Germs of Thought.

SUBJECT: The True Soldiership.

"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."-2 Cor. x. 4-5.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Nineteenth.

WHEN christianity entered the world, it stood in direct and determined antagonism to the maxims, systems, habits, institutions, and spirit of society. In the state-house of senators, in the marts of commerce, in the halls of philosophy, in the temples of religion, and in both the Jewish and Pagan world, it found but little it could sanction; but much it was bound to censure and destroy. Hence, like the son of the old patriarch, its hand was raised in battle against every man, or at least, against something in every man.

This fact is an incidental argument for its heavenly origin. How could the world produce a system so entirely opposite to itself: a system which it sought earnestly to crush at the very outset of its history? No law is more invariable, both in the material and spiritual world, than the law of like producing like. But, on the assumption that christianity is earthly in its origin, you have a stupendous infraction of this law. You have grapes springing from thorns, and figs from thistles. There seems to me a greater miracle involved in the idea, that christianity is of earthly origin, than in the idea that it is a system from heaven.

The war element is once more rampant in the world. It seems to surge as tumultuously through the public mind as

it ever did in the darkest and bloodiest epochs of the world's history. The SOLDIER is once more the great man with the multitudes. Your saints, preachers, and missionaries, are nothing, of course; even your sages, statesmen, and bishops, retire for a time into the shade of obscurity. They consent to be thus eclipsed by martial glory. The soldier is on the front of the stage, and the heart of the world is absorbed in his strategies of falsehood and feats of slaughter.

The fact, that war recurs from age to age, and that whenever it recurs it seems to become popular, even amongst the most civilized people, has led many of its advocates, who reason at all on the subject, to conclude that war is a deep instinct in humanity, and, therefore, right in itself. We readily grant the existence of a belligerent element in man's constitution, whilst we would deny that the design of that element was to destroy the existence of his fellows. You may as well argue the rectitude of idolatry from the religious instinct, or the rectitude of falsehood from the poetic instinct, or the rectitude of prying into peoples' private concerns from the philosophic instinct, as to argue the rectitude of war from the belligerent instinct. Has not man other foes to contend with and master, in order to reach his true destiny? And for these, does he not require this instinct? Has he not to battle with the elements of nature, in order to turn them to his use; with his physical propensities, in order to keep them in subjection; with the ignorance, crimes, diseases, and poverty of society, in order to help his race? Surely, if he want to develop this instinct, if he want to be brave, and to show himself a true soldier-a veritable hero, he need not go and fight with his brother man, either at home or abroad; he has plenty of the worst of antagonists at his own door; let him fight them, and the best spirits of his age, his conscience and his God, will call him a "good soldier."

The passage leads us to notice the weapons and victories of a true soldiership.

I. THE WEAPONS OF A TRUE SOLDIERSHIP.

states two things concerning these weapons :

The apostle

First: They are not carnal. The word carnal, here, may be regarded as standing in contradistinction to three things. (1). To miraculous agency. Miracles were employed, both by Christ and his apostles, in the cause of truth; they served, if not to prove the doctrines, to draw men's attention to them, and to furnish impressive illustrations of their genius and their tendency. But they were local and temporary, they were never intended to be permanent; indeed, a permanent miraculous agency is a solecism. Miracles, then, though employed at first, are not the regular weapons by which christianity fights her battles. The word "carnal" may stand in contradistinction (2). to all coercive instrumentality. The civil magistrate, now, for fifteen centuries assuming the prerogative of God, has sought by exactions and penalties, to force christianity upon the consciences of men. Such weapons disgrace and mis-represent it, and were proscribed by its founder; who did not cause his voice to be heard in the street, and who never broke the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax. The word "carnal" may stand, moreover, in contradistinction (3). to all crafty inventions. In nothing, perhaps, has the craftiness of men appeared more than in connexion with the profession of extending christianity. I call that craft which, in order to promote the elevation of self, or the influence of a sect, accommodates christianity to the sensuousness, the prejudices, the superstition, and the credulity of mankind. What are the tricks of rhetoric, the assumptions of priests, and the "claptrap" of sects, but craft?

Secondly: Though not carnal, they are mighty. "Mighty through God." (1). They are mighty through God because they are his productions. Gospel truths, the weapons of which the apostle speaks, are the ideas of God; righteous-loving -remedial ideas-embodied in His Son; and they are the "power of God." The gospel has proved itself the greatest power in the social world, ever pulling down and building up.

(2). They are mighty through God, because they are the instruments of God. When we put our ideas in a book, they must work for themselves; so far as we are concerned, we cannot personally accompany them. We know not the thoughts which they awaken in the minds of our readers: and then we die, and must leave them behind. But God goes with His ideas and works by them. They are "mighty," not through the enactments of law, the force of eloquence, nor the cogency of reasoning; not through imposing rituals nor thrilling music; not through human zeal, however fervid; human sacrifices, however costly; nor human efforts, however adapted and persevering; but THROUGH GOD. Gospel truths are mighty as the laws of nature are mighty. Those laws are mighty; they control the fury of the tempest, they direct the lightning, they launch the thunder; every surge of the ocean rises and falls, swells and bursts at their bidding. They bring round the sweet interchange of the seasons with a regularity that knows no deviation. But those laws are mighty through God.

II. THE VICTORIES OF A TRUE SOLDIERSHIP. What are the victories?

First: They are mental. Paul is speaking about "imaginations," and things pertaining to mind. They are not over body. There is not much glory in destroying the bodily life of man. The lion, the bear, a poisonous gust of air, will excel man in this. If men are to be honored for killing, why not honor them? But the victories of a true soldiership are over mind. And, indeed, you do not conquer the man, unless you conquer his mind. If there be a future world, then the men you slay upon the battle-field, may hate you in the great eternity, with a profounder hatred than ever; and confront you to fight a more terrific battle over again.

Secondly: They are corrective. These victories do not involve the destruction of the mind, nor any of its native faculties, but certain evils that pertain to it. What are they? (1). The evil fortifications of the mind. The "pulling

down of strong-holds."

The allusion is to the fortresses

which defend a city or a nation. Now, the depraved mind has its fortresses; not against evil, this would be right; but against truth and God. What are these? Prejudices, worldly maxims, associations, passions, habits; behind these strongholds the mind entrenches itself against God. The famed strong-holds of Sebastopol are weak to these, and it requires a far-higher skill and courage to pull down the strong-holds of humanity against God, than to destroy the most invulnerable bulwarks of a nation. (2). The corrupt thinking of the mind. "Casting down imaginations." In the margin it is "reasoning." The word thinking, will comprehend all. For the faculty which we call imagination, thinks as well as the intellect. It is against evil thinkings, therefore, whether of a poetic, a philosophic, or any other character. It is against infidel thinkings, and superstitious thinkings, selfish and dishonest thinkings, vain and sensual thinkings. The particular thinkings of the apostle's age ran in the two grooves of Judaism and Paganism. (3). The antitheistic impulses of the mind: "and everything that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God." Every feeling and passion that rise against God.

These are the victories of true soldiership. These evils are the root-evils of the world; he, therefore, who strikes at these, pursues the best plan to conquer all the evils that afflict humanity.

Thirdly: They are christian. They are victories won for Christ. They bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Thought is everything to man. The forms of the universe come to him mirrored by his thoughts; the music of the universe comes to him echoed by his thoughts; the great God comes to him only in the reflections of his thoughts. The million forms of civilisation around us arose from thoughts; they are but thoughts embodied. Out of

The word Aoyous, here rendered imagination, occurs but in one other place in the New Testament, and that is in Rom. ii. 15, where it is rendered "thought."