_THE PENTECOSTAL BLESSING._
"And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all
together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a
sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the
house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
tongues parting asunder (or distributing themselves), like as of
fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance."--ACTS ii. 1-4.
In these words we find the record of the event which completed the
Church, and endowed it with that mysterious power which then was, and
ever since has been, the source of its true life and of its highest
success.
The time when the gift of the Spirit was vouchsafed is marked for us
as "when the day of Pentecost was now come." Here again, as in the
fact of the ascension and the waiting of the Church, we trace the
outline of Christianity in Judaism, and see in the typical ceremonial
of the old dispensation the outline and shadow of heavenly realities.
What was the history of the Pentecostal feast? That feast fulfilled in
the Jewish system a twofold place. It was one of the great natural
festivals whereby God taught His ancient people to sanctify the
different portions of the year. The Passover was the feast of the
first ripe corn, celebrating the beginning of the barley harvest, as
again the Pentecostal loaves set forth, solemnized, and sanctified the
close of the wheat harvest. No one was permitted, according to the
twenty-third of Leviticus, to partake of the fruits of the earth till
the harvest had been sanctified by the presentation to God of the
first ripe sheaf, just as at the greatest paschal festival ever
celebrated, Christ, the first ripe sheaf of that vast harvest of
humanity which is maturing for its Lord, was taken out of the grave
where the rest of the harvest still lies, and presented in the inner
temple of the universe as the first-fruits of humanity unto God. At
Pentecost, on the other hand, it was not a sheaf but a loaf that was
offered to signify the completion of the work begun at the Passover.
At Pentecost the law is thus laid down: "Ye shall bring out of your
habitations two wave loaves of two tenth parts of an ephah: they shall
be of fine flour, they shall be baken with leaven, for first-fruits
unto the Lord" (Lev. xxiii. 17). Pentecost, therefore, was the harvest
festival, the feast of ingathering for the Jews; and when the type
found its completion in Christ, Pentecost became the feast of
ingathering for the nations, when the Church, the mystical body of
Christ, was presented unto God to be an instrument of His glory and a
blessing to the world at large. This feast, as we have already
intimated, was a fitting season for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and
that for another reason. Pentecost was considered by the Jews as a
festival commemorative of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai in the
third month after they had been delivered from the bondage of Egypt.
It was a fitting season, therefore, for the bestowal of the Spirit,
whereby the words of ancient prophecy were fulfilled, "I will put My
law in their inward parts, and in their heart I will write it; and I
will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jer. xxxi. 33).[45]
The time when the Spirit was poured out on the assembled body of
Christians, and the Church's foundations laid deep and strong,
revealed profound reverence for the old dispensation, raising by
anticipation a protest against the heretical teaching which became
current among the Gnostics in the second century, and has often since
found place in Christian circles, as amongst the Anabaptists of
Germany and the Antinomians at the time of the Reformation. This view
taught that there was an essential opposition between the Old and the
New Testament, some maintainers of it, like the ancient Gnostics,
holding that the Old Testament was the production of a spiritual being
inferior and hostile to the Eternal God. The Divine Spirit guided St.
Luke, however, to teach the opposite view, and is careful to honour
the elder dispensation and the old covenant, showing that Christianity
was simply the perfection and completion of Judaism, and was developed
therefrom as naturally as the bud of spring bursts forth into the
splendid blossom and flower of summer. We trace these evidences of the
Divine foreknowledge, as well as of the Divine wisdom, in these
Pentecostal revelations, providing for and forecasting future dangers
with which, even in its earlier days, the bark of Christ's Church had
desperately to struggle.[46]
[45] In the last lecture I have already given the reference to
Lightfoot's and Mede's works where this point is fully worked out.
[46] The same view has practically been taught by some modern
sects, who have proclaimed that all of the Old Testament and the
whole of our Lord's teaching till He died were intended for Jews
only, and have no relation to Christians. It is hard to say how
such persons regard the Old Testament and the greater part of the
four Gospels, save as interesting fossils to be hung up in a
museum of comparative religion.
