by W.G.T. Shedd D.D.
Gentlemen of the Graduating Class: The object of an address from a Seminary Faculty to a class of young men just leaving the institution for the serious work of their life must be, to speak if possible a few words that shall be “the words of the wise, which are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies.” Eccl. 12:11. There is little time for the expansion of ideas, and no call for laboured instruction. Let me, then, in the briefest manner possible, bring to your thought two or three injunctions that are suited to all times, and specially to this time.
1. In the first place, remember that your special work among mankind is, to teach revealed truth.
You have not studied ten or fifteen years in order to conduct trade, to invent arts, to manage politics, but to convey ideas. Your function is that of instructors. And it is instruction of the highest order: that which relates to the immortality of man and the infinite part of his existence. Let nothing divert you from this kind of labour. If you are asked to leave it, and take the government of a kingdom, or the control of immense material interests, say with Nehemiah, “I am doing a great work; I cannot come down.” Nehem. 6:3. Devote your entire future life, be it ten years or forty, to the instruction of your fellow-men in the doctrines of the Christian religion, so that at the close of it you can say: “I have not accumulated wealth, I have not swayed senates, but I have taught the Word of God.” “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest.” Ps. 40:9.
2. In the second place, remember that he who teaches revealed truth to mankind, glorifies God in the highest degree possible to a feeble instrument like man.
He who erects a temple for divine worship honours God. He who founds a university or builds a hospital from Christian love for man, honours God. He who performs any kind of Christian service, be it a gift of cold water, honours God. All such service is accepted and rewarded. But the very highest service which any human creature can render here upon earth to the Triune God, is to preach his Word. When Christ chose twelve men to be the teachers of mankind in the truths of his religion, he exalted them above all the Cæsars. What emperor, what poet, what philosopher, to-day, stands so high in the scale as St Paul? When Christ calls a man to the ministry of the Word, he calls him to do a work for which he is himself personally more concerned than he is for any other.
The secret of the interest which God takes in the truths which you are to teach, lies in the fact that they centre in the redeeming work of the Son of God. Redemption is a Trinitarian transaction. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost originate and execute it. Hence their infinite concern for its success. We forget, in our puzzle over the problem of sin, that the dreadful effects of sin are not confined to man the sinner. The permission of evil has not only ruined man, but has involved the merciful Godhead in an immense self-sacrifice. The entrance of sin into this lower world, has cost God the holy more than it has cost man the sinner. Not all men together have suffered so much, or will suffer so much, for their own sin, as God incarnate has vicariously suffered for it. The Lord Jesus Christ can say to every sinner upon earth: “You have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin. You have not in anguish cried, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. You have not in agony exclaimed, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
This stupendous self-sacrifice on the part of one of the Trinitarian persons, accounts for the Divine zeal for that system of truth connected with the crucifixion of the Lord of glory, and explains God’s interest in the preaching of the gospel. God infinitely desires the success of it; and the success of it he has made to depend upon the teaching of it to all the world by the Christian ministry. Whoever, therefore, preaches Christ the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, does a human act, than which there is none higher in the Divine estimation. In the great day, there will be many rewards of varying value for varying services. Our Lord will speak an applauding word to every faithful disciple. But to that minister of the Word who, utterly unknown to the busy secular world, lived and died among the benighted heathen, he will address a plaudit to which the mass of the church is not entitled: “Well done; for thou hast preached my cross and passion; thou hast, instrumentally, sprinkled my blood upon human souls.” “I saw,” says St. John, “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived and reigned not, until the thousand years were finished.” Rev. 20:4,5.
3. In the third place, remember that he honours God most highly, who preaches God’s truth most truly.
When Dante reaches the ninth and last heaven of Paradise, he hears from Beatrice a vehement denunciation of certain theologians and preachers of those days, whose ignorance or avarice induced them to substitute their own inventions for the pure word of the Gospel. She then tells him that: “Christ said not to his first conventicle, ‘Go forth and preach impostures to the world.’ But gave them truth to build on; and the sound Was mighty on their lips: nor needed they, Beside the gospel, other spear or shield, To aid them in their warfare for the faith.” Paradise, xxix, 115-19. All truth is powerful in proportion as it is thoroughly stated. A half-truth is weaker than a whole-truth. Dilutions are not pungent. The secret of intellectual power is intellectual intensity. When there is a zeal for God’s house, the zeal eats up both the speaker and hearer. This was that devouring energy that made the Son of God so earnest, when, on the way to Jerusalem and the bitter cross, he strode on before the disciples and “they were amazed.” Mark 10:32. The Redeemer never stated truth languidly or hesitatingly. His double, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” implies that his perception was thorough, and his belief undoubting.
