USA > New York > Orange County > Newburgh > Centennial celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Newburgh, New York, 1784-1884 > Part 7
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Before the Incarnation this key was not furnished, and faith in a future expla- nation was all that could content the inquiring thoughts of holy inen of old, even when they spake as moved by the Holy Ghost, " searching what or what inanner
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of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified before- hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister; " these prophecies, " God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect " or be initiated into the great mystery of God. Now, it is just here that the question arises in the thoughtful inind: "Why was this manifestation so long delayed? Why did not Cain's bloody hand do the part of Caiaphas, and the incarnate God perform his wondrous act of humiliation at the very gate of Eden? Why was not the cross erected at the beginning of the long procession of our race, that all men from the first inight have enjoyed the privilege, now accorded to ns, of looking upon a historic, rather than a typic Christ? Why should scores and scores of generations have staggered through the gloom before the day-star arose and showed men the place of their feet?" The question is not an easy one to answer. The usual reply, that God wished to show inan his lost condition by a long historic example of his wickedness, scarcely suffices. If this were all, then why should not the deluge have marked the boundary between the old and the new? The race had then had sixteen centuries of sin and misery, until the waves of judgment washed them all but one family away. Was it necessary to wait twenty-five centuries longer before the world could see its own wickedness and need ? Did those twenty-five centuries add anything to the deficiency of the six- teen previous centuries ?
These objections are at least as good as the argument, and the original question comes back to us for solution. We are under no necessity to answer it at all. Faith will be perfectly satified to recognize the Lord's sovereign will, and there leave the perplexity, knowing that He is infinitely wise as well as infinitely good, and that we are not in the position of either critics or expounders of His purposes. But if we find an answer to the natural query in the revealed Word of God, then assuredly we are entitled to the benefit of its illumination, and must by it gain a fuller view of the work of God's redeeming love.
Our text, we think, suggests a solution. We are told by another apostle (I Peter: 1, 12) that the angels of heaven take the profoundest interest in the marvels of re- demption; and it has been generally held that the turning of the faces of the cheru- bim toward the mercy seat upon the ark of the covenant was a significant token of this assured fact. The prophet Daniel represents the angelic beings inquiring carefully as to the times of Messianic fulfilment, and the angelic appearances that greeted our Saviour's life from Bethlehem to the Garden are instances of the intense interest which filled the higher intelligence in relation to the great work of the incarnate God. We know but little of those vast hosts of the pure inhabitants of the pure heaven. We know they minister to saints on earth and that they are agents to the Most High in His government of the universe. We know, too, that there are differences among them, such as may be designated by the different names of angels, principalities, powers, mights, dominions, thrones ; but what those differences are we cannot determine. We know, too, that their number is countless, indicated by the phrase "ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thou- sands." (Rev. 5, 11.) And we know, too, (and this is what our text declares) that they are students of the manifold wisdom of God in the mystery of the incarnation and its results. Not only for us is the great movement of the divine compassion made, but for the education of the myriads upon inyriads who were never sinners, but who are earnestly studying the Divine character in its eternal working. "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known the manifold wisdom of God." Here are new factors in the great question before us. Our view is enlarged, and we see, far beyond our earth and our race, the story of redemption inaking its mighty impression upon all the sentient subjects of the throne of God. From the first promise given in Eden, all along ages of pa- triarchs, kings and prophets to the Judean stable, the Galilean carpenter shop and the dark tragedy of Golgotha, and thence through centuries of apostles and teach- ers of the glad tididgs to the very day, the entire universe of God has palpitated with a holy curiosity to know more and still more of this central mystery of man's redemption through the incarnate Diety. This glimpse beyond our world removes our isolation and brings us into closest contact with all that calls God king. Sin and salvation here forni no side action in the grand all, but touch the central his- tory of the universe, and are facts of moving interest wherever intelligence is found. The introduction of these spectators and profoundly interested investigators, ac- cepted students of the Most High's sublime school, give us a large margin for rea- sons why God deferred the great facts of Gethsemane and Calvary. As the sur-
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geon in his clinical operation has not only the subject to deal with, but a crowd of earnest learners, so (if this crude simile is allowed) the Infinite God of mercy and healing had not only our sinful race to treat, but the vast host of watching, study- ing intelligences, who, at every step, learned more of the manifold wisdom of God. All the promises and threatenings, the prophecies and manifestations by visions and dreams, the worship and preaching of lioly inen, the institution of sacrifices and purifications, the establishment and conduct of the Mosaic Church, the historic inovements of the chosen people, were all lessons to the host of heaven, on which they dwell with eagerness, as by them were revealed the perfections of the Divine character and government. They were being trained for the understanding of the Messianic coming, while they minister to the progressive steps of the Divine pur- pose. The angels at Abraham's tent and in Sodom, the destroying angel over Egypt and the heavenly army around Elisha at Dothan were, like the angels at Bethlehem and those upon the high mountain, and those at the Sepulchre, deeply concerned in all the events in which they took part. They were not inere servants sent to perform a perfunctory task, but disciples of the Almighty, coadjutors in the ac- complishment of His wise and good designs
