382 NOTE N.

power of the baptismal act, j^revent their duly recognizing what a
vast proportion of unioioi and idiojiai is to be found in these
days within the pale of the Church. Nor does St. Paul say that
the sole use of prophesying is for unbelievers : he says the very
contrary, that prophesying is not for unbelievers, but for believ-
ers, that is, mainly and principally. He was not so ignorant of
human nature as to suppose, that, because we have been buried
with Christ by baj^tism into death, we may, therefore, dispense
â– with any means of instruction or exhortation, in order that we
may indeed walk in newness of life, and reckon ourselves dead
to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ. It is true, preaching
is a work of the intellect : the highest faculties of the human mind
can find no more suitable or worthier employment. But is this to
render it a mere human work ? Is this to exclude it from the in-
fluence of the Sjiirit ? Surely it was in men's hearts and minds
that God sent down His Spirit to dwell : and it is in the gifts and
outpourings of the heart and mind that the graces of the Spirit
are esjiecially manifested. Yet many are far more willing to be-
lieve that the power of the Spirit lies in outward acts and outward
symbols. Thus the fetish-worshipper and the idolater have still
their counterparts in Christendom. Nay, how many are there
still, who share in the blunder of the Corinthians, and would deem
the speaking with tongues a much surer proof of God's presence,
than all the preaching of faith and love ! I am not referring
specially to the Irvingites, who combined the exaltation of preach-
ing with the opposite delusion. There are numberless cravers
after 0)]f(6(a, beside the Irvingites; and there have been such in
every age of the Church. There are the worshippers of the mere
elements in the Sacraments. There are those who fancy the dead
stones in God's house more precious and momentous than the
living. There are those who attach more importance to gestures
and postures, to crossings and genuflexions, to surplices and copes,
than to the doctrine of truth and the practice of love. There are
those who long to see the presence of miracles, of oimila and
{faii[^iara, in the Church, and who, adopting the error of the
Church of Rome, would regard these as a more certain token of
the presence of God, than the prophesying of faith, the ilfyyog
of the Sjiirit. Prophesying, indeed, is only for a time, and u-lll he
done aioay, tclien that which is perfect is come ; while prayer and



NOTE N. ' 383

praiscf and thanksgiving will endure tlirougli eternity. Not that
the inductive intellect is to be extinguished : but it will expand
into the intuitive. Until, however, that which is jierfect is come,
— so long as there is any sophistry to be exposed, any misrepre-
sentation to be corrected, any error to be refuted, — so long as
there is any ignorance to be enlightened, any infirmity of purjjose
to be strengthened, — so long as men's hearts and minds are sub-
ject to the action of influences which draw them away from the
path of divine Truth, — so long will it be necessary for the Church
to wield the svi'ord of the Spirit in combating all her foes throu"-h
the sacred ordinance of prophesying or preaching.

The other remark which I would draAv from this passage of St.
Paul, as pertinent to one of the extravagances of our days, relates
to the criterion by which, here and in other places, the great
Apostle measures the value of the various gifts and other means
appointed for the edification of the Church, — their comparative
utility or expediency with regard to that purpose. This idea runs
through the whole passage, finding vent especially in that noble
exclamation, I thank God, I speak with tongues more titan ye all;
yet in the church I would rather speak ^ve words with mij under-
standing, that I might instruct others, than ten thousand loords in a
tongue. Alas ! how perpetually has the Church, how perpetually
have its individual members, acted in direct opposition to this
magnanimous humility ! In such a spirit much censure has lately
been poured on that portion of our Church who have been desig-
nated by the title of evangelical, because, in estimating the rela-
tive importance of any ordinance or instrument of grace, they
have looked almost exclusively to its serviceableness for the con-
version and spiritual edification of their brethren. This has been
condemned as a utilitarian sj^irit ; and it has been said that they
ought to have looked, not to such narrow, earthly objects as the
good of human souls, but to the one grand object, which we ought
always to set befoj-e us, the glory of God. A utilitarian spirit !
It would be difficult to produce a stranger instance of the manner
in which we let ourselves be blown about by mere sounds. The
wisest and best writers in our own country, in France, and in
Gemiany, have been zealously employed during the last fifty or
sixty years in denouncing that utilitarian spirit, which had set up
a low, temporal, earthbound utility, as the test whereby to settle
what is right or wrong, good or evil, among the laws and princi-



