The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10)
by
Various
Part 3 out of 3
of Christ. History has vindicated it. We believe it with all our
hearts--that He always did the things that pleased God. But I have got
on to a level that I can touch now. The great ideal has come from the
air to the earth. The fair vision has become concrete in a Man. Now,
I want to see that Man; and if I see that Man I shall see in Him
a revelation of what God's purpose is for men, and I shall see,
therefore, a revelation of what the highest possibility of life is.
Now this is a tempting theme. It is a temptation to begin to contrast
Him with popular ideals of life. I want to see Him; I want, if I can,
to catch the notes of the music that make up the perfect harmony which
was the dropping of a song out of God's heaven upon man's earth, that
man might catch the key-note of it and make music in his own life.
What are the things in this Man's life? He says: "I have realized the
ideal--I do." There are four things that I want to say about Him, four
notes in the music of His life.
First, spirituality. That is one of the words that needs redeeming
from abuse. He was the embodiment of the spiritual ideal in life. He
was spiritual in the high, true, full, broad, blest sense of that
word.
It may be well for a moment to note what spirituality did not mean in
the life of Jesus Christ. It did not mean asceticism. During all the
years of His ministry, during all the years of His teaching, you never
find a single instance in which Jesus Christ made a whip of cords
to scourge Himself. And all that business of scourging oneself--an
attempt to elevate the spirit by the ruin of the actual flesh--is
absolutely opposed to His view of life. Jesus Christ did not deny
Himself. The fact of His life was this--that He touched everything
familiarly. He went into all the relationship of life. He went to the
widow. He took up the children and held them in His arms, and looked
into their eyes till heaven was poured in as He looked. He didn't go
and get behind walls somewhere. He didn't get away and say: "Now, if I
am going to get pure I shall do it by shutting men out." You remember
what the Pharisees said of Him once. They said: "This man receiveth
sinners." You know how they said it. They meant to say: "We did hope
that we should make something out of this new man, but we are quite
disappointed. He receives sinners."
And what did they mean? They meant what you have so often said: "You
can't touch pitch without being defiled." But this Man sat down with
the publican and He didn't take on any defilement from the publican.
On the other hand, He gave the publican His purity in the life of
Jesus Christ. Things worked the other way. He was the great negative
of God to the very law of evil that you have--evil contaminates good.
If you will put on a plate one apple that is getting bad among twelve
others that are pure, the bad one will influence the others. Christ
came to drive back every force of disease and every force of evil by
this strong purity of His own person, and He said: "I will go among
the bad and make them good." That is what He was doing the whole way
through. So His spirituality was not asceticism. And if you are going
to be so spiritual that you see no beauty in the flowers and hear no
music in the song of the birds; if the life which you pass into when
you consent to the crucifixion of self does not open to you the very
gates of God, and make the singing of the birds and the blossoming of
the flowers infinitely more beautiful, you have never seen Jesus yet.
What was His spirituality? The spirituality of Jesus Christ was a
concrete realization of a great truth which He laid down in His own
beatitudes. What was that? "Blest are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God." Now, the trouble is we have been lifting all the good
things of God and putting them in heaven. And I don't wonder that you
sing:
My willing soul would stay
In such a frame as this,
And sit and sing itself away
To everlasting bliss.
No wonder you want to sing yourself away to everlasting bliss, because
everything that is worth having you have put up there. But Jesus said:
"Blest are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If you are pure
you will see Him everywhere--in the flower that blooms, in the march
of history, in the sorrows of men, above the darkness of the darkest
cloud; and you will know that God is in the field when He is most
invisible.
Second, subjection. The next note in the music of His life is His
absolute subjection to God. You can very often tell the great
philosophies which are governing human lives by the little catchwords
that slip off men's tongues: "Well, I thank God I am my own master."
That is your trouble, man. It is because you are your own master that
you are in danger of hell. A man says: "Can't I do as I like with my
own?" You have got no "own" to do what you like with. It is because
men have forgotten the covenant of God, the kingship of God, that we
have all the wreckage and ruin that blights this poor earth of ours.
Here is the Man who never forgot it.
Did you notice those wonderful words: "I do nothing of myself, but as
my Father taught me, I speak." He neither did nor spoke anything of
Himself. It was a wonderful life. He stood forevermore between the
next moment and heaven. And the Father's voice said, "Do this," and He
said "Amen, I came to do thy will," and did it. And the Father's voice
said, "Speak these words to men," and He, "Amen," and He spoke.
You say: "That is just what I do not want to do." I know that. We want
to be independent; have our own way. "The things that please God--this
Man was subject to the divine will." You know the two words--if you
can learn to say them, not like a parrot, not glibly, but out of your
heart--the two words that will help you "Halleluiah" and "Amen." You
can say them in Welsh or any language you like; they are always the
same. When the next dispensation of God's dealings faces you look at
it and say: "Halleluiah! Praise God! Amen!" That means, "I agree."
Third, sympathy. Now, you have this Man turned toward other men. We
have seen something of Him as He faced God: Spirituality, a sense of
God; subjection, a perpetual amen to the divine volition. Now, He
faces the crowd. Sympathy! Why? Because He is right with God, He is
right with men; because He feels God near, and knows Him, and responds
to the divine will; therefore, when He faces men He is right toward
men. The settlement of every social problem you have in this country
and in my own land, the settlement of the whole business, will be
found in the return of man to God. When man gets back to God he gets
back to men. What is behind it? Sympathy is the power of putting my
spirit outside my personality, into the circumstances of another man,
and feeling as that man feels.
I take one picture as an illustration of this. I see the Master
approaching the city of Nain, and around Him His disciples. He is
coming up. And I see outside the city of Nain, coming toward the gate
a man carried by others, dead, and walking by that bier a mother. Now,
all I want you to look at is that woman's face, and, looking into her
face, see all the anguish of those circumstances. She is a widow, and
that is her boy, her only boy, and he is dead. Man can not talk about
this. You have got to be in the house to know what that means. But
look at her face--there it is. All the sorrow is on her face. You can
see it.
Now, turn from her quickly and look into the face of Christ. Why,
I look into His face--there is her face. He is feeling all she is
feeling; He is down in her sorrow with her; He has got underneath the
burden, and He is feeling all the agony that that woman feels because
her boy is dead. He is moved with compassion whenever human sorrow
crosses His vision and human need approaches Him. And now I see Him
moving toward the bier. I see Him as He touches it. And He takes the
boy back and gives him to his mother. Do you see in yon mountain a
cloud, so somber and sad, and suddenly the sun comes from behind the
cloud, and all the mountain-side laughs with gladness? That is that
woman's face. The agony is gone. The tear that remains there is gilded
with a smile, and joy is on her face. Look at Him. There it is. He
is in her joy now. He is having as good a time as the woman. He has
carried her grief and her sorrow. He has given her joy. And it is His
joy that He has given to her. He is with her in her joy.
Wonderful sympathy! He went about gathering human sorrow into His
own heart, scattering His joy, and having fellowship in agony and in
deliverance, in tears and in their wiping away. Great, sympathetic
soul! Why? Because He always lived with God, and, living with God, the
divine love moved Him with compassion. Ah, believe me, our sorrows are
more felt in heaven than on earth. And we had that glimpse of that
eternal love in this Man, who did the things that pleased God, and
manifested such wondrous sympathy.
