Rogers); Ivi. 171 (J. Stalker); lix. 299 (J. Watson); Ixv. 156
(R. Thomas) ; Ixvi. 193 (J. D. Jones) ; Ixx. 328 (A. W. Button) ;
Ixxiii. 394 (E. J. Padfield) ; Ixxv. 371 (A. E. Garvie). Church of England Pulpit, Ixii. 5 (A, W. Hutton). Churchman's Pulpit : General Advent Season, i. 209 (J. Stalker). Examiner, May 18, 1905 (J. H. Jowett). Homiletic Review, xxxvii. 134 (C. W. Townsend) ; Ixiii. 156 (H. W. 0.
Millington).
x86
The Practice of Assurance.
I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to gfuard that which I have committed unto him against that day.— 2 Tim. i. 12.
1. These words are a splendid declaration of St. Paul's unflinching confidence in the Eedeemer. They were spoken in full view of his approaching end. Earth, with its manifold openings of an eternal purposefulness, with its trials and temptations, its long courses of anxiety and sorrow, of suffering and pain, was already a closed book to the Apostle. The fight for Christ and holiness had been fought, the end had come, the course was finished, the faith had been kept. And now he is ready to be " poured out a libation on God's altar in agonies and energies for his fellow-men." The flash of the gleaming axe would be the signal for his manu- mission from the bondage of corruption into the longed-for presence of his Beloved Lord. Suffering for such a man, aged, weak, solitary, was no doubt exquisite and acute, but it was also ecstatic. Through it all, and in spite of all, his soul was stayed by the solace of his Lord. His venture of faith had not been miscalculated. " I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day."
2. Of some things — Apostle though he was. Divinely inspired
man though he was — St. Paul franlcly confesses bimself ignorant.
"For we know in part," he writes in that incomparable 13th
chapter of 1 Corinthians, "and we prophesy in part." And a
little farther on he repeats his confession of ignorance in slightly
diJBferent words, saying, " Now we see in a glass darkly." But it
was not all ignorance with him. It was not all doubt, and
perplexity, and mystery with him. There were certain things of
which he was absolutely sure, of which he was as certain as he
was of his own existence. And it was these certainties of the
187
r88 THE PRACTICE OF ASSURANCE
soul that made him the preacher he was. St. Paul never would have travelled as he did ; he would never have toiled as he did ; he would never have submitted to persecutions as he did, if all he had to give to men had been doubts, and criticisms and negations. There is nothing in negations to beget enthusiasm. Agnosticism breeds no missionaries or martyrs. St. Paul was impelled to preach, to travel from land to land to preach, to face any and every hardship in preaching, because he knew certain positive truths which it was of vital concern that all men should know. The " I know's " of St. Paul make up a glorious list, and the " I know " of this text is one of the most glorious.
^ Archdeacon Farrar, it is said, once asked Eobert Browning whether there were any lines in all the wide range of his poetry which most completely expressed what was fundamental in his thought and life. " Yes," replied the poet, " and they are these : —
He at least believed in soul, Was very sure of God."
My father also was very sure of God, and was convinced that every man might enjoy a similar certainty if he really wanted to, and if he would tread the common road, beaten by the feet of generations of the pilgrims of faith, by which it may be reached.
This religious certainty, which I do not think was ever disturbed by intellectual doubt, was of course of inexpressible value to him in his ministry of the Gospel. Confirmed as it was by his own daily experience of the Grace and Power of God in Christ Jesus, it naturally imparted to his utterances that flaming intensity of conviction which so deeply impressed his hearers everywhere, and which was assuredly one great element in his evangelistic success. "Here is a man," they felt, "who thoroughly believes every word he says. To him at least, the things he is speaking of are things that matter — matter supremely, matter infinitely. No other things compare with them for their practical importance. It is life and salvation to receive them ; it is death and destruction to reject them." There was never any hesitancy, or misgiving, or reserve, or qualification in his delivery of the momentous message given him to proclaim. He spoke as one entirely sure that he was telling men the absolute truth.^
1 Henry Varley's Life-Story, 242.
2 TIMOTHY I. 12 189
" Not ours," say some, " the thought of Death to dread ;
Asking no Heaven, we fear no fabled Hell: Life is a feast, and we have banqi;eted.
Shall not the worms as well ? "
Ah, but the Apparition — the dumb sign —