It is absolutely essential to the successful preaching of the Gospel that the preacher should realise the greatness and dignity of his position; and having once come into this realisation, it is also essential to continuance in well-doing that he abide in it. In himself he may have little in which to glory, but in his calling he has much indeed.
For what is the Christian preacher? He is the very messenger of Jesus Christ to men. He belongs to an order founded and recruited by the Master Himself. First He sent out "the seventy," who probably soon returned; afterwards He sent forth "the twelve," armed with a permanent commission. When, in the ranks of this early band, a vacancy arose through the unfaithfulness of one of its members, He made choice of another. From the opened skies He arrested Saul in his journey to Damascus that he might be a chosen vessel to bear the truth to the Gentiles. From that day to this He has been calling and sending, not less really, a succession of men every one of whom might with Paul have called himself an ambassador of the King of Kings. Of course there were preachers before the apostles and there was preaching before Pentecost. The prophets were preachers, and mighty was their proclamation of the divine message—so mighty that though addressed primarily to their contemporaries it lives and burns to-day. Later, in the period lying between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, there were notable preachers in Israel who kept alive the Messianic hope and sought to "prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight." There was preaching in the synagogues in our Lord's own day, and He but observed an established custom when, "entering into the synagogue" at Nazareth, as was His practice "on the Sabbath day," "He stood up for to read," and "there was brought unto Him the book of the Prophet Esaias." He had a text that day, and He preached from it, and, if the end of His discourse was that He was thrust out of the synagogue and was like to have been put to death, it was because of the unwelcomeness of the word He spoke, and not because He had introduced a new order of service into the sanctuary of an intensely conservative people. He preached in the synagogues of Capernaum, too, "and they were astonished at His doctrine, for the word was with power." John the Baptist was a preacher who was more than a prophet, and to his preaching doubtless the Lord Himself listened more than once. "And John began to say unto men everywhere repent." Such seems to have been the burden of his message until that hour when he suddenly found his sweetest music and cried "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Yes, there were preachers before Christ, and long previous to His coming "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching" to save them that believed. Jesus, however, gave to the order of the preacher a new institution. He put upon the lips of His servants a new message. They were to go, no longer to the children of one favoured nation only, but "out into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." From all classes did He gather the men upon whom He put this glorious burden. Here was a fisherman fresh from his toil upon the deep; here a publican newly come up from the receipt of custom; here a husbandman from distant farm or vineyard, and each was commanded to go "in My name." Each was the representative, the ambassador of the King. Each was promised His help; each the baptism through which memory was to be quickened to recall the words He had spoken—the baptism which was to explain sentences which, at the moment of their utterance, were full of perplexing and affrighting mystery to such as heard. Almost His very last words on earth concerned their mission. Then came Pentecost, the gift of power, the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the waiting company in the Upper Room. Signs and wonders filled the hour. The word was with assurance and ran like fire among dry stubble. The multitude was pricked to the heart. Soon followed the Herodian persecution, and the preaching band was scattered abroad. As a result "they went everywhere preaching the word." So the voice of the preacher proclaiming the new faith was heard throughout the countries of Asia Minor and in learned Greece and warlike Rome, on Mars Hill where walked and taught the philosophers in the presence of the admiring and novelty-seeking sons of Athens, in the palace of the Caesars whence ran the currents filling the arteries of the world. Westward, Eastward, all over the known earth they went, and still they preached, until, in years that seem very few, when we think of all that had to be done to make true the boast, it was said "the Christians are everywhere."
And no preacher has ever risen to any true sublimity of service and success who has not connected his own place, and his own work, with the events of this great history. He is of the same company as were Peter, Paul, John, James, Apollos. The spiritual dignity conferred uponhim, the responsibility laid uponhisshoulders, are of the same kind as were theirs. We stand for a doctrine of Apostolic Succession, but it is not a succession dependent upon a ceremonial ordination dispensed by a privileged and ghostly class. It is a succession of gifts, of graces, of commission, of power, of victory. The true preacher is God's messenger. Does he stand before thousands—a man of learning, of eloquence, of far flung fame? His highest glory is not in any one of these things, but in the fact that his commission is divine. Does he plod—a poor "local brother" from mine or loom or plough or forge—along dark lanes and over wild moorlands, in order that in some distant and lowly village sanctuary he may speak to a few simple souls of heavenly things? Let him not be depressed by the toil of the journey; let him not be disheartened by the smallness of the audience. Rather let him lift up his head in humble pride that he is counted worthy to make this errand, to utter this testimony, for in the King's stead he goes, and in the King's name he speaks!
A great, good thing would it be if only the divinity of their calling could be brought home to all who minister among us—brought home, we mean, as a constantly realised truth, warming always and inspiring the hearts of our preachers and giving confidence and authority to their word. The oft-quoted prayer, "Lord, give us a good conceit of ourselves," might well be offered with some small change of terms. We do need a "good conceit" of our office. From such a conceit so many great thoughts would flow, such a sense of the importance of our task! We should hear less complaint concerning "poor appointments"; we should hear less criticism of the sermons of humble but sincere men, if preacher and people alike remembered that this commission was given on the steps of the throne. Let the preacher think small things of the preaching office and small service will be the inevitable result, small sermons, small faithfulness, small harvests when the reaping time shall come. Let the preacher live in the great facts of his history! Let him realise—he cannot magnify—his office! This is the word we would speak into every preacher's ear throughout our Church. There would be little murmuring concerning poor sermons and forgotten appointments if only this fact could win home. We are persuaded that the cause of much of the poor and careless preaching, the preaching that is perfunctory and cold and lifeless, lies in this:—That here and there are preachers who have never realised the glory of their delegation.
