1 W. M. Sinclair, A Young Man's Life, 185. ST. JOHN — 19
290 TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?
But when we are asked for the foundation of life, we turn to Jesus and say : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life."
^ There are too many witnesses in His favour for us to leave Him. Call the roll of philosophers: Bacon, Locke, Johnson, Edwards, Hopkins, McCosh. They were Christians, and it was Locke who said, " If I had my life to live over, I would spend it studying the Epistles of Paul and the Psalms." Call the roll of astronomers : Copernicus, Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton. They were Christians, and it was Kepler who said, "I am thinking the thoughts of God. I am overawed with the sense of His majesty. In the firmament God is passing before me in the grandeur of His way." Call the roll of scientists : Agassiz, Miller, Proctor, Guizot. They were Christians. Then add the name of John George Eomanes, who was an unbeliever, but became a devoted Christian, accepting the divinity of Jesus and the atonement of Christ, and died a triumphant death. The greatest historians, among whom were Bancroft and Green, were Christians. The greatest discoverers, among whom were Ealeigh, Livingstone, and Stanley, were Christians. The greatest statesmen, among whom were Constantino, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Webster, Gladstone, and Bismarck, were Christians.^
* (1) " Thou hast the words of eternal life." St. Peter was convinced not only that Jesus had the words of eternal life, but that no one else had. " To whom shall we go ? " St. Peter had not an exhaustive knowledge of all sources of human wisdom ; but speaking from his own experience he affirmed his conviction that it was useless to seek life eternal anywhere else than in Jesus. And it seems equally hopeless still to look to any other quarter for sufficient teaching, for words that are " spirit and life." Where but in Christ do we find a God we can accept as God ? Where but in Him do we find that which can not only encourage men striving after virtue, but also reclaim the vicious ? To put any one alongside of Christ as a revealer of God, as a pattern of virtue, as a Saviour of men, is absurd. There is that in Him which we recognize as not merely superior, but of another kind ; so that those who reject Him, or set Him on a level with other teachers, have first of all to reject the chief part of what His contemporaries were struck with and reported, and to fashion a Christ of their own.
* J. W. Cliapnian.
ST. JOHN VI. 6S 291
^ No student of history doubts for a moment that Jesus Christ appeals to man as does no other character in human history. His appeal is not only to the whole man, that is, to the entire range of his faculties ; in a remarkable way, He appeals to the whole of humanity. Mohammed appeals to the Arab, the Turk, the fierce and fatalistic nomad of the East. Buddha appeals to the reflective mind of the Orient. Jesus Christ's appeal is uniquely cosmo- politan. He holds the sceptre of the Western world, and yet a learned Hindu has said, " None but Jesus deserves, and none but He shall have, the diadem of India." ^
(2) " Thou hast the words of eternal life." St. Peter's confes- sion expressed the grounds on which he believed Jesus to be what He said, and our faith has the same proof to rest on. It does not rest on St. Peter's certainty, but on the reason here stated, common to all who receive the evidence. The grounds of Christian faith in the Divine person of Jesus are His works. His words, and His character; what He did, what He said, and what He was. But prominence is here given to the " words." For the " words " were at that time in some danger of being disparaged in favour of the " deeds." An incident had just happened which implied that, and St. Peter here puts in, so to speak, his protest against the multitude. " It is not for the loaves or for the miracles we either believe or follow Thee : it is because Thou hast the words of eternal life."
^ The " words " are precisely that part of the evidence which is now just as valid for us as it was for St. Peter. The " words " are here, just as fresh and full of life and spiritually mighty as when they were first spoken. And what is still more to the point, the "words" interpret and explain all the rest. The relation of the miracles and the character of Jesus to His words may be stated as the relation of a seal or stamp to a document. It is the document — the writing — that defines and explains the authority conveyed by the seal.^
* (3) " Thou hast the words of eternal life" That expression " eternal life " must have been very familiar to St. Peter and all the twelve, while Jesus went in and out among them. There were few days when they did not hear it fall from His lips, and they caught it up if they did not fully understand it. In the