BT 701 B28 PREFACE. THE forms in which the Christian faith is now assailed are, 1. As to the Father. It is sought to destroy the idea of a personal God by obliterating the distinction between matter and spirit, and making nature the sufficient cause and end of all things. 2. As to the Son. His mission is reduced to the level of this natural system and compressed within its limits. All that assumes to transcend these limits, not excepting that transcendent miracle upon which the whole structure of Christianity rests, the Resurrection, is rejected or thrust out of sight behind that mythical veil which conceals the origin of all religions. In this view the perfected natural man becomes of right the Son of God and Heir of the world. 3. As to the Spirit. It is denied that He proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and speci ally from the risen Son of man, as that new creating energy by which all things are to be made new, both in the region of man's life and in that physical system to which he stands related. It is affirmed that all things must continue as they were, and that whatever renovation is effected in man, or in the system of things to which he belongs, must be wrought out by the well-known agencies of nature, and must proceed according to her fixed and unchanging laws. And so the thoughts of men are turned away from Him" Who is and Who was and Who is to come." This volume does not oppose these errors with scientific treatise nor yet with elaborate exegesis. It is made up of fervid pulpit utterances, which, while not disdaining the teachings of science, seek to carry some new light into her realms from Scripture, enabling us to look across her boundaries and to catch glimpses of the veiled face of our Father God. And they project light, from the same source, upon the mystery of the Christ and behind the veil which now conceals Him, and show what meaning attaches to manhood in the light of this manifestation of God and of the glory which is yet to be revealed. And they show what harvest the Spirit is ripening on these fields of creation, of which His first fruits in our hearts and bodies are the earnest and the pledge. They are now sent forth upon whatever mission of instruction, of comfort, or of warning the God of all grace and truth may have in store for 'them. 1* |