perhaps there was less malice
in the rougher old way than in the new.

The faults are there, and nobody who is not a fool would think of
painting that homely Saxon peasant-monk's face without the warts and
the wrinkles. But it is quite as unhistorical, and a great deal more
wicked, to paint nothing but the warts and wrinkles; to rake all the
faults together and make the most of them; and present them in answer
to the question: 'What sort of a man was Martin Luther?'

As to the work that he did, like the work of all of us, it had its
limitations, and it will have its end. The impulse that he
communicated, like all impulses that are given from men, will wear
out its force. New questions will arise of which the dead leaders
never dreamed, and in which they can give no counsel. The perspective
of theological thought will alter, the centre of interest will
change, a new dialect will begin to be spoken. So it comes to pass
that all religious teachers and thinkers are left behind, and that
their words are preserved and read rather for their antiquarian and
historical interest than because of any impulse or direction for the
present which may linger in them; and if they founded institutions,
these too, in their time, will crumble and disappear.

But I do not mean to say that the truths which Luther rescued from
the dust of centuries, and impressed upon the conscience of Teutonic
Europe, are getting antiquated. I only mean that his connection with
them and his way of putting them, had its limitations and will have
its end: 'This man, having served his own generation by the will of
God, was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption.'

What _were_ the truths, what was his contribution to the illumination
of Europe, and to the Church? Three great principles--which perhaps
closer analysis might reduce to one; but which for popular use, on
such an occasion as the present, had better be kept apart--will state
his service to the world.

There were three men in the past who, as it seems to me, reach out
their hands to one another across the centuries--Paul, St. Augustine,
and Martin Luther, The three very like each other, all three of them
joining the same subtle speculative power with the same capacity of
religious fervour, and of flaming up at the contemplation of divine
truth; all of them gifted with the same exuberant, and to fastidious
eyes, incorrect eloquence; all three trained in a school of religious
thought of which each respectively was destined to be the antagonist
and all but the destroyer.

The young Pharisee, on the road to Damascus, blinded, bewildered,
with all that vision flaming upon him, sees in its light his past,
which he thought had been so pure, and holy, and God-serving, and
amazedly discovers that it had been all a sin and a crime, and a
persecution of the divine One. Beaten from every refuge, and lying
there, he cries: 'What wouldst Thou have me to do, Lord?'

The young Manichean and profligate in the fourth century, and the
young monk in his convent in the fifteenth, passed through a similar
experience;--different in form, identical in substance--with that of
Paul the persecutor. And so Paul's Gospel, which was the description
and explanation, the rationale, of his own experience, became their
Gospel; and when Paul said: 'Not by works of righteousness which our
own hands have done, but by His mercy He saved us' (Titus iii. 5),
the great voice from the North African shore, in the midst of the
agonies of barbarian invasions and a falling Rome, said 'Amen. Man
lives by faith,' and the voice from the Wittemberg convent, a
thousand years after, amidst the unspeakable corruption of that
phosphorescent and decaying Renaissance, answered across the
centuries, 'It is true!' 'Herein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith.' Luther's word to the world was Augustine's word
to the world; and Luther and Augustine were the echoes of Saul of
Tarsus--and Paul learned his theology on the Damascus road, when the
voice bade him go and proclaim 'forgiveness of sins, and inheritance
among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me' (Acts xxvi.
18). That is Luther's first claim on our gratitude, that he took this
truth from the shelves where it had reposed, dust-covered, through
centuries, that he lifted this truth from the bier where it had lain,
smothered with sacerdotal garments, and called with a loud voice, 'I
say unto thee, arise!' and that now the commonplace of Christianity
is this: All men are sinful men, justice condemns us all, our only
hope is God's infinite mercy, that mercy comes to us all in Jesus
Christ that died for us, and he that gets that into his heart by
simple faith, he is forgiven, pure, and he is an heir of Heaven.

There are other aspects of Christian truth which Luther failed to
apprehend. The Gospel is, of course, not merely a way of
reconciliation and forgiveness. He pushed his teaching of the
uselessness of good works as a means of salvation too far. He said
rash and exaggerated things in his vehement way about the 'justifying
power' of faith alone. Doubtless his language was often overstrained,
and his thoughts one-sided, in regard to subjects that need very
delicate handling and careful definition. But after all this is
admitted, it remains true that his strong arm tossed aside the
barriers and rubbish that had been piled across the way by which
prodigals could go home to their Father, and made plain once more the
endless mercy of God, and the power of humble faith. He was right
when he declared that whatever heights and depths there may be in
God's great revelation, and however needful it is for a complete
apprehension of the truth as it is in Jesus that these should find
their place in the creed of Christendom, still the firmness with
which that initial truth of man's sinfulness and his forgiveness and
acceptance through simple faith in Christ is held, and the clear
earnestness with which it is proclaimed, are the test of a standing
or a falling Church.

And then closely connected with this central principle, and yet
susceptible of being stated separately, are the other two; of neither
of which do I think it necessary to say more than a word. Following
on that great discovery--for it was a discovery--by the monk in his
convent, of justification by faith, there comes the other principle
of the entire sweeping away of all priesthood, and the direct access
to God of every individual Christian soul. There are no more external
rites to be done by a designated and separate class. There is one
sacrificing Priest, and one only, and that is Jesus Christ, who has
sacrificed Himself for us all, and there are no other priests, except
in the sense in which every Christian man is a priest and minister of
the most high God. And no man comes between me and my Father; and no
man has power to do anything for me which brings me any grace, except
in so far as mine own heart opens for the reception, and mine own
faith lays hold of the grace given.

Luther did not carry that principle so far as some of us modern
Nonconformists carry it. He left illogical fragments of
sacramentarian and sacerdotal theories in his creed and in his
Church. But, for all that, we owe mainly to him the clear utterance
of that thought, the warm breath of which has thawed the ice chains
which held Europe in barren bondage. Notwithstanding the present
portentous revival of sacerdotalism, and the strange turning again of
portions of society to these beggarly elements of the past, I believe
that the figments of a sacrificing priesthood and sacramental
efficacy will never again permanently darken the sky in this land,
the home of the men who speak the tongue of Milton, and owe much of
their religious and political freedom to the reformation of Luther.

And the third point, which is closely connected with these other two,
is this, the declaration that every illuminated Christian soul has a
right and is bound to study God's Word without the Church at his
elbow to teach him what to think about it. It was Luther's great
achievement that, whatever else he did, he put the Bible into the
hands of the common people. In that department and region, his work
perhaps bears more distinctly the traces of limitation and
imperfection than anywhere else, for he knew nothing--how could he?--
of the difficult questions of this day in regard to the composition
and authority of Scripture, nor had he thought out his own system or
done full justice to his own principle.

He could be as inquisitorial and as dogmatic as any Dominican of them
all. He believed in force; he was as ready as all his fellows were to
invoke the aid of the temporal power. The idea of the Church, as
helped and sustained--which means fettered, and weakened, and
paralysed--by the civic government, bewitched him as it did his
fellows. We needed to wait for George Fox, and Roger Williams, and
more modern names still, before we understood fully what was involved
in the rejection of priesthood, and the claim that God's Word should
speak directly to each Christian soul. But for all that, we largely
owe to Luther the creed that looks in simple faith to Christ, a
Church without a priest, in which every man is a priest of the Most
High,--the only true democracy that the world will ever see--and a
Church in which the open Bible and the indwelling Spirit are the
guides of every humble soul within its pale. These are his claims on
our gratitude.

Luther's work had its limitations and its imperfections, as I have
been saying to you. It will become less and less conspicuous as the
ages go on. It cannot be otherwise. That is the law of the world. As
a whole green forest of the carboniferous era is represented now in
the rocks by a thin seam of coal, no thicker than a sheet of paper,
so the stormy lives and the large works of the men that have gone
before, are compressed into a mere film and line, in the great cliff
that slowly rises above the sea of time and is called the history of
the world.

II. Be it so; be it so! Let us turn to the other thought of our text,
the perpetual work of the abiding Lord.

'He whom God raised up saw no corruption.' It is a fact that there
are thousands of men and women in the world to-day who have a feeling
about that nineteen-centuries-dead Galilean carpenter's son that they
have about no one else. All the great names of antiquity are but
ghosts and shadows, and all the names in the Church and in the world,
of men whom we have not seen, are dim and ineffectual to us. They may
evoke our admiration, our reverence, and our wonder, but none of them
can touch our hearts. But here is this unique, anomalous fact that
men and women by the thousand love Jesus Christ, the dead One, the
unseen One, far away back there in the ages, and feel that there is
no mist of oblivion between them and Him.

That is because He does for you and me what none of these other men
can do. Luther preached about the Cross; Christ _died_ on it. 'Was
Paul crucified for you?' there is the secret of His undying hold upon
the world. The further secret lies in this, that He is not a past
force but a present one. He is no exhausted power but a power mighty
to-day; working in us, around us, on us, and for us--a living Christ.
'This Man whom God raised up from the dead saw no corruption,' the
others move away from us like figures in a fog, dim as they pass into
the mists, having a blurred half-spectral outline for a moment, and
then gone.

Christ's death has a present and a perpetual power. He has 'offered
one sacrifice for sins for ever'; and no time can diminish the
efficacy of His Cross, nor our need of it, nor the full tide of
blessings which flow from it to the believing soul. Therefore do men
cling to Him today as if it was but yesterday that He had died for
them. When all other names carved on the world's records have become
unreadable, like forgotten inscriptions on decaying grave-stones, His
shall endure for ever, deep graven on the fleshly tables of the
heart. His revelation of God is the highest truth. Till the end of
time men will turn to His life for their clearest knowledge and
happiest certainty of their Father in heaven. There is nothing
limited or local in His character or works. In His meek beauty and
gentle perfectness, He stands so high above us all that, to-day, the
inspiration of His example and the lessons of His conduct touch us as
much as if He had lived in this generation, and will always shine
before men as their best and most blessed law of conduct. Christ will
not be antiquated till He is outgrown, and it will be some time
before that happens.

But Christ's power is not only the abiding influence of His earthly
life and death. He is not a past force, but a present one. He is
putting forth fresh energies to-day, working in and for and by all
who love Him. We believe in a living Christ.

Therefore the final thought, in all our grateful commemoration of
dead helpers and guides, should be of the undying Lord. He sent
whatsoever power was in them. He is with His Church to-day, still
giving to men the gifts needful for their times. Aaron may die on
Hor, and Moses be laid in his unknown grave on Pisgah, but the Angel
of the Covenant, who is the true Leader, abides in the pillar of
cloud and fire, Israel's guide in the march, and covering shelter in
repose. That is our consolation in our personal losses when our dear
ones are 'not suffered to continue by reason of death.' He who gave
them all their sweetness is with us still, and has all the sweetness
which He lent them for a time. So if we have Christ with us we cannot
be desolate. Looking on all the men, who in their turn have helped
forward His cause a little way, we should let their departure teach
us His presence, their limitations His all-sufficiency, their death
His life.

Luther was once found, at a moment of peril and fear, when he had
need to grasp unseen strength, sitting in an abstracted mood, tracing
on the table with his finger the words '_Vivit_! _vivit_!'--'He
lives! He lives!' It is our hope for ourselves, and for God's truth,
and for mankind. Men come and go; leaders, teachers, thinkers speak
and work for a season and then fall silent and impotent. He abides.
They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, and therefore sooner
or later quenched, but He is the true light from which they draw all
their brightness, and He shines for evermore. Other men are left
behind and, as the world glides forward, are wrapped in ever-
thickening folds of oblivion, through which they shine feebly for a
little while, like lamps in a fog, and then are muffled in
invisibility. We honour other names, and the coming generations will
forget them, but 'His name shall endure for ever, His name shall
continue as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him; all
nations shall call Him blessed.'



JEWISH REJECTERS AND GENTILE RECEIVERS

'And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to
hear the word of God. 45. But when the Jews saw the multitudes,
they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which
were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. 46. Then Paul
and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word
of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it
from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo,
we turn to the Gentiles. 47. For so hath the Lord commanded us,
saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou
shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. 48. And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the
word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed. 49. And the word of the Lord was published throughout
all the region. 50. But the Jews stirred up the devout and
honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised
persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of
their coasts. 51. But they shook off the dust of their feet
against them, and came unto Iconium. 52. And the disciples were
filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.

'And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together
into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great
multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. 2.
But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their
minds evil affected against the brethren. 3. Long time therefore
abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto
the word of His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done
by their hands. 4. But the multitude of the city was divided: and
part held with the Jews, and part with the Apostles. 5. And when
there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the
Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone
them, 6. They were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe,
cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about:
7. And there they preached the Gospel.'--ACTS xiii. 44-52;
xiv. 1-7.

In general outline, the course of events in the two great cities of
Asia Minor, with which the present passage is concerned, was the
same. It was only too faithful a forecast of what was to be Paul's
experience everywhere. The stages are: preaching in the synagogue,
rejection there, appeal to the Gentiles, reception by them, a little
nucleus of believers formed; disturbances fomented by the Jews, who
swallow their hatred of Gentiles by reason of their greater hatred of
the Apostles, and will riot with heathens, though they will not pray
nor eat with them; and finally the Apostles' departure to carry the
gospel farther afield. This being the outline, we have mainly to
consider any special features diversifying it in each case.

Their experience in Antioch was important, because it forced Paul and
Barnabas to put into plain words, making very clear to themselves as
well as to their hearers, the law of their future conduct. It is
always a step in advance when circumstances oblige us to formularise
our method of action. Words have a wonderful power in clearing up our
own vision. Paul and Barnabas had known all along that they were sent
to the Gentiles; but a conviction in the mind is one thing, and the
same conviction driven in on us by facts is quite another. The
discipline of Antioch crystallised floating intentions into a clear
statement, which henceforth became the rule of Paul's conduct. Well
for us if we have open eyes to discern the meaning of difficulties,
and promptitude and decision to fix and speak out plainly the course
which they prescribe!

The miserable motives of the Jews' antagonism are forcibly stated in
vs. 44, 45. They did not 'contradict and blaspheme,' because they had
taken a week to think over the preaching and had seen its falseness,
but simply because, dog-in-the-manger like, they could not bear that
'the whole city' should be welcome to share the message. No doubt
there was a crowd of 'Gentile dogs' thronging the approach to the
synagogue; and one can almost see the scowling faces and hear the
rustle of the robes drawn closer to avoid pollution. Who were these
wandering strangers that they should gather such a crowd? And what
had the uncircumcised rabble of Antioch to do with 'the promises made
to the fathers'? It is not the only time that religious men have
taken offence at crowds gathering to hear God's word. Let us take
care that we do not repeat the sin. There are always some who--

  'Taking God's word under wise protection,
  Correct its tendency to diffusiveness.'

It needed some courage to front the wild excitement of such a mob,
with calm, strong words likely to increase the rage.

'Lo, we turn to the Gentiles.' This is not to be regarded as
announcing a general course of action, but simply as applying to the
actual rejecters in Antioch. The necessity that the word should first
be spoken to the Jews continued to be recognised, in each new sphere
of work, by the Apostle; but wherever, as here, men turned from the
message, the messengers turned from them without further waste of
time. Paul put into words here the law for his whole career. The fit
punishment of rejection is the withdrawal of the offer. There is
something pathetic in the persistence with which, in place after
place, Paul goes through the same sequence, his heart yearning over
his brethren according to the flesh, and hoping on, after all
repulses. It was far more than natural patriotism; it was an offshoot
of Christ's own patient love.

Note also the divine command. Paul bases his action on a prophecy as
to the Messiah. But the relation on which prophecy insists between
the personal servant of Jehovah and the collective Israel, is such
that the great office of being the Light of the world devolves from
Him on it and the true Israel is to be a light to the Gentiles. These
very Jews in Antioch, lashing themselves into fury because Gentiles
were to be offered a share in Israel's blessings, ought to have been
discharging this glorious function. Their failure showed that they
were no parts of the real Israel. No doubt the two missionaries left
the synagogue as they spoke, and, as the door swung behind them, it
shut hope out and unbelief in. The air was fresh outside, and eager
hearts welcomed the word. Very beautifully is the gladness of the
Gentile hearers set in contrast with the temper of the Jews. It is
strange news to heathen hearts that there is a God who loves them,
and a divine Christ who has died for them. The experience of many a
missionary follows Paul's here.

'As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' The din of many
a theological battle has raged round these words, the writer of which
would have probably needed a good deal of instruction before he could
have been made to understand what the fighting was about. But it is
to be noted that there is evidently intended a contrast between the
envious Jews and the gladly receptive Gentiles, which is made more
obvious by the repetition of the words 'eternal life.' It would seem
much more relevant and accordant with the context to understand the
word rendered 'ordained' as meaning 'adapted' or 'fitted,' than to
find in it a reference to divine foreordination. Such a meaning is
legitimate, and strongly suggested by the context. The reference then
would be to the 'frame of mind of the heathen, and not to the decrees
of God.'

The only points needing notice in the further developments at Antioch
are the agents employed by the Jews, the conduct of the Apostles, and
the sweet little picture of the converts. As to the former, piously
inclined women in a heathen city would be strongly attracted by
Judaism and easily lend themselves to the impressions of their
teachers. We know that many women of rank were at that period
powerfully affected in this manner; and if a Rabbi could move a
Gentile of influence through whispers to the Gentile's wife, he would
not be slow to do it. The ease with which the Jews stirred up tumults
everywhere against the Apostle indicates their possession of great
influence; and their willingness to be hand in glove with heathen for
so laudable an object as crushing one of their own people who had
become a heretic, measures the venom of their hate and the depth of
their unscrupulousness.

The Apostles had not to fear violence, as their enemies were content
with turning them out of Antioch and its neighbourhood; but they
obeyed Christ's command, shaking off the dust against them, in token
of renouncing all connection. The significant act is a trace of early
knowledge of Christ's words, long before the date of our Gospels.

While the preachers had to leave the little flock in the midst of
wolves, there was peace in the fold. Like the Ethiopian courtier when
deprived of Philip, the new believers at Antioch found that the
withdrawal of the earthly brought the heavenly Guide. 'They were
filled with joy.' What! left ignorant, lonely, ringed about with
enemies, how could they be glad? Because they were filled 'with the
Holy Ghost.' Surely joy in such circumstances was no less
supernatural a token of His presence than rushing wind or parting
flames or lips opened to speak with tongues. God makes us lonely that
He may Himself be our Companion.

It was a long journey to the great city of Iconium. According to some
geographers, the way led over savage mountains; but the two brethren
tramped along, with an unseen Third between them, and that Presence
made the road light. They had little to cheer them in their
prospects, if they looked with the eye of sense; but they were in
good heart, and the remembrance of Antioch did not embitter or
discourage them. Straight to the synagogue, as before, they went. It
was their best introduction to the new field. There, if we take the
plain words of Acts xiv. 1, they found a new thing, 'Greeks,'
heathens pure and simple, not Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews, nor
even proselytes, in the synagogue. This has seemed so singular that
efforts have been made to impose another sense on the words, or to
suppose that the notice of Greeks, as well as Jews, believing is
loosely appended to the statement of the preaching in the synagogue,
omitting notice of wider evangelising. But it is better to accept
than to correct our narrative, as we know nothing of the
circumstances that may have led to this presence of Greeks in the
synagogue. Some modern setters of the Bible writers right would be
all the better for remembering occasionally that improbable things
have a strange knack of happening.

The usual results followed the preaching of the Gospel. The Jews were
again the mischief-makers, and, with the astuteness of their race,
pushed the Gentiles to the front, and this time tried a new piece of
annoyance. 'The brethren' bore the brunt of the attack; that is, the
converts, not Paul and Barnabas. It was a cunning move to drop
suspicions into the minds of influential townsmen, and so to harass,
not the two strangers, but their adherents. The calculation was that
that would stop the progress of the heresy by making its adherents
uncomfortable, and would also wound the teachers through their
disciples.

But one small element had been left out of the calculation--the sort
of men these teachers were; and another factor which had not hitherto
appeared came into play, and upset the whole scheme. Paul and
Barnabas knew when to retreat and when to stand their ground. This
time they stood; and the opposition launched at their friends was the
reason why they did so. 'Long time _therefore_ abode they.' If their
own safety had been in question, they might have fled; but they could
not leave the men whose acceptance of their message had brought them
into straits. But behind the two bold speakers stood 'the Lord,'
Christ Himself, the true Worker. Men who live in Him are made bold by
their communion with Him, and He witnesses for those who witness for
Him.

Note the designation of the Gospel as 'the word of His grace.' It has
for its great theme the condescending, giving love of Jesus. Its
subject is grace; its origin is grace; its gift is grace. Observe,
too, that the same connection between boldness of speech and signs
and wonders is found in Acts iv. 29, 30. Courageous speech for Christ
is ever attended by tokens of His power, and the accompanying tokens
of His power make the speech more courageous.

The normal course of events was pursued. Faithful preaching provoked
hostility, which led to the alliance of discordant elements, fused
for a moment by a common hatred--alas! that enmity to God's truth
should be often a more potent bond of union than love!--and then to a
wise withdrawal from danger. Sometimes it is needful to fling away
life for Jesus; but if it can be preserved without shirking duty, it
is better to flee than to die. An unnecessary martyr is a suicide.
The Christian readiness to be offered has nothing in common with
fanatical carelessness of life, and still less with the morbid
longing for martyrdom which disfigures some of the most pathetic
pages of the Church's history. Paul living to preach in the regions
beyond was more useful than Paul dead in a street riot in Iconium. A
heroic prudence should ever accompany a trustful daring, and both are
best learned in communion with Jesus.



UNWORTHY OF LIFE

'... Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of
everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.'--ACTS xiii. 46.

So ended the first attempt on Paul's great missionary journey to
preach to the Jews. It is described at great length and the sermon
given in full because it is the first. A wonderful sermon it was;
touching all keys of feeling, now pleading almost with tears, now
flashing with indignation, now calmly dealing with Scripture
prophecies, now glowing as it tells the story of Christ's death for
men. It melted some of the hearers, but the most were wrought up to
furious passion--and with characteristic vehemence, like their
ancestors and their descendants through long dreary generations, fell
to 'contradicting and blaspheming.' We can see the scene in the
synagogue, the eager faces, the vehement gestures, the hubbub of
tongues, the bitter words that stormed round the two in the midst,
Barnabas like Jupiter, grave, majestic, and venerable; Paul like
Mercury, agile, mobile, swift of speech. They bore the brunt of the
fury till they saw it to be hopeless to try to calm it, and then
departed with these remarkable words.

They are even more striking if we notice that 'judge' here may be
used in its full legal sense. It is not merely equivalent to
_consider_, for these Jews by no means thought themselves unworthy of
eternal life, but it means, 'ye adjudge and pass sentence on
yourselves to be.' Their rejection of the message was a self-
pronounced sentence. It proved them to be, and made them, 'unworthy
of eternal life.' There are two or three very striking thoughts to be
gathered from these words which I would dwell on now.

I. What constitutes worthiness and unworthiness.

There are two meanings to the word 'worthy'--deserving or fit. They
run into each other and yet they may be kept quite apart. For
instance you may say of a man that 'he is worthy' to be something or
other, for which he is obviously qualified, not thinking at all
whether he deserves it or not.

Now in the first of these senses--we are all unworthy of eternal
life. That is just to state in other words the tragic truth of
universal sinfulness. The natural outcome and issue of the course
which all men follow is death. But yet there are men who are fit for
and capable of eternal life. Who they are and what fitness is can
only be ascertained when we rightly understand what eternal life is.
It is not merely future blessedness or a synonym for a vulgar heaven.
That is the common notion of its meaning. Men think of that future as
a blessed state to which God can admit anybody if He will, and, as He
is good, will admit pretty nearly everybody. But eternal life is a
present possession as well as a future one, and passing by its deeper
aspects, it includes--

Deliverance from evil habits and desires.

Purity, and love of all good and fair things.

Communion with God.

As well as forgiveness and removal of punishment.

What then are the qualifications making a man worthy of, in the sense
of fit for, such a state?

(_a_) To know oneself to be unworthy.

He who judges himself to be worthy is unworthy. He who knows himself
to be unworthy is worthy.

The first requisite is consciousness of sin, leading to repentance.

(_b_) To abandon striving to make oneself worthy.

By ourselves we never can do so. Many of us think that we must do our
best, and then God will do the rest.

There must be the entire cessation of all attempt to work out by our
own efforts characters that would entitle us to eternal life.

(_c_) To be willing to accept life on God's terms.

As a mere gift.

(_d_) To desire it.

God cannot give it to any one who does not want it. He cannot force
His gifts on us.

This then is the worthiness.

II. How we pass sentence on ourselves as unworthy.

It is quite clear that 'judge' here does not mean consider, for a
sense of unworthiness is not the reason which keeps men away from the
Gospel. Rather, as we have seen, a proud belief in our worthiness
keeps very many away. But 'judge' here means 'adjudicate' or
'pronounce sentence on,' and worthy means fit, qualified.

Consider then--

(_a_) That our attitude to the Gospel is a revelation of our deepest
selves.

The Gospel is a 'discerner of thoughts and intents of the heart.' It
judges us here and now, and by their attitude to it 'the thoughts of
many hearts shall be revealed.'

(_b_) That our rejection of it plainly shows that we have not the
qualifications for eternal life.

No doubt some men are kept from accepting Christ by intellectual
doubts and difficulties, but even these would alter their whole
attitude to Him if they had a profound consciousness of sin, and a
desire for deliverance from it.

But with regard to the great bulk of its hearers, no doubt the
hindrance is chiefly moral. Many causes may combine to produce the
absence of qualification. The excuses in the parable'--farm, oxen,
wife'--all amount to engrossment with this present world, and such
absorption in the things seen and temporal deadens desire. So the
Gospel preached excites no longings, and a man hears the offer of
salvation without one motion of his heart towards it, and thus
proclaims himself 'unworthy of eternal life.'

But the great disqualification is the absence of all consciousness of
sin. This is the very deepest reason which keeps men away from
Christ.

How solemn a thing the preaching and hearing of this word is!

How possible for you to make yourselves fit!

How simple the qualification! We have but to know ourselves sinners
and to trust Jesus and then we 'shall be counted worthy to obtain
that world and the resurrection from the dead.' Then we shall be
'worthy to escape and to stand before the Son of Man.' Then shall we
be 'worthy of this calling,' and the Judge himself shall say: 'They
shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.'



'FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST'

'And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy
Ghost.'--Acts xiii. 52.

That joy was as strange as a garden full of flowers would be in
bitter winter weather. For everything in the circumstances of these
disciples tended to make them sad. They had been but just won from
heathenism, and they were raw, ignorant, unfit to stand alone. Paul
and Barnabas, their only guides, had been hunted out of Antioch by a
mob, and it would have been no wonder if these disciples had felt as
if they had been taken on to the ice and then left, when they most
needed a hand to steady them. Luke emphasises the contrast between
what might have been expected, and what was actually the case, by
that eloquent 'and' at the beginning of our verse, which links
together the departure of the Apostles and the joy of the disciples.
But the next words explain the paradox. These new converts, left in a
great heathen city, with no helpers, no guides, to work out as best
they might a faith of which they had but newly received the barest
rudiments, were 'full of joy' because they were 'full of the Holy
Ghost.'

Now that latter phrase, so striking here, is characteristic of this
book of the Acts, and especially of its earlier chapters, which are
all, as it were, throbbing with wonder at the new gift which
Pentecost had brought. Let me for a moment, in the briefest possible
fashion, try to recall to you the instances of its occurrence, for
they are very significant and very important.

You remember how at Pentecost 'all' the disciples were 'filled with
the Holy Ghost.' Then when the first persecution broke over the
Church, Peter before the Council is 'filled with the Holy Spirit,'
and therefore he beards them, and 'speaks with all boldness.' When he
goes back to the Church and tells them of the threatening cloud that
was hanging over them, they too are filled with the Holy Spirit, and
therefore rise buoyantly upon the tossing wave, as a ship might do
when it passes the bar and meets the heaving sea. Then again the
Apostles lay down the qualifications for election to the so-called
office of deacon as being that the men should be 'full of the Holy
Ghost and wisdom'; and in accordance therewith, we read of the first
of the seven, Stephen, that he was 'full of faith and of the Holy
Ghost,' and therefore 'full of grace and power.' When he stood before
the Council he was 'full of the Holy Ghost,' and therefore looked up
into heaven and saw it opened, and the Christ standing ready to help
him. In like manner we read of Barnabas that he 'was a good man, full
of the Holy Ghost and of faith.' And finally we read in our text that
these new converts, left alone in Antioch of Pisidia, were 'full of
joy and of the Holy Ghost.'

Now these are the principal instances, and my purpose now is rather
to deal with the whole of these instances of the occurrence of this
remarkable expression than with the one which I have selected as a
text, because I think that they teach us great truths bearing very
closely on the strength and joyfulness of the Christian life which
are far too much neglected, obscured, and forgotten by us to-day.

I wish then to point you, first, to the solemn thought that is here,
as to what should be--

I. The experience of every Christian,

Note the two things, the universality and the abundance of this
divine gift. I have often had occasion to say to you, and so I merely
repeat it again in the briefest fashion, that we do not grasp the
central blessedness of the Christian faith unless, beyond forgiveness
and acceptance, beyond the mere putting away of the dread of
punishment either here or hereafter, we see that the gift of God in
Jesus Christ is the communication to every believing soul of that
divine life which is bestowed by the Spirit of Christ granted to
every believing heart. But I would have you notice how the
universality of the gift is unmistakably taught us by the instances
which I have briefly gathered together in my previous remarks. It was
no official class on which, on the day of Pentecost, the tongues of
fire fluttered down. It was to the whole Church that courage to front
the persecutor was imparted. When in Samaria the preaching of Philip
brought about the result of the communication of the Holy Spirit, it
was to all the believers that it was granted, and when, in the Roman
barracks at Caesarea, Cornelius and his companion listened to Peter,
it was upon them all that that Divine Spirit descended.

I suppose I need not remind you of how, if we pass beyond this book
of the Acts into the Epistles of Paul, his affirmations do most
emphatically insist upon the fact that 'we are all made to drink into
one Spirit'; and so convinced is he of the universality of the
possession of that divine life by every Christian, that he does not
hesitate to say that 'if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is
none of His,' and to clear away all possibility of misunderstanding
the depth and wonderfulness of the gift, he further adds in another
place, 'Know ye not that the Spirit is in you, except ye be
reprobates?' Similarly another of the New Testament writers declares,
in the broadest terms, that 'this spake he of the Holy Spirit,
which'--Apostles? no; office-bearers? no; ordained men? no;
distinguished and leading men? No--'_they that believe on Him_ should
receive.' Christianity is the true democracy, because it declares
that upon all, handmaidens and servants, young men and old men, there
comes the divine gift. The world thinks of a divine inspiration in a
more or less superficial fashion, as touching only the lofty summits,
the great thinkers and teachers and artists and mighty men of light
and leading of the race. The Old Testament regarded prophets and
kings, and those who were designated to important offices, as the
possessors of the Divine Spirit. But Christianity has seen the sun
rising so high in the heavens that the humblest floweret, in the
deepest valley, basks in its beams and opens to its light. 'We have
_all_ been made to drink into the one Spirit.'

Let me remind you too of how, from the usage of this book, as well as
from the rest of the New Testament teaching, there rises the other
thought of the abundance of the gift. 'Full of the Holy Spirit'--the
cup is brimming with generous wine. Not that that fulness is such as
to make inconsistencies impossible, as, alas, the best of us know.
The highest condition for us is laid down in the sad words which yet
have triumph in their sadness--'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh.' But whilst the fulness is not such
as to exclude the need of conflict, it is such as to bring the
certainty of victory.

Again if we turn to the instances to which I have already referred,
we shall find that they fall into two classes, which are
distinguished in the original by a slight variation in the form of
the words employed. Some instances refer to a habitual possession of
an abundant spiritual life moulding the character constantly, as in
the cases of Stephen and Barnabas. Others refer rather to occasional
and special influxes of special power on account of special
circumstances, and drawn forth by special exigencies, as when there
poured into Peter's heart the Divine Spirit that made him bold before
the Council; or as when the dying martyr's spirit was flooded with a
new clearness of vision that pierced the heavens and beheld the
Christ. So then there may be and ought to be, in each of us, a
fulness of the Spirit, up to the edge of our capacity, and yet of
such a kind as that it may be reinforced and increased when special
needs arise.

Not only so, but that which fills me to-day should not fill me to-
morrow, because, as in earthly love, so in heavenly, no man can tell
to what this thing shall grow. The more of fruition the more there
will be of expansion, and the more of expansion the more of desire,
and the more of desire the more of capacity, and the more of capacity
the more of possession. So, brethren, the man who receives a spark of
the divine life, through his most rudimentary and tremulous faith, if
he is a faithful steward of the gift that is given to him, will find
that it grows and grows, and that there is no limit to its growth,
and that in its limitless growth there lies the surest prophecy of an
eternal growth in the heavens.

A universal gift, that is to say, a gift to each of us if we are
Christians, an abundant gift that fills the whole nature of a man,
according to the measure of his present power to receive--that is the
ideal, that is what God means, that is what these first believers
had. It did not make them perfect, it did not save them from faults
or from errors, but it was real, it was influential, it was moulding
their characters, it was progressive. And that is the ideal for all
Christians. Is it our actual? We are meant to be full of the Holy
Ghost. Ah! how many of us have never realised that there is such a
thing as being thus possessed with a divine life, partly because we
do not understand that such a fulness will not be distinguishable
from our own self, except by bettering of the works of self, and
partly because of other reasons which I shall have to touch upon
presently! Brethren, we may, every one of us, be filled with the
Spirit. Let each of us ask, 'Am I? and if I am not, why this
emptiness in the presence of such abundance?'

And now let me ask you to look, in the second place, at what we
gather from these instances as to--

II. The results of that universal, abundant life.

Do not let us run away with the idea that the New Testament, or any
part of it, regards miracles and tongues and the like as being the
normal and chiefest gifts of that Divine Spirit. People read this
book of the Acts of the Apostles and, averse from the supernatural,
exaggerate the extent to which the primitive gift of the Holy Spirit
was manifested by signs and wonders, tongues of fire, and so on. We
have only to look at the instances to which I have already referred
to see that far more lofty and far more conspicuous than any such
external and transient manifestations, which yet have their place,
are the permanent and inward results, moulding character, and making
men. And Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians goes as far in the
way of setting the moral and spiritual effects of the divine
influence above the merely miraculous and external ones, as the most
advanced opponent of the supernatural could desire.

Let us look, and it can only be briefly, at the various results which
are presented in the instances to which I have referred. The most
general expression for all, which is the result of the Divine Spirit
dwelling in a man, is that it makes him good. Look at one of the
instances to which we have referred. 'Barnabas was a good man'--was
he? How came he to be so? Because he was 'full of the Holy Ghost.'
And how came he to be 'full of the Holy Ghost'? Because he was 'full
of faith.' Get the divine life into you, and that will make you good;
and, brethren, nothing else will. It is like the bottom heat in a
green-house, which makes all the plants that are there, whatever
their orders, grow and blossom and be healthy and strong. Therein is
the difference between Christian morality and the world's ethics.
They may not differ much, they do in some respects, in their ideal of
what constitutes goodness, but they differ in this, that the one
says, 'Be good, be good, be good!' but, like the Pharisees of old,
puts out not a finger to help a man to bear the burdens that it lays
upon him. The other says, 'Be good,' but it also says, 'take this and
it will make you good.' And so the one is Gospel and the other is
talk, the one is a word of good tidings, and the other is a beautiful
speculation, or a crushing commandment that brings death rather than
life. 'If there had been a law given which could have given life,
verily righteousness had been by the law.' But since the clearest
laying down of duty brings us no nearer to the performance of duty,
we need and, thank God! we have, a gift bestowed which invests with
power. He in whom the 'Spirit of Holiness' dwells, and he alone, will
be holy. The result of the life of God in the heart is a life
growingly like God's, manifested in the world.

Then again let me remind you of how, from another of our instances,
there comes another thought. The result of this majestic,
supernatural, universal, abundant, divine life is practical sagacity
in the commonest affairs of life. 'Look ye out from among you seven
men, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom.' What to do? To meet
wisely the claims of suspicious and jealous poverty, and to
distribute fairly a little money. That was all. And are you going to
invoke such a lofty gift as this, to do nothing grander than that?
Yes. Gravitation holds planets in their orbits, and keeps grains of
dust in their places. And one result of the inspiration of the
Almighty, which is granted to Christian people, is that they will be
wise for the little affairs of life. But Stephen was also 'full of
grace and power,' two things that do not often go together--grace,
gentleness, loveliness, graciousness, on the one side, and strength
on the other, which divorced, make wild work of character, and which
united, make men like God. So if we desire our lives to be full of
sweetness and light and beauty, the best way is to get the life of
Christ into them; and if we desire our lives not to be made placid
and effeminate by our cult of graciousness and gracefulness, but to
have their beauty stiffened and strengthened by manly energy, then
the best way is to get the life of the 'strong Son of God, immortal
love,' into our lives.

The same Stephen, 'full of the Holy Ghost,' looked up into heaven and
saw the Christ. So one result of that abundant life, if we have it,
will be that even though as with him, when he saw the heavens opened,
there may be some smoke-darkened roof above our heads, we can look
through all the shows of this vain world, and our purged eyes can
behold the Christ. Again the disciples in our text 'were full of
joy,' because 'they were full of the Holy Spirit,' and we, if we have
that abundant life within us, shall not be dependent for our gladness
on the outer world, but like explorers in the Arctic regions, even if
we have to build a hut of snow, shall be warm within it when the
thermometer is far below zero; and there will be light there when the
long midnight is spread around the dwelling. So, dear friends, let us
understand what is the main thing for a Christian to endeavour
after,--not so much the cultivation of special graces as the
deepening of the life of Christ in the spirit.

We gather from some of these instances--

III. The way by which we may be thus filled.

We read that Stephen was 'full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,' and
that Barnabas was 'full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,' and it is
quite clear from the respective contexts that, though the order in
which these fulnesses are placed is different in the two clauses,
their relation to each other is the same. Faith is the condition of
possessing the Spirit. And what do we mean in this connection by
faith? I mean, first, a belief in the truth of the possible abiding
of the divine Spirit in our spirits, a truth which the superficial
Christianity of this generation sorely needs to have forced upon its
consciousness far more than it has it. I mean aspiration and desire
after; I mean confident expectation of. Your wish measures your
possession. You have as much of God as you desire. If you have no
more, it is because you do not desire any more. The Christian people
of to-day, many of whom are so empty of God, are in a very tragic
sense, 'full,' because they have as much as they can take in. If you
bring a tiny cup, and do not much care whether anything pours into it
or not, you will get it filled, but you might have had a gallon
vessel filled if you had chosen to bring it. Of course there are
other conditions too. We have to use the life that is given us. We
have to see that we do not quench it by sin, which drives the dove of
God from a man's heart. But the great truth is that if I open the
door of my heart by faith, Christ will come in, in His Spirit. If I
take away the blinds the light will shine into the chamber. If I lift
the sluice the water will pour in to drive my mill. If I deepen the
channels, more of the water of life can flow into them, and the
deeper I make them the fuller they will be.

Brethren, we have wasted much time and effort in trying to mend our
characters. Let us try to get that into them which will mend them.
And let us remember that, if we are full of faith, we shall be full
of the Holy Spirit, and therefore full of wisdom, full of grace and
power, full of goodness, full of joy, whatever our circumstances. And
when death comes, though it may be in some cruel form, we shall be
able to look up and see the opened heavens and the welcoming Christ.



DEIFIED AND STONED

'And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their
voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down
to us in the likeness of men. 12. And they called Barnabas,
Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.
13. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city,
brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done
sacrifice with the people. 14. Which when the apostles, Barnabas
and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the
people, crying out. 15. And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things?
We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you
that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God,
which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that
are therein: 16. Who in times past suffered all nations to walk
in their own ways. 17. Nevertheless he left not himself without
witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and
fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. 18.
And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that
they had not done sacrifice unto them. 19. And there came thither
certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people,
and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he
had been dead. 20. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about
him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he
departed with Barnabas to Derbe. 21. And when they had preached
the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again
to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch. 22. Confirming the souls
of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith,
and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom
of God.'--ACTS xiv. 11-22.

The scene at Lystra offers a striking instance of the impossibility
of eliminating the miraculous element from this book. The cure of a
lame man is the starting-point of the whole story. Without it the
rest is motiveless and inexplicable. There can be no explosion
without a train and a fuse. The miracle, and the miracle only,
supplies these. We may choose between believing and disbelieving it,
but the rejection of the supernatural does not make this book easier
to accept, but utterly chaotic.

I. We have, first, the burst of excited wonder which floods the crowd
with the conviction that the two Apostles are incarnations of
deities. It is difficult to grasp the indications of locality in the
story, but probably the miracle was wrought in some crowded place,
perhaps the forum. At all events, it was in full view of 'the
multitudes,' and they were mostly of the lower orders, as their
speaking in 'the speech of Lycaonia' suggests.

This half-barbarous crowd had the ancient faith in the gods
unweakened, and the legends, which had become dim to pure Greek and
Roman, some of which had originated in their immediate neighbourhood,
still found full credence among them. A Jew's first thought on seeing
a miracle was, 'by the prince of the devils'; an average Greek's or
Roman's was 'sorcery'; these simple people's, like many barbarous
tribes to which white men have gone with the marvels of modern
science, was 'the gods have come down'; our modern superior person's,
on reading of one, is 'hallucination,' or 'a mistake of an excited
imagination.' Perhaps the cry of the multitudes at Lystra gets nearer
the heart of the thing than those others. For the miracle is a
witness of present divine power, and though the worker of it is not
an incarnation of divinity, 'God _is_ with him.'

But that joyful conviction, which shot through the crowd, reveals how
deep lies the longing for the manifestation of divinity in the form
of humanity, and how natural it is to believe that, if there is a
divine being, he is sure to draw near to us poor men, and that in our
own likeness. Then is the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation but
one more of the many reachings out of the heart to paint a fair
picture of the fulfilment of its longings? Well, since it is the only
such that is alleged to have taken place in historic times, and the
only one that comes with any body of historic evidence, and the only
one that brings with it transforming power, and since to believe in a
God, and also to believe that He has never broken the awful silence,
nor done anything to fulfil a craving which He has set in men's
hearts, is absurd, it is reasonable to answer, No. 'The gods are come
down in the likeness of men' is a wistful confession of need, and a
dim hope of its supply. 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us'
is the supply.

Barnabas was the older man, and his very silence suggested his
superior dignity. So he was taken for Jupiter (Zeus in the Greek),
and the younger man for his inferior, Mercury (Hermes in the Greek),
'the messenger of the gods.' Clearly the two missionaries did not
understand what the multitudes were shouting in their 'barbarous'
language, or they would have intervened. Perhaps they had left the
spot before the excitement rose to its height, for they knew nothing
of the preparations for the sacrifice till they '_heard_ of it, and
then they 'sprang forth,' which implies that they were within some
place, possibly their lodging.

If we could be sure what 'gates' are meant in verse 13, the course of
events would be plainer. Were they those of the city, in which case
the priest and procession would be coming from the temple outside the
walls? or those of the temple itself? or those of the Apostles'
lodging? Opinions differ, and the material for deciding is lacking.
At all events, whether from sharing in the crowd's enthusiasm, or
with an eye to the reputation of his shrine, the priest hurriedly
procured oxen for a sacrifice, which one reading of the text
specifies as an 'additional' offering--that is, over and above the
statutory sacrifices. Is it a sign of haste that the 'garlands,'
which should have been twined round the oxen's horns, are mentioned
separately? If so, we get a lively picture of the exultant hurry of
the crowd.

II. The Apostles are as deeply moved as the multitude is, but by what
different emotions! The horror of idolatry, which was their
inheritance from a hundred generations, flamed up at the thought of
themselves being made objects of worship. They had met many different
sorts of receptions on this journey, but never before anything like
this. Opposition and threats left them calm, but this stirred them to
the depths. 'Scoff at us, fight with us, maltreat us, and we will
endure; but do not make gods of us.' I do not know that their
'successors' have always felt exactly so.

In verse 14 Barnabas is named first, contrary to the order prevailing
since Paphos, the reason being that the crowd thought him the
superior. The remonstrance ascribed to both, but no doubt spoken by
Paul, contains nothing that any earnest monotheist, Jew or Gentile
philosopher, might not have said. The purpose of it was not to preach
Christ, but to stop the sacrifice. It is simply a vehemently earnest
protest against idolatry, and a proclamation of one living God. The
comparison with the speech in Athens is interesting, as showing
Paul's exquisite felicity in adapting his style to his audience.
There is nothing to the peasants of Lycaonia about poets, no
argumentation about the degradation of the idea of divinity by taking
images as its likeness, no wide view of the course of history, no
glimpse of the mystic thought that all creatures live and move in
Him. All that might suit the delicate ears of Athenians, but would
have been wasted in Lystra amidst the tumultuous crowd. But we have
instead of these the fearless assertion, flung in the face of the
priest of Jupiter, that idols are 'vanities,' as Paul had learned
from Isaiah and Jeremiah; the plain declaration of the one God,
'living,' and not like these inanimate images; of His universal
creative power; and the earnest exhortation to turn to Him.

In verse 16 Paul meets an objection which rises in his mind as likely
to be springing in his hearers: 'If there is such a God, why have we
never heard of Him till now?' That is quite in Paul's manner. The
answer is undeveloped, as compared with the Athenian address or with
Romans i. But there is couched in verse 16 a tacit contrast between
'the generations gone by' and the present, which is drawn out in the
speech on Mars Hill: 'but _now_ commandeth all men everywhere to
repent,' and also a contrast between the 'nations' left to walk in
their own ways, and Israel to whom revelation had been made. The
place and the temper of the listeners did not admit of enlarging on
such matters.

But there was a plain fact, which was level to every peasant's
apprehension, and might strike home to the rustic crowd. God _had_
left 'the nations to walk in their own ways,' and yet not altogether.
That thought is wrought out in Romans i., and the difference between
its development there and here is instructive. Beneficence is the
sign-manual of heaven. The orderly sequence of the seasons, the rain
from heaven, the seat of the gods from which the two Apostles were
thought to have come down, the yearly miracle of harvest, and the
gladness that it brings--all these are witnesses to a living Person
moving the processes of the universe towards a beneficent end for
man.

In spite of all modern impugners, it still remains true that the
phenomena of 'nature,' their continuity, their co-operation, and
their beneficent issues, demand the recognition of a Person with a
loving purpose moving them all. '_Thou_ crownest the year with Thy
goodness; and _Thy_ paths drop fatness.'

III. The malice of the Jews of Antioch is remarkable. Not content
with hounding the Apostles from that city, they came raging after
them to Lystra, where there does not appear to have been a synagogue,
since we hear only of their stirring up the 'multitudes.' The mantle
of Saul had fallen on them, and they were now 'persecuting' _him_
'even unto strange cities.'

No note is given of the time between the attempted sacrifice and the
accomplished stoning, but probably some space intervened. Persuading
the multitudes, however fickle they were, would take some time; and
indeed one ancient text of Acts has an expansion of the verse: 'They
persuaded the multitudes to depart from them [the Apostles], saying
that they spake nothing true, but lied in everything.'

No doubt some time elapsed, but few emotions are more transient than
such impure religious excitement as the crowd had felt, and the ebb
is as great as the flood, and the oozy bottom laid bare is foul.
Popular favourites in other departments have to experience the same
fate--one day, 'roses, roses, all the way'; the next, rotten eggs and
curses. Other folks than the ignorant peasants at Lystra have had
devout emotion surging over them and leaving them dry.

Who are 'they' who stoned Paul? Grammatically, the Jews, and probably
it was so. They hated him so much that they themselves began the
stoning; but no doubt the mob, which is always cruel, because it
needs strong excitement, lent willing hands. Did Paul remember
Stephen, as the stones came whizzing on him? It is an added touch of
brutality that they dragged the supposed corpse out of the city, with
no gentle hands, we may be sure. Perhaps it was flung down near the
very temple 'before the city,' where the priest that wanted to
sacrifice was on duty.

The crowd, having wreaked their vengeance, melted away, but a handful
of brave disciples remained, standing round the bruised, unconscious
form, ready to lay it tenderly in some hastily dug grave. No previous
mention of disciples has been made. The narrative of Acts does not
profess to be complete, and the argument from its silence is
precarious.

Luke shows no disposition to easy belief in miracles. He does not
know that Paul was dead; his medical skill familiarised him with
protracted states of unconsciousness; so all he vouches for is that
Paul lay as if dead on some rubbish heap 'without the camp,' and
that, with courage and persistence which were supernatural, whether
his reviving was so or not, the man thus sorely battered went back to
the city, and next day went on with his work, as if stoning was a
trifle not to be taken account of.

The Apostles turned at Derbe, and coming back on their outward route,
reached Antioch, encouraging the new disciples, who had now to be
left truly like shepherdless sheep among wolves. They did not
encourage them by making light of the dangers waiting them, but they
plainly set before them the law of the Kingdom, which they had seen
exemplified in Paul, that we must suffer if we would reign with the
King. That 'we' in verse 22 is evidently quoted from Paul, and
touchingly shows how he pointed to his own stoning as what they too
must be prepared to suffer. It is a thought frequently recurring in
his letters. It remains true in all ages, though the manner of
suffering varies.



DREAM AND REALITY

'The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.'
--ACTS xiv. 11.

This was the spontaneous instinctive utterance of simple villagers
when they saw a deed of power and kindness. Many an English traveller
and settler among rude people has been similarly honoured. And in
Lycaonia the Apostles were close upon places that were celebrated in
Greek mythology as having witnessed the very two gods, here spoken
of, wandering among the shepherds and entertained with modest
hospitality in their huts.

The incident is a very striking and picturesque one. The shepherd
people standing round, the sudden flash of awe and yet of gladness
which ran through them, the tumultuous outcry, which, being in their
rude dialect, was unintelligible to the Apostles till it was
interpreted by the appearance of the priest of Jupiter with oxen and
garlands for offerings, the glimpse of the two Apostles--the older,
graver, venerable Barnabas, the younger, more active, ready-tongued
Paul, whom their imaginations converted into the Father of gods and
men, and the herald Mercury, who were already associated in local
legends; the priest, eager to gain credit for his temple 'before the
city,' the lowing oxen, and the vehement appeal of the Apostles, make
a picture which is more vividly presented in the simple narrative
than even in the cartoon of the great painter whom the narrative has
inspired.

But we have not to deal with the picturesque element alone. The
narratives of Scripture are representative because they are so
penetrating and true. They go to the very heart of the men and things
which they describe: and hence the words and acts which they record
are found to contain the essential characteristics of whole classes
of men, and the portrait of an individual becomes that of a class.
This joyful outburst of the people of Lycaonia gives utterance to one
of the most striking and universal convictions of heathenism, and
stands in very close and intimate relations with that greatest of all
facts in the history of the world, the Incarnation of the Eternal
Word. That the gods come down in the likeness of men is the dream of
heathenism. 'The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,' is the
sober, waking truth which meets and vindicates and transcends that
cry.

I. The heathen dream of incarnation.

In all lands we find this belief in the appearance of the gods in
human form. It inspired the art and poetry of Greece. Rome believed
that gods had charged in front of their armies and given their laws.
The solemn, gloomy religion of Egypt, though it worshipped animal
forms, yet told of incarnate and suffering gods. The labyrinthine
mythologies of the East have their long-drawn stories of the avatars
of their gods floating many a rood on the weltering ocean of their
legends. Tibet cherishes each living sovereign as a real embodiment
of the divine. And the lowest tribes, in their degraded worship, have
not departed so far from the common type but that they too have some
faint echoes of the universal faith.

Do these facts import anything at all to us? Are we to dismiss them
as simply the products of a stage which we have left far behind, and
to plume ourselves that we have passed out of the twilight?

Even if we listen to what comparative mythology has to say, it still
remains to account for the tendency to shape legends of the earthly
appearance of the gods; and we shall have to admit that, while they
belong to an early stage of the world's progress, the feelings which
they express belong to all stages of it.

Now I think we may note these thoughts as contained in this universal
belief:

The consciousness of the need of divine help.

The certainty of a fellowship between heaven and earth.

The high ideal of the capacities and affinities of man.

We may note further what were the general characteristics of these
incarnations. They were transient, they were 'docetic,' as they are
called--that is, they were merely apparent assumptions of human form
which brought the god into no nearer or truer kindred with humanity,
and they were, for the most part, for very self-regarding and often
most immoral ends, the god's personal gratification of very ungodlike
passions and lust, or his winning victories for his favourites, or
satisfying his anger by trampling on those who had incurred his very
human wrath.

II. The divine answer which transcends the human dream.

We have to insist that the truth of the Incarnation is the corner-
stone of Christianity. If that is struck out the whole fabric falls.
Without it there may be a Christ who is the loftiest and greatest of
men, but not the Christ who 'saves His people from their sins.'

That being so, and Christianity having this feature in common with
all the religions of men, how are we to account for the resemblance?
Are we to listen to the rude solution which says, 'All lies alike'?
Are we to see in it nothing but the operation of like tendencies, or
rather illusions, of human thought--man's own shadow projected on an
illuminated mist? Are we to let the resemblance discredit the
Christian message? Or are we to say that all these others are
unconscious prophecies--man's half-instinctive expression of his deep
need and much misunderstood longing, and that the Christian
proclamation that Jesus is 'God manifest in the flesh' is the
trumpet-toned announcement of Heaven's answer to earth's cry?

Fairly to face that question is to go far towards answering it. For
as soon as we begin to look steadily at the facts, we find that the
differences between all these other appearances and the Incarnation
are so great as to raise the presumption that their origins are
different. The 'gods' slipped on the appearance of humanity over
their garment of deity in appearance only, and that for a moment.
Jesus is 'bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,' and is not merely
'found in fashion as a man,' but is 'in all points like as we are.'
And that garb of manhood He wears for ever, and in His heavenly glory
is 'the Man Christ Jesus.'

But _the_ difference between all these other appearances of gods and
the Incarnation lies in the acts to which they and it respectively
led, and the purposes for which they and it respectively took place.
A god who came down to suffer, a god who came to die, a god who came
to be the supreme example of all fair humanities, a god who came to
suffer and to die that men might have life and be victors over sin--
where is he in all the religions of the world? And does not the fact
that Christianity alone sets before men such a God, such an
Incarnation, for such ends, make the assertion a reasonable one, that
the sources of the universal belief in gods who come down among men
and of the Christian proclamation that the Eternal Word became flesh
are not the same, but that these are men's half-understood cries, and
this is Heaven's answer?



'THE DOOR OF FAITH'

'And when they were come, and had gathered the church together,
they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had
opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.'--ACTS xiv. 27.

There are many instances of the occurrence of this metaphor in the
New Testament, but none is exactly like this. We read, for example,
of 'a great door and effectual' being opened to Paul for the free
ministry of the word; and to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia,
'He that openeth and none shall shut' graciously says, 'I have set
before thee a door opened, which none can shut.' But here the door is
faith, that is to say faith is conceived of as the means of entrance
for the Gentiles into the Kingdom, which, till then, Jews had
supposed to be entered by hereditary rite.

I. Faith is the means of our entrance into the Kingdom.

The Jew thought that birth and the rite of circumcision were the
door, but the 'rehearsing' of the experiences of Paul and Barnabas on
their first missionary tour shattered that notion by the logic of
facts. Instead of that narrow postern another doorway had been broken
in the wall of the heavenly city, and it was wide enough to admit of
multitudes entering. Gentiles had plainly come in. How had they come
in? By believing in Jesus. Whatever became of previous exclusive
theories, there was a fact that had to be taken into account. It
distinctly proved that faith was 'the gate of the Lord into which,'
not the circumcised but the 'righteous,' who were righteous because
believing, 'should enter.'

We must not forget the other use of the metaphor, by our Lord
Himself, in which. He declares that He is the Door. The two
representations are varying but entirely harmonious, for the one
refers to the objective fact of Christ's work as making it possible
that we should draw near to and dwell with God, and the other to our
subjective appropriation of that possibility, and making it a reality
in our own blessed experience.

II. Faith is the means of God's entrance into our hearts.

We possess the mysterious and awful power of shutting God out of
these hearts. And faith, which in one aspect is our means of entrance
into the Kingdom of God, is, in another, the means of God's entrance
into us. The Psalm, which invokes the divine presence in the Temple,
calls on the 'everlasting doors' to be 'lifted up,' and promises that
then 'the King of Glory will come in.' And the voice of the ascended
Christ, the King of Glory, knocking at the closed door, calls on us
with our own hands to open the door, and promises that He 'will come
in.'

Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians 'that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith,' and there is no other way by which His
indwelling is possible. Faith is not constituted the condition of
that divine indwelling by any arbitrary appointment, as a sovereign
might determine that he would enter a city by a certain route, chosen
without any special reason from amongst many, but in the nature of
things it is necessary that trust, and love which follows trust, and
longing which follows love should be active in a soul if Christ is to
enter in and abide there.

III. Faith is the means of the entrance of the Kingdom into us.

If Christ comes in He comes with His pierced hands full of gifts.
Through our faith we receive all spiritual blessings. But we must
ever remember, what this metaphor most forcibly sets forth, that
faith is but the means of entrance. It has no worth in itself, but is
precious only because it admits the true wealth. The door is nothing.
It is only an opening. Faith is the pipe that brings the water, the
flinging wide the shutters that the light may flood the dark room,
the putting oneself into the path of the electric circuit. Salvation
is not arbitrarily connected with faith. It is not the reward of
faith but the possession of what comes through faith, and cannot come
in any other way. Our 'hearts' are 'purified by faith,' because faith
admits into our hearts the life, and instals as dominant in them the
powers, the motives, the Spirit, which purify. We are 'saved by
faith,' for faith brings into our spirits the Christ who saves His
people from their sins, when He abides in them and they abide in Him
through their faith.



THE BREAKING OUT OF DISCORD

'And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren,
and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye
cannot be saved. 2. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small
dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul
and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to
Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. 3.
And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through
Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles:
and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. 4. And when they
were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of
the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God
had done with them. 5. But there rose up certain of the sect of
the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to
circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. 6.
And the apostles and elders came together 'for to consider of
this matter.'--ACTS xv. 1-6.

The question as to the conditions on which Gentiles could be received
into Christian communion had already been raised by the case of
Cornelius, but it became more acute after Paul's missionary journey.
The struggle between the narrower and broader views was bound to come
to a head. Traces of the cleft between Palestinian and Hellenist
believers had appeared as far back as the 'murmuring' about the
unfair neglect of the Hellenist widows in the distribution of relief,
and the whole drift of things since had been to widen the gap.

Whether the 'certain men' had a mission to the Church in Antioch or
not, they had no mandate to lay down the law as they did. Luke
delicately suggests this by saying that they 'came down from Judaea,'
rather than from Jerusalem. We should be fair to these men, and
remember how much they had to say in defence of their position. They
did not question that Gentiles could be received into the Church, but
'kept on teaching' (as the word in the Greek implies) that the
divinely appointed ordinance of circumcision was the 'door' of
entrance. God had prescribed it, and through all the centuries since
Moses, all who came into the fold of Israel had gone in by that gate.
Where was the commandment to set it aside? Was not Paul teaching men
to climb up some other way, and so blasphemously abrogating a divine
law?

