Selected sermons and addresses

Front matter

Book J&3

Copyright N°_

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

THIS book is first of all a memorial. It is not a commercial project. The venture was begun because numerous friends and former pupils of Dr. Ort deplore the fact that he was never permitted to put his writings into permanent form. All that it has cost us of time, anxiety, and means, is gladly and freely given. The general desire for such a volume, and the value of the papers, addresses, sermons, etc., selected, make it evident that the cost is fully justified.

The volume has great intrinsic value. The sermons and papers represent ripe scholarship of the best type and the most profound thought. The presentations of truth are clear and strong. Everyone can read them with profit.

Great care was exercised in making these selections from a vast amount of material. Many of these articles have never been published in magazine or pamphlet form. The selections are quite typical of their author, and represent a wide range of thought. They reveal his power in Scripture, his trend of religious thought, his knowledge of and interest in human affairs, and bring a live message to preacher and layman alike.

The family of Dr. Ort, together with the faculty of Hamma Divinity School, have heartily endorsed this publication, and have placed at our disposal the material from which the selections were made. Dr. Ort held a warm place in many hearts. He was loyally devoted to his Church and College, and gave freely of his time and strength to serve their interests.

May this volume go forth as a true memorial of this great life. He deserves an abiding place in our thoughts. Why should we soon forget those who do faithful service ? May these pages, then, carry messages of the Way, the Truth, and the Life into many homes of the Church.

Rev. H. C. Stafford.

Seattle, Washington, July 25, 1914.

A FOREWORD

THE preparation of this volume for the press has been a labor of love. The motive in issuing it has been to honor the author's memory and to give to the world the rich fruitage of his thought and experience. Dr. Ort was not much disposed to the making of books, and seemed to have more or less aversion to the labor of preparing manuscripts for the printer. We often urged him to put his best thoughts on various themes into proper form for publication, and he always replied that he perhaps would do so some day ; but, as all his acquaintances are aware, sickness and death came to him before he could carry out his purpose.

No doubt, too, his busy life, especially in the days of his greatest strength, precluded his commanding the time to prepare his manuscripts for the press. In his best days he was President of Wittenberg College for nineteen years ; then Professor of Systematic Theology in Hamma Divinity School ; at the same time he taught Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics and Theism in the College, and also spent much of his time and strength in going about among the churches preaching and delivering addresses. It is, therefore, little wonder he was unable to produce books. In his later years, when he was able to command some leisure, we fear that his physical strength had largely waned ; so that he had little disposition to undertake the task of careful and laborious writing.

However, he left a valuable legacy of manuscripts in the form of sermons, addresses, and various papers, which have been made available for publication through the kindly consent of his children who are still living. These papers were put by them into the hands of the present Faculty of Hamma Divinity School and the publisher, the Rev. H. C. Stafford. At first it was Mr. Stafford's idea to gather together a volume of Dr. Ort's lectures as taken down in the class-room by his students; but on the discovery of many papers in Dr. Ort's hand, it was decided to

6 Foreword

give up this plan, and make a collection from his manuscripts. To have used all that were available would have made by far too bulky a volume.

The selection of the present papers was made by Rev. Stafford, with the advice of the undersigned. He also had a large share in editing the manuscripts. However, for the most part, the editing of the papers was left to the undersigned at the request of both Mr. Stafford and Dr. Ort's family.

The editorial work has been almost wholly technical — the kind of work that must be done by some one in order to prepare a manuscript for the printer. Had Dr. Ort prepared his work for the same purpose, he would, no doubt, have attended to these technical matters ; but, as the papers were written only for his own eye, a good deal of work naturally had to be done upon them. In a few cases we have felt it a duty to make slight changes in the verbiage ; also to supply what was lacking to make the logical connection, when a sheet or two of manuscript had been lost. However, we have not changed Dr. Ort's thought, nor have we made any material alterations in his style ; the book appears as his own mental and spiritual product, written in his own characteristic literary manner. Our task, though a necessary one, has been a humble one.

