Transcript
And then a final vote was taken, whether or not an adjustment should be made. And those that the New Testament committee approved were then submitted for a final okay to the members of the whole committee, the Old and New Testament committee. So that it had at least two thorough goings over. What was the date? I've forgotten the date. The New Testament. I'm canonizing it in a sense. The New Testament, oh, of Mark. Well, of the whole,
of the whole, accepting what they did accept as being. I thought it meant when they started the RSV New Testament in 46, the Old Testament in 52. No, I mean the original date of the council. Well, the first listing that agrees with exactly what we accept today in the New Testament was included in a letter that St Athanasius wrote in 367. He wrote each year a letter to all of the churches in Egypt telling them how
to figure the date of Easter. It's called, therefore, his Easter or Paschal letter. And he would include other information, moral and spiritual sources. In his 39th such annual letter, he gives information what people should accept, what people have been accepting, and therefore, which already is approved. It's not that he is the first one, but he kind of solidifies what has been found in general to be. But that's the first time that's put down in writing 360.
Now as the councils, there had been local synods before that, some of which did not find 2 Peter, for example, sufficiently authoritative to include. Actually, in the history of the church, there's only been one council, and that was in the 16th century, the Council of Trent that made a pronouncement as a universal council under the canon of the New Testament. But I think that in general, we can say that long before any of the early synods
made an evaluation, the sensitivity of the common people as to distinguishing between the book of the Apocrypha and the Gospel of John, that they could sense which was the Word of God, and that long before it came to be, so to speak, ratified, the New Testament had already impressed itself and its limits on the common, on Christians in general. So the council, as sometimes is said, did not at any time exclude a book from the New
Testament. It's better, I think, to say that book excluded itself simply because its inherent value was not up to the level of the real New Testament books, and the general church at large had already sensed that before any formalizing action was taken by the council. Thank you. Now, today there are two things I'd like to do. The topic is resources for developing devotional life. But I think also it would be appropriate to say something about the
end for which the devotional life is intended to contribute. The vision of God, becoming like Him, enjoying Him, seeing Him. Let us begin our meditation on that subject that's part of the morning's work with prayer. O thou who art high and lifted up and exalted beyond all that we can think, we thank thee, eternal God, that thou art also our Father who art in heaven. Open our hearts and our minds, we pray, to every influence of
thy Spirit, that we may be brought more into conformity with thy will and more amenable to thy way, that we may accomplish thy word in our daily lives. We ask this in the name of him who is the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. What is the purpose that we have in mind when we say that we are interested and we ought to be interested in cultivating the spiritual life? Is it to make us more
sensitive to aesthetic things here on earth? What is the broadest and largest and widest end for which we have in mind the cultivation of our devotional life? Well, doubtless there are various subsidiary motives that lead one person or another to a lot of discipline and so on, but down through the ages the Church at large has defined the end or purpose for which a Christian exists. To see God and the vision of God, the beatific vision,
has been through the ages held up and acknowledged to be the end for which we are created. Now, this has been expressed in a variety of literary forms. The opening sentence and question of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Catechism, what is the chief end of man with its classic answer that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's been expressed in a variety of other ways and I
think that one of the best general treatments as a classic of this thing is the book called The Vision of God, subtitled The Christian Doctrine of the Summon Bonum. It was written by Kenneth E. Kirk, an Anglican Lord Bishop of Oxford. He became eventually. He published this in 1931. It's available now in paperback in the Harper Torch book series for $295 for which you get nearly 600 pages of classic material. It's also been reduced and abridged
to about 200 pages in this British edition at six shillings. That would be roughly about 70 cents, an abbreviated edition, The Vision of God by Kenneth E. Kirk. There have been a lot of other books on this subject too, but I think this is one of the In fact, I want in each case to ask these books that I want to show you today about the table. Now, what are some of the points of view as
to what it means to see God? I want to call to your attention a few passages from the Bible, a few passages from theologians as to what this signifies. Maybe one way is to show the different understandings of this during the ages. Some have thought that to see God means, in a very primitive way, that God is physically visible in this life. Although we normally see him at death after death, there are some places in the
Old Testament where it's said that Jesus saw God face-to-face and lived. Genesis 32 verse 30, and apparently also Abraham had seen God. Isaiah says, I beheld God high and lifted up, seated upon a throne, Isaiah 6 verse 1. And the classic example in the Old Testament is that Moses had been faithful. To him I will speak mouth-to-mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches. In the form of the Lord shall he behold,
Numbers 12:6-8. Now a refinement of that view comes about through some of the prophets who, instead of saying that God is physically visible, speak of an experience in which one has a vision and that God is metaphysically visible, that is, his character can be inferred from his works. His character can be inferred as to what God does, has done, promises to do. Then the next stage, I don't say that this is in the Old
