the school of Christ for young converts from heathenism, stands within the fold, and there, certainly, the compassionate Savior would have them ali gathered and carried in the arms, and cherished even as a nurse cherisheth her chi dren." Finally: This method of conducting missions is the only one that will unite in this work the energies of the churches at home. Well understood, this will unite the energies of the churches- so far as Christians can be induced to prosecute missions for the purpose of reconciling men to God. Making this the grand aim of missions, and pressing the love of Christ home upon the hearts and consciences of men, as the grand means of effecting this, will certainly commend itself to the understandings and feelings of all intelligent Christians. Not only will a large number of good and faithful missionaries be obtained, but they will be supported, and prayed for, and made the objects of daily interest and concern. Let it be our prayer, that God will be pleased to strengthen our faith in the realities of the unseen world. Then shall we be better able to pray as we ought for our missionary brethren, that they may be intent on their single but great object of winning souls to Christ, and be so imbued with the spirit of Christ, that his image shall be fully stamped on all their converts. Let us urge upon our brethren among the heathen the imperative duty of making full proof of their ministry as missionaries, rather than as pastors; and let us lay upon them "no greater burden," than the "necessary things" appertaining to their high and peculiar vocation. We must indeed hold them to the principle, that they shall treat those only as loyal subjects of our infinite Sovereign, who give evidence of hearty submission and reconciliation; but we will leave it to their better-informed judgments to determine, -in the remote, vast and varied, and to us almost unknown fields of their labors,-what is and what ought to be satisfactory evidence of actual reconciliation. And when the principles of love and obedience are once restored to men, and men are at peace with God, and united to Him, then will they be at peace with one another. Then wars will cease, and all oppression. Then the crooked in human affairs shall be made straight and the rough places plain, the valleys shall be exalted and the mountains and hills made low, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh see it together. "In one sweet symphony of praise Sink in the abyss of endless night. "Soon Afric's long-enslaved sons Shall join with Europe's polished race, The glories of redeeming grace. "From east to west, from north to south. NATIONAL PREACHER. No. 9. VOL. XX.] SEPTEMBER, 1846. [WHOLE No. 237. SERMON CCCCXXIX. BY THE REV. SAMUEL T. SPEAR, PASTOR OF THE SOUTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y CHRIST IN THE BELIEVER AS THE HOPE OF GLORY. To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.-CoLosSIANS, i. 27. In the words of our text, the Apostle speaks of the Gospel under the title of a "mystery." Such it was, considered simply as resident in the unrevealed intentions of the Divine Mind; it was unknown to men, both in its nature and application, until developed by its Author. It was especially unknown to the Jews in its overture of mercy to the Gentile world. They had monopolized the favors of Heaven, and to them it seemed mysterious that a religion claiming to proceed from Jehovah, should look benignantly upon any but themselves. The Apostle, as the messenger of Christ to the Gentiles, seeks to correct this delusion; he sets forth the Gospel as "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," whatever may have been his previous condition, or national character. As now administered by him, it was no mystery, either in its facts or its requisitions, or the persons to whom it might be properly commended. The evolution effected by Christ and his Apostles, had dissipated all the darkness which hitherto obscured these important points. It might indeed contain mysteries of another type; but the particular form of mystery had in view by the Apostle, had altogether disappeared. This very mystery is now "made manifest to his saints; to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Obscurity had receded before the march of light; and Christ now dwelling in the Colossian Christian, as the hope of glory, is the mystery unveiled, and transformed into the simplicity of apprehensible truth. This mystery is Christ himself, Christ now "made manifest to his saints, Christ "in you, the hope of glory." In the ensuing reflections, I shall ask your attention to this erpression of the Apostle-"which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." I. In the first place, let us endeavor to understand the first item in this significant expression, i. e., “Christ in you."Every careful reader of the Bible must be familiar with the fact, that Christ is frequently spoken of as being in His people; also that they are represented as being in Him. The passages containing this style of description are abundant in the New Testament. They suggest for our consideration this question: In what sense is Christ in His people? The theologists of Rome have built upon these passages the doctrine of a mystical union between the believer and his Savior, and garnished it with the dogma of a mediating priesthood of men, to create and perpetuate this union. This union is not one of faith-not an union with spiritual exercises in us, and divine influences from Him, for its basis; but something which transcends all these ideas-physical, or semiphysical, totally inexplicable in its nature, and hence called mystical. It seems psychologically to confound the two beings, and mould them into one existence. Upon it rests the chief efficacy of the Sacrament, to secure which there must be the prior fact of transubstantiation, and to accomplish the latter there must be a mediating priesthood of men, with full powers. The reformation under Luther opened the era for the explosion of this monstrous quadrupedal error; it brought into clear light the doctrine of forensic justification by faith in Christ Jesus, abolished the system of physiological grace, and did much to return men to the simplicity and purity of apostolic times. We have no doubt that Luther was right-much nearer to the Apostles than the Romanists, or the Oxfordists of the present day. We need not go to the incomprehensibilities of the mystical union with its cognate absurdities, to make the words of the text and of parallel scriptures instructive to the intelligence, and immensely precious to the heart. The Protestant version is one which does honor to the language, and makes the fact one of inexhaustible good to him, whose soul is its subject. In the analysis of this fact, the following particulars may be named, as