X.

_THE FATHER SEEN IN CHRIST._

"Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth

us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so longtime with you, and dost

thou not know Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;

how sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in

the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I say unto you I

speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works.

Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else

believe Me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and

greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.

And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the

Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask Me anything in

My name, that will I do. If ye love Me, ye will keep My

commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you

another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit

of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not,

neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall

be in you. I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you. Yet a

little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me:

because I live, ye shall live also. In that day ye shall know that I

am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My

commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that

loveth Me shall be loved of My Father and I will love him, and will

manifest Myself unto him."--JOHN xiv. 8-21.

A third interruption on the part of one of the disciples gives the Lord

occasion to be still more explicit. Philip is only further bewildered by

the words, "from henceforth ye know the Father and have seen Him." He

catches, however, at the idea that the Father can be seen, and eagerly

exclaims, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." In this

exclamation there may be a little of that vexed and almost irritated

feeling that every one at times has felt in reading the words of Christ.

We feel as if He might have made things plainer. We unconsciously

reproach Him with making a mystery, with going about and about a subject

and refusing to speak straight at it. Philip felt that if Christ could

show the Father, then there was no need of any more enigmatical talk.

Ignorant as this request may be, it sprang from the thirst for God which

was felt by an earnest and godly man. It arose from the craving that now

and again visits every soul to get to the heart of all mystery. Here in

this life we are much in the dark. We feel ourselves to be capable of

better enjoyments, of a higher life. The whole creation groaneth and

travaileth, as if striving towards some better and more satisfying

state. There is a something not yet attained which we feel we must

reach. Were this life all, we should pronounce existence a failure. And

yet there is great uncertainty over our future. There is no familiar

intercourse with those who have passed on and are now in the other

world. We have no opportunity of informing ourselves of their state and

occupations. We go on in great darkness and often with a feeling of

great insecurity and trepidation; feeling lost, in darkness, not knowing

whither we are going, not sure that we are in the way to life and

happiness. Why, we are tempted to ask, should there be so much

uncertainty? Why should we live so remote from the centre of things, and

have to grope our way to life and light, clouded by doubts, beset by

misleading and disturbing influences? "_Show_ us the Father," we are

tempted to say with Philip--show us the Father and it sufficeth us. Show

us the Supreme. Show us the eternal One who governs all. Take us but

once to the centre of things and show us the Father in whom we live.

Take us for once behind the scenes and let us see the hand that moves

all things; let us know all that can be known, that we may see what it

is we are going to, and what is to become of us when this visible world

is done. Give us assurance that behind all this dumb, immovable mask of

outward things there is a living God whose love we can trust and whose

power can preserve us to life everlasting.

To Philip's eager request Jesus replies: "Have I been so long time with

you, and hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen

the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father?" And it is thus our

Lord addresses all whose unsatisfied craving finds voice in Philip's

request. To all who crave some more immediate, if not more sensible

manifestation of God, to all who live in doubt and feel as if more might

be done to give us certitude regarding the relation we hold to God and

to the future, Christ says: No further revelation is to be made, because

no further revelation is needed or can be made. All has been shown that

can be shown. There is no more of the Father you can see than you have

seen in Me. God has taken that form which is most comprehensible to

you--your own form, the form of man. You have seen the Father. I am the

truth, the reality. It is no longer a symbol telling you something about

a distant God, but the Father Himself is in Me, speaking and acting

among you through Me.

What do we find in Christ? We find perfection of moral character,

superiority to circumstances, to the elements, to disease, to death. We

find in Him One who forgives sin and brings peace of conscience, who

bestows the Holy Spirit and leads to perfect righteousness. We cannot

imagine anything in God which is not made present to us in Christ In any

part of the universe we should feel secure with Christ. In the most

critical spiritual emergency we should have confidence that He could

right matters. In the physical and in the spiritual world He is equally

at home and equally commanding. We can believe Him when He says that he

that has seen Him has seen the Father.

What precisely does this utterance mean? Does it only mean that Jesus in

His holy and loving ways and in the whole of His character was God's

very image? As you might say of a son who strongly resembles his father,

"If you have seen the one, you have seen the other." It is true that the

self-sacrifice and humility and devotedness of Jesus did give men new

views of the true character of God, that His conduct was an exact

transcript of God's mind and conveyed to men new thoughts of God.

