Religious certainties; sermons on special occasions

Contents

Page

I. Four Great Religious Certainties, - 7

II. The Faith Delivered Once for

I. Four Great Religious Certainties

(During the; General Conference:, Metropolitan Opera-House, New York, May 20, 1888.)

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. . . . That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made comformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." — Phil,, hi, 8, 10, 11.

Is the moon inhabited? If so, by beings like ourselves? And do they live in communities and nations? And are they agitated by the strifes of political parties, and by legislative debates about the tariff and free trade, and by conflicts between the nations on this side of the moon and on the other side, from which the earth is never seen? Strange questions, you may say, to be asked in this place,

Reugious Certainties.

and in connection with religious themes. Well, it is not I who am responsible for first raising these questions in connection with the Christian religion. The moon has certain well-understood relations to this globe. It is the brightest light and ornament of many of our nights. It is the first great steppingstone in the knowledge of astronomy. It is the chief factor in raising the tides of the ocean. Some think its changes have something to do with the weather, and with the proper time for planting corn. But what hare-brained lunatic ever thought it worth his while to inquire about the politics of a planet which very likely is not inhabited? — for the astronomers tell us it has no perceptible atmosphere. Again, I say, it is not I who am responsible for first raising these questions, and for raising them in connection with religious subjects, but one of the great masters of the skeptical thought of our time, Professor Huxley, who styles all the sober speculations of Christian philosophy, and all the confident afhrmations of Christian experience, as akin to lunar politics. I use his phrase, "lunar politics."

Has it, then, come to this? Has the bold and blatant agnosticism of our time reached this supreme height of self-assertion and of universal doubt? In this nineteenth century of grace, and on the eve of

Pour Great Reugious Certainties. 9

the last decade of it, when Christianity has girdled the globe, transforming every civilization it has touched; sanctifying senates and courts and legislatures by prayers and solemn oaths ; giving, through its Holy Scriptures, law to all lands; dominating the brain of the world and the wealth of the world, and the ruling nations of the world ; and manifestly marching on to world-wide dominion ; — are we now to be told that the majestic forces underlying this master movement of the ages, the thoughts of God and of heaven and of hell, and of the judgment-day, and of eternal retribution, "the powers of the world to come," as the Scriptures sublimely term some of these thoughts and forces, — that all these are akin to the politics of the moon?

Away with all such bold and blatant skepticism ! Let us turn, on this bright, vernal Sabbath afternoon, to look at four great religious certainties. Certainties I say, deliberately and advisedly, for I confess myself at the outset not to be one of those who assert, or even admit, that in this age of "advanced thought" all things are in question. I rather prefer to believe, as I profoundly do believe, that long ago some things were settled once for all, and once for evermore.

Suppose a man born and brought up on a Western prairie, let us say in the western portion of the io Reugious Certainties.

State of Minnesota, to declare his sober belief that there is not anywhere on the globe such a thing as a mountain. From his cradle until manhood surrounded by a broad-spreading, flat, almost treeless prairie, with scores of miles of golden wheat-fields gleaming on every hand, he declares his belief that all the accounts given in the physical geographies of the height and bulk and mass and majesty of mountains, and that all the engravings and paintings and even pretended photographs of mountains are akin to the politics of the moon ! What shall I say to such a man ? Perhaps this : "My friend, take your journey nine hundred miles southwestward." And if he takes my advice, and arrives at midnight in the city of Denver, and having slept until morning, goes out on the piazza of his hotel and looks around him, — now is the time to reason with him about mountains; for, looking away southward and westward and northwestward, Pike's Peak and Gray's Peak, and fifty other peaks of God's eternal hills confront him. Now ask him if he believes in mountains.

Above all the night of man's ignorance, above all the storms of his sin, above all the mists of his doubt and unbelief, the eternal hills of God lift themselves for evermore, jeweled, sunlit, and eternal. I wish

Four Great Religious Certainties. it

to point out to you Pour Mountain Peaks of Religious Certainty.

I. First among these, led by the greatest of men and the grandest of apostles, I point out to you God ; the truth of a personal God; the fundamental concept of all religion, the underlying bed-rock of all these epistles, and of all this Book. This apostle generally begins his epistles by announcing himself "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." I say this is the fundamental concept of all religious belief, and assert concerning it, moreover, that it is the great and manifestly felt need at once of philosophy and of the human heart.