constituting the indwelling of Christ: 1. He dwells in the believer in the intellectual, or doctrinal sense. "What think ye of Christ? is the test to try both your state and your scheme." Than this there never was a truer saying. Our conceptions of the blessed Savior involve a point of infinite moment; sure it is, that "we cannot be right in the rest, unless we think rightly of Him. To the question, what are we to think of Christ? the Bible returns a suitable answer; an answer, expressed in our creeds, but more fully drawn out in finer and richer shades in the very words of the sacred text. Now when we receive into our minds, as objects of conviction and firm belief, the disclosures of revelation in regard to Christ, then He is in us in the intellectual or doctrinal sense--a sense, which precedes all others, as it is the foundation of all others. He is then resident in our intelligence, the object of thought and meditation, wrapt up in the visions of the soul. In this sense, it will be perceived, there may be degrees us. in the fullness, completeness, and power, with which he dwells in I am persuaded, that some Christians have much better views of their Redeemer than others; views, which make the heart burn, and evoke from retirement the moral sensibilities of true piety. This difference is not owing to a difference in the object, but to a difference in the use of our powers upon the object, and the means which conduct us thereto. For this reason, the impenitent have almost no idea of Christ; they are so occupied with the world, that they do not think enough of Him even to understand Him. They can explain the particular channel of their industry; but you put the question, what think ye of Christ? and their answer, if any, is but a miserable pattern of the truth. The same reason operates to produce diversity in the vividness and extent of view which is taken by Christian minds. It is not sufficient for us to adopt a system of religious symbols, however correct, and then permit them to sleep in the dormitory of a lifeless orthordoxy. This will never realize to us the idea of having our life "hid with Christ in God." We must learn how to transfer to our own minds, and there retain in living and everlasting remembrance, the teachings of God in regard to Him, who is the Prince of Peace, the Author of eternal salvation to every one that believeth. To accomplish this transfer, no better plan can be adopted than diligently and prayerfully to study the Scriptures. When they introduce to us a new conception, or a new phase of a previous conception, we must take it, most thoroughly digest it, and then add it to our stock of Christian knowledge. By this process, we shall experience a progressive enlargement of understanding; the term, Christ, will become something more than a mere Shibboleth, a mere religious watchword for party organization, or an appendage to fill up some little niche in the plan of redemption. He will jut out in bright effulgence, and cast His radiance over the whole scheme of life. Let us also be careful not to separate Him from those doctrines of the Bible, which define Him, and explain the methods and ends of His action; as careful not to separate them from Him. He magnifies the doctrines of redemption; and they also magnify Him. Without Him these doctrines are but mere abstractions, having no more power, than a mathematical theorem. Without them also He is not "the way, the truth and the life," as disclosed in the Bible. In disjoining the two, we do serious harm to both, and almost destroy their good impression upon our minds. The atonement itself degenerates into the emptiness of mere words, if we view it as disconnected with Him, who made it. Let us therefore be careful to keep the Worker and the work always combined in our minds; and when we travel from the one, be sure to carry the other with us. The Christianity of the New Testament is a Christianity of concretes, not of depleted abstracts; and it is best that we should have it in our minds, as God has placed it in the Bible. 2. Christ dwells in the believer, as a Being who engages his affectionate confidence.-The intellectual indwelling of Christ lays a solid and changeless basis for this confidence. Being properly seen, He is seen to be such a Being, that the pious mind not only feels that it ought to trust, but is also conscious of the fact that it does trust in Him. Nothing in Him is perceived which is calculated to intimidate or repel our approach, but everything to invite and win our utmost affection and faith. The fact that we are sinners, that we feel intensely the moral demerit of sin, that our past character is a never ceasing badge of reproach and guilt, is the fact in us, the argument subsisting in our condition, why we should betake ourselves to the cross, and go to Him whose blood cleanseth from all sin. This is what in our condition we must do, unless we adopt the plan of self-merit, thus proving that we are not believers in His name. As we approach Him, we find His throne luminous with promise; the sceptre of peace and pardon is extended, that we may touch it and live. Having come to Him, having looked up to God through Christ, exclaiming "Abba Father," then our wisdom is to remain in this posture, neither receding from it, nor attempting to pass beyond it, for we can do nothing better than to love and trust our Savior. The language of our hearts should be- “My faith looks up to thee, This is to be our spiritual dialect while we live--the last action of our souls as we quit this mortal sphere, and rise to worlds unseen. It is this which keeps the Christian out of the slough of despondency, so graphically pictured by Bunyan. His confidence in Christ is the right arm of his soul--the moral lever, on which and through which he exerts his strength. It does not look out upon a vacuum, and weary itself in searching for a resting point. Though the object be invisible, yet the mind is privileged to act "as seeing Him, who is invisible." It overleaps the limitation set by the senses-folds up in its own convictions the facts of Revelation; these constitute a luminous pathway, on which it makes a rapid journey to the residence of the Immortal King, with whom to make a cheerful deposit of itself and all its interests. Here it is, and nowhere else, that we can realize the truth of the Savior's promise," Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." To the soul leaning upon Christ He substantially says, "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." How gloriously therefore is Christ in the mind of the believer, as a Being engaging his fullest confidence! He gave Him this confidence in the matter of his salvation, when he first believed; and he has seen no subsequent occasion for withdrawing it; all his experience goes to confirm and increase it. |