But it is plain that the connection between Jesus and God was a

different _kind_ of connection from that which subsists between every

man and God. Every man might in a sense say, "I am in the Father and the

Father in me." But plainly the very fact that Jesus said to Philip,

"Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?" is

proof that it was not this ordinary connection He had in view. Philip

could have had no difficulty in perceiving and acknowledging that God

was in Jesus as He is in every man. But if that were all that Jesus

meant, then it was wholly out of place to appeal to the works the Father

had given Him to do in proof of this assertion.

When, therefore, Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the

Father," He did not merely mean that by His superior holiness He had

revealed the Father as no other man had done (although even this would

be a most surprising assertion for any mere man to make--that He was so

holy that whoever had seen Him had seen the absolutely holy God), but He

meant that God was present with Him in a special manner.

So important was it that the disciples should firmly grasp the truth

that the Father was in Christ that Jesus proceeds to enlarge upon the

proof or evidence of this. In the course of doing so He imparts to them

three assurances fitted to comfort them in the prospect of His

departure: first, that so far from being weakened by His going to the

Father, they will do greater works than even those which had proved that

the Father was present with Him; second, that He would not leave them

friendless and without support, but would send them the Paraclete, the

Spirit of truth, who should abide with them; and third, that although

the world would not see Him, they would, and would recognise that He was

the maintainer of their own life.

But all this experience would serve to convince them that the Father was

in Him. He had, He says, lived among them as the representative of the

Father, uttering His will, doing His works. These works might have

convinced them even if they were not spiritual enough to perceive that

His words were Divine utterances. But a time was coming when a

satisfying conviction of the truth that God had been present with them

in the presence of Jesus would be wrought in them. When, after His

departure, they found _themselves_ doing the works of God, greater works

than Jesus had done, when they found that the Spirit of truth dwelt in

them, imparting to them the very mind and life of Christ Himself, then

they should be certified of the truth that Jesus now declared, that the

Father was in Him and He in the Father. "At that day ye shall know that

I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." What their

understanding could not at present quite grasp, the course of events and

their own spiritual experience would make plain to them. When in the

prosecution of Christ's instructions they strove to fulfil His commands

and carry out His will upon earth, they would find themselves

countenanced and supported by powers unseen, would find their life

sustained by the life of Christ.

Jesus, then, speaks here of three grades of conviction regarding His

claim to be God's representative: three kinds of evidence--a lower, a

higher, and the highest. There is the evidence of His miracles, the

evidence of His words or His own testimony, and the evidence of the new

spiritual life He would maintain in His followers.

Miracles are not the highest evidence, but they are evidence. One

miracle might not be convincing evidence. Many miracles of the same

kind, such as a number of cures of nervous complaints, or several

successful treatments of blind persons, might only indicate superior

knowledge of morbid conditions and of remedies. A physician in advance

of his age might accomplish wonders. Or had all the miracles of Jesus

been such as the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, it might, with

a shade of plausibility, have been urged that this was legerdemain. But

what we see in Jesus is not power to perform an occasional wonder to

make men stare or to win for Himself applause, but power as God's

representative on earth to do whatever is needful for the manifestation

of God's presence and for the fulfilment of God's will. It may surely at

this time of day be taken for granted that Jesus was serious and true.

The works are given Him by the Father to do: it is as an exhibition of

God's power He performs them. They are therefore performed not in one

form only, but in every needed form. He shows command over all nature,

and gives evidence that spirit is superior to matter and rules it.

The miracles of Christ are also convincing because they are performed by

a miraculous Person. That an ordinary man should seem to rule nature, or

should exhibit wonders on no adequate occasion, must always seem

unlikely, if not incredible. But that a Person notoriously exceptional,

being what no other man has ever been, should do things that no other

man has done, excites no incredulity. That Christ was supremely and

absolutely holy no one doubts; but this itself is a miracle; and that

this miraculous Person should act miraculously is not unlikely.

Moreover, there was adequate occasion both for the miracle of Christ's

person and the miracle of His life and separate acts. There was an end

to be served so great as to justify this interruption of the course of

things as managed by men. If miracles are possible, then they could

never be more worthily introduced. If at any time it might seem

appropriate and needful that the unseen, holy, and loving God should

assert His power over all that touches us His children, so as to give us

the consciousness of His presence and of His faithfulness, surely that

time was precisely then when Christ came forth from the Father to reveal

His holiness and His love, to show men that supreme power and supreme

holiness and love reside together in God.