Of the intellectual part of this need I find evidence in the attitude of some of the scientific seekers after truth, who, after their farthest excursions into the regions of the scientifically known, come back many a time with the awe-struck mien of men who have heard the sound of majestic footsteps which they cannot trace, and the rustle of royal robes whose wearer is unknown to them.

The necessary philosophical conceptions of infinite space, and of eternal duration, find adequate answer only in the idea of that august Being "who inhabiteth eternity." And yet Agnostics speak of Him only as "the Unknowable," thus

Religious Certainties.

going, in their impertinent assumptions of universal knowledge, lower than their cousins in ancient Athens, who did indeed erect altars to "the unknown God," but who never had the effrontery to speak of Him as "the Unknowable." David has drawn their picture to the life. Far be it from me to speak a single severe word concerning any honest and pained and seeking doubter. But as to these allknowing and confidently-asserting doubters, I think David has drawn them to the life when he says, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," as though only a fool could say it, and he only in his heart. And then he finishes the picture by saying, "They are corrupt; they have done abominable works." Of course, such men want no God, and, in their hearts, they say there is no God.

Surely Lord Bacon was not mean in philosophy, and he was mighty in logic, and he says : "I would rather believe all the fables of the Talmud and the Koran than that this universal frame is without a mind. A little philosophy inclineth man's heart to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth man back to religion." The great want of the brain of man is God. But O, if this be the want of the mind, how intensely is it the want of the pained, aching, breaking, broken heart of the race ! "O that I knew where

.■ I might find Him ! O that I might come even to His seat !" "As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

: so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." "I thirst for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God ?"

Augustine put it truly : "Thou hast made man for Thee, and he is disquieted until he returns to Thee."

Now, to this immense need, what is the Divine answer? O ye seekers after fundamental truth in the realms of matter and of mind, come this way ; pillow your aching minds and hearts on the bosom of infinite Love; listen to the Book. What says it? Where shall I listen? To the first verse : "In the beginning, God." What a mighty satisfaction to right reason there is in this sublime postulate, "In the beginning, God !" "God created." "God said, Let there be light; and there was light." A personal God, creating, speaking; this is the fundamental need of all philosophy ; also of the aching heart of the race. So you shall find that the one effort of the Book is to satisfy this one need of the race. Open it at its earliest page and follow it down, and through all its books, be they history, poetry, prophecy, archaeology, biography, epistle, no matter what, you shall find the one revelation to be the satisfaction of man's one need — God.

Moses was sent to deliver God's ancient people, v and said, "They will not believe me; they will ask, 'Who sent you ?' " The answer simply was, "Go tell them, / am hath sent me unto you." The one want of Israel was God. Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal and of the grove, eight hundred and fifty. They call upon Baal from morn until noon, and from noon until the hour of the evening sacrifice; they cut themselves with knives and lancets; but there is no answer. Then the prophet of the living God builds up the broken-down altar, puts the flesh of a bullock on it, pours on it nine barrels of water, and then simply prays, "O Lord, let it be known this day that Thou art God;" that is all. That is all Israel needed.

Hezekiah receives an insulting letter from Sennacherib, and knows that Sennacherib tells truly what his fathers have wrought in the nations round about. He spreads out the letter before the Lord, and simply says, "O Lord, what this man says is true; but, O Lord, let it be known that Thou art God." One swing of the sword of one angel of the living God; one hundred and eighty-five thousand corpses, and Israel triumphant !

Come down to the time of David : "O Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations."

"Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee : Thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion forever." So I say, the one want of man, and the one revelation of the Book, is God.

II. Close beside this mountain peak of religious certainty I see another. At first glance it looks a little lower. But walk about them both, and climb upon them, and study them, and you shall see that they are of the same height. Christ! God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself ; He, concerning whom this great apostle says, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord!"

I must speak a few words concerning the historic Christ, and also concerning the omnipotent, ever-living, indwelling Christ.