No wonder that honest believers in Jesus as Messiah shrank with
horror from such a revolutionary procedure. The fact that they were
Palestinian Jews, who had never had their exclusiveness rubbed off,
as Hellenists like Paul and Barnabas had had, explains, and to some
extent excuses, their position. And yet their contention struck a
fatal blow at the faith, little as they meant it. Paul saw what they
did not see--that if anything else than faith was brought in as
necessary to knit men to Christ, and make them partakers of
salvation, faith was deposed from its place, and Christianity sank
back to be a religion of 'works.' Experience has proved that anything
whatever introduced as associated with faith ejects faith from its
place, and comes to be recognised as _the_ means of salvation. It
must be faith _or_ circumcision, it cannot be faith _and_
circumcision. The lesson is needed to-day as much as in Antioch. The
controversy started then is a perennial one, and the Church of the
present needs Paul's exhortation, 'Stand fast therefore in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage.'

The obvious course of appealing to Jerusalem was taken, and it is
noteworthy that in verse 2 the verb 'appointed' has no specified
subject. Plainly, however, it was the Church which acted, and so
natural did that seem to Luke that he felt it unnecessary to say so.
No doubt Paul concurred, but the suggestion is not said to have come
from him. He and Barnabas might have asserted their authority, and
declined to submit what they had done by the Spirit's guidance to the
decision of the Apostles, but they seek the things that make for
peace.

No doubt the other side was represented in the deputation. Jerusalem
was the centre of unity, and remained so till its fall. The Apostles
and elders were the recognised leaders of the Church. Elders here
appear as holding a position of authority; the only previous mention
of them is in Acts xi. 30, where they receive the alms sent from
Antioch. It is significant that we do not hear of their first
appointment. The organisation of the Church took shape as exigencies
prescribed.

The deputation left Antioch, escorted lovingly for a little way by
the Church, and, journeying by land, gladdened the groups of
believers in 'Phenicia and Samaria' with the news that the Gentiles
were turning to God. We note that they are not said to have spoken of
the thorny question in these countries, and that it is not said that
there was joy in Judaea. Perhaps the Christians in it were in
sympathy with the narrower view.

The first step taken in Jerusalem was to call a meeting of the Church
to welcome the deputation. It is significant that the latter did not
broach the question in debate, but told the story of the success of
their mission. That was the best argument for receiving Gentile
converts without circumcision. God had received them; should not the
Church do so? Facts are stronger than theories. It was Peter's
argument in the case of Cornelius: they 'have received the Holy Ghost
as well as we,' 'who was I, that I could withstand God?' It is the
argument which shatters all analogous narrowing of the conditions of
Christian life. If men say, 'Except ye be' this or that 'ye cannot be
saved,' it is enough to point to the fruits of Christian character,
and say, 'These show that the souls which bring them forth _are_
saved, and you must widen your conceptions of the possibilities to
include these actualities.' It is vain to say 'Ye cannot be' when
manifestly they are.

But the logic of facts does not convince obstinate theorists, and so
the Judaising party persisted in their 'It is needful to circumcise
them.' None are so blind as those to whom religion is mainly a matter
of ritual. You may display the fairest graces of Christian character
before them, and you get no answer but the reiteration of 'It is
needful to circumcise you.' But on their own ground, in Jerusalem,
the spokesmen of that party enlarged their demands. In Antioch they
had insisted on circumcision, in Jerusalem they added the demand for
entire conformity to the Mosaic law. They were quite logical; their
principle demanded that extension of the requirement, and was thereby
condemned as utterly unworkable. Now that the whole battery was
unmasked the issue was clear--Is Christianity to be a Jewish sect or
the universal religion? Clear as it was, few in that assembly saw it.
But the parting of the ways had been reached.



THE CHARTER OF GENTILE LIBERTY

'Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas
and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among
the Gentiles by them. 13. And after they had held their peace,
James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: 14.
Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles,
to take out of them a people for His name. 15. And to this agree
the words of the prophets; as it is written, 16. After this I will
return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is
fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will
set it up: 17. That the residue of men might seek after the Lord,
and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord,
who doeth all these things. 18. Known unto God are all His works
from the beginning of the world. 19. Wherefore my sentence is, that
we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to
God: 20. But that we write unto them, that they abstain from
pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things
strangled, and from blood. 21. For Moses of old time hath in every
city them that preach Him, being read in the synagogues every
sabbath day. 22. Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the
whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch
with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas,
chief men among the brethren: 23. And they wrote letters by them
after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send
greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and
Syria and Cilicia: 24. Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain
which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting
your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to
whom we gave no such commandment: 25. It seemed good unto us, being
assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our
beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26. Men that have hazarded their lives
for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27. We have sent therefore
Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.
28. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon
you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29. That ye
abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from
things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep
yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.'--ACTS xv. 12-29.

Much was at stake in the decision of this gathering of the Church. If
the Jewish party triumphed, Christianity sank to the level of a
Jewish sect. The question brought up for decision was difficult, and
there was much to be said for the view that the Mosaic law was
binding on Gentile converts. It must have been an uprooting of
deepest beliefs for a Jewish Christian to contemplate the abrogation
of that law, venerable by its divine origin, by its hoary antiquity,
by its national associations. We must not be hard upon men who clung
to it; but we should learn from their final complete drifting away
from Christianity how perilous is the position which insists on the
necessity to true discipleship of any outward observance.

Our passage begins in the middle of the conference. Peter has, with
characteristic vehemence, dwelt upon the divine attestation of the
genuine equality of the uncircumcised converts with the Jewish, given
by their possession of the same divine Spirit, and has flung fiery
questions at the Judaisers, which silenced them. Then, after the
impressive hush following his eager words, Barnabas and Paul tell
their story once more, and clinch the nail driven by Peter by
asserting that God had already by 'signs and wonders' given His
sanction to the admission of Gentiles without circumcision.
Characteristically, in Jerusalem Barnabas is restored to his place
above Paul, and is named first as speaking first, and regarded by the
Jerusalem Church as the superior of the missionary pair.

The next speaker is James, not an Apostle, but the bishop of the
Church in Jerusalem, of whom tradition tells that he was a zealous
adherent to the Mosaic law in his own person, and that his knees were
as hard as a camel's through continual prayer. It is singular that
this meeting should be so often called 'the Apostolic council,' when,
as a fact, only one Apostle said a word, and he not as an Apostle,
but as the chosen instrument to preach to the Gentiles. 'The elders,'
of whose existence we now hear for the first time in this wholly
incidental manner, were associated with the Apostles (ver. 6), and
the 'multitude' (ver. 12) is most naturally taken to be 'the whole
Church' (ver. 22). James represents the eldership, and as bishop in
Jerusalem and an eager observer of legal prescriptions, fittingly
speaks. His words practically determined the question. Like a wise
man, he begins with facts. His use of the intensely Jewish form of
the name Simeon is an interesting reminiscence of old days. So he had
been accustomed to call Peter when they were all young together, and
so he calls him still, though everybody else named him by his new
name. What God had done by him seems to James to settle the whole
question; for it was nothing else than to put the Gentile converts
without circumcision on an equality with the Jewish part of the
Church.

Note the significant juxtaposition of the words 'Gentiles' and
'people'--the former the name for heathen, the latter the sacred
designation of the chosen nation. The great paradox which, through
Peter's preaching at Caesarea, had become a fact was that the 'people
of God' were made up of Gentiles as well as Jews--that His name was
equally imparted to both. If God had made Gentiles His people, had He
not thereby shown that the special observances of Israel were put
aside, and that, in particular, circumcision was no longer the
condition of entrance? The end of national distinction and the
opening of a new way of incorporation among the people of God were
clearly contained in the facts. How much Christian narrowness would
be blown to atoms if its advocates would do as James did, and let
God's facts teach them the width of God's purposes and the
comprehensiveness of Christ's Church! We do wisely when we square our
theories with facts; but many of us go to work in the opposite way,
and snip down facts to the dimension of our theories.

James's next step is marked equally by calm wisdom and open-
mindedness. He looks to God's word, as interpreted by God's deeds, to
throw light in turn on the deeds and to confirm the interpretation of
these. Two things are to be noted in considering his quotation from
Amos--its bearing on the question in hand, and its divergence from
the existing Hebrew text. As to the former, there seems at first
sight nothing relevant to James's purpose in the quotation, which
simply declares that the Gentiles will seek the Lord when the fallen
tabernacle of David is rebuilt. That period of time has at least
begun, thinks James, in the work of Jesus, in whom the decayed
dominion of David is again in higher form established. The return of
the Gentiles does not merely synchronise with, but is the intended
issue of, Christ's reign. Lifted from the earth, He will draw all men
unto Him, and they shall 'seek the Lord,' and on them His name will
be called.

Now the force of this quotation lies, as it seems, first in the fact
that Peter's experience at Caesarea is to be taken as an indication
of how God means the prophecy to be fulfilled, namely, without
circumcision; and secondly, in the _argumentum a silentio_, since the
prophet says nothing about ritual or the like, but declares that
moral and spiritual qualifications--on the one hand a true desire
after God, and on the other receiving the proclamation of His name
and calling themselves by it--are all that are needed to make
Gentiles God's people. Just because there is nothing in the prophecy
about observing Jewish ceremonies, and something about longing and
faith, James thinks that these are the essentials, and that the
others may be dropped by the Church, as God had dropped them in the
case of Cornelius, and as Amos had dropped them in his vision of the
future kingdom. God knew what He meant to do when He spoke through
the prophet, and what He has done has explained the words, as James
says in verse 18.

The variation from the Hebrew text requires a word of comment. The
quotation is substantially from the Septuagint, with a slight
alteration. Probably James quoted the version familiar to many of his
hearers. It seems to have been made from a somewhat different Hebrew
text in verse 17, but the difference is very much slighter than an
English reader would suppose. Our text has 'Edom' where the
Septuagint has 'men'; but the Hebrew words without vowels are
identical but for the addition of one letter in the former. Our text
has 'inherit' where the Septuagint has 'seek after'; but there again
the difference in the two Hebrew words would be one letter only, so
that there may well have been a various reading as preserved in the
Septuagint and Acts. James adds to the Septuagint 'seek' the
evidently correct completion 'the Lord.'

Now it is obvious that, even if we suppose his rendering of the whole
verse to be a paraphrase of the same Hebrew text as we have, it is a
correct representation of the meaning; for the 'inheriting of Edom'
is no mere external victory, and Edom is always in the Old Testament
the type of the godless man. The conquest of the Gentiles by the
restorer of David's tabernacle is really the seeking after the Lord,
and the calling of His name upon the Gentiles.

The conclusion drawn by James is full of practical wisdom, and would
have saved the Church from many a sad page in its history, if its
spirit had been prevalent in later 'councils.' Note how the very
designation given to the Gentile converts in verse 19 carries
argumentative force. 'They turn to God from among the Gentiles'--if
they have done that, surely their new separation and new attachment
are enough, and make insistence on circumcision infinitely
ridiculous. They have the thing signified; what does it matter about
the sign, which is good for us Jews, but needless for them? If Church
rulers had always been as open-eyed as this bishop in Jerusalem, and
had been content if people were joined to God and parted from the
world, what torrents of blood, what frowning walls of division, what
scandals and partings of brethren would have been spared!

The observances suggested are a portion of the precepts enjoined by
Judaism on proselytes. The two former were necessary to the Christian
life; the two latter were not, but were concessions to the Jewish
feelings of the stricter party. The conclusion may be called a
compromise, but it was one dictated by the desire for unity, and had
nothing unworthy in it. There should be giving and taking on both
sides. If the Jewish Christians made the, to them, immense concession
of waiving the necessity of circumcision, the Gentile section might
surely make the small one of abstinence from things strangled and
from blood. Similarities in diet would daily assimilate the lives of
the two parties, and would be a more visible and continuous token of
their oneness than the single act of circumcision.

But what does the reason in verse 21 mean? Why should the reading of
Moses every Sabbath be a reason for these concessions? Various
answers are given: but the most natural is that the constant
promulgation of the law made respect for the feelings (even if
mistaken) of Jewish Christians advisable, and the course suggested
the most likely to win Jews who were not yet Christians. Both classes
would be flung farther apart if there were not some yielding. The
general principle involved is that one cannot be too tender with old
and deeply rooted convictions even if they be prejudices, and that
Christian charity, which is truest wisdom, will consent to
limitations of Christian liberty, if thereby any little one who
believes in Him shall be saved from being offended, or any unbeliever
from being repelled.

The letter embodying James's wise suggestion needs little further
notice. We may observe that there was no imposing and authoritative
decision of the Ecclesia, but that the whole thing was threshed out
in free talk, and then the unanimous judgment of the community,
'Apostles, elders and the whole Church,' was embodied in the epistle.
Observe the accurate rendering of verse 25 (R.V.), 'having _come_ to
one accord,' which gives a lively picture of the process. Note too
that James's proposal of a letter was mended by the addition of a
deputation, consisting of an unknown 'Judas called Barsabas' (perhaps
a relative of 'Joseph called Barsabas,' the unsuccessful nominee for
Apostleship in chap. i.), and the well-known Silas or Silvanus, of
whom we hear so much in Paul's letters. That journey was the turning-
point in his life, and he henceforward, attracted by the mass and
magnetism of Paul's great personality, revolved round him, and
forsook Jerusalem.

Probably James drew up the document, which has the same somewhat
unusual 'greeting' as his Epistle. The sharp reference to the
Judaising teachers would be difficult for their sympathisers to
swallow, but charity is not broken by plain repudiation of error and
its teachers. 'Subverting your souls' is a heavy charge. The word is
only here found in the New Testament, and means to unsettle, the
image in it being that of packing up baggage for removal. The
disavowal of these men is more complete if we follow the Revised
Version in reading (ver. 24) 'no commandment' instead of 'no such
commandment.'

These unauthorised teachers 'went'; but, in strong contrast with
them, Judas and Silas are chosen out and sent. Another thrust at the
Judaising teachers is in the affectionate eulogy of Paul and Barnabas
as 'beloved,' whatever disparaging things had been said about them,
and as having 'hazarded their lives,' while these others had taken
very good care of themselves, and had only gone to disturb converts
whom Paul and Barnabas had won at the peril of their lives.

The calm matter-of-course assertion that the decision which commended
itself to 'us' is the decision of 'the Holy Ghost' was warranted by
Christ's promises, and came from the consciousness that they had
observed the conditions which He had laid down. They had brought
their minds to bear upon the question, with the light of facts and of
Scripture, and had come to a unanimous conclusion. If they believed
their Lord's parting words, they could not doubt that His Spirit had
guided them. If we lived more fully in that Spirit, we should know
more of the same peaceful assurance, which is far removed from the
delusion of our own infallibility, and is the simple expression of
trust in the veracious promises of our Lord.

The closing words of the letter are beautifully brotherly, sinking
authority, and putting in the foreground the advantage to the Gentile
converts of compliance with the injunctions. 'Ye shall do well,'
rightly and conformably with the requirements of brotherly love to
weaker brethren. And thus doing well, they will 'fare well,' and be
strong. That is not the way in which 'lords over God's heritage' are
accustomed to end their decrees. Brotherly affection, rather than
authority imposing its will, breathes here. Would that all succeeding
'Councils' had imitated this as well as 'it seemed good to the Holy
Ghost, and to us'!



A GOOD MAN'S FAULTS

'And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname
was Mark. 38. But Paul thought not good to take him with them,
who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to
the work.'--ACTS xv. 37, 38.

Scripture narratives are remarkable for the frankness with which they
tell the faults of the best men. It has nothing in common with the
cynical spirit in historians, of which this age has seen eminent
examples, which fastens upon the weak places in the noblest natures,
like a wasp on bruises in the ripest fruit, and delights in showing
how all goodness is imperfect, that it may suggest that none is
genuine. Nor has it anything in common with that dreary melancholy
which also has its representatives among us, that sees everywhere
only failures and fragments of men, and has no hope of ever attaining
anything beyond the common average of excellence. But Scripture
frankly confesses that all its noblest characters have fallen short
of unstained purity, and with boldness of hope as great as its
frankness teaches the weakest to aspire, and the most sinful to
expect perfect likeness to a perfect Lord, It is a plane mirror,
giving back all images without distortion.

We recall how emphatically and absolutely it eulogised Barnabas as 'a
good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith'--and now we have to
notice how this man, thus full of the seminal principle of all
goodness, derived into his soul by deep and constant communion
through faith, and showing in his life practical righteousness and
holiness, yet goes sadly astray, tarnishes his character, and mars
his whole future.

The two specific faults recorded of him are his over-indulgence in
the case of Mark, and his want of firmness in opposition to the
Judaising teachers who came down to Antioch. They were neither of
them grave faults, but they were real. In the one he was too facile
in overlooking a defect which showed unfitness for the work, and
seems to have yielded to family affection and to have sacrificed the
efficiency of a mission to it. Not only was he wrong in proposing to
condone Mark's desertion, but he was still more wrong in his
reception of the opposition to his proposal. With the firmness which
weak characters so often display at the wrong time, he was resolved,
come what would, to have his own way. Temper rather than principle
made him obstinate where he should have been yielding, as it had made
him in Antioch yielding, where he should have been firm. Paul's
remonstrances have no effect. He will rather have his own way than
the companionship of his old friend, and so there come alienation and
separation. The Church at Antioch takes Paul's view--all the brethren
are unanimous in disapproval. But Barnabas will not move. He sets up
his own feeling in opposition to them all. The sympathy of his
brethren, the work of his life, the extension of Christ's kingdom,
are all tossed aside. His own foolish purpose is more to him in that
moment of irritation than all these. So he snaps the tie, abandons
his work, and goes away without a kindly word, without a blessing,
without the Church's prayers--but with his nephew for whom he had
given up all these. Paul sails away to do God's work, and the Church
'recommends him to the grace of God,' but Barnabas steals away home
to Cyprus, and his name is no more heard in the story of the planting
of the kingdom of Christ.

One hopes that his work did not stop thus, but his recorded work
does, and in the band of friends who surrounded the great Apostle,
the name of his earliest friend appears no more. Other companions and
associates in labour take his place; he, as it appears, is gone for
ever. One reference (1 Cor. ix. 6) at a later date seems most
naturally to suggest that he still continued in the work of an
evangelist, and still practised the principle to which he and Paul
had adhered when together, of supporting himself by manual labour.
The tone of the reference implies that there were relations of mutual
respect. But the most we can believe is that probably the two men
still thought kindly of each other and honoured each other for their
work's sake, but found it better to labour apart, and not to seek to
renew the old companionship which had been so violently torn asunder.

The other instance of weakness was in some respects of a still graver
kind. The cause of it was the old controversy about the obligations
of Jewish law on Gentile Christians. Paul, Peter, and Barnabas all
concurred in neglecting the restrictions imposed by Judaism, and in
living on terms of equality and association in eating and drinking
with the heathen converts at Antioch. A principle was involved, to
which Barnabas had bean the first to give in his adhesion, in the
frank recognition of the Antioch Church. But as soon as emissaries
from the other party came down, Peter and he abandoned their
association with Gentile converts, not changing their convictions but
suppressing the action to which their convictions should have led.
They pretended to be of the same mind with these narrow Jews from
Jerusalem. They insulted their brethren, they deserted Paul, they
belied their convictions, they imperilled the cause of Christian
liberty, they flew in the face of what Peter had said that God
Himself had showed him, they did their utmost to degrade Christianity
into a form of Judaism--all for the sake of keeping on good terms
with the narrow bigotry of these Judaising teachers.

Now if we take these two facts together, and set them side by side
with the eulogy pronounced on Barnabas as 'a good man, full of the
Holy Ghost and of faith,' we have brought before us in a striking
form some important considerations.

I. The imperfect goodness of good men.

A good man does not mean a faultless man. Of course the power which
works on a believing soul is always tending to produce goodness and
only goodness. But its operation is not such that we are always
equally, uniformly, perfectly under its influence. Power in germ is
one thing, in actual operation another. There may be but a little
ragged patch of green in the garden, and yet it may be on its way to
become a flower-bed. A king may not have established dominion over
all his land. The actual operation of that transforming Spirit at any
given moment is limited, and we can withdraw ourselves from it. It
does not begin by leavening all our nature.

So we have to note--

The root of goodness.

The main direction of a life.

The progressive character of goodness.

The highest style of Christian life is a struggle. So we draw
practical inferences as to the conduct of life.

This thought of imperfection does not diminish the criminality of
individual acts.

It does not weaken aspiration and effort towards higher life.

It does alleviate our doubts and fears when we find evil in
ourselves.

II. The possible evil lurking in our best qualities.

In Barnabas, his amiability and openness of nature, the very
characteristics that had made him strong, now make him weak and
wrong.

How clearly then there is brought out here the danger that lurks even
in our good! I need not remind you how every virtue may be run to an
extreme and become a vice. Liberality is exaggerated into
prodigality; firmness, into obstinacy; mercy, into weakness; gravity,
into severity; tolerance, into feeble conviction; humility, into
abjectness.

And these extremes are reached when these graces are developed at the
expense of the symmetry of the character.

We are not simple but complex, and what we need to aim at is a
character, not an excrescence. Some people's goodness is like a wart
or a wen. Their virtues are cases of what medical technicality calls
hypertrophy. But our goodness should be like harmonious Indian
patterns, where all colours blend in a balanced whole.

Such considerations enforce the necessity for rigid self-control. And
that in two directions.

(_a_) Beware of your excellences, your strong points.

(_b_) Cultivate sedulously the virtues to which you are not inclined.

The special form of error into which Barnabas fell is worth notice.
It was over-indulgence, tolerance of evil in a person; feebleness of
grasp, a deficiency of boldness in carrying out his witness to a
disputed truth. In this day liberality, catholicity, are pushed so
far that there is danger of our losing the firmness of our grasp of
principles, and indulgence for faults goes so far that we are apt to
lose the habit of unsparing, though unangry, condemnation of unworthy
characters. This generation is like Barnabas; very quick in sympathy,
generous in action, ready to recognise goodness where-ever it is
beheld. But Barnabas may be a beacon, warning us of the possible
evils that dog these excellences like their shadows.

III. The grave issues of small faults.

Comparatively trivial as was Barnabas's error, it seems to have
wrecked his life, at least to have marred it for long years, and to
have broken his sweet companionship with Paul. I think we may go
further and say, that most good men are in more danger from trivial
faults than from great ones. No man reaches the superlative degree of
wickedness all at once. Few men spring from the height to the abyss,
they usually slip down. The erosive action of the sand of the desert
is said to be gradually cutting off the Sphinx's head. The small
faults are most numerous. We are least on our guard against them.
There is a microscopic weed that chokes canals. Snow-flakes make the
sky as dark as an eclipse does. White ants eat a carcase quicker than
a lion does.

So we urge the necessity for bringing ordinary deeds and small
actions to be ruled and guided by God's Spirit.

How the contemplation of the imperfection, which is the law of life,
should lead us to hope for that heaven where perfection is.

How the contemplation of the limits of all human goodness should lead
us to exclusive faith in, and imitation of, the one perfect Lord. He
stands stainless among the stained. In Him alone is no sin, from Him
alone like goodness may be ours.



HOW TO SECURE A PROSPEROUS VOYAGE

'And after [Paul] had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured
to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had
called us for to preach the gospel unto them. 11. Therefore ...
we came with a straight course.'--ACTS xvi. 10, 11.

This book of the Acts is careful to point out how each fresh step in
the extension of the Church's work was directed and commanded by
Jesus Christ Himself. Thus Philip was sent by specific injunction to
'join himself' to the chariot of the Ethiopian statesman. Thus Peter
on the house-top at Joppa, looking out over the waters of the western
sea, had the vision of the great sheet, knit at the four corners. And
thus Paul, in singularly similar circumstances, in the little seaport
of Troas, looking out over the narrower sea which there separates
Asia from Europe, had the vision of the man of Macedonia, with his
cry, 'Come over and help _us_!' The whole narrative before us bears
upon the one point, that Christ Himself directs the expansion of His
kingdom. And there never was a more fateful moment than that at which
the Gospel, in the person of the Apostle, crossed the sea, and
effected a lodgment in the progressive quarter of the world.

Now what I wish to do is to note how Paul and his little company
behaved themselves when they had received Christ's commandment. For I
think there are lessons worth the gathering to be found there. There
was no doubt about the vision; the question was what it meant. So
note three stages. First, careful consideration, with one's own
common sense, of what God wants us to do--'Assuredly gathering that
the Lord had called us.' Then, let no grass grow under our feet--
immediate obedience--'Straightway we endeavoured to go into
Macedonia.' And then, patient pondering and instantaneous submission
get the reward--'We came with a straight course.' He gave the winds
and the waves charge concerning them. Now there are three lessons for
us. Taken together, they are patterns of what ought to be in our
experience, and will be, if the conditions are complied with.

I. First, Careful Consideration.

Paul had no doubt that what he saw was a vision from Christ, and not
a mere dream of the night, born of the reverberation of waking
thoughts and anxieties, that took the shape of the plaintive cry of
the man of Macedonia. But then the next step was to be quite sure of
what the vision meant. And so, wisely, he does not make up his mind
himself, but calls in the three men who were with him. And what a
significant little group it was! There were Timothy, Silas, and Luke
--Silas, from Jerusalem; Timothy, half a Gentile; Luke, altogether a
Gentile; and Paul himself--and these four shook the world. They come
together, and they talk the matter over. The word of my text rendered
'assuredly gathering' is a picturesque one. It literally means
'laying things together.' They set various facts side by side, or as
we say in our colloquial idiom, 'They put this and that together,'
and so they came to understand what the vision meant.

What had they to help them to understand it? Well, they had this
fact, that in all the former part of their journey they had been met
by hindrances; that their path had been hedged up here, there, and
everywhere. Paul set out from Antioch, meaning a quiet little tour of
visitation amongst the churches that had been already established.
Jesus Christ meant Philippi and Athens and Corinth and Ephesus,
before Paul got back again. So we read in an earlier portion of the
chapter that the Spirit of Jesus forbade them to speak the Word in
one region, and checked and hindered them when, baffled, they tried
to go to another. There then remained only one other road open to
them, and that led to the coast. Thus putting together their
hindrances and their stimuluses, they came to the conclusion that
unitedly the two said plainly, 'Go across the sea, and preach the
word there.'

Now it is a very commonplace and homely piece of teaching to remind
you that time is not wasted in making quite sure of the meaning of
providences which seem to declare the will of God, before we begin to
act. But the commonest duties are very often neglected; and we
preachers, I think, would very often do more good by hammering at
commonplace themes than by bringing out original and fresh ones. And
so I venture to say a word about the immense importance to Christian
life and Christian service of this preliminary step--'assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called us.' What have we to do in order
to be quite sure of God's intention for us?

Well, the first thing seems to me to make quite sure that we want to
know it, and that we do not want to force our intentions upon Him,
and then to plume ourselves upon being obedient to His call, when we
are only doing what we like. There is a vast deal of unconscious
insincerity in us all; and especially in regard to Christian work
there is an enormous amount of it. People will say, 'Oh, I have such
a strong impulse in a given direction, to do certain kinds of
Christian service, that I am quite sure that it is God's will.' How
are you sure? A strong impulse may be a temptation from the devil as
well as a call from God. And men who simply act on untested impulses,
even the most benevolent which spring directly from large Christian
principles, may be making deplorable mistakes. It is not enough to
have pure motives. It is useless to say, 'Such and such a course of
action is clearly the result of the truths of the Gospel.' That may
be all perfectly true, and yet the course may not be the course for
you. For there may be practical considerations, which do not come
into our view unless we carefully think about them, which forbid us
to take such a path. So remember that strong impulses are not guiding
lights; nor is it enough to vindicate our pursuing some mode of
Christian service that it is in accordance with the principles of the
Gospel. 'Circumstances alter cases' is a very homely old saying; but
if Christian people would only bring the common sense to bear upon
their religious life which they need to bring to bear upon their
business life, unless they are going into the _Gazette_, there would
be less waste work in the Christian Church than there is to-day. I do
not want less zeal; I want that the reins of the fiery steed shall be
kept well in hand. The difference between a fanatic, who is a fool,
and an enthusiast, who is a wise man, is that the one brings calm
reason to bear, and an open-eyed consideration of circumstances all
round; and the other sees but one thing at a time, and shuts his
eyes, like a bull in a field, and charges at that. So let us be sure,
to begin with, that we want to know what God wants us to do; and that
we are not palming our wishes upon Him, and calling them His
providences.

Then there is another plain, practical consideration that comes out
of this story, and that is, Do not be above being taught by failures
and hindrances. You know the old proverb, 'It is waste time to flog a
dead horse.' There is not a little well-meant work flung away,
because it is expended on obviously hopeless efforts to revivify,
perhaps, some moribund thing or to continue, perhaps, in some old,
well-worn rut, instead of striking out into a new path. Paul was full
of enthusiasm for the evangelisation of Asia Minor, and he might have
said a great deal about the importance of going to Ephesus. He tried
to do it, but Christ said 'No.' and Paul did not knock his head
against the stone wall that lay between him and the accomplishment of
his purpose, but he gave it up and tried another tack. He next wished
to go up into Bithynia, and he might have said a great deal about the
needs of the people by the Euxine; but again down came the barrier,
and he had once more to learn the lesson, 'Not as thou wilt, but as I
will.' He was not above being taught by his failures. Some of us are;
and it is very difficult, and needs a great deal of Christian wisdom
and unselfishness, to distinguish between hindrances in the way of
work which are meant to evoke larger efforts, and hindrances which
are meant to say, 'Try another path, and do not waste time here any
longer.'

But if we wish supremely to know God's will, He will help us to
distinguish between these two kinds of difficulties. Some one has
said, 'Difficulties are things to be overcome.' Yes, but not always.
They very often are, and we should thank God for them then; but they
sometimes are God's warnings to us to go by another road. So we need
discretion, and patience, and suspense of judgment to be brought to
bear upon all our purposes and plans.

Then, of course, I need not remind you that the way to get light is
to seek it in the Book and in communion with Him whom the Book
reveals to us as the true Word of God: 'He that followeth Me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.' So careful
consideration is a preliminary to all good Christian work. And, if
you can, talk to some Timothy and Silas and Luke about your course,
and do not be above taking a brother's advice.

II. The next step is Immediate Submission.

When they had assuredly gathered that the Lord had called them,
'immediately'--there is great virtue in that one word--'we
endeavoured to go into Macedonia.' Delayed obedience is the brother--
and, if I may mingle metaphors, sometimes the father--of
disobedience. It sometimes means simple feebleness of conviction,
indolence, and a general lack of fervour. It means very often a
reluctance to do the duty that lies plainly before us. And, dear
brethren, as I have said about the former lesson, so I say about
this. The homely virtue, which we all know to be indispensable to
success in common daily life and commercial undertakings, is no less
indispensable to all vigour of Christian life and to all nobleness of
Christian service. We have no hours to waste; the time is short. In
the harvest-field, especially when it is getting near the end of the
week, and the Sunday is at hand, there are little leisure and little
tolerance of slow workers. And for us the fields are white, the
labourers are few, the Lord of the harvest is imperative, the sun is
hurrying to the west, and the sickles will have to be laid down
before long. So, '_immediately_ we endeavoured.'

Delayed duty is present discomfort. As long as a man has a
conscience, so long will he be restless and uneasy until he has, as
the Quakers say, 'cleared himself of his burden,' and done what he
knows that he ought to do, and got done with it. Delayed obedience
means wasted possibilities of service, and so is ever to be avoided.
The more disagreeable anything is which is plainly a duty, the more
reason there is for doing it right away. 'I made haste, and delayed
not, but made haste to keep Thy commandments.'

Did you ever count how many '_straightways_' there are in the first
chapter of Mark's Gospel? If you have not, will you do it when you go
home; and notice how they come in? In the story of Christ's opening
ministry every fresh incident is tacked on to the one before it, in
that chapter, by that same word 'straightway.' 'Straightway' He does
that; 'anon' He does this; 'immediately' He does the other thing. All
is one continuous stream of acts of service. The Gospel of Mark is
the Gospel of the servant, and it sets forth the pattern to which all
Christian service ought to be conformed.

So if we take Jesus Christ for our Example, unhasting and unresting
in the work of the Lord, we shall let no moment pass burdened with
undischarged duty; and we shall find that all the moments are few
enough for the discharge of the duties incumbent upon us.

III. So, lastly, careful consideration and unhesitating obedience
lead to a Straight Course.

Well, it is not so always, but it is so generally. There is a
wonderful power in diligent doing of God's known will to smooth away
difficulties and avoid troubles. I do not, of course, mean that a man
who thus lives, patiently ascertaining and then promptly doing what
God would have him do, has any miraculous exemption from the ordinary
sorrows and trials of life. But sure I am that a very, very large
proportion of all the hindrances and disappointments, storms and
quicksands, calms which prevent progress and headwinds that beat in
our faces, are directly the products of our negligence in one or
other of these two respects, and that although by no means
absolutely, yet to an extent that we should not believe if we had not
the experience of it, the wish to do God's will and the doing of it
with our might when we know what it is have a talismanic power in
calming the seas and bringing us to the desired haven.

But though this is not always absolutely true in regard of outward
things, it is, without exception or limitation, true in regard of the
inward life. For if my supreme will is to do God's will then nothing
which is His will, and comes to me because it is can be a hindrance
in my doing that.

As an old proverb says, 'Travelling merchants can never be out of
their road.' And a Christian man whose path is simple obedience to
the will of God can never be turned from that path by whatever
hindrances may affect his outward life. So, in deepest truth, there
is always a calm voyage for the men whose eyes are open to discern,
and whose hands are swift to fulfil, the commandments of their Father
in heaven. For them all winds blow them to their port; for them 'all
things work together for good'; with them God's servants who hearken
to the voice of His commandments, and are His ministers to do His
pleasure, can never be other than in amity and alliance. He who is
God's servant is the world's master. 'All things are yours if ye are
Christ's.'

So, brethren, careful study of providences and visions, of hindrances
and stimulus, careful setting of our lives side by side with the
Master's, and a swift delight in doing the will of the Lord, will
secure for us, in inmost truth, a prosperous voyage, till all storms
are hushed, 'and they are glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth
them to their desired haven.'



PAUL AT PHILIPPI

'And on the sabbath day we went forth without the gate, by a
river side, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we
sat down, and spake unto the women which were come together.'
--ACTS xvi. 13 (R.V.).

This is the first record of the preaching of the Gospel in Europe,
and probably the first instance of it. The fact that the vision of
the man of Macedonia was needed in order to draw the Apostle across
the straits into Macedonia, and the great length at which the
incidents at Philippi are recorded, make this probable. If so, we are
here standing, as it were, at the wellhead of a mighty river, and the
thin stream of water assumes importance when we remember the thousand
miles of its course, and the league-broad estuary in which it pours
itself into the ocean. Here is the beginning; the Europe of to-day is
what came out of it. There is no sign whatever that the Apostle was
conscious of an epoch in this transference of the sphere of his
operations, but we can scarcely help being conscious of such.

And so, looking at the words of my text, and seeing here how
unobtrusively there stole into the progressive part of the world the
power which was to shatter and remould all its institutions, to guide
and inform the onward march of its peoples, to be the basis of their
liberties, and the starting-point of their literature, we can
scarcely avoid drawing lessons of importance.

The first point which I would suggest, as picturesquely enforced for
us by this incident, is--

I. The apparent insignificance and real greatness of Christian work.

There did not seem in the whole of that great city that morning a
more completely insignificant knot of people than the little weather-
beaten Jew, travel-stained, of weak bodily presence, and of
contemptible speech, with the handful of his attendants, who slipped
out in the early morning and wended their way to the quiet little
oratory, beneath the blue sky, by the side of the rushing stream, and
there talked informally and familiarly to the handful of women. The
great men of Philippi would have stared if any one had said to them,
'You will be forgotten, but two of these women will have their names
embalmed in the memory of the world for ever. Everybody will know
Euodia and Syntyche. Your city will be forgotten, although a battle
that settled the fate of the civilised world was fought outside your
gates. But that little Jew and the letter that he will write to that
handful of believers that are to be gathered by his preaching will
last for ever.' The mightiest thing done in Europe that morning was
when the Apostle sat down by the riverside, 'and spake to the women
which resorted thither.'

The very same vulgar mistake as to what is great and as to what is
small is being repeated over and over again; and we are all tempted
to it by that which is worldly and vulgar in ourselves, to the
enormous detriment of the best part of our natures. So it is worth
while to stop for a moment and ask what is the criterion of greatness
in our deeds? I answer, three things--their motive, their sphere,
their consequences. What is done for God is always great. You take a
pebble and drop it into a brook, and immediately the dull colouring
upon it flashes up into beauty when the sunlight strikes through the
ripples, and the magnitude of the little stone is enlarged. If I may
make use of such a violent expression, drop your deeds into God, and
they will all be great, however small they are. Keep them apart from
Him, and they will be small, though all the drums of the world beat
in celebration, and all the vulgar people on the earth extol their
magnitude. This altar magnifies and sanctifies the giver and the
gift. The great things are the things that are done for God.

A deed is great according to its sphere. What bears on and is
confined to material things is smaller than what affects the
understanding. The teacher is more than the man who promotes material
good. And on the very same principle, above both the one and the
other, is the doer of deeds which touch the diviner part of a man's
nature, his will, his conscience, his affections, his relations to
God. Thus the deeds that impinge upon these are the highest and the
greatest; and far above the scientific inventor, and far above the
mere teacher, as I believe, and as I hope you believe, stands the
humblest work of the poorest Christian who seeks to draw any other
soul into the light and liberty which he himself possesses. The
greatest thing in the world is charity, and the purest charity in the
world is that which helps a man to possess the basis and mother-
tincture of all love, the love towards God who has first loved us, in
the person and the work of His dear Son.

That which being done has consequences that roll through souls, 'and
grow for ever and for ever,' is a greater work than the deed whose
issues are more short-lived. And so the man who speaks a word which
may deflect a soul into the paths which have no end until they are
swallowed up in the light of the God who 'is a Sun,' is a worker
whose work is truly great. Brethren, it concerns the nobleness of the
life of us Christian people far more closely than we sometimes
suppose, that we should purge our souls from the false estimate of
magnitudes which prevails so extensively in the world's judgment of
men and their doings. And though it is no worthy motive for a man to
seek to live so that he may do great things, it is a part of the
discipline of the Christian mind, as well as heart, that we should be
able to reduce the swollen bladders to their true flaccidity and
insignificance, and that we should understand that things done for
God, things done on men's souls, things done with consequences which
time will not exhaust, nor eternity put a period to, are, after all,
the great things of human life.

Ah, there will be a wonderful reversal of judgments one day! Names
that now fill the trumpet of fame will fall silent. Pages that now
are read as if they were leaves of the 'Book of Life' will be
obliterated and unknown, and when all the flashing cressets in Vanity
Fair have smoked and stunk themselves out, 'They that be wise shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.' The great things are
the Christian things, and there was no greater deed done that day, on
this round earth, than when that Jewish wayfarer, travel-stained and
insignificant, sat himself down in the place of prayer, and 'spake
unto the women which resorted thither.' Do not be over-cowed by the
loud talk of the world, but understand that Christian work is the
mightiest work that a man can do.

Let us take from this incident a hint as to--

II. The law of growth in Christ's Kingdom.

Here, as I have said, is the thin thread of water at the source. We
to-day are on the broad bosom of the expanded stream. Here is the
little beginning; the world that we see around us has come from this,
and there is a great deal more to be done yet before all the power
that was transported into Europe, on that Sabbath morning, has
wrought its legitimate effects. That is to say, 'the Kingdom of God
cometh not by observation.' Let me say a word, and only a word, based
on this incident, about the law of small beginnings and the law of
slow, inconspicuous development.

We have here an instance of the law of small, silent beginnings. Let
us go back to the highest example of everything that is good; the
life of Jesus Christ. A cradle at Bethlehem, a carpenter's shop in
Nazareth, thirty years buried in a village, two or three years, at
most, going up and down quietly in a remote nook of the earth, and
then He passed away silently and the world did not know Him. 'He
shall not strive nor cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the
streets.' And as the Christ so His Church, and so His Gospel, and so
all good movements that begin from Him. Destructive preparations may
be noisy; they generally are. Constructive beginnings are silent and
small. If a thing is launched with a great beating of drums and
blowing of trumpets, you may be pretty sure there is very little in
it. Drums are hollow, or they would not make such a noise. Trumpets
only catch and give forth wind. They say--I know not whether it is
true--that the _Wellingtonia gigantea_, the greatest of forest trees,
has a smaller seed than any of its congeners. It may be so, at any
rate it does for an illustration. The germ-cell is always
microscopic. A little beginning is a prophecy of a great ending.

In like manner there is another large principle suggested here which,
in these days of impatient haste and rushing to and fro, and
religious as well as secular advertising and standing at street
corners, we are very apt to forget, but which we need to remember,
and that is that the rate of growth is swift when the duration of
existence is short. A reed springs up in a night. How long does an
oak take before it gets too high for a sheep to crop at? The moth
lives its full life in a day. There is no creature that has helpless
infancy so long as a man. We have the slow work of mining; the
dynamite will be put into the hole one day, and the spark applied--
and then? So 'an inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning,
but the end thereof shall not be blessed.'

Let us apply that to our own personal life and work, and to the
growth of Christianity in the world, and let us not be staggered
because either are so slow. 'The Lord is not slack concerning His
promises, as some men count slackness. One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' How long will that
day be of which a thousand years are but as the morning twilight?
Brethren, you have need of patience. You Christian workers, and I
hope I am speaking to a great many such now; how long does it take
before we can say that we are making any impression at all on the
vast masses of evil and sin that are round about us? God waited,
nobody knows how many millenniums and more than millenniums, before
He had the world ready for man. He waited for more years than we can
tell before He had the world ready for the Incarnation. His march is
very slow because it is ever onwards. Let us be thankful if we forge
ahead the least little bit; and let us not be impatient for swift
results which are the fool's paradise, and which the man who knows
that he is working towards God's own end can well afford to do
without.

And now, lastly, let me ask you to notice, still further as drawn
from this incident--

III. The simplicity of the forces to which God entrusts the growth of
His Kingdom.

It is almost ludicrous to think, if it were not pathetic and sublime,
of the disproportion between the end that was aimed at and the way
that was taken to reach it, which the text opens before us. 'We went
out to the riverside, and we spake unto the women which resorted
thither.' That was all. Think of Europe as it was at that time. There
was Greece over the hills, there was Rome ubiquitous and ready to
exchange its contemptuous toleration for active hostility. There was
the unknown barbarism of the vague lands beyond. Think of the
established idolatries which these men had to meet, around which had
gathered, by the superstitious awe of untold ages, everything that
was obstinate, everything that was menacing, everything that was
venerable. Think of the subtleties to which they had to oppose their
unlettered message. Think of the moral corruption that was eating
like an ulcer into the very heart of society. Did ever a Cortez on
the beach, with his ships in flames behind him, and a continent in
arms before, cast himself on a more desperate venture? And they
conquered! How? What were the small stones from the brook that slew
Goliath? Have we got them? Here they are, the message that they
spoke, the white heat of earnestness with which they spoke it, and
the divine Helper who backed them up. And we have this message.
Brethren, that old word, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to
Himself,' is as much needed, as potent, as truly adapted to the
complicated civilisation of this generation, as surely reaching the
deepest wants of the human soul, as it was in the days when first the
message poured, like a red-hot lava flood, from the utterances of
Paul. Like lava it has gone cold to-day, and stiff in many places,
and all the heat is out of it. That is the fault of the speaker,
never of the message. It is as mighty as ever it was, and if the
Christian Church would keep more closely to it, and would realise
more fully that the Cross does not need to be propped up so much as
to be proclaimed, I think we should see that it is so. That sword has
not lost its temper, and modern modes of warfare have not antiquated
it. As David said to the high priests at Nob, when he was told that
Goliath's sword was hid behind the ephod, 'Give me that. There is
none like it.' It was not miracles, it was the Gospel that was
preached, which was 'the power of God unto salvation.'

And that message was preached with earnestness. There is one point in
which every successful servant of Jesus Christ who has done work for
Him, winning men to Him, has been like every other successful
servant, and there is only one point. Some of them have been wise
men, some of them have been foolish. Some of them have been clad with
many puerile notions and much rubbish of ceremonial and sacerdotal
theories. Some of them have been high Calvinists, some of them low
Arminians; some of them have been scholars, some of them could hardly
read. But they have all had this one thing: they believed with all
their hearts what they spake. They fulfilled the Horatian principle,
'If you wish me to weep, your own eyes must overflow'--and if you
wish me to believe, you must speak, not 'with bated breath and
whispering humbleness,' but as if you yourself believed it, and were
dead set on getting other people to believe it, too.

And then the third thing that Paul had we have, and that is the
presence of the Christ. Note what it says in the context about one
convert who was made that morning, Lydia, 'whose heart the Lord
opened.' Now I am not going to deduce Calvinism or any other 'ism'
from these words, but I pray you to note that there is emerging on
the surface here what runs all through this book of Acts, and
animates the whole of it, viz., that Jesus Christ Himself is working,
doing all the work that is done through His servants. Wherever there
are men aflame with that with which every Christian man and woman
should be aflame, the consciousness of the preciousness of their
Master, and their own responsibility for the spreading of His Name,
there, depend upon it, will be the Christ to aid them. The picture
with which one of the Evangelists closes his Gospel will be repeated:
'They went everywhere preaching the word, the Lord working with them,
and confirming the word with signs following.'

Dear brethren, the vision of the man of Macedonia which drew Paul
across the water from Troas to Philippi speaks to us. 'Come over and
help us,' comes from many voices. And if we, in however humble and
obscure, and as the foolish purblind world calls it, 'small,' way,
yield to the invitation, and try to do what in us lies, then we shall
find that, like Paul by the riverside in that oratory, we are
building better than we know, and planting a little seed, the
springing whereof God will bless. 'Thou sowest not that which shall
be, but bare grain ... and God giveth it a body as it hath pleased
Him.'



THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI

'And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone,
they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace
unto the rulers, 20. And brought them to the magistrates, saying,
These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 21. And
teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to
observe, being Romans. 22. And the multitude rose up together
against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and
commanded to beat them. 23. And when they had laid many stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them safely: 24. Who, having received such a charge, thrust
them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the
stocks. 25. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang
praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26. And suddenly
there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the
prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened,
and every one's bands were loosed. 27. And the keeper of the
prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors
open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself,
supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28. But Paul cried
with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all
here. 29. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came
trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30. And brought
them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31. And
they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved, and thy house. 32. And they spake unto him the word of the
Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33. And he took them the
same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was
baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34. And when he had
brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and
rejoiced, believing In God with all his house.'--ACTS xvi. 19-34.

This incident gives us the Apostle's first experience of purely
Gentile opposition. The whole scene has a different stamp from that
of former antagonisms, and reminds us that we have passed into
Europe. The accusers and the grounds of accusation are new. Formerly
Jews had led the attack; now Gentiles do so. Crimes against religion
were charged before; now crimes against law and order. Hence the
narrative is more extended, in accordance with the prevailing habit
of the book, to dilate on the first of a series and to summarise
subsequent members of it. We may note the unfounded charge and unjust
sentence; the joyful confessors and the answer to their trust; the
great light that shone on the jailer's darkness.

I. This was a rough beginning of the work undertaken at the call of
Christ. Less courageous and faithful men might have thought, 'Were we
right in "assuredly gathering" that His hand pointed us hither, since
this is the reception we find?' But though the wind meets us as soon
as we clear the harbour, the salt spray dashing in our faces is no
sign that we should not have left shelter. A difficult beginning
often means a prosperous course; and hardships are not tokens of
having made a mistake.

The root of the first antagonism to the Gospel in Europe was purely
mercenary. The pythoness's masters had no horror of Paul's doctrines.
They were animated by no zeal for Apollo. They only saw a source of
profit drying up. Infinitely more respectable was Jewish opposition,
which was, at all events, the perverted working of noble sentiments.
Zeal for religion, even when the zeal is impure and the notions of
religion imperfect, is higher than mere anger at pecuniary loss. How
much of the opposition since and to-day comes from the same mean
source! Lust and appetite organise profitable trades, in which 'the
money has no smell,' however foul the cesspool from which it has been
brought. And when Christian people set themselves against these
abominations, capital takes the command of the mob of drink-sellers
and consumers, or of those from haunts of fleshly sin, and shrieks
about interfering with honest industry, and seeking to enforce sour-
faced Puritanism on society. The Church may be very sure that it is
failing in some part of its duty, if there is no class of those who
fatten on providing for sin howling at its heels, because it is
interfering with the hope of their gains.

The charge against the little group took no heed of the real
character of their message. It artfully put prominent their
nationality. These early anti-Semitic agitators knew the value of a
good solid prejudice, and of a nickname. 'Jews'--that was enough. The
rioters were 'Romans'--of a sort, no doubt, but it was poor pride for
a Macedonian to plume himself on having lost his nationality. The
great crime laid to Paul's charge was--troubling the city. So it
always is. Whether it be George Fox, or John Wesley, or the Salvation
Army, the disorderly elements of every community attack the preachers
of the Gospel in the name of order, and break the peace in their
eagerness to have it kept. There was no 'trouble' in Philippi, but
the uproar which they themselves were making. The quiet praying-place
by the riverside, and the silencing of the maiden's shout in the
streets, were not exactly the signs of disturbers of civic
tranquillity.

The accuracy of the charge may be measured by the ignorance of the
accusers that Paul and his friends were in any way different from the
run of Jews. No doubt they were supposed to be teaching Jewish
practices, which were supposed to be inconsistent with Roman
citizenship. But if the magistrates had said, 'What customs?' the
charge would have collapsed. Thank God, the Gospel has a witness to
bear against many 'customs'; but it does not begin by attacking even
these, much less by prescribing illegalities. Its errand was and is
to the individual first. It sets the inner man right with God, and
then the new life works itself out, and will war against evils which
the old life deemed good; but the conception of Christianity as a
code regulating actions is superficial, whether it is held by friends
or foes.

There is always a mob ready to follow any leader, especially if there
is the prospect of hurting somebody. The lovers of tranquillity
showed how they loved it by dragging Paul and Silas into the forum,
and bellowing untrue charges against them. The mob seconded them;
'they rose up together [with the slave-owners] against Paul and
Silas.' The magistrates, knowing the ticklish material that they had
to deal with, and seeing only a couple of Jews from nobody knew
where, did not think it worth while to inquire or remonstrate. They
were either cowed or indifferent; and so, to show how zealous they
and the mob were for Roman law, they drove a coach-and-six clean
through it, and without the show of investigation, scourged and threw
into prison the silent Apostles. It was a specimen of what has
happened too often since. How many saints have been martyred to keep
popular feeling in good tune! And how many politicians will strain
conscience to-day, because they are afraid of what Luke here
unpolitely calls 'the multitude,' or as we might render it, 'the
mob,' but which we now fit with a much more respectful appellation!

The jailer, on his part, in the true spirit of small officials, was
ready to better his instructions. It is dangerous to give vague
directions to such people. When the judge has ordered unlawful
scourging, the turnkey is not likely to interpret the requirement of
safe keeping too leniently. One would not look for much human
kindness in a Philippian jail. So it was natural that the deepest,
darkest, most foul-smelling den should he chosen for the two, and
that they should he thrust, bleeding backs and all, into the stocks,
to sleep if they could.

II. These birds could sing in a darkened cage. The jailer's treatment
of them after his conversion shows what he had neglected to do at
first. They had no food; their bloody backs were unsponged; they were
thrust into a filthy hole, and put in a posture of torture. No wonder
that they could not sleep! But what hindered sleep would, with most
men, have sorely dimmed trust and checked praise. Not so with them.
God gave them 'songs in the night.' We can hear the strains through
all the centuries, and they bid us be cheerful and trustful, whatever
befalls. Surely Christian faith never is more noble than when it
triumphs over circumstances, and brings praises from lips which, if
sense had its way, would wail and groan. 'This is the victory that
overcometh the world.' The true anaesthetic is trust in God. No
wonder that the baser sort of prisoners--and base enough they
probably were--'were listening to them,' for such sounds had never
been heard there before. In how many a prison have they been heard
since!

We are not told that the Apostles prayed for deliverance. Such
deliverance had not been always granted. Peter indeed had been set
free, but Stephen and James had been martyred, and these two heroes
had no ground to expect a miracle to free them. But thankful trust is
always an appeal to God. And it is always answered, whether by
deliverance from or support in trial.

This time deliverance came. The tremor of the earth was the token of
God's answer. It does not seem likely that an earthquake could loosen
fetters in a jail full of prisoners, but more probably the opening of
the doors and the falling off of the chains were due to a separate
act of divine power, the earthquake being but the audible token
thereof. At all events, here again, the first of a series has
distinguishing features, and may stand as type of all its successors.
God will never leave trusting hearts to the fury of enemies. He
sometimes will stretch out a hand and set them free, He sometimes
will leave them to bear the utmost that the world can do, but He will
always hear their cry and save them. Paul had learned the lesson
which Philippi was meant to teach, when he said, though anticipating
a speedy death by martyrdom, 'The Lord will deliver me from every
evil work, and will save me into His heavenly Kingdom.'

III. The jailer behaves as such a man in his position would do. He
apparently slept in a place that commanded a view of the doors; and
he lay dressed, with his sword beside him, in case of riot or
attempted escape. His first impulse on awaking is to look at the
gates. They are open; then some of his charge have broken them. His
immediate thought of suicide not only shows the savage severity of
punishment which he knew would fall on him, but tells a dreary tale
of the desperate sense of the worthlessness of life and blank
ignorance of anything beyond which then infected the Roman world.
Suicide, the refuge of cowards or of pessimists, sometimes becomes
epidemic. Faith must have died and hope vanished before a man can
say, 'I will take the leap into the dark.'

Paul's words freed the man from one fear, but woke a less selfish and
profounder awe. What did all this succession of strange things mean?
Here are doors open; how came that? Here are prisoners with the
possibility of escape refusing it; how came that? Here is one of his
victims tenderly careful of his life and peacefulness, and taking the
upper hand of him; how came that? A nameless awe begins to creep over
him; and when he gets lights, and sees the two whom he had made fast
in the stocks standing there free, and yet not caring to go forth,
his rough nature is broken down. He recognises his superiors. He
remembers the pythoness's testimony, that they told 'the way of
salvation.'

His question seems 'psychologically impossible' to critics, who have
probably never asked it themselves. Wonderful results follow from the
judicious use of that imposing word 'psychologically'; but while we
are not to suppose that this man knew all that 'salvation' meant,
there is no improbability in his asking such a question, if due
regard is paid to the whole preceding events, beginning with the
maiden's words, and including the impression of Paul's personality
and the mysterious freeing of the prisoners.

His dread was the natural fear that springs when a man is brought
face to face with God; and his question, vague and ignorant as it
was, is the cry of the dim consciousness that lies dormant in all
men--the consciousness of needing deliverance and healing. It erred
in supposing that he had to 'do' anything; but it was absolutely
right in supposing that he needed salvation, and that Paul could tell
him how to get it. How many of us, knowing far more than he, have
never asked the same wise question, or have never gone to Paul for an
answer? It is a question which we should all ask; for we all need
salvation, which is deliverance from danger and healing for soul-
sickness.

Paul's answer is blessedly short and clear. Its brevity and decisive
plainness are the glory of the Gospel. It crystallises into a short
sentence the essential directory for all men.

See how little it takes to secure salvation. But see how much it
takes; for the hardest thing of all is to be content to accept it as
a gift, 'without money and without price.' Many people have listened
to sermons all their lives, and still have no clear understanding of
the way of salvation. Alas that so often the divine simplicity and
brevity of Paul's answer are darkened by a multitude of irrelevant
words and explanations which explain nothing!

The passage ends with the blessing which we may all receive. Of
course the career begun then had to be continued by repeated acts of
faith, and by growing knowledge and obedience. The incipient
salvation is very incomplete, but very real. There is no reason to
doubt that, for some characters, the only way of becoming Christians
is to become so by one dead-lift of resolution. Some things are best
done slowly; some things best quickly. One swift blow makes a cleaner
fracture than filing or sawing. The light comes into some lives like
sunshine in northern latitudes, with long dawn and slowly growing
brightness; but in some the sun leaps into the sky in a moment, as in
the tropics. What matter how long it takes to rise, if it does rise,
and climb to the zenith?



THE GREAT QUESTION AND THE PLAIN ANSWER

'He brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
31. And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shall be saved.'--ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

The keeper of a Macedonian jail was not likely to be a very nervous
or susceptible person. And so the extraordinary state of agitation
and panic into which this rough jailer was cast needs some kind of
explanation. There had been, as you will all remember, an earthquake
of a strange kind, for it not only opened the prison doors, but shook
the prisoner's chains off. The doors being opened, there was on the
part of the jailer, who probably ought not to have been asleep, a
very natural fear that his charge had escaped.

So he was ready, with that sad willingness for suicide which marked
his age, to cast himself on his sword, when Paul encouraged him.

That fear then was past; what was he afraid of now? He knew the
prisoners were all safe; why should he have come pale and trembling?
Perhaps we shall find an answer to the question in another one. Why
should he have gone to Paul and Silas, his two prisoners, for an
anodyne to his fears?

The answer to that may possibly be found in remembering that for many
days before this a singular thing had happened. Up and down the
streets of Philippi a woman possessed with 'a spirit of divination'
had gone at the heels of these two men, proclaiming in such a way as
to disturb them: 'These are the servants of the Most High God, which
show unto us the way of salvation.' It was a new word and a new idea
in Philippi or in Macedonia. This jailer had got it into his mind
that these two men had in their hands a good which he only dimly
understood. The panic caused by the earthquake deepened into a
consciousness of some supernatural atmosphere about him, and stirred
in his rude nature unwonted aspirations and terrors other than he had
known, which cast him at Paul's feet with this strange question.

Now do you think that the jailer's question was a piece of foolish
superstition? I daresay some of you do, or some of you may suppose
too that it was one very unnecessary for him or anybody to ask. So I
wish now, in a very few words, to deal with these three points--the
question that we should all ask, the answer that we may all take, the
blessing that we may all have.

I. The question that we should all ask.

I know that it is very unfashionable nowadays to talk about
'salvation' as man's need. The word has come to be so worn and
commonplace and technical that many men turn away from it; but for
all that, let me try to stir up the consciousness of the deep
necessity that it expresses.

What is it to be saved? Two things; to be healed and to be safe. In
both aspects the expression is employed over and over again in
Scripture. It means either restoration from sickness or deliverance
from peril. I venture to press upon every one of my hearers these two
considerations--we all need healing from sickness; we all need safety
from peril.

Dear brethren, most of you are entire strangers to me; I daresay many
of you never heard my voice before, and probably may never hear it
again. But yet, because 'we have all of us one human heart,' a
brother-man comes to you as possessing with you one common
experience, and ventures to say on the strength of his knowledge of
himself, if on no other ground, 'We have all sinned and come short of
the glory of God.'

