THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL SERMON.

Preached at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, on Sunday, December 21, 1913, by the Reverend John Henry Jowett, D.D.

VISION AND POWER

"He endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Hebrews XI, 27.

"He endured"; that is the moral effect; "as seeing him who is invisible"; that is the spiritual cause. The moral capacity is born of the spiritual vision; a certain sort of communion creates a certain type of fortitude. Doing is here the child of seeing. This man pierces the veil of circumstances and then finds himself invincible. He goes to the invisible and finds strength to bend the visible to the eternal Will. In the pilgrimage of life he beholds a great Companion, and then finds himself master of the road. "He endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Such is the principle of the text. To look above circumstances gives one the command of circumstances. Communion with the eternal makes the temporal our slave. "He endured"; but not with the failing strength of a besieged city, weakening into ever-deepening impoverishment, but with the boisterous strength of a conquering army on the march, full of capacity, rejoicing in adequate equipment, and with a commissariat whose bountiful supplies are renewed every day. "He endured," with the masterly persistence of unbroken and triumphant patience; and this

masculine stamina was born of spiritual assurance, an assurance which is itself the child of clear and firm communion with the Holy God. "He endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Now who is the man who is thus portrayed before us? He is a kind of Old Testament Lincoln. Moses was a great emancipator, a great statesman, a great administrator, a great organizer, and a great saint. He was a man with a commanding grasp of affairs. His parish was not confined to the circuit of a village green-it was a vast stage on which mighty peoples moved to and fro to destiny. Round about him nations were waking and nations were sleeping, and movements were being born fraught with tremendous issues. And this man laid hold of the huge problems, he grasped them with a hand that showed strength and mastery, and in spite of the wrath and violent antagonism of his enemies, and the wasting murmurings and the enfeebling fickleness of his friends, he led his people out of the house of bondage, toward a land that flowed with milk and honey.

This man lived in Egypt, the home of oppression, but the boundaries of Egypt did not mark the limits of his vision. The obstructing waves of the Red Sea did not confine his ultimate outlook. The wilderness through which he led the people was not a prison without a door. On every field of difficulty he beheld a Presence which transformed the field into the dwelling-place of the eternal God. If Moses was in Egypt, he was in Egypt with the invisible Friend. If the waters of the Red Sea threatened his march, then across the opposing waves he saw the radiant presence of the invisible Friend. In far-off days, when he tended his flock at the back of the desert, familiar bushes had burned with mysterious flame, and he had come to know that even the desert-scrub was the home of the Lord of Hosts. And thus it came to pass that this man was always walking on holy ground, for everywhere the invisible looked through the visible, and in the very home of tyranny he was closeted with his God.

Now from the vision of the invisible God there sprang his moral strength. He found his own mastery in the presence of his sovereign Lord. He found his power to govern in the Lord's immediate government of him. He found the secret of progress in the restful places of the Most High. He found his dynamic in his devotion. He knew God and dared everything! "He endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Now you will not wonder that in thinking about the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritan stock from which they sprang, I have been led to associate them with this great religious reformer of earlier days. For assuredly the two outstanding characteristics of the Pilgrims were their spiritual vision and their moral dynamic. We might fittingly symbolize their life by mountain and river. They had mountainous country in their life, lofty towering uplands, the home of vision and of mystery; and they had mighty rivers in their life, strong and irresistible currents of moral energy and decision. These were the two emphases in their character. Their fear of God was the fountain of their life. They feared God, and they feared nothing else. They prostrated their souls before God, and their wills became like well-tempered swords for use in the sternest fight. They were "poor in spirit," and therefore had spirit enough to defy "the world, the flesh, and the devil." They "endured as seeing him who is invisible.'

Let us then first think about their spiritual vision. “Seeing him who is invisible." No other word than just the word "seeing" is adequate to express their assurance of the reality and presence of God. In the Old and New Testaments the physical senses are always employed to declare the vivid perceptions of the saints. Here it is the sense of sight: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Here it is the sense of taste: "O, taste and see how gracious the Lord is." Here it is the sense of hearing: "I heard the voice of the Lord God saying unto me." Here it is the sense of touch: "Feeling after him if haply they might find him."

In all these ways do Scriptural men and women use the physical senses to express the clear firm impact of the Eternal upon their souls. And nothing but these words can fittingly say what the Puritans experienced in their soul-communion with the Lord. They saw Him; they heard Him; they tasted Him; they felt Him. The King of Kings was more real to them than the king upon the English throne. Their vision was so immediate that their confidence was sure.

Now of what sort was their vision of the invisible God? Do we know enough about them to be able to answer the question? Yes, I think we do. The predominant characteristic of their conception of God was his holiness. The more I read Puritan literature, the more deeply I am impressed with their awe-inspiring sense of the holiness of God. If you open their great books at random, and just read the title lines of the chapters, you will feel that your mind is translated to the contemplation of vast and soul-subduing themes. When I had written these last words, I lifted my eyes to a row of Thomas Goodwin's works, and I read some of the titles upon the covers of the books: "The Holiness of God," "The Greatness of Gospel Holiness,' "The Blessed State of Glory." It was in contemplations such as these that the souls of these Puritans found their strength. I do not like much of their phraseology; some of their ways of stating truth, so far from being attractive, are not inviting to my soul. But notwithstanding all this, when I am in their company I feel I am on the mountain, with glorious soul-inspiring views, and their ways of putting things no more disturb me than would the inadequate geological explanations of an Alpine guide who had led me to the summit of the mount.

These Puritans had an unthinkably great personal God, a God with whom you can take no liberties, a God in whose presence you must take the shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground. One old commentator said that a man needs to conceive God as so great that the conception should make him catch his breath

whenever he thinks of Him! Well, the real Puritan, the real Pilgrim, had some such breath-catching vision in his own mind. Remember, this was their conception of the God Who had revealed Himself to the world in Jesus Christ. Their Saviour was not effeminate. They did not expunge His severities in order to save His grace. They were not afraid of spoiling His love by declaring His resentments. They did not seek to distill the water of life, to soften it by leaving out all its iron. They did not leave out the wrath and retain the Lamb. They did not keep the rainbow and cover up the great White Throne. Their conception of God had room for His severities. In His love there was room for His wrath. In His magnetism there was room for His repulsions. And all this because they began their thinking about God with the sovereign conception of His holiness. "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord." That was the initial letter in the alphabet of their faith. And, indeed, you cannot hopefully and fruitfully begin your thinking anywhere else. Unless in these realms of thought you begin with the snowcapped mountain of eternal holiness your rivers of affection will never reach the sea. But begin your thinking with His holiness, and you will have abundance of river power; yes, and you will find all the graces hidden in the holiness, as you can find the crocus beneath the white snow-robe on the heights of Switzerland. "God is holy"; "God is love." The great letter to the Ephesians, which begins with the supernal holiness of God, finishes with its gracious fruits.

Now because their conception of God was one of holiness it was also one that brought bracing vigor to the soul. Big conceptions are always bracing. They bring the mountain air about the soul. Small conceptions are always enervating. They bring the air of small and fusty rooms. Hardihood is nourished in hardy climes. Soft mental climates do not provide the air for masculine powers. Even in the realm of the mind you need the wind which blows from off the snows, the keen bracing air which breathes upon the powers from the holiness of God. Think of the bracing air of God's