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[Illustration: titlepage]




  The Potter and the
  Clay

  By the

  Right Rev.
  Arthur F. Winnington Ingram, D.D.

  Lord Bishop of London

  The Young Churchman Co.

  484 Milwaukee Street
  Milwaukee,       Wis.




Contents


                                  I.

  CHAPTER                                               PAGE

     I. THE POTTER'S VESSEL                                3
    II. THE SPLENDOUR OF GOD                              15
   III. GOD THE KING OF THE WORLD                         27
    IV. MISSIONARY WORK THE ONLY FINAL CURE FOR WAR       40
     V. GOD THE CHAMPION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS                 57
    VI. THE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR                          75
   VII. IMMORTALITY                                       91
  VIII. THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM                           108


                        II.--TO THE CLERGY

     I. MESSENGERS                                       123
    II.  PHYSICIANS                                      145
   III. FISHERS OF MEN                                   160


                           III.--TO GIRLS

      WHAT A GIRL CAN DO IN A DAY OF GOD                 179


                            IV.--TO BOYS

      THE EFFECT OF THE HOLY GHOST ON HUMAN CHARACTER    199


                                  V.

      THE WAR AND RELIGION                               213




PREFACE


Another year, and we are still at War! But we must not mind, for we
must see this thing through to the end. As Mr. Oliver said in his
letter on "What we are fighting for," published this week: "We are
fighting for Restitution, Reparation, and Security, and the greatest
of these is Security." He means security that this horror shall not
happen again, and that these crimes shall not again be committed;
and he adds: "To get this security _we must destroy the power of the
system which did these things_."

Now it is clear that this power is not yet destroyed, and to make
peace while it lasts is to betray our dead, and to leave it to the
children still in the cradle to do the work over again, if, indeed,
it will be possible for them to do it if we in our generation fail.

This book, then, is an answer to the question asked me very often
during the past two years, and very pointedly from the trenches this
very Christmas Day: "How can you reconcile your belief in a good
GOD, who is also powerful, with the continuance of this desolating
War? How can we still believe the Christian message of Peace on
earth with War all around?"

It is with the hope that this book may comfort some mourning hearts,
and bring some light to doubting minds, that I send forth "The
Potter and the Clay."

                                               A. F. LONDON.

  _Feast of the Epiphany_, 1917.



                             I




I

THE POTTER'S VESSEL[1]

  [1] Preached at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. The argument in this
  sermon, stated shortly during dinner-hour in a City church, is
  developed at length in the lecture which comes last in this book.

     "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will
     cause thee to hear My words. Then I went down to the potter's
     house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the
     vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the
     potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to
     the potter to make it."--JER. xviii. 2-4.

I suppose there is no metaphor in Holy Scripture that has been so
much misunderstood and led to more mischief than this metaphor of
the potter and the clay. Do not you know how, if any of us dared to
vindicate the ways of GOD to men, again and again we were referred
to the words of St. Paul: "Who art thou that repliest against GOD?
Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it: Why hast Thou
made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same
lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?"
And so the offended human conscience was silenced but not
satisfied. There is no doubt that the monstrous misrepresentation
of Christianity which we call Calvinism arose chiefly from this
metaphor; and few things have done more harm to the religion of the
world than Calvinism. Those who believe that GOD is an arbitrary
tyrant who simply works as a potter is supposed to work on clay,
irrespective of character or any plea for mercy--how can such a
person love GOD, or care for GOD, or wish to go to church or even
pray? You cannot do it!

Thus there sprang up in some men's minds just such a picture of GOD
as is described by that wonderful genius, Browning. Some of you
may have read the poem called "Caliban on Setebos," in which the
half-savage Caliban pictures to himself what sort of a person GOD
is. He had never been instructed, he knew nothing; but he imagined
that GOD would act towards mankind as he acted towards the animals
and the living creatures on his island; and this is a quotation from
that poem:

    "Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him.
     Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
     Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
     That march now from the mountain to the sea;
     Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
     Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
     Say the first straggler that boasts purple spots
     Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off?
     Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
     And two worms he whose nippers end in red;
     As it likes me each time, so I do: so He."

In other words, his picture of GOD was that of an arbitrary tyrant
who rejoiced in his power, who did what he liked, who enjoyed
tormenting, who would have looked down in glee upon the pictures
that have so touched us in the paper of a woman, as she taught a
Bible-class, killed by a Zeppelin bomb; and most touching of all of
the little child who, with the stump of his arm, ran in and said:
"They've killed daddy and done this to me." These things stir our
deepest feelings; but such a GOD as Caliban pictured his Setebos to
be would have rejoiced at them and laughed to see them.

No wonder that this picture of GOD which has grown up in some
minds produces absolute despair. People say, "If GOD is like that,
what is the good of my doing anything? GOD will do what He likes,
irrespective of what I do." Or, again, it produces a spirit of
fatalism: "I'm made like that! It's not my fault." Like Aaron when
reproached about the golden calf--"I cast the gold they gave me into
the fire