Mind, I am not speaking about vices. I have no doubt you are a
perfectly respectable man, in all the ordinary relations of life. I
am not speaking about crimes. I daresay there may be a man or two
here that has been in a dock in his day. Possibly. It does not matter
whether there is or not. But I am not speaking about either vices or
crimes; I am speaking about how we stand in reference to God. And I
pray you to bring yourselves--for no one can do it for you, and no
words of mine can do anything but stimulate you to the act--face to
face with the absolute and dazzlingly pure righteousness of your
Father in Heaven, and to feel the contrast between your life and what
you know He desires you to be. Be honest with yourselves in asking
and answering the question whether or not _you_ have this sickness of
sin, its paralysis in regard to good or its fevered inclination to
evil. If salvation means being healed of a disease, we all have the
disease; and whether we wish it or no, we want the healing.

And what of the other meaning of the word? Salvation means being
safe. Are you safe? Am I safe? Is anybody safe standing in front of
that awful law that rules the whole universe, 'Whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap'? I am not going to talk about any of
the moot points which this generation has such a delight in
discussing, as to the nature, the duration, the purpose, or the like,
of future retribution. All that I am concerned in now is that all
men, deep down in the bottom of their consciousness--and you and I
amongst the rest--know that there _is_ such a thing as retribution
here; and if there be a life beyond the grave at all, necessarily in
an infinitely intenser fashion there. Somewhere and somehow, men will
have to lie on the beds that they have made; to drink as they have
brewed. If sin means separation from God, and separation from God
means, as it assuredly does, death, then I ask you--and there is no
need for any exaggerated words about it--Are we not in danger? And if
salvation be a state of deliverance from sickness, and a state of
deliverance from peril, do we not need it?

Ah, brethren, I venture to say that we need it more than anything
else. You will not misunderstand me as expressing the slightest
depreciation of other remedies that are being extensively offered now
for the various evils under which society and individuals groan. I
heartily sympathise with them all, and would do my part to help them
forward; but I cannot but feel that whilst culture of the intellect,
of the taste, of the sense of beauty, of the refining agencies
generally, is very valuable; and whilst moral and social and
economical and political changes will all do something, and some of
them a great deal, to diminish the sum of human misery, you have to
go deeper down than these reach. It is not culture that we want most;
it is salvation. Brethren, you and I are wrong in our relation to
God, and that means death and--if you do not shrink from the vulgar
old word--damnation. We are wrong in our relation to God, and that
has to be set right before we are fundamentally and thoroughly right.
That is to say, salvation is our deepest need.

Then how does it come that men go on, as so many of my friends here
now have gone on, all their days paying no attention to that need? Is
there any folly, amidst all the irrationalities of that irrational
creature man, to be matched with the folly of steadily refusing to
look forward and settle for ourselves the prime element in our
condition--viz., our relation to God? Strange is it not--that power
that we have of refusing to look at the barometer when it is going
down, of turning away from unwholesome subjects just because we know
them to be so unwelcome and threatening, and of buying a moment's
exemption from discomfort at the price of a life's ruin?

Do you remember that old story of the way in which the prisoners in
the time of the French Revolution used to behave? The tumbrils came
every morning and carried off a file of them to the guillotine, and
the rest of them had a ghastly make-believe of carrying on the old
frivolities of the life of the _salons_ and of society. And it lasted
for an hour or two, but the tumbril came next morning all the same,
and the guillotine stood there gaping in the _Place_. And so it is
useless, although it is so frequently done by so many of us, to try
to shut out facts instead of facing them. A man is never so wise as
when he says to himself, 'Let me fairly know the whole truth of my
relation to the unseen world in so far as it can be known here, and
if that is wrong, let me set about rectifying it if it be possible.'
'What will ye do in the end?' is the wisest question that a man can
ask himself, when the end is as certain as it is with us, and as
unsatisfactory as I am afraid it threatens to be with some of us if
we continue as we are.

Have I not a right to appeal to the half-sleeping and half-waking
consciousness that endorses my words in some hearts as I speak? O
brethren, you would be far wiser men if you did like this jailer in
the Macedonian prison, came and gave yourselves no rest till you have
this question cleared up, 'What must I do to be saved?'

There was an old Rabbi who used to preach to his disciples, 'Repent
the day before you die.' And when they said to him, 'Rabbi, we do not
know what day we are going to die.' 'Then,' said he, 'repent to-day.'
And so I say to you, 'Settle about the end before the end comes, and
as you do not know when it may come, settle about it now.'

II. That brings me to the next point here, viz., the blessed, clear
answer that we may all take.

Paul and Silas were not non-plussed by this question, nor did they
reply to it in the fashion in which many men would have answered it.
Take a specimen of other answers. If anybody were so far left to
himself as to go with this question to some of our modern wise men
and teachers, they would say, 'Saved? My good fellow, there is
nothing to be saved from. Get rid of delusions, and clear your mind
of cant and superstition.' Or they would say, 'Saved? Well, if you
have gone wrong, do the best you can in the time to come.' Or if you
went to some of our friends they would say, 'Come and be baptized,
and receive the grace of regeneration in holy baptism; and then come
to the sacraments, and be faithful and loyal members of the Church
which has Apostolic succession in it.' And some would say, 'Set
yourselves to work and toil and labour.' And some would say, 'Don't
trouble yourselves about such whims. A short life and a merry one;
make the best of it, and jump the life to come.' Neither cold
morality, nor godless philosophy, nor wild dissipation, nor narrow
ecclesiasticism prompted Paul's answer. He said, 'Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'

What did that poor heathen man know about the Lord Jesus Christ? Next
to nothing. How could he believe upon Him if he knew so little about
Him? Well, you hear in the context that this summary answer to the
question was the beginning, and not the end, of a conversation, which
conversation, no doubt, consisted largely in extending and explaining
the brief formulary with which it had commenced. But it is a grand
thing that we can put the all-essential truth into half a dozen
simple words, and then expound and explain them as may be necessary.
And I come to you now, dear brethren, with nothing newer or more
wonderful, or more out of the ordinary way than the old threadbare
message which men have been preaching for nineteen hundred years, and
have not exhausted, and which some of you have heard for a lifetime,
and have never practised, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.'

Now I am not going to weary you with mere dissertations upon the
significance of these words. But let me single out two points about
them, which perhaps though they may be perfectly familiar to you, may
come to you with fresh force from my lips now.

Mark, first, whom it is that we are to believe on. '_The Lord_,' that
is the divine Name; '_Jesus_,' that is the name of a Man; '_Christ_,'
that is the name of an office. And if you put them all together, they
come to this, that He on whom we sinful men may put our sole trust
and hope for our healing and our safety, is the Son of God, who came
down upon earth to live our life and to die our death that He might
bear on Himself our sins, and fulfil all which ancient prophecy and
symbol had proclaimed as needful, and therefore certain to be done,
for men. It is not a starved half-Saviour whose name is only Jesus,
and neither Lord nor Christ, faith in whom will save you. You must
grasp the whole revelation of His nature and His power if from Him
there is to flow the life that you need.

And note what it is that we are to exercise towards Jesus Christ. To
'believe on Him' is a very different thing from _believing Him_. You
may accept all that I have been saying about who and what He is, and
be as far away from the faith that saves a soul as if you had never
hoard His name. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is to lean the
whole weight of yourselves upon Him. What do you do when you trust a
man who promises you any small gift or advantage? What do you do when
dear ones say, 'Rest on my love'? You simply trust them. And the very
same exercise of heart and mind which is the blessed cement that
holds human society together, and the power that sheds peace and
grace over friendships and love, is the power which, directed to
Jesus Christ, brings all His saving might into exercise in our lives.
Brethren, trust Him, trust Him as Lord, trust Him as Jesus, trust Him
as Christ. Learn your sickness, learn your danger; and be sure of
your Healer and rejoice in your security. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'

III. Lastly, consider the blessing we may all receive. This jailer
about whom we have been speaking was a heathen when the sun set and a
Christian when it rose. On the one day he was groping in darkness, a
worshipper of idols, without hope in the future, and ready in
desperation to plunge himself into the darkness beyond, when he
thought his prisoners had fled. In an hour or two 'he rejoiced,
believing in God with all his house.'

A sudden conversion, you say, and sudden conversions are always
suspicious. I am not so sure about that; they may be, or they may not
be, according to circumstances. I know very well that it is not
fashionable now to preach the possibility or the probability of men
turning all at once from darkness to light, and that people shrug
their shoulders at the old theory of sudden conversions. I think, so
much the worse. There are a great many things in this world that have
to be done suddenly if they are ever to be done at all. And I, for my
part, would have far more hope for a man who, in one leap, sprung
from the depth of the degradation of that coarse jailer into the
light and joy of the Christian life, than for a man who tried to get
to it by slow steps. You have to do everything in this world worth
doing by a sudden resolution, however long the preparation may have
been which led up to the resolution. The act of resolving is always
the act of an instant. And when men are plunged in darkness and
profligacy, as are, perhaps, some of my hearers now, there is far
more chance of their casting off their evil by a sudden jerk than of
their unwinding the snake by slow degrees from their arms. There is
no reason whatever why the soundest and solidest and most lasting
transformation of character should not begin in a moment's resolve.

And there is an immense danger that with some of you, if that change
does not begin in a moment's resolve now, you will be further away
from it than ever you were. I have no doubt there are many of you
who, at any time for years past, have known that you ought to be
Christians, and who, at any time for years past, have been saying to
yourselves: 'Well, I will think about it, and I am tending towards
it, but I cannot quite make the plunge.' Why not; and why not now?
You can if you will; you ought; you will be a better and happier man
if you do. You will be saved from your sickness and safe from your
danger.

The outcast jailer changed nationalities in a moment. You who have
dwelt in the suburbs of Christ's Kingdom all your lives--why cannot
you go inside the gate as quickly? For many of us the gradual
'growing up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord' has been the
appointed way. For some of us I verily believe the sudden change is
the best. Some of us have a sunrise as in the tropics, where the one
moment is grey and cold, and next moment the seas are lit with the
glory. Others of us have a sunrise as at the poles, where a long
slowly-growing light precedes the rising, and the rising itself is
scarce observable. But it matters little as to how we get to Christ,
if we are there, and it matters little whether a man's faith grows up
in a moment, or is the slow product of years. If only it be rooted in
Christ it will bear fruit unto life eternal.

And so, dear brethren, I come to you with my last question, this man
rejoiced, believing in the Lord; why should not you; and why should
not you now? 'Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth.' A look is a swift act, but if it be the beginning of a
lifelong gaze, it will be the beginning of salvation and of a glory
longer than life.



THESSALONICA AND BEREA

'Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they
came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2. And
Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath-
days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3. Opening and
alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again
from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is
Christ. 4. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and
Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the
chief women not a few. 5. But the Jews which believed not, moved
with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort,
and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and
assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the
people, 6. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and
certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that
have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7. Whom
Jason hath received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of
Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. 8. And they
troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard
these things. 9. And when they had taken security of Jason, and
of the other, they let them go. 10. And the brethren immediately
sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither
went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11. These were more noble
than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with
all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether
those things were so. 12. Therefore many of them believed; also
of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.'
--ACTS xvii. 1-12.

'Shamefully entreated at Philippi,' Paul tells the Thessalonians, he
'waxed bold in our God to' preach to them. His experience in the
former city might well have daunted a feebler faith, but opposition
affected Paul as little as a passing hailstorm dints a rock. To
change the field was common sense; to abandon the work would have
been sin. But Paul's brave persistence was not due to his own
courage; he drew it from God. Because he lived in communion with Him,
his courage 'waxed' as dangers gathered. He knew that he was doing a
daring thing, but he knew who was his helper. So he went steadily on,
whatever might front him. His temper of mind and the source of it are
wonderfully revealed in his simple words.

The transference to Thessalonica illustrates another principle of his
action; namely, his preference of great centres of population as
fields of work. He passes through two less important places to
establish himself in the great city. It is wise to fly at the head.
Conquer the cities, and the villages will fall of themselves. That
was the policy which carried Christianity through the empire like a
prairie fire. Would that later missions had adhered to it!

The methods adopted in Thessalonica were the usual ones. Luke bids us
notice that Paul took the same course of action in each place:
namely, to go to the synagogue first, when there was one, and there
to prove that Jesus was the Christ. The three Macedonian towns
already mentioned seem not to have had synagogues. Probably there
were comparatively few Jews in them, and these were ecclesiastically
dependent on Thessalonica. We can fancy the growing excitement in the
synagogue, as for three successive Sabbaths the stranger urged his
proofs of the two all-important but most unwelcome assertions, that
their own scriptures foretold a suffering Messiah,--a side of
Messianic prophecy which was ignored or passionately denied--and that
Jesus was that Messiah. Many a vehement protest would be shrieked
out, with flashing eyes and abundant gesticulation, as he 'opened'
the sense of Scripture, and 'quoted passages'--for that is the
meaning here of the word rendered 'alleging.' He gives us a glimpse
of the hot discussions when he says that he preached 'in much
conflict'(1 Thess. ii. 2).

With whatever differences in manner of presentation, the true message
of the Christian teacher is still the message that woke such
opposition in the synagogue of Thessalonica,--the bold proclamation
of the personal Christ, His death and resurrection. And with whatever
differences, the instrument of conviction is still the Scriptures,
'the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' The more closely
we keep ourselves to that message and that weapon the better.

The effects of the faithful preaching of the gospel are as uniform as
the method. It does one of two things to its hearers--either it melts
their hearts and leads them to faith, or it stirs them to more
violent enmity. It is either a stone of stumbling or a sure corner-
stone. We either build on or fall over it, and at last are crushed by
it. The converts included Jews and proselytes in larger numbers, as
may be gathered from the distinction drawn by 'some'--referring to
the former, and 'a great multitude'--referring to the latter. Besides
these there were a good many ladies of rank and refinement, as was
also the case presently at Beroea. Probably these, too, were
proselytes.

The prominence of women among the converts, as soon as the gospel is
brought into Europe, is interesting and prophetic. The fact of the
social position of these ladies may suggest that the upper classes
were freer from superstition than the lower, and may point a not
favourable contrast with present social conditions, which do not
result in a similar accession of women of 'honourable estate' to the
Church.

Opposition follows as uniform a course as the preaching. The broad
outlines are the same in each case, while the local colouring varies.
If we compare Paul's narrative in I Thessalonians, which throbs with
emotion, and, as it were, pants with the stress of the conflict, with
Luke's calm account here, we see not only how Paul felt, but why the
Jews got up a riot. Luke says that they 'became jealous.' Paul
expands that into 'they are contrary to all men; forbidding us to
speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved.' Then it was not so
much dislike to the preaching of Jesus as Messiah as it was rage that
their Jewish prerogative was infringed, and the children's bread
offered to the dogs, that stung them to violent opposition. Israel
had been chosen, that it might be God's witness, and diffuse the
treasure it possessed through all the world. It had become, not the
dispenser, but the would-be monopolist, of its gift. Have there been
no Christian communities in later days animated by the same spirit?

There were plenty of loafers in the market-place ready for any
mischief, and by no means particular about the pretext for a riot.
Anything that would give an opportunity for hurting somebody, and for
loot, would attract them as corruption does flesh-flies. So the
Jewish ringleaders easily got a crowd together. To tell their real
reasons would scarcely have done, but to say that there was a house
to be attacked, and some foreigners to be dragged out, was enough for
the present. Jason's house was probably Paul's temporary home, where,
as he tells us in 1 Thessalonians ii. 9, he had worked at his trade,
that he might not be burdensome to any. Possibly he and Silas had
been warned of the approach of the rioters and had got away
elsewhere. At all events, the nest was empty, but the crowd must have
its victims, and so, failing Paul, they laid hold of Jason. His
offence was a very shadowy one. But since his day there have been
many martyrs, whose only crime was 'harbouring' Christians, or
heretics, or recusant priests, or Covenanters. If a bull cannot gore
a man, it will toss his cloak.

The charge against Jason is that he receives the Apostle and his
party, and constructively favours their designs. The charge against
them is that they are revolutionists, rebels against the Emperor, and
partisans of a rival. Now we may note three things about the charge.
First, it comes with a very distinct taint of insincerity from Jews,
who were, to say the least, not remarkable for loyalty or peaceful
obedience. The Gracchi are complaining of sedition! A Jew zealous for
Caeesar is an anomaly, which might excite the suspicions of the least
suspicious ruler. The charge of breaking the peace comes with
remarkable appropriateness from the leaders of a riot. They were the
troublers of the city, not Paul, peacefully preaching in the
synagogue. The wolf scolds the lamb for fouling the river.

Again, the charges are a violent distortion of the truth. Possibly
the Jewish ringleaders believed what they said, but more probably
they consciously twisted Paul's teachings, because they knew that no
other charges would excite so much hostility or be so damning as
those which they made. The mere suggestion of treason was often
fatal. The wild exaggeration that the Christians had 'turned the
whole civilised world upside down' betrays passionate hatred and
alarm, if it was genuine, or crafty determination to rouse the mob,
if it was consciously trumped up. But whether the charges were
believed or not by those who made them, here were Jews disclaiming
their nation's dearest hope, and, like the yelling crowd at the
Crucifixion, declaring they had no king but Caesar. The degradation
of Israel was completed by these fanatical upholders of its
prerogatives.

But, again, the charges were true in a far other sense than their
bringers meant. For Christianity is revolutionary, and its very aim
is to turn the world upside down, since the wrong side is uppermost
at present, and Jesus, not Caesar, or any king or emperor or czar, is
the true Lord and ruler of men. But the revolution which He makes is
the revolution of individuals, turning them from darkness to light;
for He moulds single souls first and society afterwards. Violence is
always a mistake, and the only way to change evil customs is to
change men's natures, and then the customs drop away of themselves.
The true rule begins with the sway of hearts; then wills are
submissive, and conduct is the expression of inward delight in a law
which is sweet because the lawgiver is dear.

Missing Paul, the mob fell on Jason and the brethren. They were
'bound over to keep the peace.' Evidently the rulers had little fear
of these alleged desperate revolutionaries, and did as little as they
dared, without incurring the reproach of being tepid in their
loyalty.

Probably the removal of Paul and his travelling companions from the
neighbourhood was included in the terms to which Jason had to submit.
Their hurried departure does not seem to have been caused by a
renewal of disturbances. At all events, their Beroean experience
repeated that of Philippi and of Thessalonica, with one great and
welcome difference. The Beroean Jews did exactly what their
compatriots elsewhere would not do--they looked into the subject with
their own eyes, and tested Paul's assertions by Scripture.
'Therefore,' says Luke, with grand confidence in the impregnable
foundations of the faith, 'many of them believed.' True nobility of
soul consists in willingness to receive the Word, combined with
diligent testing of it. Christ asks for no blind adhesion. The true
Christian teacher wishes for no renunciation, on the part of his
hearers, of their own judgments. 'Open your mouth and shut your eyes,
and swallow what I give you,' is not the language of Christianity,
though it has sometimes been the demand of its professed
missionaries, and not the teacher only, but the taught also, have
been but too ready to exercise blind credulity instead of intelligent
examination and clear-eyed faith. If professing Christians to-day
were better acquainted with the Scriptures, and more in the habit of
bringing every new doctrine to them as its touchstone, there would be
less currency of errors and firmer grip of truth.



PAUL AT ATHENS

'Then Paul stood In the midst of Mars-hill, and said, Ye men of
Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an
altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore
ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24. God, that made
the world, and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of
heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25.
Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed any
thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26. And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on
all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27. That they
should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and
find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: 28. For in
Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of
your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring. 29.
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to
think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone,
graven by art and man's device. 30. And the times of this
ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where
to repent: 31. Because he hath appointed a day, in the which He
will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath
ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that
He hath raised Him from the dead. 32. And when they heard of the
resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will
hear thee again of this matter. 33. So Paul departed from among
them. 34. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among
the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named
Damaris, and others with them.'--ACTS xvii. 22-34.

'I am become all things to all men,' said Paul, and his address at
Athens strikingly exemplifies that principle of his action. Contrast
it with his speech in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, which
appeals entirely to the Old Testament, and is saturated with Jewish
ideas, or with the remonstrance to the rude Lycaonian peasants (Acts
xiv. 15, etc.), which, while handling some of the same thoughts as at
Athens, does so in a remarkably different manner. There he appealed
to God's gifts of 'rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons,' the
things most close to his hearers' experience; here, speaking to
educated 'philosophers,' he quotes Greek poetry, and sets forth a
reasoned declaration of the nature of the Godhead and the relations
of a philosophy of history and an argument against idolatry. The
glories of Greek art were around him; the statues of Pallas Athene
and many more fair creations looked down on the little Jew who dared
to proclaim their nullity as representations of the Godhead.

Paul's flexibility of mind and power of adapting himself to every
circumstance were never more strikingly shown than in that great
address to the quick-witted Athenians. It falls into three parts: the
conciliatory prelude (vers. 22, 23); the declaration of the Unknown
God (vers. 24-29); and the proclamation of the God-ordained Man
(vers. 30, 31).

I. We have, first, the conciliatory prelude. It is always a mistake
for the apostle of a new truth to begin by running a tilt at old
errors. It is common sense to seek to find some point in the present
beliefs of his hearers to which his message may attach itself. An
orator who flatters for the sake of securing favour for himself is
despicable; a missionary who recognises the truth which lies under
the system which he seeks to overthrow, is wise.

It is incredible that Paul should have begun his speech to so
critical an audience by charging them with excessive superstition, as
the Authorised Version makes him do. Nor does the modified
translation of the Revised Version seem to be precisely what is
meant. Paul is not blaming the Athenians, but recording a fact which
he had noticed, and from which he desired to start. Ramsay's
translation gives the truer notion of his meaning--'more than others
respectful of what is divine.' 'Superstition' necessarily conveys a
sense of blame, but the word in the original does not.

We can see Paul as a stranger wandering through the city, and noting
with keen eyes every token of the all-pervading idolatry. He does not
tell his hearers that his spirit burned within him when he saw the
city full of idols; but he smothers all that, and speaks only of the
inscription which he had noticed on one, probably obscure and
forgotten, altar: 'To the Unknown God.' Scholars have given
themselves a great deal of trouble to show from other authors that
there were such altars. But Paul is as good an 'authority' as these,
and we may take his word that he did see such an inscription. Whether
it had the full significance which he reads into it or not, it
crystallised in an express avowal that sense of Something behind and
above the 'gods many' of Greek religion, which found expression in
the words of their noblest thinkers and poets, and lay like a
nightmare on them.

To charge an Athenian audience, proud of their knowledge, with
ignorance, was a hazardous and audacious undertaking; to make them
charge themselves was more than an oratorical device. It appealed to
the deepest consciousness even of the popular mind. Even with this
prelude, the claims of this wandering Jew to pose as the instructor
of Epicureans and Stoics, and to possess a knowledge of the Divine
which they lacked, were daring. But how calmly and confidently Paul
makes them, and with what easy and conciliatory adoption of their own
terminology, if we adopt the reading of verse 23 in Revised Version
('What ye worship ... this,' etc.), which puts forward the abstract
conception of divinity rather than the personal God.

The spirit in which Paul approached his difficult audience teaches
all Christian missionaries and controversialists a needed and
neglected lesson. We should accentuate points of resemblance rather
than of difference, to begin with. We should not run a tilt against
even errors, and so provoke to their defence, but rather find in
creeds and practices an ignorant groping after, and so a door of
entrance for, the truth which we seek to recommend.

II. The declaration of the Unknown God has been prepared for, and now
follows, and with it is bound up a polemic against idolatry.
Conciliation is not to be carried so far as to hide the antagonism
between the truth and error. We may give non-Christian systems of
religion credit for all the good in them, but we are not to blink
their contrariety to the true religion. Conciliation and controversy
are both needful; and he is the best Christian teacher who has
mastered the secret of the due proportion between them.

Every word of Paul's proclamation strikes full and square at some
counter belief of his hearers. He begins with creation, which he
declares to have been the act of one personal God, and neither of a
multitude of deities, as some of his hearers held, nor of an
impersonal blind power, as others believed, nor the result of chance,
nor eternal, as others maintained. He boldly proclaims there, below
the shadow of the Parthenon, that there is but one God,--the
universal Lord, because the universal Creator. Many consequences from
that fact, no doubt, crowded into Paul's mind; but he swiftly turns
to its bearing on the pomp of temples which were the glory of Athens,
and the multitude of sacrifices which he had beheld on their altars.
The true conception of God as the Creator and Lord of all things cuts
up by the roots the pagan notions of temples as dwelling-places of a
god and of sacrifices as ministering to his needs. With one crushing
blow Paul pulverises the fair fanes around him, and declares that
sacrifice, as practised there, contradicted the plain truth as to
God's nature. To suppose that man can give anything to Him, or that
He needs anything, is absurd. All heathen worship reverses the parts
of God and man, and loses sight of the fact that He is the giver
continually and of everything. Life in its origination, the
continuance thereof (breath), and all which enriches it, are from
Him. Then true worship will not be giving to, but thankfully
accepting from and using for, Him, His manifold gifts.

So Paul declares the one God as Creator and Sustainer of all. He goes
on to sketch in broad outline what we may call a philosophy of
history. The declaration of the unity of mankind was a wholly strange
message to proud Athenians, who believed themselves to be a race
apart, not only from the 'barbarians,' whom all Greeks regarded as
made of other clay than they, but from the rest of the Greek world.
It flatly contradicted one of their most cherished prerogatives. Not
only does Paul claim one origin for all men, but he regards all
nations as equally cared for by the one God. His hearers believed
that each people had its own patron deities, and that the wars of
nations were the wars of their gods, who won for them territory, and
presided over their national fortunes. To all that way of thinking
the Apostle opposes the conception, which naturally follows from his
fundamental declaration of the one Creator, of His providential
guidance of all nations in regard to their place in the world and the
epochs of their history.

But he rises still higher when he declares the divine purpose in all
the tangled web of history--the variety of conditions of nations,
their rise and fall, their glory and decay, their planting in their
lands and their rooting out,--to be to lead all men to 'seek God.'
That is the deepest meaning of history. The whole course of human
affairs is God's drawing men to Himself. Not only in Judea, nor only
by special revelation, but by the gifts bestowed, and the schooling
brought to bear on every nation, He would stir men up to seek for
Him.

But that great purpose has not been realised. There is a tragic 'if
haply' inevitable; and men may refuse to yield to the impulses
towards God. They are the more likely to do so, inasmuch as to find
Him they must 'feel after Him,' and that is hard. The tendrils of a
plant turn to the far-off light, but men's spirits do not thus grope
after God. Something has come in the way which frustrates the divine
purpose, and makes men blind and unwilling to seek Him.

Paul docs not at once draw the two plain inferences, that there must
be something more than the nations have had, if they are to find God,
even His seeking them in some new fashion; and that the power which
neutralises God's design in creation and providence is sin. He has a
word to say about both these, but for the moment he contents himself
with pointing to the fact, attested by his hearers' consciousness,
and by many a saying of thinkers and poets, that the failure to find
God does not arise from His hiding Himself in some remote obscurity.
Men are plunged, as it were, in the ocean of God, encompassed by Him
as an atmosphere, and--highest thought of all, and not strange to
Greek thought of the nobler sort--kindred with Him as both drawing
life from Him and being in His image. Whence, then, but from their
own fault, could men have failed to find God? If He is 'unknown,' it
is not because He has shrouded Himself in darkness, but because they
do not love the light. One swift glance at the folly of idolatry, as
demonstrated by this thought of man's being the offspring of God,
leads naturally to the properly Christian conclusion of the address.

III. It is probable that this part of it was prematurely ended by the
mockery of some and the impatience of others, who had had enough of
Paul and his talk, and who, when they said, 'We will hear thee
again,' meant, 'We will not hear you now.' But, even in the compass
permitted him, he gives much of his message.

We can but briefly note the course of thought. He comes back to his
former word 'ignorance,' bitter pill as it was for the Athenian
cultured class to swallow. He has shown them how their religion
ignores or contradicts the true conceptions of God and man. But he no
sooner brings the charge than he proclaims God's forbearance. And he
no sooner proclaims God's forbearance than he rises to the full
height of his mission as God's ambassador, and speaks in
authoritative tones, as bearing His 'commands.'

Now the hint in the previous part is made more plain. The demand for
repentance implies sin. Then the 'ignorance' was not inevitable or
innocent. There was an element of guilt in men's not feeling after
God, and sin is universal, for 'all men everywhere' are summoned to
repent. Philosophers and artists, and cultivated triflers, and
sincere worshippers of Pallas and Zeus, and all 'barbarian' people,
are alike here. That would grate on Athenian pride, as it grates now
on ours. The reason for repentance would be as strange to the hearers
as the command was--a universal judgment, of which the principle was
to be rigid righteousness, and the Judge, not Minos or Rhadamanthus,
but 'a Man' ordained for that function.

What raving nonsense that would appear to men who had largely lost
the belief in a life beyond the grave! The universal Judge a man! No
wonder that the quick Athenian sense of the ridiculous began to rise
against this Jew fanatic, bringing his dreams among cultured people
like them! And the proof which he alleged as evidence to all men that
it is so, would sound even more ridiculous than the assertion meant
to be proved. 'A man has been raised from the dead; and this
anonymous Man, whom nobody ever heard of before, and who is no doubt
one of the speaker's countrymen, is to judge us, Stoics, Epicureans,
polished people, and we are to be herded to His bar in company with
Boeotians and barbarians! The man is mad.'

So the assembly broke up in inextinguishable laughter, and Paul
silently 'departed from among them,' having never named the name of
Jesus to them. He never more earnestly tried to adapt his teaching to
his audience; he never was more unsuccessful in his attempt by all
means to gain some. Was it a remembrance of that scene in Athens that
made him write to the Corinthians that his message was 'to the Greeks
foolishness'?



THE MAN WHO IS JUDGE

'...He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He
hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in
that He hath raised Him from the dead.'--ACTS xvii. 31.

I. The Resurrection of Jesus gives assurance of judgment.

(_a_) Christ's Resurrection is the pledge of ours.

The belief in a future life, as entertained by Paul's hearers on Mars
Hill, was shadowy and dashed with much unbelief. Disembodied spirits
wandered ghostlike and spectral in a shadowy underworld.

The belief in the Resurrection of Jesus converts the Greek
peradventure into a fact. It gives that belief solidity and makes it
easier to grasp firmly. Unless the thought of a future life is
completed by the belief that it is a corporeal life, it will never
have definiteness and reality enough to sustain itself as a
counterpoise to the weight of things seen.

(_b_) Resurrection implies judgment.

A future bodily life affirms individual identity as persisting beyond
the accident of death, and can only be conceived of as a state in
which the earthly life is fully developed in its individual results.
The dead, who are raised, are raised that they may 'receive the
things done in the body, according to that they have done, whether it
be good or bad.' Historically, the two thoughts have always gone
together; and as has been the clearness with which a resurrection has
been held as certain, so has been the force with which the
anticipation of judgment to come has impinged on conscience.

Jesus is, even in this respect, our Example, for the glory to which
He was raised and in which He reigns now is the issue of His earthly
life; and in His Resurrection and Ascension we have the historical
fact which certifies to all men that a life of self-sacrifice here
will assuredly flower into a life of glory there, 'Ours the Cross,
the grave, the skies.'

II. The Resurrection of Jesus gives the assurance that He is Judge.

The bare fact that He is risen does not carry that assurance; we have
to take into account that He has risen.

After such a life.

His Resurrection was God's setting the seal of His approval and
acceptance on Christ's work; His endorsement of Christ's claims to
special relations with Him; His affirmation of Christ's sinlessness.
Jesus had declared that He did always the things that pleased the
Father; had claimed to be the pure and perfect realisation of the
divine ideal of manhood; had presented Himself as the legitimate
object of utter devotion and of religious trust, love, and obedience,
and as the only way to God. Men said that He was a blasphemer; God
said, and said most emphatically, by raising Him from the dead: 'This
is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

With such a sequel.

'Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more,' and that fact
sets Him apart from others who, according to Scripture, have been
raised. His resurrection is, if we may use such a figure, a point;
His Ascension and Session at the right hand of God are the line into
which the point is prolonged. And from both the point and the line
come the assurance that He is the Judge.

III. The risen Jesus is Judge because He is Man.

That seems a paradox. It is a commonplace that we are incompetent to
judge another, for human eyes cannot read the secrets of a human
heart, and we can only surmise, not know, each other's motives, which
are the all-important part of our deeds. But when we rightly
understand Christ's human nature, we understand how fitted He is to
be our Judge, and how blessed it is to think of Him as such. Paul
tells the Athenians with deep significance that He who is to be their
and the world's Judge is 'the Man.' He sums up human nature in
Himself, He is the ideal and the real Man.

And further, Paul tells his hearers that God judges 'through' Him,
and does so 'in righteousness.' He is fitted to be our Judge, because
He perfectly and completely bears our nature, knows by experience all
its weaknesses and windings, as from the inside, so to speak, and is
'wondrous kind' with the kindness which 'fellow-feeling' enkindles.
He knows us with the knowledge of a God; He knows us with the
sympathy of a brother.

The Man who has died for all men thereby becomes the Judge of all.
Even in this life, Jesus and His Cross judge us. Our disposition
towards Him is the test of our whole character. By their attitude to
Him, the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. 'What think ye of
Christ?' is the question, the answer to which determines our fate,
because it reveals our inmost selves and their capacities for
receiving blessing or harm from God and His mercy. Jesus Himself has
taught us that 'in that day' the condition of entrance into the
Kingdom is 'doing the will of My Father which is in heaven.' He has
also taught us that 'this is the work of God, that ye believe on Him
whom He hath sent.' Faith in Jesus as our Saviour is the root from
which will grow the good tree which will bring forth good fruit,
bearing which our love will be 'made perfect, that we may have
boldness before Him in the day of judgment.'



PAUL AT CORINTH

'After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to
Corinth; 2. And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus,
lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that
Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came
unto them. 3. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with
them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tent-makers.
4. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded
the Jews and the Greeks. 5. And when Silas and Timotheus were
come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and
testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 6. And when they
opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and
said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean:
from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. 7. And he departed
thence, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one
that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. 8.
And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the
Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing
believed, and were baptized. 9. Then spake the Lord to Paul in
the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy
peace: 10. For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to
hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. 11. And he
continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God
among them.'--ACTS xviii. 1-11.

Solitude is a hard trial for sensitive natures, and tends to weaken
their power of work. Paul was entirely alone in Athens, and appears
to have cut his stay there short, since his two companions, who were
to have joined him in that city, did not do so till after he had been
some time in Corinth. His long stay there has several well-marked
stages, which yield valuable lessons.

I. First, we note the solitary Apostle, seeking friends, toiling for
bread, and withal preaching Christ. Corinth was a centre of commerce,
of wealth, and of moral corruption. The celebrated local worship of
Aphrodite fed the corruption as well as the wealth. The Apostle met
there with a new phase of Greek life, no less formidable in
antagonism to the Gospel than the culture of Athens. He tells us that
he entered on his work in Corinth 'in weakness, and in fear, and in
much trembling,' but also that he did not try to attract by
adaptation of his words to the prevailing tastes either of Greek or
Jew, but preached 'Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,' knowing that,
while that appeared to go right in the teeth of the demands of both,
it really met their wants. This ministry was begun, in his usual
fashion, very unobtrusively and quietly. His first care was to find a
home; his second, to provide his daily bread; and then he was free to
take the Sabbath for Christian work in the synagogue.

We cannot tell whether he had had any previous acquaintance with
Aquila and his wife, nor indeed is it certain that they had
previously been Christians. Paul's reason for living with them was
simply the convenience of getting work at his trade, and it seems
probable that, if they had been disciples, that fact would have been
named as part of his reason. Pontus lay to the north of Cilicia, and
though widely separated from it, was near enough to make a kind of
bond as of fellow-countrymen, which would be the stronger because
they had the same craft at their finger-ends.

It was the wholesome practice for every Rabbi to learn some trade. If
all graduates had to do the same now there would be fewer educated
idlers, who are dangerous to society and burdens to themselves and
their friends. What a curl of contempt would have lifted the lips of
the rich men of Corinth if they had been told that the greatest man
in their city was that little Jew tent-maker, and that in this
unostentatious fashion he had begun to preach truths which would be
like a charge of dynamite to all their social and religious order!
True zeal can be patiently silent.

Sewing rough goat's-hair cloth into tents may be as truly serving
Christ as preaching His name. All manner of work that contributes to
the same end is the same in worth and in recompense. Perhaps the
wholesomest form of Christian ministry is that after the Apostolic
pattern, when the teacher can say, as Paul did to the people of
Corinth, 'When I was present with you and was in want, I was not a
burden on any man.' If not in letter, at any rate in spirit, his
example must be followed. If the preacher would win souls he must be
free from any taint of suspicion as to money.

II. The second stage in Paul's Corinthian residence is the increased
activity when his friends, Silas and Timothy, came from Beroea. We
learn from Philippians iv. 15, and 2 Corinthians xi. 9, that they
brought gifts from the Church at Philippi; and from 1 Thessalonians
iii. 6, that they brought something still more gladdening namely,
good accounts of the steadfastness of the Thessalonian converts. The
money would make it less necessary to spend most of the week in
manual labour; the glad tidings of the Thessalonians' 'faith and
love' did bring fresh life, and the presence of his helpers would
cheer him. So a period of enlarged activity followed their coming.

The reading of verse 5, 'Paul was constrained by the word,' brings
out strikingly the Christian impulse which makes speech of the Gospel
a necessity. The force of that impulse may vary, as it did with Paul;
but if we have any deep possession of the grace of God for ourselves,
we shall, like him, feel it pressing us for utterance, as soon as the
need of providing daily bread becomes less stringent and our hearts
are gladdened by Christian communion. It augurs ill for a man's hold
of the word if the word does not hold him. He who never felt that he
was weary of forbearing, and that the word was like a fire, if it was
'shut up in his bones,' has need to ask himself if he has any belief
in the Gospel. The craving to impart ever accompanies real
possession.

The Apostle's solemn symbolism, announcing his cessation of efforts
among the Jews, has of course reference only to Corinth, for we find
him in his subsequent ministry adhering to his method, 'to the Jew
first.' It is a great part of Christian wisdom in evangelical work to
recognise the right time to give up efforts which have been
fruitless. Much strength is wasted, and many hearts depressed, by
obstinate continuance in such methods or on such fields as have cost
much effort and yielded no fruit. We often call it faith, when it is
only pride, which prevents the acknowledgment of failure. Better to
learn the lessons taught by Providence, and to try a new 'claim,'
than to keep on digging and washing when we only find sand and mud.
God teaches us by failures as well as by successes. Let us not be too
conceited to learn the lesson or to confess defeat, and shift our
ground accordingly.

It is a solemn thing to say 'I am clean.' We need to have been very
diligent, very loving, very prayerful to God, and very persuasive in
pleading with men, before we dare to roll all the blame of their
condemnation on themselves. But we have no right to say, 'Henceforth
I go to' others, until we can say that we have done all that man--or,
at any rate, that we--can do to avert the doom.

Paul did not go so far away but that any whose hearts God had touched
could easily find him. It was with a lingering eye to his countrymen
that he took up his abode in the house of 'one that feared God,' that
is, a proselyte; and that he settled down next door to the synagogue.
What a glimpse of yearning love which cannot bear to give Israel up
as hopeless, that simple detail gives us! And may we not say that the
yearning of the servant is caught from the example of the Master?
'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?' Does not Christ, in His long-
suffering love, linger in like manner round each closed heart? and if
He withdraws a little way, does He not do so rather to stimulate
search after Him, and tarry near enough to be found by every seeking
heart?

Paul's purpose in his solemn warning to the Jews of Corinth was
partly accomplished. The ruler of the synagogue 'believed in the Lord
with all his house.' Thus men are sometimes brought to decision for
Christ by the apparently impending possibility of His Gospel leaving
them to themselves. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.'
Severity sometimes effects what forbearance fails to achieve. If the
train is on the point of starting, the hesitating passenger will
swiftly make up his mind and rush for a seat. It is permissible to
press for immediate decision on the ground that the time is short,
and that soon these things 'will be hid from the eyes.'

We learn from 1 Corinthians i. 14, that Paul deviated from his usual
practice, and himself baptized Crispus. We may be very sure that his
doing so arose from no unworthy subserviency to an important convert,
but indicated how deeply grateful he was to the Lord for giving him,
as a seal to a ministry which had seemed barren, so encouraging a
token. The opposition and blasphemy of many are outweighed, to a true
evangelist, by the conversion of one; and while all souls are in one
aspect equally valuable, they are unequal in the influence which they
may exert on others. So it was with Crispus, for 'many of the
Corinthians hearing' of such a signal fact as the conversion of the
chief of the synagogue, likewise 'believed.' We may distinguish in
our estimate of the value of converts, without being untrue to the
great principle that all men are equally precious in Christ's eyes.

III. The next stage is the vision to Paul and his consequent
protracted residence in Corinth. God does not waste visions, nor bid
men put away fears which are not haunting them. This vision enables
us to conceive Paul's state of mind when it came to him. He was for
some reason cast down. He had not been so when things looked much
more hopeless. But though now he had his friends and many converts,
some mood of sadness crept over him. Men like him are often swayed by
impulses rising within, and quite apart from outward circumstances.
Possibly he had reason to apprehend that his very success had
sharpened hostility, and to anticipate danger to life. The contents
of the vision make this not improbable.

But the mere calming of fear, worthy object as it is, is by no means
the main part of the message of the vision. 'Speak, and hold not thy
peace,' is its central word. Fear which makes a Christian dumb is
always cowardly, and always exaggerated. Speech which comes from
trembling lips may be very powerful, and there is no better remedy
for terror than work for Christ. If we screw ourselves up to do what
we fear to do, the dread vanishes, as a bather recovers himself as
soon as his head has once been under water.

Why was Paul not to be afraid? It is easy to say, 'Fear not,' but
unless the exhortation is accompanied with some good reason shown, it
is wasted breath. Paul got a truth put into his heart which ends all
fear--'For I am with thee.' Surely that is enough to exorcise all
demons of cowardice or despondency, and it is the assurance that all
Christ's servants may lay up in their hearts, for use at all moments
and in all moods. His presence, in no metaphor, but in deepest inmost
reality, is theirs, and whether their fears come from without or
within, His presence is more than enough to make them brave and
strong.

Paul needed a vision, for Paul had never seen Christ 'after the
flesh,' nor heard His parting promise. We do not need it, for we have
the unalterable word, which He left with all His disciples when He
ascended, and which remains true to the ends of the world and till
the world ends.

The consequence of Christ's presence is not exemption from attacks,
but preservation in them. Men may 'set on' Paul, but they cannot
'hurt' him. The promise was literally fulfilled when the would-be
accusers were contemptuously sent away by Gallio, the embodiment of
Roman even-handedness and despising of the deepest things. It is
fulfilled no less truly to-day; for no hurt can come to us if Christ
is with us, and whatever does come is not hurt.

'I have much people in this city.' Jesus saw what Paul did not, the
souls yet to be won for Him. That loving Eye gladly beholds His own
sheep, though they may be yet in danger of the wolves, and far from
the Shepherd. 'Them also He must bring'; and His servants are wise
if, in all their labours, they cherish the courage that comes from
the consciousness of His presence, and the unquenchable hope, which
sees in the most degraded and alienated those whom the Good Shepherd
will yet find in the wilderness and bear back to the fold. Such a
hope will quicken them for all service, and such a vision will
embolden them in all peril.



'CONSTRAINED BY THE WORD'

'And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was
pressed in the spirit, and testified.'--ACTS xviii. 5.

The Revised Version, in concurrence with most recent authorities,
reads, instead of 'pressed in the spirit,' 'constrained by the word.'
One of these alterations depends on a diversity of reading, the other
on a difference of translation. The one introduces a significant
difference of meaning; the other is rather a change of expression.
The word rendered here 'pressed,' and by the Revised Version
'constrained,' is employed in its literal use in 'Master, the
multitude throng Thee and _press_ Thee,' and in its metaphorical
application in 'The love of Christ _constraineth us_.' There is not
much difference between 'constrained' and 'pressed,' but there is a
large difference between 'in the spirit' and 'by the word.' 'Pressed
in the spirit' simply describes a state of feeling or mind;
'constrained by the word' declares the force which brought about that
condition of pressure or constraint. What then does 'constrained by
the word' refer to? It indicates that Paul's message had a grip of
him, and held him hard, and forced him to deliver it.

One more preliminary remark is that our text evidently brings this
state of mind of the Apostle, and the coming of his two friends Silas
and Timothy, into relation as cause and effect. He had been alone in
Corinth. His work of late had not been encouraging. He had been
comparatively silent there, and had spent most of his time in tent-
making. But when his two friends came a cloud was lifted off his
spirit, and he sprang back again, as it were, to his old form and to
his old work.

Now if we take that point of view with regard to the passage before
us, I think we shall find that it yields valuable lessons, some of
which I wish to try to enforce now.

I. Let me ask you to look with me at the downcast Apostle.

'Downcast,' you say; 'is not that an unworthy word to use about a
minister of Jesus Christ inspired as Paul was?' By no means. We shall
very much mistake both the nature of inspiration and the character of
this inspired Apostle, if we do not recognise that he was a man of
many moods and tremulously susceptible to external influences. Such
music would never have come from him if his soul had not been like an
Aeolian harp, hung in a tree and vibrating in response to every
breeze. And so we need not hesitate to speak of the Apostle's mood,
as revealed to us in the passage before us, as being downcast.

Now notice that in the verses preceding my text his conduct is
extremely abnormal and unlike his usual procedure. He goes into
Corinth, and he does next to nothing in evangelistic work. He repairs
to the synagogue once a week, and talks to the Jews there. But that
is all. The notice of his reasoning in the synagogue is quite
subordinate to the notice that he was occupied in finding a lodging
with another pauper Jew and stranger in the great city, and that
these two poor men went into a kind of partnership, and tried to earn
a living by hard work. Such procedure makes a singular contrast to
Paul's usual methods in a strange city.

Now the reason for that slackening of impulse and comparative
cessation of activity is not far to seek. The first Epistle to
Thessalonica was written immediately after these two brethren
rejoined Paul. And how does the Apostle describe in that letter his
feelings before they came? He speaks of 'all our distress and
affliction.' He tells that he was tortured by anxiety as to how the
new converts in Thessalonica were getting on, and could not forbear
to try to find out whether they were still standing steadfast. Again
in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, you will find that there,
looking back to this period, he describes his feelings in similar
fashion and says: 'I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in
much trembling.' And if you look forward a verse or two in our
chapter you will see that a vision came to Paul, which presupposes
that some touch of fear, and some temptation to silence, were busy in
his heart. For God shapes His communications according to our need,
and would not have said, 'Do not be afraid, and hold not thy peace,
but speak,' unless there had been a danger both of Paul's being
frightened and of his being dumb.

And what thus brought a cloud over his sky? A little exercise of
historical imagination will very sufficiently answer that. A few
weeks before, in obedience, as he believed, to a direct divine
command, Paul had made a plunge, and ventured upon an altogether new
phase of work. He had crossed into Europe, and from the moment that
he landed at the harbour of Philippi, up to the time when he took
refuge in some quiet little room in Corinth, he had had nothing but
trouble and danger and disappointment. The prison at Philippi, the
riots that hounded him out of Thessalonica, the stealthy, hurried
escape from Beroea, the almost entire failure of his first attempt to
preach the Gospel to Greeks in Athens, his loneliness, and the
strangeness of his surroundings in the luxurious, wicked, wealthy
Greek city of Corinth--all these things weighed on him, and there is
no wonder that his spirits went down, and he felt that now he must
lie fallow for a time and rest, and pull himself together again.

So here we have, in this great champion of the faith, in this strong
runner of the Christian race, in this chief of men, an example of the
fluctuation of mood, the variation in the way in which we look at our
duties and our obligations and our difficulties, the slackening of
the impulse which dominates our lives, that are too familiar to us
all. It brings Paul nearer us to feel that he, too, knew these ups
and downs. The force that drove this meteor through the darkness
varied, as the force that impels us varies to our consciousness. It
is the prerogative of God to be immutable; men have their moods and
their fluctuations. Kindled lights flicker; the sun burns steadily.
An Elijah to-day beards Ahab and Jezebel and all their priests, and
to-morrow hides his head in his hands, and says, 'Take me away, I am
not better than my fathers.' There will be ups and down in the
Christian vigour of our lives, as well as in all other regions, so
long as men dwell in this material body and are surrounded by their
present circumstances.

Brethren, it is no small part of Christian wisdom and prudence to
recognise this fact, both in order that it may prevent us from
becoming unduly doubtful of ourselves when the ebb tide sets in on
our souls, and also in order that we may lay to heart this other
truth, that because these moods and changes of aspect and of vigour
_will_ come to us, therefore the law of life must be effort, and the
duty of every Christian man be to minimise, in so far as possible,
the fluctuations which, in some degree, are inevitable. No human hand
has ever drawn an absolutely straight line. That is the ideal of the
mathematician, but all ours are crooked. But we may indefinitely
diminish the magnitude of the curves. No two atoms are so close
together as that there is no film between them. No human life has
ever been an absolutely continuous, unbroken series of equally holy
and devoted thoughts and acts, but we may diminish the intervals
between kindred states, and may make our lives so far uniform as that
to a bystander they shall look like the bright circle, which a brand
whirled round in the air makes the impression of, on the eye that
beholds. We shall have times of brightness and of less brilliancy, of
vigour and of consequent reaction and exhaustion. But Christianity
has, for one of its objects, to help us to master our moods, and to
bring us nearer and nearer, by continual growth, to the steadfast,
immovable attitude of those whose faith is ever the same.

Do not forget the plain lesson which comes from the incident before
us--viz., that the wisest thing that a man can do, when he feels that
the wheels of his religious being are driving heavily, is to set
himself doggedly to the plain, homely work of daily life. Paul did
not sit and bemoan himself because he felt this slackening of
impulse, but he went away to Aquila, and said, 'Let us set to work
and make camel's-hair cloth and tents.' Be thankful for your homely,
prosaic, secular, daily task. You do not know from how many sickly
fancies it saves you, and how many breaches in the continuity of your
Christian feeling it may bridge over. It takes you away from thinking
about yourselves, and sometimes you cannot think about anything less
profitably. So stick to your work; and if ever you feel, as Paul did,
'cast down,' be sure that the workshop, the office, the desk, the
kitchen will prevent you from being 'destroyed,' if you give
yourselves to the plain duties which no moods alter, but which can
alter a great many moods.

II. And now note the 'constraining word.'

I have already said that the return of the two, who had been sent to
see how things were going with the recent converts in the infant
Churches, brought the Apostle good tidings, and so lifted off a great
load of anxiety from his heart. No wonder! He had left raw recruits
under fire, with no captain, and he might well doubt whether they
would keep their ranks. But they did. So the pressure was lifted off,
and the pressure being lifted off, spontaneously the old impulse
gripped him once more; like a spring which leaps back to its ancient
curve when some alien force is taken from it. It must have been a
very deep and a very habitual impulse, which thus instantly
reasserted itself the moment that the pressure of anxiety was taken
out of the way.

The word constrained him. What to do? To declare it. Paul's example
brings up two thoughts--that that impulse may vary at times,
according to the pressure of circumstances, and may even be held in
abeyance for a while; and that if a man is honestly and really a
Christian, as soon as the incumbent pressure is taken away, he will
feel, 'Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is me if I preach not the
Gospel.' For though Paul's sphere of work was different from ours,
his obligation to work and his impulse to work were such as are, or
should be, common to all Christians. The impulse to utter the word
that we believe and live by seems to me to be, in its very nature,
inseparable from earnest Christian faith. All emotion demands
expression; and if a man has never felt that he must let his
Christian faith have vent, it is a very bad sign. As certainly as
fermentation or effervescence demands outgush, so certainly does
emotion demand expression. We all know that. The same impulse that
makes a mother bend over her babe with unmeaning words and tokens
that seem to unsympathetic onlookers foolish, ought to influence all
Christians to speak the Name they love. All conviction demands
expression. There may be truths which have so little bearing upon
human life that he who perceives them feels little obligation to say
anything about them. But these are the exceptions; and the more
weighty and the more closely affecting human interests anything that
we have learned to believe as truth is, the more do we feel in our
hearts that, in making us its believers, it has made us its apostles.
Christ's saying, 'What ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the
housetops,' expresses a universal truth which is realised in many
regions, and ought to be most emphatically realised in the Christian.
For surely of all the truths that men can catch a glimpse of, or
grapple to their hearts, or store in their understandings, there are
none which bring with them such tremendous consequences, and
therefore are of so solemn import to proclaim to all the children of
men, as the truth, which we profess we have received, of personal
salvation through Jesus Christ.

If there never had been a single commandment to that effect, I know
not how the Christian Church or the Christian individual could have
abstained from declaring the great and sweet Name to which it and he
owe so much. I do not care to present this matter as a commandment,
nor to speak now of obligation or responsibility. The _impulse_ is
what I would fix your attention upon. It is inseparable from the
Christian life. It may vary in force, as we see in the incident
before us. It will vary in grip, according as other circumstances and
duties insist upon being attended to. The form in which it is yielded
to will vary indefinitely in individuals. But if they are Christian
people it is always there.

Well then, what about the masses of so-called Christians who feel
nothing of any such constraining force? And what about the many who
feel enough of it to make them also feel that they are wrong in not
yielding to it, but not enough to make their conduct be influenced by
it? Brethren, I venture to believe that the measure in which this
impulse to speak the word and use direct efforts for somebody's
conversion is felt by Christians, is a very fair test of the depth of
their own religion. If a vessel is half empty it will not run over.
If it is full to the brim, the sparkling treasure will fall on all
sides. A weak plant may never push its green leaves above the ground,
but a strong one will rise into the light. A spark may be smothered
in a heap of brushwood, but a steady flame will burn its way out. If
this word has not a grip of you, impelling you to its utterance, I
would have you not to be too sure that you have a grip of it.

III. Lastly, we have here the witness to the word.

'He was constrained by the word, _testifying_.' Now I do not know
whether it is imposing too much meaning upon a non-significant
difference of expression, if I ask you to note the difference between
that phrase and the one which describes his previous activity: 'He
_reasoned_ in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade' the
Jews and the Greeks, but when the old impulse came back in new force,
_reasoning_ was far too cold a method, and Paul took to _testifying_.
Whether that be so or no, mark that the witness of one's own personal
conviction and experience is the strongest weapon that a Christian
can use. I do not despise the place of reasoning, but arguments do
not often change opinions; they never change hearts. Logic and
controversial discoursing may 'prepare the way of the Lord,' but it
is 'in the wilderness.' But when a man calls aloud, 'Come and hear
all ye, and I will declare what God hath done for my soul'; or when
he tells his brother, 'We have found the Messias'; or when he sticks
to 'One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see,' it is
difficult for any one to resist, and impossible for any one to
answer, that way of testifying,

It is a way that we can all adopt if we will. Christian men and women
can all say such things. I do not forget that there are indirect ways
of spreading the Gospel. Some of you think that you do enough when
you give your money and your interest in order to diffuse it. You can
buy a substitute in the militia, but you cannot buy a substitute in
Christ's service. You have each some congregation to which you can
speak, if it is no larger than Paul's--namely, two people, Aquila and
Priscilla. What talks they would have in their lodging, as they
plaited the wisps of black hair into rough cloth, and stitched the
strips into tents! Aquila was not a Christian when Paul picked him
up, but he became one very soon; and it was the preaching in the
workshop, amidst the dust, that made him one. If we long to speak
about Christ we shall find plenty of people to speak to. 'Ye are my
witnesses, saith the Lord.'

Now, dear friends, I have only one word more. I have no doubt there
are some among us who have been saying, 'This sermon does not apply
to me at all.' Does it not? If it does not, what does that mean? It
means that you have not the first requisite for spreading the word--
viz. personal faith in the word. It means that you have put away, or
at least neglected to take in, the word and the Saviour of whom it
speaks, into your own lives. But it does _not_ mean that you have got
rid of the word thereby. It will not in that case lay the grip of
which I have been speaking upon you, but it will not let you go. It
will lay on you a far more solemn and awful clutch, and like a jailer
with his hand on the culprit's shoulder, will 'constrain' you into
the presence of the Judge. You can make it a savour of life unto
life, or of death unto death. And though you do not grasp it, it
grasps and holds you. 'The word that I speak unto him, the same shall
judge him at the last day.'



GALLIO

'And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto
the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong: or wicked lewdness, O ye
Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: 15. But if it be
a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it;
for I will be no judge of such matters.'--ACTS xviii. 14, 15.

There is something very touching in the immortality of fame which
comes to the men who for a moment pass across the Gospel story, like
shooting stars kindled for an instant as they enter our atmosphere.
How little Gallio dreamed that he would live for ever in men's mouths
by reason of this one judicial dictum! He was Seneca's brother, and
was possibly leavened by his philosophy and indisposed to severity.
He has been unjustly condemned. There are some striking lessons from
the story.

I. The remarkable anticipation of the true doctrine as to the
functions of civil magistrates.

Gallio draws a clear distinction between conduct and opinion, and
excepts the whole of the latter region from his sway. It is the first
case in which the civil authorities refused to take cognisance of a
charge against a man on account of his opinions. Nineteen hundred
years have not brought all tribunals up to that point yet. Gallio
indeed was influenced mainly by philosophic contempt for the
trivialities of what he thought a superstition. We are influenced by
our recognition of the sanctity of individual conviction, and still
more by reverence for truth and by the belief that it should depend
only on its own power for progress and on itself for the defeat of
its enemies.

II. The tragic mistake about the nature of the Gospel which men make.

There is something very pathetic in the erroneous estimates made by
those persons mentioned in Acts who some once or twice come in
contact with the preachers of Christ. How little they recognise what
was before them! Their responsibility is in better hands than ours.
But in Gallio there is a trace of tendencies always in operation.

We see in him the practical man's contempt for mere ideas. The man of
affairs, be he statesman or worker, is always apt to think that
things are more than thoughts. Gallio, proconsul in Corinth, and his
brother official, Pilate, in Jerusalem, both believed in powers that
they could see. The question of the one, for an answer to which he
did not wait, was not the inquiry of a searcher after truth, but the
exclamation of a sceptic who thought all the contradictory answers
that rang through the world to be demonstrations that the question
had no answer. The impatient refusal of the other to have any concern
in settling 'such matters' was steeped in the same characteristically
Roman spirit of impatient distrust and suspicion of mere ideas. He
believed in Roman force and authority, and thought that such harmless
visionaries as Paul and his company might be allowed to go their own
way, and he did not know that they carried with them a solvent and
constructive power before which the solid-seeming structure of the
Empire was destined to crumble, as surely as thick-ribbed ice before
the sirocco.

And how many of us believe in wealth and material progress, and
regard the region of truth as very shadowy and remote! This is a
danger besetting us all. The true forces that sway the world are
ideas.

We see in Gallio supercilious indifference to mere 'theological
subtleties.' To him Paul's preaching and the Jews' passionate denials
of it seemed only a squabble about 'words and names.' Probably he had
gathered his impression from Paul's eager accusers, who would charge
him with giving the name of 'Christ' to Jesus.

Gallio's attitude was partly Stoical contempt for all superstitions,
partly, perhaps, an eclectic belief that all these warring religions
were really saying the same thing and differed only in words and
names; and partly sheer indifference to the whole subject. Thus
Christianity appears to many in this day.

What is it in reality? Not words but power: a Name, indeed, but a
Name which is life. Alas for us, who by our jangling have given
colour to this misconception!