Another realisation into which the preacher must come before his preaching can reach its highest possibilities, both as to quality and results; and in which he must abide if his ministry has to remain upon the heights, is that of the supreme distinction of the message he has to proclaim. It is adivinemessage which has been divinely entrusted to him for conveyance to his fellow-men. In regard to this, too, he must occupy and speak from high ground. He is not merely one among the world's many teachers, not simply one among the many speculators who come with theories first ingeniously spun by the spindles of imagination, then woven in the looms of logic. He brings not a theory but a revelation. He is not "one of the philosophers" classified and catalogued with the rest. He is a messenger. Behind him is One who sent him; and the message is not a philosophy but a "way." It is neither a guess, nor a speculation, nor a deduction; it is God's word to men!
Now it may seem a needless thing to insist with such emphasis upon this view of the substance of true Christian preaching, a view that we hear and repeat almost every day; but it is not so needless a thing as may appear. Is it not true that some preachers condescend too much from the word given unto them? Is it not a fact that some of us fail from very wont and use to live in the thought that our message is as far above every message as the Name it reveals is "above every name"? Has the preacher never been guilty of turning aside from this theme of his to what the Apostle called "cunningly devised fables"? It seemed to him that the old story had become so well worn that, for the sake of a little novelty, which might, perhaps, attract the people who stayed away, he might turn into some subject less hackneyed than the staple stock of pulpit addresses. The reason was a very plausible one, and the preacher altogether sincere. The peopledidcome to hear him, too, as they had not come concerning the other matters he had been used to expound. There was a little mild sensation, and sensation is an agreeable variant of the dulness of grey and monotonous years. Most folks were pleased, it seemed—indeed all were pleased who were of "any real account." Many people even waxed complimentary and the preacher had hard work to keep his humility in flower. The only people who complained were those survivals of far past ages whose antediluvian notions accord so ill with the progressive spirit of our times. Of coursetheygrumbled a little; said the preacher gave them less than the best, that he went to the newspapers for his subjects and to—Heaven-only-knew-where for the treatment of the "topics" so selected. They complained, too, that the only advantage of leaving the old wells was that the effervescence of the new beverage drew larger congregations of a sort to whom effervescence is everything and they even made the amazing statement that the great purpose of preaching was not, after all, to draw great congregations which might be accomplished in association with failure as well as in association with success, but to change the hearts and lives of men and nations. They were actually so unkind as to remark that of this latter kind of work there could be little done excepting as a result of faithfulness to "the old Gospel"—a term getting, nowadays, rather out of date. Theysaidthis, and they claimed to prove the statement by figures they unkindly produced. The thing for the preacher to do, they contended, was the work he wassentto do. The greatest subjects possible to him were the subjectsgivenunto him. Christ's word, they held, was infinitely better worth repetition and interpretation than any other "word" the world had ever heard. Who shall say these critics were wrong? The preacher falls below the splendour of his high calling when he turns from the thoughts of God to the dreams of men.
Of this mistake, however, there need be little fear if in his own soul the preacher dwell upon the glory of his "treasure," the preciousness of the seed he has to sow. "Thus saith the Lord." With these words he will refresh his faith and courage what time he challenges the attention and demands the reverence of men. "God hath spoken, once have I heard this; nay twice," so he sings to his spirit as he enters into controversy with those to whom he is sent. "Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord," thus may he invite rebellious men into confidence concerning all those things that matter to the soul. To him,even him, God hath revealed Himself. Through the written word has He spoken directly tohisheart and mind. Tohisprayerful inquiry and diligent searching has He made known His will,hismind being chosen as the organ of a revelation, honouring his devout spirit and earnest striving to know the truth. Through the varying phases of the experience ofthismessenger of His He has shown him the deep things of God and disclosed new applications of truths already known. God reveals Himself to men to-day. Let us at least allow ourselves the joy of believing that He has no favourites; that London or New York is as dear to Him as Jerusalem; that He will, anddoesspeak as certainly through the prophets of our times as through those of any far-off century in the history of the race. Of this high doctrine every new sermon ought to bring fresh proof to the preacher's own soul as well as to the people who hear the latest word from heaven through the spokesman of the skies. So the wonder grows!—An ambassador of the King, speaking the King's own word, spoken to me by the King Himself, my heart burning within me the while He talked with me by the way, my own soul growing strong in the incoming strength of living truth warm from the lips of God! Stand we here—each for himself? Indeed we must do so; for unless we do, abiding in this consciousness as to our calling and our work, we shall lack full furnishing for toil and accomplishment, for noble battle, for glorious victory!
And if it comes to pass that sometimes the preacher fails to realise the greatness of his position and the true distinction of his message, and that his preaching suffers loss of effectiveness as a result of such failure, it also comes to pass, not infrequently, that he fails to realise, as he should, thegreat purpose his efforts are meant to serve. This failure also must hinder his preaching of the success it should command. Behind the labours of the humblest of the preaching army lies the purpose which lay back of all God's dealing with the race, which moved Him to give His only begotten Son; the purpose for which He who was rich and for our sakes became poor, came to earth and "was found in fashion as a man." The purpose behind the preaching of the preacher is one with the purpose behind the cross; it is, in short, that purpose of infinite love which contemplates and designs the salvation of the race. "The Son of Man is come into the world to seek and to save that which was lost." "That which was lost!" The meaning of this word is surely not exhausted in the application of the text to individual wanderers however great their number. The whole world "was lost," and to seek and to save the world, "from the rivers to the ends of the earth," He came—to bring back all humanity to faith, obedience, love, purity, happiness and glory.