Our text represents these angelic ranks as still waiting upon the Divine instruc- tion through the same great text-book, the revolving years of the history of re- demption-"to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God." They are still bending over the course of God's wonderful mercy to a sin-smitten race. They are still sent forth to minister for them who are about to inherit salvation. They still attach themselves to individual saints, so that these heavenly ministers are called "their angels" by the Lord Jesus Himself, (Matt. 18 : 10.) As by faith we know "the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father," so by faith we know the presence and iministry of the heavenly host. The same revelation declares both. The whole work of redemption is of faith. No philosophy can evolve it. It cannot be found in nature. Sin demanded for its cure something beyond either. Only on a distinct revelation from God, having no germinal con- nection with human philosophy or with a material universe, could the truth of re- demption be set forth, not to reason but to a most reasonable faith. We are shut up to the Word of God for light, and all that Word is light. There we behold the Incarnate God, there the sacrifice of the Divine Lamb which takes away sin, and there we behold the angelic ministry gladly learning, while they minister, froin the Church of Jesus as it lives and grows. Rationalisin has not to do with any one part of the revelation more than with the rest. And while rationalism can sub- tract nothing, superstition can add nothing. Each is alike a withdrawal of faith in the Divine light and a kindling of a human fire. It is in the Church then that the higher intelligences study the "variegated" wisdom of God. The mystery is no longer a mystery to them, as it was before the Messiah came, but the evolutions of that revealed mystery (we are told) the angels still desire to look into (I Peter 1 : 12.) The Incarnation, the Spirit's testimony, the ascension of the Messiah to his heavenly throne, as well as their own attendance upon the Messianic humiliation- these four parts of the apostolic analysis of the great mystery they have beheld as already accomplished and complete ; but the running of the Word of the Gospel and its glorification in the faith of the world, these other two items in the category still attract their zealous attention, and herein to these principalities and powers is daily made known the manifold wisdom of God. It is the living, growing Church they study. Let us then endeavor to answer the three questions : What is the Church? Wherein is their delight in its study ? And what influence upon the Church should this known position of the heavenly host exert ?
What is the Church? Our question, of course, has no reference to the primi- 1. tive assembly, nor to any mere aggregation of this, which may constitute the churches of a district or of all Christendom. It is the universal Church which an- gelic hosts regard. and their discernment assuredly does not require the outward and visible boundaries which are so apt to regulate a human definition. Iinmedi- ately before the description of the mystery of God (with which we began this dis- course) the apostle gives a statement regarding the Church, which may aid us in our inquiry. He there declares that the Church of God is the pillar and ground of the truth, or more exactly the pillar and es ablishment of the truth, which is a hen- dyadis for "the established pillar of the truth." If by this is meant that God's glorious truth of redemption rests upon the Church as its support, it must be as regards the truth's manifestation and not its existence. Assuredly no one could for a moment have so inverted a perception as to suppose that God's grand purpose
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of mercy and its efficient action in Christ Jesus depended on the Church, when the Church grows altogether out of that mercy and its marvellous activity. If the Church, as a pillar, supports God's truth it must be in somne such way as will not mar the truth if the support be withdrawn. God's eternal truth cannot be condi- tioned on human elements, however inuch those elements may enter into its inani- festation. This apostolic statement inust refer to the manifestation of God's truth, the fixed and firm way in which the Church on earth testifies of and reflects the mercy which came from heaven to save our race. What adds to this view of the declaration is the fact that the pillar in Jewish architecture really supported noth- ing, as it did in Egyptian, Greek and Roman edifices. There were but two pillars in the Jewish temple, and these, Jachin and Boaz, stood before the naos in wonder- ful majesty and beauty, but they supported nothing. Read the description of these superb shafts in the sacred record-"their chapiters of brass five cubits high, their nets of checker-work, their wreaths of chain-work, seven for each chapiter, their double rows of pomegranates, one hundred in each row, and the lily-work mingled . with all,"-and you catch some notion of the exquisite fairness of these two pillars at the porch of God's house. The context shows that the temple was in the Apostle's mind when he wrote, and these would be the pillars to suggest his reference. More- over, the names of the pillars, Jachin and Boaz, from the words signifying estab- lishment and strength, would prompt naturally the use of the word establishment in his writing. If we are correct in this view, then the more clearly is the Church, as a pillar of the truth, a pillar to manifest the beauty of the truth, and not in any sense a foundation on which the truth rests. In this same sense James, Cephas and John were pillars, not that they sustained the truth or the Church, but that they exhibited by their conspicuous and consistent lives the beauty of the truth and the excellency of the Church. The Church then, as the established pillar of God's truth, is the grand manifestation of the truth as it is in Jesus, as it concerns huinan re- demption. as it is the mystery of God in its living solution. It seems that this apos- tolic statement must withdraw us very far from all outward form and formula as our criterion in determining the Church. We must look for that which an- swers to the objective gospel by its subjective life. We must find pure character, divine life, godly communion, brotherly love, for these only, as a mirror, can reflect the grace which brought heaven down to earth. Ecclesiastical lineage, historic catenation, formal words can have no weight in the decision concerning the Church if its characteristic be the manifestation of the redeeming grace of God, the truth of the overwhelining mystery. And are we not brought by these considerations to regard the individual man, for it is each individual man who can receive by faith the truth into his life and so manifest it, and are we not compelled to say that the Church of God is the company of believers, no more, no less? Everything outward must grow from this centre, as the shell grows from the animal life and not the ani- mal life from the shell. If this, then, be the Church, we can readily answer our second question.
