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IvIBRARY

OF THE

University of California.

Class

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/artofexpositionOOjeffrich

THE ART OF EXPOSITION

THE

ART OF EXPOSITION

H. JEFFS

AUTHOR OF " THE ART OF SERMON ILLUSTRATION "

LONDON

JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET

1910

" O how love I Thy law ! it is my meditation all the day."

Psalm cxix. 97.

' • If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God."— John vii. 17.

• • For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to
another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit." — i Cor. xii. 8.

" Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, accord-
ing to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself."

Ephesians i. 9.

" Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect
not the gift that is in thee." — i Tim. iv. 13, 14.

" Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

2 Tim. ii. 15.

214650

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Modern Difficulties of Exposition

II. The Preacher as Bible Teacher .

III. Qualifications of the Expositor .

IV. The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

V. Exegesis and Exposition

VI. The Spirit of Bible Books .

VII. Methods of Exposition .

VIII. Bible Background ....

IX. The Golden Chain ....

X. Studies in Exposition, Illustration
Application

and

PAGB
19

102

135
158

187

INDICES

I. Index of Subjects of Expositions.

II. Index of Authors, Commentators and
Preachers '

III. Index of Texts Expounded ....

249

25?

252

THE ART OF EXPOSITION

CHAPTER I

MODERN DIFFICULTIES OF EXPOSITION

Exposition is the art of opening up the scriptures,
laying them out, reproducing their matter and their
spirit in forms vitalized by the personality of the
expositor. The expository preacher shows how the
portraits, the dramas, the theology, the ethics of the
Hebrews are for ever "profitable for instruction,"
because human nature in its weakness and its strength,
its hopes and its fears, its sorrows and its joys, its help-
lessness when left to itself and its consequent dependence
on God, its craving for communion with God and the
realized possibility of such communion, is unchangeable.
He compares scripture with scripture, and most of all he
throws back on the scriptures of the Old Testament the
searchlight of the New.

Exposition is an art. It demands skill. Knowledge
is necessary, and insight, and tact, and understanding
of the psychology of the congregation, and touch with
the times ; for the main purpose of exposition is to apply
the knowledge of scripture to serviceable uses. The
skill is perfected by practice. It is the author's hope
that his hints and the examples will assist the preacher

The Aft of Exposition

whose ambition is to be so thoroughly at home in the
Bible, so familiar with the sacred text, that he will be
infused with its spirit, and will spare no pains to become
so expert in lucid and attractive exegesis and application
that he will send a modern congregation away with its
appetite for the Bible keenly whetted, and resolved to
make the Bible more and more in the individual life,
and in every department of social life, **a lamp to the
feet and a light to the path."

Nothing so demonstrates the inspiration of the Bible
as the fact of its inexhaustible freshness and its never-
failing power to inspire after nineteen centuries of
preaching upon and from it. In the British Islands
alone at least 100,000 sermons are preached every
Sunday, and in America probably double the number.
Any other book subjected to such treatment would have
been preached to rags centuries ago, and the world would
have been wearied to death of it. And yet, every Sunday,
millions of devout people in every part of the earth go
to church to hear sermons, and the more the sermons
are " Bible sermons," in the fullest sense of the word, the
better they like them. The Bible is a fountain, the
spring of which never runs dry. It is a mine of " unsearch-
able riches." It is bread " new every morning," which, the
more it is broken, multiplies the more. It seems, indeed,
as if, after all these centuries, only the surface of the
Bible had been scratched, leaving the deep rich under-
soil still to be delved and cultivated by the students and
preachers of our own age and of the ages that are to
follow.

And yet there are difficulties in the exploration of the

Modern Difficulties of Exposition

Bible mine, and in the exposition of its treasures, presenting
themselves to the preachers of to-day which did not
present themselves to the preachers of former genera-
tions. It is true that every age has its own methods of
approaching the Bible and draws from the Bible the
things that are most demanded to meet the needs of the
age ; but the preachers of former ages had a great
advantage in the commonly accepted belief that the
Bible was, from Genesis to Revelation, a connected
series of directly and inerrably revealed books, every
sentence, every word, of which could be appealed to as a
tribunal of last resort whose decision must be unquestion-
ingly accepted. Systems of theology were constructed
on that theory of the Bible, codes of morality were based
on it. Churches were formed with distinctive doctrines
that owed their origin to some phrase or phrases which
were regarded as binding on all believers for all time,
because all that was in the Bible was equally infallible,
equally authoritative, equally to be accepted without
asking the reason why. That view of the Bible placed
the preacher as the official interpreter of the Bible, the
official director of the Christian conscience, in a position
of terrifying responsibility. Much of the power of the
preaching of older days was directly due to the
inerrable and infallible theory of the verbal and literal
inspiration of the Bible. That theory, in its full accept-
ance, has ceased to be, though it may be held still by a
pious soul here and there, and here and there by a select
society of pious people living their isolated life in " a
little garden walled around." They believe, in spite of
the astronomer and the geologist, that the earth was

The Art of Exposition

created before the sun and the stars in six twenty-four-
hour days ; that our first parents were brought into being,
fashioned of the dust of the earth, within those six days,
and placed in a garden whence they were driven through
their disobedience that entailed upon all their descend-
ants the unescapable guilt of original sin ; that the
course of the sun was arrested to complete an Israelite
victory ; that Jonah lived inside a whale that plunged
with him into the depths of the sea ; and so on.

That, however, is not the way in which the Bible is
regarded by the commonalty of the Christian world in
these days, and it is not likely that the ancient view of
the Bible will ever recover its lost ground. Science has
come and has revealed to us the wisdom and the power
of the Creator exercised in a universe of a million
million suns. Historical and literary criticism have
come and have applied their microscopes to every word,
to every letter of the Bible books, and have revealed to
us the processes by which those books came into
existence. We know now that the human element
co-operated with the Divine element in the production
of the Bible to an extent of which our fathers never
dreamed. We know that the human mediums of
revelation were invaluable instruments, but that the
treasure was given in earthen vessels, that the revelation
itself is coloured by the varying personalities of the
Bible writers, that the revelation is a spiritual revelation
dealing with the things of the soul and the soul's com-
munion with God, and that where matters of mere
history, mere literature, mere ecclesiastical arrangements
are concerned, the Bible writers were liable to errors

Modern Difficulties of Exposition

due to the limited knowledge and the imperfect light of
the people to whom they belonged and the times in
which they lived. The business of the expert Bible
student of to-day is to separate the essential and eternal
truth of the Bible, which is its vital revelation, from the
local and temporal human elements, which are simply
the perishable settings of the truth. The human
elements are infinitely valuable ; they are of thrilling
interest ; they make their direct appeal to the imagination
of Bible readers. But the expositor can no longer
appeal to phrases and texts which belong to the perish-
able setting as if they had the authority of words
directly written by the finger of God Himself. Much
of the teaching given by or deducible from the books of
the Bible, especially the books of the Old Testament, is
relative truth. The degree of relativity has to be
determined by delicate processes of criticism and by the
even more delicate exercise of spiritual discrimination.
The truth that is in the Bible reveals itself gradually to
spiritual men as they become progressively illumined
by the ripening of their personal religious experience.
The Christian preacher holds the teaching of the New
Testament up as a lantern casting its rays over the
books of the Old Testament, and by the light of the
lantern he is able to distinguish the degrees of revelation
that are to be found in the writers who prepared the
way, from the first faint hues of coming dawn that
made the darkness visible, to the half light of the
prophets and the psalmists who heralded the noon-day
glory that was to be shed abroad by the Light of the
World.

The Art of Exposition

The study of comparative religion in these latter
days, the archaeological discoveries that have brought to
light the civilizations, the literatures and the religions
of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, have revealed that
the religion of the Hebrews had antecedents and
important analogies in the religions of the branches of
the Semitic and other Oriental races. The expositor
is no longer able to claim that either the religion of the
Old Testament, with its doctrine of sin and the fall, or
the religion of the New Testament, so far as it is not
faith in the Person of Christ, was an entirely new
revelation from God to a world that was living in the
dense darkness of blankest ignorance of Himself and
of His moral and spiritual demands upon humanity.
We realize, as earlier generations did not, that God
"hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth," that He is the equal
Father of all the races of mankind in every age, that
He has never completely hidden Himself from any
race in which devout men were groping after Him, " if
haply they might feel after Him and find Him,'*
and that the peculiar privilege of the Jews was not that
they received the monopoly of the knowledge of God,
but that it pleased God to make them the channel of a
special, peculiar and progressive revelation of Himself,
so that they might be " a guide of the blind, a light to
them which are in darkness, instructor of the foolish, a
teacher of babes."

We know all this, but the knowledge makes the work
of the preacher-expositor enormously more difficult.
He has to safeguard and to use the essential revelation

Modern Difficulties of Exposition

of the Bible if his preaching is to be dynamic and
authoritative to the minds, the hearts and the consciences
of the people of to-day, whose faith in the Bible has in
countless cases been rudely shaken by false impressions
of what science and historical and literary criticism have
done with the Bible. People are asking, *' Is the Bible
more than the best of the Bibles of many religions ? Is it
more than the record of what the Hebrews, stretching
lame hands of faith, found in the dim ages of ignorance
and childish superstition ? If there is so much that is
uncertain as to the origin of the Bible books, if there is
so much that is questionable in the history and in the
statements about God and His requirements of men,
how is it possible to accept the Bible as an authorita-
tive standard of faith in regard to doctrines that
are the subjects of never-ending controversy, and to
accept the spiritual * guesses at truth ' and the
tentative ethics of the Hebrews for peoples and
for ages whose civilizations and whose industrial and
social conditions differ so radically from those of the
Hebrews of two thousand to three thousand years
ago?"

The Bible expositor is compelled to face such ques-
tions if he is to be a real helper, either to troubled souls
or to sceptical spirits, in such an age as this. He is not
placed in the pulpit to please himself, to preach along
lines that are interesting to himself; he is placed in the
pulpit to make a spiritual and moral atmosphere, the
breathing of which shall build up men and women
strong of soul, and heart, and mind, who shall in their
turn help to make the atmosphere of the world in which

The Art of Exposition

they live the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God in
which the fruits of the Spirit shall freely grow and ripen
in every field of human activity.

There is no reason for the expositor to despair. The
Bible has lived through many centuries and has stood
many a shock, and it will live through the shocks which
it is sustaining in our own age. The Bible is a lifeboat
that lives and rights itself in the stormiest seas, and
to-day, as ever, it is able to put out and to pick up
sinking souls from every perishing wreck. Let the
fearful preacher turn sometimes from his literary and
historical criticism, his evolution theories and his terrified
contemplation of the analytical " modern mind," and look
at the work Bible-preachers are doing in the hottest
corners of the world's battlefields. In slums at home,
in the dark places of the earth abroad, men and women
who make the Bible their daily bread, whose blood is
rich and red with the Bible on which they daily feed,
are fighting with fearless courage and are winning
victories as signal as were ever won by the men and
women of any generation who used the Bible as a two-
edged sword. The proof of the revelation in the Bible,
of the inspiration of the Bible, is to be found not in ny
theory of how the books in the Bible came into being,
but in the fact that the Bible still inspires, still makes
men and women strong of soul and of unquenchable
faith, still works moral miracles by the thousand and the
ten thousand, still commands the unfeigned assent and
consent of the world's most powerful intellects, still
supplies the principles and the power to the men and
the women who are leading the world upward from the

Modern Difficulties of Exposition

shadows of the valley to the sun-bathed mountain top
above the mist.

The expositor who reads his Bible in order to drink in
and give out its inspiration will find that the Bible never
fails him. He will find that if he does give out its
inspiration congregations of the twentieth century will
drink it in with open ears and open hearts. Let him be
sure, however, that he gets into his expositions what is
essential and vital and inspiring, and guard himself
against wasting himself on questions of comparatively
trivial interest, and against giving to his congregation
the results of his historical criticism and literary studies
rather than the messages that have come to his deeply-
stirred heart and to his illumined mind in his devout,
continual and humble reading of the Bible as the Word
of God, as that Word came in the days of old to men
who lived in close communion with Him. Those Bible
writers were men who shared our universal humanity,
and who, perhaps because they lived in a simpler, less
subtle and less distracted age, were of clearer vision and
more receptive heart and mind than are we men in
these hustling and bustling days. The worst thing the
expositor can do in the pulpit is to confuse a congrega-
tion of average people, untrained to form their own
judgments on the critical and historical questions
at issue, by forcing such questions upon them in his
sermons. Such questions have nothing to do with the
essential revelation and inspiration which make Bible
exposition and application dynamic. The expositor, of
course, ought to study such questions, ought to have an
intelligent understanding of the historical and literary

17 B

The Art of Exposition

processes involved in the production of the Bible books,
but that study and that understanding should be kept at
the back of his mind ; his business is to present to the
people the divinity and the humanity of the Bible that
" make the whole world kin " as members of the family
of " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " and
of universal humanity. The expositor who knows his
business will certainly never use the method unfortu-
nately adopted by certain " advanced " preachers, of
quoting a passage of scripture, or a text, only to
publicly criticize it, although afterwards they may
explain that though it is very doubtful whether the
passage or the text ought to have been found in the
book at all, and the book itself is late and legendary, it
may be used for what it is worth. Let the expositor
preach Bible sermons that he can preach with convic-
tion, and abstain from sermons in which he is giving not
convictions by which he lives, but opinions that are as the
growth of seed that has fallen on stony ground, that
may be uprooted to-morrow and changed for other
opinions that have no more depth of root. The world
never needed Bible preaching more than it does to-
day ; people never welcomed Bible preaching from the
preacher with convictions more eagerly and hungrily,
and the man who can satisfy that deep hunger of the
soul for Bible preaching, though he may be no dazzling
genius, will find pulpits open to him wherever he goes.
His bread will never fail, for the people will always
provide daily bread for the man who knows how to
break and distribute to them the Bread of life.

CHAPTER II

THE PREACHER AS BIBLE TEACHER

RUSKIN, in " The Stones of Venice," says the Refor-
mation was, in reality, not reformation but reanimation.
The Church had lost the vivid sense of the reality of
religion. " Year after year, as the history of the life of
Christ sank back into the depth of time, and became
obscured by the misty atmosphere of the history of the
world, as intermediate actions and incidents multiplied
in number, and countless changes in men's modes of
life, and tones of thought, rendered it more difficult for
them to imagine the facts of distant time, it became
daily, almost hourly, a greater effort for the faithful
heart to apprehend the entire veracity and vitality of
the story of its Redeemer ; and more easy for the
thoughtless and remiss to deceive themselves as to the
true character of the belief that they had been taught
to profess." Every year "removed the truths of the
Gospel into deeper distance, added to them also some
false or foolish tradition ; wilful distortion was added
to natural obscurity, and the dimness of memory was
disguised by the fruitfulness of fictions." Then came
the Reformation. " On one side stood the reanimated
faith, in its right hand the Book open, and its left hand
lifted up to heaven, appealing for its proof to the Word

19 B 2

The Art of Exposition

of Testimony and the power of the Holy Ghost. On
the other stood, or seemed to stand, all beloved custom
and believed tradition ; all that for fifteen hundred
years had been closest to the hearts of men, or most
precious for their help."

" In its right hand the Book open ! " There could be
no happier symbol of the Reformation. It had redis-
covered a lost Book — lost not only to the people, but to
the priests. The Church had lost the key to its interpre-
tation. John Wiclif, and John Huss, had found the key,
but the Church " loved darkness rather than light," and
the partly-opened Book was closed again with a vicious
snap. The Reformation opened the Bible once and for
all. The Reformation Hebraists and Hellenists almost
blinded themselves in collation of MSS., for there was a
cry of " back to the text," and the received text was
hopelessly corrupt, while such translations as were
allowed were from corrupt texts of the Vulgate.
Then, when the text was more or less purged, the
work of the commentators began, for the honest
meaning of the plain words of the text had to be
discovered. The mediaeval Church had so wrested and
warped and allegorized the text that it had made
confusion worse confounded. Luther, Calvin and
Melancthon approached the books of the Bible as
devout believers, but still as open-eyed scholars, with
a fairly developed critical sense, and they gave to the
preachers commentaries which enabled them to go into
their pulpits and expound the Bible as it had never
been expounded since the fifth century. The Reforma-
tion preaching was expository preaching, and the

The Preacher as Bible Teacher

Reformation congregations, hungry for the Bible, hung
upon the lips of the preachers, and from the sermons
went home to search the scriptures for themselves and
to meditate on what they found. Expository preaching
had power then, it has had power ever since, and it
always will have power when the preacher is steeped in
the Bible, is in love with the Bible, and gives out the
Bible from every pore of his being as he opens it out to
the people.

The Bible is the preacher's Book and the preacher's
glory. Bible exposition is the preacher's main business.
If he cannot or will not expound the Bible, what right
has he in any pulpit ? He is a cumberer of the ground,
and worse than a cumberer, for he is occupying uselessly
ground that might be occupied by a fruit-bearing and
soul-nourishing tree. If he does not expound the Bible,
what else is there for him to do? He may deliver
addresses " out of his own head " on any subject that
occurs to him, and may do it very well, but why do it in
a pulpit .-* Is he his own Gospel, or has he a Gospel that
can just as well be preached without the Bible as with
it ? He is presumably a preacher of a Christian Church,
but there would have been no Christian Church to-day
had there been no Bible. The appeal of Christ Himself
was continually to the scriptures, and with His followers,
where they planted the Gospel throughout the East and
the West after the scenes on Calvary and Olivet, the
appeal was to " What saith the scriptures ? " A preacher
may draw fine discourses from metaphysic, from litera-
ture, from science, from anything and everything, and
may for a time interest audiences but is he feeding their

The Art of Exposition

souls ? IS he giving them strength that will stand the strain
of the tragic crises of life, and building up moral stamina
that will resist alike the scorching blasts of passion and
the subtle workings of a thousand insidious temptations ?
The preacher is not a public entertainer ministering to
the taste of an audience that enjoys fine oratory ; he is
not a dexterous dairyman skimming the cream of
literature and thought and serving it nicely flavoured
to dainty consumers — he stands between God and a
company of souls whom God created and for whose safe
and wise shepherding God will hold him responsible.
" Feed my sheep ! " " Feed my lambs ! " said the Master,
and wherewith shall he feed them if not from his studies
in the Divine Library that is the record of God's deal-
ings with Israel through many centuries of spiritual
education. What other literature, what other history,
gives us what the Bible gives, so carries with it its
credentials as a unique revelation of God's nature,
character and purposes, and has so authenticated itself
by the saints it has made, the civilizations it has created,
the nations it is even now bringing to a new birth, the
broken hearts it is still binding, the treasure of joy it is
ever heaping up to humble believing souls, the pillows
of the dying it never fails to smooth, the tears of the
bereaved it tenderly wipes away ? So long as there
remains the triple tragedy of sin, suffering and death so
long the Bible will speak to the heart of man, and
humanity that has once known the Bible will turn away,
after the novelty has worn off, from every flashy substi-
tute for the Bible that our modern Athenians push as
the latest thing in the spiritual market.

ic Preacher as Bible Teacher

A great expositor is not necessarily a great preacher,
for to the making of the preacher go certain indispens-
able gifts of personality and speaking power that may
be denied to the expositor ; but there has been no great
preacher yet who was not a great expositor. The
preacher is a man who feeds on the Bible, who " eats
the Book " till the book becomes bone of his bone and
flesh of his flesh, and gives the rich redness to his
blood. He may know other books well, but he knows
the Bible best. Other books he enjoys, they are the
feasts of his leisure hours ; but the Bible is his daily
bread. Other books he can do without, if need be,
though with regret ; but without the Bible he is '* alone
on a wide, wide sea," without chart, compass or rudder,
and with " water, water everywhere " there is " not a
drop to drink." One who so loves the Bible, so feeds
on it, so incorporates it with his being, if he be a
preacher, gives out the Bible in every sermon he delivers
as the lark gives out its unpremeditated lay. Such a
one is the ideal expositor, expounding the Bible even
when he is not conscious that he is doing it. There
have been splendid expositors in the days of the past
who read the Bible and read little else ; but in these
days the expositor is expected to read a good deal more
than the Bible. The danger is that in reading the
other books he may give too little time to the Bible
itself. Preachers are not unknown who read nearly
everything they can lay their hands on about the Bible,
who are keenly interested in the fascinating literary,
historical and critical problems relating to the Bible
books, but to whom the Bible itself has only a secondary

The Art of Exposition

interest. An average earnest preacher of a century or
two centuries ago, could he " revisit the glimpses of the
moon," and test the familiarity of such men with the
language and teaching of the Bible, would give a con-
temptuous grunt. Sober and earnest critics, as I hope
to show later, have rendered inestimable service to the
preachers by relieving the Bible of much ancient dust
and cobwebs, by clearing up innumerable problems,
by giving a rational view of the inspiration of the
Bible, and tracing the moving finger of God in the
step-by-step revelation of Himself through two thousand
years of Hebrew history ; but a very good critic can be
a very poor expositor. The critic is dealing with the
frame of revelation ; the expositor is dealing with the
picture. The critic is dealing with the human elements,
the earthen vessels ; the expositor with the Divine
contents. The critic is dealing with the materials that
make up the body ; the expositor is dealing with the
soul, with " the spirit and the life." A great critic who
is also a great expositor — there are such, notably Dr.
George Adam Smith — is the rarest of God's good gifts
to the Churches. Let us be thankful that we have the
great and devout critics, but let us be doubly thankful
that the devout Bible reader and Bible lover, who may
be very poorly endowed with the critic's judgment and
the critic's specialist knowledge, may be an expository
preacher of no mean order.

The preacher is a Bible teacher, and this is where the
need for expository preaching is most felt in these days.
It is sometimes said that the days of the preacher are
numbered, that people now do their own reading. They

The Preacher as Bible Teacher

are thinking, and are not, as in former days, dependent
on the preacher, and will not submit to take their views
on religion from him. But what do the people read, and
do they, in any real and deep sense, do any serious
thinking at all? Is it not the fact that people are
more and more contented to have their thinking done
for them by the journalist, by the dramatist, by the
novelist, by the popular politician or the flashy literary
man, who thinks he is a bit of a theologian ? Life is
lived at such a pace, they say, business takes so much
out of a man, that after business hours he is in no mood
for reading anything but the lightest and slightest stuff ;
and as for thinking hard, and sustaining the thinking,
that is a most unreasonable thing to ask the modern man
to do. And these are not only the people who do not
go to church, but the people who do go, though an
increasing number of those who go are becoming
"oncers." These are on the way to dropping out alto-
gether, when they take to motoring, or remove to another
neighbourhood. It used to be Britain's boast that it
was the land of the Bible, that its greatness was built on
the Bible, that it supplies the world with the Bible, and
sends its missionaries and its colporteurs to carry the
Bible, in 420 languages, to every race and tongue of
every continent and island of the sea. But are British
people themselves reading the Bible, even British church-
going people ? There is grave reason to fear that an
examination in Bible knowledge of an average congrega-
tion, especially a suburban congregation, would reveal
an appalling ignorance of the Bible. If every church-
goer were closely questioned as to the average amount

The Art of Exposition

of Bible reading he gets through during the week, a vast
number of very good people who sing hymns and listen
to sermons would be made intensely uncomfortable.
Family worship — such is the general testimony of those
who have opportunities of judging — is becoming the
rarest thing even in the homes of the most regular
church-goers. The young people, with their studies and
their hobbies, do not care to be compelled to be in at a
fixed hour for family worship, and their old-fashioned
parents, though often with a sigh, have been compelled
to abandon it. Certain well-meant "Daily Portion"
schemes have done much more harm than good by con-
veying the impression that a perfunctory scurrying
through of a disconnected snippet of a dozen verses,
perhaps while dressing in the morning or while drowsy
before going to bed at night, is a sufficient substitute for
systematic reading of the Bible. Altogether, the Bible
is becoming a forgotten Book. And there is serious
danger of it becoming a discredited Book, for these
people have heard of critical reconstruction of the Bible,
and of attacks upon it by men of science, by literary
meteors who find it easy to dash off dazzling epigrams at
the expense of the Bible, and by patentees of new religions
and experimental new theologies; and without having read
or tried to understand the Bible for themselves, people
jump with modern agility to the conclusion that where
so much is doubtful and questionable, it is better to leave
the Bible alone, and so save time and worry. It is for
the preacher by patient, competent, interesting and con-
vincing expository preaching to send such people back
to the Bible, to reveal to them its intrinsic interest,

The Preacher as Bible Teacher

to demonstrate its power, and to show that whatever
modification we may have to make of ancient views as
to the shell of the Bible, the kernel is as sound, as sweet
and as nutritious as ever.

There is a wonderful self-readjusting power of the Bible
to the changing conditions and the new knowledge of
every succeeding age. The devout critic assists in the
readjustment ; but no critic, devout or hostile, can touch
the life of the Bible, its essential spirit, that which makes
it "the Word of God" that "endureth for ever." The
hostile critic's lances, however well-tempered and how-
ever sharpened, are shivered to splinters against the
breastplate of the inspiration of the Bible ; the hurtling
shells of the biggest guns of the super-Dreadnoughts of
destructive criticism fly off from the Bible's armour-
plates as pop-gun pellets would rattle harmlessly against
a 30-inch steel-plate. The preacher, as teacher, is set for
the defence of the Bible, and its best defence is its clear
exposition by a man who has himself been inspired by
the inspiration of the Bible, who knows that it is the
Word of God, who knows that " the foundation of God
standeth sure," who has himself through knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures been made " wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Jesus Christ," and whose own
heart and head and experience have demonstrated to
him that *' all scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness."

CHAPTER III

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE EXPOSITOR

First among the qualifications of the expository
preacher is, of course, intimate familiarity with the
Book which it is his business to expound. He must read
the Bible, not once or twice, but be always reading it,
until he knows the Bible authors as the musical virtuoso
knows his Beethoven, his Mozart, his Chopin, his
Schumann, his Wagner. The musical virtuoso — pianist
or violinist — in interpreting a piece of music plays it not
only as an abstract composition, expressing certain ideas
through the medium of the materials of melody and
harmony, but he has made a close study of the com-
poser, he has got into sympathetic touch with the
composer's brain and heart, he has learnt the secret of
the composer's individuality, he has found that in that
man's music there is a flavour which singles it out from
the music of all other composers, and stamps it with the
ineffaceable mark of its maker's originality, and in his
interpretation of that music he has to bring out that
flavour, and reveal and recreate the spirit which made
the composer a master and a classic. A soulless pianist
or violinist plays the music of every composer in the
same mechanical way, and listeners, though they may
marvel at the dexterity of the artist in dealing with the

Qualifications of the Expositor

technical difficulties, are never really touched, and the
music strikes no responsive chords in their hearts.

The reader of the Bible, who marks and learns as he
reads, soon finds that each inspired writer is an original
personality. God did not choose conventional and
colourless mediocrities to be the mediums of His revela-
tion of Himself to Israel and to the world. The Divine
afflatus was breathed on men of strongly-marked
individuality, who looked on men and things with their
own fresh vision, and who spoke even God's thoughts
in their own way. There is as much difference between
the Jahvist and the Elohist narrators of the historical
books as there is between J. R. Green and Hume ; as
much difference between the Isaiah of XL. — Lxvi. and
Jeremiah as between Beethoven and Wagner ; as much
difference between Hosea and Micah as between Chopin
and Mendelssohn. One of the greatest services devout
criticism has done to the Bible is to have brought into
high relief the personalities of the Bible writers. We
are to study the books as inspired literary creations
of original personalities, and so studying them we shall
find ourselves brought face to face and heart to heart
with the authors, we shall live over again with them the
times in which they wrote, and our hearts will be stirred
by the emotions out of which the books came into being,
and so the books will become to us a living and dramatic
literature, and not be — as they too often were in the
uncritical days of indiscriminate lumping together of
the Bible books without regard to their authorship, date
and literary forms — a museum collection of puzzling
antiquarian curiosities. Even in the uncritical days

The Art of Exposition

hungry souls who fed on the Bible found the food that
they loved, and became " fat and flourishing," for the
essential spirit of the Bible always makes itself felt, and
there is enough, and more than enough, in the books,
however uncritically read, that makes its direct and
simple appeal to the universal human heart ; but, all the
same, we penetrate deeper into the "secret of the
presence of God " when we find out what manner of
men they were to whom He committed the precious
deposit of His revelation "at sundry times and in
divers manners." We yield to the spell of the human
personalities of the writers, and the touches of nature
we find in their works make us kin to them. They are
no longer shadowy beings, annihilated by the over-
powering stress of a Divine Dictator, who used them
simply as His automatic scribes ; as unresisting harps
which He played, giving no melody of their own ; as
glazed-tile channels through which He flowed, exercising
no influence of their own on the streams. Such views of
the sacred authors tended to destroy interest in the
men as being themselves of small account. "The
treasure is given in earthen vessels," and we know to-
day that the earthen vessels mattered a great deal.
The treasure took its shape, its colour and its taste from
the vessel into which it was poured, and we have learned
to value the treasure all the more because of the shape,
colour, and taste. We do not quarrel with the com-
pilers of the Priests' Code because, true to their nature,
the compilers' supreme interest is in ecclesiastical
institutions, rites and ceremonies, and because they are
dry and dogmatic in their style, eschewing the warm

Qualifications of the Expositor

colours of emotion — as the composers of cathedral music
have deliberately done ; but we rejoice that the Jahvist
was a robust sentimentalist, with a healthy fondness for
human interest and the play of human passions. We
are refreshed by such exquisite unfading idylls as
Genesis xxiv., with the living colours of such a picture
as this : —

And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold,
Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the
wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her
shoulder ; and the damsel was very fair to look upon ; and she
went down to the well and filled her pitcher, and came up.

And the servant ran to meet her and said, " Let me, I pray
thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher." And she said, " Drink,
my lord I " And she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her
hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him
drink, she said, " I will draw water for thy camels also, until they
have done drinking." And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher
into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw water, and
drew for all his camels. And the man, wondering at her, held
his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey
prosperous or not.

And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the
man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two
bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold, and said :
" Whose daughter art thou ? Tell me, I pray thee, is there room
in thy father's house for us to lodge in ? " And she said unto
him, " I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she
bare unto Nahor." She said moreover unto him, " We have
both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in."

And the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord,
and he said, " Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham,
who hath not left destitute my master of His mercy and His
truth : I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my
master's brethren."

And the damsel ran and told them of her mother's house these
things.

The Art of Exposition

The preacher with a sense of literature will relish
the Homeric simplicity and directness of such stories,
and will turn back to Genesis for refreshment when
he has ploughed his way through the arid pages
of Leviticus. Reading the Bible books, he will
keep a keen eye on the little touches that reveal the
author, as the pious Nehemiah's favourite phrase, "the
good hand of my God upon me," Jeremiah's reiteration
of the curious phrase, " the Lord rose up early," Ezekiel's
usual address by God as " son of man," Hosea's fond-
ness for agricultural imagery, Amos's uncompromising
democracy and his frequent formula, " for three trans-
gressions and for four," Micah's strenuous championship
of ethical and spiritual religion as against formalism and
sacrifices, and the priestliness " in grain" of Malachi.
The Bible, so read with open eyes, is an inexhaustible
source of interest even from the merely literary and
human point of view, and surely the expository preacher
is a wise man who works as much as possible of the
literary and human interest into his sermons.

To do this he must have the sense of literature^ and
this he cannot have unless he makes himself at home
with the masterpieces in which have been expressed
the "souls of authors dead and gone," who have had a
life even on earth beyond their death. The soulless,
unimaginative, prosaic theologian or preacher who goes
to the Bible with no sense of poetry and drama, and
who subjects the glowing phrases of a psalmist or
prophet or the author of the Book of Job to cold analysis
as if they were to be interpreted as literally as phrases
of a law-book, has been responsible for much mischievous

Qualifications of the Expositor

and misleading exposition. We are coming to recog-
nize that Paul also was a prose poet, and that phrases
he dashed off hurriedly in moments of high excitement
are to be interpreted with reference to the spirit and
style of the man, and are not to be always fitted
ingeniously as carefully-cut stones into the structure of
some supposed " Pauline " system of theology. It takes
a poet to understand a poet, and the next best thing to
being a poet oneself is to read and love the poets, to
understand their ways of putting things, to acquire their
sense of the colour and music of things ; and the reader
of poetry who has thus got into sympathetic touch with
the poets has qualified himself to read the Psalms and
the other poetical books of the Old Testament with
some prospect of understanding and interpreting the
thoughts which the inspired poets put into the richly
symbolic and often hyperbolic forms of Oriental verse.
It may well be that familiarity with ^Eschylus or
Shakespeare — close study of " Prometheus Bound " or
" Hamlet " — is a better preparation for understanding
the Book of Job than the reading of an old-fashioned
commentary on Job. The modern commentators — such
as Professor Peake, in " The Century Bible " volume —
know that the wrestling of the author of the Book of
Job with the problem of undeserved suffering, and his
partial justification of the ''ways of God to men," are
cast into the form of poetical drama, and they interpret
it as poetry. The expositor with the developed literary
sense always makes allowance for the personal equation,
for the individuality of the author, for the literary form
of his work, and for the language, whether prose or

33 c

The Art of Exposition

verse. The expositor lover of literature will read and
love the Bible writers more and more as he comes to
realize their supremacy even as creators of literature,
but he will realize their unique spiritual inspiration also
all the more as he compares the effect of their writings
upon himself, and uniformly on men of all the
centuries and all the races, with the effect upon himself
of the writings of even a Homer, a Dante, a Shakespeare,
a Goethe, a Browning. ** Who," asked the late Bishop
of Manchester at the centenary thanksgiving meeting of
the British and Foreign Bible Society, " would send a
translation of Homer to the Pygmies of the African
Forest or a translation of Shakespeare to the Pata-
gonians ? " Literature, and the noblest literature, are the
books of the Bible, but the literary forms are the
''caskets of silver" that contain the "apples of gold"
of the spiritual treasure. It was the Giver of the " apples
of gold," however, who selected the caskets, and the
shape and materials of the caskets were not selected
without a purpose. The literary reader who studies the
caskets may learn a great deal from them about their
precious contents.

The expositor needs a developed and lively imagina-
tion. How can the unimaginative man enter into the
spirit either of the dramatic stories of the Old Testa-
ment, the poetry of the Psalms and the Prophets, the
Synoptic stories of the matchless Man who

Wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds
More true than all poetic thought,

Qualifications of the Expositor

or the whirling and swirling tide of the rhetoric of
Paul, whose thought is always tearing ahead of his
words, and for whose thought words are all too feeble ?
How, indeed, can the unimaginative man, even as a
theologian, " rise to the height of the great argument "
of redeeming love ? Even the inspired imagination of
the Old and New Testament writers often fails, and it
is in figures, symbols, allegories, parables, picture words
that they faintly suggest the realities ineffable and
incomprehensible that are in their hearts, but which
" nor tongue nor pen " can fully tell.

" Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. For
Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower
from the enemy. I will abide in Thy tabernacle for
ever ; I will trust in the covert of Thy wings."

" O God, Thou art my God ; early will I seek Thee ;
my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee
in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see
Thy power and Thy glory."

" O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not com-
forted, behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours,
and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make
thy windows of agates, and all thy larders of pleasant
stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord ;
and great shall be the peace of thy children."

" I the Lord search the heart, and try the reins, even
to give every man according to his ways, and according
to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on
eggs, and hatcheth them out ; so he that getteth riches,
and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his
days, and at his end shall be a fool."

35 C2

The Art of Exposition

" In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were
not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place
for you."

*'The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given
them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : I in
them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect
in one : and that the world may know that Thou hast
sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me."

" For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

** God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto
us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all
things, by whom also He made the worlds : He, being
the brightness of His glory, and the express image of
His person, and upholding all things by the word of
His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins,
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ;
being made so much better than the angels, as He hath
by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than
they."

What expositor is equal to these high themes, and
these swelling words ! But the preacher of cultivated
and consecrated imagination can at least kindle the
imagination of his hearers by the ways in which he
expounds them. And this kindling of the congregation's
imagination is what the preacher who knows his
business is always striving after.

That quaint and poetical Elizabethan and Jacobean

Qualifications of the Expositor

preacher, Henry Smith — "Silver-tongued Smith" —
published two sermons on " The Art of Hearing,"
from the text " Take heed therefore how you hear "
(Luke viii. 1 8), in which he says to the people: —

As the little birds perk up their heads when their dam comes
with meat, and prepare their beaks to take it, striving who shall
catch most (now this looks to be served, and now that looks for
a bit, so every mouth is open till it be filled) ; so you are here
like birds, and we the dam, and the Word the food ; therefore,
you must prepare a mouth to take it. They which are hungry
will strive for the bread which is cast amongst them, and think,
This is spoken to me, this is spoken to me ; I have need of this,
and I have need of this. Comfort, go thou to my fear ; promise,
go thou to my distrust ; threatening, go thou to my security, and
the Word shall be like a perfume, which hath odour for every
one.

The Chorus, in the Prologue to Shakespeare's " King
Henry the Fifth," pleads with the audience to use its
imagination in order to supply the defects of the stage
and the actors in their attempt to picture the great theme
of the drama :

Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France ? or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt ?

O, pardon ! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million ;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,

Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder :

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts :

Into a thousand parts divide one man,

And make imaginary puissance ;

The Art of Exposition

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth ;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there.

If the actor demands imagination in the audience,
how much more is imagination needed in the congrega-
tion ! The true preacher constantly feels how the
colours upon his palette are all too few and faint
for the glowing pictures he desires to paint ! He
is to make live before the congregation the Divine
drama of God's love to sinful humanity, the drama
of which the central scene is the tragedy of Calvary.
He feels that all his thought and all his words, however
he may have trained his intellect, and however
gifted with eloquence he may be, are but unsatisfying
symbols of the things that " eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man"
to conceive. As the preacher reads the Bible, as his
heart is fired, and sermon suggestions flash themselves
upon him, he is daunted and almost despairs at the
impossibility of doing justice to the Divine themes.
Who is sufficient for these things ? He can but do his
best. Even though he were the best of preachers, it is
but a poverty-stricken, shadowy suggestion of the feeling
that swells his heart, and the thought that is struggling
for expression, to which he can give utterance in clumsy
words. How can a mere man, with only crude words,
and with only his poor little stock of knowledge and his
handful of commonplace thoughts, make the congregation
realize the drama of Redemption, the love of God that
passeth all understanding? How can he picture the

Qualifications of the Expositor

Divine figure of Jesus and the cross that " towers above
the wrecks of time "? He fails, and he must fail hope-
lessly. He can only dimly suggest the height and the
depth, the length and the breadth, of redeeming love.
He can only indicate the outlines of the figures, and the
colours upon the canvas, and he must leave it to the
imagination of the hearers to accept his symbols and his
suggestions, and to picture to themselves, when their
imaginations are raised to the highest point by the glow
in their hearts, what the realities symbolized and
suggested must be. Even they will fail ; but a lively
and consecrated imagination can travel thousands of
miles into the infinite, where the preacher's thoughts and
words can travel scarcely a Sabbath day's journey, and
the hearers with such imagination can always console
themselves with the thought that imagination is prophetic,
and that some day, when they see the Captain of their
salvation " face to face," faith will pass into sight, and
things seen through a glass darkly in the imagination
will lie before their unveiled eyes in all their glowing
reality.

Henry Smith makes a good suggestion on the subject :
" Therefore let every preacher first see how his notes do
move himself, and then he shall have comfort to deliver
them to others, like an experienced medicine, which
himself hath proved."

" Let the preacher first see how his notes will move
himself ! " And they will move himself as he has been
moved by his reading of the scripture out of which he
has got his sermon.

The expositor needs various kinds of imagination.

The Art of Exposition

First, he must have the historical imagination which can
carry him back to the Bible times, in the various
periods covered by the Bible authors. He will under-
stand the sacred writings much better when he can
imaginatively reconstruct the periods and place the
authors in the settings of their times. The authors
were men of their times, they reflect the spirit of their
times, they criticize their times, they preach to their
times. Their messages are " not for an age, but for all
time," but there is local and temporal colour in the
forms and the phraseology and in the immediate address
of the messages. Much preaching loses heavily in
interest by the lack of historical imagination, and this
lack has often led to very questionable exposition.
Books of widely severed periods, and of periods with
widely different social conditions and ethical standards,
are treated indiscriminately. Often even the Semitic
Orientalism of the authors is ignored, and they are
expounded and criticized as if they were English writers
of, say, the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Historical
imagination saves the expositor from theological and
ethical anachronisms. When he understands that the
"iron age" of the Judges, the age of David and
Solomon, the age of Jeroboam H. of Samaria and
Ahaz of Jerusalem, the age of Jehoiakim and the ill-
fated Zedekiah, the age of Ezra and Nehemiah, are
as different in their political, social and religious
conditions as the ages of the Heptarchy, of the
Norman Conquest, of Elizabeth, of George HI.
and of Victoria, he will be discriminating in his
exposition of the literature of the several ages. He

Qualifications of the Expositor

will neither, as with expositors of the pre-critical period,
casuistically explain away the incidental savagery and
defective ethics of the earlier books nor, with many
present-day preachers who have not acquired historical
imagination and secured the clue supplied by a sane
criticism, tacitly ignore a great part of the Old Testa-
ment or, if he uses it at all, use it only in fantastic and
unconvincing allegorizing ways. He will find in the
differing conditions of the periods themselves fruitful
lessons, for the historical evolution is itself revelation
rich in instruction, and understanding of the historical
revelation will pour a flood of light on the most puzzling
parts of the literary revelation. Modern preaching has
been much impoverished by preachers with undeveloped
historical imagination drawing their texts and subjects
almost wholly from the New Testament, or from the
New Testament plus a few hackneyed portions of the
Old Testament. The Old Testament as a whole is
the prophetic preparation for the Gospel, and it is rich,
even in books at first sight the most unpromising, in
material for fascinating and edifying exposition. It
is good for the pulpit that much of the neglected
hinterland of the Old Testament is being opened up
by some of the ablest and most popular preachers.

The dramatic figures of the Old Testament are only
fully understood when viewed in the setting of their
times. When they do appear in sermons, they appear
too often as shadowy symbols of certain virtues and
vices, or as puppets clumsily manipulated by unimagina-
tive sermon-makers, and not as the hot-blooded actors
in intensely human dramas, men compounded of clay

The Art of Exposition

and fire, of the beast and the angel, conquered by or
victorious over their animal passions, and by their very
imperfections abounding in instruction, example and
warning to ourselves who are made of the same flesh
and blood. " As are the generations of the leaves so
are the generations of men," but human nature endures
unchanged in the Hebrews of the fifteenth century,
the tenth century, the eighth century, the sixth century
before Christ and in the Anglo-Saxons of the twentieth
century. We have much to learn from the Bible heroes
and the Bible villains of all the periods, because there is
a bit of each in every one of us. We shall learn what
there is to be learnt all the better if the preacher-expo-
sitor clothes the persons of the dramas in the costumes
of their times, and makes them speak and act as men of
their times would speak and act, and does not put them
all unhistorically on one dead level of manners, language
and costume. Who would care to see Shakespeare's
"Julius Caesar" and " Coriolanus," *'Cymbeline" and
''King Lear," "Macbeth" and "Richard III.," "Othello"
and "Shylock" all appearing in frock coats and silk hats,
and talking as if they were subjects of George V. ?

Historical imagination, as has been hinted, will carry
with it ethical imagination. The expositor will put himself
in the position of the Bible writers in various stages of
social evolution and spiritual enlightenment, and in the
position of the heroes and heroines of the Bible, and will
judge of the rightness and wrongness of their judgments
and their actions not from the standpoint of the
noonday illumination of the Light of the World, but in
relation to the moral and social standards of the age in

Qualifications of the Expositor

which they wrote or lived. The Law was a paedagogue
leading the Hebrew nation to Christ — always leading,
stage by stage, from lower to higher. Revelation was a
progressive process, and we miss much of its significance
when we hastily condemn acts and judgments that grate
upon our Christian sensibility. Leviticus is not the
Sermon on the Mount, the morals of David are not the
morals of Paul, even Isaiah was only looking forward to
'* the great light " that was some day to shine, of which
some foregleams fell upon his uplifted face. The ques-
tion for the expositor is — Were these writers, were these
heroes held up " for our ensample," living up to the
light they had, and striving eagerly and strenuously and
prayerfully after further light, which God never fails to
give to those who seek it ? If they were, then let us
give them credit for what they were, and judge as
leniently as we can some puzzling things said and done
that have tried our faith now and again in reading
certain Old Testament books. Ethical imagination
will enable us to discriminate, and bearing in mind what
eternal human nature is, it will enable us to get as much
spiritual profit out of the study of a less perfect character
in an earlier and ruder age as out of the study of a more
perfect character in a later and more privileged age who
was ethically and spiritually the heir to all the gains of
the wrestling souls who had won their victories before
him. It is easy to jeer at tricky Jacob, and Joshua
who destroyed Achan and his family, and David who
drank and fell when he looked on a fair woman from his
palace roof ; but were it not better to think rather of the
grace of God that worked in such old-time Hebrew

The Art of Exposition

heroes, and led them to range themselves, in spite of
evil working in them, and perhaps mistaken conceptions
of God's will, " on the side of the angels " ?

After all, have British and American folk the right
to judge harshly these people of the Old Testament ?
How slow the stages by which we have travelled to
our present ethical standards and our present spiritual
enlightenment, what weary miles we have yet to travel
before the Mount of the Sermon comes into sight !
We are always trying to explain the Sermon away, even
while we profess to accept it, and in our business
arrangements, our politics, and other departments of
our life we ourselves are living far oftener in the Old
than in the New Testament, and by no means up to
the ethical standards of the later prophets. We are
horrified at David houghing the horses, but we
slaughter hecatombs of horses in our modern battles ;
we shoot birds and beasts that we have reared in
battues of thousands for a week's pleasure at a country
house ; we leave children by the ten thousand to grow
up with diseased bodies, blunted minds and dwarfed
souls in festering slums ; we do not allow the sorrows of
the man thrown out of work and the mother heart-
broken because the bread-winner is " idle " to cloud
the sunshine of our luxurious living. Are we in
our age " on the side of the angels," as were the Old
Testament men whose fallings short of New Testament
perfection we condemn ? Dr. Forsyth, winding up a
discussion at a conference on the social conscience,
urged that the social conscience is itself still in process
of evolution, and that many compromises are made now

Qualifications of the Expositor

that will not have to be made when the evolution has
reached a higher stage. It is for Christians, he said,
to so act as to hasten the evolution. This is a thought
which the expositor with ethical imagination will find a
very helpful one in his study of the Old Testament.

The expositor may count himself happy who has
dramatic imagination. Revelation is given to us in
highly dramatic stories, and the man who can dramatize
in his sermons, who can make the old stories live again,
or can show dramatically how the same motives are
producing the same results in modern life, will have
congregations listening with hungry ears and bated
breath.

