Prayer

Almighty God, we do not know thy way: it is in the sea, it is in the great waters, it is in the midst of the firmament of heaven, and the clouds are the dust of thy feet, and thine eye shineth like lightning from the east even to the west. We have heard of thee, and our hearts have trembled with fear. We have thought of thee, and our spirits have glowed with love. Sometimes clouds and darkness are round about thee; sometimes the light is thy robe. We cannot tell what thou art, or what thou wilt be to us at any moment, but this great prayer we can utter through Jesus Christ our sacrifice: Give us thy Holy Spirit, and it shall be well with us. Let thy grace dwell in our hearts, beautiful as a guiding cloud in the daytime, radiant and warm as a flame of fire in the night season. If our hearts are filled with thy grace, there shall be no room for the enemy. Fill our hearts with thy truth, and our minds with thy light, as thy truth and thy light are known in the Son of God, and in our soul there shall be the seal of heaven.

We thank thee for thy book, so grand in doctrine, so wondrous in its outlook, so tender in its benedictions, so beautiful in all its gospels. May we know it, love it, reproduce it in our lives, and show that we are men in whom is the indwelling and inspiring God. May our life be a secret like thine own; may men take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and have learned of him. May we surprise them not by our information, but by our wisdom. Behind and above all that we say, may there be a mystery of light and of love, not to be solved by the common understanding. May we in Christ, thy Son, our Saviour, have bread that the world knoweth not of, and of the fulness of grace may we eat and drink abundantly day by day. Thou hast led us out of sin, and through a long wilderness of education and discipline. Lead us into Canaan's gardens, into the wider liberty, into the ampler spaces, and may our souls enjoy all the comfort and hope of spiritual freedom. Give us understanding of thy word. Show us how thy book is full of seed; show us that nothing in thy book has come to fruition; that we have in thy book the great seed house. May we sow the seed in good and honest hearts, and may it be watered with dew from heaven, warmed by the sun of thy righteousness and love, and may it bring forth not only according to its kind, but according to the kind of soil in which it is sown. Then shall thy church be a beautiful garden, a wondrous landscape with all beauteous growths adorning and enriching it, and heaven will smile to see a world so blest.

Thou knowest us altogether, our sharpest pain, our dullest care, the anxiety that gnaws the inmost heart, the joy that sings in the spring air like a bird, the hope that lures us with heavenly persuasion on to some nobler conquest and greater peace. According to our necessity and various condition, do thou now command thy blessing to rest upon every soul. We thank thee for all thy love; it comes before the rising of the sun, it remains through the shining of the stars, it is never withheld. We live upon it; without it we must needs die. Show us that though we are here but for a little while thou art preparing us for great revelations and supreme destinies; and in view of the joy that has yet to be, may we forget our little sorrows, may our woes be lost in the sea of gladness which thou hast prepared for us.

The Lord hold the light above his own book whilst we read it. The Lord cause a light to shine out of the book whilst we peruse it. The Lord turn over the pages with his own fingers. The Lord whisper to us the meaning of the spirit whilst we read the letter. The Lord speak to us from the cross of forgiveness, pardon, absolution, complete, entire, final; and to the release of forgiveness add the joy of sanctification. Amen.

Acts 7:1-53

1. Then said the high priest, Are these things so?

2. And he said, Men, [omit Men] brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory [the term is applied to the Incarnate Word, John 1:14] appeared unto our father [Stephen if even a proselyte might use this expression] Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, [his ancestral home was called Ur of the Chaldees] before he dwelt [the Greek word implies a settled residence] in Charran,

3. And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. [The destination of the emigrants was known before they started from Ur.]

4. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldæans, [with Babylon for its capital] and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed [caused him to migrate] him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.

5. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

6. And God spake on this wise, [Genesis 15:13-14] That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.

7. And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, [with great substance] and serve me in this place, [these words are not in the promise given to Abraham, but are taken from Exodus 3:12.]

8. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: [given the year before Isaac was born] and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.

9. And the patriarchs, moved with envy, [the same word is used Acts 17:5] sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, [the argument being that as God's presence is not circumscribed, neither should his worship be confined to place].

10. And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

11. Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt [the oldest MSS. omit the land of"] and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.

12. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first [before he himself went away from Canaan into Egypt].

13. And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh.

14. Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.