Fourth, strength. The last note is that of strength. You talk about
the weakness of Jesus, the frailty of Jesus. I tell you, there never
was any one so strong as He. And if you will take the pains of reading
His life with that in mind you will find it was one tremendous march
of triumph against all opposing forces. About His dying--how did He
die? "At last, at last," says the man in his study that does not know
anything about Jesus; "At last His enemies became too much for Him,
and they killed Him." Nothing of the sort. That is a very superficial
reading. What is the truth? Hear it from His own lips: "No man taketh
my life from me. I lay it down of myself. And if I lay it down I have
authority to take it again." What do you think of that? How does that
touch you as a revelation of magnificence in strength? And then, look
at Him, when He comes back from the tomb, having fulfilled that which
was either an empty boast or a great fact--thank God, we believe it
was a great fact! Now He stands upon the mountain, with this handful
of men around Him, His disciples, and He is going away from them. "All
authority," He says, "is given unto me. I am king not merely by an
office conferred, but by a triumph won. I am king, for I have faced
the enemies of the race--sin and sorrow and ignorance and death--and
my foot is upon the neck of every one. All authority is given to me."
Oh, the strength of this Man! Where did He get it? "My Father hath not
left me alone. I have lived with God. I have walked with God. I always
knew him near. I always responded to his will. And my heart went out
in sympathy to others, and I mastered the enemies of those with whom I
sympathized. And I come to the end and I say, All authority is given
to me." Oh, my brother, that is the pattern for you and for me! Ah,
that is life! That is the ideal! Oh, how can I fulfil it? I am not
going to talk about that. Let me only give you this sentence to finish
with, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." If Christ be in me by the
power of the Spirit, He will keep me conscious of God's nearness to
me. If Christ be in me by the consciousness of the spirit reigning and
governing, He will take my will from day to day, blend it with His,
and take away all that makes it hard to say, "God's will be done."
CADMAN
A NEW DAY FOR MISSIONS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
S. Parkes Cadman is one of the many immigrant clergymen who have
attained to fame in American pulpits. He was born in Shropshire,
England, December 18, 1864, and graduated from Richmond College,
London University, in 1889. Coming to this country about 1895 he was
appointed pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Metropolitan Tabernacle,
New York. From this post he was called to Central Congregational
Church, Brooklyn, with but one exception the largest Congregational
Church in the United States. He has received the degree of D.D. from
Wesleyan University and the University of Syracuse. The sermon here
given, somewhat abridged, was delivered before the National Council of
Congregational Churches, in Cleveland, Ohio, and is from Dr. Cadman's
manuscript.
CADMAN
Born in 1864
A NEW DAY FOR MISSIONS
_God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ: by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world_.--Gal. vi., 14.
The pivotal conception of missionary enterprise is the conception of
Christ as the eternal priest of humanity. If any need of the world's
heart is before us now, it is the need of the Cross. There is a
deep and anxious desire in men for the saving forces of sacrificial
Christianity. The ideals of the New Testament concerning Gethsemane
and Calvary are being thrust upon our attention by the upward
strugglings of the people. They, at any rate, have not forgotten the
forsaken Man in the night of awful silence in the garden, nor His
exceeding bitter agony, nor the perfect ending that made His death His
victory. The wastes of eccentricity, whether orthodox or heterodox,
and the over curious speculations of theologies remote from the
habitations of men, have had little influence upon the multitudes
we seek to serve. And if I had to choose a sphere where one could
rediscover the central forces of Christian life and of Christian
practise, I would lean toward the enlightened democracies which to-day
are vibrant with the plea that the shepherdless multitudes shall have
social ameliorations and new incentives and selfless leaders.
We are all very jealous for the honor and success of the propagandism
we sustain at home and abroad, and I hold that its honor and success
alike depend upon the priesthood and redemptive efficacies of Jesus.
These sovereign forces are correlated with His victories for the
twenty past centuries, and they constitute the distinctive genius of
the faith.
We shall gain nothing for the rule or for the ethics of Jesus by
derogating that peculiar office of the divine Victim which is, to
me, at any rate, the most sublime reason for the Incarnation and the
ineffable height and depth and mystery of all love and all strength
blessedly operative in every ruined condition by means of sacrifice.
The missionary fields confessedly can not be conquered by the unaided
teacher; he must have more than a system of truth, more than a
program, more than a reasoned discourse. Their vast inert mass demands
vitalization; and the life which is given for the life of men, the
divinest gift of all, is alone sufficient for this regeneration.
Moreover, can we rest the absolutism and finality of Jesus upon
anything less than the last complete outpouring of His soul unto
voluntary death for men's salvation? I do not think we can, and it is
a requisite that we place larger emphasis upon this holy mystery of
our life through Christ's death, the substantial soul and secret of
all missionary progress in all ages of the Church.
Before we can see the miracle of nations entering the kingdom of God,
before we can dismiss the black death of apathy which rests on so many
professedly Christian communities, before we can dominate the social
structure in righteousness and justice, the Church must be raised
nearer to the standards of New Testament efficiency. And New Testament
efficiency rested upon the perfect divinity and all-persuasive
mediatorship of "Christ and him crucified." The personality of Christ
involves for many of us the entire relation of God to His universe; He
is "the central figure in all history," and Pie is "the central
figure of our personal experience," creative in us, by His inaugural
experience, of all we are in Him and for our fellows. Thus we make
great claims for the Lord of the harvest, and we make them soberly,
and we know them true for our spiritual consciousness, and we are
prepared to defend them.
Yet I, for one, do not hesitate to admit that the theological
necessities of missionary work are many, and that they must be
recognized and met before it can fully accomplish its infinite
design. Indeed, the rule of Jesus in all these aspects of His mission
clarifies and simplifies the gospel. It is plain that such a gospel,
wherein the living personality of the Christ deals with the living
man to whom we minister, is not to be beset by complications and
abstractions. Its spiritual topography embraces the height of
good, the depth of love, the breadth of sympathy, and the width of
catholicity. It was meant for the race and for the far-reaching
reciprocities and inexpressible necessities of the race. It is attuned
to the cry of the common heart. Its interpretations have the sanctions
of an authoritative human experience which has never failed in its
witness. Sometimes I have challenged these honored servants of the
evangel who have come back to us from quarters where they were busy
on the errands of the cross. Almost pathetically, with the painful
interest of one inquiring for a long absent friend of whom no news has
been received, I have solicited the missionaries. They came from the
south of our own dear land, where they administered to the negro; from
the arctic zone, from the farther East. Their wider vision, their more
imperial instinct, were plain to me, and my usual question was, "What
do you teach the impulsive colored man and the stolid Eskimo and the
pensive Hindu and the inscrutable Asiatic?" And they replied, "We
teach them, that God is a personal spirit and Father, whose character
is holiness and whose heart is love; that Jesus Christ is the designed
and supreme Son of God, who lived in sinlessness and died in perfect
willing sacrifice for the eternal life of all men, that by the will of
God and in the power of His spirit men may have everlasting life and,
better still, everlasting goodness, if they will accept and trust in
Jesus Christ for all."
