f the bare facts--seeing in Him the Word who became
flesh, the Son who died that we might receive the adoption of sons.

I would further point out that a clear conception of what the theme
is, goes a long way to determine the method in which it shall be
proclaimed. The Apostle says, in the passage which is parallel to the
present one, in the previous chapter, 'We preach Christ crucified';
with strong emphasis on the word 'preach.' 'The Jew required a sign';
he wanted a man who would do something. The Greek sought after
wisdom; he wanted a man who would perorate and argue and dissertate.
Paul says, 'No!' 'We have nothing to _do_. We do not come to
philosophise and to argue. We come with a message of fact that has
occurred, of a Person that has lived.' And, as most of you know, the
word which he uses means in its full signification, 'to proclaim as a
herald does.'

Of course, if my business were to establish a set of principles,
theological or otherwise, then argumentation would be my weapon,
proofs would be my means, and my success would be that I should win
your credence, your intellectual consent, and conviction. If I were
here to proclaim simply a morality, then the thing that I would aim
to secure would be obedience, and the method of securing it would be
to enforce the authority and reasonableness of the command. But,
seeing that my task is to proclaim a living Person and a historical
fact, then the way to do that is to do as the herald does when in the
market-place he stands, trumpet in one hand and the King's message in
the other--proclaim it loudly, confidently, not 'with bated breath
and whispering humbleness,' as if apologising, nor too much concerned
to buttress it up with argumentation out of his own head, but to say,
'Thus saith the Lord,' and to what the Lord saith conscience says,
'Amen.' Brethren, we need far more, in all our pulpits, of that
unhesitating confidence in the plain, simple proclamation, stripped,
as far as possible, of human additions and accretions, of the great
fact and the great Person on whom all our salvation depends.

II. So let me ask you to notice the exclusiveness which this theme
demands.

'Nothing but,' says Paul. I might venture to say--though perhaps the
tone of the personal allusions in this sermon may seem to contradict
it--that this exclusiveness is to be manifested in one very difficult
direction, and that that is, the herald shall efface himself. We have
to hold up the