For the attainment of the highest possibilities wrapped up in himself and his work the preacher must be possessed by this imperial design. He mustfeelthat he is fighting in a campaign for world conquest—for that and no smaller end. We hear, in these days, a good deal about imperialism in politics. We are encouraged to teach this imperialism to our children, and the argument advanced in support of the advice is that the learning of the lesson will have influence on the way in which the scholar will perform the humblest tasks awaiting him in life. The Imperialist, it is said, will find himself saved by his imperialism from sordid views and actions, from all temptation to make small personal ends the measure of his service as the days go by. Experience, alas! has hardly justified the prophecy. We have seen the well instructed and professed Imperialist display much the same infirmities and proclivities as other men. We have heard of him speaking of the British flag, that most sacred symbol of his faith and hope, which it is his high mission to plant on every shore, as an "asset"; and we have found that questions relating to dividends were not altogether alien to his proud determination to "fling the red line further yet." But there is an imperialism in religion which has a happier history. That man possesses it who thinks of every blow struck for God as a blow struck in an age-long and world-wide warfare. This imperialismdoesredeem the days, andhasa royal and quickening effect upon the labours of all who are in bondage to its spell. Such an imperialist is no longer the servant of this denomination or that, a mere agent hunting recruits for his own little connexional "interest." He may seek to attach men to his Church, but only because that Church is part of the great confederacy of states-divine. He goes to his appointment in yonder tiny hamlet, where but few are assembling to hear him, as went out Alexander to subdue the nations to his will. It is often said, and it is a saying too often received with small approval, that the Church which does most for the support and advocacy of missions to the heathen invariably does most for the spread of the Gospel within its own district as well. The saying, we repeat, is not always received with enthusiastic approval, but it is true nevertheless, and it is capable of easy explanation. This superior devotion to the spreading of the Gospel at home follows as a direct result of a realisation of that Gospel's all-embracing, all-conquering purpose. That purposemustbe realised by the Church if she would get unto herself the victory. With no meaner proposals must she go into battle, or else the chariot wheels will run heavily and the young men will faint and be weary. What is true for the Church is, if possible, still more true for the preacher, for the tasks of leadership and inspiration are in his hands. He must hold firmly to the ideal of a new world wherein dwelleth righteousness. To labour for this, and no meaner dream, must be his constant and unfailing resolve.
And how are we to keep this sublime purpose of God ever in recollection, making it our own? Ah! here is a question! We have all heard and assented to this grand design of infinite love. We all believe that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs." But to believe in the sense that we do not disbelieve, isonething, and profoundly and constantly and vitally to realise a truth isanother. It is so easy to forget a belief when everything around us seems to contradict the possibility of its fulfilment. The labour of the preacher is often very hard; often, in its immediate results, extremely disappointing. The present and immediate care, the difficulty to be facedhereandnow, so much concern and so much, at times, depress us. So much effort must be put forth even tokeep living, so much patience even to hold up under the burden, that it is little wonder if, at times, we forget that our strenuous struggle is in fulfilment of a great plan to eventuate in the accomplishment of an eternal purpose. If we do hold the thought it is too often only in a theoretic way. It does notdominateus as it should, and as it would if once it seized us by the heart. Perhaps, more than in the case of most things to be realised, it requires great grace to make the soul able to grasp it. Perhaps, again, the purpose of God seems to ask more from us than we care to give, and the fear of the sacrifice required blinds us to the glory of that purpose. As long as the preacher's programme is parochial or merely patriotic his preaching will lack the clarion note. Small conceptions of the will of God make mean service. God's intention is to reign on earth as He reigns in Heaven. Let us live in this assurance if we would help His kingdom in.
But there is still more to be realised before the preacher has grasped all the golden truth with which God would fortify and cheer him for the task he is sent out to perform. Did we say that he must come into a consciousness of the true dignity of his office? Did we point out his need to discern the true glory of his message, which is that italoneis the message that is indeed from the heart of God? Did we emphasise the preacher's need of a clear view of the infinite, loving purpose behind the work he is sent to carry through? To all this he must add a clear and constant vision of the victory to come. In that vision he must live as though the music of the triumph were already falling upon his ear. There is no room in the pulpit for pessimists or pessimism. The man who thinks that the world is growing worse, andwillgrow worse, andstillworse, moving down the slopes of inevitable perdition until the final catastrophe shall burst upon it—that man has no right to pose as a preacher of the gospel of glad tidings to men. Not so did His Master look forward to the days to come when "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame." Such a vision was not inHiseyes when He said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." Failure! That is a possibility the preacher must not admit, even in secret to himself, if he would not find his strength stolen and grey hairs upon him here and there!
And in the spirit of victory he not onlymust, butmaylive. There have been darker ages than this in which the preachers have alone held up the lamp of hope. Times of apparent unfruitfulness do come, times of drought do fall upon us, but theypass, for silently, secretly God works on and on. Let us believe inHim. His are the yet uncounted years. He prepareth His ways in the darkness, "and He will bring it to pass." In that faith alone is great, true and mighty preaching possible.
Thus, with somewhat of the seer,Must the moral pioneer,From the future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And on midnight's sky of rainPaint the golden morrow.