At present men are swinging from an excessive exaltation of miracles to

an excessive depreciation of them. They sometimes speak as if no one

could work a miracle, and sometimes as if any one could work a miracle.

Having discovered that miracles do not convince every one, they leap to

the conclusion that they convince no one; and perceiving that Christ

does not place them on the highest platform of evidence, they proceed to

put them out of court altogether. This is inconsiderate and unwise. The

miracles of Christ are appealed to by Himself as evidence of His truth;

and looking at them in connection with His person, His life, and His

mission or object, considering their character as works of compassion,

and their instructive revelation of the nature and purpose of Him who

did them, we cannot, I think, but feel that they carry in them a very

strong claim upon our most serious attention and do help us to trust in

Christ.

But Christ Himself, in the words before us, expects that those who have

listened to His teaching and seen His life should need no other evidence

that God is in Him and He in God--should not require to go down and back

to the preliminary evidence of miracles which may serve to attract

strangers. And, obviously, we get closer to the very heart of any

person, nearer to the very core of their being, through their ordinary

and habitual demeanour and conversation than by considering their

exceptional and occasional acts. And it is a great tribute to the power

and beauty of Christ's personality that it actually is not His miracles

which solely or chiefly convince us of His claims upon our confidence,

but rather His own character as it shines through His talks with His

disciples and with all men He met. This, we feel, is the Person for us.

Here we have the human ideal. The characteristics here disclosed are

those which ought everywhere to prevail.

But the crowning evidence of Christ's unity with the Father can be

enjoyed only by those who share His life. The conclusive evidence which

for ever scatters doubt and remains abidingly as the immovable ground of

confidence in Christ is our individual acceptance of His Spirit.

Christ's life in God, His identification with the ultimate source of

life and power, is to become one of the unquestioned facts of

consciousness, one of the immovable data of human existence. We shall

one day be as sure of His unity with the Father, and that in Christ our

life is hid in God, as we are sure that now we are alive. Faith in

Christ is to become an unquestioned certainty. How then is this

assurance to be attained? It is to be attained when we ourselves as

Christ's agents do greater works than He Himself did, and when by the

power of His spiritual presence with us we live as He lived.

Christ calls our attention to this with His usual formula when about to

declare a surprising but important truth: "Verily, verily, I say unto

you, He that believeth on Me shall do greater works than these."

Beginning with such evidence and such trust as we can attain, we shall

be encouraged by finding the practical strength which comes of union

with Christ. It speedily became apparent to the disciples that our Lord

meant what He said when He assured them that they would do greater works

than He had done. His miracles had amazed them and had done much good.

And yet, after all, they were necessarily very limited in number, in the

area of their exercise, and in the permanence of their results. Many

were healed; but many, many more remained diseased. And even those who

were healed were not rendered permanently unassailable by disease. The

eyes of the blind which were opened for a year or two must close shortly

in death. The paralysed, though sent from Christ's presence healed, must

yield to the debilitating influences of age and betake themselves again

to the crutch or the couch. Lazarus given back for a time to his

sorrowing sisters must again, and this time without recall, own the

power of death. And how far did the influence of Christ penetrate into

these healed persons? Did they all obey His words and sin no more? or

did some worse thing than the disease He freed them from fall upon some

of them? Was there none who used his restored eyesight to minister to

sin, his restored energies to do more wickedness than otherwise would

have been possible? In one word, the miracles of Christ, great as they

were and beneficent as they were, were still confined to the body, and

did not directly touch the spirit of man.

But was this the object of Christ's coming? Did He come to do a little

less than several of the great medical discoverers have done? Assuredly

not. These works of healing which He wrought on the bodies of men were,

as John regularly calls them, "signs"; they were not acts terminating in

themselves, and finding their full significance in the happiness

communicated to the healed persons; they were signs pointing to a power

over men's spirits, and suggesting to men analogous but everlasting

benefits. Christ wrought His miracles that men, beginning with what they

could see and appreciate, might be led on to believe in and trust Him

for power to help them in all their matters. And now He expressly

announces to His disciples that these works which He had been doing were

not miracles of the highest kind; that miracles of the highest kind were

works of healing and renewal wrought not on the bodies but on the souls

of men, works whose effects would not be deleted by disease and death,

but would be permanent, works which should not be confined to Palestine,

but should be coextensive with the human race. And these greater works

He would now proceed to accomplish through His disciples. By His removal

from earth His work was not to be stopped, but to pass into a higher

stage. He had come to earth not to make a passing display of Divine

power, not to give a tantalising glimpse of what the world might be were

His power acting freely and continuously in it; but He had come to lead

us to apprehend the value of spiritual health and to trust Him for that.

