The Fundamentals

A Testimony to the Truth

' To the Law and to the Testimony" Isa iah 8:20

Volume X

Compliments of Two Christian Laymen

T est im on y P u b l ish ing C ompany (Not Inc.) 808 La Salle Ave., Chicago, 111., U. S. A.

FOREWORD The tenth volume of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” goes free to all English-speaking Pr.otestant religious workers who re quested it by signing the card which we inclosed in the ninth volume and mailing it to our business office, “Testimony Pub lishing Company, 808 La Salle Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.” It will be sent free to other Christian workers who request it. (See Publishers’ Notice, page 128.) We send it out with special thanksgiving to God, because He has so wonderfully blessed the previous volumes. Since the ninth volume reached our readers, hundreds of letters have come to us from them, telling us of their gratitude and appreciation, thanking the generous Two Christian Laymen, and reporting specific cases of blessing received. Thus we know that by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” have been used to the conversion of sinners, to the strengthening of wavering believers, and to the full surrender and consecration to His service of earnest Christian men and women. To God be all the praise. May He bless the tenth volume as He did its predecessors, and use it to His glory and to the advancement of His cause. Our Circle of Prayer has grown again since we sent out the ninth volume. We do not publish special literature for the thousands who have joined it, but we simply ask them to pray in faith, (1) for the Two Christian Laymen, whose consecration and liberality make possible the publication and free distribution of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ” and who are more than three score years and ten, that the Lord keep them and prosper all the work at home and abroad which they support; (2) for all who are connected with the great work of “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ,” including the writer of these lines who has been seriously ill since the beginning of November and is writing these lines while being under treatment in a sanatorium. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. (Signed) The Executive Secretary “ T h e F u n d a m e n t a l s ." Address all editorial correspondence to “Box 8, Monrovia, California, U. S. A.” (See Publishers’ Notice, Page 128.)

CONTENT S

CHAPTER PAGE X Ï . W hy S ave the L ord ' s D ay ?.................................... 5 By Rev. Daniel Hoffman Martin, D. D., Glens Falls, New York. u II. T he I nternal E vidence of the F ourth G ospel . 18 By Canon G. Osborne Troop, M. A., Montreal, Quebec, Canada. *HI. T he N ature of R egeneration .............................. . 26 By Thomas Boston. . . . f, IV. R egeneration — C onversion — R eformation 31 By Rev. George W. Lasher, D. D., LL. D., Cincinnati, Ohio. ^ .................... V. O ur L ord ' s T eachings A bout M oney 39 By Arthur T. Pierson. VI. S atan and H is K ingdom ...........................................48 By Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis, Leicester, England. T he H oly S pirit and the S ons of G od ................ 64

By Rev. W. J. Erdman, D. D., Germantown, Pennsylvania. C onsecration .............................. .................. By Rev. Henry W. Frost, Germantown, Pennsylvania. T he A pologetic V alue of P aul ' s E pistles -

.......... 89

By Rev. E. J. Stobo, Jr., B. A., S. T. D., Smith’s Falls, Ontario, Canada. W hat the B ible C ontains for the B eliever . . . 97 By Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., Darien, Connecticut. M odern S piritualism B riefly T ested by S crip ture .............................. ........ ......... .................... .111 By Algernon J. Pollock, Weston-Super-Mare, England.

THE FUNDAMENTALS VOLUME X CHAPTER I WHY SAVE THE LORD’S DAY? BY REV. DANIEL HOFFMAN MARTIN, D. D., GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK

The only command in the Decalogue which begins with the word “Remember” is the fourth: “Remember the Sab bath day to keep it holy,” as if the Divine writer realized there would be more danger of forgetting this than any of the others, and of yielding to the subtle temptations of caprice and convenience as an excuse for violating it. “Remember” stands like a solitary sentinel in front of this solemn com- maind, yet it has been chafed under, from the ancient Jew who was stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, down to the Sunday saloon-keeper who, in commercializing his fel low-man’s weakness, breaks three laws, that of the Sabbath, the State, and brotherly love. Jesus declared the Sabbath was made for man, that is, for mankind. I t is to be kept holy, that is wholesomely, so that our threefold nature, body, mind and soul, may benefit. No law more wise and merciful ever came from the loving heart of God; a law as all-embracing in its design as sunlight, meeting the needs of king and peasant, master and servant, parent and child. Whence came the wisdom condensed in this fourth commandment? Not from the Greeks, called the wisest of nations, for these words were written a thou-