He should certainly have psychological imagination.
The Bible characters, to make their pulpit effect, must
be presented as flesh and blood humanity, with the mix-
ture of motives, the play of conflicting passions, the
struggle of the brute with the angel, that make the
thrilling drama, with its tragedy and comedy, of eternal
and unchanging human nature. It is not thoughts,
philosophies, theologies that people are interested in,
and impressed by, but people like themselves, who in
their time fought and won, or fought and failed, or
fought a drawn battle, and the preacher is to "get
inside the skin " of those people, and reveal the work-
ings of the heart that " is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked," but may yet be captured and
converted and transformed by the power of its Creator.
In the Old and the New Testament the expositor with
psychological imagination will find inexhaustible interest
in the thousand subtle touches that reveal character,

The Aft of Exposition

and that mark off from each other personalities that on
a casual glance appear indistinguishable.

In a later chapter examples will be given of the ways
in which masters of exposition have put their imagina-
tion to profitable use.

The expositor must have intense sympathy with
human nature. Without sympathy he will fail alike
to understand the manifold humanity of the Bible
characters, and to know how to unlock the secret
chambers of the heart of the congregation. He must
be a student of his own heart, for that is a microcosm
of all the hearts that ever beat, and that are beating
to-day. Let him read the Psalms — such Psalms as
xxiii., li., Ivi., Ixxiii., cxix., cxlii. — and he will find
revelations of the varied moods of his own heart
if he has got a heart to feel at all, and has passed
through the shadows as well as the sunshine of life,
has had his faith in human nature shaken by false
friends, has had his hand snapped at by those whom it
has fed, has been cruelly misunderstood and basely
maligned. And people with similar hearts are in every
congregation, and the preacher should know how to
talk heart to heart with people who are undergoing all
the varied experiences of tempted and perplexed and
suffering and aspiring humanity. Sympathy with
human nature will lead the preacher instinctively to
select such incidents, and such characters, for exposi-
tion as will make his sermons practically helpful to
those in whose hearts responsive chords will be struck.

If the expositor is to help all classes in his congregation,
and speak directly to all conditions of the heart, his

Qualifications of the Expositor

interest must be a catholic interest. Complaint is often
made that a congregation never gets anything from the
preacher outside the range of his own Hmited personal
experience. This unconscious egotism of the pulpit
is a danger to be guarded against. It leads a man
unconsciously to select scripture passages and texts, and
sermon subjects, that make their special appeal to himself,
and to turn away with indifference or disgust from other
passages and subjects that would chime with the tempera-
ments and the moods of people whose experiences have
been different from his own. The pulpit is impoverished
when the preacher can never break through the narrow
circle of his own limited experience, and when the congre-
gation become the victims of the personal preferences
and prejudices that are the consequence of that limita-
tion of experience, and of the channel into which his
temperament and his favourite studies have flowed.

The expositor with catholic sympathy will come to
regard the Bible as Martin Luther did, who said :

The Bible is like a fair and spacious orchard, wherein all sorts
of trees do grow, from which we may pluck divers kinds of
fruits ; for in the Bible we have rich and precious comforts,
learnings, admonitions, warnings, promises, and threatenings.
There is not a tree in this orchard on which I have not knocked,
and have shaken at least a couple of apples or pears from the
same.

The preacher may personally prefer apples, and among
apples single out the Blenheim orange or the Newtown
pippin as the apple of apples, but he has no right to
deny pears, plums or cherries to those who do not dote
as he does on apples.

The Art of Exposition
Luther further says that —

We ought not to measure, censure, and understand scriptures
according to our own natural sense and reason, but we ought
diligently by prayer to meditate therein, and to search after the
same. The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us
somewhat to learn and understand the scriptures by experience
and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never
understand anything thereof ; no, not although we diligently read
and heard the same. The Holy Ghost must be the only master
and tutor to teach us therein, and let youth and scholars not be
ashamed to learn of their tutor. When I find myself in tempta-
tion, then I quickly lay hold and fasten on some text of the Bible
which Christ Jesus layeth before me, namely, that He died for me,
from whence I have and receive comfort.

That personal " experience and practice " is a valuable
asset to the preacher. The more of it he has the more
catholic will be his sympathy, and if his lines have
fallen in pleasant places, let him cultivate intuitive
catholic sympathy with all to whom he ministers.

Theology as a qualification for exposition is so big a
subject that it must have a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER IV

THE EXPOSITOR'S PULPIT THEOLOGY

The expositor needs a theology. What sort of a
theology, and where is he to get it ? Theologians
differ, and confuse "the common people" by the
sharpness of their disputes over their differences. It is
with the expositor rather than with the theologian that
we are here concerned. The fact needs to be emphasized,
that there is not nearly so much difference in pulpit
theology as there is in the theology of the schools. Take
any volume of *' The Christian World Pulpit," and it
will be found that men of all the schools and all the
denominations are preaching practically the same pulpit
theology. The man who forces controversial theology,
or the dogmatisms of the schools, into his preaching,
soon learns by bitter experience that he is capturing
neither the heads nor the hearts of the people. The
pulpit, as the hymnology, of the Churches is catholic. We
always get Catholicism in the real sense of the word when
we are dealing with the vital facts of faith, and the deep
and eternal needs of humanity. The preacher who
surrenders to the spell of the Bible, and whose heart's
yearning desire is to help the '* guilty, lost and helpless "
soul, and to feed with " bread of heaven " the hungering
soul that has turned heavenward and wants strength for

49 D

The Art of Exposition

daily living, finds a Bible theology gradually evolving
itself. It is a simple theology, by no means clearly
defined in its dogmatic outlines. It is the theology of
the heart '* panting after God," and finding in God its
never-failing satisfaction. It roots itself in the objective
facts of man's consciousness of sin, of foulness, of loss of
power, of ineffectual striving after the realization of
his highest self ; his need of cleansing, pardon, peace
and Divine adoption ; and his " sure and certain " faith
that all his needs are met by God in Christ, through
whom there flows into the surrendered soul a tidal stream
of cleansing, strengthening, enlightening and upholding
grace. These things are facts, not theories, and no preach-
ing is worth the waste of breath upon it that is not vivified
by constant touch with these facts. This is Bible theology,
this is living theology, this is the theology that men as far
apart as Luther and Calvin, and Massillon and Wesley,
and Whitefield and Newman, and Liddon and Spurgeon,
and Dale and Gore, and R. J. Campbell and Campbell
Morgan instinctively preach, though in formalizing it
they might come into serious collision. We are coming
in these days to realize that though theology is " Queen
of the Sciences," though it is a splendid mental discipline
and sends the preacher to search the scriptures, though
it gives him valuable clues to interpretation where other-
wise he would be very much at sea, though it is a
recognition that the intellect as well as the heart has its
share in religion, yet living faith, rooted in vital facts, is
first, and theology is only junior partner, having the
function of giving some reasonable explanation of the
facts that really matter. As the stars were before

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

astronomy, and the earth before geology, and the elements
and their combinations before chemistry, so the heart
and its needs, and God and the satisfaction of the needs,
were before theology, and would be there without theology,
though theology is an invaluable help to the intellectual
understanding of the facts, and is an inevitable creation,
for the human mind craves for explanations of the
things that concern the dearest interests of the heart.
The expositor's pulpit theology, however, will be not so
much the theology of intellectual formulation and assent
to a set of neatly-turned doctrinal definitions, as the
theology that makes its direct and irresistible appeal to
the common heart.

On this point let me fortify myself by quotation
from two weighty authorities, neither of whom is
likely to belittle the value of theology. The Rev. J.
Brierley, B.A., says : —

To-day we are full of philosophy. The Christian student must
know his Bacon, his Descartes, his Kant, his Hegel, his Schopen-
hauer, his Spencer, even his Nietzsche. Every modern theology
begins with a philosophy. Schleiermacher opens with a theory
of feeling, Ritschl with a theory of knowledge. Before we can
touch the concrete facts of religion we must have some theory of
the universe, some conclusions as to materialism and idealism,
some view as to determinism and the freedom of the will.

And yet philosophy is not religion, nor is religion philosophy.
That is why Jesus was not a philosopher. Religion is the primal
fact, while philosophy is the attempted explanation of the fact
Religion is something happening in the deepest spheres of feeling,
a new mysterious incoming of life, a mystery which the intellect
in turn wakes up to and seeks to penetrate. What Jesus did for
His followers was not to puzzle them with abstractions, but to
stir them to moral passion, to wake in them a longing for
holiness, for the liberation of the soul ; to fill them with a new

51 D 2

The Art of Exposition

inward power. It was not so much a thinking as a being and a
doing. Herein we see opening the whole difference between
these two things. Philosophy is an explanation, and you cannot
convert people by an explanation. To do a thing is one thing ;
to tell how it is done is quite another.

In an address to the students of Magee College, on
"The Equipment for the Study of Theology," Dr.
David Smith, whose " In the Days of His Flesh " is the
most vivid modern exposition of the incarnate life of
Jesus, said : —

A theologian must first be a believer. The Christian doctrines
are not philosophical theories or metaphysical speculations : they
are formulations of Christian experience, testimonies of believing
men concerning the operations of grace in their lives, attempts to
declare what Christ has done for their own souls. And therefore
it is impossible to understand them from the outside. We must
have the experience, and then we shall understand and believe
the doctrine. And so the Apostle says: "The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are
fooHshness unto him ; and he cannot know them, because they
are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all
things." "To evil persons," says Jeremy Taylor, "the whole
system of this wisdom is insipid and flat, dull as the foot of a
rock, and unlearned as the elements of our mother tongue ; but
so are mathematics to the Scythian boor, and music to a camel."

There is an apt illustration of this in a Welsh story which I
read recently with deep interest— Daniel Owen's " Rhys Lewis."
An old saint is talking to a lad who had wandered far away
from faith, and telling him of his own experience — how he too had
doubted and disbeUeved, and how he had been restored. " When
I was a youth a little older than you are, the Incarnation of the
Son of God appeared to me to be unreasonable, improbable and
beyond belief. ... In course of time there happened that great
religious revival of which your mother was ever and always
talking, when I and hundreds of others were convinced of our
sins. In the frightful sight of my guilt then given me I perceived
the reason for the Incarnation. And, if you have noticed, you
have never found one who, having been awakened to the

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

enormity of his sin, has doubted any longer the coming of Christ
in the flesh. It is those who have loose notions of sin who are
the exceptions. ... I am now an old man, and an old sinner,
and am prouder of the name than if I were an angel, because I
feel I am an item, an atom, in that great scheme whereby God
was, as it were, made to come out of Himself. It is here, my
son, that your salvation lies, if you are ever to find any. To me
the existence, the sin, and the misery of man are inexplicable,
save in the glow of that accursed death upon the Cross."

Yes, this is abidingly and universally true. Intellect may
make a philosopher, but pectus facit theologum. We must feel ere
we know. Experience of the plague of our own hearts is the
pathway to understanding of the deep things of God. There
are doctrines which once I deemed incredible and was disposed
to scorn, but which are now numbered among the certainties of
my creed, the consolations of my heart, and the inspirations of
my soul. For I have lived into them.

" Lived into them ! " And the preacher whose
theology is not cumulative as he " lives into it " will
find sooner or later that he has a theology with little
gripping power either on himself or on his congregation.
His theology is deepened and enriched by the chances
and changes, the lights and shadows, of his personal
life. The "systematic theology" that the neophyte
preacher starts his career with is not his own. It is a
suit of clothes, rather than something that is worked
into the warp and woof of his being. The suit, if he
wears nothing else, will begin, within a few years, to get
shiny at the elbows and knees, and frayed at the edges,
and a few years later it will be a " looped and windowed
raggedness." Every preacher worthy of the namebecomes
his own theologian. His own study of the scriptures, his
study of humanity, his study of himself, the trials of his
faith, the difficulties of his work, the temptations that have

The Art of Exposition

beset him and which he has overcome, the successes
and failures he has had in driving the reality of religion
home to people in the church and out of it, what he has
learnt from his reading, the eager conversational debates
he has had with other preachers and with religious-
minded, Bible-reading, and intelligent theology-studying
laymen — all these will be modifying and enriching his
theology. Great preachers of to-day could be named
whose preaching has been very different since they
passed through the furnace of affliction. The death
of the wife of their youth, the taking to His bosom by
the Great Shepherd of a dear child who was as the
apple of the eye to them, an illness in which they
looked into the white of the eyes of the grisly figure of
Death : these things have thrown them back on the
foundations, on the great unseen realities, on the
things that pass not away, and henceforth the emphases
of their pulpit theology are differently placed. To
change the figure of the suit of clothes, the " systematic
theology " was a skeleton, and they are gradually
clothing it with flesh, until the bony and lifeless structure
has become a living thing, with warm red blood coursing
through its arteries. The danger of a system of theology
— all the more a danger if the man who holds it is
naturally pugnacious, and many theologians have the
primeval savage with a tomahawk concealed just under
the skin — is that it may check the growth of the living
theology, and divert preaching from the application of
a living theology to the actual needs of average and
eternal human nature to the polemical defence and
propagandism of the system.

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

In spite of what has been said, it is well to master
some thoroughly worked-out system of theology. Such
a system supplies a map of the country. It is a map
and not the country. The country must be indepen-
dently explored, and the expositor whose heart is in his
work will have a wild joy in his adventures and dis-
coveries. Take such a work as Dr. Newton Clark's
"An Outline of Christian Theology" (T. and T. Clark),
which has had great and deserved success in England
and America. The student of this work will have his
mind stimulated and his heart warmed by the way in
which Dr. Clark maps out the teaching of the Bible on
the great themes with which the preacher has to deal.
He is not dogmatic but he is richly suggestive, and the
preacher desiring to become a helpful expositor will be
started on many an independent investigation of the
Bible books that will clarify his own ideas and give
weight and invest with living interest his exposition of
books, passages and texts bearing on Bible doctrines.

Revelation, viewed as the record of God's spiritual
education of the Hebrews, is a subject of continued and
thrilling human interest. It is a drama of which God is
both Author and chief Actor. Men are not puppets in
the drama. They have their parts to play, and yet
they are free agents. The God of the Bible drama is
no dark and menacing Greek Fate, driving the heroes
and heroines relentlessly to a predestined doom, against
which it is hopeless for them to struggle. God reasons
with them, pleads with them, gently compels them, when
they are blindly and obstinately wandering from the
right way, and plunging headlong to destruction ; He

The Art of Exposition

sharply disciplines them, but all the time there is move-
ment, progress, towards the " great far-off Divine event "
of Bethlehem and Calvary. Bible theology has too
often been presented in the dreary, desiccated form of
a scholastic "Body of Divinity." In the Bible the
theology appears not in the forms of Divinity, but as
Divinity touched with humanity, or, it might still more
truly be put, as humanity touched with Divinity. And
the preacher-expositor whose presentation of his theology
most nearly approaches to the Bible methods will
strike straightest and deepest to the hearts of the
congregation.

The system-makers are always confronted with the
difficulty of welding into a cohesive system the varied
presentations of theology in the Bible. How, for
instance, are the Synoptic Jesus, the Logos-Christ of John,
the ** Christ and Him crucified " of Paul, and the Great
High Priest-Christ of the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, to be blended into a composite picture of
Christ that will be accepted as an authentic and satisfy-
ing portrait of the Jesus of the New Testament, of
history and of experience ?

The system-makers usually, consciously or instinc-
tively, select from the materials what they need to con-
struct a Christ that will fit into some preconceived
scheme, and they reject what will not fit into the scheme,
and sometimes reject it with contempt and violent
denunciation. Just now the Synoptic Christ is in the
ascendant — the Christ of the " Simple Gospel,*' who
leads a revolt against the hollow formalism of His time,
and propounds a Gospel of the Kingdom of God that is

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

being hailed as in effect a socialist Gospel of a recon-
structed society. The Gospel of John is put on one
side as the dream of a devout mystic who read into
certain sayings of Jesus what he had in sixty to seventy
years of brooding got out of them, and whose lively
imagination came at last to mistake its own expressions
of those sayings for actual speeches of Jesus. The
Pauline theology is as offensive to certain eminent
theologians, whose schemes can find no central position
for the cross, as it was to the Athenians and the Jews
from whom Paul turned away as material on which his
evangelistic labours would be wasted. Is the preacher,
then, to get nothing out of John or Paul because he
clings closely to the Jesus of the Synoptics ? This
would be very like every man making himself the
measure of Christ, and limiting Christ to the reach of
his own vision and intellectual sympathy ; but the Christ
of the Synoptics, if He is anything at all, is a catholic
Christ, the universal Man, the Microcosm of the race,
the many-sided Master in whom every type of humanity
and every facet of truth are combined. Cut John out of
the New Testament, and an aspect of Christ that has
comforted the hearts of troubled humanity for nearly
sixty generations practically disappears ; cut Paul out of
the New Testament and the warrior-preacher will fight
with his right arm tied behind his back. Study of
historical Christianity should warn men to beware of
making a Christ after their own image and presenting
Him to their age as the only authentic Christ.

We need, too, to beware of the Age-egotism of the
time in which we live. There is a strong tendency to

The Art of Exposition

believe that we, " in the foremost files of time," are so
much better informed and so much more judicious than
our fathers, that we are justified in sneering at the
ignorance and superstition and narrowness of our fathers,
and in regarding as of no account what they knew and
what they believed. A century hence our children will
have cast us also on the rubbish-heap to which we have
relegated our fathers. We are a link, and no more than
a link, in the chain of the generations — do not let us
flatter ourselves with the idea that we are the clasp of
the chain which closes it and makes it complete. There
have been, somebody once computed, five hundred
theories of the Atonement, and new theories are
always being manufactured. There may have been an
element of truth in all of them ; there probably was, or
sincerely Christian men would not have constructed
them. A man found something in the Atonement that
helped him, and he made the thing he found the centre
of his theory. The theories, most of them, have gone,
or reappear in new forms ; the Atonement remains, and
the human heart will never let it go.

So, now, " Christs many " are in the field, put there
by theologians who fight for their own particular Christ
as if He were the only Christ possible in an age like our
own. It may be that all the Christs are true Christ as
far as they go, but we need them all, and an army of
other Christs, before we get the Christ in all His fulness
and in all the aspects He presents to the humanity He
came to save and to lead. The thing that matters is
that Christ Immanent or Christ Transcendent or both,
the Christ of the Synoptics, the Christ of John, the

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

Christ of Paul, or the Christ of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, be Lord of the human heart, " Christ in us the
hope of glory," He whom knowing we know the Father.
A Christ reduced by rationalistic and naturalistic
criticism to the position of a mere man exceptionally
gifted with the genius of religion would very soon come to
be regarded as a curious historical phenomenon, to be
studied and admired, perhaps, but with no claim to
sovereignty over the intellect and the heart of humanity.
He is all or nothing. It may well be, in the attempt to
commend Christ and His Gospel to an age of science
and criticism, in which certain leaders of science and
literature start with the presupposition that " miracles
do not happen," and that nothing is to be believed
which is not susceptible of testing by scientific methods,
that we have given away too much. Christianity may
have stood too much on the defensive, and tried to
placate the wolves by lopping off and throwing to
them limb after limb of the body of the Christian faith.
The wolves are never placated in that way. Their
appetite grows by what it feeds upon ; and while they
are still hungry the body may be bled to death. The time
has come for the Christian apologist in this critical and
sceptical age to ask himself, not " How much can
Christianity be cut down and still live ? " but " How
much of Christianity can the world afford to lose ? "
The preacher, of all men, must keep a Christianity full
and rich and powerful enough to meet the needs of
those who are lowest down as well as those who are
highest up. Much modern apologetic has been directed
to meet and conciliate, if possible, the negative

The Art of Exposition

dogmatism of the critical and philosophical, or pseudo-
philosophical, few. We have heard much of the
" thoughtful men," and especially the " thoughtful young
men," who are kept out of the churches because they
cannot believe in the Bible, and cannot believe in what
is supposed to be evangelical theology, though the
representations of this theology by its critics are often
the crudest caricatures. These "thoughtful" people
cannot believe in a Divine Christ. They are supposed
to be hungering for a gospel of some sort, and if we
could only trim the Gospel of the New Testament of its
original supernaturalism and the interpretations put
upon it as it has come down through the ages by men
like Augustine and Luther and Calvin and Wesley and
General Booth, they might condescend to reconsider it,
and there is just a possibility that some of them might
be induced to lounge into the churches. Are not these
" thoughtful " people rather a mythical quantity ? Every
preacher has met with the " thoughtful young man "
and found him, in nine cases out of ten, to be incredibly
ignorant of the Bible itself, while of theology, the
history of the Church, and the names of the saints and
heroes and deep thinkers of the faith he knows practi-
cally nothing at all. He has picked up the catchwords
of a cheap rationalism, and is passing through the usual
stage of young manhood in which there is revolt against
the " traditions of the fathers." He has the conceit of the
" superior person," who lays the flattering unction to his
soul that one who has just left school must naturally
know more than those who left it fifty years ago, and that
the twentieth century, which has produced aeroplanes,

The Expositor's Pulpit Theology

submarines, and halfpenny papers with half-million
circulations, cannot possibly have anything to learn
from the benighted ages of the past. When he grows
older, if he is really thoughtful, he will discover that
in the things of faith the twentieth century has no
special advantages for testing essential truth over
earlier ages, and that in some respects — as in the dis-
tractions which hinder reposeful, devotional reading of
the Bible, and calm meditation upon its teaching and
upon the spiritual life — the century is distinctly handi-
capped. Our men of science may weigh and measure
the stars and by spectroscopic analysis may discover the
elements of their composition ; they may count and
measure the electrons in a gramme of radium ; but that
is no qualification — it has often proved a disqualification
— for the estimation of the spiritual truth in the Bible
and in the Christian faith. These things are " spiritually
discerned." We must believe before we know — a com-
plete reversal of the scientific order, and yet the effect
has always followed the cause, and so the spiritual law
is scientifically true. Men of science are never less
scientific than when they dogmatize about the things of
faith, and conversely it might be said that theologians
are often never less theological than when they are
trying to mix cheap science with their theology. The
preacher will always remember that he is preaching
to the mass and not to a select few, and his pulpit
theology will be a theology that will reach and influence
the mass. There is room for a few exceptional men
whose mission will be to congregations of the intellectual
elite^ but the average congregation, even the average

The Art of Exposition

middle-class congregation, requires a theology that deals
simply and practically with the realities of religion, and
which presents a gospel that can transform alike the
man in the counting house, the man behind the counter*
the man in the factory, the man at the plough, and the
man or woman who has sunk almost out of human
recognition — the drifting wreckage tossed about by the
swirling currents of our social ocean. A theology that
is always soaring into the immensities, that is more
concerned to explain the universe and to define the
being of God than to bind up the broken hearts and to
sharply swing round the sinner, respectable or dis-
reputable, and set him face to face with God, that
loses itself in endless mazes of ingenious speculation
about insoluble problems and unsearchable mysteries, is
not a Bible theology or a practical pulpit theology. Let
such theologians go back to the Bible and saturate
themselves with its teaching and its spirit, let them
study how the Bible writers, and how the Master Him-
self, presented their theology, and let them return to
their pulpits and preach a Bible theology got at first hand,
and they will find a new power has come into their
preaching, and a new appetite has come to their congre-
gation. The Bible, as ever, is the preacher's book.
He must not water the "sincere milk of the Word," nor
skim it of its cream.

CHAPTER V

EXEGESIS AND EXPOSITION

The preacher, by regular and consecutive reading of
the books of the Bible, taking them not in snippets but
in large sections, will let the Bible literature make its
immediate fresh impression upon his mind. He will get
his texts and his subjects at first hand from the Bible,
and will coin his own feeling and his own thought into
his own words. It is a great advantage if he can read
the Hebrew and Greek originals with fair facility. The
genius and usages of the languages throw light on the
interpretation to be put on many words and phrases. The
Hebrew is a language of concrete words, free from meta-
physical subtleties. To this fact we owe the realism of
the presentations of thought and feeling about God in the
Psalms and the prophets. The Semite conceived
spiritual things in terms of the physical, and expressed
his spiritual aspirations in language appropriate to the
appetites and passions of the body. Failure to under-
stand this has been the cause of much far-fetched
exposition, and reading into the words and phrases of
Hebrew writers of philosophical subtleties that never
entered into their heads. Then the cadences of the
Hebrew, the consonances and assonances of which
Hebrew authors are fond, are themselves factors that

The Art of Exposition

affect exposition. Many familiar phrases, dear to
English hearts in the Authorised Version, apparently owe
their origin to the Hebrew author's adoption of " apt
alliteration's artful aid," and sometimes to his partiality
for pious punning. Coming to the New Testament,
much light is now being thrown on the kind of Greek
employed by the New Testament authors. The theory
of a special New Testament dialect, " New Testament
Greek," has been demolished by Dr. Deissmann and Dr.
Moulton, who have shown, from inscriptions on recently
discovered stones, pottery, papyri and other materials
that " New Testament Greek " is simply the idiomatic
Hellenistic Greek of the common life of the period,
and that many words, supposed to be coinages of the
New Testament authors, were words in familiar use.
But leaving the peculiarities of New Testament Greek,
the fact that it is Greek at all has an important bearing
on the exegesis and exposition of the New Testament
writings. There never was a language so subtle and
flexible as the Greek, and whose words were richer in
long and varied and interesting associations. Many a
delicate turn of construction and mode of expression
and suggestive cadence is lost to the English reader.
Then Paul, especially, and the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, are frequently using words that to the
Greek reader, familiar with the classics and Hellenic
history, philosophy and archaeology, are rich in sug-
gestion. " Schoolmaster," " crown," " perfection,"
" mystery," "express image," " word " (Zo^os), "science "
(gnosis), "fulness" (pleroma) are examples of such
words.

Exegesis and Exposition

Happily, though it is desirable, it is not essential that
the preacher-expositor should be a facile reader of
Hebrew or Greek, or even that he should be expert in
history, archaeology and critical learning. He will often
feel, however, the need of expert help in clearing up
obscurities, explaining allusions, and giving him the right
point of view for the understanding of an author and a
book ; and here the commentator comes in as the expert
exegete.

A word of counsel will perhaps be accepted as to the
place of the commentator. He is to help the expositor,
and not to dictate to him as his master. The preacher
should invariably read a Bible book through more than
once, taste the flavour of it, and form his own provisional
opinion of it, before he consults the commentator. Before
he reads the commentator's introduction, or his notes, the
text of the book should be familiar to him ; otherwise,
the commentator is likely to impose his own views upon
him, and so to bias him that he becomes incapable
of judging for himself at all. From the point of view of
preaching, it may well be more beneficial to read and
judge independently, provided the reader has come
under the spell of a book and been swept along by the
spirit of it, even though there has been misunderstanding
of certain passages, than to submit meekly and unresist-
ingly to the views of the commentator, however supreme
a master in his own line the commentator may be.
No method of reading the Bible is less fruitful for
expository purposes than that of slavish reading of a
commentary — first, a verse, then a stop to read half a
page of what the commentator has to say about it ; then

65 E

The Art of Exposition

another verse, and another stop to read the commentator's
page-and-a-half explanation of some difficult word or
disputed phrase.

Fashions change in commentaries as in other things.
The old-time commentary was a bulky, quarto, several-
volume, homiletic affair, produced in the spacious days
when there was leisure enough and to spare to spend a
year or two in ploughing through it. The conscientious
commentator considered it his duty to say everything,
even to the most obvious reflections, upon each verse that
came under his notice. He said, from the view-point of
to-day, far too much, and yet not nearly enough. He was
not so much putting the preacher-student in the way of
understanding the real meaning of the text, as doing the
preacher's work for him by sermonizing all the time as
he went along. That is an ill service to render to any
preacher, and it is unfortunate that several recent
publishing ventures indicate a desire to revive the
method of relieving the mentally indolent from doing
any real thought of their own, and digging their own
nuggets from the Bible mines. What the honest expositor
needs is sound exegetical commentaries, or expository
commentaries that show how to deal with difficult books
in the light of their historical origin and the relation of
the writer to the circumstances of the time in which he
lived. One of the shrewdest things ever said by Dr.
Parker was, "If you'll Delitzsch the text for me, I'll
Matthew Henry-ize it for myself."

One eighteenth century commentary that has held its
own, partly from reverence for its author, and partly for
its sermon-suggestiveness, is John Wesley's '* Notes" on

Exegesis and Exposition

the New Testament. It has the virtue of brevity, and the
more valuable virtues of simplicity, directness, a genial
humanity, insight into the spirit of the books, knowledge
of human nature, and the great preacher's instinct,
developed by his unexampled experience, for what the
expositor "preaching for souls " really needs. Wesley's
" Notes " have supplied material for expository sermons
to generation after generation of Methodist preachers,
and they have not yet exhausted their value. Wesley
was a critic in his way, but above all he was the practical
expositor "preaching for souls," as has been said.
Here are some examples of his exposition from the
Notes on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke xv.) : —

12. Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. — See the root
of all sin. A desire of disposing of ourselves, of independency
on God.

13. He took a journey into a far country. — Far from God : God
was not all in his thoughts. A nd squandered away his substance. —
All the grace he had received.

14. He began to be in want. — All his worldly pleasures failing,
he grew conscious of his want of real good.

15. And he joined himself to a citizen of that country. — Either the
devil or one of his children — the genuine citizens of that country
which is far from God. He sent him to feed swine. — He employed
him in the base drudgery of sin.

17. And coming to himself. — For till then he was beside himself,
as all men are so long as they are " without God in the world."

18. / will arise and go to my father. — How accurately are the
steps of true repentance here pointed out.

20. A nd he arose and came to his father. — The moment he had
resolved he began to execute his resolution. While he was a great
way off, his father saw him. — Returning, starved, naked.

22. But the father said. — Interrupting him, before he had
finished what he intended to say. So does God frequently cut
an earnest confession short, by a display of His pardoning love.

67 E 2

The Art of Exposition

23. Let us be merry. — Both here and wherever else this word
occurs, whether in the Old or New Testament, it implies nothing
of levity, but a solid, serious, religious, heart-felt joy : indeed
this was the ordinary meaning of the word two hundred years
ago, when our translation was made.

25. The elder son seems to represent the Pharisees and Scribes,
mentioned verse 2.

29. Lo, so many years do I serve thee . . . yet thou never gavest
me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. — Perhaps God
does not usually give such joy to those who never feel the sorrows
of repentance.

32. This thy brother was dead and is alive. — A thousand
of these delicate touches in the inspired writings escape the
inattentive reader. In the 30th verse, the elder son had unkindly
and indecently said, This thy son. Amazing intimation, that the
best of men ought to account the worst of sinners their brethren
still; and should especially remember this relation when they
show any inclination to return.

Our Lord in this whole parable shows, not only that the Jews
had no cause to murmur at the reception of the Gentiles (a
point which did not at that time directly fall under consideration),
but that if the Pharisees were indeed as good as they made them-
selves out to be, still they had no reason to murmur at the kind
treatment of any sincere penitent. Thus does He condemn them,
even on their own principles, and so leaves them without excuse.

We have in this parable a lively example of the condition and
behaviour of sinners in their natural state. Thus when enriched
by the bounty of the great common Father, do they ungratefully
run from him. Sensual pleasures are eagerly pursued, till they
have squandered away all the grace of God. And while these
continue, not a serious thought of God can find a place in their
minds. And even when afflictions come upon them, still they
will make hard shifts before they will let the grace of God,
concurring with His providence, persuade them to think of
a return.

In the matter of commentaries the expository preacher
has now an embarrassment of riches. Sixty years
ago he was limited to a few commentaries of the

Exegesis and Exposition

homiletical order. On the Old Testament, practically
no advance had been made on Matthew Henry. The
historical and critical method of studying and comment-
ing on the Old Testament was practised in Germany,
but the German *' Neologists " were a name of fear to
pious souls in England. The Old Testament was
verbally inspired ; its history was Divinely guarded
against error ; David was the author of all the unappro-
priated Psalms; the Book of Job was written two
thousand years before Christ ; Moses was the sole
author of the Pentateuch ; conflicting versions of the
same event had to be explained away. It was judged
better to leave De Wette and his school unread in
German, and untranslated into English. They would
be " so unsettling." The policy of ignoring them broke
down. Some English scholars had read them and
reproduced their results, and there was a demand for
the German commentaries of the critical school to be
translated for English readers. Ewald and Delitzsch
and Keil appeared in English, "advanced" in various
degrees; Hengstenberg and Havernick, who tried to
build a conservative breakwater against the onrushing
tide of " Neologism," were also translated, and the
expositor's shelves grew heavy with the bulk of accumu-
lating critical commentarial learning. A notable feature
of these commentaries was that they were on the
Hebrew text. This largely limited their use to pro-
fessional preachers. As regards the New Testament,
there was little of exegetical value on the Gospels and
the Acts of the Apostles, but the Epistles, in such com-
mentaries as Burton's and Macknight's, were more

The Art of Exposition

helpfully treated. On the Epistles commentators always
had Calvin to fall back upon, and Calvin, as a commentator
with the historic sense, was often startlingly modern.
Here, for example, is Calvin's exposition of Paul's
justification of his Apostolate in the Epistle to the
Galatians : —

It is worth while to know why he should take such trouble
concerning his reputation, for, provided that Christ reigns,
and that the purity of doctrine be preserved, what does it
matter whether he should be placed superior or inferior to
Peter — are they not all equal among themselves? If it is
becoming that all should decrease, in order that Christ alone
should increase, contest concerning the dignity of men is
useless. Then this question may be asked — Why should he
compare himself with the other apostles, what occasion of
controversy is there between him and Peter and James and
John ? Wherefore should these be opposed to each other who
ought to be unanimous and completely united ? I answer
that it was pseudo-apostles who, in order that they might the
better give credit to themselves, and impose on the Galatians,
had clothed themselves with the names of the apostles, as if they
had been sent from them. This bold assertion was what caused
them to be received as virtually sustaining the rdU of apostles,
and speaking as if from their mouths ; while from Paul they took
away aUke the name and the authority of an apostle. They raised
against him the objection that he was not elected by the Lord
one of the Twelve ; he was never recognized as an apostle by the
College ; not only had he not got his doctrine from Christ, but
not even from the apostles themselves. So it was coming about
that not only was Paul's authority being destroyed, but he was
coming to be regarded as an outsider of the flock, by far inferior
to themselves.

If it had only been a question of persons, the matter would
not have been so grave, but, when he saw his doctrine being thus
vilified and held as a thing of small account, he could no longer
be silent but must raise his emphatic protest. This is a trick of
Satan, when he dare not openly attack a doctrine, to lower its
majesty by crafty side issues. Let us remember, therefore, that

Exegesis and Exposition

in the person of Paul the truth of the Gospel was assailed : for
if he had suffered himself to be stripped of the honour of the
apostolate, it followed that hitherto he had usurped more than
belonged to him ; this false boasting, among other things, would
render himself suspect. On this depended the valuation of the
doctrine, which would no longer be received as proceeding from
an apostle of Christ, but from a common disciple.

On the other side, he was to be crushed by the splendour of
great names. For they, when they boasted in the authority of
Peter and James and John, arrogated to themselves the apostolic
authority. Unless Paul had manfully resisted this audacious
claim, he would have given place to a lie and have permitted the
truth to be crushed in his own person. Therefore it was that he
earnestly asserted his double claim — that he had been constituted
an apostle by the Lord, and that he was in no way inferior to
the others, but shared with them in equal right and dignity, even
as he had with them the common name. It was possible to
declare that these men had not been sent by Peter and his
colleagues, and had no mandate ; but it was a much more
weighty matter that he should stand on his own defence, as one
who had not yielded even to the very apostles, because, if he
had given way, he would have shown distrust of his own case.

A man who could grip the historical conditions in this
way had not much to learn from scholars of the fourth
century after him, with all their gains from modern
research, and their improved scientific methods, and
with Calvin as their quarry the New Testament com-
mentators even of the early nineteenth century were
able to do valuable work.

The rise of the English school of New Testament
scholarship in Lightfoot, Westcott, Hort, and Hatch,
and of Old Testament scholarship in such men as
A. B. Davidson and Driver, gave materials and a method
of which later commentators have made highly profit-
able use. To the negative dogmatism and the

The Art of Exposition

extravagant " tendency " theorizing of so many German
commentators, the English school have opposed indus-
trious and patient examination of the facts, and slow
but sure deduction of the teaching of the facts. The
books of Sir William R. Ramsay, giving the results of
his archaeological discoveries on the missionary travels
of St. Paul, and his brilliant generalizations based on
the discoveries, have heavily enriched the modern New-
Testament commentators,by thelighttheyhavethrown on
the conditions of life when the infant Churches were being
founded. The New Testament expositor should by hook
or by crook get hold of Ramsay's books. He will be well
advised also to get the book of Professor E. von Dob-
schiitz, " Christian Life in the Primitive Church." It is
translated in Williams and Norgate's " Crown Theological
Library." Dobschutz paints in the varying background
of the Epistles. He puts in a strong light the diffi-
culties that necessarily arose in Churches just gathered
out of a non-moral and immoral paganism, and in
later chapters shows how the kind of difficulties changed
in the second and third generations of a Church when
the leaven of the old paganism had gradually worked
itself out, but only to give place, too often, to a cooling
down of heart, to formalism, to contentiousness, and to
showy speculative theologies. The preacher should
understand that not all who were " called to be saints "
were saints. It was no easier to live the Christian life
in the midst of a corrupt society at Ephesus or Corinth
than it is to live it in the midst of a modern semi-pagan
civilization, with the heavy pull of a fiercely competitive
commercialism on the one hand, and the equally heavy

Of • '^*-
OF

Segesis and Exposition

pull of a hundred distractions to an easy-going life on
the other. The Epistles become more luminous and
suggestive when we understand the stage of progress to
which the addressed Church had arrived.

Returning to commentaries, the tendency is now to
compress them within manageable compass, and it is
marvellous how much is packed into the little volumes
of such a series as, say, *' The Century Bible," published
by T. C. and E. C.Jack. "The Century Bible" volumes
give to the preacher, in an introduction of 40 to 70
pages, the concentrated essence of the expert anno-
tator's reading on the authorship, the origin, the literary
form and language, the content and the teaching of a
book. He is given the right standpoint whence to view
the book. In the notes he gets all the necessary exegesis
to bring out the meaning of the text, and just sufficient
exposition of a homiletical character to stimulate his
imagination and set him thinking. With a set of ''The
Century Bible" the preacher has at his disposal the
material for the intelligent and interesting exposition of
any Bible book. The volumes illustrate incidentally
that a commentary need not be dry and heavy, but can
have the qualities of good literature. Here are two
samples : —

THE METAPHORS IN "JOB"

The poet is a master of metaphors, taken from many spheres
of life. The work of the farmer suggests a figure to describe
those who sow iniquity and reap troubles, or the comparison
of death in a ripe old age to the coming into the barn of the
shock of corn in its season. The fate of the wicked is likened
to that of the stubble driven by the wind from the threshing-
floor or the chaff chased by the storm. Job compares himself

The Art of Exposition

in his prosperity to a tree drinking up the water by its roots
while its branches were refreshed by the dew. His words were
awaited by the assembly as thirstily as the parched clods look up
for the rain. In the long life he then anticipated he compared
himself to the phoenix. He longs for death as the slave panting
under the heat longs for the cool evening which will bring him
his rest ; or again, death is sought with the eagerness that charac-
terizes those who dig for hid treasures. The wicked is compared
to the Nile grass suddenly cut ofiF from the moisture and
withering rapidly ; his trust can as little support him as a flimsy
spider's web. Man's brief life is like the flower opening in beauty
suddenly cut down, the swiftness with which it passes is illus-
trated by the weaver's shuttle, the courier, the speed of the light
skiff's on the river, or of the eagle as it swoops on its prey. The
completeness of his disappearance from earth when he passes
into Sheol is compared with the vanishing of a cloud.— Dr. A. S.
Peake, in Job ("The Century Bible").

THE "SATAN" OF JOB

Job i., 6. " Now there was a day when the sons of God came
to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also
among them."

Satan, — As the margin says, the word means " The Adversary."
The word is in not uncommon use in Hebrew. It has the article
here, and is not a proper name, hence it would be far better to
translate **The Satan." Although not yet a proper name, it is a
title borne by a particular spirit, expressive of the function he
exercises. He observes the doings of men that he may detect
them in sin, and then oppose their claims to righteousness before
God (cf. Zech. iii.). Since it is his duty to see the bad side of
human action and character (the good side perhaps falling to be
observed by another spirit), he has in the exercise of it grown
cynical. He has seen so much evil covered by fair appearance,
that he has lost faith in human goodness. In i Chron. xxi., i, the
term has become a proper name. As he appears in Job he
cannot, of course, be identified with the devil, who only later
found a place in Hebrew thought. He is one of the sons of the
Elohim, entrusted with a special Divine commission and existing
only to do Yahweh's will. Yet his cynical disbelief in disinterested

Exegesis and Exposition

goodness, and the heartlessness and malicious zest with which
he suggests the trial of Job and carries it out, make it easy to
account for the later development by which he came to be
recognized as an evil spirit; hostile to God, and as one who
tempted man not to vindicate his disbelief in human goodness,
but to seduce men from God to their ruin and His sorrow. — Dr.
A. S. Peake, in Job ("The Century Bible").

The volumes of "The International Critical Com-
mentary " (T. & T. Clark) are extremely valuable to
the specialist student of the original text, but not much
is to be got out of them — with shining exceptions — for
the purposes of pulpit exposition. In the Numbers
volume, Dr. Buchanan Gray objects to the conventional
estimate of Balaam, as a hypocrite seduced by avarice.
If this were the character of the man, " Bishop
Butler's sermon, which represents the high-water mark
of this mode of interpretation, is then not only a charac-
teristic and masterly study in an unquestionably real
type of human character, but a faithful delineation of
Balaam's character in particular. But the assumption
is no longer justified." Dr. Gray thus expounds the
** motive " of the story.

THE MOTIVE OF THE BALAAM STORY

(Numbers xxii.)
The motive is perfectly clear, though it has generally been
obscured, or at least cast into the shade, by undue prominence
given to what is not a matter of leading interest with the writer,
viz., the character of Balaam. Balak, except in so far as he
represents Moab, and Balaam are in reality subordinate figures
in the story; the protagonists are Israel and Moab; the over-
ruling thought is Yahweh's power to defend His people and His
purposes of good concerning them, and the fatal madness of
those who, through them, oppose Him. As at the outset, when
Yahweh determined to bring His people to the land of promise

The Art of Exposition

Pharaoh, and through him Egypt, opposed Israel to their own
undoing, so at the close, as Israel is on the point of entering on
its inheritance from Yahweh, Moab attempts, with like hardness
of heart, a similar opposition, and suffers a similar fate.

The same motive governs the two different stories which have
been brought together by the editor (JE); and it was care-
fully preserved in the story as it left his hands. Drawing on
both sides (J and E), the editor is indifferent to incongruities,
produced by his method, which strike the modern reader ; but he
is careful so to combine his material as to give fuller effect to
the leading motive. Not once nor twice only, but thrice in this
final form of the story does Balak persist in his attempt to get
Israel cursed ; and at each attempt his own doom approaches
nearer ; for, as the editor has arranged them, the poems rise to
a climax. In the first Balaam speaks of Israel's freedom from
Yahweh's curse, of its security from its foes, and of its countless
numbers ; in the second of Yahweh's irrevocable promise and
unalterable determination positively to bless Israel, of Yahweh's
presence in Israel's midst, and briefly of Israel's conquests ; in
the third of the fertiUty of Israel's land, of the celebrity of their
king, of the national prowess, and of the utter destruction of all
who oppose them. In the fourth unsolicited poem the climax is
reached ; Moab itself is singled out by name as about to perish
before Israel; and on this note the episode in JE closed: all
that followed it was the simple statement that Balaam and Balak
went their respective ways.

It is hardly overstating the case to say that Balaam is an
accident, and is not of the essence of the story. He is the
instrument by which the proud opponent of Israel and Yahweh
is led on to its destruction. But if the question of Balaam's
character be raised, the outstanding fact to be kept in view is
that nothing suffices to seduce him from carrying out the will of
Yahweh. Balak may think, it may be the intention of the writer
to express this in passing, that Balaam is open to a sufficient
appeal to his avarice. But if so, the event proves him wrong.
It may be said that Balaam does all that he does under Divine
compulsion ; this, however, is only in another way to neutralize
the character of the prophet. But if it be further said that he
does everything unwillingly, that he would if he could have
satisfied his avarice, this is simply to import into the story what

Exegesis and Exposition

is not there.— Dr. Buchanan Gray, in Numbers ("The Inter-
national Critical Commentary ").

The '* Westminster Commentaries " (Methuen & Co.),
with Dr. Lock, Ireland Professor of the Exegesis of
Holy Scripture, as general editor, judging from the
volumes that have appeared, are to be fairly advanced
and detailed from the critical point of view, but the
preacher will find more in them than in the " Inter-
national " which he can press into the service of exposi-
tion. From Genesis, by Dr. Driver, a sample is given.

THE STORY OF JOSEPH
(Genesis xxxvii. and following)
The theme is a common one, common alike in folk-lore, in the
drama and in history — the younger member of a family kept
down by the envy of the elder members, and at last triumphing
over them. Every trait in the narrative is in accordance with
nature; and the whole forms a vivid portraiture of the true
development of human character. The young boy dreams his
dreams of future greatness : almost immediately his hopes are,
to all appearance, shattered ; he is sold away from his father and
brethren into foreign slavery ; there, however, his integrity and
loyalty save him ; after many trials and disappointments (xl. 23),
he is at length by a surprising sequence of circumstances elevated
to a high and responsible dignity in Egypt ; one day, after many
years, he suddenly sees his brethren, forced by necessity, stand-
ing before him; but he uses the advantage which his position
gives him, not to crush them or take vengeance on them, but to
try them, to discover whether they are loyal to his father and
youngest brother, and then, when he has at last assured himself
of their altered mind, when he sees them genuinely moved by the
sight of their father's grief and the remorse of their own con-
science, and knows that they are willing even to go themselves
into slavery to spare their father and save their younger brother,
when he is satisfied, in other words, that they are worthy to be
forgiven, he discloses himself to them and nobly and magnani-
mously forgives them. Though overruled by Providence for

The Art of Exposition

good (xlv. 5, 7, 8, 1. 2o), and though justifying signally in the end
the ways of God to men, the events of Joseph's life move forward*
it may be noted, entirely within the lines of what is human and
natural. Joseph is the recipient of no supernatural warnings or
promises, directing his steps. No doubt the story was told again
and again by Hebrew rhapsodists at the fireside of Hebrew
homes; at length, in two slightly different versions — one,
probably, as it was told in Ephraim, and the other as it was told
in Judah — it was cast into a written form; and the two versions
are interwoven together in our present Genesis.

It would be a most interesting study to compare the character
of Ulysses with that of Joseph, and to speculate what effect each
hero may have had upon his nation's subsequent history. Each
is kept true by the tender memories of home love ; each is God-
fearing ; each is shrewd, resourceful, courageous, growing with
the experience of life; but with Ulysses the shrewdness just
passes the line, and can scarcely be distinguished from guile and
cunning, from which Joseph is quite free — Ulysses finding his
subsequent counterpart in Themistocles, Joseph in Daniel.
Most interesting, too, to compare the scene where Joseph's
brethren stand cowering, conscious of their guilt, before the
brother whom they have wronged, and receive only the winged
words of forgiveness, with that other scene in which the suitors
of Penelope huddle together at the end of the hall, conscious of
their guilt, when Ulysses is revealed, and receive the winged
arrows of death ; and to think how the young Greek, as he grew
up, had always before him the story of triumphant justice, while
the young Hebrew was nurtured in the noble story of triumphant
mercy" (from a sermon by Dr. Lock, Expos. Times, June, 1903,
P« 396).— Canon Driver. The Book of Genesis (" Westminster
Commentaries "), Methuen.