We see in Gallio the mistake that the Gospel has little relation to
conduct. Gallio drew a broad distinction between conduct and opinion,
and there he was right. But he imagined that this opinion had nothing
to do with conduct, and how wrong he was there we need not elaborate.

The Gospel is the mightiest power for shaping conduct.

III. The ignorant levity with which men pass the crisis of their
lives.

How little Gallio knew of what a possibility was opened out before
him! Angels were hovering unseen. We seldom recognise the fateful
moments of our lives till they are past.

The offer of salvation in Christ is ever a crisis. It may never be
repeated. Was Gallio ever again brought into contact with Paul or
Paul's Lord? We know not. He passes out of sight, the search-light is
turned in another direction, and we lose him in the darkness. The
extent of his criminality is in better hands than ours, though we
cannot but let our thoughts go forward to the time when he, like us
all, will stand at the judgment bar of Jesus, no longer a judge but
judged. Let us hope that before he passed hence, he learned how full
of spirit and of life the message was, which he once took for a mere
squabble about 'words and names,' and thought too trivial to occupy
his court. And let us remember that the Jesus, whom we are sometimes
tempted to judge as of little importance to us, will one day judge
us, and that His judgment will settle our fate for evermore.



TWO FRUITFUL YEARS

'And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul
having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and
finding certain disciples. 2. He said unto them, Have ye received
the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have
not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. 3. And he
said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said,
Unto John's baptism. 4. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with
the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they
should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on
Christ Jesus. 5. When they heard this, they were baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus. 6. And when Paul had laid his hands upon
them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues,
and prophesied. 7. And all the men were about twelve. 8. And he
went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three
months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the
kingdom of God. 9. But when divers were hardened, and believed
not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed
from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the
school of one Tyrannus. 10. And this continued by the space of
two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of
the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 11. And God wrought special
miracles by the hands of Paul: 12. So that from his body were
brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases
departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.'
--ACTS xix. 1-12.

This passage finds Paul in Ephesus. In the meantime he had paid that
city a hasty visit on his way back from Greece, had left his friends,
Aquila and Priscilla, in it, and had gone on to Jerusalem, thence
returning to Antioch, and visiting the churches in Asia Minor which
he had planted on his former journeys. From the inland and higher
districts he has come down to the coast, and established himself in
the great city of Ephesus, where the labours of Aquila, and perhaps
others, had gathered a small band of disciples. Two points are
especially made prominent in this passage--the incorporation of
John's disciples with the Church, and the eminent success of Paul's
preaching in Ephesus.

The first of these is a very remarkable and, in some respects,
puzzling incident. It is tempting to bring it into connection with
the immediately preceding narrative as to Apollos. The same stage of
spiritual development is presented in these twelve men and in that
eloquent Alexandrian. They and he were alike in knowing only of
John's baptism; but if they had been Apollos' pupils, they would most
probably have been led by him into the fuller light which he received
through Priscilla and Aquila. More probably, therefore, they had been
John's disciples, independently of Apollos. Their being recognised as
'disciples' is singular, when we consider their very small knowledge
of Christian truth; and their not having been previously instructed
in its rudiments, if they were associating with the Church, is not
less so. But improbable things do happen, and part of the reason for
an event being recorded is often its improbability. Luke seems to
have been struck by the singular similarity between Apollos and these
men, and to have told the story, not only because of its importance
but because of its peculiarity.

The first point to note is the fact that these men were disciples.
Paul speaks of their having 'believed,' and they were evidently
associated with the Church. But the connection must have been loose,
for they had not received baptism. Probably there was a fringe of
partial converts hanging round each church, and Paul, knowing nothing
of the men beyond the fact that he found them along with the others,
accepted them as 'disciples.' But there must have been some reason
for doubt, or his question would not have been asked. They 'believed'
in so far as John had taught the coming of Messiah. But they did not
know that Jesus was the Messiah whose coming John had taught.

Paul's question is, 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you
believed?' Obviously he missed the marks of the Spirit in them,
whether we are to suppose that these were miraculous powers or moral
and religious elevation. Now this question suggests that the
possession of the Holy Spirit is the normal condition of all
believers; and that truth cannot be too plainly stated or urgently
pressed to-day. He is 'the Spirit, which they that believe on Him'
shall 'receive.' The outer methods of His bestowment vary: sometimes
He is given after baptism, and sometimes, as to Cornelius, before it;
sometimes by laying on of Apostolic hands, sometimes without it. But
one thing constantly precedes, namely, faith; and one thing
constantly follows faith, namely, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Modern
Christianity does not grasp that truth as firmly or make it as
prominent as it ought.

The question suggests, though indirectly, that the signs of the
Spirit's presence are sadly absent in many professing Christians.
Paul asked it in wonder. If he came into modern churches, he would
have to ask it once more. Possibly he looked for the visible tokens
in powers of miracle-working and the like. But these were temporary
accidents, and the permanent manifestations are holiness,
consciousness of sonship, God-directed longings, religious
illumination, victory over the flesh. These things should be obvious
in disciples. They will be, if the Spirit is not quenched. Unless
they are, what sign of being Christians do we present?

The answer startles. They had not heard whether the Holy Ghost had
been _given_; for that is the true meaning of their reply. John had
foretold the coming of One who should baptize with the fire of that
divine Spirit. His disciples, therefore, could not be ignorant of the
existence thereof; but they had never heard whether their Master's
prophecy had been fulfilled. What a glimpse that gives us of the
small publicity attained by the story of Jesus!

Paul's second question betrays even more astonishment than did his
first. He had taken for granted that, as disciples, the men had been
baptized; and his question implies that a pre-requisite of Christian
baptism was the teaching which they said that they had not had, and
that a consequence of it was the gift of the Spirit, which he saw
that they did not possess. Of course Paul's teaching is but
summarised here. Its gist was that Jesus was the Messiah whom John
had heralded, that John had himself taught that his mission was
preliminary, and that therefore his true disciples must advance to
faith in Christ.

The teaching was welcomed, for these men were not of the sort who saw
in Jesus a rival to John, as others of his disciples did. They became
'disciples indeed,' and then followed baptism, apparently not
administered by Paul, and imposition of Paul's hands. The Holy Spirit
then came on them, as on the disciples on Pentecost, and 'they spoke
with tongues and prophesied.' It was a repetition of that day, as a
testimony that the gifts were not limited by time or place, but were
the permanent possession of believers, as truly in heathen Ephesus as
in Jerusalem; and we miss the meaning of the event unless we add, as
truly in Britain to-day as in any past. The fire lit on Pentecost has
not died down into grey ashes. If we 'believe,' it will burn on our
heads and, better, in our spirits.

Much ingenuity has been expended in finding profound meanings in the
number of 'twelve' here. The Apostles and their supernatural gifts,
the patriarchs as founders of Israel, have been thought of as
explaining the number, as if these men were founders of a new Israel,
or Apostolate. But all that is trifling with the story, which gives
no hint that the men were of any special importance, and it omits the
fact that they were '_about_ twelve,' not precisely that number. Luke
simply wishes us to learn that there was a group of them, but how
many he does not exactly know. More important is it to notice that
this is the last reference to John or his disciples in the New
Testament. The narrator rejoices to point out that some at least of
these were led onwards into full faith.

The other part of the section presents mainly the familiar features
of Apostolic ministration, the first appeal to the synagogue, the
rejection of the message by it, and then the withdrawal of Paul and
the Jewish disciples. The chief characteristics of the narrative are
Paul's protracted stay in Ephesus, the establishment of a centre of
public evangelising in the lecture hall of a Gentile teacher, the
unhindered preaching of the Gospel, and the special miracles
accompanying it. The importance of Ephesus as the eye and heart of
proconsular Asia explains the lengthened stay. 'A great door and
effectual,' said Paul, 'is opened unto me'; and he was not the man to
refrain from pushing in at it because 'there are many adversaries.'
Rather opposition was part of his reason for persistence, as it
should always he.

There comes a point in the most patient labour, however, when it is
best no longer to 'cast pearls' before those who 'trample them under
foot,' and Paul set an example of wise withdrawal as well as of brave
pertinacity, in leaving the synagogue when his remaining there only
hardened disobedient hearts. Note that word _disobedient_. It teaches
that the moral element in unbelief is resistance of the will. The two
words are not synonyms, though they apply to the same state of mind.
Rather the one lays bare the root of the other and declares its
guilt. Unbelief comes from disobedience, and therefore is fit subject
for punishment. Again observe that expression for Christianity, 'the
Way,' which occurs several times in the Acts. The Gospel points the
path for us to tread. It is not a body of truth merely, but it is a
guide for practice. Discipleship is manifested in conduct. This
Gospel points the way through the wilderness to Zion and to rest. It
is '_the_ Way,' the only path, 'the Way everlasting.'

It was a bold step to gather the disciples in 'the school of
Tyrannus.' He was probably a Greek professor of rhetoric or lecturer
on philosophy, and Paul may have hired his hall, to the horror, no
doubt, of the Rabbis. It was a complete breaking with the synagogue
and a bold appeal to the heathen public. Ephesus must have been
better governed than Philippi and Lystra, and the Jewish element must
have been relatively weaker, to allow of Paul's going on preaching
with so much publicity for two years.

Note the flexibility of his methods, his willingness to use even a
heathen teacher's school for his work, and the continuous energy of
the man. Not on Sabbath days only, but daily, he was at his post. The
multitudes of visitors from all parts to the great city supplied a
constant stream of listeners, for Ephesus was a centre for the whole
country. We may learn from Paul to concentrate work in important
centres, not to be squeamish about where we stand to preach the
Gospel, and not to be afraid of making ourselves conspicuous. Paul's
message hallows the school of Tyrannus; and the school of Tyrannus,
where men have been accustomed to go for widely different teaching,
is a good place for Paul to give forth his message in.

The 'special miracles' which were wrought are very remarkable, and
unlike the usual type of miracles. It does not appear that Paul
himself sent the 'handkerchiefs and aprons,' which conveyed healing
virtue, but that he simply permitted their use. The converts had
faith to believe that such miracles would be wrought, and God
honoured the faith. But note how carefully the narrative puts Paul's
part in its right place. God 'wrought'; Paul was only the channel. If
the eager people, who carried away the garments, had superstitiously
fancied that there was virtue in Paul, and had not looked beyond him
to God, it is implied that no miracles would have been wrought. But
still the cast of these healings is anomalous, and only paralleled by
the similar instances in Peter's case.

The principle laid down by Peter (ch. iii. 12) is to be kept in view
in the study of all the miracles in the Acts. It is Jesus Christ who
works, and not His servants who heal by their 'own power or
holiness.' Jesus can heal with or without material channels, but
sometimes chooses to employ such vehicles as these, just as on earth
He chose to anoint blind eyes with clay, and to send the man to wash
it off at the pool. Sense-bound faith is not rejected, but is helped
according to its need, that it may be strengthened and elevated.



WOULD-BE EXORCISTS

'...Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?'
--ACTS xix. 15.

These exorcists had no personal union with Jesus. To them He was only
'Jesus whom Paul preached.' They spoke His name tentatively, as an
experiment, and imitatively. To command 'in the name of Jesus' was an
appeal to Jesus to glorify His name and exert His power, and so when
the speaker had no real faith in the name or the power, there was no
answer, because there was really no appeal.

I. The only power which can cast out the evil spirits is the name of
Jesus.

That is a commonplace of Christian belief. But it is often held in a
dangerously narrow way and leads to most unwise pitting of the Gospel
against other modes of bettering and elevating men, instead of
recognising them as allies. Earnest Christian workers are tempted to
forget Jesus' own word: 'He that is not against us is for us.' There
is no need to disparage other agencies because we believe that it is
the Gospel which is 'the power of God unto salvation.' Many of the
popular philanthropic movements of the day, many of its curbing and
enlightening forces, many of its revolutionary social ideas, are
really in their essence and historically in their origin, profoundly
Christian, and are the application of the principles inherent in 'the
Name' to the evils of society. No doubt many of their eager apostles
are non-Christian or even anti-Christian, but though some of them
have tried violently to pluck up the plant by the root from the soil
in which it first flowered, much of that soil still adheres to it,
and it will not live long if torn from its native 'habitat.'

It is not narrowness or hostility to non-Christian efforts to cast
out the demons from humanity, but only the declaration of a truth
which is taught by the consideration of what is the difference
between all other such efforts and Christianity, and is confirmed by
experience, if we maintain that, whatever good results may follow
from these other influences, it is the powers lodged in the Name of
Jesus, and these alone which can, radically and completely, conquer
and eject the demons from a single soul, and emancipate society from
their tyranny.

For consider that the Gospel which proclaims Jesus as the Saviour is
the only thing which deals with the deepest fact in our natures, the
fact of sin; gives a personal Deliverer from its power; communicates
a new life of which the very essence is righteousness, and which
brings with it new motives, new impulses, and new powers.

Contrast with this the inadequate diagnosis of the disease and the
consequent imperfection of the remedy which other physicians of the
world's sickness present. Most of them only aim at repressing outward
acts. None of them touch more than a part of the whole dreadful
circumference of the dark orb of evil. Law restrains actions. Ethics
proclaims principles which it has no power to realise. It shows men a
shining height, but leaves them lame and grovelling in the mire.
Education casts out the demon of ignorance, and makes the demons whom
it does not cast out more polite and perilous. It brings its own
evils in its train. Every kind of crop has weeds which spring with
it. The social and political changes, which are eagerly preached now,
will do much; but one thing, which is the all-important thing, they
will not do, they will not change the nature of the individuals who
make up the community. And till that nature is changed any form of
society will produce its own growth of evils. A Christless democracy
will be as bad as, if not worse than, a Christless monarchy or
aristocracy. If the bricks remain the same, it does not much matter
into what shape you build them.

These would-be exorcists but irritated the demons by their vain
attempts at ejecting them, and it is sometimes the case that efforts
to cure social diseases only result in exacerbating them. If one hole
in a Dutch dyke is stopped up, more pressure is thrown on another
weak point and a leak will soon appear there. There is but one Name
that casts a spell over all the ills that flesh is heir to. There is
but one Saviour of society--Jesus who saves from sin through His
death, and by participation in His life delivers men from that life
of self which is the parent of all the evils from which society
vainly strives to be delivered by any power but His.

II. That Name must be spoken by believing men if it is to put forth
its full power.

These exorcists had no faith. All that they knew of Jesus was that He
was the one 'whom Paul preached.' Even the name of Jesus is spoiled
and is powerless on the lips of one who repeats it, parrot-like,
because he has seen its power when it came flame-like from the fiery
lips of some man of earnest convictions.

In all regions, and especially in the matter of art or literature,
imitators are poor creatures, and men are quick to detect the
difference between the original and the copy. The copyists generally
imitate the weak points, and seldom get nearer than the imitation of
external and trivial peculiarities. It is more feasible to reproduce
the 'contortions of the Sibyl' than to catch her 'inspiration.'

This absence or feebleness of personal faith is the explanation of
much failure in so-called Christian work. No doubt there may be other
causes for the want of success, but after all allowance is made for
these, it still remains true that the chief reason why the Gospel
message is often proclaimed without casting out demons is that it is
proclaimed with faltering faith, tentatively and without assured
confidence in its power, or imitatively, with but little, if any,
inward experience of the magic of its spell. The demons have ears
quick to discriminate between Paul's fiery accents and the cold
repetition of them. Incomparably the most powerful agency which any
man can employ in producing conviction in others is the utterance of
his own intense conviction. 'If you wish me to weep, your own tears
must flow,' said the Roman poet. Other factors may powerfully aid the
exorcising power of the word spoken by faith, and no wise man will
disparage these, but they are powerless without faith and it is
powerful without them.

Consider the effect of that personal faith on the speaker--in
bringing all his force to bear on his words; in endowing him for a
time with many of the subsidiary qualities which make our words
winged and weighty; in lifting to a height of self-oblivion, which
itself is magnetic.

Consider its effect on the hearers--how it bows hearts as trees are
bent before a rushing wind.

Consider its effect in bringing into action God's own power. Of the
man, all aflame with Christian convictions and speaking them with the
confidence and urgency which become them and him, it may truly be
said, 'It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that
speaketh in you.'

Here then we have laid bare the secret of success and a cause of
failure, in Christian enterprise. Here we see, as in a concrete
example, the truth exemplified, which all who long for the
emancipation of demon-ridden humanity would be wise to lay to heart,
and thereby to be saved from much eager travelling on a road that
leads nowhither, and much futile expenditure of effort and sympathy,
and many disappointments. It is as true to-day as it was long ago in
Ephesus, that the evil spirits 'feel the Infant's hand from far
Judea's land,' and are forced to confess, 'Jesus we know and Paul we
know'; but to other would-be exorcists their answer is, 'Who are ye?'
'When a strong man armed keepeth his house, his goods are in peace.'
There is but 'One stronger than he who can come upon him, and having
overcome him, can take from him all his armour wherein he trusted and
divide the spoils,' and that is the Christ, at whose name, faithfully
spoken, 'the devils fear and fly.'



THE FIGHT WITH WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS

'After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when
he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem,
saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. 22. So he
sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him,
Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a
season. 23. And the same time there arose no small stir about
that way. 24. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith,
which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto
the craftsmen; 25. Whom he called together with the workmen of
like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we
have our wealth. 26. Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded
and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which
are made with hands: 27. So that not only this our craft is in
danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great
goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be
destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth. 28. And when
they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out,
saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians. 29. And the whole city
was filled with confusion: and having caught Gaius and
Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel, they
rushed with one accord into the theatre. 30. And when Paul would
have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not.
31. And certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends,
sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself
into the theatre. 32. Some therefore cried one thing, and some
another: for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew
not wherefore they were come together. 33. And they drew
Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And
Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence
unto the people. 34. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all
with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is
Diana of the Ephesians.'--ACTS xix. 21-34.

Paul's long residence in Ephesus indicates the importance of the
position. The great wealthy city was the best possible centre for
evangelising all the province of Asia, and that was to a large extent
effected during the Apostle's stay there. But he had a wider scheme
in his mind. His settled policy was always to fly at the head, as it
were. The most populous cities were his favourite fields, and already
his thoughts were travelling towards the civilised world's capital,
the centre of empire--Rome. A blow struck there would echo through
the world. Paul had his plan, and God had His, and Paul's was not
realised in the fashion he had meant, but it was realised in
substance. He did not expect to enter Rome as a prisoner. God shaped
the ends which Paul had only rough-hewn.

The programme in verses 21 and 22 was modified by circumstances, as
some people would say; Paul would have said, by God. The riot
hastened his departure from Ephesus. He did go to Jerusalem, and he
did see Rome, but the chain of events that drew him there seemed to
him, at first sight, the thwarting, rather than the fulfilment, of
his long-cherished hope. Well it is for us to carry all our schemes
to God, and to leave them in His hands.

The account of the riot is singularly vivid and lifelike. It reveals
a new phase of antagonism to the Gospel, a kind of trades-union
demonstration, quite unlike anything that has met us in the Acts. It
gives a glimpse into the civic life of a great city, and shows
demagogues and mob to be the same in Ephesus as in England. It has
many points of interest for the commentator or scholar, and lessons
for all. Luke tells the story with a certain dash of covert irony.

We have, first, the protest of the shrine-makers' guild or trades-
union, got up by the skilful manipulation of Demetrius. He was
evidently an important man in the trade, probably well-to-do. As his
speech shows, he knew exactly how to hit the average mind. The small
shrines which he and his fellow-craftsmen made were of various
materials, from humble pottery to silver, and were intended for
'votaries to dedicate in the temple,' and represented the goddess
Artemis sitting in a niche with her lions beside her. Making these
was a flourishing industry, and must have employed a large number of
men and much capital. Trade was beginning to be slack, and sales were
falling off. No doubt there is exaggeration in Demetrius's rhetoric,
but the meeting of the craft would not have been held unless a
perceptible effect had been produced by Paul's preaching. Probably
Demetrius and the rest were more frightened than hurt; but men are
very quick to take alarm when their pockets are threatened.

The speech is a perfect example of how self-interest masquerades in
the garb of pure concern for lofty objects, and yet betrays itself.
The danger to 'our craft' comes first, and the danger to the
'magnificence' of the goddess second; but the precedence given to the
trade is salved over by a 'not only,' which tries to make the
religious motive the chief. No doubt Demetrius was a devout
worshipper of Artemis, and thought himself influenced by high motives
in stirring up the craft. It is natural to be devout or moral or
patriotic when it pays to be so. One would not expect a shrine-maker
to be easily accessible to the conviction that 'they be no gods which
are made with hands.'

Such admixture of zeal for some great cause, with a shrewd eye to
profit, is very common, and may deceive us if we are not always
watchful. Jehu bragged about his 'zeal for the Lord' when it urged
him to secure himself on the throne by murder; and he may have been
quite honest in thinking that the impulse was pure, when it was
really mingled. How many foremost men in public life everywhere pose
as pure patriots, consumed with zeal for national progress,
righteousness, etc., when all the while they are chiefly concerned
about some private bit of log-rolling of their own! How often in
churches there are men professing to be eager for the glory of God,
who are, perhaps half-unconsciously, using it as a stalking-horse,
behind which they may shoot game for their own larder! A drop of
quicksilver oxidises and dims as soon as exposed to the air. The
purest motives get a scum on them quickly unless we constantly keep
them clear by communion with God.

Demetrius may teach us another lesson. His opposition to Paul was
based on the plain fact that, if Paul's teaching prevailed, no more
shrines would be wanted. That was a new ground of opposition to the
Gospel, resembled only by the motive for the action of the owners of
the slave girl at Philippi; but it is a perennial source of
antagonism to it. In our cities especially there are many trades
which would be wiped out if Christ's laws of life were universally
adopted. So all the purveyors of commodities and pleasures which the
Gospel forbids a Christian man to use are arrayed against it. We have
to make up our minds to face and fight them. A liquor-seller, for
instance, is not likely to look complacently on a religion which
would bring his 'trade into disrepute'; and there are other
occupations which would be gone if Christ were King, and which
therefore, by the instinct of self-preservation, are set against the
Gospel, unless, so to speak, its teeth are drawn.

According to one reading, the shouts of the craftsmen which told that
Demetrius had touched them in the tenderest part, their pockets, was
an invocation, 'Great Diana!' not a profession of faith; and we have
a more lively picture of an excited crowd if we adopt the alteration.
It is easy to get a mob to yell out a watchword, whether religious or
political; and the less they understand it, the louder are they
likely to roar. In Athanasius' days the rabble of Constantinople made
the city ring with cries, degrading the subtlest questions as to the
Trinity, and examples of the same sort have not been wanting nearer
home. It is criminal to bring such incompetent judges into religious
or political or social questions, it is cowardly to be influenced by
them. 'The voice of the people' is not always 'the voice of God.' It
is better to 'be in the right with two or three' than to swell the
howl of Diana's worshippers,

II. A various reading of verse 28 gives an additional particular,
which is of course implied in the received text, but makes the
narrative more complete and vivid if inserted. It adds that the
craftsmen rushed 'into the street,' and there raised their wild cry,
which naturally 'filled' the city with confusion. So the howling mob,
growing larger and more excited every minute, swept through Ephesus,
and made for the theatre, the common place of assembly.

On their road they seem to have come across two of Paul's companions,
whom they dragged with them. What they meant to do with the two they
had probably not asked themselves. A mob has no plans, and its most
savage acts are unpremeditated. Passion let loose is almost sure to
end in bloodshed, and the lives of Gaius and Aristarchus hung by a
thread. A gust of fury storming over the mob, and a hundred hands
might have torn them to atoms, and no man have thought himself their
murderer.

What a noble contrast to the raging crowd the silent submission, no
doubt accompanied by trustful looks to Heaven and unspoken prayers,
presents! And how grandly Paul comes out! He had not been found,
probably had not been sought for, by the rioters, whose rage was too
blind to search for him, but his brave soul could not bear to leave
his friends in peril and not plant himself by their sides. So he 'was
minded to enter in unto the people,' well knowing that there he had
to face more ferocious 'wild beasts' than if a cageful of lions had
been loosed on him. Faith in God and fellowship with Christ lift a
soul above fear of death. The noblest kind of courage is not that
born of flesh or temperament, or of the madness of battle, but that
which springs from calm trust in and absolute surrender to Christ.

Not only did the disciples restrain Paul as feeling that if the
shepherd were smitten the sheep would be scattered, but interested
friends started up in an unlikely quarter. The 'chief of Asia' or
Asiarchs, who sent to dissuade him, 'were the heads of the imperial
political-religious organisation of the province, in the worship of
"Rome and the emperors"; and their friendly attitude is a proof both
that the spirit of the imperial policy was not as yet hostile to the
new teaching, and that the educated classes did not share the
hostility of the superstitious vulgar' (Ramsay, _St. Paul the
Traveller_, p. 281). It is probable that, in that time of crumbling
faith and religious unrest, the people who knew most about the inside
of the established worship believed in it least, and in their hearts
agreed with Paul that 'they be no gods which are made with hands.'

So we have in these verses the central picture of calm Christian
faith and patient courage, contrasted on the one hand with the
ferocity and excitement of heathen fanatical devotees, and on the
other with the prudent regard to their own safety of the Asiarchs,
who had no such faith in Diana as to lead them to joining the
rioters, nor such faith in Paul's message as to lead them to oppose
the tumult, or to stand by his side, but contented themselves with
_sending_ to warn him. Who can doubt that the courage of the
Christians is infinitely nobler than the fury of the mob or the
cowardice of the Asiarchs, kindly as they were? If they were his
friends, why did they not do something to shield him? 'A plague on
such backing!'

III. The scene in the theatre, to which Luke returns in verse 32, is
described with a touch of scorn for the crowd, who mostly knew not
what had brought them together. One section of it kept
characteristically cool and sharp-eyed for their own advantage. A
number of Jews had mingled in it, probably intending to fan the flame
against the Christians, if they could do it safely. As in so many
other cases in Acts, common hatred brought Jew and Gentile together,
each pocketing for the time his disgust with the other. The Jews saw
their opportunity. Half a dozen cool heads, who know what they want,
can often sway a mob as they will. Alexander, whom they 'put
forward,' was no doubt going to make a speech disclaiming for the
Jews settled in Ephesus any connection with the obnoxious Paul. We
may be very sure that his 'defence' was of the former, not of the
latter.

But the rioters were in no mood to listen to fine distinctions among
the members of a race which they hated so heartily. Paul was a Jew,
and this man was a Jew; that was enough. So the roar went up again to
Great Diana, and for two long hours the crowd surged and shouted
themselves hoarse, Gaius and Aristarchus standing silent all the
while and expecting every moment to be their last. The scene reminds
one of Baal's priests shrieking to him on Carmel. It is but too true
a representation of the wild orgies which stand for worship in all
heathen religions. It is but too lively an example of what must
always happen when excited crowds are ignorantly stirred by appeals
to prejudice or self-interest.

The more democratic the form of government under which we live, the
more needful is it to distinguish the voice of the people from the
voice of the mob, and to beware of exciting, or being governed by,
clamour however loud and long.



PARTING COUNSELS

'And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not
knowing the things that shall befall me there: 23. Save that the
Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and
afflictions abide me. 24. But none of these things move me,
neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish
my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of
the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. 25.
And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone
preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. 26.
Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the
blood of all men. 27. For I have not shunned to declare unto you
all the counsel of God. 28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves,
and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased
with His own blood. 29. For I know this, that after my departing
shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
30. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse
things, to draw away disciples after them. 31. Therefore watch,
and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to
warn every one night and day with tears. 32. And now, brethren, I
commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able
to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them
which are sanctified. 33. I have coveted no man's silver, or
gold, or apparel. 34. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands
have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with
me. 35. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye
ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord
Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.'
--ACTS xx. 22-35.

This parting address to the Ephesian elders is perfect in simplicity,
pathos, and dignity. Love without weakness and fervent yet restrained
self-devotion throb in every line. It is personal without egotism,
and soars without effort. It is 'Pauline' through and through, and if
Luke or some unknown second-century Christian made it, the world has
lost the name of a great genius. In reading it, we have to remember
the Apostle's long stay in Ephesus, and his firm conviction that he
was parting for ever from those over whom he had so long watched, and
so long loved, as well as guided. Parting words should be tender and
solemn, and these are both in the highest degree.

The prominence given to personal references is very marked and
equally natural. The whole address down to verse 27 inclusive is of
that nature, and the same theme recurs in verse 31, is caught up
again in verse 33, and continues thence to the end. That abundance of
allusions to himself is characteristic of the Apostle, even in his
letters; much more is it to be looked for in such an outpouring of
his heart to trusted friends, seen for the last time. Few religious
teachers have ever talked so much of themselves as Paul did, and yet
been as free as he is from taint of display or self-absorption.

The personal references in verses 22 to 27 turn on two points--his
heroic attitude in prospect of trials and possible martyrdom, and his
solemn washing his hands of all responsibility for 'the blood' of
those to whom he had declared all the counsel of God. He looks back,
and his conscience witnesses that he has discharged his ministry; he
looks forward, and is ready for all that may confront him in still
discharging it, even to the bloody end.

Nothing tries a man's mettle more than impending evil which is
equally certain and undefined. Add that the moment of the sword's
falling is unknown, and you have a combination which might shake the
firmest nerves. Such a combination fronted Paul now. He told the
elders, what we do not otherwise know, that at every halting-place
since setting his face towards Jerusalem he had been met by the same
prophetic warnings of 'bonds and afflictions' waiting for him. The
warnings were vague, and so the more impressive. Fear has a vivid
imagination, and anticipates the worst.

Paul was not afraid, but he would not have been human if he had not
recognised the short distance for him between a prison and a
scaffold. But the prospect did not turn him a hairsbreadth from his
course. True, he was 'bound in the spirit,' which may suggest that he
was not so much going joyfully as impelled by a constraint felt to be
irresistible. But whatever his feelings, his will was iron, and he
went calmly forward on the road, though he knew that behind some turn
of it lay in wait, like beasts of prey, dangers of unknown kinds.

And what nerved him thus to front death itself without a quiver? The
supreme determination to do what Jesus had given him to do. He knew
that his Lord had set him a task, and the one thing needful was to
accomplish that. We have no such obstacles in our course as Paul had
in his, but the same spirit must mark us if we are to do our work.
Consciousness of a mission, fixed determination to carry it out, and
consequent contempt of hindrances, belong to all noble lives, and
especially to true Christian ones. Perils and hardships and possible
evils should have no more power to divert us from the path which
Christ marks for us than storms or tossing of the ship have to
deflect the needle from pointing north.

It is easy to talk heroically when no foes are in sight; but Paul was
looking dangers in the eyes, and felt their breath on his cheeks when
he spoke. His longing was to 'fulfil his course.' 'With joy' is a
weakening addition. It was not 'joy,' but the discharge of duty,
which seemed to him infinitely desirable. What was aspiration at
Miletus became fact when, in his last Epistle, he wrote, 'I have
finished my course.'

In verses 25 to 27 the Apostle looks back as well as forward. His
anticipation that he was parting for ever from the Ephesian elders
was probably mistaken, but it naturally leads him to think of the
long ministry among them which was now, as he believed, closed. And
his retrospect was very different from what most of us, who are
teachers, feel that ours must be. It is a solemn thought that if we
let either cowardice or love of ease and the good opinion of men hold
us back from speaking out all that we know of God's truth, our hands
are reddened with the blood of souls.

We are all apt to get into grooves of favourite thoughts, and to
teach but part of the whole Gospel. If we do not seek to widen our
minds to take in, and our utterances to give forth, all the will of
God as seen by us, our limitations and repetitions will repel some
from the truth, who might have been won by a completer presentation
of it, and their blood will be required at our hands. None of us can
reach to the apprehension, in its full extent and due proportion of
its parts, of that great gospel; but we may at least seek to come
nearer the ideal completeness of a teacher, and try to remember that
we are 'pure from the blood of all men,' only when we have not
'shrunk from declaring all God's counsel.' We are not required to
know it completely, but we are required not to shrink from declaring
it as far as we know it.

Paul's purpose in this retrospect was not only to vindicate himself,
but to suggest to the elders their duty. Therefore he passes
immediately to exhortation to them, and a forecast of the future of
the Ephesian Church. 'Take heed to yourselves.' The care of one's own
soul comes first. He will be of little use to the Church whose own
personal religion is not kept warm and deep. All preachers and
teachers and men who influence their fellows need to lay to heart
this exhortation, especially in these days when calls to outward
service are so multiplied. The neglect of it undermines all real
usefulness, and is a worm gnawing at the roots of the vines.

We note also the condensed weightiness of the following exhortation,
in which solemn reasons are suggested for obeying it. The divine
appointment to office, the inclusion of the 'bishops' in the flock,
the divine ownership of the flock, and the cost of its purchase, are
all focussed on the one point, 'Take heed to all the flock.' Of
course a comparison with verse 17 shows that _elder_ and _bishop_
were two designations for one officer; but the question of the
primitive organisation of church offices, important as it is, is less
important than the great thoughts as to the relation of the Church to
God, and as to the dear price at which men have been won to be truly
His.

We note the reading in the Revised Version of v.28 (margin), 'the
flock of the Lord,' but do not discuss it. The chief thought of the
verse is that the Church is God's flock, and that the death of Jesus
has bought it for His, and that negligent under-shepherds are
therefore guilty of grievous sin.

The Apostle had premonitions of the future for the Church as well as
for himself, and the horizons were dark in both outlooks. He foresaw
evils from two quarters, for 'wolves' would come from without, and
perverse teachers would arise within, drawing the disciples after
them and away from the Lord. The simile of wolves may be an echo of
Christ's warning in Matthew vii 15. How sadly Paul's anticipations
were fulfilled the Epistle to the Church in Ephesus (Revelation ii.)
shows too clearly. Unslumbering alertness, as of a sentry in front of
the enemy, is needed if the slinking onset of the wolf is to be
beaten back. Paul points to his own example, and that in no
vainglorious spirit, but to stimulate and also to show how
watchfulness is to be carried out. It must be unceasing, patient,
tenderly solicitous, and grieving over the falls of others as over
personal calamities. If there were more such 'shepherds,' there would
be fewer stray sheep.

Anxious forebodings and earnest exhortations naturally end in turning
to God and invoking His protecting care. The Apostle's heart runs
over in his last words (vs. 32-35). He falls back for himself, in the
prospect of having to cease his care of the Church, on the thought
that a better Guide will not leave it, and he would comfort the
elders as well as himself by the remembrance of God's power to keep
them. So Jacob, dying, said, 'I die, but God shall be with you.' So
Moses, dying, said, 'The Lord hath said unto me, thou shalt not go
over this Jordan. The Lord thy God, He will go before thee.' Not even
Paul is indispensable. The under-shepherds die, _the_ Shepherd lives,
and watches against wolves and dangers. Paul had laid the foundation,
and the edifice would not stand unfinished, like some half-reared
palace begun by a now dead king. The growth of the Church and of its
individual members is sure. It is wrought by God.

His instrument is 'the word of His grace.' Therefore if we would
grow, we must use that word. Christian progress is no more possible,
if the word of God is not our food, than is an infant's growth if it
refuses milk. That building up or growth or advance (for all three
metaphors are used, and mean the same thing) has but one natural end,
the entrance of each redeemed soul into its own allotment in the true
land of promise, the inheritance of those who are sanctified. If we
faithfully use that word which tells of and brings God's grace, that
we may grow thereby, He will bring us at last to dwell among those
who here have growingly been made saints. He is able to do these
things. It is for us to yield to His power, and to observe the
conditions on which it will work on us.

Even at the close Paul cannot refrain from personal references. He
points to his example of absolute disinterestedness, and with a
dramatic gesture holds out 'these hands' to show how they are
hardened by work. Such a warning against doing God's work for money
would not have been his last word, at a time when all hearts were
strung up to the highest pitch, unless the danger had been very real.
And it is very real to-day. If once the suspicion of being influenced
by greed of gain attaches to a Christian worker, his power ebbs away,
and his words lose weight and impetus.

It is that danger which Paul is thinking of when he tells the elders
that by 'labouring' they 'ought to support the weak'; for by _weak_
he means not the poor, but those imperfect disciples who might be
repelled or made to stumble by the sight of greed in an elder.
Shepherds who obviously cared more for wool than for the sheep have
done as much harm as 'grievous wolves.'

Paul quotes an else unrecorded saying of Christ's which, like a
sovereign's seal, confirms the subject's words. It gathers into a
sentence the very essence of Christian morality. It reveals the
inmost secret of the blessedness of the giving God. It is foolishness
and paradox to the self-centred life of nature. It is blessedly true
in the experience of all who, having received the 'unspeakable gift,'
have thereby been enfranchised into the loftier life in which self is
dead, and to which it is delight, kindred with God's own blessedness,
to impart.



A FULFILLED ASPIRATION

'So that I might finish my course....'--ACTS xx. 24.

'I have finished my course....'--2 TIM. iv. 7.

I do not suppose that Paul in prison, and within sight of martyrdom,
remembered his words at Ephesus. But the fact that what was
aspiration whilst he was in the very thick of his difficulties came
to be calm retrospect at the close is to me very beautiful and
significant. 'So that I may finish my course,' said he wistfully;
whilst before him there lay dangers clearly discerned and others that
had all the more power over the imagination because they were but
dimly discerned--'Not knowing the things that shall befall me there,'
said he, but knowing this, that 'bonds and afflictions abide me.'
When a man knows exactly what he has to be afraid of he can face it.
When he knows a little corner of it, and also knows that there is a
great stretch behind that is unknown, that is a state of things that
tries his mettle. Many a man will march up to a battery without a
tremor who would not face a hole where a snake lay. And so Paul's
ignorance, as well as Paul's knowledge, made it very hard for him to
say 'None of these things move me' if only 'I might finish my
course.'

Now there are in these two passages, thus put together, three points
that I touch for a moment. These are, What Paul thought that life
chiefly was; what Paul aimed at; and what Paul won thereby.

I. What he thought that life chiefly was.

'That I may finish my course.' Now 'course,' in our modern English,
is far too feeble a word to express the Apostle's idea here. It has
come to mean with us a quiet sequence or a succession of actions
which, taken together, complete a career; but in its original force
the English word 'course,' and still more the Greek, of which it is a
translation, contain a great deal more than that. If we were to read
'race,' we should get nearer to at least one side of the Apostle's
thought. This was the image under which life presented itself to him,
as it does to every man that does anything in the world worth doing,
whether he be Christian or not--as being not a place for enjoyment,
for selfish pursuits, making money, building family, satisfying love,
seeking pleasure, or the like; but mainly as being an appointed field
for a succession of efforts, all in one direction, and leading
progressively to an end. In that image of life as a race, threadbare
as it is, there are several grave considerations involved, which it
will contribute to the nobleness of our own lives to keep steadily in
view.

To begin with, the metaphor regards life as a track or path marked
out and to be kept to by us. Paul thought of his life as a
racecourse, traced for him by God, and from which it would be
perilous and rebellious to diverge. The consciousness of definite
duties loomed larger than anything else before him. His first waking
thought was, 'What is God's will for me to-day? What stage of the
course have I to pass over to-day?' Each moment brought to him an
appointed task which at all hazards he must do. And this elevating,
humbling, and bracing ever-present sense of responsibility, not
merely to circumstances, but to God, is an indispensable part of any
life worth the living, and of any on which a man will ever dare to
look back.

'My course.' O brethren! if we carried with us, always present, that
solemn, severe sense of all-pervading duty and of obligation laid
upon us to pursue faithfully the path that is appointed us, there
would be less waste, less selfishness, less to regret, and less that
weakens and defiles, in the lives of us all. And blessed be His name!
however trivial be our tasks, however narrow our spheres, however
secular and commonplace our businesses or trades, we may write upon
them, as on all sorts of lives, except weak and selfish ones, this
inscription, 'Holiness to the Lord.'

The broad arrow stamped on Crown property gives a certain dignity to
whatever bears it, and whatever small duty has the name of God
written across it is thereby ennobled. If our days are to be full-
fraught with the serenity and purity which it is possible for them to
attain, and if we ourselves are to put forth all our powers and make
the most of ourselves, we must cultivate the continual sense that
life is a course--a series of definite duties marked out for us by
God.

Again, the image suggests the strenuous efforts needed for discharge
of our appointed tasks. The Apostle, like all men of imaginative and
sensitive nature, was accustomed to speak in metaphors, which
expressed his fervid convictions more adequately than more abstract
expressions would have done. That vigorous figure of a 'course'
speaks more strongly of the stress of continual effort than many
words. It speaks of the straining muscles, and the intense
concentration, and the forward-flung body of the runner in the arena.
Paul says in effect, 'I, for my part, live at high pressure. I get
the most that I can out of myself. I do the very best that is in me.'
And that is a pattern for us.

There is nothing to be done unless we are contented to live on the
stretch. Easygoing lives are always contemptible lives. A man who
never does anything except what he can do easily never comes to do
anything greater than what he began with, and never does anything
worth doing at all. Effort is the law of life in all departments, as
we all of us know and practise in regard to our daily business. But
what a strange thing it is that we seem to think that our Christian
characters can be formed and perfected upon other conditions, and in
other fashions, than those by which men make their daily bread or
their worldly fortunes!

The direction which effort takes is different in these two regions.
The necessity for concentration and vigorous putting into operation
of every faculty is far more imperative in the Christian course than
in any other form of life.

I believe most earnestly that we grow Christlike, not by effort only,
but by faith. But I believe that there is no faith without effort,
and that the growth which comes from faith will not be appropriated
and made ours without it. And so I preach, without in the least
degree feeling that it impinges upon the great central truth that we
are cleansed and perfected by the power of God working upon us, the
sister truth that we must 'work out our own salvation with fear and
trembling.'

Brethren, unless we are prepared for the dust and heat of the race,
we had better not start upon the course. Christian men have an
appointed task, and to do it will take all the effort that they can
put forth, and will assuredly demand continuous concentration and the
summoning of every faculty to its utmost energy.

Still further, there is another idea that lies in the emblem, and
that is that the appointed task which thus demands the whole man in
vigorous exercise ought in fact to be, and in its nature is,
progressive. Is the Christianity of the average church member and
professing Christian a continuous advance? Is to-day better than
yesterday? Are former attainments continually being left behind? Does
it not seem the bitterest irony to talk about the usual life of a
Christian as a course? Did you ever see a squad of raw recruits being
drilled in the barrack-yard? The first thing the sergeants do is to
teach them the 'goose-step,' which consists in lifting up one foot
and then the other, _ad infinitum_, and yet always keeping on the
same bit of ground. That is the kind of 'course' which hosts of so-
called Christians content themselves with running--a vast deal of
apparent exercise and no advance. They are just at the same spot at
which they stood five, ten, or twenty years ago; not a bit wiser,
more like Christ, less like the devil and the world; having gained no
more mastery over their characteristic evils; falling into precisely
the same faults of temper and conduct as they used to do in the far-
away past. By what right can _they_ talk of running the Christian
race? Progress is essential to real Christian life.

II. Turn now to another thought here, and consider what Paul aimed
at.

It is a very easy thing for a man to say, 'I take the discharge of my
duty, given to me by Jesus Christ, as my great purpose in life,' when
there is nothing in the way to prevent him from carrying out that
purpose. But it is a very different thing when, as was the case with
Paul, there lie before him the certainties of affliction and bonds,
and the possibilities which very soon consolidated themselves into
certainties, of a bloody death and that swiftly. To say _then_,
without a quickened pulse or a tremor in the eyelid, or a quiver in
the voice, or a falter in the resolution, to say then, 'none of these
things move me, if only I may do what I was set to do'--that is to be
in Christ indeed; and that is the only thing worth living for.

Look how beautifully we see in operation in these heartfelt and few
words of the Apostle the power that there is in an absolute devotion
to God-enjoined duty, to give a man 'a solemn scorn of ills,' and to
lift him high above everything that would bar or hinder his path. Is
it not bracing to see any one actuated by such motives as these? And
why should they not be motives for us all? The one thing worth our
making our aim in life is to accomplish our course.

Now notice that the word in the original here, 'finish,' does not
merely mean 'end,' which would be a very poor thing. Time will do
that for us all. It will end our course. But an ended course may yet
be an unfinished course. And the meaning that the Apostle attaches to
the word in both of our texts is not merely to scramble through
anyhow, so as to get to the last of it; but to complete, accomplish
the course, or, to put away the metaphor, to do all that it was meant
by God that he should do.

Now some very early transcriber of the Acts of the Apostles mistook
the Apostle's meaning, and thought that he only said that he desired
to end his career; and so, with the best intentions in the world, he
inserted, probably on the margin, what he thought was a necessary
addition--that unfortunate 'with joy,' which appears in our
Authorised Version, but has no place in the true text. If we put it
in we necessarily limit the meaning of the word 'finish' to that low,
superficial sense which I have already dismissed. If we leave it out
we get a far nobler thought. Paul was not thinking about the joy at
the end. What he wanted was to do his work, all of it, right through
to the very last. He knew there would be joy, but he does not speak
about it. What he wanted, as all faithful men do, was to do the work,
and let the joy take care of itself.

And so for all of us, the true anaesthetic or 'painkiller' is that
all-dominant sense of obligation and duty which lays hold upon us,
and grips us, and makes us, not exactly indifferent to, but very
partially conscious of, the sorrows or the hindrances or the pains
that may come in our way. You cannot stop an express train by
stretching a rope across the line, nor stay the flow of a river with
a barrier of straw. And if a man has once yielded himself fully to
that great conception of God's will driving him on through life, and
prescribing his path for him, it is neither in sorrow nor in joy to
arrest his course. They may roll all the golden apples out of the
garden of the Hesperides in his path, and he will not stop to pick
one of them up; or Satan may block it with his fiercest flames, and
the man will go into them, saying, 'When I pass through the fires He
will be with me.'

III. Lastly, what Paul won thereby.

'That I _may_ finish my course ... I _have_ finished my course'; in
the same lofty meaning, not merely _ended_, though that was true, but
'completed, accomplished, perfected.'

Now some hyper-sensitive people have thought that it was very strange
that the Apostle, who was always preaching the imperfection of all
human obedience and service, should, at the end of his life, indulge
in such a piece of what they fancy was self-complacent retrospect as
to say 'I have kept the faith; I have fought a good fight; I have
finished my course.' But it was by no means complacent self-
righteousness. Of course he did not mean that he looked back upon a
career free from faults and flecks and stains. No. There is only one
pair of human lips that ever could say, in the full significance of
the word, 'It is finished! ... I have completed the work which Thou
gavest Me to do.' Jesus Christ's retrospect of a stainless career,
without defect or discordance at any point from the divine ideal, is
not repeated in any of His servants' experiences. But, on the other
hand, if a man in the middle of his difficulties and his conflict
pulls himself habitually together and says to himself, 'Nothing shall
move me, so that I may complete this bit of my course,' depend upon
it, his effort, his believing effort, will not be in vain; and at the
last he will be able to look back on a career which, though stained
with many imperfections, and marred with many failures, yet on the
whole has realised the divine purpose, though not with absolute
completeness, at least sufficiently to enable the faithful servant to
feel that all his struggle has not been in vain.

Brethren, no one else can. And oh! how different the two 'courses' of
the godly man and the worldling look, in their relative importance,
when seen from this side, as we are advancing towards them, and from
the other as we look back upon them! Pleasures, escape from pains,
ease, comfort, popularity, quiet lives--all these things seem very
attractive; and God's will often seems very hard and very repulsive,
when we are advancing towards some unwelcome duty. But when we get
beyond it and look back, the two careers have changed their
characters; and all the joys that could be bought at the price of the
smallest neglected duty or the smallest perpetrated sin, dwindle and
dwindle and dwindle, and the light is out of them, and they show for
what they are--nothings, gilded nothings, painted emptinesses, lies
varnished over. And on the other hand, to do right, to discharge the
smallest duty, to recognise God's will, and with faithful effort to
seek to do it in dependence upon Him, that towers and towers and
towers, and there seems to be, as there really is, nothing else worth
living for.

So let us live with the continual remembrance in our minds that all
which we do has to be passed in review by us once more, from another
standpoint, and with another illumination falling upon it. And be
sure of this, that the one thing worth looking back upon, and
possible to be looked back upon with peace and quietness, is the
humble, faithful, continual discharge of our appointed tasks for the
dear Lord's sake. If you and I, whilst work and troubles last, do
truly say, 'None of these things move me, so that I _might_ finish my
course,' we too, with all our weaknesses, may be able to say at the
last, 'Thanks be to God! I _have_ finished my course.'



PARTING WORDS
[Footnote: Preached prior to a long absence in Australia.]

'And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His
grace....'--ACTS xx. 32.

I may be pardoned if my remarks now should assume somewhat of a more
personal character than is my wont. I desire to speak mainly to my
own friends, the members of my own congregation; and other friends
who have come to give me a parting 'Godspeed' will forgive me if my
observations have a more special bearing on those with whom I am more
immediately connected.

The Apostle whose words I have taken for my text was leaving, as he
supposed, for the last time, the representatives of the Church in
Ephesus, to whom he had been painting in very sombre colours the
dangers of the future and his own forebodings and warnings.
Exhortations, prophecies of evil, expressions of anxious solicitude,
motions of Christian affection, all culminate in this parting
utterance. High above them all rises the thought of the present God,
and of the mighty word which in itself, in the absence of all human
teachers, had power to 'build them up, and to give them an
inheritance amongst them that are sanctified.'

If we think of that Church in Ephesus, this brave confidence of the
Apostle's becomes yet more remarkable. They were set in the midst of
a focus of heathen superstition, from which they themselves had only
recently been rescued. Their knowledge was little, they had no
Apostolic teacher to be present with them; they were left alone there
to battle with the evils of that corrupt society in which they dwelt.
And yet Paul leaves them--'sheep in the midst of wolves,' with a very
imperfect Christianity, with no Bible, with no teachers--in the sure
confidence that no harm will come to them, because God is with them,
and the 'word of His grace' is enough.

And that is the feeling, dear brethren, with which I now look you in
the face for the last time for a little while. I desire that you and
I should together share the conviction that each of us is safe
because God and the 'word of His grace' will go and remain with us.

I. So then, first of all, let me point you to the one source of
security and enlightenment for the Church and for the individual.

We are not to separate between God and the 'word of His grace,' but
rather to suppose that the way by which the Apostle conceived of God
as working for the blessing and the guardianship of that little
community in Ephesus was mainly, though not exclusively, through that
which he here designates 'the word of His grace.' We are not to
forget the ever-abiding presence of the indwelling Spirit who guards
and keeps the life of the individual and of the community. But what
is in the Apostle's mind here is the objective revelation, the actual
spoken word (not yet written) which had its origin in God's
condescending love, and had for its contents, mainly, the setting
forth of that love. Or to put it into other words, the revelation of
the grace of God in Jesus Christ, with all the great truths that
cluster round and are evolved from it, is the all-sufficient source
of enlightenment and security for individuals and for Churches. And
whosoever will rightly use and faithfully keep that great word, no
evil shall befall him, nor shall he ever make shipwreck of the faith.
It is 'able to build you up,' says Paul. In God's Gospel, in the
truth concerning Jesus Christ the divine Redeemer, in the principles
that flow from that Cross and Passion, and that risen life and that
ascension to God, there is all that men need, all that they want for
life, all that they want for godliness. The basis of their creed, the
sufficient guide for their conduct, the formative powers that will
shape into beauty and nobleness their characters, all lie in the germ
in this message, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself.' Whoever keeps that in mind and memory, ruminates upon it
till it becomes the nourishment of his soul, meditates on it till the
precepts and the promises and the principles that are enwrapped in it
unfold themselves before Him, needs none other guide for life, none
other solace in sorrow, none other anchor of hope, none other stay in
trial and in death. 'I commend you to God and the word of His grace,'
which is a storehouse full of all that we need for life and for
godliness. Whoever has it is like a landowner who has a quarry on his
estate, from which at will he can dig stones to build his house. If
you truly possess and faithfully adhere to this Gospel, you have
enough.

Remember that these believers to whom Paul thus spoke had no New
Testament, and most of them, I dare say, could not read the Old.
There were no written Gospels in existence. The greater part of the
New Testament was not written; what was written was in the shape of
two or three letters that belonged to Churches in another part of the
world altogether. It was to the spoken word that he commended them.
How much more securely may we trust one another to that permanent
record of the divine revelation which we have here in the pages of
Scripture!

As for the individual, so for the Church, that written word is the
guarantee for its purity and immortality. Christianity is the only
religion that has ever passed through periods of decadence and
purified itself again. They used to say that Thames water was the
best to put on shipboard because, after it became putrid, it cleared
itself and became sweet again. I do not know anything about whether
that is true or not, but I know that it is true about Christianity.
Over and over again it has rotted, and over and over again it has
cleared itself, and it has always been by the one process. Men have
gone back to the word and laid hold again of it in its simple
omnipotence, and so a decadent Christianity has sprung up again into
purity and power. The word of God, the principles of the revelation
contained in Christ and recorded for ever in this New Testament, are
the guarantee of the Church's immortality and of the Church's purity.
This man and that man may fall away, provinces may be lost from the
empire for a while, standards of rebellion and heresy may be lifted,
but 'the foundation of God standeth sure,' and whoever will hark back
again and dig down through the rubbish of human buildings to the
living Rock will build secure and dwell at peace. If all our churches
were pulverised to-morrow, and every formal creed of Christendom were
torn in pieces, and all the institutions of the Church were
annihilated--if there was a New Testament left they would all be
built up again. 'I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.'

II. Secondly, notice the possible benefit of the silencing of the
_human_ voice.

Paul puts together his absence and the power of the word. 'Now I know
that you will see my face no more'--'I commend you to God.' That is
to say, it is often a good thing that the voice of man may be hushed
in order that the sweeter and deeper music of the word of God,
sounding from no human lips, may reach our hearts. Of course I am not
going to depreciate preachers and books and religious literature and
the thought and the acts of good and wise men who have been
interpreters of God's meaning and will to their brethren, but the
human ministration of the divine word, like every other help to
knowing God, may become a hindrance instead of a help; and in all
such helps there is a tendency, unless there be continual jealous
watchfulness on the part of those who minister them, and on the part
of those who use them, to assert themselves instead of leading to
God, and to become not mirrors in which we may behold God, but
obscuring _media_ which come between us and Him. This danger belongs
to the great ordinance and office of the Christian ministry, large as
its blessings are, just as it belongs to all other offices which are
appointed for the purpose of bringing men to God. We may make them
ladders or we may make them barriers; we may climb by them or we may
remain in them. We may look at the colours on the painted glass until
we do not see or think of the light which strikes through the
colours.

So it is often a good thing that a human voice which speaks the
divine word, should be silenced; just as it is often a good thing
that other helps and props should be taken away. No man ever leans
all his weight upon God's arm until every other crutch on which he
used to lean has been knocked from him.

And therefore, dear brethren, applying these plain things to
ourselves, may I not say that it may and should be the result of my
temporary absence from you that some of you should be driven to a
more first-hand acquaintance with God and with His word? I, like all
Christian ministers, have of course my favourite ways of looking at
truth, limitations of temperament, and idiosyncrasies of various
sorts, which colour the representations that I make of God's great
word. All the river cannot run through any pipe; and what does run is
sure to taste somewhat of the soil through which it runs. And for
some of you, after thirty years of hearing my way of putting things--
and I have long since told you all that I have got to say--it will be
a good thing to have some one else to speak to you, who will come
with other aspects of that great Truth, and look at it from other
angles and reflect other hues of its perfect whiteness. So partly
because of these limitations of mine, partly because you have grown
so accustomed to my voice that the things that I say do not produce
half as much effect on many of you as if I were saying them to
somebody else, or somebody else were saying them to you, and partly
because the affection, born of so many years of united worship, for
which in many respects I am your debtor, may lead you to look at the
vessel rather than the treasure, do you not think it may be a means
of blessing and help to this congregation that I should step aside
for a little while and some one else should stand here, and you
should be driven to make acquaintance with 'God and the word of His
grace' a little more for yourselves? What does it matter though you
do not have nay sermons? You have your Bibles and you have God's
Spirit. And if my silence shall lead any of you to prize and to use
_these_ more than you have done, then my silence will have done a
great deal more than my speech. Ministers are like doctors, the test
of their success is that they are not needed any more. And when we
can say, 'They can stand without us, and they do not need us,' that
is the crown of our ministry.

III. Thirdly, notice the best expression of Christian solicitude and
affection.

'I commend you,' says Paul, 'to God, and to the word of His grace.'
If we may venture upon a very literal translation of the word, it is,
'I lay you down beside God.' That is beautiful, is it not? Here had
Paul been carrying the Ephesian Church on his back for a long time
now. He had many cares about them, many forebodings as to their
future, knowing very well that after his departure grievous wolves
were going to enter in. He says, 'I cannot carry the load any longer;
here I lay it down at the Throne, beneath those pure Eyes, and that
gentle and strong Hand.' For to commend them to God is in fact a
prayer casting the care which Paul could no longer exercise, upon
Him.

And that is the highest expression of, as it is the only soothing
for, manly Christian solicitude and affection. Of course you and I,
looking forward to these six months of absence, have all of us our
anxieties about what may be the issue. I may feel afraid lest there
should be flagging here, lest good work should be done a little more
languidly, lest there should be a beggarly account of empty pews many
a time, lest the bonds of Christian union here should be loosened,
and when I come back I may find it hard work to reknit them. All
these thoughts must be in the mind of a true man who has put most of
his life, and as much of himself as during that period he could
command, into his work. What then? 'I commend you to God.' You may
have your thoughts and anxieties as well as I have mine. Dear
brethren, let us make an end of solicitude and turn it into petition
and bring one another to God, and leave one another there.

This 'commending,' as it is the highest expression of Christian
solicitude, so it is the highest and most natural expression of
Christian affection. I am not going to do what is so easy to do--
bring tears at such a moment. I do not purpose to speak of the depth,
the sacredness of the bond that unites a great many of us together. I
think we can take that for granted without saying any more about it.
But, dear brethren, I do want to pledge you and myself to this, that
our solicitude and our affection should find voice in prayer, and
that when we are parted we may be united, because the eyes of both
are turned to the one Throne. There is a reality in prayer. Do you
pray for me, as I will for you, when we are far apart. And as the
vapour that rises from the southern seas where I go may fall in
moisture, refreshing these northern lands, so what rises on one side
of the world from believing hearts in loving prayers may fall upon
the other in the rain of a divine blessing. 'I commend you to God,
and the word of His grace.'

IV. Lastly, notice the parting counsels involved in the commendation.

If it be true that God and His Word are the source of all security
and enlightenment, and are so, apart altogether from human agencies,
then to commend these brethren to God was exhortation as well as
prayer, and implied pointing them to the one source of security that
they might cling to that source. I am going to give no advices about
little matters of church order and congregational prosperity. These
will all come right, if the two main exhortations that are involved
in this text are laid to heart; and if they are not laid to heart,
then I do not care one rush about the smaller things, of full pews
and prosperous subscription lists and Christian work. These are
secondary, and they will be consequent if you take these two advices
that are couched in my text:--

(_a_) 'Cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart,' as the limpet
does to the rock. Cling to Jesus Christ, the revelation of God's
grace. And how do we cling to Him? What is the cement of souls? Love
and trust; and whoever exercises these in reference to Jesus Christ
is built into Him, and belongs to Him, and has a vital unity knitting
him with that Lord. Cleave to Christ, brother, by faith and love, by
communion and prayer, and by practical conformity of life. For
remember that the union which is effected by faith can be broken by
sin, and that there will be no reality in our union to Jesus unless
it is manifested and perpetuated by righteousness of conduct and
character. Two smoothly-ground pieces of glass pressed together will
adhere. If there be a speck of sand, microscopic in dimensions,
between the two, they will fall apart; and if you let tiny grains of
sin come between you and your Master, it is delusion to speak of
being knit to Him by faith and love. Keep near Jesus Christ and you
will be safe.