And now that He had won men's trust and taught a few to love Him and to

value His Spirit, He removes Himself from their sight, and puts Himself

beyond the reach of those who merely sought for earthly benefits, that

He may through the Spirit come to all who understood how much greater

are spiritual benefits.

This crowning evidence of Christ's being with the Father and in Him the

disciples very soon enjoyed. On the day of Pentecost they found such

results following from their simple word as had never followed the word

of Christ. Thousands were renewed in heart and life. And from that day

to this these greater works have never ceased. And why? "Because I go to

the Father." And two reasons are given in these simple words. In the

first place, no such results could be accomplished by Christ because not

till He died was the Father's love fully known. It was the death and

resurrection of Christ that convinced men of the truth of what Christ

had proclaimed in His life and in His words regarding the Father. The

tender compunction which was stirred by His death gave a purchase to the

preacher of repentance which did not previously exist. It is Christ's

death and resurrection which have been the converting influence through

all the ages, and these Christ Himself could not preach. It was only

when He had gone to the Father that the greater works of His kingdom

could be done. Besides, it was only then that the greater works could be

understood and longed for. The fact is, that the death and resurrection

of Christ radically altered men's conceptions of the spiritual world,

and gave them a belief in a future life of the spirit such as they

previously had not and could not have. When men came experimentally into

contact with One who had passed through death, and who now entered the

unseen world full of plans and of vitality to execute them, a new sense

of the value of spiritual benefits was born within them. The fact of

being associated with a living Christ at God's right hand has refined

the spiritual conceptions of men, and has given a quality to holiness

which was not previously conspicuous. The spiritual world is now real

and near, and men no longer think of Christ as a worker of miracles on

physical nature, but as the King of the world unseen and the willing

Source of all spiritual good. We sometimes wonder Christ preached so

little and spoke so little as men do now in directing sinners to Him;

but He knew that while He lived this was almost useless, and that events

would proclaim Him more effectually than any words.

But when Christ gives as a reason for the greater works of His disciples

that He Himself went to the Father, He also means that, being with the

Father, He would be in the place of power, able to respond to the

prayers of His people. "I go unto the Father, and whatsoever ye shall

ask in My name that will I do." No man in Christ's circumstances would

utter such words at random. They are uttered with a perfect knowledge of

the difficulties and in absolute good faith. But praying "in Christ's

name" is not so easy an achievement as we are apt to think. Praying in

Christ's name means, no doubt, that we go to God, not in our own name,

but in His. He has given us power to use His name, as when we send a

messenger we bid him use our name. Sometimes when we send a person to a

friend we are almost afraid to give him our name, knowing that our

friend will be anxious for our sakes to do all he can and perhaps too

much for the applicant. And in going to God in the name of Christ, as

those who can plead His friendship and are identified with Him, we know

we are sure of a loving and liberal reception.

But praying in Christ's name means more than this. It means that we pray

for such things as will promote Christ's kingdom. When we do anything in

another's name, it is for him we do it. When we take possession of a

property or a legacy in the name of some society, it is not for our own

private advantage but for the society we take possession. When an

officer arrests any one in the Queen's name, it is not to satisfy his

private malice he does so; and when he collects money in the name of

government, it is not to fill his own pocket. Yet how constantly do we

overlook this obvious condition of acceptable prayer! To pray in

Christ's name is to seek what He seeks, to ask aid in promoting what He

has at heart. To come in Christ's name and plead selfish and worldly

desires is absurd. To pray in Christ's name is to pray in the spirit in

which He Himself prayed and for objects He desires. When we measure our

prayers by this rule, we cease to wonder that so few seem to be

answered. Is God to answer prayers that positively lead men away from

Him? Is He to build them up in the presumption that happiness can be

found in the pursuit of selfish objects and worldly comfort? It is when

a man stands, as these disciples stood, detached from worldly hopes and

finding all in Christ, so clearly apprehending the sweep and benignity

of Christ's will as to see that it comprehends all good to man, and that

life can serve no purpose if it do not help to fulfil that will--it is

then a man prays with assurance and finds his prayer answered. Christ

had won the love of these men and knew that their chief desire would be

to serve Him, that their prayers would always be that they might fulfil

His purposes. Their fear was, not that He would summon them to live

wholly for the ends for which He had lived, but that when He was gone

they should find themselves unfit to contend with the world.