15. So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,

16. And were carried over into Sychem, [Shechem] and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.

17. But when [as] the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn [vouchsafed] to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

18. Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.

19. The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated ["made them to cut a great many channels for the river, and set them to build pyramids, forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour."—Josephus.] our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.

20. In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months:

21. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.

22. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

23. And when he was full forty years old, [the verb in the original intimates that the forty years were just being completed] it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.

24. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:

25. For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.

26. And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?

27. But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?

28. Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?

29. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, [probably the peninsula on which Mount Sinai stands] where he begat two sons [Gersham and Eliezer].

30. And when forty years [making Moses eighty years old] were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.

31. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him,

32. Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.

33. Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.

34. I have seen, I have seen [the Greek is an attempt to imitate an emphatic Hebrew construction, and is literally "having seen, I have seen"] the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

35. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send [the verb is in the perfect tense in the original] to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.

36. He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

37. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.

38. This is he, that was in the church [congregation] in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

39. To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

40. Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

41. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

42. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?

43. Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

45. Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

46. Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

47. But Solomon built him an house.

48. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,

49. Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?

50. Hath not my hand made all these things?

51. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

53. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

The Defence of Stephen

HOW does this speech happen to be here? It is a long one. Who put it down? It reads like a verbatim report; who reported it? It would be easy for the memory to carry a sentence or two; but who could record so long and so highly-informed a speech as the one which is given in this chapter? There was a young man listening to this speech with no friendly ear. His name was Saul. It is supposed that afterward, when he became Paul, he related this speech to Luke, who wrote it in this form. It is not a correct report. No man can report chain lightning. You may catch a little here and there of such eloquence, but the speech itself, in all the elements that lifted it up into historic importance, it was not in the power of memory to carry, or in the power of recollection to reproduce. This is not Stephen's speech, and you must not therefore hold him responsible for it; they did not give Stephen an opportunity of revising his speech. He spoke, and they hurried him on; the punctuation did not undergo the criticism of Stephen's eye. The speech itself is full of historic blunders and contradictions. It is Saul's recollection of Stephen's defence. It is little or nothing more. You have only to compare the Old Testament statements with the statements which Stephen is said to have made, and you will see at once discrepancy after discrepancy, and in one or two cases you will see blank and palpable contradiction. This gives us another view of inspiration than that which we have sometimes too narrowly held. The speech is true, and yet not factual. What is said here is Biblical, but not textual. There is no statement here made that is not spiritually true, and yet there are few sentences in the elaborate apology that may not be challenged on some technical ground. Some persons imagine that they are inspired when they are only technical. They forget that you may not have a single text in support of what you are stating, and yet may have the whole Bible in defence of it. The Bible is not a text, it is a tone; it is not a piece of technical evidence, it is an inspiration, a wind blowing where it listeth, to carry with it everywhere life, and freshness, and liberty.

Looking at this speech therefore not as a verbatim report, but as a résumé given by an unfriendly hearer, but a most friendly reporter, we may take it as giving the principal features in Stephen's character. The man who reported this speech to Luke made it the basis and the model of his own immortal apologies. Truly we sometimes borrow from unacknowledged sources; certainly we are sometimes indebted to unknown influences for some of our best inspirations. To think that a man whom they appointed with six others to watch over the ministration of tables should have become the first Christian martyr apologist, and should have given the model for the greatest speeches ever delivered by man, namely, the speeches of Paul himself when put upon his trial and defence, is surely a very miracle of Providence! How little Stephen knew what he was doing. Who really knows the issue and full effect of any action or speech? Who can tell what little sentences are quoted in the sick room, what suggestions are taken from the speaker's lips and sent in letters to those far away and ill at ease? Who can tell what echoes of spent eloquence follow the hearer through his daily engagements, and cheer him in days of dejection? Life is not marked off in so many inches and done with; it is full of reference, allusion, collateral and incidental bearing, so that an act done is not self-complete, but may be the beginning of endless other acts nobler than itself. Compare the great orations of Paul with the speech of Stephen, and you will be struck with the manner in which the scholar reproduced the master, and how Stephen transfused himself into Paul's very spirit, and was under God the making of that sublime Apostle.