384 NOTE N.

pies of the moral tvorld. And now those who, rejecting all
earthly aims and considerations, have made the eternal, moral
and spiritual good of souls, their rule of judgment and of action,
not with reference to principles, but to means, are called utihta-
rians. Yerily then St. Paul must be termed the first utilitarian.
Nay, for what but this veiy purpose, which is thus disparaged mth
an odious name, did the Son of God shed His blood on the Cross ?
Here we perceive how intense man's appetite for slavery is, see-
ing that, when Wisdom, after long and laborious exertions, has
delivered him from an error, he will take up the very weapon of
his deliverance, and fashion new fetters out of it. On the other
hand it is true that the glory of God is the noblest and worthiest
object of human endeavor. But (jlory again is an ambiguous
word, has a human as well as a divine sense ; and these are far
asunder as the poles. The natural man would never have con-
ceived that the glory of God would manifest itself in the still,
small voice. He wants something grand, splendid, pompous, —
temples, mosques, and cathedrals, white and purple robes and prcH
cesslous, incense-offerings and solemn chants, things that strike
the ej'e and the ear. Or he will require something that shall be
strange and startling, repugnant to the common order of things,
and to natural appetites and inclinations, — mortifications and
flagellations, fakirs and hermits and dervishes, monks and nuns.
Nay, he may blind himself into seeking the glory of God by that
which is terrible and cruel and destructive, as Dominic and Alva
and many of their colleagues may probably have done, and some
who took part in the massacre of the Hugonots. It would seem
too as if Attila, and other like hellhounds, had whetted their nat-
ural thirst for blood, by persuading themselves that they were the
ministers of God's wrath, and were to spread His glory by the
slaughter of millions of mankind. Hence there is great need that
our minds should be disentangled from this natural confusion, of
mixing up their own notions of glory with God's^: and we should be
continually gazing upon the mirror presented to us in the Gospel
and life of His Son, in order to learn where and in what God
seeks and finds His glory. Then shall we learn, as St. Paul
learnt, that the best way in which we can labor to promote the
glory of God, is by diligence in endeavoring to further the great
work, which He especially desires to see, the salvation of souls,
and their edification with all the graces of His Spirit.

\

\



NOTE P. 385



Note O : p. G5.

Tit. i. 9. yivTfyoi.ievov rov kuxu itjv didayijv niaiov
Xoyov, 'ipu dwuxog ij xal na^axalelp tv it] diduay.aXia tij
vyiuiPOUG?] "/Ml Tovg uviiltyoviag eke'yyeip. This verse is
rendered by Tyndall, And such as cleveth unto the true icorde of
doclrijne, that he maye he able to exhorte icith wholsome learning, and
to improve them that saye against it. Improve seems here to be
nearly equivalent to disprove or refute. Tyndall's translation,
"with slight variations, is retained in our subsequent Bibles down
to the Authorized Version, where it is considerably altered thus :
Holding fast the faithful tcord, as he hath been taught, that he may
be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gain-
say crs. Here two material improvements have been made. 'O
aaid xr,v diduyriv ncGiog Xoyog is not the true word of doctrine,
but the true or faithful ivord as received by teaching : and iv lij
didu(jy.aXla xi] vyiuivovari is much better exj^ressed by sound
doctrine, than by wholesome learning. At the same time the latter
part of the verse has been misrendered, in a manner that obscures,
if it does not pervert, the sense, which is,, that he may be able both,
to exhort, (or ratlier to instruct^ in sound doctrine, and to convince
(or to refute^ the gainsayers. Our Version seems to make tlie-
main part of the ministerial office consist in dealing with gainsay^
crs ; whereas the more important part of it, the iusti'uctiug ip ttj.
diduoy.a)dci tij vyiuivovot], pertains mainly to the training of
the believing members of the Church. This clause in the Greek,
depends merely on the verb nagayiaXeiv, not on iXty^y^sip^



Note P: p. 0,5.