I. Now let us take the circumstances of the Pentecostal blessing as
they are stated, for every separate detail bears with it an important
message. The place and the other circumstances of the outpouring of
the Spirit are full of instruction. The first disciples were all with
one accord in one place. There was unity of spirit and unity in open
manifestation to the world at large. Christ's disciples, when they
received the gifts of heaven's choicest blessings, were not split up
into dozens of different organizations, each of them hostile to the
others, and each striving to aggrandise itself at the expense of
kindred brotherhoods. They had keenly in remembrance the teaching of
our Lord's great Eucharistic supplication when He prayed to His Father
for His people that "they may all be one; even as Thou Father, art in
Me, and I in Thee ... that the world may believe that Thou didst send
Me." There was visible unity among the followers of Christ; there was
interior love and charity, finding expression in external union which
qualified the disciples for the fuller reception of the spirit of
love, and rendered them powerful in doing God's work amongst men. The
state of the Apostles and the blessing then received have an important
message for the Christianity of our own and of every age. What a
contrast the Christian Church--taking the word in its broadest sense
as comprising all those who profess and call themselves
Christians--presents at the close of the nineteenth when compared with
the opening years of the first century. May not many of the problems
and difficulties which the Church of to-day experiences be traced up
to this woeful contrast? Behold England nowadays, with its two hundred
sects, all calling themselves by the name of Christ; take the
Christian world, with its Churches mutually hostile, spending far
more time and trouble on winning proselytes one from the other than
upon winning souls from the darkness of heathenism;--surely this one
fact alone, the natural result of our departure from the Pentecostal
condition of unity and peace, is a sufficient evidence of our evil
plight. We do not purpose now to go into any discussion of the causes
whence have sprung the divisions of Christendom. "An enemy hath done
this" is a quite sufficient explanation, for assuredly the great enemy
of souls and of Christ has counterworked and traversed the work of the
Church and the conversion of the world most effectually thereby. There
are some persons who rejoice in the vast variety of divisions in the
Church; but they are shortsighted and inexperienced in the danger and
scandals which have flowed, and are flowing, from them. It is indeed
in the mission field that the schisms among Christians are most
evidently injurious. When the heathen see the soldiers of the Cross
split up among themselves into hostile organizations, they very
naturally say that it will be time enough when their own divergences
and difficulties have been reconciled to come and convert persons who
at least possess internal union and concord. The visible unity of the
Church was from the earliest days a strong argument, breaking down
pagan prejudice. Then, again, not only do the divisions of Christians
place a stumbling-block in the way of the conversion of the heathen,
but they lead to a wondrous waste of power both at home and abroad.
Surely one cannot look at the religious state of a town or village in
England without realizing at a glance the evil results of our
divisions from this point of view. If men believe that the preaching
of the Cross of Christ is the power of God unto salvation, and that
millions are perishing from want of that blessed story, can they feel
contentment when the great work of competing sects consists, not in
spreading that salvation, but in building up their own cause by
proselytising from their neighbours, and gathering into their own
organization persons who already have been made partakers of Christ
Jesus? And if this competition of sects be injurious and wasteful
within the bounds of Christendom, surely it is infinitely more so when
various contending bodies concentrate all their forces, as they so
often do, on the same locality in some unconverted land, and seem as
eagerly desirous of gaining proselytes from one another as from the
mass of paganism.
Then, too, to take it from another point of view, what a loss in
generalship, in Christian strategy, in power of concentration, results
from our unhappy divisions? The united efforts made by Protestants,
Roman Catholics, and Greeks, are indeed all too small for the vast
work of converting the heathen world if they were made with the
greatest skill and wisdom. How much more insufficient they must be
when a vast proportion of the power employed is wasted, as far as the
work of conversion is concerned, because it is used simply in
counteracting and withstanding the efforts of other Christian bodies.
I say nothing as to the causes of dissensions. In many cases they may
have been absolutely necessary, though in too many cases I fear they
have resulted merely from views far too narrow and restrained; I
merely point out the evil of division in itself as being, not a help,
as some would consider it, but a terrible hindrance in the way of the
Church of Christ. How different it was in the primitive Church! Within
one hundred and fifty years, or little more, of the ascension of Jesus
Christ and the outpouring of the Divine Spirit, a Christian writer
could boast that the Christian Church had permeated the whole Roman
empire to such an extent that if the Christians abandoned the cities
they would be turned into howling deserts. This triumphant march of
Christianity was simply in accordance with the Saviour's promise. The
world saw that Christians loved one another, and the world was
consequently converted. But when primitive love cooled down, and
divisions and sects in abundance sprang up after the conversion of
Constantine the Great, then the progress of God's work gradually
ceased, till at last Mahometanism arose to roll back the tide of
triumphant success which had followed the preaching of the Cross, and
to reduce beneath Satan's sway many a fair region, like North Africa,
Egypt, and Asia Minor, which once had been strongholds of
Christianity. Surely when one thinks of the manifold evils at home and
abroad which the lack of the Pentecostal visible union and concord has
caused, as well as of the myriads who still remain in darkness while
nominal Christians bite and devour one another, we may well join in
the glowing language of Jeremy Taylor's splendid prayer for the whole
Catholic Church, as he cries, "O Holy Jesus, King of the saints and
Prince of the Catholic Church, preserve Thy spouse whom Thou hast
purchased with Thy right hand, and redeemed and cleansed with Thy
blood. O preserve her safe from schism, heresy, and sacrilege. Unite
all her members with the bands of faith, hope, and charity, and an
external communion when it shall seem good in Thine eyes. Let the
daily sacrifice of prayer and sacramental thanksgiving never cease,
but be for ever presented to Thee, and for ever united to the
intercession of her dearest Lord, and for ever prevail for the
obtaining for each of its members grace and blessing, pardon and
salvation."[47]
[47] Prayer for all estates of men in the Holy Catholic Church, in
Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living_, chap. iv., sec. vii.