I think it is fair criticism to infer the man from the speech on all occasions. It is sometimes proverbially said, "The voice is the man." We may enlarge that common saying, and declare with wisdom, I believe, that the speech is the character. Following this suggestion, what kind of man was Stephen, judged by the speech which is reported in this chapter? Accused of blasphemy, he is called upon for his defence. How does he reveal himself? Surely we may in the first instance describe him as a man well versed in the Scriptures. From beginning to end his speech is a Scriptural one; quotation follows quotation like shocks of thunder. There is very little of Stephen himself until he comes to the application of his Scriptural references. Stephen was a man who had read his Bible; therein he separates himself from the most of modern people. Personally I cannot call to mind a single person who ever read the Bible and disbelieved it. It belongs peculiarly to the Bible to get hold of its readers little by little; subtly it gets round about their souls, so that when they come to the amen of the Apocalypse they find themselves spiritually, if not literally, on their knees in homage to the Spirit of the Book. We all know numerous persons who abuse the Bible who have never read it. Such opposition is natural, and when lunacy becomes philosophy it will be about the most rational course to pursue. Not that such persons have not read parts of the Bible; such parts they have perused without understanding; they misquote every passage which they cite, and they make imperfect reference to every Biblical proposition they undertake to dispute. They do not distinguish between verse and Bible,—fractions and whole numbers. Who really knows the Bible by heart? It is the boast of some of us that we can recite from end to end five plays of Shakespeare, Who can recite the Book of Psalms? You call upon your little children to recite nonsense verses, and it is well enough that now and then the little ones should do so. Which of your children can recite a chapter of the Gospel according to John? Where is the man who can repeat word for word one of Paul's letters to the Corinthians? And would not some of us be posed if we were called upon at a moment's notice to recite six verses of Paul's letter to the Romans? Only the men who know the Bible should quote it. Only those who are steeped in the Scriptures, saturated through and through with Divine truth, should undertake to express any opinion about it. This is the law in all other criticism, and in common justice it ought to be the law in relation to the Book which we believe to be the inspired revelation of God. Is this not just? Are we asking for anything in the Church which would not be granted in the Polytechnic and the Lyceum? To undertake to discuss an author without knowing him, knowing him within his very spirit and purpose, is to trifle with the occasion, not to rise to its dignity and responsibility. When the Church knows its Bible well, we may trust it anywhere. When other voices arise to charm its ear, what piping voices they will be, what pitiful moans and feeble notes, after the infinite thunder and ineffable music of Moses and the Prophets, of the Psalms, and Evangelists of Christ?

Having this complete knowledge of Scripture, Stephen next shows himself to have been a man who took a broad and practical view of history. It is as difficult to find a man who has read history as to find a man who has read the Bible. History itself is a term which needs definition. A man does not know history because he can glibly repeat all the kings of England from the Conquest until now—that is not history. We justly ask our younger students to construct a party. Giving them this or that Pope as president of the Council, we say, collect around him the leading men of his day. It is interestng to watch how the table is supplied with visitors, how every chair is filled up, and how the symposium is completed with accuracy—but that is not history. You will find that history is not a letter, and is not to be reported in letters: it is a tone, an inspiration, a subtle, impalpable, all-involving something—full of voices, full of music, vibrating, throbbing with indefinable life and energy. You do not learn history from the books. From the books you learn the facts, but, in a sense which might be defended at length if requisite, having ascertained the facts, you must make history. The novelist is a better historian than the mere annalist, because history is an atmosphere. It is not only a panorama of passing incidents and anecdotes great and small; it is a spirit which only the wizard can evoke and express. Stephen lived in history. His was not a little rootless life that lay on the surface, that the sun could smite with withering fire. Stephen belonged to the past, and therefore to the present. Stephen was a member of a great and noble household, he was a link in a far-stretching chain, he was an element in a great composition. Why should we live the shallow life of men who have no history behind them? We are encompassed by a great cloud of witnesses. Behind us, the undying dead; beyond us, the immortal living. By what right do we dissociate ourselves from currents, historic and providential? We have no right to disennoble ourselves, and commit an act of dismembership which separates us from the agony, the responsibility, and the destiny of the race. In Christ we have all to be one. "The whole family in heaven and on earth" was the language of Paul; and that language ought to be ours if we would realize what it is to be sons of God, mighty in the Scriptures, and inspired by history.

