Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

24 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMbeen severed. The existing philosophies had cultivatedmorality, and Stoicism at least had grounded iton dogma, but no one of them had any worship ofits own. Now, in this new teaching the dogmas offaith, the rules of morality, and the practices ofworship had a common root in the Person whosekingdom was proclaimed, and all these, again, wereunited in visible symbols, sanctioned by Him, andderiving from Him their power to hold together avisible society. The beginning is laid by the livingword : nothing short of the fulness, the persuasiveness,the pliability, the force of such an instrument ashuman speech would suffice to declare the message,on the acceptance of which all depends, no attractionbut that of soul upon soul sufficed to render it acceptable.As this double power had been used to theutmost by Him who spoke as never man spake, andfrom whom virtue went forth, so was it used by allthose who spoke in His name. The vocal presence,the living person, is the indispensable basis of thework of conversion to a new faith. But when thishas done its first task, when men have listened andbelieved, the marks of the King are set upon thosewho receive Him, and they become His by powerof another kind. The illumination which the livingword of the vocal presence had prepared was completedin Baptism, by which the name of the triuneGod was confessed and accepted, and a sacred characterimpressed on the recipient: aud provision wasmade for daily worship and for daily life in a sacrificewherein this King and Redeemer communicated Himselfto the soul. But in these acts were stored upat once the highest doctrine and the ground of allmorality to the Christian. By his baptism he became