I build the palace of my Lord the King Wherein Life makes her crimson offering.
With rite of consecration and long praise.
With weight of prayer and length of many days She makes her sacrament of suffering.
' Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, 354.
28 CEASELESS PRAYER
The music of meet words and magical, That rise as incense and as incense fall, * Fills all the palace of my Lord the King.
The House is dim with voices murmuring The sacred burden of their ritual.
If, after many suns have come and gone,
The light of some apocalyptic Dawn
Shall flame with splendour in a crimson sky, Grant, Dweller in the Shrine, that even I
May hear the Voice, and see Thy veil withdrawn ! ^
^ D. H. S. Nicholson, Poems, 69.
Peoving and Holding Fast.
Literature.
Aglionby (F. K.), The Better Choice, 144.
Barry (A.), Some Lights of Science on the Faith, 218.
Blunt (J. J.), University Sermons, 243.
Boyd (A. K. H.), Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths, 1.
Calthrop (G.), Hints to My Younger Friends, 121.
Denney (J.), The Epistles to the Thessalonians (Expositor's Bible), 233.
Hardy (E. J.), Doubt and Faith, 1.
Henson (H. H.), Christ and the Nation, 102.
„ „ The Road to Unity, 97.
Hutton (A. W.), Ecclesia Discens, 92. Jones (T.), The Social Order, 45. Merson (D.), Words of Life, 91. Porter (N.), Yale College Sermons, 332. Seeker (T.), Sermons, i. 25. Gliristian World Pulpit, xxviii. 378 (R. H. Newton) ; xlviii. 333 (J. B.
Hastings) ; 1. 241 (W. D. Maclagan) ; liv. 395 (E. J. Hardy) ; Ixv.
308 (C. S. Home) ; Ixxv. 193 (J. G. Henderson). Church of England Fulfil, xlii. 265 (W. D. Maclagan). Clergyman^ Magazine, 3rd Ser., x. 228 (J. R. Palmer). Guardian, Ixvii. (1912) 1409 (H. C. Beeching).
Proving and Holding Fast.
Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good.— i Thess. v. 21.
1. These are very astonishing words to address to a community of new converts. We might have expected that the Apostle would be careful to give them precise and detailed instructions, plain and solemn warnings, encouraging assurances of Divine ap- proval, but hardly that he should bid them take account of their own experiences, and train themselves in the difficult and risky art of self-direction. We might have expected that this earliest Epistle of St. Paul would point out clearly the manner in which controversies might be quickly and finally closed by reference to some authoritative tribunal ; that it would have stated the consti- tution of the Christian Church in plain language, which should leave no loophole for schismatical casuistry ; that it would set out in unambiguous language the powers of the Christian clergy, and the manner in which those powers were to be exercised. Of all this, however, we find nothing. The Epistle is addressed to the community or Church of the Thessalonians, and contains no clear reference at all to an official ministry ; for the mention of some prominent members of the community, as supervising its business and "admonishing" it, hardly suggests an official ministry, but rather a volunteer executive sustained in office by the general confidence and goodwill. The Thessalonians are " to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake." The Apostle's appeal is directly to the whole body of members: "Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good."
2. The words of the text stand in close relation to the words which they immediately follow : " Quench not the Spirit ; despise not prophesyings ; prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." It is manifest from the record of those Apostolic times that the
32 PROVING AND HOLDING FAST
operations of the Holy Spirit were of an exceptional and temporary character. This is specially apparent in those spiritual utterances, those mysterious " tongues," to which St. Paul refers in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. But, further, there appears to have been on the part of those early Christians a very natural desire to prophesy — to speak out, in the presence of others, their own impressions or experiences of the spiritual life. A new prospect, transcendent in its beauty and glory, had been opened up to them by the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the freshness of their new hopes and new joys, they were eager to make known to one another, with unregulated fervour even in their religious assemblies, their individual experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord. There would, however, be some among the Cliristian converts, some of the less enthusiastic and more sober-minded, who would both dislike and distrust such utter- ances. It is probably such critics as these that the Apostle has in his mind when he addresses to them the words of caution, " Quench not the Spirit ; despise not prophesyings." He could see the possible danger of such utterances ; but he recognized in them the workings of the Holy Ghost, and would have them not suppressed, but tested and controlled. There were in them, no doubt, elements of exaggeration, dangers of self-seeking and of unreality, of presumption and pride ; and these were not of God, but of the evil one. Yet behind all these there was a spiritual reality, obscured but not obliterated, and therefore they were to prove all things and to hold fast the good.