Preachers have shown shrewd judgment in collecting
the modest-looking volumes of the " Cambridge Bible
for Schools and Colleges." The cream of British and
American critical and expository scholarship has been
put into these compact commentaries. Professor Kirk-
patrick's three volumes on Psalms ; Dr. Davidson on Job,

Exegesis and Exposition

Ezekiel and Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah ; Dr.
Driver on Daniel and Joel and Amos ; Dr. Moule
on Philippians and other New Testament books ; and
Dr. Findlay, on Thessalonians, are all perfect in their
ways, condensing, without pedantry, the cream of critical
scholarship, and giving the expositor most valuable
material without doing his homiletical work for him.

The latest series, the " Westminster New Testament "
(Andrew Melrose), with Dr. A. L. Garvie as general
editor, begins well with Dr. David Smith's little volume
on the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Small as the
volume, Dr. Smith is animated in style, fruitful of
suggestion, sometimes pricking the reader into an
attitude of involuntary questioning, generous in quota-
tion of pregnant sayings from many writers of all ages.
In the notes, he often gives his own translation of the
text. The note on xvii. 27 illustrates his occasional
startling exegesis.

THE SHEKEL IN THE FISH'S MOUTH

Matthew xvii. 27. — " The first fish that riseth, up with it, and
open its mouth, and thou shalt find a shekel." Peter had been
disconcerted by the collector's demand. Their long journey had
exhausted the resources of the disciple company, and he had not
enough to pay the tax. It never occurred to him he might ply
his old fisher-craft and earn the sum. This is the Lord's direc-
tion, and, amused by his disciple's consternation, He puts it
playfully. Anecdotes of the finding of treasure inside fishes were
the favourite stock-in-trade of story-tellers in those days. Cf.
Polycrates' ring, Solomon's signet. Jesus was referring to such
common fables, and Peter was not so dull as to miss His meaning.
If it had been an actual miracle, (i) it would be the only one
which Jesus ever wrought on His own behoof; (2) Matthew would,
according to the wont of the Evangelists {cf. xii. 13, Mark iii. 5,
Luke vi. 10), have recounted its accomplishment.

The Art of Exposition

Last of the series of commentaries to be mentioned,
but among the first in importance, is " The Expositor's
Bible " (Hodder and Stoughton), edited by Dr. Sir W.
Robertson Nicoll. The method adopted is not the
annotation of verses, but a combination of critical and
homiletical exposition of a book, with modern applica-
tion of the teaching. The value of the volumes varies
considerably, but Dr. Moule's Romans, Dr. Marcus
Dods's two volumes on The Gospel of St. John,
Dr. Maclaren's three volumes on The Psalms, Dr.
W. H. Bennett's Jeremiah, ought to be on every
expositor's bookshelf. The glory of the series is
Dr. George Adam Smith's two volumes on Isaiah
and his two volumes on The Book of the Twelve
Prophets. These approach as near to perfection in
their combination of the fullest and finest scholarship,
the vividly dramatic style, the penetrating psychology,
the illuminating analogies between the social and
spiritual conditions of the prophetic times and our own,
and the intensely practical application to present-day
problems, as we can reasonably hope anything to come.
Dr. Smith has been the making of many a preacher,
and dullard indeed would the man be who was not a
better preacher, and a keener and more intelligent reader
of the prophets, after he had revelled in Dr. Smith's
books. Dr. Smith has wonderful intuition of the
Oriental mind. The expository preacher who, while
maintaining his own independence of thought and
style, lives much with Dr. Smith, will be living with a
supreme master of the craft, and cannot fail to catch
some of the master's zest for the Bible, and through that

Exegesis and Exposition

zest he will be brought spirit to spirit with the great
souls to whom the inspiration came which gave to us the
Bible literature.

"A Commentary on the Holy Bible by Various
Writers" is edited by the Rev. J. R. Dummelow, M.A.,
of Queen's College, Cambridge. It is complete in a single
volume of eleven hundred pages, and has for " short title"
"The One-volume Commentary." The contributors
of the valuable introductory articles and the com-
mentators on the various books are scholars of all the
Evangelical Churches, British, American, and Canadian.
Though one of the curtest, this " One-volume
Commentary " has packed into it the cream of the finest
critical and theological scholarship. Every preacher
should have it upon his book-shelves. The Prolegomena
deal with such questions as " Hebrew History," " Intro-
duction to the Pentateuch," "The Creation Story and
Science," " The Synoptic Problem," " The Life and Work
of St. Paul," and such theological questions as " The
Person of Jesus Christ," " The Trinity," " Miracle," " The
Resurrection " and " The Atonement."

CHAPTER VI

THE SPIRIT OF BIBLE BOOKS

The preacher as expositor is more than a professor of
Hebrew history and literature, more than a scholarly
theologian. He might have the finest taste in literature,
and the shrewdest judgment in theology, and make these
manifest in every discourse he delivered, and yet fail, in
the deepest and truest sense, to expound the Bible.
There is a spirit of the Bible, animating it from
beginning to end. He has to get himself infused with
that spirit, and to let the spirit vivify his exposition
and application of Bible texts or passages. Looked
at only as literature, there is a spirit in the Bible which
we seek in vain elsewhere. This spirit is admirably
defined by Mr. Albert S. Cook, Professor of the English
Language and Literature at Yale University, in a chapter
on " The Authorized Version and its Influence," in the
fourth volume of " The Cambridge History of English
Literature." He inquires into the secret of the popu-
larity and power of the Bible, and he suggests these
qualities : —

I. The first condition of great literature is a unity of theme
and cojtcept that shall give cohesion and organisation to all
detail, however varied. By this test the Bible is great literature.
One increasing purpose runs througn the whole, and is reflected

The Spirit of Bible Books

in the widening and deepening thought of the writers ; yet it is a
purpose which exists germinally at the beginning and unfolds like
a bud. Thus, all the principal books are linked and welded
together, and to the common consciousness form, as it were, but
a single book, rather rh Ql^xiov than ra QlQKia.

II. By far the greater part of the books which the world has
agreed to call classic — that is, permanently enjoyable and per-
manently helpful — are marked by dignity of theme and earnest-
ness of treatment. The theme or themes of the Bible are of the
utmost comprehensiveness, depth and poignancy of appeal. In the
treatment there is nowhere a trace of levity or insincerity to be
detected. The heart of a man is felt to be pulsating behind every
line. There is no straining for effect, no obtrusive ornament, no
complacent parading of the devices of art. Great matters are
presented with warmth of sentiment, in a simple style ; nothing is
more likely to render literature enduring.

III. Another trait of good literature exemplified by the Bible is
breadth. Take, for example, the story of Jacob, the parable of
the Prodigal Son, or St. Paul's speech on Mars Hill. Only the
essentials are given. There is no petty and befogging detail. The
characters, the events, or the arguments stand out with clearness,
even with boldness. An inclusive and central effect is produced
with a few masterly strokes, so that the resulting impression is one
of conciseness and economy.

IV. Closely associated with this quality of breadth is that of
vigour. The authors of the Bible have no time nor mind to spend
upon the elaboration of curiosities, or upon minute and trifling
points. Every sentence, nay, every word, must count. The
spirit which animates the whole must infuse every particle.
There is no room for delicate shadings ; the issues are too
momentous, the concerns too pressing, to admit of introducing
anything that can be spared. A volume is compressed into a
page, a page into a line.

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
Jesus wept.

Each Bible author, by the fact of his strong individu-
ality, while sharing in the common spirit of the Bible,
has a spirit of his own — a flavour and a fragrance that

83 F 2

The Art of Exposition

it is the expositor's business to reproduce, as far as he
has power, in his preaching. To enter into and be
infused with the spirit of the Bible authors the expositor
must forget, for the time, in his sermon preparation, all
critical questions. If he preaches from the Hexateuch —
and preaching that ignores the Hexateuch cuts itself
off from some of the finest drama and the most human
psychology of the Bible— let him put on one side
critical analysis. It does not matter what part J and E
and JE and D had in the final compilation of the book.
What does matter is — Do the Hexateuch narratives still
inspire, do they help us by showing us devout men
groping after God and on the way to find Him, do they
set before us characters from whom we may take encour-
agement or warning ? There is danger to the expositor
from too eager and continuous preoccupation with
critical questions. If he has dissected Genesis, for
instance, into a basketful of fragments, and then sorted
out and labelled those fragments, and pieced them
together again in a tentative provisional sort of way,
he is likely to lose his respect for Genesis. It is a
collection of Semitic folk-lore, interesting to the
archaeologist and the anthropologist, but if the patriarchs
are incarnated sun myths, or incarnated eponymic
abstractions of the characteristics of the Hebrew clans,
and probably had no individual historical existence,
then how is the critical Christian preacher going to get
spiritual and moral inspiration out of Genesis ? Let the
preacher take the stories as he finds them, let him get
into the spirit of the authors whoever they may have
been, let him discover in the rich humanity of the

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unfolding narrative the spirit of God brooding over the
waters, let him allow the stories to work their natural
effect upon his own spirit, and he will find himself
inspired, as for nearly three thousand years men of many
races have been inspired, by these stories of God's
revelation of Himself to seeking souls in the childhood
of the world. Dr. Horton has told how he uses a
different Bible for his devotional reading from the one he
uses for his critical studies. It might be well for every
preacher to use separate Bibles for sermon preparation
and for critical study. If he is always exposing the
text to the critical microscope he may get into the
position of the astronomer who had been on several
eclipse expeditions, but was heard to say he had never
seen a total eclipse of the sun. " But your observations
of several eclipses are on record," it was objected.
'• Certainly, I have on several occasions taken observa-
tions, but I have always been too busy to look at the
eclipse." The expositor will not be likely to make the
mistake of " not looking at the eclipse," if he has a
proper sense of his function as a teacher.

Dr. Alexander Maclaren says, " the evangelist who is
not a teacher will build nothing that will last," and he
shows how it is the teacher's proud privilege " to lead
minds to see the profound and far-reaching truths that
underlie the Gospel, what its facts pre-suppose of God
and man, of the Father and the Eternal Word, what they
reveal of the heart of things, and of the Heart at the
heart of them ; to lead to the recognition, and still more
to the application to individual and social and national
life, of the principles that flow from the facts, to

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disclose to the minds and to lay on the hearts of men the
Incarnation and Sacrifice and Reign of Jesus as the
world-redeeming power, as the revelation of the perfect
life for men and nations, to find and exhibit in Jesus the
answer to all the questions of the intellect, the satis-
faction of all the needs of the heart, the source and
standard of ethics, the foundation of all wisdom, the
renovator of humanity, the purifier of society, the King
of men ; and to keep fast by the cross and passion of
the Lord, while he is following out the issues of His work
to their remotest consequences — these are the tasks of
the Christian preacher in his capacity of teacher." He
adds that "as the theme is Christ, so the text-book
is the Bible. Whatever the Higher Criticism has done,
it has not touched the main substance of the Gospel
which we have to preach, nor do even its most advanced
positions seem to me seriously to affect the homiletic
worth of Scripture." He advises preachers to keep
close to the Bible, and with a touch of gentle sarcasm
observes that " the habit of prefacing a sermon with
a text is, no doubt; a survival, and it is sometimes
unmeaning enough, but it is a witness that the sermon's
true purpose is to explain, confirm, and enforce
Scripture." " No pulpit teaching will last as long as
that which is given honestly and persistently to the
enforcement and elucidation of Bible truth." The way
to get into the spirit of a Bible book is to read it as
a whole, as a piece of literature, or a collection of pieces
of literature, into which the heart's blood of a man of
God, or a number of men of God, has been poured when
the heart was throbbing with the emotion stirred in

The Spirit of Bible Books

moments of conscious contact with God. So reading, the
devout reader soon begins to feel the throbbing of the
author's heart, his own heart grows warm and throbs in
response, his imagination is fired, and he begins to see
the things the author saw with the author's own
clarified vision.

Read in this spirit, the preacher-expositor discovers
profound and eternal truth in the Hexateuch, whatever
of legend or allegory there may be in the vivid dramatic
narratives. Always God is speaking to the heart of
humanity and to that heart is revealing Himself When,
leaving the Hexateuch, we get into the period of
chronicled history, we are brought up by critical
questions which, if the preacher is not careful, may spoil
the books of Samuel and Kings for devotional and
expository purposes. But here, too, if the expositor
gets into the spirit of the history, he finds the books of
Samuel and Kings, and even the drier Chronicles, abound-
ing in material for fruitful sermons. He has to remember
that it is not the history pure and simple, but the spirit
and the purpose for which it was written, that matters.
Dr. Barnes, in his " Cambridge Bible Commentary on
I. and n. Kings," says: —

Kings is not a history, but only a series of cameos from history
interspersed with material of a different kind. ... It is the
leaders of religion, whether prophets of the North like Elijah
and Elisha, or men of the South like Isaiah the prophet or
Josiah the king, who suggest the tenderness of God. His care
for those who love Him is unfailing; He feeds Elijah in his
flight ; gives Elisha assurance of protection in the vision of the
chariots of fire ; and hears the prayer of Hezekiah in his sickness.
Jehovah is the giver of all good things, of mental endowments
as well as of material benefits ; of Solomon's wisdom and not

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only of Solomon's wealth. ... To conclude, Kings is no mere
transcript from the annals of Israel and Judah ; it is a noble
religious book. It enforces the principle that " God is the
controlling power, and sin the disturbing force, in the entire
history of men and nations."

Is it not in this that the unique and eternal value of
the historical books of the Old Testament largely con-
sists ? The New Testament writers are mainly concerned
with the salvation of individuals: the Old Testament
writers have their eyes primarily on the moral and
spiritual health of the nation, the community, the
Church of the Old Covenant.

Then what a magnificent portrait gallery the Old
Testament history opens up — men and women painted
as with the master strokes and the unfading colours of
a Titian, a Rubens, a Velasquez ! They are men and
women never entirely perfect, and never entirely wicked,
for so they would be moral or immoral monstrosities,
but of like flesh and blood with ourselves, and to see
how the Spirit of God works in them, allowed to have
its way, or resisted until it departs, makes the portraits
as thrilling in interest and as rich in instruction as ever.

The historical books, moreover, are the background of
Hebrew prophecy —that glorious phenomenon at which
the world has never ceased to wonder, and on the fruits
of which its selectest souls have never ceased to feed.
On Hebrew prophecy the Lord, "by prophet bards
foretold," was never weary of brooding during the years
of His preparation, and from its welling fountains Paul
drank deeply and drew much of his inspiration.

To get at the spirit of the Psalms, they should be

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read as a book of poems still aglow with the flame of
the hearts out of which they gushed in every mood of
deeply-stirred emotion. Where, in the literature of the
world, is there any poetry so fresh as the Psalms remain
after more than twenty centuries ? Where is there any-
thing that strikes so directly to the heart of universal
human nature, and which so exquisitely and so intimately
expresses every feeling of the heart, from the rapture of
almost delirious joy to the body-shaking sobs of the
strong man whose heart is broken, and who is groping
about in the darkness, or holding a hand above the
billow after billow of affliction that is rolling over him
for a friendly hand to take his own, and is listening, as
the women listened in besieged Lucknow for the
pibroch of the Highland deliverers, for the sound of a
friendly voice ? What does it matter who wrote the
Psalms — whether they are Davidic, pre-Exilic, post-
Exilic, or Maccabaean ? They are inspired because
they thrill us with their inspirations. That man has no
music in his soul who is always grubbing the Psalms up
by the roots to see if he can discover who planted them.
Let them grow, and bloom and perfume for ever the
garden of the Lord.

There are some books of the Old Testament that are
stumbling-blocks even to many who are conservative in
their notions of inspiration, but when we get at the
spirit even of such books as Esther, Ecclesiastes, Jonah
and Job we understand why, after centuries of hesita-
tion, spiritual men, Jews and Christians, admitted them
into the Canon. Human nature is infinitely varied in
its manifestations, the same worrying problems are

The Art of Exposition

continually vexing the human mind, and some of the
puzzling Old Testament books represent attempts to
solve some of those problems in what light was at the
time available. The fact that the light was so faint,
and that the problems were so imperfectly solved, itself
lends added interest and value to the books, for it
enables us to understand and appreciate with more
intelligent thankfulness the light which Christ, and the
outworking of the Gospel, have cast upon the problems.
The Wisdom literature of the Hebrews shows the
human spirit striving to harmonize the wisdom of man
with the " wisdom from above." The first eight
chapters of Proverbs are a personification of the Heavenly
Wisdom — a prophetic foreshadowing of the Johannine
conception of the Logos, with some attributes suggest-
ing the function of the Holy Spirit as the Guide to all
truth. This Heavenly Wisdom is the fountain of human
wisdom, with which the following chapters deal in
sententious, gnomic fashion. Is there not here a truth
that our own age, so uplifted with its science, its educa-
tion, its business shrewdness, its philosophies, needs to
grasp — that " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom ; and the knowledge of the holy is understand-
ing " ? We must consult the Heavenly Wisdom not only
on problems affecting our individual soul here, and the
life of the Church, but on questions of our business, our
politics, our marrying, our house-keeping, the choice
and treatment of our friends. Christ knocks at the
door of the counting-house, the factory, the home, the
parliament, the county council, and asks to be allowed
to enter, and to become Partner in all our concerns.

The Spirit of Bible Books

Two illustrations will show the expository use that may
be made of Proverbs : —

DILIGENT IN BUSINESS

" Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand before
kings; he shall not stand before mean men." — Prov. xxii. 29.

Looking over Wiclif's translation of the Book of Proverbs, I
found a version of the text that reads startlingly modern :—" Thou
hast seen a man smart in his work ? He shall stand before kings ;
he shall not stand before unnoble men." The text reminds us of
Paul's injunction to be "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit
serving the Lord." The Master Himself, by precept and by example,
taught the same duty of diligence — " Work while it is called to-day,
for the night cometh when no man can work."

It might be that the writer of the proverb had in mind the con-
duct of the secular business of life, but there is no doubt that
Jesus and Paul had in mind the urgent necessity of carrying on
our spiritual work with every ounce of energy that is in us. It
needed no inspired apostle to teach the man who keeps a shop
that he should exert himself to the utmost, if he would increase
his profits, but unfortunately even business men, where the affairs
of the Church are concerned, often work in such a slack and
slovenly fashion as would lead to bankruptcy in a very short time
in their own affairs, and this leisureliness explains the slowness of
the Church's progress.

Why should we be diligent in spiritual business? Because
there is so much to do, so few to do it, so little time in which to
do it. We are limited as workers for God on earth to the few
short years of our mortal life. All round us we see crowds of
men and women careless of the concerns of their soul, depriving
themselves of life's deepest and richest joy, standing apart from
the little band of the builders of " God's own Jerusalem." If we
who call ourselves by Christ's name remain always in barracks
with the reserves or among the baggage waggons, how can we
expect the banner of the cross to be carried forward and planted
on new territory, how can we expect the subjects of the King of
kings to be increased by capture from those who are outside His
kingdom ? We are called to be workers and warriors, diligent in

The Art of Exposition

the Lord's business, valiant in the Lord's warfare, and the
success of His work and war is largely dependent upon our
faithful service.

" He shall stand before kings 1 " If we put to use and profit the
talent or talents that He has committed to us, we shall " stand
before the King." We must put His business before our own
business. The mischief is that we are always putting our own
business and our own profits first, and we think that any odds and
ends of time, and any remnants of unexhausted energy that we
have to spare, will be an adequate contribution to the carrying on
of the Lord's business. We rob our own lives when we take this
view of the comparative importance of our own business and the
Lord's. We "lay up treasure on earth which moth and rust
doth corrupt," and we fail to lay up " treasure in heaven which
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and which thieves do not
break through and steal." We shall only get joy out of our
religion when we are diligent doers of the Lord's business. The
happiest men on earth are those who, fervent in spirit, fling them-
selves with tireless energy into the Lord's service. They get
their reward even now, but what an exceeding rich reward it will
be when some day they hear His welcome, •' Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I "

WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING

" How much better is it to get wisdom than gold ! and to get
understanding rather to be chosen than silver 1" — Prov. xvi. i6.

The Book of Proverbs is a book in glorification of wisdom. The
first eight chapters show in most picturesque fashion where we are
to go for the wisdom that is wisdom indeed. " The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and
instruction." Ours is an age in which education has become
almost an object of idolatry, but it is not so certain that the
ardent advocates of education are equally ardent in their pursuit
of wisdom. True education is the unfolding, the development of
all our mental faculties in harmonious proportion, with a view to
fitting the man to play well his part in the school of Hfe. Educa-
tion, however, is too often degraded by being regarded merely as
a means for the winning of our bread and butter, or for enabling
us to climb the ladder of worldly success. The late Mr. Samuel

The Spirit of Bible Books

Smiles in his books taught almost too well the gospel of getting on
in life, but many men have got on in life, have climbed many rungs
of the ladder of success, but in doing so they have become spirit-
ually bankrupt. They have let the rust of gold corrode their skin
and eat into their very heart, and while they have been " fat and
flourishing " in body, they have become lean of soul.

The words of the text of the wise man who gave us the proverb
indicate that human nature was much the same in old Jerusalem
as it is in modern Britain, and he gave us a salutary warning to
put wisdom before gold, and understanding before silver. Let
every man educate himself to the utmost, but most of all let him
see that he sets his heart on getting wisdom and understanding,
the price of which is far above rubies. Tennyson says, " Know-
ledge comes, but wisdom lingers." It was said of King James I.
that he was " the wisest fool in Europe" because he got knowledge
but failed to get understanding. There are " rich fools " to-day
who have cultivated success in business rather than success of
soul.

Perhaps it is not very necessary to warn most of the people in
our churches against the danger of getting rich, although there are
comparative degrees of being rich. There are working men whose
thrift has been pushed to the degree of miserliness, and small
shopkeepers who are so intent upon putting every penny into the
business that they are mean as the grave in regard to their support
of the house of God, and in their contributions to any charitable
object. Such men have certainly not considered that " wisdom
is better than gold," and that " understanding is rather to be
chosen than silver."

Let us urge our young people in all their studies, and in all their
ambitions to make a position for themselves, to place first in the
scale of the objects of their desire the acquisition of the heavenly
wisdom. Christ bids us to come and "learn of Him, for He is
meek and lowly of heart," and those who have been humble
scholars in the school of Christ, whether they succeed or not as
the world counts success, will certainly win the wisdom that is
better than gold and the understanding that is rather to be chosen
than silver.

The Book of Job has become recognized during the
last fifty years as a book that has a special message to

The Art of Exposition

such an age as that in which we live. Froude, in a
notable essay, called the attention of the English people
to its nobility as literature, and to the ever-pressing
problem which it endeavours to solve — the problem of
the misfortunes that often dog the steps of a good man,
and of the sun that often shines cloudless on the man
who has grown old and rich in iniquity. Good men
coming up against that problem have found it too much
for their faith in God. Sometimes a single staggering
blow for a time shakes the firmest faith. Dr. Parker
confessed that for a time, on the death of his wife, he
lost his hold upon God. But Job is presented to us as a
pious man who is attacked on every side, who is beaten
down by misfortunes, and ** the unkindest cut of all "
is his misjudgment, and condemnation as one who must
have done wrong to deserve misfortunes, by the sleek
prosperous friends to whom he had looked for comfort.
We see Job battling desperately to clutch at the garment
of God, and gradually glints of light break through the
inky darkness of the clouded sky, and though he cannot
understand the mysterious workings of God's way, he
is assured that " his Redeemer — his Goel — liveth," and
that though he die under the weight of his afflictions,
even then his integrity shall be vindicated, and some-
how evil shall be overruled for good.

When we come to Ecclesiastes, we find ourselves
again in an atmosphere peculiarly modern. The problem
is the opposite one to that posed in Job — not how to
explain the miseries of the man stripped of everything,
" smitten of God and afflicted," but how to explain the
restless dissatisfaction of the man who has everything,

The Spirit of Bible Books

and who yet finds that his heart is empty, and that all
the sweets of life are turning sour in his mouth.

VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT

The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes pictures to us a king
born in the purple, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, endowed
with intellectual gifts above the sons of men. This king had set
himself to drink the cup of life to the dregs, to extract the last
drop of satisfaction that could be got out of the senses and the
mind. Nothing that his eyes desired, and his hands reached
after, was denied to him. Surely such a man was the happiest
of men ! The most of us are continually galled by the limitation
of our circumstances. We feel that if we had more money
and more leisure we could indulge our tastes, luxuriate in our
hobbies, and give ourselves generally a good time. As it is, our
noses are kept to the grindstone of the routine of a life of labour.
We work because we must, and the fruits of our labour leave us
little margin for indulgence in the luxuries of life. If we only
knew, our very limitations, and the circumstances of our life
against which we are kicking, are blessings in disguise. Our
pleasures gain in intensity because they are so rare and so
modest in their nature. It is our compulsory work that gives
the zest to our hobbies. If we possessed the cap of Fortunatus,
and had only to express a wish for the wish to be gratified, we
should soon lose pleasure even in the wishing, and in the end
should be tempted to fling the cap away.

This was the experience of '* the Preacher," the " son of
David, king in Jerusalem." The early chapters of the Book of
Ecclesiastes tell a story as tragic as any to be found in the
literature of the world. For the greatest tragedy of all is not
the tragedy that has the thrill of exciting romance and ends in
physical death, but the tragedy of a soul that has missed the
mark, that has misused its opportunities, that has committed
spiritual suicide. The king tells us how he had used his wealth,
his power and his worldly wisdom to procure material and mental
enjoyment for himself. He lived in a palace, he planted gardens
and vineyards, he was waited on by obsequious servants, his
house was filled with treasures of art, musicians and singers
played and sang to drive dull care away, and the end of it was

The Art of Exposition

" vanity and vexation of spirit." " What profit hath a man of all
the labour which he taketh under the sun ? "

The experience of the king has been repeated in every age,
and is being repeated to-day, more, perhaps, than in any previous
age, for never were there such accumulations of wealth, and
never was there such a mad craving for the material pleasures of
life. But in every age, as in the age of the king in Jerusalem, it
has been found that the man who lives for self-gratification loses
the power to be gratified. Pleasures pall upon his palate, the
sweets of life turn sour, the more he spices the dishes at his
banquet the more tasteless they become, and yet in spite of all
experiences the same tragic mistake continues to be made. The
king tells us of the things that he tried, but there was one thing
that he had not tried, and that was the one thing needful to
satisfy his soul. Everything he had tried had been tried to please
himself. He had lived for himself, and for himself alone. The
one thing he had not tried was trying to please others. The
best of good times is not the good time that a man gives to him-
self, but the good time that he gets when he is giving a good time
to others. It was " vanity and vexation of spirit " with the king.
A gloomy, world-weary pessimist in his palace, looking out on
the beautiful gardens, and frowning as he heard his men and
women singers and orchestra discoursing their most exquisite
music. A few years ago there was a craze in England for the
" RubaiyAt " of Omar Khayyim, the Persian philosopher-poet of
the Middle Ages, known to England by the free translation of his
quatrains by Edward Fitzgerald. KhayyAm, in the rose gardens
of Persia, gives us much the same verdict on life as the king in
Jerusalem had done, though he never sounds the depths of
despair at the emptiness and futility of mere mental and
material enjoyment as the poet-philosopher of the Hebrews had
done. Perhaps if the cultured people who raved about Omar
Khayydm, and never wearied of quoting his quatrains, had known
their Ecclesiastes, the craze would never have attained to the
dimensions it did, and would have come to an end the sooner.

There is a very effective method of exposition by
contrast, and against the ** king in Jerusalem " might
be placed Paul, having nothing, but even in Christ

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possessing everything that is most worth having. The
apostle renounced everything, and became a wanderer
on the face of the earth, but the Kingdom of God was
within him, and the man who possesses the Kingdom of
God sees the world, and all the things of the world,
dwindle into insignificance and worthlessness before the
unsearchable treasure he possesses. The things that the
" king in Jerusalem " tried were good enough things in
themselves, but his mistake was in making those things
the all in all of his enjoyment. He lived, indeed, before
the time of Him who said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom
of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
But there were many in Old Testament times, as the
historical books, the Psalms and the Prophets show, who
"were not far from the Kingdom," and God has never
denied Himself to humble souls who truly sought Him.
Leaving the Old Testament for the New, it would be
impertinent to insist on the necessity of entering into
the spirit of the books, and letting the spirit of the books
enter into us. It is enough to suggest that each author
has a spirit of his own, and the preacher who is infused
with that spirit is the only faithful and fruitful expositor.
The Gospels each give us a full-length portrait of Jesus,
but with a different profile, in a different attitude, and
somewhat differently robed. Matthew's Jesus is the
Messiah- King, with the royal robe of the House of
David ; Mark's Jesus is the peasant Friend of " the
common people," like Haroun Alraschid moving about
with His royalty disguised ; Luke's Jesus is also the
Friend of the multitudes, but with the added touches of
the Great Physician, and the emphasis on the Father who

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is not willing that one should perish, but ** goes after
that which was lost, until He find it," and stands with
straining eyes at the ever-open door waiting to fling His
arms round the returning prodigal's neck, and kiss him ;
John's Jesus is " the Resurrection and the Life," '* the
Way, the Truth, and the Life," the drawer aside of the
veil of the Holy of Holies and revealer of the Father
whom "no man hath seen at any time," the Good
Shepherd who layeth down His life for the sheep, the
Vine of which the Father is the Husbandman. Those
portraits need long looking at before the details are
clearly discerned, and they make their full effect upon
our hearts and minds. Just as the astronomer-photo-
grapher has to give an exposure of several hours, the
camera following the inclination or declination of a
section of the heavens, before the most distant stars
reveal their existence upon the sensitized plate, so the
delicate secrets of the Gospels only imprint themselves
on the most sensitive souls who are never weary of
contemplating the " mystery of love " half revealed and
half hidden in the Gospel portraits of Jesus.

The preacher approaching the Gospels should " take
the shoes from off his feet, for the place whereon he
stands is holy ground." The Father of Expositors,
Chrysostom, sets an example to all expositors in his
opening homily on St. Matthew's Gospel. The "golden-
tongued" Archbishop of Constantinople contrasts the
giving of the Law at Sinai with the coming into the
world of the Gospel.

How then was the law then given, and when and where ? After
the destruction of the Egyptians, in the desert, on the Mount

The Spirit of Bible Books

Sinai, with smoke and flame ascending from the mountain, to the
sound of a trumpet, with thunderings and Ughtnings, Moses
entering into the darkness. But with the New Covenant it was
not so. Not in a desert, nor on a mountain, nor with smoke and
darkness and gloom and storm, but as the day was beginning, in
a family, all things orderly prepared, everything happened with
much mildness.

Contrasting the Heavenly City of which the Gospels

give us glimpses with the dazzling centres of the Greek

and Roman world, Chrysostom says : —

The prizes of this citizenship are not crowns of laurel or
wild olive, nor food in the Prytaneum, nor bronze images, these
are barren and cheap ; but they are the life that has no end, to
become children of God, to walk with the angels, to stand near
the Royal Throne, to be continually with Christ. And the chief
citizens of this city are publicans, and fishermen, and tent-makers,
not living for a little while, but living for ever.

At the threshold of Matthew's Gospel, he says : —

For we are about, if God permit, to enter into a city golden,
and more precious than all the gold, whose gates are put together
of sapphire and pearls. Through its gate, therefore, let us enter,
and it is becoming that we should be very serious. We have in
Matthew the best of guides. Most royal is the city and illustrious.
It is not as those with us, divided into market-square and palace,
but all there is royal. Let us fling open then the gates of under-
standing, let us fling open our hearing, and with holy fear about
to cross the threshold, let us worship the Royalty within. It may
be that the first glance will dazzle our vision into blindness. The
gates are now closed to us, but then we shall see them thrown
open — for this is the solution of our questionings— then we may
gaze on the hghtning brightness within. For to those who walk
with spiritual eyes, this tax-gatherer promises to show everything.
Where the King is seated ; who are the warriors who stand nearest
to Him; where the angels are, and where the archangels; what
place is marked off" in the City for the young citizens ; what is the
way that leads thither ; what inheritance those received who
were the first citizens there, and those who came next, and those

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after these ; and how many rulers there are of that people, and
how many belong to the council ; and what are the grades of
honour. Let us not enter, therefore, with shouting and confusion,
but with mystic silence. For if, on the stage of the theatre, it is
only when a deep silence reigns that the letters of a king are read,
how much more it becomes those in this city to bear themselves
reverently, and to stand with souls and ears attent ! For the
letters not of an earthly monarch, but of the Lord of the Angels,
are about to be read. If thus we range ourselves in order, and
the grace of the Spirit shall itself lead us with the utmost careful-
ness, then we shall come to the Kingly Throne, and we shal^
obtain possession of everything that is good, by the grace and
human-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and
power, and to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always
and through all the ages, Amen 1

Let this chapter close with some counsel on how to
get into the spirit of the Epistles. Who that has allowed
himself to be swept unresistingly along by the tumultuous
rush of Paul's molten logic has thought of him primarily
as the dogmatic theologian .? It is the gush of feeling
rather than the course of the argument that affects us
even in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians.
The theology is there unescapable, the theology of the
experience of " the chief of sinners" saved and sanctified ;
but it is when we come into electric touch with the man
Paul, when we feel the stormy beating of his great
heart, and enter into the warrior spirit of the most
heroic Paladin of the Cross, that we really know Paul
and really understand his theology. Going from Paul
himself to some system of ** Pauline Theology," we smile
at the way in which the systematizers have ** panted
after him in vain." None of them has been able to
catch and cage that soaring eagle, mounting ever sun-
ward with undazzled eyes. We get rather a stuffed owl

lOO

The Spirit of Bible Books

than a live eagle, and though the owl may suggest an
eagle, because it has a beak and feathers, it can do no
more. Let the expositor go to Paul, whose Letters are
yet warm with the boiling blood of his lion heart, and he
will give such expositions as will capture the congrega-
tion and put to flight the army of Paul's carping critics.
As to John's Epistles, they are the heart's outpour-
ings of a man whose spirit is expressed by a kindred soul
in Bernard of Clairvaux's hymn :

Jesus, the very thought of Thee

With sweetness fills my breast ;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,

And in Thy presence rest.

O hope of every contrite heart 1

O joy of all the meek 1
To those who fall, how kind Thou art I

How good to those who seek !

But what to those who find ? Ah, this

Nor tongue, nor pen can show 1
The love of Jesus — what it is,

None but His loved ones know.

The love of John, however, was no soft and senti-
mental affection of a woman's heart. There was flame
of fire at the centre of it, and the flame could flash some-
times as the lightning and shrivel mean and selfish souls.

The age has need of men who will preach the love of
God with a dash of the wrath of God in it ; not mystics
lulling their own souls into forgetfulness of the world
around them, but practical mystics set on making " the
kingdoms of this world the Kingdom of our God" ; and
such preachers will get the right blend of the melting love
and the holy wrath in the Epistles of John.

lOI

CHAPTER VII

METHODS OF EXPOSITION

" As many men, as many methods," one would say if
each preacher followed Emerson's counsel and dared to
be absolutely himself. The man who is himself is
original, and takes his own line serenely careless of
what others do. His method may be less ideal than
those of the acknowledged masters of the craft, but it is
his own, and he will get more out of it than he would
out of imitations, even of the best models. A character-
istic weakness of preaching has been the tendency of men
to adopt conventional forms of sermon construction,
conventional lines of exposition, and a conventional pulpit
dialect. No attempt will here be made to show preachers
how to build up "skeletons"; the desire is only to
press home the necessity of the skeletons being clothed
with flesh — flesh that has been made by "inwardly
digesting " the Bible. At the same time, much valuable
suggestion can be gained from the practice of the
masters, and hints can be given illustrative of the variety
that can be introduced into expository preaching.

I. The Running Commentary
The practice of a running commentary on the lesson
was customary and popular in earlier generations, and
when well done it was a very valuable method of

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exposition, stirring up interest in the Bible, and pro-
moting its intelligent reading at home. In the seven-
teenth century, congregations were never weary of
such exposition. Calamy reports how John Howe
told him that on public fast-days, then frequently
observed, he " read and expounded a chapter or psalm,
in which he spent about three-quarters of an hour."
And this in a service that included a three-hours'
sermon and nearly three hours of prayer ! " There
were giants in those days," in the pews as well as in the
pulpit ! It is doubtful if the running commentary
could be revived, even if it were desirable. It was
killed partly because it was so often perfunctory and
commonplace, partly because the modern congregation
demands short services, and partly from the feeling
that it is impertinent for the minister to keep on inter-
rupting the Word of God with his own remarks.
Charles H addon Spurgeon was the last notable preacher
to keep up the practice, and his congregations eagerly
anticipated the running commentary.

His " Treasury of David " is a collection of his
expositions of the Psalms. The volumes of " The
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit " are an inexhaustible
mine of exposition by a man who might be "old-
fashioned " in his theology, but he knew his Bible as
few men have known it, and had wonderful intuition
into the feeling and thought of the Bible writers.

2. Continuous Exposition

The method of continuous exposition of a book of
the Bible, in a series of sermons, is consecrated by the

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most ancient usage. Chrysostom, in his *' Homilies,"
preached through the New Testament, and his volumes
remain still, after fifteen centuries, a body of exposition
unsurpassed for insight into the spirit of the books, for
sympathy with the spiritual genius of the writers, and
for force and directness of application. Chrysostom
loved to interrogate a text, in a series of questions, and
the interrogative method, skilfully applied, is often very
effective, and pricks the congregation to attention.

Three of the most popular modern preachers — Dr.
Alexander Maclaren, Dr. Joseph Parker, and Dr. G.
Campbell Morgan — have known how to carry congrega-
tions with them in unfailing interest while preaching
through books of the Bible. Each of the three
deliberately attempted exposition of the whole Bible.
Dr. Campbell Morgan gets eight to nine hundred at a
Friday evening Bible class in which he covers book
after book, and sends the hearers home — preachers,
Sunday school teachers, and simple worshippers — with
notes of his talks, to study the books for themselves,
with the clues he has given them to their interpre-
tation. At Birmingham Dr. J. H. Jowett has taken his
Thursday evening congregation through the Psalms and
other books, at a week-night service that gathers almost
the largest mid-week congregation in England.

The method of Dr. Maclaren was to take a text from
a Scripture portion, and expound the portion to which
the text belonged. Sometimes he had a piecemeal text,
as Luke xv., 4, 8, 11, "An hundred sheep . . , ten
pieces of silver . . . two sons." In his exposition of
this portion of Luke's Gospel, he said the parables,

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Methods of Exposition

which he had isolated, in order to bring their teaching
into a whole, were not a complete statement of " the
way of salvation." They were parables, and were
meant to show us that a painful anxiety which prizes
lost things because they are lost has something corre-
sponding to it in the Divine nature.

I. There are varying causes of loss. The sheep did not intend
to go away. It simply knew the grass was sweet, and heedlessly
wandered on from tuft to tuft. The coin was heavy, so it fell ;
it was round, so it rolled ; it was dead, so it lay. And there are
people who are things rather than persons, so entirely have they
given up their wills, and so absolutely do they let themselves be
determined by circumstances. The foolish boy had no love for
his father to keep him from emigrating. He wanted to be his
own master, and to get away into a place where he could sow his
wild oats, and no news of it ever reach the father's house.

II. The varying proportions of loss and possession. The loss
in one case is i per cent., a trifle; on the other lo per cent.,
more serious; in the last case, 50 per cent., heart-breaking.

III. The varying glimpses we have in the parables into God's
claim upon us, and His heart. Ownership is the word that
describes His relation to us in the first two parables ; love is the
word that describes it in the third.

The volumes of " Expositions of Holy Scripture " by
Dr. Maclaren are store-houses from which the preacher
can gather many a golden suggestion.

The fruits of Dr. Parker's expositions of the Bible
books are garnered in the long series of " The People's
Bible." The City Temple preacher was unlike any
other who has illustrated the English pulpit — a grown-
up child of genius, with the untameable irresponsibility
of genius, the freakishness that often goes with genius,
but he had a Puritan familiarity with the Bible. He
loved the Bible with a passionate love, he revelled in it,

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The Art of Exposition

he seemed at times to have miraculous intuition in
threading the mazes of its thorniest passages. He
went to the Bible for what it could give, and did not,
like some men, turn on the Bible and rate it because it did
not give what it was not intended to give. It is true
enough that Dr. Parker's expositions are not always
such as will satisfy the critic. He was no Professor of
Sacred Literature, but a preacher who was speaking to
the heart of man. If, however, we sometimes fail to
find an adequate critical exegesis of a text, we never
fail to find light flashed from some facet or facets
of what, to Dr. Parker, was always a many-sided
diamond. His intimacy with the Bible writers, and the
quickness and fertility of his imagination, often turned
to the light a facet that seemed entirely novel, though
as the facet was flashed on the congregation by Dr.
Parker everybody was convinced that it belonged to
the diamond. From " The People's Bible " this sample
of Dr. Parker's exposition is selected : —

THE DOOM OF CAIN (Genesis iv. 20—22)

Cain killed Abel and then said he did not know where he was,
and pettishly he asked, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " How
sins go in clusters ! Murder, lying, selfishness all bound together
in this incident. But blood makes itself heard ; you cannot wash
out the deep stain. All human blood is precious : there is not
a drop too much of it in all the earth. It is a fountain that rises
close by the throne of God. Slay a child, and the law of
civilization will seize you, and slay you with a holy sword. " He
that sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed."
This is not a question of capital punishment in the vulgar sense
of the term, but of capital punishment in its high and eternal
necessity. Capital punishment, in our sense of the term, was
not inflicted upon Cain, but in the fullest and deepest sense his

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Methods of Exposition

life was forfeited to the inexorable and righteous law. Capital
punishment is the doom of all sin. " The wages of sin is death."
" In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." To
do evil is to perish at the core.

3. Exposition of Related Passages

Instead of taking a whole book of the Bible, a preacher
may select passages that relate themselves to each other,
or that, put together, build up a doctrine, or educate the
congregation systematically on the shaping of Christian
character, the attitude of the Church and the individual
Christian towards business, home life, politics, recrea-
tions, and so on. The late Professor John Laidlaw, D.D.,
of New College, Edinburgh, published two volumes of
expositions, " Studies in the Miracles," and ** Studies in
the Parables," that are models of this method of selective,
and yet related, exposition. He begins the series on
the parables by an introduction vividly conjuring up the
scene in which the seven parables of Matt. xiii. were
delivered.

CHRIST'S OPEN-AIR SERMON

Let us for a moment call up the scene in which these parables
were spoken that we may realize the beauty and naturalness of
the images employed.

It was an open-air sermon. " The same day went Jesus out
of the house and sat by the sea-side." He had been teaching in
a public assembly — in the synagogue or in some other meeting
in the town, probably in Capernaum, His own city, which stood
close by the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He now goes out and
betakes Himself to the beach. It is likely He went for retire-
ment, but the multitude followed Him. So He went into one of
the ships moored at the shore, and the people stood on the land.
Suppose Him then seated on the prow, or highest part of the
boat, with His congregation circled round Him on the shore. The

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The Art of Exposition

prospect of a beautiful country lies before Him. Round green
hills girdle the Sea of Galilee as the mountains bound the shores
of our Scottish Lakes. Looking over the heads of His audience,
His eye rests on smiling cornfields waving down to the very
water's edge, crossed by winding footpaths, broken here and
there by terraces of rock or clumps of thorn, but for the most
part rich and abundant in grain, for this was the garden of
Palestine. The material of His first four parables lay thus
outspread before Him — the Sower, the Tares, the Mustard Seed,
the Leaven. Then on the busy road that here and there crosses
the landscape caravans of travellers and traffickers are seen, and
thus the labours of commerce suggest two other images — the
Treasure and the Pearl. And then the eye returning to the very
place where He sat, the nets that hung from the vessels' sides, or
the fishers plying their craft on the lake, suggest the materials
for the concluding parable. Thus the Lord reads us the secret
of the world of nature as a symbolism for the kingdom of grace,
and gives a key to the way of becoming spiritually wise, not in
spite of, but by means of, our earthly conditions.

That background of the country, the atmosphere, and
the picturesque Oriental surroundings, gives realism to
the parables. Dr. George Adam Smith's " Historical
Geography of the Holy Land" should be in every
preacher's library. The Land often throws light on the
Book, and anyway the judicious introduction of local
colour and atmosphere adds materially to the interest of
the exposition.

4. The Message of a Book

Sometimes the preacher will expound the message of
a Book, taking the book as a literary whole, explaining
its literary form, and relating it to the personality of the
author who uses that form as the vehicle of salutary

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Methods of Exposition

teaching to the men of his time. Hints for the exposi-
tion of two puzzling books by this method follow : —

ESTHER'S HEROISM
" And if I perish, I perish."— Esther iv. i6.

There are elements in the book of Esther that are not pleasant
to a Christian reader. We have to remember, however, that the
book was written under the Old Dispensation, that it deals with
the customs and ways of thinking of Orientals, that Esther's
people were captives in a strange land, that they were menaced
with destruction to satisfy the pique of a proud courtier, " a
beggar on horseback," who had risen by ministering to the vanity
of a sensual tyrant. Mordecai, Esther's uncle, was a typical
Jew — scheming, cunning, but withal a lover of his people, and,
there could be no doubt, a devoted worshipper of Israel's God,
though a pecuHarity of the book is that the name of God is
never once introduced.

Esther is queen — queen by the caprice of the king, on whose
word, if she displeased him, she might be degraded or destroyed.
A crisis comes in the destiny of her people. She, and she
only, can save them by an appeal to the king, but she can only
make this appeal by breaking a law that none shall approach the
king unless at his request, and that if they do, they shall be put
to death, unless he graciously holds out to them his golden
sceptre. The king seems to have temporarily forgotten Esther,
but if her people are to be saved they must be saved at once.
Will she, dare she, brave the king's anger, risk the loss of her
splendid position, and the loss of her life ? She takes the heroic
course and returns to Mordecai the answer, " So will I go in
unto the king, which is not according to the law : and if I perish,
I perish."

Women are supposed to be less courageous than men, but
what about Deborah, what about Esther, what about the women
who went with the spices to the sepulchre of the crucified Jesus ?
And not only in the Bible but in secular history, there have been
women who have risen to the loftiest heights of heroism, and by
their heroism have accomphshed great things. Joan of Arc, and
the Maid of Saragossa, showed a courage that put to shame the
warriors of their time. But in the missionary field, in social and

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The Art of Exposition

moral reform crusades, in the work of the Church at home, there
have been lion-hearted women who have dared everything for a
good cause, and for God, whose cause it was.

