[141] See this sermon in Taylor's works, vol. viii., Ed. C. P. Eden (London, 1850). On p. 380 we find the following eloquent and profound passage bearing on this point: "Lastly there is a sort of God's dear servants who walk in perfectness, who perfect holiness in the fear of God, and they have a degree of charity and divine knowledge more than we can discourse of, and more certain than the demonstrations of geometry, brighter than the sun and indeficient as the light of heaven. This is called by the Apostle the ἀπαύγασμα τοῦ θεοῦ. Christ is this 'brightness of God' manifested in the hearts of His dearest servants. But I shall say no more of this at this time, for this is to be felt and not to be talked of; and they that have never touched it with their finger, may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their heart, and be never the wiser. All that I have now to say of it is, that a good man is united unto God, κέντρον κέντρῳ συνάψας, as a flame touches a flame and combines into splendour and glory; so is the spirit of a man united unto Christ by the Spirit of God. These are the friends of God, and they best know God's mind, and they only that are so know how much such men do know. They have a special unction from above."
Then again, and lastly, we note the slow progress of the gospel as shown to us by this incident at Troas. Here we are a good twenty years after the Crucifixion, and yet the chief ministers and leaders of the Church had not yet crossed into Europe. There were sporadic Churches here and there. At Rome and at possibly a few Italian seaports, whence intercourse with Palestine was frequent, there were small Christian communities; but Macedonia and Greece were absolutely untouched up to the present. We are very apt to overrate the progress of the gospel during those first days of the Church's earliest Church life. We are inclined to view the history of the Church of the first three centuries all on an heap as it were. We have much need to distinguish century from century and decennium from decennium. The first ten years of the Church's history saw the gospel preached in Jerusalem and Palestine, but not much farther. The second decennium saw it proclaimed to Asia Minor; but it is only when the third decennium is opening that Christ despatches a formal mission to that Europe where the greatest triumphs of the gospel were afterwards to be won. Ignorance and prejudice and narrow views had been allowed to hinder the progress of the gospel then, as they are hindering the progress of the gospel still; and an express record of this has been handed down to us in this typical history in order that if we too suffer the same we may not be astonished as if some strange thing had happened, but may understand that we are bearing the same burden and enduring the same trials as the New Testament saints have borne before us.