Donne, in speaking on this point, in his 35th Sermon, pours out
a strain of that rich eloquence in which his prose-writings abound.
"This one word, arguet, lie shall reprove, convince, admits three
acceptations: First, in the future, — He shall: and so the cum
venerit, ivhen He comes, signifies antequam abierit, before He de-
parts. He came at Pentecost, and presently set on foot His com-
mission by the Apostles, to reprove, convince the world of sin, and
33



SS6 NOTE P.

hath proceeded ever since by their successors in reducing nation
after nation : and before the consummation of the world, before
He retire to rest eternally in the bosom of the Father and the
Son, from whom He proceeded, He shall reprove the whole world
of sin, that is, bring them to a knowledge that, in the breach of
the law of nature, and in the guiltiness of original sin, they are all
under a bvirden, which none of them all of themselves can dis-
charge. This work St. Paul seems to hasten sooner. To con-
vince the Jews of their infidelity, he argues thus: Have not they
Tieard the Gospel? They, that is, the Gentiles; and if they, much
more you : and that they had heard it he proves by the applica-
tion of those words. Their voice is gone throuyh all the earth, and
their words to the end of the tcorld ; that is, the voice of the Apos-
tles in the preaching of the Gospel.

" Hence grew that distraction and perplexity which we find in
the Fathers, whether it could be truly said that the Gospel had
been preached over all the world in those times. If we number
the Fathers, most are of that opinion, that before the destruction
of the Temple of Jerusalem this was fulfilled. Of those that think
the contrary, some proceed ujion reasons ill grounded, particularly
Origen : " What of the Britains and Germans Avho have not as
yet heard the Gospel ? " For before Origen's time, — in what
darkness soever he mistook us to be, we had a blessed and a glo-
rious discovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this island. St.
Jerome, who denies this universal preaching of the Gospel before
the destruction of the Temple, yet doubts not but that the fulfilling
of that prophecy was then in action, and in a great forwardness.
" We perceive it is now fulfilled, or must soon be fulfilled ; — nor
do I think any nation now remains, which is ignorant of the name
©f Christ."

" The later divines and the School, that find not this early and
general preaching over the world to lie in proof, proceed to a more
safe way, that there was then odor Evangelii, a sweet savor of the
Gospel, issued, though it were not yet arrived to all parts ; as if a
plentiful and diffusive perfume wci'c set up in a house, we would
say the house were perfumed, though that perfume were not yet
come to every corner of the house. But, not to thrust the world
into so narrow a strait, as it is when a decree is said to have gone
out from Augustus to tax all the icorld, — for this was but the Ro-
man world; — nor, that thei-e tcere men dwelUmj at Jerusalem,



NOTE P. 387

devout men, of evci-ij nation under heaven, — for this was but of
nations discovered and traded withal then ; — nor, when St. Paul
says that the faith of the Romans was published to the world, — for
that was as far as he had gone ; — those words of our Saviour, The
Gospel of the Kinrjdom shall he preached in all the tcorld for a wit-
ness to all nations; and then shall the end come, have evermore by
all ancient and modern Fathers and schools, preachers and writers,
expositors and controverters, been literally understood, that before
the end of the world the Gospel shall be actually, really, evidently,
effectually, preached to all nations : and so, cum venerit, when the
Hohj Ghost comes, that is, antequam ahierit, before He go, He shall
reprove, convince, the whole world of sin, and this, as He is a
Comforter, by accompanying their knowledge of sin with the
knowledge of the Gospel for the remission of sins.

" It agrees with the nature of goodness to be so diffusive, com-
municable to all. It agrees with the nature of God, who is good-
ness, that, as all the fountains of the great deep were broken uji,
and the windows of heaven were opened, and so came the Flood
over all, so there should be diluvium Spiriius, a flowing out of the
Holy Ghost upon all, as He promises, / tvill pour it out upon all,
and diluvium gentium, that all nations should flow up to Him. For
this Spirit spiral ubi vult, breathes where it pleases Him : and though
a natural wind cannot blow east and west, north and south to-
gether, this Spirit at once breathes upon the most contrary dispo-
sitions, upon the presuming, and upon the despairing sinner, and
in an instant can denizen and naturalize that soul that was an alien
to the Covenant, empale and inlay that soul that was bred upon
the common amongst the Gentiles, transform that soul which was
a goat into a sheep, invite that soul which was a lost sheep to the
fold again, shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and in the
shadow of death, and so melt and pour out that soul that yet un-
derstands nothing of the Divine nature, nor of the Spirit of God,
that it shall become partaker of the Divine nature, and be the same
spirit with the Lord. — Shall any man murmur or draw into dis-
putation why this Spirit doth not breathe in all nations at once ?
or why not sooner than it doth in some ? Doth this Spirit fall and
rest upon every soul in this congregation now ? May not one man
find that He receives Him noAv, and suffer Him to go away again ?
I.Iay not another, who felt no emotion of Him now, recollect him-
self at home, and remember something then which hath been said



