תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

now, the chronology of the Bible, and the chronology established by the history and the monuments of antiquity, coincide. Thus one after another, have all the sciences been vanquished, and compelled to pay tribute to the Christian faith. These are wonderful victories. There is now not a single science, which makes any pretence even of being antagonistic to the Bible. The ripest and the most cultivated intellects of the world, disciplined in the school of the sciences, are now elucidating and demonstrating the divine authority of God's word.

IV. The past achievements of Christianity prove its eventual and perfect triumph.-Imperial Rome, earth's master and tyrant, fell prostrate before her. Nor Goth nor Vandal could stay her progress. Even Nero could not build fires hot enough to burn up her energies. Even the wild beasts of the Coliseum could not daunt the Christian's heart. The philosopher has toiled in vain to undermine the deep foundations of the church, and the shafts of the satirists have fallen harmless from her adamantine shield. The hostility of earth has marshalled every possible power, in every possible combination, against Christianity, and all in vain.

When the idols of Ephesus, of Athens, of the Pantheon, crumble from their pedestals at the approach of Christ, can the miserable feather Gods of the Pacific and the mud idols of India resist his approach? When the Roman empire, in the plentitude of its power, exhausted its energies in bloody persecution in vain, can we fear that earth may furnish other powers of persecution yet more terrible?

When we have seen philosophersand poets, and historians, and dramatists, and princes, combine with the highest resources of wit and wealth;-and Christianity steadily advancing, notwithstanding all their endeavors, is it to be feared that other literary opponents will be able to accomplish that, which Hume and Voltaire and Gibbon and Frederic, the conspiring encyclopedists of Europe, in vain essayed?

He who looks upon the past triumphs of Christianity, even though it be only with the eye of a philosophic observer of cause and effect, must admit that the religion of Christ possesses an inherent energy, which must inevitably make it triumphant over the world.

V. The triumphant advances Christianity is now making, indicate its universal extension.-When we add to all the above considerations, the rapid progress of Christianity at the present day-a progress hitherto unparalleled when we see revivals of religion multiplied through all the nations of christendom, our cities shaken by pentecostal power, and the most secluded villages re-echoing the song of Christian deliverance; when we see our young men and maidens by tens of thousands, with triumphant and rejoicing hearts, thronging the avenues to heaven, and our aged men, venerable with conflict and toil, exulting in the brightening glories of these latter days; when we see the youth of nearly all christendom in our colleges and higher seminaries of learning, instructed by men of piety, and genius and eloquence, in the

most elevated walks of literature and science, consecrating their acquisitions to the cause of Christ, and societies of benevolence collecting the resources and concentrating the exertions of millions of ready hands and hearts to reclaim the world to God; when we see missionaries of the gospel of salvation, with apostolic zeal, penetrating the darkest corners and the most savage tribes of earth-translating the Bible into every language, circulating tracts in every dwelling, and preaching the gospel in the very temples of heathenism, thus planting the banner of the cross upon the strongest bulwarks of satan's crumbling empire;-when we see hundreds of thousands of the children of idolaters, gathered into Christian schools and trained up in Christian faith and morals, the Pagan systems of all Asia visibly totteringthe idols of all the islands of the sea rapidly following the vanquished God's of Tahiti, Rarotonga and Hawaii, how can we doubt that the prediction of the text is soon to be fulfilled-that "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it."

DISCIPLES OF JESUS!-Are you suitably awake to the privileges and responsibilities of the age in which you live? These considerations should encourage you and inspire you with unwearied zeal. The whole world is soon to be reclaimed to God; and he has assigned to you an alloted part in this great achievement. He expects your fervent prayers, your self-denying toil, your energetic never tiring perseverence. Are you aroused and at your work, fulfilling your vows, concentrating the intensity of your emotions, the stability of your principles and the energies of a holy life to the salvation of the perishing? Never were Christians so highly favored as now, never so encouraged as now. FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST! How many of the friends you love may now be won to Jesus by fidelity,-how many ruined by worldliness and neglect! Soon you will stand at God's bar. Your friends and the present world will meet you there. Will they bless you, or condemn you? Will they bear witness to your consistent piety, or to your inconsistent life? Will they testify to your faithful and heartfelt exertions to lead them to the Savior, or will they attest, that, with a worldly, a frivolous and a careless spirit, you left them to perish unwarned? Fix your eye on death and the judgment, and live in view of those awful realities.