The Fundamentals sand years before Socrates was born. Not from the Romans, masters of jurisprudence, for these words antedate the found ing of Rome, by seven hundred and fifty years.; They come from our Heavenly Father and they embody the great sep tenary law which runs through nature ; therefore it is of equal application to every nation on earth. The Sabbath is the savings bank of human existence. It conserves man’s physi cal, mental, spiritual and eternal welfare. WHY THE FIRST DAY INSTEAD OF THE SEVENTH ? If you ask why the Jewish Saturday once observed as Lord’s Day was changed to the First Day, the answer is that Jesus proclaimed Himself Lord also of the Sabbath day, therefore greater than the statute law of Moses. Jesus is the incarnate Legislator of the world. As Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus had the right to interpret and ennoble the day, so that it might be the greatest institution for the culture of the three fold man. The Scribes and Pharisees had misconceived the genius of the Sabbath law. They missed its underlying prin ciple, encumbered it with intricate and inflexible rules, assum ing themselves to be the judges of every act. “The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life.” Jesus rescued the Sabbath from its burial under a mass of ceremonialism, and revealed its true spirit and meaning. “Jesus did for the Sabbath what a skipper does for his ship, when she comes laboring into port, unable to make headway, because her hulk is covered with barnacles. He puts her into drydock, and scrapes off the barnacles. He does not scuttle the ship. So our Lord does not repeal nor annul the Sabbath law when He strips it of the intolerable burdens which the ceremonialists had heaped upon i t ” In order to emphasize His new idea of the old Sabbath the disciples chose a new day as Lord’s Day. The disciples also desired to commemorate the greatest of all events since the world’s creation, namely, the resurrection of our Lord, for it was on the first day of the week that

Why Save the Lord’s Day? 7 Jesus made His first five appearances. It was also on the first day of the week that the Holy Spirit was given, there fore Pentecost was commemorated on that day. (Acts 2.) It was on this day also that the great tidings of salvation were first preached to the multitudes. (Acts 2.) The first day became the day in which all the early Christians assembled for worship, and for communion. (Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor. 11:23.) I t was the day also in which the prophecy of Rev elation was granted to St. John on Patmos. (Rev. 1:10.) All the church fathers kept the Lord’s Day instead of the Jewish Sabbath, and thus the Christian Sabbath became the weekly holy day of the Christian dispensation, and is the only Sabbath day mentioned as a sacred rest day after the resurrection, HAVE WE OUTGROWN THE SABBATH DAY? Is this king of days, created by our Father, sanctified by our Saviour, preserved by the Church, worth saving? Some would have us think we have outgrown it, that it belongs to another time, governed by different conditions. A moment’s thought will show that it is impossible to outgrow a law of nature, such as this septenary law is proved to be. And here are a few of the reasons: THE BODY NEEDS IT First, man has a body. Experience proves that the nor mal level of bodily energy cannot be maintained without the regular observance of a stated day of rest. We are like seven-day clocks that run down and have to be*rewound. We are like musical instruments that play well for a time and get out of tune. We are storage batteries that leak their vital currents, and must be recharged. There was never an age when humanity needed this weekly rest-day more than now. Think of the fierce competition of modem business, and the relentless law of the survival of the strongest! Think of the

The Fundamentals feverish hurry and hustle of our American people! Ian Maclaren wrote thus about us: “I am now in New York, where everybody seems to be in a hurry. I asked a police man what the excitement was all about. He thought I was joking. No one walks to business who can ride in a street car ; none rides in a street car who can ride in a steam car, and he regrets there is no pneumatic tube by which he might be shot to his office or shop. When there, he does not write letters if he can telegraph, or telegraph if he can telephone, and regrets there is no occupation for his feet while waiting at the phone.” There is magnetism in our oxygen which stimulates our blood and explains our American push and rush. H . , . , The difficulty, with our splendid American activity and achievement, is to arrest the momentum. Men rush so hard through the week that the Day of Rest finds them in the rush ing mood. It is hard to stop. They want to do something or go somewhere, or keep up the pace by some dissipating use of the Lord’s Day. Hence the Sunday excursions which gen erally make an incursion into the week’s wages, and leave the working man more tired on that night than any other of t e week. And there are Sunday amusements and dinner parties and receptions. But the human organism is not a machine of iron to run without rest, but a delicate bundle of nerves and tissues. But even iron machinery does better work and lasts ionger when it has periodic rests, as the superintendent of the Pennsylvania railroad said recently about their locomotives. . THE MIND NEEDS IT Second, man has a mind. I t is a fact of common record that no set of men can keep working the same mental tread mill day after day without blunting the keen edge of their intellectual faculties. Note the employees who are held at their monotonous grind seven days out of seven, month after month, and you will observe that the average intelligence and

Why Save the Lord’s Day?