And this gospel obtains the day of overcoming for which we plead and
pray. For tho an angel from heaven had any other, men do not respond;
the charisma rests on no other message. Possest of it, and possessing
it, under the covenant of heaven and led by the Shepherd and Bishop of
souls, we shall go forth determined to give it place in us and in our
presentations as never before. May nothing mar the solemn splendor
of such a message from God unto men. Let us subordinate our undue
intellectualism and place our boasted freedom under restraints, so
that the evangel may be preached without reserve and with abandon.
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, himself
man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all."
Such in one grand passage is the creed that breathes the very life and
spirit of the most significant and overwhelming missionary period in
the history of the Christian Church.
There is a new day due in missions because of the immense superiority
in missionary methods. The _personnel_ of our administrations has been
superb, and of nearly all the honored servants of God who have labored
in domestic and foreign departments it could be said, "Thou hast
loved righteousness and hated iniquity." But I presume these seasoned
veterans would be the first to show us how the whole conception of
propagandism has been readapted, and its vehicles of communication
multiplied in various directions. The onfall and sally of the earler
evangelistic campaigns are now aided by the investment and siege of
educational and medical work.
The trackways of a policy embedded in the wider interpretation of the
gospel are laid and the new era takes shape before our comprehension.
Travel, exploration, and commerce have demanded and obtained the
_Lusitania_ on the sea; the railroad from the Cape to Cairo on the
land, and they have left no spot of earth untrodden, no map obscure,
no mart unvisited. Keeping step with this stately and unprecedented
development, and often anticipating it, the widening frontiers of our
missionary kingdom have demonstrated again and again how the Church
can make a bridal of the earth and sky, linking the lowliest needs
to the loftiest truths. And best of all in respect of methods is the
dispersal of our native egotism. We have come to see that the types of
Christianity in Europe and America are perhaps aboriginal for us,
but can not be transplanted to other shores. "Manifest destiny" is a
phrase that sits down when Japan and China wake up. Not thus can Jesus
be robbed of the fruits of His passion in any branch of the human
family. We are to plant and water, labor in faith, and die in hope,
scattering the seed of the gospel in the hearts of these brothers of
regions outside. But God will ordain their harvests as it pleaseth
Him. What will be the joy of that harvest? Throw your imagination
across this new century, and as it dies and gives place to its
successor, review the race whose devotion has then fastened on the
divine ruler and the federal Man, Christ Jesus. For nearly a hundred
years the barriers that segregated us will have been a memory. The
Church will have discovered not only fields of labor, but forces for
her replenishing. Then will our posterity rejoice in the larger
Christ who is to be. The virtuous elements of all other faiths will
be placed under the purification and control of the priesthood and
authority of Jesus. And tho in these ancient religions that await the
Bridegroom, the mortal stains the immortal and the human mars the
beauty of the divine, in the light of His appearing they will assume
new attitudes and receive His quickening and thrill with His pulse.
When I conceive of this reward for our Daysman I protest that all
other triumphs seem as tinsel and sham. The Desire of all nations
shall then see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. The
subtle patience of China, the fierce resistance of Japan, the brooding
soul that haunts the Ganges valley, the tumult of emotion of the
Ethiopian breast, all are for His appearing; they must be saved unto
noble ends by His sanctification. For that time there will be a Church
whose canonization of the infinite is beyond our dreams, enriched on
every side, with common allegiance and diversity of gifts, and every
gift the boon of all, and Christ's dower in His bride increased beyond
compare.
This is the ideal of the new day; may it become our personal ideal.
Then shall we fight with new courage for the right, and abhor the
imperfect, the unjust, and the mean. Our leaders will care nothing for
flattery and praise or odium and abuse. Enthusiasm can not be soured,
nor courage diminished. The Almighty has placed our hand on the
greatest of His plows, in whose furrow the nations I have named are
germinating religiously. And to drive forward the blade if but a
little, and to plant any seed of justice and of joy, any sense of
manliness or moral worth, to aid in any way the gospel which is the
friend of liberty, the companion of the conscience and the parent
of the intellectual enlightenment--is not that enough? Is it not a
complete justification of our plea?
We shall do well to remember that no evangel can prosper without the
evangelical temper. The parsing of grammarians is of little avail
here, and to have all critical knowledge of the prophets and apostles
of the faith without their fervor and consecration is profitable
merely for study, and useless mainly for the larger life. Our culture
must be the passion-flower of Christ Jesus. To be more anxious about
intellectual pre-eminence or ecclesiastical origins than about "the
trial of the immigrant" and the condition of the colored races is not
helpful. "There is a sort of orthodoxy that revels in the visions of
apocalypses and refuses to fight the beast," says Dr. Nurgan.
Such barren indulgence is excluded from any glory to follow.
Technicalities, niceties, knowledge remote and knowledge general must
be appropriated and made dynamic in this life-and-death conflict;
any that can not be thus used can be sent to the rear for a further
debate.
Diplomacies in church government and adjustments in church creeds can
wait on this consecration, this baptism of unction. I never heard that
the statesman who formulated the peace at Paris in 1815 got in the
way of the Household Brigades and the Highlanders at Waterloo and
Hougomont. They played their commendable game, but they could not
have swept that awful slope of flame in which Ney and the Old Guard
staggered on at Mont St. Jean.
Let us redeem our creeds at the front, and prove the welding of our
weapons and their tempered blades upon every evil way and darkness and
superstition that afflict humankind.
And have you not seen with moistened eyes and beating hearts the
pathetic surgings of harassed and broken sons and daughters of
God toward His son Jesus Christ? I have watched them until I felt
constrained to cry aloud and spare not; and while viewing them here
and yonder, and refusing to be localized in our love toward them, have
not our spirits been rebuked, have they not known fear for ourselves,
have they not pensively echoed the charge of some that we have no real
roots in democracy, but are as plants in pots, and not as oaks in the
soil of earth? If independency is a barrier to the essence of which it
is supposedly a form, if superiority shuts us off from assimilation
with popular movements and delivers us over to cliques, then these
churches of ours[1] will end in a record of shame and confusion.
While we are busy in trivial things, our energy and our might will be
deflected, and the living God will hand over the crusade to those who
have proven worthier and who knew the day when it did come, even the
day of their visitation.
[Footnote 1: The special reference is to the Congregational churches.]
We must arise with courage undismayed, and join in the cry of the
ages:
When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when?
The people! Lord, the people!
Not crowns, nor thrones, but men.
Flower of thy heart, O Lord, are they,
Their heritage a sunless day.
Let them like weeds not fade away;
Lord, save the people.
If our hearts are thus enlarged, we shall run in the way of His
commandments; fatherhood and brotherhood and sonship will not be
symbols, shibboleths of pious intercourse, but ways of God's reaching
out through us for the total brotherhood. We shall silence the caviler
against missions; we shall raise the negro in the face of those who
say he can not be raised; we shall see the latter-day miracles, and
the lame man healed and rejoicing at the Temple gate. Thus may the
breath of God sweep across our pastorates and dismiss timidity,
provincialism, ease, and narrowness of outlook. And thus may the power
be demonstrated as of heaven because it is the power unto salvation.
Let us fear not men who shall die, nor be content to fill our peaceful
lot and occupy a respectable grave. The new world needs the renewed
baptism, and the "modernism" of which medievalists complain is the
robe of honor for the Christ of this epoch. So that there shall come
unto the Church the flame of sacred love, and, kindling on every heart
and altar, there shall it burn for the glory of Christ, the High
Priest, with inextinguishable blaze. We can rest content, for, behold!
the day cometh and in its light. Let us go hence.