Testament, God is comprehensible to the reason. His works reveal him and you think about his works and then you have that intuition that by faith you know God in a mystic or ecstatic experience. Philo of Alexandria, some of the Jewish rabbis had this position. Now in the New Testament, there the impressions we get is a view analogous to this last one, that you see God by comprehending him through observing his works and thinking that if he
is such a person that works in this way, then his character, his disposition is so-and-so, he's a loving father. But the New Testament adds to that by enriching it with this understanding that the person of Jesus discloses to us things that we would not be able to know about God through our rational, through the use of our reason. And the New Testament enriches it also by stabilizing this vague concept of a mystical experience with
a much more definite experience of communion with Christ in the Spirit. This enlarges and enriches and enhances what is open to Old Testament personages by, as Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. Now the New Testament writers do not give us a detailed explanation of the relationship between reason and faith, but it accepts the view of the 19th Psalm that the heavens declare the
glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork. That is, you can see the results of God's work out in nature and you can deduce certain things about God's wisdom and power. The New Testament accepts that, but it does not make a precise formulation of the relationship between reason, one hand, and faith, commitment to Christ, coming under his dominion and spell through his Spirit to enter into what his Father is like. And so because there is not
that rigid definition in the New Testament of the relation between faith and reason, the way is open for further developments. And during the Middle Ages, modern times, there have been those who emphasized one as over against another or make various kinds of combinations. During the Middle Ages, a good deal of thought was given to the nature and conditions of the beatific visions. What does it mean to see God? Augustine wrestled with this in his book, The
City of God, and in Book 20, Chapter 28, I think it is, Book 20, he muses, now he says, What does it mean to see in heaven when we see God? What will that mean? Will it mean that we look at him, gaze at him, gawk at him? What does it mean to look at God, see him? Could it be that in heaven we could turn aside or close our eyelids and thus shut out the vision
of God? No, he says that can hardly be thought reasonable. He says now the word to see can have different connotations. It also means to understand as well as simply to see or look at or gaze at or gawk at something. When we know this, a schoolboy, for example, working at a problem in arithmetic, can't get the answer. Finally, he says, I see it. Well, he's been looking at it all along, but now he uses the
word to see in the sense of comprehending, understanding. And Augustine says, you know, seeing God is more than a matter of optics. It involves seeing and knowing and understanding him. And I think that one of the neatest and truest ways of saying what it means to see God was formulated actually by a Jew of England, Claude Montefiore. To see God means to be near God, to know him, and to rejoice in him, all at the same
time, near God, to know him, and to rejoice in him. Now, during the Middle Ages, there were various schools of thought that emphasized, as I said, one type of approach is over against another. The mystics, such as Jacob Boehm, the author, the anonymous author of a 14th century classic, the title of which is The Cloud of Unknowing, emphasized a certain kind of attempt to, you might say, plug in the spiritual reality through the absence of any
kind of thought or the absence of the use of the intellect, a kind of mystical, ecstatic experience. Now, one of these books that was not so far out in the left field is called Theologia Germanica. It just means it's a little book written in German on theology of the afterlife. It's a book that influenced Martin Luther very, very decidedly. I did not bring that book with me, but I do have this classic called The Cloud of
Unknowing. Subsequently, various types of groups in the Roman Catholic Church elaborated one system as over against another, you have, for example, various monastic orders that lay down rules, and you shall have this kind of discipline that leads you one step and then another. Sometimes this is called a ladder, the ladder of ascent to God. The Spanish mystics in particular, as well as some of the founders of religious orders, make this rule of life for those who
participate. This far out field says God is really incomprehensible to human reason. What's knowable about him comes through non-rational methods, through dreams and trances and ecstasies. But it's over against those positions with which some of the terminology, in fact, of Paul Tillich, God is really unknowable, he's the ground being, and that kind of resuscitates some of Jacob Verner's phraseology. As over against those schools, the general central line of devotional teaching in the church, most schools
of thought insist that God is knowable to us today through his works, as interpreted primarily through the revelation given by Christ, by the words of Christ's teaching, and by the life of Christ himself. He who has seen me has seen the Father. And secondly, most Christian schools of thought of this subject insist that in the next life, God will be far more knowable than he is now. Now some of the passages in the Bible that give,
I think, ample warrant for drawing that conclusion, and some of the passages that indicate something of the character of the scientific vision include the following. We have a number of places where to see God is revealed to us as something terrible, awe-inspiring, shattering. When the vision of Jehovah high and lifted up was granted to Isaiah, what did Isaiah say? I see the Lord high and lifted up. My, I am happy. This is wonderful to me.