And therefore He gives them the final encouragement that He would still

be with them, not indeed in a visible form apparent to all eyes, but in

a valid and powerful spiritual manner appreciable by those who loved

Christ and strove to do His will. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter,"

another _Advocate_, one _called to_ your aid, and who shall so

effectually aid you that in His presence and help you will know Me

present with you. "I will not leave you comfortless, like orphans: I

will come to you." Christ Himself was still to be with them. He was not

merely to leave them His memory and example, but was to be with them,

sustaining and guiding and helping them even as He had done. The only

difference was to be this--that whereas up to this time they had

verified His presence by their senses, seeing His body, hearing His

words, and so forth, they should henceforward verify His presence by a

spiritual sense which the world of those who did not love Him could not

make use of. "Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye

see Me: because I live, ye shall live also." They would find that their

life was bound up in His; and as that new life of theirs grew strong and

proved itself victorious over the world and powerful to subdue men's

hearts to Christ and win the world to Christ's kingdom, they should feel

a growing persuasion, a deepening consciousness, that this life of

theirs was but the manifestation of the continued life of Christ. "At

that day they would know that Christ was in the Father, and they in Him,

and He in them."

Consciousness, then, of Christ's present life and of His close relation

to ourselves is to be won only by loving Him and living in Him and for

Him. Lower grades of faith there are on which most of us stand, and by

which, let us hope, we are slowly ascending to this assured and

ineradicable consciousness. Drawn to Christ we are by the beauty of His

life, by His evident mastery of all that concerns us, by His knowledge,

by the revelation He makes; but doubts assail us, questionings arise,

and we long for the full assurance of the personal love of God and of

the continued personal life and energy of Christ which would give us an

immovable ground to stand on. According to Christ's explanation given in

this passage to His disciples, this deepest conviction, this

unquestionable consciousness of His presence, is attained only by those

who proceed upon the lower grades of faith, and with true love for Him

seek to find their life in Him. It is a conviction which can only be won

experimentally. The disciples passed from the lower to the higher faith

at a bound. The sight of the risen Lord, the new world vividly present

to them in His person, gave their devotedness an impulse which carried

them at once and for ever to certainty. There are many still who are so

drawn by spiritual affinity to Christ that unhesitatingly and

unrepentingly they give themselves wholly to Him, and have the reward of

a conscious life in Christ. Others have more slowly to win their way

upwards, fighting against unbelief, striving to give themselves more

undividedly to Christ, and encouraging themselves with the hope that

from their hearts also all doubts will one day for ever vanish. Certain

it is that Christ's life can only be given to those who are willing to

receive it--certain it is that only those who seek to do His work seek

to be sustained by His life. If we are not striving to attain those ends

which He gave His life to accomplish, we cannot be surprised if we are

not sensible of receiving His aid. If we aim at worldly ends, we shall

need no other energy than what the world supplies; but if we throw

ourselves heartily into the Christian order of things and manner of

life, we shall at once be sensible of our need of help, and shall know

whether we receive it or not.

Christ's promise is explicit--a promise given as the stay of His friends

in their bitterest need: "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth

them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of

My Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest Myself to him." It

will still be a spiritual manifestation which can be perceived only by

those whose spirits are exercised to discern such things; but it will be

absolutely satisfying. We shall find one day that Christ's work has been

successful, that He has brought men and God into a perfect harmony.

"That day" shall arrive for us also, when we shall find that Christ has

actually accomplished what He undertook, and has set our life and

ourselves on an enduring foundation--has given us eternal life in God, a

life of perfect joy. Things are under God's guidance progressive, and

Christ is the great means He uses for the progress of all that concerns

ourselves. And what Christ has done is not to be fruitless or only half

effective; He will see of the travail of His soul and be

satisfied--satisfied because in us the utmost of happiness and the

utmost of good have been attained, because greater and richer things

than man has conceived have been made ours.