II. Furthermore, we have brought before us the external manifestations
or evidences of the interior gift of the Spirit really bestowed upon
the Apostles at Pentecost. There was a sound as of a rushing mighty
wind; there were tongues like as of fire, a separate and distinct
tongue resting upon each disciple; and lastly there was the miraculous
manifestation of speech in divers languages. Let us take these
spiritual phenomena in order. First, then, "there came from heaven a
sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house
where they were sitting;" a sign which was repeated in the scene
narrated in the fourth chapter and the thirty-first verse, where we
are told that "when they had prayed, the place was shaken wherein they
were gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost."
The appearances of things that were seen responded to the movements
and powers that were unseen. It was a supernatural moment. The powers
of a new life, the forces of a new kingdom, were coming into
operation, and, as the result, manifestations that never since have
been experienced found place among men. We can find a parallel to what
then happened in scientific investigations. Geologists and astronomers
push back the beginning of the world and of the universe at large to a
vast distance, but they all acknowledge that there must have been a
period when phenomena were manifested, powers and forces called into
operation, of which men have now no experience. The beginning, or the
repeated beginnings, of the various epochs must have been times of
marvels, which men can now only dream about. Pentecost was for the
Christian with a sense of the awful importance of life and of time and
of the individual soul a far greater beginning and a grander epoch
than any mere material one. It was the beginning of the spiritual
life, the inauguration of the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, the
Lord and Ruler of the material universe; and therefore we ought to
expect, or at least not to be surprised, that marvellous phenomena,
signs and wonders even of a physical type, should accompany and
celebrate the scene. The marvels of the story told in the first of
Genesis find a parallel in the marvels told in the second of Acts. The
one passage sets forth the foundation of the material universe, the
other proclaims the nobler foundations of the spiritual universe. Let
us take it again from another point of view. Pentecost was, in fact,
Moses on Sinai or Elijah on Horeb over again, but in less terrific
form. Moses and Elijah may be styled the founder and the refounder of
the old dispensation, just as St. Peter and the Apostles may be called
the founders of the new dispensation. But what a difference in the
inaugural scene! No longer with thunder and earthquake, and mountains
rent, but in keeping with a new and more peaceful economy, there came
from heaven the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind. It is not,
too, the only occasion where the idea of wind is connected with that
of the Divine Spirit and its mysterious operations. How very similar,
as the devout mind will trace, are the words and description of St.
Luke, when narrating this first outpouring of the Spirit, to the words
of the Divine Master repeated by St. John, "The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the
Spirit."
There appeared, too, tongues, separate and distinct, sitting upon each
of them. The outward and visible sign manifested on this occasion was
plainly typical of the new dispensation and of the chief means of its
propagation. The personality of the Holy Ghost is essentially a
doctrine of the new dispensation. The power and influence of God's
Spirit is indeed often recognised in the Old Testament. Aholiab and
Bezaleel are said to have been guided by the Spirit of God as they
cunningly devised the fabric of the first tabernacle. The Spirit of
Jehovah began to move Samson at times in the camp of Dan; and, on a
later occasion, the same Spirit is described as descending upon him
with such amazing force that he went down and slew thirty men of
Ashkelon. These and many other similar passages present to us the
Jewish conception of the Spirit of God and His work. He was a force, a
power, quickening the human mind, illuminating with genius and
equipping with physical strength those whom God chose to be champions
of His people against the surrounding heathen. Aholiab's skill in
mechanical operations, and Samson's strength, and Saul's prophesying,
and David's musical art, were all of them the gifts of God. What a
noble, what a grand, inspiring view of life and life's gifts and work,
is there set before us. It is the old lesson taught by St. James,
though so often forgotten by men when they draw a distinction between
things sacred and things secular, "Every good gift and every perfect
boon is from above, coming down from the Father of light." A deeper
view, indeed, of the Divine Spirit and His work on the soul can be
traced in the prophets, but then they were watchers upon the
mountains, who discerned from afar the approach of a nobler and a
brighter day. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." That was Isaiah's
statement of his work as adopted by our Lord; and now, at the very
foundation of the Church, this deeper and nobler tone of thought
concerning the Spirit is proclaimed, when there appeared tongues like
as of fire sitting upon each of them.
