fountain of your life-you who love to laugh and sneer at those who profess and try to preach the truth, leave off this awful struggle against the Most High; leave off spitting at and buffeting the Prince of Peace; you can't maintain the contest; give it up and be wise; and if your lips have never called upon His name before, go home to-night, I pray you, in all earnestness, and fall upon your kness before the footstool of Eternal love; lay all your sin upon the Great Propitiatory, and, however black its dye, however crushing its weight, you will find that it is indeed a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. "Stay, sinner-on the Gospel plains Behold the God of Love unfold ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL. HE first thought that seems naturally to strike the mind in reading these words, by themselves, is that they are superfluous and uncalled for. That is, the simple assertion, on the part of any man, that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ would appear to one who thoroughly understood and appreciated the value of that Gospel, who knew the depth from which it raised mankind, and the dignity with which it invested him, not only an assertion of something which might, from the nature of the case, be taken for granted as a matter of course, but also be regarded as an attempt to make a boast of that which was at once a duty and a privilege, and to parade as a virtue that which resulted as a necessity. If we were to hear a monarch protest that he was not ashamed of his crown, a scholar that he was not ashamed of his learning, a maiden that she was not ashamed of her beauty, or a conqueror, that he was not ashamed of his victories, apart from the lower motives which we should be inclined to impute to them, in thus vaingloriously calling attention to their own graces or achievements, we should regard the assertion as superfluous and idle, because it is self-evident. We should say, "Of course they are not ashamed of that which is rather a matter of glorying and boasting, and it seems as absurd for them to declare that they are not ashamed of what imparts dignity, and grace, and renown, as it would be for the blind to say that he was proud of his darkness, the cripple to exult in his decrepitude, or the leper to glory in his disease." But when we consider these words in the connection in which they stand, and associate them with the circumstances under which they were written, so far from appearing superfluous or unnecessary, they become invested with a significance and grandeur, alike peculiar and imposing. Although the sound of the Gospel had, as it were, been indistinctly heard at Rome, and its spirit imbibed by a small band of devoted men there, it had not been generally promulgated in that imperial city. The Roman people were, at this time, the most polished and civilised of all the nations of the world. Rome was in the zenith of its power and splendour, and. was kindling her torch at the rapidly expiring embers of the glory of degenerate Greece. This preeminence in the arts of civilisation, among its many advantages, brought with it those evils which necessarily pertain to human greatness, when unaccompanied by Divine Grace. The people found their sole glory and pride in the magnificence with which their power and proficiency had surrounded them; they never looked beyond the narrow limits of mere scholastic inquiry, and attached no reality to that which was not material and human. True, they had their gorgeous system of mythology, their splendid Pantheon, their galaxy of gods and goddesses, and their doubletongued and quibbling oracles. But the chief charm of this ephemeral religion consisted in the pomp and pageantry by which it was accompanied, and by the material grandeur with which men invested its strange and mysterious rites. This, then, being their condition, it is not strange that the proclamation of a religion like the Gospel of Jesus Christ-a religion recommended by no external or mer etricious adornment, emanating from no great nursery of learning, but a religion which repudiated all that they had been accustomed to regard as paramount and essential to everything el aiming authority or influence—a religion having for its head a Galilean malefactor, for its teachers a handful of illiterate fishermen, and for its proselytes a mixed multitude of Jewish peasants—it is not strange that the man who attempted to proclaim such a system as this to the proud citizens of imperial Rome should meet with derision and contempt. And when we recollect that Paul was learned in the very arts which the religion which he preached left unrecognised, he may well be imagined to shrink from encountering the universal ridicule of the mighty men of Rome, so that when we find him declaring that he is not ashamed to carry this despiser 1 Gospel amongst the proud and learned Romans, we begin to discern a moral heroism in the man, which bespeaks a power and a glory residing in the religion which had so firmly fastened on his heart. In very briefly inquiring how men show this tendency to be ashamed of the Gospel, we premise by remarking that it is perhaps more palpably observable in those who come most within its influence or its sound, in those who are most familiar with its letter, than in those who treat it with open and undisguised contempt. It is possible to imagine many other causes operating to deter the thorough paced profligate from embracing the Gospel, but it is difficult to suppose any other cause than natural innate pride, preventing those who are conversant with the science of it, from drinking in its spirit. Preachers and professors of the Gospel, however, often show this disposition to be ashamed of it, by holding back some of its truths, or by softening them down to suit human tastes, or humour human prejudices. It is perfectly true that there are particular aspects in which it is suitable to present truth under particular circumstances, and that it is the duty of him who proclaims it to adapt the method and style of its delivery to the education and capacity of his hearers, as far as he is able. A familiarity of illustration in its enforcement, for example, may be admissible in some places which would be objectionable and out of place in others. But it is painful to think how often this idea is abused. The simpli city of the Gospel is often lost sight of sadly by those who feel that they are called upon to address what they suppose to be, and what the cant of the world terms, "discriminating audiences." And it would tax the discrimination of any audience to detect the Gospel at all in many of their mystical harangues. It is a mournful feature of these days in which we live, that men are constantly crying out for what they call intellectual preaching, meaning generally by this, a vain parade of human wisdom and research, to conceal instead of enforce the truth as it is in Jesus. And it is no less mournful that there is no lack, among ministers and teachers, of those who are willing to pander to this taste. But that is a congregation of pedants, not philosophers, who think themselves too intellectual to listen to the plain and simple story of the cross. And whenever we find a community of professors, no matter where, demanding such displays of mere human wisdom, and a minister willing to concede to that demand, it is plain that, to some extent at least, both preacher and people are ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. There is enough, indeed, in the Gospel to evoke the sublimest powers of the human mind; but when that Gospel is made the mere vehicle for their display, instead of they being the machinery for its faithful and earnest proclamation, it is prostituted to base and servile uses. And he is the great man who exerts all his power to make it more simple still, and display its attractions more vividly, and not the man who covers it over with words, or smothers it in forced abstractions and sentimental metaphors. But let us not suppose that these remarks are so narrow in their application as only to relate to those whose business it is publicly to preach the truth. Men in general, especially those connected with what is called the religious world, are very apt to show this tendency to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, in their intercourse with each other. There is no lack of disposition to talk on spiritual themes, but it is generally rather as an intellectual exercise than as a devotional interchange of feelings. So long as we can educe some mystic abstractions from the Word of God, and propound our own sapient ideas upon them, and get up a controversy, we can converse freely enough; but when we begin to think of the Gospel as that which appeals as much to faith as reason, and rather to the heart than to the brain, we become constrained and awkward in speaking to each other about it. This is pre-eminently the case with those who are comparatively young in life. Yet it seems strange that those whose sensibilities are the warmest, whose love, and ardour, and sympathy with the beautiful and the touching, are freshest and most vigorous, should become cold and reserved in speaking of such a subject as the Gospel. But it too often is so. There is a strong disposition among youth, especially, to call the oldfashioned simplicity and unction, with which the Puritan Christians spoke one to another of sacred things, cant, and hypocrisy ; and even when we hear men now (men whose experience entitles their utterances to respect), speaking without embarrassment of the preciousness of the Gospel of Christ, we are apt to affect disgust, and call it cant. But we forget that it is generally out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, and that the |
