"Rainy wi'oot the Principal". XIV.
In a lecture given in Free St. George's, Edinburgh, Principal Rainy made a comparison of Paul and Christ that is most interesting. I therefore make no apology for inserting it here.
"We can easily mark the tie between the two; we also easily feel the difference. In both, there is goodwill to men below; in both a constant reference to One above. But in the true manhood of our Lord, we own something serener, more self-contained and sovereign. The love to His Father moves in great tides of even, perpetual flow. The love to men is a pure compassion, whose perfect goodness delights in bringing its sympathy and its help to the neediest and the worst, does so with a perfect understanding and an unreserved self-communication. When He speaks, He speaks in the language of His time and land and circumstances, but He speaks like one who addresses human nature itself, finding the way to the common mind and common heart of every land and every age and every condition. When He reasons, it is not like one who is clearing His own thoughts, but like one who turns away from the perplexity of the caviller, or who, for the perplexed inquirer, brings into view the elements of the spiritual world he was overlooking or forgetting. And with what resource - none the less His that He rejoiced to think of it as His Father's - does He confront whatever comes to Him in life! As we watch Him, there grows upon us the strongest sense of a perfect inner harmony with Himself and with His Father that lives through all changes. Finally, standing in this world, He declares the order of another and a higher world. He does it as one who knew it, who speaks what He had seen.
"We turn to Paul, and we percieve him also to be great; great thoughts, great affections, great efforts, great fruits are his. But he is not great in the manner of his Master. He goes through the world full of a noble self-censure that bows him willingly to the earth, and of a passionate gratitude that cannot speak its thanks but offers up its life. Like his Master, while he reverences the order of this world and of society as God has framed it, he is at the same time full of the relations of a world unseen. To that world unseen he already belongs; it determines for him and for all that will listen to him the whole manner of thought and life and feeling in this world; it holds him, it inspires him. But it is in the manner of faith rather than of knowledge, of earnest rather than possession. Especially, the influence that has mastered him and is the secret of his power and nobleness, has not brought him to the final harmony of his powers. It has, on the contrary, committed him to an inward conflic, a fight of faith, which he will never cease to wage till the final victory crowns him. This man knows the inward weakness and the inward disgrace of Sin. He knows forgiveness and repentance, and good hope through grace. The Lord recieved sinners and sat and ate with them; but this man was himself a sinner who was forgiven much and loved much. That was the Saviour: This, a pattern for those that should believe on Him to everlasting life."
Next time we shall, God willing, continue to look at the life of Principal Rainy. But it is well for us now to pause and to think of the life of Rainy's Saviour and ours'.
"We can easily mark the tie between the two; we also easily feel the difference. In both, there is goodwill to men below; in both a constant reference to One above. But in the true manhood of our Lord, we own something serener, more self-contained and sovereign. The love to His Father moves in great tides of even, perpetual flow. The love to men is a pure compassion, whose perfect goodness delights in bringing its sympathy and its help to the neediest and the worst, does so with a perfect understanding and an unreserved self-communication. When He speaks, He speaks in the language of His time and land and circumstances, but He speaks like one who addresses human nature itself, finding the way to the common mind and common heart of every land and every age and every condition. When He reasons, it is not like one who is clearing His own thoughts, but like one who turns away from the perplexity of the caviller, or who, for the perplexed inquirer, brings into view the elements of the spiritual world he was overlooking or forgetting. And with what resource - none the less His that He rejoiced to think of it as His Father's - does He confront whatever comes to Him in life! As we watch Him, there grows upon us the strongest sense of a perfect inner harmony with Himself and with His Father that lives through all changes. Finally, standing in this world, He declares the order of another and a higher world. He does it as one who knew it, who speaks what He had seen.
"We turn to Paul, and we percieve him also to be great; great thoughts, great affections, great efforts, great fruits are his. But he is not great in the manner of his Master. He goes through the world full of a noble self-censure that bows him willingly to the earth, and of a passionate gratitude that cannot speak its thanks but offers up its life. Like his Master, while he reverences the order of this world and of society as God has framed it, he is at the same time full of the relations of a world unseen. To that world unseen he already belongs; it determines for him and for all that will listen to him the whole manner of thought and life and feeling in this world; it holds him, it inspires him. But it is in the manner of faith rather than of knowledge, of earnest rather than possession. Especially, the influence that has mastered him and is the secret of his power and nobleness, has not brought him to the final harmony of his powers. It has, on the contrary, committed him to an inward conflic, a fight of faith, which he will never cease to wage till the final victory crowns him. This man knows the inward weakness and the inward disgrace of Sin. He knows forgiveness and repentance, and good hope through grace. The Lord recieved sinners and sat and ate with them; but this man was himself a sinner who was forgiven much and loved much. That was the Saviour: This, a pattern for those that should believe on Him to everlasting life."
Next time we shall, God willing, continue to look at the life of Principal Rainy. But it is well for us now to pause and to think of the life of Rainy's Saviour and ours'.
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posted by Highland Host at 10:44 am
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