the elements of prophecy--the hope of the Messiah. Tragic as was the
failure of the prophets themselves to raise the nation to the
elevation which they saw so clearly to be her destiny, they all
believed that what they had failed to do would yet be done, and that
there would yet be a Jerusalem bright and glorious as a star, and
serving as the star of hope to all the peoples of the earth. Their
confidence in this did not rest solely on the will and power of God in
general; it was guaranteed to them by the belief, which, under
different forms, they all cherished, and taught their countrymen to
cherish, that in the womb of the nation there lay One, to be born in
due time, endowed with powers far greater than their own, who would
take up the task which each of them had had in his turn to lay by
unaccomplished, and carry it forward to its fulfilment--a Child of the
nation who would unite in His character all the attributes in their
fullest perfection which the nation herself ought to have possessed,
and who, though standing high above His fellow-countrymen, would yet
be thoroughly incorporated with them, and, taking on His shoulders the
responsibility of their destiny, would never fail to be discouraged
under it, but bear it victoriously to the goal. "Unto us a Child is
born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His
shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
* * * * *
Now, gentlemen, the question is, How far the aspect of the prophetic
activity which we have considered to-day is a model to us?
It might be argued that this is a stage of preaching which has been
superseded, and that the message of ministers ought now to be
addressed entirely to individuals. This is the theory of preaching on
which many act, without perhaps considering how widely it differs from
the procedure of the prophets. And no doubt much might be said in its
defence. It was a vast step in the development of religion when Jesus
turned from the nation to the individual and taught the world the
value of the soul. Here must ever now lie the stress of Christian
preaching; the preacher is not worthy of the Christian name who does
not know what it is to hunger and thirst for the salvation of
individuals, and who does not esteem the salvation of even one soul
well worth the labour of a lifetime.
Still it may be doubted whether any stage through which preaching has
passed can ever be entirely superseded; and we may well hesitate to
believe that the work of an Isaiah or a Jeremiah is not still work for
us.
This doubt is further strengthened when we turn to the record of
Christ's own preaching. He is the final standard and incomparable
model. But, though He discovered the soul and taught the world the
value of the individual, His preaching was not exclusively directed to
individuals. It had a public and national side. He cast His protection
over publicans and sinners, not only because they were the children of
men, but also because they were the seed of Abraham; He submitted His
claims to the ecclesiastical authorities of the nation, and, when they
rejected them, He directed against the religious parties the
thunderbolts of His invective. The tears and words of indescribable
tenderness which He poured out upon the city where He was about to be
martyred proved that the patriotism of Isaiah and Jeremiah still
burned in His heart; and He charged His apostles, when sending them
forth to evangelize the world, to begin at Jerusalem.[20]
If this did not settle the question, the nature of the case would
demonstrate that the preacher's vocation includes a message to the
community as well as to the individual. It will be conceded by all
that the preacher exists for the promotion of righteousness and the
diminution of sin in the world. But sin is not only lodged in the
heart of the individual: it is embodied also in evil customs and
unjust laws, for which the community is responsible. The individual is
largely moulded by his environment; but this may either be so
favourable to goodness that his evil tendencies are restrained and
everything encourages him to do well, or so evil that the worst vices
are easily contracted, while every step in the right direction meets
with a storm of opposition. No one would contend that the chances of a
soul are the same whether it lives among those who watch carefully
over its development and guide its footsteps in the paths of peace, or
among those whose word and example are encouragements to every kind of
sin. Society ought to be a kindly matrix in which incipient life is
nurtured into health and beauty; but it may be a malignant nurse, by
whom the stream of life is poisoned at its very source. If this be so,
then it is as reprehensible in those whose vocation is to watch over
the moral and spiritual development of their fellow-men to be
indifferent to the conditions by which life is surrounded as it would
be discreditable to the physicians of a city swept year after year by
pestilence, if they took no interest in the insanitary conditions to
which the epidemic was due, but lazily contented themselves with
curing their own patients.