JOWETT
APOSTOLIC OPTIMISM
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
John Henry Jowett, Congregational divine, was born at Barnard Castle,
Durham, in 1864, and educated at Edinburgh and Oxford universities.
In 1889 he was ordained to St. James's Congregational Church,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and in 1895 was called to his present pastorate of
Carr's Lane Congregational Church, Birmingham, where he has taken rank
among the leading preachers of Great Britain. He is the author of
several important books.
JOWETT
Born in 1864
APOSTOLIC OPTIMISM[1]
[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of A.C. Armstrong & Son.]
_Rejoicing in hope_.--Romans xii., 12.
That is a characteristic expression of the fine, genial optimism of
the Apostle Paul. His eyes are always illumined. The cheery tone is
never absent from his speech. The buoyant and springy movement of his
life is never changed. The light never dies out of his sky. Even the
gray firmament reveals more hopeful tints, and becomes significant of
evolving glory. The apostle is an optimist, "rejoicing in hope," a
child of light wearing the "armor of light," "walking in the light"
even as Christ is in the light.
This apostolic optimism was not a thin and fleeting sentiment begotten
of a cloudless summer day. It was not the creation of a season; it was
the permanent pose of the spirit. Even when beset with circumstances
which to the world would spell defeat, the apostle moved with the mien
of a conqueror. He never lost the kingly posture. He was disturbed by
no timidity about ultimate issues. He fought and labored in the spirit
of certain triumph. "We are always confident." "We are more than
conquerors through Him that loved us." "Thanks be unto God who giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
This apostolic optimism was not born of sluggish thinking, or of idle
and shallow observation. I am very grateful that the counsel of my
text lifts its chaste and cheery flame in the twelfth chapter of an
epistle of which the first chapter contains as dark and searching an
indictment of our nature as the mind of man has ever drawn. Let me
rehearse the appalling catalog that the radiance of the apostle's
optimism may appear the more abounding: "Senseless hearts," "fools,"
"uncleanness," "vile passions," "reprobate minds," "unrighteousness,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, without understanding,
covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful." With
fearless severity the apostle leads us through the black realms of
midnight and eclipse. And yet in the subsequent reaches of the great
argument, of which these dark regions form the preface, there emerges
the clear, calm, steady light of my optimistic text. I say it is not
the buoyancy of ignorance. It is not the flippant, light-hearted
expectancy of a man who knows nothing about the secret places of the
night. The counselor is a man who has steadily gazed at light at
its worst, who has digged through the outer walls of convention and
respectability, who has pushed his way into the secret chambers and
closets of life, who has dragged out the slimy sins which were lurking
in their holes, and named them after their kind--it is this man who
when he has surveyed the dimensions of evil and misery and contempt,
merges his dark indictment in a cheery and expansive dawn, in an
optimistic evangel, in which he counsels his fellow-disciples to
maintain the confident attitude of a rejoicing hope.
Now, what are the secrets of this courageous and energetic optimism?
Perhaps, if we explore the life of this great apostle, and seek to
discover its springs, we may find the clue to his abounding hope.
Roaming then through the entire records of his life and teachings,
do we discover any significant emphasis? Preeminent above all other
suggestions, I am imprest with his vivid sense of the reality of the
redemptive work of Christ. Turn where I will, the redemptive work of
the Christ evidences itself as the base and groundwork of his life.
It is not only that here and there are solid statements of doctrine,
wherein some massive argument is constructed for the partial unveiling
of redemptive glory. Even in those parts of his epistles where formal
argument has ceased, and where solid doctrine is absent, the doctrine
flows as a fluid element into the practical convictions of life, and
determines the shape and quality of the judgments. Nay, one might
legitimately use the figure of a finer medium still, and say that in
all the spacious reaches of the apostle's life the redemptive work of
his Master is present as an atmosphere in which all his thoughts and
purposes and labors find their sustaining and enriching breath. Take
this epistle to the Romans in which my text is found. The earlier
stages of the great epistle are devoted to a massive and stately
presentation of the doctrines of redemption. But when I turn over the
pages where the majestic argument is concluded, I find the doctrine
persisting in a diffused and rarefied form, and appearing as the
determining factor in the solution of practical problems. If he is
dealing with the question of the "eating of meats," the great doctrine
reappears and interposes its solemn and yet elevating principle:
"destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." If he is called
upon to administer rebuke to the passionate and unclean, the shadow of
the cross rests upon his judgment. "Ye are not your own; ye are bought
with a price." If he is portraying the ideal relationship of husband
and wife, he sets it in the light of redemptive glory: "Husbands, love
your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up
for it." If he is seeking to cultivate the grace of liberality, he
brings the heavenly air around about the spirit. "Ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that tho he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor." It interweaves itself with all his salutations. It
exhales in all his benedictions like a hallowing fragrance. You can
not get away from it. In the light of the glory of redemption all
relationships are assorted and arranged. Redemption was not degraded
into a fine abstract argument, to which the apostle had appended his
own approval, and then, with sober satisfaction, had laid it aside, as
a practical irrelevancy, in the stout chests of orthodoxy. It became
the very spirit of his life. It was, if I may be allowed the violent
figure, the warm blood in all his judgment. It filled the veins of all
his thinking. It beat like a pulse in all his purposes. It determined
and vitalized his decisions in the crisis, as well as in the lesser
trifles of the common day. His conception of redemption was regulative
of all his thought.
But it is not only the immediacy of redemption in the apostle's
thought by which I am imprest. I stand in awed amazement before its
vast, far-stretching reaches into the eternities. Said an old villager
to me concerning the air of his elevated hamlet, "Ay, sir, it's a fine
air is this westerly breeze; I like to think of it as having traveled
from the distant fields of the Atlantic!" And here is the Apostle
Paul, with the quickening wind of redemption blowing about him in
loosening, vitalizing, strengthening influence, and to him, in all his
thinking, it had its birth in the distant fields of eternity! To
the apostle redemption was not a small device, an afterthought, a
patched-up expedient to meet an unforseen emergency. The redemptive
purpose lay back in the abyss of the eternities, and in a spirit of
reverent questioning the apostle sent his trembling thoughts into
those lone and silent fields. He emerged with, whispered secrets such
as these: "fore-knew," "fore-ordained," "chosen in him before the
foundation of the world," "eternal life promised before times
eternal," "the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord."
Brethren, does our common thought of redemptive glory reach back
into this august and awful presence? Does the thought of the modern
disciple journey in this distant pilgrimage? Or do we now regard it as
unpractical and irrelevant? There is no more insidious peril in modern
religious life than the debasement of our conception of the practical.
If we divorce the practical from the sublime, the practical will
become the superficial, and will degenerate into a very lean and
forceless thing. When Paul went on this lonely pilgrimage his spirit
acquired the posture of a finely sensitive reverence. People who
live and move beneath great domes acquire a certain calm and stately
dignity. It is in companionship with the sublimities that awkwardness
and coarseness are destroyed. We lose our reverence when we desert the
august. But has reverence no relationship to the practical? Shall we
discard it as an irrelevant factor in the purposes of common life?
Why, reverence is the very clue to fruitful, practical living.