If Esther, in the dim light of her time, amid the demoralizing
surroundings of the palace of a sensual king, who was her lord
and master in the worst sense of the term, could say, " If I
perish, I perish," when the saving of her race in captivity was
concerned, what ought not the women of to-day, who live in a
Christian land, in the light of Him who was the Friend and the
Uplifter of women, to dare and to do for Him ?

There are some who question the right of the Book of Esther
to be in the Old Testament canon, but the Jews to this day
celebrate in an annual feast her act of courage which saved their
people. Such books as Esther and Ecclesiastes are beads without
which the necklace of revelation would be incomplete.

THE IMPERFECT PROPHET

" But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
. . . Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry ? " —
Jonah iv. i and 4.

It has pleased the sceptics to make great fun of the book of
Jonah. They appear to imagine that the story of the whale
swallowing the prophet is the one thing that matters in the book.
As a matter of fact, that story is merely incidental, and whatever
view we may take of it, the teaching of the book remains
unaffected. The book has a message for to-day, and for all times.
It is the story of a timid man chosen by God to be His messenger,
of an impatient man, and of an angry man who judges by his own
feehngs, rather than according to the character and will of Him
whose messenger he was.

Jonah was a missioner to warn the people of the capital of a
foreign and hostile state that unless they repented of their sinful-
ness God's judgment would fall upon them in the destruction of
their city. Such a message was much more likely than not to
arouse the resentment of the people, and it might easily lead to
the brutal treatment and perhaps the murder of the messenger.
Jonah's courage failed him, and, grasping at any expedient to
escape the burden, he foolishly thought he might sail away out of
the knowledge and the power of God. " A poor sort of a prophet,"

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Methods of Exposition

you will say, but there have been Jonahs in every age, and there
are Jonahs to-day who would rather keep their mouths shut, and
hide themselves, than speak that which will expose them to obloquy
and loss. Of course Jonah could not hide himself from God, and
in wonderful ways he found himself in Nineveh.

There he delivered his message, and he found that God had
prepared the people to receive it. Once in Nineveh, however,
amongst the enemies who had wrought so much ruin in his
country, Jonah forgot that he was a prophet and remembered that
he was the Hebrew patriot. It is easy to imagine that he enjoyed
his violent denunciation of the Assyrians, and the prospect of
their proud city sinking into ruin. He was surprised and dis-
appointed when they saved themselves by turning to the God of
Israel, and the conditional sentence was cancelled. " It dis-
pleased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry."

In this, too, Jonah was like a good many prophets of succeeding
times. The natural man, the old Adam, asserts itself even in
prophets. There are preachers and reformers whose one gospel
is the gospel of vigorous denunciation of the people engaged in
the evil trade or practice which they are endeavouring to reform.
It may be there are some vehement temperance reformers whom
it would be very difficult to convince that God desires the repent-
ance and the reformation of the men engaged in the drink trade,
and who, if they had their way, would rather, like the " Sons of
Thunder," call down fire from heaven upon them. We have to
learn that it is the will of God not to destroy but to save, and
that the people whom we detest on various grounds are as much
the subjects of God's fatherly interest as we are ourselves.

•* Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry ? " And
God taught Jonah a lesson by the scorching up of the gourd under
whose cooling shade he had rested. Let the preacher, let the
reformer learn from the story of Jonah to be courageous, faithful,
patient and merciful. It is a short book, but within its compass
it is as full of instruction, put into fascinating form, as any equal
portion of the Old Testament.

The Book of Ruth and the Song of Songs are two
Old Testament books which are intensely interesting
pieces of Hebrew romantic literature. Each deals with a

III

The Art of Exposition

phase of pure human affection, and rightly viewed,
lends itself to fascinating exposition.

5. The Expositor as Painter

The Bible is a picture-book, and the best preaching is
good painting. There is room for infinite variety of
drawing and colouring. There was something of Turner
in Dr. Parker's "hues of sunset and eclipse," suggestive
of wide spaces and far distances melting into the
haze of purple mountains. Dr. Maclaren belonged to
the quieter school of the English landscape-painters,
who, by the use of apparently the simplest means, got
effects of reality that more ambitious men had missed.
Mr. Spurgeon was an English Teniers, delighting in
homely " interiors," skilled in the distribution of lights
and shadows, and in the grouping of his figures mostly
drawn from the life. The Rev. R. J. Campbell is an
impressionist-realist, with a palette of many colours.
He dashes his colours on to the canvas with swift
strokes and loves broad and varied effects. Dr. Camp-
bell Morgan is a Rubens, who likes a big canvas, and
who aims at broad effects, produced by bold strokes
of the brush. Dr. J. H. Jowett is a Van Eyck or a
Meissonier, who paints great pictures on a small scale,
exquisitely finished, every detail pencilled with the finest
brush as under the microscope. He hates indefiniteness
of outline. Yet he takes great texts and deals with them
in a great way, and leaves plenty to the imagination of
his hearers to develop and fill in. It is difficult to the
point of impossibility to take a sermon of Dr. Campbell
Morgan, and convey any idea of it by an extract or a

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Methods of Exposition

summary. It would be like cutting three square inches

out of a Rubens and presenting it as a sample of the

picture. It is easier to give an idea of the method, or

rather the methods, of Mr. Jowett from his sermon

openings, with a sentence or two in addition selected

from the development. For this reason, half-a-dozen

examples are given from sermons of the Birmingham

preacher.

ENOCHS IN MODERN LIFE

" Enoch walked with God." — Gen. v. 24.
" He pleased God." — Heb. xi. 5.

" Enoch walked with God." A sweet and gracious record in
the thick enumeration of dry and insignificant names. It is like
searching in the Record Office, and coming upon a love letter.
It is like a bit of cleared farm-land on a ragged moor. It is like
the tinkling of living water in a desert waste. All the surroundings
are pale, and fusty and dusty ; but here is a face with the blood
colour still in the cheek, and the heart is beating. *' Enoch
walked with God." And yet that is all we are told about him —
surely the shortest biography on record. "He pleased God,"
says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews — that was his desire —
and that was his reward. There are countless thousands of such
living in our own day, whose simple and beautiful annals could be
written in these identical words.

SONS AND HEIRS

"Thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son, and if a son,
then an heir of God through Christ." — Gal. iv. 7.

" Son " and "heir" ! So that is how our position and prospects
are described. " Son and heir " ! Would the world recognize
our status when it looks upon us ? Are there any signs about us
of aristocratic breeding? Do we betray the presence of royal
blood ? Is there something in our demeanour subtle, impressive,
influential, something which our clothes can never hide, and
which abides through the long, grey stretch of commonplace
years ? If we are of true blood, " blue blood," of royal lineage,

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" born . . . not of the will of man, but of God," there must be
something about us emphatic and unique, which will fill the world
with wonder. " And if a son then an heir." The recovery of
our sonship is accompanied by the restoration of our lost lands.
We are not only heirs of " great expectations," but of great
possessions. " Having nothing," we may yet " possess all
things."

THE NEMESIS OF AVARICE

" But they that will be rich fall into temptations and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of
all evil : which while some coveted after, they have erred from
the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
I Tim. vi. 9, lo.

I want to look at the characteristics of this particularly ungodly
passion described in the text. What is the portraiture of this
avaricious and covetous man ? Three phrases describe his
primary features : — He loves money; he will be rich ; he reaches
after it. He loves money as some folk love their children, as
some saints love their God. It glows and burns within him,
a hot, fierce, insatiable affection. To craving he adds determina-
tion. " He reaches after it." There is all the suggestiveness of
troubling strain. It is the reaching out of the racer who is nearly
at the goal. Every muscle on the stretch ! Riches so reached
after are " a snare." The figure suggests a steel trap, so hidden
as to present no apparent danger.

HOLY BOLDNESS

" When they beheld the boldness of Peter and John . . . they
marvelled." — Acts iv. 13.

" When they beheld the boldness of Peter and John." That is
a very wealthy word, not suggestive of any one particular
element, but of a whole panorama of spiritual context. It means
presence of mind, freedom of speech, outspokenness almost to the
point of bluntness. " The boldness of Peter." That records a
Gospel miracle. The hardest rocks are just mud that has passed
through the ministry of terrific fire. " Thou also wast one of His
disciples." " I know not the man." That is the yielding mud.

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Now he is firm as rock. " And of John." But John is usually
figured as of mild and gentle countenance, with far-away dreamy
eyes, and almost effeminate mien. If John is light, however, he
is also lightning. John leaned on the Master's breast ; he went
to Patmos for his faith. " When they beheld the boldness of
Peter and John . . . they marvelled."

THE PROPHET AND HIS INTERPRETER.

" We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye
do well that ye take heed ; as unto a light that stineth in a dark
place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts ;
knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any
private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by
the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost. — 2 Peter i. 19 — 21.

The prophet, his prophecy, how to understand it ! This
passage is about as compact and concentrated as a crystal. It
enshrines a description of the true prophet, it unveils the nature
and significance of true prophecy, and it defines the only methods
by which the secrets of prophecy can be disentangled and under-
stood. If you want to interpret a prophecy aright you must get
into the spirit in which it was born. The Holy Spirit must
interpret what the Holy Spirit first inspired.

REST AND ITS GIVER
" Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me ;
for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto
your souls." — Matt. xi. 28, 29.

" I will give you rest." Give! This kind of rest is always a
gift ; it is never earned. It is not the emolument of toil ; it is the
dowry of grace. It is an immediate gift, but it is also a con-
tinuous discovery : " Learn of me . . . and ye shall find rest."
The Church needs the restful spirit. The restlessness of the
world is not to be wondered at, but the restlessness of the
Saviour's Church in these days is amazing. She is encountering
restlessness by restlessness, and on many sides is suffering
defeat. The care tires, and the wrinkles of worry and anxiety
and uncertainty, and a general air of restlessness, seem almost as

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prevalent upon the countenance of the Church as upon the face
of the world. The Church needs a more restful realization of
her Lord's presence, a more restful realization of the wealth and
power of her allies, a more restful disposition in the ministry
of prayer.

6. The Preacher as Dramatist

If the preacher is a painter, he is also a dramatist.
The Bible is not only a picture-book, but its teaching is
conveyed in hundreds of dramatic incidents, and the
teaching is most effectively impressed when those inci-
dents are dramatically presented. Apart from the
incidents, there are numberless dramatic words and
phrases, which to the imaginative preacher will suggest
dramatic exposition. The preacher should learn from
the Bible how to tell stories, with movement, colour and
dramatic verisimilitude. Take, as a dramatic incident,
the sin and punishment of Achan, with his innocent
family (Joshua vii.). It might be used in some such
way as this : —

THE SIN OF ACHAN

In the opening chapters of the book we have the story of the
passage of the Jordan. It is a dramatic story, the reading of
which must have thrilled in after generations the descendants of
the warriors who fought under Joshua. Tribe after tribe,
battalion after battalion, spearmen, swordsmen and bowmen,
descended into the river, following the Ark of the Covenant.
They found themselves on the other side, and Jericho fell into
their hands. Then Joshua prepared for the capture of Ai, the
next walled city, and a band of chosen men advanced confidently
to the attack. But " there went up thither of the people about
three thousand men. And they fled before the men of Ai, and
the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men. Where-
fore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water."
There was some reason for the failure, for the panic that fell
upon the people, and the story tells of the device by which
Joshua sought to discover the secret of the unexpected defeat.

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Whether the story is literal history in all its details or not, does
not matter ; the lesson of the story remains, and there is a lesson
in it for to-day.

In the Israelite camp was a man, a chief man of the tribe of
Judah, the head of a family— Achan. Joshua knew how much
depended on the success of his people at that moment. To all
human seeming, the fate of Israel was balanced on the edge of a
razor. If Israel was defeated, and beaten back across the river,
the Israelites would have remained a horde of bedouins, to be
destroyed by the surrounding tribes, or to be absorbed and lost
in those tribes. If Israel was to fulfil its mission it must become
a nation, and to become a nation it must establish itself in a
country, and there develop its institutions and its religion. It
was essential that the Israehtes, so newly welded into an army,
should fight as one man, intent only on winning the victory for
Israel and for Israel's God. Every individual in the army must
subordinate his individual interest to the common interest, he
must be prepared to do and die, to lay himself a living sacrifice on
the altar of duty. It was at such a time and at such a crisis that
Achan, a responsible man in his tribe, the head of a family,
allowed avarice to take possession of him, putting his private
interest before the general interest. He ceased to have a single
eye for the main end in view. He could not resist the temptation
of the Babylonish garment, the 200 shekels of silver, and the
wedge of gold. He was a true Oriental, grasping and cunning.
He took the spoil that came in his way, and hid it in the earth in
the midst of his tent, and, doubtless, thought to himself, " Why
should I not profit by this stroke of good luck ? Nobody will
know, but when the battle is over and the victory won, the gold
and silver will come in very useful on my farm, or in the town
in which I may settle." He may have argued with himself that
it was his duty to his family to take what he found while it
was in the way, and if he did not take it, somebody else less
scrupulous might do so.

It was Achan's sin, according to the story, that brought defeat
upon Israel, that caused the panic-fear that led them to flee
before the men of Ai. The story has been criticized often enough.
Why should the army suffer for one man's sin ? many have said.
And why, when the sin was discovered, was not Achan alone
punished? It was monstrous that his sons and his daughters

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should be stoned with him, and everything he possessed be
burned. It does seem unjust and cruel at first sight, judging the
affair calmly at this time of day, and from our Western and
Christian point of view ; but when we look closely at the story,
do we not find in it elements of eternal truth ? Achan's sin endan-
gered alike his nation, his Church, and his family. But is not
that what the sin of the individual man is always doing ? We are
coming to recognize in these days the solidarity of humanity.
No man lives alone, no man dies alone, and no man sins alone.
There is nothing so infectious as sin, there is nothing that spreads
so subtly, and that, as an evil leaven, tends to leaven the whole
lump.

The dramatic use that may be made of picture words
and phrases is suggested in this imaginative treatment
of the opening verses of Isaiah Iv. : —

THE GRATUITOUS GOSPEL

" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ; yea come, buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye
spend money for that which is not bread ? and your labour for
that which satisfieth not ? hearken dihgently unto me, and eat ye
that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." —
Is. Iv. I, 2.

The text conjures up a bustling Oriental bazaar. The bazaar
is thronged with richly-robed men and women, whose purses are
well filled, and who gaze greedily at the tempting wares. The
shopkeepers are pressing the costly goods on their notice, are
sounding their praises, and they find a ready response. What I
note, however, is that the trade done is all in the luxuries of life.
Here is a jeweller with rings, necklaces and bracelets of finely-
wrought gold, in which ghtter stones that are almost priceless —
the ruby with its heart of flame, the emerald like a crystallized
bit of the ocean wave, the sapphire with the sheen of the azure
sky, the diamond with the lightning flash of its facets as they
catch the light. Ladies and gentlemen, in silk and jewelled cos-
tumes, bid against each other for the most expensive goods.
At another shop are being unrolled the richest carpets ever

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woven on Oriental looms, and tapestries that are worth a king's
ransom. Here, too, those who have not emptied their purses at
the jewellers' are in mad competition for the choicest specimens.
Everywhere is the hurly-burly of thronging customers, and the
exchange of untold money for goods to adorn the persons, or
adorn the palaces, of the buyers. I notice, further, in the bazaar
shops deserted, and those are the shops in which the necessaries
of life are to be had. The baker stands forlorn at the door of his
customerless shop. This is strange, and the strangeness becomes
uncanny when I hear the cries of the baker and the dairyman :
" Come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price." The cry falls upon deaf ears, for the
customers seem to have adopted the modern maxim of the
American who said, " Give me the luxuries of life, and let who
will have the necessaries."

And yet those people who are " spending their money for that
which is not bread," and the fruits of their labour " for that which
satisfieth not," are lean and starving ; but in their greed for the
glittering gauds, and the glowing carpets and tapestries, they
forget their starving condition, and spend all the money that they
have, regardless of what is to become of them when they find that
they have no bread, no wine, and no milk with which to satisfy
their hunger and their thirst. '* What fools ! " you say ; and ask
" Are they mad ? " They are not a bit madder than numberless
people in any city of to-day. The picture, of course, is a parable.
It is a picture drawn by the great ** evangelical prophet " ; but
it was drawn again, centuries afterwards, by Jesus. Jesus found
the people in His time "laying up treasure on earth, where moth
and rust doth corrupt," and neglecting to lay up " treasure in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt." He found
people wildly rushing about eager for the things which cannot
satisfy, and turning away from the bread and the water of life.
It is always so in the Vanity Fair of the world, and Vanity Fair
is doing as roaring a business to-day, and is as crowded with cus-
tomers, as it was when Bunyan's Pilgrim passed through it.

The things best worth having are not the things after which
men and women strive with such desperate eagerness. Human
love is a priceless possession, as the love of father and mother,
of wife or child, but what do we pay for treasure such as this ?
The " love divine, all loves excelling " is the most priceless of all

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treasures, but it is not to be purchased in any mart, even if all the
kings* treasures on earth were put together and offered as its
price. Lowell says :

" It's God alone may be had for the asking ;
It's only heaven that is given away."

Only God, and only heaven, but their possession makes the
pauper wealthier than all the assembled millionaires on earth.
But how many see God and heaven held out to them, and gaze
with indifferent eyes, and turn away to the stalls in Vanity Fair,
in order to " spend their money for that which is not bread, and
their labour for that which satisfieth not " !

7. The Bible Portrait Gallery

The Bible pictures include an unequalled portrait
gallery of men and women, flesh and blood embodi-
ments of humanity in all its variety of good and evil.
The life-likeness of the portraits is largely due to the
fact that we find good and evil mingled in the characters,
as in human nature. There is a boundless field for psycho-
logical exposition, character-sermons in which we see
the mirror held up to the life of our own age as it was
held up to the life of the ages in which the Bible
portrait-painters lived. Luthardt, in his admirable
commentary on the Gospel of John, sketches a score
of characters who are there drawn, some only in
miniature, but enough is shown to make the characters
live for ever as examples for imitation or warning to
men who share the same unchanging human nature,
with its hopes and fears, its noble and base ambitions,
its heroisms and its villainies.

Every parent remarks on the difference in character
of children of the same family. The same difference
appears in the Bible, both in the Old and the New

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Testament. An illustration is here given. A preacher
who is a keen psychologist, and a portrait-painter
from the life, might do worse than give a series of
sermons on " Brothers of the Bible," or Sisters — such
pairs as Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Moses and
Aaron, John and James, Peter and Andrew. He would
find numberless analogies in modern family life.

MARTHA AND MARY

" Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house." —
John xi. 20.

Martha running to Jesus, and Mary " sitting still in the house,"
are touches thoroughly characteristic of the two women. Martha
is the practical, bustling woman ; Mary is the meditative woman,
the woman whose eyes are wells of unfathomable meaning, whose
awakened soul is capable of pouring itself out in the most reckless
extravagance of love and devotion. They are types of eternal
womanhood, not to be invidiously contrasted, but both to thank
God for, though each may have the defects of her qualities. The
Marthas are the world's home-makers. Mrs. Poyser, in "Adam
Bede," was a Martha, who ruled her husband with a rod of iron,
but there was a big, warm heart beating under her ample bosom.
And Dinah Morris was a Mary. The world has need of them
both. Martha is good to have for next-door neighbour when all
the children are down with illness, or an accident has happened,
and the mother has broken down, with chaos as the consequence.
She is the woman who is indispensable in church work, seeing to
it that the last stitch has been put into the last garment for the
bazaar, and that the last slice of bread has been buttered at the
big tea. Mary, the woman of the Madonna face and the soulful
eyes, flings herself with complete abandonment into mission work
in the slums, among the Magdalens, or in the foreign field.
Martha sometimes criticizes her. Why didn't Mary run to Jesus
when Lazarus lay in the grave, instead of sitting silent and
weeping in the house ? Well, perhaps her very stillness was the
stillness of silent prayer, and that prayer, and the faith in the

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One into whose eyes she had looked that went with it, may have
been as influential with Jesus as Martha's impulsive haste and
gush of words. The ideal woman, no doubt, would be a blend of
Martha and Mary, but let us thank God for both, and ask Him
to give us more of each.

8. Analogical Exposition

There is a method of analogical exposition in which
the preacher does not so much draw out the primary
sense of the text, as allow the text to suggest some
analogous sense in which the principle of the text is seen
to be operative. The method is perfectly legitimate,
but it needs to be used in moderation, and the line
taken must really be analogous, and fairly suggested by
the text. Abuse of the method has led to fanciful and
allegorical treatment of texts which has tended to bring
preaching into discredit, and to foster the idea that an
ingenious man can so twist a text as to make it mean
anything he likes, from which idea it is not far to the
idea that there is nothing stable in the Bible which the
mind can hold to with absolute confidence. Wise use
of the analogical method enables the preacher to make
use of many parts of the Old Testament which otherwise
would remain arid to the expositor. The regulative
principle in analogical exposition is that as spiritual law
works in the natural world, so processes of nature, events
of history, and vicissitudes of individual life run parallel
to processes and events in the spiritual world, and there-
fore the preacher can equally draw from the material
spiritual lessons, and from the spiritual lessons for the
material plane of life. Some illustrations of the
analogical method are given.

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THE CHILDREN OF THE GIANT

By Dr. Joseph Parker

" And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of
great stature . . . and he also was the son of a giant. But when
he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother,
slew him." — i Chron. xx. 6, 7.

A curious reading this is — the giant, the son of the giant, the
children of the giant, the man of great stature. No doubt
considered very terrible in war in the olden times. This is rough
reading, but it is nothing to the tale that we can tell. This was
poor, rude fighting, mere stone-throwing and body-thrusting,
compared with the war in which we are engaged. There were
giants in those days, there are giants in our days. You tremble
when you read the names of those giants. There is no need to
tremble. A deadlier giant is aiming at your heart to-day. The
externals have changed as to apparatus, and nomenclature, and
environment, and all that sort of vanishing vapour, but the fight
goes on— the tremendous clash of arms. The Philistines and
Israelites meet face to face, and there can be no peace. They
represent different words, different ideas, atmospheres, purposes ;
they never can compromise. What giants have you been
fighting? You have got through the first crude lot. How do
you know it ? It was a mere mob of blackguards. The hostility
itself was vulgar, coarse, contemptible. The mischief is lest,
thinking that we have got through that mob of scoundrelism and
villainy, visible and palpable, we should imagine that therefore
the fighting is done. Fighting never ends until the body is in the
grave or is laid out for the last journey. You have killed the
giant Falsehood. Long ago you killed the giant Untruth, the
black-faced giant Lies. It does not follow that you are now a
true man, that you have escaped the stain and the shame of
another falsehood. It may be subtle, dead lies. Take care!
You have overthrown the giant Dishonesty. But what is
stealing? You have overthrown the giant Sensuality, but you
do many curious things. What about the giants Unbelief, Pride,
Covetousness, Ingratitude, sordid, calculating Ambition ?

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THE ROYAL BOUNTY

By Dr. Alexander Mackenzie

" And King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire,
whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his
royal bounty." — i Kings i. 13.

He granted first her request ; he granted second the prompt-
ings of his own heart. And it is this added unexpected gift
which in these simple annals is called the royal bounty, and this
royal bounty which was given without the asking of the queen we
may well believe was dearer in her heart and more precious to
carry away than the things which she had thought out and
desired. The principle is a very good one. You find it stated
many times in scripture. This is the way in which God gives.
You find in the 23rd Psalm, " My cup runneth over." It is a
very remarkable expression. There is no use in a cup running
over ; David did not want it to run over. Let it be only full and
it is enough — enough, indeed, to satisfy him, but not enough to
satisfy the One who is pouring into the cup, and only wishes it
were larger.

May I suggest that in your reading of the New Testament you
try to separate that which is absolutely necessary from that
which is added as the gift of the grace of God ? At the wedding
at Cana Christ turned the water into wine. There was no need
for it, but He saves the bride from shame because He wanted to
do it. At Capernaum they let down the poor, helpless man, sick
of the palsy. All they wanted was for the man to be healed.
But Jesus extended the gift at His own desire, and said, " My
son, thy sins be forgiven thee." In Christian service it is pitiful
to narrow things down, just to fulfil our obligations. Cannot we
do something because we want to do it ? That is the life, and it
brings us nearer to God.

THE DANGERS OF RELAPSE

By Dr. Theodore T. Monger

" But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man,
passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth it not.
Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came

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out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept and
garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh seven other spirits more
evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there ; and the
last state of that man becometh worse than the first." — Matt. xii.
43—45.

Christ here takes a simple moral process, and, for emphasis,
clothes it with a spiritual form and pictures it in an external way
before the imagination : evil is a spirit, a devil residing within
the man ; it sits in his heart, and hatches wickedness, and shows
itself in malignant deeds and expressions : it possesses the man.
The simple truth here taught by Christ is, that when a man gets
rid of his evil, or comes out of an evil state, and falls back into it,
his last state is worse than his first. Thus we have our subject
— The Dangers of Relapse.

It is well understood in disease that a relapse is more
dangerous than the original attack. The forces of nature are
weakened ; the house of the body was swept clean of all those
gracious energies that filled it full of life and health, and now the
disease runs riot through all its undefended chambers and
passages. Relapses are always dangerous. To venture forth
and then return ; to rise and fall back ; to promise and not fulfil ;
to undertake and not do— this is the tragedy of character.

I. One who lapses from religious earnestness does not easily
regain it, and if the lapses are frequent there is danger of losing
it altogether.

II. One who takes up and lays off duty, and is fitful in religious
habits and feeUngs, grows sceptical of the reahty of these things.

HI. There is but one true goal of human effort, and that is
character. To know its conditions and obey them is the sum
of all knowledge and duty. No trade is learned, no habit is
formed, except under a law of steadiness; and the finest of all
habits and products— character — comes about by unfluctuating
pursuit of it.

ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF MYSELF

" And when he came to himself." — Luke xv. 17.

I was struck in a recent re-reading of the parable of the
Prodigal Son with a thought that I had not encountered before,
suggested by the text. That a man should be lost to God, that

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he should be lost to home and friends, I could understand, but
that a man should be lost to himself and that it should be
necessary for him " to come to himself," to find himself, that had
not occurred to me. And yet how obvious it is when we come to
think of it. Wordsworth says : —

** Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.
Heaven lies around us in our infancy ;
Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Around the growing boy."

That is the experience of every one of us. As we grow older
we leave heaven behind us, and the farther we are from heaven
the more we have lost ourselves in '' the far country." My Ufe is
a series of adventures in search of myself —my real self, my best
self, my self that is nearest to heaven and to God.

I need to " come to myself " intellectually. In the far country,
mixed with the world, I think the thoughts of the world, the con-
ventional thoughts of society : I do not think my own thoughts.
Is not this the secret of most of the ethical and spiritual confusion
that prevails ? I am the slave of the social atmosphere, I repeat
the parrot cries, the popular catch-words, it may be the
theological shibboleths of the sectarian circle in which I mix —
I am not myself, I do not know where I am. How am I to
discover my intellectual self? I must ''come to myself," and
the way to find myself is first to find God. " I must arise and go
to my Father." I must do His will if I would "know the
doctrine, whether it be of God." If I live in communion with
God, He will enlighten me, and the scufflings of Old Theologians
and New Theologians will no longer trouble me. They can only
trouble me when I am away from myself.

My real self is a sane self. We say of a man who is indisposed,
'* he is not himself." We say of a man whose mind is affected,
'* he is out of his mind." It is another way of saying "he has
lost himself." Of course I am not myself when I am away from
God, for then I am wandering helplessly in a pathless forest ;
when I come to myself I shall find the Way, the Truth, and the
Life.

I note that when the prodigal son came to himself, his first

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thought was of home. There is an earthly as well as a heavenly
meaning in the parable. In the home life we should be most our-
selves. I was told of a banker, stiff, dignified, looking like a bag
of gold or a satchel of bank-notes incarnate. One day a man had
occasion to go to the banker's house and was shown into the
drawing room unannounced, by a new maid. He found that
banker on all fours on the carpet giving his little grandson a ride
round the room. The banker was not himself at the seat of
exchange ; but he was himself in the home. It would be well if
the Churches recognized how much the home life does in enabling
a man to discover his best self.

There is a heavenly meaning, of course, as well as an earthly
meaning in the phrase, ** he came to himself." To come to one-
self is to come to God. The trouble is that in " the far country "
we may have got so lost that we cannot find the path Godward.
Ah ! but God does not leave us to wander aimlessly about. He
has sent Somebody out to find us. "I was lost, but Jesus found
me." God will never let a wandering soul who desires to find
himself remain ignorant of himself. It is the mission of Jesus to
help us to find ourselves, and to set us on the road that leads to
the heavenly home.

THE OLD EARTH AND THE NEW EARTH

" And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it
was very good." — Gen. i. 31.

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." — Rev. xi. i.

But if the earth as it left the hands of its Maker was very good,
what need was there for a new earth ? There are some who tell
us that the creation of the earth was a bad piece of bungling ;
that a wise Creator would not have made " nature red in tooth
and claw " ; that He would never have allowed sin to come in and
leave its foul trail in the Garden of Eden, and in all the gardens
of the earth. Such people fail to understand that when God
peopled the earth with men made in His own image, these men
were to be co-workers with Him in making the earth what it was
in God's dream of it. God sketched a picture, but He intended
man to fill in the details. There is nothing wrong with the
sketch : God's work was " very good ; " it is the details that man
should fill in that are botches and blotches on the pictures of God's

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conception. To every one of us God has given a palette of
colours and brushes, and He says to each one of us, You are to
add your little touches to the picture, and unless your touches
are added, the picture will not be finished as I conceived and
planned it when I made the earth. What is wrong with the
picture is due to the fact that we have either not used our colours
and our brushes, or we have used them carelessly, or instead of
co-operating with God, we have splashed on the canvas without
regard to the design, preferring to carry out some poor design of
our own, and our bad work will have to be removed and good work
substituted in accordance with the design, before the picture is
finished, and God's masterpiece of an earth that is " very good"
is revealed to every eye.

Is not this the teaching of the Lord's Prayer : " Thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven " ? The doing of God's will is the
CO- working with God in the completion of His picture of an earth
that is " very good," that is " as Eden the Garden of God." John,
in his Patmos vision, saw prophetically an earth that was the
earth God intended it should be when His design was completed.
Yes, some day the botches and blotches will all be removed ; all
the stains of sin will be cleansed away ; all the disfigurements due
to perverted human will shall give place to the beauty of God's
perfect plan, and then indeed there will be ** a new earth" and
yet not entirely a new earth, for it will be just the old earth that
God intended, but which has never yet been realized.

And yet how much beauty there is even now upon the old earth 1
And all the beauty is divine in its origin. There is no changing
colour of sky or sea, no colour or fragrance of the flowers, no
glory of the rising or the setting sun, no great thought that is
given to the mind ^^of man, no welling up of love in the human
heart that flows into channels of redeeming service, but was in
God's picture of the earth that He created, and the beauty in
nature, and the beauty in grace, are signs and prophecies of the
new earth that is to be. What a glorious thought that each one
of us is a co-artist with God in the painting of His picture ; that
God so honours and trusts us as to think us capable of con-
tributing to the perfection of His masterpiece ; but what a solemn
responsibility it is that the masterpiece will remain for ever
imperfect unless our little touches are added to it I Our comfort
and our strength, however, is that He will give us the inspiration,

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and the man who is God-inspired is no longer a commonplace
day labourer but a genius. The house-painter becomes a Raphael
or a Titian, and adds immortal touches to the masterpiece created
in the mind of God.

9. Devotional Exposition

The last method of exposition to which reference will
be here made is devotional exposition. Just now, in the
reaction from " other- worldliness," the devotional sermon
is out of favour. The demand of the age is all for
*' something practical." But, as Dr. Charles A. Berry
argued, there is nothing more practical than the devout
life. The Church needs the " power house," or all
its machinery will soon come to a standstill. Rob
Christianity of its mystic element, and it is Samson
shorn, exposed to the jeers and buffets of the Philistines.
The Church's greatest need is a practical mysticism, the
mysticism that draws illumination from the other world,
in order to solve the problems of this world, and draws
strength from the other world in order to fight the
battles of this world. If any age needed the lyric
inspiration of the Psalms, and John's fixed gaze on the
Son of God — the Incarnate Word, the Comforter, the
Preparer of " mansions " in the land of those who " have
crossed the flood " for those who will, in a few short
years, have to cross it, a Guide to all truth by which the
soul lives, a Feeder of the soul with " bread of heaven"
— it is the bustling and hustling age in which we live.
We have travelled far from the time when such books as
Baxter's "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," and Howe's
" The Living Temple," were read and relished in every

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pious home. Let the preacher cultivate the art of
devotional exposition, and he may find that the most
unlikely men in the church, the hardest-pressed business
and professional men, are deeply grateful to him for the
heartsease he has given them, and the refreshment that
has come to them from his leading of them into " the
secret of the presence " of God. This chapter shall close
with examples of devotional exposition.

''THE RIVER OF GOD"
Psalm Ixv.

The Psalms are the heart's outpourings of saintly men of old,
whose experiences are repeated in every age. Saints do not
always live in the sunshine. It is not good for them that they
should. They need the shadow and the storm to make them
robust and to develop their souls. "Whom the Lord loveth
He chasteneth," and whom He chasteneth He purifies and
sweetens. In the 65th Psalm, there is a shadow over the opening
verse — " iniquities prevail against me." The Psalmist, speaking
for himself, and possibly for a company of kindred souls, turns in
his trouble towards God, and cheer comes to him as he thinks
of the services of God's house and of the inspiration which he has
there received. It were well if in these days modern Christians
cherished the same delight in the services of God's house that
was cherished by the saints of the Old Covenant. How many a
heavy heart has been lightened in the services of the sanctuary ;
through how many a black cloud of despair shafts of heavenly
light have flashed !

The Psalmist, as he thinks of the foes of the faithful and their
temporary triumph, is reassured further of the power of God, and
the goodness of God. How can the puny arms of man prevail
against Him who " by His strength setteth fast the mountains and
stilleth the noise of the seas " ? So a great modern poet has put
into the mouth of the Italian maiden Pippa the declaration: —

" God's in His heaven.
All's right with the world ! "

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It is God's world after all, not a world in the power of the evil
one, and God's arm is not shortened that it cannot save.

But the power of God by itself, though it may evoke our
wonder, does not necessarily call forth our love. It is the
goodness, the bounty, the grace of God that appeal to our heart,
and warm and fill it with grateful devotion. And so the Psalmist,
from the God who sets fast the mountains and stills the raging
waves, turns to the Father who " watereth the earth and fills our
mouths with good things." He lived in a thirsty land where the
water brooks often ran dry, where the fields were parched and the
ground cracked by the fierce heat, but he says, " The river of God
is full of water." Yes, and the river of God's grace is full of
water, and we do well to remember it. Sometimes the ground
we are working seems arid and barren. We toil on and on and
on, and we seem to be making no progress towards harvest. We
look at the dry brooks and in moments of pessimism we imagine
that never more will they be filled. Let us have faith in God
whose " river is full of water 1 " Prayer and faithful service can
tap that river, can construct channels between it and our little
human water brooks, and some day we shall see the streamlets
running down joyously until the water brooks are filled, the banks
are green with verdure, and the trees that are planted by the side
of the water brooks cover themselves with glistening foliage, and
we shall say with the Psalmist, " The valleys shout for joy, they
also sing."

HOW JOHN "SAW THE VOICE"

"And I turned to see the voice that spake with me." —
Rev. i. 12.

John, in the rapture of his Patmos vision, is not careful to
choose his language. The prosaic critic, with a keen sense for
faults of expression, would seize on the words of the text and ask,
" How could John see a voice ! " But John was right, and the
critic would be wrong. There is a logic of the heart, and a vision
of the heart, and it was not with mortal eye or ear that John
" saw the voice," but with an intuition of the heart that was
stirred to its very depths by the revelation that was given to him
of the things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man to conceive. You do not have to

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be present at many prayer- meetings before you will hear meta-
phors strangely mixed, but the man who would criticize those
metaphors of the heart pouring out its fulness in the presence of
God is a man who would be heartless enough to criticize the
pronunciation of the mother who had enfolded him from infancy
to manhood with her shielding love. When John, " in the Spirit
on the Lord's Day," heard the " great voice as of a trumpet," he
knew whose was the voice before he turned, and with the inward
eye of faith he saw the glorified Lord before his eyes fell upon
Him.

John was a great visionary because he was often "in the
Spirit," and it is worth knowing that the day on which the veil of
heaven was drawn aside was the Lord's Day. The men who
neglect the Sabbath, who forsake the assembling of the saints
together in the house of God, are not the men who will " see the
voice." The great dreamers whose dreams have been the
driving power of the world have been men who loved the Sanctuary
and the Lord's Day, and their dreams came to them when they
were " in the Spirit." How much the world owes to its dreamers !
The man of the world, the " practical man," as he boasts himself,
criticizes and sneers at the dreamer as an idealist, but the man of
the world, if he would open his eyes wide enough, would see that
it is only the dreamer who succeeds, even in the sphere of secular
affairs. Every great invention, every great business, every step
forward in social reform or political progress, has been the out-
come of somebody's dream. The greatest obstacle in the way of
progress is the number of men who in the rough and tumble of
the world have had the dream element knocked out of them.

Is not "the arrested progress of the Churches," of which we
hear so many complaints, due chiefly to the fact that we dream so
little, and dream such little dreams? When the Church gets
spiritually low, when her altar fires are flickering out, when her
officials are despondent, timid, pessimistic, it is because they have
left off dreaming, and they have left off dreaming because they are
not " in the Spirit." Pentecost was the fulfilment of the prophecy
of Joel that God would pour out His Spirit, and the sons and the
daughters should prophesy, and the young men see visions, and
the old men dream dreams. A spiritually cold Church is one
which no longer feels the warm breath of Pentecost blowing on its
exhausted soul, and upon whose head no longer hover the cloven

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tongues of Pentecost. Let us get " into the Spirit on the Lord's
Day," and we shall "hear the voice," and dream the dreams.

LEANNESS OF SOUL

" And He gave them their request ; but sent leanness unto
their souls."— Ps. cvi. 15.

Leanness of soull That is a starvation not peculiar to the
children of Israel who, amid the hardships of the wilderness life,
lusted for the flesh pots of Egypt that they had left behind them.
It has been said that " God sometimes punishes a man by answer-
ing his prayers." He punished the IsraeUtes when they "lusted
exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert,"
by answering their prayers. He gave them quails to eat, satisfied
their physical appetites, but "sent leanness unto their souls."
There are many to-day, outwardly "fat and flourishing," who are
lean of soul. There is a German folk story of a very poor char-
coal burner who had a kind heart and was always doing good
turns to people. He often wished that he were rich that he
might help still more. One day in the forest a wicked-looking
gnome appeared and told him he would make him rich on one
condition. He must exchange his heart of flesh for a wonderful
mechanical stone heart that the gnome had made and kept in his
workshop in a cave underneath the forest. The poor man did
not like the condition, but was tempted and consented to the
bargain. He was cast into a deep sleep and when he awoke the
exchange had been effected and he felt the stone heart working
within him with perfect regularity, but it was cold, very cold.
When he got back to the village everybody noticed the change.
He was harsh, overbearing, a changed man ; riches came to him ;
everything he touched turned to gold, but the richer he grew,
the colder seemed the heart, and when old age crept upon him
he longed to be poor again and have back his warm human heart.
That is a modern way of saying that the man got his request, but
leanness came to his soul.

There are lean-souled Christians to-day in all the Churches —
very good men to all outward seeming, but they get no joy, no
satisfaction out of their religion. They have done well in the
world, too well, for they have become so busy with heaping up
treasure on earth that they have forgotten to feed their souls.

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And there are Churches that, are lean of soul also, and this is
the explanation of the weakness of much of our Church life.
" Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and
have need of nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked ; I counsel thee
to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame
of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with
eye-salve, that thou mayest see."

Happily, on the other hand, there are men and women who
have failed perhaps, as this world counts failure, but all their
lives they have been feeding their souls, and of such the Psalmist
says, " they shall still bring forth fruit in old age ; they shall be
fat and flourishing." Happy the Church that has such fat souls
among its members I Such a Church will not be powerless,
because such souls are richly communicative. They cannot
keep, they will not keep, their fatness for their own exclusive
enjoyment. They are always giving themselves and feeding
others with that which has enriched their own souls. Some-
times the richest saints are the poorest men and women. At a
prayer meeting I once conducted a man rose who I was told
lived under wretched conditions. He was past seventy, had
lost his wife, was bent nearly double with sciatica, was very poor
— it was before the golden age of Old Age Pensions — and he lived
with a drunken son-in-law who often cursed him and some-
times even beat him. I shall never forget his prayer. He said,
" Sometimes, Lord, when I go to bed I cannot sleep for my
rheumatism and thinking of my dead wife, and then I begin to
sing the hymns we sing in the chapel — very softly, so as to
disturb nobody in the house— and then I forget all about my
rheumatism and my loneliness. I am in Heaven, and I can see
Thee on the Great White Throne, and I can hear the Hallelujahs
of the angels." That man's soul was fat, and the millionaire
who has starved his soul in making his money might well
envy him.

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CHAPTER VIII

BIBLE BACKGROUND

There should be a Bible background to every sermon.
Where it is lacking, what is the authority of the preacher?
What gives him his place in the pulpit, and his power
with the people, is the fact that he is set apart to declare
the whole counsel of God as that counsel is revealed in
the Word of God. The preacher is to add to his know-
ledge from every source, and he can use every sort of know-
ledge in his preaching, and deal with every subject that
affects the manifold interests of men ; but it is the Bible
background, the Bible atmosphere, the constant appeal
to the Bible, the application of the Bible, and the asking
and answering of the question, "What saith the scrip-
tures ? " that make the people attach to the utterances
of the pulpit a value that they do not put on utterances
from any other platform. The preacher may be a poor
business man. a poor politician, a poor man of science
or literature, but if he be " mighty in the scriptures " he
can say things, and create a spirit, that will tend to the
making of business men of greater integrity, purer
politicians, men of science who see the wonderful works
of God in all the operations of Nature, literary men who

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use their pens "as ever in the Great Taskmaster's sight."
All princes of the pulpit have been careful to paint in
their Bible background. Sometimes there is intro-
ductory exposition of the text pure and simple leading
up to the practical application. Sometimes the sermon
is treatment of a theme illustrated all the way through
by scripture. If the preacher is saturated with the
Bible, the Bible is interfused with everything he says,
no matter what method of treatment of text, or subject,
he may adopt. It was said of the Roman historian
Livy that in his style there was a lactea ubertas^ " a
milky richness." In the preacher's sermons there should
be a "milky richness," the richness of the "sincere milk
of the Word." That Bible richness is sadly lacking in
much modern preaching, and there is loss of unction and
compelling power in proportion to the poverty of the
Bible knowledge and Bible insight. When the Bible
preacher gets his text or subject, the text or subject should
at once magnetically attract illustrative and enrich-
ing and confirming material from the whole range of the
Bible literature. The secular material that the preacher
has gathered may be used to charge his gun, but the
Bible teaching is the propelling power that drives home
the shot. It has been said that the preacher should
charge himself to the muzzle and then fire himself off at
the congregation. Well, let him charge himself with
the Bible, and he will "carry" himself with terrific
impact against anybody who happens to get in the way
of the shot, or against whomsoever the shot may be
skilfully directed.

It is a good way to stretch out the background at the

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beginning, but it needs to be artistically done. A
congregation is wearied by a wordy and loose exposition
of the setting of the text, or of the incident that is to
supply the lessons of the sermon. The expositor should
be a bit of a scene painter, a bit of a portrait painter; and a
well painted scene or portrait at the opening of a sermon
creates interest, and composes the mind of the hearers to
the mood in which they will be prepared to receive the
teaching. Let the scene or portrait, however, be kept
to a reasonable size, and not be allowed to cover a
canvas the size of a wall. The cameo word-pictures of
the Parables would have been much less effective had
they been enlarged to the length of novelettes. Fixed
rules for the stretching of the background would be
useless. Each man must practise the method that suits
him best, and vary his method to secure the effects he
desires ; but the illustrations that follow of Bible back-
grounds selected from preachers of different types, of the
past and present, will suggest their own lessons. They
have been in some cases reduced from the originals.
To add to their usefulness, after some of the sermon
openings the " divisions " are given, while after others
there is a very brief outline indicative of the exposition
and application. First, a group of present-day preachers
are represented.

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PREACHERS OF TO-DAY

THE TRAITOR

By G. Campbell Morgan, D.D.

"For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors,
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ;
having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof: from
such turn away." — 2 Tim. iii. 2 — 5.

There can be very little doubt that this second letter to Timothy
contains the last known words of the apostle. The old man is
passing away, and he is quite conscious of it. There is no fear
or trembling in his outlook upon the future. It is a wonderful
epistle. Reading it again in order that one may have all its
setting upon this particular consideration, it has been wonder-
fully refreshing to notice what buoyancy of spirit characterizes
the man. As he looks on to the future, what calm intrepid faith
characterizes all his words ! There is no shrinking, there is none
of that sickly sentimentality that we sometimes hear people sing
about, " I hope I shall just get inside heaven." Nothing of the
kind. There is nothing of the " almost a wreck " coming into
port. No, it is the tramp of a strong man, the step of a man
who has been loyal, who has never been a traitor. And with
regard to boastfulness, there is not a trace of it upon the page ;
there is the quiet calm confidence of a man who has been true to
his Master and whose Master has been true to him. He looks
back to the persecutions he met with at Iconium, Antioch and
Lystra, where you remember he was left half dead upon the
field, and he says, " Out of them all the Lord delivered me." It
is a song of triumph all through the epistle, and yet there is a
great note of sadness about it. It is pre-eminently a personal
letter. The first epistle to Timothy is very much official. It
seems as you read the first epistle that he is writing to the
minister, to the young man with his work before him. When he

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writes the second epistle he seems as though he is writing to
Timothy his beloved child in the faith. It is certainly worthy of
note in passing that in this second letter to Timothy there are no
less than twenty-three proper names more than in any other. He
is coming to the realm of the personal, he is thinking of loved
ones and of those that have loved him. He is sad as he thinks of
some, very much comforted as he thinks of others. This man
is looking out upon the state of the Church, upon the condition
of the kingdom. There the Church is, or always ought to be, a
concrete example. And it is as he does this, writing to Timothy,
that he utters the solemn warning, not the warning of a man
that has lost hope, the warning of a man that is now settled
down and saying, " Everything is lost," but the warning of a
courageous soul that will look the peril right in the face. He
says, " Know this, in the last days grievous times shall come."
How this dark brood of evil things that he enumerates shows the
keenness of his perception ! Men shall be lovers of self, lovers
of money ; and after that a swift double description of the peril.
He divides and sub-divides, and the whole description moves in
threes — boastful, haughty, railers ; unfilial, unthoughtful, unholy ;
unloving, implacable, slanderers ; uncontrolled, fierce, no lovers
of good ; traitors, headstrong, puffed up. Then there are two
sweeping sentences to finish — lovers of pleasures — not pleasure —
more than lovers of God, and then a sentence that gets right to
the very heart, "having a form of godliness but denying the
power."

