grace not only favors but requires and ensures a growing holiness in all its subjects. The very nature of the case leads believers to live unto God and die unto sin. This is not to be understood to the disparagement of the law, for that, as the expression of God's will, is itself supremely excellent. But it cannot make holy; its tendency in sinful man is rather to excite and exasperate sin. This failure sets in vivid contrast the glory and blessedness of a free life in the Spirit by which the flesh is subdued, afflictions are sanctified, and the weakest believer becomes more than conqueror. The final certainty of this. result is expressed in a strain of lofty and impassioned utterance than which, according to Erasmus, "Cicero never said anything more eloquent."

Still there was a sad exception to the universality of the salvation thus described, in the unbelief of the Jews. The apostle explains this lamentable truth by a reference to the divine sovereignty. God has mercy upon whom He will, and no sinful creature can ever bring his Maker under obligations to him. That any are saved is due only to God's electing grace; that any are lost is due only to their sin. The Jews stumbled and fell, because they would not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. Still their rejection is not total nor final. There is, there always has been, a remnant according to the election of grace. And, moreover, a day is coming when the natural branches of the olive tree once lopped off shall be grafted in again, and this shall be as life from the dead. The fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. In view of this consummation and the way in which it is to be reached, the writer breaks out into an exuberant doxology, the sublimest apostrophe to be found in the pages of inspiration itself.

Here come in the agenda, incidentally and subordinately, as they must do in every scheme which does not turn religion into an ethical system. The apostle treats of individual, relative, social and civil duties, as well as of the true nature and limits of Christian liberty, with precision and force. But the remarkable thing is not the nature of the precepts. The chief rules of ethics have been the same in all ages, and Christianity is noted not so much for new views of moral duties. as for its furnishing a new spring of action which governs the life and makes it a continual offering to God. In this epistle the apostle first lays the foundation in the credenda and then on the basis of the wondrous grace shown in the whole provision for man's spiritual need urges the consecration of heart and life to the Lord. A holy walk is not presented as the consideration by which heaven is gained, but rather as the necessary outcome of a genuine faith and a hearty and

cheerful

work for

return for the "mercies of God." The Christian does not

wages,

but gladly consecrates the life he lives in the flesh to

the glory of that Savior who loved him and gave Himself for him. If

he lives, he lives unto the Lord; if he dies, he dies unto the Lord, so that living or dying he is the Lord's.

Thus the doctrinal and the practical parts of the epistle are all of one piece and cohere together in indissoluble union. They show that truth is in order to godliness. Creed is not sacrificed to commandment, nor commandment to creed, but the two coalesce in a vital connection. The edifice of Christian character is built upon immovable foundations of doctrine. And on the other hand dogma, instead of being a bundle of dry and withered sticks, is a living tree like that of the Apocalypse which bears twelve manner of fruits and yields its fruit every month.

It is no wonder then that this epistle has in every age been the theme of comment and argumentation. It deals with such fundamental questions, it treats them in a style so profound and masterly, it comes home so close to the deepest needs of man's nature, its scope is so vast, taking in as it does the entire race in all its history from the beginning to the end, its bearing upon the nature, perfections and counsel of the infinite mind is so direct, that men could not afford to pass it by. Sometimes the author amid the crowd of critics has had the fate ascribed by Warburton to Job of having his brains sucked out by owls, but the long line of expositors, beginning in the Nicene age and coming down to this present, includes the names of the most distinguished intellects the church has to show. And in every period of trial or of peril this book has always come to the front. Its masculine theology, its lofty tone, its searching analysis, its comprehensive sweep, its uncompromising fidelity to truth, its deference to the written word, its reverence, its sympathy, and its purity, compelled the admiration of the scholar and the faith of the believer. There are depths in it which no human mind is able to trace, yet on its surface lie truths which feed the soul and strengthen the purpose even of beginners in the school of Christ. Philosophical theories come and go, tastes change, there are fashions in speculation as in other things, but the ultimate relations of man and God, especially of sinful man and a holy God are the same in all ages, and nowhere in all the world are they set forth so clearly and systematically and profoundly as in the Epistle to the Romans. And no man who faithfully studies its pages will ever become a sciolist in philosophy, a quack in education, a crank in the pulpit, or a heretic in religion.

V.-CONDITIONS OF PULPIT POWER.

NO. II.

BY PROF. WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.

Ir is perhaps time now that I should give some idea of what I mean by Pulpit Power. I do not mean popularity. Popularity is no measure of power in a preacher. As a general rule, a preacher, other things. being equal, wins popularity in an inverse, rather than in a direct, ratio to the true power that he exerts. Your popularity means that you please the people. You lead them only in appearance, not at all in reality. You go before them in the path where they already wanted to go. They applaud you because you say what they desire to hear. Say what they need to hear, and their applause will wait. Popularity has a numerous following. Power often stands alone. The popular preacher has the majority with him now. The powerful preacher has his majority by and by. The powerful preacher is Luther alone in the Council at Worms. The popular preacher need not, in fact, he must not, believe too strongly in preaching. But to have power in preaching it is indispensable that a preacher believe in preaching.