Reverence is creative of hope; nay, a more definite emphasis can be
given to the assertion; reverence is a constituent of hope.
Annihilate reverence, and life loses its fine sensitiveness, and when
sensitiveness goes out of a life the hope that remains is only a
flippant rashness, a thoughtless impetuosity, the careless onrush of
the kine, and not a firm, assured perception of a triumph that is only
delayed. A reverent homage before the sublimities of yesterday is the
condition of a fine perception of the hidden triumphs of the morrow.
And, therefore, I do not regard it as an accidental conjunction that
the psalmist puts them together and proclaims the evangel that "the
Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his
mercy." To feel the days before me I must revere the purpose which
throbs behind me. I must bow in reverence if I would anticipate in
hope.
Here, then, is the Apostle Paul, with the redemptive purpose
interweaving itself with all the entanglements of his common life, a
purpose reaching back into the awful depths of the eternities, and
issuing from those depths in amazing fulness of grace and glory. No
one can be five minutes in the companionship of the Apostle Paul
without discovering how wealthy is his sense of the wealthy, redeeming
ministry of God. What a wonderful consciousness he has of the sweep
and fulness of the divine grace! You know the variations of the
glorious air: "the unsearchable riches of Christ"; "riches in glory
in Christ Jesus"; "all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places
in Christ"; "the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
long-suffering." The redemptive purpose of God bears upon the life of
the apostle and upon the race whose privileges he shares, not in an
uncertain and reluctant shower, but in a great and marvelous flood.
And what to him is the resultant enfranchisement? What are the
spacious issues of the glorious work? Do you recall those wonderful
sentences, scattered here and there about the apostle's writings, and
beginning with the words "but now"? Each sentence proclaims the end
of the dominion of night, and unveils some glimpse of the new created
day. "But now!" It is a phrase that heralds a great deliverance!
"But now, apart from the law the righteousness of God hath been
manifested," "But now, being made free from sin and become servants to
God." "But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh
in the blood of Christ." "But now are ye light in the Lord." "Now, no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." These represent no
thin abstractions. To Paul the realities of which they speak were more
real than the firm and solid earth. And is it any wonder that a man
with such a magnificent sense of the reality of the redemptive
works of Christ, who felt the eternal purpose throbbing in the dark
background and abyss of time, who conceived it operating upon our race
in floods of grace and glory, and who realized in his own immediate
consciousness the varied wealth of the resultant emancipation--is it
any wonder that for this man a new day had dawned, and the birds had
begun to sing and the flowers to bloom, and a sunny optimism had taken
possession of his heart, which found expression in an assured and
rejoicing hope?
I look abroad again over the record of this man's life and teachings,
if perchance I may discover the secrets of his abiding optimism, and I
am profoundly imprest by his living sense of the reality and greatness
of his present resources. "By Christ redeemed!" That is not a grand
finale; it is only a glorious inauguration. "By Christ redeemed; in
Christ restored"; it is with these dynamics of restoration that his
epistles are so wondrously abounding. In almost every other sentence
he suggests a dynamic which he can count upon as his friend. Paul's
mental and spiritual outlook comprehended a great army of positive
forces laboring in the interests of the kingdom of God. His conception
of life was amazingly rich in friendly dynamics! I do not wonder that
such a wealthy consciousness was creative of a triumphant optimism.
Just glance at some of the apostle's auxiliaries: "Christ liveth in
me!" "Christ liveth in me! He breathes through all my aspirations. He
thinks through all my thinking. He wills through all my willing. He
loves through all my loving. He travails in all my labors. He works
within me 'to will and to do of his good pleasure.'" That is the
primary faith of the hopeful life. But see what follows in swift and
immediate succession. "If Christ is in you, the spirit is life." "The
spirit is life!" And therefore you find that in the apostle's thought
dispositions are powers. They are not passive entities. They are
positive forces vitalizing and energizing the common life of men.
My brethren, I am persuaded there is a perilous leakage in this
department of our thought. We are not bold enough in our thinking
concerning spiritual realities. We do not associate with every mode
of the consecrated spirit the mighty energy of God. We too often
oust from our practical calculations some of the strongest and most
aggressive allies of the saintly life. Meekness is more than the
absence of self-assertion; it is the manifestation of the mighty power
of God. To the Apostle Paul love exprest more than a relationship. It
was an energy productive of abundant labors. Faith was more than an
attitude. It was an energy creative of mighty endeavor, Hope was
more than a posture. It was an energy generative of a most enduring
patience. All these are dynamics, to be counted as active allies,
cooperating in the ministry of the kingdom. And so the epistles abound
in the recital of mystic ministries at work. The Holy Spirit worketh!
Grace worketh! Faith worketh! Love worketh! Hope worketh! Prayer
worketh! And there are other allies robed in less attractive garb.
"Tribulation worketh!" "This light affliction worketh." "Godly sorrow
worketh!" On every side of him the apostle conceives cooperative and
friendly powers. "The mountain is full of horses and chariots of
fire round about him." He exults in the consciousness of abounding
resources. He discovers the friends of God in things which find no
place among the scheduled powers of the world. He finds God's raw
material in the world's discarded waste. "Weak things," "base things,"
"things that are despised," "things that are not," mere nothings;
among these he discovers the operating agents of the mighty God. Is it
any wonder that in this man, possessed of such a wealthy consciousness
of multiplied resources, the spirit of a cheery optimism should be
enthroned? With what stout confidence he goes into the fight! He
never mentions the enemy timidly. He never seeks to underestimate his
strength. Nay, again and again he catalogs all possible antagonisms in
a spirit of buoyant and exuberant triumph. However numerous the enemy,
however subtle and aggressive his devices, however towering and
well-established the iniquity, however black the gathering clouds, so
sensitive is the apostle to the wealthy resources of God that amid it
all he remains a sunny optimist, "rejoicing in hope," laboring in the
spirit of a conqueror even when the world was exulting in his supposed
discomfiture and defeat.
And, finally, in searching for the springs of this man's optimism, I
place alongside his sense of the reality of redemption and his wealthy
consciousness of present resources his impressive sense of the reality
of future glory. Paul gave himself time to think of heaven, of the
home of God, of his own home when time should be no more. He loved to
contemplate "the glory that shall be revealed." He mused in wistful
expectancy of the day "when Christ who is our life shall be
manifested," and when we also "shall be manifested with him in glory."