I. Th& Treachery of Compromise. — People say the teaching of
Jesus " won't work." There is to be no toleration of evil in the
ranks of the soldiers of the King, no hunting for excuse for evil
among the followers of the Christ, no complicity with evil, no
compromise with evil, no submission to evil.

n. The Effect of Treachery. — This spirit of rebellion against
the King issues in the ruin of personal character ; in the destruc-
tion of the social virtues; in the annihilation of the religious
principle.

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THE SANCTUARY OF LOVE AND GRACE

By J. H. JowETT, M.A., D.D.

♦' I have been crucified with Christ : yet I live : and yet no
longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now live
in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself for me." — Gal. ii. 20.

What shall we do with this passage ? How shall we approach
it ? Shall we come to it as guests or as controversialists, as sup-
pliants or as combatants ? The fiercest action at Waterloo was
fought round about a farm, where the fruits were ripening in the
orchard, and the fields were yellowing for the harvest. The
farmstead was treated as a battle-field, and the ploughshares were
beaten into swords, and the pruning hooks were converted into
spears, and the waving corn was trampled in the gory clay. And
here, too, is a farmstead, and the fruit hangs ripe upon the
branches, and the corn is yellow for the harvest. How then ?
Shall we make it a sort of Waterloo, or shall we walk with our
Lord in the garden " at the cool of the day " ? I would approach
it as a guest and not as a soldier ; I come to feast and not to
fight. I would "sit down under His shadow," and His fruit shall
be " sweet unto my taste." Behind the familiar words of my text
there are tremendous experiences, the secrets of which lead us
into the innermost sanctuary of the hallowed love and grace of
God. And therefore, I say, I would rather sing the song of the
harvest home than the song of any victor whose ecclesiastical
enemy Hes prone upon the bloody field. Survey the field

*^Who loved me and gave Himself for me ! " There you have the
passion of redemption.

" / have been crucified with Christ : yet I live." There you have
the mystery of recreation.

" / live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.** There you
have the secret of appropriation. Such is this scriptural farm-
stead, whose overflowing fields and barns it is our privilege to
make our home.

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Bible Background

THE TREE OF LIFE

By Robert F. Horton, M.A., D.D.

" To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of
life, which is in the paradise of God." — Rev. ii. 7.

This is a promise which is held out to us as if to show that we
can overcome if only the motive is strong enough. Let us take
the text and examine for the moment what this promise is which
is held out to us, and then let us spend a few moments in asking
what it is that we have to overcome, and then finally ask : " Can
we overcome ? "

The promise held out is : "I will give him to eat of the tree of
life which is in the paradise of God." It is a reminiscence of the
story of Eden, and it seems to be reminiscent also of the apo-
cryphal testaments of the twelve patriarchs, only the verdict
against Adam is reversed. We read there about Levi : " And he
shall open the gates of paradise, and shall remove the threatening
sword against Adam, and He shall give to the saints to eat from
the tree of life, and the spirit of holiness shall be on them."

Paradise is the Persian word for garden, especially applied to
a royal garden, a park with its forest and fruit trees. That idea
of a garden seems to have haunted the memory of man. All
mankind has the feeling that it was driven out of a garden, and
therefore all mankind has a hankering for the garden from which
it was driven.

The garden of the text is, of course, not an earthly paradise : it
is the paradise of God. What is held out to us is nothing sensuous
at all. This tree is not a tree to climb or repose under, or gather
fruit from. It is the tree of life. There is a fruit which a man
can eat and live for ever. The very leaves of the tree on which
that fruit grows are for the healing of the nations. " I will give him
to eat of the tree of life that is in the paradise of God." The
paradise of God can no more be determined locally than the
original Garden of Eden. It is no more invisible than visible.
It belongs to a region of another kind of experience than that of
the senses. A paradise of God — you will get the meaning of it
by being of it. You repeat it to yourselves day and night for a
week. "The tree of life that is in the paradise of God." The

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meaning of it will begin to clear itself without effort. Any descrip-
tion we can give of it would only reveal the fact that it is not here
or there, not visible or invisible. It is a state, a condition of
experience which is closely connected with Jesus. It is not in a
particular locality ; it is in Him, or rather, He is in it. It is a
place where He is, where He reigns, where His thought has become
the atmosphere and His life the life.

I. The victory. Overcoming, or victory, is in itself the prize.
It is overcoming the difficulties of life, temptations, ourselves.

II. Can we overcome? The power of sin is great, but Christ's
power is greater. Actual sin is overcome by an actual Saviour.

CHRIST HINDERED

By Charles Brown

" And He could do there no mighty work save that He laid
His hands on a few sick folk, and healed them. And He
marvelled because of their unbeUef. And He went round about
the villages teaching." — Mark vi. 5, 6.

"He could there do no mighty work." Precisely the same
expression is used of our Lord as is used of His disciples with
the demonized boy. " He could not," " They could not." And
there is the same obstructive cause — unbelief. Here is the pro-
foundly significant situation : Christ is the power of God among
men. He is God to us. But here is the very power of God
thwarted in its intentions by the condition of men. We some-
times say, " God can do as He will." It is a thoughtless saying.
There are certain departments of life in which He can do nothing
without the co-operation of men. He can never make men
receive His grace apart from their own will. You may be sitting
in the midst of an atmosphere of blessing, and be insulated.

We may be insulated by our personal prejudice and bigotry;
by closing our minds, save in one direction ; by refusing the good
because it appears in another Church than our own, or in some-
body outside the Church, or in somebody with whom we disagree,
or in somebody who lives by our side and is a rival to us, and is
more popular than we are.

Our Lord will not stay where He cannot work. Nothing is
truer than that He, by the Holy Spirit, requires and demands a
sympathetic atmosphere and attitude to do His greatest work in.

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GOD'S SECOND BEST

By G. A. Johnston Ross, M.A.

" God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you." —
I Sam. xii. 23.

The interpretation given in the Bible of the undoubted fact of
the religious genius of the Jewish people, and of their place in
the history of religion, is that they were designed to stand before
the nations of the world as a people of God, i.e., a people living
very obviously and palpably under the immediate control of and
in devotion to the one true God. This was Israel's first best.

The Book of Judges is the story of the failure of Israel to
realize the ideal. It is the history of a process of degeneration,
of the falling away of a nation from a high calling. The Degene-
ration picture is complete when we see Eli and his sons, the
tumbledown house of God at Shiloh, the licentious priests — all
culminates in the desolate phrase, " All Israel lamented after
Jehovah."

There came a point when the restraining and uniting force of a
central authority, stern and militant, became an absolute"
necessity if the nation was to recover its sense of unity at all.
The unity under the spiritual reign of God was gone ; hence a
second-rate imity, the unity wrought by force of arms, and by the
apparatus of strength gathering round a court, had become an
absolute necessity. I ask you to see the action of God represented
as acquiescing in the action of Samuel, recognizing that the first
best was gone.

Can we not see this process at work in general history ? Even
the cross is a second best. You once were innocent, and you
know that you will never be again. But God in His loving mercy
came to man in his fall from innocence, wtth a design of salvation
and repair of which the centre was the cruel cross.

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THE ISOLATION OF SIN

By Amory H. Bradford, D.D.

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord." —
Gen. iv. i6.

I do not intend to enter into an interpretation of the story of
the beginning of sin. The first sin was disobedience, the second
was murder. The first broke the harmony of the universe.
When the one being possessed of the power of choice did evil
that harmony was broken, and man and woman realized from that
moment that they were separated from all other things in nature.
The intensity of the language grows as we come to the description
of the crime of Cain. He cried, " Lord, my punishment is greater
than I can bear." Then he specified what it is : " Thou hast driven
me out this day from the face of the ground." " From the face of
the ground," notice ; that is, his crime seems to have separated
him from sympathy with nature. "And from Thy face shall I be
hid ; " that is, he had lost the consciousness of communion with
God. " And I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth ; "
that is, he had broken the bond of fellowship, and separated
himself from those who were around him. The whole is con-
densed in the words of the text : " And Cain went out from the
presence of the Lord." The sinful state and the sinful act tend
toward the complete isolation of the wrong- doer. Sin has as its
inevitable consequences the consciousness of guilt, separation
from the best self, separation from friends, and separation from
God.

HAPPY SERIOUSNESS

By Newman Smyth, D.D.

" These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in
you, and that your joy may be fulfilled." — John xv. ii.

If you will notice what those things were of which Jesus had
been speaking, in order that His joy might fill up the disciples'
joy, you will see at once how this text might be used for a sermon
on the happy seriousness of our present life. " These things I
speak unto you," said Jesus ; and the verse immediately preceding
indicates of what things He had been speaking. " If ye keep My

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commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept
My Father's commandments and abide in His love." He gives
the impression of that solemn, grand, far-reaching conception of
life in its possible abiding with God, the kind of life, like His own^
with untroubled heart, in the deep power of love.

The serious life, like Christ's, is the one life that will be filled
to the full with joy.

The happiness of early childhood passes away when the soul
grows darkly self-conscious, and the thoughtless joyousness of
nature is broken through with self- questioning. Mature souls,
inwrought with the sober sense of life and destiny, must regain
happiness, if at all, through knowledge of some living truth,
which shall be stronger than death, and deep as love. Christ
puts before us together the most serious view of life and the
sunniest view — how from strong purpose joy shall blossom ; how
a religious sense of life, which is the sober sense of it, shall fill
the cup of life full with the happy consciousness of it. The
inward marriage of experience and joy, the union of sober-
minded consciousness with the sunshine, is to be made perfect in
our lives through love and faith.

VOICES THAT ARE STILL

There were many great preachers, of strongly marked
individuality, in the nineteenth century, on both sides of
the Atlantic. Every one of them was a great expositor,
and they found congregations always hungry for the
Bible. Could there be a more irrefutable argument for
the enduring and inexhaustible power of the Bible than
that it is still able to make such men as Newman,
Parker, Spurgeon, and Ward Beecher ? No men could
be more unlike, but each was a masterful man, master-
less to all but the Master whose " business " it was his
mission to do. They found in the Bible their " march-
ing orders"; they found in it their messages; they found

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it a never-failing pasture for heart and brain and soul,
and men and women of the great century of science
and mechanical industry and education, of a popular
Press and democratic progress, were as eager as the men
of any earlier century to hear from such masters what
the Bible had to say to their age. Let those who fear
for the Bible and the pulpit repeat the roll-call of such
noble names, and their faint hearts will be strengthened
and their feeble knees confirmed.

GREAT JOY IN THE CITY
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
" And there was great joy in that city." — Acts viii. 8.

" Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ
unto them," and the result of his preaching was that "there was
great joy in that city." He had very speedy and very remark-
able success. He scarcely opened his mouth without gaining
attention, and had not long proclaimed his message before people
willingly received it, and many were converted to Christ, so that
" there was great joy in that city."

What was the explanation of this wonderful blessing ? Some-
thing had been done, years before, to prepare the way for Philip.
There had come to that region a weary man, who sat on the well
at Sychar, and spoke to Samaria's daughter concerning the living
water ; and she had heard, believed, and been saved ; and she,
fallen woman as she had been, had gone back to the city to tell
the men that she had met the Messiah, which is called Christ.
In all probability, the work done by our Lord at Sychar had
affected the whole district, so that, when Philip went to the city
of Samaria, he found there a people prepared of the Lord.
Jesus sowed the seed ; Philip came, and reaped the harvest.

Learn hence that no good work for God is ever lost. Often
during my winter's holiday, year after year, I have seen the carts
coming down towards the breakwater at Mentone, bringing huge
masses of stone, weighing many tons, which were thrown into the
sea. For a long time I saw no result whatever of this effort

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tremendous blocks of stone were cast into the sea, and covered
by the waters. Yet I felt persuaded that something was being
done out of sight, though nothing was visible to the eye. After
a while, the piles of stone began to show above the surface of the
water, and then we saw that the great foundation-work had been
done. Now that the structure is nearly finished, and they begin
to square up, and put everything in order, we say, ** How quickly
the work goes on ! " Yes, but it really went on just as quickly
when we could not see anything of it. Those thousands of tons
of stone were not lost, they all went to make the under-water
foundation ; and whatever is built upon it afterwards is not to
have the credit of usefulness any more than that which lay down
deep at the bottom of the sea.

Some of us may have to work on for years, and never see any
result of our toil. Let us not faint for a moment, nor be dis-
heartened; some other person may come by-and-by, and all
men's mouths may be filled with wonderment at the great work
that he does; and yet, after all, he who reads history aright,
even the great God who writes it, will know that this man who
seems to be so successful owes much of his usefulness to the work
of other persons who laboured before him. We cannot tell how
much the Master's own service prepared the way for Philip's
success.

SPOKEN NEED, UNSPOKEN REQUEST
By Alexander Maclaren

'* And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto
Him, They have no wine." — John ii. 3.

" Therefore his sisters sent unto Jesus, saying, Lord, behold he
whom Thoulovest is sick." — John xi. 3.

There can be no greater contrast than that presented by these
two scenes. In the one we have the homely merriment of a rustic
wedding, in the other the despair of two desolate women's hearts.
The mother of Jesus and the sisters of Lazarus stand at opposite
poles of f eeUng. But from the station of each a straight line can be
drawn to where Jesus is. Sorrow and joy have an equally open
road to Him, and find equal sympathy there. The gravity of the
respective needs in these two incidents is singularly different
The one is a trifle, the other a crushing weight. But, great or

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small, transient or lifelong, as cares or wants may be, they are
best met and conquered and supplied when told to our Lord.
Not less noticeable is the identity in manner of the two sayings.
The mother of our Lord simply says, " They have no wine," and
adds no more. The sisters send only the message, " He whom
Thou lovest is sick," and proffer no request. That manner of
addressing Christ, alike in sorrow and joy, in trivial and in great
necessity, with the simple statement of what presses on life or
heart, and the suppression of all prescription to Him of what He
is to do, may suggest some not useless considerations as to the
tone and manner which should mark our intercourse with Jesus.

I. Our intercourse with Him should be characterized by frank
familiarity of communication, such as befits love and friendship.

H. The trustful and submissive suppression of desire which
should accompany this frank confidence.

" They have no wine." Did that mean, '* Give them some " ?
*' He whom Thou lovest is sick." Did that mean, " Come and
heal him"? Probably in neither case was there a definite
expectation, and if there were anything in their minds beyond the
impulse of which we have spoken, they apparently trustfully left
the decision of what He should do in His own hands.

III. Two ways of taking Christ's delays.

Our Lord's treatment of the two appeals is substantially the
same. Each act of His was regulated by the conviction, clear to
Himself, that the time for it, appointed by the Father, had
arrived.

THE BARTERED BIRTHRIGHT

By John Henry Newman

" And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a
great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me,
even me also, O my father." — Gen. xxvii. 34.

Esau's sin, when he was a young man, had been this— he parted
with his birthright to his younger brother, Jacob. He thought
lightly of God's great gift. How little he thought of it is plain by the
price he took for it. Esau had been hunting, and he came home
tired and faint. Jacob, who had remained at home, had some
pottage ; and Esau begged for some of it. Jacob knew the worth
of the birthright, though Esau did not : he had faith to discern it.

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So, when Esau asked for pottage, he said he would give it to Esau
in exchange for his birthright ; and Esau, caring nothing for the
birthright, sold it to Jacob for the mess of food. This was a great
sin, as being a contempt of a special gift of God, a gift which after
his father Isaac no one in the world had but he.

Time went on. Esau got older ; and understood more than
before the value of the gift which he had thus profanely surren-
dered. Doubtless he would fain have got it back again if he
could ; but that was impossible. Under these circumstances, his
father proposed to give him his solemn blessing, before he died.
Now this blessing in those times carried great weight with it, as
being of the nature of a prophecy, and it had been from the first
intended for Jacob ; Esau had no right to it, but perhaps he
thought that in this way he should in a certain sense get back his
birthright, or what would stand in its place. He had parted with
it easily, and he expected to regain it easily. Observe, he showed
no repentance for what he had done ; no self-reproach ; he had
no fear that God would punish him. He only regretted his loss,
without humbling himself ; and he determined to retrace his steps
as quickly and quietly as he could. He went to hunt for venison,
and dress it as savoury meat for his father, as his father bade him.
And having got all ready, he came with it and stood before his
father. Then was it that he learned, to his misery, that God's
gifts are not thus Hghtly to be treated ; he had sold, he could not
recover. He had hoped to have had his father's blessing, but
Jacob had received it instead. He had thought to regain God's
favour, not by fasting and prayer, but by savoury meat, by
feasting and making merry.

Such seems, on the whole, St. Paul's account of the matter, in
his Epistle to the Hebrews. After having given examples of faith,
he bids his Christian brethren beware lest there should be any one
among them like Esau, whom he calls a "profane person "; as
having thought and acted with so little of real perception of things
unseen; '* looking diligently," he says, " lest any man fail of the
grace of God ; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as
Esau, who for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright. For ye
know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the
blessing, he was rejected ; for he found no place of repentance
though he sought it carefully with tears."

The Art of Exposition

SAVIOUR OF SOULS AND BODIES

By F. W. Robertson

" And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the
minstrels and the people making a noise, He said unto them,
Give place; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they
laughed Him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, He
went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose."— Matt,
ix. 23—25.

On His way to heal the daughter of Jairus, the Son of man
was accosted by another sufferer, afflicted twelve years with an
issue of blood. Humanly speaking, there were many causes
which might have led to the rejection of her request. The case
was urgent ; a matter of life and death ; delay might be fatal ; a
few minutes might make all the difference between living and
dying. Yet Jesus not only performed the miracle, but refused
to perform it in a hurried way ; paused to converse ; to inquire
who had touched Him ; to perfect the lesson of the whole. On
His way to perform one act of love, He turned aside to give His
attention to another.

The practical lesson is this: There are many who are so
occupied by one set of duties as to have no time for others; some
whose life-business is the suppression of the slave trade — the
amelioration of the state of prisons— the reformation of public
abuses. Right, except so far as they are monopolized by these,
and feel themselves discharged from other obligations. The
minister's work is spiritual ; the physician's temporal. But if the
former neglect physical needs, or the latter shrink from spiritual
opportunities on the plea that the cure of bodies, not of souls,
is his work, so far they refuse to imitate their Master.

He had an ear open for every tone of wail ; a heart ready to
respond to every species of need. Specially the Redeemer of
the soul. He was yet as emphatically the " Saviour of the body."
He " taught the people " ; but He did not neglect to multiply the
loaves and fishes. The peculiar need of the woman ; the father's
cry of anguish ; the infant's cry of helplessness ; the wail of
oppression, and the shriek of pain — all were heard by Him, and
none in vain.

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Bible Background

THE BLESSEDNESS OF CHRISTIAN VISION
By H. P. LiDDON

" And He turned Him unto His disciples and said privately,
Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see ; for I tell
you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those
things which ye see and have not seen them ; and to hear those
things which ye hear and have not heard them." — Luke x.
23, 24-

"Blessed are the eyes that see the things that ye see." Our
Lord's words suggest, first of all, the solemnity, the blessedness
of living at a great epoch in human affairs. His object is to
create a sense of this in the minds of the disciples. They were,
we cannot doubt, in some danger at this time of taking their
great privilege of companionship with Jesus very much as a
matter of course. They were peasants living in a narrow circle
of ideas, and little able to do justice to the vast importance of
the position which they really occupied as the chosen friends of
the Redeemer of the world.

"The things which ye see," — what were they? Christ's
miracles. His deeds of mercy, His daily, hourly action : so simple,
so majestic, so attractive, so awe-inspiring. " The things which
ye hear," — what were they ? Christ's discourses. His arguments,
His explanations, His formal instructions, His incidental observa-
tions. Why were the eyes that saw and the ears that heard so
pre-eminently blessed ? Others had in past ages done works of
mercy and works of wonder. Others have taught in words of
heavenly inspiration, and their teaching was already recognized
and reverenced as resting on a Divine authority. What was it
that made a near companionship with Christ so especially
blessed? The answer is. His person. The words were so
precious, the works so noteworthy, not simply because they were
what they were in themselves, but because they were His. In
Isaiah, the prophet's word was greater than himself. In Elijah,
the prophet's miracles were greater than himself. In either case
a human agent or speaker was for the time ennobled ; he was
invested with a power higher than his own. Christ's words,
Christ's works, added nothing to His personal dignity or con-
sideration. They only bare witness of Him. They drew
attention to what in Himself He really was; but it was He who
gave them their importance — not they which gave Him His.

The Art of Exposition

CHRISTLIKE NOBILITY

By Henry Ward Beecher

"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night
unto Berea : who coming thither went into the synagogue of the
Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica,
in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and
searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so."
— Acts xvii. 10, II.

It is on that term "noble," or the subject of nobleness, that I
wish to speak. It would hardly seem at first thought as if there
was much commendation or any exalted epithet to be applied
to the Jews at Berea; but it is a very noble thing, when men
stand surrounded by social or religious affinities, to be ready at
a moment's notice to receive the truth in a higher form or to
receive the truth over a fantasy which one may have had ; for
it is not easy to lay aside educated notions. Now, the Bereans
were Jews, and the Jews were a stiff-necked people; they were
not apt to give up anything easily ; and it was to such that the
apostle preached. They showed a readiness of mind to believe
the teachings of Jesus, but it was not that readiness of mind
which consists in being wilHng to throw off easily things easily
put on : it was a readiness of mind to receive the truth, accom-
panied with a disposition to study and to learn. And surely
from our own observation we shall be constrained to say that the
conduct of persons who, having been brought up in any religious
faith, on hearing of a higher truth, or a nobler view, lay aside all
prejudice, and betake themselves to a suitable investigation, and
that with a disposition that has in it a willingness to suffer, if
need be, for the sake of new truths, or for the sake of higher
views of old truths — we are constrained to say that the conduct
of such persons is noble.

What, then, is the essential element of nobleness ? To have
such fairness as to refuse prejudice, and such love of truth as to
be willing to run the risk of social ostracism — this was noble-
ness— and generally to do right things, which are difficult, from
right motives, which are more difficult, and where common men
would shrink from doing them, is noble. Nobleness implies
a superior code of action, but, unfortunately the lingering

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unripeness in the world would seem to include a rareness of
such action.

Nobleness has a freedom of courage and a largeness of mind, and
there is in it something that is graceful— something that gives to it
romance. In other words, to all this higher thinking, higher
feeling, higher action, there is to be the tone of ideality or the
sense of the beautiful, each in its kind belonging to every class
of actions or activities. The whole ideal of Christianity is to
fashion men to nobleness of disposition, of conduct, of charac-
ter. Soul-building is the business of this world, and heaven will
come, of coarse. We are to be saved by that faith which pro-
duces sobriety of character.

THE CANDLE OF THE LORD

By Phillips Brooks

"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord."— Prov.
xxvii. 20.

The picture that the words draw is one of the most simple.
A candle stands on a table. It is unlighted. Fire is brought
into the room from some burning hearth outside. It flares and
quivers, and any moment may go out ; but the vague, uncertain
blaze touches the candle, and the candle catches fire, and its
flame burns strong and pure and constant. The candle becomes
a fire, a manifestation point for all the neighbourhood which is
illuminated by it. The candle is lighted by the fire, and the fire
manifested by the candle. They bear witness that they are
made for one another by the way in which they incorporate
each other's life. The inferior substance renders obedience
to the superior, the wax catches the subtle flame which is its
master, and yields to its power. A disobedient substance, if you
try to burn it, neither gives the fire a chance to show its bright-
ness, nor gathers any splendour itself; it only calls forth sullen
resistance, and as the heat increases, it splits and breaks, but
will not burn. But the candle does, and so in it the scattered
fire finds a point of permanent and clear expression.

Such is a picture of man. What must be meant when it is said
one being is a candle to another being ? Look how men take hold
of men in a city. The thought, the feeHng in the central man
touches all who are in it to think and feel. Let us read again the

The Art of Exposition

words of Solomon : " The spirit of man is the candle of the
Lord." God is the fire of this world. If man is of a nature
which corresponds to the nature of God, in such a man is the
fire of Divinity. Men feel it. That is the meaning of a great
deal of the unexplained mysterious influences of life. Be
obedient to God, and you shall shine by His light, not yours.

KNOWLEDGE IN PART
By Edward E. Hale

" For we know in part, and we prophesy in part."— i Cor.
xiii. 9.

We help and encourage ourselves if, with Paul's frankness, we
admit, once for all, that there are realities beyond our present
knowledge. In all the practical counsels of the four Gospels —
the most suggestive and practical books in hterature — the Saviour
at the same time keeps before us the vision which the human heart
craves, that we shall know more. He does not tell what cannot
be told. There is no story of rubies and diamonds, of roses and
lilies, in the unseen heavens. But we are to be sure of life larger
than this life. " Greater works than these shall ye do." "Ye
shall see heaven open." " Seek and ye shall find." Always, in
grief of to-day or sorrow of to-day. He comes back to this life
beyond the life of sense. Always, in what we know, we are to
remember that we know in part. Always are we spoken to as
infinite beings, interested, indeed, in these bodies and these homes,
not interested, as I am interested, in Chamounix or in Saratoga
or in the place where the lines of forty degrees cross on the ocean —
places which I come to in my travels, but where I do not expect
to tarry. As I take His hand in mine, I find I follow Him farther
than to Caesarea Philippi, or to Jerusalem, or to the gates of Tyre.
I follow Him into the eternal homes, where " I shall know, even
as also I am known."

Ill

RUSKIN AS EXPOSITOR
Some great preachers have been men of the pen, and
not of the tongue. The writers also are preachers.
Poets such as Tennyson and Browning, Lowell and

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Whittier and Wendell Holmes, were men of the Bible,
and noble expositors of its messages and its spirit. So,
too, were the masters of prose. Ruskin, pre-eminently,
was always feeding on the Bible, and often, in the course
of his works, he makes striking use of a Bible story.
Three passages from Ruskin, that are really sermonettes,
are given.

THE GATE OF HEAVEN

By John Ruskin

Genesis xxviii. 17.

You have all got into the habit of calling the church *' the house
of God." I have seen, over the doors of many churches, the
legend actually carved, "This is the house of God and this is the
gate of heaven." Now, note where that legend comes from, and
of what place it was first spoken. A boy leaves his father's house
to go on a long journey on foot, to visit his uncle. He has to
cross a wild hill-desert ; just as if one of your own boys had to
cross the wolds to visit an uncle at Carlisle. The second or third
day your boy finds himself somewhere between Clowes and
Brough, in the midst of the moors, at sunset. It is stony ground,
and boggy ; he cannot go one foot farther that night. Down he
lies, to sleep, on Wharnside, where best he may, gathering a few
of the stones together to put under his head ; so wild the place is,
he cannot get anything but stones. And there, lying under the
broad night, he has a dream ; and he sees a ladder set up on the
earth, and the top of it reaches to heaven, and the angels of God
are seen ascending and descending upon it. And when he wakes
out of his sleep, he says, " How dreadful is this place; surely
this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven." This place, observe; not this church, not this city;
not this stone even, which he puts up for a memorial — the piece
of flint on which his head was lain. But this place ; this windy
slope of Wharnside ; this moorland hollow, torrent-bitten, snow-
blighted ; this any place where God lets down the ladder. And
how are you to know where that will be ? Or how are you to
determine where it may be, but by being ready for it always ?

The Art of Exposition

Do you know where the lightning is to fall next ? You do know
that, partly ; you can guide the lightning ; but you cannot guide
the going forth of the Spirit, which is as that lightning when it
shines from the east to the west. — The Crown of Wild Olive.

BETWEEN TWO THIEVES

By John Ruskin

Mark xv. 27.

I happened to be reading this morning (29th March) some
portions of the Lent Services, and I came to a pause over the
familiar words, " And with Him they crucified two thieves."
Have you ever considered (I speak to you now as a professing
Christian) why, in the accomplishment of the " numbering among
transgressors," the transgressors chosen should have been espe-
cially thieves — not murderers, nor, as far as we know, sinners
by any gross violence ? Do you observe how the sin of theft is
again and again indicated as the chiefly antagonistic one to the
law of Christ ? " This he said, not that he cared for the poor,
but because he was a thief, and had the bag " (of Judas). And
again, though Barabbas was a leader of sedition, and a murderer
besides (that the popular election might be in all respects
perfect), yet St. John, in curt and conclusive account of him,
fastens again on the theft. " Then cried they all again saying,
Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber." I
believe myself the reason to be that theft is indeed, in its subtle
forms, the most complete and excuseless of human crimes. Sins of
violence usually are committed under sudden or oppressive
temptation. They may be the madness of moments ; or they
may be apparently the only means of extrication from calamity.
In other cases, they are the diseased acts or habits of lower and
brutified natures. But theft involving deliberative intellect, and
absence of passion, is the purest type of wilful iniquity in persons
capable of doing right. Which being so, it seems to be fast
becoming the practice of modern society to crucify its Christ
indeed, as willingly as ever, in the persons of His poor ; but by
no means now to crucify its thieves beside Him ! It elevates its
thieves after another fashion ; sets them upon a hill, that their
light may shine before men and that all may see their good works,
and glorify their father in — the opposite of heaven. — Time and Tide.

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CHRIST'S WARNINGS AGAINST MONEY

By John Ruskin
Matt. XXV. and elsewhere.

Have you ever observed that all Christ's main teaching by
direct order, by earnest parable, and by His own permanent
emotion, regards the use and misuse of money ? We might have
thought, if we had been asked what a divine teacher was most
likely to teach, that He would have left inferior persons to give
directions about money ; and Himself spoken only concerning
faith and love, and the discipline of the passions, and the guilt of
the crimes of soul against soul. But not so. He speaks in
general terms about these. But He does not speak parables about
them for all men's memory, nor permit Himself fierce indignation
against them, in all men's sight. The Pharisees bring Him an
adulteress. He writes her forgiveness on the dust of which He
had formed her. Another, despised of all for known sin, He
recognizes as a giver of unknown love. But He acknowledges no
love in buyers and sellers in His house. One would have
thought there were people in that house twenty times worse than
they ; Caiaphas and his hke, false priests, false prayer-makers,
false leaders of the people — who needed putting to silence, or to
flight with darkest wrath. But the scourge is only against the
traffickers and thieves. The two most intense of all the parables :
the two which lead the rest in love and terror (this of the Prodigal
and of Dives), relate both of them to management of riches.
The practical order given to the only seeker of advice, of whom it
is recorded that Christ '^oved him," is briefly about his property.
'* Sell that thou hast."

And the arbitrament of the day of the Last Judgment is made
to rest wholly, neither on belief in God, nor in any spiritual virtue
in man, nor on freedom from stress of stormy crime, but on this
only, " I was an hungered and ye gave Me drink ; naked, and ye
clothed Me ; sick, and ye came unto Me." — Time and Tide.

157

CHAPTER IX

THE GOLDEN CHAIN— CHRYSOSTOM TO JOHN WESLEY

The golden chain of Bible expositors has never been
snapped, from Paul's day to our own, though in more
than one period the link wore perilously thin. The
examples which make up this chapter are drawn from
preachers sundered by time and race and Church, but
they belong to a great Fellowship of the Word, and
their ways of treating scripture will be noted with
interest by their successors of our own time. The
examples of Chrysostom, Luther, and the classic French
preachers could not but suffer in style in the author's
translations. The seventeenth century was peculiarly
rich in England in preachers of extraordinary originality,
varied scholarship, and sometimes of a whimsical humour.
A number of the pulpit princes of that age have been
drawn upon.

THE FATHER OF EXPOSITORY

PREACHING

"A NEW CREATION "

By Chrysostom

" Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation."
— 2 Cor. V. 17.

The Apostle has led the Corinthian Christians from love
to holy living, and he proceeds to show how the very works of

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grace conduce to that end. Wherefore he adds, " If any man be
in Christ, he is a new creation." If anyone has believed in Him,
he says, he has come to a remaking of himself, for he has been
born from above through the Spirit. Wherefore on this account,
he says, we ought to live to Him, not as if we were our own, or as
if He had only died for us, and had risen as the first-fruit of our-
selves, but as if we had come to another life. Note how many
confirmations of beautiful living he instances. Wherefore he
calls this by the heavier name "justification," in order that he
may the better demonstrate the completeness of the revolution
and the transformation. Afterwards, pressing further on what has
been said, he shows how we are a new creation. " Old things
have passed away," he says, " all things have become new."
What kind of " old things " ? It is true he says sins, and impie-
ties, and all things pertaining to the Jewish law, but these are not
all — there are better things than these, he says. " Behold all
things are become new." "All things are from God." Nothing
from ourselves. For remission of sins, worship, and unspeakable
glory have been given to us from Him. No longer only from the
things to come, but from the things of the present, he urges them.
Note, He has said that we are to be raised from the dead, to
come to immortality, and to have an eternal home. But since
present things are more powerful than things to come to stir up
those who do not believe in these, to increase faith, he shows how
many things we have already received, and what we are. What
were they then when they received the gifts ? All dead. " For
all," he says, " are dead," and " He died for all." So He loves
all with equal love. From the most ancient time, all had grown
old in evil things. But lo, here is a new spirit, for it has been
purified ; a new body, a new worship, new promises, and a testa-
ment, and a life, and a table, and a garment, and in short
everything new. Instead of the Jerusalem below we have
received the metropolis above, instead of the material temple we
have received a spiritual, instead of tablets of stone tablets of
flesh, instead of circumcision baptism, instead of manna a lordly
body, instead of water from the rock blood from the side, instead
of the rod of Moses and Aaron the cross, instead of the promise
the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of myriads of priests one High
Priest, instead of a senseless lamb a spiritual One. These things,
and things like unto them, he means when he says, " All things are

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new." And all these things are from God through Christ and His
gift of Him. Wherefore he adds, "who has reconciled us to
Himself through Christ, and has given to us the ministry of
reconciliation."

STARS OF THE REFORMATION

The Reformation, as has been said in the second
chapter, was a time of return to the Bible. It held " in
its right hand the Book open," and the nations drank
in the Bible as read and expounded by the Reformation
preachers, as travellers in a waterless desert drink
greedily when, parched and faint, they come to the
palm-fringed wells of some Elim. The Bible re-made
the nations that kept it open, it put iron into their blood,
it started them on the march of progress, it was the text-
book of democracy. The preacher became the teacher
and leader of the Reformation peoples, and God raised
up great preachers to do His glorious work. They
realized that they had a work to do, and we find in their
sermons a note of grim earnestness and passionate appeal,
and an absence of the rhetoric that is merely ornamental.
The great Reformation preachers, as a rule, used the
language of common life. They were appealing to " the
common people," and they had to get the vital points of
the Reformation Gospel into their minds by the simplest
and directest ways. The examples that follow are
notable illustrations of the Reformation combination of
strength and simplicity. An example of Calvin as
expositor was given in the chapter on "Exegesis and
Exposition."

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The Golden Chain

" GIVE us THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD"

By Martin Luther
"Give us this day our daily bread." — Matt. vi. ii.

Hitherto we have used the little word " Mine, Mine ; " hence-
forward we shall say, " Our, our, us." When God hears us
in the first three petitions, and hallows His name in us, then He
sets us in His kingdom, and pours out His grace in us, which
stirs us up to make us pious. The same grace soon stirs us up to
do God's will; then an unspiritual Adam reveals himself, as Paul
laments, in Rom. vii. 19, ao, that he does nothing that he would
will to do. For the self-will, born of Adam, strives with all the
nerves against the good inclinations ; therefore the grace in the
heart cries to God against the same Adam, and says : "Thy will
be done I " For man finds himself heavily weighed down by
himself.

When God hears that cry, then will He, of His loving mercy,
come to our aid, and will increase the gift we have received, of.
His Kingdom, and will press earnestly and powerfully the chief
of knaves, the old Adam ; He will bring all his tricks to naught,
will break down all his eminence, and will confuse him and shame
him on every side. That happens, when He sends us sufferings
and contrarieties of every sort. To that end serve evil tongues,
malicious, false men, and where men are not sufficient, even the
devil, in order that our will with all its evil inclinations may be
slaughtered, and the will of God may thus prevail, and grace
possess the Kingdom, and only God's praise and power there
remain.

But when this stage is reached, man is still in great distress and
anxiety, and thinks of nothing less than that the thing called
" God's will " has come to pass ; but he imagines he is forsaken,
and given over as property to the devil and to evil men, that
there is no longer a God in heaven who will hear him. Then he
feels the right hunger and thirst of the soul, then he longs for
consolation and help, and this hunger is indeed more craving than
physical hunger. Then is the time for our prayer, " Give us this
day our daily bread."

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The Art of Exposition

I. How does that come to pass ? — God has permitted us to have
on earth much misfortune, and for it no other comfort but His
holy Word, as Christ has declared to us in John xvi. 32, 33.
" In the world you shall have tribulations, but in Me you shall
find peace." Wherefore, if a man wishes God's Kingdom to come
in him, and God's will to be done, he does not make many
excursions, and seek out devious ways ; the one thing to declare
to him is, " God's will is done when thy will is not done," that is,
the more contrariety thou hast, the more God's will is done,
especially among mortals. It is already determined, and no man
can alter it, .that there is no satisfaction in the world, and
satisfaction is only in Christ.

II. In this distress the division takes place of the evil and the
good. The evil return to their own will, and reject the grace, as
queasy stomachs which cannot retain food. The pious are wise,
and well understand that misfortune of every sort, if it be God's
will, and His will is accepted, is good. You cannot avoid sufferings
and distress, much less overcome death, by impatience, flight and
seeking comfort, but if a man will stand still and wait on God,
then he will march cheerfully towards even misfortune and death.
The proverb is true : " Who fears to go to hell, fares into it." So
the man who fears death, him death for ever swallows. Man in
all such things must be free and fearless, and calmly stand.

III. But who can do that ? The prayer teaches us this, where
you shall find consolation, and for such unrestfulness procure rest.
Thou shalt say : " O Father, give us this day our daily bread " —
that is, O Father, comfort and strengthen me, a suffering, poor
man, with Thy Divine words. I cannot endure Thy hand, and I
suffer all the more that I cannot endure it ; wherefore strengthen
me, my Father, that I may not try to escape it. Nothing can
strengthen us against the fear of sufferings and death but the
word of God, or our daily bread — that can strengthen us ; as
Isaiah says, " God has given me a wise tongue, that I may
strengthen all who are weary;" and Matthew, " Come unto Me,
all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you ; "
and David, "Lord, strengthen me with Thy word;" and again,
" My soul hath waited on this word." And of this teaching the
whole scripture is full, full, full 1

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OUR DAILY BREAD
By Hugh Latimer
" Give us this day our daily bread." — Matt. vi. ii.

Here we are admonished of our estate and condition — what we
are, namely, beggars. For we ask bread ; of whom ? Of God.
What are we, then? What but beggars 1 The greatest lords
and ladies in England are but beggars before God. Seeing, then,
that we all are but beggars, why should we disdain and despise
poor men ? Let us, therefore, consider that we are but beggars ;
let us pull down our stomachs; for if we consider the matter
well, we are the same as they are in the sight of God ; for St.
Paul saith, " What hast thou that thou hast not received of God.? "
(i Cor. iv.). Thou art but a beggar whatsoever thou art ; and
though there are some very rich, who have great abundance, of
whom have they it ? Of God. What saith that rich man ? He
saith, "Our Father, which art in heaven; give us this day our
daily bread." Then he is a beggar before God as well as the
poorest man. Further, how continues the rich man in his riches ?
Who made him rich ? God. For it is written, " The blessing of
God maketh rich ; " except God bless it is of no effect ; for it is
written, "They shall eat, but yet never be satisfied." Eat as
much as you will, except God feed you, you shall never be full.
So likewise as rich as a man may be, yet he cannot augment his
riches, nor keep what he hath, except God be with him, except
He bless him ; therefore let us not be proud, for we are beggars
the best of us.

Note here that our Saviour bids us to say "us." This us
includes all other men. For every one of us prayeth for others.
When I say, " Give us this day our daily bread," I pray not for
myself only (if I ask as He biddeth me), but I pray for all others.
Wherefore say I not, " Our Father, give me this day my daily
bread 1 " For because God is not my God alone, he is a common
God. And here we are admonished to be friendly, loving, and
charitable one to another ; for of what God gives I cannot say,
" This is my own ; " but I must say, " This is ours. " For the rich
man cannot say, " This is mine alone, God has given it unto me

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The Art of Exposition

for my own use," nor yet has the poor man any title unto it, to
take it away from him. No, the poor man may not do so ; for
when he does so, he is a thief before God and man ; but yet the
poor man hath title to the rich man's goods, so that the rich man
ought to let the poor man have part of his riches to help and
comfort him withal. Therefore when God sends unto me much,
it is not mine, but ours ; it is not given unto me alone, but I must
help my poor neighbours withal.

But here I must ask you rich men a question. How happens
it you have your riches ? We have them of God, you will say.
But by what means have you them ? By prayer, you will say ;
we pray for them unto God, and He gives us the same. Very
well. But I pray you tell me, what do other men who are not
rich, pray they not as well as you do ? Yes, you must say ; for you
cannot deny it. Then it appears that you have your riches not
through you own prayers only, but other men help you to pray
for them. For they say, "Our Father, give us this day our
daily bread," as well as you do; and peradventure they are
better than you are, and God hears their prayer sooner than
yours. And so it appears most manifestly that you obtain your
riches of God, not only through your own prayer, but through
other men's also. Other men help you to get them at God's
hand. Then it follows, that seeing you get not your riches
alone through your own prayer but through the poor man's prayer,
it is right that the poor man should have part of them, and you
ought to relieve his necessity and poverty.

CHRIST'S TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS

By John Knox

'*Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert that He
should be tempted of the devil." — Matt. iv. i.

The cause moving me to extract this place of scripture is, that
such as by the inscrutable providence of God do fall into diverse
temptations, judge not themselves, by reason thereof, less accept-
able in God's presence : but contrariwise, having the way prepared
to victory by Jesus Christ, shall not fear above measure the crafty
assaults of that subtle serpent, Satan ; but with joy and bold
courage, having such a guide as is here pointed forth, such a

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champion, and such weapons as here are to be found (if with
obedience we will hear, and with unfeigned faith believe), may
assure ourselves of God's present favour, and of final victory, by
the means of Him who, for our safeguard and deliverance, hath
entered into the battle, and triumphed over his adversary, and
all his raging fury. And that the subsequents heard and under-
stood may the better be kept in memory, this order by God's
grace we purpose to observe, in treating this matter : —

/. What this word " temptation " meaneth^ and how it is used in
the scriptures.

II. Who is here tempted^ and, at what time this temptation
happened.

III. How, and by what means, He was tempted.

IV. Last, why He should suffer these temptations, and what
ffuit ensueth to us of the same.

Temptation, or to tempt, in the scriptures of God is called to
try, to prove, or to assault the valour, the power, the will, the
pleasure, or the wisdom, whether it be of God or of creatures.
This kind of temptation is profitable, good and necessary when it
proceeds from God, who is the fountain of all goodness, to the
manifestation of His own glory, and to the profit of the sufferer,
however the flesh judge in the hour of temptation. Otherwise
temptation is taken in evil part, that is, he that does assail
intendeth destruction and confusion to him that is assaulted, as
when Satan tempted the woman in the garden, and Job by divers
tribulations. Yet note that albeit Satan appears sometimes to
prevail against God's elect, yet is he ever frustrated of his final
purpose.

Ill

A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY GROUP

The seventeenth century congregation could not have
enough of preaching. The three to four hours' sermon
was a common experience. It was expected, on special
occasions, and many favourite preachers habitually turned
over the hour-glass, then a familiar object in the pulpit,

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The Art of Exposition

at least twice before they came to the last sub-division
of their closing division. Some, like Jeremy Taylor,
even then could not complete the sermon, but required
three and on occasions four sermons, each of three to
four times modern sermon length, to exhaust the text.
How congregations contrived to keep their attention
fixed, and to follow the preachers through their often
devious windings, is a mystery, but there was always
the probability of a novel line beingtaken, of illustrations
being used, and of curious quotations from the most
unlikely sources, that whipped up lagging attention, and
freshened the congregation for another half or three-
quarters of an hour of hard listening. Some of the
preachers were endowed with an uncommon gift of
humour, and had no scruple in using it. Whimsical
illustrations, pungent sarcasms, satirical character-
sketches, queer ways of putting things, wreathed grave
Puritan faces with smiles. In no century were English
preachers such successful cultivators of all the devices of
rhetorical effect. To this day there are no finer examples
of the " grand style " of English prose than the sermons
of Jeremy Taylor ; and lesser men, such as Henry Smith
and Thomas Adams, well knew the value of rich setting
of their jewels. These preachers were great Bible men,
great expositors, of infinite variety in their treatment of
texts and passages. Examples of their manner and
methods are given from half-a-dozen of the seventeenth
century men.

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The Golden Chain

THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN PAUL AND KING

AGRIPPA

By Henry Smith
(Silver-tongued Smith)

" O King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I know that
thou behevest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou per-
suaded me to become a Christian. Then Paul said, I would to
God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were
both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds." —
Acts xxvi. 27 — 29.

In this dialogue between Agrippa the king, and Paul the apostle,
first you shall hear what Paul saith ; then you shall hear what
Agrippa answers ; after, you shall hear what Paul repHes. In
Agrippa, you shall hear what we are ; in Paul, you shall see what
we should be ; for the king shows that he is almost a Christian,
and the apostle shows that he should be altogether a Christian.
This is the sum of their discourse : First, Paul begins and speaks,
as though he would teach us a way to win sinners ; every word
is a motive, and shows that he that fisheth for souls had need to
have many nets, and observe time, and place, and calling, and
fit all words before in his mind, lest he lose his bait. For unless
he seek the vantage, and get the upper ground of sin, before he
encounter, it is liker to give him the foil, as the devils did to the
exorcists (Acts xix. 16) than to be driven out by him. Therefore,
as Jacob came to Esau with seven courtesies (Gen. xxxiii. 3) to pre-
pare his heart, and turn his wrath, before they met together, so Paul
useth, as it were, three preambles before he embraceth the king.

First, with a reverent title, O King Agrippa. Secondly, with a
profitable question, Dost thou believe the prophets ? Thirdly, with
a favourable prevention, I know that thou believest. With these
three congees he closes so with King Agrippa, that he could not
start out of his circle. The Holy Spirit so placed every word
when he meant to do good, that it was not possible to correct
them, so they hit in their speeches which have that prompter, and
seek not themselves, but would fain speak that which might touch
the heart, and win the hearer to God.

Almost^ saith Agrippa, but not altogether. Here you may see
your pittance, how you measure God with almost^ and serve Him

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The Art of Exposition

by halves, which hath given all ; like Ananias, which brought a
part, and kept a part behind.

There is something always behind, Hke the eye which looked to
Sodom. As an owl peeps at the sun out of a barn, but dares not
come to it, so we peep at religion, and will not come near it, but
stand aloof off, pinking and winking, as though we were more
afraid of God than the devil. For self-love, and regard of persons,
and fear of laws, and sway of time more are afraid to be too holy
than to be profane, because holiness is worse entreated than
profaneness.