Stephen was, in the third place, a man who was forced into action by his deep convictions. That is a word which has somehow slipped out of our vocabulary. Why should I say slipped out of our vocabulary? It has only done so because it has slipped out of our life. Who now has any convictions? Life is now a game, a series of expedients. It consists of a succession of experiments. It is a speculation, a bet, a fool's wager, a leap in the dark. It is not an embodied and sacrificial conviction. In the old, old days, men used to live because they could not help it. In those days they spoke because they believed. They had no necessity to get up a speech, to prepare and arrange it in words that would offend nobody, and would be recollected by no hearer. In old Christian days men spoke as naturally and as necessarily as they breathed. Without faith we cannot have eloquence; words innumerable, but not speech of the heart, sparks from the life, flashes from the inward and living altar. It is not enough to have information. It is not enough, my young brother, preparing for the pulpit, to have an encyclopaedia of mere knowledge of letters and of books; you must have the believing and the understanding heart, the resolute will, which can only come from the Holy Ghost. If you believe Christianity, you will not need any exhortation to speak it. Speech about Christianity, where it is known and loved, is the best necessity of this life. The fire burns, the heart muses, and the tongue speaks. If timidly, still clearly, and if timidly, not with the timidity of cowardice, but with the self restraint of modesty. It was not enough for Stephen; hence in the fifty-first verse you find that Stephen was a man whose information burned into religious earnestness. Having made his quotation he turned round as preachers dare not turn round now. "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." It was an offensive speech. It was unpardonable then, and it would be unpardonable now. Why was it unpardonable? Because it was truth made pointed. It was doctrine personalized, and that no man will ever endure. No man goes to church to be spoken to. There is not a man amongst us would be here today if he knew that the preacher would personally rebuke his sins. The man who would listen all day with delight to an eloquent malediction upon the depravity of the whole world would leave the church if you told him he was a drunkard or a thief. We live in generalities. So preaching is now dying, or it is becoming a trick in eloquence, or it is offering a grand opportunity for saying nothing about nothing. It used to turn the world upside down. It used to be followed by blows, and stones, and fires, and racks.

Stephen shows us the model of the great speaker; we need no book of rhetoric beyond this great apology. Called upon, he addresses his auditors with courtesy as "Men, brethren, and fathers." He begins calmly, with the serenity of conscious power. He quotes from undisputed authority. Every step he takes is a step in advance. There is not in all his narration one circular movement. Having accumulated his facts and put them in the most vivid manner, he suddenly, like the out-bursting of a volcano, applies the subject, saying, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye." Are these the people he described at the beginning of his speech? Then he called them, "Men, brethren, and fathers." This is the law of argumentative progress. Begin courteously, and beg the confidence and respectful attention of your hearers. At the beginning, before they had heard the statement, they are, "Men, brethren, and fathers," but your speech will be their responsibility. They will not be the same at the end of the speech as they were at the beginning. So the hearers who were "Men, brethren, and fathers" in the exordium, are "Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears" in the peroration! A preacher may begin as courteously as he pleases, but having got out the truth, having showed what God is and has done, and wants to be done, his conclusion should be a judgment as well as a gospel. Is it possible for any man today to be a Stephen? Why not? The Bible is still here. Every one of us can read it in the tongue in which he was born, and every one of us may by the grace and gift of the Holy Ghost have a calm and sovereign confidence in the truth. That is what is wanted. Do not put your case tentatively, interrogatively, suggestively. The Bible is either a revelation or it is an imposition. It is either the truth or the aggravation of all falsehood. Range yourselves upon the one side or the other, and, having the truth of God, speak it. But how did Stephen know all about the case? Was he, as suggested, the second disciple who travelled on that eventide from Jerusalem to Emmaus? None can decide that question. There is some inferential evidence in favor of the view. For my part, I think it is most probably true. On that, however, no definite and final opinion can be pronounced by any man. But suppose that Stephen was the very disciple when the two walked together and were sad, and as they went together Jesus himself drew near, but their eyes were holden that they should not know him. Having inquired into the circumstances of the case, he said, "Oh, fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken," and, beginning at Moses and the prophets, he expounded to them in all Scripture the things concerning himself. What if Saul reported Stephen, and Stephen reported Christ, and so the great Gospel goes on from man to man, from tongue to tongue, till the last man hears it, and his heart burns within him!

Chapter 17

Prayer

(Easter Sunday.)

