Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

or whose lot has fallen without the bounds of Christendom, there may be a faith, that "does justly, and loves mercy, and walks humbly before God," that is more blessed because less instructed in the details of the divine plan. Its nature is illustrated by the case of the young man of whom account is given in the ninth chapter of John's Gospel. In the fervor of his gratitude to the unknown benefactor who had opened his eyes, he suffers himself to be cast out of the synagogue for his confidence in him. The Christ whose name he knew not then meets him with the question: "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" He asks: "Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?" and when told that he stands before him, confesses and worships. Now here was no change of heart, produced by this conversation. It gave him nothing but information; his feelings were the same when it ended as when it began. It only gave a new direction and a freer course to a faith already existing. In the strict sense of the word, it informed a faith which it did not create.

So the heathen may have an unformed faith, which saves the soul, because it is in substance what God requires, and which will joyfully accept Christ when revealed, as the object after which it has yearned. It still remains true that the heathen stand in deplorable need of the Gospel, to encourage the heart with its glad tidings and to interpret for them the common goodness of God, which in their twilight, they now misconstrue and abuse.

In principle, the case of those who have heard the name of Christ, but who reject him in ignorance of his character, does not differ from that of the heathen. Under the names of "Gospel," and "Savior," they may have heard such representations of the divine government and of the redemptive work that their apparent unbelief is the most generous and noble faith. Their rejection of Christ may be but nominal. They may be waiting for the true Christ because the Nazarene has been known to them only as a false Christ. It still remains true that the perversion of the Gospel is as dangerous for those who reject it, as it is criminal in those who heedlessly pervert it. Fancying that we are "evangelical," we may so take away the Lord from the minds of men that they shall utterly fail to find him, and shall

despair and perish. When we profess to hold the true Gospel, we should be not high-minded, but fear; for we then in fact signally claim to be -what we ever must be our brothers' keepers; and we have no right to judge or condemn those who reject our gospel, until it has been preached not as a formal doctrine, but as a true and beneficent Christian life.

§ 9. LOVE.

Faith can not subsist without Love, which is the "fulfilling of the law," and the "bond of perfectness." Their inner relation to each other may be obscure. Perhaps they may be compared as the act, and the habit, of the redeemed soul, or as volition and emotion. Act is ever passing into habit, -as the musician learns to play without conscious attention or effort, with delightful facility, and as a second nature. This gives new consciousness of power; new courage and effort; new victory and joy. That which began with self-denial, ends in a higher life of selfindulgence. The bondage of sin has yielded to the power of self-command, and this to a higher subjection, the self-will vanishing in its free allegiance to the divine will. The individual redemption is then complete; that which began with the want of power to do right, has ended in the lack of power to do wrong, and the contingency of sin, which pertains to our probation, is passed. This is the perfect law of liberty, in which we may continue, and be blessed in our doing. Inward delight in the law of God pervades all the powers of the soul. The fear and torment that pertained to a lingering power of sin, have been cast out by perfect love.

Virtue, we have granted, brings a reward of its own. And so does faith; but this is specially true of love. Love, for whatever object, imparts happiness though it be a mere fondness or pity for an unworthy thing. The poet has truly said

"Love is the life of living things."

1 Augustine defines the various stages of the will in respect to freedom, as a non posse non peccare, a posse non peccare, and a non posse peccare.

For it is their joy. But it is the highest joy when it is elevated and conformed to the supreme law of the world, as "holy, just, and good;" when it begins to embrace the world itself as redeemed for subjection to this law; when it apprehends the universe and eternity as the sphere of its infinitely varied application; and when it learns to rejoice in Him who is infinitely greater than the universe, to receive His smile, and to share His love and joy. As divine Love created the world, and rejoices in it all, even in a divine sorrow for that which turns away from God and dies, so Christian love, in sympathy with the divine, encircles and appropriates all things. It transmutes all things, even those which seem adverse, into spiritual wealth; like the philosopher's stone changing all it touches into gold. Love not only quickens the intellect, but sanctifies it as a spiritual sense, that "discerneth all things." The stores of learning, or the intellectual mastery of things, thus become an emblem of the Christian's wealth, in a nearer and dearer possession. He is heir of all things, because he has the mind of Christ. Because he loves, the entire world, life and death, things present and things to come all are his; as he is Christ's, and Christ is

God's.