But a preacher may believe in preaching without having any very clear conception of what preaching is. Such a preacher, however, notwithstanding his faith, cannot be a powerful preacher. I lay it down accordingly as the second condition of pulpit power that the preacher should have a sharp and clear conscious conception of what preaching is. I do not say a right conception. I say now simply a conception-a good, definite, positive conception of some sort; a conception that is at least vivid and conscious, if it be a wrong conception. Such a distinct conception of what preaching is, I believe to be at this particular time a much-needed condition of pulpit power. There is, if I mistake not, in many ministers' thinking, a good deal vagueness at precisely this point. But vagueness here is weakness, and it is for this reason, I am persuaded, that we so frequently see a good minister, a minister who has a perfectly genuine and a profound faith in preaching, yet fulfilling a ministry not attended with indications of real pulpit power. It is not faith, it is clear conception, that

of

is wanting.

Now there is one element in preaching as to which vagueness of conception is, happily, impossible. No one can possibly be in the fog about the fact that preaching is speaking. The element of talk that enters into preaching is too plain for anybody to miss. Beyond this, however, there is abundant chance for uncertainty of thought. To be Sure, people generally further agree that preaching ought to be of a religious nature. That preaching is religious discourse, would be

about as sharp a definition of preaching as many a preacher could give. But evidently "religious discourse" is a very vague description. Preaching may be very indistinctly conceived under so general a definition as that. The vivid conception that generates power, demands for itself some intenser, some more aggressive expression. Preaching must have an aim beyond itself. Preaching for the sake of preaching, a sermon for the sake of a sermon, is not saved from being imbecile by being religious. Not the subject, but the object, of your discourse constitutes your discourse what it is. Here is the point at which perfect sharpness and clearness of conception are necessary, in order to power in preaching. Something, indeed, more than sharpness and clearness of conception are necessary, in order to the truest and highest power. But without at least so much, preaching is inevitably condemned to feebleness.

Few ministers perhaps consciously preach with a mere view to supplying a certain amount of preaching. But unconsciously some ministers do this. They may do it with a degree of honest faith, too, that good will come of their preaching. And good does come of it. Such preaching has some real power. But the power falls infinitely short of what the power of preaching ought to be. Its object is not sharply enough conceived.

There are ministers who more or less consciously aim at making themselves acceptable to their hearers. They mean upon the whole to preach the gospel, but at all events they wish to satisfy the average expectation. This object, the aim to be "acceptable" preachers, dares hardly define itself too clearly to self-consciousness. But it is not the less real for being unconfessed. It creates a double motive, which makes everything doubtful. You sometimes seem to recognize in such preachers the authentic voice of an apostle. At other times, you can discern only the timid appeal of a candidate for your favor. The power of preaching like this is subject to much tare. There lacks the condition of a single motive. The preacher does not conceive distinctly enough what preaching should be.

When a preacher proposes to himself the saving of men as the one object of his preaching, he makes a great advance toward that simplicity and clearness of conception which is so essential a condition of pulpit power. I do not say that he quite reaches thus the true limit where simplicity and clearness are at their greatest. But he has made a long stride in advance. The saving of men, however, is still too uncertain a term to be a good goal. It gives too much play to that infirmity of our nature, the fondness for indulging our individual will. We are too much at liberty to conceive as we choose, what it is to save Our conception is liable to waver, and we then suffer the loss of power that wavering conception always entails. One of the admirable things in Mr. Beecher's "Yale Lectures on Preaching" was the dis

men.

closure which the lecturer makes in them of his idea of preaching. This idea has the merit of great simplicity and perfect clearness. Therein lies the secret of the power which Mr. Beecher's preaching so long exerted. He had an aim, a sharp, clear, single, conscious aim. Toward that aim his whole pulpit career steadily drove. He made no deviations, no circuits, that were not intended to help his arrival at the goal. The goal was never out of his sight. The vagaries with which, while it was yet a matter of serious concern to the general publie what he taught, Mr. Beecher used to be charged, are all of them reduced to consistency when you know what his idea of preaching was. Mr. Beecher says that his idea of preaching was that the preacher should aim at "reconstructed manhood." You may observe that the general notion of "saving men" is specialized and interpreted here into something more individual and definite. "Reconstructed manhood" was Mr. Beecher's conception of the aim of preaching. His whole pulpit career was a continuous effort to realize this idea. His voluminous record of sermons might be read in the light of this disclosure, and reconciled into entire consistency with itself. He always consistently sought to make men over-to bring them back to their own highest ideal to reconstruct in them their ruined manhood. And this intensely vivid conception of his aim, tenaciously adhered to, is what gave Mr. Beecher his pulpit power.

But a preacher may have a sharp and clear conscious conception of what preaching is, without having yet fulfilled the most fruitful condition of pulpit power. I proceed to lay it down as the third condition of power for the pulpit that the preacher should have the right conception of what preaching is. Mere definiteness and firmness of conception, as to the object of preaching, ensures to the preacher a considerable accession of power. But he must have his definite and firm conception right, if he would exert his just measure of power in preaching much more if he would have the quality of his power

pure.

Now there is, as I hold, just one right conception of what preaching should be. This one right conception of preaching Mr. Beecher never reached. Mr. Beecher's mistake lay in making what properly was but a certain result of preaching constitute the aim of preaching. "Reconstructed manhood" is one of the glorious results which may be expected to follow right preaching. But it is not the proper aim of preaching. It puts the wrong thing in the centre. Not man, God, in the centre, is the right Copernican order. Not to reconstruct manhood-not to save men-this is not the true sovereign aim of preaching. The true sovereign aim of preaching is something for the sake of God, rather than anything for the sake of man.

but

The mistake of Mr. Beecher's definition lay therefore first, in making that the aim, which should be chiefly a result, of preaching. It un