The sign of the Holy Spirit's presence was a tongue of fire. It was a
most suitable emblem, pregnant with meaning, and indicative of the
large place which the human voice was to play in the work of the new
dispensation, while the supernatural fire declared that the mere
unaided human voice would avail nothing. The voice needs to be
quickened and supported by that Divine fire, that superhuman energy
and power, which the Holy Ghost alone can confer. The tongue of fire
pointed on the Pentecostal morn to the important part in the Church's
life, and in the propagation of the gospel, which prayer, and praise,
and preaching would hereafter occupy. It would have been well, indeed,
had the Church ever remembered what the Holy Ghost thus taught,
specially concerning the propagation of the gospel, for it would have
been thereby saved many a disgraceful page of history. The human
tongue, illuminated and sanctified by fire from the inner sanctuary,
was about to be the instrument of the gospel's advancement,--not penal
laws, not the sword and fire of persecution; and so long as the
divinely-appointed means were adhered to, so long the course of our
holy religion was one long-continued triumph. But when the world and
the devil were able to place in the hands of Christ's spouse their own
weapons of violence and force, when the Church forgot the words of
her Master, "My kingdom is not of this world," and the teachings
embodied in the symbol of the tongue of fire, then spiritual paralysis
fell upon religious effort; and even where human law and power have
compelled an external conformity to the Christian system, as they
undoubtedly have done in some cases, yet all vital energy, all true
godliness, have been there utterly lacking in the religion established
by means so contrary to the mind of Christ. Very good men have made
sad mistakes in this matter. Archbishop Ussher was a man whose deep
piety equalled his prodigious learning, yet he maintained that the
civil sword ought to be used to repress false doctrine; the divines of
the Westminster Assembly have left their opinion on record, that it is
the duty of the magistrate to use the sword on behalf of Christ's
kingdom; Richard Baxter taught that the toleration of doctrines which
he considered false was sinful; and all of them forgot the lesson of
the day of Pentecost, that the tongue of fire was to be the only
weapon permissible in the warfare of the kingdom whose rule is over
spirits, not over bodies. The history of religion in England amply
proves this. The Church of England enjoyed, about the middle of the
last century, the greatest temporal prosperity. Her prelates held high
estate, and her security was fenced round by a perfect bulwark of
stringent laws. Yet her life-blood was fast ebbing away, and her true
hold upon the nation was speedily relaxing. The very highest ranks of
society, whom worldly policy attached nominally to her communion, had
lost all faith in her supernatural work and commission. A modern
historian has shown this right well in his description of the
death-scene of Queen Caroline, a woman of eminent intellectual
qualities, who had played no small part in the religious life of this
nation during the reign of her husband George II. Queen Caroline came
to die, and was passing away surrounded by a crowd of attendants and
courtiers. The whole Court, permeated by the spirit of earthliness
which then prevailed, was disturbed by the death of the Queen's body,
but no one seems to have thought of the Queen's soul, till some one
mildly suggested that, for decency's sake, the Archbishop of
Canterbury should be sent for that he might offer up prayer with the
dying woman. Writing here in Ireland, I cannot forget that it was just
the same with us at that very period. Religion was here upheld by
worldly power; the Church, which should have been viewed as simply a
spiritual power, was regarded and treated as a mere branch of the
civil service, and true religion sank to its lowest depths. And we
reaped in ourselves the due reward of our deeds. The very men whose
voices were loudest in public for the repression of Romanism were
privately living in grossest neglect of the offices and laws of
religion and morality, because they in their hearts despised an
institution which had forgotten the Pentecostal gift, and sought
victory with the weapons of the flesh, and not with those of the
spirit. May God for evermore protect His Church from such miserable
mistakes, and lead her to depend more and more upon the power of the
blessed and ever-present Pentecostal gift!