We seem to have arrived at precisely the point in the Church's history
when her mind and conscience are to awake to this aspect of her duty.
One of the most eminent members of the English bench of bishops said
recently, that the social question is the question which the
Christianity of the present day has to solve; and this sentiment is
being echoed in every quarter. Strange it is how age after age one
word of the message of Christianity after another lays hold of the
Christian mind and becomes for a time the watchword of progress. There
can be little doubt that this is the word for our age. The
extraordinary response given throughout the civilised world to General
Booth's _In Darkest England_ proves how deeply the conscience of the
world is being stirred by the misery and degradation of the outcasts
of society.
General Booth's book, and other books and pamphlets like it, have
brought home to us the fact, that at the base of our civilisation
there is sweltering a mass of sin and misery, which is not less a
reproach to Christianity than were the publicans and sinners to the
religion of the contemporaries of Christ; because, though the Church
may not, like the Scribes and Pharisees, despise and hate these
outcasts, it has not yet coped effectually with the problem of their
condition; and perhaps their numbers are increasing rather than
diminishing. There are sections of the community in which the
conditions of existence are so evil that childhood is plunged, almost
as soon as it is born, into an element of vice and crime, the bloom of
modesty is rudely rubbed off the soul of womanhood, and manhood is so
beset with temptation that escape is well-nigh impossible. Can anyone
doubt that an Isaiah or a Jeremiah would, in such a state of society,
have lifted up his voice like a trumpet and cast the condition of
these lost children of our people in the face of the luxurious rich,
and especially of the professors of religion? And is it less obvious
that this is still the duty of the modern pulpit?
It cannot, indeed, be said with truth, that the Church has not faced
the problem. There is one of the causes of social misery, and that the
very chief, against which the Church, especially in your country, has
nobly asserted herself. Drink is the cause to which magistrates and
judges, and all who are brought directly into contact with the fallen
and criminal classes, attribute three-fourths of the evils of
society. Drink is the despair of every Christian worker who has
ventured down among the pariahs of our civilisation. Against this the
Churches have not been inactive. But we are just beginning to
acknowledge that, though drunkenness is the great cause of misery,
there are other causes behind it which must likewise be coped with.
Why do the people drink? This question, when it is impartially
considered, will bring many abuses of our social system into view,
which must be put out of the way before the evils of drunkenness can
be stopped. Excessively prolonged labour exhausts the system and makes
it crave for artificial stimulus. Excessively low wages, with no
prospect of rising in the world, beget a spirit of recklessness, which
makes men ready to turn to anything that promises to bring a gleam of
sunshine into their monotonous lot. Ill-furnished and insanitary
abodes drive forth their inmates to seek the brightness and comfort of
the saloon. These are specimens of the new questions which demand the
attention of those who feel the reproach of our defective
civilisation.
There is one type of remedy which the Church has liberally supplied.
To those already fallen she has extended a helping hand. The
Evangelical Revival produced a spirit of philanthropy which has
invented schemes for the relief of every form of human woe; and these
have multiplied to almost unmanageable numbers. But we are beginning
to see that, multiply them as we may, they must be totally
insufficient as long as the causes of misery are undealt with. If the
causes remain as strong as ever, new victims will be manufactured as
fast as philanthropy can rescue those already made. The time has come
to ascend higher up the stream than has hitherto been done, and cut it
off at its source. In other words, we must direct the whole force of
Christian philanthropy to the stopping of the causes of social misery.
For this work new weapons will be required; and perhaps the principal
of these will be legislation. The prophets appealed, as I have said,
to kings and princes, because in their hands lay at that time the
force of government. But this power has now passed, and is daily more
completely passing, into the hands of the people, on whom lies the
responsibility which formerly lay elsewhere. And, if we are to follow
in the footsteps of Isaiah and Jeremiah, we must teach the people to
rise to their responsibility and make use of the weapon which time has
put into their hands for altering the conditions of life. They must
send to the seats of authority, both in the municipality and in the
state, men of public spirit, who will act not for their own interest
or for the interest of factions, but for the good of the whole
community; and they must see to it, that the laws and their
administration are such as will make evil-doing difficult and
well-doing easy.