388 NOTE p.

now to the quickening of this Spirit in liim there ? Since the
Holy Ghost visits us so, successively, not all at once, not all with
an ecjual establishment, we may safely embrace that acceptation
of this word, arguet, He shall. He will, antcquam ahierit, before the
.end come, reprove, convince, the whole world of sin, by this His
â– way, the way of comfort, the preaching of the Gospel."

This extract from Donne is sufEcient in this place to explain
â– the meaning of the word y.oGtiog, which in the text, as in so many
other passages in the Xew Testament, has been misunderstood
and misinterpreted, so as to afford a prop for divers errors, some
of them of no slight moment, at least from the days of the Dona-
tists downward. In like manner Perkins, in his Treatise of Con-
science, contending against the blasphemous proposition, that they
"who had never heard of Christ were to be condemned for not be-
lieving in Him, says, that " some of the schoolmen" had supported
that proposition by this text : as though the declaration that the
Holy Ghost shall Judge the tcorld of sin, hecause they hare not be-
lieved in Christ, implied that condemnation on account of this sin
was to pass on all mankind from the beginning, and in every region
of the earth. To which he answers, that " by the world we must
not understand all and every man since the Creation, but all na-
tions and kingdoms in the last age of the world, to whom the
Gospel was revealed." Works, vol. i. p. 523.

Tittmann, following in the wake of the duU Rationalism of the
last generation, would confine koo^<0? here to Judea. "In this
passage, as in all the discourses of our Lord, we may assume, that
by TOf xoOfAOP^ is to be understood the Jewish world especially."
Of this shallow interpretation I shall have to speak in Note Y.
He might have learnt better from Lampe, whose work, had it
been more studied, would have preserved many of the subsequent
commentators from much ignorance and absurdity. " Here in a
wider sense (he saj-s) than in preceding clauses, the term world is
to be received for all the Jewish and Gentile worlds. — In this
•sense the world was reconciled to God by Christ: 2 Cor. v. 19,
John i. 29, 1 John ii. 2. The same (the world) was given to
Christ for a possession by the testament of the Father: Ps. ii. 8.
He was to be the true heir of the world as the antitype of Abra-
liam. Therefore it was right that He should be adapted to this
end by the- Spirit."



NOTE Q. 389



KoTE Q : p. 93.

Each part of the threefold work of the Comforter, as briefly set
forth in this passage of St. John, has furnished occasion for a di-
versity of interpretations ; which, as the subject is one reaching
down to the living centre of Truth, exhibit the characters of the
various Schools in Theology. In speaking of our immediate text,
Chrysostom, as he is wont on such points, takes the narrower and
more superficial view, looking almost exclusively at that conviction
which was to be wrought by means of signs and wonders and other
external proofs. " And when by Him (the Comforter) these
things take place, and better instruction and greater signs, by
how much more shall they be condemned, seeing such things
coming to pass in My name : which, indeed, makes the proof of
the resurrection more explicit. For now they are able to say, He
is the son of the carpenter, whose father and mother we know ;
but when they see death destroyed — evil driven out — natural
lameness cured — demons expelled — the extraordinary agency of
the Spirit — and all these things coming to pass by My Invocation,
what will they say ? and this shall convince of sin, that is, shall cut
off every apology from them, and show that they have committed
unpardonable sin." In this argument it would seem to be implied
that the outward miracles wrought by the Apostles were greater
than our Lord's. More effectual, indeed, they were in producing
conviction : this, however, was not on account of any higher de-
monstrative power lying in them : it was a consequence of that
very conviction of sin which the Spirit awakened. "When men
were jyricked in their hearts, then they were ready to recognize the
truths, of which the miracles were the signs. Besides the advo-
cates of this exposition forget that, when a man has been brought
by a train of reasoning to acknowledge a proposition, which he
had previously denied, he does not say, How icicked I icas ! but^
at the utmost, Hoio foolish I was, not to see this hefore ! Only
when the miracles were carried home to the heart by the demon-
stration of the Spirit, convincing men of the divine character, of
the righteousness, of Him, by whom, and in whose name, they were
wrought, did they also serve to arouse the conviction of the sin of
having rejected Him. Nevertheless, Theophylact, as usual, does
little else than transcribe Chrysostom. " He shall convince the
33 *