Now, this must be the style of his ministers. They are ambassadors in his place, and they must not appear before men querying and doubting, but asserting and demonstrating. They cannot, indeed, speak with that almighty and overwhelming power that belonged to their Divine Lord; and he does not require this of them. The Lord Jesus Christ was never foiled in an argument; and he always silenced his opponent. He spake as never man spake. But the minister of Christ can possess some of his Master’s power. If he follows him closely, if he studies him closely, if he communes with him closely, he will derive from him some of that spiritual energy, that sincere downrightness, and that holy boldness, which compels the attention and respect of the human mind.
Endeavour, then, during the twenty or forty years that you shall be giving religious instruction to your fellow-men, endeavour to present the whole truth. Adopt no hesitating and half-way views. Make no hesitating and half-hearted statements. Preach the truth truly.
4. In the fourth place, remember that revealed truth must be preached exclusively.
When the Emperor Galerius lay dying in the hope that the God of the Christians might possibly give him the help which all his supplications to the heathen divinities had not succeeded in obtaining, he issued an edict abolishing the persecuting laws against the Christians, permitting them to erect their sacred edifices, and to perform their public worship unmolested. But with this condition: that they should do nothing to weaken the old religion of the Roman Empire, and should not attempt to convert any one from the religion of his ancestors to the new Christianity. (Mosheim’s Commentaries, ii., 452.) The requirement was, that Christianity should be only one of several religions: e pluribus unum. The Christians could not accept such a deliverance from persecution as this. They had received a commission to preach the gospel to every creature under heaven, and to proclaim to the wide world, with all its nationalities and religions, that there is no other name, under heaven, given among men, whereby they must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They understood Christianity to be an exclusive religion. They were not willing to place the bust of Jesus Christ in the Pagan pantheon with those of Jupiter and Apollo. They would go to the stake, rather than promise not to endeavour to convert men from paganism to Christianity.
Now, this must be the spirit of Christ’s ministers in all time. They cannot consent to put the Christian gospel among the religiones licitae, the allowable religions. This is the demand now made upon the Christian church, in some quarters. A class of popular but superficial writers are actually proposing to Christendom that it receive religious instruction from Boodha, and get divine illumination from the “Light of Asia.” Naturalism, both in literature and science, denies the exclusiveness of Christ’s gospel, and with Pope, in his Universal Prayer, calls upon the
Father of all, in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.
To grant this demand, is to destroy Christianity. Because it proceeds upon the assumption that man has no sin that requires atonement and remission, and no corruption that necessitates regeneration. This theory of one universal religion made up of a conglomeration of all religions, supposes the essential soundness of human nature, and denies the doctrines of man’s guilt and Christ’s vicarious sacrifice. It implies that humanity, by means of its natural religious sentiment and its progressive tendencies, can lift itself up from lower to higher grades of character and condition.
Now if there is any one postulate more antagonistic than another to the claims of Christ and his religion, it is this. And if there is any one demand made by this portion of the educated classes that is to be more determinedly repelled than another, it is this. “Think not,” said the Founder of Christianity. “that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword.” Matt. 10:34. Let no man think that those cardinal doctrines and facts of the Christian religion which are grounded in the assumption of the fall and ruin of all mankind, can be made to harmonize with any schemes that deny or overlook this. Christianity will recognize whatever elements of ethical truth there are in the natural ethnic religions, expelling the large amount of error mixed with them, but will never stoop to be classified with them, or to be put upon an equality with them.
