01.01. How Shall They Hear It?

How shall they hear it?

It is this inquiry, and that which hangs upon it, that we propose to consider in these pages.

Two answers to the question will come before us – The answer of professing Christians generally, as seen in their long-established methods.* The answer of God as seen in the Scriptures.

Alas! that they do not perfectly coincide.

[* It is not a little remarkable that, with all the dissensions in the professing Church to-day, there should be such a wellnigh universal agreement on this point.] Substantially the united answer is this –

We have provided the place of preaching. We have secured the preacher. We have fixed the hour. And gladly we say to all, Come to us and hear it. Who can say that this answer does not apply as truly to those who are able to present the glad tidings in its primitive simplicity - full, clear, and unadulterated - as to those who have only a beclouded or mutilated expression of it? But the real value of an answer to this question does not lie in the universality of its adoption among men, but in the satisfaction it gives to God. This we shall have to consider later. But before going to that side let us make one serious inquiry –