O Thou who hast thyself risen from the dead, raise us up also with thyself that we may die no more. We bless thee for the word of resurrection, for the gospel of restoration, and for the hope that death itself shall die and the whole creation be filled with joyous life. If we be risen with Christ we will set our affections on things above. Help us in this way to show how truly we have been buried with Christ, and how certainly we have been raised again with the Son of God. May we know the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his resurrection. Crucified with Christ, may we also rise with him. Having known his shame, may we share his glory. Help us to overcome in the great battle of life, that we may sit down with Christ upon his throne.

Thou dost bring the years round from day to day, with all their sacred memories, with all their solemn inspirations, and with all their ennobling and instructive lessons. May ours be the seeing eyes, the hearing ears, and the hearts that do understand. Let nothing of thy providence be wasted upon us. Let the whole ministry of thy grace operate constantly in our hearts, subduing every evil passion, controlling every unholy thought, and lifting our whole life up to the sublimity of the life of Christ. We bless thee for all thy care. May we never forget thy benefits. Make our memories quick to retain every gracious impression, and whilst our memory remembers may our hope strengthen itself upon nourishment from heaven, that it may live through all the night of life, and finally enter into the joy of heaven's own morning.

Thou hast reminded us this day of the open grave of the Son of God. He is not here. He is risen. We will not seek the living among the dead. Our hearts will fly towards the heavens where the Christ of God now pleads and prays, and we will breathe our prayer through His infinite intercession, and because of his priesthood the answer to our desire shall be worthy of thyself, thou giver of all good. Our hope is still in the Cross; our confidence is in the abandoned tomb. Because Christ died we shall live, and because he rose again from the dead death shall have no dominion over us. Having this hope in us, may we purify ourselves, and set ourselves earnestly to all the high service of thy kingdom. May we not be slothful; may we rather be reckoned among those who redeem the time, and who prevent the rising of the sun, and toil till the night has fallen. Blessed is that servant who shall be found waiting and watching and serving when his Lord cometh. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Delay not thy coming. The earth is wearying for thee, and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Come as thou wilt, and when thou wilt, only make us ready to receive thee with the eager love which should possess the hearts of men redeemed.

Comfort thy people. Speak a work of tender consolation to the heart that is filled with trouble. To some, life is a river of tears, a long pain, a dark and terrible disappointment, an agony which death alone can heal. Surely thou knowest such, and today, when the heavens are glad with a new hymn, and the earth is young with a new spring, and a new hope, thou wilt find them out in their hiding-places, and make them also glad.

Help us to hold on steadfastly during the few years that remain. May there be no break in our constancy; may our fidelity be without flaw or hesitation; may our life, redeemed with blood, spare not itself in the service of thy truth; and may our whole hope in Christ be made glad at last with the revelation and the enjoyment of his own heaven. Amen.

The Defence of Stephen

Acts 7

(continued)

THE first use we made of this speech was to inquire into the character of the speaker. I propose to recur now to this great apology, and to use it in the second place for the purpose of showing the method of Divine revelation and providence. Taking this great speech as our guide, what is the method of God's revelation to His creatures and the method of His providence over them? Let us see whether what is related here agrees with our own observation and experience. It may be that we can re-deliver Stephen's great speech ourselves. If we cannot find the words of such eloquence, we can identify Stephen's words as a fit expression of the sentiments which animate our own hearts. The first point to which attention is now called is the very point which came before us in our first study of the Acts of the Apostles. Notice how God has from the beginning made himself known to individuals. Stephen relates the great names of history. Some names are as mountains on the landscape. We start our journeys from them, we reckon our distances by them, we measure our progress according to their height. God does not reveal Himself to great crowds of men by some common revelation which ten thousand men seize at one and the same moment. So Stephen tells us that God appeared to Abram, to Joseph, to Moses, and to Solomon. This is the method of the Divine revelation all through and through history. It is in some senses a perplexing method, but we cannot deny it. We may reason about it, and fear it as we fear a great dark cloud, but there it is; and it is not there only in theology, it is there in science, in politics, in commerce, in literature, in family life, all through and through—the fact that God speaks to the individual, and entrusts him with some great gospel or spiritual mystery, or of scientific and commercial progress. Why make so much ado about religious election? Why talk about election as if it were a distinctively and exclusively religious word? You find this principle of the selection of individuals as evangelists, apostles, preachers, and pastors, in agriculture, in astronomy, in statesmanship, in theology. If we could conceive valid objections against any accidental application of this doctrine of personal election, we should still have to encounter it along the whole line of human history. How is it that one man in the family has all the sense? How is it that one of your boys has all the adventure? How is it that one man is a poet and another a mathematician? How is it that one boy can never be got to stay at home and his own brother can never be got to leave home? How is it that one man speaks out the word that expresses the inarticulate thought of a generation, though all other men would have been afraid to speak it, even if they had been wise enough to discover it? Stephen therefore recognizes this great principle in the Divine revelation, that God speaks to individuals, and clothes individuals with peculiar and most solemn responsibility. In all ages God has had His prophets, apostles, evangelists, errand runners, men who have digged into the rocks and soared into the stars, and plunged through tumultuous seas to discover unknown lands. God has adopted the same method also in the kingdom of heaven. He has made some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, but the principle of individual election and coronation has been the same.

