Elijah. "I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed." Technical religionists are ever acting this foolish and wicked part; they are ever sighing after future good, and abusing the present. But the part these Scribes had acted towards John they were now acting towards Christ. They were looking for some one answering to their notions of the Messiah they found in the Scriptures, while the true Messiah was amongst them, and they were illusing Him; "Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them." Germs of Thought. SUBJECT:-The Mystery of Godliness. THE next step in our climax is :— III. "PREACHED UNTO THE GENTILES." Preaching in itself involves a mystery. The exclusive use of human instrumentality, the honor put upon the Living Word, the appeal to the individual conscience, and the deep power of sympathy between human hearts evolved by such a process, are full of significance, and in emphatic unison with the great central idea of “God manifest in the flesh." It would almost seem that, as animal life is distinguished from vegetable by deriving its nutriment from organized substances, while the latter derives it from unorganized matter, so the spiritual life derives its pabulum, not, as the intellect, from naked fact, but by sympathy with vitalised truth. And who are the preachers? Not exclusively those who are set apart for public ministrations; but all men, who conscious of having found salvation for themselves, are constrained by Christ's love to tell others the glad news. Is there a profounder marvel in the world, than that that lay preacher, with threadbare coat and grimy hands, in bad accent and worse syntax, should gather round him a knot of simple men and women, and tell them "words whereby they may be saved"-words embodying mysteries which Egypt's secret adytum, and Athens' proud portico, had never heard? Can man be charged with a nobler, a sublimer mission, than to go to the vilest of the race, the abandoned outcast, the death-stricken reprobate, the wretch from whom our secular philanthropist has turned away in despair, feeling that all his nostrums of education, elevation, science and culture, were a cruel mockery, and to say-not in hesitating peradventure, but with utterance infallible as the archangel's trumpet-"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"? The call of the Gentiles, and their admission to equal privileges with the Jews, was the special problem of the apostolic age, and to the Jewish mind (notwithstanding its distinct prophetic intimation, Isaiah xlix. 6.) singularly mysterious; so different does the case appear to us, that men now marvel, not at the extension of the Divine Covenant to the Gentiles, but at its previous limitation to Israel. Yet this preaching to the Gentiles remains still a mystery; for under the individual fact, whose novelty and impressiveness have long since passed away, there lies this great permanent truth, that the salvation brought by the Gospel requires no previous preparation in them who receive it. It is this that separates the "mystery of godliness," from all other mysteries, real or feigned. It comes like the light of sunrise, or the dew of evening, or elective love, without labor and without price. No weary austerity, no subtle argument, no mystic rites, no tedious novitiate, are needed here. Without-it may be-catechism,-creed or sacrament, one deep-heaved groan, one death grasp, of a passing soul may seize the hem of the Saviour's garment, may receive the assurance, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." IV. "SEEN OF ANGELS." That the scope of Christ's redemptive work was not limited to the human family, appears from many expressions in the Scriptures. While, on the one hand, there are good grounds for believing that the irrational creatures will partake, according to their measure, in its ultimate blessings, we find, on the other hand, that the destinies of angelic intelligences have a connexion deep and real, though inexplicable to us, with the cross of the Redeemer. That the Scriptural allusions to this connexion, and to all the extra-human bearings of redemption, should be slight, unfrequent, and incidental, is what might be expected in a revelation that dismisses the creation of the whole astral universe in the quaintly pregnant parenthesis, "He made the stars also." The incarnation, it would seem, was to angels, as well as to men, a new and momentous manifestation of Deity. "When he bringeth the first-begotten into the world he saith, Let all the angels of God worship him." We know how they announced His advent, sang at His birth, ministered to Him in His temptation and agony, and declared His resurrection; how they desire "to look into " the mystery of godliness; and how they "rejoice over one sinner that repenteth." We know, too, the awful recognition of the Son of God on the part of the fallen