root of sin, it extinguisheth all lusts, it maketh us tread under foot pleasure and honour and wealth ; it rendereth us deaf to the noise of this busy world, and blind to that glaring pomp which dazzleth the eyes of others. Hdc prceeunte seculi fiuctus calcamus : " It goeth before us in our way, and through all the surges of this present world" it bringeth us to the vision and fruition of Him who is Truth itself.^
^ Phillips Brooks refused to give the intellect in man the supremacy when taken by itself. In speaking of the Person of Christ, he asks the questions: How does Christ compare in in- tellectual power with other men ? How did He estimate the intellect ? Was His intellect sufficient to account for the unique position He holds in the world's history as the mightiest force that has controlled the development of humanity ? He finds the answer by turning to the Fourth Gospel, which gives us most that we know about the mind of Jesus. It is the intellectual Gospel, because there is one constantly recurring word — " truth," which is distinctly a word of the intellect. But in the Fourth Gospel, in every instance, it is employed in a sense different from that of the schools. In its scholastic use it is detached from life and made synonymous with knowledge. But knowledge is no word of Jesus. With information for the head alone, detached from its relations to the whole nature, Jesus has no concern. Truth was something which set the whole man free. It was a moral thing, for he who does not receive it is not merely a doubter, but a liar. Truth was something which a man could be, not merely something which a man could study and measure by walking around it on the outside. The objective and the subjective lose themselves in each other. Truth can be known only from the inside; it is something moral, something living, something spiritual. It is not mere objective unity ; it must have in it the elements of character. "To this end was I born," says Jesus, " and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 2
II.
The Way to Obtain It.
" Buy the Truth."
The truth cannot be purchased with money. The highest things are not marketable ; they are like the wine and milk of
^ A. Farindon, Sermons, ii. 379.
^ A. V. G. Allen, Phillips Brooks : Memories of His Life, 321.
332 BUYING AND SELLING OF TRUTH
which Isaiah wrote — " without money and without price." The power of money, though enormously great, is limited, and does not yet control the whole field human and Divine. You cannot buy brains and genius, however much money you have ; or the poet's vision, the artist's touch, the ear for music, the gift of song. You cannot buy a good name, a stainless reputation, an easy conscience, or a pair of honest eyes. You cannot buy a big manly heart, or the faith of a little child. You cannot buy happiness ; above all things, it runs away from the possessor of millions. You cannot buy a good man's trust or a good woman's love ; still less can you buy self-respect, or the right to pray, or a place in Christ's living Church and the inheritance of His saints.
^ All the best things are given away. Do we realize what a ghost and travesty of possession lurks in the act of purchase ? You can buy a book of poems : the soft bindings are yours, the gilt edges are yours, the hand-made paper is yours, but not the poetry. No man was ever rich enough to buy a poem. If it is his, he must have it as the unpurchasable gift of God to his soul. And as surely as you cannot buy a poem, so you cannot buy a home, or a happy hour, or a good conscience, or a rich hope. Trite old story, yes, but we must go on telling it till the vital truth it implies has fashioned the practices of the world. And it can, for the positive side of this teaching is the doctrine of grace — God's mercy for the undeserving, His treasure for the poor. His fulness for the empty. The wealth of our lives is the love that brings the vision beautiful and welds men heart to heart, the sympathy that gives insight, the faith and hope that enrich the spirit, the morning joy of Jesus in the souls of them that crown Him and the lives of them that serve Him.^
1. In one aspect the truth is always seeking to reach us. All truth is of the nature of revelation. But just as there must be eyes formed to behold the objects in the world around us, so there must be an inner eye that looks out for and seeks to read the revelation. The revelation is not wholly in the objects, but also in what they indicate. Science describes the objects, but the mind seeks the truth that they reveal. Sometimes the truth comes to us, dawns upon us, shines on us, without any conscious effort of our own or immediate seeking on our part: * P. C. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church, 56.