In the second place Stephen recognizes the great fact that God has constantly come along the line of surprise. Revelation has never been a commonplace. Wherever God has revealed Himself He has surprised the person on whom the revealing light has fallen. The power of surprise is one of the greatest powers at the disposal of any teacher. How to put the old as if it were the new! How to set fire to common sense so that it shall burn up into genius? How to reveal to a man his bigger and better self! How has God proceeded according to the historical narration of Stephen? To Abram he said, "Get thee out from thy country and from thy kindred." We cannot conceive the shock of surprise with which these words would be received. Travelling then was not what travelling is now. Get thee out on foot, bind on thy sandals, take thy staff, gather together thy family, and go out, not knowing whither thou goest! No man could receive a call of that kind as a mere commonplace! It must have gone thrillingly through every fibre of the man's being. Called to leave something positive for something promised—called to give up a reality in the hope of realizing a dream! Then pass on to the case of Joseph. Stephen reminded his hearers that God gave Joseph favor and wisdom. Joseph's life was a surprise—a greater surprise to himself than to anybody that could look upon it. How was it that he always had the key of the gate? Why did men turn to him in the night-time, and ask him the way through the valley of darkness and across the mountain of gloom? How was it that he only could tell the King the meaning of the King's dream? Then pass on to Moses. Stephen recognizes the same principle of surprise, for he reminds his hearers that God appeared unto Moses in a flaming bush—not that He baptized him with the dew, not that he insensibly surrounded him with a new atmosphere, and breathed upon him a benediction without words. Moses was startled. The power of surprise was used by the Almighty to attract attention. So a bush flamed at the mountain base, and a voice said to the wanderer, Stop! Nothing but fire can stop some men! There are those to whom the dew is a gospel, there are others who require the very fire that lights the eternal throne to stop them and arouse their full attention. God knows what kind of book to give you. The book that would suit you might be an offence to your own mother. God knows what kind of ministry you need, so He has set in His Church a thousand ministries, of dew, of tenderness, of lute-like music, of pathos and tears and infinite persuasiveness, and thunder and lightning, and fire and alarm! It is not for us to compare the one with the other, but to see in such a distribution of power God's purpose to touch every creature in the whole world.

In the third place, Stephen, looking over the whole range of human history, shows how God has all the time been overruling improbabilities and disasters. We should say that when God has called a man to service, the road would be wide, clear of all obstructions, filled with sunshine, lined with flowers, that the man leaning on God's arm will be accompanied by the singing of birds and of angels. Nothing of the kind is true to fact. Stephen recognizes this in very distinct terms. He says that God spake in this wise, that Abram's seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage, and evil entreat them four hundred years! In the face of such an arrangement can there be an Almighty providence? Yes. And Joseph was selected, as we have seen, and yet he was sold into Egypt. "Godforsaken" we should say, looking at the outside only. And there were those, as we are reminded by Stephen, who evilly entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children to the end they might not live. Yet the first word was supposed to be a Divine direction! Moses himself was "cast out." Stephen does not cover these things up or make less of them, or seek to hasten away from them as from disagreeable circumstances in the order of Divine Providence. Nay, he relates them, masses them into great black groups, and says—Still the great thought went on and on! There is the majesty of the Divine Providence. Its movement is not lost in pits, and caves, and wildernesses, and rivers, and seas. The disasters are many, the sufferings are severe, the disappointments are innumerable and unendurable; still the thought goes on. Judge nothing before the time. So is it with our own life. To-day white-clothed apostles, mighty with God, the uplifting of our hands a prevailing prayer—to-morrow like the beasts that perish! Living the forbidden life, eating stolen bread, living the beggar's life, can we be the called of God? Can God be living in us and leading us onward to some great destiny? Yes! He will yet cause death itself to die. There shall be joy in the presence of the angels of God over this little sin-blighted earth, more than over ninety and nine of the planets that never knew the tragedy of sin! Do not say you are forsaken of God because you have broken every commandment of the ten. The gift of God is not a question of good behaviour as from the outside, and as measurable by the letter; it is a question of purpose, thought, supreme intent; and GOD alone is judge!

