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THE JREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
MAP 31 1926''
THE GREAT T ' OF THE BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
JAMES "HASTINGS, D.D.
EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE"
"THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND
"THE ENCYCLOPiSDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS"
/
EPHESIANS to COLOSSIANS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS
EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK
1913
CONTENTS
TOPICS.
The Church
Salvation the Gift op God God's Workmanship The Commonwealth of Christ Spiritual Architecture The Father and the Fa^iilies » Power in the Inward Man
• Christ in the Heart . The Love of Christ Our High Calling Grieving the Spirit
• The Fruit of the Light
The Purchase of Opportunity St. Paul's Ruling Passion Work Out Your Own Salvation The Excellent Exchange The Power op His Resurrection Pressing On . Citizenship in Heaven . Christian Joy . The Antidote to Anxiety Christ in You the Hope of Glory Complete in Christ Risen with Christ The Hidden Life . The Indwelling Word .
1
,<^
33
51 67 89
115
139*^
161
193
211
227
249
267
293
313 <v335>
357
373
401
421 . 435 , 459 , 477 , 497
617
Literature.
Davies (J. LI.), The Gospel and Modern Life, 1.
Eyton (E.), The Apostle^ Greed, 143.
Fyflfe (D.), Tlie Essentials of Christian Belief, 206.
Goodman (J. H.), The Lordship of Ghrist, 1.
Grant (W.), Christ our Hope, 303.
Henson (H. H.), Ad Rem, 143.
Howard (H.), The Gonning Tower of the Soul, 45.
Jones (J. D.), Things Most Surely Believed, 145.
McConnell (S. D.), Sons of God, 27.
Eainsford (M.), The Mystery of His Will, 149.
Sampson (E. F.), Ghrist Ghurch Sermons, 78.
Smith (D.), Christian Counsel, 31.
Varley (H.), Some Main Questions, 131.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xv. No. 1058.
Westcott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 1 13.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxi. 155 (Perowne) ; xxv. 353 (Davies) ; xlix.
392 (Packer) ; Ix. 211 (Stubbs) ; Ixxix. 229 (Owen). Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., x. 257 (Goodwin). Homiletic Beview, xxi. 143 (Davis).
The Church.
The church, which is his body.— Eph. i, 22, 23.
1. Every article of the Creed is the subject of controversy. There are those who challenge the existence of God; there are those who dispute the Divinity of our Lord ; there are those who deny the personality and presence of the Holy Ghost. But those who make such denials are for the most part outside the Christian Church. They are men who disbelieve in revealed religion altogether. When, however, we come to discuss the subject of " the Church," we are entering upon what is a matter of angry debate amongst Christians themselves.
Of all wars, the most bitter and disastrous are civil wars. " The Church " is an occasion of civil war amongst Christian folk ; it stirs up internecine strife ; it splits up Christian people into antagonistic and hostile camps. Eight away from the days of the Donatist controversy to these days of ours, it has been the fruitful cause of division and conflict. Its disastrous effects are only too manifest ; it has inflicted upon Christ's cause infinitely more damage than all the attacks of critics and sceptics from Celsus down to Kobert Blatchford; it has weakened the efforts of Christian people and paralysed their energies. The strength that ought to have been employed in fighting the world, the flesh and the devil, is frittered and wasted in mutual recrimination and strife. The swords that ought to be turned against a common enemy we turn against one another. Look at the Christian people of England at this time, rent and torn and divided as they are, suspicious of one another and often fiercely hostile to one another. Think of that miserable education controversy which has been, for all these years, embittering and poisoning the very springs of our social and national life. The quarrel — to our shame be it said — is a quarrel amongst Christian people. If
4 THE CHURCH
Christian people would only compose their differences, the quarrel would be settled in a week ; but the quarrel drags its ugly length along, the interests of the child are sacrificed and the interests of religious instruction itself are jeopardized, all because Christian people cannot live together in peace and concord. This bitter strife, these fierce and incessant quarrels of ours — they give the devil his opportunity, but they must make the angels weep. 0
^ " Tell Mr. Home," said the Bishop of London not very long ago, referring to some joint action he and Mr. Silvester Home had taken for the moral welfare of the metropolis, and in which they had been brilliantly successful — "Tell Mr. Home we can always win when we are united." Yes, united we could always win. In every great fight for liberty and righteousness and truth and purity, we could always win. We are baffled and beaten because, instead of being united, we are split up into a number of warring sects. " Divide et im-pera ! " was the cynical advice of the Eoman statesman ; " Divide and rule ! " " Split up your opponents and so retain the supreme authority." Looking abroad over the religious condition of England, one is almost tempted to say that that has been the devil's policy. He has sown seeds of dissension amongst the Christian people, and while they have been quarrelling, he has kept his power ; he has split up our forces and beaten us in detail.^