MYSTICAL BEDLAM ; OR, THE WORLD OF
MADMEN

By Thomas Adams

•' The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in
their heart while they live : and after that day go to the dead."
— Eccles. ix. 3.

The subject of the discourse is man ; and the speech of him
hath three points in the text: — L His comma; IL His colon;
HL His period. L "Men's hearts are full of evil"; there is
the comma. H. ** Madness is in their hearts while they live";
there is the colon. IH. Whereat not staying, ** after that they
go down to the dead"; and there is their period. The first
begins, the second continues, the third concludes their sentence.

Here is a man's setting forth, his peregrination, and his
journey's end. L At first putting out, ** his heart is full of evil."
n. " Madness is in his heart" all his peregrination, "while they
live." HL His journey's end is the grave, "he goes to the dead."

1. Man is born from the womb, as an arrow shot from the bow.
n. His flight through the air is wild, and full of madness, of
indirect courses. HI. The centre, where he lights, is the grave.

L His comma begins so harshly, that it promiseth no good
consequence in the colon. H. The colon is so mad and inor-
dinate, that there is small hope of the period. IH. When both
the premises are so faulty, the conclusion can never be hand-
some. Wickedness in the first proposition, madness in the
second, the ergo is fearful ; the conclusion of all is death.

So then, L The beginning of man's race is full of evil, as if he
stumbled at the threshold. IL The further he goes, the worse;

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The Golden Chain

madness is joint tenant in his heart with life. III. At last, in
his frantic flight, not looking to his feet, he drops into the pit,
goes down to the dead.

I. To begin at the uppermost stair of this gradual descent;
the Comma of this tripartite sentence gives man's heart for
a vessel.

II. Man's sentence is yet but begun, and you will say a comma
does not make a perfect sense. We are now got to his Colon.
Having left his heart full of evil, we come to his madness.

III. The Period. We have ended man's comma and his colon,
but not his sentence ; the period continues and concludes it.
We found his heart full of evil ; we left it full of madness. Let
us observe at the shutting up what wiU become of it : " After
that, they go to the dead." There is the end of man's progress ;
now he betakes himself to his standing-house, his grave. The
period is delivered, i. Consequently, after that ; 2. Discessively,
they go ; 3. Descensively, down to the dead.

In this very characteristic sermon of Adams, he gives character-
sketches of inhabitants of the " Mystical Bedlam" : the Epicure,
the Proud, the Lustful, the Hypocrite, the Avarous, the Usurer,
the Ambitious Man, the Drunkard, the Idle Man, the Swearer,
the Liar, the Busybody, the Flatterer, the Ingrate, the Envious
Man, the Contentious Man, the Impatient, the Vain-glorious,
and last, the Papists, who " would happily be confined to some
local bedlam, lest their spiritual lunacy do us some hurt."

THE YOUNG MAN'S DUTY AND EXCELLENCY

By Thomas Brooks

And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him; for he
only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is
found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel, in the
house of Jeroboam." — i Kings xiv. 13.

I shall only stand upon the latter part of this verse, because
that affords me matter most suitable to my design.

'* Because in him there is found some good thing toward the
Lord God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam."

These words are a commendation of Abijah's life, " in him was
found some good thing toward the Lord," etc. When Abijah was

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The Art of Exposition

a child (verses 3, 12), when he was in his young and tender years,
he had the seeds of grace in him, he had the image of God upon
him, he could discern between good and evil, and he did that
which pleased the Lord.

It is the glory and goodness of God that He will take notice of
the least good that is in any of His. There was but one good
word in Sarah's speech to Abraham, and that was this, she called
him lord ; and this God mentions for her honour and com-
mendation, " she called him lord " (i Peter iii. 6). God looks
more upon one grain of wheat than upon a heap of chaff, upon
one shining pearl than upon a heap of rubbish ; God finds a pearl
in Abijah, and He puts it into his crown, to his eternal com-
mendation. " There was found in him some good thing toward
the Lord."

In the words you have two things that are most considerabje.

First, That this young man's goodness was towards the Lord God
of Israel. Two things make a good Christian, good actions and
good aims, and though a good aim doth not make a bad action
good, as in Uzzah, yet a bad aim makes a good action bad, as
in Jehu, whose justice was approved, but his policy punished (the
first chapter of Hosea, and the fourth verse). Doubtless Abijah's
actions were good, and his aims good, and this was indeed his
glory, that his goodness was " towards the Lord."

Secondly, He was good among the bad. He was good " in the
house of Jeroboam." They say roses grow the sweeter when
they are planted by garlic. They are sweet and rare Christians
indeed who hold their goodness, and grow in goodness, where
wickedness sits on the throne ; and such a one the young man in
the text was.

To be wheat among tares, corn among chaff, pearls among
cockles, and roses among thorns, is excellent.

To be a Jonathan in Saul's court, to be an Obadiah in Ahab's
court, to be an Ebed-melech in Zedekiah's court, and to be an
Abijah in Jeroboam's court, is a wonder, a miracle.

To be a Lot in Sodom, to be an Abraham in Chaldea, to be a
Daniel in Babylon, to be a Nehemiah in Damascus, and to be a
Job in the land of Husse, is to be a saint among devils; and
such a one the young man in the text was.

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OF TAKING UP THE CROSS

By David Clarkson

''Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me,
cannot be My disciple." — Luke xiv. 27.

Let me explain to you what is meant by the cross, and what by
bearing of it.

L The cross includes loss and damage, the greatest losses as
well as the least ; the loss of all outward things, as well as the loss
of any. When Christ was nailed to the cross. He was bereaved
of all, and fastened to it naked; He had not so much as His
garments left ; they who brought Him to the cross divided these
amongst them.

IL It speaks shame and reproach.

III. It imports pain and torture.

IV. It imports death itself. Bearing the cross supposes or
includes these four things.

I. You must make account of it. If you make account of better
fare in following Christ than you are like to meet with, you will
go near to repent your bargain, to tack about to save yourselves,
and so come off with shame and ruin in the issue ; and make it
appear that whatever you did profess, you were never Christians
in reality.

II. A resolution to bear the cross, whatever it be, how heavy,
or grievous, or tedious soever it may prove ; a firm, a hearty and
settled resolution to bear it, is a virtual bearing of it beforehand
(verse 33).

III. You must be always ready for the cross, always preparing
for it, whether it seem near, or whether it seem further off. One
paraphraseth the words thus, " Whosoever doth not come to Me
with a preparation of mind to suffer anything rather than part
with Me, he is not for My turn."

IV. It speaks actually undergoing it when it is laid on us.
When the Lord brings it to us, we must actually take it up. He
is no disciple for Christ that will not do it. He whose heart is so
linked, glued to his relations and outward enjoyments, that he
cannot tell how to part with them ; who must have the flesh
pleased and gratified in its inclinations and desires; who must
have the ease, and plenty, and respect, and favour of the world ;

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he is not of a temper fit for a Christian, he is not for Christ's
turn.

Let me inquire a little into the manner: how does he who is a
Christian bear the cross ? He endeavours to bear it —

I. Patiently. — That while the cross oppresses his outward man,
he may possess his soul in patience.

II. Cheerfully. — Christ would have us come after Him, imitate
Him, bear it as He did. It should not be a forced, but a volun-
tary act. Not that we are to pull crosses upon ourselves, as some
of the primitive martyrs did — whom yet we should not censure,
because we know not by what spirit they were acted — but we
should cheerfully undergo it, when the Lord imposeth it. When
the honour and interest of Christ requires it, we should take up
the cross as we would take up a crown. We should receive it
as a gift : "To you it is given." We should meet it with joy,
look on it as our glory.

III. Fruitfully. — The cross is dry wood, and so was Aaron's
rod ; but as that blossomed, so does this bring forth fruit, when
improved (Heb. xii. ii).

So much for explication ; we shall confirm this truth by these
three propositions.

L The cross is the ordinary lot of Christians.

n. A Christian cannot ordinarily avoid the cross without
sinning against Christ.

HL He that will ordinarily sin against Christ to avoid the
cross, cannot be a Christian. This being proved, it will appear
an evident truth, that he that doth not, will not, bear the cross, is
not, cannot be a Christian.

THE RUINED TEMPLE
By John Howe

" The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." —
Psalm xiv. i.

♦' Know ye not that ye are temples of the Holy Ghost ? " — i Cor.
iii. 1 6.

Why are the thoughts of God so unpleasant to men, and unfre-
quent ; that when one would suppose no thought should be so
obvious, none so welcome, yet it is become the character of an
unrenewed man to " forget God," or " not to have Him in all his

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thoughts?" Why do men decline His acquaintance? live
voluntary strangers to Him all their days? and as "without
Him in the world " ? Why are men so averse to trust Him and
turn to Him, even upon so mighty assurances ? What makes
them shy to take His word, but rather count Him a Uar, though
they know it inconsistent with His nature, and can form no
notion of God without including this conception therein, "that He
cannot lie," when as yet they can ordinarily trust one another,
though there be so much colour to say, " all men are liars " ?

So fitly is it said, " the fool hath in his heart " muttered thus.
Nor are there few such fools ; but this is plainly given us as the
common character of apostate man, the whole revolted race, of
whom it is said in very general terms : "They all are gone back,
there is none that doeth good." This is their sense, one and all,
that is, comparatively ; and the true state of the case being laid
before them, it is more their temper and sense to say " no God,"
than to repent "and turn to Him." What mad enmity is this!
Nor can we devise into what else to resolve it.

Nor can it now be a wonder that the Divine presence should
be withdrawn, that the blessed God absents Himself, and is
become a stranger to this His once beloved mansion. That He
hath withdrawn Himself and left this His temple desolate, we
have many sad and plain proofs before us. The stately ruins are
visible to every eye, that bear in their front, yet extant, this
doleful inscription : Here God once Dwelt. Enough appears
of the admirable frame and structure of the soul of man, to show
the Divine presence did sometimes reside in it ; more than
enough of vicious deformity, to proclaim He is now retired and
gone. The lamps are extinct, the altar overturned ; the light and
love are now vanished, which did the one shine with so heavenly
brightness, the other burn with so pious fervour. The golden
candlestick is displaced and thrown away as a useless thing, to
make room for the throne of the prince of darkness. The sacred
incense, which sent rolling up in clouds its rich perfumes, is
exchanged for a poisonous hellish vapour ; and here is, " instead
of a sweet savour, a stench." The comely order of this house is
turned all into confusion ; the beauties of holiness into noisome
impurities ; the house of prayer to a den of thieves, and that of
the worst and most horrid kind; for every lust is a thief, and
every theft sacrilege ; continual rapine and robbery is committed

The Art of Exposition

upon holy things. The noble powers which were designed and
dedicated to Divine contemplation and delight are alienated to
the service of the most despicable idols, and employed unto vilest
intuitions and embraces; to behold and admire "lying vanities,"
to indulge and cherish lust and wickedness. What have not the
enemies "done wickedly in the sanctuary"? How have they
broken down the carved work thereof, and that too " with axes
and hammers " ; the noise whereof was not to be heard in
building, much less in the demolishing this sacred frame. Look
upon much the fragments of that curious sculpture which once
adorned the palace of that great king ; the relics of " common
notions," the Uvely prints of some undefaced truth, the fair ideas
of things, the yet legible precepts that relate to practice. Behold !
with what accuracy the broken pieces show these to have been en-
graven by the finger of God, and how they now lie torn and scattered,
one in this dark corner, another in that, buried in heaps of dirt
and rubbish I There is not now a system, an entire table of
coherent truths to be found, or a frame of holiness, but some
shivered parcels ; and if any, with great toil and labour, apply
themselves to draw out here one piece and there another, and set
them together, they serve rather to show how exquisite the Divine
workmanship was in the original composition, than for present
use to the excellent purposes for which the whole was first
designed. Some pieces agree and own one another; and how
soon are our inquiries and endeavours nonplussed and superseded !
Its very fundamental powers are shaken and disjointed, and
their order towards one another confounded and broken : so that
what is judged considerable, is not considered; what is recom-
mended as eligible and lovely, is not loved and chosen. Yea, the
"truth which is after godliness " is not so much disbeheved, as
hated, " held in unrighteousness," and shines as too feeble a light,
in that malignant " darkness which comprehends it not." You
come, amidst all this confusion, as into the ruined palace of
some great prince, in which you see here the fragments of a
noble pillar, there the shattered pieces of some curious imagery ;
and all lying neglected and useless amongst heaps of dirt. He
that invites you to take a view of the soul of man, gives you but
such another prospect, and doth but say to you, " Behold the
Desolation ! all things rude and waste." So that should there
be any pretence to the Divine presence, it might be said, If God

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be here, why is it thus? The faded glory, the darkness, the
disorder, the impurity, the decayed state in all respects of
this temple, too plainly show the Great Inhabitant is gone.

Till the blessed Spirit be given, the temple of God is everywhere
all in ruin ; therefore He cannot dwell till He build, and that He
builds that He may dwell — the case and His own design being
considered — are things hereupon plain in themselves, and are
plainly enough spoken in Scripture. When the apostle had told
the Christians of Corinth, "Ye are God's building," he shortly
after adds in the same chapter, " Know ye not that ye are the
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? "
This temple being a "living" thing (as i Pet. ii. 7 represents it),
the very building and formation of it is, in the more peculiar
sense, generating ; and because it is to be again raised up out of
a former ruinous state, wherein it lay dead and buried in its own
ruins, this new production is regeneration ; and do we need to be
put in mind whose work that is? That **it is the Spirit that
quickeneth " ? Or of what is so industriously inculcated by our
Lord, and testified under the seal of His fourfold Amen that this
new birth must be by the Spirit ? And we have both notions again
conjoined; for having been told that both Jews and Gentiles
" have by one Spirit access to the Father," so as to be no longer
strangers and at a distance, but " made nigh to God," it is said,
" We are built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone " ; and again
added, '^ In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth "
(as a living thing) " unto a holy temple in the Lord." After all
which, the end and use of this building, implied in the name of a
temple, is more expressly subjoined, " In whom also ye are builded
together, a habitation of God, through the Spirit." It is there-
fore sufficiently evident that the Spirit is given under these
distinct notions and for these several purposes, the one sub-
ordinated to the other; namely, both as a builder and a
dweller.

The preparation or prepared mansion is a penitent, purged,
willing heart. Fall down and adore this most admirable and
condescending grace that ** the High and Lofty One, who
inhabits eternity," who having made a world and surveying the
work of His own hands, inquires : *' Where shall be My house,
and the place of My rest ? " and thus resolves it Himself: the

The Art of Exposition

"humble, broken, contrite heart! There, there will I dwell!"
If you have such a temple for Him, dedicate it.— From Th^

Living Temple.

THE HOUSE OF FEASTING; OR, THE EPICURE'S
MEASURES

By Jeremy Taylor

" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." — i Cor. xv. 32.

This is the epicure's proverb, begun upon a weak mistake,
started by chance from the discourses of drink, and thought
witty by the undiscerning company, and prevailed infinitely
because it struck their fancy luckily, and maintained the merry
meeting: but, as it happens commonly to such discourses, so
this also, when it comes to be examined by the consultations of
the morning and the sober hours of the day, it seems the most
witless, and the most unreasonable in the world. When Seneca
describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus, he uses this
expression : " The prison keeps a better table, and he that is to
kill the criminal to-morrow morning, gives him a better supper
overnight." By this he intended to represent his meal to be very
short ; for, as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high,
so they that mean to cut their throat will think it a vain expense
to please it with delicacies, which after the first alteration must
be poured upon the ground and looked upon as the worst part of
the accursed thing. And there is also the proportion of unreason-
ableness, that because men shall die to-morrow, and by the sen-
tence and unalterable decree of God, they are now descending
to their graves, that therefore they should first destroy their
reason, and then force dull time to run faster, that they may die
sottish as beasts, and speedily as a fly ; but they thought there
was no life after this ; or if there were, it was without pleasure,
and every soul thrust into a hole, and a doiter of a span's length
allowed for his rest and for his walk ; and in the shades below
no numbering of healths by the numeral letters of Phileneum's
name, no fat mullets, no oysters of Lucrinus, no Lesbian or Chian
wines. Therefore, now enjoy the delicacies of nature, and feel
the descending wines distilled through the limbeck of thy tongue
and larynx, and suck the deUcious juice of fishes, the marrow of

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the laborious ox, and the tender lard of Apulian swine, and the
condited bellies of the Scarus ; but lose no time, for the sun
drives hard and the shadow is long, and the days of mourning are
at hand, but the number of the days of darkness and the grave
cannot be told.

That I may do some assistances towards the curing the miseries
of mankind, and reprove the follies and improper motions towards
felicity, I shall endeavour to represent to you :

I. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper
instruments of felicity.

II. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it; making life
unpleasant, and death troublesome and intolerable.

III. I shall add the rules and measures of temperance in eating
and drinking, that nature and grace may join to the constitution
of man's feUcity.

THE CLASSICAL FRENCH PREACHERS

Roman Catholic preaching lacks elements that
Protestant congregations look for, notably, the elements
of personal experience, or " full assurance," the direct-
ness and affectionate intimacy of appeal only possible
to the man who puts himself before God on a level with
the congregation, and does not regard himself as set
immeasurably above them by his sacerdotal authority
as a priest of a hierarchy that is the sole official channel
of grace. There have been great preachers in the
Roman Catholic Church in spite of the almost fatal
impoverishment of the pulpit by its deprivation of such
sources of power. It is odd, however, that since the
Reformation almost the only Roman Catholic preachers
whose names have survived, and whose sermons are
regarded as classics of the pulpit, are preachers who
flourished in the unpromising periods of Louis XIV.

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and the Regency — Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue,
Fl6chier, and Fenelon. The first four were favourite
Court preachers ; Fenelon, the most evangelical of the
lot, was looked on askance, as tainted with Jansenism
and Quietism. The classic French preachers were
artists in sermon construction. The exordiums, the
divisions, the perorations, were as finely chiselled and as
carefully proportioned as in an oration of Demosthenes
or Cicero. The modern reader finds the perfect
symmetry, the slavish subjection to rule, wearisome.
But, taking the French classic preachers as they were,
he is bound to admit that they are often rich and
suggestive in exposition of Scripture. Massillon was
supreme in his dramatic and pathetic treatment, in his
famous Lenten courses, of the incidents of the Passion.
Bourdaloue is the least formal and pompous in his pulpit
style, and the most practical in his application of Bible
teaching to the common life. There is often a dash of
Latimer's bluntness in his straight talk to the Noblesse
about their luxury, their indifference to the sufferings of
the poor, and their gilded vices. The "Golden Chain"
would have lacked an important link if these preachers
had not been represented.

OBEDIENCE DUE TO CHRIST'S WORD

By Bossuet

" This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear
Him." — Matt. xvii. 5.

It is a fundamental doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that
the true Christian does not conduct himself by natural sense of
reason, but he regulates all his sentiments by the authority of the
faith, according to what the great Apostle has said, " The just

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shall live by faith." That is why, among all the senses that
Nature has given to us, it has pleased God to choose hearing for
consecration to His service. '* A people," He says, " has given
itself to Me ; it obeyed Me in the hearing of the ear." And the
Saviour preaches to us in this Gospel that " His sheep hear His
voice," and that they " follow Him," in order that we should
understand that in the school of the Son of God we must not
consult the senses, nor pay attention to human reason, but only
hear and believe.

I am not astonished, therefore, to-day if God makes sound,
like a thunder-roll, in the ears of the holy apostles this word which
I have read, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased ; hear Him " — that is to say, that after Jesus Christ there
is no further inquiry to be made. This Divine Master having
spoken to us, all the curiosity of the human mind should be for
ever arrested, and we must no longer think of anything but
obedience — "Hear Him!" But in order that you may better
understand the meaning of this oracle, and why the Heavenly
Father willed to pronounce it in the glorious transfiguration of
our Lord Jesus Christ, note, if you please, before all things, that
He has sent His Son to bring to us three words which it is necessary
we should hear —

I. The word of His doctrine, which teaches us what we shoula
believe.

n. The word of His precepts, which teaches us how we ought to
act.

in. The word of His promises i which teaches us what we ought
to expect.

HUMANITY TO THE MULTITUDE

By Massillon

{From a Sermon preached before Louis XI V)

" When Jesus then lifted up His eyes and saw a great company
come unto Him " — ^John vi. 5.

It is not the almighty power of Jesus Christ, and the marvel of
the loaves multiplied by His word alone, which should touch us
and surprise us to-day. He by whom everything was made was
able to do everything, no doubt, with the things of His workman-
ship, but what strikes our senses the most in this miracle is not

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The Art of Exposition

what I have chosen to console and instruct us to-day. It is
His humanity towards the people. He sees a multitude wandering
and hungry at the foot of the mountain, and He is troubled, His
pity awakes, and He cannot refuse to these unfortunates His
succour, still less can He refuse His compassion and His
tenderness. "Seeing a great company, He had compassion on
them."

Everywhere He lets escape traits of humanity for the people.
At the sight of the misfortunes menacing Jerusalem, He softens
His grief by His pity and His tears.

When two disciples wish to call down fire from heaven on a
city of Samaria, His humanity interposes for this people against
their zeal, and He reproaches them for not yet knowing the
spirit of gentleness and charity of which they are to be the ministers.

If the apostles thrust roughly away a crowd of children who
are pressing around them, His kindness is offended that they
should wish to prevent Him from being accessible ; and the
more a misunderstood respect withdraws the feeble and the
little ones from Him, the more His clemency and His affability
draw them to Him.

A great lesson of humanity this that Jesus Christ is giving
to-day to the princes and the great of the earth. They are great
only for the sake of other men ; and they only truly enjoy their
greatness when they are making it useful to other men. That
is to say, humanity towards the people is the first duty of the
great; and humanity towards the people is the most delicious
enjoyment of greatness.

CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE

By BOURDALOUE

" And He took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake,
and gave to His disciples to set before them ; and they did set
them before the people." — Mark viii. 6.

If we were, like the angels, pure spirits, all our virtues would
smack of the conditions and excellence of this state, but because
our souls are attached to bodies, and these bodies make a part of
ourselves, God wills that our virtues should have a particular
character, to satisfy our bodies as well as our souls ; and that
our bodies, even as our souls, should receive firom our flesh the

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The Golden Chain

foundation of holiness and perfection which is proper to them.
As a fact, there is no virtue, moral or Christian, which cannot
contribute to them both ; but among the virtues there is one
which specially serves them both with an essential difference:
that is to say, a virtue which resides in the soul only to sanctify
the body, and whose chief function is to govern the body, to
provide for the maintenance of the body, to regulate the
appetites of the body, to subject the body to the spirit, in order
afterwards to subject the spirit more easily to God. Now this
virtue is Temperance.

The Saviour of the world, followed by a great multitude into
the midst of an arid desert, after having fed their hearts with
heavenly food, thinks how He may refresh their bodies worn out
with hunger, and you know by what miracle He multiplied the
loaves, and supplied food to so great a crowd. It is from this
miracle that I want to-day to draw' excellent lessons, to teach you
how to comport yourselves Christianly and holily in one of the
most ordinary actions of life, which is the repast and nourishment
of the body.

I. Jesus feeds the multitude only in their extremity, and then
He gives them just the commonest food, some small fishes and
bread.

n. Jesus elevates this action, so purely human, to the order of
the supernatural, by a threefold sanctification — the blessing of
the food and thanksgiving to the Father; by His adorable
presence ; and by the order He gives to the disciples to gather
up the fragments, that they may be distributed to the poor in
works of charity. Is not the holy usage of giving thanks
almost abolished, most of all at those tables where everything
abounds, while elsewhere people eat gratefully, as the scripture
says, scarce and doled out bread ?

WESLEY AND WHITEFIELD

The Evangelical Revival recovered the Bible to the
English pulpit. The Bible was the preacher's text-book,
of course, during the frost-bitten years of Rationalism,

i8i

The Art of Exposition

but beyond paying it the compliment of taking their
texts from it, the preachers got very little of the Bible
into their sermons. They were coldly critical of the
supernaturalism of the Bible. They were preachers
of a " reasonable " religion, that was a religion without
mysticism and without "enthusiasm," that would attract,
and not offend, an age whose favourite philosopher was
Bolingbroke and whose favourite poet was Pope. Wesley
and Whitefield and their followers went back to the living
fountains of scripture, and in their preaching they gave
out the Bible in unstinted measure, and without any
reservation as to its Divine inspiration, authority
and soul-quickening power. Wesley and Whitefield
diverged in theology. Wesley taught a full, and uni-
versally possible, and above all a conscious salvation
and sonship. Whitefield could not emerge from the
shadows of a Calvinistic deliberate restriction of salvation
to the elect. The theology affected the preaching.
Wesley is by far the more genial, human and winsome ;
Whitefield did not hesitate to threaten congregations
till they were panic-stricken with the terrors of a venge-
ful God. Both were mighty preachers, and it may well
be that the age needed each of the theologies. Some
are enticed into the Kingdom ; others have to be driven
into it.

Samples follow of the expository methods of Wesley
and Whitefield. It was peculiarly difficult to condense
Wesley, whose expositions are very closely woven and
are all of a piece.

182

UNIVERStTY ))

OF ;/

^^^£kiIS^^^ The Golden Chain

ON WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION

By John Wesley

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for
it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure." — Phil. ii. 12, 13.

In these comprehensive words we may observe :

I. That grand truth, which ought never to be out of our
remembrance ; " It is God that worketh in us both to will and
to do of His own good pleasure."

II. The improvement we ought to make of it: "Work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling."

III. The connection between them: " It is God that worketh
in you"; therefore, "work out your own salvation."

As a sample of Wesley's exposition, a portion of his treatment
of the second point is given. " If God worketh in you," then
" work out your own salvation." The original word, rendered
work out, impHes the doing a thing thoroughly. Your own ; for
you yourselves must do this, or it will be left undone for ever.
Your own salvation ; salvation begins with what is usually termed
(and very properly) preventing grace ; including the first wish to
please God, the first dawn of light concerning His will, and the
first slight transient conviction of having sinned against Him.
All these imply some tendency toward life ; some degree of
salvation ; the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeehng
heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God. Salvation
is carried on by convincing grace, usually in scripture termed
repentance; which brings a larger measure of self-knowledge,
and a further deUverance from the heart of stone. Afterwards
we experience the proper Christian salvation, whereby, " through
grace," we " are saved by faith " ; consisting of those two grand
branches, justification and sanctification. By justification we
are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of
God ; by sanctification we are saved from the power and the root
of sin, and restored to the image of God. All experience, as
well as scripture, shows this salvation to be both instantaneous
and gradual. It begins the moment we are justified, in the holy,
humble, gentle, patient love of God and man. It gradually

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The Art of Exposition

increases from that moment, as " a grain of mustard-seed, which
at first, is the least of all seeds," but afterwards puts forth large
branches, and becomes a great tree ; till, in another instant, the
heart is cleansed from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and
man. But even that love increases more and more, till we "grow
up in all things into Him that is our head," till we attain " the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

But how are we to work out this salvation ? The apostle
answers, " with fear and trembling." There is another passage
of St. Paul, wherein the same expression occurs, which may give
light to this : " Servants, obey your masters according to the
flesh " — according to the present state of things, although sensible
that in a little time the servant will be free from his master —
" with fear and trembling." It is easy to see that these strong
expressions of the Apostle clearly imply two things : first, that
everything be done with the utmost earnestness of spirit, and
with all care and caution (perhaps more directly referring to the
former word, with fear) : secondly, that it will be done with
the utmost diligence, speed, punctuality, and exactness; not
improbably referring to the latter word, with trembling.

How easily may we transfer this to the business of life, the
working out our own salvation 1 With the same temper, and in
the same manner that Christian servants serve their masters that
are upon earth, let other Christians labour to serve their Master
that is in heaven — that is, first, with all possible care and caution;
and, secondly, with the utmost diligence, speed, punctuaUty and
exactness.

GOD GLORIFIED IN THE FIRES

By George Whitefield

" Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires." — Is. xxiv. 15.

Isaiah, when he penned this chapter, foresaw the dreadful
calamities coming on the land, and writes as though he saw the
things taking place. But, in the midst of the dangers, God shall
lend His presence. " When thus it shall be in the midst of the
land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive
tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done."
There shall be a few godly people left, let the devil do what
he will.

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The Golden Chain

A judge said to a good old Christian that was persecuted in
Charles II. 's time, "I will banish you to America"; says she,
** Very well, you cannot send me out of my Father's country."
They shall cry aloud from the sea, ** Wherefore glorify ye the
Lord in the fires " ; if this is the case, the prophet draws the
inference : what must they do under these circumstances ? Why,
they must study how to glorify God in the fires, not how to escape
or run away from Him, but how to glorify Him ; ** Wherefore,"
saith He, " glorify Me," glorify Me, the Lord, " in the fires " ; not
the fire, in the singular number, but in the plural number, fires.
We are very much mistaken if we allow ourselves to think we
have but one fire to go through.

Everything is to be tried by fire ; we may talk what we please,
but we shall never know what metal we are made of till God puts
us into the fire.

The devil knew very well how it was when he said, ** Hast
Thou not made an hedge about Job, and about his house, and
about all that he hath on every side ? Thou hast blest the work
of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land ; but
put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will
curse Thee to Thy face." So we should all do, if God were to
leave us to ourselves, and our faith is not of the right sort.

Fire not only burns and purges, but you know it separates
one thing from another, and is made use of in chemistry and
mechanical businesses.

I remember some years ago, when I first preached in the
North of England, at Shields, near Newcastle, I went into a
glasshouse, and standing very attentive, I saw several masses of
burning glass of various forms. The workman took one piece of
glass and put it into one furnace, then he put it into a second,
and then into a third. When 1 asked him, " Why do you put
this into so many fires ? " he answered, " Oh, sir, the first was
not hot enough, nor the second, and therefore we put it into the
third, and that will make it transparent."

Taking leave of him in a proper manner, it occurred to me,
this would make a good sermon. Oh, thought I, does this man
put this glass into one furnace after another that we may see
through it ? Oh, may God put me into one furnace after another,
that my soul may be transparent ; that I may see God as He is I
My brethren we need to be purged. How apt are we to want to

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The Art of Exposition

go to heaven upon a feather bed ! Many go lying upon beds of
pain and languishing, which is the King's highway thither. You
know there are some ways in London called the king's road, and
they are finely gravelled, but the King's road to heaven is strewed
with crosses and afflictions.

We glorify God in the fire : i. When we bear it patiently ; 2.
When we are really and fully persuaded God will not put us in
the fire but for our good and His own glory ; 3. When we say,
" Lord, do not let the fire go out till it has purged away all my
dross " ; 4. When we are content to say, ** I know not what God
does with me now, but I shall know hereafter" ; 5. When we are
not grumbhng, but humbly submitting to His will: a humble
spirit walks not in sulkiness and stubbornness ; 6. When in the
midst of the fire we can sing God's high praises.

186

CHAPTER X

STUDIES IN EXPOSITION, ILLUSTRATION AND
APPLICATION

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING

•* And the evening and the morning were the first day." —
Gen. i. 5.

The literal translation of the Hebrew would be, "And
evening was, and morning was, one day." That is not
how we reckon now. Our day is made up of morning
and evening. The Jews, however, have always begun
their day with the evening, and in so doing they com-
memorate the creative order as it appears in the first
chapter of Genesis. The creative order is symbolic.
It is out of chaos into cosmos, out of darkness into light.
That is always God's method, and God's method is the
hope of the world. If we could only bear that method
in mind it would dissipate all our pessimism. It would
give us the clue to much that is mysterious and per-
plexing in our own life and in the life of society. The
trouble is that so many, beginning their day with the
morning, living in the light and the sunshine, think that
the evening darkness is the close of the day, and to them so
thinking the evening darkness reveals no stars. Morning
is not the mother of night, but night is the mother of the

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The Art of Exposition

morning. Those who recognise God's method learn that
in the darkest night the day is coming to the birth, and
that, if they possess their souls in patience, they will see
the morning star and the blush of the dawn. Our
method of reckoning the day is the material method.
We follow the course of the sun from its rising to its
setting. We say when a man's prosperity leaves him,
or his name and fame are tarnished, that his sun is
set, meaning thereby that the end is come — in other
words, " And the morning and the evening were one
day." According to God's spiritual reckoning, however,
the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, it travels
from its setting to its rising. Is not this the central
truth of the Gospel ? The course of human life is not
from the cradle to the grave, but it is from death to
resurrection. We do not need to wait for the grave,
even for the resurrection. The resurrection begins with
the new birth, with the putting on of the spiritual body by
the redeemed soul. It is evening before this takes place,
and afterwards it is morning. " And the evening and the
morning were one day."

The history of the earth is the history of one creative
day. We look back through the millenniums of history,
we peer into the mist before the beginnings of history,
we study the testimony of the rocks, we examine the
phenomena of the universe, and we find at the beginning
chaos and night ; but the Spirit of God broods over the
abyss, and gradually the east becomes streaked with the
first faint rays of the still unseen sun that herald the
morning. The rocks tell us of " dragons of the prime,'*
of fierce, uncouth monsters, " red in tooth and claw," and

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Exposition^ Illustration and Application

when man appears on the earth his hand is against his
brother men, and all the way down the ages something
of the savage has remained in man ; but all the same we
see the evening changing, though imperceptibly, into
dawn, and the dawn brightening towards the fulness of
the day. It is not full day even yet ; there are still dark
places of the earth where the shadows of night linger,
and there are dark places of society even in civilized
Christian lands, and dark corners in the hearts of even
Christian men, but " the evening and the morning were
one day," and we must have faith to believe that when
the day is complete the sun will shine into the darkest
places of the deepest glens, and all the shadows will be
chased away. Man is " working out the tiger and the
ape." We are too hasty in our judgments. We criticize
the day when it is only two or three hours past sunrise.
We look back upon the long night, and we make too
much of the shadows while the morning sun is yet low
down on the horizon. The evening is only half the day,
which needs the morning to make it complete, but those
who come after us, when the earth is flooded with the
midday sunshine, will judge better than we do, and will
recognize that the function of the night is to give birth
to the morning, and that ** the evening and the morning
were one day."

The night and the morning are one day, as the winter
and the summer are one year. People with short
memories, towards the end of a long winter, get morose
and forget that the summer is being prepared. In the
winter the mysterious processes of Nature are at work
out of sight, but none the less at work. Sometimes

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The Art of Exposition

winter lingers and, in the words of Goldsmith, " chills
the lap of May," and people of a pessimistic turn of
mind begin to prophesy, " Summer will never come." No
matter how long the winter, the buds will be swelling
on the branches at last, the almond trees will blossom,
the orchards will be pink and white with the promise of
fruit, and the gloomiest pessimist will be forced then to
confess that his fear was groundless, and that summer
is at hand. The winter and the summer are one year,
not the summer and the winter, although it would seem
to be so, according to the almanac.

Is it not so with our lives ? We grumble at adverse
circumstances, at conflicts, at apparent failure, at lack
of opportunity, at disappointed ambition, at sickness and
bereavement, and we think life is not worth living because
of these things. We wonder, as the psalmist wondered,
and as Koheleth wondered, why we who have tried to
live decent lives, who have done our best honestly to
succeed, should be doomed to failure, why all the
blossoms we put forth should be nipped by sharp frosts
or blighted, while to others success comes easy, and
unprincipled men live in the flood of the sunshine of
prosperity. Let us have faith to believe that God knows
best what is good for us, that the things that seem wrong
to us are right with Him, that " behind a frowning provi-
dence He hides a smiling face," that in the ruling of our
lives He is repeating the creative method — evening first
and then morning, and morning emerging as an evolu-
tion out of evening. Many a life that begins with
morning ends in deep shadows, in disappointments and
disillusions, and in real and final failure. With such

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

lives it is, " And the morning and the evening were one
day," while with the lives that seem to be failures it may-
be that the verdict in the end will be, " And the evening
and the morning were one day."

ADAM'S EXCUSE

" And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with
me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." — Gen. iii. 12.

For shame, Adam ! Where is your chivalry ? The
code of honour of all your male descendants has been to
shield the woman who may have been a partner in sin,
but here are you endeavouring to escape the conse-
quences of sin by shifting the blame off your own
shoulders on to the shoulders of the woman.

Yet how true to eternal human nature Adam's excuse
IS, and how futile ! It matters not whether the sto/y of
the third chapter of Genesis is literal history or poetical
allegory, it is deeply, searchingly, universally, eternally
true in its teaching.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought sin into the world and all our woe,

Milton sang, and dull literalists sometimes jeer at
Milton, and say he made a fatal mistake by enshrining an
antiquated theology in immortal verse. The Calvinist
theology — regarded as a mechanical ** justification of
the ways of God to men " — of a God whose Sovereignty
was alone regarded, and whose Fatherhood was forgotten
— may have been relegated to the limbo of systems that

191

The Art of Exposition

have outlived their usefulness, but the fact of sin, the
root of sin in self-pleasing and self-indulgence, the
common excuses for sin, the Nemesis that dogs the steps
of sin: all these things, implicit in the story of the Fall,
are realities of all time and of all the sons of Adam and
the daughters of Eve.

" The woman . . . gave me ! " How true to eternal
human nature ! " I was tempted, and I yielded." But
why yield ? You say, " the flesh is weak," Aye, but
the will may be strong. Temptation and falling are not
the same thing. The scriptural meaning of temptation
is "testing," ''trying," as the ore is tested in the
crucible. The purpose of temptation is purification.
I am tempted that I may overcome, to " prove my soul,"
to develop my manhood, as the oak is hardened and
strikes its roots the deeper and the more tenaciously
into the soil when it has withstood the rage of a thousand
storms. If " the woman," or anyone else, or the enemies
within myself, tempt me, that is a challen£^^e to combat,
to resistance, to a life and death struggle for victory.

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift ;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift ;
Shun not the struggle ; face it, 'tis God's gift ;
Be strong, be strong.

If " the woman " gave the fruit, it was Adam's appetite
that made him eat. He did not do it to please the
woman. Samson would not have betrayed his secret to
Delilah, Ahab would not have become an idolator and a
persecutor of the faithful, Herod would not have struck
off the head of the Baptist at the request of a dancing
girl, had not their own passions been roused, and if they

192

Exposition^ Illustration and Application

had been heroic enough to fight their own worst enemy
— themselves. I am a compound of animal and angel,
and my business in life is to get down the animal, to set
my heel upon his neck in token of his subjection, to
bit and bridle him and make him my servant instead of
my master, so that the angel within me may be able to
unfold her white wings and become the guardian angel
of my life. But if, being tempted, I fall, let me have the
honesty to say, not " the woman gave," but " I took
and I ate, and on my head be the punishment." It is a
coward's excuse to say " the woman gave."

Yet how natural and easy it is to say it 1 I was told
of a young fellow who went to the Crystal Palace with
some shop companions. He was a teetotaller, and they
urged him to drink. He drank, and drank too much,
and said in excuse, "They jeered me and said I dare
not take a glass. I could not stand being laughed at.
I took it to show them I was no coward." A man in
business resorts to dubious tricks of trade. His
conscience pricks him at first, but he drugs it with the
casuistry "They all do it. Everybody tells me that
straight dealing does not pay. Why should I pose as
being better than my rivals? Besides, the ethics of
trade are not the ethics of the Bible. If I don't make
money, through my morbid conscientiousness, others
who are less scrupulous will, and I shall go under." In
social life we are called on to practise all sorts of
insincerities if we would make a figure in the " set " to
which we desire to belong. We tell "white lies," and
we act " white lies." " Everybody does it. It's the use
and custom of society. Not to do so would be to mark

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The Art of Exposition

myself out as singular and uncouth. To make a show
in society may mean living up to or beyond my income,
and I may have to resort to shady means of making
money or I shall be squeezed out. That is not my
fault, is it ? If social life were different, if people would
live the simple life, if strict truthfulness and absolute
sincerity were fashionable, I should be very glad, but
things are as they are and not as I might like them to
be, and I must swim with the stream. And, after all,
what harm comes from a little occasional flutter at the
bridge table, the frequenting of the racecourse, and
putting a little on a favourite, visiting the theatre
where * problem ' plays are acted that one must be able
to discuss, and the reading of books that are not gutU
suitable for my boarding-school daughters ? " " I am a
church member, but a friend advised me to invest in
shares in rubber and oil. I hear that the methods of
getting and exploiting rubber and oil are not such as I
can sanction as a member of a Christian church, but I
am simply one of the investing public, and after all what
is said may not be true. And then, why should I miss
chances of increasing my income that everybody else is
taking ? Why should I adopt a self-righteous attitude
that would mean loss to myself, and still more to my
wife and children, whom I have to consider and provide
for?"

It is all " the woman gave."

But Adam does not stop at ''the woman." It is
" the woman whom Thou gavest to be with me." Here
again we are up against universal human nature. If
"the woman" tempts me, God made the woman, God

194

Exposition, Illustration and Application

made the fruit, and God gave the appetite. If God did
not mean me to be tempted He should have made me
different, and should have made "the woman" less
seductive and the fruit less luscious. That is an
argument often used in these days. Sin, according to
some modern philosophers, and according to much
slushy modern sentiment, has been made too much of.
It is the most natural thing in the world. It is the
surging up of the primitive man, the subconscious animal,
who remains an animal although he gives himself such
airs, and if a man gives the reins to the animal, that is
pardonable enough, and if God made him with such
powerful animal appetites and instincts, then let God
take the blame to Himself — it is " the woman that Thou
gavest to be with me." Ah, but that way ruin lies, to
the man and to the race. Humanity rises as it rises
superior to the animal. Sin drags us back to the
animal level, and soon reduces us to the wild beast
state. " Fools make a mock at sin," and philosophers
who explain sin away, or minimise its deadly destruc-
tive action on the man, know not what they do. Free
indulgence in the animal instincts, however refined the
forms of indulgence may be, self-exiles man from the
Eden in which God intended he should live. And once
out of the Eden, sin may have such a hold upon him
that he may never be able to return. The gates of
Paradise Lost are guarded by the angels with whirling
flaming swords. Let it be emphasized that sin is sin,
however refined and respectable it may be. We make
the mistake in the churches of concentrating attention
on the vulgar vices, but drink, gambling, and impurity

195 N 2

The Art of Exposition

are rare sins of the people in the churches, and are not

common sins of the people outside. The thousand

subtle sins all springing with fearful fertility from the

single root of selfishness are the sins we have to fear

and to be constantly on our guard against. Sin is

sin, on however small a scale. In the rhyme of our

childhood's days we said —

It is a sin to steal a pin,
Let alone a greater thing.

Did Adam justify his offence by saying to himself,
" After all, what is one apple, off one tree, in a whole
orchard ? " It was not the value of the fruit, but the
wound he inflicted on his own soul, the drugging of his
conscience, the disobedience to the heavenly voice and
the heavenly vision, that constituted the sin, and it
matters little whether we yield to little temptation or to
much, whether we sin on the retail or the wholesale
scale, so far as the mischief to ourselves is concerned.

God does come into the account. We cannot keep
Him out. It is His lamp within us that we put out
when wilfully we do that which we know to be wrong.
It is His " still small voice " to which we turn a deaf
ear when we listen to the siren voice of " the woman."
The Prodigal Son, " when he came to himself," did not
say simply ** What a fool I've been ! I will go and tell
my father, I'm sorry, and won't be so silly in the
future." He went to his father and in agony of self-
abasement cried, " Father, I have sinned against heaven,
and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son." If his name had been Adam, he would
doubtless have said, " Father, you know you spoiled me;

196

Exposition, Illustration and Application

you knew how weak I was. Why did you give me my
portion, and let me take it into the far country ? You
might have been sure I should spend it with boon com-
panions and harlots. Now it is all gone, but don't
blame me — blame yourself. What had to be has been.
What's done cannot be undone. It's no use crying over
spilt milk. You must make the best of it, and give me
some sort of a job on the farm." Happily his name
was not Adam, and the story remains as a warning for
ever against the fatal folly of wilful self-indulgence, and
an eternal confutation of the fallacy of the argument
that sin is " self-realization," "one stage in the process
of evolution." Sin is always a fall, and while our feet
are clogged with the clay of " the horrible pit " there is
no rising. But —

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise ;
In all His words most wonderful,

Most sure in all His ways I

O loving wisdom of our God 1

When all was sin and shame
A second Adam to the fight,

And to the rescue came.

Ill

ATHEISM OF THE HEART

"The fool hath said in his heart; There is no God." —
Psalm liii. i. ; cf. Eccles. v.

This saying of the Psalmist is usually given a meaning

that is entirely foreign to it. It is not the professed

atheist the Psalmist has in view — the man who lets all

and sundry know, with more or less of boastfulness, that

197

The Art of Exposition

he has used his intellect for all it is worth, and has
found no trace of a God in the universe, and nothing to
suggest that there is a God to be trusted where He
cannot be traced. It is questionable if there was any
such atheist in the Israel of the Psalmist's time. The
idea of a God was too deeply rooted in the Semite mind,
most of all in the Hebrew mind, for any man of that
race to cast God off altogether as a figment of the
superstitious imagination. Intellectual atheism was the
creation of subtler, more philosophical races, of times
more "advanced" in material knowledge. No; the
point of the text is that the atheism was not the
atheism of the head or the lips, but the atheism of the
heart. The " fools " were men who were unconscious of
their atheism. They might, to all outward seeming, be
the devoutest of the devout, punctilious in all matters of
Sabbath observance, temple worship and payment of
tithe ; horrified at the heathenism of the " lesser tribes
without the law," in Edom and Moab, Philistia, Tyre
and Sidon, Assyria and Babylonia and Egypt. But,
but — and it is the most tragical of all buts — while they
called on the name of Jehovah and frequented His
temple, they lived as if there were no Jehovah. Their
religion was all on the outside ; their worship was from
the teeth outwards ; they honoured the sacred Name and
ignored Jehovah's will ; they cried " the temple of
Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of
Jehovah," but they forgot that Jehovah's demand was
that His followers should '* do justly, and love mercy
and walk humbly with their God."

Such " fools " there have always been and there still

198

Exposition, Illustration and Application

are. Christ endeavoured to open their eyes to their folly
while He walked " the holy fields " with human feet.
Self-righteous Pharisaism, that tithed mint and cummin,
was particular about the cleansing of platters, prayed at
the street corners and sought the chief places at the
synagogues, and thanked God that it was not as other
men, but which made its public religion a cloak for its
private vices, for a conscience-murdering casuistry, for
ruthless grinding of the poor — this was practical atheism
*' which said in its heart, There is no God." It was
not Greek and Roman philosophical atheists, but the
most " respectable " and the most devout externally of
the temple worshippers and the offerers of sacrifices, who
hounded the Lord of life to Calvary.

And in these days it were well if we all searched our
hearts, and asked ourselves, " Am I, a member of a
church, a singer of hymns, a bower of the head in
prayer, a connoisseur of sermons, saying * in my heart,
There is no God ? ' Do I acknowledge God in my
family life ? Do my wife and children learn to be godly
from my example and the fragrance of natural piety
that I exhale ? Do I acknowledge God in my business,
or do I say, ' Business is business, and religion is
religion — they won't mix. I must do the best for
myself in business by using the tricks of the trade,
but I will share my profits liberally with God, and He
will not look too closely at the colour of the money laid
on His altar ' ? Do I acknowledge God as a politician,
or do I, while praying for the kingdom of God to come
on earth, say, ' My party, right or wrong,' or * My
nation, right or wrong,' when it comes to a quarrel

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The Art of Exposition

between Governments ? " The only dangerous enemies
of the Church, and of the ** City of Mansoul," are the
" fools " within, who " say in their heart, There is no
God." The atheists without are annoying as gnats,
but as harmless and as short-lived.