He pondered the thought of death as "gain," as transferring him to
conditions in which he would be "at home with the Lord," "with Christ,
which is far better." He looked for "the blest hope and appearing
of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ," and he
contemplated "that great day" as the "henceforth," which would reveal
to him the crown of righteousness and glory. Is any one prepared to
dissociate this contemplation from the apostle's cheery optimism? Is
not rather the thought of coming glory one of its abiding springs? Can
we safely exile it from our moral and spiritual culture? I know that
this particular contemplation is largely absent from modern religious
life, and I know the nature of the recoil in which our present
impoverishment began. "Let us hear less about the mansions of the
blest and more about the housing of the poor!" Men revolted against an
effeminate contemplation, which had run to seed, in favor of an active
philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life. But, my
brethren, pulling a plant up is not the only way of saving it from
running to seed. You can accomplish by a wise restriction what
is wastefully done by severe destruction. I think we have lost
immeasurably by the uprooting, in so many lives, of this plant of
heavenly contemplation. We have built on the erroneous assumption that
the contemplation of future glory inevitably unfits us for the service
of man. It is an egregious and destructive mistake. I do not think
that Richard Baxter's labors were thinned or impoverished by his
contemplation of "The Saint's Everlasting Rest." When I consider his
mental output, his abundant labors as father-confessor to a countless
host, his pains and persecutions and imprisonments, I can not but
think he received some of the powers of his optimistic endurance from
contemplations such as he counsels in his incomparable book. "Run
familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem; visit the
patriarchs and prophets, salute the apostles, and admire the armies of
martyrs; lead on the heart from street to street, bring it into
the palace of the great king; lead it, as it were, from chamber to
chamber. Say to it, 'Here must I lodge, here must I die, here must I
praise, here must I love and be loved. My tears will then be wiped
away, my groans be turned to another tune, my cottage of clay be
changed to this palace, my prison rags to these splendid robes'; 'for
the former things are passed away.'" I can not think that Samuel
Rutherford impoverished his spirit or deadened his affections, or
diminished his labors by mental pilgrimages such as he counsels to
Lady Cardoness: "Go up beforehand and see your lodging. Look through
all your Father's rooms in heaven. Men take a sight of the lands ere
they buy them. I know that Christ hath made the bargain already; but
be kind to the house ye are going to, and see it often." I can not
think that this would imperil the fruitful optimisms of the Christian
life. I often examine, with peculiar interest, the hymn-book we use at
Carr's Lane. It was compiled by Dr. Dale. Nowhere else can I find the
broad perspective of his theology and his primary helpmeets in
the devotional life as I find them there. And is it altogether
unsuggestive that under the heading of "Heaven" is to be found one of
the largest sections of the book. A greater space is given to "Heaven"
than is given to "Christian duty." Is it not significant of what a
great man of affairs found needful for the enkindling and sustenance
of a courageous hope? And among the hymns are many which have helped
to nourish the sunny endeavors of a countless host.
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
What are these, arrayed in white,
Brighter than the noonday sun?
Foremost of the suns of light,
Nearest the eternal throne.
Hark! hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore.
Angelic songs to sinful men are telling
Of that new life when sin shall be no more.
My brethren, depend upon it, we are not impoverished by contemplations
such as these. They take no strength out of the hand, and they
put much strength and buoyancy into the heart. I proclaim the
contemplation of coming glory as one of the secrets of the apostle's
optimism which enabled him to labor and endure in the confident spirit
of rejoicing hope. These, then, are some of the springs of Christian
optimism; some of the sources in which we may nourish our hope in the
newer labors of a larger day: a sense of the glory of the past in
a perfected redemption, a sense of the glory of the present in our
multiplied resources, a sense of the glory of tomorrow in the fruitful
rest of our eternal home.
O blest hope! with this elate
Let not our hearts be desolate;
But, strong in faith and patience, wait
Until He come!
GENERAL INDEX
INDEX TO PREACHERS AND SERMONS
Abbott, Lyman, The Divinity in Humanity
Abraham's Imitators; or The Activity of Faith. By Thomas Hooker
Affection, The Expulsive Power of a New. By Thomas Chalmers
Argument, The, from Experience. By Robert William Dale
Arnold, Thomas, Alive in God
Ascension, The, of Christ. By Girolamo Savonarola
Assurance in God. By George Adam Smith
Atonement, Eternal. By Roswell Dwight Hitchcock
Atonement, The Prominence of the. By Edwards Amasa Park
Augustine, St., The Recovery of Sight by the Blind
Bacon, Leonard Woolsey, God Indwelling
Basil "The Great," The Creation of the World
Baxter, Richard, Making Light of Christ and Salvation
Beecher, H.W., Immortality
Beecher, Lyman, The Government of God Desirable
Bible, The, vs. Infidelity. By Frank Wakely Gunsaulus
Blair, Hugh, The Hour and the Event of All Time
Blind, The Recovery of Sight by the. By St. Augustine
Bones, The Valley of Dry. By Frederick Denison Maurice
Bossuet, Jacques Benigne, The Death of the Grande Conde
Bounty, The Royal. By Alexander McKenzie
Bourdaloue, Louis, The Passion of Christ
Broadus, John A., Let us Have Peace with God
Brooks, Memorial Discourse on Phillips. By Henry Codman Potter
Brooks, Phillips, The Pride of Life
Bunyan, John, The Heavenly Footman
Burrell, David James, How to Become a Christian
Bushnell, Horace, Unconscious Influence
Cadman, S. Parkes, A New Day for Missions
Caird, John, Religion in Common Life
Calvin, John, Enduring Persecution for Christ
Campbell, Alexander, The Missionary Cause
Carlyle, Thomas,--In Memoriam. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
Carpenter, William Boyd, The Age of Progress
Chalmers, Thomas, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection
Charming, William Ellery, The Character of Christ
Chapin, Edwin Hubbell Nicodemus: The Seeker after Religion
Character, The, of Christ. By William Ellery Charming
Christ and Salvation, Making Light of. By Richard Baxter
Christ Among the Common Things of Life. By William James Dawson
Christ Before Pilate--Pilate Before Christ. By William Mackergo Taylor
Christ, Enduring Persecution for. By John Calvin
Christ, The Ascension of. By Girolamo Savonarola
Christ, The Character of. By William Ellery Channing
Christ, The First Temptation of. By John Knox
Christ, The Loneliness of. By Frederick William Robertson
Christ, The Passion of. By Louis Bourdaloue
Christ--_The_ Question of the Centuries. By Robert Stuart
MacArthur
Christ, The Spirit of. By Charles H. Fowler
Christ, What Think ye of. By Dwight Lyman Moody
Christ, Zeal in the Cause of. By William Morley Punshon
Christ's Advent to Judgment. By Jeremy Taylor
Christ's Real Body not in the Eucharist. By John Wyclif
Christ's Resurrection an Image of our New Life. By Frederich Ernst
Schleiermacher
Christian, How to Become a. By David James Burrell
Christian Victory. By Christopher Newman Hall
Christianity, The Mysteries of. By Alexander Vinet
Christianity, The Transient and Permanent in. By Theodore Parker
Chrysostom, Excessive Grief at the Death of Friends
Church, The Mother. By Ernest Roland Wilberforce
Church, The Triumph of the. By Henry Edward Manning
Clifford, John, The Forgiveness of Sins
Colonization, The, of the Desert. By Edward Everett Hale
Common Life, Religion in. By John Caird
Common Things of Life, Christ Among the. By William James Dawson
Conde, The Funeral Sermon on the Death of the Grande. By Jacques
Benigne Bossuet
Creation, The, of the World. By Basil
Creation, Work in the Groaning. By Frederick William Farrar
Crosby, Howard, The Prepared Worm
Cuyler, Theodore Ledyard, The Value of Life
Dale, Robert William, The Argument from Experience
Day, A, in the Life of Jesus of Nazareth, By Francis Wayland
Dawson, William James, Christ Among the Common Things of Life
Death, Glorification Through. By Francis Landey Patton
Desert, The Colonization of the. By Edward Everett Hale
Divinity, The, in Humanity. By Lyman Abbott
Drummond, Henry, The Greatest Thing in the World
Dwight, Timothy, The Sovereignty of God
Earth, The Shaking of the Heavens and the. By Charles Kingsley
Education and the Future of Religion. By John Lancaster Spalding
Edwards, Jonathan, Spiritual light
Elect, The Small Number of the. By Jean Baptiste Massillon
Eternal Atonement. By Roswell Dwight Hitchcock
Eucharist, Christ's Real Body not in the. By John Wyclif
Evans, Christmas, The Fall and Recovery of Man
Event, The Hour and the, of all Time. By Hugh Blair
Experience. By Alexander Whyte
Experience, The Argument from. By Robert William Dale
Expulsive Power, The, of a New Affection. By Thomas Chalmers
Faith, Constructive. By Charles Henry Parkhurst
Faith, The Activity of; or, Abraham's Imitators. By Thomas Hooker
Faith, The Story of a Disciple's. By Henry Scott Holland
Fall, The, and Recovery of Man. By Christmas Evans
Farrar, Frederick William, Work in the Groaning Creation
Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de la Mothe, The Saints Converse with God
Footman, The Heavenly. By John Bunyan
Forgiveness, The, of Sins. By John Clifford.