moral standards are low. They read scarcely anything and take practically no interest in current events. A boy asked his father to take him “next Sunday to see the animals at the Bronx Zoo.” The father has to work seven days a week, and he replied, “You needn’t go to the Bronx to see animals; look at me, I am not much different from the horses I drive in front of my milk wagon,” Do you wonder Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man? For man, that he might be something different from an animal. As soon as God had created man He ordained the Sabbath, because He knew the needs of man. We can ill afford to make light of God’s merciful pro vision of this weekly arrest of physical and mental toil. Sci ence supports the Divine law by showing in the analysis of the blood, that during our application to work through the week we recover in one night’s rest only five-sixths of the ounce of oxygen consumed out of our system by the day s labor. Each morning finds one-sixth of an ounce lacking, so that a man is run down at the end of the week to the extent of that whole ounce of vitality. The Lord’s Day is a physiological necessity for the restoration of that one ounce. When a man presumes to be wiser than this law of nature and of God, he usually pays the penalty by breaking down with that peculiar malady “Americanitis,” a compound of insomnia and nervous debility. Then the physician most likely prescribes a sea voyage, for that will be an enforced rest for the depleted system. But a proper observance of the Lord’s day would have supplied that very need, because the Lord’s Day is a sea voyage between the two continents of monotony and drudgery. There would be little need of pro longed trips abroad, or sojourns in a sanatarium, if the Sab bath could have its claims respected. Fifty-two Sabbaths a year tiiean nearly two months vacation to every worker. When a man wipes the Sabbath out of his calendar he breaks a law of nature, and nature always squares accounts with broken

The Fundamentals

law. O f .many another could this doggerel be truthfully spoken concerning a man: *Who spent his health to get his wealth. And then with might and main He turned around and spent his wealth To get his health again,” THE SOUL NEEDS IT Third, man has a soul. A great jurist recently said: “ In this strenuous age, our republic, instead of making light of one Sabbath, ought to have two each week, not only to re pair its jaded nerves, but to tone up its moral sense.” We have not fulfilled all the command when we have rested the body and diverted the mind. The soul has its rights, and not to recognize them is to leave our nature a truncated cone, the highest, finest part left undeveloped. We read of Jesus that “He went as His custom was into the synagogue on the Sab bath day.” That His soul might keep its tryst with God, have larger breathing space, clearer light, and glimpses of .the cen ter of the spiritual universe, in which our spirits join and have their being. If Jesus needed that privilege, much more do we ordinary men. The shell fishes on the sea-shore live without water while the tide is out, but they depend upon the tide’s return. If any of them are tossed by the waves beyond the reach of the tides, they die. Our souls are refreshed and nourished by communion with our Father in prayer, and through the means of grace provided by Divine worship on the Lord’s Day. I t is then we lay hold of our best yearnings, and stiffen them into fighting fibre for victorious warfare with the world, the flesh and the devil. The artist Turner kept on his easel a handful of precious stones of beautiful colors. For a half hour each morning he would silently sit and gaze at those glorious tints. He said he did this to keep his color-sense acute. If the artist’s eye needed that influence to keep its color sense toned up, surely

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Why Save the Lord’s Day? 11 the human soul needs the tonic influence of spiritual wor ship. What is the cloud that looms over every man's path every day? Not sorrow, not poverty, not sickness, not busi ness reverses. The cloud that looms over every path is TEMPTATION. Some time ago a man who had riot been in church for many years, secured a pew in his old church, and is now one of its regular attendants. Someorie asked him the reason. He said, “I have a growing family of sons and daughters. I have been watching my boys with some anxiety. I am alarmed at what I read in the daily papers about the ways of the world, the ease with which men under temptation gO down like reeds in the wind, the frequency with which husbands and wives break up their homes.- I am con vinced there is only one place to bring up a family of chil dren, and that is the church.” Who will question that father’s judgment? He does not want his sons to grow up without moral anchorage, he does not want his daughters to marry those who will play fast and loose with honor, and he knows that the church with its worship is the place where ideals are burnished up, where the dust is cleansed from the soul’s wings, where false standards are corrected. I f a busy brain worker could see a photograph of his mind as it appears on Saturday night, with its six layers of toil and grime, representing the six days contact with the world, he would see himself much in need of a spiritual bath on the Lord’s Day. The average breadwinner is a human foot ball, tossed hither and yon from the goal of Monday to the goal of Saturday, and literally dumped into the Sabbath morn ing bruised from the battle. He is apt to feel soured and out of sorts; and nothing so soothes the wounds as contact with the people of God in the Lord’s house. A COMPLETE MAN So the Sabbath was made for man, that he might be in every sense MAN! Something more than a beast of burden,

The Fundamentals something more than ,a cash-register, something more than a pendulum swinging between his home and his business. In an ordinary lifetime of seventy years there are ten years of Sun days. Therefore the manner in which a man keeps those three thousand six hundred and forty Sabbaths will make its impress on the man’s life for all eternity. When a man says and thinks that he has a right to do as he pleases on the Lord’s Day, with no reference to the sacredness of the day, or its claims upon his soul, we may con clude that man has not accepted his Heavenly Father’s estir mate of the worth of a man. He assesses himself at a lower value. God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. But the man says, “I will rub out the Divine lineaments. God started me on an immortal journey but I am satisfied to let it end in the graveyard.” There isn’t much use trying to reason with a man who puts the body first and last, who regards his face as a mere opening for the alimentary canal, and who allows the lower nature to pre side at the funeral of the higher. Man, do you think the Almighty God made a mistake when He started you on an eternal journey? Is your soul a joke? Has God not said: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord and honorable and shall honor Him in not doing thy own ways, nor finding thy own pleasure, nor speaking thy own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isa. 58:13, 14.) THE LAW OF LIBERTY There are those who say, “I f the Sabbath was made for man, why may he not do as he pleases with it?” Because it was made for man’s liberty, not for man’s license, and the highest liberty is always found in conformity to law. So