2. Wherein is the angels' delight in the study of the Church? It is just the de- velopment of the new divine nature implanted in man, binding men together not by carnal interest, but by holy love, growing broader, deeper through the ages toward millennial fullness. They must watch this with a thousand-fold the delight we witness the advent of Spring and the development of the new leafy year, as they remember the Paradise once given over to the fierce winter of sin, and look longingly for the new Eden with its myriad plants of grace and fruits of righteous- ness. Surely these are fit angelic studies. We cannot imagine those pure seraphic beings pleased with the pomps and splendors that dazzle the eyes of human multi- tudes and to which Kings are wont to give the name of "Church." We cannot picture these holy intelligences taking delight in the punctilios of an intricate ceremonial and captivated by the charms of earthly art. Our ininds revolt from so unseemly a conjunction. It is God's truth impressed upon the heart and life, the outgoings of love in its forms of forgiveness, forbearance, sympathy, patience, gentleness, and its combinations with godliness, faith, courage and exalted hope. Where loving Christians assemble, there the angels love to gather, and hence one of the apostolic arguments for carefulness and propriety in such assemblies is this -" because of the angels." The individual history of every believer must be a study of holy curiosity to the students of the divine mystery. Our Saviour became one of us. He entered fully into the race; and the great mystery of which he is the central figure may be said to be repeated in its movements in each soul wherein Christ is formed. Indeed the words of the Apostle are, "Great is the mystery of piety." Is it not the mystery which piety enacts as well as that which
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it beholds in the Redeemer? Is not the Christ-career (so to speak) repeated in each believer, for he lives not, but Christ lives in him. Look at the six points. God is manifest in his flesh, for he is the temple of the Holy Ghost; his new life is reckoned just in the Spirit's witness-he is thus justified in the Spirit; he is seen of angels according to the tenor of our theme; he is preached unto the Gentiles as his Christian conversation is known to all; he is believed on in the world, when he is trusted as the Saint of God; and at the close of his earthly career he is received up into glory. Does not each believer thus forn an appropriate study of the angelic host as he develops in himself the great mystery of God? Is it too much to believe that this Christ-life in inan draws to each believer the unwearying attention of heavenly companions? Does not Jacob's ladder have one, at least, of its fulfilments in this tracing of the likeness between Christ and His own redeeined ones as they abide in the earthly Bethel, the house of God, the Church of the living God ? This leads us to our last inquiry:
3. What influence upon the Church should this known position of the heavenly host exert ? It may be suggested that God's watchful interest in His People is enough ; that we need 110 other incentive than this in our course of grace toward the glory of God. But has not the apostle pointed us to Abrahamn, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Barak, Samuel, David and an innumerable conpany of glorified saints, with the encouraging cry: "Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race set before us." If we are to look to nien-glorified inen-as spectators of our course, and draw an argument for faithfulness froin this source, shall we not use the revealed fact of a countless host of angelic witnesses, inost eager in their watching, as an incentive to our holy living, as we press forward toward the mark for the prize of our high calling ? Is there not a new element of interest here which we find not either on one hand in the ranks of glorified saints or on the other in the sublime wishes of our God Himself ? Is there not (as we have used the phrase before) a holy curiosity in these that cannot mark the others who watch our heavenward way ? They are not oninicient as God is, and they have not had our experience as the glorified Saints have had it, and this lack in them gives us the power to present with fresh force to thein the developing power of the Christ-life in us. We can in- struct them in the ways of God's grace. We can make them start with new sur- prise by our new attainments in holiness. Here then is the lever which our text furnishes to the thoughtful Church for its elevation to a higher plane of godliness, a motive which if allowed to act, must have its own peculiar force in reinoving the inconsistencies which so often disfigure the Christian nanie. The view thus af- forded us gives a new depth of color to the inspired statement that God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and to that other sublime as- sertion that our citizenship is in heaven. If we walk, the conscious companions of the holy angels, the angelic standard of holiness will be ever before our minds checking the usurpations of selfishness and earthliness in a realın that is legit- imately divine. It would not be so inuch the action of the reason, syllogistic- ally enforcing our consistency, as the excitement of the heavenly affections and the higher spiritual taste. The divine instinct given us, when Christ is given us, would be directly addressed, and we should receive very much such influences as we might expect to receive if we were admitted to the actual society of the heavenly world with all our imperfections still upon us. We have a word used by religious writers, and yet, 'tis true, a clumsy word, which describes the condition of soul likely to be evolved under such influences as these: I mean "heavenly mind- edness," a condition in which the graces flourish without a touch of legality, and spontaneity replaces effort in the holy life.