One of the most obvious lessons to be learned from a study of church history is a lesson teaching the necessity of the positive note in the pulpit. The great ages of Christianity have been those in which affirmation has been clear and definite and strong. The great preachers of the past have ever been positive preachers, men whose assurance concerning their message was heard in every tone of their voices, who knew in whom they had believed. Especially has this been true of those whose ministrations have been the means of great revivals of religion as seen in the awakening of zeal within the Church and the salvation of sinners. How positive were the Wesleys! How sure was Whitefield! How absolutely certain of things were the fathers of our own Church! How real to them were God and Jesus and Heaven and Hell. They were narrow, perhaps. Possibly they were often intolerant. It may have been the case that they were rather too ready to damn every one who disagreed with them as to the interpretation of the truth of God. They may not have always displayed a sweet and brotherly reluctance to brand as a heretic any person whose creed was a little more hopeful than their own. It might possibly be shown that there is some truth in the suggestion that they were not always able to render a reason for their convictions with an intelligence and a wealth of knowledge proportionate to the strength with which they held them. But theydidknow where they were. Theycouldidentify themselves among theologians. They were ready with a confession of faith. This isso, andthisandthis, they could say.Thatwill come to pass, andthatandthat, they affirmed, as if they saw it all enacted before them. The result of this strong believing was seen in the production of strong belief and, better still, of determined action in those to whom they preached; for belief is at least as infectious as doubt, as the records of spiritual movements and the biographies of religious leaders of all schools will prove. There was no theorising in those camp-meeting sermons to which the people of this land were listening a hundred years ago; no "honest doubt" in those invitations heard upon the greens of the villages and in the market-places of the towns while yet the last century was young. Here were preachers as sure of their message as they were of their own existence. Of "mental reservations" they knew nothing. They had never even heard the term. They dealt in "wills" and "shalls"; not in "peradventures" or "maybes." They said of a thing "it is" or "it is not." They went up into such pulpits as they possessed, not to conduct a public inquiry after truth, but to declare it. They were not out in search of a gospel adapted to the needs of the age. They had found the one sure way of life adapted to this and every other time. This they cried aloud, and then lifting up their voices in song, "Turn to the Lord and seek salvation," they went marching on, while men followed enquiring with weeping eyes, "What must we do to be saved?"
Such was the preaching of our fathers, crude enough, much of it, no doubt; lacking, perhaps, many of the literary excellencies and graces of the preaching of our later days, yet mighty because of its very sureness, because of its splendid dogmatism. The complaint goes that the pulpit of our time lacks this positive note; that by word or tone the preacher conveys the impression that he is "not quite sure." It is reported that he suggests where once he proclaimed, surmises where once he declared. It is alleged that people are turning away from the churches because they can obtain no certain answer to the questions of the soul. Instead of quoting a "Yea" or a "Nay," they report replies to the effect thatprobablythe answer should be "Yea," but that, as we are at present passing through "a period of transition," as all our creeds are "in the melting pot," we must wait a little while for an absolutely categorical reply, preserving, in the meantime, an open mind and a trusting heart. For purposes of consolation, and to encourage them to this trustfulness of spirit, they are told, so they relate, that "devout men are at work upon the sacred documents;" that other men, equally devout, are reconsidering the doctrines, and that, among it all, the preacher does not worry, but, with admirable calm, waits and trusts, knowing "that in the end his position will be stronger than ever for the surrender of a few defenceless outposts." By preaching such as this possibilities are suggested which, it is said, cause more concern than comfort to the man in search of definite guidance on the most serious and vital subjects with which the mind is called upon to deal. Another statement we have heard:—That as this kind of thing is met with almost exclusively in Protestantism it works out largely to the advantage of the Roman Catholic Church. Few weeks pass by in which we do not read of this or that well-known person who has "gone over." As only the more prominent "converts" are mentioned in the press we may be sure that the number of unknown and relatively unimportant people who secede from Protestantism is much greater than is known. From one of this multitude came a little while ago an explanation of the step he had taken:—"The Roman Church knows what she believes. Her priests are positive. I cannot risk my soul upon a theory; I want a fact!"
Now it is quite possible that this complaint is greatly an exaggeration. It is certain that many are blamed while comparatively few are guilty. It is quite possible to be too much disturbed and alarmed by criticisms of the Church and her preachers. These criticisms do not all come from the sincerest friendliness; neither are they always absolutely without bias, or invariably founded upon extensive observation. The Church at her worst has always been better—she always will be better—than her enemies allow. The same is true of preaching. Still it is wise to ask ourselves, when a criticism is laid against either Church or preacher, whether there may not be a grain or two of truth to the bushel of chaff. It would be a misfortune if in our contempt for this same chaff we should lose the corn hidden there. Where there is smoke it is well to remember there is always, at least, a smoulder of fire. Grant that much has been made of little, which is a weakness of the critic in every time, and that all the rumour has resulted simply from some lack of definiteness on the part of a few. Grant, also, that as the criminal is always far more talked about for his transgression than the honest man for his honesty, so the man who betrays his doubts in the pulpit is far more discussed than the ninety-and-nine sure men who go on their unsensational way according to standards made and received from old time amongst us. Grant all this, and it will still remain to be said that the preaching of the present day, in those churches where the right of private judgment on matters of faith and doctrine is recognised, would, to make the least of it, be all the better for a more positive tone.
But how has it come to pass that there should have occurred, even in the small degree in which we admit it, a loss of the sureness which means so much in the preaching of the word of truth? The question is a large one, and to answer it fully much more than all the paper composing this book would be required. It may be that the spirit of the age is not a spirit favourable to belief. In some periods faith is glorified; in others, doubt. In these days, it might be thought from much we hear, a little scepticism is the one sure evidence of intellectuality; while steadfastness in the creed of one's youth proves the possession of a dull and narrow mind and the existence of that hopeless mental condition known as fossilisation. Ours are the days of science, and science has frightened some people terribly concerning religion, though it would almost appear that she is now beginning, in some measure, to repent, and is turning to soothe the timorous souls whom she formerly terrified. Ours are days of criticism too, and the criticism has largely been concerned with the very writings wherein are recorded those words upon which we have relied as containing the way of life. Some things said to have been discovered have disturbed us a little, though why they should have done so it is difficult, upon reflection, to see. We have been too prone, perhaps, to surrender ourselves to such a feeling as is natural to those anxious moments when, having called a consultant to the bedside of a sick friend, we have just uttered the request, "Now, Doctor, tell us candidly the worst." All these things would be mentioned in the long history which would be needed fully to narrate the causes of the slight slackening of faith noted here and there; but, for all the importance which would probably be ascribed to each in turn, they are not the only reasons; they are not even the chief reasons. Those, we are bold to say, are not intellectual, but moral and spiritual!
