Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

and in fear and in much trembling." This Paul was naturally a strong, intrepid soul, but in the presence of this grand theme he felt weak and trembling, "Who is sufficient for these things?" he exclaims. Vanity in any man is a vile and disgusting incongruity, but in a preacher it is a thousand times worse. A vain preacher is an anomaly, an impostor. He has failed to realise the grand theme about which he prates.

V. The grand subject of his ministry INVESTS HIM WITH DIVINE POWER OVER MAN. "My preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." There is as truly Divine power in the ministry of a true preacher as there is in the heaving of ocean or the rolling of planets; but a higher power withal, power over mind, it is "the power of God unto salvation."

"Would I describe a preacher
Such as Paul," &c, &c.-Cowper.

THE GOSPEL SCHOOL.

"BUT GOD HATH REVEALED THEM UNTO US BY HIS SPIRIT," &c.-1 Cor. ii. 10-16. *

BECAUSE man naturally craves for knowledge and deeply needs it, schools abound everywhere throughout the civilised world, especially here in England, schools of science, schools of philosophy, schools of art,

For articles on verses 8, 9, see "Homilist," Vol. VI., p. 354.

&c. But there is one school that transcends all, the Gospel school. Three facts are suggested concerning this school.

I. That here the student is INSTRUCTED IN THE SUBLIMEST REALITIES. "Deep things of God." Things, not words, not theories, "deep things," deep because undiscoverable by human reason, deep because they come from the fathomless ocean of Divine love. What are these deep things? The primary elements of the Gospel, and the necessary condition of soul restoration. These "deep things" we are here told are, First: The free gifts of heaven. "Freely given to us of God." Secondly: Freely given to be communicated. "Which things also we speak," &c. He who gets these things into his mind and heart, not only can communicate, but is bound to tell them to others, and that in plain natural language, free from the affectations of rhetoric, the language which the "Holy Ghost teacheth," language which is suggested by "comparing spiritual blessings with spiritual." Men think in words, thoughts come dressed in their own language; the intellectual thoughts have their own language, and spiritual thoughts have a language all their own. Another fact suggested concerning this school is—

II. That here the student is TAUGHT BY THE GREATEST TEACHER. Who is the teacher? The Divine The Divine Spirit Himself, here called the "Spirit of God," and the

46

Holy Ghost." First: This teacher has infinite knowledge. "The Spirit searcheth all things." The word "searcheth" must not be taken I presume, in the sense of investigation, but rather in the sense of complete knowledge. In the last clause of the next verse it is said "the things of God knoweth no man, but the

Spirit of God." He knoweth those things of God, He knows them in their essence, number, issues, bearings, relations, &c. Secondly: This teacher is no other than God Himself. "What man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of God, which is in Him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God." The implication is that, this Spirit is as truly God as man's mind is mind. No one knows the things in man's mind but man himself, no one knows the "deep things of God" but God Himself. "Who teacheth like God?" He knows thoroughly the nature of the student, and how best to indoctrinate that nature with the "deep things of God." Another fact suggested concerning this school is

III. That here the student MUST DEVELOPE HIS HIGHER NATURE. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto Him, neither can we know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Man has a threefold nature, designated by St. Paul as soma, psyche, and pneuma-body, soul and spirit. The first is the animal, the second is the mental, and the third, the moral or spiritual. This is the conscience with its intuitions and sympathies, and this is the chief part of man, nay, the man himself, the core of his being, that which Paul calls the inner man, the man of the man. Now this part of the man alone can receive the "things of the Spirit of God."

things before the "natural man," his mere

Set these

body, they

are no more to him than Euclid to a brute. Set them before the mere psychical or intellectual man, and what are they? Puzzles over which he will speculate, nay, they are "foolishness unto him." Sheer intellect cannot understand love, cannot appreciate right. It

concerns itself with the truth or falsehood of propositions, and the advantages and disadvantages of conduct, nothing more. Moral love only can interpret and feel the things of moral love, the "deep things of God." Hence this moral pneuma, this spiritual nature, this conscience must be roused from its dormancy, and become the ascendant nature before the "things of the Spirit" can be "discerned," and then the man shall judge all things, all spiritual things, whilst he himself will not be judged rightly by any "natural man.' "For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" Who thus uninstructed can "know the mind of the Lord ?"

GOD.-This word is spelt in four letters in almost every language; namely, in Latin, Deus; French, Dieu; Greek, Oéos; German, Gott; Scandinavian, Odin; Swedish, Codd; Hebrew, Hdon; Syrian, Adad; Persian, Syra; Tartarian, Idga; Spanish, Dies; East Indian, Esgi or Zeni; Turkish, Addi; Egyptian, Aumn or Zeut; Japanese, Zain; Peruvian, Lian; Wallachian, Zene; Etrurian, Chur; Irish, Dieh; and in Arabian, Alfa. There is a beauty in the name appropriated by the Saxon nations to the Deity, unequalled, except by His most venerated Hebrew appellation-Jehovah. They call Him, which is, literally, The Good. The same word thus signifying the Deity and His most endearing qualities.

"The Great Name

In all its awful brevity, hath nought
Unholy breeding in it, but doth bless
Rather the tongue that utters it for me
I ask no higher office than to fling

My spirit at Thy feet and cry Thy name
God! through eternity. The man who sees
Irreverence in that name, must have been used
To take that name in vain and the same man
Would see obscenity in pure white statues."

Festus.

E

50

Germs of Thought.

THE PREACHER'S FINGER-POST.

The importance of Spiritual Unity,

Now I BESEECH YOU, BRETHREN, BY THE NAME OF OUR LORD,' &c.-1 Cor. i. 10-13,

HERE the apostle comes to the grand object of writing this letter: it was to put an end to that party spirit that had riven the Church at Corinth into conflicting divisions, His remarks on this subject continue to the fourth chapter and the twentieth verse. There are two things here which show the transcendent importance which he attached to spiritual unity: his solemn exhortation, and his earnest expostulation.

I. HIS SOLEMN EXHORTATION. "Now I beseech you, brethren, by by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak

the same thing," &c. What union does he

seek? Not ecclesiastical union, conformity to the same system of worship. Not theological union, conformity to the same scheme of doctrine, such unions cannot touch hearts, cannot weld souls. They are the union of the various parts of the machine, not the union of the branches of a tree. First: The unity he seeks is that of spiritual utterance. "That ye speak the same thing." Not the same thing in letter, but in life. Let the utterances be as varied as all the notes in the gamut,

« ÎnapoiContinuă »