Why Save the Lord’s Day?

long as my doings affect no one else’s liberty, I may do as I choose, but the moment I cross some one else’s rights, I am not free to do as I choose. I am limited by the higher law of brotherly love. If you think you are at liberty to travel on the Lord’s Day or attend a ball-game or concert on that day, you are not conforming to the law of brotherly love in that you force your fellow man to work for you on the day that you enjoy your freedom. But you reply, “Those people who toil on the Lord’s Day receive extra pay.” Extra pay 1My friend, there is not gold enough in the bosom of the eternal hills to compensate a single toiler for his loss of the day of rest. EVERY MAN HAS A RIGHT TO HIS MAN HOOD, AND NO MONEY COMPENSATION. CAN RE PLACE THE LOSS OF MANHOOD. “But the train of cars that I board on the Sabbath would run anyway, and I might as well go on it.” My friend, how does that cancel your share of the moral responsibility for having forced your brother man to violate the law of the Sabbath? “Well, I am so busy during the week that I have no other day for recreation. From Monday to Saturday I grind like Samson at the mill.” Yes, but you are no busier than the Sabbath-keeping toilers who manage to get their recreation at other times. If you honestly believe that you have no other day than the Lord’s Day for your pleasure seeking, I ask you in all solemnity, have you any other day for the culture of your spiritual life? When are you going to attend to your immortal soul? Now is the accepted time, what are you do ing with it ? Some one has said, “The Lord’s Day is like a rented house; it belongs to the proprietor, it is occupied by the tenant, but the tenant has no right to say, ‘I will do what I please with this house, damage it, desecrate it, turn it into an* evil resort.’ No, the house is his to use and not abuse. The Sabbath is ours in the same way; he who diverts it from its proper purpose is dishonest. AVill a man rob God? If a tramp tells me a pitiful tale and I have seven silver dollars

The Fundamentals and give six of them, what would you think of the ingrate if you were told he came at night and robbed me of the seventh ? I wonder what God thinks of the man to whom He gives six days for his own free use and finds the man appropriating to himself that which is specially stamped as God’s.” What is the use of a Lord’s Day if it is to be swamped between the secular tide of one worldly week gone, and of another coming, and to have nothing about it that distin guishes it from all the other days, except in some fanciful alteration in the style of its wordliness or carnality ? Look at the people who have spent the entire Sabbath in pleasure seeking. Not one gleam of spiritual light in their faces, not one crumb of spiritual food in their souls, going to bed at night a day’s march nearer home. Home? Yes, if home is the grave and eternal death . Otherwise a day’s march farther from home, if home is God, and if heaven is an experience into which men graduate from this earthly season of moral training and spiritual acquisition. BLUE LAWS BETTER THAN RED ANARCHY We are not pleading for a Puritan Sunday of bigotry or intolerance. We are not pleading for blue laws. But as be tween bigotry and a mush of concession give us bigotry every time. And even the bluest of blue laws would be preferable to red anarchy. We appeal for a safe and sane Sabbath, not in the interests of the Church or religion, but in the interests of all the people, believers and unbelievers, because the Sab bath was made for mankind. When I stood the other day in the little log cabin where Abraham Lincoln first saw the light, I thought of his regard for the Sabbath, and there came to my mind these words of his: “As we keep, or break, the Sab bath day, we nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope by which man rises.” It is true there are many noble people who never get a Sabbath to themselves. They are busy in works of necessity

Why Save the Lord’s Day?

f and mercy. Jesus Himself sets the example of this, and leaves to our enlightened consciences to judge what is necessary, and what is not, to do on His day. The fundamental principle is to be “in the spirit on the Lord’s Day,” to be in tune with our Lord’s mind, to be in harmony with our Lord’s will. So if you ask what rules do you suggest for the proper observance of the Lord’s Day I answer, THERE IS NO RULE BUT THE GOLDEN RULE THAT CAN GOVERN OUR RE LATION TO THE LORD’S DAY. Therefore, before I give a Sunday house party, or travel for my own pleasure, or talk a lot of twaddle at the telephone on the Lord’s Day I will say, “I would not like to be obliged myself to work on Sunday; therefore it is wrong for me to oblige others to work. I will not buy a Sunday paper, knowing that I am forcing a hundred and fifty thousand compositors and press- men to work seven days out o f: seven, and fobbing a great army of men and boys of their right to a day of rest and wor ship. True, that newsboy is poor, and needs the money, but I refuse to take advantage of that boy’s poverty by contrib- uting to his moral detriment. I t is bad that he is poor, it is worse that I should make him a law-breaker.” All over this country a hundred thousand boys are training for manhood with no reverence for the Sabbath, and no respect for au thority, in order to supply a Sunday newspaper for people who would be infinitely better off to have one whole day in which the dust and rubbish of six secular days could not enter. When the attempt to introduce a Sunday newspaper was made in London, the “Evening Post” commented: “The best view which can be taken of our own Sunday newspapers must be that they are a nuisance. They are twice cursed; they curse him that prints them and him that reads them. They add new terrors to Sunday. On purely humanitarian grounds, without allowing theological reasons to have any weight' whatever, we could wish them all away. If there is any more pathetic sight than a man deliberately sitting down p I ' .§ 4^ VJ * * I \ 1 p iJb . I i ’ VV