And these moral and spiritual causes of doubt in relation to eternal and divine things will emerge as we proceed to try to answer the question, which now arises, as to how we can recover that measure of certainty which we have lost, and which we must regain, with additions, if we would achieve that power in the work of preaching which is needed to turn the hearts of men towards God and goodness. Notwithstanding all that may be said as to the difficulties of the situation, we venture to think that the lines upon which confidence may be won back again are not impossible of discernment.
For, simple as the suggestion may be; lacking all flavour of the extraordinary as it does; without novelty and confessedly old-fashioned; we have but this to commend to all who waver and doubt, to all whose voices falter as they seek to utter the mighty affirmations of the Gospel:—That the way to win again the old assurance is to come back to the source of their sublime vocation, determined, whatever may befall, there to abide all the long and trying day. "Reach hither thy finger," He said to the doubter whose faith had well-nigh died for loss of a few days' open vision, "Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side and be not faithless but believing." The spirit of St. Thomas comes upon us all at times, perhaps more often in youth than age. Occasionally it comes uninvited; sometimes, alas! we open the door and bid it enter. There is but one way of escaping this spirit, and it is recorded in this old history. Surely for doubting souls in all ages was this experience of Thomas written down!
The way of certainty is the way of the extended hand. Ultimately the preacher's faith depends upon the use he makes of his own spiritual opportunities. "If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." There is an intimate connection between intellectual results and moral and spiritual conditions. The surrender of the will to God is always followed by an increase of spiritual intelligence. That this is true we have seen proved unnumbered times as lowly piety has revealed sublimities of faith and trust. Spiritual things are, and must be, spiritually discerned.
And this is not so hard to understand as may appear. A life surrendered to the will of God is of all lives the most peaceful and composed. It is lived in an atmosphere of repose. In such an atmosphere the mind has an opportunity of looking upon the great spiritual mysteries in the light proper to their contemplation and consideration. It is a life of good works too, and good works tend to establish the gospel by which they were inspired. It would not be easy—we had almost said it would be impossible—to find a man engaged in hard and constant toil for Jesus Christ who would complain that he suffers from doubt as to the truth of the faith he serves. Unbelief is not unfrequently the penalty of indolence. It might in many instances be found possible to trace the doubts of men to their slackness in the service of God.
The same spiritual laws as regulate the experience of every saint of God regulate those of the preacher. His Sabbath note will be according to his week-day living. Let him be all the week absorbed in material things only; let him seek only his own gratification, only his own wealth or pleasure or advantage; let him walk only in the lower paths, and he must not be surprised if, as he stands up upon the Sabbath, his voice be found to have lost the old ring of joyful and glorious assertion. He must not be astonished if his grasp of heavenly mysteries and promises and provisions be slack, and if, as a result, he speaks in halting tones. If his daily walk be far from the side of his Lord, he must not wonder if other spirits find their way to his ear and fill it with whispers of doubt and fear which make his testimony hesitant and of small effect for good. We say he must not be surprised at these things. No, nor must he find the reasons for this weakening of his faith in the message itself, though that will inevitably be the chief temptation of such dangerous hours. He should ask first concerning the life he is living, whether it is of a sort to make faith an easy thing. He should ask concerning his personal observance of the Master's counsel of prayer and self-denial and cross-bearing. It is pleasanter, no doubt, to seek the reasons for one's unbelief in intellectual than in moral directions. The former method may flatter us a little; the latter is often very painful!
And yet by inquiring as to our moral condition the whole secret will often be discovered. There is also another question to ask:—If we understand the promises of our Lord, in even a slight degree, He gives to all whom He calls into the holy ministry the assurance of a Comforter who will guide them into all truth, and bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever He has said. Are we quite able, we who are afflicted with doubts which sometimes make it hard to preach, are we quite able to say that we have honoured Him in putting His promises to the proof as we might have done? Was not one of the Master's words to us "It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak"? There was no uncertainty in the Upper Room in that glad but awful moment when the pledge of the ages was fulfilled to the children of the new and better covenant. Let us seek that experience again. Let us begin our quest at the cross, with a prayer for forgiveness, and a vow of reconsecration. Let us wait upon Him for a renewal of that divine outpouring of which He has never disappointed His chosen messengers when they have sought it at His hand, meanwhile denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Him. Let us but obtain that baptism, and all our crippling and alarming scepticisms will vanish, and the full round tone of fearless confidence return. Such a return is the need of the present hour—spiritual certainty in an age of materialism, the one sure antidote for all its cares. Thus only can come that revival of religion for which we have sighed and looked so long. Be assured that there can be no such work of grace as this unless the message of the pulpit be with definiteness and confidence. Here would the answer to many a question, the solution of many a problem be found. Hearers would be conscious of a new tone in the delivery of the weekly word. Truth would be spoken as if it were truth indeed, and in their very consciences men would know it to be true. No longer would the way of life be pointed with trembling finger. Once again the ambassador would stand forth in all his royal glory and cry "Thus saith the Lord," and now Sinai's thunders, now Calvary's gales of grace, would give majesty and tenderness to his voice!
Such is the way back to certainty, if certainty in any of us have been lost for a little while. Yet, even as we name it, there comes again to our ears the old enquiry so often heard as an explanation of durance in Doubting Castle:—How does all this accord with the advice constantly given to men to seek to win each a creed for himself? Is it not a man's duty to make his inherited beliefs and the things which are told him the subjects of his individual inquiry and of his own personal judgment and proof? Yes; all this is true but other things are true as well.
