Afternoons in the College Chapel; Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... XIII THE GREATER PURITANISM These all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. -- Heb. xi. 39,40. DEGREESHIS is a very remarkable view of the place and office of the Old Testament. The heroes of that dispensation, according to this writer to the Hebrews, were all witnesses of faith. Their history was a religious history. From Abel to the prophets, all had lived and died in faith, and what they had achieved was done under the living sense of the authority of God. Yet they never completed their own work; they never realized their own ideal; they did not receive the promise. They did things which seemed to later generations unjustifiable and deplorable. Through this varied history of spiritual vision and sensual shortcomings, of primitive faith and primitive morals, there was, however, this writer affirms, a continuous preparation for the better things which God had provided for those who should come after. Apart from us, he says, this prophetic past is not made perfect. Many things then revered had come to seem blots on history. God had provided better things to come. Yet ancient Israel builded better than she knew, and the greatness of her history lay, not in its achievements, but in its unconscious preparation for a better future. Her beliefs perished, while her ideals survived. Thus there was a lesser Israel and a greater; and while the lesser passed away, the greater Israel was the foundation of Christianity. Looking back on all that mingled story of aspiration and limitation, this New Testament writer sees its temporary traits drop away, and its essential faith accomplishing its evolution in the better things p