spirits-"Art thou come to torment us before our time?" And, finally, we know that the grand design of that "mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God," was "that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by [through] the Church the manifold wisdom of God." In view of these facts there appears no reason to doubt that by "the things of heaven," which we are told (Coloss. i. 20.) have been reconciled to God by Christ, and which (Ephesians i. 10) shall be ultimately "gathered together in one (avaкeparaσala) in Christ," we are to understand those "thrones, dominions, principalities and powers," who were originally created by, and for, the Son of God (Coluss. i. 16), and whose voices shall hereafter blend with the Church's song, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.” V. "BELIEVED ON IN THE WORLD." This is the standing miracle of Christianity. Not the belief in Christ as an historical personage, for that is irresistible; but the acceptance of Him as a personal Saviour. When we consider all which the religion of the Lord Jesus requires-the renunciation of sins so dear to us, the abnegation of self, the observance of a spiritual law, to the obedience of which every thought must be brought, resignation to calamity with cheerful acquiescence, and the endurance of suffering the most exquisite in preference to apostacy-we may well exclaim, "Who then can be saved"? Yet men are saved. The weak become strong, the timid, bold; the polluted are purified, the debased, ennobled, while the miserable rejoice with "joy unspeakable and full of glory." "Believed on in the world." Not seen, not heard, not handled. Apprehended as a reality; felt as a formative force; recognised as a living presence; received into the heart "the hope of glory." And all this in such a world as ours! In the midst of sufferings that wring the heart; temptations that shake the soul; where sight is at perpetual war with faith; passion with reason, sin with conscience; satan with God. Yet here-in pining want, it may be; on beds of anguish, it may be; bereft of all that carnal men delight in, trust in, hope for, and live for; there are believing, trustful, reconciled spirits, who find in Christ a well-spring of joy, an unshaken peace, a "hope that reaps not shame." The love of the wonderful need not lead us to explore far off climes, or pore over legends of by-gone ages; the mystery of mysteries is at our doors. It is the faith which says, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." VI. "RECEIVED UP INTO GLORY." This is the great consummation; when Messiah "shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied." This is "the joy which was set before him," and in view of which He "endured the cross, despising the shame." A climax of mystery far beyond our ken: yet we may observe-(1) That it includes some sort of material glory. Our Lord has ascended to the right hand of Power in His glorified humanity; and humanity essentially includes the material. It is well to abstract, as much as possible, all terrestrial images from our idea of Heaven; especially to guard against the vulgar error of assuming the hieroglyphics of apocalyptic vision as descriptive (kuriological) instead of emblematic. Yet none who have seen a summer sun-rise, or a winter star-light, can doubt that matter may become the vehicle of a glory not unbefitting the shrine of Deity. We believe that "The sapphire throne, the living blaze, Where angels tremble as they gaze," is something more than a thought;-that it is an object cognizable to the exalted faculties of the beings who surround it. (2) In our Lord's exaltation there is resumption, as well as assumption. As man He entered heaven for the first time, but as God He returned to "where he was before." "O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Here is the resumption of that uncreated glory, which during His humiliation had been laid aside. (3) Yet there is now a moral glory additional to that of Primal Godhead. "On his head were many crowns." There is the glory of the sufferer, who had endured and was "made perfect ;" the glory of the Anointed, who had "finished the work given him to do;" the glory of the Victor, who had fought with evil and had vanquished it," leading captivity captive;" the glory of the Redeemer, who had avenged the wrong of His kindred, and secured for ever their rights; and the glory of the Benefactor, who had sought, and found, and saved, a ruined race, whose everlasting felicity should be the celebration of His praise, and the fruition of His love. (4) Thus this glory is reflex. "There was a rainbow round about the throne." The Divine perfections are reflected back from countless myriads of renewed and glorified natures-" his name is in their foreheads." The Eternal Beam is reflected from thousand thousand mirrors. The Eternal Unity has multiplied |