This, which is the divine blessedness, must be indeed the Highest Good of man. Whence Paul, alluding, perhaps, to inquiries with which the Ephesian Christians had been familiar, prays for them, "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in Love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is Breadth, and Length, and Depth, and Height; even to know the Love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

THE END.

[blocks in formation]

Beecher, E. 53, 77, 78, 111, 406, 432 Clavering, R. 340

John, 45, 102

Bayne, P. 56

Clement of Rome, 208, 255, 289. 290

of Alexandria, 321, 322

Clerc, J. le, 42, 109, 351

Coleridge, S. T. 110, 121, 461, 465
Conybeare and Howson, 187
Coquerel, A. 114
Cousin, V. 246, 248

[110

Crousaz, J. P. de, 45, 77, 92, 98, 101,
Cudworth, R. 68, 151, 269, 274, 278
Cumming, J. 425
Cyprian, 328

Daubuz, C. 208, 212
Davidson, S. 217-219
Davy, Sir H. 111

Didymus of Alexandria, 325
Diodorus Siculus, 204, 267, 268
of Tarsus, 325

Diogenes Laërtius 277, 285
Diognetus, Epistle to, 298, 299
Dionysius of Alexandria, 324
the Areopagite, 143
Halicar. 237, 285

Dobney, H. H. 353
Dodwell, H. 80, 161, 352
Doederlein, J. C. 76, 315

Donatus the Grammarian, 269
Drew, S. 228

Drexel, J. 99
Dschelaleddin, 39

Dublin Univ. Magazine, 345
Duffield, G. 193

Du Pin, L. E. 315

"Duration of Evil," 353, 378

Dwight, T. 62, 113, 351

137, 207, 235, 365

Fraser, J. 267
Fulgentius, 99

Fuller, A. 72, 80, 371
Gerhard, 114

Gerson, J. 59

Gesenius, 215
Gibbon, E. 276

Gieseler, J. C. L. 38, 315, 325
Gillies, J. 370

Gnostics, the, 8, 9, 35, 284-287
Goadby, 333, 352

Goethe, J. W. von, 18, 355, 356
Goodwin, E. S. 188

Goodwin, T. 145

Gregory Nazianzen, 325

Nyssen, 144, 325

the Great, 94, 99, 136, 145

Grote, G. 191, 370

[398

Grotius, H. 166, 169, 205, 288, 315,
Hagenbach, K. R. 39, 347

Ham, J. P. 353

[blocks in formation]

Hickok, L. P. 386

[161, 353, 364

Hinton J. H. 13, 94, 101, 105, 109,

Edwards, J. the Elder, 57, 68, 72, Hippolytus, 298, 323, 324

the Younger, 114 419

Eisenmenger, J. A. 287, 288, 338,

Emmons, N. 93, 94, 131

Hobart, J. H. (Bp.) 255
Hobbes, Thos. 59

Hooker, R. 72

[341

Hopkins, S. 72, 89, 119, 131, 136
Howe, John, 235

[blocks in formation]

Huet, P. Dan. 315

Huidekoper, 255

Huntington, J. 72

Ignatius, 290, 291

Irenæus, 8, 9, 171, 231, 254, 300-302

Isidore of Pelusium, 169

Jacobi, F. H. 236
Jacquelot, I. 46
Jamblichus, 279
Jarchi, S. 341

Jenyns, Soame, 60, 111

Jerome, 111, 169, 302, 333, 334,
Jews, opinions of, 216-225, 284-288,

334-342

« FöregåendeFortsätt »