We cannot close without paying our tribute to Dr. Ort's greatness of vision in dealing with the doctrines of the Christian religion. Always orthodox and Biblical, he never seemed to feel that his thought was fettered or cramped by faithful adherence to the Bible doctrines and the exhibition of them in the standards and confessions of his Church. Note his comprehensive view of the redemptive scheme through Jesus Christ; there is nothing contracted in such a view, embracing, as it does, the whole universe of matter and spirit in an immortal destiny. Note, too, his scopeful view of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of God and all the potentialities of humanity and the material universe. It is inspiring to read such great and all-comprehensive thoughts, and feel that they are included in the evangelical view of the doctrines of our holy religion.

Foreword 7

As has been said, Dr. Ort was truly orthodox. In all the manuscripts we have examined, there has not been found a false or uncertain note. He had little regard for the rationalistic criticism of the Bible. He never lost his faith in the Book as the infallible rule of faith and practice. It will be seen that his numerous appeals to the Holy Scriptures are made on the assumption that they are the end of all argument, the final court of appeal. A man of rich religious experience, yet he never thought of putting the "Christian consciousness" above the Bible or on an equality with it. While he does not deal specifically with this subject in any of his manuscripts, he everywhere takes it for granted that Christian experience is produced through the Word of God, and is, in turn, to be tested, guided and enlarged by the Word of God. True, there are many doctrinal Loci that are not treated in this book, but everywhere the whole system of evangelical truth is taken for granted. The keynote of Dr. Ort's life and theology was "Jesus Only;" the regulative doctrine of his doctrinal system was justification by faith; his formal principle, the Bible, the truly God-breathed Word.

While it is true that some of his sermons are quite rhetorical, and do not attempt to be argumentative, they are always based on the evangelical view of the Bible and the plan of redemption. In many of his addresses, both philosophical and theological, he makes no special attempt at closely knit and elaborate logical discourse, but states his views categorically, and even with dogmatic abruptness ; yet, so far as we can see, he never struck a false note, never departed in the least from the evangelical system of faith.

This posthumus volume will, we sincerely believe, be an inspiration to the many friends and students of Dr. Ort, and will bear a true and helpful message wherever it goes. No one can read these sermons and papers without an enlargement of his mental and spiritual vision and an uplift of both feeling and faith.

Leander S. Keyser.

Hamma Divinity School,

Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio.

Introduction

THE writer has been selected by the family of his deceased teacher and later colleague, to write the introduction to these selections from the writings of the late Rev. Samuel Alfred Ort, D. D., LL. D. When the news went forth that he had died at his home in this city, on January 6th, 1911, all who had known him well enough to form a correct estimate of his powers, knew that the Church had lost one of her most gifted leaders. The fact that a man of Dr. Ort's rare intellectual endowments had passed to the company of the patriarchs, apostles, saints and brethren with whom he had for years been associated in the work of the Church on earth, meant to all who had come under his guidance as teacher and preacher a sense of personal loss and bereavement. At the end of a long illness he had heard the "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord," and over his new-made grave — sensible of the Church's loss — men said in devout thankfulness for his life, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

To the last his powers of mind were quite unimpaired, and his constantly approaching weakness did not seem to depress his exultation and hopefulness. Often during his last days, in suffering and daily growing weaker, he bore both weakness and suffering, not only with unswerving patience, but with an unfailing cheerfulness that astonished his friends. Throughout the long decay of his physical powers, he not only displayed the strong affection of a devoted husband and father that he was, but was also always interested in, and inquiring about the interests of the Church he loved and into the service of which so many years of his life had gone.

To those who knew him, it need not be said that Dr. Ort was a man of unusual mental strength. Few men have been so well intellectually equipped for the work of teaching upon the most exalted themes of human consideration. His special

10 Introduction

intellecual gifts were philosophical. It was in philosophical study that he was most distinguished as a teacher, and nothing was more marked in his teaching of theology than his sense of the unity of knowledge. The mind for him was just the instrument for the unification of all the truth within man's reach. When he came to deal with the writings of men like Kant and Hegel, Von Hartman and Schopenhauer, Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Spencer, his mind was big enough to weigh them in its own scales and to be its own authority upon them. He had a noble enthusiasm for working in lofty fields of truth, understanding many of the great problems of human thinking and penetrating far into the processes of the human mind, impressing himself strongly on the young minds who came under his instruction.