HALLELUJAH !

" Praise ye the Lord." — Psalm cxlvi. i.

The words of the text need not have been translated.
They are in the Hebrew the one word "Hallelujah!"
and " Hallelujah " has been naturalized in every lan-
guage spoken by the peoples of the earth. " Halle-
lujah " is a compound of a verb and a noun — the
Hebrew imperative " Hallelu," meaning " Praise ye " or
"Give ye praise," and "Jah," the shortened form of
Yahweh, Jehovah. The last five of the Psalms are
Hallelujah Psalms, beginning and ending with the
Hallelujah. There are other Hallelujah Psalms.
Opinions differ as to exactly how the initial and the
terminal Hallelujah were sung. It may have been as
one great shout of praise by the entire congregation at
worship, accompanied by the full temple orchestra, as
prelude and postlude to the Psalm proper, which was
rendered by the members of the guilds of singers who
were responsible for the musical portions of the temple
service. The Hallelujah is an ascription of praise to
the God of Israel known by His most intimate name as
the God who had revealed Himself in a peculiar way
to Israel as its Shepherd, its Protector, its King in the

200

Exposition, Illustration and Application

midst of its camp. In the sixth chapter of Exodus (v. 2, 3)
God is spoken of as saying to Moses, " I am the Lord "
(Elohim, the general name of God as Creator and
Universal Deity). But God adds, "And I appeared
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name
of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah was I not
known to them." Israel loved to think of Elohim as
Jehovah, and claimed Jehovah as the God who had
entered into special covenant relationship with itself, and
to whom it had a right to look for promised blessings
and for protection against all its enemies. Israel too
often forgot that a covenant is two-sided, and this
covenant had conditions which bound Israel to fidelity
to Jehovah, and obedience to His commands ; but the
elect souls of Israel were always recalling the chosen
people to their obligations, and there were always elect
souls who cultivated personal communion with Jehovah,
and whose hearts glowed and swelled almost to bursting
point as they thought of the lovingkindness of Jehovah,
and of the joy that came to those who did His will. In
the Hallelujah Psalms, and in many others where the
note of praise is dominant, such elect souls, either
speaking out of their personal feeling, or voicing the
feeling of the community of the faithful, pour themselves
out in gratitude and adoration to Jehovah. The Psalmists
struck, as the keynote of worship, the note of praise, and
to this day we in the Christian Churches speak of the
service of song as the service of praise.

Wherever the tide of devotion is at the flood there
will be the Hallelujah note. In every revival of religion
the favourite songs have been the Hallelujah songs.

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The Art of Exposition

Charles Wesley, when inspired as the poet of the

Evangelical Revival, often sounds the Hallelujah note.

His classical hymn of the resurrection has the Hallelujah

refrain : —

Christ the Lord is risen to-day,
Hallelujah !

At Methodist meetings, until modern times when
suppression of personal feeling in the services is supposed
to be reverent and decorous, fervent souls, stirred by the
inspiration of the service, ejaculated " Hallelujah ! " In
the Apocalypse we find that " Hallelujah " is sounded
in the minstrelsy of heaven : " And after these things I
heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying
Alleluia ; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power
unto the Lord our God. . . . And I heard as it were the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many
waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying
Alleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
Handel, in The Messiah^ rises to the climax of his
inspiration in the " Hallelujah Chorus," which never
grows stale, but always, when it is sung, fires the choir
to a white heat of divine enthusiasm, and thrills the
souls of the audience, who rise while the glorious music
is being poured forth.

It is the Hallelujah feeling that created the classic
songs of the Church Universal. With the thought of
the lovingkindness of God, especially as that loving-
kindness is revealed in the redeeming love of the Victim
of Calvary, and in the Christ risen and triumphant, who
comes intoHhe hearts of those that are His, men and
women have felt that plain prose is all too feeble to

202

Exposition^ Illustration and Application

express the emotion of surcharged hearts, and only song,
the song of inspired souls wedded to inspired music, can
express the tumultuous feeling that struggles to utter
itself in notes of thanksgiving and praise. The Hallelu-
jah note was the dominant note of the primitive Christian
Church. In the famous letter of Pliny to Trajan, the
Christians of the East are spoken of as rising early on
'* the Day of the Sun," and singing praises to their God.
When the Church was in the sixth century of its history,
a Latin poet, into whom the spirit of the Hebrew
Psalmists seemed to have passed, was inspired to write
the Te Deum Laudamus : —

We praise Thee, O God : we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship Thee : the Father everlasting.

To Thee all angels cry aloud : the heavens, and all the powers

therein,
To Thee Cherubin and Seraphin continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth ;
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory.
The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee.
The noble army of martyrs praise Thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge

Thee;
The Father of an infinite majesty;
Thine honourable, true, and only Son ;
Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

In the sixteenth century, when Luther, brooding in
his monastery over the Bible, and over the works of
Augustine, found that the withered faith of Romanism
no longer fed his hungry soul, and when the reading of
the great words, " The just shall live by faith," redis-
covered to him the Evangelical Gospel of Grace, and he

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The Art of Exposition

became the leader of Christendom in a return to the pure
fountain of the Gospel, he felt the need of song. Until
then the service of praise was rendered in Latin by-
official choirs, in antiquated, artificial forms of music,
and the people were simply gazers and listeners at
services in which they took no part themselves. Luther
was very human. He was a man of the people. He
understood the people, and he secured the triumph of
the Reformation by encouraging the congregations in
the singing of Gospel songs in the common tongue.
" Now thank we all our God " has become the German
" Te Deum," the " right German " Hallelujah hymn.
Soon the man in the fields and the man in the mine, the
man in the shop and the man in the ship, the woman in
the home and the children in the schools, were singing,
with full hearts and voices, those hymns some of which
in translation are the classics of our English psalmody
to-day. The Reformation spread on wings of song
through Germany, France, Bohemia and our own
country. There was a great outburst of song, as has
been said, in the Evangelical Revival. The Anglican
Revival, also, arising out of the Oxford Movement,
originated a flood of song which is represented in our
hymn-books by the classics of Keble and Newman, and the
translations of the Greek and Latin hymn writers, in
which, after many centuries, we repeat in our own hearts
the feelings that were voiced by poets whose hearts were
stirred to the same emotions by the same Gospel in the
centuries long ago.

Coming to our own times, when Moody and Sankey
came to England, and swept the country with a wave of

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revivalism, they set the people of England and the
English-speaking peoples throughout the world singing
revival songs. As poetry, many of those songs are easy
to criticize, and the tunes were often cheap and banal ;
but they did good to the common people as means of
the musical expression of the feelings of their hearts,
and those hymns, though many of them are sadly faded
to-day, at least prepared the way for something better.
Of the making of hymn-books there is no end, and can
be no end, because the heart of man always craves for
musical expression, the " Hallelujah " always clamours
for utterance. Thank God for the old songs ! But the
religious people to-day, as the Psalmists of Israel, want
" new songs " which shall express in the language of
to-day the glowing feeling of to-day.

A Church whose faith is living, a Church in close
communion with God, a Church eager to do God's will
and to advance the establishment of His kingdom on the
earth, will always strike deep and strong the Hallelujah
note. To-day the Hallelujah note sounds in many
Churches feeble and hesitating. There is not the
triumphant ring in it which there should be. Let us
have faith to believe, however, that the songs in the
minor keys, that seem most fitting for the present
subdued mood of the Churches, are only the expression
of a passing period of depression. We shall win through
the present phase to a fuller, a surer, a confident, a
triumphant faith, and then " Hallelujahs " will again
ring out in full-throated and full-hearted chorus through-
out all the Churches of Anglo-Saxondom.

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A THEME WITH VARIATIONS

" O how love I Thy law I it is my meditation all the day."—
Psalm cxix. 97,

Beethoven, Handel, Mozart and other masters of
music often, when they found a lovely melody, wrote
variations upon it. Beethoven has a theme with thirty-
two variations for the pianoforte. The writer of the
119th Psalm gives us a theme with many variations, and
how he enjoyed his manifold treatment of the theme
To some the treatment may seem monotonous enough,
but it was not monotonous to the psalmist. It has
never been monotonous to any man or woman who has
discovered what the theme is upon which the Hebrew
poet has exercised his skill in the invention of variations.
The theme was the love of the law of God. Delight in
the revealed will of God, the soul's revelling in the
knowledge given in the law of the character, the will
and the purposes of the Lord. The Psalm is the longest
in the Hebrew hymn-book — 176 verses — and the poet
exercises his ingenuity in dividing his poem into allitera-
tive sections, each verse of each section beginning with
the same letter of the alphabet to which the section is
allotted. Psalm cxix. has always been a prime favourite
with the Jews. Pious Jews learn it by heart, and pious
Christians used to learn it by heart, though it is doubtful
if many of them could repeat it from memory to-day.

The love of the law, the love of the Bible ! If only
the average Christian in the Churches to-day could

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

repeat from the innermost of his heart the words of the
Psalmist, " O how love I Thy law ! it is my meditation
all the day ! " the church life of our nation, and the
individual Christian life of the people, would be in a far
healthier condition. A Bible-loving nation is a nation
whose spiritual blood is rich, whose spiritual muscle is
firm and strong, whose spiritual bone is hard. A nation
of Bible-lovers will be a nation of Bible-readers. The
fact that the Bible is little read by Christian men in
Christian homes is irresistible proofpresumptive that the
Bible is little loved. We pay great lip honour to the Bible
in these days. We fight about who shall teach it to the
children in the day schools, we boast that the greatness
of England is founded upon the Bible. We rub our
hands with smug satisfaction when we read in the annual
report of the Bible Society that 20,000,000 copies of the
Bible and portions of the Bible in 400 odd languages
and dialects are disposed of during the year. We say
that Protestantism is the religion of the Bible, and that
the Anglican and Free Churches are Churches that draw
their theology from the Bible, and take their stand upon
the Bible, as against the Roman Catholic Church, which
puts the authority of the Church before the authority of
the Bible. But the question really is, Do we really read
the Bible, and if not, why not .? How many of us treat
the Bible like the man of whom it is said that his dying
father bequeathed him a Bible, and twenty years after-
wards, opening it for the first time, he discovered within
its pages a bank-note ? The Bible is kept, of course, in
every Christian home. But is it kept for use or for
ornament ? There are beautiful Bibles in some homes,

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printed on India paper, daintily bound in morocco, bronze-
edged, perhaps with artistic illustrations — Bibles that look
exceedingly nice when carried to church on Sunday, but
they are opened only in church while the minister is reading
the lesson, and from Sunday to Sunday they remain
unopened and unread. There is not much difference
between such treatment of the Bible and the treatment
of it one has seen in some cottages, where the family
Bible is placed on a little table inside the window of the
front room, with an antimacassar over it, and on the
antimacassar a flower pot, or an artificial plant or wax
fruits inside a glass case. The Hebrew saint who
exclaims, " O how love I Thy law ! " adds, " It is
my meditation all the day," and he tells us how
the reading of the law has made him wise. " I have
more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy
testimonies are my meditation. I understand more
than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts. I
have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I
might keep Thy word. I have not departed from Thy
judgments, for Thou hast taught me. How sweet are
Thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter than honey to
my mouth."

If in these days we so loved the Bible that we read it,
and made it our meditation, if we tasted its sweetness
and its wisdom made us wise, what light it would throw
upon our path ! The Bible was a lamp to the feet of the
Hebrew saint, and it is meant to be a lamp to the feet
of people in every age. In these days we have many
perplexities with regard to our conduct as Christian
people. We live in an age of ethical confusion in which

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

it IS very difficult to distinguish between right and
wrong, and in which we seem to be Hving not so much
in the light or in the darkness, but in a twilight com-
pounded of the two. We make continual compromises
with our conscience, and endeavour to justify ourselves to
our uneasy conscience by pleading that as things are we
must fall in with the customs of trade, the manners and
morals of society, and with the dubious ways of political
people. If, however, like the writer of this Psalm, we
took the Bible for our guide, if we made it our lantern,
and in every dark place we held up our lantern, and let
it shine on the difficulty, we should find the light that
we required — that is, if what we desire is really to find
the light. It may be that we prefer the twilight because
of sacrifices to be made, and discomforts to be endured,
if we walk in the light. The light may shine on a rough
path, while the path that lies in the twilight is the
primrose path of easy-going compliance with the dictates
of an easy-going morality. Let us be honest, however,
with regard to the Bible, If we do not love it, and do
not read it, it is best to say little about it. The flattery
that is insincere is an insult to the Bible. If we would
taste its sweetness, to borrow another Bible word, we
must eat it. There is no tasting without eating, but if
we eat it, the Bible will make us strong, and it will
make us wise.

It was the study of the law as it illuminated his mind,
warmed his heart and nurtured his soul that made the
Psalmist burst into such lyrical expressions of his love
of the law. The scriptures were marrow and fatness
to him. The more he fed on them the more his appetite

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grew, and the greater the zest of his enjoyment. Our
fathers and grandfathers understood the 119th Psalm
better than we do. In quieter and less distracted days
they found time to read the Bible, and they had the
will. There were men and women who read the Bible
and read little else, read it in what we should consider
a very uncritical fashion, but they did read it. They
bathed their souls in the sunshine of the Bible, they
dived into its fathomless depths, in every crisis of life
they went to it for counsel and comfort. Its words were
their most familiar household words, and they always
found a word in season that gave them just the help
they needed. I knew a Sunday school teacher who at
the age of over ninety could repeat the Gospel of John
which she learnt by heart as a girl of thirteen. I
have known septuagenarians who never needed to
open the Bible to read the chapter at evening family
worship — they knew by heart enough Psalms and
enough chapters of the Gospels and Epistles to supply
the chapter for half the evenings of the year. The
Bible had soaked into them, become blood of their
blood and bone of their bone. It was woven inex-
tricably into the texture of their thought, and the dear
familiar language of the Authorised Version made their
vocabulary as it made the vocabulary of John Bunyan.
Students of a foreign language sometimes acquire such
an intimate knowledge of the language that they are
able to think in it. So with these old-time readers of
the Bible in the old-fashioned way. They were not so
much students as readers, for they did not go to the
Bible to wrestle with critical, literary and theological

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

problems, but with a childlike faith that, even when
there was not understanding", yet found its rich reward
in the thrill of soul that came to them as their souls
responded to the thrill in the souls of the men to whom
the inspired messages of revelation came. " They may
take my Bible from me," said an old Armenian woman
in a time of persecution, " but they cannot tear it from
my heart." And the Bible was in the heart of these
simple-souled men and women of simpler ages. Well
for the world it is that intellectual understanding, valu-
able as it is and highly to be prized, is not essential to
the tasting of the honey sweetness of the soul-strength-
ening food of the Bible. People in the Churches need
to realize that the Bible is not the theologian's and the
student's book, but the book of the common people,
and that to make its power felt it must be read, not as a
matter of duty and in mechanical ways, but with the
glow of heart and the brightening eyes with which the
lover reads the letters of his dear one, and reads into
the letters all the love he feels.

The lover of God's law finds that law a calming
influence when his heart, under the stress of great trial,
beats wildly within, or "when all without tumultuous
seems." He goes to the Psalms, to John's Gospel, to
the Epistles, and it is as a cooling breeze blowing upon
a feverish face, as a firm but gentle hand laid upon an
agitated breast. He feels " underneath are the ever-
lasting arms." He is content to leave the issues of his
life in the hands of the Shepherd who slumbereth not
norsleepeth. The Lord will "be surety for His servant."
" Great peace have they which love Thy law ; and

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nothing shall offend them." Let us, therefore, not
study the Bible only with however keen an intellectual
curiosity ; let us not merely read it as an interesting
literature ; but let us love it, feed upon it, make it our
meditation, and then we shall enter into the feeling of
the Psalmist, and find in the 119th Psalm, which to many
seems dreadfully monotonous in its endless variations
on one theme, a poem that speaks to our heart and
evokes the response, " And O how I too love Thy law ! "

THE SWORD AND THE CROOK

" Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His
arm shall rule for Him; ... He shall feed His flock like a
shepherd ; He shall gather the lambs with His arms, and carry
them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with
young."— I sa. xl. 10, 11.

The text is taken from the great ** Comfort ye,
comfort ye" chapter of Isaiah. The prophet-preacher
is to " speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and to cry unto
her that her warfare is accomplished, and her iniquity is
pardoned." The message is warm and tender with the
love that outflows from the heart of the Father towards
His erring and suffering children, who have learnt their
bitter lesson, and now with contrite spirits turn their
eyes pitifully towards the Friend whose benefits they
had received, but whom they had forgotten. When God
pardons. He pardons with no reservation ; He forgives
and forgets ; He blots out the black record. The
message delivered through the prophet must have fallen
refreshingly as the dew on parched flowers. And yet,

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Exposition^ Illustration and Application

in the tenth verse, there is a startling note of warning,
reminding His people that Yahweh is Yahweh Sabaoth,
the Lord of Hosts, as well as the Shepherd of Israel.
Often in the Psalmists and the Prophets we have the
device of sharp contrast which has the effect of a sudden
change of key in music, but rarely is the contrast so
sharp and startling as between the tenth and eleventh
verses — "Behold the Lord God will come with strong
hand, and His arm shall rule for Plim ; " " He shall feed
His flock like a shepherd : He shall gather the lambs
with Plis arms, and carry them in His bosom, and shall
gently lead those that are with young." What sternness
of the warrior King who will rule and be obeyed in verse
ten ; what ineffable tenderness of the Shepherd who
loves His flock and whose sheep hear His voice in verse
eleven !

Superficial readers might imagine that the two verses
contradict each other in their different representations of
God; superficial theology, superficial preaching, super-
ficial popular thought and feeling about God, have often
made the separation, and spiritual life and service have
suffered because the separation has been made. Yet if
we read our Bible carefully we shall find alike in the Old
and the New Testament that the complete conception of
God includes both the severity and the love. The
Yahweh of the second Psalm, who looks at the " raging
heathen" and "the people imagining a vain thing" —
" He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh : The Lord shall
have them in derision " — is the same as the Yahweh of
the twenty-third Psalm, the Shepherd Lord, "who maketh
me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth me beside

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The Art of Exposition

the still waters. He restoreth my soul ; He leadeth me
in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." If
God were only love and had no severity, He would be
that worst of fathers, the father who spoils his children.
If He were only sternness, the unrelenting Sovereign of
the Calvinistic theology, whose subjects have forfeited
life and liberty by rebellion, and whom, if He pardons
He pardons contemptuously by a mere act of will, by
arbitrary choice, or by the sacrificial suffering of His
" only begotten " and co-equal Son, He would lose the
greatest attribute of fatherhood. He might be feared but
He never could be loved. It is the synthesis of '* the
strong hand and the ruling arm " with the " feeding of
the flock like a shepherd, and the gathering of the lambs
with His arm " that gives us the complete conception
not only of the Yahweh of the Old Testament, but of
" the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," who is
"our Father in heaven." We have in Christ Himself,
" in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily," the
same blend of melting love and stern severity. Christ
is King and Judge, and Christ is Saviour, Good Shepherd
and Elder Brother. Can it be the same Christ who took
the children in His arms and blessed them, who wept at
the grave of Lazarus, whose earthly life was a succes-
sion of human-hearted acts of kindness, who scourged
the Pharisees and hypocrites with stinging words and
lashed with a whip of small cords the money-changers
out of the temple court ? Yes, He is the same Christ ;
there is such a thing as "the wrath of the Lamb "; and the
wrath of the Lamb is more to be feared than the roaring
of the lion. Read the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew,

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

the Great Judgment chapter, with its terrible denuncia-
tion of those on the left hand, who gave to His hungry
little ones no meat or drink, who closed their hearts and
homes against the stranger, who clothed not the naked,
and visited not the sick and those in prison. In these
days of delicate nerves and soft sentiment we do not
care to look at those on the left hand of the judgment
seat ; we strive not to think of the retribution in store
for them. Our fathers, no doubt, dwelt more than was
good for them on lurid pictures of the doom of the
disobedient and the lost ; we prefer to close one eye, to
behold only the ransomed who receive the welcome —
" Well done " ; and to feast our eyes on the raptures of
the blest — that is, if we can bring ourselves to think at
all of what lies behind this mortal life.

In the reaction from the over-severe theology that
insisted too exclusively on the arbitrary sovereignty of
God, we have gone to the other extreme. God is to us
just a good-humoured Father, who knows our weakness,
and "will not be hard on us," who will receive us all at
last, without inconvenient questions, into His eternal
home. Such a view of God is relaxing to our moral and
spiritual fibre ; it makes us flabby and feeble, it cuts or
withers the sinews of our strength, and it is not wonderful
that a weak and watery pietistic sentimentalism arrests
the progress of the Church. A dash of Calvinistic
sternness would be a wholesome corrective, a highly
beneficial tonic to our moral and spiritual system. We
shall get the dash if we read our Bible without blinkers,
if we take Isaiah xl. lo, 1 1 as the two halves of a whole,
either half incomplete by itself, and each necessary to

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The Art of Exposition

make the whole ; if, instead of dwelling exclusively on
the Shepherd Psalm, we force ourselves to read equally
Psalm ii.

As is our conception of God, so is our religious life,
and so is the life of the Churches. The severity of God,
the " strong arm," is essential to the good government of
the world, it is essential to the making of robust moral
and spiritual manhood ; the tenderness of the Divine
Shepherd is needful to make us tender, that we, His
under-shepherds, may **feed the flocks," "gather the
lambs with our arm and carry them in our bosom."
The " gentle Jesus, meek and mild " of the children's
hymn is also the " strong Son of God," who " goes
forth to war," and not until the " strong Son of God " is
victorious is He able to speak the word of pardon and
peace, and to lead us as a Shepherd into the green
pastures and beside the still waters.

VII
THE GIFTS OF THE THREE KINGS

" And when they had opened their treasures, they presented
unto Him gifts: gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." — Matt. ii. ii.

The tradition of the three wise men from the East
who, guided by the strange star, found their way to
Bethlehem, in search of Him " that is born King of the
Jews," and the star " stood over where the young child
was," gathered increment with the passing years. The
three Magi became three kings, Melchior, Gaspar and
Balthasar. The mediaeval imagination revelled in the
legend of the Three Kings. One of the oldest of the

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

pre-Raphaelite pictures of the Italian school in the
National Gallery shows the Manger, with the meek-eyed
cattle and the ass watching the infant Jesus, and outside
stand the Kings, in gorgeous Oriental robes, with their
camels and servants bearing their gifts.

It is easy to understand how the legend of the Three
Kings originated. He that was " born King of the
Jews " was to be King of kings and Lord of lords. His
universal dominion had been foretold by Psalmists and
Prophets. " He shall have dominion also from sea to
sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. The
kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents :
the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all
kings shall fall down before Him, and all nations shall
serve Him." What more fitting, therefore, than that the
kings of the East should come to acknowledge the
supreme dominion of the Babe, whose future kingdom
was to stretch from sea to sea and from shore to shore,
and should offer Him in symbol the tribute that was
His due? John in the 21st chapter of Revelation, in
his description of the New Jerusalem, says *'the kings
of the earth do bring their glory and honour unto it."
Before Calvary, the chosen companions of Jesus, the
innermost circle of His confidants, believed that He was
to be a king sitting upon the throne of David and
ruling over such a kingdom as Israel had never known.
The same thought was in the minds of the people of
Jerusalem on that Sunday before His death when they
spread garments and palm branches before Him and
shouted their ** Hosannas." There was not much
likeness to such a king about Jesus, however, at any

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The Art of Exposition

time of His earthly life — born in the manger because
" there was no room in the inn " ; brought up in a little
country town, the supposed son of a carpenter ; travel-
ling on His evangelistic rounds dressed as a peasant,
and living from hand to mouth with a little band of
working men followers; the friend of the multitudes,
the disinherited of the earth, the social pariahs; and at
last suffering the death of a criminal. And yet the
three wise men from the East, whether kings or
philosophers, or both, were not mistaken. They had
not brought their presents to the wrong address. King-
liness is not a matter of living in a palace, wearing
purple and fine linen, and having great nobles in
attendance to perform menial services. Kingship is in
the office ; kingliness is in the man, and the generations
have learned to recognise in Him who said '* the king-
dom of heaven is within you " a King who has more
than realised the dreams of the Psalmists and Prophets.

Kings shall fall down before Him,

And gold and incense bring ;
All nations shall adore Him,

His praise all people sing ;
For He shall have dominion

O'er river, sea, and shore,
Far as the eagle's pinion

Or dove's light wing can soar.

The presents of the Three Kings are richly symbolic.

'* They brought Him gold " — gold to Him who had not
the money to buy bread for the hungry thousands, and
was without a shekel to pay the temple tax. And yet
*'the silver and the gold are His and the cattle upon a
thousand hills." All the way through His earthly

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

ministry Jesus was teaching that wealth was not the
possession of those who hold it, but they hold it only
as the stewards of God. As the Kingdom of God is
realized upon earth, that conception of the gold and the
silver belonging to God, to be used in ways that are in
accord with His will, never to be used for merely selfish
purposes, least of all as a means of tyrannizing over
less fortunate brothers— that conception of wealth will
be established as a fundamental law of the kingdom.
Wealth is power, and there is no power on earth that
God does not claim as His of right, and for the exercise
of which He will not call to account those to whom the
power is entrusted. Jesus said once, when He saw the
multitudes faint and scattered, that they were as sheep
having no shepherds. In these days we see the sheep
herded in flocks of thousands and ten thousands under
men who have the command over them given by the
accumulation of vast capital. Some such men have
understood the law of the Kingdom with regard to the
gold and the silver : they are real shepherds of the sheep
over whom they are placed ; the power given to them as
employers they regard as a stewardship, to be exercised
in the interest of the workers as much as in the interest
of their private profit, and their private wealth they use
as a sacred trust to strengthen the forces that make for
the establishment of Christ's Kingdom on earth. But
there are other men, controllers of enormous wealth, and
of the power over thousands and tens of thousands placed
in their hands through that control, who do not regard
the gold and the silver as His, do not regard themselves
as shepherds of the sheep, sometimes indeed they are

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The Art of Exposition

wolves rather than shepherds. It is such breakers of
the law of the Kingdom who are mainly responsible for
the wrong social conditions of our time, for the social
unrest inevitably resulting from such conditions, and
for the threatened class wars which are the greatest
menace to the peace and prosperity of Britain and of
the civilized world. Let the men of wealth imitate the
king who offered to Jesus his gift of gold, and the noise
of angry strife in the world industrial and the world
political will cease.

" They presented unto Him . . . frankincense." He
that was " born King of the Jews " was to be also the
Great High Priest, called of God " a high priest after
the order of Melchisedec." He was to enter within the
veil on our behalf, our Intercessor and Mediator, and
was to offer the incense of our faith, our dutiful
submission and our prayers to the Holy Father.
"For such a High Priest became us, who is holy, harm-
less, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher
than the heavens ; who needed not daily as those high
priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins,
then for the people's ; for this He did once, when He
offered up Himself." That Babe of Bethlehem was the
incarnation of the hope of humanity. He was the
Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. He
came to draw aside the veil between the material and
the spiritual, between the earthly and the heavenly, to
show to men that the soul was the man, that the body
was an accident, and that it should ** profit a man
nothing if he gain the whole world and lose his own
soul." He stands eternally between men and God ful-

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

filling His high priestly function, taking God's hand and
man's hand and placing them in each other, and so effect-
ing a reconciliation of man to God. Down through the
centuries since the Babe of Bethlehem, grown to man-
hood, was crucified on Calvary, and ascended into
heaven, that high priestly function has been a most real
thing, and its exercise was never more needed than at
this time, when the very abundance of the gold and
silver threatens to blur men's vision of the spiritual
world and to sear their hearts against that tender com-
passion of which Jesus was the great teacher and the
still greater exemplar. " And they presented unto
Him . . . frankincense."

"And they presented unto Him . . . myrrh." Myrrh
is the symbol of bitterness, of bitterness that is yet
fragrant, and He that was " born King of the Jews " was
not born to any easy throne. The crown He wore was
a crown of thorns even before that bitter day on which
the Roman soldiers mocked Him, and the jeering inscrip-
tion was nailed over His head to the cross, "This is
Jesus the King of the Jews." It was only a King to
whom myrrh was fitly presented who could reign over the
human heart as Jesus was destined to reign. " But we
see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels
for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour;
that He by the grace of God should taste death for every
man. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by
whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to
make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings."

It is the Jesus who in Gethsemane groaned in agony

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The Art of Exposition

of spirit, the Jesus to whom on the cross one of the
Roman soldiers ran and " took a sponge and filled it
with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave Him to drink,"
who has ruled and rules with irresistible sway over the
hearts of humanity, subject to suffering, to affliction, to
injustice, to poverty, to death. Myrrh is mixed with
the wine in the cup of life, and it is the myrrh in the
cup that purifies the wine of life. A life all sunshine,
all sweetness, all prosperity, never develops its richest
colour and its finest fragrance. We are " made perfect
through sufferings," all the more if in our sufferings we
call to our side Him to whom at Bethlehem they pre-
sented myrrh.

It is not often that the story of the Three Kings is
used as the subject of a Christmas sermon, but it is
well now and again to remember it and extract from it
such teaching as can legitimately be got out of it. The
story did not find its way into Matthew's Gospel with-
out some deep instinctive sense of its fitness to be there,
and without entering on any critical questions as to its
origin, we do well to discover what the purpose of its
presence in the Gospel really is.

vin

HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER
RIGHTEOUSNESS

" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness, for they shall be filled." — Matt. v. 6.

From the green hill-side Jesus looked down on the
crowd of men and women around and below Him. The
people had come some of them fifty or sixty miles.

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There were peasants from the fields of Galilee, artisans
from the quiet country towns, fishermen from the Gen-
nesaret shore, people even from Jerusalem, to whom had
come the fame of the young Prophet of Nazareth,
and some were there from the country beyond Jordan,
between the river and the hills of Moab. They were
tired, many of them, and hungry, for they had travelled
far, and it may be the sun was high in the heavens and
hot ; they were thirsty, too, and possibly far from water.
Jesus never saw the multitudes but He at once entered
into sympathetic relationship with them. He was con-
scious of their hunger and their thirst It was always
His custom to use the physical needs of men and women
as means by which to impress upon them the still deeper
needs of their spiritual nature. These were poor people,
not the cultured, the comfortable, the refined. Later on,
among His audiences, Jesus had representatives of the
cultured and the educated classes, and they were not the
people who were most in sympathy with His teaching
and His spirit. He was as yet, however, at the beginning
of His public ministry, and it was the poor, the disin-
herited of the earth, who flocked to Him to see if He
had any message of comfort and inspiration that would
help them. He began by pronouncing the Beatitudes,
that treasure of the humble which has never ceased to
bring cheer to lowly souls, and after pronouncing the
blessing on the poor in spirit and the meek, He passed
on to " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled."

These people were hungry and thirsty in more ways
than one. They had not come long distances merely to

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see a wonder-worker and to hear the novelties of an
unconventional preacher, just because they were novelties
and excited their curiosity. These men had souls to be
fed as well as bodies, and it was because they were soul-
hungry and soul-thirsty, that they came to Jesus. Once
the Priests and Prophets of the Jewish religion had fed
them with the bread of heaven and quenched their thirst
with the water of life ; but long since the Prophets had
become silent and the Priests, instead of bread, fed the
people with chaff of vain traditions and hair-splitting
casuistry about points of the law, as these points had
been commented upon and diversely interpreted by
Rabbis and Scribes, who had lost all sense of the spirit
of the law. " The hungry sheep looked up and were not
fed," but turned away heart-starved, faint and sick, from
the shepherds who had no fodder that could keep their
souls alive. Then appeared the Teacher of Nazareth
with his simple, wonderful Gospel, rich and nutritious,
talking to them in their own language, speaking to their
hearts and giving them that food for which their souls
were longing. They were hungry and thirsty indeed for
bread and water, and this Jesus knew full well. But
Jesus knew even better than themselves their deeper
need, and in the Beatitude of the text He pronounces
the blessing on those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, and promises them that they shall be
filled.

Hungry and thirsty after righteousness ! A blessed
hunger and thirst indeed. We find in the Psalmists and
Prophets men who had that hunger and thirst, and in
their time they were filled. Physical hunger and physical

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

thirst do not create the meat and drink that satisfy them,
but the promise is that those that are heart-hungry and
heart- thirsty for righteousness shall be filled. The
hunger and thirst themselves create the satisfying
Divine provision. It is hunger and thirst for righteous-
ness, not for place and position, not selfish desire for
any selfish satisfaction. It is not the mere wish to win
a happy entrance into a heaven of bliss, and to escape
whatever is meant by hell. Righteousness means that
the will of God should be done in and through the soul
in whom the hunger and thirst are created ; it does not
mean a mechanical justification that shall cover a guilty
past and ensure happiness in a future and far away
heaven. If we are ever in any doubt with regard to the
meaning of such words as righteousness, heaven and
hell, judgment, and so on, let us put the words in the
mouth of Jesus, and imagine how they would sound as
spoken from His lips, knowing what we do of the life
He lived, and His attitude toward the people who
thronged to hear Him. Hungering and thirsting after
righteousness are those who think the thoughts of Jesus,
who feel with the heart of Jesus, who, like Him, are
willing to be emptied that God may fill them, and that
God may use them how and when He will.

It is the appetite for divine food that makes a
righteous man and a child of God. If this appetite is
lost the soul will perish of slow starvation, and as there
is no more hopeless physical condition than the condi-
tion of the man who is dying of inanition, and yet turns
away with peevish disgust from all food, so there is no
more terrible spiritual condition than that of the man

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who has lost his soul-hunger and soul-thirst, and is
growing ever more and more lean of soul, until if the
hunger and thirst do not come to him, his soul will at
last perish.

It may be there are some who are conscious of the
need of their soul, but whose appetite for righteousness,
whose spiritual hunger and thirst, is feeble and dainty.
They take scarcely food enough, as we sometimes say
with regard to physical food, " to keep a sparrow alive."
Many even in the Church seem to have that delicate and
dainty appetite, and it accounts for the sickly spiritual
condition of the individual Christians, and for the
arrested progress of the churches as a whole. Hunger-
ing and thirsting mean a fierce craving for food and
drink. It behoves each one of us to search our heart
and ask ourselves if our desire for God's will to be done
in us and through us, our desire that His will should
prevail in the world, and His kingdom come, can truth-
fully be described as a hungering and thirsting after
righteousness. The famishing man or woman will sacri-
fice anything and everything to get food or drink, for
food and drink mean life, and the absence of food and
drink means death. " I am come that ye might have
life," said Christ, " and that ye might have it more
abundantly." But we can only have life as we let Him
feed us with the means of life, and He cannot feed us
unless we have the healthy hunger and thirst for His
food. May ours be the blessedness of having the hunger
and thirst ! He has never yet failed to satisfy the hungry
soul with good things, and He will " feed us till we want
no more."

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL

"Which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." — Matt.
xxiii. 24.

The carefully locked doors of the most secret
chambers of the heart of man all flew open to the
searching eyes of Jesus. What men tried to hide from
themselves, and too often disastrously succeeded in
hiding, He discovered, and relentlessly He revealed it to
themselves. In this terrifying discourse. He strips the
mask from the faces of the conventionally and super-
ficially religious : the men whose religion was just a
ripple on the surface of their lives, but there was slimy
mud at the bottom, and in the mud crept and wriggled
and spawned all manner of foul and noxious creatures.
They were puffed up with pride in their own self-
righteousness, and so they lost the treasure of the
humble, the vision of God. They were zealots for
orthodoxy of doctrine, correctness of ritual, haters of
heresy, fanatical proselytizers. They wore the uniform
of the soldiers of God, every polished button in its place,
every belt carefully pipe-clayed, but they entirely mis-
understood the purpose of the campaign, and they
betrayed their Captain, and ruined the campaign, by their
own petty ambitions, their sordid intrigues for promotion,
their self-absorption rather than their full-hearted obedi-
ence to the Captain's commands. They forgot the
strategy of the campaign in their consuming interest in
the trivialities of often irrelevant tactics. They were
rebels at heart, and would betray their Captain, if they

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could not have their own way> and compass their own
ends. It is not the uniform that makes the soldier : it is
the soldier's heart, and these men's hearts were filled with
" envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness." They
posed as the "unco' guid," but the Magdalens and the
prodigals in " the far country " were in a more hopeful
condition than they, for the Magdalens and the prodigals
were open sinners, and open sinners, vulgar as their sins
may be, are not nearly such " hard cases " as the men
whose hearts have been calloused by persistent
hypocrisy, the super-respectable sinners who know
not that they sin, who indeed elevate their vices into
virtues, and make a religion of their essential irreligious-
ness. Christ never received other than tenderly, or
addressed in other than the accents of love, the
Magdalens and the prodigals ; but the harsh, over-bearing,
censorious, smug religiosity of the *' scribes and Phari-
sees " roused Him to anger, and He lashed them with
stinging words. They, in their turn, hated the Man of
the pure eyes who had seen through them, and had
detected the rottenness in the inside of the " whited
sepulchres," with a virulent and vengeful hatred. It was
the malice of the broad -fringed and phylacteried " blind
leaders of the blind," the lovers of the chief seats in the
synagogues, the " compassers of sea and land to make
one proselyte," the horrified at the unclean outside of a
platter — it was these who drove the nails into the hands
and the feet of the Lord of Life on Calvary : it was the
Magdalens and the prodigals who stood afar off and
with broken hearts and with heaving sobs shed silent
tears.

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

What was it that Jesus most condemned in these men ?
It was their creation of a false conscience, an artificial
scrupulosity that concentrated conscience on the triviali-
ties of external religion, and made this external
religiosity an excuse for neglecting " the weightier
matters of the law." What availed it to be particular
about the length of a Sabbath day's journey, about
rubbing a handful of corn in the hands on the Sabbath
day, about washing the platters lest they should be
tainted with some technical impurity, about tithing the
mint and cummin and anise in the garden, about
praying at stated times and in stated places, about
rigidly adhering to the " traditions of the elders," and
all the rest of it, when what the lips and the acts affirmed,
the heart denied ? Religion is in none of these things :
it is in the surrendered heart, in conformity of the will
with the will of God ; it is the outpouring of the heart, as
the Nile overflows its banks, making fertile and fruitful
the country on either bank. The only crops that the
outflowing hearts of these models of the most respectable
Jewish religiosity produced were stinging-nettles and
thorns and thistles.

There is always danger of the development of an
unreal religiosity, of a morbid scrupulosity, of an artificial
and strictly limited conscience, and it is always fatal to
the true spirit of vital religion. It is so much easier to
be orthodox, to conform to ordinances, to be a good
Churchman rather than a good Christian, and it is so
much the more imposing. Saintliness is not showy ;
it hides itself as the violet hides in the hedgerow, and
does not flaunt itself like the paeony. To saintliness as

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such society pays little attention. Saintliness does not
ask for the attention — rather it shrinks from it; but
religiosity is showy, and it is sometimes such an artful
simulation of saintliness that it can " deceive the very
elect." The terrible peril of religiosity is that artificial con-
science that " strains at the gnat and swallows the camel."
The simile is probably taken from the custom of passing
drink through a strainer to rid it of any dead insects the
swallowing of which, according to strict interpretation
of the laws of cleanliness and uncleanliness, might defile
the drinker. But the drink might be poisoned, as well
as gnat-defiled, and the strainer, while ridding it of the
gnat, might leave the poison. The gnat might be
swallowed, and no evil consequences follow. The poison
is " the camel," and the " unco' guid," while sharp-eyed
for the gnat, never looked out for the poison.

Are there no such strainers at the gnat, and swallowers
of the camel, to-day ? We have them among the
theologians. They will excommunicate a man for a
verbal difference in the explanation of some doctrine of
the faith, but they are guilty of the infinitely greater sin
against faith involved in unbrotherly hatred of the
heretic. We have them in our ecclesiasticisms. The
zealous apostle of " Catholicity " will refuse all com-
munion with men of " non-Catholic " churches, will
renounce them as brethren, will denounce them as outside
the covenanted mercies of God, will subject them to social
slights and to positive persecution if he has the power.
We have them in the scrupulous conformer to ordinances.
The man who is horrified at Sabbath -breaking, who
never misses a service, who pays his pew rents regularly,

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

who maintains the custom — and an excellent custom it
is ! — of family prayer, thinks it no sin to be overbearing
to his family and dependents, to take every advantage
he can in business without regard to mercy or fair
dealing, and generally to display a most unchristian
temper. We have to learn that " the Kingdom of God is
within us," that the home of religion is the heart, and that
if the spirit in the heart produces no fruits, then all our
orthodoxies and observances and scrupulosities are but
as the limewash of the " whited sepulchre."

The "good churchman" and "good chapelman"
may be a " strainer at the gnat " and a '* swallower of
the camel." This happens when the Church counts for
everything and the Kingdom counts for little or nothing.
With Christ the Kingdom is everything, and the church
or chapel count only as they are instruments for the
establishment of the Kingdom. Yet how often a most
strenuous official consents to the most dubious devices
for the interest of the Church, is prepared to work
like a slave and fight like a hero for the Church, but so
far from being concerned for the Kingdom he is even
jealous of the Kingdom, regarding it almost as a rival
and a danger to the Church. He is a fanatic for
churchmanship, but the spirit of the Kingdom of God is
not in him.

One of the commonest illustrations of " straining at
the gnat and swallowing the camel " is that of the man
who condenses his religion into enthusiasm for a cause,
or into some obsessing animosity. The " one idea men "
have often been magnificent pioneers, but it is a peril to
let the one idea shut out the universe. It has been said

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that with a farthing placed before the eye you can shut
out the entire landscape or seascape. This is what the
one idea man often does. He has a pet doctrine, a pet
reform, a pet aversion, and he makes it the test of
religion or morality, the judgment seat to which all men
must come. He can see no good in any man who does
not fully share his views on the one thing ; the other man
may be many good things that the one idea man is not,
BUT — . That "but "at once strikes him offas*' a heathen
man and a publican." The true Christian conscience is
the finest fruit of Christian character. It is a healthy
conscience, sound to the core, ripened on every side and
right through by spiritual sunshine. It is not as the fruit
that seems mellow on the side exposed to the sun, but is
green at the other side and tart to the taste in the middle.
The Christian conscience, like the " fruit of the Spirit,"
is not one but many ; it has the rich flavour of the blend of
"love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance." It is severe on its possessor,
but charitable to others ; it " puffeth not up," but tends
to humble-mindedness ; it reverses the spirit of the
censorious one idea man, and says "He may have many
faults, as we all have, BUT — " and the *' but " this time
leads to the mention of some kind deed, or word, or some
redeeming trait of character, that " covereth a multitude
of sins." The strainer-at-the-gnat conscientious man
has a religion of negation and condemnation: he has the
fly's keen scent for rottenness in everybody but himself.
He knows not that he is losing the ineffable joy, the
unsearchable riches, of realized religion. The most soul-
destroying sin is the sin against charity, the breach of

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

brotherhood, and no amount of zeal for the Church, for
the faith, for a cause, and no amount of censorious con-
demnation of those outside the Church, the faith, and the
cause, will atone for the breach of brotherhood — if I
" have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

The healthy Christian conscience does not strain at
gnats, and so it avoids swallowing camels. It has the
" mind of the Master," and instinctively knows and does
the right thing. It does not worry, as a valetudinarian
worries, about what he eats and drinks, about his drugs
and his " Fletcherism " and his "sour milk cure," and
get into a state of nervous irritability because it is unable
sometimes to split a hair exactly in the middle ; it acts
automatically as the heart of a healthy man acts, and
instinctively it avoids the gnat and the camel both.
Happy the man whose religion is spirit and life ;
whose religion, while it may be helped by Churches and
creeds and ordinances and habits, is independent of
them : to him is given the vision and the audition of
the things unseen and unheard ; he " walks by faith,"
and walking by faith means being led by Him who is
the Way, the Truth and the Life.

THEOLOGY OF THE COLLECTION

" Now concerning the collection." — i Cor. xvi. i.

" For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though
He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through
His poverty might become rich." — 2 Cor. viii. 9.

There is a theology of the collection. If the theology
were better understood, the financial problems of the

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churches, and of home and foreign missionary work,
would be solved. The collection is too often regarded
as a necessary evil, to be put up with in an imperfect
world, where all things have their price, and the means
of grace must be paid for with silver and gold and
coppers, but it is taken in an apologetic way, as some-
thing which the people have a certain right to resent.
In most Nonconformist churches the collection is treated
as an element of the service so sordid, and so distracting
from the contemplation of spiritual things, that it is
made before the sermon, as if it might dissipate the
effect of the sermon if it were taken afterwards. We
need to realise that the collection is itself an act of
worship, an act of sacrifice, a means of grace. Let us
look at the collection through the eyes of Paul.

Paul is concerned for " the collection " all through
the two letters to the Corinthians. Corinth was a
wealthy trading city, and there he evangelized for
eighteen months. It is reasonable to suppose that his
converts included men and women of good social position.
To them he had given " the unsearchable riches," and
Paul — though, so far from asking anything for himself,
he had worked at his tent-making to avoid all occasion
of reproach — thought he had a right to some expression
of their gratitude for the priceless gift they had received.
He had left in Judaea a poor and persecuted Christian
people, the people to whom Christ, by human birth,
belonged. His tender heart went out to the suffering
brethren of his race, and to the Corinthians he appealed,
with confidence, to minister of their abundance to the
necessities of their Jewish fellow-believers.

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

His appeal was no appeal for " charity," no sordid
argument that the Corinthians had plenty and would
not miss a little ; he carried the Corinthians to Alpine
heights by making the motive of giving " for Christ's
sake," and for the sake of what Christ had done, and
was, to the Corinthian converts. Who could resist that
appeal? Who could not but be richly blessed by
responding to it with a full heart and full hand ? Christ
had given all, had given Himself, that through His
poverty they might be rich. Here, then, is the theology
of the collection, which it would be an interesting
exercise to work out from Paul's epistle.

Christ for our sakes ;
God for Christ's sake ;
We to God and our brethren
for Christ's sake.

Let us exalt " the collection " as an act of worship,
remembering to whom, and for what, we are givers.
Do not let us make the mistake of appealing merely for
the church, or for some specific material purpose con-
nected with the church's upkeep, or even for some philan-
thropic object regarded as an end in itself. Let all our
giving be giving to God " for Christ's sake." It is well
to emphasize the giving to God by the manner in which
the collection is taken. Do not let it be an appendage to
the "notices," when the notices have perhaps wearied
the congregation and temporarily distracted them from
the mood of worship. When the collection is completed
let there be some little ocular and symbolic reminder
of the fact that the contributions are a solemn offering
to God. A story is told of an American gentleman who

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for the first time attended a church in which the offer-
ings were laid on the communion table, and the minister
prayed that God would accept the gifts and bless their
use in His service. Said the gentleman afterwards : " I
never dreamt before that when I put in the collection I
was giving to God. I thought I was giving to the
church. I only put in a quarter — a quarter to God ! I
do feel real mean. It ought to have been a dollar at
least."