Of course this will involve conflict with those interests which are
vested in abuses; for there are trades which flourish in the poverty
of the poor and even the vices of the vicious. These enjoy, in many
cases, the advantage of high social standing; and many of the organs
of public opinion will rally to their support. But the Church must
appeal to the Christian conscience and summon forth the resources of
Christian virtue, to meet this new phase of the task which has been
appointed her. Christianity has always, and especially during the last
hundred years, had the open hand of charity; but she will need, during
the next hundred years, to have also a hand which can close itself
firmly over the instrument of government, and make use of it as a
lever for lifting out of the way many great obstacles which are
keeping back the Kingdom of God.
* * * * *
I am quite aware of the dangers of this new departure which I am
advocating. There is the great danger of undervaluing the work of
saving individual souls. There is the danger of forsaking the Word of
God and converting the pulpit into an organ of secular discussion;
although, on the other hand, there are numerous portions of the Bible
which directly raise the discussion of social problems and, when
otherwise applied, can only be interpreted in a more or less unnatural
sense. There is the danger of making the minister the mouthpiece of a
party. Christian tact and discretion will be necessary at every step.
But surely this is no reason for declining our duty, but only a reason
for bringing out all our resources.
One consideration which simplifies the problem is, that it is not so
much the place of the minister to intervene in special questions as to
beget in his people a public and patriotic spirit, and to teach them
to look upon the discharge of the duties of citizenship as a part of
Christianity. When our people have been brought to recognise that the
public weal is their concern, and that they are responsible for the
state of society and the conditions of life, they can be left to
themselves to choose the right men to support the right measures.[21]
Here we can build on a natural foundation. It is natural for a man to
be attached to the place of his birth or the town in which he lives.
The roots of his life are in its soil; his interests bind him to it;
and, if he be at all divinely-souled, its traditions and notable names
cannot fail to lay hold upon his heart. The chances which a city has
of getting its affairs well attended to are measured by the number of
its inhabitants who are animated with such sentiments. In the same
way, it is natural for a man to love his country. Some countries
especially have the power of casting such a spell over the hearts of
their children as binds them to their service. Of my country this
might be said. Small as it is, its beauty, its history and its
romantic associations wield over the hearts of its inhabitants an
extraordinary attraction. Perhaps part of the secret may lie in its
very smallness; for feeling contracts a passionate force within narrow
limits, as our Highland rivers become torrents within their rocky
beds. Of your country also it might be said for different reasons.
America stirs patriotic sentiment, not by its smallness, but by its
largeness and wonderful variety; not by the memories of the past, but
by the boundless possibilities of the future.
These sentiments exist in the minds of our people already; and we only
need to foster them and impregnate them with a Christian element, in
order to produce convictions about public duty which would have the
most blessed results. We might train our people to feel keenly the woe
of mankind and especially the moral blots on the fair fame of their
own city or country. We might get them to cherish a high ideal of what
the place of their abode should be, morally and spiritually, and of
what their country might do in the world. In Scotland there was such
an ideal once: the eye of the dying Covenanter saw, painted on the
mist of the moorland, the vision of a consecrated land ruled by a
covenanted king.[22] In England it existed once, in the Puritan days,
when, as Richard Baxter says, England was like to become a land of
saints, a pattern of holiness to the world, and the unmatchable
paradise of the earth. You had it in America once: when your fathers
landed in the _Mayflower_, they were seeking not merely meat and
drink, or even wealth and plenty, but a home in which their
descendants might grow up in freedom, virtue and religion. We must get
that ideal back again, if, in spite of railroads and industrial armies
and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, we are not to become corrupt
and ready to be swept away with the besom of destruction. We might
train every man on whom our message lays hold to live with the
conviction that it is his duty, before he dies, to do something to
make his own town more beautiful, his country happier, and the world
better.