A separate and distinct tongue, too, sat upon each individual
assembled in the upper room,--significant of the individual character
of our holy religion. Christianity has a twofold aspect, neither of
which can with impunity be neglected. Christianity has a corporate
aspect. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not so much to teach a new
doctrine as to establish a new society, based on newer and higher
principles, and working towards a higher and nobler end than any
society ever previously founded. This side of Christianity was
exaggerated in the Middle Ages. The Church, its unity, its interests,
its welfare as a corporation, then dominated every other
consideration. Since the Reformation, however, men have run to the
other extreme. They have forgotten the social and corporate view of
Christianity, and only thought of it as it deals with individuals. Men
have looked at Christianity as it deals with the individual alone, and
have forgotten and ignored the corporate side of its existence. Truth
is many-sided indeed, and no side of truth can with impunity be
neglected. Some have erred in dwelling too much on the corporate
aspect of Christianity; others have erred in dwelling too much on its
individual aspect. The New Testament alone combines both in due
proportion, and teaches the importance and necessity of a Church, as
against the extreme Protestant, on the one hand, who will reduce
religion to a mere individual matter; and of a personal religion, an
individual interest in the Spirit's presence, as here indicated by the
tongues which sat upon each of them, as against the extreme Romanist,
on the other hand, who looks upon the Church as everything, to the
neglect of the life and progress of the individual. This passage does
not at the same time lend any assistance to those who would thence
conclude that there was no distinction between clergy and laity, and
that no ministerial office was intended to exist under the
dispensation of the kingdom of heaven. The Spirit, doubtless, was
poured out upon all the disciples, and not upon the Twelve alone, upon
the day of Pentecost, as also upon the occasion of the conversion of
Cornelius and his household. Yet this fact did not lead the Apostles
and early Christians to conclude that an appointed and ordained
ministry might be dispensed with. The Lord miraculously bestowed His
graces and gifts at Pentecost and in the centurion's house at Cæsarea,
because the gospel dispensation was opened on these occasions first of
all to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. But when, subsequently to
the formal opening, we read of the gifts of the Spirit, we find that
their bestowal is connected with the ministry of the Apostles, of St.
Peter and St. John at Samaria, or of St. Paul at Ephesus. The Holy
Ghost was poured out upon all the company assembled in the upper room,
or in the centurion's house; yet the Apostles saw nothing in this fact
inconsistent with a ministerial organization, else they would not have
set apart the seven men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost to
minister to the widows at Jerusalem, nor would they have laid hands
upon elders in every church which they founded, nor would St. Paul
have written, "He that seeketh the office of a bishop desireth a good
work," nor would St. Peter have exhorted the elders to a diligent
oversight of the flock of God after the model of the Good Shepherd
Himself. St. Peter clearly thought that the Pentecostal gifts did not
obliterate the distinction which existed between the shepherds and the
sheep, between a fixed and appointed ministry and the flock to whom
they should minister, though in the very initial stages of the
miraculous movement the Spirit was bestowed without any human agency
upon men and women alike.[48]
[48] In the primitive Church the gift of preaching or prophesying
seems to have been widely diffused and exercised among what we
should call the laity, while at the same time a fixed and
appointed ministry exercised the pastoral office, including
therein the celebration of the sacraments and the exercise of
Church discipline. This seems the explanation of the phenomena we
behold in St. Paul's Epistles, in the manual called the _Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles_, and in that curious production of the
primitive Church called the _Shepherd of Hermas_. But though
preaching and prophesying were at first very freely exercised, the
disorders which arose at Corinth and other places quickly taught
the necessity for fixed rules. It was just the same in the
synagogue. The ritual and worship was conducted by the officials.
Preaching was free and open to all, but subject to the control and
direction of the ruler of the Synagogue, as the case of St. Paul
at Antioch in Pisidia proves (Acts xiii. 15).
III. Lastly, in this passage we find another external proof of the
Spirit's presence in the miraculous gift of tongues. That gift
indicated to the Apostles and to all ages the tongue as the instrument
by which the gospel was to be propagated, as the symbol fire indicated
the cleansing and purifying effects of the Spirit.[49] The gift of
tongues is one that has ever excited much speculation, and specially
so during the present century, when, as some will remember, an
extraordinary attempt to revive them was made, some sixty years ago,
by the followers of the celebrated Edward Irving. Devout students of
Scripture have loved to trace in this incident at Pentecost, at the
very foundation of the new dispensation, a reversal of that confusion
of tongues which happened at Babel, and have seen in it the removal of
"the covering cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over
all nations."[50] The precise character of the gift of tongues has of
late years exercised many minds, and different explanations have been
offered of the phenomena. Some have viewed it as a miracle of hearing,
not of speaking, and maintained that the Apostles did not speak
different languages at all, but that they all spake the one Hebrew
tongue, while the Jews of the various nationalities then assembled
miraculously heard the gospel in their own language.
[49] Lightfoot, _Horæ Hebraicæ_, Acts, chap. ii., ver. 3, notes
that "there is a form of prayer in the Jewish writings which was
used on the solemn fast of the ninth month Ab, one clause of which
illustrates the Divine symbol, 'Have mercy, O God, upon the city
that mourneth, that is trodden down and desolate, because Thou
didst lay it waste by fire, and by fire wilt build it up again.'"