390 NOTE Q.

world of sin and shall show men that they are sinners, because
they believe not ; for when they see by the hands of the disciples
in the Spirit supernatural signs and wonders happening, and will
not even then believe, how can they be unworthy of condemna-
tion, and not be guilty of the greatest wickedness? Their unbe-
lief is without excuse, while the Spirit performs such things in
My name."

Among later divines this view has been adopted by many ; for
instance, by Grotivis, and by Bossuet, as is seen in the passages
already quoted in jDp. 3 72 and 3G7. In like manner Hammond
loses all the power and depth of our Lord's declaration, that the
Comforter will convince the u-orld of sin, hecause they believe not
in Me, by paraphrasing it thus : " He shall charge it with the
crime of not believing in Me, by the gift of tongues, etc., evi-
dencing that I, that am to be preached by that means, am indeed
the true Messias, and so likewise by the fulfilling those predictions
which now I give you." If any one wishes to see into what a
;maze of dulness this may be expanded, he may read that portion
of Hammond's note, which refers to the Comforter's convincing
the world of sin. Even the meagre rationalism of such men as
Kuinoel, — who reduces the moaning of the promise to "that
Helper, shall so influence My despisers through you and your
teachings, that they shall know and be obliged to confess them-
selves sinners, because they have rejected my doctrine ; thus you,
assisted by Divine power, shall convince them of unbelief," — is
scarcely so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, inasmuch as it
implies a conscience and a sense of moral truth in the mind, to
T\diich the conviction is to be addressed.

On the other hand Augustin, who had a much profounder in-
sight into the Scrijitural meaning and power of Faith, and the
sinfulness of unbelief, discusses our text in his 143d Sei'mon.
" The medicine of all the wounds of the soul, and the only propi-
tiation for the sins of men, is to believe in Christ. Nor can any
be purified, either from original sin, or from the sins which they
add in not resisting carnal concupiscence, unless by faith they are
iinited and joined to the body of Him, who was conceived without
any carnal enticement, and loho did no sin, neither tvas guile found
in His mouth. For believing on Him, they become the sons of
God ; because they are born of God by the grace of adoption,
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Of this one sin then. He



NOTE Q. 891

would have the world conTinced, that of not believing on Him:
evidently, because by believing on Him all sins are loosed, He
â– would have this one imputed, in which the others are involved.
And because by believing they are born of God, and become sons
of God : for^ He says, to them gave He power to hccome the sons of
God, even to them that believe on Him. Whosoever; then, 'believes
on the Son of God, in so far as he adheres to Him, and becomes
himself also by adoption a Son and heir of God, — in so much he
does not sin. Whence John says : Whosoever is horn of God,
sinneth not. And hence this is the sin of which the world is con-
vinced, that they do not believe on Him. This Is the sin of which
He llkeXvIse says : If I had not come, they had not had sin. For,
indeed, had they not other sins Innumerable ? But by His coming
this one sin was added to those who believe not, by which the
others should be retained. But because this sin Is wanting In be-
lievers, all other sins are forgiven. For no other reason does the
Apostle Paul say: all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God; that whosoever belleveth on Him should not be confounded.
Therefore when He speaks of the unbelief of the Jews, He does
not say, " Because if some of them have sinned, shall their sin
make the faith of God of none effect ? " For how could He say,
" if some of them have sinned," when He said Himself: for all
have sinrted? But He says, if some of them have not believed, shall
their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect f That he might
point out this sin more expressly, by which alone the door is closed
against othei's, lest they should be remitted by the grace of God.
Of which sin alone the world Is convinced by the coming of the
Holy Spirit, that is, by the gift of His grace which Is given to the
fliitliful."

There is a far clearer perception of Christian truth In this pas-
sage ; Ihough, according to the general character of Augustin's
writings, it is wanting In philosophical precision, accmnulating a
variety of explanations, without clearly marking out the right one,