I'm just rejoicing. He said, I am undone. That is to say, my personality disintegrates before such an awe-inspiring and awe-filled vision. He doesn't say, oh, I am very, very happy. He says, woe is me. I am undone. My personality disintegrates. I'm not able to contain this vision. When Peter, at the time that Jesus had the miraculous draft of fishes, glimpses through the incognito of Jesus' incarnation, who he is, he is the Son of God
incarnate, when he sees, as it were, God in human flesh, what does Peter say? He also sees himself so limited he falls down and says, depart from me, Lord. I am a sinful man. The response, then, of individuals in both Old and New Testament upon the impression that they gain of the majesty of God is an impression that results in their taking a measurement of themselves, that they are not worthy thus to be granted such a
vision. Now there are, however, on the other hand, some verses that hold out as a beautiful promise the vision of God. Jesus, for example, in the Beatitude, blessed with the pure in heart, for they shall see God, is obviously phrased in such a way that this is something good that's added as a result of those who are pure in heart. Is this also the idea of see God and die? Something, I think, eventually of the... You
know, I can't think of the immediate passage, but some Old Testament saint or whatever he was, when God spoke to him, he was fearful even to let other people know that he had seen God because he was afraid something dire would come upon him or upon them because he had seen God. This might be the result that when God's glory was revealed to Moses, God's face reflected the glory of God as shown and had a veil
put over his face, we are told. Now, the purpose of the veil could be interpreted as preventing other people from being frightened, as it were, or worshipping Moses, or some rabbis interpreted that it was because this gradually faded and became fainter and fainter and Moses didn't want to allow people to see the degree that he was, as it were, falling away from the presence of God. Which interpretation, but that kind of reflex is reflected. Was this
a blessed or the pure in heart, for they shall see God? Is that something after death or is that a presence? I think it's both. I think that it involves that based on the principle of like, sees like, and those who are in tune with God through Jesus Christ are able to perceive in one's own life, past history, evidences of God's already operative work and graciousness, and we see God to the extent we see the works
that God has previously done in other lives and in our life, and we glimpse something of God through what he's already performed. But to see him face to face, Paul says, first Corinthians 13, now we see through a glass dark that this is an imperfect vision, but then face to face, the beatific vision that I think is the climax of what the attitude refers to is fully to be realized in the next life. When also, according
to Revelation 22, verse four, the servants of God will see his face, they shall worship him, they shall serve him, and they shall see him. Now this kind of phraseology, to see God, rose out of the sociological background of the Near East habits and modes of operation. We see it reflected in chance phrases in the Old Testament. A Near Eastern potentate, local or wider ranging chief, would be kept more or less isolated from his people and
only on stated occasions would be offered the opportunity of some of his subjects to come into his tent to present before the potentate his claim, his cause, argue his case, and the phrase was that that opportunity that was offered on stated occasions to see the big way, that would be allowed to see his face. In other words, you'd be allowed to come into his presence. Now that phraseology with regard to the way in which a person
would be admitted into the presence of an earthly potentate was taken over naturally in the Old Testament with regard to being admitted into the presence of God. Here you are allowed to see God's face, you are permitted in his presence, so that you can present your claims, not just to glance at God, but to be in communication with him and to present your petition and to gain some kind of recompense or reward or justice from him.
So that this kind of phrase originated in the concept of approaching somebody that normally is inapproachable and approaching in terms of presenting your petition. And the Old Testament catches up this phraseology and the New Testament is based on the Old Testament phraseology in this respect. But with this idea also that like sees like, and in this case, the way in which we see more and more of God here and now is, as Paul says to the
Corinthians, that we, with open face, behold as in a glass his glory and are changed from one level of glory to another. So that the little bit that we glimpse now of God prepares us for a wider measure of seeing and appreciating and knowing God. In other words, Jesus says only with the help of the purity of heart that we see God, that we go from one step to the other. Yes. Yes. Christ shall appear, we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And whoever has this hope in Christ purifies himself, even as he, Christ, is pure. There's an old saying, I don't know who coined it, that in heaven everyone's cup of joy will be full, but some cups will be larger than others. In heaven everyone's cup of joy will be full. We'll enjoy as much of God as we're able to enjoy of God. But the degree
of our capacity to see God, to enjoy him, I think it's right to say in part depends upon the degree of growth in personal piety and ability to see God, to know him, to be in tune with him here and now. Well, and you quoted someone who said seeing God is more than a matter of just optics. In fact, in order to be, it's not a matter of optics at all. Well, I don't say that excludes
that. I think that the beatific vision will involve the disclosure to us of God, but it will not be like looking at a circus. It'll be more, I don't know exactly what to compare it. It'll involve exhilaration, joy, it's to be near God, to know him, to rejoice in him, and to have all of the wonderful possibilities of the expansion of our own personality in seeing and appreciating the wisdom, the mystery, the grandeur, joy. None of
