2. There are many advents of the Son of God, and for every one of them there is some forerunner, some voice crying in the wilderness : " Prepare ye His way ; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." His comings mark the great upward strides of humanity towards a nobler, freer, purer life ; they are the occasions when the bonds of the past are broken, and the world moves swiftly towards its Divine goal. The greatest and most hopeful epochs of history have been those when the religious spirit, which is the Spirit of God moving in the hearts of men, has been quickened and purified. The voice
^ J. Vaughan, Sermons, Sept. 1881 to April 1882, p. 107.
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of some John the Baptist has gone ringing through the wilderness of a dead faith, of a formal worship, of a worldly life, and men have been startled into attention, have been made conscious of shortcomings and sins, have broken up the fallow ground of their hearts, have sown to the Lord in righteousness, and have reaped the golden harvest of a Divine spiritual life.
IT Let me remind you of three cardinal instances in which living sympathy has prepared the way for Christ's triumphal entry into the heart of a generation.
(1) Why was it that while other apostles presented Christ in other ways — as Messiah, as Judge, as Healer — Paul determined to know nothing but Christ crucified ? Not because His Gospel, as he calls it, was the whole of the Divine message, but because the language of sacrifice was the common speech of all mankind. Differing in all else, Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, were one in this, that they regarded sacrifice as the central means of grace. While other aspects of the Saviour might appeal to this class or that nation, this one touched the springs which move the universal heart of humanity. And so it was not James or Peter, but Paul, whose picture of the Christ won the homage of the world.
(2) In Italy, at the end of the twelfth century, Christian faith was all but extinct. So entirely were priests and rulers given up to hatred and greed and luxury that the few humble communities which aimed at a purer life were hunted as heretics. The mass of the people, despised, oppressed and corrupt, lived in one dumb longing for pity. Then came an apostle who, from the store- house of Christ's words of power, drew that which they needed — " Blessed are the poor 1" When he claimed Poverty for his bride, Francis of Assisi enacted a parable which all the poor could understand. To choose the life of poverty was to choose that which bound the sad millions to each other. It was to proclaim himself the brother of all. It was to rob poverty of its sting by making it a bond of love. The life and words of St. Francis are one long poem, in which Christ is presented as the Lord of pity. From him men learned once more that the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of love ; once more they became its willing subjects ; once more there was a Christian Italy — a Christian Europe.
(3) But not for long. The glorious revival of the thirteenth century was followed by a long decay of faith and morals. The Eenaissance which restored the art and the learning of the ancient world, restored its vices too. An ignorant and corrupt priesthood not only oppressed the people, but degraded them ; for they taught that all forms of secular life were profane, and none truly accept-
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able to God but their own celibate idleness. In Southern lands laymen accepted their degradation, and religion became a mockery. But in Germany, in Switzerland, in England, and wherever men had Teutonic blood in their veins, the old German faith in personal value persisted. Outraged manhood led them to scorn the priests, and almost to renounce the religion which was an excuse for the domination. Then God raised up an apostle from among the labouring poor who could understand and convert them. Convert them not by condemning their errors or denouncing their excesses, but by showing them that all their just claims were allowed and satisfied by the ancient teaching of the Church. The doctrine of justification by faith, which Luther drew from Paul's forgotten writings, meant release from the tyranny of the Confessional, meant the recognition of each man's conscience, and the consecra- tion of each man's life.^
3. As the life of the Church of Christ is developed, as its organisation and its methods are kept simply as instruments for the spirit of faith and love to work through, the Church will become less and less dependent upon the zealous efforts of any man to inaugurate reforms and to lead onward movements. The influence of the one man seems to correspond with the generally low and enslaved condition of the mass of the people ; great when the people are most needy ; comparatively small when the people are more free and more able to help themselves. John the Baptist is a unique, a commanding figure, because the age in which he prophesied was so destitute of spiritual men. Martin Luther is an imposing presence because, until he began to preach, the people, not having the knowledge of God and of His Christ, were abject enough to bow down to a corrupt Church which they hated and despised. John Wesley and George Whitefield stand out conspicuously from a mass of clergymen and ministers of the last century because the Gospel was then so little known, ministers so rarely experienced its power, and the people were in such gross darkness. I greatly doubt whether in our country such forerunners of the Kingdom of God will appear again, simply because I think that the conditions of our Church life are so highly favourable to upward movements springing from a general sense of need.^