16 The Fundamentals to wade through a sextuple Sunday newspaper, we do not know what it is.” That is the new indictment of the Sunday press from a secular viewpoint. We may easily see the harm it does from a spiritual viewpoint. A mind that has waded through the Sunday sheet is no more prepared for spiritual thoughts than is a man’s clothing for appearance at church after rambling over fields of burdocks and nettles. The very purpose of the Sabbath was to give God’s children one whole day free from the suggestions and contaminations of a wicked world. IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY O men, does it not touch a tender place in your hearts whe

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you hear of the multitudes of wage earners who are plead ing for a Sabbath restday? Railroad men, miners, actors, craftsmen of all sorts, signing petitions for a recognition of their right to a weekly day of rest, making their appeal on the grounds of common humanity. Here is one from a mem ber of the bartenders’ union. He said: “I cannot of course appeal to you from the standpoint of religion, but we have some interests in common with other men. I am myself the father of three children, but I scarcely know them. I am up in the morning before they are awake, and I return a t ;night after they are in bed. This I do seven days a week, year in and year out.” That from the bartenders’ union. And simi lar appeals are made from thousands of other toilers; because every man has a right to his manhood, and the Sabbath was made for man. n THE PLAIN DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN

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For Christian men and women there can be only one course of action. There may be perplexing situations at times, where even a Christian will be puzzled to decide just what to do; but with a mind brought, as the Apostle says, “into captivity to the obedience of Christ” the ground is level

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Why Save the Lord’s Day?

and the air cleared for meeting them. When we fully recog nize the Lord’s lordship of this Day of days, we will never go far astray. Every question as to the proper observance of it will be dealt with in its Divine relations to our Divine Master. I t is more than half the answer to any question to be in time with the principles involved in the solution of the question. “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day,” said the Apostle. To keep that pregnant phrase in mind will settle the details of every program of conduct on that day. God help us all to resist the drift of Sabbath seculariza tion. Doubtless it will cost us something to be loyal to prin ciple in this day of many jelly fish Christians, who have opin ions without convictions, and prejudices without principles. A refreshing shadow of a great rock in a weary land is the man of convictions and principles who can resist the drifting sands of a loose interpretation of the Divine commands. The demand today is for rock Christians. We are living in a time when the people who settle questions of right and wrong for themselves seem to be in a minority. In matters of morals and dress most of us go in droves. A few people act as brain for the many, a few people act as conscience for the many. But we who have the light of God’s Word need not be mas tered by the mob. One is our Master, even Christ. A great many people are doing certain things on the Lord’s Day, not because they have settled the question, as between themselves and their Lord, but because they have settled it as between themselves and their own preferences, or as between them selves and their associates. Let us be rock Christians, who will keep the Lord’s Day holy because it holds us in touch with eternal and Divine things, and because it celebrates our relation to our Divine Master; and because the Lord’s Day is the guerdon of our national prosperity, the hope of our civilization ; and because the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken: “Them that honor Me I will honor.” ,

CHAPTER I I THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL BY CANON G. OSBORNE TROOP, M. A., MONTREAL, CANADA

The whole Bible is stamped with the Divine “Hall-Mark” ; but the Gospel according to St. John is primus inter pares. Through it, as through a transparency, we gaze entranced into the very holy of holies,: where; shines in unearthly glory “the great vision of the face of Christ”, Yet man’s per versity has made it the “storm center” of New Testament criticism, doubtless for the very reason that it bears such unwavering testimony both to the deity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and to His perfect humanity. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel is no unhistoric, idealized vision of the later, dreaming church, but is, as it practically claims to be, the picture drawn by “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, an eye-witness of the blood and water that flowed from His pierced side. These may appear to be mere unsupported statements, and as such will at once be dismissed by a scien tific reader. Nevertheless the appeal of this article is to the instinct of the “one flock” of the “one Shepherd”. “They know His voice” . . . “a stranger will they not follow.” 1. There is one passage in this Gospel that flashes like lightning—it dazzles our eyes by its very glory. To the broken-hearted Martha the Lord Jesus says with startling suddenness, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and who soever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.” I t is humbly but confidently submitted that these words are utterly beyond the reach of human invention. I t could

The Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel

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never have entered the heart of man to say, "1 am the resur rection and the life.” “There is a resurrection and a life,” would have been a great and notable saying, but this Speaker identifies Himself with the resurrection and with life eternal. The words can only be born from above, and He who utters them is worthy of the utmost adoration of the surrendered soul. In an earlier chapter John records a certain question addressed to and answered by pur Lord in a manner which has no counterpart in the world’s literature. “What shall we do,” the eager people cry ; “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” “This is the work of God , our Lord replies, “that ye believe on Him whom: He hath sent” (John 6:28, 29). I venture to say that such an answer to such a question has no parallel. This is the work of God that ye accept ME. I am the Root of the tree which bears the only fruit pleasing to God. Our Lord states the converse of this in chapter 16, when He says that the Holy Spirit will “convict the world of sin . . . because they believe not on ME.” The root of all evil is unbelief in Christ. The condemning sin of the world lies in the rejection of the Redeemer. Here we have the root of righteousness and the root of sin in the acceptance or rejection of His wondrous personality. This is unique, and proclaims the Speaker to be “separate from sinners” though “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Truly, “He is His own best evidence, His witness is within.” 2. Pass on to the fourteenth chapter, so loved of all Christians. Listen to that Voice, which is as the voice of many waters, as it sounds in the ears of the troubled disciples: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in ME. In My Father’s house are many mansions: i f it were not so, 1 would have told you. I go to prepare a place

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The Fundamentals for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Who is he who dares to say: “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me” ? He ventures thus to speak because He is the Father’s Son. Man’s son is man: can God’s Son be anything less than God? Elsewhere in this Gospel He says: “I and the Father are one”. The fourteenth chapter reveals the Lord Jesus as completely at home in the heavenly cbmpany. He speaks of His Father and of the Holy Spirit as Himself being one of the utterly holy Family. He knows all about His Father’s house with its many mansions. He was familiar with it before the world was. Mark well, too, the exquisite touch of transparent truthfulness: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” An ear-witness alone could have caught and preserved that touching parenthesis, and who more likely than the disciple whom Jesus loved? As we leave this famous chapter let us not forget to note the wondrous words in verse 23: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and WE will come unto him and make our abode with him.” This saying can only be characterized as blasphemous, if it be not the true utterance of one equal with God. On the other hand, does any reasonable man seriously think that such words originated in the mind of a forger ? “Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice”, and surely that voice is here. 3. When we come to chapter 17 we pass indeed into the very inner chamber of the King of kings. It records the high-priestly prayer of our Lord, when He “lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son that Thy Son 'may also glorify Thee.” Let any man propose to himself the awful task of forging such a prayer, and putting it into the mouth of an imaginary Christ. The brain reels at the very thought of it. I t is, hbwever, per-

The Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel 21 fectly natural that St. John should record it. I t must have fallen upon the ears of himself and his fellow-disciples amidst an awe-stricken Silence in which they could hear the very throbbing of their listening hearts. For their very hearts were listening through their ears as the Son poured out His soul unto the Father. It is a rare privilege, and one from which most men would sensitively shrink, to listen even to a fellow-man alone with God. Yet the Lord Jesus in the midst of His disciples laid bare His very soul before His Father, as really as if He had been alone with Him. He prayed with the cross and its awful death full in view, but in the prayer there is no slightest hint of failure or regret, and there is no trace of confession of sin or need of forgive ness. These are all indelible marks of genuineness. I t would have been impossible for a sinful man to conceive such a prayer. But all is consistent with the character of Him who “spake as never man spake”, and could challenge the world to convict Him of sin. With such thoughts in mind let us now look more closely into the words of the prayer itself. “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: As ThoU hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom, Thou hast sent.” Here we have again the calm placing of Himself on a level with the Father in connection with eternal life. And it is not out of place to recall the consistency of this utterance with that often-called “Johannine” saying recorded in S t Matthew and St. Luke: “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father; save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.” We read also in St. John 14:6: “No man cometh unto

The Fundamentals the Father but by Me”. And as we reverently proceed further in the prayer we find Him saying: “And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” , These words are natural to the Father’s Son as we know and worship Him, but they are beyond the reach of an unin spired man, and who can imagine a forger inspired of the Holy Ghost? Such words would, however, be graven upon the very heart of an ear-witness such as the disciple whom Jesus loved. We have in this prayer also the fuller revelation of the one flock” and “one Shepherd” pictured in chapter ten : “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." In these holy words there breathes a cry for such a unity as never entered into the heart of mortal man to dream of. I t is no cold and formal ecclesiastical unity, such as that suggested by the curious and unhappy mistranslation of “one fold” for “one flock” in St. John 10:16. I t is the living unity of the liying flock with the living Shepherd of the living God. It is actually the same as the unity subsisting between the Father and the Son. And according to St. Paul in Rom. 8:19, the .creation is waiting for its revelation. The one Shepherd has from the beginning had His one flock in answer to His prayer, but the world has not yet seen it, and is therefore still unconvinced that our Jesus is indeed the Sent of God. The world has. seen the Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church, but the Holy Catholic Church

The Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel 23 tio eye as yet has seen but God’s. For the Holy Catholic Church and the Shepherd’s one flock are one and the same, and the world will not see either “till He come.” The Holy Catholic Church is an object of faith and not of sight, and so is the one flock. In spite of all attempts at elimination and organization wheat and tares together grow, and sheep and wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing are found together in the earthly pasture grounds. But when the Good Shepherd returns He will bring His beautiful flock with Him, and eventually the world will see and believe. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” ^ , . . . The mystery of this spiritual unity lies hidden m the high- priestly prayer, but we may feel sure that no forger could ever discover it, for many of those who profess and call themselves Christians are blind to it even yet. . . . . with every mark of sincerity and truth. What mere human imagination could evolve the noble words: “My kingdom is not of this world; if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence . . . To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice” ? The whole wondrous story of the betrayal, the denial, the trial the condemnation and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, as given through St. John, breathes with the living sympathy 0f an eye-witness. The account, moreover, is as wonderful. in the delicacy of its reserve as in the simplicity of its recital. I t is entirely free from sensationalism and every form of exaggeration. I t is calm and judicial in the highest degree. I f it is written by the inspired disciple whom Jesus loved, all is natural and easily “understanded of the people” ; while on 4.

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The Fundamentals any other supposition, it is fraught with difficulties that can not be explained away. “I am not credulous enough to be an unbeliever,” is a wise saying in this as in many s im i l a r connections. 5. The Gospel opens and closes with surpassing grandeur. With Divine dignity it links itself with the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. , . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” What a lifelike contrast with this sublime description is found in the introduction of John the Baptist: There came a man sent from God whose name was John”. In the incarnation Christ did not become a man but man. Moreover in this St. Paul and St. John are in entire agree ment. “There is one God”, says St. Paul to Timothy; “one Mediator also between God and man —Himself Maw—Christ Jesus. The reality of the Divine Redeemer’s human nature is beautifully manifested in the touching interview between the weary Saviour and the guilty Samaritan woman at the well; as also in His perfect human friendship with Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, culminating in the price less words, “Jesus wept”. And-so by the bitter way of the Cross the grandeur of the incarnation passes into the glory of the resurrection. The last two chapters are alive with thrilling incident. If any one wishes to form a true conception of what those brief chapters contain, let him read “Jesus and the Resurrection,” by the saintly Bishop of Durham (Dr. Handley Moule) and his cup of holy joy will fill to overflowing. At the empty tomb we breathe the air of the unseen kingdom, and presently we gaze enraptured on the face of the Crucified but risen and ever- living King. Mary Magdalene, standing in her broken-hearted despair, is all unconscious of the wondrous fact that holy

The Internal Evidence of the Fourth Gospel 25 angels are right in front of her and standing behind her is her living Lord and Master. Slowly but surely the glad story spreads from lip to lip and heart to heart, until even the honest but stubborn Thomas is brought to his knees, crying in a burst of remorseful, adoring joy, “My Lord and my God!” Then comes the lovely story of the fruitless all-night toil of the seven fishermen, the appearance at dawn of the Stranger on the beach, the miraculous draught o f fishes, the glad cry of recognition, “I t is the Lord!” the never-to-be- forgotten breakfast with the risen Saviour, and His searching interview with Peter, passing into the mystery of St. John’s old age. In all these swiftly-drawn outlines we feel ourselves instinctively in the presence of the truth. We are crowned with the Saviour’s beatitude': “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed,” and we are ready to yield a glad assent to the statement which closes chapter twenty: “Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life in His Name.”

CHAPTER I I I . THE NATURE OF REGENERATION BY THOMAS BOSTON (1676-1732)

Ì. For the better understanding of the nature of regen eration, take this along with you, in the first place, that as there are false conceptions in nature, so there are also in grace : by these many are deluded, mistaking some partial changes made upon them for this great and thorough change. To remove such mistakes, let these few things be considered : 1. Many call the Church their mother, whom God will not own to be His children. “My mother’s children,” that is, false brethren, “were angry with me” (Cant. 1 :6 ) . All that are baptized, are not born again. Simon was baptized, yet still “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts §: 13-23). Where Christianity is the religion of the country, many are called by the name of Christ, who have no more of Him than the name : and no wonder, for the devil had his goats among Christ’s sheep, in those places where but few professed the Christian religion. “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2 :19). 2. Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men’s lusts, but cannot change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his good tutor Jehoiada; but afterwards he quickly showed what spirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy (2 Chron. 24:2-18). Good example is of mighty, influence to change the outward man; but that change often goes off when a man changes his company ; of which the world affords many sad instances. 3. A turning from open profanity to civility and sobriety falls short of this saving change. Some are, for a while, very 26