(_b_) Cleave to 'the word of His grace.' Try to understand its
teachings better; study your Bibles with more earnestness; believe
more fully than you have ever done that in that great Gospel there
lie every truth that we need and guidance in all circumstances. Bring
the principles of Christianity into your daily life; walk by the
light of them; and live in the radiance of a present God. And then
all these other matters which I have spoken of, which are important,
highly important but secondary, will come right.

Many of you, dear brethren, have listened to my voice for long years,
and have not done the one thing for which I preach--viz. set your
faith, as sinful men, on the great atoning Sacrifice and Incarnate
Lord. I beseech you let my last word go deeper than its predecessors,
and yield yourselves to God in Christ, bringing all your weakness and
all your sin to Him, and trusting yourselves wholly and utterly to
His sacrifice and life.

'I commend you to God and to the word of His grace,' and beseech you
'that, whether I come to see you or else be absent, I may hear of
your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind
striving together for the faith of the Gospel.'



THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING

'...It is more blessed to give than to receive.'--ACTS xx. 35.

How 'many other things Jesus did' and said 'which are not written in
this book'! Here is one precious unrecorded word, which was floating
down to the ocean of oblivion when Paul drew it to shore and so
enriched the world. There is, however, a saying recorded, which is
essentially parallel in content though differing in garb, 'The Son of
Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.' It is tempting
to think that the text gives a glimpse into the deep fountains of the
pure blessedness of Jesus Himself, and was a transcript of His own
human experience. It helps us to understand how the Man of Sorrows
could give as a legacy to His followers 'My joy,' and could speak of
it as abiding and full.

I. The reasons on which this saying rests.

It is based not only on the fact that the act of giving has in it a
sense of power and of superiority, and that the act of receiving may
have a painful consciousness of obligation, though a cynic might
endorse it on that ground, but on a truth far deeper than these, that
there is a pure and godlike joy in making others blessed.

The foundation on which the axiom rests is that giving is the result
of love and self-sacrifice. Whenever they are not found, the giving
is not the giving which 'blesses him that gives.' If you give with
some _arriere pensee_ of what you will get by it, or for the sake of
putting some one under obligation, or indifferently as a matter of
compulsion or routine, if with your alms there be contempt to which
pity is ever near akin, then these are not examples of the giving on
which Christ pronounced His benediction. But where the heart is full
of deep, real love, and where that love expresses itself by a
cheerful act of self-sacrifice, then there is felt a glow of calm
blessedness far above the base and greedy joys of self-centred souls
who delight only in keeping their possessions, or in using them for
themselves. It comes not merely from contemplating the relief or
happiness in others of which our gifts may have been the source, but
from the working in our own hearts of these two godlike emotions. To
be delivered from making myself my great object, and to be delivered
from the undue value set upon having and keeping our possessions, are
the twin factors of true blessedness. It is heaven on earth to love
and to give oneself away.

Then again, the highest joy and noblest use of all our possessions is
found in imparting them.

True as to this world's goods.

The old epitaph is profoundly true, which puts into the dead lips the
declaration: 'What I kept I lost. What I gave I kept.' Better to
learn that and act on it while living!

True as to truth, and knowledge.

True as to the Gospel of the grace of God.

II. The great example in God of the blessedness of giving.

God gives--gives only--gives always--and He in giving has joy,
blessedness. He would not be 'the ever-blessed God' unless He were
'the giving God.' Creation we are perhaps scarcely warranted in
affirming to be a necessity to the divine nature, and we run on
perilous heights of speculation when we speak of it as contributing
to His blessedness; but this at least we may say, that He, in the
deep words of the Psalmist, 'delights in mercy.' Before creation was
realised in time, the divine Idea of it was eternal, inseparable from
His being, and therefore from everlasting He 'rejoiced in the
habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of
men.'

The light and glory thus thrown on His relation to us.

He gives. He does not exact until He has given. He gives what He
requires. The requirement is made in love and is itself a 'grace
given,' for it permits to God's creatures, in their relation to Him,
some feeble portion and shadow of the blessedness which He possesses,
by permitting them to bring offerings to His throne, and so to have
the joy of giving to Him what He has given to them. 'All things come
of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.' Then how this thought
puts an end to all manner of slavish notions about God's commands and
demands, and about worship, and about merits, or winning heaven by
our own works.

Notice that the same emotions which we have found to make the
blessedness of giving are those which come into play in the act of
receiving spiritual blessings. We receive the Gospel by faith, which
assuredly has in it love and self-sacrifice.

Having thus the great Example of all giving in heaven, and the shadow
and reflex of that example in our relations to Him on earth, we are
thereby fitted for the exemplification of it in our relation to men.
To give, not to get, is to be our work, to love, to sacrifice
ourselves.

This axiom should regulate Christians' relation to the world, and to
each other, in every way. It should shape the Christian use of money.
It should shape our use of all which we have.



DRAWING NEARER TO THE STORM

'And it came to pass, that, after we were gotten from them, and
had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the
day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara: 2. And
finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we went aboard, and
set forth. 3. Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on
the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre: for
there the ship was to unlade her burden. 4. And finding
disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through
the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem. 5. And when we
had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; and
they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we
were out of the city: and we kneeled down on the shore, and
prayed. 6. And when we had taken our leave one of another, we
took ship; and they returned home again. 7. And when we had
finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and saluted
the brethren, and abode with them one day. 8. And the next day we
that were of Paul's company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and
we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one
of the seven; and abode with him. 9. And the same man had four
daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. 10. And as we tarried
there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet,
named Agabus. 11. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's
girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith
the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that
owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the
Gentiles. 12. And when we heard these things, both we, and they
of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13. Then
Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for
I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for
the name of the Lord Jesus. 14. And when he would not be
persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. 15.
And after those days we took up our carriages, and went up to
Jerusalem.'--ACTS xxi. 1-15.

Paul's heroic persistency in disregarding the warnings of 'bonds and
afflictions' which were pealed into his ears in every city, is the
main point of interest in this section. But the vivid narrative
abounds with details which fill it with life and colour. We may
gather it all round three points--the voyage, Tyre, and Caesarea.

I. The log of the voyage, as given in verses 1-3, shows the leisurely
way of navigation in those days and in that sea. Obviously the
coaster tied up or anchored in port at night. Running down the coast
from Miletus, they stayed overnight, first at the small island of
Coos, then stretched across the next day to Rhodes, and on the third
struck back to the mainland at Patara, from which, according to one
reading, they ran along the coast a little further east to Myra, the
usual port of departure for Syria. Ramsay explains that the prevalent
favourable wind for a vessel bound for Syria blows steadily in early
morning, and dies down towards nightfall, so that there would have
been no use in keeping at sea after sundown.

At Patara (or Myra) Paul and his party had to tranship, for their
vessel was probably of small tonnage, and only fit to run along the
coast. In either port they would have no difficulty in finding some
merchantman to take them across to Syria. Accordingly they shifted
into one bound for Tyre, and apparently ready to sail. The second
part of their voyage took them right out to sea, and their course lay
to the west, and then to the south of Cyprus, which Luke mentions as
if to remind us of Paul's visit there when he was beginning his
missionary work. How much had passed since that day at Paphos (which
they might have sighted from the deck)! He had left Paphos with
Barnabas and John Mark--where were they? He had sailed away from
Cyprus to carry the Gospel among Gentiles; he sails past it,
accompanied by a group of these whom he had won for Christ. There he
had begun his career; now the omens indicated that possibly its end
was near. Many a thought would be in his mind as he looked out over
the blue waters and saw the glittering roofs and groves of Paphos.

Tyre was the first port of call, and there the cargo was to be
landed. The travellers had to wait till that was done, and probably
another one shipped. The seven days' stay is best understood as due
to that cause; for we find that Paul re-embarked in the same ship,
and went in her as far as Ptolemais, at all events, perhaps to
Caesarea.

We note that no brethren are mentioned as having been met at any of
the ports of call, and no evangelistic work as having been done in
them. The party were simple passengers, who had to shape their
movements to suit the convenience of the master of the vessel, and
were only in port at night, and off again next morning early. No
doubt the leisure at sea was as restorative to them as it often is to
jaded workers now.

II. Tyre was a busy seaport then, and in its large population the few
disciples would make but little show. They had to be sought out
before they were 'found.' One can feel how eagerly the travellers
would search, and how thankfully they would find themselves again
among congenial souls. Since Miletus they had had no Christian
communion, and the sailors in such a ship as theirs would not be
exactly kindred spirits. So that week in Tyre would be a blessed
break in the voyage. We hear nothing of visiting the synagogue, nor
of preaching to the non-Christian population, nor of instruction to
the little Church.

The whole interest of the stay at Tyre is, for Luke, centred on the
fact that here too the same message which had met Paul everywhere was
repeated to him. It was 'through the Spirit.' Then was Paul flying in
the face of divine prohibitions when he held on his way in spite of
all that could be said? Certainly not. We have to bring common sense
to bear on the interpretation of the words in verse 4, and must
suppose that what came from 'the Spirit' was the prediction of
persecutions waiting Paul, and that the exhortation to avoid these by
keeping clear of Jerusalem was the voice of human affection only.
Such a blending of clear insight and of mistaken deductions from it
is no strange experience.

No word is said as to the effect of the Tyrian Christians'
dissuasion. It had none. Luke mentions it in order to show how
continuous was the repetition of the same note, and his silence as to
the manner of its reception is eloquent. The parting scene at Tyre is
like, and yet very unlike, that at Miletus. In both the Christians
accompany Paul to the beach, in both they kneel down and pray. It
would scarcely have been a Christian parting without that. In both
loving farewells are said, and perhaps waved when words could no
longer be heard. But at Tyre, where there were no bonds of old
comradeship nor of affection to a spiritual father, there was none of
the yearning, clinging love that could not bear to part, none of the
hanging on Paul's neck, none of the deep sorrow of final separation.
The delicate shades of difference in two scenes so similar tell of
the hand of an eye-witness. The touch that 'all' the Tyrian
Christians went down to the beach, and took their wives and children
with them, suggests that they can have been but a small community,
and so confirms the hint given by the use of the word 'found' in
verse 4.

III. The vessel ran down the coast to Ptolemais where one day's stop
was made, probably to land and ship cargo, if, as is possible, the
further journey to Caesarea was by sea. But it may have been by land;
the narrative is silent on that point. At Ptolemais, as at Tyre,
there was a little company of disciples, the brevity of the stay with
whom, contrasted with the long halt in Caesarea, rather favours the
supposition that the ship's convenience ruled the Apostle's movements
till he reached the latter place. There he found a haven of rest,
and, surrounded by loving friends, no wonder that the burdened
Apostle lingered there before plunging into the storm of which he had
had so many warnings.

The eager haste of the earlier part of the journey, contrasted with
the delay in Caesarea at the threshold of his goal, is explained by
supposing that at the beginning Paul's one wish had been to get to
Jerusalem in time for the Feast, and that at Caesarea he found that,
thanks to his earlier haste and his good passages, he had a margin to
spare. He did not wish to get to the Holy City much before the Feast.

Two things only are told as occurring in Caesarea--the intercourse
with Philip and the renewed warnings about going to Jerusalem.
Apparently Philip had been in Caesarea ever since we last heard of
him (chap. viii.). He had brought his family there, and settled down
in the headquarters of Roman government. He had been used by Christ
to carry the Gospel to men outside the Covenant, and for a time it
seemed as if he was to be the messenger to the Gentiles; but that
mission soon ended, and the honour and toil fell to another. But
neither did Philip envy Paul, nor did Paul avoid Philip. The Master
has the right to settle what each slave has to do, and whether He
sets him to high or low office, it matters not.

Philip might have been contemptuous and jealous of the younger man,
who had been nobody when he was chosen as one of the Seven, but had
so far outrun him now. But no paltry personal feeling marred the
Christian intercourse of the two, and we can imagine how much each
had to tell the other, with perhaps Cornelius for a third in company,
during the considerably extended stay in Caesarea. No doubt Luke too
made good use of the opportunity of increasing his knowledge of the
first days, and probably derived much of the material for the first
chapters of Acts from Philip, either then or at his subsequent longer
residence in the same city.

We have heard of the prophet Agabus before (chap, xi. 28). Why he is
introduced here, as if a stranger, we cannot tell, and it is useless
to guess, and absurd to sniff suspicion of genuineness in the
peculiarity. His prophecy is more definite than any that preceded it.
That is God's way. He makes things clearer as we go on, and warnings
more emphatic as danger approaches. The source of the 'afflictions'
was now for the first time declared, and the shape which they would
take. Jews would deliver Paul to Gentiles, as they had delivered
Paul's Master.

But there the curtain falls. What would the Gentiles do with him?
That remained unrevealed. Half the tragedy was shown, and then
darkness covered the rest. That was more trying to nerves and courage
than full disclosure to the very end would have been. Imagination had
just enough to work on, and was stimulated to shape out all sorts of
horrors. Similarly incomplete and testing to faith are the glimpses
of the future which we get in our own lives. We see but a little way
ahead, and then the road takes a sharp turn, and we fancy dreadful
shapes hiding round the corner.

Paul's courage was unmoved both by Agabus's incomplete prophecy and
by the tearful implorings of his companions and of the Caesarean
Christians. His pathetic words to them are misunderstood if we take
'break my heart' in the modern sense of that phrase, for it really
means 'to melt away my resolution,' and shows that Paul felt that the
passionate grief of his brethren was beginning to do what no fear for
himself could do--shake even his steadfast purpose. No more lovely
blending of melting tenderness and iron determination has ever been
put into words than that cry of his, followed by the great utterance
which proclaimed his readiness to bear all things, even death itself,
for 'the name of the Lord Jesus.' What kindled and fed that noble
flame of self-devotion? The love of Jesus Christ, built on the sense
that He had redeemed the soul of His servant, and had thereby bought
him for His own.

If we feel that we have been 'bought with a price,' we too, in our
small spheres, shall be filled with that ennobling passion of devoted
love which will not count life dear if He calls us to give it up. Let
us learn from Paul how to blend the utmost gentleness and tender
responsiveness to all love with fixed determination to glorify the
Name. A strong will and a loving heart make a marvellously beautiful
combination, and should both abide in every Christian.



PHILIP THE EVANGELIST

'... We entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which
was one of the seven; and abode with him.'--ACTS xxi. 8.

The life of this Philip, as recorded, is a very remarkable one. It is
divided into two unequal halves: one full of conspicuous service, one
passed in absolute obscurity. Like the moon in its second quarter,
part of the disc is shining silver and the rest is invisible. Let us
put together the notices of him.

He bears a name which makes it probable that he was not a Palestinian
Jew, but one of the many who, of Jewish descent, had lived in Gentile
lands and contracted Gentile habits and associations. We first hear
of him as one of the Seven who were chosen by the Church, at the
suggestion of the Apostles, in order to meet the grumbling of that
section of the Church, who were called 'Hellenists,' about their
people being neglected in the distribution of alms. He stands in that
list next to Stephen, who was obviously the leader. Then after
Stephen's persecution, he flies from Jerusalem, like the rest of the
Church, and comes down to Samaria and preaches there. He did that
because circumstances drove him; he had become one of the Seven
because his brethren appointed him, but his next step was in
obedience to a specific command of Christ. He went and preached the
Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, and then he was borne away from the
new convert, and after the Spirit had put him down at Ashdod he had
to tramp all the way up the Palestinian coast, left to the guidance
of his own wits, until he came to Caesarea. There he remained for
twenty years; and we do not hear a word about him in all that time.
But at last Paul and his companions, hurrying to keep the Feast at
Jerusalem, found that they had a little time to spare when they
reached Caesarea, and so they came to 'the house of Philip the
evangelist,' whom we last heard of twenty years before, and spent
'many days' with him. That is the final glimpse that we have of
Philip.

Now let us try to gather two or three plain lessons, especially those
which depend on that remarkable contrast between the first and the
second periods of this man's life. There is, first, a brief space of
brilliant service, and then there are long years of obscure toil.

I. The brief space of brilliant service.

The Church was in a state of agitation, and there was murmuring going
on because, as I have already said, a section of it thought that
their poor were unfairly dealt with by the native-born Jews in the
Church. And so the Apostles said: 'What is the use of your squabbling
thus? Pick out any seven that you like, of the class that considers
itself aggrieved, and we will put the distribution of these
eleemosynary grants into their hands. That will surely stop your
mouths. Do you choose whom you please, and we will confirm your
choice.' So the Church selected seven brethren, all apparently
belonging to the 'Grecians' or Greek-speaking Jews, as the Apostles
had directed that they should be, and one of them, not a Jew by
birth, but a 'proselyte of Antioch.' These men's partialities would
all be in favour of the class to which they belonged, and to secure
fair play for which they were elected by it.

Now these seven are never called 'deacons' in the New Testament,
though it is supposed that they were the first holders of that
office. It is instructive to note how their office came into
existence. It was created by the Apostles, simply as the handiest way
of getting over a difficulty. Is that the notion of Church
organisation that prevails among some of our brethren who believe
that organisation is everything, and that unless a Church has the
three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, it is not worth
calling a Church at all? The plain fact is that the Church at the
beginning had no organisation. What organisation it had grew up as
circumstances required. The only two laws which governed organisation
were, first, 'One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren'; and second, 'When the Spirit of the Lord is come upon
thee, thou shalt do as occasion shall serve thee.' Thus these seven
were appointed to deal with a temporary difficulty and to distribute
alms when necessary; and their office dropped when it was no longer
required, as was probably the case when, very soon after, the
Jerusalem Church was scattered. Then, by degrees, came elders and
deacons. People fancy that there is but one rigid, unalterable type
of Church organisation, when the reality is that it is fluent and
flexible, and that the primitive Church never was meant to be the
pattern according to which, in detail, and specifically, other
Churches in different circumstances should be constituted. There are
great principles which no organisation must break, but if these be
kept, the form is a matter of convenience.

That is the first lesson that I take out of this story. Although it
has not much to do with Philip himself, still it is worth saying in
these days when a particular organisation of the Church is supposed
to be essential to Christian fellowship, and we Nonconformists, who
have not the 'orders' that some of our brethren seem to think
indispensable, are by a considerable school unchurched, because we
are without them. But the primitive Church also was without them.

Still further and more important for us, in these brief years of
brilliant service I note the spontaneous impulse which sets a
Christian man to do Christian work. It was his brethren that picked
out Philip, and said, 'Now go and distribute alms,' but his brethren
had nothing to do with his next step. He was driven by circumstances
out of Jerusalem, and he found himself in Samaria, and perhaps he
remembered how Jesus Christ had said, on the day when He went up into
Heaven, 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem _and in
Samaria_, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.' But whether he
remembered that or not, he was here in Samaria, amongst the ancestral
enemies of his nation. Nobody told him to preach when he went to
Samaria. He had no commission from the Apostles to do so. He did not
hold any office in the Church, except that which, according to the
Apostles' intention in establishing it, ought to have stopped his
mouth from preaching. For they said, when they appointed these seven,
'Let _them_ serve tables, and we will give ourselves to the ministry
of the word.' But Jesus Christ has a way of upsetting men's
restrictions as to the functions of His servants. And so Philip,
without a commission, and with many prejudices to stop his mouth, was
the first to break through the limitations which confined the message
of salvation to the Jews. Because he found himself in Samaria, and
they needed Christ there, he did not wait for Peter and James and
John to lay their hands upon his head, and say, 'Now you are entitled
to speak about Him'; he did not wait for any appointment, but yielded
to his own heart, a heart that was full of Jesus Christ, and _must_
speak about Him; find he proclaimed the Gospel in that city.

So he has the noble distinction of being the very first Christian man
who put a bold foot across the boundary of Judaism, and showed a
light to men that were in darkness beyond. Remember he did it as a
simple private Christian; uncalled, uncommissioned, unordained by
anybody; and he did it because he could not help it, and he never
thought to himself, 'I am doing a daring, new thing.' It seemed the
most natural thing in the world that he should preach in Samaria. So
it would be to us, if we were Christians with the depth of faith and
of personal experience which this man had.

There is another lesson that I take from these first busy years of
Philip's service. Christ provides wider spheres for men who have been
faithful in narrower ones. It was because he had 'won his spurs,' if
I may so say, in Samaria, and proved the stuff he was made of, that
the angel of the Lord came and said to Philip, 'Go down on the road
to Gaza, which is desert. Do not ask now what you are to do when you
get there. Go!' So with his sealed orders be went. No doubt he
thought to himself, 'Strange that I should be taken from this
prosperous work in Samaria, and sent to a desert road, where there is
not a single human being!' But he went; and when he struck the point
of junction of the road from Samaria with that from Jerusalem, looked
about to discover what he had been sent there for. The only thing in
sight was one chariot, and he said to himself, 'Ah, that is it,' and
he drew near to the chariot, and heard the occupant reading aloud
Isaiah's great prophecy. The Ethiopian chamberlain was probably not
very familiar with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which
he seems to have been using and, as poor readers often do, helped his
comprehension by speaking the words he sees on the page. Philip knew
at once that here was the object of his mission, and so 'joined
himself to the chariot,' and set himself to his work.

So Christ chooses His agents for further work from those who, out of
their own spontaneous love of Him, have done what lay at their hands.
'To him that hath shall be given.' If you are ambitious of a wider
sphere, be sure that you fill your narrow one. It will widen quite
fast enough for your capacities.

II. Now let me say a word about the long years of obscurity.

Philip went down to Caesarea, and, as I said, he drops out of the
story for twenty years. I wonder why it was that when Jesus Christ
desired that Cornelius, who lived in Caesarea, should hear the
gospel, He did not direct him to Philip, who also was in Caesarea,
but bid him send all the way to Joppa to bring Peter thence? I wonder
why it was that when Barnabas at Antioch turned his face northwards
to seek for young Saul at Tarsus, he never dreamed of turning
southwards to call out Philip from Caesarea? I wonder how it came to
pass that this man, who at one time looked as if he was going to be
the leader in the extension of the Church to the Gentiles, and who,
as a matter of fact, was the first, not only in Samaria but on the
desert road, to press beyond the narrow bounds of Judaism, was passed
over in the further stages by Jesus, and why his brethren passed him
over, and left him there all these years in Caesarea, whilst there
was so much going on that was the continuation and development of the
very movement that he had begun. We do not know why, and it is
useless to try to speculate, but we may learn lessons from the fact.

Here is a beautiful instance of the contented acceptance of a lot
very much less conspicuous, very much less brilliant, than the early
beginnings had seemed to promise. I suppose that there are very few
of us but have had, back in the far-away past, moments when we seemed
to have opening out before us great prospects of service which have
never been realised; and the remembrance of the brief moments of
dawning splendour is very apt to make the rest of the life look grey
and dull, and common things flat, and to make us sour. We look back
and we think, 'Ah, the gates were opened for me then, but how they
have slammed to since! It is hard for me to go on in this lowly
condition, and this eclipsed state into which I have been brought,
without feeling how different it might have been if those early days
had only continued.' Well, for Philip it was enough that Jesus Christ
sent him to the eunuch and did not send him to Cornelius. He took the
position that his Master put him in and worked away therein.

And there is a further lesson for us, who, for the most part, have to
lead obscure lives. For there was in Philip not only a contented
acceptance of an obscure life, but there was a diligent doing of
obscure work. Did you notice that one significant little word in the
clause that I have taken for my text: 'We entered into the house of
Philip _the evangelist_, which was one of the seven'? Luke does not
forget Philip's former office, but he dwells rather on what his other
office was, twenty years afterwards. He was 'an evangelist' now,
although the evangelistic work was being done in a very quiet corner,
and nobody was paying much attention to it. Time was when he had a
great statesman to listen to his words. Time was when a whole city
was moved by his teaching. Time was when it looked as if he was going
to do the work that Paul did. But all these visions were shattered,
and he was left to toil for twenty long years in that obscure corner,
and not a soul knew anything about his work except the people to whom
it was directed and the four unmarried girls at home whom his example
had helped to bring to Jesus Christ, and who were 'prophetesses.' At
the end of the twenty years he is 'Philip the evangelist.'

_There_ is patient perseverance at unrecompensed, unrecorded, and
unnoticed work. 'Great' and 'small' have nothing to do with the work
of Christian people. It does not matter who knows our work or who
does not know it, the thing is that _He_ knows it. Now the most of us
have to do absolutely unnoticed Christian service. Those of us who
are in positions like mine have a little more notoriety--and it is no
blessing--and a year or two after a man's voice ceases to sound from
a pulpit he is forgotten. What does it matter? 'Surely I will never
forget any of their works.' And in these advertising days, when
publicity seems to be the great good that people in so many cases
seek after, and no one is contented to do his little bit of work
unless he gets reported in the columns of the newspapers, we may all
take example from the behaviour of Philip, and remember the man who
began so brilliantly, and for twenty years was hidden, and was 'the
evangelist' all the time.

III. Now, there is one last lesson that I would draw, and that is the
ultimate recognition of the work and the joyful meeting of the
workers.

I think it is very beautiful to see that when Paul entered Philip's
house he came into a congenial atmosphere; and although he had been
hurrying, out of breath as it were, all the way from Corinth to get
to Jerusalem in time for the Feast, he slowed off at once; partly, no
doubt, because he found that he was in time, and partly, no doubt,
that he felt the congeniality of the society that he met.

So there was no envy in Philip's heart of the younger brother that
had so outrun him. He was quite content to share the fate of
pioneers, and rejoiced in the junior who had entered into his labour.
'One soweth and another reapeth'; he was prepared for that, and
rejoiced to hear about what the Lord had done by his brother, though
once he had thought it might have been done by him. How they would
talk! How much there would be to tell! How glad the old man would be
at the younger man's success!

And there was one sitting by who did not say very much, but had his
ears wide open, and his name was Luke. In Philip's long, confidential
conversations he no doubt got some of the materials, which have been
preserved for us in this book, for his account of the early days of
the Church in Jerusalem.

So Philip, after all, was not working in so obscure a corner as he
thought. The whole world knows about him. He had been working behind
a curtain all the while, and he never knew that 'the beloved
physician,' who was listening so eagerly to all he had to tell about
the early days, was going to twitch down the curtain and let the
whole world see the work that he thought he was doing, all unknown
and soon to be forgotten.

And that is what will happen to us all. The curtain will be twitched
down, and when it is, it will be good for us if we have the same
record to show that this man had--namely, toil for the Master,
indifferent to whether men see or do not see; patient labour for Him,
coming out of a heart purged of all envy and jealousy of those who
have been called to larger and more conspicuous service.

May we not take these many days of quiet converse in Philip's house,
when the pioneer and the perfecter of the work talked together, as
being a kind of prophetic symbol of the time when all who had a share
in the one great and then completed work will have a share in its
joy? No matter whether they have dug the foundations or laid the
early courses or set the top stone and the shining battlements that
crown the structure, they have all their share in the building and
their portion in the gladness of the completed edifice, 'that he that
soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.'



AN OLD DISCIPLE

'... One Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should
lodge.'--ACTS xxi. 16.

There is something that stimulates the imagination in these mere
shadows of men that we meet in the New Testament story. What a
strange fate that is to be made immortal by a line in this book--
immortal and yet so unknown! We do not hear another word about this
host of Paul's, but his name will be familiar to men's ears till the
world's end. This figure is drawn in the slightest possible outline,
with a couple of hasty strokes of the pencil. But if we take even
these few bare words and look at them, feeling that there is a man
like ourselves sketched in them, I think we can get a real picture
out of them, and that even this dim form crowded into the background
of the Apostolic story may have a word or two to say to us.

His name and his birthplace show that he belonged to the same class
as Paul, that is, he was a Hellenist, or a Jew by descent, but born
on Gentile soil, and speaking Greek. He came from Cyprus, the native
island of Barnabas, who may have been a friend of his. He was an 'old
disciple,' which does not mean simply that he was advanced in life,
but that he was 'a disciple from the beginning,' one of the original
group of believers. If we interpret the word strictly, we must
suppose him to have been one of the rapidly diminishing nucleus, who
thirty years or more ago had seen Christ in the flesh, and been drawn
to Him by His own words. Evidently the mention of the early date of
his conversion suggests that the number of his contemporaries was
becoming few, and that there were a certain honour and distinction
conceded by the second generation of the Church to the survivors of
the primitive band. Then, of course, as one of the earliest
believers, he must, by this time, have been advanced in life. A
Cypriote by birth, he had emigrated to, and resided in a village on
the road to Jerusalem; and must have had means and heart to exercise
a liberal hospitality there. Though a Hellenist like Paul he does not
seem to have known the Apostle before, for the most probable
rendering of the context is that the disciples from Caesarea, who
were travelling with the Apostle from that place to Jerusalem,
'brought us to Mnason,' implying that this was their first
introduction to each other. But though probably unacquainted with the
great teacher of the Gentiles--whose ways were looked on with much
doubt by many of the Palestinian Christians--the old man, relic of
the original disciples as he was, had full sympathy with Paul, and
opened his house and his heart to receive him. His adhesion to the
Apostle would no doubt carry weight with 'the many thousands of Jews
which believed, and were all zealous of the law,' and was as
honourable to him as it was helpful to Paul.

Now if we put all this together, does not the shadowy figure begin to
become more substantial? and does it not preach to us some lessons
that we may well take to heart?

I. The first thing which this old disciple says to us out of the
misty distance is: Hold fast to your early faith, and to the Christ
whom you have known.

Many a year had passed since the days when perhaps the beauty of the
Master's own character and the sweetness of His own words had drawn
this man to Him. How much had come and gone since then--Calvary and
the Resurrection, Olivet and the Pentecost! His own life and mind had
changed from buoyant youth to sober old age. His whole feelings and
outlook on the world were different. His old friends had mostly gone.
James indeed was still there, and Peter and John remained until this
present, but most had fallen on sleep. A new generation was rising
round about him, and new thoughts and ways were at work. But one
thing remained for him what it had been in the old days, and that was
Christ. 'One generation cometh and another goeth, but the "Christ"
abideth for ever.'

  'We all are changed by still degrees;
    All but the basis of the soul,'

and the 'basis of the soul,' in the truest sense, is that one God-
laid foundation on which whosoever buildeth shall never be
confounded, nor ever need to change with changing time. Are we
building there? and do we find that life, as it advances, but
tightens our hold on Jesus Christ, who is our hope?

There is no fairer nor happier experience than that of the old man
who has around him the old loves, the old confidences, and some
measure of the old joys. But who can secure that blessed unity in his
life if he depend on the love and help of even the dearest, or on the
light of any creature for his sunshine? There is but one way of
making all our days one, because one love, one hope, one joy, one aim
binds them all together, and that is by taking the abiding Christ for
ours, and abiding in Him all our days. Holding fast by the early
convictions does not mean stiffening in them. There is plenty of room
for advancement in Christ. No doubt Mnason, when he was first a
disciple, knew but very little of the meaning and worth of his Master
and His work, compared with what he had learned in all these years.
And our true progress consists, not in growing away from Jesus but in
growing up into Him, not in passing through and leaving behind our
first convictions of Him as Saviour, but in having these verified by
the experience of years, deepened and cleared, unfolded and ordered
into a larger, though still incomplete, whole. We may make our whole
lives helpful to that advancement and blessed shall we be if the
early faith is the faith that brightens till the end, and brightens
the end. How beautiful it is to see a man, below whose feet time is
crumbling away, holding firmly by the Lord whom he has loved and
served all his days, and finding that the pillar of cloud, which
guided him while he lived, begins to glow in its heart of fire as the
shadows fall, and is a pillar of light to guide him when he comes to
die! Dear friends, whether you be near the starting or near the prize
of your Christian course, 'cast not away your confidence, which hath
great recompense of reward.' See to it that the 'knowledge of the
Father,' which is the 'little children's' possession, passes through
the strength of youth, and the 'victory over the world' into the calm
knowledge of Him 'that is from the beginning,' wherein the fathers
find their earliest convictions deepened and perfected, 'Grow in
grace and in the knowledge' of Him, whom to know ever so imperfectly
is eternal life, whom to know a little better is the true progress
for men, whom to know more and more fully is the growth and gladness
and glory of the heavens. Look at this shadowy figure that looks out
on us here, and listen to his far-off voice 'exhorting us all that
with purpose of heart we should cleave unto the Lord.'

II. But there is another and, as some might think, opposite lesson to
be gathered from this outline sketch, namely, The welcome which we
should be ready to give to new thoughts and ways.

It is evidently meant that we should note Mnason's position in the
Church as significant in regard to his hospitable reception of the
Apostle. We can fancy how the little knot of 'original disciples'
would be apt to value themselves on their position, especially as
time went on, and their ranks were thinned. They would be tempted to
suppose that they must needs understand the Master's meaning a great
deal better than those who had never known Christ after the flesh;
and no doubt they would be inclined to share in the suspicion with
which the thorough-going Jewish party in the Church regarded this
Paul, who had never seen the Lord. It would have been very natural
for this good old man to have said, 'I do not like these new-fangled
ways. There was nothing of this sort in my younger days. Is it not
likely that we, who were at the beginning of the Gospel, should
understand the Gospel and the Church's work without this new man
coming to set us right? I am too old to go in with these changes.'
All the more honourable is it that he should have been ready with an
open house to shelter the great champion of the Gentile Churches;
and, as we may reasonably believe, with an open heart to welcome his
teaching. Depend on it, it was not every 'old disciple' that would
have done as much.

Now does not this flexibility of mind and openness of nature to
welcome new ways of work, when united with the persistent constancy
in his old creed, make an admirable combination? It is one rare
enough at any age, but especially in elderly men. We are always
disposed to rend apart what ought never to be separated, the
inflexible adherence to a fixed centre of belief, and the freest
ranging around the whole changing circumference. The man of strong
convictions is apt to grip every trifle of practice and every
unimportant bit of his creed with the same tenacity with which he
holds its vital heart, and to take obstinacy for firmness, and dogged
self-will for faithfulness to truth. The man who welcomes new light,
and reaches forward to greet new ways, is apt to delight in having
much fluid that ought to be fixed, and to value himself on a
'liberality' which simply means that he has no central truth and no
rooted convictions. And as men grow older they stiffen more and more,
and have to leave the new work for new hands, and the new thoughts
for new brains. That is all in the order of nature, but so much the
finer is it when we do see old Christian men who join to their firm
grip of the old Gospel the power of welcoming, and at least bidding
God-speed to, new thoughts and new workers and new ways of work.

The union of these two characteristics should be consciously aimed at
by us all. Hold unchanging, with a grasp that nothing can relax, by
Christ our life and our all; but with that tenacity of mind, try to
cultivate flexibility too. Love the old, but be ready to welcome the
new. Do not invest your own or other people's habits of thought or
forms of work with the same sanctity which belongs to the central
truths of our salvation; do not let the willingness to entertain new
light lead you to tolerate any changes there. It is hard to blend the
two virtues together, but they are meant to be complements, not
opposites, to each other. The fluttering leaves and bending branches
need a firm stem and deep roots. The firm stem looks noblest in its
unmoved strength when it is contrasted with a cloud of light foliage
dancing in the wind. Try to imitate the persistency and the open mind
of that 'old disciple' who was so ready to welcome and entertain the
Apostle of the Gentile Churches.

III. But there is still another lesson which, I think, this portrait
may suggest, and that is, the beauty that may dwell in an obscure
life.

There is nothing to be said about this old man but that he was a
disciple. He had done no great thing for his Lord. No teacher or
preacher was he. No eloquence or genius was in him. No great heroic
deed or piece of saintly endurance is to be recorded of him, but only
this, that he had loved and followed Christ all his days. And is not
that record enough? It is his blessed fate to live for ever in the
world's memory, with only that one word attached to his name--a
disciple.

The world may remember very little about us a year after we are gone.
No thought, no deed may be connected with our names but in some
narrow circle of loving hearts. There may be no place for us in any
record written with a man's pen. But what does that matter, if our
names, dear friends, are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, with
this for sole epitaph, 'a disciple'? That single phrase is the
noblest summary of a life. A thinker? a hero? a great man? a
millionaire? No, a 'disciple.' That says all. May it be your epitaph
and mine!

What Mnason could do he did. It was not his vocation to go into the
'regions beyond,' like Paul; to guide the Church, like James; to put
his remembrances of his Master in a book, like Matthew; to die for
Jesus, like Stephen. But he could open his house for Paul and his
company, and so take his share in their work. 'He that receiveth a
prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.'
He that with understanding and sympathy welcomes and sustains the
prophet, shows thereby that he stands on the same spiritual level,
and has the makings of a prophet in him, though he want the
intellectual force and may never open his lips to speak the burden of
the Lord. Therefore he shall be one in reward as he is in spirit. The
old law in Israel is the law for the warfare of Christ's soldiers.
'As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be
that abideth by the stuff: they shall part alike.' The men in the
rear who guard the camp and keep the communications open, may deserve
honours, and crosses, and prize-money as much as their comrades who
led the charge that cut through the enemy's line and scattered their
ranks. It does not matter, so far as the real spiritual worth of the
act is concerned, what we do, but only why we do it. All deeds are
the same which are done from the same motive and with the same
devotion; and He who judges, not by our outward actions but by the
springs from which they come, will at last bracket together as equals
many who were widely separated here in the form of their service and
the apparent magnitude of their work.

'She hath done what she could.' Her power determined the measure and
the manner of her work. One precious thing she had, and only one, and
she broke her one rich possession that she might pour the fragrant
oil over His feet. Therefore her useless deed of utter love and
uncalculating self-sacrifice was crowned by praise from His lips
whose praise is our highest honour, and the world is still 'filled
with the odour of the ointment.'

So this old disciple's hospitality is strangely immortal, and the
record of it reminds us that the smallest service done for Jesus is
remembered and treasured by Him. Men have spent their lives to win a
line in the world's chronicles which are written on sand, and have
broken their hearts because they failed; and this passing act of one
obscure Christian, in sheltering a little company of travel-stained
wayfarers, has made his name a possession for ever. 'Seekest thou
great things for thyself? seek them not'; but let us fill our little
corners, doing our unnoticed work for love of our Lord, careless
about man's remembrance or praise, because sure of Christ's, whose
praise is the only fame, whose remembrance is the highest reward.
'God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love.'



PAUL IN THE TEMPLE

'And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were
of Asia when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the
people, and laid hands on him. 28. Crying out, Men of Israel,
help: This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against
the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought
Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.
29. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an
Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the
temple.) 30. And all the city was moved, and the people ran
together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple:
and forthwith the doors were shut. 31. And as they went about to
kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that
all Jerusalem was in an uproar. 32. Who immediately took
soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and when they
saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of
Paul. 33. Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and
commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he
was, and what he had done. 34. And some cried one thing, some
another, among the multitude: and when he could not know the
certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into
the castle. 35. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was,
that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of the
people. 36. For the multitude of the people followed after,
crying, Away with him. 37. And as Paul was to be led into the
castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee?
Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? 38. Art not thou that
Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest
out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?
39. But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city
in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee,
suffer me to speak unto the people.'--ACTS xxi. 27-39.

The stronger a man's faith, the greater will and should be his
disposition to conciliate. Paul may seem to have stretched
consideration for weak brethren to its utmost, when he consented to
the proposal of the Jerusalem elders to join in performing the vow of
a Nazarite, and to appear in the Temple for that purpose. But he was
quite consistent in so doing; for it was not Jewish ceremonial to
which he objected, but the insisting on it as necessary. For himself,
he lived as a Jew, except in his freedom of intercourse with
Gentiles. No doubt he knew that the death-warrant of Jewish
ceremonial had been signed, but he could leave it to time to carry
out the sentence. The one thing which he was resolved should not be
was its imposition on Gentile Christians. Their road to Jesus was not
through Temple or synagogue. As for Jewish Christians, let them keep
to the ritual if they chose. The conciliatory plan recommended by the
elders, though perfectly consistent with Paul's views and successful
with the Jewish Christians, roused non-Christian Jews as might have
been expected.

This incident brings out very strikingly the part played by each of
the two factors in carrying out God's purposes for Paul. They are
unconscious instruments, and co-operation is the last thing dreamed
of on either side; but Jew and Roman together work out a design of
which they had not a glimpse.

I. Note the charge against Paul. The 'Jews from Asia' knew him by
sight, as they had seen him in Ephesus and elsewhere; and possibly
some of them had been fellow-passengers with him from Miletus. No
wonder that they construed his presence in the Temple into an insult
to it. If Luther or John Knox had appeared in St. Peter's, he would
not have been thought to have come as a worshipper. Paul's teaching
may very naturally have created the impression in hot-tempered
partisans, who could not draw distinctions, that he was the enemy of
Temple and sacrifice.

It has always been the vice of religious controversy to treat
inferences from heretical teaching, which appear plain to the
critics, as if they were articles of the heretic's belief. These
Jewish zealots practised a very common method when they fathered on
Paul all which they supposed to be involved in his position. Their
charges against him are partly flat lies, partly conclusions drawn
from misapprehension of his position, partly exaggeration, and partly
hasty assumptions. He had never said a word which could be construed
as 'against the people.' He had indeed preached that the law was not
for Gentiles, and was not the perfect revelation which brought
salvation, and he had pointed to Jesus as in Himself realising all
that the Temple shadowed; but such teaching was not 'against' either,
but rather for both, as setting both in their true relation to the
whole process of revelation. He had not brought 'Greeks' into the
Temple, not even the one Greek whom malice multiplied into many. When
passion is roused, exaggerations and assumptions soon become definite
assertions. The charges are a complete object-lesson in the baser
arts of religious (!) partisans; and they have been but too
faithfully reproduced in all ages. Did Paul remember how he had been
'consenting' to the death of Stephen on the very same charges? How
far he has travelled since that day!

II. Note the immediately kindled flame of popular bigotry. The always
inflammable population of Jerusalem was more than usually excitable
at the times of the Feasts, when it was largely increased by zealous
worshippers from a distance. Noble teaching would have left the mob
as stolid as it found them; but an appeal to the narrow prejudices
which they thought were religion was a spark in gunpowder, and an
explosion was immediate. It is always easier to rouse men to fight
for their 'religion' than to live by it. Jehu was proud of what he
calls his 'zeal for the Lord,' which was really only ferocity with a
mask on. The yelling crowd did not stop to have the charges proved.
That they were made was enough. In Scotland people used to talk of
'Jeddart justice,' which consisted in hanging a man first, and trying
him leisurely afterwards. It was usually substantially just when
applied to moss-troopers, but does not do so well when administered
to Apostles.

Notice the carefulness to save the Temple from pollution, which is
shown by the furious crowds dragging Paul outside before they kill
him. They were not afraid to commit murder, but they were horror-
struck at the thought of a breach of ceremonial etiquette. Of course!
for when religion is conceived of as mainly a matter of outward
observances, sin is reduced to a breach of these. We are all tempted
to shift the centre of gravity in our religion, and to make too much
of ritual etiquette. Kill Paul if you will, but get him outside the
sacred precincts first. The priests shut the doors to make sure that
there should be no profanation, and stopped inside the Temple, well
pleased that murder should go on at its threshold. They had better
have rescued the victim. Time was when the altar was a sanctuary for
the criminal who could grasp its horns, but now its ministers wink at
bloodshed with secret approval. Paul could easily have been killed in
the crowd, and no responsibility for his death have clung to any
single hand. No doubt that was the cowardly calculation which they
made, and they were well on the way to carry it out when the other
factor comes into operation.

III. Note the source of deliverance. The Roman garrison was posted in
the fortress of Antonia, which commanded the Temple from a higher
level at the north-west angle of the enclosure. Tidings 'came _up_'
to the officer in command, Claudius Lysias by name (Acts xxiii. 26),
that all Jerusalem was in confusion. With disciplined promptitude he
turned out a detachment and 'ran down upon them.' The contrast
between the quiet power of the legionaries and the noisy feebleness
of the mob is striking. The best qualities of Roman sway are seen in
this tribune's unhesitating action, before which the excited mob
cowers in fright. They 'left beating of Paul,' as knowing that a
heavier hand would fall on them for rioting. With swift decision
Lysias acts first and talks afterwards, securing the man who was
plainly the centre of disturbance, and then having got him fast with
two chains on him, inquiring who he was, and what he had been doing.

Then the crowd breaks loose again in noisy and contradictory
explanations, all at the top of their voices, and each drowning the
other. Clearly the bulk of them could not answer either of Lysias'
questions, though they could all bellow 'Away with him!' till their
throats were sore. It is a perfect picture of a mob, which is always
ferocious and volubly explanatory in proportion to its ignorance. One
man kept his head in the hubbub, and that was Lysias, who determined
to hold his prisoner till he did know something about him. So he
ordered him to be taken up into the castle; and as the crowd saw
their prey escaping they made one last fierce rush, and almost swept
away the soldiers, who had to pick Paul up and carry him. Once on the
stairs leading to the castle they were clear of the crowd, which
could only send a roar of baffled rage after them, and to this the
stolid legionaries were as deaf as were their own helmets.

The part here played by the Roman authority is that which it performs
throughout the Acts. It shields infant Christianity from Jewish
assailants, like the wolf which, according to legend, suckled
Romulus. The good and the bad features of Roman rule were both
valuable for that purpose. Its contempt for ideas, and above all for
speculative differences in a religion which it regarded as a hurtful
superstition, its unsympathetic incapacity for understanding its
subject nations, its military discipline, its justice, which though
often tainted was yet better than the partisan violence which it
coerced, all helped to make it the defender of the first Christians.
Strange that Rome should shelter and Jerusalem persecute!

Mark, too, how blindly men fulfil God's purposes. The two bitter
antagonists, Jew and Roman, seem to themselves to be working in
direct opposition; but God is using them both to carry out His
design. Paul has to be got to Rome, and these two forces are combined
by a wisdom beyond their ken, to carry him thither. Two cogged wheels
turning in opposite directions fit into each other, and grind out a
resultant motion, different from either of theirs. These soldiers and
that mob were like pawns on a chessboard, ignorant of the intentions
of the hand which moves them.

IV. Note the calm courage of Paul. He too had kept his head, and
though bruised and hustled, and having but a minute or two beforehand
looked death in the face, he is ready to seize the opportunity to
speak a word for his Master. Observe the quiet courtesy of his
address, and his calm remembrance of the tribune's right to prevent
his speaking. There is nothing more striking in Paul's character than
his self-command and composure in all circumstances. This ship could
rise to any wave, and ride in any storm. It was not by virtue of
happy temperament but of a fixed faith that his heart and mind were
kept in perfect peace. It is not easy to disturb a man who counts not
his life dear if only he may complete his course. So these two men
front each other, and it is hard to tell which has the quieter pulse
and the steadier hand. The same sources of tranquil self-control and
calm superiority to fortune which stood Paul in such good stead are
open to us. If God is our rock and our high tower we shall not be
moved.

The tribune had for some unknown reason settled in his mind that the
Apostle was a well-known 'Egyptian,' who had headed a band of
'Sicarii' or 'dagger-men,' of whose bloody doings Josephus tells us.
How the Jews should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does
not seem to have considered. But when he heard the courteous,
respectful Greek speech of the Apostle he saw at once that he had got
no uncultured ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul's request
and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has been thought an
improbability. But strong men recognise each other, and the brave
Roman was struck with something in the tone and bearing of the brave
Jew which made him instinctively sure that no harm would come of the
permission. There ought to be that in the demeanour of a Christian
which is as a testimonial of character for him, and sways observers
to favourable constructions.



PAUL ON HIS OWN CONVERSION

'And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh
unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great
light round about me. 7. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a
voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why perseoutest thou Me? 8. And I
answered, Who art Thou, Lord? And He said unto me, I am Jesus of
Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. 9. And they that were with me saw
indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of
Him that spake to me. 10. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the
Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it
shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to
do. 11. And when I could not see for the glory of that light,
being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into
Damascus. 12. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law,
having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, 13. Came
unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy
sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. 14. And he said,
The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know
His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of
His mouth. 15. For thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what
thou hast seen and heard. 16. And now why tarriest thou? arise,
and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of
the Lord.'--ACTS xxii. 6-16.

We follow Paul's example when we put Jesus' appearance to him from
heaven in a line with His appearances to the disciples on earth.
'Last of all, He appeared to me also.' But it does not follow that
the appearances are all of the same kind, or that Paul thought that
they were. They were all equally real, equally 'objective,' equally
valid proofs of Jesus' risen life. On two critical occasions Paul
told the story of Jesus' appearance as his best 'Apologia.' 'I saw
and heard Him, and that revolutionised my life, and made me what I
am.' The two accounts are varied, as the hearers were, but the
differences are easily reconciled, and the broad facts are the same
in both versions, and in Luke's rendering in chapter ix.

A favourite theory in some quarters is that Paul's conversion was not
sudden, but that misgivings had been working in him ever since
Stephen's death. Surely that view is clean against facts. Persecuting
its adherents to the death is a strange result of dawning belief in
'this way.' Paul may be supposed to have known his state of mind as
well as a critic nineteen centuries off does, and he had no doubt
that he set out from Jerusalem a bitter hater of the convicted
impostor Jesus, and stumbled into Damascus a convinced disciple
because he had seen and heard Him. That is his account of the matter,
which would not have been meddled with if the meddlers had not taken
offence at 'the supernatural element.' We note the emphasis which
Paul puts on the suddenness of the appearance, implying that the
light burst all in a moment. A little bit of personal reminiscence
comes up in his specifying the time as 'about noon,' the brightest
hour. He remembers how the light outblazed even the blinding
brilliance of a Syrian noontide. He insists too on the fact that his
senses were addressed, both eye and ear. He saw the glory of that
light, and heard the voice. He does not say here that he saw Jesus,
but that he did so is clear from Ananias' words, 'to see the
Righteous One' (ver. 14), and from I Corinthians xv. 8. Further, he
makes it very emphatic that the vision was certified as no morbid
fancy of his own, but yet was marked as meant for him only, by the
double fact that his companions did share in it, but only in part.
They did see the light, but not 'the Righteous One'; they did hear
the sound of the voice, but not so as to know what it said. The
difference between merely hearing a noise and discerning the sense of
the words is probably marked by the construction in the Greek, and is
certainly to be understood.

The blaze struck all the company to the ground (Acts xxvi. 14). Prone
on the earth, and probably with closed eyes, their leader heard his
own name twice sounded, with appeal, authority, and love in the
tones. The startling question which followed not only pierced
conscience, and called for a reasonable vindication of his action,
but flashed a new light on it as being persecution which struck at
this unknown heavenly speaker. So the first thought in Saul's mind is
not about himself or his doings but about the identity of that
Speaker. Awe, if not actual worship, is expressed in addressing Him
as Lord. Wonder, with perhaps some foreboding of what the answer
would be, is audible in the question, 'Who art Thou?' Who can imagine
the shock of the answer to Saul's mind? Then the man whom he had
thought of as a vile apostate, justly crucified and not risen as his
dupes dreamed, lived in heaven, knew him, Saul, and all that he had
been doing, was 'apparelled in celestial light,' and yet in heavenly
glory was so closely identified with these poor people whom he had
been hunting to death that to strike them was to hurt Him! A
bombshell had burst, shattering the foundation of his fortifications.
A deluge had swept away the ground on which he had stood. His whole
life was revolutionised. Its most solid elements were dissolved into
vapour, and what he had thought misty nonsense was now the solid
thing. To find a 'why' for his persecuting was impossible, unless he
had said (what in effect he did say), 'I did it ignorantly.' When a
man has a glimpse of Jesus exalted to heaven, and is summoned by Him
to give a reason for his life of alienation, that life looks very
different from what it did, when seen by dimmer light. Clothes are
passable by candle-light that look very shabby in sunshine. When
Jesus comes to us, His first work is to set us to judge our past, and
no man can muster up respectable answers to His question, 'Why?' for
all sin is unreasonable, and nothing but obedience to Him can
vindicate itself in His sight.

Saul threw down his arms at once. His characteristic impetuosity and
eagerness to carry out his convictions impelled him to a surrender as
complete as his opposition. The test of true belief in the ascended
Jesus is to submit the will to Him, to be chiefly desirous of knowing
His will, and ready to do it. 'Who art Thou, Lord?' should be
followed by 'What shall I do, Lord?'

Blind Saul, led by the hand into the city which he had expected to
enter so differently, saw better than ever before. 'The glory of that
light' blinds us to things seen, but makes us able to see afar off
the only realities, the things unseen. Speaking to Jews, as here,
Paul described Ananias as a devout adherent of the law, in order to
conciliate them and to suggest his great principle that a Christian
was not an apostate but a complete Jew. To Agrippa he drops all
reference to Ananias as irrelevant, and throws together the words on
the road and the commission received through Ananias as equally
Christ's voice. Here he lays stress on his agency in restoring sight,
and on his message as including two points--that it was 'the God of
our fathers' who had 'appointed' the vision, and that the purpose of
the vision was to make Saul a witness to all men. The bearing of this
on the conciliatory aim of the discourse is plain. We note also the
precedence given in the statement of the particulars of the vision to
'knowing his will'--that was the end for which the light and the
voice were given. Observe too how the twofold evidence of sense is
signalised, both in the reference to seeing the Righteous One and to
hearing His voice and in the commission to witness what Saul had seen
and heard. The personal knowledge of Jesus, however attained,
constitutes the qualification and the obligation to be His witness.
And the convincing testimony is when we can say, as we all can say if
we are Christ's, 'That which we have heard, that which we have seen
with our eyes, that ... declare we unto you.'



ROME PROTECTS PAUL

'And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem,
even while I prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance; 18. And saw
Him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of
Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me.
19. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in
every synagogue them that believed on Thee: 20. And when the
blood of Thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and
consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew
him. 21. And He said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far
hence unto the Gentiles. 22. And they gave him audience unto this
word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a
fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23.
And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust
into the air, 24. The chief captain commanded him to be brought
into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by
scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against
him. 25. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the
centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man
that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26. When the centurion heard
that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what
thou doest: for this man is a Roman. 27. Then the chief captain
came, and said, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28. And
the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this
freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 29. Then straightway
they departed from him which should have examined him: and the
chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman,
and because he had bound him. 30. On the morrow, because he would
have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he
loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and
all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him
before them.'--ACTS xxii. 17-30.

The threatened storm soon burst on Paul in Jerusalem. On the third
day after his arrival he began the ceremonial recommended by the
elders to prove his adherence to the law. Before the seven days
during which it lasted were over the riot broke out, and he was saved
from death only by the military tribune hurrying down to the Temple
and dragging him from the mob.

The tribune's only care was to stamp out a riot, and whether the
victim was 'that Egyptian' or not, to prevent his being murdered. He
knew nothing, and cared as little, about the grounds of the tumult,
but he was not going to let a crowd of turbulent Jews take the law
into their own hands, and flout the majesty of Roman justice. So he
lets the nearly murdered man say his say and keeps the mob off him.
It was a strange scene--below, the howling zealots; above, on the
stairs, the Christian apologists guarded from his countrymen by a
detachment of legionaries; and the assembly presided over by a Roman
tribune.

It is very characteristic of Paul that he thought that his own
conversion was the best argument that he could use with his fellow-
Israelites. So he tells his story, and this section strikes into his
speech at the point where he is coming to very thin ice indeed, and
is about to vindicate his work among the Gentiles by declaring that
it was done in obedience to a command from heaven. We need not
discuss the date of the trance, whether it was in his first visit to
Jerusalem after his conversion or, as Ramsay strongly argues, is to
be put at the visit mentioned in Acts xi. 30 and xii. 25.

We note the delicate, conciliatory skill with which he brings out
that his conversion had not made him less a devout worshipper in the
Temple, by specifying it as the scene of the trance, and prayer as
his occupation then. The mention of the Temple also invested the
vision with sanctity.

Very noticeable too is the avoidance of the name of Jesus, which
would have stirred passion in the crowd. We may also observe that the
first words of our Lord, as given by Paul, did not tell him whither
he was to go, but simply bade him leave Jerusalem. The full
announcement of the mission to the Gentiles was delayed both by Jesus
to Paul and by Paul to his brethren. He was to 'get quickly out of
Jerusalem'; that was tragic enough. He was to give up working for his
own people, whom he loved so well. And the reason was their rooted
incredulity and their hatred of him. Other preachers might do
something with them, but Paul could not. 'They will not receive
testimony of _thee_.'

But the Apostle's heart clung to his nation, and not even his Lord's
command was accepted without remonstrance. His patriotism led him to
the verge of disobedience, and encouraged him to put in his 'But,
Lord,' with boldness that was all but presumption. He ventures to
suggest a reason why the Jews _would_, as he thinks, receive his
testimony. They knew what he had been, and they must bethink
themselves that there must be something real and mighty in the power
which had turned his whole way of thinking and living right round,
and made him love all that he had hated, and count all that he had
prized 'but dung.' The remonstrance is like Moses', like Jeremiah's,
like that of many a Christian set to work that goes against the
grain, and called to relinquish what he would fain do, and do what he
would rather leave undone.

But Jesus does not take His servants' remonstrances amiss, if only
they will make them frankly to Him, and not keep muttering them under
their breath to themselves. Let us say all that is in our hearts. He
will listen, and clear away hesitations, and show us our path, and
make us willing to walk in it. Jesus did not discuss the matter with
Paul, but reiterated the command, and made it more pointed and clear;
and then Paul stopped objecting and yielded his will, as we should
do. 'When he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of
the Lord be done.' The Apostle had kept from the obnoxious word as
long as he could, but it had to come, and he tells the enraged
listeners at last, without circumlocution, that he is the Apostle of
the Gentiles, that Jesus has made him so against his will, and that
therefore he must do the work appointed him, though his heart-strings
crack with seeming to be cold to Israel.

The burst of fury, expressed in gestures which anybody who has ever
seen two Easterns quarrelling can understand, looks fitter for a
madhouse than an audience of men in their senses. They yelled and
tore their garments (and their beards, no doubt), and clutched
handfuls of dust and tossed it in the air, like Shimei cursing David.
What a picture of frenzied hate! And what was it all for? Because
Gentiles were to be allowed to share in Israel's privileges. And what
were the privileges which they thus jealously monopolised? The favour
and protection of the God who, as their own prophets had taught them,
was the God of the whole earth, and revealed Him to Israel that
Israel might reveal Him to the world.

The less they entered into the true possession of their heritage, the
more savagely they resented sharing it with the nations. The more
their prerogative became a mere outward thing, the more they snarled
at any one who proposed to participate in it. To seek to keep
religious blessings to one's self is a conclusive proof that they are
not really possessed. If we have them we shall long to impart them.
Formal religionists always dislike missionary enterprise.