The first of them is surely this:—That a man should have won this creed for himself before he set out to provide a creed for other people. Once more, preaching is not a public inquiry after truth but a declaration of it. The man who has not got beyond the stage of inquiry has no right to be in the pulpit at all. Some preachers are always making confessions as to their difficulties. It ought to be seen that the people do not come to hear of the preacher's difficulties, but to be helped in their own. Another thing that is true is this:—That it is surely not the best way of winning a creed to begin by doubting the truth of everything in order to get at the truth ofsomething, as many seem to do. Surely it is not the best way of winning a belief of one's own to conduct an inquiry with the object of finding how much is false of the things we have been taught. Why not begin with the purpose of finding out how much is true? Why not seek for confirmations as well as for contradictions? It is surely something to the credit of the things instilled into us as children that unnumbered generations of great and holy and thoughtful men have found in them their spiritual sustenance and salvation. It might have a helpful effect to ask why it should be left to you or me, so late in time as the beginning of the twentieth century, to make the discovery that the faith which has inspired "saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs," which has saved its millions, satisfying the deepest longings of the heart and the highest demands of the intellect; the faith which has inspired the purity, the benevolence, the courage and endurance of a long, long past—is only in a very limited and partial degree the truth of God. A due appreciation of the significance of history ought, it might seem, to be enough to make it appear, even to the youngest and most daring of us, an impossible thing that teaching which has produced such triumphs can be false.
Then as to this search for "a creed for himself" which, we are reminded, it is every man's duty to make:—It also remains to be said that for success in this pursuit, as for success in some other pursuits, an observance of spiritual laws is needful. A man should seek for his creed asprayerfullyas he seeks for any help of which he ever finds himself in need. The path of prayer is the path of light and of truth. The mistake often made is this, that we try to find this creed without seeking the help of God. "I will be inquired of saith the Lord."
One more question:—Is the possession of this certainty consistent with progress? Are we not told to expect new light as years pass on? Has not every preacher the right to look upon himself as the possible organ of new revelations to his fellows? Even so; but light will not contradict light. As the glimmer of the dawn grows into the brilliance of the day, the rays of the sun, falling ever more brightly upon the landscape, bring more clearly into view the features which at first were dim and dreamlike. As the glory creeps over vale and hill, touching here a winding river, there a patch of vivid green, yonder a window of some distant dwelling, new points of beauty and interest are continually being revealed; but the scene, though better discerned, is still the same as first burst upon our view at the moment when the sun leaped into the firmament from behind yon eastern hill. Further revelations we may indeed look for, but they will only be new chapters of the "old, old story," and "continuations" at that. They are for confirmation, not disturbance. God cannot contradict Himself. No one was more sure of the law-givers than the prophets; no one more in accord with the prophets than the apostles. Our Lord came not to destroy but to fulfil.
So then certainty is consistent with progress; with an attitude of receptivity toward new light. A firm belief in what the Lord told usyesterdayis harmonious with an eagerness to hear what He may have to add to-day. It is indeed to be regarded as proof of our faith in yesterday's communication that we hearken for to-day's word. Certainty is possible to the preacher, and certainty he must have!
Yes, certainty hemusthave; for the people ask for it, and have a right to demand it from those who stand up in God's name to teach them His way. We have read of blind guides, "blind leaders of the blind." Such a leadership is that of the preacher who has no sure word to speak. For his own soul's sake the ambassador must have certainty, for what life can be more wretched than the life of a man set up to proclaim a message doubted of his own spirit. For God's sake; for the sake of the Gospel to be uttered; for the sake of the high purpose of that Gospel he must besure. Without certainty there can be no truly effective and successful preaching!
Another essential quality of the effective and successful messenger of Christ is individuality.
The preaching of the truth is, after all,man'swork for the sake of man, andthe manis needful to the completeness of the definition. It has ever been God's way to work His will and reveal Himself to mankind through members of their own race. He does not speak to the nations in a supernatural voice rolling over the land. He does not write His word across the arch of the sky in any way plainer than in that language of which the stars are syllables. It is true that everywhere the inscription of His power and Godhead may be seen; but neither in nature, nor in history, nor in human instincts does He declare Himself on the deeper needs of the soul. His way is to use men whom He calls, trains and equips. Even Jesus, Himself, came in fashion as a man, that He might speak with the speech of a man to the generations for whom He was to die. One meaning of this must surely be that true preaching derives power from the man himself as well as from the truth expressed. In His infinite resourcefulness the Creator has made all men different. Wonderful it is, but true, there are no two men who are, in all things, each a duplicate of the other. Physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, every man isanotherman. We speak of the average man; really there is no such being. No average can be struck which takes account of all that every man is and includes every quality and peculiarity of body, mind and spirit. Each birth is a new creation. Here comes one into the world to occupy a new point of view. He will see things with other eyes; he will hear them with other ears. He will relate them in his own way, if only he be permitted to do so. Should he become a preacher, the message will be new in his newness. It will gather something for its commendation to the few or to the many, in that this man looks upon it from his own standpoint and expresses it in his own tongue.
It is sometimes complained that in these days the pulpit is in danger of losing that which the individuality of the preacher should bring into it, for the reason that such individuality is being improved out of existence. "There are few personalities that count nowadays," we are told. Time was when there were more. Names occur to all of us, each of which stands in our mind for someone who, as we put it, was a man of himself. All Churches have had such men; our own was rich in them. To-day, they tell us, we are all in real danger of becoming decorously, decently, conventionally alike. We have conceived a typical preacher and we try to approximate to our conception; a typical sermon, and we try to preach it. "He is a typical curate," "a typical Presbyterian minister," "a typical Baptist pastor," "a typical Methodist travelling preacher;" "he is a typical local"—how often we hear these expressions!