Fowler, Charles H., The Spirit of Christ
Funeral Sermon, The, on the Death of the Grande Conde, by Jacques
Benigne Bossuet
Gethsemane, The Rose Garden of God. By William Robertson Nicoll
Gladden, Washington, The Prince of Life
Glorification Through Death. By Francis Landey Patton
God, Alive in. By Thomas Arnold
God Calling to Man. By Charles John Vaughan
God Indwelling. By Leonard Woolsey Bacon.
God, Marks of Love to. By Robert Hall
God, Preparation for Consulting the Oracles of. By Edward Irving
God, The Government of, Desirable. By Lyman Beecher
God, The Image of, in Man. By Robert South
God, The Saints Converse with. By Francois Fenelon
God, The Sovereignty of. By Timothy Dwight
God the Unwearied Guide. By Newell Dwight Hillis
God's Love to Fallen Man. By John Wesley
God's Will the End of Life. By John Henry Newman
Gordon, George Angier, Man in the Image of God
Government, The, of God Desirable. By Lyman Beecher
Grace, The Method of. By George Whitefield
Greatest Thing, The, in the World. By Henry Drummond
Grief, Excessive, at the Death of Friends. By Chrysostom
Guide, God the Unwearied. By Newell Dwight Hillis
Gunsaulus, Frank Wakely, The Bible vs. Infidelity
Guthrie, Thomas, The New Heart
Hale, Edward Everett, The Colonization of the Desert
Hall, Christopher Newman, Christian Victory
Hall, John, Liberty only in Truth
Hall, Robert, Marks of Love to God
Heart, The New. By Thomas Guthrie
Heavens, The Shaking of the, and the Earth. By Charles Kingsley
Hillis, Newell Dwight, God the Unwearied Guide
Hitchcock, Roswell Dwight, The Eternal Atonement
Holland, Henry Scott, The Story of a Disciple's Faith
Holy Spirit, Influence of the. By Henry Parry Liddon
Hooker, Thomas, The Activity of Faith; or Abraham's Imitators
Hour, The, and the Event of all Time. By Hugh Blair
Howe, John, The Redeemer's Tears over Lost Souls
Humanity, The Divinity in. By Lyman Abbott
Ideal of Life, The Perfect. By George Campbell Morgan
Immortality. By H.W. Beecher
Infidelity, The Bible vs. By Frank Wakely Gunsaulus
Influence, Unconscious. By Horace Bushnell
Influences of the Holy Spirit. By Henry Parry Liddon
Inheritance, The Heavenly. By John Summerfield
Irving, Edward, Preparation for Consulting the Oracles of God
Jefferson, Charles Edward, The Reconciliation
Jesus of Nazareth, A Day in the Life of. By Francis Wayland
Jowett, John Henry, Apostolic Optimism
Judgment, Christ's Advent to. By Jeremy Taylor
Judgment, The Reversal of Human. By James B. Mozley
Justification, The Method and Fruits of. By Martin Luther
Kingsley, Charles, The Shaking of the Heavens and the Earth
Knox, John, The First Temptation of Christ
Knox-Little, William John, Thirst Satisfied
Latimer, Hugh, Christian Love
Life, Christ's Resurrection an Image of our New By Frederich Ernst
Schleiermacher
Life, God's Will the End of. By John Henry Newman
Life, The Perfect Ideal of. By George Campbell Morgan
Life, The Pride of. By Phillips Brooks
Life, The Prince of. By Washington Gladden
Life, The Value of. By Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
Liberty only in Truth. By John Hall
Liddon, Henry Parry, Influences of the Holy Spirit
Light, Spiritual. By Jonathan Edwards
Loneliness, The, of Christ. By Frederick William Robertson
Lord, The Resurrection of Our. By Matthew Simpson
Lorimer, George C. The Fall of Satan
Love, Christian. By Hugh Latimer
Love, Marks of, to God. By Robert Hall
Luther, Martin, The Method and Fruits of Justification
MacArthur, Robert Stuart, Christ--The Question of the Centuries
McKenzie, Alexander, The Royal Bounty
Maclaren, Alexander, The Pattern of Service
Macleod, Norman, The True Christian Ministry
Magee, William Connor, The Miraculous Stilling of the Storm
Man, God Calling to. By Charles John Vaughan
Man, God's Love to Fallen. By John Wesley
Man in the Image of God. By George Angier Gordon
Man, The Fall and Recovery of. By Christmas Evans
Man, The Image of God in. By Robert South
Manhood, The Meaning of. By Henry Van Dyke
Manning, Henry Edward, The Triumph of the Church
Martineau, James, Parting Words
Mason, John Mitchell, Messiah's Throne
Massillon, Jean Baptiste, The Small Number of the Elect
Maurice, Frederick Denison, The Valley of Dry Bones
Melanchthon, Philip, The Safety of the Virtuous
Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks. By Henry Codman Potter
Messiah's Throne. By John Mitchell Mason
Ministry, The True Christian. By Norman Macleod
Missions, A New Day for. By. S. Parkes Cadman
Missionary Cause, The. By Alexander Campbell
Missionary Work, The Permanent Motive in. By Richard S. Storrs
Monster, A Bloody. By Thomas DeWitt Talmage
Moody, Dwight Lyman, What Think ye of Christ?