The tribune no doubt had been standing silently watching, in his
strong, contemptuous Roman way, the paroxysm of rage sweeping over
his troublesome charge. Of course he did not understand a word that
the culprit had been saying, and could not make out what had produced
the outburst. He felt that there was something here that he had not
fathomed, and that he must get to the bottom of. It was useless to
lay hold of any of these shrieking maniacs and try to get a
reasonable word out of them. So he determined to see what he could
make of the orator, who had already astonished him by traces of
superior education, and was evidently no mere vulgar firebrand or
sedition-monger. He might have tried gentler means of extracting the
truth than scourging, but that process of 'examination,' as it is
flatteringly called, was common, and has not been antiquated for so
many centuries that we need wonder at this Roman officer using it.

Paul submitted, and was already tied up to some whipping-post, in an
attitude which would expose his back to the lash, when he quietly
dropped, to the inferior officer detailed to superintend the
flogging, the question which fell like a bombshell. Possibly the
Apostle had not known what the soldiers were ordered to do with him
till he was tied up. We cannot tell why he did not plead his
citizenship sooner. But we may remember that at Philippi he did not
plead it at all till after the scourging. Why he delayed so long in
the present instance, and why he at last spoke the magic words, 'I am
a Roman citizen,' we cannot say. But we may gather the two lessons
that Christ's servants are often wise in submitting silently to
wrongs, and that they are within their rights in availing themselves
of legal defences against illegal treatment. Whether silence or
protest is the more expedient must be determined in each case by
conscience, guided by the sought-for guidance of the enlightening
Spirit. The determining consideration should be, Which course will
best glorify my Master?

The information brought the tribune in haste to the place where the
Apostle was still tied up. The tables were turned indeed. His brief
answer, 'Yea,' was accepted at once, for to claim the sacred name of
Roman falsely would have been too dangerous, and no doubt Paul's
bearing impressed the tribune with a conviction of his truthfulness.
A hint of contempt and doubt lies in his remark that he had paid
dearly for the franchise, which remark implies, 'Where did a poor man
like you get the money then?' A shameful trade in selling citizens'
rights was carried on in the degraded days of the Empire by
underlings at court, and no doubt the tribune had procured his
citizenship in that way. Paul's answer explains that he was born
free, and so was above his questioner.

That discovery put an end to all thought of scourging. Paul was at
once liberated, and the tribune, terrified that he might be reported,
seeks to repair his error and changes his tactics, retaining Paul for
safety in the castle, and summoning the Sanhedrim, to try to find out
more of this strange affair through them. The great council of the
nation had sunk low indeed when it had to obey the call of a Roman
soldier.

Thus once more, as so continually in the Acts, Rome is friendly to
the Christian teachers and saves them from Jewish fury. To point out
that early protection and benevolent sufferance is one purpose of the
whole book. The days of Roman persecution had not yet come. The
Empire was favourable to Christianity, not only because its officials
were too proud to take interest in petty squabbles between two sects
of Jews about their absurd superstitions, but reasons of political
wisdom combined with supercilious indifference to bring about this
attitude.

The strong hand of Rome, too, if it crushed national independence,
also suppressed violence, kept men from flying at each other's
throats, spread peace over wide lands, and made the journeyings of
Paul and the planting of the early Christian Churches possible. It
was a God-appointed, though an imperfect, and in some aspects,
mischievous unity, and prepared the way for that higher form of unity
realised in the Church which finally shattered the coarser Empire
which had at first sheltered it. The Caesars were doing God's work
when they were following their own lust of empire. They were yoked to
Christ's chariot, though unwitting and unwilling. To them, as truly
as to Cyrus, might the divine voice have said, 'I girded thee, though
thou hast not known Me.'



CHRIST'S WITNESSES

'And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of
good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem,
so must thou bear witness also at Rome.'--ACTS xxiii. 11.

It had long been Paul's ambition to 'preach the Gospel to you that
are at Rome also.' His settled policy, as shown by this Book of the
Acts, was to fly at the head, to attack the great centres of
population. We trace him from Antioch to Philippi, Thessalonica,
Athens, Corinth, Ephesus; and of course Rome was the goal, where a
blow struck at the heart might reverberate through the empire. So he
had planned for it, and prayed about it, and thought about it, and
spoken about it. But his wish was accomplished, as our prayers and
purposes so often are, in a manner very strange to him. A popular
riot in Jerusalem, a half-friendly arrest by the contemptuous
impartiality of a Roman officer, a final rejection by the Sanhedrim,
a prison in Caesarea, an appeal to Caesar, a weary voyage, a
shipwreck: this was the chain of circumstances which fulfilled his
desire, and brought him to the imperial city.

My text comes at the crisis of his fate. He has just been rejected by
his people, and for the moment is in safety in the castle under the
charge of the Roman garrison. One can fancy how, as he lay there in
the barrack that night, he felt that he had come to a turning-point;
and the thoughts were busy in his mind, 'Is this for life or for
death? Am I to do any more work for Christ, or am I silenced for
ever?'--'And the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul!'
The divine message assured him that he should live; it testified of
Christ's approbation of his past, and promised him that, in
recompense for that past, he should have wider work to do. So he
passed to the unknown future quietly; and went on his way with the
Master by his side.

Now, dear friends, it seems to me that in these great words there lie
lessons applying to all Christian people as truly, though in
different fashion, as they did to the Apostle, and having an especial
bearing on that great enterprise of Christian missions, with which I
would connect them in this sermon. I desire, then, to draw out the
lessons which seem to me to lie under the surface of this great
promise.

I. To live ought to be, for a Christian, to witness.

The promise in form is a promise of continued testimony-bearing; in
its substance, one might say, it is a promise of continued life. Paul
is cheered, not by being told that the wrath of the enemy will launch
itself at his head in vain, and that he will bear a charmed life
through it all, but by being told that there is work for him to do
yet. That is the shape in which the promise of life is held out to
him. So it always ought to be; a Christian man's life ought to be one
continuous witnessing for that Lord Christ who stood by the Apostle
in the castle at Jerusalem.

Let me just urge this upon you for a few moments. It seems to me that
to raise up witnesses for Himself is, in one aspect, the very purpose
of all Christ's work. You and I, dear brethren, if we have any living
hold of that Lord, have received Him into our hearts, not only in
order that for ourselves we may rejoice in Him, but in order that,
for ourselves rejoicing in Him, we may 'show forth the virtues of Him
who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light.' There
is no creature so great as that he is not regarded as a means to a
further end; and there is no creature so small but that he has the
right to claim happiness and blessing from the Hand that made him.
Jesus Christ has drawn us to Himself, that we may know the sweetness
of His presence, the cleansing of His blood, the stirring and impulse
of His indwelling life in us for our own joy and our own completion,
but also that we may be His witnesses and weapons, according to that
great word: 'This people have I formed for Myself. They shall shew
forth My praise.'

God has 'shined into our hearts in order that we may give,'
reflecting the beams that fall upon them, 'the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.' Brother and
sister, if you have the Christian life in your souls, one purpose of
your possessing it is that you may bear witness for Him.

Again, such witness-bearing is the result of all true, deep,
Christian life. All life longs to manifest itself in action. Every
conviction that a man has seeks for utterance; especially so do the
beliefs that go deepest and touch the moral and spiritual nature and
relationships of a man. He that perceives them is thereby impelled to
desire to utter them. There can be no real, deep possession of that
great truth of the Gospel which we profess to be the foundation of
our personal lives, unless we have felt the impulse to spread the
name and to declare the sweetness of the Lord. The very same impulse
that makes the loving heart carve the beloved name on the smooth rind
of the tree makes it sweet to one who is in real touch and living
fellowship with Jesus Christ to speak about Him. O brother! _there_
is a very sharp test for us. I know that there are hundreds of
professing Christians--decent, respectable sort of people, with a
tepid, average amount of Christian faith and principle in them--who
never felt that overmastering desire, 'I _must_ let this thing out
through my lips.' Why? Why do they not feel it? Because their own
possession of Christ is so superficial and partial. Jeremiah's
experience will be repeated where there is vigorous Christian life:
'Thy word shut up in my bones was like a fire'--that burned itself
through all the mass that was laid upon it, and ate its way
victoriously into the light--'and I was weary with forbearing, and I
could not stay.' Christian men and women, do you know anything of
that o'er-mastering impulse? If you do not, look to the depth and
reality of your Christian profession.

Again, this witnessing is the condition of all strong life. If you
keep nipping the buds off a plant you will kill it. If you never say
a word to a human soul about your Christianity, your Christianity
will tend to evaporate. Action confirms and strengthens convictions;
speech deepens conviction; and although it is possible for any one--
and some of us ministers are in great danger of making the
possibility a reality--to talk away his religion, for one of us who
loses it by speaking too much about it, there are twenty that damage
it by speaking too little. Shut it up, and it will be like some wild
creature put into a cellar, fast locked and unventilated; when you
open the door it will be dead. Shut it up, as so many of our average
Christian professors and members of our congregations and churches
do, and when you come to take it out, it will be like some volatile
perfume that has been put into a vial and locked away in a drawer and
forgotten; there will be nothing left but an empty bottle, and a
rotten cork. Speak your faith if you would have your faith
strengthened. Muzzle it, and you go a long way to kill it. You are
witnesses, and you cannot blink the obligation nor shirk the duties
without damaging that in yourselves to which you are to witness.

Further, this task of witnessing for Christ can be done by all kinds
of life. I do not need to dwell upon the distinction between the two
great methods which open themselves out before every one of us. They
do so; for direct work in speaking the name of Jesus Christ is
possible for every Christian, whoever he or she is, however weak,
ignorant, uninfluential, with howsoever narrow a circle. There is
always somebody that God means to be the audience of His servant
whenever that servant speaks of Christ. Do you not know that there
are people in this world, as wives, children, parents, friends of
different sorts, who would listen to you more readily than they would
listen to any one else speaking about Jesus Christ? Friend, have you
utilised these relationships in the interests of that great Name, and
in the highest interests of the persons that sustain them to you, and
of yourselves who sustain these to them?

And then there is indirect work that we can all do in various ways, I
do not mean only by giving money, though of course that is important,
but I mean all the manifold ways in which Christian people can show
their sympathy with, and their interest in, the various forms in
which adventurous, chivalrous, enterprising Christian benevolence
expresses itself. It was an old law in Israel that 'as his part was
that went down into the battle, so should his part be that tarried by
the stuff.' When victory was won and the spoil came to be shared, the
men who had stopped behind and looked after the base of operations
and kept open the communications received the same portion as the man
that, in the front rank of the battle, had rushed upon the spears of
the Amalekites. Why? Because from the same motive they had been co-
operant to the same great end. The Master has taken up that very
thought, and has applied it in relation to the indirect work of His
people, when He says, 'He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a
prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.' The motive is the same;
therefore the essential character of the act is the same; therefore
the recompense is identical. You can witness for Christ directly, if
you can say--and you can all say if you like--'We have found the
Messias,' and you can witness for Christ by casting yourselves
earnestly into sympathy with and, so far as possible, help to the
work that your brethren are doing. Dear friends, I beseech you to
remember that we are all of us, if we are His followers, bound in our
humble measure and degree, and with a reverent apprehension of the
gulf between us and Him, still to take up His words and say, 'To this
end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
might bear witness to the truth.'

II. There is a second thought that I would suggest from these words,
and that is that secular events are ordered with a view to this
witnessing.

Take the case before us. Here are two independent and hostile powers;
on the one hand the bigoted Jewish Sanhedrim, hating the Roman yoke;
and on the other hand the haughty and cruel pressure of that yoke on
a recalcitrant and reluctant people: and these two internecine
enemies are working on their own lines, each very willing to thwart
the other, Mechanicians talk of the 'composition of forces,' by which
two pressures acting at right angles to each other on a given object,
impart to it a diagonal motion. The Sanhedrim on the one side,
representing Judaism, and the captain of the castle on the other,
representing the Roman power, work into each other's hands, although
neither of them knows it; and work out the fulfilment of a purpose
that is hidden from them both.

No doubt it would be a miserably inadequate account of things to say
that the Roman Empire came into existence for the sake of propagating
Christianity. No doubt it is always dangerous to account for any
phenomenon by the ends which, to our apprehension, it serves. But at
the same time the study of the purposes which a given thing, being in
existence, serves, and the study of the forces which brought it into
existence, ought to be combined, and when combined, they present a
double reason for adoring that great Providence which 'makes the
wrath of men to praise' it, and uses for moral and spiritual ends the
creatures that exist, the events that emerge, and even the godless
doings of godless men.

So here we have a standing example of the way in which, like silk-
worms that are spinning threads for a web that they have no notion
of, the deeds of men that think not so are yet grasped and twined
together by Jesus Christ, the Lord of providence, so as to bring
about the realisation of His great purposes. And that is always so,
more or less clearly.

For instance, if we wish to understand our own lives, do not let us
dwell upon the superficialities of joy or sorrow, gain or loss, but
let us get down to the depth, and see that all these externals have
two great purposes in view--first, that we may be made like our Lord,
as the Scripture itself says, 'That we may be partakers of His
holiness,' and then that we may bear our testimony to His grace and
love. Oh, if we would only look at life from that point of view, we
should be brought to a stand less often at what we choose to call the
mysteries of providence! Not enjoyment, not sorrow, but our
perfecting in godliness and of the increase of our power and
opportunities to bear witness to Him, are the intention of all that
befalls us.

I need not speak about how this same principle must be applied, by
every man who believes in a divine providence, to the wider events of
the world's history, I need not dwell upon that, nor will your time
allow me to do it, but one word I should like to say, and that is
that surely the two facts that we, as Christians, possess, as we
believe, the pure faith, and that we, as Englishmen, are members of a
community whose influence is world-wide, do not come together for
nothing, or only that some of you might make fortunes out of the East
Indian and China trade, but in order that all we English Christians
might feel that, our speaking as we do the language which is
destined, as it would appear, to run round the whole world, and our
having, as we have, the faith which we believe brings salvation to
every man of every race and tongue who accepts it, and our having
this responsible necessary contact with the heathen races, lay upon
us English Christians obligations the pressure and solemnity of which
we have yet failed to appreciate.

Paul was immortal till his work was done. 'Be of good cheer, Paul;
thou must bear witness at Rome.' And so, for ourselves and for the
Gospel that we profess, the same divine Providence which orders
events so that His servants may have the opportunities of witnessing
to it, will take care that it shall not perish--notwithstanding all
the premature jubilation of anti-Christian literature and thought in
this day--until it has done its work. We need have no fear for
ourselves, for though our blind eyes often fail to see, and our
bleeding hearts often fail to accept, the conviction that there are
no unfinished lives for His servants, yet we may be sure that He will
watch over each of His children till they have finished the work that
He gives them to do. And we may be sure, in regard to His great
Gospel, that nothing can sink the ship that carries Christ and His
fortunes. 'Be of good cheer ... thou hast borne witness ... thou must
bear witness.'

III. Lastly, we have here another principle--namely that faithful
witnessing is rewarded by further witnessing.

'Thou hast ... in Jerusalem,' the little city perched upon its crag;
'Thou must ... in Rome,' the great capital seated on its seven hills.
The reward for work is more work. Jesus Christ did not say to the
Apostle, though he was 'wearied with that which came upon him daily,
the care of all the churches,' 'Thou hast borne witness, and now come
apart and rest'; but He said to him, 'Thou hast filled the smaller
sphere; for recompense I put thee into a larger.'

That is the law for life and everywhere, the tools to the hand that
can use them. The man that can do a thing gets it to do in too large
a measure, as he sometimes thinks; but he gets it, and it is all
right that he should. 'To him that hath shall be given.' And it is
the law for heaven. 'Thou hast borne witness down on the little dark
earth; come up higher and witness for Me here, amid the blaze.'

It is the law for this Christian work of ours. If you have shone
faithfully in your 'little corner,' as the child's hymn says, you
will be taken out and set upon the lamp-stand, that you 'may give
light to all that are in the house.' And it is the law for this great
enterprise of Christian missions, as we all know. We are overwhelmed
with our success. Doors are opening around us on every side. There is
no limit to the work that English Churches can do, except their
inclination to do it. But the opportunities open to us require a far
deeper consecration and a far closer dwelling beside our Master than
we have ever realised. We are half asleep yet; we do not know our
resources in men, in money, in activity, in prayer.

Surely there can be no sadder sign of decadence and no surer
precursor of extinction than to fall beneath the demands of our day;
to have doors opening at which we are too lazy or selfish to go in;
to be so sound asleep that we never hear the man of Macedonia when he
stands by us and cries, 'Come over and help us!' We are members of a
Church that God has appointed to be His witnesses to the ends of the
earth. We are citizens of a nation whose influence is ubiquitous and
felt in every land. By both characters, God summons us to tasks which
will tax all our resources worthily to do. We inherit a work from our
fathers which God has shown that He owns by giving us these golden
opportunities. He summons us: 'Lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy
stakes. Come out of Jerusalem; come into Rome.' Shall we respond? God
give us grace to fill the sphere in which He has set us, till He
lifts us to the wider one, where the faithfulness of the steward is
exchanged for the authority of the ruler, and the toil of the servant
for the joy of the Lord!



A PLOT DETECTED

'And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and
bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither
eat nor drink till they bad killed Paul. 13. And they were more
than forty which had made this conspiracy. 14. And they came to
the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves
under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain
Paul. 15. Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief
captain that he bring him down unto you to-morrow, as though ye
would inquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or
ever he come near, are ready to kill him. 16. And when Paul's
sister's son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered
into the castle, and told Paul. 17. Then Paul called one of the
centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the
chief captain: for he hath a certain thing to tell him. 18. So he
took him, and brought him to the chief captain, and said, Paul
the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this
young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee. 19.
Then the chief captain took him by the hand, and went with him
aside privately, and asked him, What is that thou hast to tell
me? 20. And he said, The Jews have agreed to desire thee that
thou wouldest bring down Paul to-morrow into the council, as
though they would enquire somewhat of him more perfectly. 21. But
do not thou yield unto them: for there lie in wait for him of
them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with an
oath, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed
him: and now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee. 22.
So the chief captain then let the young man depart, and charged
him, See thou tell no man that thou hast shewed these things to
me.'--ACTS xxiii. 12-22.

'The wicked plotteth against the just.... The Lord will laugh at
him.' The Psalmist's experience and his faith were both repeated in
Paul's case. His speech before the Council had set Pharisees and
Sadducees squabbling, and the former had swallowed his Christianity
for the sake of his being 'a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee.'
Probably, therefore, the hatchers of this plot were Sadducees, who
hated Pharisees even more than they did Christians. The Apostle
himself was afterwards not quite sure that his skilful throwing of
the apple of discord between the two parties was right (Acts xxiv.
21), and apparently it was the direct occasion of the conspiracy. A
Christian man's defence of himself and his faith gains nothing by
clever tactics. It is very doubtful whether what Paul spoke 'in that
hour' was taught him by the Spirit.

'The corruption of the best is the worst.' There is a close and
strange alliance between formal religion and murderous hatred and
vulpine craft, as the history of ecclesiastical persecution shows;
and though we have done with fire and faggot now, the same evil
passions and tempers do still in modified form lie very near to a
Christianity which has lost its inward union with Jesus and lives on
surface adherence to forms. In that sense too 'the letter killeth.'
We lift up our hands in horror at these fierce fanatics, 'ready to
kill' Paul, because he believed in resurrection, angel, and spirit.
We need to guard ourselves lest something of their temper should be
in us. There is a devilish ingenuity about the details of the plot,
and a truly Oriental mixture of murderous passion and calculating
craft. The serpent's wisdom and his poison fangs are both apparent.
The forty conspirators must have been 'ready,' not only to kill Paul,
but to die in the attempt, for the distance from the castle to the
council-chamber was short, and the detachment of legionaries
escorting the prisoner would have to be reckoned with.

The pretext of desiring to inquire more fully into Paul's opinions
derived speciousness from his ambiguous declaration, which had set
the Council by the ears and had stopped his examination. Luke does
not tell us what the Council said to the conspirators, but we learn
from what Paul's nephew says in verse 20 that it 'agreed to ask thee
to bring down Paul.' So once more the tail drove on the head, and the
Council became the tool of fierce zealots. No doubt most of its
members would have shrunk from themselves killing Paul, but they did
not shrink from having a hand in his death. They were most religious
and respectable men, and probably soothed their consciences with
thinking that, after all, the responsibility was on the shoulders of
the forty conspirators. How men can cheat themselves for a while as
to the criminality of indirectly contributing to criminal acts, and
how rudely the thin veil will be twitched aside one day!

II. The abrupt introduction of Paul's nephew into the story piques
curiosity, but we cannot say more about him than is told us here. We
do not know whether he was moved by being a fellow-believer in Jesus,
or simply by kindred and natural affection. Possibly he was, as his
uncle had been, a student under some distinguished Rabbi. At all
events, he must have had access to official circles to have come on
the track of the plot, which would, of course, be covered up as much
as possible. The rendering in the margin of the Revised Version gives
a possible explanation of his knowledge of it by suggesting that he
had 'come in upon them'; that is, upon the Council in their
deliberations. But probably the rendering preferred in the text is
preferable, and we are left to conjecture his source of information,
as almost everything else about him. But it is more profitable to
note how God works out His purposes and delivers His servants by
'natural' means, which yet are as truly divine working as was the
sending of the angel to smite off Peter's chains, or the earthquake
at Philippi.

This lad was probably not an inhabitant of Jerusalem, and that he
should have been there then, and come into possession of the
carefully guarded secret, was more than a fortunate coincidence. It
was divinely ordered, and God's finger is as evident in the
concatenation of co-operating natural events as in any 'miracle.' To
co-ordinate these so that they concur to bring about the fulfilment
of His will may be a less conspicuous, but is not a less veritable,
token of a sovereign Will at work in the world than any miracle is.
And in this case how wonderfully separate factors, who think
themselves quite independent, are all handled like pawns on a
chessboard by Him who 'makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and
girds Himself with the remainder thereof!' Little did the fiery
zealots who were eager to plunge their daggers into Paul's heart, or
the lad who hastened to tell him the secret he had discovered, or the
Roman officer who equally hastened to get rid of his troublesome
prisoner, dream that they were all partners in bringing about one
God-determined result--the fulfilment of the promise that had calmed
Paul in the preceding night: 'So must thou bear witness also at
Rome.'

III. Paul had been quieted after his exciting day by the vision which
brought that promise, and this new peril did not break his peace.
With characteristic clear-sightedness he saw the right thing to do in
the circumstances, and with characteristic promptitude he did it at
once. Luke wastes no words in telling of the Apostle's emotions when
this formidable danger was sprung on him, and the very reticence
deepens the impression of Paul's equanimity and practical wisdom. A
man who had had such a vision last night might well possess his soul
in patience, even though such a plot was laid bare this morning; and
each servant of Jesus may be as well assured, as was Paul the
prisoner, that the Lord shall 'keep him from all evil,' and that if
his life is 'witness' it will not end till his witness is complete.
Our faith should work in us calmness of spirit, clearness of
perception of the right thing to do, swift seizing of opportunities.
Paul trusted Jesus' word that he should be safe, whatever dangers
threatened, but that trust stimulated his own efforts to provide for
his safety.

IV. The behaviour of the captain is noteworthy, as showing that he
had been impressed by Paul's personal magnetism, and that he had in
him a strain of courtesy and kindliness. He takes the lad by the hand
to encourage him, and he leads him aside that he may speak freely,
and thereby shows that he trusted him. No doubt the youth would be
somewhat flustered at being brought into the formidable presence and
by the weight of his tidings, and the great man's gentleness would be
a cordial. A superior's condescension is a wonderful lip-opener. We
all have some people who look up to us, and to whom small
kindlinesses from us are precious. We do not 'render to all their
dues,' unless we give gracious courtesy to those beneath, as well as
'honour' to those above, us. But the captain could clothe himself too
with official reserve and keep up the dignity of his office. He
preserved an impenetrable silence as to his intentions, and simply
sealed the young man's lips from tattling about the plot or the
interview with him. Promptly he acted, without waiting for the
Council's application to him. At once he prepared to despatch Paul to
Caesarea, glad enough, no doubt, to wash his hands of so troublesome
a charge. Thus he too was a cog in the wheel, an instrument to fulfil
the promise made in vision, God's servant though he knew it not.



A LOYAL TRIBUTE
[Footnote: Preached on the occasion of the Jubilee of Queen
Victoria.]

'...Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very
worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, 3. We
accept it always ... with all thankfulness.'--ACTS xxiv. 2-3.

These words were addressed by a professional flatterer to one of the
worst of the many bad Roman governors of Syria. The speaker knew that
he was lying, the listeners knew that the eulogium was undeserved;
and among all the crowd of bystanders there was perhaps not a man who
did not hate the governor, and would not have been glad to see him
lying dead with a dagger in his breast.

But both the fawning Tertullus and the oppressor Felix knew in their
heart of hearts that the words described what a governor ought to be.
And though they are touched with the servility which is not loyalty,
and embrace a conception of the royal function attributing far more
to the personal influence of a monarch than our State permits, still
we may venture to take them as the starting-point for two or three
considerations suggested to us, by the celebrations of the past week.

I almost feel that I owe an apology for turning to that subject, for
everything that can be said about it has been said far better than I
can say it. But still, partly because my silence might be
misunderstood, and partly because an opportunity is thereby afforded
for looking from a Christian point of view at one or two subjects
that do not ordinarily come within the scope of one's ministry, I
venture to choose such a text now.

I. The first thing that I would take it as suggesting is the grateful
acknowledgment of personal worth.

I suppose the world never saw a national rejoicing like that through
which we have passed. For the reigns that have been long enough to
admit of it have been few, and those in which intelligently and
sincerely a whole nation of freemen could participate have been fewer
still. But now all England has been one; whatever our divisions of
opinion, there have been no divisions here. Not only have the
bonfires flared from hill to hill in this little island of ours, but
all over the world, into every out of the way corner where our
widely-spread race has penetrated, the same sentiment has extended.
All have yielded to the common impulse, the rejoicing of a free
people in a good Queen.

That common sentiment has embraced two things, the office and the
person. There was a pathetic contrast between these two when that
sad-hearted widow walked alone up the nave of Westminster Abbey, and
took her seat on the stone of destiny on which for a millennium kings
have been crowned. The contrast heightened both the reverence due to
the office and the sympathy due to the woman. The Sovereign is the
visible expression of national power, the incarnation of England,
living history, the outcome of all the past, the representative of
harmonised and blended freedom and law, a powerful social influence
from which much good might flow, a moderating and uniting power
amidst fierce partisan bitterness and hate, a check against rash
change. There is no nobler office upon earth.

And when, as is the case in this long reign, that office has been
filled with some consciousness of its responsibilities, the
recognition of the fact is no flattery but simple duty. We cannot
attribute to the personal initiative of the Queen the great and
beneficent changes which have coincided with her reign. Thank God, no
monarch can make or mar England now. But this we can say,

  'Her court was pure, her life serene.'

A life touched with many gracious womanly charities, delighting in
simple country pleasures, not strange to the homes of the poor, quick
to sympathise with sorrow, especially the humblest, as many a weeping
widow at a pit mouth has thankfully felt; sternly repressive of some
forms of vice in high places, and, as we may believe, not ignorant of
the great Comforter nor disobedient to the King of kings,--for such a
royal life a nation may well be thankful. We outsiders do not know
how far personal influence from the throne has in any case restrained
or furthered national action, but if it be true, as is alleged, that
twice in her reign the Queen has kept England from the sin and folly
of war, once from a fratricidal conflict with the great new England
across the Atlantic, then we owe her much. If in later years that
life has somewhat shrunk into itself and sat silent, with Grief for a
companion, those who know a like desolation will understand, and even
the happy may honour an undying love and respect the seclusion of an
undying sorrow. So I say: 'Forasmuch as under thee we enjoy great
quietness, we accept it with all thankfulness.'

II. My text may suggest for us a wider view of progress which,
although not initiated by the Queen, has coincided with her fifty
years' reign.

In the Revised Version, instead of 'worthy deeds are done,' we read
'_evils are corrected_'; and that is the true rendering. The double
function which is here attributed falsely to an oppressive tyrant is
the ancient ideal of monarchy--first, that it shall repress disorders
and secure tranquillity within the borders and across the frontiers;
and second, that abuses and evils shall be corrected by the foresight
of the monarch.

Now, in regard to both these functions we have learned that a nation
can do them a great deal better than a sovereign. And so when we
speak of progress during this fifty years' reign, we largely mean the
progress which England in its toiling millions and in its thinking
few has won for itself. Let me in very brief words try to touch upon
the salient points of that progress for which as members of the
nation it becomes us as Christian people to be thankful. Enough
hosannas have been sung already, and I need not add my poor voice to
them, about material progress and commercial prosperity and the
growth of manufacturing industry and inventions and all the rest of
it. I do not for a moment mean to depreciate these, but it is of more
importance that a telegraph should have something to say than that it
should be able to speak across the waters, and 'man doth not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.' We who live in a great commercial community and know how solid
comfort and hope and gladness are all contingent, in millions of
humble homes, upon the manufacturing industry of these districts,
shall never be likely to underrate the enormous expansion in national
industry, and the consequent enormous increase in national wealth,
which belongs to this last half century. I need say nothing about
these.

Let me remind you, and I can only do it in a sentence or two, of more
important changes in these fifty years. English manners and morals
have been bettered, much of savagery and coarseness has been got rid
of; low, cruel amusements have been abandoned. Thanks to the great
Total Abstinence movement very largely, the national conscience has
been stirred in regard to the great national sin of intoxication. A
national system of education has come into operation and is working
wonders in this land. Newspapers and books are cheapened; political
freedom has been extended and 'broadened slowly down,' as is safe,
'from precedent to precedent,' so that no party thinks now of
reversing any of the changes, howsoever fiercely they were contested
ere they were won. Religious thought has widened, the sects have come
nearer each other, men have passed from out of a hard doctrinal
Christianity, in which the person of Christ was buried beneath the
cobwebs of theology, into a far freer and a far more Christ-regarding
and Christ-centred faith. And if we are to adopt such a point of view
as the brave Apostle Paul took, the antagonism against religion,
which is a marked feature of our generation, and contrasts singularly
with the sleepy acquiescence of fifty years ago, is to be put down to
the credit side of the account. 'For,' he said, like a bold man
believing that he had an irrefragable truth in his hands, 'I will
tarry here, for a great door and an effectual is opened, and there
are many adversaries.' Wherever a whole nation is interested and
stirred about religious subjects, even though it may be in
contradiction and antagonism, God's truth can fight opposition far
better than it can contend with indifference. Then if we look upon
our churches, whilst there is amongst them all abounding worldliness
much to be deplored, there is also, thank God, springing up amongst
us a new consciousness of responsibility, which is not confined to
Christian people, for the condition of the poor and the degraded
around us; and everywhere we see good men and women trying to stretch
their hands across these awful gulfs in our social system which make
such a danger in our modern life, and to reclaim the outcasts of our
cities, the most hopeless of all the heathen on the face of the
earth. These things, on which I have touched with the lightest hand,
all taken together do make a picture for which we may be heartily
thankful.

Only, brethren, let us remember that that sort of talk about
England's progress may very speedily become offensive self-conceit,
and a measuring of ourselves with ludicrous self-satisfaction against
all other nations. There is a bastard patriotism which has been very
loud-mouthed in these last days, of which wise men should beware.

Further, such a contemplation of the elements of national progress,
which we owe to no monarch and to no legislature, but largely to the
indomitable pluck and energy of our people, to Anglo-Saxon
persistence not knowing when it is beaten, and to the patient
meditation of thoughtful minds and the self-denying efforts of good
philanthropical and religious people--such a contemplation, I say,
may come between us and the recognition of the highest source from
which it flows, and be corrupted into forgetfulness of God. 'Beware
lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and thy silver and thy gold
is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart
be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God... and thou say in
thine heart, My power, and the might of mine hand, hath gotten me
this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is He
that giveth thee power to get wealth.'

And the last caution that I would put in here is, let us beware lest
the hosannas over national progress shall be turned into 'Rest and be
thankful,' or shall ever come in the way of the strenuous and
persistent reaching forth to the fair ideal that lies so far before
us.

III. That leads me to the last point on which I would say a word,
viz., that my text with its reference to the correction of evils, as
one of the twin functions of the monarch, naturally suggests to us
the thought which should follow all recognition of progress in the
past--the consideration of what yet remains to be done.

A great controversy has been going on, or at least a remarkable
difference of opinion has been expressed in recent months by two of
the greatest minds and clearest heads in England; one of our greatest
poets and one of our greatest statesmen. The one looking back over
sixty years sees but foiled aspirations and present devildom and
misery. The other looking back over the same period sees accomplished
dreams and the prophecy of further progress. It is not for me to
enter upon the strife between such authorities. Both are right. Much
has been achieved. 'There remaineth yet very much land to be
possessed.' Whatever have been the victories and the blessings of the
past, there are rotten places in our social state which, if not
cauterised and healed, will break out into widespread and virulent
sores. There are dangers in the near future which may well task the
skill of the bravest and the faith of the most trustful. There are
clouds on the horizon which may speedily turn jubilations into
lamentations, and the best security against these is that each of us
in his place, as a unit however insignificant in the great body
politic, should use our little influence on the side that makes for
righteousness, and see to it that we leave some small corner of this
England, which God has given us in charge, sweeter and holier because
of our lives. The ideal for you Christian men and women is the
organisation of society on Christian principles. Have we got to that
yet, or within sight of it, do you suppose? Look round you. Does
anybody believe that the present arrangements in connection with
unrestricted competition and the distribution of wealth coincide
accurately with the principles of the New Testament? Will anybody
tell me that the state of a hundred streets within a mile of this
spot is what it would be if the Christian men of this nation lived
the lives that they ought to live? Could there be such rottenness and
corruption if the 'salt' had not 'lost his savour'? Will anybody tell
me that the disgusting vice which our newspapers do not think
themselves degraded by printing in loathsome detail, and so bringing
the foulness of a common sewer on to every breakfast-table in the
kingdom, is in accordance with the organisation of society on
Christian principles? Intemperance, social impurity, wide, dreary
tracts of ignorance, degradation, bestiality, the awful condition of
the lowest layer in our great cities, crushed like some crumbling
bricks beneath the ponderous weight of the splendid superstructure,
the bitter partisan spirit of politics, where the followers of each
chief think themselves bound to believe that he is immaculate and
that the other side has no honour or truth belonging to it--these
things testify against English society, and make one almost despair
when one thinks that, after a thousand years and more of professing
Christianity, that is all that we can show for it.

O brethren! we may be thankful for what has been accomplished, but
surely there had need also to be penitent recognition of failure and
defect. And I lay it on the consciences of all that listen to me now
to see to it that they do their parts as members of this body politic
of England. A great heritage has come down from our fathers; pass it
on bettered by your self-denial and your efforts. And remember that
the way to mend a kingdom is to begin by mending yourselves, and
letting Christ's kingdom come in your own hearts. Next we are bound
to try to further its coming in the hearts of others, and so to
promote its leavening society and national life. No Christian is
clear from the blood of men and the guilt of souls who does not,
according to opportunity and capacity, repair before his own door,
and seek to make some one know the unsearchable riches of the Gospel
of Christ.

There is no finality for a Christian patriot until his country be
organised on Christian principles, and so from being merely a
'kingdom of the world' become 'a Kingdom of our God and of His
Christ.' To help forward that consummation, by however little, is the
noblest service that prince or peasant can render to his country. By
conformity to the will of God and not by material progress or
intellectual enlightenment is a state prosperous and strong. To keep
His statutes and judgments is 'your wisdom and understanding in the
sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes and say,
Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'



PAUL BEFORE FELIX

'Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to
speak, answered, Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many
years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer
for myself: 11. Because that thou mayest understand, that there
are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem for to
worship. 12. And they neither found me in the temple disputing
with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the
synagogues, nor in the city: 13. Neither can they prove the
things whereof they now accuse me. 14. But this I confess unto
thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the
God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the
law and in the prophets: 15. And have hope toward God, which they
themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and unjust. 16. And herein do I exercise
myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God,
and toward men. 17. Now after many years I came to bring alms to
my nation, and offerings. 18. Whereupon certain Jews from Asia
found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with
tumult 19. Who ought to have been here before thee, and object,
if they had ought against me. 20. Or else let these same here
say, if they have found any evil-doing in me, while I stood
before the council, 21. Except it be for this one voice, that I
cried standing among them, Touching the resurrection of the dead
I am called in question by you this day. 22. And when Felix heard
these things, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he
deferred them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain shall come
down, I will know the uttermost of your matter. 23. And he
commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty,
and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or
come unto him. 24. And after certain days, when Felix came with
his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and
heard him concerning the faith in Christ. 25. And as he reasoned
of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix
trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a
convenient season, I will call for thee.'--ACTS xxiv. 10-25.

Tertellus made three charges against Paul: first, that he incited to
rebellion; second, that he was a principal member of a 'sect'; third
(with a 'moreover,' as if an afterthought), that he had profaned the
Temple. It was more clever than honest to put the real cause of
Jewish hatred last, since it was a trifle in Roman eyes, and to put
first the only thing that Felix would think worth notice. A duller
man than he might have scented something suspicious in Jewish
officials being so anxious to suppress insurrection against Rome, and
probably he had his own thoughts about the good faith of the
accusers, though he said nothing. Paul takes up the three points in
order. Unsupported charges can only be met by emphatic denials.

I. Paul's speech is the first part of the passage. Its dignified,
courteous beginning contrasts well with the accuser's dishonest
flattery. Paul will not lie, but he will respect authority, and will
conciliate when he can do so with truth. Felix had been 'judge' for
several years, probably about six. What sort of a judge he had been
Paul will not say. At any rate he had gained experience which might
help him in picking his way through Tertullus's rhetoric.

The Apostle answers the first charge with a flat denial, with the
remark that as the whole affair was less than a fortnight old the
truth could easily be ascertained, and that the time was very short
for the Jews to have 'found' him such a dangerous conspirator, and
with the obviously unanswerable demand for proof to back up the
charge. In the absence of witnesses there was nothing more to be done
about number one of the accusations, and a just judge would have said
so and sent Tertullus and his clients about their business.

The second charge Paul both denies and admits. He does belong to the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth. But that is not a 'sect'; it is 'the
Way.' It is not a divergence from the path in which the fathers have
walked, trodden only by some self-willed schismatics, but it is the
one God-appointed path of life, 'the old way,' the only road by which
a man can walk nobly and travel to the skies. Paul's whole doctrine
as to the relation of Judaism to Christianity is here in germ and in
a form adapted to Felix's comprehension. This so-called sect (ver. 14
takes up Tertullus's word in ver. 5) is the true Judaism, and its
members are more truly 'Jews' than they who are such 'outwardly.' For
what has Paul cast away in becoming a Christian? Not the worship of
the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, not the law, not the
prophets, not the hope of a resurrection.

He does not say that he practises all the things written in the law,
but that he 'believes' them. Then the law was revelation as well as
precept, and was to be embraced by faith before it could be obeyed in
practice; it was, as he says elsewhere, a 'schoolmaster to bring us
unto Christ.' Judaism is the bud; Christianity is the bright
consummate flower. Paul was not preaching his whole Gospel, but
defending himself from a specific charge; namely that, as being a
'Nazarene,' he had started off from the main line of Jewish religion.
He admits that he is a 'Nazarene,' and he assumes correctly that
Felix knew something about them, but he denies that he is a sectary,
and he assumes that the charge would be more truly made against those
who, accusing him, disbelieved in Christ. He hints that they did not
believe in either law or prophets, else they would have been
Nazarenes too.

The practical results of his faith are stated. 'Herein'; that is in
the faith and hope just spoken of. He will not say that these make
him blameless towards God and men, but that such blamelessness is his
aim, which he pursues with earnest toil and self-control. A
Christianity which does not sovereignly sway life and brace its
professor up to the self-denial needful to secure a conscience void
of offence is not Paul's kind of Christianity. If we move in the
circle of the great Christian truths we shall gird ourselves to
subdue the flesh, and will covet more than aught else the peace of a
good conscience. But, like Paul, we shall be slow to say that we have
attained, yet not afraid to say that we strive towards, that ideal.

The third charge is met by a plain statement of his real purpose in
coming to Jerusalem and frequenting the Temple. 'Profane the Temple!
Why, I came all the way from Greece on purpose to worship at the
Feast; and I did not come empty-handed either, for I brought alms for
my nation'--the contributions of the Gentiles to Jews--'and I was a
worshipper, discharging the ceremonial purifications.' They called
him a 'Nazarene'; he was in the Temple as a 'Nazarite.' Was it likely
that, being there on such an errand, he should have profaned it?

He begins a sentence, which would probably have been an indignant
one, about the 'certain Jews from Asia,' the originators of the whole
trouble, but he checks himself with a fine sense of justice. He will
say nothing about absent men. And that brings him back to his strong
point, already urged, the absence of proof of the charges. Tertullus
and company had only hearsay. What had become of the people who said
they saw him in the Temple? No doubt they had thought discretion the
better part of valour, and were not anxious to face the Roman
procedure.

The close of the speech carries the war into the enemy's quarters,
challenging the accusers to tell what they had themselves heard. They
_could_ be witnesses as to the scene at the Council, which Tertullus
had wisely said nothing about. Pungent sarcasm is in Paul's closing
words, especially if we remember that the high officials, like
Ananias the high-priest, were Sadducees. The Pharisees in the Council
had acquitted him when they heard his profession of faith in a
resurrection. That was his real crime, not treason against Rome or
profanation of the Temple. The present accusers might be eager for
his condemnation, but half of their own Sanhedrim had acquitted him.
'And these unworthy Jews, who have cast off the nation's hope and
believe in no resurrection, are accusing me of being an apostate! Who
is the sectary--I or they?'

II. There was only one righteous course for Felix, namely, to
discharge the prisoner. But he yielded to the same temptation as had
mastered Pilate, and shrank from provoking influential classes by
doing the right thing. He was the less excusable, because his long
tenure of office had taught him something, at all events, of 'the
Way.' He had too many crimes to venture on raising enemies in his
government; he had too much lingering sense of justice to give up an
innocent man. So like all weak men in difficult positions he
temporised, and trusted to accident to make the right thing easier
for him.

His plea for delay was conveniently indefinite. When was Lysias
coming? His letter said nothing about such an intention, and took for
granted that all the materials for a decision would be before Felix.
Lysias could tell no more. The excuse was transparent, but it served
to stave off a decision, and to-morrow would bring some other excuse.
Prompt carrying out of all plain duty is the only safety. The
indulgence given to Paul, in his light confinement, only showed how
clearly Felix knew himself to be doing wrong, but small alleviations
do not patch up a great injustice.

III. One reading inserts in verse 24 the statement that Drusilla
wished to see Paul, and that Felix summoned him in order to gratify
her. Very probably she, as a Jewess, knew something of 'the Way,' and
with a love of anything odd and new, which such women cannot do
without, she wanted to see this curious man and hear him talk. It
might amuse her, and pass an hour, and be something to gossip about.

She and Felix got more than they bargained for. Paul was not now the
prisoner, but the preacher; and his topics were not wanting in
directness and plainness. He 'reasoned of righteousness' to one of
the worst of unrighteous governors; of 'temperance' to the guilty
couple who, in calling themselves husband and wife, were showing
themselves given over to sinful passions; and of 'judgment to come'
to a man who, to quote the Roman historian, 'thought that he could
commit all evil with impunity.'

Paul's strong hand shook even that obdurate soul, and roused one of
the two sleeping consciences. Drusilla may have been too frivolous to
be impressed, but Felix had so much good left that he could be
conscious of evil. Alas! he had so much evil that he suppressed the
good. His 'convenient season' was then; it never came again. For
though he communed with Paul often, he trembled only once. So he
passed into the darkness.



FELIX BEFORE PAUL

_A Sermon to the Young_

'And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment
to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time;
when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.'
--ACTS xxiv. 25.

Felix and his brother had been favourite slaves of the Emperor, and
so had won great power at court. At the date of this incident he had
been for some five or six years the procurator of the Roman province
of Judaea; and how he used his power the historian Tacitus tells us
in one of his bitter sentences, in which he says, 'He wielded his
kingly authority with the spirit of a slave, in all cruelty and
lust.'

He had tempted from her husband, Drusilla, the daughter of that Herod
whose dreadful death is familiar to us all; and his court reeked with
blood and debauchery. He is here face to face with Paul for the
second time. On a former interview he had seen good reason to
conclude that the Roman Empire was not in much danger from this one
Jew whom his countrymen, with suspicious loyalty, were charging with
sedition; and so he had allowed him a very large margin of liberty.

On this second occasion he had sent for him evidently not as a judge,
but partly with a view to try to get a bribe out of him, and partly
because he had some kind of languid interest, as most Romans then
had, in Oriental thought--some languid interest perhaps too in this
strange man. Or he and Drusilla were possibly longing for a new
sensation, and not indisposed to give a moment's glance at Paul with
his singular ideas.

So they called for the Apostle, and the guilty couple found a judge
in their prisoner. Paul does not speak to them as a Greek
philosopher, anxious to please high personages, might have done, but
he goes straight at their sins: he reasons 'of righteousness' with
the unjust judge, 'of temperance' with the self-indulgent, sinful
pair, 'of the judgment to come' with these two who thought that they
could do anything they liked with impunity. Christianity has
sometimes to be exceedingly rude in reference to the sins of the
upper classes.

As Paul went on, a strange fear began to creep about the heart of
Felix. It is the watershed of his life that he has come to, the
crisis of his fate. Everything depends on the next five minutes. Will
he yield? Will he resist? The tongue of the balance trembles and
hesitates for a moment, and then, but slowly, the wrong scale goes
down; 'Go thy way for this time.' Ah! if he had said, 'Come and help
me to get rid of this strange fear,' how different all might have
been! The metal was at the very point of melting. What shape would it
take? It ran into the wrong mould, and, as far as we know, it was
hardened there. 'It might have been once, and he missed it, lost it
for ever. No sign marked out that moment from the common uneventful
moments, though it saw the death of a soul.'

Now, my dear young friends, I do not intend to say anything more to
you of this man and his character, but I wish to take this incident
and its lessons and urge them on your hearts and consciences.

I. Let me say a word or two about the fact, of which this incident is
an example, and of which I am afraid the lives of many of you would
furnish other examples, that men lull awakened consciences to sleep
and excuse delay in deciding for Christ by half-honest promises to
attend to religion at some future time.

'Go thy way for this time' is what Felix is really anxious about. His
one thought is to get rid of Paul and his disturbing message for the
present. But he does not wish to shut the door altogether. He gives a
sop to his conscience to stop its barking, and he probably deceives
himself as to the gravity of his present decision by the lightly
given promise and its well-guarded indefiniteness, 'When I have a
convenient season I will send for thee.' The thing he really means
is--Not now, at all events; the thing he hoodwinks himself with is--
By and by. Now that is what I know that some of you are doing; and my
purpose and earnest prayer are to bring you now to the decision
which, by one vigorous act of your wills, will settle the question
for the future as to which God you are going to follow.

So then I have just one or two things to say about this first part of
my subject. Let me remind you that however beautiful, however
gracious, however tender and full of love and mercy and good tidings
the message of God's love in Jesus Christ is, there is another side
to it, a side which is meant to rouse men's consciences and to awaken
men's fears.

If you bring a man like the man in the story, Felix, or a very much
better man than he--any of you who hear me now--into contact with
these three thoughts, 'Righteousness, temperance, judgment to come,'
the effect of such a direct appeal to moral convictions will always
be more or less to awaken a sense of failure, insufficiency, defect,
sin, and to create a certain creeping dread that if I set myself
against the great law of God, that law of God will have a way of
crushing me. The fear is well founded, and not only does the
contemplation of God's _law_ excite it. God's gospel comes to us, and
just because it is a gospel, and is intended to lead you and me to
love and trust Jesus Christ, and give our whole hearts and souls to
Him--just because it is the best 'good news' that ever came into the
world, it begins often (not always, perhaps) by making a man feel
what a sinful man he is, and how he has gone against God's law, and
how there hang over him, by the very necessities of the case and the
constitution of the universe, consequences bitter and painful. Now I
believe that there are very few people who, like you, come
occasionally into contact with the preaching of the truth, who have
not had their moments when they felt--'Yes, it is all true--it is all
true. I _am_ bad, and I _have_ broken God's law, and there _is_ a
dark lookout before me!' I believe that most of us know what that
feeling is.

And now my next step is--that the awakened conscience is just like
the sense of pain in the physical world, it has a work to do and a
mission to perform. It is meant to warn you off dangerous ground.
Thank God for pain! It keeps off death many a time. And in like
manner thank God for a swift conscience that speaks! It is meant to
ring an alarm-bell to us, to make us, as the Bible has it, 'flee for
refuge to the hope that is set before us.' My imploring question to
my young friends now is: 'Have you used that sense of evil and
wrongdoing, when it has been aroused in your consciences, to lead you
to Jesus Christ, or what have you done with it?'

There are two persons in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles who
pass through the same stages of feeling up to a certain point, and
then they diverge. And the two men's outline history is the best
sermon that I can preach upon this point. Felix becoming afraid,
recoils, shuts himself up, puts away the message that disturbs him,
and settles himself back into his evil. The Philippian jailer
becoming afraid (the phrases in the original being almost identical),
like a sensible man tries to find out the reason of his fear and how
to get rid of it; and falls down at the Apostles' feet and says,
'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'

The fear is not meant to last; it is of no use in itself. It is only
an impelling motive that leads us to look to the Saviour, and the man
that uses it so has used it rightly. Yet there rises in many a heart
that transparent self-deception of delay. 'They all with one consent
began to make excuse'; that is as true to-day as it was true then. My
experience tells me that it will be true in regard to a sad number of
you who will go away feeling that my poor word has gone a little way
into their hardened hide, but settling themselves back into their
carelessness, and forgetting all impressions that have been made. O
dear young friend, do not do that, I beseech you! Do not stifle the
wholesome alarm and cheat yourself with the notion of a little delay!

II. And now I wish next to pass very swiftly in review before you
some of the reasons why we fall into this habit of self-deceiving,
indecision, and delay--'Go thy way' would be too sharp and
unmistakable if it were left alone, so it is fined off. 'I will not
commit myself beyond to-day,' 'for this time go thy way, and when I
have a convenient season I will call for thee.'

What are the reasons for such an attitude as that? Let me enumerate
one or two of them as they strike me. First, there is the
instinctive, natural wish to get rid of a disagreeable subject--much
as a man, without knowing what he is doing, twitches his hand away
from the surgeon's lancet. So a great many of us do not like--and no
wonder that we do not like--these thoughts of the old Book about
'righteousness and temperance and judgment to come,' and make a
natural effort to turn our minds away from the contemplation of the
subject, because it is painful and unpleasant. Do you think it would
be a wise thing for a man, if he began to suspect that he was
insolvent, to refuse to look into his books or to take stock, and let
things drift, till there was not a halfpenny in the pound for
anybody? What do you suppose his creditors would call him? They would
not compliment him on either his honesty or his prudence, would they?
And is it not the part of a wise man, if he begins to see that
something is wrong, to get to the bottom of it and, as quickly as
possible, to set it right? And what do you call people who,
suspecting that there may be a great hole in the bottom of the ship,
never man the pumps or do any caulking, but say, 'Oh, she will very
likely keep afloat until we get into harbour'?

Do you not think that it would be a wiser thing for you if, _because_
the subject is disagreeable, you would force yourself to think about
it until it became agreeable to you? You can change it if you will,
and make it not at all a shadow or a cloud or a darkness over you.
And you can scarcely expect to claim the designation of wise and
prudent orderers of your lives until you do. Certainly it is not wise
to shuffle a thing out of sight because it is not pleasing to think
about.

Then there is another reason. A number of our young people say, 'Go
thy way for this time,' because you have a notion that it is time
enough for you to begin to think about serious things and be
religious when you grow a bit older. And some of you even, I dare
say, have an idea that religion is all very well for people that are
turned sixty and are going down the hill, but that it is quite
unnecessary for you. Shakespeare puts a grim word into the mouth of
one of his characters, which sets the theory of many of us in its
true light, when, describing a dying man calling on God, he makes the
narrator say: 'I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God.
I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts
yet.'

Some of my hearers practically live on that principle, and are
tempted to regard thoughts of God as in place only among medicine
bottles, or when the shadows of the grave begin to fall cold and damp
on our path. 'Young men will be young men,' 'We must sow our wild
oats,' 'You can't put old heads on young shoulders'--and such like
sayings, often practically mean that vice and godlessness belong to
youth, and virtue and religion to old age, just as flowers do to
spring and fruit to autumn. Let me beseech you not to be deceived by
such a notion; and to search your own thoughts and see whether it be
one of the reasons which leads you to say, 'Go thy way for this
time.'

Then again some of us fall into this habit of putting off the
decision for Christ, not consciously, not by any distinct act of
saying, 'No, I will not,' but simply by letting the impressions made
on our hearts and consciences be crowded out of them by cares and
enjoyments and pleasures and duties of this world. If you had not so
much to study at College, you would have time to think about
religion. If you had not so many parties and balls to go to, you
would have time to nourish and foster these impressions. If you had
not your place to make in the warehouse, if you had not this, that,
and the other thing to do; if you had not love and pleasure and
ambition and advancement and mental culture to attend to, you would
have time for religion; but as soon as the seed is sown and the
sower's back is turned, hovering flocks of light-winged thoughts and
vanities pounce down upon it and carry it away, seed by seed. And if
some stray seed here and there remains and begins to sprout, the ill
weeds which grow apace spring up with ranker stems and choke it. 'The
cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts
of other things entering in, choke the word, and efface the
impression made upon your hearts.

Here as I speak some serious thought is roused; by to-morrow at
midday it has all gone. You did not intend it to go, you did not set
yourself to banish it, you simply opened the door to the flocking in
of the whole crowd of the world's cares and occupations, and away
went the shy, solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and
tended, might have led you at last to the Cross of Jesus Christ. Do
not allow yourselves to be drifted, by the rushing current of earthly
cares, from the impressions that are made upon your consciences and
from the duty that you know you ought to do!

And then some of you fall into this attitude of delay, and say to the
messenger of God's love, 'Go thy way for this time,' because you do
not like to give up something that you know is inconsistent with His
love and service. Felix would not part with Drusilla nor disgorge the
ill-gotten gains of his province. Felix therefore was obliged to put
away from him the thoughts that looked in that direction. I wonder if
there is any young man listening to me now who feels that if he lets
my words carry him where they seek to carry him, he will have to give
up 'fleshly lusts which war against the soul'? I wonder if there is
any young woman listening to me now who feels that if she lets my
words carry her where they would carry her, she will have to live a
different life from that which she has been living, to have more of a
high and a noble aim in it, to live for something else than pleasure?
I wonder if there are any of you who are saying, 'I cannot give up
that'? My dear young friend, 'If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out
and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life blind
than with both eyes to be cast into hell-fire.'

Reasons for delay, then, are these: first, getting rid of an
unpleasant subject; second, thinking that there is time enough;
third, letting the world obliterate the impressions that have been
made; and fourth, shrinking from the surrender of something that you
know you will have to give up.

III. And now let me very briefly, as my last point, put before you
one or two of the reasons which I would fain might be conclusive with
you for present decision to take Christ for your Saviour and your
Master.

And I say, Do not delay, but _now_ choose Him for your Redeemer, your
Friend, your Helper, your Commander, your All; because delay is
really decision in the wrong way. Do not delay, but take Jesus Christ
as the Saviour of your sinful souls, and rest your hearts upon Him
to-night before you sleep; because there is no real reason for delay.
No season will be more convenient than the present season. Every time
is the right time to do the right thing, every time is the right time
to begin following Him. There is nothing to wait for. There is no
reason at all, except their own disinclination, why every man and
woman listening to me should not now grasp the Cross of Christ as
their only hope for forgiveness and acceptance, and yield themselves
to that Lord, to live in His service for ever. Let not this day pass
without your giving yourselves to Jesus Christ, because every time
that you have this message brought to you, and you refuse to accept
it, or delay to accept it, you make yourselves less capable of
receiving it another time.

If you take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a slip of wood and
ignite the phosphorus, bright as the blaze is, there drops from it a
white ash that coats the wood and makes it almost incombustible. And
so when the flaming conviction laid upon your hearts has burnt itself
out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to kindle
the light there again. Felix said, 'Go thy way, when I have a more
convenient season I will send for thee.' Yes, and he did send for
Paul, and he talked with him often--he repeated the conversation, but
we do not know that he repeated the trembling. He often communed with
Paul, but it was only once that he was alarmed. You are less likely
to be touched by the Gospel message for every time that you have
heard it and put it away. That is what makes my place here so
terribly responsible, and makes me feel that my words are so very
feeble in comparison with what they ought to be. I know that I may be
doing harm to men just because they listen and are not persuaded, and
so go away less and less likely to be touched.

Ah, dear friends! you will perhaps never again have as deep
impressions as you have now; or at least they are not to be reckoned
upon as probable, for the tendency of all truth is to lose its power
by repetition, and the tendency of all emotion which is not acted
upon is to become fainter and fainter. And so I beseech you that now
you would cherish any faint impression that is being made upon your
hearts and consciences. Let it lead you to Christ; and take Him for
your Lord and Saviour now.

I say to you: Do that now because delay robs you of large blessing.
You will never want Jesus Christ more than you do to-day. You need
Him in your early hours. Why should it be that a portion of your
lives should be left unfilled by that rich mercy? Why should you
postpone possessing the purest joy, the highest blessing, the
divinest strength? Why should you put off welcoming your best Friend
into your heart? Why should you?

I say to you again, Take Christ for your Lord, because delay
inevitably lays up for you bitter memories and involves dreadful
losses. There are good Christian men and women, I have no doubt, in
this world now, who would give all they have, if they could blot out
of the tablets of their memories some past hours of their lives,
before they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. I would have you
ignorant of such transgression. O young men and women! if you grow up
into middle life not Christians, then should you ever become so, you
will have habits to fight with, and remembrances that will smart and
sting; and some of you, perhaps, remembrances that will pollute, even
though you are conscious that you are forgiven. It is a better thing
not to know the depths of evil than to know them and to have been
raised from them. You will escape infinite sorrows by an early
cleaving to Christ your Lord.

And last of all I say to you, give yourselves now to Jesus Christ,
because no to-morrow may be yours. Delay is gambling, very
irrationally, with a very uncertain thing--your life and your future
opportunities. 'You know not what shall be on the morrow.'

For a generation I have preached in Manchester these annual sermons
to the young. Ah, how many of those that heard the early ones are
laid in their graves; and how many of them were laid in _early_
graves; and how many of them said, as some of you are saying, 'When I
get older I will turn religious'! And they never got older. It is a
commonplace word that, but I leave it on your hearts. You have no
time to lose.

Do not delay, because delay is decision in the wrong way; do not
delay, because there is no reason for delay; do not delay, because
delay robs you of a large blessing; do not delay, because delay lays
up for you, if ever you come back, bitter memories; do not delay,
because delay may end in death. And for all these reasons, come as a
sinful soul to Christ the Saviour; and ask Him to forgive you, and
follow in His footsteps, and do it now! 'To-day, if ye will hear His
voice, harden not your hearts.'



CHRIST'S REMONSTRANCES

'And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice
speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul,
why perseoutest thou Me! it is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks.'--ACTS xxvi. 14.