As a pendant to this, and in view of the usual low
place given to the collection, a humorous story may be
pardoned. A small boy went home from church one
morning and told his mother that the minister had been
explaining the difference between a collection and an
offering. " A collection," he said, " was something that
you did not miss ; an offering was something which it
hurt you to give," There was chicken for dinner that
day, and a leg was left. The boy put the leg on a plate
and was offering it to the pet dog when his mother
stopped him. She replaced the leg on the plate, gathered
the bones, and said, " No ; the bones will do for
Fido." The boy said, " Never mind, Fido ; I was going
to make an offering, but mother will only give you a
collection." And it is " the bones " that most of us give
at collection times. Dr. J. H. Jowett, appealing for the
Congregational Fund to raise the minimum salaries of
the ministers, said, " We shall have to give unto blood."
Yes, but did not Christ " love us, and give Himself for
us " ? Tertullian, that stern Puritan of the second and
third centuries, rebuking the newly-converted Christians
who were still tempted to gladiatorial displays, said, in one

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

of his tremendous sentences, " Is it blood you want ?
You have the blood of Christ." " The blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from every sin." When
we think of Christ's sacrifice, shall we search for coppers
and the smallest silver coins at collection time .? We
must resist evil "unto blood"; we must give "unto
blood" **for Christ's sake," and such bleeding is blessed
surgery for plethoric and lethargic souls.

THE REJOICING HEART
" Rejoice evermore." — i Thess. v. i6.
What a heart-warming thing it is, forgetting all
considerations of theology, to read the Epistles of Paul
simply as familiar letters ! They are the letters of a
man who had a genius for friendship to his friends far
away, towards whom his heart grew tender as he wrote.
We do not read the epistles rightly when we use them
only as happy hunting-grounds for texts, or for "proofs"
of some doctrine, which we are anxious to fit and mortice
into a spick-and-span system of dogmatic theology.
Paul, it is true, was the father of Christian theology,
from whose quarry every subsequent theological archi-
tect has hewn stone. But Paul was much more than a
dogmatic theologian. When we read his epistles, one
after the other, rapidly, and feel ourselves carried away
by the tumultuous torrent of the thought and the feeling
that find expression in Paul's often broken sentences
and his frequent parentheses, it is not the head and
the massive brain of Paul the theologian that impress
us so much as the quick beating of the great heart that

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glows and throbs with generous and manly emotion.
Paul the man is coming to be understood as he was
never understood before. Few regard him now as the
dogmatic and domineering exponent of a system of
theology "of logic all compact," as the apostle of
Election and Predestination and Reprobation, worked
out so relentlessly that, while it sets the crown on the
Sovereignty of God, it robs Him of His Fatherhood.
Reading the epistles, we are amazed that men should
have taken casual phrases in letters obviously hastily
written — perhaps not written at all, but dictated after
supper at the close of a tiring day ; for they often read
much more like the spoken thoughts of a man whose
thought outran his words in the vehemence of hot
feeling — and should have made those phrases the corner-
stones of some portentous edifice of doctrine, which
doctrine the builders would have us accept as the
central article of a standing or a falling Church. The
more we know of Paul the man, as we come heart to
heart with him in his epistles, the more we love him, and
the less disposed we are to saddle him with the hard and
harsh dogmatic which too many theologians have labori-
ously worked out and called it the Pauline theology.
To understand any text of a Pauline epistle we need
to know not only the whole epistle, but all the writings
of Paul, and we must read the personality of Paul into
every epistle and every text. Let us take the phrase
chosen for treatment in this exposition. What a
revelation it is of the tenderness of Paul ! His heart
warms towards the Thessalonian Christians as he thinks
of their " work of faith and labour of love and patience

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

of hope." When he was with them he was " gentle
among them, even as a nurse cherisheth her children."
He longs " to see their face with great desire." He is
comforted by the report Timothy has brought of ** their
faith and charity," and in a phrase that only Paul could
use he tells them, '* For now we live, if ye stand fast in
the Lord." He gives them fatherly counsel, and in the
closing section exhorts them in short, sharp sentences,
among other things, to *' rejoice evermore," " pray with-
out ceasing," " in everything give thanks." There is a
sermon in each sentence. Let us take now that to
" rejoice evermore." Why should they rejoice ?

L Because of their assurance of salvation. The Gospel
had come to them " in power and in the Holy Ghost
and in much assurance." All who have passed from
darkness to light should have " Hallelujah " singing in
their hearts. It is

O happy day, that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God.

There should be the love light in the eyes and the glow
in the heart when we remember " how great things the
Lord hath done for us." Happy-faced rejoicing Chris-
tians are needed in all the churches to-day. A Christian
*' rejoicing evermore " in his salvation is a continual
advertisement of his religion. A glum-faced pessimistic
Christian is a Christian who has evidently missed the
secret of his religion. If there is one thing that a
vividly realized Gospel does, a Gospel of personal
experience, of "tasting and seeing how gracious the
Lord is," it is the clearing out of all croaking frogs from
the marshes of the human heart. A croaking Christian

The Art of Exposition

is an anomaly, a contradiction in terms, a waking night-
mare, a day without the sun, a moonless and starless
night. " Rejoice and be exceeding glad," said the
Master, and Paul's injunction is ** Rejoice evermore."
We need in these days a cheerful Christianity, a holy
jollity, a religion whose face is wreathed with smiles,
and that rings with happy, innocent laughter. Instead
of the smiles and the laughter, we too often find in the
churches, and at religious conferences, knitted brows,
careworn-faced Christians, who mope and mourn as if
they got no joy out of their personal religion, and as if
they believed all the sap and savour had gone out of it
as far as the world was concerned.

II. A second reason why the Christians at Thessa-
lonica were to rejoice was because they were a company
of brethren, bound by the silken ties of brotherly love,
" taught by God to love one another." How brotherli-
ness contributes to the joy of life ! The selfish man
who thinks only of self-interest is robbing himself of
life's richest treasure. The more he succeeds, at the
expense of others, the more dismal his failure. The
truest happiness is in giving rather than in getting. We
denounce the men, and we denounce the classes, who
think the one end in life is to " get on," and the men who
ask with Cain, ** Am I my brother's keeper ? " the men
who say that " Business is business," and hold that they
are justified in using without scruple the power given by
wealth or superior ability or stronger will-power, but
there are no men so deserving of our sincerest pity.
The world's great need to-day is brotherliness. Brother-
liness should begin in the Church, showing itself in the

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Exposition, Illustration and Application

affectionate smile, the outgoing of the heart to each
other, the clasped hands, the sharing of each other's joys
and sorrows, the mutual comforting and strengthening
of the brethren. But brotherliness fostered in the Church
should be carried into the world, every Christian feeling
that he is to regard all who are God's children as his
brethren, and to treat them as such.

III. A third great reason why the Thessalonians
should rejoice was because they had a great and eternal
hope. Christ '* died for us, that whether we wake or
sleep we should live together with Him." Death no
longer cast its dark shadow over life. They sorrowed
not for their dead as for those whom they should see no
more for ever. The dead, to those who are Christ's, are
" for ever with the Lord," and we who are His know
that some day, because He is risen, we shall rise also.

We need to get back the triumphant hope, not only
with regard to this life, but with regard to what follows.
That was characteristic of the early Church. In the
revolt from " other-worldliness " we have rushed to the
opposite extreme, and have allowed heaven, and what
heaven stands for, to recede so far into the dim distance
that heaven has really ceased to shed its sunshine on
our mortal life. We need other-worldliness as well as
this-worldliness, and other-worldliness for the enrichment
of our this-worldliness. The life we now live should be
suffused with the warm glow of that other life that lies
in the beyond. It may be that our fathers kept their
gaze fixed too continuously on the jasper walls and the
pearly gates, that they thought more of holy dying and
their eternal bliss than of holy living and the Kingdom

241 Q

The Art of Exposition

of God on earth, and regarded their holy living only as
a constant preparation for the death of the righteous.
We are to avoid their absorption to such an extent in the
contemplation of heaven above that they did not see the
earth at their feet, and did not always recognize their
duty to clear from that earth the briars, the nettles, the
vipers, and other stinging and creeping noxious things.
There is a distinct danger, however, in the opposite
extreme of so concentrating thought and contemplation
on the improvement of the earth, and the idea of con-
verting a regenerated earth into heaven, that our vision
is bounded by the few short years of our mortal activity,
and " the power of an endless life " ceases to have any
practical influence upon us. No man is a Christian, of
course, no man is either a Pauline or a Johannine
Christian, who is not doing his best to realize his daily
prayer that " God's will should be done on earth as it is
in heaven," but that very petition directs our thought to
heaven. We must picture heaven to ourselves and
imagine what its conditions must be, and how His will
is done by those who veil their eyes with their wings as
they stand before His throne, before we can even under-
stand what the earth will be like in which God's will is
done. Our life would be infinitely richer, and our work
for the Kingdom would be infinitely more fruitful, if the
thought of the future life, and the living together with
Christ, for " ever with the Lord," counted for more in
our thought and our feeling.

242

Exposition, Illustration and Application

XII
THE WONDER OF GOD'S LOVE

" For God is love."— i John iv. 8.

A short text, a familiar one, a commonplace text!
Yet the truth expressed is the central truth of the
Gospel. If we could only get our imagination to grasp
the fact that God is love, we should call a truce at once
in all our envenomed controversies. Could the bright-
ness of the glory of it blaze into the eyes and hearts
of Christian men, it would settle all our social problems.
If it were realized by the rulers and the governments
of the Christian nations, it would stop the building of
Dreadnoughts^ and the massing of battalions to be used
against each other as the last logic in international
differences of opinion. But has the truth become staled
by its commonplaceness ? It is the commonplaces
that are all-important, but just because they are
commonplaces, their importance is blunted by the fact
of their familiarity. " God is love ! " A commonplace
indeed to us, but it was not always so. The truth was
reached through millenniums of painful struggling of
earnest souls after it. God, at first, was not regarded as
love, but as power — the power behind Nature. That
power, dimly conceived, was cruel, arbitrary, merciless,
indiscriminating, "red in tooth and claw." God was
the God of the storm, who hurled His thunderbolts and
flashed His lightnings; who roused the sea to rage, and
swept in hurricanes over the land. He was the God of
the devastating flood, of the volcanic eruption of the

243

The Aft of Exposition

earthquake. Not loved is such a God, but feared, and
even hated. He was a Tyrant to be placated by the
sacrifice of the nearest and dearest at His altars. As
the centuries rolled on, a few elevated minds began to
conceive that God was not only power, but was wisdom.
They discovered harmony in the work of Creation ; and
even in the hurricane and the earthquake they perceived
that there was more than an outbreak of the anger of
an offended, jealous Power, but that there was some pur-
pose, and that if the purpose were only understood it
was a wise purpose. Centuries more rolled on, and it
began to dawn on some elect souls that God was kind,
long-suffering, merciful ; but even yet the idea that God
was love was far from them. Kindness is not neces-
sarily love. Kindness can be cold, a frosty benevolence,
that gives to satisfy itself, to suppress what would be
disagreeable to see as well as think about, rather than
to win affection. In some of the Psalms, and in the
Prophets, we find that the idea that God is love is
beginning to suggest itself to saintly souls, who in their
distress had been thrown back upon Him, and had found
underneath them the everlasting arms. Not, however,
till Jesus appeared in the world, with His revelation of
the Fatherhood of God, did the great truth shine out
like the sun at its zenith, and men could say, as John
says in his Gospel, " For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

In the epistle from which the text is taken we have
the truth that God is love expounded by one who was
penetrated through and through with the sense of that

244

Exposition, Illustration and Application

love. Have you noticed, in Paul and in John alike, the
continual wonder at the fact of God's love ? John says,
almost in a swooning rapture, " Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the sons of God ! " " What manner of
love ! " The amazement of it ! The incredibility of it !
And yet it is true. We take the love of God as a
commonplace thing, as our due. God is our heavenly
P'ather ; it is His business to love us, and if He did not
love us He would not be our Father. But why should
He love us ? Paul, John, and all who have gazed with
steady eyes at the brightness of the sun of God's love,
have never ceased to wonder at it. Why should God
love us at all ? What have we done to deserve His
love ? We have accepted His gifts and forgotten the
Giver. The more He has given us, the more we have
wanted ; we have claimed His gifts as of right belong-
ing to us, and if the gifts have not risen to the height of
our expectation, we have turned on God, reproached
Him, and some have renounced Him. At best, we
we have accepted His gifts and been indifferent. Even
the gift of Christ, and the revelation that Christ brought
into the world, have excited in our breasts but a tepid
feeling of satisfaction. It was Christ's business to save
the world. He saved it, and we are entitled to our share
of the salvation, and there is an end of it. God is love,
no doubt, as the rose is fragrant and the summer sky is
blue. It is gratifying to know it. It gives us a com-
fortable feeling that the world is in good hands, and that
after death it will be well with us, whatever state lies
behind the grave. But we have work to do in the world,

245

The Art of Exposition

exacting work, if we are to make a success in life ; and
the world is full of fascinating distractions ; a very
pleasant place to live in if we have health and strength.
Why should we do more than take calmly the truth that
God is love, and lay down our head upon it as a com-
fortable pillow on which we may sleep in peace ?

That was not John's way of looking at it. We are
apt to regard the love of God as a feeling in the heart
of God, a feeling that He cherishes in His heaven,
and that causes Him to look benevolently down upon
His creatures upon the earth. It was not so that John
regarded the love of God. God's love was love incar-
nate, the "Word that became flesh and dwelt among
us," and the love incarnate in Christ was to become
equally incarnate in all the sons and daughters of men.
" God is love " is not a theological abstraction to John,
it is an intensely real thing, love in action, love com-
municative, love that must pass into and transform the
life of every child of God, the " love that will not let me
go." "My little children, let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth." " God is love, and
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in
him." " He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God
is love."

How is the world to-day to be made to apprehend and
comprehend the truth that God is love ? Certainly not
by teaching it merely as a doctrine, by analysing it
scientifically, however eloquent the preaching, and how-
ever logical the argument. The truth is too great, too
transcendent, too incredible ever to be grasped by the
mind of man merely as a conception of the intellect.

246

Exposition, Illustration and Application

The truth can only be received and appropriated when
it is grasped by the heart, and it is only from the heart
of the God-possessed and the love-possessed man and
woman that the truth can pass into another heart, and
become the life and the joy of that other heart. Thank
God the truth is being taught, and is being successfully
taught, by people who are themselves incarnations of the
Divine love. The man or woman whose heart beats
with tender compassion, whose feet are swift to run
to the help of the suffering and sorrowful, whose hands
are stretched out to help them "for Christ's sake,"
and for humanity's sake, these are the only successful
teachers of the truth that God is love. They teach by
deeds that are more eloquent than words, and by living
that is more cogent than logic. About this country of
ours there is a growing army of men and women who
look on the sinful, the suffering, those who are struggling
helplessly against crushing calamities and oppressions,
with Christ's eyes of compassion, and who, like the good
Samaritan, are binding up the wounds and carrying the
robbed and the beaten to some inn, where they may be
cared for and healed. We want to get the truth realized
in the world of industry, alike by the employers and the
capitalists who control the machinery of industry, and
by the rank and file of the grand army of labour, the
men by the sweat of whose brows and the toil of whose
hands the wealth of the country is created. When the
truth is realized and incarnated on both sides, we shall
have employers and employed grasping each other's
hands as comrades in the common calling, as brothers
in Christ, whose industry is glorified and converted into

247

The Art of Exposition

a means of grace. Some day the truth that God is love,
and the wonder and amazement at its discovery, will
unite the world over peoples of every tongue and colour,
and then the dreams of the prophets will be realized.
The swords will be turned into ploughshares, and the
spears into pruning hooks ; nation shall not lift hand
against nation, neither shall they make war any more !

248

INDEX

SUBJECTS OF

Adam's Excuse, 191.
Adventures in Search of Myself,

125.
A New Creation, 158.
Atheism of the Heart, 197.
A Theme with Variations, 206.

Between Two Thieves, 156.

Christ Hindered, 142.

Christian Temperance, 180.

Christlike Nobility, 152.

Christ's Open Air Sermon, 107.

Christ's Temptations in the Wil-
derness, 164.

Christ's Warnings Against Money,
157.

Diligent in Business, 91.

Enochs in Modern Life, 113,
Esther's Heroism, 109.

Give us this Day our Daily Bread,

161.
God Glorified in the Fires, 184.
God's Second Best, 142.

EXPOSITIONS

Great Joy in the City, 146.

Hallelujah! 200.
Happy Seriousness, 144.
Holy Boldness, 114.
How John " Saw the Voice," 131.
Humanity to the Multitude, 179.
Hunger and Thirst after Right-
eousness, 222.

Knowledge in Part, 154.

Leanness of Soul, 133.

Martha and Mary, 121.
Mystical Bedlam ; or, The World
of Madmen, 168.

Obedience Due to Christ's Word,

178.
Of Taking up the Cross, 171.
Our Daily Bread, 163.

Parable of the Lost Things, 105.
Parable of the Prodigal Son, 67.
Paul's Justification of his Apos-
tolate, 70.
249

Index

Rest and its Giver, 114.

Saviours of Souls and Bodies, 150.
Sons and Heirs, 113.
Spoken Need, Unspoken Request,
147.

The Approach to Matthew's

Gospel, 98.
The Art of Hearing, 37.
The Balaam Story, 75.
The Bartered Birthright, 148.
The Blessedness of Christian

Vision, 151.
The Candle of the Lord, 153.
The Children of the Giant, 123.
The Dangers of Relapse, 124.
The Dialogue between Paul and

Agrippa, 167.
The Doom of Cain, 106.
The Evening and the Morning, 187.
The Gate of Heaven, 155.
The Gifts of the Three Kings, 216.
The Gnat and the Camel, 227.
The Gospel Portraits of Jesus, 97.
The Gratuitous Gospel, 118.
The House of Feasting, or the

Epicure's Measures, 176.
The Imperfect Prophet, no.
The Isolation of Sin, 144.
The Nemesis of Avarice, 114.
The Old Earth and the New

Earth, 127.
The Parables of Matthew xiii.,
107.

The Problem of Ecclesiastes,

94.
The Problem of Job, 93.
The Prodigal Son, 67.
The Prophet and his Interpreter,

115.
The Rejoicing Heart, 237.
The Religious Motive of Kings,

87.
The River of God, 130.
The Royal Bounty, 124.
The Ruined Temple, 172.
The Sanctuary of Love and Grace,

140.
The " Satan " of Job, 74.
The Shekel in the Fish's Mouth,

79-
The Sin of Achan, 116.
The Spirit of the Psalms, 88.
The Story of Joseph, 77.
The Sword and the Crook, 212.
The Traitor, 138.
The Tree of Life, 141.
The Wonder of God's Love, 243.
Theology of the Collection, 233.

Vanity and Vexation of Spirit,
95.

Wisdom and Understanding, 92.
Working out our own Salvation,
183.

Young Man's Duty and Excel-
lency, 169.

250

Index

AUTHORS, COMMENTATORS AND
PREACHERS

Adams, Thomas, i68.

Barnes, Dr. W. E., 87.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 152.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 106.
Bossuet, 178.
Bourdaloue, 180.
Bradford, Dr. Amory H., 144.
Brierley, Rev. J., B.A., 51.
Brooks, Phillips, 153,
Brooks, Thomas, 169.
Brown, Rev, Charles, 142.

Calamy, 103.

Calvin, 70.

Chrysostom, 98, 158.

Clark, Dr. Newton, 55.

Clarkson, David, 171.

Cooke, Professor Albert S., 82.

Deissmann, Dr., 64.

Dobschutz, Professor E. von, 72.

Driver, Dr. S., 77.

Dummelow, Rev. J. R,, M.A., 81.

Emerson, 102.

Forsyth, Dr. P. T., 44.
Froude, J. A., 94.

Gray, Dr. Buchanan, 75.

\
Hale, Edward E., 154.
Horton, Dr. R. F., 85, 141.
Howe, John, 172.

Jowett, Dr. J. H., 113, 114, 115,
140.

Knox, John, 164.

Laidlaw, Dr. J., 107.
Latimer, Hugh, 163.
Liddon, H. P., 151.
Luthardt, 120.
Luther, 47, 48, 161.

Mackenzie, Dr. Alexander, 124.
Maclaren, Dr. Alexander, 85, 104,

147.
Massillon, 179.

Morgan, Dr. G. Campbell, 138.
Moulton, Dr., 64.
Munger, Dr. T. T., 124.

Newman, J. H., 148.

Parker, Dr. Joseph, 66, 94, 105,

123.
Peake, Dr. A. S., 33, 73, 74.

Ramsay, Sir William R., 72.
Robertson, F. W., 150.

251

Index

Ross, Rev. G. A. Johnston, M.A.,

143-
Ruskin, 19, 155, 156, 157.

Shakespeare, 37, 42.
Smith, Dr. David, 52, 79.
Smith, Dr. George Adam, 80, 108.
Smith, Henry, 37.

Smyth, Dr. Newman, 144.
Spurgeon, C. H., 103, 146.

Taylor, Jeremy, 176.

Wesley, John, 66, 183.
Whitefield, George, 184.

Ill

PASSAGES EXPOUNDED

Genesis i. 5... 187.

i. 31. ..127.

iii. 12... 191.

iv. 16. ..144.

iv. 20 — 22... 106.

V. 24.. .113.

xxiv....3i.

xxvii. 34... 148.

xxviii. 17. ..155.

xxxvii. — 1....77.
Numbers xxii....75.
Joshua vii....ii6.
I Samuel xil 23... 143.
I and 2 Kings... 87.
I Kings i. 13,.. 124.
„ xiv. 3. ..169.
I Chronicles xx. 6, 7... 123.
Esther iv. 16... 109.
Job... 93.

„ i. 6...74.
Wisdom Literature. ..90.

Psalm xiv 1...172.

„ liii. I... 197.

„ IXV....130.

„ cvi. 15.. .133.

„ cxix. 97. ..206.

„ cxlvi. I. ...200.
Proverbs xvi. 16... 92.
„ xxii....9i.
,, xxvii. 20... 153.
Ecclesiastes...94.

v.. ..197.
„ ix. 3...168.

IsaisUi xxiv. 15. ..184.

,, xl. 10, II. ..212.

,, Iv. I, 2. ..118.
Jonah iv., i, 4. ..no.
Matthew... 98.

„ ii. II. ..216.

„ iv. I... 164.

,, v. 6.. ,222.

„ vi. II. ..161, 163.

252

Index

Matthew ix. 23, 25. ..150.
„ xi. 28, 29.. .115.
„ xii. 43— 45...125.
„ xiii....io7.
xvii. 5. ..178.
xvii. 27... 79.
,, xxiii. 23.., 227.
XXV.. .157.
Mark vi. 5, 6... 142.
,, viii. 6... 180.
„ XV. 27.. .156.
Luke viii. 18... 37.
„ X. 23, 24...157.
„ xiv. 27. ..171.
„ XV. 4, 8, II. ..104.
„ XV. 12— 32. ..67.
,, XV. 17.. .125.
Johnii. 3... 147.
„ vi. 5--.I79-
„ xi. 3. ..147.
„ xi. 20. ..121.
„ XV. II. ..144.
Actsiv. 13. ..114.

Acts viii. 3. ..146.
,, xvii. 10, II. ..152.
,, xxvi. 27— 29. ..167.

1 Corinthians iii. 16... 172.

xiii. 9... 154.

XV. 32. ..176.

„ xvi. I... 223.

2 Corinthians v. 17... 158.

„ viii. 9... 223.

Galatians...7o.

,, ii. 20. ..140.

„ iv. 7.. .113.
Philippians ii. 12, 13. ..183.
I Thessalonians v. 16. ..237.

1 Timothy vi. 9, 10. ..114.

2 Timothy iii. 2 — 5... 138.
Hebrews xi. 5. ..113.

2 Peter i. 19 — 21. ..115.
I John iv. 8... 243.
Revelation i. 12. ..131.
ii. 7.. .141.
,, xxi. I. ..127.

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3. Counter-attractions to the Public-house.

4. Secondary Education for the Industrial Classes, &c.

5. Continuation Schools from a Higher Point of View.

6. How to Restore the Yeoman-peasantry of England.

The six Booklets in case, price 3s.

The Birthday of Hope. By J. D. Jones, M.A., B.D. Illus-
trated. Printed on art paper, with fancy cover and
ribbon, 6d. net. Pewided white cloth, lettering in gold,
boxed, la. 6d. net.

The Ship's Engines. A Parable. By the late T. Campbell
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Rkv. J. H. JowETT says : — " I am bo glad you are issuing the article in the
shape of the little booklet. I am sure it will be very helpful to many people,
and will bring light and leading to many bewildered souls."

Gd.

England's Danger. By R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D. Price 6d.
Contents : Romanism and National Decay ; St. Peteb and
THE Rock ; Tkuth ; Pkotestantism ; Holy Scripture ;
Purgatory.

" Good flRhting discourses. They contend that Roman Catholicism haa
mined every country in which it prevails, and controvert the leading
positions taken by Roman theologians." — Scotsman.

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 27

6d.

CLARKE'S SIXPENNY SERIES

Demy 8vo, Paper Covers.

Margaret Torrington. By Emma Jane Worboise.

Between Two Loves. By Amelia E. Babr.

Studies of the Soul. By J. Brierley, B.A.

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The Bow of Orange Ribbon. By Amelia E. Barb.

The Fortunes of Cyril Denham. By Emma Jane Wobboisb.

Jan Vedder's Wife. By Amelia E. Barr.

St. Beetha's. By Emma Jane Worboisb.

A Daughter of Fife. By Amella. E. Barb.

Ourselves and the Universe. By J. Beierlet.

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of Hackney College, Hampstead. Crown 8vo, paper cover,

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sentence tells, and the whole argument movea onward to its great conclusion.
Dr. Forsyth has put the argument for missions in a way that will nerve
and inspire the Church's workers at home and abroad for fresh sacrifice."

— London Quarterly Review.

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Riddette. specially arranged and absolutely indispensable
for keeping a complete record of the scholars according to
the requirements of the Meggitt Scheme of Sunday-school
Reform. Linen cover, 4d. net.

Sd. Net

School Hymns, for Schools and Missions. Words only.
Compiled by E. H. Mayo Gunn. Cloth limp, 3d. ; cloth
boards, 6d. ; music, 3s.

2cl. Net

The Sunday Afternoon Song Book. Containing 137 Hymns.
For use at " Pleasant Simday Afternoons," and Other
Gatherings. Compiled by H. A. Kennedy, of the Men'a
Sunday Union, Stepney Meeting House. Twentieth Thousand,
2d. ; mvisic. Is.

" Contains 187 hymns, the catholic character of which, in the best sense
of the term, may be gathered from the names of the authors, which include
Tennyson, Ebenezer Elliott, Whittier, G. Herbert, C. Wesley, Thomas
Hughes, J. H. Newman, Longfellow, Bonar, and others. While the purely
dogmatic element is largely absent, the Christian life, in its forms of aspira-
tion, stnip:?lp airain'st sin, and love for the true and the good, is well illu»-
trated."— Literory World,

v»

JAMES CLARKE AND CO.'S

Index of Titles

FAOB

Abbey MiU. The . . . 17

Adrift on the Black Wild Tide 16
America in the East . . 6

Ancient Musical Instnimenta . 20
Angels of God. The . .21

Animal Gambols . . .23

Animal Playtime . • ,23

Anne Killigrew ... 4
Apocalyptical Writers, The

Messages of the . .11

Apostles, The Measagefl of the 1 1
Applied Christianity . . 26

Aspects of the Spiritual . 7
Asquith, TheRight Hon. H. H.,

M.P. . . . .7

At the Gates of the Dawn . 22
Atonement and Progress . 16
Atonement in Modern Thought,

The . . . .8

Aunt Afjatha Ann . .25

Authority & the Light Within 16
Awe of the New Century, The . 25
Baptist Handbook, The . 15

Baptist Manual of the Order
and Administration of a
Church, A . . .19

Barrow, Henry, Separatist . 2
Beads of Tasmer, The . 11, 18
Between Two Loves . 11, 27
Bible Definition of B^ligion,

The . . . .25

Birthday of Hope, The . 26

Bishop and the Caterpillar, The 25
Black Familiars, The . 4. 17
Border Shepherdess, A . .11

Bow of Orange Ribbon, The

18, 27
Britain's Hope . . .20

Brudenells of Brude, The . 17
Burning Questions . • 20

Canonbury Holt . • .17

Cartoons of St. Mark . . 5

Challenge, The . . . U

Character through Inspiration 21
Chats with Women on Every-
day Subjects . . .18
Children's I'ace, The . . £0
Children's Paul, The . .17
Christ and Everyday Life . 13
Christ of the Children, The . 17
Christ that is To Be, The . 10
Christ, The Private Relation-

ships of ... 5

Chriet Within, The . .21

Christ's Pathway to the Cross 18

PAOB

Christian Baptism . . 2S

Christian Certitude • . 7

Christian Life, The . 2L 28

Christian of To-day, The . 7

Christian World Pulpit, The . 6

Christianity in Common Speech 25

Chrystabel . . . 11, 17

Church and Modem Life, The 8

Church and the Kingdom, Tho 20
Church and the Next Genera-
tion, The . . .16

Church Questions of our Time 12

Cinderella . . . 3, 17

City of Delight, The . . 4

Comforts of God, The . . 22

Common Life, The . . 9

Common-sense Christianity . 18

Con(i\iered World, The . 21, 26
Conquering Prayer . .13
Continuation Schools from a

Higher Point of View . 26
Covmter-attractions to the

Public-house . . 26

Courage of the Coward, The . 9

Crucible of Experience, The . 18

Daughter of Fife, A . 11, 18, 27

Debt of the Damerals, The . 1 8

Divine Satisfaction, The . 25

Do We Need a New Theology ? 22

Dutch in the Medway, The . 10
Eairlier Prophets, The Messages

of the . . . . 11

Earliest Christian Hjnrin, The 16

Early Pupils of the Spirit . 17

Education of a Soul, The . 13
Emilia's Inheritance . .17

England's Danger . . 26

Epistle to the Galatians, The . 15

Esther Wynne . . 11, 17

Eternal Religion, The . . 9

Evangelical Heterodoxy . 7
Evolution of Old Testament

Religion, The . . 8

Exposition, The Art of . 6
Ezekiel, The Book of . ,2

Faces in the Mist. • .4

Faith and Form . . .18

Faith and Verification . . 5

Faith of a Wayfarer, The . 16
Faith the Beginning. Solf-Sur-
render the Fulfilment, of

the Spiritual Life . 21, 29

Family Prayers for Morning Use 1 0
Father Fabian . . .17

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

Fifty Years' Reminiscences of a

Free Church Musician . 13
Fireside Fairy Tales . . V.3

First Christians, The . . 9

Flower-o'-the-Com . 3, 17

Forgotten Sheaf, The . . 20

Fortune's Favourite . .17

Fortunes of Cyril Denham, The

17, 27
Fragments of Thought . .10

" Freedom of Faith " Series,

The . . . .18

Friend Olivia ... 4

Gamble with Life, A , .10

Garrisoned Soul, The . .22

Gloria Patri . . .10

Glorious Company of the

Apostles, The . .16

God's Greater Britain . . 10

Golden Truths for Young Folk 23
Good New Times, The . .15
Gospel of Grace, The . . 8

Grey and Gold . . 11, 17

Grey House at Endlestone . 17
Growing Revelation, The . 6

Harvest Gleanings . . 1^

Health and Home Nursing . 23
Health in the Home Life . l3
Heart of Jessy Laurie, The , 4
Heartsease in the Family . 12
Heavenly Visions , .6

Heirs of Errington, The . .17

Helen Bury . . . .12

Helps to Health and Beauty . 24
Higher on the HiU . . 6

His Next of Kin . . 11, 17

His Rustic Wife . . .10

History of the United States, A 2
Holidays in Animal Land . 23
Holy Christian Empire . . 27

Holy Spirit, The . . .19

House of Bondage, The . . 17

House of the Secret, The . 4
How to Become Like Christ . 21
How to Read the Bible . . 23

How to Restore the Yeoman-

peasantry of England . 26
Husbands and Wives . .17

Ideals for Girls . . .16

Ideals in Sunday School Teach-
ing .... 19
Immanence of Christ in Modem

Life, The . . .13

Impregnable Faith, An . . 13

Incarnation of the Lord, The 5
Industrial Exploringd in and

around London , . 10

PAGE

Inf oldingg and Unfol dings of

the Divine Genius . .21

Inner Mission Leaflets, The . 20
Inner Mission Pamphlets, The 16
Inspiration in Common Life . 18
Interludes in a Time of Change 7
Invisible Companion, The . 18
Inward Light, The . . Q

Israel's Law Givers, The

Messages of , . .11
Jan Vedder'e Wife , 18, 27
Jealousy of God, The . .21

Jesus and His Teaching . . 8

Jesus or Christ ? . . .19

Jesus : Seven Questions . 8
Jesus, The First Things of . 7
Jesus, The Messages of. Accord-
ing to the Gospel of John 11
Jesus, The Messages of. Accord-
ing to the Synoptista . 11
Joan Carisbroke . . 11. 17

Job and His Comforters . . 15

Joshua, The Book of , .3

Judges of Jesus, The , .16
Judges, The Book of , .3

Kid McGhie . . . 3, 17
Kingdom of the Lord Jesus,

. The . . . 21, 26

Kit Kennedy : Country Boy 3, 17
Lady Clarissa . . .17

Last of the MacAllisters, The

11, 18
Later Prophets, The Messages

of the . . . . 11

Leaves for Qviiet Hours . ,14

Let us Pray . . , .20

Letters of Christ, The . .18

Liberty and Religion . .14

Life and Letters of Alexander

Mackennal, The . . 6

Life and Teaching of Jesus,

Notes on the , . 19

Life and the Ideal . . 6

Life, Faith, and Prayer of the

Church . , ,22

Life in His Name. • ,7

Life's Beginnings , ,12

Lifted Veil, A » i • 13

Loves of Miss Anne, The 3, 17
Lynch, Rev. T. T. : A Memoir 6
Lyrics of the Soul . . 13

Making of Heaven and Hell,

The . . . .19

Making of Personality, The . 6
Manual for Free Church Minis-
ters, A . . , .19
Margaret Torrington . 17, 27

JAMES CLARKE AND CO.'S

PAGE

Martineau'a Study of Religion

21, 26
Mand Bolingbroke . 12

Merry Animal Piotxire Book,

The . . , .23

Messages of Hope ... 8
Messages of the Bible, The . 11
Millicent Kendrick . 11, 17

Ministry of the Modern

Chureh, The . . .13

Miss Devereux, Spinster . 18
Model Prayer, The . .16

Modem Minor Prophets . 12

Modem Theories of Sin. . 7

More Tasty Dishes . .24

Morning and Evening Cries . 15
Morning Mist, A . . .18

Morning, Noon, and Night . 24
Momington Lecture, The . 6
Mr. Montmorency's Money 11, 17
My Baptism . . .16

My Belief I i i . 8
My Neighbour and God . .14

New Evangel, The . .13

New Mrs. Lascelles, The . 18

New Testament in Modem

Speech, The . . . 14

Nineteen Hundred T . .10
Nobly Bom . . . .17

Nonconformist Church Build*

inga . . . .16

Old Pictures in Modem Frames 21
Oliver Cromwell , . .24

Oliver Weatwood . . .17

Our City of God ... 9
Our Girls' Cookery . . 25

Ourselves and the Universe 9, 27
Outline Text Lessons for

Jtmior Classes . . 23

Overdale , . . 11. 17

Passion for Souls, The . .18

Paton, J. B., M.A., D.D. , 6

Paul and Christina . .11

Paul, The Messages of . .11

Pearl Divers of Roncador

Reef, The , . . 10

Personality of Jesus, The . 12
Pilot. The . . . .14

Plain Talks . . . .22

Poems. By Mme. Guyon . 12
Poems of Mackenzie Bell, The 14
Polychrome Bible, The . 2, 3
Popular Argument for the

Unity of Isaiah, A . .16

Popular History of the Free

Churches, A . . 4, 14

Practical Lay Preaching and

Speaking to Men . .14

PAOB

Praxstical Points in Popular

Proverbs . . ,22
Prayer . . . .18

Preaching to the Times . .10

Price of Priestcraft, The . 22

Pride of the Family, The . 1 8
Problems of Immanence , 13
Probloms of Living . . 9

Prophetical and Priestly His-
torians, The Messages of . 11
Psalmists, The Messages of the 11
Purpose of the Cross, The . 16
Quickening of Caliban, The . 10
Quiet Hmts to Growing

Preachers in My Study . 1 2
Race and Religion . . lO

Reasonable View of Life, A . 18
Reasonableneea of Jesus, The. 19
Reasons Why for Congrega-

tionalists . . .19

Reasons Why for Free Church-
men . . . .22
Reform in Sunday School

Teaching . . .20

Religion and Experience . 9
Religion and Miracle . . 7
Religion of Jesus, The . .17

Religion that will Wear, A . 24
Resultant Greek Testament,

The . . . .15

Rights of Man, The . . 4

Rise of Philip Barrett, The 4, 15
Robert Wreford's Daughter . 11
Rogers, J. Guinness . . 2

Rome from the Inside , .26

Rosebud Annual, The . 6, 12
Rose of a Himdred Leaves, A . 4
Ruling Ideas of the Present

Age .... 6
Sceptre Without a Sword, The 25
School of Calvary, The . 19
School Hymns . . 12, 1:7

Scourge of God, The . .18

Sculptors of Life . .13

Secondary Education for the

Industrial Classes, &c. . 26
Sermon lUxistration, The Art

of ... 7

Seven Puzzling Bible Books . 21
She Loved a Sailor . .11

Ship of the Soul, The . 21. 2 >
Ship's Engines, The . . 25

Sidelights on New Testament

Research ... 4
Sidelights on Religion . . 7

Simple Cookery . . .16

Simple Things of the Christian

Life, The . 18

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

PAGE

Singlehurst Manor , 11, 17

Bissie . . . . 11, 17

Sister to Epau, A . . 11, 18
Small Books on Great Subjects

21, 26
Social Questions of the Day . 26
Social Salvation ... 6
Social Worship an Everlasting

Necessity . . 21, 26

Songs of Joy and Faith . 13
Squire of Sandal Side, The 11, 18
St. Beetha's . 11, 17, 27

Storehovise for Preachers and

Teachers . . . 20

Stories of Old . . .17

Story of Congregationalism in

Surrey, The ... 8
Story of Joseph the Dreamer,

The . . . .16
Story of Penelope, The . .17

Story of the English Baptists,

The .... 9
Studies of the Soul . 9, 27
Sunday Afternoon Song Book

22, 27
Sunday Morning Talks with

Boys and Girls . .16

Sunny Memories of Australasia 20
Supreme Argument for Chris-
tianity, The . . .21

Tale of a Telephone, A . .25

Talks to Little Folks . . 24

Taste of Death and the Life of

Grace, The . . 21, 26
Tasty Dishes . . .24

Ten Commandments, The . 16
Theology and Truth . . 6

Theophilua Trinal, Memorials of 5
Things Most Surely Believed . 13

PAGE

Thomycroft Hall . . •» . 17
Thoughts for Life's Journey . 8
Through Science to Faith . 4
Tools and the Man . . 6
Town Romance, A . .18

Transfigured Church, The . 6
Trial and Triumph . . 20

True Christ, The . . 12

Types of Christian Life . .21

Unemployable and the Unem-
ployed, The . . . 26

UngiJdedGold . . 13, 19

Unique Class Chart and

Unknown to Herself . .18

Value of the Apocrypha, The .
Value of the Old Testament .

Vida

Violet Vaughan . 11, 17,

Voice from China, A

Warleigh's Trust .
Way of Life, The .
Wayside Angels . . ,

Web of Circumstance, The •
Westminster Sermons . •

Who Wrote the Bible ? .
Why We Believe .
Wideness of God's Mercy, The
Winning of Immortality, The.
Woman's Patience, A .
Women and their Saviour
Women and their Work
Words by the Wayside .
Working Woman's Life, A
Woven of Love and Glory 11,

Young Man's Ideal, A •

Young Man's Religion, A •

18
16

3
27

17
21

24
4
7

19
14
18
7
17
22
19
20
8
18

12
16

Index of Authors

Abbott, Lyman 4,
Adeney, W. F. 8,
Aked, C. F.
AlUn, T. .
Andom, R. .
Andrews, C. C. .
Angus, A H. .
Antram, C. E. P. .
Armstrong, R. A.
. 21,
Baker, E. .
Barr, Amelia E.
4, 11, 18,

Barrett, G. S. .
Barrows, C. H. .
Beoke, Louis .
Bell, Mackenzie .
Bennett, W. H. .
Ben vie, Andrew .
Bett3,C. H. 10,
Blake, J. M. 18,
Bloundelle-Burton,

J. .
Bosworth, E. I. .
Bradford, Amory H.
6,

PAGE
. 15
. 12

. 10
. 14
. 3

Brierley, H. E.
Brierley, J. 6, 7, 9,
Briggs, 0. A.
Brooke, Stopford
A. . . 21,

Brown, C. 6, 18,
Burford, W. K. .
Burgin, Isabel
Campbell, R. J. .
Carlile. J. C. . 9,
Carman, Bliss
Cave, Dr. . ,

Chick, S. .

PAOB

.TAIklES CLARKE AND CO.»S CATALOGUE

PAGE

deal, E. E. . . 8

Clifford, John 1 0, 21, 26
Collins, B. G. .16
Crockett, S. R. 3, 17
Cubitt, James . 15
Cuff, W. . .20

Darlow, F. H. . 20
Davidson, Gladys. 23
Dods, Marcus 8, 21
Elias, F. . .7
Ems,J. . 20, 23
Evans, H. . . 22

Famingham, Mari-
anne, 8, 10, 13.

16, 19, 22
Farrar, Dean . 8
Finlayson, T. Camp-
bell . . 26
Fiske, J. . .2
Forsyth, P. T.

8, 21, 20. 27
Fremantle, Dean. 8
Fumess. H. H. . 2
Gibbon, J . Morgan

7. 16
Gibeme, Agnes . 18
Gladden, W ashington

6, 8, 19, 20
Glover, R. . .22
Godet, Professor . 8
Gordon, George A. 7
Gould, G. P. .19
Greenhough, J. G.

16, 21
Griffis, W. E, . 6
Griffith-Jones, E. 5, 21
Grubb, E. 16, 19

Gunn, E. H. M. 12, 27
Guyon, Madame . 12
Hamack, Professor 8
Harris, J. Rendel 4
Haupt, P. . .2

Haweis, H. R. . 18
Haycraft, Mrs. . 10
Heddle, Ethel F. . 18
Henson, Canon H.

Hensley . 7, 10 1
Hill, F. A. . . 2 !

Hocking, S. K. . 10
Horder, W. Garrett 21
Home, C. Silvester

4. 8, 13, 14, 18, 20
Horton, R. F. 5,

8, 19, 21, 24, 25. 26
Hunter, John 8, 21
"J. B." of The

Christian World 26
J. M. G. . . 10
Jefferson, C. E. . 12

PAOK

Jeffs, H. 6, 7, 12,

14, 16

John, Griffith . 8
Jones, J. D. 8, 13,

16, 18, 19, 22, 26
.Towett.J. H. 6, 18, 19
Kane, James J . . 16
Kennedy, H. A. 22, 27
Kennedy, John . 15
Kent, C. F. .11
Kenyon, Edith C. 18
Lansfeldt, L. .18
La Touohe, E. D. 7
Leo, W. T. . . 14
Leggatt, F. Y. . 19
Lewis, E. W. . 18
Llewellyn. D. J. . 20
LyaU, David 4, 15
Lynch, T. T. .5
Lynd, WiUiam . 20
Macfadyen, D.
M£u:farlane,Charles 10
M'Intyro, D. M. . 7
Mackonnal, Alex-
ander . 21, 26
Manners, Mary E. 25
Marchant, Bessie 18
Marchant, J.
Marshall, J. T. . 16
Marshall, N. H. 6, 16
Martineau, Jas. 21, 26
Maeon, E. A- .26
Mather, Leesels . 23
Matheson, Georcre

8, 14, 20, 25
Maver, J. S. . 20
Meade, L. T. . 18
Metcalfe, R. D. . 22
Meyer, F. B. 18, 22
Michael, CD. . 17
Miller, Elizabeth . 4
Minshall, E. .13
Moore, G. F. . 3
Morgan, G. Camp-
bell . 16, 18
Morten, Honnor . 13
Moimtain, J. .16
Munger, T. T. 8, 21
Neilson, H. B. . 23
Orchard, W. E. 7, 8
Palmer, Frederic. 7
Paton, J. B.

12, 16, 20, 22, 26

Peake, A. S. . 20
Pharmaceutical

Chemist, A 24

Picton, J. AUanson 17

Powicke, F. J. . 2
Pringle, A. .19

PAGE

Pulaford. John . 21
Rees. F. A. , .22

Reid, J. . ,7
Rickett, Sir J.

Compton . 10, 26
Riddette, J. H. . 27
Robarts, F. H. . 15
Roberts, J. E. . 22
Roberts, R. .16

Rogers, J. Guin-
ness . , 2
Russell, F. A. . 18
Sabatier, A. . 8
Sanders, F. K. . 11
Sohrenck, E. von 8
Scottish Presbyte-
rian, A . .24
Shakespeare, J. H. 19
Shepherd, J. A. . 23
Sinclair, Archdea-
con . 21, 26
Smyth, Newman . 4
Snell, Bernard J.

8, 16, 18
Steuart, J. A. . 4
Stevenson. J. G.

13, 14, 16, 17
Stewart, D. M. . 13
Stuart, Duncan . 4
Sutter, Julie . 20

Swan, F. R. .13

Swetenham. L. . 13
Tarbolton, A. 0. . 16
Thomas, H. Arnold 21
Toy, C. H. . . 2

Tymms, T. V. . 6
Tynan, Katharine 4
Tytler. S. . .18

Varley, H. . .18

Veitch R. . 7, 9
Wain, Louis . 23, 26
Walford, L. B. 4, 17
Walker, W. L. . 12
Warschauer, J.

8. 13, 19
Waters, N. McG. . 16
Watkinson, W. L. 18
Watson, W. 12, 18
Weymouth, R. F.

14, 16
White, W. . .6

Whiton, J. M.

7, 10, 17, 25
Williams, T. R. . 21
Wilson, P. W. . 14
Wood, J. R. . 19
Worboife, Emma

J. 11, 12. 17, 27
Yates, T. . .13

W, Speaight Jt 8oy(^n^«^i'ett^ Ltf/tie, London, J.O,

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
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THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH
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