[50] Isa. xxv. 7. See Lightfoot, _Horæ Heb._, on Acts ii.
The miracle is in that case intensified one hundredfold, while not one
single difficulty which men feel is thereby alleviated. Meyer and a
large number of German critics explain the speaking with tongues as
mere ecstatic or rapturous utterances in the ordinary language of the
disciples. Meyer thinks too that some foreign Jews had found their way
into the band of the earliest disciples. They naturally delivered
their ecstatic utterances, not in Aramaic, but in the foreign tongues
to which they were accustomed, and legend then exaggerated this
natural fact into the form which the Acts of the Apostles and the
tradition of the Christian Church have ever since maintained.[51] It
is, indeed, rather difficult to understand the estimate formed by such
critics of the gift of tongues, whether bestowed on the day of
Pentecost or during the subsequent ministrations of St. Paul at
Corinth and Ephesus. Meyer is obliged to confess that there were some
marvellous phenomena in Corinth and other places to which St. Paul
bears witness. He describes himself as surpassing the whole Corinthian
Church in this particular gift (1 Cor. xiv. 18), so that if St. Paul's
testimony is to be relied upon,--and Meyer lays a great deal of weight
upon it,--we must accept it as conclusively proving that there existed
a power of speaking in various languages among the first Christians.
But the explanation offered by many critics of the gift of tongues as
undoubtedly exercised at Corinth reduces it to something very like
those fanatical exhibitions witnessed among the earliest followers of
the Irvingite movement, or, to put it plainly, to a mere uttering of
gibberish, unworthy of apostolic notice save in the language of
sternest censure, as being a disorderly and foolish proceeding
disgraceful to the Christian community.
[51] Meyer on _Acts_ (ii. 4), vol. i., pp. 67, 68. Clark's
translation.
Meyer's theory and that of many modern expositors seems, then, to me
very unsatisfactory, raising up more difficulties than it solves. But
it may be asked, what explanation do you offer of the Pentecostal
miracle? and I can find no one more satisfactory than the
old-fashioned one, that there was a real bestowal of tongues, a real
gift of speaking in foreign languages, granted to the Apostles, to be
used as occasion required when preaching the gospel in heathen lands.
Dean Stanley, in his commentary on Corinthians, gives, as was his
wont, a clear and attractive statement of the newer theory, putting in
a vigorous shape the objections to the view here maintained. I know
there are difficulties connected with this view, but many of these
difficulties arise from our ignorance of the state and condition of
the early Church, while others may spring from our very imperfect
knowledge of the relations between mind and body. But whatever
difficulties attend the explanation I offer, they are as nothing
compared with the difficulties which attend the modern explanations to
which I have referred.[52] What, then, is our theory, which we call
the old-fashioned one? It is simply this, that on the day of Pentecost
Christ bestowed upon His Apostles the power of speaking in foreign
languages, according to His promise reported by St. Mark (xvi. 17),
"They shall speak with new tongues." This was the theory of the
ancient Church. Irenæus speaks of the tongues as given "that all
nations might be enabled to enter into life;" while Origen explains
that "St. Paul was made a debtor to different nations, because,
through the grace of the Holy Spirit, he had received the gift of
speaking in the languages of all nations." This has been the
continuous theory of the Church as expressed in one of the most
ancient portions of the Liturgy, the proper prefaces in the Communion
office. The preface for Whit Sunday sets forth the facts commemorated
on that day, as the other proper prefaces state the facts of the
Incarnation, the Resurrection, and Ascension. The fact which Whit
Sunday celebrates, and for which special thanks are then offered, is
this, that then "the Holy Ghost came down from heaven in the likeness
of fiery tongues, lighting upon the Apostles, to teach them, and to
lead them to all truth; giving them both the gift of divers languages,
and also boldness with fervent zeal constantly to preach the gospel
unto all nations."[53]
[52] The speculations and discussions now rife concerning
hypnotism ought to teach modesty of assertion as to what is or is
not possible. On the 28th of March there appeared in an eminent
medical authority, the _Lancet_ newspaper, a review of a number of
works on hypnotism, acknowledging the wonders of the subject, and
containing this expression of opinion: "It is quite impossible to
assign any limits to the influence of mind upon body, which is
probably much more potent and far-reaching than we are usually
prepared to admit." Now among the works reviewed in that article
was one by Dr. Albert Moll of Berlin, published in the
"Contemporary Science Series." That book makes statements about
hypnotism which would quite cover Scripture miracles at which even
devout people have stumbled, such as the miracles wrought by the
shadow of St. Peter, or by handkerchiefs brought from the body of
St. Paul (Acts v. 15, and xix. 12), which Meyer regards as mere
legendary accretions to the genuine story. Moll, however, makes
quite as wondrous statements about hypnotism. On page 1 he thus
begins his _History of Hypnotism_: "In order to understand the
gradual development of modern hypnotism from actual magnetism we
must distinguish two points: firstly, that there are human beings
who can exercise a personal influence over others, either by
direct contact or even from a distance; and, secondly, the fact
that particular psychical facts can be induced in human beings by
certain physical processes. This second fact especially has long
been known among the Oriental peoples, and was utilized by them
for religious purposes. Kiesewetter attributes the early
soothsaying by means of precious stones to hypnosis, which was
induced by steadily gazing at the stones. This is also true of
divination by looking into vessels and crystals, as the Egyptians
have long been in the habit of doing, and has often been done in
Europe: by Cagliostro, for example. These hypnotic phenomena are
also found to have existed several thousand years ago among the
Persian magi, as well as up to the present day among the Indian
yogis and fakirs, who throw themselves into the hypnotic state by
means of fixation of the gaze." The phenomena mentioned in the
Acts, whether as to the tongues or to miracles worked through
inanimate objects, may be compared with Moll's statements on pp.