that's a matter of optics, no. Not necessarily a matter of optics, but it doesn't exclude it, I think you could say. It does not exclude it. That is to say... It would indicate it's a matter of optics at all. Is there anywhere at all? Well, the fact that the bird to see has as its normal idea that of looking with your eyes in a secondary meaning to see or understand the mind. In Revelation 4, the vision
of the four beasts that have eyes within and without might suggest indirectly that they are in the presence of God and this poetic language, they have eyes within and without, suggests that every pore of their being is open to the majesty and glory of God. I think that this statement, blessed are the pure in heart, in one sense is a kind of a threatening thing, two of us is pure, and if that is demanded before we
see God, well, pardon myself, I don't know my chances, but at the same time I think that there is this wonderful prophylactic effect of a little glimpse of God having this capacity further to enlarge and clarify our spiritual insights so that we gain greater degree of 20-20 vision, as it were, to grow spiritually, and as Paul said, we see now in a glass, darkly then face to face, and that now we are going from one stage
of glory to another. Now this purity of heart, certainly I think that refers to chastity in a sexual way, but I don't think it's right to limit that beatitude to that area. It includes it, yes, but it's much more. A thing is pure, you know, when it's not mixed with anything else. We say gold is pure when it's not mixed with an alloy. We say that justice is pure when it's not mixed with partiality. We say
beneficence is pure when it's not mixed with self-seeking. Subscribe to the United Fund, a much greater sum, because you know your name will be in the paper, that's not real. A thing is pure when it is itself and not mixed with another. Purity of heart is to have that motive in serving God, loving one's neighbor in a way that is unmixed from any selfishness. Kierkegaard wrote a book that he gave this title to, and it
I think accurately sums up what Jesus would have in mind. This is the title of Kierkegaard's book. Purity of heart is to will one thing. Elsewhere, Jesus speaks about the I that is single, and I think this is another way of approaching the same thing, that if our motives are clear and unmixed with selfishness, self-centeredness, if what we speak is without guile, this really is covered by the expression purity of heart. Calvin in his comments
on that beatitude says, how often it happens that we who profess the name of Christ, nevertheless are crafty and seek in an underhand way to get the better of our fellows. We are not single-hearted, single-minded, our I is clouded, and we do not have this purity of heart of unmixed motives. We say one thing, mean another, to get the jump on somebody else. Purity of heart involves that attitude that, as I think, mirrored forth
in the life and ministry of Christ himself. To seek God then, the summum bonum, is the end for which we are created, to be near God, to know him, to rejoice in him, and the progress we make now in clarifying our spiritual insight enables us, I think, to see more and more of him now, which will help to transfigure us, will help to change us. He who sees him purifies his life as Christ is pure, so
that eventually we will be in God's nearer presence and can enjoy him. I had a problem about this seeing God in the sense of perceiving his presence and emotions, and I wondered, for instance, you're in a beautiful cathedral and the sun streams through the stained glass windows and the choir sings beautifully, and you feel in your soul, I feel God is here, but then you think, well, maybe this here, this is just because of the setting,
my emotions are responding to this formula, and it's not God at all. And I wondered sometimes, in explaining to people about seeing God or perceiving his presence, how you can convince someone, or maybe you can. I think that, at first I thought you were going to say, can we be sure that it is God or are we fooling ourselves? Well, that's included in there in terms of someone, speaking of someone else, of how wonderful God's presence
was, and they will say, well, that's just the music. Man is a complex being, and he's made up of will and emotion and volition and mind, intellect, mind, volition or will, and his heart and emotions. And I think that in understanding who God is, these are various avenues through which and among which together we gain some appreciation of God. You must have a mind to reason and think about God and relation between him and his works,
and to receive the information that Christ says he is your father, he says that to his disciples. Then, volition, well, if God reveals himself like that, it's not just for one's own spiritual gain, but there is also responsibility to live in accordance with God. The epistle of Hebrews speaks about holiness, without which no man shall see God, and with regard to the emotion, the rejoicing, the glad, because of beatific vision. Now, the things that support these
kinds of things, emotions, need certain kind of support, whether external or internal, and I think that the quiet and the beauty of a cathedral, as interpreted by what we know God to be revealed in the Scriptures, enables us to put aside other things that we crowd in, claim our attention, and it's altogether good that there should be these supporting things that are external, that do not in themselves create, but that help to make available and remove
from us ideas about making a profit of dollars and cents and so on, making ourselves open to the movement of God's Spirit. Well, so many times you hear people say, well, I felt the Spirit just moving in the congregation today. I mean, now... I think that's true to say, and it does happen, that some people are more attuned to it than other people are. But to convince somebody that is just emotional... And now, that's something else.