There is nothing in this review of history as conducted by Stephen that ought to startle us as a novelty, or disturb us as an improbability. God has revealed himself to individuals in the making of the steam-engine, and the spinning jenny, and the telegraph, and the telephone, and a thousand other things. He did not reveal these inventions or possible inventions to all together, but to the singular man, to the solitary student, to the one brooding mind. "The Holy Ghost hath overshadowed thee, therefore, that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the gift of God!" That is true of every miraculous conception, whether it be of the Son of God or of the last invention of progressive civilization. Do not, then, distrust the individual teacher.

There is a common sophism, which only requires to be stated to refute itself, to the effect that it is very strange that God should have kept back this or that truth until this or that man should have arisen. There is nothing in all history less strange. It is God's common method. Yet there are those today who will tell you that it is very strange that God should have kept back his truth for nineteen hundred years, and should have revealed it to this latest of the teachers. It is a most fallacious sophism. We all know better. It is God's plan to say to Abram, "Get thee out." To call individual minds to his service, and to set the flame of the new revelation on the altar of the indvidual understanding. Do not fear to be surprised. Distrust commonplace rather than novelty. Astonishment would seem to be the keyword of the Divine Book. Every page is a surprise. Every syllable flames with a new light. The Lord sends us not a new book, but new readers of the book, men whose tones are comments and whose expositions are revelations. Do not succumb to misfortune. Our fathers were evil entreated, said Stephen; for four hundred years they seemed to have no deliverer. Moses was cast out; Joseph had been thrown into prison; disaster had marked the whole history of the Church. It was still God's Church, and you are God's child, his loved one still, though you have been evil entreated, and have done evil, and have left undone much that you ought to have done. God does not elect and disentitle according to our paltry rules and technicalities. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Bruised, ragged, sin-stained, tearful, worn, we may yet arrive at the city whose streets are gold and whose walls are jasper, for God's grace is greater than man's sin.

Mark how exactly this whole history of Stephen's corresponds with Christ's method of revelation and providence. We can trace the whole of the old history in the new, and entirely fit piece to piece, letter to letter, line to line. Did not Christ reveal himself to individuals? Did he not say to the Abram of his time, "Follow me?" Did he call ten thousand men with one loud call, or did he go closely to one waiting fisherman and say to him, "Come?" A greater call than was addressed to Abraham! Peter was summoned to a more honored and sublime destiny. "Follow me;" to weariness, to shame, to misunderstanding, to reproach, to abandonment, to death, to heaven! Did not Christ also use the power of surprise? When was he ever received into any town as an ordinary visitor? Who did not know his voice amongst a hundred others? Who did not wait for him to speak, and look, and act? Who was not impatient with all the multitude lest they should interrupt any sentence of this marvellous eloquence? Did not Christ also take his Church through improbabilities, disasters, and dark places? Has not his Church been evil entreated? Have not our Christian fathers been cast out? Have we not also our heroes, and sufferers, and martyrs, and crowned ones? I saw a great city, and one of the elders answered and said unto me, These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And, lastly, was not Christ always master of the occasion? Without a place whereon to lay his head, he was still the LORD. Without a beast to ride upon, he still called himself the MASTER. Washing his disciples' feet, he lifted himself up from his stoop to name himself LORD and MASTER. We remember our disasters, our slaveries, our punishments, our reproach, and our sorrow; still, notwithstanding all, the Church is the Lamb's Bride, and he will marry her at the altar of the universe!