the souls He had won. And by this very means He has given the most effective centre for the gatherings and festivals of His future Church that could be conceived. Here is an act which again and again draws the Church into the experience of the great historical hour of salvation, and into the communion of spirit and life with Him who died for her and rose again; and in bringing them nearer to Him, it must draw closer the bonds of brotherly love which bind all those who partake as children of one Father's house and guest at one table of grace. And just as holy communion is to be sought always as the rallying point of the Church, so baptism is the point which, once for all, distinguishes it from the world. The Gospels trace back its founding to the days of the Risen One on earth, and therefore, as the entire tradition of those days has in it something wavering and wanting in clearness, the derivation of this ordinance from Jesus is more obscure and disputable. The trinitarian baptismal formula, contained in Matt. xxviii. 19, does not, in this form at anyrate, proceed from Jesus, for the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles know only of one baptism in the name of Jesus, which would be inconceivable if He Himself had prescribed that more detailed formula. However, apart from this subsidiary point, no real doubt can exist as to the institution of baptism by Jesus for those who find in the intercourse of the Risen One with His disciples something more than self-deception. The practice of baptism as a rite of reception, a practice which, so far as we can see, was from the very beginning of the Church quite a matter of course,—just as much a matter of course to Paul as to the earlier apostles, cannot very well be explained without an appointment of Jesus underlying it. And the reasons of such an ordinance can be recognised without difficulty. While the Church was obliged to live within Judaism, and at the same time to distinguish herself from Judaism in order to discharge her missionary calling, she needed a sign of reception, a distinct ordinance, by which the individual was separated from the unbelieving world and incorporated with the Church of believers. And for this end Jesus, as may be easily understood, fell back on the emblematic ordinance with which the Baptist had opened the whole movement connected with the kingdom of heaven, and sought to

form out of the old sinful Israel a new sanctified Israel. Now people were to be baptized, not for a kingdom at hand, but for the kingdom that had come; not with a view to the coming Messiah, but to the Messiah who had appeared in Jesus, that is, in the name of Jesus. The meaning of the ordinance, the washing away of sin and guilt, repentance and forgiveness, remained, of course, the same, except that what the Baptist had prefigured rather than communicated, was now represented and sealed as a present salvation, as an experience consummating itself through Jesus and faith in Him. And thus this ordinance, like a stone inscription which cannot be corrupted, proclaims the whole meaning of the coming and work of Jesus, that He came to bring forgiveness by means of renewal, and renewal by means of forgiveness, and thus to receive into the kingdom of God. That Jesus attached a special promise to the outer ordinance, whether of baptism or the Supper, and ascribed to it a power working of itself, is an idea of which we find no trace, and it would entirely conflict with His whole teaching and its thorough spirituality. Baptism symbolises and guarantees, to the penitent and believing man, the forgiveness of sin. The Supper symbolises and assures him of communion with the life of the Crucified and Risen One; but neither that forgiveness nor this communion of life is in the teaching of Jesus bound up with the sacrament. And therefore we may speak of it as a comfort and a blessing for the individual, but not as necessary to salvation. The apostles, from all we know, never received the baptism of water in the name of Jesus. These institutions are more indispensable for the life of the Church, as such, than for the individual believer. They place before the eyes of the Church, existing visibly in the world, the thoughts and the work of salvation of Jesus; they distinguish it from the world, and cause it ever and again to unite in Him.

§ 7. HISTORICAL TASK OF THE CHURCH

It remains for us to consider the tasks and prospects in the work which Jesus discloses to the Church thus endowed by Him. The two tasks of proclaiming to the world the kingdom of God and of keeping one's own place in that

kingdom coincide, in so far as the one is impossible without the other. This is specially set forth in the saying which Matt. v. 13-16 incorporates in the Sermon on the Mount: "Ye are the salt of the earth; ye are the light of the world." Not abstract doctrines, however true and good, can so season the world that it may become acceptable to God, and so lighten it that it may know God and walk in His ways. That can only be done by living men in whom the gospel of the kingdom presents itself in its divine power, and whom it has so filled with light that their good works like rays of light go forth from them on all sides (ver. 16). But for that very reason they who have received so high a calling must doubly guard against being themselves evil. As representatives of the cause of a divine kingdom they are placed like a city on a hill which draws to itself the look of the wanderer from afar. They of themselves challenge men to compare their confession and their walk. They ought not therefore to put their light under a bushel, that is, they are not to make their knowledge and doctrine inoperative by an unholy walk; their walk must rather be the candlestick which carries the light of their knowledge. They must not forget that "the salt" in them cannot possibly season and sanctify others (Mark ix. 49, 50), unless at the same time it is seasoning their own lives as they exercise unwearied self-criticism and self-judgment. Salt, which in the symbolism of the Old Testament worship was regarded as of such excellence that it had to be present in every sacrifice (Mark ix. 49), is one of the most worthless things "when it has lost its savour. It is then good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." The world would in justice deal in the same way with any Christian church which should proclaim to it the power of God to salvation, and display nothing of that power in itself. That Jesus did