I don't know that you could tell anybody that's tone deaf what the beauties of a symphonic poem might be, or somebody's blind beauties full aid explained to them with a rose or sunset. But I think it's possible to say to somebody that is so much conditioned by 20th century materialism that he just is dead, the spiritual. Well, I think most of what he said is that, well, as a testimony, I can say that other people and
I myself witness to the reality of this thing, and I'm just pity you can't, or haven't as yet permitted God to speak to you this way. Well, it's just like speaking to a physicist, you can follow him so far, but when he gets up here in this, what do you call it, equation, which you don't know what TR and NE and so on stand for, why he loses here. And I think sometimes we lose our congregation
because we go off in ways which are not comprehensible to the common person. That's a good thing. I had down here something to wrap up my comments on the beatific vision. This leads right to it, namely the practicality of developing our emotional life. I hinted at this earlier. I think it's a good point in which to tie a knot and sew it up, all this sort of thing, namely that the development of the spiritual life is
not something that is simply for the private benefit of an individual. And secondly, the cultivation of sensitivity to the spirit of God is not merely something that is on the periphery, but must be really in terms of one's daily living. And the moral affinity with God is an essential that's involved in the beatific vision to know God's will and to perform it, do it, as a practical outworking of being in the presence of God, of seeing
who he is. And this, the New Testament suggests, is much more important than, quote, the experience of the kind of a vision. It's transforming moral quality that enables us to grow more like the character of Christ, who reveals to us the love for the Father. Well, I would like to distribute to you a Xerox copy of the titles of eighteen or so more or less modern books that I've categorized under different headings with regard to devotional
life. And these would be, you might say, titles that could be used as resources for the development of the devotional life. Now, there are a lot of other books besides the ones that are mentioned here, and it was a problem really to boil down a big lot of literature that would be worthy of mention in the space of one sheet, which, however, is single-spaced in most places, so I could get more on it. Now, taking
number four, grouping first, collections of prayers, very many of these have been published, and I'm sure that some of these titles are already known to you. John Bailey's book is a classic that I myself have found very, very helpful. It's a diary of private prayer arranged according to the thirty-one days of the month, which you have a morning prayer and an evening prayer. It is, the prayers are phrased in the classic style of thee and
thou and so on. But nobody can help you confess your prayer or sins any better than John Bailey can. That's a very good book, very helpful. Now, old Dr. Samuel Johnson, the maker of the English Dictionary, was a very religious man and kept a kind of a private diary of prayers with regard to confessing his shortcomings to God and meditations on the transitoriness of life. The Quaker, Elton Trueblood, has put together and somewhat modified a little
here and there the archaisms of English that Johnson used, but not much, listing, I judge off, and maybe forty different prayers in this book called Dr. Johnson's Prayers. Now, the book Let Us Pray is a recent work. John Bailey is not too old, but more recently, thirteen years or so ago, the Church of Scotland got out this little book, Let Us Pray, of aids for devotion, some of which are phrased with thee and thou, some of
them are phrased with you. I've not myself had as much occasion to make use of this in various fellowships and schools and so forth as perhaps a person in the pastorate might find useful. Now, The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrews is one of the classics, as it says, the timeless literature of Christianity. Lancelot Andrews was one of the fifty or so translators of the King James Version of the Bible. He was a polyglot with regard to
the knowledge of different languages. Someone jokingly said he would have been a good interpreter general to have been present at the Tower of Babel. At a very young age, I don't know whether at the age of seven or eight, he had already studied Hebrew. He drew up for his private devotions in Greek and in Latin prayers, and these have been translated into English by different people. This particular edition by John Henry Newman has been reprinted many
times in which very crisply classic phraseology derived from the Psalms in the New Testament, the work of Lancelot Andrews is classic. Now, parenthetically, I might say about Lancelot Andrews and the other fifty or so translators of the King James Version. This topic, you know, these days is the Bible and the devotional life. Now, the King James Bible and his translators are discussed by Gustavus Paine, P-A-I-N-E, in this book, The Learned Man. Gustavus
Paine was on the staff of the Christian Science newspaper, Science Monitor. He has a knack of saying things crisply. He went to Britain to make a study in the archives of different libraries, the background of these, most of them up to that time, very hazy figures that participated in the making of the King James Version. Now, we had known something about Lancelot Andrews. He was one of the better known translators of the King James Version, but
the other people that participated, some of which, there was very little knowledge actually, but a very interesting book by Gustavus Paine on the back of one of these translators, turned out to be a murderer. He was actually the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, who about 1620, and therefore after the King James Version had been finished in 1611, accidentally shot a gamekeeper, for which he was very sorry indeed, and they debated whether or not he could continue
to be Archbishop of Canterbury. The vote was taken and it was a tie. I think it was the Prime Minister of England that cast an exciting vote. It was accidental and he should not be, well, something that George Abbott has said. Then there was another man who was a bachelor who had written a book, one of the things, a book on giving advice to married men on how they could get their wives to obey and accede.