It may be well to give to this complaint at least so much consideration as to ask whether it is true. At once we may say, if it is "the truth," it is not "the whole truth," neither is it "nothing but the truth." There are still among us, thank God! preachers who bring the aroma of individuality into their ministrations, and are a brand of themselves. Some turn of speech, some tone of voice, some distinctive way of putting a thing, some mysterious, but unmistakable, difference of flavour they have managed to preserve, and how grateful we are when we hear or see or taste or feel it. It is like the discovery of a new flower in the woodland, of a new star in the constellation! "It's no a'thegither what he says; it's the way on't," said the old Scots woman in eulogy of her minister. We could mention little traits, which, small as they are, have been on the human side the success of ministries familiar to us all. There was a message and there was aman. But while the complaint is not all true, it is not for us to say that it is made without reason. It is possible that what many a preacher needs, before the success he desires can be his, is to recover nothing more, nor less, than his own lost self. It may be that some of us present a ministry true to type, but false to our own personality.
The fact is that willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, everybody (and everything) seems to-day to be combined in a huge conspiracy to crush out the individuality of the individual. This is seen in every department of life. It is the inevitable result of all highly developed civilisation. Before society is formed the individual is everything and "one of himself." After society is formed he is one among many; sometimes even rather less than one. In the police-force men are known by numbers. In the world of industry they are described as "hands." Civilisation brings infinite advantages, and life would be impossible without it; but we have to pay the price thereof, and it is part of it that the individuality of its subjects must be subordinate to the communal interest. It will be well if, in surrendering ourselves so far as is necessary for the public good, we do not go beyond this requirement to a degree of sacrifice which involves the loss of our own individuality.
From this danger the preacher has hard work to accomplish his deliverance. It is not only the peril of social life; it exists in the Church, and the more highly organised the Church the greater the danger. Referring again to our own denomination, there was a time, not so very far behind us, when the preacher was largely left to work out his own development. As a result, individuality had in those days every chance to assert itself. The tree grew much as it would, for there was no one to lop off a branch here, to bend one there, or to graft upon this stem a shoot from some other variety. Of course the growth was often very peculiar; luxuriant on the sunward side, starved on the northern aspect, disproportionate, maybe, though often on those curious branches fruit was abundant for those who sought. Probablywewould train those oaks, and cedars, and apple-trees in the midst of the wood to more conventional shapes if we had them to-day. Hugh Bourne might have to overcome that habit of putting his hand before his face as he talked, and he would certainly have to use language much less lurid than he occasionally employed. William Clowes might have to abandon his practice of repeating a sentence over and over again in animated crescendo. Henry Higginson might be instructed not to lapse into impromptu rhyme in his Camp Meeting addresses. Joseph Spoor might be informed that if he wanted gymnastic exercises he must take them in private, and never by way of standing with one foot on the pulpit seat and the other on the book-board the while he illustrated, by means of a roll of bills, his conception of the trumpet call to the Last Judgment. These men and a host of others we might put into a correcter shape to-day.
Now it is not contended that gifts are not to be trained, or that it is undesirable to teach and practise a certain self-restraint. No doubt buffoonery has often masqueraded as originality; and the great results which have undoubtedly attended ministries in which extremely bad taste and irreverence have been prominent have not been in consequence of these things, but in spite of them, and by the power of a passion for souls underlying them all. "Other times, other manners," is a proverb we must not forget. That there are risks in courses of study imposed without distinction upon one and all alike cannot be denied, but abundant and convincing reasons support their adoption notwithstanding the risks. It is an old objection to ministerial colleges that they spoil able men and are unable to do much for feeble ones. We hear, often, that such and such a man "is not half the man he was when he left home to keep his terms." There may be truth in it all; but it is equally true that a polished instrument is better than a blunt one; that in the hands of a wise man every atom of knowledge means more than an atom of power. Moreover, it can never be proved that a man who comes from college to fail, would not have failed, even more terribly, without the training he there received. Again, itcanbe proved that out of our colleges have come men whose ministries have been of incalculable blessing to the Church. In the end, after all, the preservation of a man's individuality rests with himself. The fact is that often we lack the necessary courage to be ourselves, and as a result, we give in too soon and too readily, to what appear to us to be demands to sacrifice our soleness that, thereby, we may become something higher and better than we are. In this way men degenerate into imitators and echoes. Such a man is a power and has such a manner. He moves us deeply, shows us heights we have never seen and reveals to us visions of which we have not dreamed. We are not content to appropriate his donation of truth and rest satisfied with the intellectual and moral stimulus he bestows. God did not make two of him, butwethink there ought to be another, and we try to be he. The attempt is always a failure. The worst of it is that in our effort to be another we have ceased to be ourselves, and after such a loss what do we still possess? Perhaps the disaster comes in another way. Conventionality has certain curious notions about the pulpit, the fulfilment of which it paradoxically despises as it demands it. The preacher is expected to speak in a different voice and wear a different expression in the "sacred desk" from his voice and expression in other places. In some churches he is expected to read the Bible in a strange, archaic sort of way, pronouncing the words which appear upon its pages with a pronunciation never employed under any other circumstances. The newspaper isread, the psalms areintoned. It is a crime to be natural. All the time men are sick of the whole fabric of artificiality, and long for that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin.
Another way of losing individuality is to allow oneself to be drowned in officialism, buried beneath its trappings, interred in its dignities. Many a man spends his life in a futile attempt to live up to some official tradition, even as he might pass his time in a family picture gallery cultivating the expression of some ancestral portrait on the wall. There is also to be remembered the possibility of a slavery to books. There is such a thing as the spell exercised by a great author through the printed page. We heard the other day of a contemporary literary man who is understood to pose as a second edition of William Shakespeare on the strength of some asserted resemblance to a bust of the poet. Certainly it cannot be on the strength of any intellectual inheritance. We could name men who have preached in a thousand times more pulpits than they have ever seen through the lips of others whom they have subdued to bondage by some famous volume. We could name the books if we cared to do so. Perhaps we could recall periods in our own life when such a spell cast its glamour over us.