Dr. Ort was a man of strong faith, and the Christian facts became the prime realities of his life. The central and leading realities with him were the Incarnation of our Lord and His redemptive work. Few men placed as much emphasis upon the principle of Justifying Faith. Around this he co-ordinated his theological thinking and teaching. Few men have had as much capacity as he to think a philosophical or theological subject through. He knew how to hold a profound problem in high thinking in the spheres of theology and philosophy before his mind in a strong grasp until he knew it and could describe it in all its details. To this capacity was added that of fine literary form. Few men could state such truth with more lucidity and simplicity that were always in evidence in his finest productions.

Dr. Ort, too, had a versatile mind, being a fine mathematician as well as philosopher and theologian, with a fine adaptability for either, and all held in subordination to the great object of his life, the service of the Kingdom of God. It was the peculiar qualities of his mind, associated with a devout spirit, that made him, when at his best, both a teacher and preacher of great force and attractiveness.

In the sphere of his work as a theologian, it should be said of Dr. Ort, that, with the passing of the years, and with his growing maturity, he came to be more and more attached to the great Lutheran system of evangelical truth. More and more, the

Introduction 11

writer may say from years of close association with him, he advanced to an appreciation of the depth and fullness and richness of that apprehension of the Gospel set forth in the theological treasures of the church in which he had been born and baptized, and to the service of which he gave his powers of mind and body.

The writer well recalls an incident of some years ago when he was giving much of his time and strength to a special study of the "Book of Concord." Several of us who had been his students, when all of us were younger, were in his company in the Seminary building. Taking from his table one of the well-worn volumes of Dr. Jacob's edition of that great storehouse of theology, he said to us in the familiar speech of earlier days, "Boys, the longer I live and study, the more assured I feel that in this book we have a system of theology so biblical and well stated that it needs no revision." It was all said with an earnestness and depth of appreciation that made a deep impression.

The writer knew Dr. Ort for many years, coming first to know him in 1868, while he was teaching in the girls' seminary at Hagerstown, Maryland, conducted at that time by the late Dr. Charles Martin. During that year he preached frequently in the Lutheran church in one of the villages of Washington County, when the writer was a boy in that congregation. A few years later he became a student under him at Wittenberg College. Still later, and for years, he was closely associated with him in the work of the Church as a co-instructor and colleague in the theological seminary.

He was made for fellowship and friendship. His humanity was ample and always easily accessible. There was about him as a man, a genial depth and simplicity of nature, a kindliness in eye and voice that made of him a most companionable man and teacher both admired and loved. Side by side the writer has lived with him for years, and a kinder, more considerate and devoted husband and father in his own home he has not known.

Dr. Ort lived and died a poor man, having devoted his fine gifts solely to the work of preacher and teacher. The writer has never heard him wish that his choice in life had been other than

12 Introduction

it was. His devotion to the Church was deep and disinterested. Now that he has gone to be forever with the Lord, what right minded man who has a proper estimate of the relative importance of things in this life, will doubt the wisdom of his choice of a vocation, that he devoted his strong powers to the great work of a preacher of Christ's Gospel and the training of the youth of the land in the years when they are receptive and called to choose in the great concerns of human selection.

He was more than an eloquent preacher and a fine teacher. Behind his office, and shown in all his official and private intercourse with men, was the spirit of a dignified, but humble Christian who felt in his own experience the power of the truth he taught. The sacred science of divine things was his joy and delight. Its great realities were the foundation of his intellectual, moral and spiritual life. In the Gospel he found the philosophy that controlled his thinking, and the inspiration for the Church and the world. He had but little patience with men who are running to and fro after sociological and other fads to settle grave problems. The solvent of such problems of current interest he found in the Gospel which came down from heaven.

The demand upon his time as preacher, teacher and administrator of a college, left to this man but little opportunity for authorship. But what has been collected from his writings for this volume furnishes an idea of what he might have done, had his life been less strenuous, and his opportunity for meditation and writing greater.

He was a gift from God to the Church in a perplexed and trying time. Many who knew Dr. Ort when he lived will be long inspired as they cherish the memory of his laborious, disinterested and truly Christian faith.

David H. Bauslin.

Hamma Divinity School, Springfield, Ohio, July, 1914.

Contents

I

SERMONS page

The Only Source of Life 46