Then there was another fellow of whom others on the committee said he was nothing but a drunken Dutchman. They called him a Dutchman because though he used English, he had been born of English parents in Holland, and he had become addicted to the bottle and it was said that he hardly went to bed two nights in a row sober. Well, it's not a bump-breaking thing, but since he tried to get this kind of information, one
person was put on because of his knowledge of architecture. He was the Minister of the St. Clement Danes Congregation in London. He had a very good knowledge of architecture, and so for the translation of passages about the tabernacle in the Old Testament, the temple, his knowledge especially proved invaluable, and so on and so on. Of course, the linguistic background, part of various translations. The amazing thing about all that is that there are many people who will
fight and fight over the use of the RSV. They prefer to keep getting guests, and they condemn all the ones who translate the RSV because of their theological positions. It might be good to know that all of these weren't cured. They were devines, aren't they? They were. I heard a recent criticism of modern translations that the modern translators have oftentimes had to employ stylists from the literature departments of various universities, whereas the King James people, they
were natively sensitive to good English style. Yes, yes, the English language at that time was in a living period that many people used a vigorous form of English. The pen today can certainly go up and cloud something with a round about statement. Lost, one fountain pen by a man, half filled with ink. Well, the next group, oh, Michel Coist is a Roman Catholic whose prayers are in modern idiom. He has a situation, maybe he looks at
a person seated in a subway train, or he's choosing something to menu in a restaurant, and he has a verse of scripture and then a prayer going out of that kind of human situation. There are others like that kind of Father Boyd. Are you running with me, Jesus, this type of thing? Well, I've tried to make a selection in section four of representative types of collections of prayers. Number three, books of daily devotions. Here again, it's
hard to boil down. There are so many of them. Earl Douglas, a Presbyterian, who a few years ago put out this book with on each page a suggested scripture selection and what might be called a golden text, and then two or three paragraphs of some inspirational type of comment concluding with suggestion for the kind of prayer. Emphasis on prayer. Well, Halsby, a Lutheran of Norwegian background, professor in the independent Theological Seminary of Oslo, prepared this devotional
book with a separate scripture verse for every day of the year, and then comments that are a little different from what Presbyterians are accustomed to. The Lutherans have a certain emphasis that is, I don't know how to say it exactly, more, well, less metaphysical or less theoretical, but down to earth type of thing. Now, it's not in the contemporary idiom. These are down to earth things with regard to the serious nature of life. Halsby's book I
have found to be a very helpful thing. Now, I might say, perhaps I should have said this at the outset, that in the use of different books of this sort, I found it as wise to vary the fare and to make use of one that seems helpful at one season or one year, but then also to change and to vary the fare. Now, from the Methodist point of view, daily readings from W.E. Sangster is a
volume put together by Frank Coombers, published by Fleming Revelle in 1966. Sangster was a very great and influential preacher in the British Wesleyan tradition, and had many, many of his sermons published. Well, from these sermons, there are selected things that are arranged according to the calendar of the year. Robert E. Spear, a layman who was very influential in American Protestantism, especially American Presbyterianism, put together a similar book, which I didn't happen to bring with me today,
arranged in this case with some poetry or hymns, along with scripture references and a few comments for each day of the year, which he calls five minutes a day. And many other such books of daily devotions, I've tried to select four here that are somewhat representative of different heroes. Number two grouping, devotional treatment of prayer. I've already, at our first meeting or second, perhaps, referred to John Coburn's book that I found myself very helpful, and it's
phrased in a way that I'm sure laypeople can benefit by it. I mentioned Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of York, and his recent book, The Prayers of the New Testament, which is a combination, you might say, of teaching, didactic things, as well as meditative aspects. Harry Emerson Fosnick's book on prayer has, over the years, been reprinted and reprinted. When I bought this, I don't know way back when, it was printed in 1940. I guess I thought it
was the early '40s. At that time, it was $1.35 for a stiff-covered book that involved about 200 pages. At that time, it was the 30th printing with more than 378,000 copies distributed. It's been really a classic. Whether you agree or disagree, I disagree in part with Fosnick's theology, at any rate, his sensitivity to the needs of the human soul and the way in which he seems to find appropriate comments by way of helpful
interpretation of God's influence, meaning of prayer, I think it could be called, as I call it here, a classic. Now, a more recent book by that very helpful layman, professor of English, C.S. Lewis, a book put together, chiefly out of letters, of which he had kept copies, I guess. And most of these have to do with the subject of prayer and especially prayer in the way in which it can assist the time of death and
