"Unsearchable riches "-this is the fund upon which you have to draw in your preaching of the gospel. But notice that it is not a vague and intangible fund like the moisture or electricity of the atmosphere, but a concrete embodiment of God's truth and power, "the unsearchable riches of Christ." Think for a moment what this means. Three things are involved in it. First, that Christ is a present God, Immanuel, God with us, not belonging simply to past history or to the courts of heaven, but here and now, with us always, so that in seeing him we have seen the Father, and by receiving him into our hearts we may be filled unto all the fulness of God. In this agnostic age men are everywhere groping after God, when he is not far from any one of us. Christ is a present God in creation, for every drop of dew and every revolving planet is Christ's handiwork. Christ is a present God in history, for it is he who is moralizing the nations and conducting evolution to its goal. Conscience is Christ's light, lighting every man that comes into the world, bond or free, Jew or heathen. But Christ is a present God, in a special sense, to the Christian, for to the Christian he fulfils his promise that he will manifest himself as he does not to the world. And this is a part of the unsearchable riches which you have to preach, that in Christ we have no longer a God far away, unrecognizable, inaccessible, but a God near at hand; nearer to us than the nearest earthly friend, not only filling the universe with his presence, but dwelling in every humble and contrite heart.

But this is only the beginning of the unsearchable riches. The Christ whom we are to preach is not only

a present God, but he is an infinite Saviour. The first and greatest need of the world is the pardon of its sin. Those who are not sick will feel no need of a physician, and they who dull the sense of guilt will cry, "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace. So you are to preach the law and the justice of God, whether men hear or forbear. But you have the great privilege of stilling the otherwise inextinguishable sense of guilt by the assurance that Christ, the eternal Lamb of God, has taken upon himself the burden of our sins and has made complete atonement for them, so that the believer may join himself to him who is victor over sin and death, and may become partaker of his justification and his life. In Christ we have pardon for the past. But atonement for sin is not the only part of Christ's saving work. He is not simply a Christ for us, but he is a Christ in us, a new power of holy living; a deliverer not only from the penalty, but also from the dominion, of sin. I charge you never to forget or to conceal either one of these two essentials of Christianity: Christ as an atoning sacrifice, and Christ as an inward source of righteousness, for both these are needed to make him an infinite Saviour.

The unsearchable riches of Christ include a third gift of which you particularly stand in need, I mean the almighty power of the Holy Spirit. If Paul could say, "Who is sufficient for these things?" how much more we, who have smaller powers and more limited experience. But the unsearchable riches of Christ provide a supply equal to all our needs. By his Spirit he joins himself to us in a union so close that his own

life flows into us; we sit with him in heavenly places; he gives us of his power, and things are made to work together for our good. By his Spirit he is made to us wisdom, and he himself speaks through our feeble utterances, so that they convict and convert and sanctify those who hear. The Scriptures give great promises to the preacher. The mighty winds that sweep the forest and prostrate the tallest trees, the floods of rain that pour upon us like the deluge of Noah when the windows of heaven are opened, the conflagrations which lay low whole cities, are only symbols of the power of Christ's Spirit, upon which we may draw in our proclamation of the gospel.

Do not forget that Christ's unsearchable riches provide co-operating agencies of the Holy Spirit to work outside of you also. Great movements are going on in society, in commerce, in education, in government, in international affairs, in the politics of distant nations, all of which are inspired or controlled by him to whom has been given all power in heaven and on earth. The battle against evil may seem to go against us in our narrow environment, while yet the progress over the field in general is marked and sure. Let us hold the fort where we are, in the certainty that our day of victory and rejoicing will come also. Our business is to do the work to which Christ sets us, trusting that the great Commander will make our service an integral part of his strategic plan, and that when he comes in triumph it shall be manifest that our labor was not in vain in the Lord.

These are simple and homely and old-fashioned assurances, my brethren, but they are such as have in

all the Christian centuries made heroes and martyrs of the faith. Since you bring to men a present God, an infinite Saviour, and an almighty Holy Spirit, it is grace indeed which has commissioned you to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. You need nothing more than this to ennoble your lives. You need no other object of study, for in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All philosophy and science, all sociology and ethics, are included in him, and if you only apply Christ's truth to all the relations of life, your preaching will be as broad as the world. Since in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, his Cross is the disclosure of the heart of God, the unveiling of the secret of the universe, the manifestation in time of the truth of eternity. I beseech you then to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. God forbid that we should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to us and we to the world.

Have you these unsearchable riches in your possession, so that you can communicate them? I trust you respond gladly: "I know whom I have believed, and I rejoice that I can make him known to others." Abide in Christ by an entire consecration, and let his words abide in you by an appropriating faith. Make sure that you have these unsearchable riches for your own, and then from the heart speak to the heart. So these unsearchable riches—a present God, an infinite Saviour, an almighty Spirit-shall become others' riches also, until our great Redeemer shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. I commend you to him

and to the word of his grace, in all confidence that he will make you good ministers of Jesus Christ.

1910

HOLD FAST

BRETHREN OF THE GRADUATING CLASS: This last day of your seminary course suggests to me the last day of life. The scrutiny to which your work has been subjected is a faint image of the final judgment. These rolls of approval may symbolize the awards of the Judge. But no earthly diploma will admit you to heaven. "Count no man happy till he dies," said Cræsus. Some voyages begin fair, but end in disaster. The runner in the race must not turn aside until the goal is reached. Even Paul would not cease to struggle, lest having preached to others he himself should be a castaway. I give you two words of the apostle as my parting legacy. They are the words, "Hold fast."

Hold fast to your ministry. A call to the ministry is a call from God. Woe be to the man who, being thus called, preaches not the gospel. The most pitiful creatures in our Christian communities are those men who for slight and unworthy reasons have allowed themselves to demit their ministerial work and to enter some purely secular calling. I do not mean that the ministry necessarily requires a man to be preacher and pastor. A teacher, a journalist, a superintendent of missions, may be a true minister of the gospel. I am speaking of the abandonment of the religious work for