The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-03
EFFECTIVE SERMON
First Preachers Had Enthusi- asm and Convincing Force
 of a Positive Faith.
DR. P. s. MOXOM BREACHES
Man Instinctiyely Demands for Him. self Adequate Religious
 Belief.


 Rev. Philiy s. Moxom, DID,, who is pastor of the South Congregational church of Springfield Mass, preached yesterday morning, on Faith and Ex- perience. at the United church in ex- change with Rev. Artemas J. Haynes The text and sermon of Dr. Moxom follows:
 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I believ- ed, therefore did I speak, we also be- lieve, and therefore also speak" Cor. iv. 13
 It is difficult to measure the infiu- ence of Paul as witness for the Chris tian faith. In the opinion of many, but for him, Christianity would have per- ished in it's Jewish cradle This may be an extravagant statement, but it certainly is true that the new faith made little progress until it was es- of Tarsus. He not only carried the message of Jesus out into the Gentle world, but he built upon it theology which, in important particulars. has remained the theology of the church through eighteen centuries. As pure ly personal force, Paul was the great est of his time, after Jesus himself. Among the apostles he not only had no rival, but no one even approached him in ability and enthusiasm.
 The power of Pauls testimony lay chiefly in the fact that it was the ex- pression of vital faith which rose out of a personal experience. Outward ly his experience was unlike that of any of the apostles who were immed- fate disciples of Jesus. He had no personal contact with Jesus, in either his public or private life. If we may argue from silence, he was unacquaint- ed with the evangelic tradition which, after his time, was embodied in our familiar synoptic gospels. He never i quotes the words of Jesus, save in a single instance and then from an un- known source. He never even alludes 10 the incomparable parables of Jesus, He never refers to any of the miracles. We might infer from this, either that he had not heard or seen the reports 1 of Jesus life which must have passed from mouth to mouth and from hand 1 to hand in familiar letters, or that he disregarded them as unimportant, The latter supposition strikes us at once as incredible.
 | Paufs personal ignorance of Jesus of ] Nazareth seems to us a great disad- vantage. Yet his life shows that 1t was not altogether a disadvantage. In many particulars he accurately appre- l hended the spirit of Jesus, and more than any other of the apostles he grasped the universal significance of Jesus person and gospel The basal fact of that personality, as he inter preted 1t, was sufficient for him. The reality of Gods self-revelation 10 man l through the personality of the Christ with all that it Involves, inspired him 1 for his great enterprise. The structur- al principle of his nev thought Is God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" And this is funda- mental in Christianity; God in his world, and God in man.
 In his philosophy of salvation Paul attempted to adapt the Jewish ideas of the Messiah and of sacriflclal atone. ment to the person and work of Christ, but the attempt was never entirely sue. eessful. The old formulis are not biz enough for his new thought, and they are broken down and dissolved in its stream. Atonement becomes reconcii- ation; sacrifice ceases to be forma and objective: and the Hebrew Messiah expands into the universal Lord and savior of the world. Beneath all his constructive thinking, and greater than ! any intellectual perception of truth. is his personal experience of divine love and power embodied in the everliving Christ, and. through his union with Christ, re-embodied in himself.
 | His effectiveness as a witness for ! Christianity springs from this experi- ence, rather than from his learning or I from his skill in logic--which, indeed was not great. He felt more soundly l than he reasoned. The passionate fer vor with which his whole being vibrat- ed urged men to conviction. Even to- day, whatever we may think of his the. ology, we cannot remain insensible tc his testimony. Our knowledge of his l inner life comes to us almost entirely through his letters. and in these the notes of personal experience are strong CT than all his arguments
 The first preachers of the gospel had the enthusiasm and convincing force of positive faith. They did not dis cuss propositions, but testified to ce-. tain facts; which facts, real or accept. cd as real, so possessed the conscious. ness of the speakers that their message produced in the hearers conviction ot heart as we'll as of mind. That mes sage was not a mere denial of wha, Gentiles or Jews believed concerning God and the conduct of life; 1t was an affirmation of facts and of the faith which was authenticated to them by the facts. Argument was only an in cident or. at most, an imperfect instru- ment, of the apostolic preaching. The preachers did not set out with dogmas and polenic; they testified out of a vivid and compelling sense of the li- vine love and purpose of salvation which were attested to them by the I life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. They believed, therefore they i spoke
 This truth concerning the beginning of the Christian enterprise Is full of suggestion. We may find here a great unifying fact and principle. ExperieSc- es are more common. more nearly uni versal, than any Interpretations of those experiences or theories of the