Concerning the historic Christ mark this introductory statement; no fact is isolated; that is, no thing and no event. Each is part of all; each is woven into the mesh of circumstances, and can not be taken out without deranging the whole. A single acorn implies the universe. For, in order to this one acorn an oak with its roots, trunk, boughs, branches, twigs, leaves. In order to this, the earth, with the various elements of the soil, the rain, the sunshine ; the sun, the solar system, the visible universe. One acorn implies all this.

So each event is part of all, and is verified by its place in the general system of things. About three years ago the tallest erection of man on the surface of this planet was dedicated to its permanent use in the capital of this nation ; taller than the pyramids, taller than the Cologne cathedral spires, piercing the clouds at 555 feet from the ground. Now, why was it built ? To celebrate that illustrious man concerning whom the greatest of living Englishmen says, "If I were shown a number of pedestals for the historic characters most celebrated for nobility and purity, and one was pointed out higher than all the rest, and I were called upon to name the fittest occupant of that pedestal, I would at any time within the last forty-five years have said, as I would now say, George Washington." So says Mr. Gladstone. Now, why? How do I know there ever was such a man? Ask that boy of sixteen, "How do you know there ever was such a man as George Washington?" "Why, how do I know, sir ? How do I know ? That monument proves it ; the city in which it stands, and which bears his name, proves it; this nation, of which he was the father, proves it ; this world proves it ; it is a different sort of a world, and a better world, because he lived in it."

Now, suppose I should ask, not a boy of sixteen brought up here in America, or even in Christendom, but suppose that an intellectual and highly-educated Chinaman were set down by a miracle on this bright afternoon here on Broadway ; that he had never heard of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ until this hour; and, coming with the throng, had found his way into this building, and in yonder seat had watched this scene up to this moment, and had heard these songs and prayers; and that I had been able, in the space of one brief hour, to unfold to him what is the thought of the Christian world concerning the meaning of this Book, and of this other book, in which the thoughts of the first are wrought into poetry and set to music; and that during such a wonderful hour of revelation he should have passed in his thoughts from an unknowing Chinaman to a knowing and thoughtful Christian, suppose that then I should ask him, "Was there ever such a person as the Lord Jesus Christ on the face of the earth?" what would be his answer ? O ! methinks he would say, "Send that man to the lunatic asylum."

Well, have we not an anniversary dearer to the 2 heart of America than the 226. of February ; dearest of all anniversaries to the heart of England, and of Ireland, and of Scotland ; growing dearer every year to the heart of China, and of India, and of Africa ; the 25th of December! And why? Why is it that the millions of the children of many lands look to it as the brightest, merriest day of all the year, and that parents and children and friends make it a day of sweetest congratulations and richest gifts, unless the manger-cradled Babe of Bethlehem was actually born, and really died and rose again and went up into heaven?

Archbishop Whately wrote a tract which I wish every Christian, and especially every Christian minister, would read, entitled, "Historic Doubts Concerning Napoleon," in which he shows conclusively that on all the principles on which German neologists have ever called in question the historic character of the four Gospels, you can prove that Napoleon never lived. And, indeed, it were easier to bow out Waterloo than Calvary.

I pass on, however, for I will not pause for any extended argument before this Christian audience about the historic Christ ; but let us glance a moment at the ever-living, omnipotent, indwelling Christ, and trace His ascending track, from its nadir to its zenith, from the tomb of Joseph to the highest heaven, where God crowns Him, and angels and saints fall at His feet ; and see how He justifies both of His own wondrous sayings : "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am," and "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ;" enabling us to sing :

" One family, we dwell in Him, One Church above, beneath ; Though now divided by the stream — The narrow stream, of death."

Who is He? O, suppose that He were now to come in at yonder door, and take this place, and, standing before us in meek self-evidence — for we will never need to be introduced to Him — should say, as He said to His disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" O, if I might be your joyful spokesman, I would tell Him, "O blessed Christ, the world has not forgotten Thee; it is full of Thee; biographies of Thee are in all libraries." "But whom do men say that I am?" If my tongue did not cleave to the roof of my mouth, I would say, "Some say Thou art a myth, a fancy portrait, and thus that a myth has changed the face of the world." And then suppose that He should

2o Reugious Certainties.

demand of us, "But whom say ye that I am ?" O, if again I might be your happy spokesman, on bended knees and with streaming eyes I would cry, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, Thyself very man and very God." For has He not wrought this greatest of miracles, that He has outlived Himself, and enshrined His love on earth ?