5, 6, 84, and 362.
[53] The proper preface in the Book of Common Prayer is longer and
more minute than the corresponding one in the Missal. The
Reformers extended the ancient form, inserting a special reference
to the gift of tongues.
Now this traditional interpretation has not only the authority of the
past on its side; we can also see many advantages which must have
accrued from a gift of this character. The preface we have just cited
states that the tongues were bestowed for the preaching of the gospel
among all nations. And surely not merely as a striking sign to
unbelievers, but also as a great practical help in missionary labours,
such a gift of tongues would have been invaluable to the Church at its
very birth. There was then neither time, nor money, nor organization
to prepare men as missionaries of the Cross. An universal commission
and work were given to twelve men, chiefly Galilean peasants, to go
forth and found the Church. How could they have been fitted for this
work unless God had bestowed upon them some such gift of speech? The
vast diversity of tongues throughout the world is now one of the chief
hindrances with which missionary effort has to contend. Years have
often to elapse before any effective steps can be taken in the work of
evangelisation, simply because the question of the languages bars the
way. It would have been only in accordance with God's action in
nature, where great epochs have been ever signalised by extraordinary
phenomena, if such a great era-making epoch as the birth of the Church
of Christ had been marked with extraordinary spiritual powers and
developments, which supplied the want of that learning and those
organizations which the Lord now leaves to the spiritual energies of
the Church itself. But it is sometimes said, we never hear of this
power as used by the Apostles for missionary purposes. Nothing,
however, is a surer rule in historical investigations than this,
"Never trust to mere silence," specially when the records are but few,
scanty, fragmentary. We know but very little of the ways, worship,
actions of the Apostles. Silence is no evidence either as to what they
did or did not do. Some of them went into barbarous and distant lands,
as history states. Eusebius (III., 1) tells us that St. Thomas
received Parthia as his allotted region, while St. Andrew taught in
Scythia. Eusebius is an author on whom great reliance is justly
placed. He is one, too, whose accuracy and research have been again
and again confirmed in our own day by discoveries of every kind. I
see, then, no reason why we should not depend upon him upon this point
as well as upon others. Now if the Apostles taught in Scythia and
Parthia, what an enormous advantage it must have given them in their
work among a strange and barbarous people if, by means of the
Pentecostal blessing, they could at once proclaim a crucified Saviour.
It is sometimes said, however, the gift of speaking with foreign
languages was not required by the Apostles for missionary purposes, as
Greek alone would carry a man all through the world, and Greek the
Apostles evidently knew. But people in saying so forget that there is
a great difference between possessing enough of a language to travel
over the world, and speaking with such facility as enables one to
preach. English will now carry a man over the world, but English will
not enable him to preach to the people of India or of China. Greek
might carry Apostles all over the Roman Empire, and might enable St.
Thomas to be understood by the courtiers of the great kings of
Parthia, where traces of the ancient Greek language and civilization,
derived from Alexander's time, long prevailed. But Greek would not
enable a primitive Christian teacher to preach fluently among the
Celts of Galatia, or of Britain, or among the natives of Spain or of
Phrygia, or the barbarians of Scythia.[54] We see from St. Paul's
case how powerful was the hold which the Aramaic language had over the
people of Jerusalem. When the excited mob heard St. Paul speak in the
Hebrew tongue they listened patiently, because their national
feelings, the sentiments which sprang up in childhood and were allied
with their noblest hopes, were touched. So must it have been all the
world over. The Pentecostal gift of tongues was a powerful help in
preaching the gospel, because, like the Master's promise to assist
their minds and their tongues in the hour of need, it freed the
Apostles from care, anxiety, and difficulties, which would have sorely
hindered their great work. But while I offer this explanation, I
acknowledge that it has its own difficulties; but then every theory
has its difficulties, and we can only balance difficulties against
difficulties, selecting that theory which seems to have the fewest.
