PREACHING CHRIST. "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."-1 Cor., ii., 1, 2. THE great men of the world are those who discover or apply great truths to the times in which they live, in such a manner as to work effectual reformations of society. A man is great, not by the measure of his faculty, but by the results which he produces in life. Paul was, then, one of the greatest. He was greater than Peter, than John, than any since the days of Moses. Moses and Paul may be said to have formed the religious ages of the old and of the new dispensations. Moses framed the civil and ethical truths into institutions. David added the poetic and lyric element. Paul gave to his age the great organizing truths, and furnished in his own conduct an example of how to employ them. John added the interior reflective, sentimental element. And so John was to Paul what David was to Moses. It is more than a matter of curiosity, when a man has been raised up of God to do great things, to have him give a view of his own life, its aims and methods. Paul here sounds the key-note of his life and course. "I, brethren, when I came to you (he had been with them, and gone away again; and now he was writing in retrospect, and disclosing what was the secret of his career), came not with excellency of speech (with rhetorical power, and force of eloquence), or of wisdom (I was not a dialectician, nor a philosopher, a lover of learning, so called), declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." He did not come relying for success upon fancy, upon a sense of the beautiful as employed in rhetoric, nor upon intellectual forces. You will take notice, in all the preceding chapter and in this, that it is not Christ, but Christ crucified, Christ with his cross, that was the essential qualifying particular. The bruised, the broken Christ was that which he was determined to know. He did not mean, then, to be a skirmisher, nor an elegant trifler. He did not propose to be a routinist, either through ceremonies or dialectics. The work which opened before the mind of the apostle was so radical and profound that he was from the beginning conscious that nothing but the very influence of God himself, and the infinite truths revealed in Christ, could effect it. He says, "What I had to do could not be done by mere eloquence and beauty of expression. I might have charmed by rhetorical flourishes, but they would not have changed the individual. I might have recited poetry, but passion is never extinguished by poetry. That which I had before me demanded something more than mere reasoning upon propositions. I could have instructed the understanding, but that would not have done the work that I was sent to do, namely, the work of changing the heart." For it was his business to work a thorough change of disposition, of life, and of character in the individual men that came under his influence. And it was his purpose, prophetically discerned, no doubt, in families and neighborhoods to lay the foundation for the renovation of society itself, so that all the institutions of the world should at last come to stand upon new and religious bases. What could be greater than this work? It was to be done, not by intellectual force, by philosophy, by doctrine, by right statements of facts or reasonings, by the play of fancy, nor by any amusements or tragic representations. Many things were going on in the age of the apostle for the renovation, or rather the restraint of men's passions. It is not correct to suppose that only after Christ came was any attempt made to benefit men. Great efforts for the right culture of men were made before the Advent. But it was a work imperfectly understood-that society, that classes of men were to be educated. Even in Grecian cities there was some good. In the school of philosophy, and in the various other schools, there were noble natures that were laboring for the elevation of men. Even in the Epicurean-which is esteemed the lowest-there were elements that yearned after and pointed toward goodness. The Sophists were not wholly foolish and trivial. There were many things, also, on the stage and in scenic representations that sought to do good. In barbaric ages, when men learn mostly through the senses, even the stage may conduce to good morals; but society must be very low where the theatre can be made effectual for its elevation. And so, in the days of the apostle, there were men that satirized vices, and represented evil in its hideous guises. There were the temples of the various deities, and the various observances of religion, which, though they may have sprung from wrong notions of God, and though they were utterly inadequate as a religious system, were of some benefit; for he must be bold and ignorant who would say that all these things had no benefits in them. But yet bolder and more ignorant must he be who would say that Sophists, the drama, and the heathen ceremonials were sufficient to lift men above their passions, exalt nations, and to do that for civilization which has been done by Christianity. Paul set himself free from all these things, and declared what was the power by which he hoped to achieve his work. He did not declare that he meant to exclude from consideration every thing that related to secular topics. His declaration had nothing to do with the topics on which he would speak. His whole course negatives the idea that he meant. to preach on no other subject except Christ and him cruci fied; for there never was a man that discoursed on a greater variety of topics than he did. Many persons suppose that this was the spirit of the declaration: "When I came among you, I determined to speak about the Lord Jesus Christ in every sermon, on every occasion, always and every where." Many persons have attempted to copy this misinterpreted example of the apostle. It is recounted by a distinguished preacher that his mother made him promise that he would never preach a sermon from which a soul, that never was to hear another sermon, could not derive an idea of the plan of salvation by Jesus Christ. I can scarcely conceive any thing more shallow than to tie a man up to such an idea of preaching that in every sermon, whether it be on profane swearing, Sabbath-breaking, or neglect in paying debts, he must, at the close, drag in a formula of salvation by Jesus Christ. What a conception of religious instruction is that which leads one to suppose that every sermon should have such a termination! It has no justification in any thing that the apostle here says. The declaration is only a comprehensive renunciation of secular interests and influences as instrumentalities, or as working powers. When a man goes into a community to work, he instinctively says, "How shall I reach these men? What things will I employ for their renovation? What are the sources of power from which I will draw my influence ?" The apostle says, "After looking over the whole field, I made up my mind that in attempting the renova tion of men I would not rely on my power as a speaker, nor upon my ability to discourse rhetorically or eloquently, nor upon my intellectual forces." This had been done by many a man with great cogency. Grecian philosophers had spoken against vices. Thinkers, and men of wisdom in every age, had labored to suppress evil. And Paul, looking at such men as Socrates and Plato, said, "I meant, like them, to employ the soundest logic of which I was capable; I meant to make the best use of my reasoning power; but I did not |