To resist all these influences successfully, or, rather, to so appropriate what is good and helpful in them, which it is our duty to do, and still remain a full blooded, virile individual, will require resolution. To give due meed of homage to the great, due recognition—and there is a certain recognition due—to the conventions of our church life—to realise the office of the preacher, to assimilate the book, to grind and polish one's gifts—to do all this, and yet be at the end of the doing of it our own natural, unaffected selves, is far from easy. It can only be done as the preacher remembers two or three things which are all too often forgotten or ignored.
And the first of these is surely this: That each and every man's individuality is a gift from God, the basal talent on which the rest are built. It was of the wisdom of God that you were born you and I was bornI. Here is the one and only possession which is our very own, and which none other can share, however ready we be to barter it away for something of less value. "Do you know who I am?" said the nobleman, swelling with importance, to the boy who failed to lift his cap in the lane. "I am the Marquis." "An' does yer honour know who I am?" said the lad. "I am Patrick Murphy from the cabin by the bog." Within that ragged jacket was an inheritance which could not be measured as could land, or counted as could money, or appraised as are titles and coronets, but which was as real as any of them and more valuable than all; an inheritance to be improved, perhaps extended, ennobled, but never changed into something other than itself. Let us remember this. With all humility, it iscapitalfor pulpit business that we are what we are.
And another thing is written in our experience for our reflection, and it is this:—That it was for what we were that God called us into this preaching work.Hehad discernment of natural qualities in calling even us, and counted upon them to be serviceable in His Kingdom. There is surely no need to deny our manhood, or become ashamed of this being that is "I" whenHechose it for employment in ambassadorship. It was for what Peter was as Peter, dashing, impetuous, impatient, full of driving power and combative energy, that Jesus called him from the fishing of Galilee into the ministry of the word. It was for what John was as John, intense, clear-eyed and trustful that he, too, was called. Thomas was also called—that Thomas who found it hard to believe but easy to love, and whose faith, when once achieved, brought a whole heart's devotion to its gracious object—even he was called, not as another, but as himself. Very different from them all was Saul of Tarsus; logical, incisive, proud with the pride of ancient lineage and of high culture, descendant of armoured kings, citizen of the first of cities—he, too, was called for he, for himself, was needed. So through the ages—what contrasts we behold, what differences as between a Chrysostom and an Augustine, a Calvin and a St. Francis of Assisi, a Wesley and a Fletcher of Madeley; as between William Booth and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, called, every one of them, because he was what he was.
Then let us remember that if He chooses a man for what he is, it is because He knows that the work needs just this very man. Many tools will be called into service before the brown pebble hidden away in the blue clay beneath the South African veldt becomes the glorious star of a monarch's crown. One will tear it from its age-long concealment; another will test and prove its value; others will grind; others polish, and by others will it be set in its place of pride. Very mysterious, again, are the correspondences and affinities existing between human souls. It is very curious how one hearer will respond to an appeal which would never touch another. "There is something about him that always gets atme," remarked a hearer, adding, "and I cannot tell what it is, or how it does it." The "something" was individuality. Why itdid it, was because, somewhere in the soul of the hearer was a chord tuned to some string in the preacher's nature. Such ships are reached by a given set of wireless apparatus as have their instruments tuned to that apparatus. There is something between men reminding us of this. Again, for a man's own sake it is a pity to surrender this individuality of his. For in holding on to it with grim resolve lies the only possibility of full self-realisation. Let a man cultivate himself along the line of what he is if he would come to his best and achieve any genuine success, any real happiness in life. The world is full of men who have failed, simply because they left untrained what theywere, to try to be what theywere notand never could become. Nowhere is this more true than in the pulpit. Many an excellent Brown, or Jones, or Robinson has been spoiled by his attempt to become a Beecher, a Joseph Parker, an Archdeacon Farrar. Many a David, less wise than he of history, has failed against his Philistine because he discarded the sling he knew so well how to use, the smooth stones from the brook he knew so well how to aim, for the panoply and ordnance made for the greater limbs of Saul. Along one line, and one line only, was victory possible to the son of Jesse, and from that line he would not be diverted. It was a shepherd who came from the hills as a shepherd armed. It was this same shepherd with this same weapon who, resisting temptation, went out to the apparently unequal conflict from which he returned bringing the head of his adversary. This history is surely written for preachers that, for their own sake, they may be encouraged to give exercise to their own spiritual genius. Along one path alone lies, if not greatness, at least usefulness for every truly called messenger of Christ. It is along the path of faithfulness to self in the development, the polishing, the use of his own gifts in his own way.
Only one other word remains to be added:—That, as already hinted, the pew hails always with respect the man who is brave enough to be himself. Let no one imagine that he can try to be someone else, or even that, without trying to be anyone in particular, he can surrender himself to a conventional ideal of clericalism without discovery and loss of the esteem and reverence of men and women of sense. The pew is very quick to see through disguises, be they worn never so skilfully. No voice rings true in a man's throat excepting his own. The people are sick of the cleric in the pulpit; they want theman. They had rather hear you when you are planned than any one, or anything, you may try to be.
Here then is the true originality by which the gospel is made new by every new preacher of it and by every new telling of its wondrous story. The old truths may be repeated in almost the same old words, but here and there will come a new tone, a breath of new influence, a new personal aura. Oh, for theindividualin the pulpit, the preacher who is not an echo, but comes to relate the evangel as it has been unfolded to himself! Oh, for the brother who will bring us, not a sermon only, buta man—a man discovered, saved, cleansed, polished by God; improved into value and profitableness, but still a man! In these words we express one of the greatest needs of the hour, and define a quality absolutely essential to the successful and effective preacher.