[December 9th, 1855.]
To hear is either, 1. To perceive by the ear. 2. To understand. 3. To answer, or respond to, or obey.
I. Faith cometh by hearing.
This means 1. Faith comes from knowledge, i.e., there can be no faith without knowledge. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” About this there can be no dispute.
- But secondly, it means that the living preacher, as opposed to mere instruction out of books, is the great means of producing faith. This does not mean, 1st. That God does not employ his written word, and written expositions of his truth in producing faith and holiness. 2d. Nor does it mean that the proclamation of the gospel, or what is commonly called preaching, is the only method of making the gospel heard, and thus of producing faith. But 3d, it means that the instruction by the ear, as coming from a living preacher, is the ordinary method of salvation.
Proof from Scripture and experience.
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From Scripture. The command to preach and to teach indicates this. “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “How shall they hear without a preacher?” (, without one preaching.) Christ gave some apostles, some pastors and teachers, &c. Eph. 4:11.
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From experience. No nation is ever converted, no church ever gathered, no church ever sustained, without the living preacher. Few comparatively are ever converted without his intervention.
II. Why is hearing, or the living preacher, necessary? Why may not books and Bibles answer for the conversion of men?
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The sufficient answer to the question is the divine appointment. If God has determined, for wise reasons, to advance his kingdom in a certain way, no other can succeed.
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Because from the constitution of our nature, what is addressed to the ear has more power in arousing attention, in producing conviction and exciting feeling, than what is addressed to the eye. This is universally acknowledged. Hence a sermon heard has ten-fold more power, in most cases, than a sermon read; the sermons of Whitefield, for example.
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There may be, and probably is, a deeper reason than the preceding one. There is a law of propagation of divine life analogous to the propagation of vegetable and animal life. The various productions of the vegetable kingdom are not new and independent products. The life of the parent plant is in the seed which it produces. The life of the parent animal passes over to its offspring. So in the Church it is the general law that the spiritual life is communicated through and by living members of the Church. This is not always the case with either plants or animals; there have been many creations. Nor is it always the case with the communication of spiritual life. We might as well ask why the Spirit does not operate without the written word, as why he so seldom operates without the living preacher. In both cases we can only say: “Even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.”
Two inferences flow from this truth. First, that we should hear for ourselves, and cause others to hear the gospel, not being content in either case with books, to the neglect of the living teacher. Second, that we should be careful what we hear, and how we hear.
If salvation is connected with hearing, there is abundant ground for both these exhortations, “Take heed what,” and “Take heed how ye hear.” The exhortation in Mark 4:24, may indeed mean nothing more than “attend to what you hear.” It is then of vast importance. But it may be also understood as including an exhortation to be careful as to what we hear. Salvation does not come from hearing error. It is of the last importance, therefore, that we take heed what we hear. Never go where error is taught. This is as foolish as going into places of dissipation and debauch, or profanity; or as foolish as going into pestiferous regions, unless in either case on errands of mercy. If from curiosity or for amusement, the result will be evil in the one case as certainly as in the other. Secondly, “Take heed how ye hear.”
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The object of hearing, viz.: salvation, spiritual edification, must be kept in view, and be our governing motive; not pleasure, not criticism.
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The mind must be prepared for the reception of the truth. The Scriptures tell us how. The apostle says, (1 Pet. 2:1), “Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new born-babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby.” And St. James says, (1:21), “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” These passages teach, 1st. That everything hostile to the truth must be removed from the mind and from the heart. All cares, thoughts of other things, doubts, unbelief, should be banished from the mind, and all evil feelings from the heart, and all indulgence of those feelings from the life. Secondly, they teach that we should be as new-born babes, i.e., desirous, submissive, confiding.
This with prayer includes our duty as to hearing. With this will be connected laying the truth up in our hearts, and practicing it in our lives.
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