ii. The Witness of us all.
The duty of being witnesses to Christ is not laid on one order of men alone, it is laid upon all. Although unquestionably, in a special degree, the injunction may be held as addressed to the Apostles and to those who bear office in the Church, the humblest
1 G. Campbell Morgan. ACTS & ROM. — 2
18 POWER FOR WITNESS
members are not excluded from its scope. Not only does the gifted and lamented Genevan professor, Gaston Frommel, say : " This declaration of our Lord established the true notion of the Christian ministry, lay as well as pastoral," but Canon Liddon is equally emphatic : " The Apostles standing before their departing Lord impersonate not merely the ministry, but the Church ; and Jesus in His last words on earth speaks not merely to the clerical order, He bequeaths a legacy of glory and of suffering to the millions of Christendom : ' Ye shall be witnesses unto me.' "
Tf In some religious bodies it is deemed incumbent on every member to relate his own experiences. He is not admitted unless he bear testimony to the fact that he has given his heart to Christ, and opportunities are periodically allowed for him to renew his testimony, to express the pleasure with which he feels his faith to be growing, or the distress with which he feels it to be decaying. From such meetings many have gone strengthened and confirmed, more ready to do and to suffer for their Lord. Such meetings are not altogether in accord with the traditions of our Scottish piety ; the reticence of the Scottish character shrinks from uttering in company the secrets of the innermost heart, a reticence so extreme and so perverted as in some districts to keep back from the Lord's Table the most devout and earnest Christians till old age has come upon them. We can all see that public confessions of faith and devotion may be worth little, may be the result of momentary emotion rather than of settled principle, but it may be questioned whether in Scotland we do not carry our concealment of religious feeling too far. To speak glibly on a subject may indicate only superficial acquaintance ; never to speak about it at all is not an absolute assurance that the acquaintance is genuine and profound. It may be absurd and blameable to talk volubly of spiritual themes to which we are personally strangers, but to refrain from utterance is at times to suppress a truth which, if it had been allowed to grow, would have been of inestimable value in shaping our own lives and the lives of others round about us. The vain repetition of pious phrases may be easily learned by the shallow and the hypocritical, but the careful abstention from every phrase that is not wholly secular will not induce our companions to take know- ledge of us that we have been with Jesus. The chief service which, two hundred years ago, Joseph Addison rendered to religion was not so much by his essays in deliberate defence of Christianity, as by the graceful satire with which " he fairly laughed men put of that false modesty which made them ashamed of owning themselves on the Christian side," e.g. one who was " long
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suspected of being a little pious, though no man ever hid his vice with greater caution than he did his virtue " ; another, the well- bred man who is obliged to " conceal any serious sentiment and appear a greater libertine than he is, that he may keep himself in countenance among the men of more " ; another, the master of the house who is "so very modest a man that he has not the confidence to say grace at his own table." It is possible that the shafts of the gentle ridicule of Addison might find as suitable targets to-day as they did two hundred years ago.1
1. It is the privilege of each believer everywhere, in addition to the cleansing in the water of Baptism, to receive also such a baptism of the Holy Ghost as will endue and equip for service. Power in service, or in witnessing, comes, as we have seen, from the Holy Ghost. " Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you ; and ye shall be my witnesses." The form in which the power shall manifest itself is not for us to decide. "The Spirit divideth to each one severally as he will." But of this we may be sure, that if we have allowed God to choose our work, the power or gift so bestowed will exactly match the task that is before us. If God has picked us out to bear burdens, hew wood or stone, act as overseers, or as skilled artificers, He will then likewise divide to each in baptizing with the Spirit just that power needful for the work required. As there are diversities of tasks, so there are diversities of gifts, but the one Spirit.
^f However it was spoken, the word was spoken suitably in every case. It might be expository or controversial in its nature, it might be by exhortation or reproof, according as the case demanded. In Barnabas it was exhortation; in Paul, reproof; in Apollos, exposition; in Peter, controversy. In Paul, reproof at one time ; and at another, controversy, and argument, and exposition. In Peter, exposition, and controversy, and argument, and appeal, alternately. The occasion shaped the demand made, and so the utterance. The power of the Spirit impelled these men to speak, but enabled them to speak suitably.2