But some man will say: “This will make the Christian minister haughty and intolerant. This will bring back the middle ages, and the tyranny of the Papal church.” Not so, if the Christian minister counts himself as the mere servant, and an unworthy servant, of his divine Lord and Master. If he regards himself as teaching the results of his own investigation, and the product of his own discoveries in religion, then, indeed, to proclaim an exclusive religion will be the height of vanity, and also of absurdity. But if he sinks and buries out of sight his own feeble and fallible personality, in the wisdom and authority of divine revelation, and of the high command: “Go, preach my gospel to every creature,” he will not be a proud man, but a very lowly one. When Moses and Aaron, in a moment of egotism, said to the people: “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10), their pride wakened the divine displeasure, and they were chastised by not being permitted to bring the people into the promised land. But when Moses said to Jehovah: “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence” (Ex. 33:15), he was the meekest of men.
Neither need the minister of the Christian religion be feared on the ground of intolerance. The days of bloody persecution are over. The conflict now is that of ideas and opinions. Every creed is tolerated. The atheist can blaspheme his Creator to his heart’s content on a public platform, with none to molest him or make him afraid. A polygamous community dwells unharmed in the midst of Christian institutions. He who wants more toleration than this, wants, in the phrase of Sancho, “better bread than can be made of wheat.” But some men do ask for more. They require that opinions upon the grave and solemn subjects of human responsibility and destiny which clash with their own, be surrendered. They call it intolerance, when a Christian denomination holds a strong creed, and insists that its clergy hold it, and preach it. They denominate it bigotry, when Christian churches refuse to accept certain tenets, or to do anything that will promote their extension among men. Now if this is intolerance, it must be tolerated. Opinions must be left free. Every man must be permitted to think for himself, and form positive and fixed views if he please. And so must every association of men. It is too late for the “liberal” theologian to say to an ecclesiastical denomination, “You shall not be Calvinists, nor require that those who voluntarily join you shall be so likewise or be expelled from the body.”
When, therefore, great and influential masses of men organize themselves into churches founded upon creeds derived in their opinion from an infallible revelation, they are not to be charged with an intolerant and persecuting spirit. The conflict between them and their opponents is largely intellectual, though not wholly so, because the heart is concerned as well as the head. It is a question of logic as well as faith. The closest reasoner, not the inquisitor with thumb-screw and rack, will carry the day. If Celsus argues more powerfully than Origen, Hume than Butler, Strauss than Neander; if in the long sweep of the ages skepticism evinces a purer reason and a deeper intuition than faith, then skepticism will conquer the human intellect, and take it captive. Let both grow together, then, until the harvest, and as the Christian church brings no charge of bigotry and intolerance against the disbeliever, so neither let the disbeliever bring this charge against the Christian church.
Gentlemen of the Graduating Class: You stand now on the threshold of ministerial life. The years of preparation and public irresponsibility are behind you. Before you, are those of leadership and accountability. You are now to guide opinions, and particularly the religious opinions of men. Upon the clergy, depends very greatly the mode of thinking, and the tone of feeling, in the Christian church. If you are clear, bold, and firm in your statement of divine truth, you can be tracked by the positive and energetic churches which will respect you, and cling to you with hooks of steel; and you will be remembered long after this brief life is over, by the transmitted vigor and force of your ministry. St. Paul exhorted Timothy to “make full proof” of his ministry. This meant a concentration of his power; a full performance of the duties of his calling. Those of us who can look back over forty years of intellectual and spiritual service can see a failure in this respect. If called to pass over it once more, they would endeavour to live a more simple, a more sincere, a more undivided life. The glory of God, the honour of Christ the Lord, is the one motive that simplifies and concentrates human service. There is no scattering of energy, when that end is before a man. We are not our own. We did not create ourselves; we do not uphold ourselves; and we do not redeem ourselves. But we live and labour too much as if we had a private and independent existence of our own. We do not lose ourselves in God, and hence our work is mixed with subtle references to self. This makes us anxious; and anxiety weakens and discourages. Endeavour to discharge your coming ministry in simplicity and godly sincerity. Then you will not be cast down by seeming failure, or elated by success. Your ministerial life will be calm; the close of it will be eternal peace; and the result of it a far greater amount of usefulness than can be reached by any other method.
“The Lord bless you, and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” This ancient benediction your instructors utter with all their heart, as they now bid you a most hopeful, and a most affectionate, Farewell.