THE SUFFICIENCY OF JESUS. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."-HEB. XII., 2. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which for a long time was ascribed to the apostle Paul, but which, it seems to me, no man who ever felt what Paul's style was could for a moment believe that he wrote-for as near as I can recollect, the word I does not appear in the Epistle to the He brews once from beginning to end, and it is simply impossible that Paul should have written as much as that and not brought in I a hundred times; the Epistle to the Hebrews, which the best modern scholarship is now more and more ascribing to Apollos, mighty in Scripture, presents (although through the medium of the old Jewish ideas, and therefore comparatively to the Jewish want) the noblest aspect of the hopeful side of God which is contained, perhaps, in any of the Epistles of the New Testament. It contains, not, perhaps, more that touches. us, but more that would have touched the educated imagination of a truly spiritual Jew, than any other one of all the Epistles. And the view given of Christ, of God as represented by Christ, all the way through, is full of the tenderest encouragement and of the greatest beauty. In that portion from which we have selected our text, the writer had been discussing the matter of faith, meaning by that the higher exercise of the moral faculties of the mind; or, living, not by the animal economy, and by the animal passions, but by the reason and the moral sentiments, whose action is always in a sphere higher than that of sense, or of matter. From the earliest age, there had been those who had lived more or less perfectly by this nobler conception of life, and in the presence of invisible things. And although it was not a life that could compare with that of those who live now, or who have lived since that time, we are to remember that, in the early day, the disclosures of truth were very limited, and that, to live as Abraham did, as the patriarchs did, and as the prophets did, required far more faith than to live in that wise in The first service after the Summer vacation. LESSON SUNDAY MORNING, Sept. 25, 1870 our day, when so much more has been given to us. This conviction of spiritual truth had held men in all past times, the writer says, to the highest achievements of humanity. They had borne; they had suffered; they had achieved wonders: and all by this power of faith-this sense of truth invisible. He then goes on to sum up and marshal the eminent names of the ages, one by one. He recounts their principal achievements. And when the last is completed, or rather summarized in the end, when the hearers are full of these venerable associations, he declares that the shadows of all these noble spirits overhang them, and are spectators of their strife. All those who, gathered out of the thousands of years preceding, had gone home to glory, waited, as it were, on the threshold of heaven, on the borders of that land, to look out upon us, and upon those of every age who are making the same fight which they made. They watch the progress of the conflict, and wait till, one after another, all that are called come through to their victory. And they, too, in turn, become spectators, as it were, in sympathy, and participants again in the same strife in others which they had victoriously waged. In this august assembly, the highest name of all sufferers is the name of Jesus. He, too, is looking upon our life struggle; he, too, with all that have gone before from among men, is watching those who are coming along on this road. IIe is presented to us, not as watching from curiosity; not as watching merely from enthusiasm. On the heights above Sedan, during that terrific conflict, there were two watchers. One, Sheridan, our own man, watched with all the enthusiasm of a warrior; but in the vast host before him it is not probable that there was one person in whose veins his blood beat. Right by his side King William watched; and there were both of his sons leading parts of that gigantic army. And though both of them-the king and the general-were warriors and watchers, the king s heart was in his eye. His was, therefore, the outlook, not merely of generalship, but of paternal love as well. Now, Christ is watching, from heaven, those in whom his heart is, and in whom his blood is. He is watching paternally, and not merely as a spectator would watch in the excitement of a contest. This presentation of Jesus is not on that side where the divine attributes mostly are brought out. We know only so much of God as can be likened to something corresponding to Him in man; and therefore it is that by searching we shall never find out the Almighty to perfection. That which is distinct from man is unknown and unknowable. That which, as it were, is the beginning, or elementary part, of the divine nature, is so like man, that, being made in the image of God, we can understand it; but, going on, we soon lose company. For that which is peculiarly and distinctively divine as separate from all human parallel or likeness, we have no means of understanding. That goes on beyond comprehension. It is not that part of the divine nature, therefore, which the writer attempts to set forth, but only that part which, in the Bible, is likened to something in man. This has been much objected to by philosophers and theologians-anthropomorph ism, as it is called, or the likening of God to man. But to deny this mode of representation is substantially to destroy the possibility of knowing God, and is to make atheism the only possible ground on which man can stand. More, perhaps, than any other part of the New Testament, the Epistle to the Hebrews develops the tender and sympathetic side of God's nature, as represented in Christ. Hence, in Christ, the throne of Government is represented as filled, not so much by law, not so much by penalty, not so much by rigor, not so much by power and authority, as by the sympathy of love. He came, not for judgment, but for mercy, and in consonance with this view which he proclaims of himself all the way through the writings of the apostles. While they did not ignore law and government, they pre dominatingly represented Christ as the presentation of God's law of love and mercy to the world. Law underlies everything. We do not need to prove that. It is the organic law of creation. It exists. We know that, because it is constantly falling upon us-or we upon it. Men stumble over it all the time, on every side, and every day. There is no need, therefore, of vindicating law. It takes care of itself. A release from transgressed law is that which needs to be advocated and to be made plain. Sympathy and helpfulness on the divine side toward those who have broken law, and have set at naught the divine government-this is the necessity; and this is that which the apostle--or the writer, if it be Apollos-here chiefly does. He presents a view of God in marked contrast with the heathen notion. For, although there were traits of excellence, the general idea of the heathen gods was that of an essential monarch, with a concentrated selfishness of purpose, and with arbitrary power for the accomplishment of results. The view of God presented after the revelation in Jesus Christ, is a view of divine mercy, divine sympathy, and divine helpfulness. And it is toward this that we are commanded to look in every time of need. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame; and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." When we are in trouble, whatever that trouble may have arisen from-whether from sin, or from conscience, or from affection, or from remorse, or from bereavement-the command is, Look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith-not to Jehovah, if by Jehovah you mean the God of law; not to God, as administering penalty; but to Jesus, who stands, to the universal human heart, as the representative of recovering mercy. We are to look to pity, to sympathizing sorrow, in the hand of God. In every trouble, and in every temptation of trouble, look to that side of the divine nature -not at the clouds; not at the mountain that burned with fire; not at that which was clothed with darkness, and out of which thunder spoke. That was the older dispensation. The same writer, in the same chapter, which I read in the opening service, said, "Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven." In other words, we are come to that side of the divine nature which represents rescue, release, recovery, salvation, and eternal joy. All through the chapter, it is, "In your struggle of life, watched by ten thousand witnesses, who have been through life as you have been, and are now safe, look to Jesus for rescue. Look not to the terrible side of the divine government but to the merciful side. Look to Him who has been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin-a merciful High-priest who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities; who has suffered in our stead, that we might not suffer." We are commanded to look to that aspect of the divine government in all our trouble. If this be the representation which is made, it presents a use for Christ of the most practical character; and it is the practical side of this exhortation to which I mainly shall address myself this morning. In view of this exhortation I remark, 1. Those who feel no need of Christ; those who never are impelled to look to Him; those who have no conscious dependence upon Him, are, according to the teaching of this Scripture, disowned of God, and are bastards. In other words, the condition in which we find ourselves in this world, is one which begins with imperfections, and imperfections which lead inevitably to sins of one kind and another. The world has racked its brains to understand how sin entered the world; and theories and explanations without end have been put forth; but I understand sin to be simply the ignorance of men as to how to carry the faculties which they have in them-not merely their ignorance, but in connection with that ignorance the want of that moral development which shall enable them to carry all parts of their soul skilfully, harmoniously, and rightly. Sin, therefore, regarded as the outworking of the imperfection of this system, came in with the coming in of creation itself. You cannot create men at the seminal point. It being the problem of the universe to develop a race of creatures, step by step, to the very highest point, it is utterly impossible that Our there should be such a system instituted in the world as that human beings should be wise from the beginning. We have the problem of the introduction of sin in our own families, every one of us. children are born, not men, but babies. They are born ignorant, and inexpert. Every boy and every girl has to learn, through years, to think and to feel, and the laws of thinking and feeling. Every child studies about his foot, and hand, and eye, and every sense, all through his nature; and the household shields him, and economizes his mistakes so as to educate him, and bring him up so that he shall know how to use himself. That is only over again in the family just the samething that took place on the grand scale of the whole world. All the race was born in infancy; and, as a child finds his way through inexperience, so the race find their way through inexperience. And sins are simply the faults which fall out from the want of knowledge, and from the want of motive-power to do the things which are right in men. Now, this want of experience, this want of knowledge, this inequality of faculty, this jar and conflict, this discord, is universal. There is not a man born, and there never was a man born, who knew how to carry himself so as not to go into moral discords. Men do not like the term total depravity. Nor do I; and I never use it. And I do not like the thing itself. But you might as well expect to find a man born a hundred years old, as to expect to find a man born without a depraved nature. When you shall find me a child knowing all arithmetic at one year old, expert in all music at one year old, a universal historian at one year old, an athlete at one year old, full of all temporal wisdom at one year old, then, and not before, I will find you another child that is born into this world expert in all virtue, in all truth, in all moral purity, in all upward tendencies. The fact is, men are born at the lowest point of the scale, and work their way up through cycles of inexperience and mistakes and transgressions to the highest point. And it is not a slander to say that men are depraved, unless it be a slander to say that this is the method of the divine creation, or that this is the way that the world is organized. If there be one truth that shall stand and burn after all theologies shall have passed away, or shall have changed, it is this truth of universal decrepitude, universal weakness in good, or universal imperfection, running, in adult states, to transgressions, and becoming sinful, so that every man in the race, with every particular faculty of his nature, sins, has sinned, and continues to sin. There is such a thing as universal sinfulness, if you prefer that phrase to universal depravity; choose your own language, so that you do not escape from the mournful, melancholy fact that the whole race is sinful. Now, for a man to stand contented in this moral state is as igno |