It will not be said that, by thus setting before ourselves the angels' interest in the Church, we are withdrawing the attention from our Lord Himself, for the com- plexity of motives is a strengthening of each separate inotive in the aggregate. The more we give heed to the angelic witness, the more will the love of Clirist impel us. If, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, his own glory is only enhanced by his angelic accompaniment, surely in our own faith-view of our blessed Saviour, the beholding of the heavenly host will de- tract nothing from our admiring love for Him by whom they live and forin the ministry of salvation. Furthermore, if the Lord himself upon the high mountain and again in the garden of Gethsemane received the encouraging help of angelic companionship, surely his disciples, who are still in the vale of temptation, may find no danger in receiving a like encouragement from the same interested and sympa-
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thizing helpers. Still again, as our knowledge of Jesus himself may be increased by our study of his image in his own saint, so we may deepen our appreciation of our Lord by contemplating the holy ones on whom the reflection of His own radiance is ever seen, a contemplation possible to the soul only through the teach- ings of the Holy Ghost. To manifest the wisdom of God to the angelic world is then the motive which the text offers to the Church of God for its faithfulness and purity. That wisdom will be manifested in the increasing depth of personal piety and in the new conquests of the Church from the world. These are the lofty aims to which all forms, plans, methods, should be altogether subordinate and sub- sidiary. They are the great ends of redeeming grace, the essential evolution of the mystery of God. The affectionate interest of the holy intelligences is en- hanced as we run in the line of our Lord's great purpose and make fruitful the travail of His soul. To run counter to this, to build up an earthly structure, to substitute official dignities for spiritual ministries, to frame a perfunctory system for a warm and living communication, to magnify the letter at the expense of the spirit, is to chill the hearts of the heavenly witnesses and disappoint their earnest gaze. A due regard to these celestial students of our course will render the Church of Jesus not only more spiritual, but more united. The oneness of Christ's work will be reflected in the oneness of His people. All differences will be shunned as bringing a reproach upon the one faith and one baptismn, which have marked the Church from the world, and thus thwarting the angelic expectation to see the assimilating processes of the Holy Spirit perfected. The differences that now ob- tain in the Church of Christ, so far as they isolate one portion from another and form, in spite of protest, a quasi antagonism in the one mystical body, are a shame to those who emphasize them, and should arouse every believer to earnest, prayerful effort toward their obliteration. The quick recognition of the Christ-life in others and the ready union with all who possess that life in the common service of the Master should characterize every Christian for Christ's sake, for his brethren's sake, and because of the angels.
The Rev. F. B. Savage, of Union Presbyterian Church, of New- burgh, offered the closing prayer :
O Thou Great Head of the Church : We thank Thee for what we have heard this day of Thy dealings with this people. We thank Thee for the memories of the past, laden with the sweet fragrance of lives spent in Thy service, of the glorious witness to the power of the Gospel of Christ. We thank Thee that Thy people have so often met Thee in the Sanctuary, when the sacrifice having been made and the blood offered through Jesus Christ Thou hast been propitious to Thy people-Thy presence has gone with thein and Thou hast led thein. And now, as they stand on the threshold of another century, we pray that Thy presence may go with them, abiding in their midst, that the word preached by Thy servants from this sacred desk may prove the power of God and the wisdom of God to the salvation of many precious souls. And inay this people be "strengthened with inight in the inner man, that Christ inay dwell in their hearts by faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that they may be filled with all the fulness of God. Now, unto Himn that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us : unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end." Amen.
The congregation rose and sang with much spirit the following hymn, composed for the occasion by the Rev. J. Macnaughtan, of Newburgh, to the tune of " America." I.
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