O, the grave, the grave ! Why do men dread it so? Not, thank God, for what lies beyond it — through the infinite grace of Jesus Christ we may have the victory over that — but because it kills men so dead to this world, because it buries them out of sight, and presently out of mind, because it drives them away into an awful earthly oblivion. Who cares anything now for Julius Caesar? Who cares anything now for the great Napoleon? And yet, when the old men in this congregation to-day were little boys, Napoleon was in the height of his power, and his every step shook Europe and the world. Now, after less than three generations, even Frenchmen go to the most magnificent mausoleum on earth, in the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, as a mere holiday pastime. They laugh and chatter over the ashes of the great Napoleon. But O, there is one grave whose ashes have never grown cold — nay, there were never any ashes in it, and that is the glory of it — the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. There is one Name that seemed to be going out in darkness as well as in blood, which has grown bigger and bigger from that hour until now, and now fills the earth and the heavens. Why? I will tell you why. Because of the character of Him who bears it. Nothing else.

In the fourth century Julian the Apostate made the last great and persistent effort to replace Christianity by the old classic polytheism. He was one of the astutest statesmen and one of the mightiest warriors of the later empire. One of his orators, Libanius by name, said one day to a humble and despised Christian, "What is the Galilean carpenter doing now ?" And this humble and despised Christian had the wit and grace to answer, "The Galilean carpenter is building a coffin." It was only a few months before the coffin was done, and in it was laid the form of Julian the Apostate, and with it the last effort to revive the old polytheism.

Such carpentry has been going on ever since. It is about a century and a half since Voltaire, intoxicated with the incense of the French nation, said, "The Almighty will see fine sport in France within twenty years," and he said also, "Before the end of the eighteenth century Christianity will be a thing of the past." Well, the Galilean carpenter was then building another coffin, and soon it was done ; and in it was laid the form of the silly Voltaire, and beside him the corpse of the old French monarchy. The house in which he uttered his foolish prediction has long been a depository of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and Christianity did, indeed, become more grandly than ever a thing of the past, but its real empire is in the future.

It is within the easy recollection of many of us in middle life that the most contemptible of recent monarchs, the Nebuchadnezzar of modern nations, Napoleon the Little, rose up in the pride of his power and said: "Is not this great Paris, which the first Napoleon built of brick and which I have turned to marble? Is not this great France which exists for the glory of the Napoleonic dynasty? I will water my horses in the German Rhine and the hoofs of my cavalry shall clatter through the streets of Berlin." And the pope patted him on the back and said, "Well purposed, good and loyal son of the Church ; go and do this, and the blessing of God and of the pope shall be on thee." Six weeks, Sedan. Another coffin was done, built by the Galilean carpenter, and in it was laid the contemptible form of the modern Nebuchadnezzar, and beside him the temporal power of the pope never to rise again. "The Galilean carpenter"

has quite the habit of building coffins for His enemies and weaving crowns of immortal amaranth for His friends.

Who is He? "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Thyself very man and very God.

III. The next step to which the great apostle leads us, in the text I have read, brings us before another mountain peak of religious certainty : — O how the sinful world loves to look that way : Salvation ! God ! Christ ! God in Christ ! Salvation ! Salvation by Christ !

You know the value of the testimony of experts, and that in many great civil suits advocates are wont to bring forward in the crisis of the trial some expert, a man who by his natural ability, and his special studies, and his life-long practice of some profession, has more knowledge 'and a wiser judgment concerning the case in hand than the average man. Now, brethren, sisters, and friends, I want to bring you to-day an expert in this business of salvation, a man who knows all about it. And in enumerating his qualities I have this first to say : I verily think he is the greatest man the great God ever made ; greater than Burke, greater than Webster, greater than Caesar or Alexander; with a marvelous brain, and with a more marvelous heart, if that be possible; a very well-educated man. Undersized and homely, his enemies said; but don't let that distress you; Isaac Watts was an undersized man, and John Wesley weighed but one hundred and nineteen pounds. But the enemies of this man had to admit that his "letters" were "weighty and powerful." I should think they were, for they have changed the religious thought of the world. This man was originally and for a long time a hater of Jesus Christ, and a vigorous opponent of Christianity ; very well taught in the Old Testament Scriptures, with all advantages for recognizing the truth as it is in Jesus, and yet he came to hate Him. He stood by, a brilliant young man, holding the clothes of those who stoned Stephen, the first martyr, and he himself went about the business of persecuting Christians and of putting them into prison. He liked it so well, that finding out a new nest of heretics in Damascus, he went to the chief priests for authority to exterminate them. So skillful was he in his plans about it that he said, "Write in women as well as men." And in that he was wise ; for woman has always been the truest lover of Jesus Christ, and you never can root out Christianity anywhere until you grind under your iron heel the heart of woman as well as the brain of man.