Morgan, George Campbell, The Perfect Ideal of Life
Motive, The Permanent, in Missionary Work. By Richard S. Storrs
Mozley, James B., The Reversal of Human Judgment
Mysteries. The, of Christianity. By Alexander Vinet
Newman, John Henry, God's Will the End of Life
Nicodemus: The Seeker after Religion. By Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Nicoll, William Robertson, Gethsemane, The Rose Garden of God
Optimism, Apostolic. By John Henry Jowett
Optimism. By John Watson
Oracles, Preparation for Consulting the, of God. By Edward Irving
Park, Edwards Amasa, The Prominence of the Atonement
Parker, Joseph, A Word to the Weary
Parker, Theodore, The Transient and Permanent in Christianity
Parkhurst, Charles Henry, Constructive Faith
Passion, The, of Christ. By Louis Bourdaloue
Patton, Francis Landey, Glorification Through Death
Paul Before Felix and Drusilla. By Jacques Saurin
Peace with God, Let us Have. By John A. Broadus
Permanent, The Transient and the, in Christianity. By Theodore Parker
Persecution for Christ, Enduring, John Calvin
Pilate Before Christ--Christ Before Pilate. By William Mackergo
Taylor
Potter, Henry Codman, Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks
Pride, The, of Life. By Phillips Brooks
Prince, The, of Life. By Washington Gladden
Progress, The Age of. By William Boyd Carpenter
Punshon, William Morley, Zeal in the Cause of Christ
Reconciliation, The. By Charles E. Jefferson
Recovery, The Fall and, of Man. By Christmas Evans
Redeemer's Tears, The, over Lost Souls. By John Howe
Religion, Education and the Future of. By John Lancaster Spaldin
Religion in Common Life. By John Caird
Religion, Nicodemus: The Seeker after. By Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Resurrection, Christ's, an Image of our New-Life. By Frederick Ernst
Schleiermacher
Resurrection, The, of Our Lord. By Matthew Simpson
Resurrection, The Reasonableness of a. By John Tillotson
Reversal, The, of Human Judgment. By James B. Mozley
Robertson, Frederick William, The Loneliness of Christ
Royal Bounty, the. By Alexander McKenzie
Sackcloth, The Transfigured. By William L. Watkinson
Saints Converse with God, The. By Francis Fenelon
Salvation, Making Light of Christ and. By Richard Baxter
Satan, The Fall of. By George C. Lorimer
Saurin, Jacques, Paul Before Felix and Drusilla
Savonarola, Girolamo, The Ascension of Christ
Schleiermacher, Frederick Ernst, Christ's Resurrection an Image of our
New Life
Seiss, Joseph A., The Wonderful Testimonies
Service, The Pattern of. By Alexander Maclaren
Shaking, The, of the Heavens and the Earth. By Charles Kingsley
Sight, The Recovery of, by the Blind By St Augustine
Simpson, Matthew, The Resurrection of Our Lord.
Sins, The Forgiveness of By John Clifford
Smith, George Adam Assurance in God
Songs in the Night By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Souls, The Redeemer's Tears Over Lost By John Howe
South, Robert, The Image of God in Man
Sovereignty, The of God By Timothy Dwight
Spalding, John Lancaster, Education and the Future of Religion
Spiritual Light By Jonathan Edwards
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Songs in the Night
Stalker, James Temptation
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, In Memoriam--Thomas Carlyle
Stilling of the Storm, The Miraculous By William Connor Magee
Storm, The Miraculous Stilling of the By William Connor Magee
Storrs, Richard S. The Permanent Motive in Missionary Work
Summerfield, John The Heavenly Inheritance
Talmage, Thomas DeWitt A Bloody Monster
Taylor, Jeremy Christ's Advent to Judgment
Taylor, William Mackergo Christ Before Pilate--Pilate Before Christ
Temptation By James Stalker
Temptation, The First, of Christ By John Knox
Testimonies The Wonderful By Joseph A Seiss
Thirst Satisfied By William John Knox Little
Time, The Hour and the Event of all By Hugh Blair
Tillotson, John, The Reasonableness of a Resurrection
Transfigured Sackcloth, The By William L. Watkinson
Transient, The, and Permanent in Christianity. By Theodore Parker
Triumph, The, of the Church. By Henry Edward Manning
Truth, Liberty Only in. By John Hall
Valley, The, of Dry Bones By Frederick Derrison Maurice
Van Dyke, Henry, The Meaning of Manhood
Vaughan, Charles John, God Calling to Man
Victory, Christian By Christopher Newman Hall
Vinet, Alexander, The Mysteries of Christianity
Virtuous, The Safety of the. By Philip Melanchthon
Voice, I am a. By Charles Wagner
Wagner, Charles, I am a Voice
Watkinson, William L, The Transfigured Sackcloth
Watson, John, Optimism
Wayland, Francis, A Day in the Life of Jesus of Nazareth
Weary, A Word to the. By Joseph Parker
Wesley, John, God's Love to Fallen Man.
Whitefield, George, The Method of Grace
Whyte, Alexander, Experience
Wilberforce, Ernest Roland, The Mother Church
Words, Parting By James Martineau
Work in the Groaning Creation. By Frederick William Farrar
World, The Greatest Thing in the. By Henry Drummond
Worm, The Prepared. By Howard Crosby
INDEX TO TEXTS
VOLUME
Genesis i., 2 I
i., 27 II
i., 31 VII
i., 31 VII
iii., 9 VI
xxxvii., 33 VIII
I Kings x., 13 VII
x., 36 IX
II Kings vi., 1,2 IX
Esther iv., 2 VIII
Job xxxiii., 4 IX
xxxv., 10 VIII
Psalms xvi., 16 X
xlii., 2 VIII
cxix., 45 VII
cxix., 129 VII
Proverbs xi., 30 IV
Isaiah xl., 1-31 X
l, 4 VII
lvii., 15 VII
Jeremiah vi., 14 III
x., 23 III
Ezekiel xxxvi., 26 V
xxxvii., 1-3 V
Jonah iv., 7 VII
Matthew iv., 1 I
vi., 10 IV
viii., 25, 26 VII
xii., 12 IX
xiii., 24 VI
xvi., 17 III
xvii., 5 IV
xix., 30 V
xx., 30 I
xxii., 5 II
xxii., 32 IV
xxii., 42 VIII
xxii., 42 IX
xxvi., 26 I
xxvii., 22 VII
xxviii., 19 IX
Mark vii., 33 VII
xvi., 15 VI
Luke iv. 27 III
ix., 10-17 IV
x., 18 VIII
xix., 41, 42 II
xxi., 33 V
xxiii., 27, 28 II
xxiv., 51 I
John i., 23 X
iii. 1, 2 VI
iii., 8 VII
v., 39 IV
v., 42 III
vi., 38 IV
vi., 63 VIII
vi., 64 IX
viii., 28-30 X
x., 28 I
x., 34-36 VIII
xii., 24 IX
xiv. 27 V
xv., 12 I
xvi., 31, 32 VI
xvii., 1 III
xvii., 20, 21 V
xx., 8 IV
xx., 8 IX
xxi., 9, 12 X
Acts iii., 15 VIII
xix., 23 IX
xxiv., 24, 25 III
xxvi., 8 II
xxvi., 8 IX
Romans iv., 12 II
v., 1 IX
v., 4 VIII
v., 15 III
v., 15 III
vi., 4 III
viii., 9 VIII
viii., 22 VII
xii., 11 VI
xii., 12 X
I Corinthians ii., 2 V
ii., 9 IV
ix., 24 II
xiii., X
xiv., 10 X
xv., 3 X
xv., 19 VI
xv., 20 V
xx., 13 IX
II Corinthians ii., 14-16 V
v., 10 II
v., 13-15 VI
Galatians iv., 1-7 I
vi., 14 X
I Thessalonians iv., 13 I
v., 17 II
Hebrews i., 18 III
xii., 26-29 VI
xiii., 13 I
II Peter i., 11 IV
I John, ii., 16 VIII
v., 15 IV
Revelations ii., 17 VI
xiii., 8 VI
xxii., 3 VII
Apostles' Creed VIII
Back to Full Books
|