The Nature of Regeneration 27 loose, especially in their younger years; but at length they reform, and leave their profane courses. Here is a change, yet only such as may be found in men utterly void o f the grace of God, and whose righteousness is so far from exceed ing, that it does not come up to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. 4. One may engage in all the outward duties of religion, and yet not be born again. Though lead be cast into various shapes, it remains still but a base metal. Men may escape the pollutions of the world, and yet be but dogs and swine (2 Pet. 2:20-22). All the external acts of religion are within die compass of natural abilities. Yea, hypocrites may have the counterfeit of all the graces of the Spirit: for we read of “true holiness” (Epji. 4 :2 3 ) ; and “faith unfeigned” (1 Tim. 1 :1 5 ) ; which shows us that there is a counterfeit holiness, and a feigned faith. 5. Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of religion, and yet be strangers to the new birth. “After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived.a Phari see” (Acts 26 :5 ). Nature has its own unsanctified strictness in religion. The Pharisees had so much of it that they looked on Christ as little better than a mere libertine. A man whose conscience has been awakened, and who lives under the felt influence of the covenant of works, what will he not do that is within the compass of natural abilities ? It is a truth, though it came out of a hellish mouth, that “skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2 :4 ) . 6. A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many “have been in pain,” that have but, as it were, “brought forth wind.” There may be sore pangs and throes of conscience, which turn to nothing at last. Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions as made them desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented him self; and under terrors of conscience, gave back his ill-gotten pieces of silver. All is not gold that glitters. Trees may bios-

28 The Fundamentals som fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest: and some have sharp soul exercises; which áre nothing hut foretastes of hell. ' < The new birth, however in appearance hopefully begun, may be márred two ways: First, Some, like Zarah (Gen. 38: 28, 29), are brought to the birth, but go back again. They have sharp convictions for a while; but these go off, and they become as careless about their salvation, and as profane as ever and usually worse than ever; “their last state is worse than their first” (Matt. 12:45). They get awakening grace, but not converting grace and that goes off by degrees, as the light of the declining day, till it issue in midnight darkness. 1 >, , L jjr -

Secondly, Some, like Ishmael, come forth too soon; they are born before the time of the promise. (Gen. 16:2; com pare Gal. 4:22, etc.) They take up with a mere law-work, and stay not till the time of the promise of the Gospel. They snatch at consolation, not waiting till it be given them; and foolishly draw their comfort from the laW that wounded them. They apply the healing plaster to themselves, before their 'wound is sufficiently searched. The law, that rigorous hus band, severely beats them, and throws in curses and vengeance upon their souls; then they fall to reforming, praying, mourn- ing, promising, and vowing, till this ghost’be laid; which done, they fall asleep again in the arms of the law: but they are never shaken out of themselves and their own righteousness, nor brought forward to Jesus Christ.

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Lastly, There may be a wonderful moving of the affec- tions, in souls that are not at all touched with regenerating grace. Where there is no grace, there may, notwithstanding, be a flood of teárs, as in Esau, “who found no place of re pentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:17). There may be great flashes of joy ; as in the hearers of the Word, represented in the parable by the stony ground, who “anon with joy receive it” (Matt. 13:20). There may also be great desires after good things, and great delight in f >»► , 1 JL ,

The Nature of Regeneration

them too; as in those hypocrites described in Isa. 58:2: “Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways: they take delight in approaching to God.” See how high they may some times stand, who yet fall away (Heb. 6:4-6). They may be “enlightened, taste of the heavenly gift,” be “partakers of the Holy Ghost, taste the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come.” Common operations of the Divine Spirit, like a land flood, make a strange turning of things upside down : but when they are over, all runs again in the ordinary channel. All these things may be, where the sanctifying Spirit of Christ never rests upon the soul, but the stony heart still remains; and in that case these affections cannot but wither, because they have no root. But regeneration is a real thorough change, whereby the man is made a hew creature. (2 Cor. 5:17.) The Lord God makes the creature a new creature, as the goldsmith melts down the vessel of dishonor, and makes it a vessel of honor. Man is, in respect of his spiritual State, altogether disjointed by the fall; every faculty of the soul is, as it were, dislocated: in regeneration the Lord loosens every joint, and sets it right again. Now this change made in regeneration, is: 1. A change of qualities or dispositions : it is not a change of the substance, but of the qualities of the soul. Vicious qualities are removed,and the contrary dispositions are brought in, in their room. “The old man is put off” (Eph. 4 :2 2 ) ; “the new man put on” (ver. 24). Man lost none of the ra tional faculties of his soul by sin: he had an understanding still, but it was darkened; he had still a will, but it was con trary to the will of God. So in regeneration, there is not a new substance created, but new qualities are infused; light instead of darkness, righteousness instead of unrighteousness. 2. I t is a supernatural change; he that is born again, is bom of the Spirit: (John 3 :5 .) Great changes may be made by the power of nature, especially when assissted by external revelation. Nature may be so elevated by the common in-

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The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.10