These utterances are fitted to dispel a form of unbelief which seriously

hinders many sincere inquirers. It arises from the difficulty of

believing in Christ as now alive and able to afford spiritual

assistance. Many persons who enthusiastically admit the perfectness of

Christ's character and of the morality He taught, and who desire above

all else to make that morality their own, are yet unable to believe that

He can give them any real and present assistance in their efforts after

holiness. A teacher is a very different thing from a Saviour. They are

satisfied with Christ's teaching; but they need more than teaching--they

need not only to see the road, but to be enabled to follow it. Unless a

man can find some real connection between himself and God, unless he can

rely upon receiving inward support from God, he feels that there is

nothing which can truly be called salvation.

This form of unbelief assails almost every man. Very often it results

from the slow-growing conviction that the Christian religion is not

working in ourselves the definite results we expected. When we read the

New Testament, we see the reasonableness of faith, we cannot but

subscribe to the _theory_ of Christianity; but when we endeavour to

practise it we fail. We have tried it, and it does not seem to work. At

first we think this is something peculiar to ourselves, and that through

some personal carelessness or mistake we have failed to receive all the

benefit which others receive. But as time goes on the suspicion

strengthens in some minds that faith is a delusion: prayer seems to be

unanswered; effort seems to be unacknowledged. The power of an almighty

spirit within the human spirit cannot be traced. Perhaps this

suspicion, more than all other causes put together, produces undecided,

heartless Christians.

What, then, is to be said in view of such doubts? Perhaps it may help us

past them if we consider that spiritual things are spiritually

discerned, and that the one proof of His ascension to God's right hand

which Christ Himself promised was the bestowal of His Spirit. If we find

that, however slowly, we are coming into a truer harmony with God; if we

find that we can more cordially approve the Spirit of Christ, and give

to that Spirit a more real place in our life; if we are finding that we

can be satisfied with very little in the way of selfish and worldly

advancement, and that it is a greater satisfaction to us to do good than

to get good; if we find ourselves in any degree more patient, more

temperate, more humble,--then Christ is manifesting in us His present

life in the only way in which He promised to do so. Even if we have more

knowledge, more perception of what moral greatness is, if we see through

the superficial formalisms which once passed for religion with us, this

is a step in the right direction, and if wisely used may be the

foundation of a superstructure of intelligent service and real

fellowship with God. Every discovery and abandonment of error, every

unmasking of delusion, every attainment of truth, is a step nearer to

permanent reality, and is a true spiritual gain; and if in times past we

have had little experience of spiritual joy and confidence, if our

thoughts have been sceptical and questioning and perplexed, all this may

be the needful preliminary to a more independent and assured and truer

faith, and may be the very best proof that Christ is guiding our mind

and attending to our prayers. It is for "the world" to refuse to

believe in the Spirit, because "it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth

Him."

It may also be said that to think of Christ as a good man who has passed

away like other good men, leaving an influence and no more behind Him,

to think of Him as lying still in His tomb outside Jerusalem, is to

reverse not only the belief of those who knew Christ best, but the

belief of godly men in all ages. For in all ages both before and after

Christ it has been the clear conviction of devout souls that God sought

them much more ardently and persistently than they sought God. The truth

which shines most conspicuously in the experience of all the saved is

that they were saved by God and not by themselves. If human experience

is to be trusted at all, if it in any case reflects the substantial

verities of the spiritual world, then we may hold it as proved in the

uniform experience of men that God somehow communicated to them a living

energy, and not only taught them what to do, but gave them strength to

do it. If under the Christian dispensation we are left to make the best

we can for ourselves of the truth taught by Christ and of the example He

set us in His life and death, then the Christian dispensation, so far

from being an advance on all that went before, fails to supply us with

that very thing which is sought through all religions--actual access to

a living source of spiritual strength. I believe that the resurrection

of Christ is established by stronger evidence than exists for any other

historical fact; but apart altogether from the historical evidence, the

entire experience of God's people goes to show that Christ, as the

mediator between God and man, as the representative of God and the

channel of His influence upon us, must be now alive, and must be in a

position to exert a personal care and a personal influence, and to yield

a present and inward assistance. Were it otherwise, we should be left

without a Saviour to struggle against the enemies of the soul in our own

strength, and this would be a complete reversal of the experience of all

those who in past ages have been engaged in the same strife and have

been victorious.