in other situations, too. This perhaps eventually will also be turned a generation from now, a word that may be called a classic. I don't know that this book is widely available in this country. It's by a British writer, Stephen Windward, and let me say first of all that there is a series in Britain on teach yourself. There is a teach yourself German, teach yourself how to play golf, teach yourself chess, or teach yourself cooking, almost every
kind of thing, a little handbook, do-it-yourself type of thing. Well now, teach yourself to pray is a title that this man chose. The book itself is not in that series that, I guess, Nelson Scott gets out, I forget who gets it out, but it's that topic, that title in a way that he's chosen, how to learn to pray, the time and place of prayer, Bible reading, meditation, content of prayers, pattern prayers, et cetera, et
cetera. A book, five shillings, which today would be roughly 60 cents or 190-some pages, rather fresh in its modern treatment and attuned almost to the contemporary mood. It was written in 1961. Is that somewhat like Coburn's book? Coburn is more tuned in, I think, to the American scene and this more to the British scene, yes. But again, I tried to make selection a certain representative type of thing. Now, the number one grouping is just not
quite a haphazard selection, but there are so many books that could be suggested with regard to the meaning of being Christian, doctrine and the development of spiritual life and so on. Here, well, I went actually backwards on this list right now because collection of prayers, that is a distinct category. If it's a collection of prayers, it could be considered for the book of daily devotions. If it's that sort of thing, it might be. But how to
make a selection of half a dozen or so titles on the broadest thing. So you will think I'm sure of a lot of titles that ought to be here and perhaps have a better right to be here than some that I've selected. Donald Blesch, a young man who teaches at the Presbyterian Seminary in Dubuque, and who is a voice crying in the wilderness in a sense of being knowledgeable and you can't push him around theologically, a
knowledgeable theologian, but who is also sensitive to the wasteland of modern theological training. You want to be in a place where you're not going to grow and flourish devotionally, go to a seminary. He is, on the contrary, a voice crying in the wilderness in the crisis of piety. A number of other works that he has written on the necessity, the absolute necessity, that a man may reason theologically very well about the Trinity, but if his life
displeases the Trinity, what good is it? A Lutheran, Henry Horne, pastor of the Lutheran Church next to the campus of Harvard University, therefore a university-oriented type of church. From a Lutheran point of view, published recently, I think it must go out of some of his sermons, 1968 Christian in Modern Style. Well, there are some things that I don't tune into exactly here, but I think that if you minister to a church in a locality that
is lousy with hippies, well, this kind of approach probably is a necessary approach. Mary Alice Jones has a lot of good common sense, my wife says, in regard to how to present the children to Christian faith. It's available in this country and also in Britain in a much cheaper format, only three shilling six pence, which means it's 40 cents approximately, for this book of 160 pages, the content of which is good and solid. This edition has
a foreword by William Barclay. And as a sample of this kind of thing, there are other children's books that are helpful, three-minute devotions for boys and girls brought out by an American pastor who in his church in, I think, Ohio, had tested in his own young people's groups this sort of thing. Little farther afield for children's literature, not devotional literature, but books for children, the seven novels that C.S. Lewis wrote for children are wonderful,
absolutely wonderful. And I think that late people in your church that have young families who do well to get starting with number one, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the successive volumes, The Boy and His Horse, and Silver Chair, and so on. They're now in paperback when they're available in a cheap format. And C.S. Lewis got the hint of that kind of writing, a writing I may say that shows by analogy the existence
of the spiritual realm behind the physical universe. Got a hint of that kind of thing from a congregational Scottish minister named George MacDonald. Now George MacDonald, the latter part of the 19th century, had written a great variety of novels and children's stories. He was also a minister, but didn't do much preaching. He wrote sermons and published them. Now while C.S. Lewis was himself an agnostic, he got interested in George MacDonald's literature from a purely technical
point of view. He wanted to compare and see various styles. So he read the novels, including the children's novels that George MacDonald had written. When he read George MacDonald's book, The Princess and the Goblins, that book with its uncanny insight into making real that the things that we can handle are not the substantial things, but that behind the physical universe there is the spiritual realm. When C.S. Lewis, the agnostic, read that, he was moved and
prompted, and that was, he says later, the turning point that led him to accept Christianity. That children's book. That same book, The Princess and the Goblins, G.K. Chesterton said, was the greatest book he had ever read. The Princeton University store generally keeps in stock George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblins. And then Lewis drew up an anthology of snippets from the various writings of George MacDonald. But didn't Lewis write these for his nephew or something?