'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' No.
But God can change the skin, because He can change the nature. In
this story of the conversion of the Apostle Paul--the most important
thing that happened that day--we have an instance how brambles may
become vines; tares may become wheat; and a hater of Jesus Christ may
be changed in a moment into His lover and servant, and, if need be,
His martyr.

Now the very same motives and powers which were brought to bear upon
the Apostle Paul by miracle are being brought to bear upon every one
of us; and my object now is just to trace the stages of the process
set forth here, and to ask some of you, if you, like Paul, have been
'obedient to the heavenly vision.' Stages, I call them, though they
were all crowded into a moment, for even the lightning has to pass
through the intervening space when it flashes from one side of the
heavens to another, and we may divide its path into periods. Time is
very elastic, as any of us whose lives have held great sorrows or
great joys or great resolutions well know.

I. The first of these all but simultaneous and yet separable stages
was the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Of course to the Apostle it was mediated by miracle; but real as he
believed that appearance of the risen Lord in the heavens to be, and
valid as he maintained that it was as the ground of his Apostleship,
he himself, in one of his letters, speaks of the whole incident as
being the revelation of God's Son in him. The revelation in heart and
mind was the main thing, of which the revelation to eye and ear were
but means. The means, in his case, are different from those in ours;
the end is the same. To Paul it came like the rush of a cataract that
the Christ whom he had thought of as lying in an unknown grave was
living in the heavens and ruling there. You and I, I suppose, do not
need to be convinced by miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ;
but the bare fact that Jesus was living in the heavens would have had
little effect upon Saul, unless it had been accompanied with the
revelation of the startling fact that between him and Jesus Christ
there were close personal relations, so that he had to do with Jesus,
and Jesus with him.

'Saul, Saul! why persecutest thou Me?' They used to think that they
could wake sleep-walkers by addressing them by name. Jesus Christ, by
speaking His name to the Apostle, wakes him out of his diseased
slumber, and brings him to wholesome consciousness. There are
stringency and solemnity of address in that double use of the name
'Saul, Saul!'

What does such an address teach you and me? That Jesus Christ, the
living, reigning Lord of the universe, has perfect knowledge of each
of us, and that we each stand isolated before Him, as if all the
light of omniscience were focussed upon us. He knows our characters;
He knows all about us, and more than that, He directly addresses
Himself to each man and woman among us.

We are far too apt to hide ourselves in the crowd, and let all the
messages of God's love, the warnings of His providences, as well as
the teachings and invitations and pleadings of His gospel, fly over
our heads as if they were meant vaguely for anybody. But they are all
intended for _thee_, as directly as if thou, and thou only, wert in
the world. I beseech you, lay this to heart, that although no audible
sounds may rend the silent heavens, nor any blaze may blind thine
eye, yet that as really, though not in the same outward fashion as
Saul, when they were all fallen to the earth, felt himself to be
singled out, and heard a voice 'speaking to _him_ in the Hebrew
tongue, saying, Saul, Saul!' _thou_ mayest hear a voice speaking to
thee in the English tongue, by thy name, and directly addressing its
gracious remonstrances and its loving offers to thy listening ear. I
want to sharpen the blunt 'whosoever' into the pointed 'thou.' And I
would fain plead with each of my friends hearing me now to believe
that the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for thee, and that Christ
speaks to _thee_. 'I have a message from God unto thee,' just as
Nathan said unto David. '_Thou_ art the man!'

Do not lose yourselves in the crowd or hide yourselves from the
personal incidence of Christ's offer, but feel that you stand, as you
do indeed, alone the hearer of His voice, the possible recipient of
His saving mercy.

II. Secondly, notice, as another stage in this process the discovery
of the true character of the past.

'Why persecutest thou Me?' Now I am not going to be tempted from my
more direct purpose in this sermon to dwell even for a moment on the
beautiful, affecting, strengthening thought here, of the unity of
Jesus Christ with all the humble souls that love Him, so as that,
whatsoever any member suffers, the Head suffers with it. I must leave
that truth untouched.

Saul was brought to look at all his past life as standing in
immediate connection with Jesus Christ. Of course he knew before the
vision that he had no love to Him whom he thought to be a Galilean
impostor, and that the madness with which he hated the servants was
only the glancing off of the arrow that he would fain have aimed at
the Master. But he did not know that Jesus Christ counted every blow
struck at one of His servants as being struck at Him. Above all he
did not know that the Christ whom he was persecuting was reigning in
the heavens. And so his whole past life stood before him in a new
aspect when it was brought into close connection with Christ, and
looked at as in relation to Him.

The same process would yield very remarkable results if applied to
our lives. If I could only get you for one quiet ten minutes, to lay
all your past, as far as memory brought it to your minds, right
before that pure and loving Face, I should have done much. One
infallible way of judging of the rottenness or goodness of our
actions is that we should bring them where they will all be brought
one day, into the brightness of Christ's countenance. If you want to
find out the flaws in some thin, badly-woven piece of cloth, you hold
it up against the light, do you not? and then you see all the specks
and holes, and the irregular threads. Hold up your lives in like
fashion against the light, and I shall be surprised if you do not
find enough there to make you very much ashamed of yourselves. Were
you ever on the stage of a theatre in the daytime? Did you ever see
what miserable daubs the scenes look, and how seamy it all is when
the pitiless sunshine comes in? Let that great light pour on your
life, and be thankful if you find out what a daub it has been, whilst
yet colours and brushes and time are at your disposal, and you may
paint the future fairer than the past.

Again, this revelation of Saul's past life disclosed its utter
unreasonableness. That one question, '_Why_ persecutest thou Me?'
pulverised the whole thing. It was like the wondering question so
unanswerable in the Psalm, 'Why do the heathen rage, and the people
imagine a vain thing?' If you take into account what you are, and
where you stand, you can find no reason, except utterly unreasonable
ones, for the lives that I fear some of us are living--lives of
godlessness and Christlessness. There is nothing in all the world a
tithe so stupid as sin. There is nothing so unreasonable, if there be
a God at all, and if we depend upon Him, and have duties to Him, as
the lives that some of you are living. You admit, most of you, that
there is such a God; you admit, most of you, that you do hang upon
Him; you admit, in theory, that you ought to love and serve Him. The
bulk of you call yourselves Christians. That is to say, you believe,
as a piece of historical fact, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came into this world and died for men. And, believing that, you turn
your back on Him, and neither love nor serve nor trust Him nor turn
away from your iniquity. Is there anything outside a lunatic asylum
more madlike than that? 'Why persecutest thou?' 'And he was
speechless,' for no answer was possible. Why neglectest thou? Why
forgettest thou? Why, admitting what thou dost, art thou not an out-
and-out Christian? If we think of all our obligations and relations,
and the facts of the universe, we come back to the old saying, 'The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' and any man who, like
many of my hearers, fails to give his heart and life to Jesus Christ
will one day have to say, 'Behold, I have played the fool, and erred
exceedingly.' Wake up, my brother, to apply calm reason to your lives
while yet there is time, and face the question, Why dost thou stand
as thou dost to Jesus Christ? There is nothing sadder than the small
share that deliberate reason and intelligent choice have in the
ordering of most men's lives. You live by impulse, by habit, by
example, by constraint of the outward necessities of your position.
But I am sure that there are many amongst us now who have very
seldom, if ever, sat down and said, 'Now let me think, until I get to
the ultimate grounds of the course of life that I am pursuing.' You
can carry on the questions very gaily for a step or two, but then you
come to a dead pause. 'What do I do so-and-so for?' 'Because I like
it.' 'Why do I like it?' 'Because it meets my needs, or my desires,
or my tastes, or my intellect.' Why do you make the meeting of your
needs, or your desires, or your tastes, or your intellect your sole
object? Is there any answer to that? The Hindoos say that the world
rests upon an elephant, and the elephant rests upon a tortoise. What
does the tortoise rest on? Nothing! Then that is what the world and
the elephant rest on. And so, though you may go bravely through the
first stages of the examination, when you come to the last question
of all, you will find out that your whole scheme of life is built
upon a blunder; and the blunder is this, that anybody can be blessed
without God.

Further, this disclosure of the true character of his life revealed
to Saul, as in a lightning flash, the ingratitude of it.

'Why persecutest thou Me?' That was as much as to say, 'What have I
done to merit thy hate? What have I _not_ done to merit rather thy
love?' Paul did not know all that Jesus Christ had done for him. It
took him a lifetime to learn a little of it, and to tell his brethren
something of what he had learned. And he has been learning it ever
since that day when, outside the walls of Rome, they hacked off his
head. He has been learning more and more of what Jesus Christ has
done for him, and why he should not persecute Him but love Him.

But the same appeal comes to each of us. What has Jesus Christ done
for thee, my friend, for me, for every soul of man? He has loved me
better than His own life. He has given Himself for me. He has
lingered beside me, seeking to draw me to Himself, and He still
lingers. And this, at the best, tremulous faith, this, at the
warmest, tepid love, this, at the completest, imperfect devotion and
service, are all that we bring to Him; and some of us do not bring
even these. Some of us have never known what it was to sacrifice one
inclination for the sake of Christ, nor to do one act for His dear
love's sake, nor to lean our weakness upon Him, nor to turn to Him
and say, 'I give Thee myself, that I may possess Thee.' 'Do ye thus
requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?' I have heard of
wounded soldiers striking with their bayonets at the ambulance men
who came to help them. That is like what some of you do to the Lord
who died for your healing, and comes as the Physician, with bandages
and with balm, to bind up the brokenhearted. 'Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou Me?'

III. Lastly, we have here a warning against self-inflicted wounds.

That second clause of the remonstrance on the lips of Christ in my
text is, according to the true reading, not found in the account of
Paul's conversion in the ninth chapter of this book. My text is from
Paul's own story; and it is interesting to notice that he adds this
eminently pathetic and forcible appeal to the shorter account given
by the writer of the book. It had gone deep into his heart, and he
could not forget.

The metaphor is a very plain one. The ox-goad was a formidable
weapon, some seven or eight feet in length, shod with an iron point,
and capable of being used as a spear, and of inflicting deadly wounds
at a pinch. Held in the firm hand of the ploughman, it presented a
sharp point to the rebellious animal under the yoke. If the ox had
readily yielded to the gentle prick, given, not in anger, but for
guidance, it had been well. But if it lashes out with its hoofs
against the point, what does it get but bleeding flanks? Paul had
been striking out instead of obeying, and he had won by it only
bloody hocks.

There are two truths deducible from this saying, which may have been
a proverb in common use. One is the utter futility of lives that are
spent in opposing the divine will. There is a strong current running,
and if you try to go against it you will only be swept away by it.
Think of some little fishing coble coming across the bow of a great
ocean-going steamer. What will be the end of that? Think of a pony-
chaise jogging up the line, and an express train thundering down it.
What will be the end of that? Think of a man lifting himself up and
saying to God, 'I will _not_!' when God says, 'Do thou this!' or 'Be
thou this!' What will be the end of that? 'The world passeth away,
and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for
ever.' 'It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks'--hard in
regard to breaches of common morality, as some of my friends sitting
quietly in these pews very well know. It is hard to indulge in
sensual sin. You cannot altogether dodge what people call the
'natural consequences'; but it was God who made Nature; and so I call
them God-inflicted penalties. It is hard to set yourselves against
Christianity. I am not going to speak of that at all now, only when
we think of the expectations of victory with which so many
antagonists of the Cross have gaily leaped into the arena, and of how
the foes have been forgotten and there stands the Cross still, we may
say of the whole crowd, beginning with the earliest, and coming down
to the latest brand-new theory that is going to explode Christianity
--'it is hard to kick against the pricks.' Your own limbs you may
wound; you will not do the goad much harm.

But there is another side to the proverb of my text, and that is the
self-inflicted harm that comes from resisting the pricks of God's
rebukes and remonstrances, whether inflicted by conscience or by any
other means; including, I make bold to say, even such poor words as
these of mine. For if the first little prick of conscience, a warning
and a guide, be neglected, the next will go a great deal deeper. The
voice which, before you do the wrong thing, says to you, 'Do not do
it,' in tones of entreaty and remonstrance, speaks, after you have
done it, more severely and more bitterly. The Latin word _remorse_,
and the old English name for conscience, 'again-bite'--which latter
is a translation of the other--teach us the same lesson, that the
gnawing which comes after wrong done is far harder to bear than the
touch that should have kept us from the evil. The stings of marine
jelly-fish will burn for days after, if you wet them. And so all
wrong-doing, and all neglect of right-doing of every sort, carries
with it a subsequent pain, or else the wounded limb _mortifies_, and
that is worse. There is no pain then; it would be better if there
were. There is such a possibility as to have gone on so obstinately
kicking against the pricks and leaving the wounds so unheeded, as
that they mortify and feeling goes. A conscience 'seared with a hot
iron' is ten times more dreadful than a conscience that pains and
stings.

So, dear brethren, let me beseech you to listen to the pitying
Christ, who says to us each, more in sorrow than in anger, 'It is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks.' It is no pleasure to Him
to hold the goad, nor that we should wound ourselves upon it. He has
another question to put to us, with another 'why,' 'Why should ye be
stricken any more? Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of
Israel?'

There is another metaphor drawn from the employment of oxen which we
may set side by side with this of my text: 'Take My yoke upon you,
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' The yoke accepted, the goad
is laid aside; and repose and healing from its wounds are granted to
us. Dear brethren, if you will listen to the Christ revealed in the
heavens, as knowing all about you, and remonstrating with you for
your unreasonableness and ingratitude, and setting before you the
miseries of rebellion and the suicide of sin, then you will have
healing for all your wounds, and your lives will neither be self-
tormenting, futile, nor unreasonable. The mercy of Jesus Christ
lavished upon you makes your yielding yourselves to Him your only
rational course. Anything else is folly beyond comparison and harm
and loss beyond count.



FAITH IN CHRIST

'...Faith that is in Me.'--ACTS xxvi. 18.

It is commonly said, and so far as the fact is concerned, said truly,
that what are called the distinguishing doctrines of Christianity are
rather found in the Epistles than in the Gospels. If we wish the
clearest statements of the nature and person of Christ, we turn to
Paul's Epistle to the Colossians. If we wish the fullest dissertation
upon Christ's work as a sacrifice, we go to the Epistle to the
Hebrews. If we seek to prove that men are justified by faith, and not
by works, it is to the Epistles to Romans and Galatians that we
betake ourselves,--to the writings of the servant rather than the
words of the Master. Now this fuller development of Christian
doctrine contained in the teaching of the Apostles cannot be denied,
and need not be wondered at. The reasons for it I am not going to
enter upon at present; they are not far to seek. Christ came not to
_speak_ the Gospel, but _to be_ the Gospel. But then, this truth of a
fuller development is often over-strained, as if Christ 'spake
nothing concerning priesthood,' sacrifices, faith. He _did_ so speak
when on earth. It is often misused by being made the foundation of an
inference unfavourable to the authority of the Apostolic teaching,
when we are told, as we sometimes are, that not Paul but Jesus speaks
the words which we are to receive.

Here we have Christ Himself speaking from the heavens to Paul at the
very beginning of the Apostle's course, and if any one asks us where
did Paul get the doctrines which he preached, the answer is, Here, on
the road to Damascus, when blind, bleeding, stunned, with all his
self-confidence driven out of him--with all that he had been crushed
into shivers--he saw his Lord, and heard Him speak. These words
spoken then are the germ of all Paul's Epistles, the keynote to which
all his writings are but the melody that follows, the mighty voice of
which all his teaching is but the prolonged echo. 'Delivering thee,'
says Christ to him, 'from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto
whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified
by faith that is in Me.' Now, I ask you, what of Paul's Gospel is not
here? Man's ruin, man's depravity and state of darkness, the power of
Satan, the sole redemptive work of Christ, justification by belief in
that, sanctification coming with justification, and glory and rest
and heaven at last--there they all are in the very first words that
sounded upon the quickened ear of the blinded man when he turned from
darkness to light.

It would be foolish, of course, to try to exhaust such a passage as
this in a sermon. But notice, what a complete summary of Christian
truth there lies in that one last clause of the verse, 'Inheritance
among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.' Translate
that into distinct propositions, and they are these: Faith refers to
Christ; that is the first thing. Holiness depends on faith; that is
the next: '_sanctified_ by faith.' Heaven depends on holiness: that
is the last: '_inheritance_ among them which are sanctified by faith
that is in Me.' So there we have the whole gospel!

To the one part of this comprehensive summary which is contained in
my text I desire to turn now, in hope of gathering from it some
truths as to that familiar word 'faith' which may be of use to us
all. The expression is so often on our lips that it has come to be
almost meaningless in many minds. These keywords of Scripture meet
the same fate as do coins that have been long in circulation. They
pass through so many fingers that the inscriptions get worn off them.
We can all talk about faith and forgiveness and justifying and
sanctifying, but how few of us have definite notions as to what these
words that come so easily from our lips mean! There is a vast deal of
cloudy haze in the minds of average church and chapel goers as to
what this wonder-working faith may really be. Perhaps we may then be
able to see large and needful truths gleaming in these weighty
syllables which Christ Jesus spoke from heaven to Paul, 'faith that
is in Me.'

I. In the first place, then, the object of faith is Christ.

'Faith that is in Me' is that which is directed towards Christ as its
object. Christianity is not merely a system of truths about God, nor
a code of morality deducible from these. In its character of a
revelation, it is the revelation of God in the person of His Son.
Christianity in the soul is not the belief of these truths about God,
still less the acceptance and practice of these pure ethics, but the
affiance and the confidence of the whole spirit fixed upon the
redeeming, revealing Christ,

True, the object of our faith is Christ as made known to us in the
facts of His recorded life and the teaching of His Apostles. True,
our only means of knowing Him as of any other person whom we have
never seen, are the descriptions of Him, His character and work,
which are given. True, the empty name 'Christ' has to be filled with
the doctrinal and biographical statements of Scripture before the
Person on whom faith is to fix can be apprehended or beheld. True, it
is Christ as He is made known to us in the word of God, the Incarnate
Son, the perfect Man, the atoning Sacrifice, the risen Lord, the
ascended Intercessor in whom we have to trust. The characteristics
and attributes of Christ are known to us only by biographical
statements and by doctrinal propositions. These must be understood in
some measure and accepted, ere there can be faith in Him. Apart from
them, the image of Christ must stand a pale, colourless phantom
before the mind, and the faith which is directed towards such a
nebula will be an unintelligent emotion, as nebulous and impotent as
the vagueness towards which it turns.

Thus far, then, the attempt which is sometimes made to establish a
Christianity without doctrines on the plea that the object of faith
is not a proposition, but a person, must be regarded as nugatory; for
how can the 'person' be an object of thought at all, but through the
despised 'propositions'?

But while on the one hand it is true that Christ as revealed in these
doctrinal statements of Scripture, the divine human Saviour, is the
Object of faith, on the other hand it is to be remembered that it is
He, and not the statements about Him, who is the Object.

Look at His own words. He does not merely say to us, 'Believe this,
that, and the other thing about Me; put your credence in this and the
other doctrine; accept this and the other promise; hope for this and
the other future thing.' All these come with but are not the central
act. He says, 'Believe: believe in Me! "_I_ am the Way, and the
Truth, and the Life": He that cometh to _Me_ shall never hunger, and
he that believeth in _Me_ shall never thirst.' Do we rightly
appreciate that? I think that if people firmly grasped this truth--
that Christ is the Gospel, and that the Object of faith is not simply
the truths that are recorded here in the word, but He with regard to
whom these truths are recorded--it would clear away rolling wreaths
of fog and mist from their perceptions. The whole feeling and
attitude of a man's mind is different, according as he is trusting a
person, or according as he is believing something about a person. And
this, therefore, is the first broad truth that lies here. Faith has
reference not merely to a doctrine, not to a system; but deeper than
all these, to a living Lord--'faith that is _in Me_.'

I cannot help observing, before I go on--though it may be somewhat of
a digression--what a strong inference with regard to the divinity of
Christ is deducible from this first thought that He is the Object to
whom faith has reference. If you look into the Old Testament, you
will find constantly, 'Trust ye in the Lord for ever'; 'Put thy trust
in Jehovah!' There, too, though under the form of the Law, there,
too, faith was the seed and germ of all religion. There, too, though
under the hard husk of apparently external obedience and ceremonial
sacrifices, the just lived by faith. Its object was the Jehovah of
that ancient covenant. Religion has always been the same in every
dispensation. At every time, that which made a man a devout man has
been identically the same thing. It has always been true that it has
been faith which has bound man to God, and given man hope. But when
we come to the New Testament, the centre is shifted, as it would
seem. What has become of the grand old words, 'Trust ye in the Lord
Jehovah'? Look! Christ stands there, and says, 'Believe upon Me'!
With calm, simple, profound dignity, He lays His hand upon all the
ancient and consecrated words, upon all the ancient and hallowed
emotions that used to set towards the unseen God between the
cherubim, throned above judgment and resting upon mercy; and He says,
'They are Mine--give them to Me! That ancient trust, I claim the
right to have it. That old obedience, it belongs to Me. I am He to
whom in all time the loving hearts of them that loved God, have set.
I am the Angel of the Covenant, in whom whoever trusteth shall never
be confounded.' And I ask you just to take that one simple fact, that
Christ thus steps, in the New Testament--in so far as the direction
of the religious emotions of faith and love are concerned--that
Christ steps into the place filled by the Jehovah of the Old; and ask
yourselves honestly what theory of Christ's nature and person and
work explains that fact, and saves Him from the charge of folly and
blasphemy? 'He that believeth upon Me shall never hunger.' Ah, my
brother! He was no mere _man_ who said that. He that spake from out
of the cloud to the Apostle on the road to Damascus, and said,
'Sanctified by faith that is in Me,' was no mere _man_. Christ was
our brother and a man, but He was the Son of God, the divine
Redeemer. The Object of faith is Christ; and as Object of faith He
must needs be divine.

II. And now, secondly, closely connected with and springing from this
thought as to the true object of faith, arises the consideration as
to the nature and the essence of the act of faith itself.

_Whom_ we are to trust in we have seen: what it is to _have_ faith
may be very briefly stated. If the Object of faith were certain
truths, the assent of the understanding would be enough. If the
Object of faith were unseen things, the confident persuasion of them
would be sufficient. If the Object of faith were promises of future
good, the hope rising to certainty of the possession of these would
be sufficient. But if the Object be more than truths, more than
unseen realities, more than promises; if the Object be a living
Person,--then there follows inevitably this, that faith is not merely
the assent of the understanding, that faith is not merely the
persuasion of the reality of unseen things, that faith is not merely
the confident expectation of future good; but that faith is the
personal relation of him who has it to the living Person its Object,
--the relation which is expressed not more clearly, perhaps a little
more forcibly to us, by substituting another word, and saying, Faith
is _trust_.

And I think that there again, by laying hold of that simple
principle, Because Christ is the Object of Faith, therefore Faith
must be trust, we get bright and beautiful light upon the grandest
truths of the Gospel of God. If we will only take that as our
explanation, we have not indeed defined faith by substituting the
other word for it, but we have made it a little more clear to our
apprehensions, by using a non-theological word with which our daily
acts teach us to connect an intelligible meaning. If we will only
take that as our explanation, how simple, how grand, how familiar too
it sounds,--to _trust_ Him! It is the very same kind of feeling,
though different in degree, and glorified by the majesty and glory of
its Object, as that which we all know how to put forth in our
relations with one another. We trust each other. That is faith. We
have confidence in the love that has been around us, breathing
benedictions and bringing blessings ever since we were little
children. When the child looks up into the mother's face, the symbol
to it of all protection, or into the father's eye, the symbol to it
of all authority,--that emotion by which the little one hangs upon
the loving hand and trusts the loving heart that towers above it in
order to bend over it and scatter good, is the same as the one which,
glorified and made divine, rises strong and immortal in its power,
when fixed and fastened on Christ, and saves the soul. The Gospel
rests upon a mystery, but the practical part of it is no mystery.
When we come and preach to you, 'Trust in Christ and thou shalt be
saved,' we are not asking you to put into exercise some mysterious
power. We are only asking you to give to Him that which you give to
others, to transfer the old emotions, the blessed emotions, the
exercise of which makes gladness in life here below, to transfer them
to Him, and to rest safe in the Lord. Faith is trust. The living
Person as its Object rises before us there, in His majesty, in His
power, in His gentleness, and He says, 'I shall be contented if thou
wilt give to Me these emotions which thou dost fix now, to thy death
and loss, on the creatures of a day.' Faith is mighty, divine, the
gift of God; but Oh! it is the exercise of a familiar habit, only
fixed upon a divine and eternal Person.

And if this be the very heart and kernel of the Christian doctrine of
faith--that it is simple personal trust in Jesus Christ; it is worthy
of notice, how all the subsidiary meanings and uses of the word flow
out of that, whilst it cannot be explained by any of them. People are
in the habit of setting up antitheses betwixt faith and reason,
betwixt faith and sight, betwixt faith and possession. They say, 'We
do not _know_, we must _believe_'; they say, 'We do not _see_, we
must have faith'; they say, 'We do not _possess_, we must trust.' Now
faith--the trust in Christ--the simple personal relation of
confidence in Him--_that_ lies beneath all these other meanings of
the word. For instance, faith is, in one sense, the opposite and
antithesis of sight; because Christ, unseen, having gone into the
unseen world, the confidence which is directed towards Him must needs
pass out beyond the region of sense, and fix upon the immortal
verities that are veiled by excess of light at God's right hand.
Faith is the opposite of sight; inasmuch as Christ, having given us
assurance of an unseen and everlasting world, we, trusting in Him,
believe what He says to us, and are persuaded and know that there are
things yonder which we have never seen with the eye nor handled with
the hand. Similarly, faith is the completion of reason; because,
trusting Christ, we believe what He says, and He has spoken to us
truths which we in ourselves are unable to discover, but which, when
revealed, we accept on the faith of His truthfulness, and because we
rely upon Him. Similarly, faith is contrasted with present
possession, because Christ has promised us future blessings and
future glories; and having confidence in the Person, we believe what
He says, and know that we shall possess them. But the root from which
spring the power of faith as the opposite of sight, the power of
faith as the telescope of reason, the power of faith as the
'confidence of things not possessed,' is the deeper thing--faith in
the Person, which leads us to believe Him whether He promises,
reveals, or commands, and to take His words as verity because He _is_
'the Truth.'

And then, again, if this, the personal trust in Christ as our living
Redeemer--if this be faith, then there come also, closely connected
with it, certain other emotions or feelings in the heart. For
instance, if I am trusting to Christ, there is inseparably linked
with it self-distrust. There are two sides to the emotion; where
there is reliance upon another, there must needs be non-reliance upon
self. Take an illustration. There is the tree: the trunk goes upward
from the little seed, rises into the light, gets the sunshine upon
it, and has leaves and fruit. That is the upward tendency of faith--
trust in Christ. There is the root, down deep, buried, dark, unseen.
Both are springing, but springing in apposite directions, from the
one seed. That is, as it were, the negative side, the downward
tendency--self-distrust. The two things go together--the positive
reliance upon another, the negative distrust of myself. There must be
deep consciousness not only of my own impotence, but of my own
sinfulness. The heart must be emptied that the seed of faith may
grow; but the entrance in of faith is itself the means for the
emptying of the heart. The two things co-exist; we can divide them in
thought. We can wrangle and squabble, as divided sects hare done,
about which comes first, the fact being, that though you can part
them in thought, you cannot part them in experience, inasmuch as they
are but the obverse and the reverse, the two sides of the same coin.
Faith and repentance--faith and self-distrust--they are done in one
and the same indissoluble act.

And again, faith, as thus conceived of, will obviously have for its
certain and immediate consequence, love. Nay, the two emotions will
be inseparable and practically co-existent. In thought we can
separate them. Logically, faith comes first, and love next, but in
life they will spring up together. The question of their order of
existence is an often-trod battle-ground of theology, all strewed
with the relics of former fights. But in the real history of the
growth of religious emotions in the soul, the interval which
separates them is impalpable, and in every act of trust, love is
present, and fundamental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust
in Christ.

But without further reference to such matters, here is the broad
principle of our text. Trust in Christ, not mere assent to a
principle, personal dependence upon Him revealed as the 'Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world,' an act of the will as well as
of the understanding, and essentially an act of the will and not of
the understanding--that is the thing by which a soul is saved. And
much of the mist and confusion about saving faith, and non-saving
faith, might be lifted and dispersed if we once fully apprehended and
firmly held by the divine simplicity of the truth, that faith is
trust in Jesus Christ.

III. Once more: from this general definition there follows, in the
third place, an explanation of the power of faith.

'We are justified,' says the Bible, 'by faith.' If a man believes, he
is saved. Why so? Not, as some people sometimes seem to fancy, as if
in faith itself there was any merit. There is a very strange and
subtle resurrection of the whole doctrine of works in reference to
this matter; and we often hear belief in the Gospel of Christ spoken
about as if _it_, the work of the man believing, was, in a certain
way and to some extent, that which God rewarded by giving him
salvation. What is that but the whole doctrine of works come up again
in a new form? What difference is there between what a man does with
his hands and what a man feels in his heart? If the one merit
salvation, or if the other merit salvation, equally we are shut up to
this,--Men get heaven by what they do; and it does not matter a bit
what they do it with, whether it be body or soul. When we say we are
saved by faith, we mean accurately, _through_ faith. It is God that
saves. It is Christ's life, Christ's blood, Christ's sacrifice,
Christ's intercession, that saves. Faith is simply the channel
through which there flows over into my emptiness the divine fulness;
or, to use the good old illustration, it is the hand which is held up
to receive the benefit which Christ lays in it. A living trust in
Jesus has power unto salvation, only because it is the means by which
'the power of God unto salvation' may come into my heart. On one side
is the great ocean of Christ's love, Christ's abundance, Christ's
merits, Christ's righteousness; or, rather, there is the great ocean
of Christ Himself, which includes them all; and on the other is the
empty vessel of my soul--and the little narrow pipe that has nothing
to do but to bring across the refreshing water, is the act of faith
in Him. There is no merit in the dead lead, no virtue in the mere
emotion. It is not faith that saves us; it is Christ that saves us,
and saves us through faith.

And now, lastly, these principles likewise help us to understand
wherein consists the guilt and criminality of unbelief. People are
sometimes disposed to fancy that God has arbitrarily selected this
one thing, believing in Jesus Christ, as the means of salvation, and
do not distinctly see why and how non-belief is so desperate and
criminal a thing. I think that the principles that I have been trying
feebly to work out now, help us to see how faith is not arbitrarily
selected as the instrument and means of our salvation. There is no
other way of effecting it. God could not save us in any other way
than that, salvation being provided, the condition of receiving it
should be trust in His Son.

And next they show where the guilt of unbelief lies. Faith is not
first and principally an act of the understanding; it is not the mere
assent to certain truths. I believe, for my part, that men are
responsible even for their intellectual processes, and for the
beliefs at which they arrive by the working of these; and I think it
is a very shallow philosophy that stands up and says--(it is almost
exploded now, and perhaps not needful even to mention it)--that men
are 'no more responsible for their belief than they are for the
colour of their hair.' Why, if faith were no more than an
intellectual process, it would still be true that they are
responsible for it; but the faith that saves a man, and unbelief that
ruins a man, are not processes of the understanding alone. It is the
will, the heart, the whole moral being, that is concerned. Why does
any one not trust Jesus Christ? For one reason only: because _he will
not_. Why has any one not faith in the Lamb of God? Because his whole
nature is turning away from that divine and loving Face, and is
setting itself in rebellion against it. Why does any one refuse to
believe? Because he has confidence in himself; because he has not a
sense of his sins; because he has not love in his heart to his Lord
and Saviour. Men are responsible for unbelief. Unbelief is criminal,
because it is a moral act--an act of the whole nature. Belief or
unbelief is the test of a man's whole spiritual condition, just
because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience and all,
as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it. And
therefore Christ, who says, 'Sanctified by faith that is in Me,' says
likewise, 'He that believeth not, shall be condemned.'

And now, brethren, take this one conviction into your hearts, that
what makes a man a Christian--what saves my soul and yours--what
brings the love of Christ into any life, and makes the sacrifice of
Christ a power to pardon and purify,--that that is not merely
believing this Book, not merely understanding the doctrines that are
there, but a far more profound act than that. It is the casting of
myself upon Himself, the bending of my willing heart to His loving
Spirit; the close contact, heart to heart, soul to soul, will to
will, of my emptiness with His fulness, of my sinfulness with His
righteousness, of my death with His life: that I may live by Him, be
sanctified by Him, be saved by Him, 'with an everlasting salvation.'
Faith is trust: Christ is the Objeet of faith. Faith is the condition
of salvation; and unbelief is your fault, your loss--the crime which
ruins men's souls!



'BEFORE GOVERNORS AND KINGS'

'Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the
heavenly vision: 20. But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and
at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judsea, and then
to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do
works meet for repentance. 21. For these causes the Jews caught
me in the temple, and went about to kill me. 22. Having therefore
obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both
to small and great, saying none other things than those which the
prophets and Moses did say should come; 23. That Christ should
suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the
dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
24. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud
voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make
thee mad. 25. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but
speak forth the words of truth and soberness. 26. For the king
knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I
am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for
this thing was not done in a corner. 27. King Agrippa, believest
thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. 28. Then Agrippa
said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. 29.
And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all
that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I
am, except these bonds. 30. And when he had thus spoken, the king
rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with
them: 31. And when they were gone aside, they talked between
themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of
bonds. 32. Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have
been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.'
--ACTS xxvi. 19-32.

Festus was no model of a righteous judge, but he had got hold of the
truth as to Paul, and saw that what he contemptuously called 'certain
questions of their own superstition,' and especially his assertion of
the Resurrection, were the real crimes of the Apostle in Jewish eyes.
But the fatal wish to curry favour warped his course, and led him to
propose a removal of the 'venue' to Jerusalem. Paul knew that to
return thither would seal his death-warrant, and was therefore driven
to appeal to Rome.

That took the case out of Festus's jurisdiction. So that the hearing
before Agrippa was an entertainment, got up for the king's diversion,
when other amusements had been exhausted, rather than a regular
judicial proceeding. Paul was examined 'to make a Roman holiday.'
Festus's speech (chap. xxv. 24-27) tries to put on a colour of desire
to ascertain more clearly the charges, but that is a very thin
pretext. Agrippa had said that he would like 'to hear the man,' and
so the performance was got up 'by request.' Not a very sympathetic
audience fronted Paul that day. A king and his sister, a Roman
governor, and all the elite of Caesarean society, ready to take their
cue from the faces of these three, did not daunt Paul. The man who
had seen Jesus on the Damascus road could face 'small and great.'

The portion of his address included in the passage touches
substantially the same points as did his previous 'apologies.' We may
note how strongly he puts the force that impelled him on his course,
and lays bare the secret of his life. 'I was not disobedient to the
heavenly vision'; then the possibility of disobedience was open after
he had heard Christ ask, 'Why persecutest thou Me?' and had received
commands from His mouth. Then, too, the essential character of the
charge against him was that, instead of kicking against the owner's
goad, he had bowed his neck to his yoke, and that his obstinate will
had melted. Then, too, the 'light above the brightness of the sun'
still shone round him, and his whole life was one long act of
obedience.

We note also how he sums up his work in verse 20, representing his
mission to the Gentiles as but the last term in a continuous widening
of his field, from Damascus to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Judaea (a
phase of his activity not otherwise known to us, and for which, with
our present records, it is difficult to find a place), from Judaea to
the Gentiles. Step by step he had been led afield, and at each step
the 'heavenly vision' had shone before him.

How superbly, too, Paul overleaps the distinction of Jew and Gentile,
which disappeared to him in the unity of the broad message, which was
the same to every man. Repentance, turning to God, works worthy of
repentance, are as needful for Jew as for Gentile, and as open to
Gentile as to Jew. What but universal can such a message be? To limit
it would be to mutilate it.

We note, too, the calmness with which he lays his finger on the real
cause of Jewish hate, which Festus had already found out. He does not
condescend to rebut the charge of treason, which he had already
repelled, and which nobody in his audience believed. He is neither
afraid nor angry, as he quietly points to the deadly malice which had
no ground but his message.

We further note the triumphant confidence in God and assurance of His
help in all the past, so that, like some strong tower after the most
crashing blows of the battering-ram, he still 'stands.' 'His steps
had wellnigh slipped,' when foe after foe stormed against him, but
'Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.'

Finally, Paul gathers himself together, to leave as his last word the
mighty sentence in which he condenses his whole teaching, in its
aspect of witness-bearing, in its universal destination and identity
to the poorest and to loftily placed men and women, such as sat
languidly looking at him now, in its perfect concord with the earlier
revelation, and in its threefold contents, that it was the message of
the Christ who suffered, who rose from the dead, who was the Light of
the world. Surely the promise was fulfilled to him, and it was 'given
him in that hour what he should speak.'

The rustle in the crowd was scarcely over, when the strong masterful
voice of the governor rasped out the coarse taunt, which, according
to one reading, was made coarser (and more lifelike) by repetition,
'Thou art mad, Paul; thou art mad.' So did a hard 'practical man'
think of that strain of lofty conviction, and of that story of the
appearance of the Christ. To be in earnest about wealth or power or
science or pleasure is not madness, so the world thinks; but to be in
earnest about religion, one's own soul, or other people's, is. Which
was the saner, Paul, who 'counted all things but dung that he might
win Christ,' or Festus, who counted keeping his governorship, and
making all that he could out of it, the one thing worth living for?
Who is the madman, he who looks up and sees Jesus, and bows before
Him for lifelong service, or he who looks up and says, 'I see nothing
up there; I keep my eyes on the main chance down here'? It would be a
saner and a happier world if there were more of us mad after Paul's
fashion.

Paul's unruffled calm and dignity brushed aside the rude exclamation
with a simple affirmation that his words were true in themselves, and
spoken by one who had full command over his faculties; and then he
turned away from Festus, who understood nothing, to Agrippa, who, at
any rate, did understand a little. Indeed, Festus has to take the
second place throughout, and it may have been the ignoring of him
that nettled him. For all his courtesy to Agrippa, he knew that the
latter was but a vassal king, and may have chafed at Paul's
addressing him exclusively.

The Apostle has finished his defence, and now he towers above the
petty dignitaries before him, and goes straight at the conscience of
the king. Festus had dismissed the Resurrection of 'one Jesus' as
unimportant: Paul asserted it, the Jews denied it. It was not worth
while to ask which was right. The man was dead, that was agreed. If
Paul said He was alive after death, that was only another proof of
madness, and a Roman governor had more weighty things to occupy him
than investigating such obscure and absurd trifles. But Agrippa,
though not himself a Jew, knew enough of the history of the last
twenty years to have heard about the Resurrection and the rise of the
Church. No doubt he would have been ready to admit his knowledge, but
Paul shows a disposition to come to closer quarters by his swift
thrust, 'Believest thou the prophets?' and the confident answer which
the questioner gives.

What was the Apostle bringing these two things--the publicity given
to the facts of Christ's life, and the belief in the prophets--
together for? Obviously, if Agrippa said Yes, then the next question
would be, 'Believest thou the Christ, whose life and death and
resurrection thou knowest, and who has fulfilled the prophets
thereby?' That would have been a hard question for the king to
answer. His conscience begins to be uncomfortable, and his dignity is
wounded by this extremely rude person, who ventures to talk to him as
if he were a mere common man. He has no better answer ready than a
sarcasm; not a very forcible one, betraying, however, his penetration
into, and his dislike of, and his embarrassment at, Paul's drift. His
ironical words are no confession of being 'almost persuaded,' but a
taunt. 'And do you really suppose that it is so easy a matter to turn
me--the great Me, a Herod, a king,' and he might have added, a
sensual bad man, 'into a Christian?'

Paul met the sarcastic jest with deep earnestness, which must have
hushed the audience of sycophants ready to laugh with the king, and
evidently touched him and Festus. His whole soul ran over in yearning
desire for the salvation of them all. He took no notice of the gibe
in the word _Christian_, nor of the levity of Agrippa. He showed that
purest love fills his heart, that he has found the treasure which
enriches the poorest and adds blessedness to the highest. So peaceful
and blessed is he, a prisoner, that he can wish nothing better for
any than to be like him in his faith. He hints his willingness to
take any pains and undergo any troubles for such an end; and, with
almost a smile, he looks at his chains, and adds, 'except these
bonds.'

Did Festus wince a little at the mention of these, which ought not to
have been on his wrists? At all events, the entertainment had taken
rather too serious a turn for the taste of any of the three,--Festus,
Agrippa, or Bernice. If this strange man was going to shake their
consciences in that fashion, it was high time to end what was, after
all, as far as the rendering of justice was concerned, something like
a farce.

So with a rustle, and amid the obeisances of the courtiers, the three
rose, and, followed by the principal people, went through the form of
deliberation. There was only one conclusion to be come to. He was
perfectly innocent. So Agrippa solemnly pronounced, what had been
known before, that he had done nothing worthy of death or bonds,
though he had 'these bonds' on his arms; and salved the injustice of
keeping an innocent man in custody by throwing all the blame on Paul
himself for appealing to Csesar. But the person to blame was Festus,
who had forced Paul to appeal in order to save his life.



'THE HEAVENLY VISION'

'Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the
heavenly vision.' Acts xxvi. 19.

This is Paul's account of the decisive moment in his life on which
all his own future, and a great deal of the future of Christianity
and of the world, hung. The gracious voice had spoken from heaven,
and now everything depended on the answer made in the heart of the
man lying there blind and amazed. Will he rise melted by love, and
softened into submission, or hardened by resistance to the call of
the exalted Lord? The somewhat singular expression which he employs
in the text, makes us spectators of the very process of his yielding.
For it might be rendered, with perhaps an advantage, 'I _became_ not
disobedient'; as if the 'disobedience' was the prior condition, from
which we see him in the very act of passing, by the melting of his
nature and the yielding of his will. Surely there have been few
decisions in the world's history big with larger destinies than that
which the captive described to Agrippa in the simple words: 'I became
not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.'

I. Note, then, first, that this heavenly vision shines for us too.

Paul throughout his whole career looked back to the miraculous
appearance of Jesus Christ in the heavens, as being equally availably
as valid ground for his Christian convictions as were the appearances
of the Lord in bodily form to the Eleven after His resurrection. And
I may venture to work the parallel in the inverse direction, and to
say to you that what we see and know of Jesus Christ is as valid a
ground for our convictions, and as true and powerful a call for our
obedience, as when the heaven was rent, and the glory above the
midday sun bathed the persecutor and his followers on the stony road
to Damascus. For the revelation that is made to the understanding and
the heart, to the spirit and the will, is the same whether it be
made, as it was to Paul, through a heavenly vision, or, as it was to
the other Apostles, through the facts of the life, death,
resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, which their senses certified to
them, or, as it is to us, by the record of the same facts,
permanently enshrined in Scripture. Paul's sight of Christ was for a
moment; we can see Him as often and as long as we will, by turning to
the pages of this Book. Paul's sight of Christ was accompanied with
but a partial apprehension of the great and far-reaching truths which
he was to learn and to teach, as embodied in the Lord whom he saw. To
see Him was the work of a moment, to 'know Him' was the effort of a
lifetime. We have the abiding results of the lifelong process lying
ready to our hands in Paul's own letters, and we have not only the
permanent record of Christ in the Gospels instead of the transient
vision in the heavens, and the unfolding of the meaning and bearings
of the historical facts, in the authoritative teaching of the
Epistles, but we have also, in the history of the Church founded on
these, in the manifest workings of a divine power for and through the
company of believers, as well as in the correspondence between the
facts and doctrines of Christianity and the wants of humanity, a
vision disclosed and authenticated as heavenly, more developed,
fuller of meaning and more blessed to the eyes which see it, than
that which was revealed to the persecutor as he reeled from his horse
on the way to the great city.

Dear brethren, they who see Christ in the word, In the history of the
world, in the pleading of the preacher, in the course of the ages,
and who sometimes hear His voice in the warnings which He breathes
into their consciences, and in the illuminations which He flashes on
their understanding, need ask for no loftier, no more valid and
irrefragable manifestation of His gracious self. To each of us this
vision is granted. May I say, without seeming egotism to you it is
granted even through the dark and cloudy envelope of my poor words?

II. The vision of Christ, howsoever perceived, comes demanding
obedience.

The purpose for which Jesus Christ made Himself known to Paul was to
give him a charge which should influence his whole life. And the
manner in which the Lord, when He had appeared, prepared the way for
the charge was twofold. He revealed Himself in His radiant glory, in
His exalted being, in His sympathetic and mysterious unity with them
that loved Him and trusted Him, in His knowledge of the doings of the
persecutor; and He disclosed to Saul the inmost evil that lurked in
his own heart, and showed him to his bewilderment and confusion, how
the course that he thought to be righteousness and service was
blasphemy and sin. So, by the manifestation of Himself enthroned
omniscient, bound by the closest ties of identity and of sympathy
with all that love Him, and by the disclosure of the amazed gazer's
evil and sin, Jesus Christ opened the way for the charge which bore
in its very heart an assurance of pardon, and was itself a
manifestation of His love.

In like manner all heavenly visions are meant to secure human
obedience. We have not done what God means us to do with any
knowledge of Him which He grants, unless we utilise it to drive the
wheels of life and carry it out into practice in our daily conduct.
Revelation is not meant to satisfy mere curiosity or the idle desire
to know. It shines above us like the stars, but, unlike them, it
shines to be the guide of our lives. And whatsoever glimpse of the
divine nature, or of Christ's love, nearness, and power, we have ever
caught, was meant to bow our wills in glad submission, and to animate
our hands for diligent service and to quicken our feet to run in the
way of His commandments.

There is plenty of idle gazing, with more or less of belief, at the
heavenly vision. I beseech you to lay to heart this truth, that
Christ rends the heavens and shows us God, not that men may know, but
that men may, knowing, do; and all His visions are the bases of
commandments. So the question for us all is, What are we doing with
what we know of Jesus Christ? Nothing? Have we translated our
thoughts of Him into actions, and have we put all our actions under
the control of our thoughts of Him? It is not enough that a man
should say, 'Whereupon I _saw_ the vision,' or, 'Whereupon I was
_convinced_ of the vision,' or, 'Whereupon I _understood_ the
vision.' Sight, apprehension, theology, orthodoxy, they are all very
well, but the right result is, 'Whereupon I was _not disobedient_ to
the heavenly vision.' And unless your knowledge of Christ makes you
do, and keep from doing, a thousand things, it is only an idle
vision, which adds to your guilt.

But notice, in this connection, the peculiarity of the obedience
which the vision requires. There is not a word, in this story of
Paul's conversion, about the thing which Paul himself always puts in
the foreground as the very hinge upon which conversion turns--viz.
faith. Not a word. The name is not here, but the thing is here, if
people will look. For the obedience which Paul says that he rendered
to the vision was not rendered with his hands. He got up to his feet
on the road there, 'not disobedient,' though he had not yet done
anything. This is to say, the man's will had melted. It had all gone
with a run, so to speak, and the inmost being of him was subdued. The
obedience was the submission of self to God, and not the more or less
diligent and continuous consequent external activity in the way of
God's commandments.

Further, Paul's obedience is also an obedience based upon the vision
of Jesus Christ enthroned, living, bound by ties that thrill at the
slightest touch to all hearts that love Him, and making common cause
with them.

And furthermore, it is an obedience based upon the shuddering
recognition of Paul's own unsuspected evil and foulness, how all the
life, that he had thought was being built up into a temple that God
would inhabit, was rottenness and falsehood.

And it is an obedience, further, built upon the recognition of pity
and pardon in Christ, who, after His sharp denunciation of the sin,
looks down from Heaven with a smile of forgiveness upon His lips, and
says: 'But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I will send thee to make
known My name.'

An obedience which is the inward yielding of the will, which is all
built upon the revelation of the living Christ, who was dead and is
alive for evermore, and close to all His followers; and is, further,
the thankful tribute of a heart that knows itself to be sinful, and
is certain that it is forgiven--what is that but the obedience which
is of faith? And thus, when I say that the heavenly vision demands
obedience, I do not mean that Christ shows Himself to you to set you
to work, but I mean that Christ shows Himself to you that you may
yield yourselves to Him, and in the act may receive power to do all
His sweet and sacred will.

III. Thirdly, this obedience is in our own power to give or to
withhold.

Paul, as I said in my introductory remarks, puts us here as
spectators of the very act of submission. He shows it to us in its
beginning--he shows us the state from which he came and that into
which he passed, and he tells us, 'I _became_--not disobedient.' In
his case it was a complete, swift, and permanent revolution, as if
some thick-ribbed ice should all at once melt into sweet water. But
whether swift or slow it was his own act, and after the Voice had
spoken it was possible that Paul should have resisted and risen from
the ground, not a servant, but a persecutor still. For God's grace
constrains no man, and there is always the possibility open that when
He calls we refuse, and that when He beseeches we say, 'I will not.'

There is the mystery on which the subtlest intellects have tasked
their powers and blunted the edge of their keenness in all
generations; and it is not likely to be settled in five minutes of a
sermon of mine. But the practical point that I have to urge is simply
this: there are two mysteries, the one that men _can_, and the other
that men _do_, resist Christ's pleading voice. As to the former, we
cannot fathom it. But do not let any difficulty deaden to you the
clear voice of your own consciousness. If I cannot trust my sense
that I can do this thing or not do it, as I choose, there is nothing
that I can trust. Will is the power of determining which of two roads
I shall go, and, strange as it is, incapable of statement in any more
general terms than the reiteration of the fact; yet here stands the
fact, that God, the infinite Will, has given to men, whom He made in
His own image, this inexplicable and awful power of coinciding with
or opposing His purposes and His voice.

  'Our wills are ours, we know not how;
  Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.'

For the other mystery is, that men _do_ consciously set themselves
against the will of God, and refuse the gifts which they know all the
while are for their good. It is of no use to say that sin is
ignorance. No; that is only a surface explanation. You and I know too
well that many a time when we have been as sure of what God wanted us
to do as if we had seen it written in flaming letters on the sky
there, we have gone and done the exact opposite. I know that there
are men and women who are convinced in their inmost souls that they
ought to be Christians, and that Jesus Christ is pleading with them
at the present hour, and yet in whose hearts there is no yielding to
what, they yet are certain, is the will and voice of Jesus Christ.

IV. Lastly, this obedience may, in a moment, revolutionise a life.

Paul rode from Jerusalem 'breathing out threatenings and slaughters.'
He fell from his warhorse, a persecutor of Christians, and a bitter
enemy of Jesus. A few moments pass. There was one moment in which the
crucial decision was made; and he staggered to his feet, loving all
that he had hated, and abandoning all in which he had trusted. His
own doctrine that 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old
things are passed away and all things are become new,' is but a
generalisation of what befell himself on the Damascus road. It is of
no use trying to say that there had been a warfare going on in this
man's mind long before, of which his complete capitulation was only
the final visible outcome. There is not a trace of anything of the
kind in the story. It is a pure hypothesis pressed into the service
of the anti-supernatural explanation of the fact.

There are plenty of analogies of such sudden and entire revolution.
All reformation of a moral kind is best done quickly. It is a very
hopeless task, as every one knows, to tell a drunkard to break off
his habits gradually. There must be one moment in which he definitely
turns himself round and sets his face in the other direction. Some
things are best done with slow, continuous pressure; other things
need to be done with a wrench if they are to be done at all.

There used to be far too much insistence upon one type of religious
experience, and all men that were to be recognised as Christians
were, by evangelical Nonconformists, required to be able to point to
the moment when, by some sudden change, they passed from darkness to
light. We have drifted away from that very far now, and there is need
for insisting, not upon the necessity, but upon the possibility, of
sudden conversions. However some may try to show that such
experiences cannot be, the experience of every earnest Christian
teacher can answer--well! whether they can be or not, they are. Jesus
Christ cured two men gradually, and all the others instantaneously.
No doubt, for young people who have been born amidst Christian
influences, and have grown up in Christian households, the usual way
of becoming Christians is that slowly and imperceptibly they shall
pass into the consciousness of communion with Jesus Christ. But for
people who have grown up irreligious and, perhaps, profligate and
sinful, the most probable way is a sudden stride out of the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. So I come to you all
with this message. No matter what your past, no matter how much of
your life may have ebbed away, no matter how deeply rooted and
obstinate may be your habits of evil, no matter how often you may
have tried to mend yourself and have failed, it is possible by one
swift act of surrender to break the chains and go free. In every
man's life there have been moments into which years have been
crowded, and which have put a wider gulf between his past and his
present self than many slow, languid hours can dig. A great sorrow, a
great joy, a great, newly discerned truth, a great resolve will make
'one day as a thousand years.' Men live through such moments and feel
that the past is swallowed up as by an earthquake. The highest
instance of thus making time elastic and crowding it with meaning is
when a man forms and keeps the swift resolve to yield himself to
Christ. It may be the work of a moment, but it makes a gulf between
past and future, like that which parted the time before and the time
after that in which 'God said, Let there be light: and there was
light.' If you have never yet bowed before the heavenly vision and
yielded yourself as conquered by the love which pardons, to be the
glad servant of the Lord Jesus who takes all His servants into
wondrous oneness with Himself, do it now. You can do it. Delay is
disobedience, and may be death. Do it now, and your whole life will
be changed. Peace and joy and power will come to you, and you, made a
new man, will move in a new world of new relations, duties, energies,
loves, gladnesses, helps, and hopes. If you take heed to prolong the
point into a line, and hour by hour to renew the surrender and the
cry, 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' you will ever have the
vision of the Christ enthroned, pardoning, sympathising, and
commanding, which will fill your sky with glory, point the path of
your feet, and satisfy your gaze with His beauty, and your heart with
His all-sufficing and ever-present love.



'ME A CHRISTIAN!'

'Then Agrlppa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a
Christian.'--ACTS xxvi 28.

This Agrippa was son of the other Herod of whom we hear in the Acts
as a persecutor. This one appears from other sources, to have had the
vices but not the force of character of his bad race. He was weak and
indolent, a mere hanger-on of Rome, to which he owed his kingdom, and
to which he stoutly stuck during all the tragedy of the fall of
Jerusalem. In position and in character (largely resulting from the
position) he was uncommonly like those semi-independent rajahs in
India, who are allowed to keep up a kind of shadow of authority on
condition of doing what Calcutta bids them. Of course frivolity and
debauchery become the business of such men. What sort of a man this
was may be sufficiently inferred from the fact that Bernice was his
sister.

But he knew a good deal about the Jews, about their opinions, their
religion, and about what had been going on during the last half
century amongst them. Or grounds of policy he professed to accept the
Jewish faith--of which an edifying example is given in the fact that,
on one occasion, Bernice was prevented from accompanying him to Rome
because she was fulfilling a Nazarite vow in the Temple at Jerusalem!

So the Apostle was fully warranted in appealing to Agrippa's
knowledge, not only of Judaism, but of the history of Jesus Christ,
and in his further assertion, 'I know that thou believest.' But the
home-thrust was too much for the king. His answer is given in the
words of our text.

They are very familiar words, and they have been made the basis of a
great many sermons upon being all but persuaded to accept of Christ
as Saviour. But, edifying as such a use of them is, it can scarcely
be sustained by their actual meaning. Most commentators are agreed
that our Authorised Version does not represent either Agrippa's words
or his tone. He was not speaking in earnest. His words are sarcasm,
not a half melting into conviction, and the Revised Version gives
what may, on the whole, be accepted as being a truer representation
of their intention when it reads, 'With but little persuasion thou
wouldst fain make me a Christian.'

He is half amused and half angry at the Apostle's presumption in
supposing that so easily or so quickly he was going to land his fish.
'It is a more difficult task than you fancy, Paul, to make a
Christian of a man like me.' That is the real meaning of his words,
and I think that, rightly understood, they yield lessons of no less
value than those that have been so often drawn from them as they
appear in our Authorised Version. So I wish to try and gather up and
urge upon you now these lessons:--

I. First, then, I see here an example of the danger of a superficial
familiarity with Christian truth.

As I said, Agrippa knew, in a general way, a good deal not only about
the prophets and the Jewish religion, but of the outstanding facts of
the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul's assumption that he
knew would have been very quickly repudiated if it had not been based
upon fact. And the inference from his acceptance without
contradiction of the Apostle's statement is confirmed by his use of
the word 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general
employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good
deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for
instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To
Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen
Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that,
with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ideas, he breaks in,
with his rough, strident voice, 'Much learning has made thee mad.'
There was not much chance of that cause producing that effect on
Festus. But he was apparently utterly bewildered at this entirely
novel and unintelligible sort of talk. Agrippa, on the other hand,
knows all about the Resurrection; has heard that there was such a
thing, and has a general rough notion of what Paul believed as a
Christian.

And was he any better for it? No; he was a great deal worse. It took
the edge off a good deal of his curiosity. It made him fancy that he
knew beforehand all that the Apostle had to say. It stood in the way
of his apprehending the truths which he thought that he understood.

And although the world knows a great deal more about Jesus Christ and
the Gospel than he did, the very same thing is true about hundreds
and thousands of people who have all their lives long been brought
into contact with Christianity. Superficial knowledge is the worst
enemy of accurate knowledge, for the first condition of knowing a
thing is to know that we do not know it. And so there are a great
many of us who, having picked up since childhood vague and partially
inaccurate notions about Christ and His Gospel and what He has done,
are so satisfied on the strength of these that we know all about it,
that we listen to preaching about it with a very languid attention.
The ground in our minds is preoccupied with our own vague and
imperfect apprehensions. I believe that there is nothing that stands
more in the way of hundreds of people coming into real intelligent
contact with Gospel truth than the half knowledge that they have had
of it ever since they were children. You fancy that you know all that
I can tell you. Very probably you do. But have you ever taken a firm
hold of the plain central facts of Christianity--your own sinfulness
and helplessness, your need of a Saviour, the perfect work of Jesus
Christ who died on the Cross for you, and the power of simple faith
therein to join you to Him, and, if followed by consecration and
obedience, to make you partakers of His nature, and heirs of the
inheritance that is above? These are but the fundamentals, the
outlines of Gospel truth. But far too many of you see them, in such a
manner as you see the figures cast upon a screen when the lantern is
not rightly focussed, with a blurred outline, and the blurred outline
keeps you from seeing the sharp-cut truth as it is in Jesus. In all
regions of thought inaccurate knowledge is the worst foe to further
understanding, and eminently is this the case in religion. Brethren,
some of you are in that position.

Then there is another way in which such knowledge as that of which
the king in our text is an example is a hindrance, and that is, that
it is knowledge which has no effect on character. What do hundreds of
us do with our knowledge of Christianity? Our minds seem built in
watertight compartments, and we keep the doors of them shut very
close, so that truths in the understanding have no influence on the
will. Many of you believe the Gospel intellectually, and it does not
make a hairsbreadth of difference to anything that you ever either
thought or wished or did. And because you so believe it, it is
utterly impossible that it should ever be of any use to you.
'Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.'
'Yes, believest the prophets, and Bernice sitting by thy side there--
believest the prophets, and livest in utter bestial godlessness.'
What is the good of a knowledge of Christianity like that? And is it
not such knowledge of Christianity that blocks the way with some of
you for anything more real and more operative? There is nothing more
impotent than a firmly believed and utterly neglected truth. And that
is what the Christianity of some of you is when it is analysed.