As I am addressing some who may before long be wielding a great
influence, let me add one suggestion. In matters such as I have been
speaking of to-day success comes to the man who has a programme. Now
is the time, when you are looking out on the world with the keen eyes
of youth, to note the abuses which need correction and to picture with
the eye of the imagination the improvements which are required to wipe
out the reproach or to elevate the reputation of your country. Fix the
vision in the centre of your mind; keep it ever before you; and your
dream may change to a reality which will modify the conditions of life
for whole generations of your fellow-men. What could be worthier of
your manhood at its present stage than to be revolving some plan for
the benefit and honour of your country? Even if it should never come
to anything, it will be good that it has been in your heart. But there
is nothing else which is more likely to come to something. "What,"
says Alfred de Vigny, "is a great life? It is a thought conceived in
the fervent mind of youth and executed with the solid force of
manhood."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Rev. G.A. Smith.
[17] These are Isaiah's images.
[18] For our purpose in these lectures it is of no consequence whether
there were two Isaiahs or only one. We are seeking to ascertain the
leading features of the prophets; and, if we attribute to one person
qualities which were distributed among two, this will matter little, as
long as they are typical qualities of the prophet.
[19] "The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that
were not felt to be moved by human pity."--GEORGE ELIOT.
[20] Not to mention the social element in His preaching comprehended in
the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. The comparative absence of the
patriotic element from apostolic preaching is chiefly due to the fact
that the apostles were missionaries in cities and countries where they
were strangers. In some respects modern ministers in settled charges are
liker the prophets than the apostles.
[21] For example, there will rarely be any delicacy at the time of an
election in urging on the people that it is their duty to go to the
poll, but it will nearly always be an indiscretion to indicate from the
pulpit for whom they should vote. Very often good causes are lost or
long delayed, not because the sentiment of the electorate is opposed to
them, but because large numbers are too apathetic to vote at all.
[22] "When I would cast my mind back to what we have earned and reaped
from these men, it strikes me perhaps more than anything which I have
yet named, that we should thank them for the passionate quest of a
glorious ideal. It is such ideals, even when they are unattainable,
which lift up the character of men and nations. I think that no worthy
historian has yet been found to tell, as it ought to be told, how much
Scotland owes to this splendid vision which these men sought, the vision
of a consecrated land of saints ruled by a covenanted king, loyal to
Christ. It hovered before the rapt eyes of these saints of Scotland
until it well-nigh turned them into seers, it elevated them until it
made them heroes, and though the picture seemed to fade before the eyes
of their children, as though it had been painted by the morning light on
the mist of their own moorland, still, it has done its work, for it has
contributed mightily to educate the hearts of Scotchmen. But has it so
faded? Or is it not simply thrown forward, as the old Jew learned to
throw his Messianic hopes forward, from one anticipated Christ to
another, better and greater yet to come?"--J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.
LECTURE IV.
THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF THE WORD.
Gentlemen, in the lecture before last I spoke of the prophet's call to
the service of God, and in the last lecture of the work itself which
he had to do. To-day I am to speak of the instrument with which he did
it.
This was the Word; the prophet was a Man of the Word. In accomplishing
his great and difficult work he wielded no other weapon. It seems the
frailest of all weapons; for what is a word? It is only a puff of air,
a vibration trembling in the atmosphere for a moment and then
disappearing. But so might one speak of the cloud whose rolling coils
of vapour, changing every moment, seem the least substantial of all
things; yet out of it breaks the forked lightning, which rives the
giant of the forest, and overturns the tower which has defied ten
thousand assailants, and, loosening the crag, sends it thundering down
the mountain-side. Though it be only a weapon of air, the word is
stronger than the sword of the warrior. Words have overturned
dynasties and revolutionised kingdoms. When the right virtue is in
them, they outlast every other work of man. Where are the cities which
were flourishing when David sang? where are the empires whose armies
were making the world tremble when Isaiah wrote? Nineveh and Babylon,
Tyre and Memphis--where are they? But the Psalms of David still
delight, and the wisdom of Isaiah still instructs, the world.