And having this bloody commission, this insanely mad persecutor of the early Church started for Damascus and got there — no, he did not; another man got there. He was made over on the way, so that his very name had to be changed. He started Saul; he got there Paul. And from that splendid hour, until his death thirty years later, his head severed from his body by the sword of Nero, he insisted on being chained to Jesus' chariot wheels, the devoted slave of this blessed Christ, and yet declared that this service was perfect and joyful freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, the Apostle Paul !

I have to catechise him before you concerning his impressions about salvation in its outset, in its progress, and in its outcome. I want you to notice his picture of salvation. It is a remarkable picture. He says, long after this scene on the way to Damascus, — silvered with years, every power of his nature developed and tested in his conflicts with sin, on behalf of Jesus Christ and His Holy Gospel — he says years and years after that: "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I count them all but dross that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, but the righteousness of God through Christ by faith." And now mark his picture: "That I may know Him;" to know Him is the joy of earth and heaven. O, that is blessed. "And the power of His resurrection." By which he does not mean here, the power of God in raising Jesus from the dead. Turn a moment to Ephesians i, 18-20, and you will see exactly what he means. "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."

So you see He means by "the power of His resurrection," the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in the human soul. Do n't you see ? "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." That is awful, for He was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." "Being made conformable unto His death." O, that is terrible, for He died on a cross, between two thieves. And that is Paul's picture of salvation. It looks like the beginning of a climax, and then in the end a terrible anticlimax.

Pour Great Reugious Certainties. 27

But consider a little what other sort of salvation would have answered for that great, bad man, that chief of sinners, who claimed the bad eminence of being the bellwether of Satan's flock. Now, what will answer for him except a big, strong, stalwart, all-sided, magnificent salvation? Not only was he a great sinner, but a great sufferer, for thirty years dying daily. What would any salvation amount to for Paul that did not have a place in it for the "thorn in the flesh," that did not have a place in it for Nero's sword, that did not have a place in it for "perils among robbers," for "perils in the wilderness," for "perils by shipwreck," worst of all, for "perils among false brethren" ? So, you see, no other salvation would answer for Paul, that great sinner, that great worker, that great sufferer, but a big, round-about, stalwart salvation.

Let me ask him a question or two. "Paul, what would you say to a salvation by rose-water?" "Give me blood." "Blood?" "Yes, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It is a great, strong, sanguinary business with Paul, salvation is. "Well, Paul, what would you say to a salvation by culture, by developing all that is good and noble in human nature, and gradually repressing the bad?" "I must be a new creature ; I am a dead man and must have a resurrection ; I have got to be made over ; and, thank God, I have been." That is the salvation Paul got the notion of at the outset.

Did he keep up this idea ? Was that the sort of salvation that he exhibited all the way along? Let us see. I remarked that he had had many troubles, great troubles, and I now add that the salvation he got was not a salvation out of these troubles, but a victory over them. He had a thorn in the flesh that pierced him very sorely. I am so glad that commentators can not agree about that. One says it was ophthalmia ; another, dyspepsia ; and they tell you a dozen things. If any one of them could prove what he says, then only that class of sufferers would ever get the full comfort of it ; but now it belongs to everybody. That thorn pierced Paul sorely, and he prayed "three times" to have it taken away. That means three hundred or three thousand times. That means again and again, and again and again ; and God at last gave him a glorious answer: "Yes, Paul, I know ; I will answer more than you ask, but not in the way you ask. I will press in that thorn, and push it to the heart, and quick and bone and marrow ; but