II. Now, secondly, notice how we have here the example of a proud man
indignantly recoiling from submission,

There is a world of contempt in Agrippa's words, in the very putting
side by side of the two things. 'Me! _Me_,' with a very large capital
M--'Me a Christian?' He thinks of his dignity, poor creature. It was
not such a very tremendous dignity after all. He was a petty kinglet,
permitted by the grace of Rome to live and to pose as if he were the
real thing, and yet he struts and claps his wings and crows on his
little hillock as if it were a mountain. '_Me_ a Christian?' 'The
great Agrippa a _Christian_!' And he uses that word 'Christian' with
the intense contempt which coined it and adhered to it, until the men
to whom it was applied were wise enough to take it and bind it as a
crown of honour upon their head. The wits at Antioch first of all hit
upon the designation. They meant a very exquisite piece of sarcasm by
their nickname. These people were 'Christians,' just as some other
people were Herodians--Christ's men, the men of this impostor who
pretended to be a Messiah. That seemed such an intensely ludicrous
thing to the wise people in Antioch that they coined the name; and no
doubt thought they had done a very clever thing. It is only used in
the Bible in tike notice of its origin; here, with a very evident
connotation of contempt; and once more when Peter in his letter
refers to it as being the indictment on which certain disciples
suffered. So when Agrippa says, 'Me a Christian,' he puts all the
bitterness that he can into that last word. As if he said, 'Do you
really think that I--I--am going to bow myself down to be a follower
and adherent of that Christ of yours? The thing is too ridiculous!
With but little persuasion you would fain make me a Christian. But
you will find it a harder task than you fancy.'

Now, my dear friends, the shape of this unwillingness is changed but
the fact of it remains. There are two or three features of what I
take to be the plain Gospel of Jesus Christ which grate very much
against all self-importance and self-complacency, and operate very
largely, though not always consciously, upon very many amongst us. I
just run them over, very briefly.

The Gospel insists on dealing with everybody in the same fashion, and
on regarding all as standing on the same level. Many of us do not
like that. Translate Agrippa's scorn into words that fit ourselves:
'I am a well-to-do Manchester man. Am I to stand on the same level as
my office-boy?' Yes! the very same. 'I, a student, perhaps a teacher
of science, or a cultivated man, a scholar, a lawyer, a professional
man--am I to stand on the same level as people that scarcely know how
to read and write?' Yes, exactly. So, like the man in the Old
Testament, 'he turned and went away in a rage.' Many of us would like
that there should be a little private door for us in consideration of
our position or acquirements or respectability, or this, that, or the
other thing. At any rate we are not to be classed in the same
category with the poor and the ignorant and the sinful and the savage
all over the world. But we are so classed. Do not you and the men in
Patagonia breathe the same air? Are not your bodies subject to the
same laws? Have you not to be contented to be fed in the same
fashion, and to sleep and eat and drink in the same way? 'We have all
of us one human heart'; and 'there is no difference, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God.' The identities of
humanity, in all its examples, are deeper than the differences in
any. We have all the one Saviour and are to be saved in the same
fashion. That is a humbling thing for those of us who stand upon some
little elevation, real or fancied, but it is only the other side of
the great truth that God's love is world-wide, and that Christ's
Gospel is meant for humanity. Naaman, to whom I have already referred
in passing, wanted to be treated as a great man who happened to be a
leper; Elisha insisted on treating him as a leper who happened to be
a great man. And that makes all the difference. I remember seeing
somewhere that a great surgeon had said that the late Emperor of
Germany would have had a far better chance of being cured if he had
gone _incognito_ to the hospital for throat diseases. We all need the
same surgery, and we must be contented to take it in the same
fashion. So, some of us recoil from humbling equality with the lowest
and worst.

Then again, another thing that sometimes makes people shrink back
from the Gospel is that it insists upon every one being saved solely
by dependence on Another. We would like to have a part in our
salvation, and many of us had rather do anything in the way of
sacrifice or suffering or penance than take this position:

  'Nothing in my hand I bring,
   Simply to Thy Cross I cling.'

Corrupt forms of Christianity have taken an acute measure of the
worst parts of human nature, when they have taught men that they can
eke out Christ's work by their own, and have some kind of share in
their own salvation. Dear brethren, I have to bring to you another
Gospel than that, and to say, All is done for us, and all will be
done in us, and nothing has to be done by us. Some of you do not like
that. Just as a man drowning is almost sure to try to help himself,
and get his limbs inextricably twisted round his would-be rescuer and
drown them both, so men will not, without a struggle, consent to owe
everything to Jesus Christ, and to let Him draw them out of many
waters and set them on the safe shore. But unless we do so, we have
little share in His Gospel.

And another thing stands in the way--namely, that the Gospel insists
upon absolute obedience to Jesus Christ. Agrippa fancied that it was
an utterly preposterous idea that he should lower his flag, and doff
his crown, and become the servant of a Jewish peasant. A great many
of us, though we have a higher idea of our Lord than his, do yet find
it quite as hard to submit our wills to His, and to accept the
condition of absolute obedience, utter resignation to Him, and entire
subjection to His commandment. We say, 'Let my own will have a little
bit of play in a corner.' Some of us find it very hard to believe
that we are to bring all our thinking upon religious and moral
subjects to Him, and to accept His word as conclusive, settling all
controversies. 'I, with my culture; am I to accept what Christ says
as the end of strife?' Yes, absolute submission is the plainest
condition of real Christianity. The very name tells us that. We are
Christians, _i.e._ Christ's men; and unless we are, we have no right
to the name. But some of us had rather be our own masters and enjoy
the miseries of independence and self-will, and so be the slaves of
our worse selves, than bow ourselves utterly before that dear Lord,
and so pass into the freedom of a service love-inspired, and by love
accepted, 'Thou wouldst fain persuade _me_ to be a _Christian_,' is
the recoil of a proud heart from submission. Brethren, let me beseech
you that it may not be yours.

III. Again, we have here an example of instinctive shrinking from the
personal application of broad truths.

Agrippa listened, half-amused and a good deal interested, to Paul as
long as he talked generalities and described his own experience. But
when he came to point the generalities and to drive them home to the
hearer's heart it was time to stop him. That question of the
Apostle's, keen and sudden as the flash of a dagger, went straight
home, and the king at once gathered himself together into an attitude
of resistance. Ah, that is what hundreds of people do! You will let
me preach as long as I like--only you will get a little weary
sometimes--you will let me preach generalities _ad libitum_. But when
I come to 'And thou?' then I am 'rude' and 'inquisitorial' and
'personal' and 'trespassing on a region where I have no business,'
and so on and so on. And so you shut up your heart if not your ears.

And yet, brethren, what is the use of toothless generalities? What am
I here for if I am not here to take these broad, blunt truths and
sharpen them to a point, and try to get them in between the joints of
your armour? Can any man faithfully preach the Gospel who is always
flying over the heads of his hearers with universalities, and never
goes straight to their hearts with 'Thou--thou art the man!'
'Believest _thou_?'

And so, dear friends, let me press that question upon you. Never mind
about other people. Suppose you and I were alone together and my
words were coming straight _to thee_. Would they not have more power
than they have now? They are so coming. Think away all these other
people, and this place, ay, and me too, and let the word of Christ,
which deals with no crowds but with single souls, come to you in its
individualising force: 'Believest _thou_?' You will have to answer
that question one day. Better to face it now and try to answer it
than to leave it all vague until you get yonder, where 'each one of
us shall give account of _himself_ to God.

IV. Lastly, we have here an example of a soul close to the light, but
passing into the dark.

Agrippa listens to Paul; Bernice listens; Festus listens. And what
comes of it? Only this, 'And when they were gone aside, they talked
between themselves, saying, This man hath done nothing worthy of
death or of bonds.' May I translate into a modern equivalent: And
when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying,
'This man preached a very impressive sermon,' or, 'This man preached
a very wearisome sermon,' and there an end.

Agrippa and Bernice went their wicked way, and Festus went his, and
none of them knew what a fateful moment they had passed through. Ah,
brethren! there are many such in our lives when we make decisions
that influence our whole future, and no sign shows that the moment is
any way different from millions of its undistinguished fellows. It is
eminently so in regard to our relation to Jesus Christ and His
Gospel. These three had been in the light; they were never so near it
again. Probably they never heard the Gospel preached any more, and
they went away, not knowing what they had done when they silenced
Paul and left him. Now you will probably hear plenty of sermons in
future. You may or you may not. But be sure of this, that if you go
away from this one, unmelted and unbelieving, you have not done a
trivial thing. You have added one more stone to the barrier that you
yourself build to shut you out from holiness and happiness, from hope
and heaven. It is not I that ask you the question, it is not Paul
that asks it, Jesus Christ Himself says to you, as He said to the
blind man, 'Dost thou believe on the Son of God?' or as He said to
the weeping sister of Lazarus, 'Believest thou this?' O dear friends,
do not answer like this arrogant bit of a king, but cry with tears,
'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!'



TEMPEST AND TRUST

And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had
obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by
Crete. 14. But not long after there arose against it a
tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. 15. And when the ship was
caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.
16. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we
had much work to come by the boat: 17. Which when they had taken
up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest
they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were
driven. 18. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the
next day they lightened the ship; 19. And the third day we cast
out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. 20. And when
neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest
lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
21. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of
them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not
have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.
22. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be
no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. 23. For
there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and
whom I serve, 24. Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought
before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail
with thee. 25. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe
God, that it shall be even as it was told me. 26. Howbeit we must
be cast upon a certain island.'--ACTS xxvii. 13-26.

Luke's minute account of the shipwreck implies that he was not a Jew.
His interest in the sea and familiarity with sailors' terms are quite
unlike a persistent Jewish characteristic which still continues. We
have a Jew's description of a storm at sea in the Book of Jonah,
which is as evidently the work of a landsman as Luke's is of one who,
though not a sailor, was well up in maritime matters. His narrative
lays hold of the essential points, and is as accurate as it is vivid.
This section has two parts: the account of the storm, and the grand
example of calm trust and cheery encouragement given in Paul's words.

I. The consultation between the captain of the vessel and the
centurion, at which Paul assisted, strikes us, with our modern
notions of a captain's despotic power on his own deck, and single
responsibility, as unnatural. But the centurion, as a military
officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and
Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not
wonderful that he took part in the discussion. Naturally the
centurion was guided by the professional rather than by the amateur
member of the council, and the decision was come to to push on as far
and fast as possible.

The ship was lying in a port which gave scanty protection against the
winter weather, and it was clearly wise to reach a more secure
harbour if possible. So when a gentle southerly breeze sprang up,
which would enable them to make such a port, westward from their then
position, they made the attempt. For a time it looked as if they
would succeed, but they had a great headland jutting out in front
which they must get round, and their ability to do this was doubtful.
So they kept close in shore and weathered the point. But before they
had made their harbour the wind suddenly chopped round, as is
frequent of that coast, and the gentle southerly breeze turned into a
fierce squall from the north-east or thereabouts, sweeping down from
the Cretan mountains. That began their troubles. To make the port was
impossible. The unwieldy vessel could not 'face the wind,' and so
they had to run before it. It would carry them in a south-westerly
direction, and towards a small island, under the lee of which they
might hope for some shelter. Here they had a little breathing time,
and could make things rather more ship-shape than they had been able
to do when suddenly caught by the squall. Their boat had been towing
behind them, and had to be hoisted on deck somehow.

A more important, and probably more difficult, task was to get strong
hawsers under the keel and round the sides, so as to help to hold the
timbers together. The third thing was the most important of all, and
has been misunderstood by commentators who knew more about Greek
lexicons than ships. The most likely explanation of 'lowering the
gear' (Rev. Ver.) is that it means 'leaving up just enough of sail to
keep the ship's head to the wind, and bringing down everything else
that could be got down' (Ramsay, _St. Paul_, p. 329).

Note that Luke says 'we' about hauling in the boat, and 'they' about
the other tasks. He and the other passengers could lend a hand in the
former, but not in the latter, which required more skilled labour.
The reason for bringing down all needless top-hamper, and leaving up
a little sail, was to keep the vessel from driving on to the great
quicksands off the African coast, to which they would certainly have
been carried if the wind held.

As soon as they had drifted out from the lee of the friendly little
island they were caught again in the storm. They were in danger of
going down. As they drifted they had their 'starboard' broadside to
the force of the wild sea, and it was a question how long the
vessel's sides would last before they were stove in by the hammering
of the waves, or how long she would be buoyant enough to ship seas
without foundering. The only chance was to lighten her, so first the
crew 'jettisoned' the cargo, and next day, as that did not give
relief enough,'they,' or, according to some authorities, 'we'--that
is passengers and all--threw everything possible overboard.

That was the last attempt to save themselves, and after it there was
nothing to do but to wait the apparently inevitable hour when they
would all go down together. Idleness feeds despair, and despair
nourishes idleness. Food was scarce, cooking it was impossible,
appetite there was none. The doomed men spent the long idle days--
which were scarcely day, so thick was the air with mist and foam and
tempest--crouching anywhere for shelter, wet, tired, hungry, and
hopeless. So they drifted 'for many days,' almost losing count of the
length of time they had been thus. It was a gloomy company, but there
was one man there in whom the lamp of hope burned when it had gone
out in all others. Sun and stars were hidden, but Paul saw a better
light, and his sky was clear and calm.

II. A common danger makes short work of distinctions of rank. In such
a time some hitherto unnoticed man of prompt decision, resource, and
confidence, will take the command, whatever his position. Hope, as
well as timidity and fear, is infectious, and one cheery voice will
revive the drooping spirits of a multitude. Paul had already
established his personal ascendency in that motley company of Roman
soldiers, prisoners, sailors, and disciples. Now he stands forward
with calm confidence, and infuses new hope into them all. What a
miraculous change passes on externals when faith looks at them! The
circumstances were the same as they had been for many days. The wind
was howling and the waves pounding as before, the sky was black with
tempest, and no sign of help was in sight, but Paul spoke, and all
was changed, and a ray of sunshine fell on the wild waters that beat
on the doomed vessel.

Three points are conspicuous in his strong tonic words. First, there
is the confident assurance of safety. A less noble nature would have
said more in vindication of the wisdom of his former advice. It is
very pleasant to small minds to say, 'Did I not tell you so? You see
how right I was.' But the Apostle did not care for petty triumphs of
that sort. A smaller man might have sulked because his advice had not
been taken, and have said to himself, 'They would not listen to me
before, I will hold my tongue now.' But the Apostle only refers to
his former counsel and its confirmation in order to induce acceptance
of his present words.

It is easy to 'bid' men 'be of good cheer,' but futile unless some
reason for good cheer is given. Paul gave good reason. No man's life
was to be lost though the ship was to go. He had previously predicted
that life, as well as ship and lading, would be lost if they put to
sea. That opinion was the result of his own calculation of
probabilities, as he lets us understand by saying that he 'perceived'
it (ver. 10). Now he speaks with authority, not from his perception,
but from God's assurance. The bold words might well seem folly to the
despairing crew as they caught them amidst the roar of tempest and
looked at their battered hulk. So Paul goes at once to tell the
ground of his confidence--the assurance of the angel of God.

What a contrast between the furious gale, the almost foundering ship,
the despair in the hearts of the sleeping company, and the bright
vision that came to Paul! Peter in prison, Paul in Caesarea and now
in the storm, see the angel form calm and radiant. God's messengers
are wont to come into the darkest of our hours and the wildest of our
tempests.

Paul's designation of the heavenly messenger as 'an angel of the God
whose I am, whom also I serve,' recalls Jonah's confession of faith,
but far surpasses it, in the sense of belonging to God, and in the
ardour of submission and of active obedience, expressed in it. What
Paul said to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vi. 19) he realised for himself:
'Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price.' To recognise
that we are God's, joyfully to yield ourselves to Him, and with all
the forces of our natures to serve Him, is to bring His angel to our
sides in every hour of tempest and peril, and to receive assurance
that nothing shall by any means harm us. To yield ourselves to be
God's is to make God ours. It was because Paul owned that he belonged
to God, and served Him, that the angel came to him, and he explains
the vision to his hearers by his relation to God. Anything was
possible rather than that his God should leave him unhelped at such
an hour of need.

The angel's message must have included particulars unnoticed in
Luke's summary; as, for instance, the wreck on 'a certain island.'
But the two salient points in it are the certainty of Paul's own
preservation, that the divine purpose of his appearing before Caesar
might be fulfilled, and the escape of all the ship's company. As to
the former, we may learn how Paul's life, like every man's, is shaped
according to a divine plan, and how we are 'immortal till our work is
done,' and till God has done His work in and on and by us. As to the
latter point, we may gather from the word 'has _given_' the certainty
that Paul had been praying for the lives of all that sailed with him,
and may learn, not only that the prayers of God's servants are a real
element in determining God's dealings with men, but that a true
servant of God's will ever reach out his desires and widen his
prayers to embrace those with whom he is brought into contact, be
they heathens, persecutors, rough and careless, or fellow-believers.
If Christian people more faithfully discharged the duty of
intercession, they would more frequently receive in answer the lives
of 'all them that sail with' them over the stormy ocean of life.

The third point in the Apostle's encouraging speech is the example of
his own faith, which is likewise an exhortation to the hearers to
exercise the same. If God speaks by His angel with such firm
promises, man's plain wisdom is to grasp the divine assurance with a
firm hand. We must build rock upon rock. 'I believe God,' that surely
is a credence demanded by common sense and warranted by the sanest
reason. If we do so believe, and take His word as the infallible
authority revealing present duty and future blessings, then, however
lowering the sky, and wild the water, and battered the vessel, and
empty of earthly succour the gloomy horizon, and heavy our hearts, we
shall 'be of good cheer,' and in due time the event will warrant our
faith in God and His promise, even though all around us seems to make
our faith folly and our hope a mockery.



A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH

'...There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am,
and whom I serve.'--ACTS xxvii. 23.

I turn especially to those last words, 'Whose I am and whom I serve.'

A great calamity, borne by a crowd of men in common, has a wonderful
power of dethroning officials and bringing the strong man to the
front. So it is extremely natural, though it has been thought to be
very unhistorical, that in this story of Paul's shipwreck he should
become guide, counsellor, inspirer, and a tower of strength; and that
centurions and captains and all the rest of those who held official
positions should shrink into the background. The natural force of his
character, the calmness and serenity that came from his faith--these
things made him the leader of the bewildered crowd. One can scarcely
help contrasting this shipwreck--the only one in the New Testament--
with that in the Old Testament. Contrast Jonah with Paul, the guilty
stupor of the one, down 'in the sides of the ship' cowering before
the storm, with the calm behaviour and collected courage of the
other.

The vision of which the Apostle speaks does not concern us here, but
in the words which I have read there are several noteworthy points.
They bring vividly before us the essence of true religion, the bold
confession which it prompts, and the calmness and security which it
ensures. Let us then look at them from these points of view.

I. We note the clear setting forth of the essence of true religion.

Remember that Paul is speaking to heathens; that his present purpose
is not to preach the Gospel, but to make his own position clear. So
he says 'the God'--never mind who _He_ is at present--'the God to
whom I belong '--that covers all the inward life--'and whom I serve'
--that covers all the outward.

'Whose I am.' That expresses the universal truth that men belong to
God by virtue of their being the creatures of His hand. As the 100th
Psalm says, according to one, and that a probably correct reading,
'It is He that hath made us, and _we are His_.' But the Apostle is
going a good deal deeper than any such thoughts, which he, no doubt,
shared in common with the heathen men around him, when he declares
that, in a special fashion, God had claimed him for His, and he had
yielded to the claim. 'I am Thine,' is the deepest thought of this
man's mind and the deepest feeling of his heart. And that is
godliness in its purest form, the consciousness of belonging to God.
We must interpret this saying by others of the Apostle's, such as,
'Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify
God in your bodies and spirits which are His.' He traces God's
possession of him, not to that fact of creation (which establishes a
certain outward relationship, but nothing more), nor even to the
continuous facts of benefits showered upon his head, but to the one
transcendent act of the divine Love, which gave itself to us, and so
acquired us for itself. For we must recognise as the deepest of all
thoughts about the relations of spiritual beings, that, as in regard
to ourselves in our earthly affections, so in regard to our relations
with God, there is only one way by which a spirit can own a spirit,
whether it be a man on the one side and a woman on the other, or
whether it be God on the one side and a man on the other, and that
one way is by the sweetness of complete and reciprocal love. He who
gives himself to God gets God for himself. So when Paul said, 'Whose
I am,' he was thinking that he would never have belonged either to
God or to himself unless, first of all, God, in His own Son, had
given Himself to Paul. The divine ownership of us is only realised
when we are consciously His, because of the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ.

Brethren, God does not count that a man belongs to Him simply because
He made him, if the man does not feel his dependence, his obligation,
and has not surrendered himself. He in the heavens loves you and me
too well to care for a formal and external ownership. He desires
hearts, and only they who have yielded themselves unto God, moved
thereto by the mercies of God, and especially by the encyclopaediacal
mercy which includes all the rest in its sweep, only they belong to
Him, in the estimate of the heavens.

And if you and I are His, then that involves that we have deposed
from his throne the rebel Self, the ancient Anarch that disturbs and
ruins us. They who belong to God cease to live to themselves. There
are two centres for human life, and I believe there are only two--the
one is God, the other is my wretched self. And if we are swept, as it
were, out of the little orbit that we move in, when the latter is our
centre, and are drawn by the weight and mass of the great central sun
to become its satellites, then we move in a nobler orbit and receive
fuller and more blessed light and warmth. They who have themselves
for their centres are like comets, with a wide elliptical course,
which carries them away out into the cold abysses of darkness. They
who have God for their sun are like planets. The old fable is true of
these 'sons of the morning'--they make music as they roll and they
flash back His light.

And then do not let us forget that this yielding of one's self to
Him, swayed by His love, and this surrendering of will and purpose
and affection and all that makes up our complex being, lead directly
to the true possession of Him and the true possession of ourselves.

I have said that the only way by which spirit possesses spirit is by
love, and that it must needs be on both sides. So we get God for
ourselves when we give ourselves to God. There is a wonderful
alternation of giving and receiving between the loving God and his
beloved lovers; first the impartation of the divine to the human,
then the surrender of the human to the divine, and then the larger
gift of God to man, just as in some series of mirrors the light is
flashed back from the one to the other, in bewildering manifoldness
and shimmering of rays from either polished surface. God is ours when
we are God's. 'And this is the covenant that I will make with them
after these days, saith the Lord. I will be their God, and they shall
be My people.'

And, in like manner, we never own ourselves until we have given
ourselves to God. Each of us is like some feudatory prince, dependent
upon an overlord. His subjects in his little territory rebel, and he
has no power to subdue the insurgents, but he can send a message to
the capital, and get the army of the king, who is his sovereign and
theirs, to come down and bring them back to order, and establish his
tottering throne. So if you desire to own yourself or to know the
sweetness that you may get out of your own nature and the exercise of
your powers, if you desire to be able to govern the realm within, put
yourself into God's hands and say, 'I am Thine; hold Thou me up, and
I shall be safe.'

I need not say more than just a word about the other side of Paul's
confession of faith, 'Whom I serve.' He employs the word which means
the service of a worshipper, or even of a priest, and not that which
means the service of a slave. His purpose was to represent how, as
his whole inward nature bowed in submission to, and was under the
influence of, God to whom he belonged, so his whole outward life was
a life of devotion. He was serving Him there in the ship, amidst the
storm and the squalor and the terror. His calmness was service; his
confidence was service; the cheery words that he was speaking to
these people were service. And on his whole life he believed that
this was stamped, that he was devoted to God. So _there_ is the true
idea of a Christian life, that in all its aspects, attitudes, and
acts it is to be a manifestation, in visible form, of inward devotion
to, and ownership by, God. All our work may be worship, and we may
'pray without ceasing,' though no supplications come from our lips,
if our hearts are in touch with Him and through our daily life we
serve and honour Him. God's priests never are far away from their
altar, and never are without, somewhat to offer, as long as they have
the activities of daily duty and the difficulties of daily conflict
to bring to Him and spread before Him.

II. So let me turn for a moment to some of the other aspects of these
words to which I have already referred, I find in them, next, the
bold confession which true religion requires.

Shipboard is a place where people find out one another very quickly.
Character cannot well be hid there. And such circumstances as Paul
had been in for the last fortnight, tossing up and down in _Adria_,
with Death looking over the bulwarks of the crazy ship every moment,
were certain to have brought out the inmost secrets of character.
Paul durst not have said to these people 'the God whose I am and whom
I serve' if he had not known that he had been living day by day a
consistent and godly life amongst them.

And so, I note, first of all, that this confession of individual and
personal relationship to God is incumbent on every Christian. We do
not need to be always brandishing it before people's faces. There is
very little fear of the average Christian of this day blundering on
that side. But we need, still less, to be always hiding it away. One
hears a great deal from certain quarters about a religion that does
not need to be vocal but shows what it is, without the necessity for
words. Blessed be God! there is such a religion, but you will
generally find that the people who have most of it are the people who
are least tongue-tied when opportunity arises; and that if they have
been witnessing for God in their quiet discharge of duty, with their
hands instead of their lips, they are quite as ready to witness with
their lips when it is fitting that they should do so. And surely,
surely, if a man belongs to God, and if his whole life is to be the
manifestation of the ownership that he recognises, that which
specially reveals him--viz., his own articulate speech--cannot be
left out of his methods of manifestation.

I am afraid that there are a great many professing Christian people
nowadays who never, all their lives, have said to any one, 'The God
whose I am and whom I serve.' And I beseech you, dear brethren,
suffer this word of exhortation. To say so is a far more effectual,
or at least more powerful, means of appeal than any direct invitation
to share in the blessings. You may easily offend a man by saying to
him, 'Won't you be a Christian too?' But it is hard to offend if you
simply say that you are a Christian. The statement of personal
experience is more powerful by far than all argumentation or
eloquence or pleading appeals. We do more when we say, 'That which we
have tasted and felt and handled of the Word of Life, declare we unto
you,' than by any other means.

Only remember that the avowal must be backed up by a life, as Paul's
was backed up on board that vessel. For unless it is so, the
profession does far more harm than good. There are always keen
critics round us, especially if we say that we are Christians. There
were keen critics on board that ship. Do you think that these Roman
soldiers, and the other prisoners, would not have smiled
contemptuously at Paul, if this had been the first time that they had
any reason to suppose that he was at all different from them? They
would have said, 'The God whose _you_ are and whom _you_ serve? Why,
you are just the same sort of man as if you worshipped Jupiter like
the rest of us!' And that is what the world has a right to say to
Christian people. The clearer our profession, the holier must be our
lives.

III. Last of all, I find in these words the calmness and security
which true religion secures.

The story, as I have already glanced at it in my introductory
remarks, brings out very wonderfully and very beautifully Paul's
promptitude, his calmness in danger, his absolute certainty of
safety, and his unselfish thoughtfulness about his companions in
peril. And all these things were the direct results of his entire
surrender to God, and of the consistency of his daily life. It needed
the angel in the vision to assure him that his life would be spared.
But whether the angel had ever come or not, and though death had been
close at his hand, the serenity and the peaceful assurance of safety
which come out so beautifully in the story would have been there all
the same. The man who can say 'I belong to God' does not need to
trouble himself about dangers. He will have to exercise his common
sense, as the Apostle shows us; he will have to use all the means
that are in his power for the accomplishment of ends that he knows to
be right and legitimate. But having done all that, he can say, 'I
belong to Him,' it is His business to look after His own property. He
is not going to hold His possessions with such a slack hand as that
they shall slip between His fingers, and be lost in the mire. 'Thou
wilt not lose the souls that are Thine in the grave, neither wilt
Thou suffer the man whom Thou lovest to see corruption.' God keeps
His treasures, and the surer we are that He is able to keep them unto
that day, the calmer we may be in all our trouble.

And the safety that followed was also the direct result of the
relationship of mutual possession and love established between God
and the Apostle. We do not know to which of the two groups of the
shipwrecked Paul belonged; whether he could swim or whether he had to
hold on to some bit of floating wreckage or other, and so got 'safe
to land.' But whichever way it was, it was neither his swimming nor
the spar to which, perhaps, he clung, that landed him safe on shore.
It was the God to whom he belonged. Faith is the true lifebelt that
keeps us from being drowned in any stormy sea. And if you and I feel
that we are His, and live accordingly, we shall be calm amid all
change, serene when others are troubled, ready to be helpers of
others even when we ourselves are in distress. And when the crash
comes, and the ship goes to pieces: 'so it will come to pass that,
some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, they all come
safe to land,' and when the Owner counts His subjects and possessions
on the quiet shore, as the morning breaks, there will not be one who
has been lost in the surges, or whose name will be unanswered to when
the muster-roll of the crew is called.



A TOTAL WRECK, ALL HANDS SAVED

'And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they
had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they
would have cast anchors out of the foreship, 31. Paul said to the
centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye
cannot be saved. 32. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the
boat, and let her fall off. 33. And while the day was coming on,
Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the
fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having
taken nothing. 34. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat; for
this is for your health; for there shall not an hair fall from
the head of any of you. 35. And when he had thus spoken, he took
bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when
he had broken it, he began to eat. 36. Then were they all of good
cheer, and they also took some meat. 37. And we were in all in
the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. 38. And when
they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the
wheat into the sea. 39. And when it was day, they knew not the
land; but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the
which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the
ship. 40. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed
themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder-bands, and noised
up the main-sail to the wind, and made toward shore. 41. And
falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship
aground: and the fore part stuck fast, and remained unmoveable,
but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.
42. And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest
any-of them should swim out, and escape. 43. But the centurion,
willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose: and commanded
that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the
sea, and get to land: 44. And the rest some on boards, and some
on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they
escaped all safe to land.'--ACTS xxvii 30-44.

The Jews were not seafaring people. Their coast had no safe harbours,
and they seldom ventured on the Mediterranean. To find Paul in a ship
with its bow pointed westwards is significant. It tells of the
expansion of Judaism into a world-wide religion, and of the future
course of Christianity. The only Old Testament parallel is Jonah, and
the dissimilarities of the two incidents are as instructive as are
their resemblances.

This minute narrative is evidently the work of one of the passengers
who knew a good deal about nautical matters. It reads like a log-
book. But as James Smith has well noted in his interesting monograph
on the chapter, the writer's descriptions, though accurate, are
unprofessional, thus confirming Luke's authorship. Where had the
'beloved physician' learned so much about the sea and ships? Did the
great galleys carry surgeons as now? At all events the story is one
of the most graphic accounts ever written. This narrative begins when
the doomed ship has cast anchor, with a rocky coast close under her
lee. The one question is, Will the four anchors hold? No wonder that
the passengers longed for daylight!

The first point is the crew's dastardly trick to save themselves,
frustrated by Paul's insight and promptitude. The pretext for getting
into the boat was specious. Anchoring by the bow as well as by the
stern would help to keep the ship from driving ashore; and if once
the crew were in the boat and pulled as far as was necessary to lay
out the anchors, it would be easy, under cover of the darkness, to
make good their escape on shore and leave the landsmen on board to
shift for themselves. The boat must have been of considerable size to
hold the crew of so large a ship. It was already lying alongside, and
landsmen would not suspect what lay under the apparently brave
attempt to add to the vessel's security, but Paul did so. His
practical sagacity was as conspicuous a trait as his lofty
enthusiasm. Common sense need not be divorced from high aims or from
the intensest religious self-devotion. The idealist beat the
practical centurion in penetrating the sailors' scheme.

That must have been a great nature which combined such different
characteristics as the Apostle shows. Unselfish devotion is often
wonderfully clear-sighted as to the workings of its opposite. The
Apostle's promptitude is as noticeable as his penetration. He wastes
no time in remonstrance with the cowards, who would have been over
the side and off in the dark while he talked, but goes straight to
the man in authority. Note, too, that he keeps his place as a
prisoner. It is not his business to suggest what is to be done. That
might have been resented as presumptuous; but he has a right to point
out the danger, and he leaves the centurion to settle how to meet it.
Significantly does he say 'ye,' not 'we.' He was perfectly certain
that he 'must be brought before Caesar'; and though he believed that
all on board would escape, he seems to regard his own safety as even
more certain than that of the others.

The lesson often drawn from his words is rightly drawn. They imply
the necessity of men's action in order to carry out God's purpose.
The whole shipful are to be saved, but 'except these abide ... ye
cannot be saved,' The belief that God wills anything is a reason for
using all means to effect it, not for folding our hands and saying,
'God will do it, whether we do anything or not.' The line between
fatalism and Christian reliance on God's will is clearly drawn in
Paul's words.

Note too the prompt, decisive action of the soldiers. They waste no
words, nor do they try to secure the sailors, but out with their
knives and cut the tow-rope, and away into the darkness drifts the
boat. It might have been better to have kept it, as affording a
chance of safety for all; but probably it was wisest to get rid of it
at once. Many times in every life it is necessary to sacrifice
possible advantages in order to secure a more necessary good. The
boat has to be let go if the passengers in the ship are to be saved.
Misused good things have sometimes to be given up in order to keep
people from temptation.

The next point brings Paul again to the front. In the night he had
been the saviour of the whole shipload of people. Now as the twilight
is beginning, and the time for decisive action will soon be here with
the day, he becomes their encourager and counsellor. Again his saving
common sense is shown. He knew that the moment for intense struggle
was at hand, and so he prepares them for it by getting them to eat a
substantial breakfast. It was because of his faith that he did so.
His religion did not lead him to do as some people would have done--
begin to talk to the soldiers about their souls--but he looked after
their bodies. Hungry, wet, sleepless, they were in no condition to
scramble through the surf, and the first thing to be done was to get
some food into them. Of course he does not mean that they had eaten
absolutely nothing for a fortnight, but only that they had had scanty
nourishment. But Paul's religion went harmoniously with his care for
men's bodies. He 'gave thanks to God in presence of them all'; and
who shall say that that prayer did not touch hearts more deeply than
religious talk would have done? Paul's calmness would be contagious;
and the root of it, in his belief in what his God had told him, would
be impressively manifested to all on board. Moods are infectious; so
'they were all of good cheer,' and no doubt things looked less black
after a hearty meal,

A little point may be noticed here, namely, the naturalness of the
insertion of the numbers on board at this precise place in the
narrative. There would probably be a muster of all hands for the
meal, and in view of the approaching scramble, in order that, if they
got to shore, there might be certainty as to whether any were lost.
So here the numbers come in. They were still not without hope of
saving the ship, though Paul had told them it would be lost; and so
they jettison the cargo of wheat from Alexandria. By this time it is
broad day and something must be done.

The next point is the attempt to beach the vessel. 'They knew not the
land,' that is, the part of the coast where they had been driven; but
they saw that, while for the most part it was iron-bound, there was a
shelving sandy bay at one point on to which it might be possible to
run her ashore. The Revised Version gives a much more accurate and
seaman-like account than the Authorised Version does. The anchors
were not taken on board, but to save time and trouble were 'left in
the sea,' the cables being simply cut. The 'rudder-bands'--that is,
the lashings which had secured the two paddle-like rudders, one on
either beam, which had been tied up to be out of the way when the
stern anchors were put out--are loosed, and the rudders drop into
place. The foresail (not 'mainsail,' as the Authorised Version has
it) is set to help to drive the ship ashore. It is all exactly what
we should expect to be done.

But an unexpected difficulty met the attempt, which is explained by
the lie of the coast at St. Paul's Bay, Malta, as James Smith fully
describes in his book. A little island, separated from the mainland
by a channel of not more than one hundred yards in breadth, lies off
the north-east point of the bay, and to a beholder at the entrance to
the bay looks as if continuous with it. When the ship got farther in,
they would see the narrow channel, through which a strong current
sets and makes a considerable disturbance as it meets the run of the
water in the bay. A bank of mud has been formed at the point of
meeting. Thus not only the water shoals, but the force of the current
through the narrows would hinder the ship from getting past it to the
beach. The two things together made her ground, 'stem on' to the
bank; and then, of course, the heavy sea running into the bay,
instead of helping her to the shore, began to break up the stern
which was turned towards it.

Common peril makes beasts of prey and their usual victims crouch
together. Benefits received touch generous hearts. But the
legionaries on board had no such sentiments. Paul's helpfulness was
forgotten. A still more ignoble exhibition of the instinct of self-
preservation than the sailors had shown dictated that cowardly, cruel
suggestion to kill the prisoners. Brutal indifference to human life,
and Rome's iron discipline holding terror over the legionaries'
heads, are vividly illustrated in the 'counsel,' So were Paul's
kindnesses requited! It is hard to melt rude natures even by
kindness; and if Paul had been looking for gratitude he would have
been disappointed, as we so often are. But if we do good to men
because we expect requital, even in thankfulness, we are not pure in
motive. 'Looking for nothing again' is the spirit enforced by God's
pattern and by experience.

The centurion had throughout, like most of his fellows in Scripture,
been kindly disposed, and showed more regard for Paul than the rank
and file did. He displays the good side of militarism, while they
show its bad side; for he is collected, keeps his head in
extremities, knows his own mind, holds the reins in a firm hand, even
in that supreme moment, has a quick eye to see what must be done, and
decision to order it at once. It was prudent to send first those who
could swim; they could then help the others. The distance was short,
and as the bow was aground, there would be some shelter under the lee
of the vessel, and shoal water, where they could wade, would be
reached in a few minutes or moments.

'And so it came to pass, that they all escaped safe to the land.' So
Paul had assured them they would. God needs no miracles in order to
sway human affairs. Everything here was perfectly 'natural,' and yet
His hand wrought through all, and the issue was His fulfilment of His
promises. If we rightly look at common things, we shall see God
working in them all, and believe that He can deliver us as truly
without miracles as ever He did any by miracles. Promptitude,
prudence, skill, and struggle with the waves, saved the whole two
hundred and seventy-six souls in that battered ship; yet it was God
who saved them all. Whether Paul was among the party that could swim,
or among the more helpless who had to cling to anything that would
float, he was held up by God's hand, and it was He who 'sent from
above, took him, and drew him out of many waters.'



AFTER THE WRECK

'And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was
called Melita. 2. And the barbarous people showed us no little
kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one,
because of the present rain, and because of the cold. 3. And when
Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire,
there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. 4.
And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand,
they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer,
whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not
to live. 5. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no
harm. 6. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or
fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great
while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and
said that he was a god. 7. In the same quarters were possessions
of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius: who
received us, and lodged us three days courteously. 8. And it came
to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, and of a
bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his
hands on him, and healed him. 9. So when this was done, others
also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:
10. Who also honoured us with many honours: and when we departed,
they laded us with such things as were necessary. 11. And after
three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had
wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. 12. And
landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days. 13. And from
thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium: and after one
day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli; 14.
Where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them
seven days: and so we went toward Rome. 15. And from thence, when
the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii
Forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God,
and took courage. 16. And when we came to Rome, the centurion
delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was
suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.'
--ACTS xxviii. 1-16.

'They _all_ escaped safe to land,' says Luke with emphasis, pointing
to the verification of Paul's assurance that there should be no loss
of life. That two hundred and seventy-six men on a wreck should all
be saved was very improbable, but the angel had promised, and Paul
had believed that it should be 'even so as it had been spoken unto
him.' Therefore the improbable came to pass, and every man of the
ship's company stood safe on the shore. Faith which grasps God's
promise 'laughs at impossibilities' and brings them into the region
of facts.

Wet, cold, weary, and anxious, the rescued men huddled together on
the shore in the early morning, and no doubt they were doubtful what
reception they would have from the islanders who had been attracted
to the beach. Their first question was, 'Where are we?' so completely
had they lost their reckoning. Some of the inhabitants could speak
Greek or Latin, and could tell them that they were on Melita, but the
most part of the crowd that came round them could only speak in a
tongue strange to Luke, and are therefore called by him 'barbarians,'
not as being uncivilised, but as not speaking Greek. But they could
speak the eloquent language of kindness and pity. They were heathens,
but they were men. They had not come down to the wreck for plunder,
as might have been feared, but to help the unfortunates who were
shivering on the beach in the downpour of rain, and chilled to the
bone by exposure.

As always, Paul fills Luke's canvas; the other two hundred and
seventy-five were ciphers. Two incidents, in which the Apostle
appears as protected by God from danger, and as a fountain of healing
for others, are all that is told of the three months' stay in Malta.
Taken together, these cover the whole ground of the Christian's place
in the world; he is an object of divine care, he is a medium of
divine blessing. In the former one, we see in Paul's activity in
gathering his bundle of brushwood an example of how he took the
humblest duties on himself, and was not hindered either by the false
sense of dignity which keeps smaller men from doing small things, as
Chinese gentlemen pride themselves on long nails as a token that they
do no work, or by the helplessness in practical matters which is
sometimes natural to, and often affected by, men of genius, from
taking his share in common duties.

The shipwreck took place in November probably, and the 'viper' had
curled itself up for its winter sleep, and had been lifted with the
twigs by Paul's hasty hand. Roused by the warmth, it darted at Paul's
hand before it could be withdrawn, and fixed its fangs. The sight of
it dangling there excited suspicions in the mind of the natives, who
would know that Paul was a prisoner, and so jumped to the conclusion
that he was a murderer pursued by the Goddess of Justice. These rude
islanders had consciences, which bore witness to a divine law of
retribution.

However mistaken may be heathens' conceptions of what constitutes
right and wrong, they all know that it is wrong to do wrong, and the
dim anticipation of God-inflicted punishment is in their hearts. The
swift change of opinion about Paul is like, though it is the reverse
of, what the people of Lystra thought of him. _They_ first took him
for a god, and then for a criminal, worshipping him to-day and
stoning him to-morrow. This teaches us how unworthy the heathen
conception of a deity is, and how lightly the name was given. It may
teach us too how fickle and easily led popular judgments are, and how
they are ever prone to rush from one extreme to another, so that the
people's idol of one week is their abhorrence the next, and the
applause and execration are equally undeserved. These Maltese critics
did what many of us are doing with less excuse--arguing as to men's
merits from their calamities or successes. A good man may be stung by
a serpent in the act of doing a good thing; that does not prove him
to be a monster. He may be unhurt by what seems fatal; that does not
prove him to be a god or a saint.

The other incident recorded as occurring in Malta brings out the
Christian's relation to others as a source of healing. An interesting
incidental proof of Luke's accuracy is found in the fact that
inscriptions discovered in Malta show that the official title of the
governor was 'First of the Melitaeans.' The word here rendered
'chief' is literally 'first.' Luke's precision is shown in another
direction in his diagnosis of the diseases of Publius's father, which
are described by technical medical terms. The healing seems to have
been unasked. Paul 'went in,' as if from a spontaneous wish to render
help. There is no record of any expectation or request from Publius.

Christians are to be 'like the dew on the grass, which waiteth not
for man,' but falls unsought. The manner of the healing brings out
very clearly its divine source, and Paul's part as being simply that
of the channel for God's power. He prays, and then lays his hands on
the sick man. There are no words assuring him of healing. God is
invoked, and then His power flows through the hands of the suppliant.
So with all our work for men in bringing the better cure with which
we are entrusted, we are but channels of the blessing, pipes through
which the water of life is brought to thirsty lips. Therefore prayer
must precede and accompany all Christian efforts to communicate the
healing of the Gospel; and the most gifted are but, like Paul,
'ministers through whom' faith and salvation come.

The argument from silence is precarious, but the entire omission of
notice of evangelistic work in Melita is noteworthy. Probably the
Apostle as a prisoner was not free to preach Christ in any public
manner.

Ancient navigation was conducted in a leisurely fashion very strange
to us. Three months' delay in the island, rendered necessary by
wintry storms, would end about the early part of March, when the
season for safe sailing began. So the third ship which was used in
this voyage set sail. Luke notices its 'sign' as being that of the
Twin Brethren, the patrons of sailors, whose images were, no doubt,
displayed on the bow, just as to-day boats in that region often have
a Madonna nailed on the mast. Strange conjunction--Castor and Pollux
on the prow, and Paul on the deck!

Puteoli, on the bay of Naples, was the landing-place, and there,
after long confinement with uncongenial companions, the three
Christians, Paul, Aristarchus, and Luke, found brethren. We can
understand the joy of such a meeting, and can almost hear the
narrative of perils which would be poured into sympathetic ears.
Observe that, according to what seems the true reading, verse 14
says, 'We were consoled among them, remaining seven days.' The
centurion could scarcely delay his march to please the Christians at
Puteoli; and the thought that the Apostle, whose spirit had never
flagged while danger was near and effort was needed, felt some
tendency to collapse, and required cheering when the strain was off,
is as natural as it is pathetic.

So the whole company set off on their march to Rome--about a hundred
and forty miles. The week's delay in Puteoli would give time for
apprising the church in Rome of the Apostle's coming, and two parties
came out to meet him, one travelling as far as Appii Forum, about
forty Roman miles from the city; the other as far as 'The Three
Taverns,' some ten miles nearer it. The simple notice of the meeting
is more touching than many words would have been. It brings out again
the Apostle's somewhat depressed state, partly due, no doubt, to
nervous tension during the long and hazardous voyage, and partly to
his consciousness that the decisive moment was very near. But when he
grasped the hands and looked into the faces of the Roman brethren,
whom he had so long hungered to see, and to whom he had poured out
his heart in his letter, he 'thanked God, and took courage.' The most
heroic need, and are helped by, the sympathy of the humble. Luther
was braced for the Diet of Worms by the knight who clapped him on the
back as he passed in and spoke a hearty word of cheer.

There would be some old friends in the delegation of Roman
Christians, perhaps some of those who are named in Romans xvi., such
as Priscilla and Aquila, and the unnamed matron, Rufus's mother, whom
Paul there calls 'his mother and mine.' It would be an hour of love
and effusion, and the shadow of appearing before Caesar would not
sensibly dim the brightness. Paul saw God's hand in that glad
meeting, as we should do in all the sweetness of congenial
intercourse. It was not only because the welcomers were his friends
that he was glad, but because they were Christ's friends and
servants. The Apostle saw in them the evidence that the kingdom was
advancing even in the world's capital, and under the shadow of
Caesar's throne, and that gladdened him and made him forget personal
anxieties. We too should be willing to sink our own interests in the
joy of seeing the spread of Christ's kingdom.

Paul turned thankfulness for the past and present into calm hope for
the future: 'He took courage.' There was much to discourage and to
excuse tremors and forebodings, but he had God and Christ with him,
and therefore he could front the uncertain future without flinching,
and leave all its possibilities in God's hands. Those who have such a
past as every Christian has should put fear far from them, and go
forth to meet any future with quiet hearts, and minds kept in perfect
peace because they are stayed on God.



THE LAST GLIMPSE OF PAUL

'And it came to pass, that, after three days, Paul called the
chief of the Jews together: and when they were come together, he
said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing
against the people or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered
prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans; 18. Who,
when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there
was no cause of death in me. 19. But when the Jews spake against
it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had ought
to accuse my nation of. 20. For this cause therefore have I
called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that
for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. 21. And they
said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea
concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or
spake any harm of thee. 22. But we desire to hear of thee what
thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that
everywhere it is spoken against. 23. And when they had appointed
him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he
expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them
concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the
prophets, from morning till evening. 24. And some believed the
things which were spoken, and some believed not. 25. And when
they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul
had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esias the
prophet unto our fathers, 26. Saying, Go unto this people, and
say. Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing
ye shall see, and not perceive: 27. For the heart of this people
is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their
eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should
be converted, and I should heal them. 28. Be it known therefore
unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles,
and that they will hear it. 29. And when he had said these words,
the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves. 30.
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and
received all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom
of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.'
--ACTS xxviii. 17-31.

We have here our last certain glimpse of Paul. His ambition had long
been to preach in Rome, but he little knew how his desire was to be
fulfilled. We too are often surprised at the shape which God's
answers to our wishes take. Well for us if we take the unexpected or
painful events which accomplish some long-cherished purpose as
cheerfully and boldly as did Paul. We see him in this last glimpse as
the centre of three concentric widening circles.

I. We have Paul and the leaders of the Roman synagogue. He was not
the man to let the grass grow under his feet. After such a voyage a
pause would have been natural for a less eager worker; but three days
were all that he allowed himself, and these would, no doubt, be
largely occupied by intercourse with the Roman Christians, and with
the multitude of little things to be looked after on entering on his
new lodging. Paul had gifts that we have not, he exemplified many
heroic virtues which we are not called on to repeat; but he had
eminently the prosaic virtue of diligence and persistence in work,
and the humblest life affords a sphere in which that indispensable
though homely excellence of his can be imitated. What a long holiday
some of us would think we had earned, if we had come through what
Paul had encountered since he left Caesarea!

The summoning of the 'chief of the Jews' to him was a prudent
preparation for his trial rather than an evangelistic effort. It was
important to ascertain their feelings, and if possible to secure
their neutrality in regard to the approaching investigation. Hence
the Apostle seeks to put his case to them so as to show his true
adherence to the central principles of Judaism, insisting that he is
guiltless of revolt against either the nation or the law and
traditional observances; that he had been found innocent by the
Palestinian representatives of Roman authority; that his appeal to
Caesar, which would naturally seem hostile to the rulers in
Jerusalem, was not meant as an accusation of the nation to which he
felt himself to belong, and so was no sign of deficient patriotism,
but had been forced on him as his only means of saving his life.

It was a difficult course which he had to steer, and he picked his
way between the shoals with marvellous address. But his explanation
of his position is not only a skilful piece of _apologia_, but it
embodies one of his strongest convictions, which it is worth our
while to grasp firmly; namely, that Christianity is the true
fulfilment and perfecting of the old revelation. His declaration
that, so far from his being a deserter from Israel, he was a prisoner
just because he was true to the Messianic hope which was Israel's
highest glory, was not a clever piece of special pleading meant for
the convincing of the Roman Jews, but was a principle which runs
through all his teaching. Christians were the true Jews. He was not a
recreant in confessing, but they were deserters in denying, the
fulfilment in Jesus of the hope which had shone before the generation
of 'the fathers.' The chain which bound him to the legionary who
'kept him,' and which he held forth as he spoke, was the witness that
he was still 'an Hebrew of the Hebrews.'

The heads of the Roman synagogue went on the tack of non-committal,
as was quite natural. They were much too astute to accept at once an
_ex parte_ statement, and so took refuge in professing ignorance.
Probably they knew a good deal more than they owned. Their statement
has been called 'unhistorical,' and, oddly enough, has been used to
discredit Luke's narrative. It is a remarkable canon of criticism
that a reporter is responsible for the truthfulness of assertions
which he reports, and that, if he has occasion to report truthfully
an untruth, he is convicted of the untruth which he truthfully
reports. Luke is responsible for telling what these people found it
convenient to say; they are responsible for its veracity. But they
did not say quite as much as is sometimes supposed. As the Revised
Version shows, they simply said that they had not had any official
deputation or report about Paul, which is perfectly probable, as it
was extremely unlikely that any ship leaving after Paul's could have
reached Italy. They may have known a great deal about him, but they
had no information to act upon about his trial. Their reply is
plainly shaped so as to avoid expressing any definite opinion or
pledging themselves to any course of action till they do hear from
'home.'

They are politely cautious, but they cannot help letting out some of
their bile in their reference to 'this sect.' Paul had said nothing
about it, and their allusion betrays a fuller knowledge of him and it
than it suited their plea for delay to own. Their wish to hear what
he thought sounded very innocent and impartial, but was scarcely the
voice of candid seekers after truth. They must have known of the
existence of the Roman Church, which included many Jews, and they
could scarcely be ignorant of the beliefs on which it was founded;
but they probably thought that they would hear enough from Paul in
the proposed conference to enable them to carry the synagogue with
them in doing all they could to procure his condemnation. He had
hoped to secure at least their neutrality; they seem to have been
preparing to join his enemies. The request for full exposition of a
prisoner's belief has often been but a trap to ensure his martyrdom.
But we have to 'be ready to give to every man a reason for the hope
that is in us,' even when the motive for asking it may be anything
but the sincere desire to learn.

II. Therefore Paul was willing to lay his heart's belief open,
whatever doing so might bring. So the second circle forms round him,
and we have him preaching the Gospel to 'many' of the Jews. He could
not go to the synagogue, so much of the synagogue came to him. The
usual method was pursued by Paul in arguing from the old revelation,
but we may note the twofold manner of his preaching, 'testifying' and
'persuading,' the former addressed more to the understanding, and the
latter to the affections and will, and may learn how Christian
teachers should seek to blend both--to work their arguments, not in
frost, but in fire, and not to bully or scold or frighten men into
the Kingdom, but to draw them with cords of love. Persuasion without
a basis of solid reasoning is puerile and impotent; reasoning without
the warmth of persuasion is icy cold, and therefore nothing grows
from it.

Note too the protracted labour 'from morning till evening.' One can
almost see the eager disputants spending the livelong day over the
rolls of the prophets, relays of Rabbis, perhaps, relieving one
another in the assault on the one opponent's position, and he holding
his ground through all the hours--a pattern for us teachers of all
degrees.

The usual effects followed. The multitude was sifted by the Gospel,
as its hearers always are, some accepting and some rejecting. These
double effects ever follow it, and to one or other of these two
classes we each belong. The same fire melts wax and hardens clay; the
same light is joy to sound eyes and agony to diseased ones; the same
word is a savour of life unto life and a savour of death unto death;
the same Christ is set for the fall and for the rising of men, and is
to some the sure foundation on which they build secure, and to some
the stone on which, stumbling, they are broken, and which, falling on
them, grinds them to powder.

Paul's solemn farewell takes up Isaiah's words, already used by
Jesus. It is his last recorded utterance to his brethren after the
flesh, weighty, and full of repressed yearning and sorrow. It is
heavy with prophecy, and marks an epoch in the sad, strange history
of that strange nation. Israel passes out of sight with that dread
sentence fastened to its breast, like criminals of old, on whose
front was fixed the record of their crimes and their condemnation. So
this tragic self-exclusion from hope and life is the end of all that
wondrous history of ages of divine revelation and patience, and of
man's rebellion. The Gospel passes to the Gentiles, and the Jew shuts
himself out. So it has been for nineteen centuries. Was not that
scene in Paul's lodging in Rome the end of an epoch and the
prediction of a sad future?

III. Not less significant and epoch-making is the glimpse of Paul
which closes the Acts. We have the third concentric circle--Paul and
the multitudes who came to his house and heard the Gospel. We note
two points here. First, that his unhindered preaching in the very
heart of the world's capital for two whole years is, in one aspect,
the completion of the book. As Bengel tersely says, 'The victory of
the word of God, Paul at Rome. The apex of the Gospel, the end of
Acts.'

But, second, as clearly, the ending is abrupt, and is not a
satisfying close. The lengthened account of the whole process of
Paul's imprisonments and hearings before the various Roman
authorities is most unintelligible if Luke intended to break off at
the very crucial point, and say nothing about the event to which he
had been leading up for so many chapters. There is much probability
in Ramsay's suggestion that Luke intended to write a third book,
containing the account of the trial and subsequent events, but was
prevented by causes unknown, perhaps by martyrdom. Be that as it may,
these two verses, with some information pieced out of the Epistles
written during the imprisonment, are all that we know of Paul's life
in Rome. From Philippians we learn that the Gospel spread by reason
of the earlier stages of his trial. From the other Epistles we can
collect some particulars of his companions, and of the oversight
which he kept up of the Churches.

The picture here drawn lays hold, not on anything connected with his
trial, but on his evangelistic activity, and shows us how,
notwithstanding all hindrances, anxieties about his fate, weariness,
and past toils, the flame of evangelistic fervour burned undimmed in
'Paul the aged,' as the flame of mistaken zeal had burned in the
'young man named Saul,' and how the work which had filled so many
years of wandering and homelessness was carried on with all the old
joyfulness, confidence, and success, from the prisoner's lodging. In
such unexpected fashion did God fulfil the Apostle's desire to
'preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also.' To preach the word
with all boldness is the duty of us Christians who have entered into
the heritage of fuller freedom than Paul's, and of whom it is truer
than of him that we can do it, 'no man forbidding' us.



PAUL IN ROME

And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and
received all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom
of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.'
--ACTS xxviii. 30, 31.

So ends this book. It stops rather than ends. Many reasons might be
suggested for closing here. Probably the simplest is the best, that
nothing more is said for nothing more had yet been done. Probably the
book was written during these two years. This abrupt close suggests
several noteworthy thoughts.

I. The true theme of the book.

How convenient if Luke had told us a little more! But Paul's history
is unfinished, like Peter's and John's. This book's treatment of all
the Apostles teaches, as we have often had to remark, that Christ and
His acts are its true subject.

We are wise if we learn the lesson of keeping all human teachers,
even a Paul, in their inferior place, and if we say of each of them:
'He was not the Light, but came that he might bear witness of the
Light.'

II. God's unexpected and unwelcome ways of fulfilling our desires,
and His purposes.

It had long been Paul's dream to 'see Rome.' How little he knew the
steps by which his dream was to be fulfilled! He told the Ephesian
elders that he was going up to Jerusalem under compulsion of the
Spirit, and 'not knowing the things that should befall him there,'
except that he was certain of 'bonds and imprisonment.' He did not
know that these were God's way of bringing him to Rome. Jewish fury,
Roman statecraft and law-abidingness, two years of a prison, a stormy
voyage, a shipwreck, led him to his long-wished-for goal. God uses
even man's malice and opposition to the Gospel to advance the
progress of the Gospel. Men, like coral insects, build their little
bit, all unaware of the whole of which it is a part, but the reef
rises above the waves and ocean breaks against it in vain.

So we may gather lessons of submission, of patient acceptance of
apparently adverse circumstances, and of quiet faith that He who
'makes stormy winds to fulfil His word and flaming fires His
ministers,' will bend to the carrying out of His designs all things,
be they seemingly friendly or hostile, and will realise our dreams,
if in accordance with His will, even through events which seem to
shatter them. Let us trust and be patient till we see the issues of
events.

III. The world's mistaken estimate of greatness.

Who was the greatest man in Rome at that hour? Not the Caesar but the
poor Jewish prisoner. How astonished both would have been if they had
been told the truth! The two kingdoms were, so to speak, set face to
face in these two, their representatives, and neither of them knew
his own relative importance. The Caesar was all unaware that, for all
his legions and his power, he was but 'a noise'; Paul was as
unconscious that he was incomparably the most powerful of the
influences that were then at work in the world. The haughty and
stolid eyes of Romans saw in him nothing but a prisoner, sent up from
a turbulent subject land on some obscure charge, a mere nobody. The
crowds in forum and amphitheatre would have laughed at any one who
had pointed to that humble 'hired house,' and said, 'There lodges a
man who bears a word that will shatter and remould the city, the
Empire, the world.'

Let us have confidence in the greatness of the word, though the world
may be deaf to its music and blind to its power, and let us never
fear to ally ourselves with a cause which we know to be God's,
however it may be unpopular and made light of by the 'leaders of
opinion.'

IV. The true relation between the Church and the State.

'None forbidding him' marks a great step forward. Paul's unhindered
freedom of speech in Rome itself marks 'the victory of the word, the
apex of the Gospel.' The neutral attitude of the imperial power was,
indeed, broken by subsequent persecutions, but we may say that on the
whole Rome let Christianity alone. That is the best service that the
State can render to the Church. Anything more is help which encumbers
and is harmful to the true spiritual power of the Gospel. The real
requirement which it makes on the civil power is simply what the
Greek philosopher asked of the king who was proffering his good
offices, 'Stand out of the sunshine!'





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