That could be. I don't know exactly of that situation. But the knack of doing that sort of thing about George MacDonald. Well, John Mackay's book, Christian Reality and Appearance, has to do with setting over against each other the polarity between seeming to be religious and the reality of being religious. The Treasury of Faith has to do with a lot of different chapters from a great variety of kinds of people. I've mentioned here five selected persons. I
didn't have to bring that book with me. David Wilkerson, who wrote, as you know, The Cross and the Switchblade, put out this book, I'm Not Mad at God, a kind of series of, well, meditations, I guess you could call them. Now, this was very highly recommended to me, and I bought it. I must confess to you that I wasn't turned on as much as I thought I would be, but I mention it and list it here
because certainly, to judge by the reviews that it got, it did speak to the condition of a lot of other people. So in order to make a selection of things, not simply to have it strained through my own way of weighing things, I decided to include this one as a representative type discussion. There are a lot of other books along this line. Earlier, I had mentioned about The Lord's Prayer, the technical, solid book of Lohmeier and
the more slight but very sensitive treatment by John Lowe. I mentioned the name of Charles Gore the other day. Prayer and the Lord's Prayer, this little book that Hartburn Brothers got out, and a lot of other things. I don't know. Prothero, The Songs in Human Life that I referred to in our second meeting is here. With an index, you can look up Psalm 46. Who had found this especially useful in his life? A book that I
never see, I guess, elsewhere, but one that has gotten out and published by the Prairie Bible Institute of Alberta, Canada, called A Book of Protestant Saints, essays written by Ernest Gordon, who was a contributor to the Sunday School Times, and who, like Thoreau, an individualist, built himself a house with a cabin with his own hands and lived a very simple life, wove his own watchfob from shoelace. He didn't think anything more valuable. If it was serviceable
as a watchfob, why pay a lot for it? Very much interested in problems of alcoholism and learned Danish and Swedish and Norwegian. He'd already known German and French in order to be able to read medical reports on this subject there and so on. Well, he has a list here of, I guess, 40 different kinds of biographies of a few ancient, but mainly modern. I say modern, 18th, 19th, and early 20th century spiritual giants. Many of them
are unknown to me and would have been unknown to me. He, in his wide reading in different literatures, came across this kind of thing, not totally in the mood of the Keswick movement, but something along that line. Negro saints, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, who you might, other people have said, is the spiritual grandfather of Karl Barth, that kind of piety that lies behind Barth acknowledged the influence of Blumhardt, Huguenot saints. But many of these names are really
brought to light. Abraham Kuyper is one that, of course, I could recognize. The prime minister of Holland was also a Dutch reform minister in the church and so on. Was he a minister? I thought he was a layman. Well, now maybe I'm wrong about that. I assumed he was a clergyman. I don't know. Well, now my uncle, who was graduated here before about the time I was born. Where was he graduated? Say that again. Let's wait
for Mr. Blumhardt. He gave me Kuyper's book on the spirit, and he said the remarkable thing about it was that Kuyper was a layman. Well, I just spoke from what I imagined was the case. Those essays in that thick book on the spirit had appeared as serial articles in a Dutch newspaper. Well, Alan Payton, the author of Pride of the Beloved Country, has put together a book, The Instrument of Light Peace, in which he has some
very socially oriented, oriented towards a social condition, devotional pieces and so on. I mentioned the other day the Jewish prayer, the Lord God, King of the Universe and so on. I brought with me a copy of the Standard Book of Daily Prayers, the Orthodox Jews use with Hebrew in one page and the English translation the other. Well, these are a variety of things that are adjacent to the topic that we've been dealing with this week. Well,
I want to thank all of you for having contributed so helpfully, as I am aware, to the kinds of considerations that have been given to this subject this week. It's been wonderful to see, not only to see, but once again, others that I've previously known, but to make new friends among those who have come here this week. Bruce, we certainly want to express our gratitude from the Center's point of view, but I'm sure on behalf of
the group here, in the course of the seminar, I've already been getting feedback, which is very encouraging and very appreciative. So I thank you, and I know they do. I'd like to remind everyone that we'd like to have your evaluation card, the blue card, left as you leave, before you leave, and your key, don't go home with your key. If you do, mail it back, but it's easier if you leave it, so that's helpful to us.
Jack, in connection with things Howard and I were talking last night, and we were wondering if it might be appropriate for us, who feel like we would like to leave some small thing to say thank you to the help, Ms. Jones and the women at McCarb Eds and so on and so forth, or would this be... This is certainly up to you. It isn't necessary, but if they're human beings, and they like everybody else, I'm sure,
but it's not necessary. You just do what you're led to do. So many of the fellows have only been here for just four days or something, and it isn't required, or even asked for, and if you feel that way, that's fine, but there isn't any pressure whatsoever. I know there's no pressure. They're happy to do it. Or you know the two magic words, thank you and please. Just don't give them so much that they'll have a
problem, you see. In other words, you have to help keep the minister poor. Let's close, can we close with prayer, and then if we have anything that needs business, we can wrap it up. Let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, as we come to the close of our seminar together, in a way this is the beginning, a new opportunity for us to be more effective with our people. We thank you for any new light we have
received, not only light about the work we do, but about ourselves. We pray for a joyful and happy reunion with our families, a safe journey and return home. And we ask always that thy blessing may be with us. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. The chapel is at noon, if any of you can stay and are able to go. How are you? Bill, I'm going to take right over there. Because I still haven't gotten to
that list you gave me, Bill. I have here two orders. You need to take your minutes with you, don't you? If you're through with them, I'll just have to... That's nice and light, right. What I'll do is I'll take the page over at zero and then get a borrowed copy of the minutes and I can get the others. Would you be good enough to bring the machines over? Yeah, I'd be glad to.