1 This is how I understand the difficult passage, Mark ix. 49, 50, which the saying in Matt. v. 13 completes, or according to other sources repeats. As in the old covenant every sacrifice was salted with salt, that is, seasoned as it were for God and made acceptable, so must every one who will enter into the kingdom of God be made fit for it, consecrated or sanctified by the pungent critical power of the gospel. Therefore, have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another; that is, be severe towards yourselves, but mild, peaceful towards others.

But the word of

not think of this seasoning and enlightening influence on the world solely as preaching, is shown by the closing words of the saying in Matthew, "that men seeing your good works may glorify your Father in heaven." The testimony of good works, of a life in love and holiness, is, to Him, that without which all preaching of the word is vain. the gospel must be preached, even as a word, and the commission thereto most emphatically runs through the addresses of Jesus to His disciples. There is no doubt that He intended some disciples to make this preaching a special vocation-those whom He seeks to make fishers of men (Mark i. 17), and to whom He also gives the right to their sustenance in the prosecution of their calling (Matt. x. 10; 1 Cor. ix. 14). But assuredly He did not limit His commission of preaching to these professional workers. But, as in the days of His ministry, after sending out the Twelve, He also sent every one at His disposal up to the Seventy, and as He made a preacher of the man whom He healed at Decapolis, and whom He forbade to follow Him, saying, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee" (Mark v. 19), so He desired His Church to be a preaching Church in which each should testify of Him according to his gifts and circumstances. Words such as, "What I tell you in the darkness, that speak in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the housetops" (Matt. x. 27; Luke xii. 3), are not spoken to the apostles, but to all disciples. There can be just as little doubt as to the wide circle of hearers for whom Jesus meant His gospel through the disciples. It is inconceivable that Jesus could ever have thought less liberally with regard to the calling of the Gentiles to the kingdom of God than the prophets, in whose eyes the religion of revelation had already become the religion of the world. That He confined His own work to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. xv. 24) does not contradict this. Even in His meeting with the Canaanitish woman, when He compares the Jews to the children of the house, and the heathen to the dogs of the house, He only expresses what was actually the case. The Israelites knew the heavenly Father and had claims as children on Him, whilst the heathen to whom God was only a dark power of

nature, and with whom He had concluded no covenant of promise, were as domestic animals in His Father's house. But they were not to remain so: Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God: but the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness," run His words (Matt. viii. 12; Luke xiii. 28), almost reminding us of Rom. ix. 11, yet indisputable. Only, in His idea of the kingdom we must distinguish between present and future, between what was laid on Him in His life on earth and what He lays upon His Church. He Himself is conscious of being sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Where God Himself had prepared the way of His kingdom by law and prophets, there must the kingdom be established before it can open its doors to the heathen outside. Therefore, in all seriousness, He at first denied His miraculous help to the Canaanitish woman, which was only a subordinate task of His Messianic mission, and only when He discovered in her a faith such as He had not found in Israel (Matt. viii. 10), did He make her an exception, who henceforth was no longer an exception (Matt. xv. 21-28; Mark vii. 24-30). In the case of the centurion of Capernaum, who was a citizen and coreligionist of Israel, He had no scruples, and just as little with the Samaritan among the lepers (Matt. viii. 5-13; Luke vii. 2-10, xvii. 11-19). In proportion as His tragic end in Israel forced itself upon Him, the heathen world drew inwardly nearer and nearer to Him so that He gradually placed His best hopes in it. Even in the middle of His ministry He searched out from the Old Testament all the examples of heathen susceptibility for the divine revelation in order to shame Israel by the contrast of their unsusceptibility with the widow of Zarepthah and the Syrian Naaman (Luke iv. 26, 27), the people of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba (Matt. xii. 41, 42). He is convinced that if the mighty works which were done in Bethsaida and Capernaum had been done in Tyre and Sidon, these old luxurious and disreputable heathen cities would have repented (Matt. xi. 20-24; Luke x. 13, 14). Accordingly, there can be no doubt-in spite of any formal inaccuracies or uncertainty in His final commission as reported in the Gospels, Matt. xxviii.,