* H. Rashdall, Doctrine and Devdop^nent, 79. * Ibid. 81.
204 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
His all : " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." ^
■[f This has always been the Christian religion. There has never been any other Christian religion except this — never. St. Paul believed this. This was his religion. " God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law." " God sent forth his Son." How can you reconcile that with Jesus Christ being only a very good man ? " Declared to be the Son of God with power." Does that sound like a very good man ? " Through whom are all things." Is that the sort of thing you would say about a man ? " Who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor." When was He ever rich as man ? Never. From those four undisputed Epistles of St. Paul — the two to the Corinthians, Eomans, and Galatians — it can be proved to demon- stration that St. Paul believed that the Incarnation was the centre of the Christian religion. Take St. Peter and read what he says about " the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls," to see what he believed. Take St. John. This is St. John: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." Take the old Christian liturgies — take a hymn like the Gloria in Fxcelsis, which has come down to us from the beginning, and you find the same thing : " Thou art the Everlasting Son." Take the Nicene Creed, which the early Church fought about with those who did not believe, and its final shape states that the Son was of the very substance with the Father, the same, identically the same sub- stance with the Father.^
T[ One of the most notable events of my freshman's term was the death of the Eev. Charles Simeon. He was persuaded, though much advanced in years and diffident concerning his own physical strength, to accept the office of Select Preacher for the month of November. He had prepared his four sermons; but when November came, he was lying on a sick-bed ; and when St. Mary's bell tolled for him, it announced, not his sermons, but his death. I heard those four sermons delivered by Mr. Simeon's successor in his own pulpit. So far as I can remember, the first three were introductory to the fourth, and the fourth gathered up the whole course and showed how type and shadow and prophecy and all the preparatory portion of God's dispensation found their fulfilment and explanation in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether my recollection of those particular sermons be correct or not, certain it is that the supreme position
1 A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, 251.
' Bishop Winnington Ingram, Thi Love of the Trinity, 117.
ST. JOHN III. i6 205
of Christ, as the Alpha and Omega of the revelation of God, as "the way, the truth, and the life," as the true link between earth and heaven, as the one sufficient sacrifice for sin, "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," as the one foundation of human hope laid by the love of God Himself — certain it is, I say, that this supreme position of Christ was the point to which all Mr. Simeon's teaching turned, the basis upon which his ministry was built. What was the difference between that teaching and the teaching which it strove to supersede ? It professed no new discovery, it did not consciously embody any doctrine which was not already embodied in the Book of Common Prayer. The difference would seem to be expressible by the phrase, the preaching of a living Christ. The teaching purported to reproduce the words of the text, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," and to reassert the words of St. Paul, " we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling- block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."
A criticism of a similar kind may be made upon the teaching of a still more remarkable man, to some extent contemporary with Mr. Simeon; I mean John Wesley. What was the secret of the marvellous power of John Wesley's preaching ? It owed much, I have no doubt, to his great ^ natural endowments; much to his zeal and the strength of his convictions ; but I believe that the ultimate analysis of the subject would show that, fundament- ally, the secret of his power was his own clear hold upon, and his living exposition of, the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God. I say the living exposition because this is just what is necessary to infuse life into the souls of others. Vivum ex vivo, say the physiologists: vivum ex vivo, ought to echo the theo- logians ; and a man who has a living apprehension of the love of God, as manifested to mankind in the mission of Him who is called " the only begotten Son," possesses in that apprehension a spiritual power, which it is more easy to regard with wonder than * to measure or to restrain. The preaching of John Wesley can scarcely be reproduced ; but the hymns composed by him and by his brother, who in this respect was even more remarkable than himself, will go far towards substantiating what I have now been saying.