The conduct, for instance, of the Corinthians, who seem to have used
the gift of tongues simply to minister to the spirit of display, not
to edification or to missionary work, seems to some a great
difficulty. But after all is not their conduct simply an instance of
human sin, perverting and misusing a divine gift, such as we often
see still? God still bestows His gifts, the real outcome and work of
the Spirit. Man takes them, treats them as his own, and misuses them
for his own purposes of sin and selfishness. What else did the
Corinthians do, save that the gift which they abused was an
exceptional one; but then their circumstances, times, opportunities,
punishments, all were exceptional and peculiar. The one thing that was
not peculiar was this, the abiding tendency of human nature to degrade
Divine gifts and blessings. There must, we again repeat, be
difficulties and mystery connected with this subject, no matter what
view we take. Perhaps, too, we are no fitting judges of the gifts
bestowed on the primitive Church, or the phenomena manifested under
such extraordinary circumstances, when everything, every power, every
force, every organization, was arrayed against the company of the
twelve Apostles. Surely miracles and miraculous powers seem absolutely
necessary and natural in such a case.[55] We are not now sufficient or
capable judges of events as they then existed. Perhaps, too, we are
not sufficient judges because we do not possess that spirit which
would make us to sympathise with and understand the state of the
Church at that time. "They were all together in one place." The
Church was then visibly united, and internally united too. A
nineteenth century Christian, with the endless divisions of
Christendom, is scarcely the most fitting judge of the Church and the
Church's blessings when the Spirit of the Master pervaded it and the
prayer of the Master for visible unity was fulfilled in it.
Christendom is weak now from its manifold divisions. Even in a mere
natural way, and from a mere human point of view, we can see how its
divisions destroy its power and efficacy as Christ's witness in the
world. But when we take the matter from a spiritual point of view, we
cannot even guess what marvellous gifts and endowments, needful for
the edification of His people and the conversion of the world, we now
lack from want of the Divine charity and peace which ruled the hearts
of the twelve as they assembled in the upper room that Pentecostal
morn. We shall better understand primitive gifts when we get back
primitive union.
[54] It is a completely mistaken notion, which no one would
cherish who had read history with a full-orbed mental eye,
realizing the past with its circumstances, that Latin and Greek
superseded all other languages throughout the empire. Local
dialects and languages continued to flourish all the time, save
amongst the official classes. Else how did Welsh survive to this
day in England? How did Celtic survive in France side by side with
Latin? The two celebrated cases of Gregory of Tours and of St.
Patrick show that their Latin was of a very rude and corrupt kind;
their real spoken language was Celtic, the tongue of the mass of
the people. In a learned work just published I note a confirmation
of this view. Professor Ramsay, in his _Historical Geography of
Asia Minor_, p. 24, avows how his mind has changed on this
question in regard to Asia Minor. "Romans governed Asia Minor,
because with their marvellous governing talent they knew how to
adapt their administration to the people of the plateau. It is
true that the great cities (of Asia Minor) put on a Western
appearance, and took Latin or Greek names. Latin and Greek were
the languages of government, of the educated classes, and of
polite society. Only this superficial aspect is attested in
literature and in ordinary history, and when I began to travel the
thought had never occurred to me that there was any other. The
conviction has gradually forced itself on me that the real state
of the country was very different. Greek was not the popular
language of the plateau, even in the third century after Christ;
the mass of the people spoke Lycaonian, and Galatian, and
Phrygian, although those who wrote books wrote Greek, and those
who governed spoke Latin." See again pp. 98, 99 for much more on
the same subject, showing the prevalence of the native languages
of Asia Minor down to the year A.D. 500.
[55] Christians often give their sceptical opponents an advantage
over them by allowing them to state the difficulties of
Christianity and never retorting the difficulties of scepticism.
There is no historical fact of the distant past that cannot be
encumbered with numerous difficulties, deduced, in most cases,
from our own ignorance. No difficulty on our side is so great as
that which the sceptic has to meet in undertaking to explain, on
purely natural grounds, the rise and success of Christianity on
the very spot and at the very time its Author had been crucified.
The Christian story is simple and natural; the sceptical
explanation forced, unnatural, and surrounded by a thousand
appalling difficulties.