The prophets were well aware of the temper and force of this weapon
which they wielded. Jeremiah refers with especial frequency to the
power of the word. "Is not My word," he asks, "like a fire, saith the
Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" When
putting this weapon into his hand, the Lord said to him, "See, I have
set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and pull
down, and to destroy and throw down, and to build and to plant." How
was one man to be able to throw down and build up kingdoms? He speaks
as if he were at the head of irresistible legions and equipped with
all the enginery of war. But so he was; for all these and more are in
the word. Such military notions seem to have occurred naturally to the
wielders of it. Another of them says, "The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself
against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ." Yet another of them says, "The
word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword." And Isaiah says, in the name of the Servant of the Lord, "He
hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath
He hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid
me."[23]
* * * * *
The word of the prophets has two aspects: it is, on the one side, a
Message from God, and, on the other, a Message to Men.
1. The word which the prophets wielded was the word of God. Herein lay
the secret of its power. For the word of God is the thought of God;
and this is more ancient than the stars and lies more deeply embedded
in the constitution of things than the roots of the mountains; it is
the prop by which the universe is sustained. God's word is before all
things, for it created them; and his thoughts are the rails on which
the course of the world runs.
It was the privilege of the prophets to approach so near to God, to
enter so completely into sympathy and fellowship with Him, and to
know so clearly what were His purposes, that their own thoughts became
identical with His; and, therefore, when they spoke, their words were
God's words. Not only do they preface many of their utterances with
"Thus saith the Lord," but--what is far more strange--they often
begin, without any preface, and go on speaking in the first person
singular, when not the prophet but Jehovah is the speaker; as if their
personality were so enveloped in His as to disappear altogether.[24]
But this remarkable knowledge of the thoughts of God was not given to
the prophets for themselves. The philosopher may shut himself up in
secret to study the laws of the universe and keep his conclusions to
himself; and even the poet perhaps may be so happy in his own vision
of beauty that he does not care to utter his song to the world; but
not so the prophet. He, indeed, was also, in the strictest sense, an
original thinker, and the new conceptions of God which he was
privileged to convey to the world dawned upon his own mind with that
secret delight which makes the creative thinker feel himself to be
"Like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken."
One of the prophets gives expression to this secret joy when he says,
"Thy words were found and I did eat them, and Thy words were unto me
the joy and the rejoicing of my heart;" and, after a night spent in
receiving revelations, he says, "On this I awaked and beheld, and my
sleep was sweet unto me." But the knowledge of God's mind and will
which the prophets obtained was not for themselves, but for others. It
was not abstract knowledge, but a knowledge of God's will about the
course of history--about "what Israel ought to do." It was, in short,
not only a revelation, but a message.
Hence, one of the most outstanding characteristics of the prophets was
the sense of being ambassadors charged with a communication which they
were bound to deliver. If those to whom they were sent with it
welcomed them, good and well; but, if not, they were not absolved from
their duty. The man who speaks to men for his own ends--to obtain
influence in the management of their affairs or to display his talents
and win a name--will go on speaking as long as they are inclined to
listen; but, if they do not appreciate his efforts or if he wearies of
the employment, he can betake himself to retirement and be heard no
more. But a prophet could not act thus. His message might arouse
bitter opposition, and often did so: "Woe is me, my mother," exclaims
Jeremiah, "that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of
contention to the whole earth." Gladly would he have withdrawn from
the contest, if he could, and sought a lodge in some vast wilderness.
But the sense of being a messenger drove him on: "Then I said, I will
not make mention of Him nor speak any more in His name; but His word
was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was
weary of forbearing, and I could not stay."