can reach

But there are many who yet reject the Savior. You are living in practical infidelity; saying, by your conduct, to the world around you, that the commands of the Savior you will not obey,-that the warnings of the gospel you will not heed. Is there no appeal that your heart? Is there no motive in heaven's joy to allure you,-none in hell's horrors to repel you from sin? Has death, with its pallid cheek and palsied tongue, no voice that you can hear? Has the dark grave, where you soon must sleep, no influence to move you? Is there nothing worthy of a thought in the awful thunders of the resurrection trumpet, at whose peal your mouldering body shall

[ocr errors]

start again into eternal life? And can your ear be dead, and your heart be insensible, to the decisions of that judgment day, which will place you forever an angel in heaven, or a fiend in hell? O! my hearers, these are awful, awful realities. The world is awakening to them; breaking satan's chains; thronging to Christ. The young, the old, the heathen even, are crowding to the mountain of the Lord's house. And will you, can you, my friends, slight mercy's offerssquander probation's hours-brave judgment's terrors, and go down into a grave of stubborn rebellion and hopeless despair? Will you again this day say to your pleading Savior, "Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways?" Will you still encounter the hazard of an unprepared death, of being cut down at a stroke by the Divine displeasure?

You have but a few days more to decide whether you will join the triumphant cause of your Redeemer, or share in the terrible defeat of satan and his legions. O! friends, hastening to death and judgment, harden not your hearts against these truths; disappoint not the hopes of angels; destroy not yourselves. Now seek and obtain an interest in that free salvation, which shall cheer your heart while you live and when you die, and which shall introduce you to that celestial world where there is no sorrow and no night.

SERMON CCCLVI.

BY REV. J. N. WYCOFF, D. D.

PASTOR OF THE SECOND DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y.

THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach his name among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."-Gal. i. 15, 16.

THE spirit of real and exalted piety, is the true spirit of missions. Just so much as every professed christian has of the spirit of Jesus Christ, just so much he has of the spirit of missions. True piety admits of no "serving two masters," of no "halting between two opinions."

The exalted christian is a man of one great idea. His aim is sin gle. His purpose is uncombined. He acknowledges and obeys but one impulse. Mighty and overpowering as the principle of gravitation in physics-quick and energetic as the impact of the electric force, is the operation of grace on his heart. The principle of religion is the atmosphere in which he moves-its devotions are the breath he breathes its provisions are the food on which his soul subsists. Je sus Christ is his Alpha and Omega. He knows no other master-he regards no other authority. Jesus Christ is his rock and refuge-his buckler and shield-the horn of his salvation, and the lifter up of his head. Often and gratefully does he breathe,

"Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on thee."

Often and fervently does he beseech,

"Leave, O leave me not alone;
Still support and comfort me."

The love of Christ is the main-spring of all the machinery of his ac

tion; the word of Christ the only chart of his voyage through this world. The hope of glory through Christ is the magnetic power that continually draws him on from earth towards heaven. In Christ he exclaims,

"In Christ, I've all my soul's desire;
His Spirit does my heart inspire;
With boundless wishes, large and high,
And Christ will all my wants supply."

Now this spirit of true and exalted piety, we affirm, is also the true spirit of missions. At what moment soever it seizes the soul, at that moment also the holy passion rises to glorify him, who has translated the soul from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto Godat that moment, there begins to sprout the germ of a hallowed principle-fruitful of all blessed charities, and ready, without stipulation, to give all its power of production to the glory of the Master, and to the salvation of immortal souls.

Such was evidently the effect of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Such was clearly the development of religion in his soul. Scarcely had the heavenly vision burst upon his dazzled eyes, when he cried in mingled terror and submission, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do." Forthwith, when he was baptized and had received his sight, he went out in the very city to which he had been sent to persecute the saints-preached to the Jews, whose High Priest had commissioned him to hale men and women to prison, and in their very synagogue that Jesus Christ, whom they crucified, is the Son of God. It was no wonder that all that heard it were amazed, and said, “Is not this he that destroyed them that called on His name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the Chief Priests?"

But Paul himself explains to us, in our text, the character and cause of this phenomenon. The spirit of Christ had taken possession of his mind, and immediately the spirit of missions entered into his soul, and became his ruling principle. "But," says he, "when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."

Let us, dear brethren, farther inquire respecting this spirit of missions.

I. What manner of spirit is it?

II. Does it exist in its true character in the churches?

III. Whose duty and privilege is it to possess it?

IV. How may it be encouraged and raised to its proper standard in the different churches?

May the spirit of light and power that informed and impelled the

« הקודםהמשך »